Recipe for learning: Take two excellent teachers with a passion for students. Allow them to design their perfect classroom. Reduce class sizes, mix subjects together so learning to read can also be happening during an art or science class. Learn by hands-on-doing and less by rote memorization. Build social and emotional skills, then see what happens.
That’s the educational experiment being conducted at The ColLab, 14355 Providence Road in Milton by Co-Founders Megan Jamison and Landyn Foxworthy. Megan’s husband, Jamison is currently mayor of Milton and Landyn is the niece of Jeff Foxworthy.
The two met while both were teaching at King’s Ridge Christian School in Alpharetta. Both attended Auburn University. Jamison’s education career began with Teach for America where she taught science at Booker T. Washington High School in Atlanta. Early in her marriage she opened a store in Alpharetta called Just For Giggles where she taught art classes for many years. Her passion for how to teach is also rooted in the fact that all three of her children are dyslexic making learning to read more challenging.
Foxworthy is younger but as Jamison put it, “She was my daughter’s fourth grade teacher and I thought she was just a rock star teacher.”
Using concepts Jamison learned from Teach for America to attack learning from all angles their goal is not necessarily to raise educational levels in one year but raise them over time by attacking science and reading together or art and math at the same time.
“We saw children benefit from learning in a different way,” said Foxworthy. “We saw children with the potential to do so well and overcome their challenges, but they’re not given that opportunity in the classroom.”
During the Covid pandemic, both saw children and teachers struggling.
“Teachers across the nation are so over teaching,” noted Jamison. “All of our schools are short teachers, and everyone complains. We thought, why are we allowing this perpetual problem to continue. Education has stayed stagnant, but the world has moved on and we keep trying to fit children into this box that was created in 1890.”
Using multi-sensory Structured Literacy techniques (like the Orton-Gillingham Approach, Wilson, etc.), the ColLab works with all students, whether they are dyslexic or not, to enrich their learning. Not a full-time school, parents purchase a membership that allows their elementary or middle school child to attend as many after-school classes as they would like to support and enhance what’s happening in the traditional classroom. Younger (from birth to age 3) and home school students have options earlier in the day and summer camps are very popular.
“We do live in a wealthy area, but there are a lot of people who are at their threshold to be here,” added Jamison. “Whether it’s financially or logistically, some of the public schools aren’t the best fit, some of the private schools aren’t the best fit but we have to provide a place for these kids.”
They hope to not only help children conquer their educational challenges but also to create a true love for learning. Some of the most popular classes are reading comprehension and fluency, handwriting, science lab, touch typing, phonics and the math, writing, cooking and art labs.
They pay teachers very well to make every effort to keep good educators in the system.
“The hard parts for a teacher are taken away and the parts that teachers love we get to do,” said Foxworthy. “We really did create our dream job.”
For more about this customized recipe for learning visit www.atthecollab.com.
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