The Pearl Remote Democratic High School

Dr Robin Harwick 00:00:39

School has to be, like, valuable today and in the future, and, you know, leading with that. Why? So you know what you're saying. A lot of times, you know, everything in school is about, well, you're going to need this someday, you're going to need this when you get to college. You're going to need this later in life. And for teenagers, they're like, I'm not even thinking about that, and how do I know I want to go to college or I want to have that direction? So we're always thinking about both. We know that many of the things that we're working on, as you just so eloquently described, are going to be beneficial to them after they leave school. But we also want to make sure it's beneficial to them now. And they're seeing value now because when they see that value now, they're more willing and inspired to engage in what we're doing. You know, some of our students were doing well academically in their previous spaces, but they weren't doing well emotionally and mentally. And so they're trying so hard to conform, to get those A's in order to please the teachers and please the families and everything. But they're really starting to struggle. And some of those students get to the point where they just refuse. I'm not going back to school. I'm not doing this anymore. And the parents see kiddos, so they had great grades and everything, and now they won't even go, what's happened? Right? So it's that slow progression over time where they just can't be in that environment anymore. They don't ever let kiddos have the space and time to do what they're really, really good at. And one of the things that has always super frustrated me for our students with disabilities that are musicians, oftentimes they will cut band and give them math tutoring or something. So that's the one time during the day where that child felt like they excelled. And maybe that's when their peers were like, oh, man, you are so awesome. Right? They're getting positive feedback from their. From their peers because they're like an exceptional drummer. And that's the one time that they get that throughout the day. So what does the school team do? They say, well, he's already a really good drummer, so we're going to cut band and we're going to give him more of the things that he struggles with. So then when you do a mapping of that student's day, their day predominantly is struggle. And they never get a chance to really shine.

Mark Taylor 00:03:00

Hello, my name is Mark Taylor and welcome to the Education on Far podcast, The place for creative and inspiring learning from around the world. Listen to teachers, parents and mentors share how they are supporting children to live their best authentic life and are proving to be a guiding light to us all. Dr. Robin Harwick is the founder and director of the Pearl Remote Democratic High School, an international online school reimagining education for youth pushed out of mainstream systems. She's a lifelong educator, researcher and creator of healing centered programs. She combines lived experiences with academic rigor to disrupt the status quo. Her work champions self determination, culturally affirming curriculum, creativity, and shared power. Dr. Harwick believes the future belongs to those bold enough to build it and that education should be a tool for liberation, not control. Hi Dr. Albin, thank you so much for joining us here on the Education on Far podcast. I think one of the things I get excited about the most is the understanding that learning should be personalized. It should be based around people's skill sets. It should be based around their life and their circumstances and anything that we can do to share that message and have the stories behind why that's important and how people are doing it, I think is incredibly important as well as exciting thing for us to share. So yeah, thank you so much for being here today.

Dr Robin Harwick 00:04:20

Thank you for having me. I'm excited for our conversation.

Mark Taylor 00:04:24

So why don't we start? For those people who've not come across the Pearl Remote Democratic High School before, what is it exactly in a nutshell and how did it come about?

Dr Robin Harwick 00:04:37

Yeah, so of course it's a long story, but we'll go for the short version of it. So we are an online international high school that serves students who have not been served well in mainstream settings. So as an educational researcher, I really have strived for decades to bridge the gap between research and practice. And still involved with teacher professional development, teacher training. Also have done a lot of work with different school systems. And there's this big ship that oftentimes speaking from a US perspective, maybe doesn't want to be changed. Right? The course correction, doesn't want to happen from the systemic level. And through that frustration and through watching my own kiddos experience in school and everything, finally the universe said to me it was time to start my own school. And so lots of things lined up. One, my kiddo was tired of hearing me rant and rave about how bad the school was that he was involved in and said you should just start your own school. And then a friend posted on The Internet, you know, anybody thinking about starting their own school. And I thought maybe I should be the one to do it. So that was the catalyst and the pearl was born. And you know, our focus is really bridging the gap between research and practice every single day. So that's what we do. And we serve students who again, have been pushed out of mainstream settings. We help them find their voice again, help them get passionate about learning again. And I love the education on fire because one of the things I talk about a lot is helping kiddos find their spark. And many times by the time they come to us, they don't have that spark anymore. They've. They're really shut down. And that's what we do is we reignite that.

Mark Taylor 00:06:27

And I think that's even more vital, isn't it, from a teenager's perspective as well, just because of the. Where you are and you're growing in your development, like say, as well as the experiences which may well not have been very positive up until that point. And the other thing I really liked about what you said, which I kind of often take for granted, is the fact that aren't we all in this to change the system? Because it doesn't really seem to be fitting anybody apart from maybe a few people in the middle. But of course, actually there's a bigger conversation there because actually it serves a purpose from a, I don't know, a global setting, a government setting, a country setting for many other things. And so I think really understanding that it's not necessarily as straightforward as that. And our job really is that kind of personalized learning, understanding that while we may not be able to change the entire system, even if we think that that be the case, what we can do around it is a. Is a really important thing. And. And I guess that's what you're doing, leading from the front.

