Friday, September 30, 2011

Passion

At the Lowell Whiteman Primary School, we strive to inspire in each child a passion for learning. This is the first line of our mission statement, and it has informed the structure of the school, its architecture, the people who spend their days here working and learning, and the purposeful interpersonal relationships that take place within and around the school. One of the very special things about LWPS, and one which is key to inspiring that passion for learning, is the fact that we have subject specialists teaching the children in all grades. This is an unusual model for a primary school, but one that embodies our belief that compassionate and intelligent people with a love for a subject are best able to arouse that passion in children.

The faculty, who are members of Colorado and/or national organizations of educators in their fields, have spent time researching best practices, observing other independent school teachers, reading professional literature, and continuing their own learning in those fields. They are driven by the deep thinking that takes place in their classes, and they bolster that with hands-on activities, thoughtful questioning, and a broad range of activities. When students enter the classroom of one of our subject specialists, they are immersed in the content area as the commitment and enthusiasm of the teacher serves to encourage the children to take intellectual risks and find the joy in discovery. Outside of the classroom and behind the scenes, the depth of knowledge that each of our teachers brings to the table allows for authentic collaboration as faculty develop theme-based interdisciplinary learning experiences for the students.

Walking through the halls of LWPS, I find myself listening to the interplay between faculty and students and dropping in to see what’s behind the engaged (and engaging) buzz. As I enter a Chinook science class, students call out to me to take a look at the spleen in their fetal pig dissection. Entering a Navajo math class, I am unnoticed by the students as they are completely engrossed in singing their math fact songs. In each classroom, with each group of students, the faculty are sharing their knowledge and excitement about their subjects. Most primary schools, both public and private, are unable to offer subject specialists to their young students, and instead rely upon self-contained classrooms and generalist teachers. This is the case in larger schools because the connection that a child makes with his or her teacher is so important to the child being comfortable enough to learn. In contrast, our size allows all of our students to be known by all of the staff, so that the sense of care that exists within the classroom in a larger school is able to spread throughout the entire school community at Whiteman Primary. This, combined with Morning Meeting as a grounding experience to start the day, allows our students to benefit from the passion of their accomplished subject-specialized teachers. If you have any questions or thoughts about how this is working for your child, please be sure to let me know.

Friday, September 23, 2011

We're All Different

This week, my husband and I are in the process of moving from the absolutely wonderful guest home of great friends and supporters of the school; this home has provided beautiful scenery, the bucolic sounds of the ranch, amazing sunsets, the opportunity to experience the dynamic storms of Colorado’s mountains, and much more. We are moving into town, just five blocks from school, and are about to experience what it is like to be able to walk or bike to nearly everything. As I was driving the 20 minutes to school through the beautiful landscape, perhaps for the last time during a morning commute, I found myself reflecting upon the vastly different lifestyle we had been living compared to that which we will now be living, and how those differences could serve as a metaphor for the diversity of Whiteman Primary.

Among us in the school community, we have so many different people. We are all united in the love and care we have for children and in wanting the best for all of the children in our care. But we are all different in how we experience and express our love, and we are different from one another in the sort of lives we live outside of school. However, we each call upon our life experiences, what we know about children and child development, our basic values, and perhaps most importantly, our hearts as we work together to make a world in which our many children, individuals all, can thrive.

Diversity is an interesting concept, one that is frequently operationalized as differences in ethnic background. However, in many places like Steamboat, diversity often refers to differences in socio-economic status and learning styles, rather than ethnicity. At LWPS, we have striven every year to keep tuition low, so that families are not priced out of Whiteman Primary. Our tuition assistance program, which is funded by the annual scholarship auction (the 19th of which is coming up soon on October 15), is a key to making the Whiteman Primary learning experience one that is open to all students, regardless of their families’ abilities to pay tuition. The auction is a time for all of us to come together to show our support for the multi-dimensional nature of LWPS.

The way that all of our students, from all backgrounds, are able to blend so well into a wonderfully inclusive community is noticeable from the moment one enters the door. Some of our students and parents come from ranches at the far outskirts of Steamboat and beyond, while others come from just around the corner, and still others hail from areas between these two. But geographical and socio-economic differences only make each student more interesting to his or her peers and provide the classroom discussions with a depth and breadth that couldn’t exist if all students were from similar backgrounds.

I am honored to be a part of the diverse community that is Whiteman Primary, and I am fortunate to be on a journey that allows me to experience some of the different backgrounds from which our families head off to school each morning.


