Cecilia's MLC

The following was sent to me by a very close friend; Cecilia Smith, who graduated from MLC in 2012 as a valedictorian and is soon to be starting her sophomore year at Ohio Wesleyan University.

                  Most kids at MLC have probably been through a variant of a conversation I’ve experienced too frequently: a parent of someone attending a traditional school will ask, “So what’s MLC about?

                  Then comes a barrage of questions, always the same formula.

                  How many kids actually graduate?

                  How many go to college?

                  How many go to out-of-state (this can be replaced with “private”) college?

                  The parent is trigger happy, shooting these questions at me with a smirk and skeptical voice, as if they are triumphantly disproving my success at MLC with cold, hard, reality. Beneath the curiosity lies often lies a smug subtext. The “real world” is much too tough for my hippie-softened brain.

                  I’ve surpassed those real world expectations. Like Orianna, I attend an out-of-state and private university. Also like Orianna, I’ve made the Dean’s List both semesters my freshmen year of college and have boasted above-average standardized test scores. My “success” at MLC (because these same parents asking about my college track record believe measuring grades with a different set of letter undermines my intelligence) has translated into real world “success.”

See? "Success" indeed!

                  And yet, if MLC has taught me anything, it’s that “success” is not measurable in numbers; success is measurable in opportunities, experiences, and personal satisfaction. Success is a path each person forges for themselves, and MLC is a place where you can slash that path with a machete or where you can gently push aside the leaves, occasionally test-tasting the berries.

                  My personal experience at MLC has been a tight amalgam of both – I’ve found myself given opportunities and forced into them. Additionally, with the channels of communication I had with the teachers and administration, I’ve also been able to make my own opportunities. I was forced into dancing in the Solstice pageant, given the chance to teach electives to kids of all ages, and worked on several independent projects with the teachers. Where but MLC would I be able to work with a professional film company to make a documentary about artists in Portland? What about performing in a play during which we literally had to improvise the entire second act? And where else would I be asked to question everything and everyone, including the teachers?

The Solstice Cast of 2011!

                  Because of MLC’s alternative curriculum, I’ve established life skills many college students don’t have. Presenting portfolios to panels of outsiders and peers every year was practice for presenting myself to potential employers and to potential colleges. The endless amount of PowerPoints prepared me for the many PowerPoints in college, and eventually, for the many inspiring and heart-wrenching speeches I hope to give. Writing reflections with every portfolio piece, too, contributes to developing time-management skills and study methods. Though typing an extra essay with every project seemed cumbersome at the time, I’ve realized how much it helped me comprehend my own learning.

                  Most importantly, however, MLC has taught me about context. Everything summed up in the previous paragraph relates to context: explaining personal production, pulling together and summarizing information, and defining idiosyncrasies. MLC goes further still by asking its students to contextualize themselves in society; the character traits demand students think about others and I remember many times teachers at MLC asked students to simply think about the world at large.

                  Like the week high schoolers who didn’t go on the Ashland field trip spent debating the BP oil spill, attending seminars at Mercy Corp, and watching docu-dramas about the AIDs epidemic. Sure, it was depressing and scary but it served as a reminder that one person’s existence is just one person’s existence. And though one existence is limited on one sense, its influence can be infinite when awareness is realized and change enacted.

The cast of Bianca's Theatre class's play, It's Only A Play, performed in 2012.

                  This was my awakening and it was MLC that opened my eyes. I can pinpoint a turning point in my life when taking a psychology class my junior year of high school. We learned about sociology, and social inequality in such a way I discovered a new passion. MLC, through its history classes, literature classes, and even sex ed. classes, ripped away my blinders, a catalyst to my now indelible desire to right the world’s wrongs through social movements and political activism. It’s why I chose to major in gender studies and minor in journalism. It’s why I want to start a charity project for orphans next semester at college, and it’s why I continue to read, to learn, and to contextualize.

                  MLC was the place where I first found myself. I found support in great teachers, motivation I didn’t know I had, and friends who I would die for. I credit MLC for giving me so much freedom to grow and for solidifying a foundation I will build on in the upcoming years.

                  The changes at MLC scare me because there needs to be a venue for alternative education. There must be an entity encouraging students to find their own happiness instead of simply churning out cattle for an increasingly disenchanted society. True education – as Professor William Cronon meant it – requires a special kind of investment, and I fear MLC’s recent, more traditional, approach to education spotlights the success in the “how many students can we get out of here?” kind of way. I want our schools in the United States to truly attempt teaching kids to be the best they can be and that goes past letter grades and test scores, and even the Dean’s List. It comes down to why MLC was originally created: to create a community where kids can grasp their dreams and support each other – and maybe, eventually, the rest of the world – through the many paths in the real world.

Photos!

Jenna Mitchem sent me these wonderful photos, and I thought I would share them with y'all. Thanks, Jenna!

