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Newsweek article!
X Makes the Grade: Mutant High Goes International
As a new generation of mutants discover their powers, countries around the world race to a educate a whole new kind of student. Newsweek shines the spotlight on a few role models paving the way for a new type of education.
by Joseph Cage
In October of 2006, Drs. Charles Xavier and Jean Grey confirmed the existence of a school for the education and training of the young generation of mutants an hour outside of New York City. This revelation was met with shock and excitement and violence and support alike, but regardless of any individual's opinion, Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters' public image has changed the way newly-manifesting mutants are being treated in schools nationwide and across the world. In this report, Newsweek takes a look at four out of a growing number of examples.
It should come as no surprise that the San Francisco Bay Area, an area known for its tolerance of minorities and its embracing of the weird, was one of the first to respond to the Xavier's outing with support and plans for a comparable institution of its own. Within weeks of the announcement from Westchester, the school board of the City and County of San Francisco passed a clause that anti-mutant behavior within public schools would be handled in the same manner as hate speech or actions against ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities. Alameda County followed suit within two months, and similar clauses are being discussed in Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties.
While protection in public schools is a big and important step, a group of educators and parents from across the Bay Area, mutant and human supporter alike, feel that their progressive metropolis can stand to go a little further. The group, Bay Area Mutant Families, has composed - with speed related to drive and passion rather than superhuman mental processes - a proposal for a mutant-oriented high school in the East Bay area.
When confronted with the accusation that the proposed school could be exclusionary, segregationist, or even supremacist, group spokesman Raymond Sargent,
a geophysics professor at UC Berkeley and father to a girl whose hands can become hot enough to cook things, explained, "Think of it as a magnet school, not an exclusive institution. We're not going to turn anyone away because of their genes, but the curriculum would be designed to appeal to a particular group - in this case, mutants. You wouldn't send your kid to a science and tech magnet school if he was heart-set on being a concert pianist, and it's the same kind of case here. There would be all the regular high school classes, plus a little extra."
Bay Area Mutant Families has already presented the proposal to school officials in Oakland, Hayward, and Fremont, and will be meeting with the Berkeley school board in September. Sargent said of these appeals to multiple cities, "Our hope is that we'll get to negotiate with the various cities to see who will do our project the best justice, not that we'll have to fall back on the only one that gives us the go-ahead."
***
Housed in castle in the middle of the otherwise-deserted countryside, the Darwin School instantly draws Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to mind, and that may not be too far of a stretch of the imagination in terms of what goes on inside, either. Founded in 1984, it is already longstanding and venerable in terms of schools designed specifically to teach young mutants control and responsibility over their powers.
Also like Hogwarts, the Darwin School's existence has been entirely unknown to the non-powered public until earlier this year, when, following on the heels of the outing of Xavier's School, it too went public. Previously, all knowledge of the Darwin School was passed along from person to person, keeping classes small and number opportunities to show up on the public's radar smaller.
Even now, the Darwin School is still hard to find. Its website lists only email and phone information, with no mailing or street address to be found there or in the phone book. "Just because the Darwin School is now a known name doesn't mean we want everybody to pop on over and take a look," said admissions director Kathleen Rollins, who has the ability to create translucent moving images and shapes in the air. "Even if most intentions are good, the students must still be protected from those which are not."
Admissions to the Darwin School are initiated with a phone call or email. Once the faculty have reviewed the information thus provided, they send a representative out to meet with the hopeful student at their own home for a more extensive interview. It is not until a student is accepted that they are invited to actually come out to the school's remote location.
"We've had quite a jump in admissions requests since we went public," Rollings explained. "Not a surprised, really, but we've had to become rather more selective to make sure we don't tax the faculty too severely. We have been thinking about expanding the faculty as well to accommodate the students."
When asked what criteria the Darwin School considers when picking through potential students, Rolling clarified, "When push comes to shove, we're more likely to accept a student with difficulties fitting in physically, or with powers that have a greater potential to cause accidental harm to the self and others if not properly controlled. And since none of our alumni have found their way onto the news for deeds badly done, I feel we have been choosing our students well."
***
Germany was quick to jump in on the heels of Xavier's big announcement. "Such a school is an excellent idea, and maybe someday we will have more than one," praised Horst Graben, who is able to change the color of his own eyes at will, and is the founder
of the new Sankt Nikolaus Institut fr Kinder mit Talenten in suburban Berlin. "In Germany, we have Fachschule for those wishing to learn any number of crafts and trades, and we have Hochschule for those intending to study the technical and intellectual. It is only logical to have schools designed to help these young people hone their natural abilities."
Though its particular namesake was chosen for being the patron saint of children and of those who are wrongly accused of doing harm, the December announcement of the intent to open a school for young mutants was an unexpected and welcome holiday gift for those struggling to comprehend and control their powers.
