More to Explore
Social Media
Slideshows
Selected Blog Posts
Staff Initiatives Update
Circle School staff continue to advance our staff initiative as adopted in fall 2022: Increase the quality of life for Circle School students and staff, particularly through three initiatives: Increase students' access to resources. Increase staff's student-facing...
Is This School Really “Self-Directed”?
Drag-alongs, tag-alongs, stumble-ons, and happenings The Circle School describes itself as “self-directed” education, but that term can be misleading. Talking about student freedom, initiative, and self-direction sometimes creates the impression that each student is...
Finding Happiness In School
I want children in school to find happiness. Not momentary fireworks, but the saturating joy of purpose and meaning in life. Not someday, but now, as children. I’ve noticed that kids who live fulfilling lives as kids tend to build fulfilling lives as adults. I think...
“Get to” vs “Have to”
When I was 13 years old, I didn't want to attend The Circle School. My mom and stepdad had fallen in love with the school, and found my two younger siblings required no selling on the idea, but I wasn't buying. I was mostly happy in public school, though in hindsight...
Chickens with missions
Concealed in a shipping container, six secret agents arrived in April -- unarmed, disarming, and charming. Their handlers, the Cool Things Outside Corporation, commandeered a lavatory and quartered the agents in an improvised barracks. Dozens of locals peeped in on...
Community in Committee
Over the past year, I was a member of The Circle School’s ad hoc Anti-Racism Committee, formed by the Board of Trustees in February 2021. I’m so grateful for the perspective I gained through this work, and in conversations with my fellow committee members (Kirsten...
From Founding Furnace to Post-Curricular
With retirement on the horizon, I’m feeling reflective. This morning I’m thinking about how different The Circle School is today from the way it was in its founding years. And how much the same it is. I’m thinking about changes to come, and how the cherished sameness...
I feel peaceful here, Mommy
Hello Circle School Family! I became interested in the school many years ago when I started my family. I had begun delving deeper into research regarding what successfully existed globally based on the personal criteria I held. My personal criteria were heavily...
No, Kids Don’t Rule the School
At first glance, you might get the wrong idea from the title of my book, When Kids Rule the School. You might think kids are in charge in some sort of absolute way. It’s not that simple. The publishers didn't like my working title: "Kids Practicing Life," which I have...
Marina’s cardboard spinning wheel
Sometime back in March, I made a cardboard spinning wheel at school. If any of you are wondering what type of school I go to where I can make a spinning wheel out of cardboard, it's called The Circle School, and it’s a self-directed democratic school in Harrisburg,...
Arbitrary Milestones: a graduation speech
One of the most popular human figures to come out of Greek mythology is, arguably, Sisyphus. For those who don’t know his story, basically, he was a king who cheated death in his youth, and when he eventually died of old age and had to go back to the underworld, he...
Gratitude in an Upside Down Year
Jim's 2014 blog post "I connected my laptop to the internet and fire trucks came" was published shortly before I began my tenure here at The Circle School. In my early days on staff, one of the first things Jim told me was that "At The Circle School, something new...
Other Writings
What Kind of School?
The Learning Edge
Focusing on the latter, The Learning Edge offers thoughts about how and why self–direction is important and effective in education, proposing a framework of ideas supporting the practice of self–directed schooling.
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Selected Newsletters
Staff Initiatives Update
Circle School staff continue to advance our staff initiative as adopted in fall 2022: Increase the quality of life for Circle School students and staff, particularly through three initiatives: Increase students' access to resources. Increase staff's student-facing...
Is This School Really “Self-Directed”?
Drag-alongs, tag-alongs, stumble-ons, and happenings The Circle School describes itself as “self-directed” education, but that term can be misleading. Talking about student freedom, initiative, and self-direction sometimes creates the impression that each student is...
Finding Happiness In School
I want children in school to find happiness. Not momentary fireworks, but the saturating joy of purpose and meaning in life. Not someday, but now, as children. I’ve noticed that kids who live fulfilling lives as kids tend to build fulfilling lives as adults. I think...
“Get to” vs “Have to”
When I was 13 years old, I didn't want to attend The Circle School. My mom and stepdad had fallen in love with the school, and found my two younger siblings required no selling on the idea, but I wasn't buying. I was mostly happy in public school, though in hindsight...
Chickens with missions
Concealed in a shipping container, six secret agents arrived in April -- unarmed, disarming, and charming. Their handlers, the Cool Things Outside Corporation, commandeered a lavatory and quartered the agents in an improvised barracks. Dozens of locals peeped in on...
Community in Committee
Over the past year, I was a member of The Circle School’s ad hoc Anti-Racism Committee, formed by the Board of Trustees in February 2021. I’m so grateful for the perspective I gained through this work, and in conversations with my fellow committee members (Kirsten...
From Founding Furnace to Post-Curricular
With retirement on the horizon, I’m feeling reflective. This morning I’m thinking about how different The Circle School is today from the way it was in its founding years. And how much the same it is. I’m thinking about changes to come, and how the cherished sameness...
I feel peaceful here, Mommy
Hello Circle School Family! I became interested in the school many years ago when I started my family. I had begun delving deeper into research regarding what successfully existed globally based on the personal criteria I held. My personal criteria were heavily...
No, Kids Don’t Rule the School
At first glance, you might get the wrong idea from the title of my book, When Kids Rule the School. You might think kids are in charge in some sort of absolute way. It’s not that simple. The publishers didn't like my working title: "Kids Practicing Life," which I have...
Marina’s cardboard spinning wheel
Sometime back in March, I made a cardboard spinning wheel at school. If any of you are wondering what type of school I go to where I can make a spinning wheel out of cardboard, it's called The Circle School, and it’s a self-directed democratic school in Harrisburg,...
Arbitrary Milestones: a graduation speech
One of the most popular human figures to come out of Greek mythology is, arguably, Sisyphus. For those who don’t know his story, basically, he was a king who cheated death in his youth, and when he eventually died of old age and had to go back to the underworld, he...
Gratitude in an Upside Down Year
Jim's 2014 blog post "I connected my laptop to the internet and fire trucks came" was published shortly before I began my tenure here at The Circle School. In my early days on staff, one of the first things Jim told me was that "At The Circle School, something new...
What Cool Things Outside means to me
My name is Lily Compton and I started the Cool Things Outside Corporation at The Circle School five years ago, and I'm still the chair of the corporation today. [“Corporations” at The Circle School are like clubs or interest groups. -Editor] I didn't have a plan back...
Planned Giving: “It feels good”
“It feels good to think that someday we’ll be making a gift to a place that is so special to us.” These are the words of Stacy Kuyk-White, parent of alumn Taylor Kuyk-White ’06. Stacy and her husband, Trustee Rob White, recently included The Circle School in their...
Grow up, America! Polarized politics and democratic schools
I’m disappointed by America’s dysfunctional politics. And I bet you are, too. What really gets to me is the hyper-polarization and aggressive non-cooperation. I want to yell “Grow up, America!” -- but that might be insulting to the kids I work with. For me it’s...