It's all about Relationships

It is the end of November when the wheels of our ancient Toyota corolla grind their way 30 miles east of Flagstaff across the deep red of the Arizona desert, into the Navajo Nation to The STAR School not far from the small settlement of Leupp.

Founded in 2001 by principal Mark Sorensen and his wife Kate, the STAR (Service To All Relations) School lies in the south west of the Navajo Nation, which at 26,000 square miles is the largest land area assigned primarily to a Native American jurisdiction in the US. STAR is a K-8 (4-14) charter school, off-the-grid, small, solar-powered charter school. Most of its around 130 students are Navajo.

According to its website, (http://www.starschool.org/) the STAR School's vision is to create a joyful learning community in which members develop the character, skills and attitudes for understanding themselves, living in balance and serving all our relations. Sure enough, as I walk in through the front door, the atmosphere is friendly and relaxed, and the students smile and greet me.

Kate & Mark Sorensen with Navajo elder

Sorensen has been involved with native teaching for almost 40 years and sees himself as a go-between, with a foot in both cultures. He says, 'I have facility with the western system and so that’s where a lot of resources are, and I have been able to translate the core of what the people here feel is really important into ways that western society would support it, in the form of a school'.

This school was founded as a response to a homogenising State education system which not only lacks the flexibility to address Place or culturally-specific situations, but has not taken the opportunity to incorporate native cultural values. STAR is founded on sustainability, which Sorensen defines as, 'the relationships and resources that provide for the continuity of people and the environment from generation to generation', with humans and human cultures firmly part and product of the natural world (Gruenewald & Smith, 2008, Place Based Education in the Global Age, p.50).


STAR is largely solar powered

 This concept of sustainability reflects the Navajo principle of K'e (kinship and interrelatedness) in which the ethos of the school is firmly grounded. Key to K'e is the recognition that every manifestation of creation is inextricably linked - human, plant, animal, mountain, river and rock - and that all have a respect for and responsibility towards each other. Within the school curriculum this ethos is expressed as the 4 R's (Respect, Relationship, Responsibility and Reasoning). The Sorensens have developed a rubric that allows students to evaluate their own personal and social development against these values as they progress through the school. While Sorensen contrasts this with a 'western' approach to sustainability that is about 'saving the world', with man in control, I sense that there are many out there who would strongly identify with this humbler and more reciprocal approach.

As Sorensen talks to me, a small boy named Ty comes in to check out a soccer ball. As the principal pumps it up for him he tells me that the STAR school's Navajo 4 R's also reflect what have been termed the '40 Developmental Assets'. These are 40 vital building blocks of healthy child development identified by the Search Institute in Minneapolis in 1990 (http://www.search-institute.org/). These well-validated building blocks, which include elements such as 'family support', 'service to others', 'adult role models', are designed to help young children grow up healthy, caring and responsible. In 2009 the Institute published 'The 3-3rd Project: Ensuring Developmental and Educational Success for Young American Indian Children, Vol. 1 Effective Strategies for Educators', which suggests practical ways of building the 40 building blocks into teaching practices. The Assets can also become an important catalyst for community transformation as communities attempt to improve outcomes for young people. Mark Sorensen played a key role in this publication, with contributions from the STAR school and two other local Navajo schools. While the focus of the book is native American Indian children, Sorensen believes the 40 Assets are applicable to children of any ethnic, social or economic background.

