A Community
of Learners
A
Community of Learners
Fenway now has about 300 students
and aims to keep the school at that size. By staying small, Fenway can function
as a true "community of learners,” where every student is known,
respected, supported, connected, and intellectually challenged. Fenway’s
structures and practices
from its focus on core content areas to its House and advisory systems to
its learning partnerships with outside organizations
support a unified vision of teaching and learning for all students,
across all disciplines and grade levels.
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The
House System
Fenway students are
grouped into three learning families, or “Houses,” Each incoming student is
assigned to a House and remains there through his/her time at the school. The
House system is the fundamental structure that supports the close relationships
among teachers and students at Fenway and enables teachers to push students
academically, while also giving them a lot of personal support.
Each House has its
own faculty. Teachers in core content areas
of math, science, humanities
typically teach the same cohort of students in grades 9, 10, and 11. (See
Senior Institute, p. 12, for faculty and student groupings in senior year.)
Teachers get to know their students well over these three years, and can tailor
their approach to each student’s strengths and weaknesses. Teaching the same
students also ensures that little academic time is wasted when students and
teachers start up together again at the beginning of the 10th and 11th
grade years.
In addition to core
content teachers, each House faculty includes a student support counselor, a
special education teacher or coordinator, and one or two teachers from the minor
courses. This mix enables the faculty group to get a rounded perspective of each
of the 75 students, grades 9-11, in their care. The House faculties meet once a
week to discuss how individual students are doing, academically and socially,
and to plan activities that take all students out of the school together on
community days.
The House
system is also fundamental in building the mutual respect and support that
characterizes Fenway students’ behavior toward their classmates. Seniors cite
the deep friendships they have developed, their ability to work with a diverse
range of people, and the motivation for personal achievement that has come from
being part of a long-lasting, close-knit cohort.
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Advisory
Each teacher in a
House serves as advisor or co-advisor to a group of about 25 students in the
House. Advisory meets three times a week, and student participation is graded.
The main goal of advisory is to ensure that students receive the support they
need from their advisors and peers to “work hard, be themselves and do the
right thing,” as the Fenway motto says.
Though students
remain in the same advisory from freshman through senior year, different
teachers from their House act as advisors at each grade level. By remaining at a
particular grade level, advisors can become proficient in the curriculum and
activities for that grade.
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The 9th grade advisory curriculum includes such topics
as health, sexuality, decision-making, stress management, study skills,
communication and personal interactions within the cohort.
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The 10th grade advisory aims to open students to new
possibilities, in and out of school. This is the year when most Fenway students
complete at least 30 hours of community service required for graduation. This
advisory also offers an electives program, in which students from different
Houses are mixed up according to their interest in different activities, such as
painting and drawing, cooking, model-building, computer graphics, gardening,
etc.
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In 11th grade, advisory is primarily devoted to helping
student prepare for Junior Review (see p. 12).
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The 12th grade advisory focuses on completing work
required for graduation, college and career exploration, and life beyond Fenway.
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Heterogeneous
Classrooms
Experience at Fenway has
shown that mixing students up by gender, race, cultural background and ability
levels encourages learning among both the stronger and weaker students in any
given content area. The different perspectives that students bring to a diverse
classroom creates a rich, open learning environment, which, if managed
skillfully, ultimately brings out the best in everyone. Some classes may be
sorted into ability groups for different projects, but there is no
“tracking” at Fenway. There are separate classes for the special education
students who are legally required to have “substantially separate”
classrooms and teachers, but those students may take regular education classes
in some subjects, and they are full participants in advisory, Project Week, and
other non-academic group activities.
The
curricular flexibility Fenway has as a Boston Pilot school is essential to the
success of its heterogeneous classes. Teachers develop their own lesson plans,
projects and materials to give students “multiple points of entry” to the
curriculum. In other words, teachers use different modes of instruction
e.g., lecture, project-based learning, small group discussion, individual
research and writing
so that every student finds a way to engage
with the material.
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