Alternative Schooling Styles : Foxfire

A Bridge to the Real World

Children learn the same basic subject material -- math, history, language, science, etc. -- in a Foxfire school as they would in one of today's "traditional" schools, and do it well enough to meet or beat the state standards. They work individually and in groups, sing, play games, and work on projects.

This style's biggest differentiating feature is that it is "community-based." That is, it not only gives theoretical and practical knowledge to its students, it does so while engaging them in the local community, thereby transmitting the community's values and culture along with that knowledge. Learning "spills out" of the classroom into the surrounding homes, churches, and businesses.

Each school will engage students differently, depending on the local culture. Children learn any of dozens of skills such as baking, sewing, forge steel, shoeing horses, raising chickens, planning and starting their own business, writing a book, designing a curriculum, running a newspaper, or building their own house. They may learn about anything practically.

Children are encouraged -- no, make that required -- to use creativity and teamwork to solve problems or take advantage of situations, both in and out of the classroom.

There are eleven core practices that guide this style:

• The work teachers and learners do together is infused from the beginning with learner choice, design, and revision.
• The academic integrity of the work teachers and learners do together is clear.
• The role of the teacher is that of facilitator and collaborator.
• The work is characterized by active learning.
• Peer teaching, small group work, and teamwork are all consistent features of classroom activities.
• There is an audience beyond the teacher for learner work.
• New activities spiral gracefully out of the old, incorporating lessons learned from past experiences, building on skills and understandings that can now be amplified.
• Reflection is an essential activity that takes place at key points throughout the work.
• Connections between the classroom work, the surrounding communities, and the world beyond the community are clear.
• Imagination and creativity are encouraged in the completion of learning activities.
• The work teachers and learners do together includes rigorous, ongoing assessment and evaluation.

Foxfire schools are run (more or less) democratically, as in Free Schools. Students and teachers share in the decisions on what and how to learn, and on what and how work is to be graded. Students share in the grading process, evaluating the work of not only themselves but that of other students. The children even help decide what their values are going to be and set goals for themselves on how to be the "ideal person."

This style is child-directed, for use in K-12 private schools. It can be used in whole or in part. There is teacher training available.

Resources and Curricula