I spend time sitting in on a mixed class of 5, 6, 7 and 8 graders taught jointly by teachers Tom Thomas and Vicky. Each student has chosen a species of native animal to research in preparation for the publication of a class booklet 'Honoring our Animal Communities'. This will cover not only the ecology of the animals but their place in native lore, whether they have a medicinal or ceremonial significance and whether they are a 'messenger' for man, for example an indicator of climate change or changing seasons. The emphasis is not on the extractive human 'use' of each animal but on a dynamic relationship between the human and animal species, based on respect, Each student sits down with me in turn and begins their presentation on their chosen animal with their own genealogy and 'place' of belonging, in Navajo, ending their presentation with the ways in which one might 'honour' that species, for example restoring habitat. I open up the Honoring our Plant Community booklet produced last year and read, ‘helping our plant community is taking care of our Sh7m1 (mother earth) and we have heard that the trees, bushes, shrubs and plants are our mother earth’s hair. We have to take care of her just like our own mothers’'

drinking Navajo tea



What Sorensen calls 'Sovereignty through Service' is at the heart of learning about the 4 R's. In 2007 students received the Governor's Volunteer Service Award for the 'STAR School Learn and Serve Elder Help Project' they had designed themselves, which involved providing a range of help to Navajo elders, from home repairs to visiting nursing home residents. Students have planted fruit trees and distributed them around the community. The youngest students do a weekly cleanup around the campus and a monthly trip into a nursing home in Flagstaff where they feed the elders lunch, make gifts for them and play games with them. Each initiatives is designed by the students. As Sorensen says, 'We get them sensitive to the whole area and then they choose how they are going to express that.' Of course, as they work, they are themselves creating and exploring relationships.

The school teaches both by subject and thematically. The whole school reading programme is structured around six thematic units per year - identity/awareness, perspective taking, conflict resolution, social awareness, love and friendship, freedom and democracy. Sorensen says, 'Right now the theme is conflict resolution. So in every grade they’re reading different books but all those books have to do with conflicts and how to resolve conflicts... And at the beginning of our school year kids spend a lot of time focussing on their own clans and clan identities. That’s an essential part of their identity.'

I challenge Sorensen that focusing heavily on clan identity might make it more difficult to foster a sense of belonging within a wider multi-cultural world. His answer reflects my own personal view as a Scot, that strong cultural identity that leads to cultural self-esteem can be very positive in reducing conflict. Sorensen says, 'my feeling is that if you go very deep into your own Place you will come to these universal values and you do become aware of how to relate to people no matter where they come from... I think that wars are started by people thinking somebody’s going to take something away from them. If you have a firm sense of identity that includes spiritual identity it is clear that no one can take that away from you. If you’re not very sure of who you are that’s when you tend to react violently.'

Navajo peacemaking is an important element within the school community, and is at the interface of the school's role within the wider community. Sorensen has recently initiated the Navajo Peacemaking and Safe Schools Project, aimed at reducing violence and truancy at five local schools through a character building reading programme and healthy activities. It brings students together with professionals from mental health and law enforcement with the support of qualified community peacemakers. The peacemaking process follows rituals of prayer, introductions, discussion of the issue, and agreed actions. Around 20 local Navajo peacemakers act as facilitators in the project.



Missy with her clan mosaic
The Man Who Walked Around

In the afternoon Keanu, a handsome 14 year old with a long ponytail, shows me some of the film he has scripted about the Navajo peacemaking process. He and other students are shooting it with the help of Place Based media/arts teacher Rachel Tso. I also visit an ambitious ongoing art project to decorate the outdoor amphitheatre with colourful ceramic mosaics depicting each native clan. Students of the same clan are collaborating under the enthusiastic eye of Juanita Hull-Carlson, a visiting art teacher. A girl called Missy shows me her striking mosaic of a figure pacing the edge of a circle - her clan name is 'The Man Who Walked Around'. Another shows a line of blue pottery to depict 'The Edge of the Water'. Another depicts the 'Salt Block' clan. The students are having a great time smashing pottery and carefully adding it to their creations.
The STAR School's Place Based approach is definitely improving State test scores relative to other local schools. Sorensen says, 'We have very interesting test results. 80% of the students who stay here 3 years or more meet the State standards, which is way higher than native kids elsewhere around here. But those students who have been here 2 years or less, 80% of them are in our category ‘falls far below’...Now we’re in a situation where most of our students do stay and those that do do quite well at State tests.' Of course, academic achievement is only one element of what the STAR school gives its students. As Sorensen says, 'what we expect here is that students will develop their character and their values equally with their academics.' My conversations with teachers and students of all ages would suggest that this expectation is being fulfilled.
While there are outward differences between cultures, I am struck by similarities. At many points during the day I am strongly reminded of Gaelic culture in Scotland, of the concept of duthchas (land, place and heritage), of the tree alphabet, of a time not so long ago when many a Gael could recite his or her genealogy going back generations, when every hump and bump around a croft had its name, when ones sense of family and heritage provided a strong framework for good action. It seems no coincidence that many a prominent rock formation in Scotland bears an animate name.

