Before school is a time that showcases the culture of Long-View. It is an organic space for agency, choice, and trust. As you walk through the classrooms, you see adults and kids engaging in learning in a way that fits individual needs and interests.
School starts at 9am, but kids arrive as early as 8:15. Learners choose how they use this time and they interact with a variety of teachers and peers, building cross-age connections.
While there are planned clubs and workshops led by teachers, there is also an organic nature to the mornings that aligns with a culture supportive of ideas that children generate and a belief that agency is an essential component of the school experience. In addition, there are opportunities for leadership and challenge, as all clubs, leadership positions, and workshops are open to everyone; some assume a particular set of skills or level of engagement, with room for negotiation if a child is keen to really lean into challenge.
Before-school at Long-View can look like:
Learner-led clubs such as Drama Club or Crochet Club
Teacher-led workshops, such as Birding in the Park, Creative Writing, Chem Club, Open Math, or Code-Along
A teacher and student collaboratively planning an upcoming Campfire
Learners reading on their own
Learners in classrooms working on projects, such as for Science Fair
Library Guild members checking in books or re-organizing the library
Big + Little Math wherein “big” learners are actively coaching “little” learners engaging in a mathematics problem set
Learners building in the Makerspace or attending a workshop to learn how to use a new tool
Learners engaging in History Club, which is run seminar-style and requires preparatory reading (high school level+) to discuss questions—such as What is class consciousness and how did industrialization contribute to its increase?—that anchor rich discussions
Being part of a book club, focused on a book like The Confidence Code
Teacher-led phonics intervention or a visual-spatial instructional group
Campfire launches the day as a dynamic experience that is grounded in intellectual curiosity and choice.
For 20 minutes every morning, teachers and learners of all bands sit side-by-side in informal but high-level conversations. The hope is that this daily routine of open access to and meaningful engagement in diverse and rigorous topics seeds the opportunity to grow new interests, supports the forming of opinions, and provides a chance to take part in rigorous conversations as a broad intellectual community.
Learners and teachers both share in the facilitation of the Campfire experiences; Campfires can be led by learners, teachers, and even field experts and community leaders. As the school day begins, everyone selects the “Campfire” topic that is most interesting to them—and typically there is a choice of three Campfires. The topics across a recent week were:
Do bees understand the concept of zero?
What happens to an ecosystem when a border wall goes through it?
How can we change the thinking and learning patterns of our own brains?
Should schools have a plant-based meal day?
Fractals and the coastline paradox
Action painting and postwar culture
Tweaking the Spotify algorithm
Aviation during the Cold War
Campfire is key in helping learners understand the importance of being part of a learning community. In addition, the wide range of topics that are not typical “school-type topics,” supports development of intellectual curiosity. Because Campfires are high-level and all ages are invited as equal contributors to the dialogue, children are motivated by the opportunity to develop interests that stretch far outside of the topics traditionally presented at their grade level. Furthermore, engaging with outside experts through Campfires pushes learners to broaden their learning community beyond the walls of Long-View.
Park is a time where learners and adults step away from academics and eat lunch and play in a nearby 84-acre public park. Park is valued as much as the academic elements of the Long-View experience.
Park is an hour in the middle of the day, 11:30-12:30; learners interact in ways that they choose and the diversity of the park—creek, meadow, large trees, and animals—provides context for high-quality play.
The adults are mindfully observant but not controlling or “managing” the play—they allow children to engage in free play and then work with them to set boundaries as needed for safety and well-being. During this time, learners:
Create games and facilitate other positive forms of engagement/play in a setting that is a “blank slate,” i.e. without traditional playground equipment but rich with natural variety, such as a meadow, large trees, and a creek
Increase their understanding of conflict and practice effective resolution of conflict
Connect to nature, which often provides a sense of relaxation and relief from stress
Assess their environment: evaluating risks and taking on challenges helps children build confidence, lean into challenge, and learn to be adaptable
Develop an appreciation of and commitment to stewardship of public spaces purposed for community gathering
Lunches are brought from home and are enjoyed at picnic tables near Shoal Creek, in the Live Oaks dotting the surrounding meadow, or while chatting or playing with friends.
After-school classes extend the day to 4pm, and offer a chance to find new passions.
Though the school day ends at 2:30, each semester we work to curate a variety of after school offerings.
There is typically a mix of returning classes and new classes, which run from about 2:35 pm to 4:00 pm, hosted by vendors that utilize the Long-View classrooms. There are usually one to three choices each day and parents sign up at the start of each semester. About a month or so before a semester begins (around August 1 for the fall semester and December 1 for the spring semester), Long-View will send out a consolidated list of offerings for that upcoming semester. Past classes have included Chess, Sewing, Mandarin, German, Architecture/Wicked Workshop, Spanish (Beginning, Intermediate, or Advanced), ATX Kids Club (off campus), and Dungeons & Dragons.
Learners engage in Build Weeks—immersive, rigorous, and collaborative project-based learning experiences—twice a year.
Two times a year regular academic classes are paused for a week to allow the space for Long-View learners to dive deeply into challenges that provide exposure to new concepts and ideas. Creative constraints around each Build Week’s unique challenge allow Long-View learners to work at the edge of their skills.
The Long-View teaching team works together to conceive of and plan for each week-long experience, aspiring to create a novel and multi-faceted experience that even they, as adults, don’t quite know how to approach. This stance ensures that Build Week does not feel like a typical school project, and doesn’t have a pre-conceived solution that adults are just guiding the kids towards. Challenges often include connections to outside organizations, such as Austin Science and Nature Center, and content experts and professors at UT.
Although there is typically some tangible product delivered at the conclusion of Build Week, the most important aspect of Build Week is the learners’ complete immersion in all the messiness—their embrace of the ambiguity of authentic learning. Teachers focus on orchestrating rich learning experiences, and then coach into areas of tension related to collaboration, leadership, problem-solving, use of tools, or communication.
The greatest value of Build Week is found in the actual process: the discipline of critical research; the struggle of brainstorming and choosing viable solutions; the patience, analysis, and willingness to receive feedback in order to deliver the solution; the struggle to gain consensus on a team or lead a group towards a goal; and the reflection during and after the project is completed.
A highlight of the year is the Long-View Cardboard Boat Regatta.
Once a year, in May, we hold our Long-View Cardboard Boat Regatta. This community-wide event was actually a spin-off from Build Week #4—the “daredevil” challenge was so popular that the Long-View kids took charge of making sure it was part of the annual cycle of each school year.
The annual challenge is to form teams of 2-4 members and collaborate to design and build a boat using ONLY cardboard and duct tape. The human-powered boat must carry one crew member (“the captain”) to the middle of Lake Austin and back, navigating the regatta course along the way. Teams have to research, sketch, design, prototype, and iterate their boat, keeping record of their process because the captain of each boat has to present the boat’s blueprint in order to be cleared to enter the water on the day of the Regatta. Throughout the months leading up to the Regatta, kids who are experienced hold before-school workshops and Campfires on topics like “Prototyping + Buoyancy” or “Working With Cardboard.” In addition, most of the “Yacht Club Staff Roles” are filled by kids, so the whole feel of the event is not meant to be polished and perfect, but rather casual, quirky, and fun. The Long-View Cardboard Boat Regatta is very “Long-View” and likely an event you would likely not see occur at most schools!