Bruce Saari, Bellevue International School co-founder, describes successful small learning communities and student achievement. Creating successful small learning communities in Washington State: Bellevue International School & Lake Washington International School: small learning communities where achievement is an outgrowth of program and curricular design.

<BODY> <P><BR CLEAR="all"><B><FONT SIZE=3>Small learning communities and student achievement: small learning community student achievement depends upon second order change: essential curriculum and targeted fundamental skills go hand in hand with consistent school culture to boost student achievement. Small learning community achievement: test results, including WASL test score results, are one important indicator of student achievement, according to Bruce Saari. Small learning communities such as Lake Washington International School, Bellevue International School and the Marysville Arts & Technology High School have tremendous potential to serve as catalysts for education reform and school renewal. Bruce Saari believes that when small learning communities are centered around fundamental improvements in the delivery of instruction and in the design of curricular experiences, they can serve as laboratories for a District's regular public schools.Small learning communities and student achievement: small learning community student achievement depends upon second order change: essential curriculum and targeted fundamental skills go hand in hand with consistent school culture to boost student achievement. Small learning community achievement: test results, including WASL test score results, are one important indicator of student achievement, according to Bruce Saari. </FONT></B></P> <P><BR CLEAR="all"><B><FONT SIE=3>Student achievement in small learning communities occurs with second order change: small learning communities that set their sights on creating meaningful curriculum experiences are schools that promote scholarship, personal responsibility and enthusiasm for learning. Small learning communities and student achievement: small learning community student achievement depends upon second order change: essential curriculum and targeted fundamental skills go hand in hand with consistent school culture to boost student achievement. Small learning community achievement: test results, including WASL test score results, are one important indicator of student achievement, according to Bruce Saari. The point here is that in an essential curriculum in a small learning community, mastery learning would not be so much mandated or required as it would be <U>natural outgrowths</U> of a small learning community culture and a curriculum design that presents students with appropriately sequenced personal and academic challenges, that invites them to participate in, and that licenses them to inquire.</FONT></B></P> <P><BR CLEAR="all"><B><FONT SIZE=3>Small learning communities and student achievement: Marysville Arts & Technology High School is a school of choice that offers a high performance academic curriculum. Marysville Arts & Technology High School models the renewal of America's public schools. Articulating the curriculum course sequence. Integrating the curriculum. Essential questions for meaningful curriculum. Starting small learning communities as high performance public school options: setting high standards for student achievement and school performance. Test scores as indices of performance. Small learning community curricular performance. Mastery learning and Core values in small schools. Academics and student achievement as a feature of small learning communities. Small learning community development and curriculum development for effective small learning communities. Education reform, essential curriculum and academic standards for new small public schools. Mastery learning and performance based assessment in successful small learning communities. The International School model for small school development. All small schools have the inherent potential to improve upon their larger public school brethren; small learning community configurations enable programs to perform the following miraculous feats: mastery learning, introduce students to the satisfactions of academic achievement acquiring and applying new skills; they can lead students forward to surmount new challenges that are built upon previous starting charter schools learning; and most important, they can help students piece together their understanding of a still very fascinating world. When starting charter schools learning activities in charter schools and charter school curriculum are connected from class to class and from year to year, and when what "has been done" is a platform that can be applied to "what needs to be done," then students know that what happens in school is <U>essential</U>, and that it has value and meaning.