Dr Robin Harwick 00:07:21

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Mark Taylor 00:07:23

So in terms of it, this, the school itself, I know sort of project based learning is something which is really key to what you do. Is it something which is just based from a US perspective? Is it something which is global in terms of any children that are actually able to do it, who can be involved in this and sort of who are you helping sort of in that sort of multicultural setting?

Dr Robin Harwick 00:07:46

Yeah, so we are global. We've had students from seven countries so far. You know, we do kind of focus on the Americas only because of the, the time difference, but we have had students in South Africa and you know, if you have a nocturnal teen anyway, and the kind of teen that does better and is able to focus more at night. We do welcome students from across the pond, as my grandma used to say. And you know, that creates a multicultural and learning environment every single day. One of our teachers is from Ghana, we have teachers from Turkey, we've had teachers from Lebanon. You know, we have teachers from Japan, we, you know, teachers from Mexico. So we are multicultural not only in the student population, but in the teacher population as well. So, you know, democracy is important to people around the globe. And you know, thinking about how to educate for citizenship, how to educate students so they are prepared to participate in democracy, do they know what that even is? You know, what kind of conversations around democracy are happening in many schools? Many schools, there's not much if anything anymore about democracy. And so that's one of the things that has come up for us a lot in the last few years. People see the word democratic and they think that we are a training ground for democrats and don't even understand that we are talking about democracy and from a global perspective, not just from the US perspective.

Mark Taylor 00:09:19

And I guess the synchronicity of the lessons is an important factor, isn't it? Because there are some, which it's just like all the information is there. You dip in and out as you want to, but that's not exactly how you're set up. The synchronicity is important.

Dr Robin Harwick 00:09:32

It is because relationships matter. We know this as educators. Right. We know student teacher relationships really change the dynamic and help students succeed. And so we know we come from a very mentoring approach and also that cohort where the students get to know each other, they get to know people from different countries, different backgrounds, different first language spoken. And we get to have robust conversations about multiculturalism, globalization and those kind of things from the perspective of people from many different countries. And this means that it's not like a call out box, you know, in this chapter, it is something that is happening every day and our young people are practicing multicultural communication every day. So think about how much more advanced they will be when they go, you know, into their lives after graduation because they've already had a really authentic multicultural experience and have learned to work in teams with people from around the globe.

Mark Taylor 00:10:36

And I suppose that really is emphasized by the size of the classes that you can have and the age range that you do. So take us into sort of the ethos of that and why it's been set up in that way.

Dr Robin Harwick 00:10:47

Yeah, so we, our classes are capped at 10 students so that we can really do the individualized instruction that is necessary in order for kiddos to thrive, we do block classes. So most of our classes meet for about an hour and a half. And again, this is the research that's coming in. We know that teens, all of us, if we're honest, need transition time from one subject to another. And so by having the hour and a half classes, we can have a little kind of warm up time getting them from whatever they were doing before into this course content. And then we have the classes long enough that once they get really into what they're working on, it's not, oh, time to jump to the next class again. And like you mentioned, it is synchronous. So they're in that cohort. We're also a multi age classroom and this is also comes from, you know, best practices and teaching and learning. We know we all have our strengths and we all have our challenges. So in the multi age classroom, this gives kiddos the opportunity to sail when they are really advanced in their learning and when they need extra support, they can get the extra support without having to, oh, well, you know, you're in 9th grade, but you're in 8th grade math or you, you're in 10th grade and you're in 12th grade math. Again, the personalization means that they can get their needs met in whatever way that looks like for them within the same classroom. And they come through in cohorts because people start at different times. Some people join our school as kind of a credit retrieval. Maybe their first couple of years of high school didn't go well for them at all and they don't have the credits that they need to graduate, so they come in. So we don't talk a lot about what grade level you are. I always say that most people don't know what grade level their peers are until, until they're seniors. And then the seniors are talking about, you know, leaving and what's next for them. So we really blur those lines around grade level so that students are focused on what support do you need, what is your personal best, how high can you go with that?

Mark Taylor 00:12:56

Yeah, I love that. And I think, like I say, it keeps the focus on the learning and the experience that you're having, doesn't it? Rather than sort of being boxed up at such an early age.

Dr Robin Harwick 00:13:05

Exactly, exactly.

Mark Taylor 00:13:07

And I think, also I think the multi age thing is really important because we sort of leave school and then you suddenly realize that you're having to interact with lots of other people. There might be some kind of seniority depending on which organization you're in or what your life Looks like. But you're spending a lot of time with different people and just being able to have a conversation or actually be aware of the sorts of different things that are happening in people's lives. And that only comes by the experience of actually doing that.

