THEY’RE BORED OF EDUCATION
Kids learn video-game design, farming at new 42G WeWork school
FOR Tribeca parents Dror Benshetrit and Davina Rosenbaum, morning drop-off involves a lot more than just saying goodbye to daughter Noi, 5, and son Oht, 3. Once the family arrives at school, the day begins with a music circle, where parents and children sing along and dance to Beatles and Disney songs in a space dubbed “the magic meadow” — a green carpeted island amidst pale wood fixtures, all designed by an avant-garde Danish architect. Afterward, parents troop over to a lounge area for socializing and free coffee.
“You’re walking into this fun concert experience. It’s a highlight of our day,” said Rosenbaum, who runs a design studio with her husband, a “futurist.”
Welcome to WeGrow, a progressive new pre-K and elementary school from WeWork, the shared workspace company, and housed in its Chelsea headquarters.
The $42,000-a-year curriculum ($36,000 for preschool for ages 3 to 4 and $22,000 for 2-year-olds) is a slick mish-mash of Montessori, New Age philosophy and Silicon Valley capitalism set amongst Architecture Digest-worthy interiors. Just a couple months into the school year, parents — and their children — are thrilled with the highly branded experience, but some in the education world caution that it could end up being yet another failed attempt by techie types to revolutionize schools.
While the WeWork name conjures images of millennials glued to laptops, technology is used sparingly at WeGrow. A major feature of the curriculum is weekly trips to a farm in Westchester, where the kids spend time in nature and learn about science by growing their own fruits and veggies. On Thursdays, they practice their math — and entrepreneurial — skills with a farmstand at the school, selling the produce to WeWork members and donating the money to charity.
“The future of preparing your children for the world is focusing on compassion [and] entrepreneurship,” said Anja Tyson, who first read about the school on Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop Web site and decided to send her 5-year-old, Matilda, there.
She notes how Matilda no longer struggles with separation anxiety, as she did at other schools. “This Industrial Revolution era of education is outmoded in current society.”
The school is the brainchild of Rebekah Neumann, the chief brand officer at WeWork and the wife of CEO Adam Neumann. She was dissatisfied with their daughter’s kindergarten experience and couldn’t find any better alternatives for first grade.
“We couldn’t find the school that we felt would nurture growth, her spirit as well as her mind,” Neumann, a mother of five and certified Jivamukti yoga instructor who studied with the Dalai Lama, told Fast Company. “These children come into the world, they are very evolved, they are very special. They’re spiritual. They’re all natural entrepreneurs, natural humanitarians, and then it seems like we squash it all out of them in the education system.”
AFTER morning music circle, the 46 students — from pre-K through fourth grade — enjoy a 25-minute mindfulness and meditation period dubbed WePractice. (The school plans to expand to sixth grade next year.) The rest of the morning is spent learning Hebrew or Mandarin and dabbling in robotics and engineering, along with more traditional subject matter, all taught with a trans-disciplinary approach. Following a midday moment of gratitude and a vegetarian lunch, there’s free time for reading and two periods devoted to art classes. The nine teachers make efforts to cater to pupils’ unique interests and Neumann has said the goal of the curriculum is “to help students identify their superpowers and discover how to use them to help others.”
“Everything that we do in our day has this body-mind-spirit approach,” said Josh Shanklin, WeGrow’s 42-year-old Head of Community (basically, the principal).
That holistic philosophy, and an emphasis on kindness and community, is what appealed to Dami Okuboyejo, a former teacher who sends her twin 4-year-old sons to WeGrow. “I’m really not big on academics . . . I don’t know what the Pythagorean theorem has done for me,” said the Harlem resident, who has her own stationery business. “At the end of the day, it’s all about being able to communicate with people.”
Students age 6 and up take part in a mentorship program in which they’re paired with WeWork members or employees who do something that interests them, such as video-game design or even event planning. According to a school representative, all mentors undergo background checks and mentorships are monitored by teachers.
“We have [one student] who just loves to project manage,” said Sung-Ae Yang, the Head of Learning. “She’s being partnered with our events team at WeWork.”
WeGrow tailors curriculum and pace to student needs, according to a school representative, and includes traditional studies including math, science and language arts. The school follows a Montessoribased approach that focuses on daily assessment rather than the rigors of testing. It does not participate in city or state standardized testing.
The academy’s starry-eyed optimism comes in the wake of stumbling efforts by various tech titans to reform education. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel both invested in AltSchool, a for-profit network of “micro-schools” that launched in New York City in 2015, touting personalized learning plans for each child.
But, earlier this year, AltSchool closed its East Village and some California locations, and the company is shifting its focus to selling its educational software to other schools. Parents have also complained to various press outlets about the quality of education their children were receiving.
“We kind of came to the conclusion that, really, AltSchool . . . was kind of a front for what [founder Max Ventilla] really wants to do, which is develop software that he’s selling,” a former AltSchool parent told Business Insider.
“We’re all spending a fortune on tutoring to supplement what our kids aren’t learning,” one mother told TechCrunch.
Paul France, a former AltSchool teacher, said WeGrow “sounds just like AltSchool and how everybody felt at the beginning.”
But, “When we just say to kids, ‘we’re just going to learn about what you’re interested in’ . . . it limits them. There was also this entitlement that I thought was really toxic,” added France whose book, “Reclaiming Personalized Learning,” is out next year.
For now, the parents aren’t worried about whether or not WeGrow can help their kids get into a competitive high school — in fact, they hope that the school will grow to offer education through grade 12 and beyond.
“The longer she can stay [at WeGrow], the better,” Tyson said of her daughter. “If they have an MFA program, she’ll be there.”