</FONT></B></P> <P><BR CLEAR="all"><B><FONT SIZE=3>In the </FONT><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#008080>International Model </FONT><STRONG><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#000000>that we pioneered back in 1990</FONT></STRONG><FONT SIZE=3>, students take six academic courses:  Math, Science, Foreign Language, Humanities, History and Arts.  </FONT></B></P> <P><BR CLEAR="all"><B><FONT SIZE=3>Of these six, a powerful Humanities/Social Studies and Arts "trivium" supplies the thematic foundations for a six-year integrated curriculum (grades 7-12). This trivium also plays a supportive role in helping students acquire proficiency in their math, science and foreign language core studies.  This is because the rigor and empiricism of skill development in foreign language, math and science are similar to the skill acquisition process in the Humanities program itself.   Our study of the <U>mechanics of language</U>, the <U>theory of paragraphing</U>, the arts of analysis and hypothesis building, the challenge of identifying, classifying, associating and differentiating ideas, the willingness to take risks, to test assumptions, and to think out loud-- all of these "metacurricular" Humanities activities reinforce equally strong performances in Math, Science and Foreign Language.</FONT></B></P> <P><BR CLEAR="all"><B><FONT SIZE=3>In the Humanities trivium, as in Math, Foreign Language and Science, the learning activities in the 7th grade focus on essential knowledge and skill, and these activities are carried forward, applied and extended all the way up through 12th. grade. Just as a high school senior needs to remember essential mathematical principles learned in the earliest years of his or her schooling, so a student in the Humanities trivium can expect to acquire new knowledge by connecting with, and building upon, previous learning. Thus, 7th graders will be engaged in activities that are important not only for 7th grade, but which will also be the foundation for success in each succeeding year. In other words, 12th graders in Advanced Placement courses will be expected to refer back to, and meaningfully incorporate, works, ideas and skills that they were first exposed to as early as the 7th grade. If this isn't the case, then the curricular experience will not have been "essential" or meaningful.</FONT></B></P> <P><BR CLEAR="all"><B><FONT SIZE=3>This is what is so powerful about combining long-term relationships (grades 7-12) with a curriculum that is designed to focus on essential questions, and upon the extension, application, elaboration and refinement of these up through all the grades. During the six year period that our students are with us, we can <U>coach</U> them, we can charge them up with fundamental skills and basic conceptual knowledge, we can teach them the intricacies of <U>sentence structure</U> and paragraph formation (so that their writing is not only correct, but also so that it can carry the weight of their increasingly complex and sophisticated thoughts), we can introduce them to the <U>Socratic method</U>, and we can give them a powerful jump start on their abstract and analytical thinking.</FONT></B></P> <P><BR CLEAR="all"><B><FONT SIZE=3> And most important:  we can imbue them  with a belief in the validity of their own critical powers;and we can instill in them the conviction that the world they encounter is amenable to reasonable explanation--not  mysterious--and that the history of  human civilization and cultural experimentation is theirs to understand and to explore. </FONT></B></P> <P><BR CLEAR="all"><B><FONT SIZE=3>                             </FONT><FONT SIZE=4> </FONT><FONT SIZE=5>  </FONT><U><FONT SIZE=5 COLOR=#008080>The Jewel In the Crown</FONT></U></B></P> <P><BR CLEAR="all"><B><FONT SIZE=3>But this is not all that the Humanities program accomplishes.  The goal of the Humanities Strand of the </FONT><STRONG><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#008080>International Model</FONT></STRONG><FONT SIZE=3> is to produce students who are realistic, analytical, and sensitive to the artistic and cultural products that have been created by their fellow human beings, both ancient and modern.  </FONT></B></P> <P><BR CLEAR="all"><B><FONT SIZE=3>In addition to a substantial encounter with literature in all its forms, Humanities students In the </FONT><STRONG><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#008080>International Model</FONT></STRONG><FONT SIZE=3> also study the fine and architectural arts, the histories and distinguishing characteristics of political systems, and the history and characteristics of thought--both philosophical and religious. </FONT></B></P> <P><BR CLEAR="all"><B><FONT SIZE=3>Most important, is the Humanities curriculum's fundamental organizing principle:  the belief that all areas of study in its domain can be referenced to one another--either as a derivative, a departure, a contradiction, a by-product, a corollary,  or a transformation and extension of basic, initial premises.  </FONT></B></P> <P><BR CLEAR="all"><B><FONT SIZE=3>In other words:  when a high school Humanities student reads <I><U>Death of a Salesman</U></I>, he or she is also able to reference passages in Miller's play to </FONT><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#FF0000>Ovid's "Four Ages"</FONT><FONT SIZE=3>(introduced in 7th grade), to </FONT><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#FF0000>Osirian</FONT><FONT SIZE=3> mythology (introduced in 7th grade), to </FONT><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#FF0000>Christian sacrifice</FONT><FONT SIZE=3>, to the origins of tragedy (both introduced in 9th grade), to </FONT><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#FF0000>Platonic</FONT><FONT SIZE=3> idealism (introduced in 10th grade), to </FONT><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#FF0000>Pyrrhonic</FONT><FONT SIZE=3> skepticism (introduced in 10th), and to a </FONT><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#FF0000>neo-Romantic</FONT><FONT SIZE=3> celebration of the attributes of nature (introduced in 10th).  </FONT></B></P> <P><BR CLEAR="all"><B><FONT SIZE=3>This "unification" of works that are separated in space and time--by both thousands of years and thousands of miles--helps us to understand the ways in which they participate in the on-going artistic and reflective narrative of human culture--a system of artifacts, representations and pronouncements that springs not only from our nature, but also from a fundamental set of concerns that we all share. These essential experiences and themes are applied and extended year after year, with the result that they become the tools and instruments of analysis--the knowledge of the history of a practice or idea; the knowledge of its make-up and origins; the knowledge of its various manifestations through time.  We call this "knowledge" having the ability to view culture "sub specie aeternitatis"--under the aspect of eternity, and under the aspect of its participation in pan-cultural, thoroughly human contexts and forms. </FONT></B></P> <P><BR CLEAR="all"><B><FONT SIZE=3>Imagine a <U>high school</U> where students and teacher might be engaged for five days in an animated discussion of Keats' </FONT><I><EM><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#FF0000>Ode on a Grecian Urn</FONT></EM></I><FONT SIZE=3>, linking it back to the legend of </FONT><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#FF0000>Canute</FONT><FONT SIZE=3>; to the plenum of </FONT><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#FF0000>Parmenides</FONT><FONT SIZE=3>; to the wisdom of </FONT><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#FF0000>Aeschylus</FONT><FONT SIZE=3>;</FONT></B></P> <P><BR CLEAR="all"><B><FONT SIZE=3>Or where the study of </FONT><I><STRONG><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#FF0000>Oedipus Rex</FONT></STRONG></I><FONT SIZE=3> interfaces with the </FONT><I><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#FF0000>Book of Job</FONT></I><FONT SIZE=3>, as well as with the theory of tragedy and its </FONT><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#FF0000>Dionysian</FONT><FONT SIZE=3> origins;</FONT></B></P> <P><BR CLEAR="all"><B><FONT SIZE=3>Or where a study of Arthur Miller's<I> </I></FONT><I><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#FF0000>Death of a Salesman</FONT></I><FONT SIZE=3> ranges back to the Epic of </FONT><I><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#FF0000>Gilgamesh</FONT></I><FONT SIZE=3>; forward to </FONT><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#FF0000>Osirian</FONT><FONT SIZE=3> resurrection mythology; forward again to </FONT><I><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#FF0000>Beowulf</FONT></I><FONT SIZE=3>, and forward again to </FONT><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#FF0000>Rousseau</FONT><FONT SIZE=3>, </FONT><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#FF0000>Thoreau</FONT><FONT SIZE=3> and Ray Bradbury's <I>"</I></FONT><I><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#FF0000>Sound of Thunder</FONT></I><FONT SIZE=3>";</FONT></B></P> <P><BR CLEAR="all"><B><FONT SIZE=3>Or where students can produce a graph that maps the inductive/deductive spiral of an essay by </FONT><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#FF0000>Mo-Tzu</FONT><FONT SIZE=3>;</FONT></B></P> <P><BR CLEAR="all"><B><FONT SIZE=3>Or where students animatedly discuss the naturalism of Crane's </FONT><I><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#FF0000>Red