Dr Robin Harwick 00:13:33

Exactly, Exactly. And so Dr. Art Pearl was one of my mentors, hence the name. And Dr. Art Pearl and his colleague Tony Knight literally wrote the textbook the Democratic Classroom Theory to inform practice. One of the things that he taught was school has to be valuable today and in the future. Leading with that. Why? So what you're saying, a lot of times, everything in school, school is about, well, you're going to need this someday, you're going to need this when you get to college, you're going to need this later in life. And for teenagers, they're like, I'm not even thinking about that. And how do I know I want to go to college or I want to have that direction? So we're always thinking about both. We know that many of the things that we're working on, as you just so eloquently described, are going to be beneficial to them after they leave school, but we also want to make sure it's beneficial to them now. And they're seeing value now, because when they see that value now, they're more willing and inspired to engage in what we're doing. Yeah.

Mark Taylor 00:14:38

And I think that's such a big thing in schools, isn't it? Is that that sense of, you're this age now and this is then going to get you to the next step and the next step and the next step. And I think the one thing we all know in the modern world is the fact that the only thing that's important is the here and now. And actually celebrating the fact that I'm 5 years old or 15 years old or 55 years old, you know, I can't experience it any different than that. And actually, I should only be experiencing than that. I, as an education system, as a school, as an educator, you have that knowledge in that kind of mentorship, as it were, to kind of steer those ships, to make the environment such that, you know, it might well be beneficial or you're going to give them the skills they need going forward, but that should never take away for the. The here and now and. And what you need to learn. Because as you said, you know, that individual learning, it's. It's what you're learning from a personal perspective, which might be social as well as academic, and. And all the things in between.

Dr Robin Harwick 00:15:29

Absolutely, absolutely. And I think sometimes the system tries to push kiddos too fast through that moment of development where they are now. And, you know, sometimes, you know, world events happen. Our kids come in and they're feeling really heavy about what's happening, what they're reading about those kind of things, and you just see it's a. It's a day that people are pretty down, and we're like, it's okay to play. It's okay to just be 15, 14, whatever, you know, when you see that moment, rather than trying to push through the lesson that you have. Have planned, being able to say, okay, let's pause. I'm feeling like energy is really low today. Do we want to play a kahoot? Do we want to do Jeopardy? Do we want to listen to some music? Like, what? Do. What. Do we need to be okay in this space so that we can move on? Because again, from the research, we know if everybody's afraid or sad or, you know, angry. Learning doesn't occur in that moment in that space anyway. So when you try to continue to deliver your lesson plan, when all of your students are checked out, you're just going to have to reteach it or you're going to have knowledge gaps. You can't just say, well, nobody's really here today. They're not present. They're not engaged. I'm just going to do the thing anyway because it doesn't have the impact.

Mark Taylor 00:16:47

No. And. And I've had so many conversations about that kind of today's meant to look like this, and I've done all my planning. And then you realize that the child coming in, you know, hasn't had breakfast, or they're looking after a parent or something's happening around their life, and it's like, that's never gonna. That's never gonna work. And I have it in such a small way as a musician, when I sort of teach drums and percussion in school as well as my performing career. And they've just dashed from the other side of the school, and they might have been doing science. And they're like, okay, right? And they said, oh, I have been practicing, but I haven't been. I can't play this for some reason. I'm like, you've literally spent three minutes running across the school. You've got all your stuff out. You sat down. It's like, at what point did you know, do you not sort of give yourself that grace of, you know, why we do that? And then I sort of explain and they sort of get the message then of that Kind of. This is why we do this particular thing as a warm up. We have a conversation about something. I realized you had a rugby match or something at the weekend. You know, we're not filling time. What we're doing is we're kind of resetting that scene. We're setting the environment, we're sort of changing the dynamic of what you're doing to be able to do that. And the reason I mentioned that here is because I really like what you said about the length of the lessons. Because you need that sometimes. Because that initial warm up, that initial kind of amount of time you need to chat might be, I don't know, five minutes and the next day might be 10 minutes. Or actually they're just switched on, excited because they've been doing something and away they go. But I think to have that ability to ebb and flow like you mentioned, is really, really key and going to be different from one child to the next, but also from one day to the next. Even with the same child.

Dr Robin Harwick 00:18:20

Yes, exactly. And that functional capacity, you know, the majority of our students are neurodivergent. And you know, one of the things that I think is really important that teachers forget is that functional capacity can change from day to day. As you were saying, you know, you need that space. Maybe you didn't get a good night's sleep, maybe you're worried about something else. Maybe your cognitive load from that class that you had before is so intense that even though you're in a different class that normally you do really well in, you're so mentally fatigued from the level of effort you put into your previous class. And so that doesn't mean that that student is no longer good at that particular activity. It's like in that moment, they're not. And I always humble myself. I'm a Spanish learner. And when I'm in here and I'm speaking to you in English and everything, and then I step outside and I need to speak in Spanish, I always say I need to change the chip because I'm really engaged in this conversation with you. And so if I have to sw, it takes me a minute. And if I'm in speaking in Spanish all day long, then my Spanish is much better. Right. But that flipping from one thing to the other, it always humbles me and reminds me of what our, our young people are going through as well.

