Vision

One day, all students will have the opportunity to explore their curiosities and passions while mastering society's most valued skills. The real world will be the "classroom" and education will happen everywhere in the community. Learning alongside experts trained in coaching, students will maximize their potential as they solve real problems and improve the lives of others. All students will be treated with the respect, resources, and relevance that are essential for cultivating new generations of decision makers and problem solvers. Education will be the lifelong pursuit that drives people toward sustainability, interdependence, and personal satisfaction.

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What is PEACE?

The PEACE Project is reinventing the high school experience to better meet the needs of students and society, and is a place where people of all ages serve and learn within a student-centered community, embarking on personal and academic journeys that challenge their skills, ideas, and discipline.

Students complete projects derived from their curiosities, and develop essential skills through applied work, independent study, and collaborative learning, as determined by their Personalized Education Plan.

Working alongside professionals in the real world, students develop relationships, take on responsibility, and gain exposure to a complex world.

Our goal is for all learning to be personalized and in the real world! This means that we treat each student as an individual, and "customize" their education according to what is best for them. We believe that students should be out in the real world doing real things with real people! Each student gets their own PEP, or Personalized Education Plan, which is made collaboratively by the school, the student, and the family.

The PEACE Project is college preparatory. The nation's top colleges and universities have declared that too many incoming students lack the essential skills of critical and analytical thinking, as well as self-management. In order to ensure success in college, The PEACE Project transitions students from traditional high school ways of learning to the ways that learning happens in college. As students show responsibility, they earn more and more trust and independence. Students do real research on topics of their interest. Students work in small groups similar to college seminars, and they're given supported independent and collaborative time to complete their assignments.

The PEACE Project goes on many field trips. Last year, PEACE went to: the Magic Garden, Free Library, Univ. of Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Spiral Q, Scribe Video Center, National Constitution Center, Rittenhouse Square, Schuylkill River Recreation Area, Love Park, and various office buildings in Center City.

PEACE works with experts in the community. Last year, we collaborated with a civil rights leader who worked with Martin Luther King, a journalist who has been to Iraq three times, a weekly columnist with the Inquirer, political leaders from throughout Pennsylvania, an urban horticulturalist, scholars from Temple, Rider, Univ of Penn, and Drexel, as well as a hip-hop musician, graphic artist, a public relations professional, and a visual artist. Also, our students are working weekly as interns in some of Philadelphia's most prestigious institutions, such as the Art Museum and the Veterinary School at Penn.

Last year, The PEACE Project worked with expert filmmaker Ellen Reynolds and the Scribe Video Center in order to write, film, edit, and produce a documentary film about the namesake of our school, Paulo Freire. This film premeired March 15 at the University of Pennsylvania, and it features students, staff, famous authors, and published scholars!

In The PEACE Project, students go to two traditional classes in the morning, Spanish and Science. Thereafter, students attain all of their essential skills through assignments and experiences within PEACE. PEACE uses the Pennsylvania State Standards when designing each student's Personalized Education Plan, or PEP.

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The need for PEACE

PEACE is an essential paradigm shift in American education, and it is long overdue! The goals of the American high school have changed greatly since its conception one century ago. Yet, we continue to use the same process - students in lecture-style classrooms divided by grade and subject - to achieve very different goals. It just doesn't make the most sense anymore.

On February 1, 2005, The New York Times analyzed the effects of the No Child Left Behind Act. Although they commended the Act's positive outcome on elementary school achievement, The Times blasted the lack of advancement in American high schools. The Times began: "Progress is stalled in high schools... The United States, which once led the world in high school graduation rates, has plummeted to 17th." Then, The Times analyzed the causes and consequences of this alarming stagnation: "Developed a century ago, the standard factory-style high school was conceived as a combination holding area and sorting device that would send roughly one-fifth of its students on to college while moving the rest directly into low-skill jobs. It has no tools to rescue the students who arrive unable to read at grade level but are in need of the academic grounding that will qualify them for 21st- century employment." Based in Philadelphia, The PEACE Project is Freire Charter School's response to this crisis of inequality and ineffective pedagogy in urban high schools.