I am also struck by how similar the values of K'e are to those I observed recently at Kennedy High School in Cottage Grove, a school for predominantly white, largely disadvantaged trailer park kids. It is perhaps not surprising that a Place Based approach, which fosters care and responsibility and is founded on a good understanding of what roots people emotionally and spiritually to their 'Place', finds similar solutions , despite the outward differences. I guess the human race is beautifully simple really...

Turning stragglers into leaders

A visit to Kennedy High School in Cottage Grove, Oregon on 18 November, turns out to be one of the most uplifting days I have spent in a school, perhaps ever.

Formally known as AL Kennedy Alternative High School, the school was founded in 1998 by a forestry teacher who wanted to help students aged 15 to 18 who were struggling in mainstream education. By 2008, when current principal Tom Horn took over, the school was sinking under an attendance rate sometimes as low as 23%, serious drug problems and alarming drop out rates. Now, little more than two years on, Tom's vision, and the perceptive and caring approach to the students which shines through the principal and his team of committed and talented staff, have completely transformed the culture of the school. Attendance rates are around 90% and the drop out rate has fallen dramatically, while test results show an upward trend. The school serves a maximum of 75 students, but there are 190 further students waiting for a place.

According to its vibrant website, (http://blogs.slane.k12.or.us/kennedy ), the school sets out to help students from all backgrounds to, ‘think, discuss, question and analyze, combine knowledge with goodness, and acquire the intellectual skills that ensure a love of learning and a lifelong commitment to helping others.’ The focus of education at Kennedy is to ‘prepare students to use the skills learned at school to tackle local, national, and global issues that focus primarily on economic vitality, social justice and environmental integrity.’

The way Tom Horn himself expresses it is that he wants kids to leave the school 'with the creative energy to change the world'. This would be no small aspiration for the most privileged products of private education, but seems to be reaching for the stars when it is applied to some of the most disadvantaged and oftentimes troubled young people of the District. Yet the energy, love and life that emanate as soon as one enters the modest building are proof enough that something very special is happening here. I hear one tough looking lad say with something like awe after Horn has passed him in the corridor, 'they should clone that guy - he could run the world'.

The transformation has been the result of good leadership, but also a deep understanding, backed up by research, of what makes people switch on and enjoy learning and living. Building caring relationships between people within and outside the school has been key. One of the first changes was to do away with the seven period day where students moved from class to class and there was little accountability. Now every student is assigned a teacher. Rather than that teacher becoming their advisor, that teacher is their teacher every day for the whole trimester. This has been effective in reducing truancy and in building this culture of care. Kris Olsen, teacher, comments, 'As a teacher it is really important to be able to build relationships with kids, which we’re able to do in the cohorts, having the same kids the whole time.'

