Innovative Pedagogy
and School Facilities
By Elliot Washor

**** DesignShare Editor's Choice Award 2003 ****
100 pages, including illustrations and references
Published by DesignShare, 2003

This is the story of the MET School in Rhode Island: it's a drama, a history, a doctoral thesis, and a design manifesto. The Metropolitan Regional Career and Technical Center (the MET) is a high school that beat the odds. Under-performing kids in economically depressed areas of Providence are now going to Ivy League colleges. But Elliot Washor, co-director of the MET and his colleagues are not "whipping the kids into shape;" instead they are finding each kid's interests, one kid at a time.

How did the MET achieve success, pursuing ideas described by John Dewey in 1916, but rarely implemented successfully? Washor's book includes the history of the ideas that precede the MET. The book also tells a story of struggle, where "no backsliding" was repeated like a mantra to keep the MET team fighting in spite of the obstacles

DesignShare's publication is based on Elliot Washor's doctoral dissertation at Johnson & Wales University, Providence, Rhode Island, entitled Translating Innovative Pedagogical Designs Into School Facilities. This 100-page book is a must-read for anyone interested in beating the odds to create an innovative school.

Randall Fielding

Elliot Washor
ewashor@bigpicture.org