October 17, 2005
Next: A new lesson plan | Derek Pierce, Principal, Portland Expeditionary Learning High School
By Michaela Cavallaro
On a recent Wednesday, Derek Pierce took the 83 students at Portland Expeditionary Learning High School deep-sea fishing off of Portsmouth, N.H. It promised to be a fun day, with a chance for the students ˆ all ninth graders ˆ to see and touch cod, pollock and mackerel and to talk to the boat's crew about their lives and work. But, Pierce says, it wasn't a field trip. "We don't do field trips," he says. "We do field work."
The distinction is a crucial one, and it gets to the heart of the new school's philosophy, which emphasizes long-term, cross-disciplinary projects. (The school was created early this year with a $600,000 grant from Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound, a New York-based organization that received $12.5 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to start 20 high schools nationwide.) While often educationally oriented, field trips tend to be treated as vacations from school. The term "field work," on the other hand, positions the students as "active investigators using the research tools, techniques of inquiry and standards of presentation used by professionals in the field," as the school's handbook puts it.
The fishing trip, for example, was part of the Expeditionary Learning High School's first-trimester case study on Portland's working waterfront, which Pierce, the school's founding principal, says will result in the production ˆ by students ˆ of informational pamphlets for next month's bond issue, as well as theatrical performances and systems maps. "The cross-disciplinary approach helps kids' educational experience be connected ˆ it more resembles the real world," says Pierce, age 39. "Hopefully they're doing real tasks that involve them in the community."
This innovative approach to education has been a hallmark of Pierce's career. Before starting the Expeditionary Learning High School last summer, he helped open Poland Regional High School, another groundbreaking school that eschews letter grades and tracking students by ability in favor of a so-called "standards-based" approach, in which students aren't considered to have passed a subject until they can show mastery of each of its components.
While the Poland school was controversial when it opened in 1999 ˆ Pierce says administrators, himself included, spent so much time developing the curriculum and other systems that they neglected to communicate effectively with parents and other community members ˆ more recently it has been held up as a model for other schools. Most significantly, 88% of its students went on to college in 2004 ˆ more than double the 35% who did so when the school opened. Pierce, an open, friendly man whose enthusiasm about his work is infectious, has proven that having high expectations of students motivates, rather than discourages, them. As Maine struggles to improve its college attendance rate ˆ the state is notable for having both a high percentage of students who graduate from high school and a relatively low percentage who go on to college ˆ it's imperative that educators show a willingness to abandon unsuccessful methods of instruction in favor of both innovative and traditional teaching methods that engage and challenge students.
In the meantime, Pierce must continue working to get his school off the ground. Though the Gates Foundation grant covered four weeks of staff training before the school year began, it didn't pay for things like books and computers; the school's library consists of one small bookcase, and it owns just seven computers. Next year, when the current class of ninth graders is promoted, the school will add a 10th grade curriculum and recruit a new class of ninth graders; in three years, the school should be fully staffed for all four grades. And all of that requires more money.
"For the first four years, it's just like business startups ˆ it's make or break," says Pierce. "I need to lure more staff every year for four years, and we need to grow the pie [of education funding]. We have to prove ourselves worthy of public support without alienating our brothers and sisters in the Portland Public Schools."
The distinction is a crucial one, and it gets to the heart of the new school's philosophy, which emphasizes long-term, cross-disciplinary projects. (The school was created early this year with a $600,000 grant from Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound, a New York-based organization that received $12.5 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to start 20 high schools nationwide.) While often educationally oriented, field trips tend to be treated as vacations from school. The term "field work," on the other hand, positions the students as "active investigators using the research tools, techniques of inquiry and standards of presentation used by professionals in the field," as the school's handbook puts it.
The fishing trip, for example, was part of the Expeditionary Learning High School's first-trimester case study on Portland's working waterfront, which Pierce, the school's founding principal, says will result in the production ˆ by students ˆ of informational pamphlets for next month's bond issue, as well as theatrical performances and systems maps. "The cross-disciplinary approach helps kids' educational experience be connected ˆ it more resembles the real world," says Pierce, age 39. "Hopefully they're doing real tasks that involve them in the community."
This innovative approach to education has been a hallmark of Pierce's career. Before starting the Expeditionary Learning High School last summer, he helped open Poland Regional High School, another groundbreaking school that eschews letter grades and tracking students by ability in favor of a so-called "standards-based" approach, in which students aren't considered to have passed a subject until they can show mastery of each of its components.
While the Poland school was controversial when it opened in 1999 ˆ Pierce says administrators, himself included, spent so much time developing the curriculum and other systems that they neglected to communicate effectively with parents and other community members ˆ more recently it has been held up as a model for other schools. Most significantly, 88% of its students went on to college in 2004 ˆ more than double the 35% who did so when the school opened. Pierce, an open, friendly man whose enthusiasm about his work is infectious, has proven that having high expectations of students motivates, rather than discourages, them. As Maine struggles to improve its college attendance rate ˆ the state is notable for having both a high percentage of students who graduate from high school and a relatively low percentage who go on to college ˆ it's imperative that educators show a willingness to abandon unsuccessful methods of instruction in favor of both innovative and traditional teaching methods that engage and challenge students.
In the meantime, Pierce must continue working to get his school off the ground. Though the Gates Foundation grant covered four weeks of staff training before the school year began, it didn't pay for things like books and computers; the school's library consists of one small bookcase, and it owns just seven computers. Next year, when the current class of ninth graders is promoted, the school will add a 10th grade curriculum and recruit a new class of ninth graders; in three years, the school should be fully staffed for all four grades. And all of that requires more money.
"For the first four years, it's just like business startups ˆ it's make or break," says Pierce. "I need to lure more staff every year for four years, and we need to grow the pie [of education funding]. We have to prove ourselves worthy of public support without alienating our brothers and sisters in the Portland Public Schools."
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