A D.C. School Meant to Inspire Teachers and Students
By Emily Langhorne | January 16, 2019
Where teachers train and students learn by following their interests, expressing their creativity, and thinking for themselves
Washington, D.C.
Artwork and projects decorate the light blue walls of Inspired Teaching Demonstration School, an inquiry-based learning public charter school now in its eighth year.
A colorful 鈥渂ody map,鈥� with the organs labeled, covers the door of one prekindergarten classroom. On the wall outside the other pre-K classroom hang drawings of guitars because the class read a picture book about the childhood of Jimi Hendrix when learning about musical instruments. Down the hall, the 3-year-old class has been experimenting with paints, both watercolors and temperas.
Everything displayed on the walls of the three-story building on Douglas Street NE in D.C.鈥檚 Ward 5 is student-made.
鈥淭eachers really value our creativity here,鈥� says Takhari Millner, a seventh-grader who has been attending ITDS since kindergarten.
Ranked a tier-one public charter school by the D.C. Public Charter School Board, ITDS opened in 2011 and serves 472 students in prekindergarten through eighth grade. There鈥檚 two classes per grade, except for seventh and eighth grade, which will each expand from one class to two when the school reaches its roughly 525-student capacity in 2020. For the 2018-19 school year, ITDS received 1,745 applications for 125 spots. Its waiting list currently has 913 students.
ITDS students have consistently outperformed their peers in both the public charter school sector and District of Columbia Public Schools on state exams, yet test prep and standardization are the antithesis of the school鈥檚 model. Born out of a partnership with the Center for Inspired Teaching, ITDS operates a demonstration school for the best practices in inquiry-based teaching and active learning methods.
For teachers by teachers
In 2009, the , a national organization based out of D.C. that鈥檚 dedicated to teacher professionalism and experiential learning, brought together a group of educators to create a school that showcased the center鈥檚 instructional model.
Deborah Dantzler Williams, the founding head of school, previously worked as the center鈥檚 director of strategic partnerships.
鈥淭he center had partnerships with public schools around the city,鈥� she says. 鈥淚鈥檇 talk with principals, wanting to share CIT鈥檚 philosophies, but often, they had looked up my background and seen that I came from an independent school environment. They were suspicious, thinking, 鈥榃ell, you worked in schools that test and pick kids, so how can what you know be relevant to us? Where can we see this type of instructional model being done in a public school? On a typical budget?鈥� We couldn鈥檛 avoid those questions anymore.鈥�
鈥淏eing a charter school was really our only option,鈥� says Kate Keplinger, ITDS鈥檚 chief operating officer and lead author of the school鈥檚 charter. 鈥淥ur mission is focused on public education, but we needed a place where we could be innovative and different. Within DCPS, we wouldn鈥檛 have the same freedom and ability to make the kinds of decisions that we needed to make about how we were going to teach within and staff our school.鈥�
The Center for Inspired Teaching wanted to create a school that could be a changemaker in the realm of public education 鈥� a place where they could share best practices with educators, policymakers, and community members. Part of that goal meant creating a place that could serve as a training site for teachers. Through the Inspired Teaching Residency Program, teachers can earn both their master鈥檚 in teaching and their D.C. teaching license through coursework and a residency year spent working in an ITDS classroom, under the supervision of an experienced teacher.
Teacher residents follow a 鈥済radual release鈥� training. First, they observe the experienced teacher; then they begin teaching small portions of the class; and finally, they take over the teaching entirely. During the second year of the program, teacher residents obtain a full-time teaching position in a D.C. public school. After successful completion of the residency, they must work an additional four years in D.C. public schools to receive full tuition reimbursement.
How to think, not what to think
To explain inquiry-based learning, ITDS鈥檚 leadership compares schooling to a taking a trip. At a traditional school, teachers decide where the journey (the learning) will start and end, but they also decide the vehicle needed for travel as well as all the sites that will be seen. At an inquiry-based school, teachers still pick the starting point and the destination, but the class helps choose the mode of travel and the route. Teachers navigate (keep students on track) without controlling the entirety of the expedition.
ITDS relies on outside curriculum 鈥� including Creative Curriculum, a research-based preschool curriculum that features exploration and discovery as pathways for learning, and Readers-Writers Workshop, where teachers act as reading-writing coaches showing students how to read and write rather than telling them 鈥斅燽ut there are no prescribed lesson plans. The curriculum and standards drive what students need to know; teacher and student interests determine how to get there.
For instance, in Ash Moser鈥檚 English language arts class, students had to meet a writing standard that required them to research a topic, take notes, and communicate what they鈥檇 learned by creating a nonfiction text. Moser didn鈥檛 assign topics. Instead, he let the students choose. However, their nonfiction text had to be 鈥渁 product with a purpose.鈥� So one student researched allergies and made a brochure about them, which she is now handing out to doctor鈥檚 offices. Another student researched porcupines and created a placard for a zoo exhibit. She鈥檚 currently attempting to obtain permission to post it at D.C.鈥檚 famed National Zoo.
鈥淲hen students get to see that there鈥檚 value in what they鈥檙e doing 鈥� a purpose to their education beyond getting a grade of passing a test 鈥� they see why education matters. Here, teachers are encouraged to make learning highly motivated and purposeful,鈥� says Moser.
In the inquiry-based learning model, teachers are still considered providers of information, but they are also the instigators of student curiosity and provokers of original student thought.
鈥淥ur teachers are really kind,鈥� says sixth-grader Tara Roberts. 鈥淭hey actually care about what you鈥檙e doing and how you do it. Before I came here, I was at a school where you could do the work you were assigned, and when you鈥檇 finished, you could play with Legos. I didn鈥檛 like that at all. The teaching style here is that you can do things in different ways, and that your choices matter.鈥�
鈥淎 pillar of our school is very much how to think, not what to think,鈥� says Monisha Karnani, ITDS鈥檚 director of demonstration and outreach. 鈥淔or instance, students don鈥檛 wear uniforms here. That was an intentional choice. As an adult, most professions don鈥檛 require uniforms. You have to decide for yourself, 鈥榃hat is appropriate dress in this context, and why?鈥� For all our rules, we explain the 鈥榳hy鈥� to students and allow room for conversation about that 鈥榳hy.鈥欌��
This ethos attracted teacher Tamas O’Doughda to the school. He鈥檇 gone on several interviews at other D.C. public schools before coming across ITDS. 鈥淔rom many of those, my impression of the culture was: 鈥榊ou must follow this lesson plan exactly,鈥欌�� he says. 鈥淗ere, the first question they asked me was 鈥榃hat鈥檚 your educational philosophy?鈥� And Ms. Dantzler Williams even said, 鈥榊ou have a lack of rigidity. That鈥檚 great.鈥� My last administrator would have seen that as a weakness, but here, the leadership sees the value in exploration. Everything doesn鈥檛 have to be mapped out. You don鈥檛 have to teach students in just one way.鈥�
鈥淭he freedom to have some more out-of-the-box ideas in how to let students learn has really kept me here,鈥� says science teacher Jodi Ash. 鈥淲e鈥檝e had a lot of fun teaching and learning science, and that鈥檚 had an impact on me as an educator and how my kids feel about science. They burst into songs when they hear words from the periodic table. There鈥檚 a lot of joy in learning here.鈥�
Liane Alves, an ITDS prekindergarten teacher and former teacher resident, agrees. 鈥淭eaching here is both very fun and very challenging,鈥� she says. 鈥淏ecause of the inquiry-based model, learning here is bottom-up, based on what students are interested in, rather than top-down, based on what I know. So I have to learn a lot because I have to research what they want to learn. I鈥檝e researched robots, vehicles, and city planning. This year, there鈥檚 a lot of interest in space.鈥�
This school does everything differently
At ITDS, there isn鈥檛 a heavy reliance on technology. From third grade up, each student has their own tablet, but devices are only used if they can enhance learning, never merely to check a box, and the school has no SMART boards 鈥� another intentional choice.
Regardless, the has identified ITDS as an exemplar school. The designation signals that the school uses 21st century learning initiatives that are successfully preparing students for college, career, and life. At ITDS, that preparation comes from a school-wide emphasis on project-based learning as a method for enhancing students鈥� critical and creative thinking.
Each trimester, students complete culminating projects in their core subjects. At the end of the trimester, students show off their projects at 鈥淟earning Showcase,鈥� an evening event where families come to see what the classes have been working on. It鈥檚 a great community builder, and school leaders say family participation is above 90 percent.
