American Radioworks – Beyond the Blackboard: Building Character in Public Schools

In the 1940s, British headmaster Kurt Hahn set up a wilderness school to teach the skills young men needed to survive World War II: leadership, persistence, working together. Fifty years later, Hahn’s ideas inspired the founding of a network of public schools in the U.S. Students in these schools outperform their peers when it comes to test scores, graduation rates, and problem-solving ability. This documentary explores the “Expeditionary Learning” approach and investigates what American schools could learn from its success.