Friday, September 16, 2011

Social-Emotional Learning

      Have you ever had one of those moments when you were so upset that you couldn’t
think straight? Or conversely, felt as though you were at the top of your mental acuity as
you experienced what Csikszentmihalyi calls Flow? Children in school have both of these
experiences, and the responsibility to minimize the former and maximize the latter is
something that the faculty members at Whiteman Primary take very seriously. Social
emotional learning is as much a part of the school day as is academic learning. Children
learn in a social environment at school and at home, so providing them with a warm and
supportive environment is key to facilitating their attainment of academic excellence.
     Each student at LWPS begins his or her day with an opportunity to connect with
peers in a safe environment created and monitored by faculty. We call that opportunity,
“Morning Meeting.” Here a child’s first contact with the school day is positive, so that even
if the child arrives after a rough morning, there is an opportunity to center, focus, and relax
into the academic day. Throughout the day, students and teachers greet each other by name
and with smiles (and sometimes hugs), providing each child with the feeling of being cared
for and the opportunity to demonstrate his/her care for others. The warmth and support that
are a part of this positive educational environment help each student remain in a state of
mind that is optimal for learning.
     Providing a properly compassionate environment for learning is one aspect of
helping children attain social emotional literacy, but there is another aspect that is a part of
each Whiteman Primary student’s day. During Morning Meeting and throughout the day,
faculty actively teach and model empathy, self-control, proper emotional expression,
understanding of social cues, conflict resolution and problem solving, cooperative behavior,
planning skills, and intellectual flexibility.
     In the past, we may have had an intuitive sense that these things were important to
our children in school, but in recent years we have accumulated a wealth of neurological and
psychological research results supporting the interrelatedness of social emotional and
academic learning. Over 200 scholarly studies since 1990 have produced a preponderance of
data indicating that the sort of purposefully child-centered environment that exists at
Whiteman Primary, combined with a program such as our Morning Meeting which is
designed to enhance students’ social emotional literacy, has the effect of increasing
academic performance and attitudes while decreasing behavior problems and emotional
distress. If you are interested in finding out more about the research in this area, the Society
for Research in Child Development webpage is a good place to start (http://www.srcd.org/).
In the meantime, I invite you to experience the supportive educational and emotional
environment at LWPS first-hand.

Friday, September 9, 2011

Technology -- Good or Evil?

Some of you may have read a recent article in the New York Times which was skeptical of the use of technology in schools. When the author, Matt Richtel, suggests that “…schools are being motivated by a blind faith in technology and an overemphasis on digital skills…at the expense of math, reading and writing fundamentals…,” he places the debate about technology squarely in the intersection of progressive vs. traditional education, student-centered vs. “sage on the stage” education, and individually-paced vs. cooperative learning education. He can only be correct when he states that “Technology advocates have it backward when they press to upgrade first and ask questions later.” The article goes on to talk about how difficult it is to separate the effects of technology from the effects of other educational aspects, making it difficult to determine whether technology actually improves education.

My background in educational research and statistics notwithstanding, or perhaps because of it, the effort to separate the effects of various aspects of the educational environment seems misplaced to me. A multi-dimensional lens, through which we can see how one aspect of a child’s schooling supports and enhances another, seems more appropriate. It’s not an issue of whether a good teacher or good technology is better; rather, it is an issue of how great technology in the hands of a wonderful teacher can provide an outstanding education. There is no doubt but that providing great teachers with great tools will allow them to do their jobs in ways that would not be possible without those tools.

Beginning with my first visit to Whiteman Primary, it was apparent to me that the teachers here are among the best in the country. Their knowledge of their subject areas, their passion and compassion for children, their openness to new ideas, their intellectually reflective practice … all of these place them heads and shoulders above the mass of educators included in educational research studies. Giving these outstanding teachers 21st century tools with which to teach and inspire their students makes the LWPS experience even richer for our students. We’ve taken steps along this path with our dual-platform laptop program, online textbooks, use of Internet communication in Spanish, etc. We continue to be watching for technologies that can build upon the uniquely close relationships between faculty and students that are developed in our small classes, and we will continue to ask questions before we upgrade.

The conversation about technology will go on into the future, and LWPS will stay abreast of that debate. I’d love to hear your thoughts about how we, at Whiteman Primary, can bring the best that technology has to offer to our faculty and students. 

Friday, September 2, 2011

The Great Outdoors

We had a great start to the school year, beginning with newly forged and reinvigorated connections at the camp trip and continuing through our first day of classes at the school. I hope that you are feeling the same excitement and energy of the new school year that I am.

            Our camp trip is a required student and parent event for many reasons. All of us at the camp trip, young and older, experienced the sense of coming together in the larger family that constitutes the school. This sense of belonging is a key element in student success, both academic and social-emotional. The academic program began as well during the camp trip, as faculty introduced the students to their Native American tribes. The opportunity to learn in the beautiful outdoor setting of the campsite was an important first academic step of the year, and the students’ presentations to their parents showed how much they had learned in a short period of time.

            Outdoor education experiences like our camp trip have been studied by many groups, and a recent study by the National Wildlife Federation summarizes the important positive effects they have on student learning. The September 2010 report, Back to School: Back Outside, makes it clear that outdoor education helps children develop a full-range of integrated learning strategies and skill sets that will remain with them throughout their lives. The study even found that outdoor education experiences raised standardized test scores. As we were able to observe at the camp trip, these experiences also increase student motivation and excitement about learning. Whiteman Primary requires the fall camp trip for all these reasons, but also simply because it is a very enjoyable way to get to know and/or reconnect with other families.

            As the year progresses, the students will have many more opportunities to work and play in the outdoors, but none of them will be as important as the kick-off camp trip with their families that we just experienced. Thank you all for your participation in your child’s first days of school. Together, we’ve sown the seeds for a fantastic 2011-12 school year!