Mark Taylor 00:19:39

Yeah, I love that. And I know what I've done sort of teacher training around music. It's. I. I sort of have that same experience. It's like As a teacher, you stand up, you're involved in your class, and you're brilliant at what you do. And then I think there are so many sort of non music specialists, especially in the year groups where some teachers have to do music as well, they suddenly get scared. It's like I'm out of my comfort zone and I'm able to share that. You know, the children, you're well set up to do this, but actually feeling nervous and being a little bit apprehensive about what you're doing is brilliant. Because there are many children coming into your class every day that might be feeling that in a way that you can't understand because you're teaching the things that you've done for many years, your experience, you know what's going on, you're very comfortable. But to suddenly realize that there's a different energy in there, I think gives you some kind of empathy, kind of understanding that there's more to this than immediately meets the eye. And of course, like you said, when there's so much going on in rapid fire and things that you have to do within a school and in a learning environment, just having that breath to be able to understand that and relate that to yourself is a really key factor.

Dr Robin Harwick 00:20:45

And letting the children see that sometimes you're uncomfortable, sometimes you're feeling vulnerable, sometimes you don't know.

Mark Taylor 00:20:55

Right.

Dr Robin Harwick 00:20:55

That's our humanness. And it gives them permission to take intellectual risks as well. Because now they see that you, who comes into the room as the expert, don't know everything, make mistakes, don't know how to use certain pieces of technology, that even though they're eight, they do, you know, those kind of things. Let them have moments where they get to be the expert. Maybe that kiddo has been taking, in your example, has been taking music lessons since they were three. And here's the second grade teacher trying to do some music integration. And that's not their thing. But this kiddo is like, oh, I can explain that. When we give students the moments to be experts, then they are gaining their confidence in building their self efficacy, which is going to translate to other things that are harder for them because they know that they do have expertise in these other areas. And I think that that's another issue in many mainstream schools is they don't ever let kiddos have the space and time to do what they're really, really good at. And one of the things that has always super frustrated me for our students with disabilities that are musicians, oftentimes they will cut band and give them Math tutoring or something. So that's the one time during the day where that child felt like they excelled. And maybe that's when their peers were like, oh, man, you are so awesome. Right. They're getting positive feedback from their. From their peers because they're like an exceptional drummer. And that's the one time that they get that throughout the day. So what does the school team do? They say, well, he's already a really good drummer, so we're gonna cut band and we're gonna give him more of the things that he struggles with. So then when you do a mapping of that student's day, their. Their day predominantly is struggle, and they never get a chance to really shine.

Mark Taylor 00:22:45

Yeah. And like we sort of said almost full circle from the beginning. You know, there's a ship going on here which is telling us that maths and English and some of these subjects are, you know, the most important things in the world. And while we could never turn around and say they're not important, like I said, the ratio of how much time you spend on that compared to, like, say, if it's. Music happens to be a gift that child is doing. You know, you can learn so much around the sort of important subjects, as it were, through music or through those opportunities. Let, like, say, let alone the kind of the, the social skills and the, the personal development that you get by doing that. And I. That was certainly always the case for me. It was when I first started doing music, it was that kind of. This feels very different. And, and therefore I want to spend more time doing it, you know, and there's a whole learning process in there as well, which is so important. So can you take us into sort of the way, you know, people who may not have had an online school experience or understanding what, what it's like as a remote pupil, as opposed to obviously people's expectations if they were actually going into. Into a normal school.