Orianna's MLC

My name is Orianna O’Neill, and I am writing in support of the Metropolitan Learning Center. I began attending MLC in 2005, and started sixth grade in Ned’s classroom. From my first day at MLC, I knew this was a special place. “Oh,” I said to my parents, “This is what school is supposed to be like!”

I had countless amazing experiences during my seven years at MLC. From the adventures in the swimming pool during gym in sixth grade, through the field trips to Seattle, Newport, Sunriver, Ashland, and Camp Hancock. This adventure culminated with my graduation, where my Metro teacher, Steve, gave a beautiful speech just about me.  Each day was offered an enticing learning adventure from assignments to invent empanada recipes to memorizing French verbs to new painting techniques on the same day. I took electives that I had chosen myself about everything from American Sign Language to beadwork.  I sat around a campfire and heard stories from the childhoods of my teachers. I created characters in Storyline that did everything from travel back in time to Lewis and Clark’s expedition to running for president. I wrote a novel with half of my eighth grade class. One of my lasting gifts to the community was painting sixteen tiny penguins hidden all over the building.

In addition to all of the amazing things that happened in the classroom, there were so many other stories from outside of the classroom. My friends and I ran Project Second Wind, the annual food drive, and helped MLC despite the small size of our school we collected more cans/food than the rest of PPS schools for several years. We created the yearbooks, made chalk murals on the blacktop, and helped organize the Halloween celebrations. Because MLC fosters such a wonderful community, I had a close friendship with the adults in MLC, even the administration. Through these friendships, I helped establish the school’s colors, merely because I was after school hanging out with the secretary on the right day.

A very important part of the “MLC Experience” is the electives. I taught many different electives over my years at MLC, improv games, sustainability, directed a play with the middle school, and taught a very popular Harry Potter elective that lasted three years. Teaching these electives prepared me for my current job teaching theatre summer camps at Northwest Children’s Theatre and School, as well as my future career as an educator. As a small school without the resources to have large drama, dance, music, and athletic programs, the electives are our way of letting students branch out from the core-curriculum being offered in the classroom. To cut these electives would be a huge disservice to everyone involved in MLC. Without electives, MLC would lose a huge part of their magic -- the power to explore. Students need the opportunity to discover who they really are.

Even though MLC students are not graded on a four-point scale, we’re still held to a very high standard of academics. To achieve an E (exceeds) in a class, one is required to put in a huge amount of work, perhaps more than even an AP or IB course. The whole “no grades” thing is not in any means a free ride through high school. It is an invitation to work on one’s own scale, instead of the prescribed one given to a student as an A or a B. I, too, was subjected to standardized testing, and made it through. I got a 1910 on the SAT, and a 31 on the ACT, proving once again that MLC doesn’t leave us lacking on the core-curriculum. By giving you the numbers that which College Board has labeled me, I'm not trying to prove that I'm "smart" or "special." I'm trying to prove that even though I never had a single grade, all through high school, I still was able to pass the standardized tests pushed upon me. We don't need grades.

MLC taught me many things, but none so much as who I am and what I have to offer the world. Through the writing of personal statements and exploration of what our five character traits mean to me, I discovered my own voice. The character traits, Compassion, Courage, Integrity, Self-Discipline, and Respect, are incredible tools to give a child to live by. Instead of rules, we offer five words to model one’s life by, and it’s been found to be extremely productive. In addition to the self-identity that MLC taught me, I also learned who I am as a learner. The reflections that we wrote after each class, and after each field trip and experience taught me how to analyze my own learning, to know why I learned something well, why I enjoyed this activity, and why I was or was not engaged during that lesson. I learned specific academic subjects and lessons, of course, but I also learned how to learn and how I learn, which is perhaps even more valuable.

I’m about to begin my second year at Beloit College, a small private college in Wisconsin. Even though I’d never had a GPA when I graduated from high school, I’ve been successful in a “real school,” with a GPA of 3.883 and having been placed on the Dean’s List both semesters of my first year. I’m also currently on track to graduate in 2016 having completed four majors, something very few people accomplish. Again, I say these things things to show just how successful an alternative education can be. I attribute almost all of my success to MLC’s wonderful learning environment, which allowed me to blossom into the person that I am today. MLC made it possible for me to take my classroom experiences and make them into something that can blossom in the "real world." Without the creative education that MLC provided me, I would never have been able to do what I love.

The long and short of it is, whatever MLC was doing, they got it right.   The direction of the changes being brought to the school are worrisome, because in my opinion, the school was a solid example of what a school should look like, not an example of a school that needed fixing. My younger brother will be starting his junior year of high school in September, having transferred to MLC in elementary school because he needed a more welcoming environment. I hope, for his sake, that MLC is able to remain the haven of safe learning and exploration that it was when I was attending. Please, save our school.