Who We Are
	Exploring Progressive Education

Building a Passion for Learning

by Nicholas O’Han

Someone once wrote that the most American thing about America is high school. As the millennium barrels down on us, one could add that it has become one of the most crucial issues facing us as a nation. We are repeatedly reminded how difficult a passage adolescence can be, and how complex and challenging the transition from childhood to the adult world of work, relationships, higher education and citizenship has become. And we are repeatedly asked how schools can succeed in creating an environment conducive to the social adjustment, psychological well being, ethical awareness and intellectual readiness of the next generation of American adults.

At LREI we are fortunate to have a set of core beliefs and values to build on. Over 70 years ago Elisabeth Irwin wrote, “We tried in our school to be rid of that oppressive something which strikes you with almost palpable force when you open the door of a large over-regimented school.” The words are as relevant today as the day she wrote them. She envisioned a humane, student-centered school that integrated rigorous academic pursuits with broadening experiences in community building, social consciousness, ethical awareness, democratic life and decision-making. I am confident she would be pleased is she were around today to see how we interpret her ideas in a very different era.

The progressive educators like Elisabeth Irwin talked about learning by doing. I wish they could have been here one week last fall when our students could be found at the Cloisters and the French and Spanish Embassies, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Natural History, the Whitney Museum and the Museum of Radio and Television, doing research at the 42nd Street Public Library, collecting soil and water samples at Central Park, and watching awestruck at the Congo exhibit in the Bronx Zoo, as the gorillas, bemused, watched them in return!

One way we succeed in promoting this kind of experiential learning is our unique Mod Plan, which provides students with the time they need to focus and engage with material in depth, develop a passion for learning and generate authentic understanding. We believe that such understanding is only achieved when students filter and process the knowledge and skills that constitute each academic discipline through the prism of their own perspectives, purposes, values and prior understandings. A curriculum based on active learning provides students with opportunities to follow their own lines of thought as they penetrate and intersect with subject matter. Problem-based, inquiry-driven learning experiences are at the heart of the curriculum.

Such experiences place the student in the position of critical thinker, maker of meaning and solver of problems. They point toward the essential questions and the organizing principles and concepts in each discipline of learning, not the rote memorization of disconnected facts and formulas. They promote the capacity to develop strategies, to plan and execute the stages of a project, to assess and verify results, and to respond to feedback. Such skills will serve students in every pursuit they undertake throughout their life. It also results in the kind of measurement achievement that colleges are looking for. And indeed, the immediate destination for all graduates of Elisabeth Irwin is higher education, and every year our graduates go off to and succeed at the finest colleges and universities in the United States. Our objective is to equip them with the essential habits of mind necessary for the disciplined and rigorous inquiry they will encounter there.

For some of our students each year, our unique connection with New York University provides the opportunity to do college work while they are still in high school. For all of our graduates, the Senior Project provides a culminating experience to their high school careers in such areas as professional internships, academic research, original artistic expression, or community service. Preparation for college, of course, is implicit in the program at every grade level. And our new Honors Program will afford our most academically gifted students in all grades the opportunity to do the kind of in-depth inquiry that will prepare them for the work they will be asked to handle in just a few short years.

Even as the world of knowledge and the world of youth evolve in unprecedented directions, our school continues to be guided by an inner compass of core beliefs about young people and education that has remained remarkably consistent through the years. Never before has it seemed so urgent to help young people find their unique voices and values and equip them with the skills and knowledge they will require to confront successfully the challenges that lie ahead. Being the principal of a school like ours affords me the privilege of getting to know all our students, of observing, guiding and occasionally coaxing them along the trajectory of their intellectual and personal growth. Each day this experience reinforces my belief that EI remains the kind of challenging and nurturing school environment that provides hope for us all as we look toward the future.

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