One Hen, Two Ducks

On Thursday we had the honor of hosting our second Head of School candidate at a morning meeting. It seemed a good idea to revive an old Summers-Knoll tradition - the whole school joining in with a not-so-simple say-and-repeat game called One Hen, Two Ducks. The kids love this game, they love the fun of the increasing levels of difficulty, they take pride in the long words even as they giggle at them, they enjoy the opportunity to engage their bodies in the response, and they feel involved in the common - if zany - goal of group recital.

Several of you have asked me for the text, so that you can try it at home. There are several different versions you can find on the internet. Some of them even have a 10 line that makes sense. I asked some of our children a long time ago (alumni at this point, out making the world a better place) if we should change to one of those versions. They said no, emphatically. They liked it the Summers-Knoll way. And so it is.

One hen.
One hen, two ducks.
One hen, two ducks, three squawking geese.
One hen, two ducks, three squawking geese, four Limerick oysters.
One hen, two ducks, three squawking geese, four Limerick oysters, five corpulent porpoises.
One hen, two ducks, three squawking geese, four Limerick oysters, five corpulent porpoises, six pairs       of Don Alvarzo's tweezers.
One hen, two ducks, three squawking geese, four Limerick oysters, five corpulent porpoises, six pairs       of Don Alvarzo's tweezers, seven Macedonians in full battle array.
One hen, two ducks, three squawking geese, four Limerick oysters, five corpulent porpoises, six pairs       of Don Alvarzo's tweezers, seven Macedonians in full battle array, eight brass monkeys from the        ancient sacred crypts of Egypt.
One hen, two ducks, three squawking geese, four Limerick oysters, five corpulent porpoises, six pairs       of Don Alvarzo's tweezers, seven Macedonians in full battle array, eight brass monkeys from the        ancient sacred crypts of Egypt, nine apathetic, sympathetic, poor pathetic old men on roller-                skates, with a marked propensity towards procrastination and sloth.
One hen, two ducks, three squawking geese, four Limerick oysters, five corpulent porpoises, six pairs       of Don Alvarzo's tweezers, seven Macedonians in full battle array, eight brass monkeys from the        ancient sacred crypts of Egypt, nine apathetic, sympathetic, poor pathetic old men on roller-                skates, with a marked propensity towards procrastination and sloth, ten lyrical, diabolical                     denizens of the deep, who quark with the queen and queen with the quorl and quorl with the               quizzle at the bottom of the deep blue sea all at the same time.

Enjoy!

Ken Robinson and Creativity

Some of you may have watched this Ken Robinson presentation on creativity before, or listened to the similar-but-different TED talk version. It raises a lot of very interesting points, and is as thought-provoking today as it was nine years ago. Enjoy.

Spinning Dot: spotlight on a community partner

A scene from "This Girl Laughs, This Girl Cries, This Girl Does Nothing."

It's important to us, as educators and as a community, that our children grow up understanding the value of different points of view, different cultural perspectives, and different kinds of people. Starting in kindergarten, we look actively for experiences that will open the students' imaginations to embrace concepts of otherness and see them as opportunities for learning. (For a lovely glimpse of children connecting with a story from another place and time, take a look at Imogen's latest post. Shiyu provides another example here.)

When Spinning Dot Theatre first formed, just over a year ago, Jenny Koppera and I connected immediately over our love of theatre, education, and global awareness. Jenny was as thrilled with Summers-Knoll as I was with her brilliant ideas for her fledgling theatre company, and she immediately started working with our team to bring workshop performances of her productions-in-progress into the school so that our students could help develop the work through their reactions and feedback. The relationship was magical from the beginning.

Spinning Dot is a company committed to bringing plays and stories from around the world to their audiences, specifically with the goal of deepening global connections. What better way to engage a child's heart and mind (serendipitously the subject of Karl's blog this week) in grappling with new ideas and unfamiliar cultures than through rich, adventurous, theatrical storytelling? Like fiction and poetry, theatre develops empathy, involving the children emotionally with characters and narratives that may come from all around the world, but speak to them with voices that matter here and now. If theatre is a gym for compassion (not my phrase, I can't remember where I heard that), theatre that brings global stories alive is a gym for cultural empathy. It develops muscles of inclusion, understanding and emotional memory, bonding ideas together.

