What Makes Emerald Unique

What Makes Emerald Unique

It’s a great time for education in Steamboat, with multiple choices available at several schools. Steamboat’s newest option, a Montessori school, raises the question of what you will find, uniquely, at Emerald Mountain School.

At Emerald, we inspire passionate learners through personalization, close relationships with subject specialist teachers, and small class sizes. At Emerald you find academic excellence, confident learners, and community involvement and leadership.

Our students are held accountable to the highest academic standards in the country, making more than a year’s worth of progress during each year they attend Emerald. Small classes allow students to learn to advocate for themselves, and public speaking and performance opportunities teach them the communication skills to do so effectively.

The warm and family-like environment at Emerald gives students a sense of belonging which stimulates a desire to reach out and help others in both the school community and the wider Steamboat community.

Emerald & Montessori offer:

·         An alternative to traditional education

·         Mixed age (grade) classrooms

·         A focus on developing passionate lifelong learners

Emerald offers:

·         Structured curriculum: focus on strong academics personalized for each student

·         Child-centered approach to learning: Students find success and are challenged in ALL areas of the curriculum (vs. child-driven approach at Montessori)

·         Smaller class sizes: Emerald classes are capped at 18; 7 to 1 student/teacher ratio

·         Unique programming: art, music (strings), outdoor education

·         Passionate teachers who are subject specialists: teacher-student relationships are nurtured year after year

·         A philosophical emphasis on personal accountability as a member of the greater school, local, and global communities

·         A centralized location in the heart of town since 1993

Emerald Curriculum

A parent recently asked about Emerald’s curriculum, wondering if we follow the much-discussed Common Core Curriculum that is being implemented in the nation’s public schools. This engendered a broader discussion about how Emerald curriculum is developed. The short answer to the question about Common Core is a resounding “no.” Emerald faculty do not follow any published curriculum slavishly. Instead, we have an ongoing curriculum development process during which our faculty investigate and analyze available published curricula, professional standards and benchmarks, and best practices from other schools. At the same time, Emerald faculty keep the children’s developmental trajectories firmly in mind as they consider when it is appropriate to teach a specific skill to a specific child. As new research and theories regarding brain development and functioning become available, our faculty re-examine the teaching strategies they are using in light of research results. Our ERB standardized testing results, which provide us with very detailed information about our children’s growth as well as a comparison between our students and those from other top schools in the country, provide an additional source of information upon which we build curriculum.

Emerald’s faculty think critically about the information and ideas from all of these sources as they work collaboratively to design a curriculum that helps each child grow and learn to the very best of his or her ability. Our experiential program, built around a new theme each year, provides the framework for this curricular investigation. For all of these reasons, Emerald students follow a curriculum that is uniquely Emerald’s and which is built upon the combined knowledge of all of our faculty members. Narratives describing Emerald’s curriculum in various subject areas can be found on the program page of our website, at http://www.emeraldmountainschool.org/#!program/c1ktc. Each year, as we revise, update, and enhance the program, we rewrite our narratives to reflect the learning opportunities we provide for our students. As our faculty work together to develop each year’s plans, they produce “maps” which help them find connections between different subjects within the program as well as providing structure to our own, Emerald-developed, curriculum.

The curriculum at Emerald Mountain School reflects its developers. It is an inspiring, challenging, individualized, experiential, and creative curriculum developed and constantly fine-tuned by faculty who embody those very values.

Generosity

            I recently received a notice from my previous school about the fact that one of the grades had just made it to 100% parent participation in the Annual Fund. This reminded me of how very fortunate our students are to have such strong Annual Fund support from families, alumni, staff, and friends. Our 2011-12 Annual Fund, which supports the ongoing operation and program of the school, was the most successful in our history. We raised over $210,000 and had 100% support from families, staff, and board members. This is a testament to our shared belief that through working together, we can provide the best possible education for our children.

This reflection upon on our Annual Fund campaign came as the LWPS school community was returning from Spring Break to a beautifully updated building, with brand new carpet. The generosity of the Craig-Scheckmans in providing that carpet allowed us to see with new eyes the very special warmth that our uniquely child-centered building provides. As we walk into the classrooms on our new carpet, we see new technology also provided by our families. The Zedecks’ contribution of a SMARTboard has enhanced the Upper Primary math and social science program, and we are preparing for a SMARTboard provided by the Faunces and an anonymous donor that will reap similar benefits in Lower Primary math and language arts classes. As we move forward, we hope to see SMARTboards in all of our classrooms.

