Guest post by Kim Farris-Berg Whenever I try to explain to folks about the schools I've seen where middle- and high-school student congresses have a voting branch of school governance, I usually get the same response. That is, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Student governments have no real authority. They're made up of popular people whose job is to pick the prom theme and make other decisions about social activities." Um . . . no. That's not what it means to have a voting branch of school governance. But the fact that student government is understood to be nothing more than a prom-theme selection committee ...

The conclusion of the 10-part video series A Year at Mission Hill prompted one of its teachers, Kathy Klunis, to reflect on what she's learned along the way, and realize just how vital trust is to the process of creating a healthy school.

Have you watched the 10-part video series A Year at Mission Hill and thought, "That's great, but I can't do that in my school." Well, what if you could? Educator Kim Farris-Berg explains how.

Guest post by Zac Chase In his essay "I - Thou - It," David Hawkins describes the triangular relationship between the teacher, the student and the content of learning. He refers to that final piece as the "It" of education -- the larger themes of a unit and the key principles a school espouses and attempts to enact in a child's education. Throughout A Year at Mission Hill, much time has been spent examining the "How" of a school. From the importance of making learning real to the family structure Mission Hill wraps its community within, it could appear at ...

For too many American children, Suzanne Collins' bestelling book The Hunger Games isn't just an interesting read; it's a disturbingly prescient description of the daily challenges they face.

Democracy rests on having respect for the judgment of ordinary people. And in the final chapter of the 10-part video series about the Mission Hill School in Boston, we're reminded that when you have faith in the capacity of ordinary people, they become capable of extraordinary things.

What central theories of education and learning are we seeing played out in real-time via the 10-part video series, A Year at Mission Hill? Doctoral student Zac Chase has some ideas.

How do schools create the ideal learning organizations -- for young and old alike? Doctoral student (and former teacher) Zac Chase has some ideas.

At the Mission Hill School in Boston, teachers decide which ways to assess their students, and why. Educator Kim Farris-Berg imagines what it would like like if all teachers across the country were similarly trusted.

In this era of the school turnaround, what should a struggling school be turning into - and how can we know if it's working? Sam Chaltain has some ideas, but they would require a sea change in how we think about assessing whether or not students are learning.