Spring 2007 - Milton Academy

pitch to foundations and corporate donorsis that their dollars are being efficientlyinvested in leveraging existing resources.”OWL’s teaching environment relies on discoverylearning. “Few of our teachers havea background in computer programming,but they’re brave and they’re learners,”Chris says. “Our program involves makingmistakes and noodling things out. Someoneasked me once, ‘How do you develop aculture where the students aren’t afraid toadmit they don’t know what’s going on?’and I said, ‘Well, they see their teachers lostsome of the time, too.’ But children knowthat a peer or adult teacher in the programcan answer their questions.“Most schools use computers as communicationtools, but they don’t teach computerprogramming, most often because theydon’t know how. We’ve learned you canteach computer programming by putting9- and 10-year-olds in charge of the teaching,with teachers learning alongside them.With LOGO, students invent, design, build,create, problem solve. They make mistakesthroughout the process, they get error messages,they scratch their heads becausewhat happened doesn’t match what theythought would happen, and they have torevise their theory and test something else.“Watching our students learning from andteaching their peers is a wonderful thingfor us. In selecting our student leaders welook for curiosity, determination, creativity,a love of learning, and a passion for helpingothers—the same qualities that employerslook for, that we all look for in trying tosolve the problems of our country and ourworld.”With OWL thriving in nine Denver publicschools, and plans to expand to 15 in 2007,the program’s leadership dreams of itsbecoming a national and international program.“We have a lot to do to realize thatdream. We need more great leaders, greatteachers and great funders, but we believein the program, and we’re getting startlingresults. Our students are learning thingsthat I wish I knew at their age. I hope thatwith help from our organization and others,our students will find themselves ableto take advantage of other equally positivelearning environments.”www.openworldlearning.orgEEH29 Milton Magazine