This new year provides and opportunity to both look back at our last decade of growth and look forward to the next 10 years. Like many nonprofits, we have been so busy working with schools, that we rarely back away to see the organization as a whole. The recent task of constructing an “Impact Statement”...
How can I expedite my school’s shift to youth-adult partnership? UP has been working for years to help youth-adult teams hone their partnerships. We recognize the “teeter-totter effect,” where one generation or the other may end up with an outsized share of power and leave the other hanging. We know it takes time to get...
The personalization of learning requires the relationship of students and teachers to shift to partnership and shared responsibility. Educational change in Vermont has also opened the door to unprecedented opportunities for young people to be central to change, rather than passive recipients. However, there are few roadmaps for shifting our mental models and practices to...
The latest raging debates about women’s place in our society feel disorienting and dangerous to a lot of people. To some of us who came of age a half-century ago, when we stepped into the women’s movement at the same time we entered womanhood itself, there’s now a sense of having come adrift. Things we...
by Alexandra Muck, Middlebury College This summer, I attended the multi-day International Seminar on Amplifying Student Voice & Partnership, (find the blog at https://blog.uvm.edu/stuvoice) which received major support from the awesome people at UP for Learning. I was at the crossroads between student and teacher, kid and adult, having graduated from college in February. At...
I just can’t get it out of my head… “It’s our time, our place, our pace. Choice and voice, we co-create.” Almost two years ago a group of young people from schools around the state convened to compose a song that captured their vision of education. Once the song was ready, Vermont students of all...
If I have to drive a car (an activity I avoid whenever possible), let it be on Interstate Route 89 through central Vermont in August. This is one of New England’s loveliest highways, usually free of traffic, permanently free of billboards. In the final month of summer, drifts of Queen Anne’s lace border its route...
What’s the point in learning about mindset and metacognition? Why spend time on this? The point is for you as a learner to understand how learning works. Specifically, how your brain works during learning, and the influence you can have on it, so that you can be more actively involved. Ultimately, spending this time means...
I have been charged with writing the first blog for our new UP for Learning web site – a daunting task! My choice is to focus on gratitude, reflecting on the remarkable gifts of the past 10+ years with this organization, as we turn the corner into this next decade. Culling the list to a...
Save the Date!! Power 2 Summit: Youth and Adults Shaping Vermont Education Together May 1, 2018 @ Lake Morey Resort The critical importance of Youth-adult partnership in transforming educational efforts is the focus of this energizing gathering. We will explore the role youth-adult partnership is playing in successfully shaping learning and educational experiences. Flexible...
