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ac		finding a focus

language is power good schools for everyone making alliances working and learning together finding a focus trying out new ideas how schools are organized how are we doing? opening the school doors things to avoid		GOOD SCHOOLS look as different as good people-they have different styles and different strengths and passions. So while Challenge schools all aim to offer every student a demanding and meaningful education, they often enter that task through different points. By focusing their effort on one thing-literacy, for instance-they gain away to practice all the habits and skills that make a school good.
		pedagogy of place
		Kids can learn a lot from taking a close look at the community close to home. Using teaching methods some call a "pedagogy of place," many Challenge teachers link academic learning with the hometown or neighborhood environment and culture, exploring its languages, history, economy, arts, natural resources, and civic issues. This term began with the Rural Challenge, but urban and suburban schools find the approach works anywhere.
		ac
		The arts provide that focus in Minnesota and New York City, where networks of schools use Challenge funds to infuse arts into every aspect of a child's learning. Arts education is not a frill, they recognize, but a powerful way of knowing and seeing that fosters creativity, communication, problem solving, and other critical thinking skills.


		school-to-work
		Students in many Challenge schools explore career fields through internships, carry out projects that have worth to the community outside school, and take part in other learning partnerships with workplaces. Whether they go on to college or directly to a job, this school-to-work approach increases their motivation and achievement by using academic skills and knowledge in a meaningful real-world setting.
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		The Rural Challenge, on the other hand, centers all its energies on "schools serving their communities and communities serving their schools." Learning takes off when adults and young people work together on understanding and revitalizing the places where they live, Rural Challenge partners are finding. And many Challenge schools provide a similar real-world context by linking academics with the world of work.
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