Building Students’ Courage in a Massachusetts School

In this article in Kappan, Ron Berger identifies one of the most important character strengths that his organization, Expeditionary Learning, seeks to develop in students: courage. Students at Springfield Renaissance School, a 600-student grade 6-12 Expeditionary Learning school in central Massachusetts, are taught to think of courage not as a blanket characteristic but as the ability to take risks and grow in specific situations: math courage, difficult-reading-passage courage, art courage, public-speaking courage, peer-review courage, complimenting-nerdy-peers courage, athletic courage. 

Underlying this approach is the “growth” mindset identified in Carol Dweck’s work – the belief that we can get smarter and more skillful through focused effort. Lessons at Renaissance have these Dweckian building blocks:

• Clear learning targets that students own, work toward, and publicly reflect on;
• Character targets that ask students to demonstrate academic courage;
• Challenging work that asks students to struggle individually and collectively;
• Discussion protocols that ask students to take risks and share ideas;
• Critique protocols that ask students to offer kind, specific, helpful feedback;
• Debriefs with public affirmations of successes and problems.

In addition, there are six all-school structures designed to build academic and interpersonal courage:

• Advisories – All students are assigned to a small “crew” that meets daily to discuss challenges, successes, and feelings. “They hold each other accountable for academic effort, academic success, and character values,” says Berger. “They work on the courage to compliment or critique classmates, even when it is socially risky to do so. They work on the courage to speak up in ways they would not in their neighborhoods and to show kindness and vulnerability instead of just toughness.” 

• Outward Bound – Freshmen join their teachers and school leaders on a one-week mountain-climbing expedition, lugging heavy backpacks. “For much of the week, the students are miserable,” says Berger. “They are cold, tired, sore, and scared. Their clothes are filthy, and their hair is a mess. They have no cell phones, no music, and no soda. They are not with their usual crowd of friends. They argue and judge each other harshly. But something changes during that week. Somehow they make it to the top of the mountain, together, and get to wash up in a freezing stream and sit in the sun and laugh. Somehow they learn to help other kids who they thought were weird and different. When they return to civilization and take their first glorious shower, they are different.” 

• Student-led family conferences – Close to 100 percent of parents attend meetings several times a year in which students present their progress in academics and character and answer questions about their growth and goals.

• Passage presentations – To be promoted to the next grade, eighth and tenth graders present evidence of meeting academic and character targets to a panel of educators and community experts. 

• Senior talk – All twelfth graders write and deliver a speech to the community describing their challenges at the school and their life journey so far. 

• Exhibition nights – Students regularly present their classes’ learning to the broader community. 

Springfield Renaissance has impressive results. For three consecutive years, every one of the school’s 75 graduating seniors was accepted in college, and almost every student who had been a freshman at the school graduated as a senior. This compares to 52 percent of the city’s high-school students graduating in four years, and only 25 percent of ninth graders graduating and going to college. 

“Classes in Courage” by Ron Berger in Phi Delta Kappan, October 2013 (Vol. 95, #2, p. 14-18), www.kappanmagazine.org; Berger can be reached at rberger@elschools.org. 

From the Marshall Memo #507