Director's Blog

List of 9 news stories.

• Lower & Middle School Director's Blog: August 2019

  8/27/2019
  This past July, my wife and I attended a concert with some friends at an extraordinarily small venue. For starters, the fact that we were able to go out and see a concert—as parents of three young children—was a minor miracle. To the point, though, seeing one of our favorite bands up-close-and-personal was a real treat.
  Read More
• 

  Lower & Middle School Director's Blog: The Unspoken Curriculum

  1/16/2019
  Read More

• The Power of Curiosity

  10/11/2018
  “Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.” - Zora Neale Hurston
  
  

  Last week, author Kate Messner addressed the Lower and Middle Schools. She began each of her talks with a picture of herself, age 10, in her footie pajamas with something in her hand. Messner told students that at the age of ten, she published her first book. Yes! Published! It was a book about sharks, with a cover she designed herself, filled with facts she learned from books checked out at the library—and it was properly bound with a stapler and shelved with a magnet attached to her refrigerator. Any time a guest visited the Messner home, she promptly took their coats, welcomed them, and led them to her book on the fridge. She was so proud. And so were her parents, who proudly displayed her book in the kitchen. They clearly supported and encouraged her curiosity.
  
  

  Kate Messner told students that her curious mind did not stop there. Many of Messner’s books revolve around research. Her Ranger in Time series follows a golden retriever that time travels to help people. She has visited Italy, France, and San Francisco, to name a few locations, for that series alone. But her research does not always need a trip! Messner researched her book about Ranger going to Antarctica using two diaries by men who had taken the same journey that Ranger was taking. One of those men survived; one did not. Messner lives in upstate New York, near Dannemora, the site of the 2015 prison escape and subsequent 22-day manhunt. During the manhunt, she spent her days at a local coffee shop, interviewing people and listening to their conversations as locals, policemen, and media filled their coffee cups and grabbed snacks. Her research in this case, took the form of observation and listening, not reading or traveling.
  
  

  Students come into my libraries every day with curiosity. What’s for lunch? When is the Philadelphia trip? Why do tadpoles have gills? What are gills? What does the “D” in D-Day stand for? I could google it on my phone and give them the answer—or I can show them how to find the answers. As librarians, we strive to help our students find the answers. Through teaching research skills and encouraging curiosity, we are equipping our students to be information literate. The skills they have today will be applied to different subjects tomorrow and will be built upon through their years in our Lower, Middle, and Upper Schools. As they learn to ask questions, they will learn how to find sources, evaluate those sources, take notes, turn that information into a product (paper, PowerPoint, presentation), then evaluate that product to make sure that it meets the requirements—or answers their question. And then, they will be on their way to being information- literate students.
  
  

  Our visit with Kate Messner sparked many questions. Some students want to read her books; some students were curious about what an author does and how much money an author makes; some students made text-to-self connections. Kate answered their questions and encouraged their curiosity. She talked about being a writer, writing, visiting schools, and the animals she sees on her winter walks through the woods. She served as their primary source this week. Think about how you can encourage curiosity in your home and remember that all of those questions from our children—at the dinner table, in the car, just before bedtime—are just their way of figuring out this amazing world.

• Empowering Students Through Writing

  11/8/2017
  As a community of learners, we often reflect thoughtfully on the work we do in the classroom. This allows us to learn from one another, to inspire one another and to become better educators.

   

  In October, our Lower School classroom teachers worked with Stacy Kaczmarek, a consultant for reading and writing instruction, to examine the process of teaching writing in our preschool through fourth-grade classes.

   

  During her two visits to the school, Stacy presented the "writer's workshop" approach to teaching writing. At its core, the writer's workshop requires that we think about going beyond simply teaching students to write and, rather, give students the skills, confidence and passion to become writers.

   

  Making the transition from teaching how to write to empowering writers begins with providing students with extensive opportunities to write on topics they care about. In addition, we know that students benefit from explicit and sequenced instruction that helps them progress along a learning continuum. Most important, we know that the greatest growth occurs when teachers provide specific and thoughtful feedback that helps students know what they have done well and the next steps to take to keep growing as writers.
  
  

  
  
  

  Doing each of these, and doing them well, requires that we continuously plan, practice, reflect, adjust, and plan again. During this workshop, Stacy and the teachers engaged in this work and had great discussions. They examined the writing process (pre-write, draft, revise, edit, publish, share and celebrate) as well as goals for each age and grade. For example, with our youngest learners, we focus on having students generate a distinct beginning, middle and end. As students grow, they learn to elaborate and use increasingly sophisticated language to make transitions and create a thoughtful, well-organized narrative.

   

  Our time with Stacy was meaningful both because it reinforced the good work that is taking place in our classrooms and because it got us talking about ways that we can make our program even stronger. In a follow-up survey that I gave the teachers, they wrote about tools they would use immediately—for example, using speech bubbles to add dialogue, writing a story together about a shared experience as a way to practice sharing and seeing our words in writing, and telling a story "across a hand" as a way of organizing ideas in the pre-writing phase.

   

  This is the first in a series of visits from Stacy, as we dedicate time specifically to the writing curriculum in the Lower School. We look forward her next visit as we continue to engage in this important work for all of the young writers in our community.

• Opening Doors

  9/28/2017
  Dear Friends and Colleagues,
  
  

  There are points in our lives when we find ourselves faced with opportunities that impact every aspect of our lives. For me, such a moment has arrived. I have been offered a position as the Head of School at Friends School in Boulder, Co. beginning July 1, 2018, and I have accepted the position. 
  Read More

• Welcome Back!

  9/7/2017
  Welcome back Lower School families! After weeks of preparation in which faculty and staff worked diligently to prepare their classrooms and course materials, the new school year has finally arrived.
  Read More

• Books & Beyond

  4/28/2016
  I often hear parents talk about the magic of learning to read—to decode the words on the page—and this is without doubt an incredible process to observe and to be a part of. But although it may seem like magic, learning to read is a skill, and there is a series of steps we can take to teach all of our students how to read. For some, it comes quickly and with seemingly little effort, while others march along at a slower pace. But each one of them can and will learn to read.
  Read More

• Mindset: Is Yours "Fixed" or "Growth"?

  11/23/2015
  And perhaps more important, which do you want to develop in your children?

   

  Carol Dweck of Stanford University has dedicated much of her life to researching how our beliefs about our ability to learn can impact our learning and achievement. It harkens back to the notion that if you just believe in yourself you can accomplish almost anything! But Dweck is very careful to explain that this alone will not suffice; in fact it takes hours upon hours (10,000 if you look at Malcolm Gladwell's work) to gain expertise in a skill. How then, does this notion of "mindset" play into this and why is it important? This is the topic that started off our recent Lower School faculty meeting.
  Read More

• The Importance of Community

  9/30/2015
  What makes for a positive elementary school experience? Is it the chatter of a child who has just learned to read? Or the spontaneous counting by twos at the dinner table? Is it the spring in a little boy's step as he marches off to class on his own? Or the overheard game of "school" where the children are sitting quietly and listening attentively? I would say it is all of these things – but more important, I believe that the very best elementary school experience rests on the quality and strength of the school's community.
  Read More