Key Components of Partnership Education

Partnership Education integrates three core components: process, content, and structure. For a more in-depth discussion, see Riane Eisler's Tomorrow's Children, pp. 13-25. Partnership Education supports responsibility and promotes inclusiveness and interaction with the community. 

• Children are seen as partners in the learning process
• Adults model facilitation rather than control
• Every child’s unique abilities are fostered
• Children are treated with empathy and caring
• Diverse learning styles are honored
• Children's voices are heard and their ideas are respected
• Emotional needs are understood and addressed
• Cooperative learning and individual responsibility are combined
• Learning is a reciprocal activity between teacher and child
• Students learn through experiential opportunities
• Young people think for themselves and trust their observations and experiences
• Students develop and use skills of caring and ethical behaviors

The critical factor here is to emphasize that Partnership Education does not mean discarding all the content that currently is considered essential. It is not about discarding what many professionals deem important for children to know and do, or about throwing out state standards. However, the current standards movement is limiting. What is needed is an integrated framework that combines basic academic content with the information and skills students need for a sustainable, equitable, and peaceful future. Eventually, we may see a revision of standards. For now, educators can expand state standards by integrating partnership content to develop the instructional curriculum for their school.

Content in Partnership Education programs includes standard subjects such as math, reading, writing, science, social studies, art, physical education, music, and computer literacy. (See Tomorrow's Children, pp. 45-51 for a discussion of the "Partnership Curriculum Loom and Learning Tapestry.") Woven into the entire learning tapestry are materials that reflect:

• Gender balance
• Environmental consciousness
• Multiculturalism
• Partnership values and ethical standards
• Partnership illiteracies and competencies, including emotional literacy, media literacy, systems competence, nonviolent conflict resolution, and responsible leadership
• The partnership-dominator continuum as an analytical lens
• The arts and music
• Partnership language
• Self-regulation and life-planning
• A meaningful story of evolution
• A more accurate and hopeful view of what being human means

Spatial Environment - A partnership spatial environment is inviting and welcomes and celebrates each individual. When visiting a school/program with a partnership spatial environment, one would expect to see:

• Safe spaces with architectural dangers (e.g., dark stairwells) modified or removed 
• Full accessibility with architectural barriers removed
• Playgrounds that facilitate cooperation
• Accessible playground equipment
• Welcoming, colorful hallways and wall space that celebrate learning and every person

Infrastructure - The organization of a school or other learning environment models partnership in policy, development, and implementation. It facilitates inclusiveness in decision-making and learning together. One would expect to see:

• Hierarchies of actualization where accountability flows in every direction, rather than hierarchies of control and domination where accountability only flows from the bottom up
• Governance that allows for shared decision-making between administration, staff, and students
• Collaborative planning, collegial dialogue, and continuous learning (e.g. professional staff development)
• Teachers mentoring each other
• Resource allocations that maximize support for learning
• Inclusion of parents and other community members as volunteers
• Lines of communication with community service agencies

Other Key Features of Partnership Education

Promoting Responsibility and Achievement
Accountability is a major topic in today's education world. However, the word accountability conjures up images of rewards and sanctions imposed by an external force. Responsibility is internally driven rather than externally imposed.

There has been a tendency to assume that nurturing communities or schools based on caring are somehow contradictory to the tenets of accountability, i.e., ensuring excellence in learning. In fact, it is in nurturing communities of learning that young people can freely actualize their human striving to excel, to be the best they can be. In partnership schools/programs, staff have a deep commitment to ensure that each child progresses and learns, and assumes responsibility.

Partnership Education allows educators to better help students realize their individual potentials by recognizing that excellence in learning is connected to long-range personal development, which includes both academic (cognitive domain) and social/emotional (affective domain) development. Excellence cannot be measured only by tests designed to sort students and measure academic progress in comparison to what others know. True excellence in education focuses on the whole student as a unique individual, and is best measured using a variety of more integrative assessment approaches that incorporate multiple formats for reporting what students have really learned.

Some of the characteristics that evidence responsibility in a partnership program might include:

• Working with parents, community members, and teachers to identify and understand standards and expectations for student learning that include both academic and social/emotional domains
• Maintaining high expectations for student learning based on a caring, positive belief in each child's potential
• Tracking every child's learning progress against pre-set standards or expectations and their individual goals
• Designing multiple ways of assessing and demonstrating student learning
• Reporting student learning in meaningful ways

Promoting Community Interaction to Serve Children and Families
Our schools are mirrors of the communities in which they reside. Students come to school with multiple and complex issues that cannot be resolved by school alone. Partnership schools/programs find ways to work with the community to support students and families. This can be greatly facilitated by:

• Social service office space in the school
• Working with community groups to address violence or other issues
• Active parent resource centers
• Social service workers meeting regularly with staff
• Shared resources between schools, social services, mental health services, and other community resources to ensure children receive the support they need in all aspects of their lives

The long-term vision for Partnership Education is to make schools center for community services, meetings, and life-long learning opportunities for all community members.