Dr Robin Harwick 00:23:49

Yeah. So, I mean, you can't take educational strategies that weren't working well in a mainstream building and then try to put those online. That's what happened during the pandemic. Right. They said, okay, well, we're going to do what we've always been doing. In many instances, it's not working for the kids in the building anyway. And now you're going to try to do that same pedagogy online. It's not going to work. So, you know, our system is designed very uniquely and differently for the online setting. And I had already been teaching online, not at the high school level, but in Other areas, professional development, teacher training, those kind of things online. So I had a lot of experience, experience about what was working and kind of that magic number of how many people you can have in that virtual space and still feel cohesion. And so what I was really focusing on was building that community sense. And so oftentimes what it looks like is we're going to have some time early on where we're going to build community. We're going to do whole group, maybe whole group instruction, maybe whole group activities, something like that. And then opportunities for our kiddos to be in small groups. One of the things that's very different, we don't have a courtyard, we don't have a cafeteria. So if kiddos are in their small groups and you pop in to check on them and see what they're doing and they're messing around and they're having a good time and they're laughing, I tell the teachers, pop back out. So again, this is real life. What we are teaching them is, all right, we gave you this time during our sessions where you can work together as a small group. If you're messing around instead and having a good time, that's fine. No judgment, right? You want to build that relationship, but that means you have to work together to figure out when you're going to get that activity done. And this is again, you know, thinking about executive functioning. Many of our students have adhd. What does that look like? How do you plan your day? How do you build strategies? When do you give yourself that time to play? When do you work on getting your stuff done? And rather than having it so micromanaged that there's no opportunity for them to build their executive function, we work with them when it's low stakes, right? How are you going to meet? Where are you going to meet? Are you going to meet on discord? What is that going to look like? And we also do a lot of, you know, opportunities for them to work individually. That's when teachers are going to go into the breakout rooms and give that extra support. And this is so beautiful, I think, on using zoom. Because when you're in the classroom and you're trying to do one on one instruction, maybe somebody needs to have something taught in a different way. Maybe somebody needs the whole activity retaught because they just didn't understand at all. And you're trying to do that in a classroom setting as you're leaning in and you're trying to give that extra instruction, that's the time that everybody else is quiet, right? Because people are being nosy. They're trying to figure out what's going on. And so then the student might worry about the stigma. You know, I'm getting extra instruction. My peers might know that I have a learning disability, those kind of things. And not every student wants to be really open about what they need extra support with. So when you're in a breakout room, it's just you and the student talking. And they can be more open and transparent about what their struggles are or what their hopes, goals, and dreams are. And that is normalized because every teacher meets with every student in the breakout room one on one. So it's not like, oh, Mark needs extra help again. Oh, Mark's in. You know, what's going on. Mark must be in trouble because it's normalized. So. So that's where the individualization, the personalized instruction. And I want to go back kind of to what you were talking about with the music integration as well, because during those times when we're one on one with the student is when we really get to learn, like, what they're into, what lights them up, what they're excited about. And then we say, okay, this kiddo special interest is math. Oh, they're so. I mean, is music. There's so much math in that. So now when we're working on math problems that the student's not very into, we bring in music and we integrate what they love into the subject that maybe they don't like so much. Right. Or for our musicians, oh, I don't want to do poetry. I don't want to do this or that. Okay, well, do you like to critique albums? Do you want to write a, you know, a review of an album or something like that? Do you want to write lyrics? And. And again, thinking about how it connects with those things that they love, and then also always reminding them and ourselves that those interests can change. So you feel like you've got it dialed in and you're like, I want to teach everything through math. And then they come back after the summer and they were out working on a farm or something, and they decide they really love animals and they want to be a vet, and then it's going to change. But that's normal adolescent development. They should change what they think they're going to do after school once they have more experiences. Right?

Mark Taylor 00:28:55

Yeah, sure. And so you sort of mentioned that a lot of the people that end up you working with you are the people that have kind of been sort of let down or have been struggled in that kind of more Mainstream. Mainstream settings. So how does that often come about? Is it kind of. They really have sort of almost reached rock bottom, and they're really struggling, and it's what's out there. And then they come across you, and they sort of realize that this is a different opportunity in a way that can take them forward. And how do you sort of go about trying to sort of be that safety net and capture as many people as you can within the facility that you have?

Dr Robin Harwick 00:29:32

Yeah, so great question. You know, some of our students were doing well academically in their previous spaces, but they weren't doing well emotionally and mentally. And, you know, so they're. They're trying so hard to conform, to get those A's in order to, you know, please the teachers and please the families and everything. But they're really starting to struggle. And some of those students get to the point where they just refuse. I'm not going back to school. I'm not doing this anymore. And the parents see kiddos, so they're. They had great, great grades and everything, and. And now they won't even go what's happened, Right? So it's that slow progression over time where they just can't be in that environment anymore. Others of our students have been bullied within the school system. We have a lot of students that are in the LGBTQ community, particularly in the United States right now. It's a very hostile towards LGBTQ youth. And they may have been in places where they were safe before, but they're not safe anymore. And so the parents recognize that, you know, this school is harming them because. Because of teachers bullying LGBTQ students, feeling emboldened to do that because of the current political climate, shall we say, in the United States. So oftentimes, by the time our students or families find us, they are pretty desperate. They realize that their kiddos need to be in a different environment. And so when they come to us, they're checking us out and they're saying, like, am I safe here? And I always tell our teachers they should be right. Other adults have not been kind to them. Some other adults have, like, harmed them by bullying them and making them feel uncomfortable in the school settings or ignoring their needs completely. And so we need to be slow, we need to be gentle. We need to show up and walk our talk. We say, this is our model. Every student that comes into the Parole does the Foundations of Democratic learning class with me because I think it's really important for every single student to know me, to know the philosophy of the school, to know our Guiding principles and know what I expect to be happening in the classroom. When they know that and they feel comfortable with me, if there's something going on in the classroom that they don't feel aligns with our mission statement, with what's on our website, they will come to me and tell me. And this is key because, you know, you look at alternative schools, private schools, other kinds of schooling, and you'll see their website and you see all the, you know, the nice buzzwords and everything on there about what is happening in that classroom. So this is where I think that we are extremely different. I promise families. This is what it says we're doing. This is what we're doing. I teach one to two classes per term, so I can also say to our teachers, this is possible. I'm doing it. This is what it looks like. This is how we do it. What extra professional development do you need in order to give the experience that we are saying and promising families that we give? And then I have the teachers and the, you know, teachers do observations with each other. And then I have students, you know, how we say, you know, ears open, eyes open, where the teachers will come to me and they'll say, I don't think this class, the way it's going right now aligns to our guiding principles, which is on our website, and I would like you to do something about that, or I'm letting you know. But I think the t. The students should try to correct this, and, you know, that's building their agency and their democracy, too. They tell me, and I always say, do you want me to step in? How would you like to proceed from here? And sometimes they're like, we want to try to figure it out ourselves. Okay, great. Let me know. I'm here for you if you need it. Yeah.

