Mary B. Austin Elementary School

Melissa Whigham, Principal
Amanda Jones, School District Coordinator of Professional Learning
Maria Gronowski, Teacher
Taraca Lang, Teacher
Fay Dawson, Teacher
Jennifer Fischer, Teacher

We did not expect to find a team of elementary educators from Mobile Alabama attending the Entre-Ed national conference in Lexington, Ky and we were even more surprised when the team was brought to the podium and recognized as one of America’s top entrepreneurial schools. The National Consortium for Entrepreneurship Education is known for its work to support implementation of secondary entrepreneurship education programs but it was evident when we heard about the hands-on approach to entrepreneurial learning at Mary B. Austin Elementary why the school was receiving national recognition. And, when we had the chance to listen to its this diverse team of elementary educators they were on fire, lighting up the room with story after story of how they had come together to design an integrated progressive curriculum to engage learners by connecting and contextualizing invention, making, and community service to authentically learn entrepreneurial principles. 

Mary B. Austin Elementary is a district “School of Innovation” but it has not gone the route of “selective demographics.” Instead, Mary B. Austin Elementary is a comprehensive elementary school, not a magnet school or a charter school. In fact, the students served here are far more diverse in both children of color (57% vs 44%)  and living in economically disadvantaged households (51% vs 29%) than the county population as a whole. There is also a significant special needs population. Despite this, by every metric, quantitative and qualitative, this school is doing right by its children. Transforming education in a district starting from kindergarten makes the most sense, students learn freedoms and responsibilities, community, collaboration, and empathy in elementary school and carry those skills up, making change much easier in grades above. Or that is the theory at least. The educators at Mary B. Austin Elementary School in Mobile, Alabama firmly believe in that model and are passionate about seeing their students continue to grow these experiences in middle and high school.

Amanda Jones, the former principal turned Coordinator of Professional Learning, Special Projects and Innovation for the Mobile School District was there with the new principal, the elementary teacher team and a former teacher who had just moved up to a middle school program to run a Design Lab program to help spread entrepreneurial education beyond the elementary school. The team was in sync as they shared how they had built the program and what they had learned about the importance of creating a culture of hands-on learning embedded within the school vertically and horizontally.  What really jumped out from their story is how they saw learning as flowing throughout the day, not built around the kind of work teachers often feel compelled to do to be sure children pass state tests, often work which is mind-numbing, but rather work that engaged learners in literacy, math, science, social studies throughout the day. The teachers speak with confidence about their divergence from the kind of subject area work that typically breaks up a child’s learning day to share how they take on a Project Based Learning approach each quarter. Their work together speaks to what’s possible when educators are willing to take the risk to try a different approach to using time, space, and resources differently than the norm. 

Involved in the world at every age

Listening to the teachers’ stories, it’s not hard to imagine how different learning experiences are for elementary children at Mary B. Austin Elementary than in traditional schools. Children in kindergarten, for example, participated in a project over an entire quarter to help people in a homeless shelter while also learning about the needs of plants and animals. When the teachers put a project together with the children, they chose to make bird feeders to take to the homeless shelter as part of their project to bring joy into the lives of people staying there. 

As the principal says, this kind of work also gives teachers a chance to develop empathy in children, a disposition that represents the importance of service in their approach to entrepreneurship education. 

A School For Collaboration and Community

By the time students have grown into second and third grade, both the expectations of their work are more sophisticated as well as the collaboration in which students engage with each other. They are learning to use tools often reserved for older students in school to create and communicate their work from 3-D printing to making videos. In these stories, you can hear a level of learning trust in children that’s unusual. They are encouraged to come up with their own ideas, to engage with topics such as homelessness that other schools might think are too heavy to handle at age 5, and to figure what to do if no one wants to buy the food product your team is selling. The learning at Mary B. Austin is designed to develop and sustain empathy in children but also to engage children in a real world of entrepreneurial learning. This real world links home and school together as a seamless learning environment and brings families into the culture as part of the learning community in which children engage. 

What really illuminated stories from the team is how they weave their own collaboration  together to support children in growing socially, emotionally, and academically over not just a year but over six years of work unified by social themes that cut across content and the learning experiences teachers plan together. As a result of the way teachers work together they get to see the growth of children over time. 

A Reflective School

Mary B. Austin doesn’t think that the most important assessments are done by teachers, or tests. They believe in learner reflection, and sustained learner curiosity. “What kinds of things do kids do when they're in [a project together] and how does that add value to this, to them, to their whole school culture? I think we kind of sneak these patterns of reflection in from two different sides, from how we do curriculum, and from how the school functions. 

These educators see ways to involve all, without forcing discomfort they seem to constantly encourage, and teach courage and persistence by building up the combined skills and capabilities of the school community. In that, it is not just OK to fail, it is OK to be yourself.

To hear of kids being trusted to find their way, to evaluate their own accomplishments and their own sense of ownership, from kindergarten on up, leads to the question of how this is carried forward into middle school for these learners.

Breaking the Mold

Modeling this work is critical to this team, expanding this work is critical. And theirs is a real commitment to changing culture across Mobile Schools.

Powerfully, Mary B. Austin and the culture created there has a powerful voice in the district’s leadership.

The Culture of Entrepreneurship is the Culture These Children Need

“A lot of great puzzle pieces came together,” says Amanda Jones, the school’s transformational principal, and now the district’s Coordinator of Professional Learning. Her vision that the culture first built on Project-Based Learning and culture change could be transformed into a true learning center for this century through adding entrepreneurship to the entire day. 

That entrepreneurial learning lets the kids take charge, they understand that they own their projects, their interests, their commitments, their day.

And that means that learners can change what’s expected, which can be difficult in many schools, but seems to be second nature to these educators.

Their Ideas Matter

What’s happening at this Alabama school is ‘learning for life.’ The children are growing into active, confident, powerful members of society, who will not want to wait till high school graduation to impact their community. Mary B. Austin Elementary School is a demonstration of what’s possible when educators are unleashed and empowered, so they can unleash and empower their kids.