by Mistral Dodson | Mar 31, 2022 | Blog
Imagine walking through the front door and landing yourself right in a classroom where students are dispersed across an open space, independently working with supplies spread across their table.
When you walk through the front door and right into the classroom you immediately get a sense that real learning is happening at Phoenix. Students are immersed in their work, teachers are engaged and actively working with individual kids and the older partners are chatting with their younger partners making sure they are on track with their work.
It’s a collaborative community and you get the feeling everyone is welcomed, celebrated, and known. The teachers are guides and know each student’s personalized learning style, making it easy for them to challenge each kid to their own potential.
Students are not educated for testing, but rather for jobs that don’t yet exist in our future.
Our kids are challenged daily to become the best versions of themselves, embrace their passions, and own their weaknesses. They are learning the skills to become our future leaders. Those who will help re-shape our world.
When visitors come to Phoenix, they leave saying things like these…
- I am so glad that Phoenix exists! It is such a hopeful sign for the world that any institution is doing this kind of work with children!
- I love the project/theme-based, child-led (to some degree) pedagogy.
- I love that it is a mixed-age learning environment (the pairing/buddy system).
- I love the “the world is our classroom” approach and its close connectivity to the local community, and the experiential, hands-on, and real-world approach to teaching and learning.
- I love the one-room schoolhouse and the incredible amount of stimulation available to the children.
- The flexibility allowed for individual learning needs gives children the opportunity to be challenged in so many different ways!
- I highly value the teacher-to-student ratio at Phoenix.
- Lastly, and super important, is the demographic diversity of the classroom! This is HUGE for me. And rare for the North Shore.
- I love the school dogs
- I felt a values-based and philosophical alignment with the Phoenix approach.
At The Phoenix School, we set the foundation for educational success, a safe place for students to express their individuality, and developing skills that will serve them for the rest of their life.
The only way to really experience the HOW of what we offer is to come and see it for yourself. Schedule a visit today!
https://phoenixschool.org/visit/
by Mistral Dodson | Mar 30, 2022 | Blog, Road Trip - Everglades
It’s official Phoenix Kids are going to (drum emojis) >>> The Everglades!
This is our annual study travel trip, which takes us all over the United States, from Catalina Island in California to the Caribbean, to The Caves in Indiana. Each year has a new destination so that no student ever visits the same place twice.
We missed the last two years of traveling and are super excited for this crew of 4-8th graders to head into the wilderness of the Everglades.
This trip is kept a secret from the students…until the big REVEAL.
In order to find out where they are going, they have to decipher a number of clues, that eventually disclose the longitude and latitude of their travel destination.
This year they had to decode 15 clues and work as a team to figure it out. The team had to collaborate, read and find each clue together or they were at risk of losing one of their cards.
After some dancing, building, solving puzzles, critical thinking, and some serious teamwork a set of coordinates were revealed and off to Google Earth to figure out their destination.
The energy in the room was electric!
Have you been to the Florida Everglades before?
by Mistral Dodson | Mar 30, 2022 | Blog
Regan Linton Co-Director of the film, imperfect, took time out of her day to come and visit The Phoenix School while she is in town for the Salem Film Fest. imperfect is a story of artists who live and perform with the uniqueness of disability, having been denied their place in the spotlight.
She opened her talk with a conversation, asking our students their name, their ages, and their favorite story. Our students excitedly shared, and wow what a variety of stories we learned.
From Winnie the Poo to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, to one of our 7-year-olds sharing his love for Stephen Hawking, which of course impressed Regan.
Regan then shared her own story…growing up without a wheelchair, she was a big athlete, playing soccer, swimming and skiing. But she was most passionate about acting.
She described her love for collaboration in theatre, especially the ability to interact with the audience. She was animated as she described how theatre tells a story, but through song, words and actions. Her slogan was…if you can’t speak it, sing it and if you can’t sing it, dance it.
When she was just 20 years old, she was in a car accident that left her with a T4 complete spinal cord injury. We received a wonderful explanation about her injury in a way that felt safe and open for the students.