There are a myriad of small things that contribute to this caring culture. For example, Horn's approach to students who have been referred to his office, 'When a student has been sent to me, maybe there are difficulties with the teacher, they know to grab a cup of tea. Then they read the quote on the Yogi tea, and then they grab their journal and then they write. What that does is it diffuses the anger and the distress they are feeling, and then they relate this to their life and we have a conversation. There are no discipline problems around here.' Classes often begin and end with circle time, first an 'expectations' circle, where students and teachers state their hopes and expectations for their role in the class, and finally an 'appreciations' circle, where students are able to exchange thanks and appreciations for others' role.
An important element for Horn has been caring for his staff and giving them the space and time they need to develop their own practices. He is a hands-on leader who at least once a week will combine two classes and substitute for two teachers to free them up to do preparation. On Fridays, when the primary focus is on projects, community service and conservation, he takes over these activities to give his staff half a day for meeting and preparation.
A second step has been to build a strong school ethos based on sustainability and service, which builds not only self esteem but also practical skills and wisdom. School activities are structured around five themes of sustainability - Agriculture, Architecture, Energy, Forests and Water. Horn has sought to develop a range of programmes with community partners that address each of these issues. Within each theme there is a focus on practical problem solving, academic skills, and on creating future employment opportunities . According to Horn, 'Kennedy represents a new paradigm or a new way of thinking about education. It’s project based, it’s place-based and it allows students to engage in constructive activities that relate specifically to real-world issues, around sustainability and around environmental issues that are affecting us all'.
The wide range of ambitious projects in which students have been involved include:
- growing fresh organic food for themost in need in the community (over 3 tonnes to date), - partnering with the County to implement mitigation measures at a landfill site,
- gathering water monitoring data at industrial outflow sites as part of an annual canoe trip from Eugene to Portland,
- developing a low-cost energy efficient green housing prototype, which it is hoped could ameliorate housing conditions at the trailer parks on which many of the students live,
- learning how to build a straw bale house at the local energy research and education centre, Approvecho
- carrying out invasive species removal work through the school conservation corps, in partnership with the US Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Coast Fork Watershed Council.
Both teachers and students find this approach stimulating and enjoyable. Kris Olsen again, 'One of the reasons I really love teaching at Kennedy is the focus on sustainability. Its also really important to be teaching material that’s relevant and I really don’t think there’s anything more relevant than issues around sustainability. The reality is that the future that these kids have is going to be really different from what our lives look like right now. They need to be ready to deal with issues around energy and sustaining our forests and a more sustainable food system.'
A student named Morgan talks to me enthusiastically, 'I’ve been to all kinds of schools and this is best school I’ve been to. It’s cool because you get to go out and do lots of great things, like growing stuff in the garden, forestry work, environmental work. It changes the way you see things. There’s a lot more respect here too, between us and the teachers.'
This place and project based approach has been essential for breaking down the barriers between school and community. As Horn says, 'my first thought was that you really need to engage kids in the life of the community, outside of the school. So if it’s that segregation, where they walk in the front door of the school and they don’t go out you really just have this little petri dish where it’s difficult forkids to relate to the real world.' The standing of the school within the community, and the sense of self-respect disadvantaged communities have for themselves, have also grown dramatically as practical projects have begun to make a difference to local environmental and social issues. Now parents wave as Horn cycles past some of the poorest and most challenged trailer parks in the area. One of his next plans is for a community garden and cafe right in the centre of one of these parks.
There is also a philosophy of helping others to learn. Kennedy students teach in local elementary schools. As Horn says, 'all of our kids have now taught agriculture, bee-keeping, water-testing, aquaculture with hydroponics. They’re teaching third graders and fourth graders these skills. And what’s happening is they have to prepare and they’re nervous and you see these toughest of tough kids, you know their eyes tear up and their voice shakes when they’re infront of a bunch of third graders. It’s beautiful to see actually. And then they come back and go ‘I’m never misbehaving ever again, that’s really hard, that teaching’.
Currently student performance is measured on the basis of State tests. In order to gain a sense of the broader learning that each student is gaining, Horn already ensures that each builds up a portfolio of written work. But he is also planning a more radical move away from narrow subject assessment to a mode of assessment that fits better with the personal and social development that the school offers, 'The one thing we’re looking at doing next year is doing away with the grading system, the ABCDF and moving toward a narrative system. So each student will have a description of what they’re good at and what they need to work on'. This can take account of the 'portfolio of adventurous experiences', from beekeeping to winter camping to community project work to performing at an 'open mike' at the local Axe and Fiddle cafe, which Horn believes can have a transformative impact on a student's life.
Horn is also working on plans for a 'walkabout', which would be a prequisite for graduation. 'Walkabout' would be an experiential learning, self-driven, self-developed project that fosters good citizenship and also involves some sort of transformative experience. Horn says, 'It’s not just ‘go create a project and good luck’. There’s a rubric, a step by step process. It’s been highly successful elsewhere...And kids chronicle their transformation in the process. Where kids are self-driven and it becomes a part of the culture for them to participate in something that is meaningful to them, that has positive experience and has intentional positive effect on the community.'
Finding resources (in addition to the allowance for salaries supplied by the State) to sustain school activities falls largely to Horn, but he is aware that the nature of the school and the kinds of issues it tackles give it a distinct advantage when it comes to finding funds. Partnerships with business and State agencies have proven highly successful. During the 2009-2010 academic year alone, for example, the school brought in approximately $700,000 to support its programmes and provide employment opportunities for its students.
Tom Horn and I spend the last hours of the afternoon at the local Axe and Fiddle, owned by the inspirational Hoedads founder Hal Hartzell, watching students perform at the monthly 'open mike'. There is no dedicated music teacher at Kennedy, but many of the staff sing or play instruments and have passed on their skills to the students. It is impressive how hard students have worked to rehearse songs and compose their own lyrics, and it clearly takes a lot of courage for some of them to stand up there in front of their peers. Horn himself is persuaded to take a turn on the guitar with a band of other staff.
The last word goes to Tom Horn, 'As a student teacher, I kept asking these fundamental questions – by raising reading levels are we seeing kids matriculate into college or do great things with their lives? And there wasn’t necessarily a corollary between their academic scores and their potential as human beings.... And seeing five years down the road some of them are incarcerated – these were some risky kids. And at the same time you ask all these questions about the environment, whether its global warming or forest floor ecology and the issues we see in our own back yard here. Those are things I always thought about as an environmentalist. And there was a disconnect between the real world and education. Education was almost a form of segregation.... Now we are in a very interesting time in history educationally in this country. There were 6.9 million drop outs last year. Kids are feeling disaffected by the educational system. But kids [at Kennedy] are accepting responsibility for their role here because they understand that we are significantly different'.