Mark Taylor 00:33:16

And I think anyone listening will just immediately go, those conversations don't happen in school. And that might just partly be because the sheer numbers, the way it's set up, the fact that, like, you say, it's a buzzword because it's important to tick the right boxes for something, but practically that doesn't work. And. And I think the reality is, is that when you realize, and I always think this is really sad, you know, you're teaching people that have been failed, and you're suddenly able to, as a parent, to suddenly think, I've now got someone who's really taking care, really interest in really supporting my child in whatever needs that needs to be. And that should be the same for every child at every point of their Learning at every. Every moment, because. And different. Every situation is different. It might be academic, it might be social, it might be emotional. It could be anything that's going on, but you just need that time and that focus and that. And. And the rhetoric is one thing, but it doesn't do anything if it's not supported by the actions of the people that are doing it. And building a team and a staff and understanding and a cohort of people who are all working together. And I think beyond any grades or situation that happens with that, that's the kind of world we want to live in. I think the majority of people want to work in teams and organizations in places where you feel like that's at the heart of what you're trying to do. Whatever your excitement in speciality or business or whatever you're working on, anything is possible at that point. And I think the more we can harness that and spread that message, that can only be better for the greater good of everybody.

Dr Robin Harwick 00:34:46

That's the plan. So, you know, we think about imagining the society that you want to live in and creating that in the school, because school is supposed to be preparation for life, right? So if we want to live in a just, equitable society, we need to have young people experience that. What does it feel like? What does it feel like to be safe, seen and heard? Because if we want society to be like that, we have to start somewhere. And what you're talking about, like, teaming of, you know, teachers and, you know, and me as an administrator, being in there with the teachers and teaching rather than. And sitting back with my research books and saying, okay, you should do this now. You should do that now. I'm like, no, I'm in there with you. I'm doing it. I am serving the same students that you are serving. And Art Pearl and Tony Knight really believed that the democratic classroom was the way to transform society into the type of place that we all want to live in and be and have that sense of community. And I think that when we think about the industrial kind of model for the school system, we know that that was not necessarily the objective, was thinking about the, you know, equitable societies and fairness and community and a gathering place.

Mark Taylor 00:36:13

And do you think that this general philosophy can work in any setting, or do you think you need the. Well, I guess it can in any setting, but you'd need to change the setting because you need the smaller classrooms, you need the smaller kind of groups of people doing it. But it's. Do you think it can be implemented even in those sort of more mainstream situations.

Dr Robin Harwick 00:36:32

Absolutely. And that's what Artperl spent his life working on. You know, having democratic classrooms within the mainstream setting as well. And when you have a democratic classroom within a large public high school, for example, your class is often the favorite. And it doesn't have to be the 10 to 1. Ours is 10 to 1 because the majority of our students are neurodivergent and need that extra instruction and in the, you know, to build the community, make sure that their needs are being met. And as we talked about, many of our students have. Have some learning gaps along the way because they haven't been in a school system that served them well. So giving that extra time to the students who need it. But there's lots of models, democratic classrooms. Art Pearl and Tony and I helped set up in Australia in, in the United States. I am not sure about the uk, but I know I've had a lot of interest in the Pearl from people in the UK that were very knowledgeable about democratic classrooms. So we don't want to, like, hold what we're doing and keep it our secret because we know it works and we want to do the opposite. We want the Pearl to be a model that can be replicated in other parts of the world. We want to be able to have our teachers train other teachers that want to do a democratic classroom. And you can start small and start thinking about how you integrate that within that structure that you have to follow. And within that, you are going to have the opportunity to really affect change in your students. And then also other teachers see it working and they're like, tell us what you're doing. Why do all the students want to be in your classroom instead of mine?

Mark Taylor 00:38:11

Yeah. And I think that becomes an exciting journey then, doesn't it? Because like you say, there's lots of people out there that you can be part of this. There are lots of ways that you can share this. And it's not about, we've finally made it. It's about, like you said with the, with the pupils. You know, each day is different, each year is different. You know, each country is different. But the actual philosophy and what you're trying to do is an ongoing journey. And I think that's a, that's an incredibly exciting kind of prospect from all of us who've maybe been involved in education for a long time or even just starting out. That sort of common factor is just so important.

