In a new interview with C.M. Rubin, Founder of CMRubinWorld, Josh Schachter, the Founder and Director of education initiative CommunityShare, states that many high school students become disengaged and/or drop out of school because “they don’t see the relevance of what they are learning.” CommunityShare is focused on re-imagining the relationship between schools and communities, and sees real-world learning in community projects as a critical pathway to addressing several interconnected problems that contribute to disconnection, isolation and fragmentation. The CommunityShare solution takes an ecosystemic approach that “activates the existing assets of an entire community.”

Hands-on experience in coursework with teachers and community leaders would improve curriculum relevance for students, especially those from lower socio-economic backgrounds who have “less access to informal mentors and less diverse networks of social capital than more affluent students, which can critically impact their social mobility, academic achievement and economic success,” according to Schachter.

Read the full article here. 

Josh Schachter is the founder and director of CommunityShare. Created in 2015, CommunityShare is an education initiative that gives students opportunities for real-world learning in community projects. Shachter has more than 20 years of experience designing and facilitating real-world learning experiences and projects in schools, organizations and communities across the globe − in places ranging from New Delhi to Nigeria.

CMRubinWorld’s award-winning series, The Global Search for Education, brings together distinguished thought leaders in education and innovation from around the world to explore the key learning issues faced by most nations. The series has become a highly visible platform for global discourse on 21st century learning, offering a diverse range of innovative ideas which are presented by the series founder, C. M. Rubin, together with the world’s leading thinkers