Growing Place Based 'organisms'

Fresh from another blast of Sunnyside Environmental School, its sparky kids and stimulated teachers, I have a final meeting with Greg Smith at Lewis and Clark College in Portland before the family and I travel south towards Arizona.

It is lovely to talk to this inspiring man again, and our discussions touch on the strong connection between the nurturing of self esteem, love and care within the Place Based schools I have visited and the capacity to relate to and care for the school community, the wider community and, beyond that, the planet. How different from efforts to 'do the right thing' for sustainability out of a sense of duty - although of course that's fine too. Each school has been very different in its outward characteristics, but the most important common element has been this 'culture of care', often emanating from a particularly charismatic school leader. Replicating this intangible but vital quality adds challenge to any aspiration to create a 'blueprint' for a Place Based school.


Yet while the charisma of a particular person is certainly important, developing a vision of how schools could be different is also central to what schools like Sunnyside have accomplished. Greg Smith believes a 'both-and' approach is needed. Sharing this vision with others can infect new generations of educators with the enthusiasm and commitment they need to transform learning and teaching.


Another area of discussion revolves around whether Place Based education should be more 'deeply anchored in a critique of industrial civilisation'. This continues an email conversation between Greg Smith and David Greenwood which can be read in more detail at http://www.clearingmagazine.org/online/archives/2108. Interestingly, the various educators and school leaders whom I have spoken with about this tend to feel that perhaps it is nurturing the culture of love, respect and responsibility for oneself and the wider world and putting it into action locally that is most important. There are certainly risks involved in trying to impose parameters for Place Based Education. Its accessibility and the simplicity of its approach, its flexibility to local circumstances and the way in which it speaks to the hearts of a wide range of very different individuals are perhaps its key strengths.