The Intersection

21st Century education has its share of buzz words: "innovation" being chief among them. From my first years of teaching (in the midst of Y2K and its anti-climactic aftermath), everyone in education was focused on the future. To innovate meant to do school differently: to throw out the factory models of education in favor of schools for different purposes--technological, thematic, globalized.  16 years into this new century, and the factory model of schooling still exists. However, much has changed as well. Numerous schools , from charter to independent to public, are blowing up the concept of traditional education in favor of more experiential and intentional learning experiences that meet the needs of today's students. Some schools are responding to advanced uses of technology, like Michigan's Clintondale High School , a public high school in the Detroit area whose core focus is the flipped classroom. Other schools are innovating by unplugging, such as Th