The Waterloo School of Austin is an exciting new high school that debuts in the 2019-2020 school year. In this episode of the Personal Responsibility Lawyer, I had the distinct pleasure to talk to 2 of the co-founders, Craig Doerksen and Dr. Carol Blosser. On the Waterloo home page, it says, “We believe teens are made to influence the world for good.” This, of course, is a huge departure from the more common idea that teens are a problem to be solved and hopefully one day they will become adults who will do more good than harm in the world.
The short version of Waterloo is that it is a project-based high school. But that hardly tells the full story of what they are doing. In this conversation, we go into much greater depth about the Waterloo model. It includes a trimester system, with students taking 2 classes each trimester. Classes are held four days each week, and Friday is a “flex” day for students to do…what needs to be done. This schedule wasn’t thrown together at random. It was created based on a lot of research about how the brain works, and specifically how the teen brain works.
Although Waterloo is trying to fight the distractions of the digital and social media age, they are practical enough to know they have to overcome the irony and be on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. I strongly encourage you to follow them for updates (but don’t let these things suck you in and make you waste your day!).
There are several topics and resources raised briefly in this episode that may pique your interest, so here are some links:
The Committee of Ten essentially designed our education system in the 1890s. It should still be fine, right?
Chap Clark wrote Hurt 2.0: Inside the World of Today’s Teenagers. I haven’t read this, but I’m interested.
The documentary Most Likely To Succeed is fantastic. The film’s website is here. You can watch it on Amazon.
The Center for the Advancement of Christian Education produced some research that was important in informing the Waterloo system.
Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, by Cal Newport. This is a fantastic book that we mention only briefly. I highly recommend it.
The Pomodoro Technique came up in the conversation. It’s not a huge part of the discussion, but you may find it useful to kick start some productivity.
Finally, here’s how you can listen to this episode of the Personal Responsibility Lawyer. (Oh, yeah, and if you like the program and can give me a 5 star rating on Apple Podcasts or any other podcast app, I’d be mighty grateful!)
