TARTANS: More Than Just a Pattern, The Future of Rural Education
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in the 2010-11 school year, 57% of all operating school districts were located in rural areas (nces.org). However, rural school districts are often looked down upon and not viewed as highly as those districts in a metropolitan area. Why is this and can this stigma of rural schools and communities be changed?
These are questions that Monmouth College’s educational studies department wanted to find answers to and solutions for. They created the rural teacher corps, TARTANS: Teachers Allied with Rural Towns and Neighborhood Schools. This program is designed to help teacher candidates have experience with distinct aspects of rural living, develop leadership and communication skills, and the ability to articulate to others how they plan to be a visionary teacher in a rural area. The participants have to apply to be in the program. In exchange for the many things that students will gain from the program, the Educational Studies department asks that the participants intend to teach in a rural school for at least three years after they graduate.
Place-Based Education (PBE) is a key component of what the TARTANS program is teaching the teacher candidates. PBE is an approach that connects learners and communities to increase student engagement, impact communities, and promote understanding of the world around us. Many people, including myself, misunderstood what PBE entailed. I presumed it meant you simply took the students outside and just learned outside. That is far from the depth and true meaning behind PBE. PBE has a place triangle which looks at “place” as the ecological, cultural, and economic perspectives of a community. The principles of PBE are: Local to Global Context, Learner-Centered, Inquiry-Based, Design Thinking, Community as Classroom, and Interdisciplinary Approach. A few of these principles can be seen in a rural school in Monmouth, Illinois.
The TARTANS program allies with Central Intermediate School in the Monmouth-Roseville school district. The sixth-grade teachers at Central got the chance to go to Jackson Hole, Wyoming in March 2019 with the TARTANS faculty and most of the TARTANS participants. There they went to the Teton Science Schools and received professional development from an amazing team of educators who have dedicated countless hours to Place-Based Education. Those teachers now implement those ideals and practices in their classrooms at Central. They can’t do it alone though.
TARTANS receives donations and grants from numerous companies and private donors. These donations go back into local rural schools and give them the opportunities to do the things that the kids imagine doing. They can now do projects that they couldn’t before or go on a field trip to the natural preserve. The money donated to the TARTANS program not only benefits the participants of the program, but the students in our own community as well.
Monmouth College and the Education Department want to see rural schools thrive again. Rural schools are important and the students and teachers there have value that is immeasurable to their community. A rural school is the heart of the community. A strong rural school will in turn create a strong rural community full of leaders, who will fight for what is right and continue to strengthen the school and community for years to come.
McKenzie Campbell - Contributing Writer