Ryan Shollenberger
After spending the first 23 years of my life in suburban Pennsylvania, I was ready for a change and moved to Brooklyn, NY . After a year of "figuring my life out" and still reluctant to enter "the real world," I decided that I had spent enough time in school as a student and that I would try sitting at the front of the classroom, doing more talking and less note-taking. I spent a year at NYU-Steinhardt, studying education and student teaching in pursuit of a masters degree, and emerged with a job at a NYC public high school. My short and disappointing stint there solidified in my mind the hopelessness of trying to be an authentic educator within the public school system, and I decided to accept a staff position at Manhattan Free School where I had previously volunteered. I am excited to begin my journey into free/democratic education, and plan to spend the majority of this summer "unschooling" myself in preparation for the challenges ahead.
Brooklyn, NY
+Participation
My project at Emerging Leader Labs is focused on developing Manhattan Free School with my friend and fellow staff member, Tomis Parker. My specific focus will be on coordinating student life at the school, but will I really be coordinating the lives of students at a school where the learning is self-directed? The answer is almost certainly not. So perhaps a better way to describe my focus is determining exactly what my role will be and how Tomis and I can work together to set an example of the kind of culture we believe is important for a democratic/free school to be successful.
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