The effects of our families’ generosity extend well beyond our bricks and mortar to the people and programs that make our school such a uniquely special place. Many of our families combined resources to meet the Basses’ matching challenge to provide funding for Bonnie, our music assistant, and allow our strings program to be fine-tuned for all of our students regardless of their level. We have new bike racks provided through the generosity of the Knoxes, allowing our students to continue to buck the national trend where only 13% of students walk or bike to school. The Findell donation of the campsite for our Fall Camp Trip, year after year, makes that important kick-off event possible. The Oleskis and Carltons have provided software and other pieces of technology.

The list of the individuals who deserve recognition for their ongoing support goes on and on. Each and every one of our families provides time and energy to our program: within the classroom, within the building, and during our many events like the upcoming Spring Trips. Our children all benefit from the many gifts that our families provide to the school. They also benefit from the culture of philanthropy that is so much a part of their school world at LWPS. As they encounter the magnanimity of the full school community on a daily basis, and as they generously give of their own time and energy both at school and in the community, they are developing into the kind of adults who will make the world a better place, just as their parents and grandparents have.

Transformation

            There’s only one other place I’ve been where the landscape reflects limitless possibilities as it does in the West, and that’s out at sea. Sitting on the bowsprit of a sailing vessel is much like standing at the top of a mountain; the wide-open vista feels like a concrete metaphor for unending options in all directions. Last night at the Bud Werner Memorial Library, as I listened to author Craig Childs share his experiences in some of the most remote locations on Earth, and the exploratory childhood that led him to appreciate the wide-open possibilities they represent, I thought about the ways in which being out on the land can expand the growth of a child. As a child, Childs was always “getting out there and going,” sometimes accompanied by his mother but always encouraged by her. He explored, and his written reflections on those explorations were the precursors to his current writing as a naturalist. Someone asked him how he first got started writing, and he referred to learning letter formation in kindergarten. Childs’ experiences during his early years were what set him up to truly love nature and to be able to communicate that love.

            In Steamboat Springs, there is such an opportunity to experience and explore nature in an active way, just as at Whiteman Primary students have ongoing opportunities to process and write about those experiences. In a recent Chinook class, students looked closely at an aspect of their environment, thought about that aspect as a metaphor for a bigger idea, and wrote essays about that idea. While working on writing skills, they were also honing their critical thinking skills. As our students look forward to their Spring Camp trips, spending time in the outdoors camping, hiking, biking, and observing, they can expect opportunities for journaling and other writing to help them put their experiences into a larger context.

            Our teachers, too, enjoy broadening their views and expanding their learning while they are out in the natural world. Childs talked about his desire to be there for the moment of change – the change in sound precipitation makes on a window as snow turns to rain, the hardening of the ground as lava turned to rock, the visual explosion as dark turns to light – and it is the moment of change in a child that teachers live for. Watching the joy of a child recognizing that printed material has meaning brings joy to a teacher, as does the discussion with a young adolescent about how the movement a school of fish can be seen to represent human behavior. The experiential side of a Whiteman Primary education is full of such magical moments for students, teachers, and parents. I wonder how many of our students will look back to their transformative experiences here in Steamboat Springs as the start of their love of the outdoors and writing?

Moral Development

I recently read in an etiquette blog about how important it is to be nice to everyone, even the receptionist, office manager, or secretary, when on a job interview. After all, this certified etiquette trainer pointed out, you could lose the job if the secretary spoke poorly of your social skills. While the end result of this advice is positive – a concern for others’ feelings regardless of their station in life – the underlying message that being nice is simply a means to an end struck me as severely misguided.

            This raises the question of the real reason we should be kind to the secretary and how we can raise children who will know the answer to that question. In schools and as parents, we are concerned with our children’s moral development as well as their cognitive and athletic development. The earliest stage of moral development revolves around consequences:  will I be punished or rewarded for my behavior? If the former, the behavior must be bad, and if the latter, it must be good. Next comes a stage of utility – does the behavior serve others’ and my interests? This seems to be right on target for our etiquette specialist. As children develop morally, they move beyond what Lawrence Kohlberg calls pre-conventional moral thought, through stages that focus on interpersonal relationships, maintaining social order, respecting social contracts and individual rights, and internalized principles of justice. A child develops a moral and ethical conscience by building his or her own abstract understanding of the complexities of the world in which we live

            The development of moral character is individual work for each child, but it is accomplished within a social framework. If we want to help children make the move from caring only about themselves, we can do so by helping them think more about others’ feelings. Once children have developed the habit of thinking about social relationships, we can help them extend their thinking from individual interactions to broader societal and cultural issues. This happens in so many different ways throughout the school day. A young child who has had an altercation with another child is encouraged to think not about punishment, but about how the other child feels. Students at all ages work on interpersonal relationships during our Morning Meeting, and we often touch on social justice issues and cultural awareness in our social science classes. Throughout the history of our school, we have taken pride in how the adults in the school model thoughtfulness toward one another and toward students…and ask the Upper Primary students to practice and to do the same.