Dr Robin Harwick 00:38:43

Yeah. And to carry the legacy on. I mean, the, the book that I referenced, democratic classroom theory to inform practice. It was written in 9, 1999. And you know, it's so interesting when, you know, elevating this work now. And of course, the platforms that we have available like this were not available in 1999. And people will say, oh, it's so innovative. It's so, you know, kind of radical. And I'm like, it was written in 1999. Like, this was all mapped out for me. I didn't, I found Dr. Pearl because I was really, really frustrated with, you know, what I was learning about the school systems in my doctoral program. And people said, you need to go talk to Dr. Perel. And I went over and met him and he was about 86 at the time and had been retired from the University of Oregon for years. So people are like, you're going to love him because he can say whatever he wants. He doesn't have to kind of toe the line. He's been retired for decades. And we immediately connected. And what I found in those conversations with him, and then I took a class with him, was that all the kind of pain points that I was struggling with that I wanted to see changed, it had already been mapped out.

Mark Taylor 00:39:52

And then you realize it's really about, you know, ultimately we're humans who want to connect in a human way. And there may be teachers and pupils that may be peer to peer, whatever that happens to be, but that's been the case for many, many, many years. And like you say, the technology is here now to have a different experience. We're doing this online and like I say, you have a, a remote school, so therefore that's going to look different. But I think the exciting prospect is the fact that with more technologies coming and the ability to sort of lean into skill sets, focus on what you're good at and use the technology to support the things that you don't need to spend so much time doing and be supported with those things. And certainly in the age of AI and the things that are coming, understanding what you're trying to achieve, who you want it to be with, how you're going to develop those skills, I think is a really exciting prospect. And one thing you mentioned earlier, on which we should probably just mention, is you mentioned the idea of graduation. So in terms of what you graduate with, in terms of the qualification, how does that work from like, say, that kind of Central American place setting, as opposed to whether that might be further around the world?

Dr Robin Harwick 00:40:58

Yes. So we have had a partnership, so all of our students are technically homeschoolers, and we have had a homeschool Partnership program where students could receive a U.S. accredited diploma through that partnership program. For people that wanted that trajectory, we also have, you know, guidance for students who maybe want to take an alternative pathway. In the United States, there's something called dual enrollment where they can take community college classes and high school classes at the same time, and they end up with their diploma from the community college, often with their associate's degree at the same time. So that's a pathway. And then some universities have a pathway for homeschool students to enter because they've seen that they can do things like project based learning and they can design their own curriculum, and they see that really as a benefit to post secondary success. So there's a lot of different pathways that we work, again, individualized with families about which pathway their kiddos want to take. We are in the process, early, early process of becoming an accredited school ourselves. And that way it's going to streamline for families. They won't have to be technically homeschoolers anymore. They'll be part of our accredited program. But there are still families that have been homeschooling for a long time and they like that. But say it comes time for calculus or something, and they're like, maybe it's time for our kiddos to go work with somebody else for that. And so, and, you know, we have art classes and those kind of things that the parents just might not be able to work directly with their students or with their children. And so in those cases, we will still have that pathway. For some homeschool families that want to just take one or two classes with us, they're welcome to do that. We also occasionally have families who are in the public school setting, but they want their kiddos to have this kind of experience. And so they do some of our after, you know, after hours classes. And again with the different times zone, sometimes they can join a class with us, depending on where they are, even in, you know, something like geography or whatever the kiddo is interested in because they want to have this experience.

Mark Taylor 00:43:08

Yeah. And I think more and more as we, as we go on, that ability to kind of lean into what you need for extra support or a different setting, while not like, say, necessarily throwing the baby out with the bathwater as you say, you know, it might be that actually staying in your current setting actually is okay, but I just want to have this extra experience, this extra bit of support, this extra bit of learning and just sort of amalgamate that. And I think the more we can do those sorts of things, I think that the more kind of ownership people can start to take for their education and their children's education. And then you kind of feel like actually, despite whatever system you may or may not believe in or if it should or should not change, there's things that you can do to make the biggest difference. Because it's essentially your life and it's essentially your children's learning. And that's a really important factor for the here and now, not in 20 years time, like, say, when they've passed all of that anyway.

Dr Robin Harwick 00:44:00

Yeah, you know exactly what you're saying. I always, one of my goals is to help the youth learn. This is for you. This is about you. This is your education. And so what you're saying about picking and choosing and learning about different things, because ultimately their education isn't going to affect me as much as it's going to affect them in their lives. And sometimes kiddos don't really think about that because it's just something they have to do. And I was like, you have to do it by. Who's it for? Who's gaining from you gaining this knowledge? And over lots of conversations around this, they start to see, like, wait a second, this is, for me, this is enhancing my knowledge base. This is helping me see different opportunities. This is opening doors for me because I have the confidence that I can learn different things in different ways. Right. And that's a mindset shift from, this is about compliance. This is about you showing up. This is about you sitting in your chair eight hours a day and doing the things that you're told to do. Right. And so that's a huge difference between our democratic school and many other types of schooling are. It is not about compliance. It is about personal and intellectual growth.

