The Independent Project at Monument Mountain Regional High School in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, shows great potential for student voice and student/adult partnerships.
Regarded as a “school within a school”, the project was intended to, “create a school that allows young people to be completely invested and to move every kind of human being through the same gate.”
Student-driven learning fills this space, which is focused on science, history, math, and reading and writing. They work on individual endeavors and group projects, and address serious social issues throughout their learning. Students work intensively with adult mentors in Student/Adult Partnerships, and self-actualize their investment and ownership in their own learning.
Although the school operates in sync with an adult-led mainstream high school, the story of the Independent Project is exceptional because it is a student-driven effort focused on improving education for all students, and not merely those who started it.
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