Inspiring News Stories
Excerpts of Highly Inspiring News Stories in Major Media
Below are one-paragraph excerpts of highly inspiring news stories from the major media. Links are provided to the original stories on their media websites. If any link fails to function, click here. The inspiring news story summaries most recently posted here are listed first. You can explore the same list with the most inspiring stories listed first. See also a concise list providing headlines and links to a number of highly inspiring stories. May these articles inspire us to find ever more ways to love and support each other and all around us to be the very best we can be.
If high school students took charge of their education with limited supervision, would they learn? A Massachusetts school is finding out. Sam Levin ... started the program in 2010. Frustrated with his public-high-school schedule and realizing that his friends weren’t inspired to learn, Levin complained to his mother about how unhappy he and his classmates were, to which she responded: “Why don’t you just make your own school?” And so he did. Levin quickly gained the support of his high school guidance counselor, Mike Powell, who remains the program adviser. After getting the O.K. from the school principal and superintendent, the duo were given the green light ... to embark on their experiment in 2010. The curriculum is designed by the students, [who] enroll for an entire semester, and with only a few exceptions ... do not take other classes. Each class has a mix of 10 students, some straight-A students and others who are on the verge of failing their classes. Three to four faculty advisers are available to guide the students and to provide advice. "Giving young people the chance to directly engage in their own learning is rooted in a tremendous amount of research [showing] that is actually how we learn best," says Scott Nine, the executive director of the Institute for Democratic Education in America (IDEA). "When we think about the world our young people live in, the core competencies of autonomy, belongingness and confidence are the building blocks of what we need."
Note: Learn more about this inspiring project in this Huffington Post article.

