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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 5, 2003)
September 5. 2003 - ( H t M t j g la, the skill, but they don’t understand what it is they’re doing or how it works." When the Emerson School begins classes Sept. 8, nine educators (two of whom are openly lesbian) will wel come to its River District home more than 100 diverse students, represent ing a wide range of socioeconomic, geographic, religious, ethnic and ra cial demographics. “We have every kind of family imagin able,” explains Sig mund, a lesbian parent whose daughter will enter first grade. “Single parents, grandparents, multiracial, multireli gious families, gay fami lies, lesbian families— you name it and we’ve got it. And every family in our schtxil is honored and respected.” And should it arise, conflict is viewed as another opportunity for Sigmund education, especially when it involves diver Basic skills of reading, writing and arithmetic fall into place when kids are passionate and excited about sity and gender stereotyping. what they're doing, says Emerson School co-founder Jo Sigmund. Charter school educators include “ In public schools, they don’t talk (left to right, back to front) Michaela Garzelloni, Liz Levy, Lara Hubschmitt, Brandy H ussa, about religion and they don’t talk about Sigmund, Anne Heimlich and Allegra Dahan Ruggles. homosexuality," notes Sigmund, “which schools namesake, summarizes the schools phi is interesting because what you’re doing is tak That people love each other, that they’re there for each other, that they support each other. losophy when he says, “The secret to education ing huge pieces of a child’s life and saying that lies in respecting the child.” J H Wow, look at that. We have that in common. they do not exist.... T hat’s my opportunity to Our families look different on the outside, but say let’s talk this out: What does your family Features Editor TIMOTHY KRAUSE can be reached look like? How are they same? How are they dif really, ultimately, this is what it’s about.” at tim@justout.com. Sigmund says Ralph Waldo Emerson, the ferent? What is really important about families? “This is a place where gay and lesbian families can come and be gay and lesbian families_They can be out and be part of our community.” 'D a v id W. O w e n s P. 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So, project- based learning lets kids do that in-depth learning and then find ways to represent what they learn.” The public schcxil system, comments Sigmund, isn’t set up to support that environ ment for a number of reasons. Kids need to leave the class- rcxim, for one. An individual — Jo ized approach can take time and cast money, too. More importantly, it bucks the traditional mtxlel for public education, which is having a teacher lecture to kids or get information out of a book. But learning how to learn won’t replace basic skills. “Kids need to have exceptional writing skills, exceptional reading skills, to understand math,” says Sigmund. “They need to understand it so that they can actually apply it—especially with math and science. Very often, they're taught the formu