In Courtney McIntosh-Peter鈥檚 sixth-grade math class, students finished their study of ratios by examining Cubist artist鈥檚 Piet Mondrian鈥檚 . First, they determined the ratios of the colored squares in his art. Then they had to create art using assigned ratios. Finally, they had to create an original work of art and explain the ratios that they chose.
Last year, when Black Panther came out, Jodi Ash鈥檚 sixth-graders were working on their chemistry unit. As a class, they debated where, given what they knew about its composition, vibranium, , would be located on the periodic table. Then Ash assigned each student a single element from which they had to derive a superpower. Based on the element鈥檚 properties, students created their own superhero franchise, complete with comic books, costumes, and theme songs. They paraded through the school, singing their theme songs and wearing their costumes.
Ash Moser鈥檚 class also held a funeral procession for all the 鈥渄ead words鈥� they would no longer use in their writing. On the wall of his classroom is 鈥淢oser Hill Cemetery,鈥� where lifeless words are laid to rest, marked by paper cutouts of tombstones that bear names like 鈥淕ood,鈥� 鈥淏ad,鈥� 鈥淎wesome,鈥� and 鈥淐ool.鈥�
In Matthew Wong鈥檚 second-grade class, students created campaign posters for different characters from Roald Dahl鈥檚 books. In November, they held an election to determine the school鈥檚 favorite character. The winner, in a landslide victory, was Matilda. The standard the class was studying? Character development.
鈥淭his school does everything differently than other schools I鈥檝e been to,鈥� says fifth-grader Alexis Brown. 鈥淣o other school that I know of does intersession.鈥�
Intersession is the highlight of the school year for many students. During the week before winter and spring break, every adult in the building picks a topic they鈥檇 like to explore in depth with a small, mixed-grade group of students for four school days. Students then sign up for the session that interests them most. Previous options have included: martial arts, photography, creative writing, cooking, T-shirt design, winter engineering, improv, student newspaper, and more.
But can it be replicated?
Many ITDS parents want the school to expand through 12th grade. Numerous community members want it to replicate. However, neither growth nor replication are in ITDS鈥檚 plans.
鈥淭he demonstration model was not meant to be replicated by us, but to be replicated by other schools,鈥� says Karnani.
鈥淭he idea is to get this model perfected to a place where other schools can replicate it,鈥� says Dantzler Williams. 鈥淲e think we can reach more kids in the District of Columbia that way.鈥�
The school welcomes visitors. This year, they鈥檝e already hosted teachers and principals from DCPS, Montgomery County Public Schools, and the Alpine School District in Utah. However, questions remain about the practicality of widespread replication.
鈥淐IT has always believed that teachers are the key agents for change,鈥� says Keplinger. 鈥淏ut the real question is, how do they compare to the human resource person in a big central office? We only let people work here who are philosophically inclined to our beliefs, and we screen our staff heavily for that. You can鈥檛 replicate our model in a school that lacks the ability to make those decisions.鈥�
ITDS is also a member of the , an organization dedicated to creating racially and socioeconomically diverse charter schools through advocacy, research, and outreach. Its student population is racially diverse: 45 percent of students are white, 37 percent African-American, 7 percent Hispanic, 3 percent Asian, and 9 percent multiracial. Fifty-nine percent of the faculty are people of color. The leadership works via recruitment efforts to keep it that way. However, only 22 percent of the students are designated as economically disadvantaged, a much lower number than both the 77 percent for all DCPS schools and those of many struggling district schools where teachers face challenges specific to educating children in poverty.
However, Dantzler Williams believes that the essential elements of the school 鈥� teacher voice and professionalism, the core beliefs, and project-based learning 鈥� are applicable in schools throughout the District. And former teacher residents bring the training, philosophy, and practices that they鈥檝e learned at ITDS with them when they accept positions at the city鈥檚 other public schools.
鈥淲e still very much believe this model can be replicated,鈥� says Dantzler Williams. 鈥淏ut we are still figuring out a lot of the key pieces. Like our students, we are learning on a regular basis.鈥�
Lead Image:聽Inspired Teaching Demonstration School student Mark Hopwood glues tiles together to create a mosaic for winter Intersession, a weeklong opportunity for students and adults to dive deep into a topic of learning outside of the normal academic program. (Inspired Teaching Demonstration School)
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