The PEACE Project is modernizing the way high school happens, thus shifting the conversation on high school reform. PEACE not only tackles the problems of ineffective education, but also identifies and replaces the causes of those problems with a new and viable model. The predominant method of factory- style schooling is big part of the problem, and The PEACE Project is trailblazing a new path. Serving primarily under-resourced students in Philadelphia, PEACE believes that the fundamental skills of self- management must be cultivated during high school in order for students to make the most successful transition to college and work in the real world. Coupled with academic rigor, relevant learning prepares students with the critical and analytical thinking skills essential for them to pursue tomorrow's most complex problems and difficult decisions.

All students in The PEACE Project - regardless of educational history - are held to the highest expectations, and they progress through Personalized Education Plans (PEP's) in order to most efficiently guide them towards their highest potential. PEACE realizes that learning is not a formulaic process; rather, it is variable and particular to each individual. PEACE seeks to serve as an action-tank, transforming the school's pedagogical philosophy by proving the vitality and necessity of PEACE.

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Acronym and Core Beliefs

Personalized

An education tailored to the needs of each student.

At PEACE, education is personalized. We believe it is futile for all students to attempt to learn the same content at the same rate. Additionally, we believe that in order to adequately serve the needs of every student, we must consider each student as an individual with needs that differ from those of her/his peers. Each PEACE student - in collaboration with staff and family - develops and follows a Personalized Education Plan (PEP). The PEP outlines a range of learning goals and activities and aligns them with the required state standards.

Entrepreneurial

An education that promotes creative thinking about real world problems.

PEACE cultivates in young people an entrepreneurial spirit, equipping them with the tools to think critically to solve problems and evaluate information. Concurrently, we want our students to have an innovative vision for the world and to learn to follow through on their ideas, attaining personal and professional goals and making projects happen. An entrepreneurial spirit marries self- discipline, imagination and initiative.

Active

An education based on "doing," giving young people the power to be agents of change in their own lives and in our world.

PEACE is designed to keep students actively engaged in their own learning by tapping into their intrinsic curiosity about the world. PEACE students are continuously designing and redesigning their own learning goals and playing vital and central roles as they build the PEACE community. We want a community that is inspired by, created for, and shaped by young people, and this objective requires everyone's thorough participation. At PEACE, we all work to hold every member accountable to the rest of the community, meaning all participants must be actively involved in the daily life and long term goals of our program.

Collaborative

An education that brings together inquisitive minds around common purposes for better outcomes.

We believe humans thrive as they work collaboratively with others to realize common goals, thus PEACE is a place where young people learn interdependence. That is, PEACE students are encouraged to explore both where they need the help of others and how they can be of aid to those around them, as well as making decisions about when they need to work independently. At PEACE, students come together in a variety of small and large group configurations, learning to work with different kinds of people and using the group's synergy to make collective decisions and create together. We believe this process prepares students for college and the work world, where working collaboratively is a common practice. Finally, PEACE students and facilitators collaborate with the larger Philadelphia community to draw on the abundant resources of neighborhoods, institutions, and businesses.

Exploratory

An education that builds on the innate curiosity of every individual.

We believe curiosity is the quality most essential to learning, and we endeavor to help PEACE students tap into their natural curiosity about the world around them. PEACE students are constantly pursuing their research interests, asking and answering questions about a range of important, "real world" topics in projects that they undertake both individually and collectively. As a program, we help students develop the skills they need to explore their environments using a systematic, resourceful, rigorous, and humanistic approach. We challenge our students to ask critical questions that demand complex answers, and we encourage them to acknowledge and explore the questions generated by those answers.

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The Freire Charter School

The PEACE Project is a personalized and real world learning program at Philadelphia's Freire Charter School. The PEACE Project's growth is a major initiative of the Board of Director's five-year plan to bring the school closer to its vision. The PEACE Project serves 45 of the 450 students at Freire Charter School.

The mission of FCS is to provide a college-preparatory learning environment, with a focus on the individual avenues of problem-solving, freedom, critical thinking, and the collective values of non-violence, safety, community, and teamwork. In addition to its commitment to facilitate the best practices of modern educational pedagogy, FCS is driven by the philosophy of Paulo Freire. FCS believes in individualized goals and democratic ideals, as well as the development of critical consciousness, cultural critiques, a nurturing environment, and the honoring of student voice. Freire Charter School seeks meaningful partnerships with families and the Philadelphia community.

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