Why do we assume that the learning model that works for a 5-year-old can’t work for a 15-year-old? Why can’t teens learn that way, when it’s fun and engaging and empowering?
Jeff Rogers, Mentoring Program Manager, The Flagship Clubhouse, Boston
Jeff Rogers (pictured above, left) is Mentoring Program Manager for The Flagship Clubhouse in Boston. He recently explained the value of The Clubhouse and it’s learning model for the Boston Parent-run blog School Yard News:
We adults rarely describe our high-school classes fondly. We can often recount our friendships, teen angst, first loves, broken hearts, a teacher that reached us, maybe a teacher that we just knew hated us. But it’s pretty uncommon to hear someone wistfully say, “The time I spent graphing those coordinates was the best time of my life,” or “Even now, I sometimes recite the periodic table from memory.”
Although we constantly stress the importance of getting an education to any young person we manage to corner, school itself doesn’t feel very . . . empowering. To me, it often felt bureaucratic, perfunctory, authoritarian, impersonal, antiquated and, worst of all, irrelevant. It wasn’t clear to me why we were expected to learn something on Monday, except that we would be judged on our ability to regurgitate it on Friday’s quiz.
Continue reading the full piece on School Yard News.
Jeff joined The Clubhouse Network to help bring more S.T.E.A.M. opportunities to the youth in Boston. Before connecting with TCN, Jeff worked for over a decade in children’s behavioral health and the nonprofit sector: working with families, designing programs, and developing and facilitating trainings that teach people how to meet the needs of kids who grew up where he did, in Boston’s inner city.
Jeff is also an active music producer and engineer.