She explained to our students that her legs feel similar to what we might experience as a numb arm or leg because of the way we were sleeping on it. She described how the wheelchair was her liberation to freedom and to the outside world. But that many people around the world don’t have access to the devices they need to give them the opportunity to have that same freedom.
She talked about how in the past, because of how our society was set up, people with disabilities were considered worthless as they couldn’t go to war, couldn’t work at the factory, couldn’t get around with ease. She spoke about how society has changed and now people are able to showcase their incredible ABILITIES, achieving results beyond expectations, like the Paralympics and the actors in imperfect, just to name a few.
Our students kept her here for over an hour because they were all so excited to share their own stories about experiences they had with accidents, scares, and family members. The conversation sparked so many questions and lead down so many interesting pathways for the kids. We even did some breathwork taught by Regan!
To finish out her visit she concluded with a fun and interactive storytelling prompt, where each student added a sentence to the last. She made sure they were keeping the main characters and introducing new characters too.
We feel so blessed to have captured some of Regan’s time today and look forward to seeing what she continues to produce in the future.
Follow the intimate stories of diverse actors with disabilities as they defy stereotypes and claim their place in the spotlight, demonstrating the creative power that comes from upending perfection.
https://www.instagram.com/imperfectfilm/
https://www.facebook.com/imperfectthefilm
https://imperfectfilm.com/
by Mistral Dodson | Mar 29, 2022 | Blog
We could talk about it all day, but we thought it would be fun to hear it from the kids!
Here are just some of the things our students say! I love that…
➡️ we go on learning trips PEM (Tristan – TK)
➡️ I always have the ability to check in with a teacher at any time and I feel like I never have to wait to get feedback on my work (8th grade)
➡️ once I got into 6th grade we went on amazing and different travel study programs each year until 8th grade. I visited St John, The Everglades, Catalina Island, and The Caves in Indiana. (Ella – Alumni)
➡️ the friendships that you build here because you are in such a close environment and you learn so much about each individual person. We value each other’s strengths and weaknesses. (Alice – 7th grade)
➡️ it brings a variety of learning opportunities and also you can learn in creative ways that might not be considered normal (Leo – 2nd grade)
➡️ choosing what I do for extended learning (aka homework) (Max – 5th grade)
➡️ the freedom I get in choosing my work and the standard I am held to and the opportunities we get to go on (like PEM), and the expert speakers we have come in or zoom in (Fiona – 4th grade)
➡️ we are able to learn outside. It gives me more opportunities for learning different topics and exploring them deeper (Arlo – 6th grade)
➡️ drawing notecards and practicing art (Tara – TK)
➡️ we collaborate with other schools and enjoy making those connections (Karina D – 5th grade)
At The Phoenix School, we set the foundation for educational success, a safe place for students to express their individuality, and developing skills that will serve them for the rest of their life.
The only way to really experience the HOW of what we offer is to come and see it for yourself. Schedule a visit today!
https://phoenixschool.org/visit/
by Mistral Dodson | Mar 25, 2022 | Blog
We hadn’t until we had guest expert Tyler join us from Common Tides.
We learned that the Carcharocles megalodon was once the most fearsome predator to reign the seas. This ancient shark lived roughly 23 to 3.6 million years ago in nearly every corner of the ocean.
We watched as Tyler and his teammates measured out a 25 ft Great White Shark, and then continued to measure out 54ft Megalodon! 😲 The megalodon was a massive shark. Roughly up to 3 times the length of a modern-day great white shark, it is the largest shark to have ever lived.
The largest was roughly 60 feet in length and attained perhaps up to 50 tons, the size and weight of a railroad car. Due to the lack of cartilage fossils, megalodon size estimates are based upon known relationships between tooth size and shark body length.
Without giving too much away you can find Megalodon teeth by digging and sifting through the sediment with a small shovel and a sifting screen along our southeastern shores of the USA.
Who wants to come on a Megalodon tooth discovery trip with us? 🙋🙋
