About Us
Our History
Falcons began in 2016 as a tiny group of six students in Northampton, MA whose families banded together to hire a teacher. They rented a piano practice room in the local music school (small enough that many students enjoyed working under the piano) gathered some basic materials (including five pounds of dried beans which likely became the most frequently-counted legumes of the face of the earth as students conscripted them for math) and Falcons was born!
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From the very beginning students made most of their own tools, and nearly all of our traditions. Many of the aspects of Falcons classes today - Problem of the Day, Jobs, Gathering, Tasks, Complement Circle - and innumerable classroom objects began with that first class. Within a year the group had doubled in number and age range, and, now run by the teachers, began taking on bigger projects like The Play, building a scale dollhouse of the classroom, creating democratic decision-making systems, and filling the class library with books written, illustrated, and bound by students.
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When the pandemic hit, Falcons moved online with everyone else, but it had two unusual advantages. The first was a head teacher who had already worked for years with Oak Meadow Distance Learning and knew that learning without a classroom could be beautiful, and the second was students already so used to building our class together that it made it easy to say “Ok team. How do we want to do this?” Again, the students created our traditions, and their own tools and learning spaces, hypothesizing and testing methods to make online learning exhilarating and comfortable and to bring what they loved best from Falcons into the new format so successfully that the Online Class continues to thrive today.
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When Anna moved to Maine, she joined forces with three intrepid preteens and their families to create the Sedgwick class, reviving the traditions (and unpacking the objects) built in Northampton, and creating a new branch of the community, which, together with the Online Class, student newspaper, Parent Community, and ever-changing student-created clubs form what the students call “The Falconsverse.”
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We hope you enjoy exploring our world: all that you will hear about was made by students with love and passed down for future students to enjoy. Welcome!
"The way it is isn't the way it has to be."
- Falcons Student
Our Philosophy
“When there is a problem with the curriculum, make the problem into the curriculum.”
- Falcons Saying
Falcons centers around the belief that students learn by living, but not all ways of living produce the same kinds of growth. As a result, daily life in a Falcons classroom calls on exactly the skills - academic, social, civic, and personal - that we want students to eventually master, with teachers and peers supporting them as much as they need, but gradually stepping back as students gain greater and greater independence until they, too, become the helpers and leaders.
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Falcons students make their own learning tools, care for their own classrooms and learning spaces, create their own decision-making processes and traditions, produce their own plays and newspapers, and collaborate with teachers and one another to tackle the ultimate learning challenge: how to be and become kind, safe, helpful and wise citizens of the world, starting with the community nearest them - their class. In Falcons we further believe that culture can be cultivated, and that students can create in this art form just as they can with clay, writing, paint, or math, working together to maintain kind, just, loving learning spaces ready to rise to new challenges.
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Students learn best when they start at their level and proceed from there, at their own speed and in their own way. No one can grow to their fullest when trying to be something they are not. As a result, Falcons classes expect students at every stage of skill, and organize themselves accordingly so that each student can settle into the right level of challenge for them while fully participating in an active, diverse, and interdependent learning team. In Falcons everyone matters, and we work together to support each student in being exactly who they are, and striving towards who they will become.
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For over a decade, Falcons students have proven that kids and teens can meet these challenges with joy and grace and build amazing worlds together. We invite you to learn more about their fantastic work and explore the community we have created!
Our Team
Anna Logowitz first encountered progressive education as a student at the Cambridge School of Weston in 1999. She attended Bennington College, drawn by the school’s innovative childhood studies program, before transferring to Smith College to study the power of story to shape growth. She later earned a Master of the Arts in Teaching from Smith College.
Anna has worked in Waldorf, Montessori, therapeutic, distance education, and public school environments, and has also been involved with disability activism and creative accommodation. She is the founding teacher of Falcons, and worked for Oak Meadow Distance Learning for ten years as well, which gave her a very thorough grounding in the homeschool universe. When not teaching (which is rare) Anna can often be found tinkering with sailboats or building realistic toys and puppets, projects that occasionally overlap with Falcons. The Falcons classroom is her favorite place to be, and nothing makes her happier than seeing students grow.
Anna Logowitz, Head Teacher
Maisie Smith came to Falcons as an intern in-person in Northampton, MA in 2020, while still a senior at Smith College. Already passionate about alternative education, Maisie was captivated by the Falcons culture; the focus on community, the attention to detail, and the extreme warmth and kindness of the teachers and students. When the pandemic hit a couple of months later, Maisie helped the Falcons program navigate the transition to online, and eventually graduated from intern to co-teacher. In 2021, Maisie moved to Chicago and took on full time work there, but stayed on with Falcons as teacher support for the Weekly Falcon student newspaper, and 'co-brain' collaborator working behind the scenes with Anna to help the Falconsverse run smoothly. Maisie continues to hold these roles today, and also advises the student Commerce Club and enjoys popping in for Falcons Showcases or occasionally subbing for the Online class. Maisie loves learning from the students about anything from sea sheep to base five currency systems to what it means to be part of a community. She lives in Chicago, IL, with some adorable pet rats and works as a forest school teacher.
Maisie Smith, Weekly Falcon Advisor/Admin
Ariel studied physics, math, and education at Hampshire College. She has always been curious about the world and loves sharing that curiosity with others by teaching and learning. She believes that pursuing our questions often teaches us even more than the answers. Outside of Falcons, she teaches in classrooms, on farms, in the woods, and on horses. In her spare time, Ariel enjoys singing, hiking, gardening, solving puzzles, and reading.
Ariel Kane-Esrig, Math Tutor/Consultant
Adrian Seneca Bello is a multidisciplinary community organizer, facilitator, educator, land steward, herbalist and artist. Called into Falcons initially for a day of storytelling and culture sharing, her relationship to the class and the conversations unfolding within it grew into a more long term relationship with Falcons. She has visited the Sedgwick class in person and often co-teaches online to explore topics around culture, history, decision making, justice, and relationship to land. She also works behind the scenes with the team to support Falcons running smoothly!
Adrian Seneca Bello, Co-Teacher/Admin
Though only rarely present in class, ​Spinny nonetheless powerfully influences the Falcons community, mostly with smiles - her own, and those she induces in others. Spinny has guest taught in lessons about mammals, the digestive system, and canine teeth, assisted with digging projects and recess games, and also played various small roles in class plays (see profile photo). Her most frequent support of the Falcons community, though, comes in the form of falling asleep on the feet of those writing afternoon updates, and wagging frantically at the sound of the first car door on a Sedgwick class morning.
Spinny, Assistant Recess Supervisor, Class Dragon
Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions!