16 Beals Street, Brookline MA 02446

The National Classroom ^® seeks collaborative partners — teachers, administrators, coaches, schools, and districts — for projects of expansive pedagogy ™ in the 2024-2025 school year.

We have re-invented the Entering History project for these complex times. The project will begin in late September 2024, using Zoom, email, and US Mail to open the project to participants from a wider geographic area. We will work in partnership with teachers, parents, students, and other interested persons in the context of re-opened schools, distance learning, home schooling, community programs, and other contexts. We invite you to join the project. The Entering History Project 24-25 is described in the attached documents. Click here.

Earlier National Classroom projects have included:

• teaching analytic writing through the study of US History in the elementary grades and middle schools
• teaching informational reading and writing through Ocean Animal Studies in the classroom and more — their characteristics, lives, habits, and habitats
• school therapy — collaborative work to change problematic interactions, at the child and adult levels.

For further information, please contact Barney Brawer at (617) 905-3156 or barney.brawer@thenationalclassroom.com

The Entering History project and an extensive proposal for implementation were developed in 2011 at the Michael J. Perkins School, K-5, in the Boston Public Schools, but were not supported at that time. Please click here for that detailed proposal.

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The curriculum work of The National Classroom^® has been built upon the vision embodied in a project in the 1970's known as the Whole Earth Curriculum. That perspective is described beautifully in a 1976 article by Roger Landrum, director of the project, The Warp and Woof of Curriculum Development. Click here for Roger's article.

Please click here for the prospectus of our Ocean Studies and Climate Change curriculum project.

As we enter the era of Common Core State Standards, it is helpful to understand Massachusetts' experience with its recent academic standards and an achievement testing system considered among the best in the nation. The attached document, Defining and Requiring Academic Achievement: Carnegie Units, MCAS, and the Meaning of a High School Diploma, describes in detail the following:

• the history of diploma requirements in the United States
• the educational and political dynamics which led to the creation of Massachusetts' MCAS tests and the legal challenge to the test as a diploma requirement
• the academic content of MCAS
• performance patterns of the first five years: by race, Special Needs, Limited English Proficiency, urban and suburban schools, growth, and "gaps"
• challenges for the future.

 Click here for the report, Defining and Requiring Academic Achievement.

	Our first podcast, How to Help Your Child Succeed in School, is now available. Please click here. The podcast is available in Spanish: Cómo ayudar a sus hijos a triunfar en la escuela. Please click here for the Spanish version.
	Please click here for the transcript of Putting Our Money Where Our Future Is: Strategies for Divesting and Investing. This presentation, sponsored by Climate Action Brookline on March 9, 2015, describes the movement to lead universities, pension funds, and other institutional investors to divest from fossil fuel companies and explains how individuals and organizations can invest in clean energy alternatives.
	We are seeking resources to implement our Entering History proposal. Please click here for a copy of that document.
	The National Classroom®, Inc. is distributing a powerful film about race, education, and personal transformation: Walk Right In, the story of the Yale Summer High School. Click here for a short description of the film. For further information, please contact Barney Brawer by email or phone, as listed above.
	Please click here to read It's Our Turn: What We Owe to Future Generations, a personal mission statement by Barney Brawer, president of The National Classroom®, Inc.