How Best to be a Teacher?

Steven interviewing 4 PLC teens for a podcast episode

When teachers become unhappy with teaching in a conventional school, they often begin looking around at what options are out there.

Learning Together in a Time of Crisis

Laptop showing zoom call with notes in a notebook below

Across the LL network, centers are moving their programming to an online platform, often offering many of the formerly in-person activities and opportunities in a new online format, as well as adding a number of new options.

Bay State Shares “Sam’s Story”

Two boys sitting on the stage, collaborating

The stories of young people at Liberated Learners centers who came from a conventional school environment where they struggled to fit in are always deeply moving.

Learning is Natural, School is Optional

Five happy North Star Teens, from cover of Learning is Natural, School is Optional

That’s the North Star slogan, adopted for Liberated Learners centers, and now the title of Ken Danford’s new book: Learning is Natural, School is Optional: The North Star approach to offering teens a head start on life.

Common Sense Learning

“Common Core-aligned” has become the quality control test by which we measure a legitimate education. Perhaps, “Common Sense-aligned” is a better marker of a solid education.

The Secret Club

Up until recently I didn’t even know that learning could be fun because it was always a set curriculum that you HAD to do. Now that I’m at Embark I have realized that learning can be different.

Does This Count…

… is a question I hear frequently – the last time being  1 pm Friday afternoon, from a Deep Root Center teen at the end of our mentoring session.

Move over, Rigor

Years ago, a good friend of mine said something that just stuck with me.  “I could care less about rigor”—surprising words from an honors-level high school teacher. “What I care about is vigor.”