“…it is the integrity and
‘gathering power’ of the pine tree that draws together language,
science, mathematics, social studies, art, history, mythology, and on
and on…This pine tree possesses…question[s]…It draws our
attention…It evokes…It stands before us as a sign…From the pine
tree, learn of the pine tree. But, also from the pine tree, learn of
ourselves...this pine tree comes forward as the nesting point of a
vast interconnecting network of relationships and it is the integrity
of such a network which bestows integrity on the integrated
curriculum.” (David W. Jardine, “On the Integrity of Things:
Ecopedagogical Reflections on the Integrated Curriculum”, in
“Current Concepts of Core Curriculum” from the National
Association for Core Curriculum, p. 34) As the pine tree stands as a
nesting point so also do things like tidal pools, cities, or spider
webs and concepts like luminescence, alienation, or metaphor. These
“themes” framing the curriculum stand as the immediate causes for
secondary education inquiry: students would select from a community
generated list one theme at any one time from which to develop a
research question to concentrate inquiry. Early college students
would also use a thematic curriculum but unlike the individuality of
secondary education project study, early college study would be
collective in seminars within a course structure equivalent to the
rest of higher education and meant to satisfy common core university
requirements.
The themes subject to seminar study are
to be called “Great Questions”. An example of a Great Question
might be, “What is the Eleventh Dimension?” This Great Question
would examine the concepts of space from Euclidean to the mutliverse
of String Theory. A second could be, “What is Nature?” This
traces the changes in understanding from Aristotle to Einstein to
present Gaian ecology. Taken together, Great Questions, emerging as
a direct expression of the propriety, interest and necessity of the
early college community itself, would launch explorations
into the history, science, literature, sociology, political economies
and philosophies of periods from Classical to Modern. Not to
worry! Our older adolescent Square Pegs can do well with such heavy
intellectual lifting. Leon Botstein, President of Bard College,
argues in Jefferson’s Children that youngsters between the
ages of sixteen and eighteen have reached a maturity where they need
this kind of stimulation and challenge. Indeed, one witnesses such
successful adolescent academic engagement in Simons Rock College of
Bard in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and in Bard High School
Early College here in New York.
Feedback: 1) I’ve said to some that
Fort Tilden could host these programs. I’ve since learned Gateway
will only agree to a public school open to all NYC children. It
becomes clear a venture meant to be a private not-for-profit, non-BPC
affiliated endeavor, serving the children of the three communities of
the Breezy Point Cooperative with the possibility of enrolling
additional children from Neponsit and Belle Harbor cannot be at Fort
Tilden. 2) There is a powerful resistance in the Coop to having any
school here, I’ve learned. To those folks I plead: the youngsters
in need in our three communities ought not to be denied their lives
because there are no alternatives for them. And the plain, simple
fact is that there are no suitable, alternative schools on the
Peninsula, or in the rest of NYC for that matter! We pride ourselves
as a community caring for its children, as most families are here to
raise their children within the safety provided here. Then I say,
let us demonstrate that commitment to their safety by dissolving the
resistance in favor of the proactive support our children need.
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