Mark Taylor 00:45:22

And that was one of the saddest things I heard with my conversations with Gary Grouse was the sense of he went around asking people, you know, speak to pupils and say, you know, why are you in school? What's the purpose of this? And 80% of them would say, because I have to. And it's just like, wow. I mean, that's a high number to think that that's what people think about. And then sort of the opposite side of that. As I saw, a friend of mine had been online, I think he was in India, and it was suddenly that sense of finding a school where everyone wanted the opportunity to do it, because not everyone had that setting where they could go and learn and study in a way that they wanted to. And just the opportunity for those that were able to do it was for them, it seemed sort of life changing and. And they just think that's such a different world to live in. And so to sort of to give people the opportunity that want it, to be able to have it, but like I say, to realize that the people who have it in adverted commas, actually wanting to do it and getting the most out of it and enjoying it and actually thriving to what this is in the here and now as well as the future is such a. Such a key thing.

Dr Robin Harwick 00:46:26

Yeah. Big, big task.

Mark Taylor 00:46:28

Because we have that whole.

Dr Robin Harwick 00:46:30

That whole mindset, right. About school is just for compliance and behavior and, you know, just something that you have to check off, you know, and that's what we hear from some families where they. Not families who choose to come to us, but families who kind of counter our messaging is like, well, I was bullied in school. That's just something that you have to go through. You know, I hated school, and I just had to suck it up and do it. Hmm. But is that what we want for our future? And when we look at literacy rates and countries like the United States are dropping, then all this supposed progress around education, but our literacy rate rates are dropping. You know, there's data to say what we're doing is not working and our students are very disengaged rather than, you know, jumping in and wanting to open books and read and learn.

Mark Taylor 00:47:23

Yeah. It's why I love these conversations, because they just give us the. They give us the shining, the guiding light of, you know, it can look different, and it just needs to be a message that we can. We can share. Now, obviously, the acronym FIRE is important to us here at Education on Fire, and by that we mean feedback, inspiration, resilience, and empowerment. What is it that strikes you when you see either either one of those words or collectively?

Dr Robin Harwick 00:47:48

I think we do all of these. So one of the things that we work on with our students is learning how to give feedback to peers. And so we are building a collaborative learning environment. We are not competitive. We are collaborators so that we all learn together and, you know, kind of all lift the boat, so to speak. So, you know, being able to receive feedback from our peers, being able to give feedback from our peers. For me as the director, being able to get feedback from my students and from my teachers really helps keep us on mission. You know, our goal is definitely to inspire. We want to inspire not only our students, but we want to inspire other teachers, other educators, other people, you know, potential school founders to know that there is something different. And it is Possible resilience. You know, resilience for me is kind of a word that I struggle with because I'm one of those people that has been called resilient my whole life. And I'm at the point where I don't want to be called resilient anymore. I don't want to have to be resilient. I want to be soft. I want to be gentle. I want to be calm. Right. So while resilience is important, many of our kiddos have had to be way more resilient than they should have because they shouldn't have experienced the racism and the bullying that they have. And so this is something that's pretty new in my life. Probably like the last two years. I used to be so proud of being resilient. And I was like, I don't want to be resilient anymore. I want to be. I want to. I want to live in a world that's soft and gentle so that we don't have to always be so tough. And I think, you know, along with that comes empowerment. Empowerment to. Dr. Pearl talked a lot about hope. The empowerment to believe that something is different and that you can affect change. And in order to get there, we have to have hope. We have to have hope and vision that a better, more just more safe, more sustainable world is indeed possible. And, you know, one step at a time.

Mark Taylor 00:49:44

Yeah.

Dr Robin Harwick 00:49:45

All of us collectively working towards change, and eventually we can get there.

Mark Taylor 00:49:49

Yeah. Well, hopefully today is giving people at least a starting point of. That is the reason I love these conversations. It gives us these real personalities and knowledge of. Of behind websites, behind conversations, because they're real, they're about real people. And also they're a guiding light, like I mentioned, of people who are actually doing it. You know, it's not just, oh, if it could only look like this. It's like it is looking like this for those people who are. Who are lucky enough to have that experience. And so, like I said, that ripple effect is such a key thing. Even if you can take part of this conversation, part of this idea, and take it into your life in some way, whether it's speaking to a fellow teacher, a parent, or you feel like your child is struggling, there's other options out there that you could do to make a really big difference. And, yeah, let's say it's everyone's journey, but the more we can do, the better. So, Dr. Robin, thank you so much. I really do appreciate your time. Where can people go to find out more? I know we've covered quite a lot about it, but to get all the nitty gritty and all the information, where would you like people to visit?

Dr Robin Harwick 00:50:48

Yeah, so you can go to our website, thepearlhighschool.org or you can reach out to me directly at Dr. Harwick, the pearlhigh school.org.

Mark Taylor 00:50:58

Fantastic.

Dr Robin Harwick 00:50:59

We can continue the conversation. Thank you.

Mark Taylor 00:51:01

Brilliant. And we'll have links to those on the website, on the show notes and everything as well, so people can click straight through. Thank you so much indeed for sharing your journey and your story and keep up the amazing work and I look forward to seeing how it's evaluating.

Dr Robin Harwick 00:51:14

Thank you.

Mark Taylor 00:51:16

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.