Students at Odyssey Community School in Asheville working w/ Re-Happening, SCAD

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Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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odyssey_community_school_asheville_2015A quick look at what’s happening at Odyssey this spring:

Odyssey Community School offers Asheville’s only Integral Design  school, which gives students opportunities that are rare for school age children: entrepreneurship, dedicated daily time for personal centering and reflection, room to rigorously investigate their passions, community building experience and true citizenship. They also learn the design thinking process, which they begin practicing in kindergarten, honing their skills and deepening their understanding through high school graduation.

This spring Odyssey students and faculty are working with the architecture program at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) to design a new school. At the same time, high school students are partnering with Black Mountain College in a design challenge to create an outdoor lighting and navigation system for the BMCM’s annual Re-Happening Event. The project is funded through a grant from local electronics company Moog Music. Middle and high school students are also working together on expanding their third annual, entirely student run, student edited literary publication, Untitled Document, and are accepting music, visual art, and literary submissions for their blog and print issue, set to be released in May (send submissions to [email protected]).

New Co-Directors Megan McCarter and Cory Adams hit the ground with lots of new ideas this fall.  “Our students are excited to get outside the classroom and create real world design solutions” says Director of Operations, Cory Adams. “Giving them opportunities to work with other community organizations, like BMCM, is what Odyssey is about: we want our students to learn outside-the-box. We want them to build the box, and then experiment with it.”

“The school’s focus is creating leaders for the next generation,” say Megan McCarter, Director of Programming. “We give students tools to know themselves, to know and embrace their own personal style of leadership, to think critically about their world, and because we aren’t answering to state common core standards, our teachers can really work creatively in guiding each student to meet these goals. They develop curriculum that is both academically challenging and personally rewarding. As an Integral School, Odyssey doesn’t offer one education path for every student. We offer the best path for each student.”

To learn more about Odyssey’s Integral Education and Design program, please contact:

CoryAdams

[email protected]

www.odysseycommunity.org @ocscory

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Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

  • 1

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