Episode 33: Innovating for the Youngest Learners

Orly Friedman was in the fifth grade when she read the book that changed her life. The story, about a child who floundered in traditional school environments but thrived in an unconventional setting, inspired Orly to dream of opening her own non-traditional school one day. In this episode, she shares her successful journey as the founder of Red Bridge School, an innovative educational setting for young learners that centers around student agency and autonomy.

Guest: Orly Friedman

Resources, Transcript, and Expanded Show Notes

In This Episode:

• “If you think about traditional grade levels, they are very passive for the student. So you sit in a seat for 180 days and you move on to the next grade level when you show up in September and there's basically nothing you have to do to make that happen. … And so if you want to flip that and turn it into a system that supports agency, then you need to put the promotion process in the hands of the students.” (11:49)
• “We are really teaching students how to know themselves well enough and develop the habits of self-advocacy to be successful in any environment. … And so I don't worry who their teacher will be in the future or what happens if they go to another school, because they know themselves well enough and they have enough experience going through that learning cycle and setting goals for themselves and making a plan and working through it that they're gonna be successful anywhere. And really I think that is the result of what we're doing, that we're creating more flexible learners.” (28:28)
• “I think the thing that is a bit scary also about this kind of a model is, if you are going to give students agency over their success and ownership over their success, you also have to be willing to do that for their failures. And so sometimes you have to give students enough space for them not to be successful.” (36:24)

Related Episodes: 23, 21,15,13, 3

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