LiD was implemented at Corbett Charter School (CCS) in the 2009-2010 school year. The Topics Awards ceremony was postponed until after the winter holiday to accommodate initial start-up work. Thereafter, new students were initiated at the beginning of the school year.
Above: A student is called onto the stage to receive her medal and topic.
Corbett Charter School (CCS) uses a multiage classroom configuration. The school includes 4 primary and 4 intermediate classrooms. Primary classrooms include grades K-3. Intermediate classrooms include grades 4-6. All primary students are initiated into LiD regardless of when they enter. Those students carry LiD into the intermediate classes, rolling up the program. Intermediate classrooms have developed a supplementary topical study program for those students in grades 4-6 who did not attend in primary grades and receive a LiD topic. During the 2010-2011 school year, 8 CCS classrooms are practicing LiD.
Teachers and students at CCS are committed to LiD. We are in our third year of implementation and the program is stable and well received. Teachers confer regularly about ideas for classroom level implementation and projects to recommend and model for students. Students love LiD time and request it in the schedule regularly.
Students are proud of their topics and all our students have received their topics well and stuck with them. While all our students are enthusiastic about engaging and sharing their topics during LiD time, several students have excelled in their LiD studies. Interestingly, students who make an extra strong commitment to LiD and achieve most in LiD are not necessarily those highest performing students within their cohort.
Family involvement in LiD is varied, as expected. Teachers have described LiD to families, included families in the LiD Topics Award ceremony and provided handouts which include explanations and ideas for sharing LiD with students at home. All our families have accepted LiD and many have provided their students with resources for LiD at home, joined their students in conversation, connected with family and friends who have special knowledge, included LiD in family outings and are alert to opportunities to learn during their regular activities.
Through these years, teachers have continued to develop their understanding of LiD in light of our also-developing understanding of Imaginative Education. Teachers in the primary grades have had many conversations about how students operating principally by “Mythic Understanding” will begin Learning in Depth. Teachers have asked what should be expected of students during LiD time as voluntary participants. What sort of activities are acceptable and productive for these students? Teachers have agreed both to allow young students to choose their method addressing their topics and have appropriate expectations for the productive use of class time for students operating within the “Mythic Framework”.
Above: Students and parents at the “reveal” ceremony when LiD topics are given.
You can see the medals and folders these students have received.