One of the many outdoor play/social learning areas on the Reece campus

A consensus began to emerge that this kind of learning could not be properly accomplished under the old Reece model, with students occupying classrooms for significant periods of the day attending a series of lectures. We talked about project-based learning as a way out of this dilemma. But to have project-based learning, a lot of things needed to change. Multidisciplinary projects would have to be created, which meant the dismantling of the 45-minute period in favor of block scheduling. Teachers would have to collaborate, creating meaningful projects that complied with state standards, but also were engaging and exciting for students. But how could teachers do all this without training? So training was added to our list. Project-based learning also meant “hands on” activities. Where would students build a model bridge, or sew an Australian flag, or create a large poster? A place got added to the list.

Entrance to the new Reece Campus

Once we had accepted the idea that technology was an important tool to help us realize our objectives, for example, we homed in on how exactly it would be configured at the new Reece. We discussed many options, with the participants finally settling on the idea of ubiquitous computing with wireless laptops. But wireless meant that students could take learning anywhere, and so we said the design of the school should contain many interesting areas to sit and learn alone, in teams and in small groups, within and outside the school building. Because Tasmania is an isolated island community, we also discussed the idea of incorporating distance learning as an integral part of the model. It would, we decided, be like building “a thousand bridges to mainland Australia and the rest of the world.”

But the image of the school we wanted was not all about careers and skills and tangible things. We talked about developing the whole human being, about what it means to be happy, about spiritual fulfillment, about the value of music and art and community service. We summarized our findings in our shared vision statement, our “signature,” which read: Reece will be committed to its community and realize individual potential through creativity, enterprise, communication, and teamwork. This was fleshed out in a detailed mission statement crafted during a series of hands-on workshops conducted over three days.

Two years later, Reece opened its doors to students once again. But the school that reopened was not the one that had burned down. A visitor today would see that a miraculous transformation has taken place. Gone are the classrooms. Instead, there are “principal learning areas,” with movable walls that teachers can easily open or close to create larger or smaller areas. Students in the upper grades each have their own workstations.

Gone are the sterile corridors. Instead the school now has many nooks and crannies where informal learning can take place. Note also the transparency between principal learning areas and the spaces outside

Student entrepreneurship is also everywhere. For example, students run the canteen and also prepare full meals for visitors, using a student-run commercial kitchen. Community connections are strong, and the school’s commitment to art, music, and dance programs is evident in the quality of the spaces for them and the work being done by students in these areas.

Last May, when the school was formally opened by the premier of Tasmania, Jim Bacon, he was able to have a live discussion with me at my New York City office several time zones away. Projected on a giant screen in an auditorium seating 500 people, the conversation was also a distance-learning program broadcast into each of the school’s learning areas. And when the festivities were over, the “auditorium” disappeared to become multiple, active learning areas for dance and music and catering and sewing and various other programs.

Today, Reece Community High School has become a “hot” address, and schools from around the state, even those that don’t have significant construction budgets, are visiting and taking notes about what true 21st- century learning is all about. Tasmania may never build a “traditional” school again, and the rest of Australia has perhaps been put on notice that an eminently workable model is now available for new and renovated schools.

Site plan of the new Reece Campus – built around the idea of creating discrete small learning communities of about 100 students each.

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