William Glasser once said about learning for children:  "Learning is serious, but that doesn't mean it has to be grim."  That certainly applies to teachers as learners.

In recent decades there has been much talk about the education of the “whole child”, as opposed to the artificial separation of the child’s cognitive functioning from the rest of the child and his life experiences.  Professional development at 21^st Century Schools has a unique approach – the education and nurturing of the “whole teacher”.  Teachers attending any professional development event offered by 21^st Century Schools will find it not to be merely a session of “cramming information” into their minds with no regard for the entire experiences of the teachers. 

The working conditions of teachers are deplorable.  In addition to extremely long hours, and the extreme demands of the job itself, teachers as a whole are not respected or treated as the professionals they are.  Adding insult to injury, they are paid very little.

As a response to these conditions, 21^st Century Schools is dedicated to making a concerted effort to plan professional development experiences that not only offer valuable and useful information to the attendees, but also offer a place of respite, healing and renewal.  

The Venues - We conduct extensive research to locate special venues for our regional workshops across the nation.  As a result, some of the workshops will be offered at times and locations which afford an opportunity for family recreation, such as summer at the beach, or near a popular family theme park;  we also select locations which offer teachers research opportunities and immediate access to wonderful historic sites and events, such as summer workshops in Boston, Philadelphia or Washington, D.C.  For one workshop we may be at Disney World or at the Big Cedar Lodge near Silver Dollar City (Branson, MO).  Another workshop will find us at the Willard Inter-Continental, two blocks from the White House in Washington, DC, where you will find the elite of politics, military, royalty and entertainment enjoying the extremely grand venue.

Other venues for our workshops include beautiful and serene places in nature, such as Robert Redford’s 6,000 acre retreat, Sundance, where teachers can also find time to relax with spas and massages while enjoying the quiet and rustic surroundings in the center of a beautiful virgin mountain wilderness.  There is always the chance that an independent filmmaker will be filming at Sundance when you are there. Another quiet and beautiful venue is the Biltmore Estate near Asheville, North Carolina.  We are hoping to plan our workshops there for June when they have their annual Roaring 20s at Biltmore, their salute to the Jazz Age.  

Then there are the “fun” places to go – such as New Orleans, Las Vegas, Seattle, San Francisco and San Antonio.  We make every effort to find grand, historic surroundings and luxury accommodations for our guests to enjoy as part of the professional development experience.  

For more information on any of these locations, see our Workshop Schedule and click on the link to the city where you wish to attend.  Whether your classroom is self-contained or you teach one subject all day to several different groups of students, you will be able to find a treasure trove of items to take with you back to your classrooms in the fall.  

Time and Talking  -  The places we go are not the only ways we address the needs of the whole teacher.  Quoting Glasser again, he stated that the four needs which must be met before learning can occur are:  1.)  the need to belong,  2.) the need for power, 3.) the need for fun and 4.) the need for freedom.  In developing curriculum for the classroom or planning our workshops, we always design and plan with those needs (and more) in mind.  

Teachers rarely have an opportunity to talk to other teachers - even at their own schools!  The schedule and lists of things "to do" are so demanding, there just is not time.  So when they come together for professional development experience, they gain a great deal from the opportunity to listen to and be heard by other teachers.  This is partly their needs for belonging, power, freedom and fun.  But it also is enriching as a learning experience as their exchanges create the production of more, better and new ideas.  Ideas for curriculum units that may not have occurred take place when teachers have the opportunity to spark each other's imaginations.  

Collaborating and Connecting to You  -  Additionally, and importantly, 21st Century Schools does not deliver a "canned curriculum" or "specific prescription" for how to create a unit and plan a lesson.  There is no such thing as an authentic curriculum or learning experience that is not connected to the lived experiences of the learners - be they the teachers or the students in their classrooms.  Each classroom is unique;  each community is unique.  While we realize there are commonalities and standard concepts and facts to be taught, the development of the unit of curriculum has to be connected to the communities it will serve.  A great deal depends upon factors such as the local geography - is your community near the Gulf of Mexico or in the mountains of Denver?  Do you live in a region more like a desert?  Do you have snow or is it warm year round like it is here in Austin?  When I taught 4th and 5th grade in Port Lavaca, Texas, my class could literally walk to the beach and conduct science projects related to novels we were reading.  I could not do that if my class was in Oklahoma.  My point is that each community has unique resources which will have an influence upon the curriculum.  Take advantage of those unique local resources!  Some of us can take our class to the city to visit museums and malls, while others of us would have to ride a bus for several hours to do that!  

So your unique experiences as well as your personal interests will have an important bearing on the units you design in the workshop.  We offer guidelines, frameworks, examples, flexibility and guidance!  And everyone there offers great ideas as a group that none of us would come up with on our own.