Badge</FONT></I><FONT SIZE=3>; or trace </FONT><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#FF0000>Heracleitan</FONT><FONT SIZE=3> influences in Shakespeare's </FONT><I><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#FF0000>Sonnet 60</FONT></I><FONT SIZE=3>; or make connections between the </FONT><I><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#FF0000>Bhagavad Gita</FONT></I><FONT SIZE=3>, the neo-Platonism of </FONT><STRONG><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#FF0000>Plotinus</FONT></STRONG><FONT SIZE=3>, and the </FONT><I><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#FF0000>Immortality Ode</FONT></I><FONT SIZE=3> of William Wordsworth;</FONT></B></P> <P><BR CLEAR="all"><B><FONT SIZE=3>Or where students select, edit and perform their own ensemble Reader's Theater performances, fusing selections from the work of </FONT><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#FF0000>Jack London</FONT><FONT SIZE=3>, </FONT><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#FF0000>Publius Ovidius Naso</FONT><FONT SIZE=3>, The </FONT><I><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#FF0000>Old Testament</FONT></I><FONT SIZE=3>, </FONT><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#FF0000>Tennessee Williams</FONT><FONT SIZE=3>, </FONT><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#FF0000>Kurt Vonnegut, </FONT><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#000000>and</FONT><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#FF0000> Shirley Jackson;</FONT></B></P> <P><BR CLEAR="all"><B><FONT SIZE=3>Or where students, on demand and as early as 7 grade, can write effective </FONT><I><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#FF0000>appositives</FONT></I><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#FF0000>, <I>introductory adverb clauses</I>, <I>introductory</I> or <I>non-essential participial phrases in several formulations, and a variety of sentence patterns</I></FONT><FONT SIZE=3>--and know full well what these and other grammatical and structural terms mean.</FONT></B></P> <TBODY> <B><FONT SIZE=3>               </FONT></B><P><B><FONT SIZE=3>         In practice, therefore, the six-year Humanities Strand evinces these features:</FONT></B></P> <P><B><FONT SIZE=3>                      </FONT><STRONG><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#0000FF>             Strong foundations in language, sentence structure,</FONT></STRONG></B></P> <P><B><STRONG><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#0000FF>                                   paragraphing and composition;</FONT></STRONG></B></P> <P><B><STRONG><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#0000FF>                                   Integrated, seamless coursework;</FONT></STRONG></B></P> <P><B><STRONG><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#0000FF>                                   Spiralling thematic organization;</FONT></STRONG></B></P> <P><B><STRONG><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=#0000FF>                                   Advanced Placement rigor at all levels.</FONT></STRONG></B></P> <P><A HREF="InternationalModel.htm" TARGET="_top"><font face=papyrus><FONT SIZE=3><B>Teachers Design High Powered Schools: Bellevue International School 1991, Lake Washington International School 1997, Marysville Arts & Technology 2003</U></FONT></B></A> <P><A HREF="Writing.htm" TARGET="_top"><font face=papyrus><FONT SIZE=3><B>Mastery Learning Writing Curriculum for Student Achievement </U></FONT></B></A></U> <P><A HREF="StartUpFAQ.htm" TARGET="_top"><font face=papyrus><FONT SIZE=3><B>SLC Myths: Making it Better vs. Making it New</STRONG></B></A> </U> <P><A HREF="Retention.htm" TARGET="_top"><font face=papyrus><FONT SIZE=3><B>Social Promotion...or Program Accountability?</U></FONT></B></A> <P><A HREF="Home.htm" TARGET="_top"><font face=papyrus><FONT SIZE=3><B>Transform the Instructional Culture</FONT></STRONG></B></A> <P><A HREF="Articulated.htm" TARGET="_top"><font face=papyrus><FONT SIZE=3><B>Thematic 9-12 Humanities & Literature Curriculum</U></FONT></STRONG></B></A> <P><A HREF="TestScores.htm" TARGET="_top"><font face=papyrus><FONT SIZE=3><B>Test Scores</I></U></FONT></STRONG></B></A> <P><A HREF="Academics.htm" TARGET="_top"><font face=papyrus><FONT SIZE=3><B>Essential Curriculum</FONT></B></A> </U> <P><A HREF="AdvancedPlacement.htm" TARGET="_top"><font face=papyrus><FONT SIZE=3><B>Articulated Curriculum</FONT></STRONG></B></A> </U></FONT> <P><A HREF="Products.htm" TARGET="_top"><font face=papyrus><FONT SIZE=3><B>Improving Instructional Effectiveness</FONT></B></A> <P><FONT SIZE=2><A HREF="BruceSaariCV.htm" TARGET="_top">Saari CV</A> </FONT></B></P> <P><FONT SIZE=2 COLOR=#000000>E mail address: saari@topschools.com</FONT></A></P> </BODY>