            It is our hope that our children would demonstrate their agreement with the etiquette specialist by being kind to the secretary when on a job interview. However, our goal is that the students would be kind not just because the secretary may have an impact on whether they would get the job, but because it is the right thing to do.

Anonymity

                Steamboat Springs is not the first small town in which I’ve lived, nor is it the most remote. However, it is the warmest (at least figuratively). I found myself ruminating about why that is as I listened to C. J. Box, Western mystery writer, last night at the first ever Spring Author’s Series at the Bud Werner Memorial Library. He shared details with a packed house about how he builds his books around the lack of anonymity that exists in small towns in the West. His writing tends to focus on the impact on social interactions that comes from knowing that the fellow citizen with whom you may disagree vehemently at the City Council meeting is the same neighbor who you will run into at the next social function you attend. Box’s books are, of course, based on how that small town closeness affects a murder investigation, while I’m much more interested in how our small town makes our community more civil. He discussed the lack of anonymity that small size engenders, while I think about the sense of belonging it promotes.

                A small school like Whiteman Primary can be seen as a microcosm of a small community like Steamboat Springs. In the same way that meeting other community members in a variety of contexts helps us to know them better, respect their opinions, and honor their differences, the increased opportunities to meet and interact with the other students in a variety of contexts allow our children to learn to appreciate one another. Of course, children are not going to be friends with every other child, just as not all members of the broader community will find pleasure in each other’s company, but the lesson that is learned in a small town or school environment is that being civil and respectful is key. The social habits that our town and our school develop in our children will stay with them and serve them well as they move out into the world as adults, regardless of the size of the setting in which they end up.

                My first experience in a small town in rural New Hampshire many, many years ago was jarring to my suburban world view. As I opened a bank account in my well-practiced business-honed Boston-bred aggressive manner, I noticed the shock and concern that the bank clerk seemed to be experiencing. Looking back at what was for me a life-changing interaction, I realize that it was exactly the anonymity Box referred to that had me viewing the bank clerk as a “function” rather than a “person.”  While some may bemoan the fact that they can’t escape the eyes of their neighbors in a small town like Steamboat Springs, or of their teachers and other students in a small school like Whiteman Primary, the net result of the smallness is a personal sense of warmth, comfort, and belonging. This is a tremendous gift that we all share here, and it’s one that we are fortunate to be able to give to our children and to the wider world they will someday lead.

Fate & Empathy

Reading the newspaper reminds us that fate can deal us wonderful things…and it can deal us disasters. In today’s world, where society honors the Horatio Alger, “pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps,” kind of success, it can be easy to believe that the guy next to us who seems so unlucky really just didn’t try hard enough. The news, the Internet, and just common lore love a story of triumphing over adversity. But just how much adversity is too much to overcome?

            Our Upper Primary students are engaged in a simulation of the colonization of America, and they are learning “firsthand” how fate can deal some insurmountable hurdles. As students work in teams to get their ships across the Atlantic and safely landed in the new world, they are learning many things beyond the history of colonization. Making decisions as a group is an important skill they practice as they plan their journey. What food and materials do they need to bring on their trip and what is the best way to pack it to reduce the risk of losing it? What if an illness breaks out in the confined quarters of the ship? How will they handle sanitation? If the weather becomes dangerous, what to do? What if they lose some of their provisions when a ship goes down? How can they save members of their group who were on that foundering ship?

            These may all seem like far-fetched problems for the students to deal with, but in fact they are closer to home than is obvious at first. These same students just returned from a winter skills trip into the cold, snowy backcountry. During that trip, they faced similar questions about how to remain safe both individually and as a group in treacherous conditions. Packing and planning were key skills they built, as was collaboration. Instead of figuring out how to help a drowning team member, the students learned how to help one who was caught in an avalanche. Rather than transporting their food on ships through the ocean, they worked to pull the food on sleds through the snow. But just as the pilgrims struggled with the exigencies of colonizing the new world, the students struggled with how to live “off the grid” in the backcountry of Colorado in unpredictable winter weather

            Fate dealt the colonists many tough cards, and though our students managed to avoid any tragedies on their winter skills trip, they did experience firsthand some of the struggles of being away from the everyday support of our modern society. As the student simulation continues, and fate cards arrive with news that may completely destroy the very best efforts of a team, an important lesson is that no matter how hard we try and with what good intentions we go forth into the world, problems can happen that don’t always end in a happy conclusion. The news reminds us that the homeless family sitting next to us may be approaching the problems they encounter as bravely as our own backcountry expeditionaries or even those rugged and determined colonists. Through opportunities like the winter skills trip and the colonial simulation, we help our children be as well prepared as possible for tough situations, but we also want them to learn to be empathetic toward those who have been dealt one disastrous fate card too many.