Our Kurt Hahn Expeditionary Learning School is in the New York Times for their students' involvement in the City Council's participatory budgeting process, which garnered the school and its 45th district $450,000 to dramatically increase safety by placing lights in the district’s parks and in the field behind the school's Tilden Educational Campus in East Flatbush, Brooklyn.
Engaging Curriculum
- Our students are taught to think critically & creatively.
- Our students experience the excitement of learning.
- Our students are being prepared for the 21st-century workplace.
Visitors to our Expeditionary Learning schools will notice a distinct difference between the ways that traditional students learn and engage with content, and the way that Expeditionary Learning students do. At an Expeditionary Learning school, students and adults alike have active roles in the classroom, which creates a relationship to knowledge that inspires and motivates everyone to explore and discover.
Experience is at the center of our curriculum, which is primarily delivered through learning expeditions--long-term, in-depth investigations of compelling topics that are aligned with City and State standards. Because teachers select the topic they will use to bring the standards to life for students, the subject matter is injected with a personal passion and enthusiasm that students could never find by simply studying a traditional textbook.
Extensive fieldwork, original research and the use of outside experts guide students on their investigative journeys, as they search for answers to questions that they have come to care deeply about. Along the way, the entire learning community is continually supported by our “Crew, Not Passengers” motto and its associated structures, which promote, among other things, individual and collective ownership over learning. Finally, at the culmination of each expedition, students cull the best of their newfound knowledge to create high-quality products that are presented to audiences in public demonstrations of learning -- the capstone event of every expedition.
“There should be an Expeditionary Learning School in every neighborhood in this country, as it is the only design, that I am aware of, where experience is at the center and the things which we experience are those we best remember.”
—Tom Vander Ark, former Executive Director, Education, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
“The Expeditionary Learning model compels us to do work in school that has real, authentic consequences.”
—Elijah Hawkes, founding principal, The James Baldwin School
"In the years that I’ve been teaching, [Expeditionary Learning is] the single best model of learning for kids and the most satisfying model for teachers, because the kids are working on real projects, their work holds great value, and you are stretching them academically."
—Jennifer Wood, teacher
“When you walk through the NYC Outward Bound schools, you really do get the sense that these kids are working with very high expectations, that they really are being pushed and prepared for college in all the ways possible.”
—Adam Tucker, Senior Program Officer, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
“This kind of innovative school…is an example of how all our schools should be.”
—President Obama after visiting an Expeditionary Learning school in Washington D.C
Recent News
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NY Times Covers Kurt Hahn Students City Council Involvement April 9, 2012 -
NY Daily News Features Kurt Hahn Senior Expo April 3, 2012Mark Morales of the NY Daily News covers Kurt Hahn Expeditionary Learning School senior exit projects at their public Senior Expo. Students presented their findings and educated their peers on a diverse array of real-world problems endemic to the high school’s East Flatbush neighborhood in Brooklyn such as gang violence, teen pregnancy and immigration issues.
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Univision/Telefutura Explores NYC Outward Bound Schools January 10, 2012Univision's sister television network Telefutura has produced an in-depth, Spanish-language segment on our network of public Expeditionary Learning schools, our mission, and our unique approach to education. "En Tu Comunidad" features NYC Outward Bound's Strategic Sponsorship Officer Deborah Castillero, our Validus Preparatory Academy's Principal Javier Ocampo, and our Washington Heights Expeditionary Learning School's Assistant Principal Jenny Rodriguez.