"Within the first 48 hours after we announced the plans for the opening of the Institut, we already had received over a hundred letters, many from talented young people themselves, some from their parents." Graben laughed. "Some also from people telling us how we were doing a very wrong thing to promote this, but we have not read those letters over for deeper consideration."
The definition of "Kinder" is a little stretched in the case of the Sankt Nikolaus Institut. It begins with those just beginning to show signs of adolescence and X-factor manifestation - some of which would still be in grade school - through late teens, when most would be headed off to University. "Perhaps the age range will change when we are more established and there are more schools," Graben explained, "but for now, we need to fill the space where there has been nothing at all before."
The Sankt Nikolaus Institut fr Kinder mit Talenten begins its first year of classes at the end of September of this year. When asked if he had any reservations about the quick jump from proposal to opening, Graben responded, "This will be something of a test year for the curriculum, and we will keep shaping it based on how it goes this year, but I am not worried. That we were able to make this happen so efficiently means that enough people have their hearts in it to make it keep working."
***
This cropping up of mutant-friendly and mutant-specific schools is not limited to North America and Europe.
Tokyo's Shibaura Kyoiku Gakuen School has been teaching middle and high school-aged mutants for several years now, its faculty and students not going out of their way to hide its existence, but also taking care not to draw in much fanfare.
The school was founded at the beginning of the 2002 school year, its timing influenced by the spate of mutant-related violence in the United States and elsewhere in the world. History teacher Takashi Kobayashi, who elected not to comment on whether or not he has mutant abilities of his own, described the climate before the opening: "Because there was more awareness of mutants in the rest of the world, people started to look for and see more of the differences here. It started to become disruptive and get in the way of lessons. We saw that it would be important to have a separate school."
At first, it was pretty much just that - a separate school with the same academic program. As the students began to show unique individual mutation-related issues, however, the faculty came to see some changes needed to be made. "We had one student who had claws like a cat, and they kept coming out of his fingers in class," Kobayashi recalled, "and another whose hands would make her books wet, and another who could erase the board from across the room. Still very disruptive!"
After an incident in which the school nearly had a wall blown out, there were extensive staff meetings and a conclusion was reached. Shibaura Kyoiku Gakuen School would aim to help mutants rather than separate them from the crowd, and starting in 2004, the number of mutants on faculty was increased to accommodate this. As Kobayashi sees it, "It was not the students' decision to be able to do these things, and it would be unfair for their educations to be compromised by it. They may have more to learn because of these powers, but rather than considering them an impediment, it means they should also be given the training to excel with them."
As a new generation of mutants discover their powers, countries around the world race to a educate a whole new kind of student. Newsweek shines the spotlight on a few role models paving the way for a new type of education.
by Joseph Cage
In October of 2006, Drs. Charles Xavier and Jean Grey confirmed the existence of a school for the education and training of the young generation of mutants an hour outside of New York City. This revelation was met with shock and excitement and violence and support alike, but regardless of any individual's opinion, Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters' public image has changed the way newly-manifesting mutants are being treated in schools nationwide and across the world. In this report, Newsweek takes a look at four out of a growing number of examples.
It should come as no surprise that the San Francisco Bay Area, an area known for its tolerance of minorities and its embracing of the weird, was one of the first to respond to the Xavier's outing with support and plans for a comparable institution of its own. Within weeks of the announcement from Westchester, the school board of the City and County of San Francisco passed a clause that anti-mutant behavior within public schools would be handled in the same manner as hate speech or actions against ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities. Alameda County followed suit within two months, and similar clauses are being discussed in Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties.
While protection in public schools is a big and important step, a group of educators and parents from across the Bay Area, mutant and human supporter alike, feel that their progressive metropolis can stand to go a little further. The group, Bay Area Mutant Families, has composed - with speed related to drive and passion rather than superhuman mental processes - a proposal for a mutant-oriented high school in the East Bay area.
When confronted with the accusation that the proposed school could be exclusionary, segregationist, or even supremacist, group spokesman Raymond Sargent,
a geophysics professor at UC Berkeley and father to a girl whose hands can become hot enough to cook things, explained, "Think of it as a magnet school, not an exclusive institution. We're not going to turn anyone away because of their genes, but the curriculum would be designed to appeal to a particular group - in this case, mutants. You wouldn't send your kid to a science and tech magnet school if he was heart-set on being a concert pianist, and it's the same kind of case here. There would be all the regular high school classes, plus a little extra."
Bay Area Mutant Families has already presented the proposal to school officials in Oakland, Hayward, and Fremont, and will be meeting with the Berkeley school board in September. Sargent said of these appeals to multiple cities, "Our hope is that we'll get to negotiate with the various cities to see who will do our project the best justice, not that we'll have to fall back on the only one that gives us the go-ahead."
***
Housed in castle in the middle of the otherwise-deserted countryside, the Darwin School instantly draws Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to mind, and that may not be too far of a stretch of the imagination in terms of what goes on inside, either. Founded in 1984, it is already longstanding and venerable in terms of schools designed specifically to teach young mutants control and responsibility over their powers.
