Millennium School & Greater Good Science Center Announce Partnership

Millennium School, a developmental science-based middle school opening in San Francisco, and the Greater Good Science Center, a UC-Berkeley institute studying the psychology, sociology, and neuroscience of well-being, are delighted to announce a new partnership. Together their collective work will enable Millennium School to apply leading research in the design of a new middle school model, while generating ongoing action research, reporting and professional development through Greater Good. The shared mission of the partnership is to design and implement education approaches focused on the development of happy, compassionate individuals inspired to make a positive impact in the world.

Since its founding in 2001, Greater Good has become a widely trusted resource for those interested in the science of pro-social human development. Their work is known for both its approachability and its rigorous scientific grounding, drawing on neuroscience, psychology, and other fields of research. Vicki Zakrzewski, Ph.D. and Education Director at GGSC, will join Millennium in an advisory capacity as its Prosocial Psychologist in Residence.

This partnership supports Millennium's vision of a broader definition of success - seeing school as not only a place to gain academic knowledge, but also a place to develop the awareness and skills for a happy, purposeful life. It supports our aim of being a laboratory school, in the spirit of the great progressive laboratory schools founded by John Dewey and others, to apply the best developmental research and invite students to see their studies, and their lives, as an ongoing laboratory for learning. 

We look forward to sharing more as this partnership develops, not only for Millennium staff, parents, and students, but also for other educators interested in a middle school model built on developmental neuroscience and psychology. This research supports our three central themes for adolescents - developing a health sense of self, discovering how to form strong bonds with others, and learning how to apply oneself with purpose in the real world. These fundamentals support deep academic learning, and most importantly, a meaningful adult life.