Trust Art

project overview

Led by Cassie Thornton and Chris Kennedy, School of the Future is a project about what a school can be. There are three chapters of this project: the founding of the Teaching Artists Union; the formation of the School of the Future; and the composition of a research document that will be distributed to students and teachers who are interested in starting their own schools. The document will also be offered to the Department of Education as a model for how learning can happen.

In 2009, Thornton co-founded the Teaching Artists Union in Brooklyn, NY with the mission to ""...define the role of the teaching artist through developing a supportive community, celebrating and exhibiting the work produced in teaching situations and advocating for the rights and needs of the teaching artist."" Monthly meetings were held as a forum for the discussion of art and education, the sharing of experiences, and of course, for planning the future.

School of the Future opened July 2010 as an inter-generational free school for the community around Sgt. Dougherty Park, in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. From solar-powered lighting to a giant scrabble board, giant Tyvek mountains and experimental food sculptures, the School of the Future is an invitation to experiment and analyze learning everything through the arts. Each class, performance, and student-teacher exchange is a learning experience, encouraging the use of under-utilized public space as a way to learn and question cultural constructs and personal responses to school and education.

For more information about the project, including class schedules visit: http://schoolofthefuture.org