FAQs about the Field Academy
What is the Field Academy?
The Field Academy is a traveling high school program that focuses on creating transformative, place-based, community-driven educational experiences for students and educators across the United States. We bring together diverse cohorts of students and teachers to learn from the people, places, and communities that comprise the United States. You can learn more about our mission, values, and programs on our website at fieldacademy.org.
How do we define place-based, community-driven education?
Imagine studying tectonic movement from the Southern Rim of the Grand Canyon, or learning about the history of coal mining underground in a demonstration mine in West Virginia. Imagine a social studies class on the settlement history of Maine where your teachers include the members of a multi-generational lobstering family, a local historian, and an elder from the native Penobscot community. And imagine a school where the social reality and power dynamics of the students and teachers is actually a part of the curriculum – where students learn to mediate conflict, articulate their own values and expectations as learners, and consider the tension between their own individual needs and those of their community.
For us, place-based education means that academics are intrinsically linked to the places and communities in which we travel and to the places and communities that our students call home. Community-driven education at the Field Academy means that our students’ academic pursuits are never isolated from the greater social context in which we live. We explore not just what’s written in textbooks, but also whose voices we hear and whose voices we’re missing, what the implications and impact of our studies are, and how we can be a part of creating healthy and just communities.
The Field Academy is a traveling high school program that focuses on creating transformative, place-based, community-driven educational experiences for students and educators across the United States. We bring together diverse cohorts of students and teachers to learn from the people, places, and communities that comprise the United States. You can learn more about our mission, values, and programs on our website at fieldacademy.org.
How do we define place-based, community-driven education?
Imagine studying tectonic movement from the Southern Rim of the Grand Canyon, or learning about the history of coal mining underground in a demonstration mine in West Virginia. Imagine a social studies class on the settlement history of Maine where your teachers include the members of a multi-generational lobstering family, a local historian, and an elder from the native Penobscot community. And imagine a school where the social reality and power dynamics of the students and teachers is actually a part of the curriculum – where students learn to mediate conflict, articulate their own values and expectations as learners, and consider the tension between their own individual needs and those of their community.
For us, place-based education means that academics are intrinsically linked to the places and communities in which we travel and to the places and communities that our students call home. Community-driven education at the Field Academy means that our students’ academic pursuits are never isolated from the greater social context in which we live. We explore not just what’s written in textbooks, but also whose voices we hear and whose voices we’re missing, what the implications and impact of our studies are, and how we can be a part of creating healthy and just communities.
