After spending a year exploring educational systems around the world, Crosstown High School’s executive director Chris Terrill hopes to rethink high school in terms of sustainability, leadership-focused curriculum and more.
A co-founder of Crosstown High, Terrill has spent 30 years in education, and spent the last year traveling the world, spending time in Central America, South America, Africa, Australia and more.
Terrill called his experience “life-changing,” and said the purpose of the trip was to look for innovative schools and practices around the globe.
One of the highlights from Terrill’s trip was visiting the Green School in Bali, which he said is known as the world’s most sustainable school.
“The school is based in the jungle, and the campus is made from native bamboo,” said Terrill. “They generate all of their own electricity on campus with a turbine that is built on the river that students, staff, and engineers designed and constructed.”
Terrill hopes to take some of the lessons learned from the Green School and implement them not only at Crosstown, but other high schools as well.
“Crosstown is pretty sustainable, but there are certainly things we can do better as far as that goes,” said Terrill.
Sustainability is a priority, but so is curriculum, Terrill said. He referenced the African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg, South Africa, which has an “intensive focus,” on African studies, writing and rhetoric, and entrepreneurship.
“All three of those courses are tied together in the creation of major projects,” said Terrill. “I think about the potential for Crosstown to form what you’d call Memphis Leadership Academy, or something along those lines where we’re focused on a two-year deep dive on issues that affect Memphians, and working on solutions there, and tying it to the writing and rhetoric piece, and the entrepreneurship piece.”
Terrill believes this type of curriculum would be beneficial to the community, and ties in well to the mission of Crosstown High.
Other things Terrill and his colleagues witnessed were what he called “radical parent engagement” in several ways. He mentioned that schools had built coffee shops that are open to parents, in hopes of interconnecting with the school.
“The school serves as really the hub of the community,” said Terrill. “Maybe 50 years ago things were like that, and we’ve tended to kind of lose that a little bit in the United States. I think that could be a resurgent theme if we pushed for that.”
Terrill also mentioned the addition of courses for parents to take. He added that these would not necessarily be in tandem with their children’s learning, but to further build camaraderie in a school setting.
Changes to the school calendar and schedule are also things that Terrill pondered on, as he observed other schools. He said school, in the states, has always been 180 days, six-and-a-half hours a day. He questions if it has to be that way.
“We saw in Parma, Italy, students went to school six days a week, but they went to school from 8 a.m. to noon,” said Terrill. “They had time each day for greater family time and family structure, and it’s a system they’ve had for a very long time and is working.”
He also said he saw schools that had longer school days, but a shorter school week.
“That’s something we don’t see in Tennessee, but is it a possibility?”
In order to test these things, like the school day, Terrill said it takes buy-in from parents and the district, and would ultimately need to be approved as a “pilot at the state level,” which he acknowledges is an ambitious request. However, things such as engaging and implementing parents on a higher level, is something that can easily be done.