Throwing Out the Traditional School Model at Piscataquis High

By Debra Viadero

GUILFORD, ME.--Tucked in a pocket of small towns on the edge of a long stretch of wilderness, this community is an unlikely setting for "break the mold'' schooling. There are no colleges and universities in all of Piscataquis County, which has an area more than three times the size of Rhode Island, and no movie theaters. By most accounts, there are almost as many moose living nearby as there are people.

But educators here at Piscataquis Community High School are in the process of throwing out the traditional model of schooling. They are replacing it with the kind of learning environment advocated in "Maine's Common Core of Learning,'' the official state blueprint for the knowledge, attitudes, and skills students should have when they leave school.

Most schools in Maine are still trying to figure out what the Common Core means to them in practice. But Piscataquis, aided by a sizable private grant, has been busily turning...