Also like Hogwarts, the Darwin School's existence has been entirely unknown to the non-powered public until earlier this year, when, following on the heels of the outing of Xavier's School, it too went public. Previously, all knowledge of the Darwin School was passed along from person to person, keeping classes small and number opportunities to show up on the public's radar smaller.
Even now, the Darwin School is still hard to find. Its website lists only email and phone information, with no mailing or street address to be found there or in the phone book. "Just because the Darwin School is now a known name doesn't mean we want everybody to pop on over and take a look," said admissions director Kathleen Rollins, who has the ability to create translucent moving images and shapes in the air. "Even if most intentions are good, the students must still be protected from those which are not."
Admissions to the Darwin School are initiated with a phone call or email. Once the faculty have reviewed the information thus provided, they send a representative out to meet with the hopeful student at their own home for a more extensive interview. It is not until a student is accepted that they are invited to actually come out to the school's remote location.
"We've had quite a jump in admissions requests since we went public," Rollings explained. "Not a surprised, really, but we've had to become rather more selective to make sure we don't tax the faculty too severely. We have been thinking about expanding the faculty as well to accommodate the students."
When asked what criteria the Darwin School considers when picking through potential students, Rolling clarified, "When push comes to shove, we're more likely to accept a student with difficulties fitting in physically, or with powers that have a greater potential to cause accidental harm to the self and others if not properly controlled. And since none of our alumni have found their way onto the news for deeds badly done, I feel we have been choosing our students well."
***
Germany was quick to jump in on the heels of Xavier's big announcement. "Such a school is an excellent idea, and maybe someday we will have more than one," praised Horst Graben, who is able to change the color of his own eyes at will, and is the founder
of the new Sankt Nikolaus Institut fr Kinder mit Talenten in suburban Berlin. "In Germany, we have Fachschule for those wishing to learn any number of crafts and trades, and we have Hochschule for those intending to study the technical and intellectual. It is only logical to have schools designed to help these young people hone their natural abilities."
Though its particular namesake was chosen for being the patron saint of children and of those who are wrongly accused of doing harm, the December announcement of the intent to open a school for young mutants was an unexpected and welcome holiday gift for those struggling to comprehend and control their powers.
"Within the first 48 hours after we announced the plans for the opening of the Institut, we already had received over a hundred letters, many from talented young people themselves, some from their parents." Graben laughed. "Some also from people telling us how we were doing a very wrong thing to promote this, but we have not read those letters over for deeper consideration."
The definition of "Kinder" is a little stretched in the case of the Sankt Nikolaus Institut. It begins with those just beginning to show signs of adolescence and X-factor manifestation - some of which would still be in grade school - through late teens, when most would be headed off to University. "Perhaps the age range will change when we are more established and there are more schools," Graben explained, "but for now, we need to fill the space where there has been nothing at all before."
The Sankt Nikolaus Institut fr Kinder mit Talenten begins its first year of classes at the end of September of this year. When asked if he had any reservations about the quick jump from proposal to opening, Graben responded, "This will be something of a test year for the curriculum, and we will keep shaping it based on how it goes this year, but I am not worried. That we were able to make this happen so efficiently means that enough people have their hearts in it to make it keep working."
***
This cropping up of mutant-friendly and mutant-specific schools is not limited to North America and Europe.
Tokyo's Shibaura Kyoiku Gakuen School has been teaching middle and high school-aged mutants for several years now, its faculty and students not going out of their way to hide its existence, but also taking care not to draw in much fanfare.
The school was founded at the beginning of the 2002 school year, its timing influenced by the spate of mutant-related violence in the United States and elsewhere in the world. History teacher Takashi Kobayashi, who elected not to comment on whether or not he has mutant abilities of his own, described the climate before the opening: "Because there was more awareness of mutants in the rest of the world, people started to look for and see more of the differences here. It started to become disruptive and get in the way of lessons. We saw that it would be important to have a separate school."
At first, it was pretty much just that - a separate school with the same academic program. As the students began to show unique individual mutation-related issues, however, the faculty came to see some changes needed to be made. "We had one student who had claws like a cat, and they kept coming out of his fingers in class," Kobayashi recalled, "and another whose hands would make her books wet, and another who could erase the board from across the room. Still very disruptive!"
After an incident in which the school nearly had a wall blown out, there were extensive staff meetings and a conclusion was reached. Shibaura Kyoiku Gakuen School would aim to help mutants rather than separate them from the crowd, and starting in 2004, the number of mutants on faculty was increased to accommodate this. As Kobayashi sees it, "It was not the students' decision to be able to do these things, and it would be unfair for their educations to be compromised by it. They may have more to learn because of these powers, but rather than considering them an impediment, it means they should also be given the training to excel with them."