A visiting parent asked a 6th grade girl how she was adapting to starting middle school. Even the beginning of her answer stopped me in my tracks: "At my old school, my teacher didn't know how much we knew." I wondered what exactly was going to come next.
Read MoreIt turns out there are more answers to this simple question than you may think. Last term, students in one of our interdisciplinary Quest projects approached this question from a variety of perspectives and landed on some solid ground…
Read MoreAt Millennium, many of our learning experiences are organized as Quests. Like a heroic journey, a Quest is meant to be immersive, surprising, and of course interdisciplinary, as life is. Here's a peek into one currently going on.
Read MoreOur approach is about making learning personal, social, and relevant. One of our best tools for making learning relevant is to create apprenticeships for each Millennium student, where they go
Read MoreWe concluded our school year with a camping expedition near Mt. Shasta. One of our faculty members, Michael Fisher, tells the tale of what for many was the "peak experience" of this week-long adventure:
Read MoreFor our final STEM quest of the year, students took up the challenge of becoming agents of change for the environment. Having studied food webs and ecosystems, as well as climate
Read MoreThe students filed into a sleek conference room at a high-tech San Francisco company, dressed in business casual. With no small amount of excitement and trepidation they gazed at the six
Read MoreOur faculty member Michael Fisher just published an article on the website of the Greater Good Science Center at UC-Berkeley. He describes how Trump's election tested our abilities for
Read MoreWe had a beautiful evening this past week, with current parents and students welcoming 26 incoming families to the Millennium School community. What a trip for all of us to see how much
Read MoreWe're honored to have had another media story lately, in the Bertelsmann Foundation's Change Magazine. For a little extra challenge, the article is in German! However, the magazine created a 3
Read MoreThis week our Quest started with a genuine social science experiment. With little introduction, students were presented with a series ofimages from the micro-lending
Read MoreWe're honored to to have Millennium School profiled this week by Pioneering, the publication of Education Reimagined. Special thanks to Dr. Melina Uncapher, Education Director of the UCSF
Read MoreA group of students clustered around an ultrasound monitor, totally absorbed in watching the grainy images of the fetus moving inside the womb. A doctor hovered
Read MoreNext week at Millennium School we have our spring intersession, the week between terms when we dive into an intensive, short-term project to refresh ourselves and explore some new territory
Read MoreAt Millennium, each six-week academic term revolves around two Quests - deep, interdisciplinary projects that our faculty craft based on student interests, trends in the world, or special
Read MoreWe've all seen it - the triumphantly "too cool for school" middle schooler. Where did our passionate learner go, who was so determined to learn how to walk, who loved elementary
Read MoreIt's a common refrain in education that students rise to the level of expectations. Indeed, there is compelling research showing that when teachers hold lower or higher expectations for particular
Read MoreAs legend has it, kids in middle school ask their parents to drop them off a block away from school, so they aren't seen together at drop-off time. Does this really happen? Yes, sometimes!
Read MoreVisitors often ask what we're learning from our first few months of running a school. We could fill a book or two with the full answer, but here are five lessons that come to mind right away:
Read MorePeople often ask what it means to have an "emergent" curriculum - does that mean you're just making up what to teach each term? Well, yes and no.
Read More
