Schools Can be Powerful Communities

Meier, D. (1993). 'Transforming schools into powerful communities.' Teachers College Record, 94(3) pp. 654-658. http://www.tcrecord.org

Meier (1993) writes with warmth and compassion about her experiences and philosophies in developing a school community in a 'difficult' area of New York. She argues for the creating of relationships around issues, life and the things that matter to young people.

You cannot learn to play tennis if you have not seen it played. You cannot teach children the power of wonderful ideas if they have not been immersed in a community that cares about wonderful ideas, that believes in them. That explores them, and that puts them into practice. (p. 655)

Meier writes that the impact of a good school has far-reaching effects, not only for the students and their academic achievements, but also for the entire constellation of family and student beliefs in their powers and ability to handle their worlds. Students need teachers who care, who have contact over extended periods of time, who create a community around students, school and family, know their students in fundamental ways, who foster intellectual curiosity, who act as serious mentors, who engage in discussion and debate, who mix up younger and older age groups, who realise that we learn from experts, who recognise various stages of expertise, and who believe that young people need to learn from their families. She describes the creation of small school clusters within the grounds of a traditional large school building, with each small school having its own principal, parent community and operating life.

The size of a school should be based on the number of teachers who can gather around a table together. (p. 657)

Furthermore, she advocates inviting other people, such as health services, family services and after-school services into school buildings in order to share the load of creating supportive communities.

Meier describes an in-depth study that followed up, with telephone conversations and face-to-face interviews, with 119 of the initial 135 students from the first seven graduating classes of her inner-city school (1978-1985).

It turns out that even though they left our school following sixth grade, before the onslaught of adolescence, and most went to pretty terrible schools, schools that did not graduate most of their incoming ninth graders, the CPE students survived. In fact, 90 per cent managed to earn high school diplomas, and another 6 per cent received general education diplomas. We did not have any direct relationship with them after they were twelve years old - nevertheless, contrary to the usual proportions in high schools, two-thirds went on to college. (p. 655)
[It is] the human relationships we create that give young people the courage and ability to create other healthy relationships on their own. (p. 658)

A more complete account of Meier's experiences at her inner city school can be found at: Meier, D. W. (1995). The power of their ideas: Lessons for America from a small school in Harlem. Boston: Beacon Press.