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The Independent Curriculum Group (ICG) is a fast-growing organization of public, private, and charter schools that de-emphasize curricula shaped by standardized testing in favor of “an independent curriculum” – a curriculum tailored to local needs and individual students, and characterized by site-based and teacher-generated innovations. The 2011 ICG Conference will be held January 15 at the Calhoun School (www.calhoun.org) on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, and is one of an ICG series on reimagining schools. (For more information on ICG see http://www.independentcurriculum.org/).
The 2011 ICG conference is designed to bring together education researchers, reformers, and practitioners as equal participants in a conversation to explore and debate the value of an “independent curriculum.” We are as interested in work that takes us inside a particular school or classroom as we are in work which presents a theoretical or political argument for independence, recognizing that the perspectives of both theory and practice are needed to answer the critical question “But does it work?”
All sessions at this conference will be structured as Roundtable Discussions facilitated by a discussant. Presentations will be limited to 10 minutes and the bulk of each session will be reserved for discussion to include the audience. This format is intended to encourage the sharing of ideas, methods, and
experiences, and to promote networking
among individuals or groups who tend to work in separate worlds but have shared interests. We may ask those with strong submissions
to expand their work into an essay for a collected edition.
At this time we invite proposals for individual presentations and panels from those investigating, teaching, administering, or participating in any way in the delivery of an independent curriculum. Proposals might address such topics as: art and an independent curriculum, play and an independent curriculum, teachers of an independent curriculum, leading an independent curriculum, parents and an independent curriculum, assessment in an independent curriculum, shop class in the independent curriculum, the politics of an independent curriculum, and health and sexuality in an independent curriculum.
Individual Presentations will likely be grouped into pairs or panels. We also welcome thematically connected Panel Proposals, particularly those that include both the perspective of practitioners and researchers. Proposals of 300 words for individuals and 500 words for panels are due by Friday June 25, 2010, 5 PM. In your proposal, please be certain to clearly indicate your topic and how you will explore it.
Please send a proposal describing your paper to the conference co-chairs at ICG@calhoun.org.
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