From the Outside:

Rockbridge County, nestled into the breadbasket of the Shenandoah in mid-western Virginia, is the home of a particularly inspired and forward-thinking public educational program. This program is, of course, driven by passionate and informed educators such as Coleen Cosgriff, a fifth-grade teacher at Central Elementary School in Lexington, Virginia. 

Cosgriff, the subject of this article, has the opportunity to teach a very special group of students. The location of Central Elementary School, just within the limits of quiet Lexington, draws an eclectic crowd of students. These students might be called “city kids,” though Lexington is not exactly a bustling metropolis, but these small-town residents commingle in the classrooms with a few students from the rural surrounding areas of Rockbridge. Consequently, the student body presents a mix of students with both rural and urban backgrounds (and resources), a combination found only in such tucked-away havens as the Shenandoah.

From the Inside:

“Project Based Learning” by Suzie Boss, a textbook for the Fieldwork class and an example of Cosgriff’s technique.

Cosgriff approaches this diverse and unique teaching opportunity often by adopting a teaching style known as “project-based learning,” in which the instructor steps back and acts as a facilitator for the students’ owncreative thinking. Cosgriff responded to questions we posed to her in an email, saying, “I hope that when it comes time to plan their project[s] that they have a sense that I am stepping back and becoming a facilitator. I won’t have all the answers, but I will have some “tools” to offer. I will give them some ideas, but each class is going to have to decide what they do with their time.” In this way, somewhat out of the norms of traditional, more dictatorial teaching styles, Cosgriff hopes to unleash creativity and learning potential of each student in order to allow for their unique situations, thoughts, resources, and experiences to come forth into the classroom in a beautiful way.

A snapshot of the classroom depicting the class pet, a bearded dragon

This form of project-based learning is becoming more relevant in the thought surrounding education in the United States today. Coleen Cosgriff is leading the charge into a “hands-off” teaching style which may very well become the prevalent method of 21st century educators, all from her quiet station in Shenandoah.