Most recently, Spinning Dot brought us their one-person production of Sedna, an Inuit tale of the goddess of the sea, developed by artist-in-residence Kelly Joyce Fielder. It's a moving, haunting, spectacular piece of dramatic storytelling, set inside a muslin tent that simulates an igloo. Only a small audience can fit inside the tent, so Sedna was performed three times, once for each of our early childhood classes, so that the children could experience the magical intimacy of the story. With shadows and projections on the white fabric, haunting music, puppets and inventive lighting, the story enveloped the children on all sides and held them absolutely spellbound. You may have already seen Val's and Elaine's blog posts on the subject. The artistic seeds planted through an experience like that are incalculable. You can see a small patchwork of images from Sedna here, though it doesn't capture the breathtaking magic of the show.

I'm thrilled to say that this is far from the last we'll be seeing of Spinning Dot. In January they are coming back to share their production "This Girl Laughs, This Girl Cries, This Girl Does Nothing" with all our students. (I've seen it, it's astonishing.) They will perform separately for the older and the younger halves of the school, and will follow up their performances with workshops with the students. We're also looking forward to being able to preview other new productions-in-process and be a useful (we hope) part of the artistic development of their work.

Spinning Dot Theatre is one example of the many inspiring organizations and individuals we are lucky enough to connect with, and who generously share their time and expertise with our children. These connections and experiences have become so seamlessly interwoven with our learning that we take them as normal, but the educational layers they add to our process are myriad. Whether it's a visiting artist, a field trip host, or an act of neighborliness that advances our students' process, I want to thank all of them for the doorways out into the endlessly eye-opening world that they offer to the children.

Autonomy and Loving to Learn

We talk a lot about autonomy at Summers-Knoll, as one of the great motivators of action, progress and success. Dan Pink, in his book Drive, famously talks about autonomy, mastery and purpose as being the three elements of motivation. You can watch an explanation here.

Giving children choices and opportunities to partner with the teacher in crafting their learning experiences fosters their natural curiosity and keeps their love of learning alive. It motivates them from within, rather than relying on stickers and grades that offer external incentives (and can easily backfire and become demotivating or punitive). It's also a much more powerful motivator than a gold star or grade because it gives them a healthy, productive, well supported kind of power over their experience and it feels good to learn that way. This sets them up strongly for the future, because students who love to learn will carry that love to the next level and throughout their lives, applying their still-vibrant curiosity to new challenges in new situations. 

The opportunity for autonomy can be seen through the consistent partnerships developed between the teachers and their students, but probably most clearly in the independent projects in which children engage. These projects not only harness their own enthusiasms, they also teach them valuable skills in organization and time-management, as they learn how to frame and develop their interests in order to share them. Spencer's class of 3rd and 4th graders has been doing exactly this, with the explicit intention of practicing and polishing to achieve mastery in a particular area or skill. Read about it here. 

Coincidentally, Sam's blog this week talks about the 10 Things research that his students are working on, which follows the same principle of independent study. In this case, the explicit goal was to develop the skill of memorization in an interesting, motivating way. As he explains, the students ran with it and transformed it into (in his words) "some combination of Google's Genius Time, independent and self-motivated research, and a (brief) weekly progress update given to the whole class."  Chris has also long used a dedicated part of the school week for Genius Hour with his 3rd and 4th grade groups.There's an explicit commitment to sharing in these examples, which is a great tool for reflection, self-assessment, and peer assessment - all vital tools as the children develop and refine their skills.

Our children love this kind of approach and engage in their work with fervor. The training that they receive in situations like this as well as many, many others stands them in good stead when they reach 7th and 8th grade. They have practiced skills in developing, organizing, researching, creating and presenting, both individually and collaboratively. (For more on that, take a look at what Josh has to say about individual learning in a group environment.) They are prepared for larger independent projects with Karl, including the more intense sharing experiences we call Exhibitions - project presentations where students not only explain their work but teach it in explicitly planned hands-on lessons to their audiences of peers, faculty, and family. The level of autonomy they experience - always with the support and guidance of their teacher - keeps their interest and motivation high. It's a huge contribution to the confidence and capable self-advocacy they demonstrate as they move onward to high school. 

On a tangential note, please make sure you read Rachel's library blog this week. We're all pretty excited about the experience she describes, and looking forward to possibilities in the future. 

Learning Beyond the Classroom

"The primary value of place-based education lies in the way that it serves to strengthen children's connections to others and to the regions in which they live. It enhances achievement, but more important, it helps overcome the alienation and isolation of individuals that have become hallmarks of modernity. By reconnecting rather than separating children from the world, place-based education serves both individuals and communities, helping individuals to experience the value they hold for others and allowing communities to benefit from the commitment and contributions of their members."

- Greg Smith, from Place-Based Education: Learning To Be Where We Are

Place-based education - taking the students' work out beyond the classroom and learning while doing in authentic situations - is a crucial part of how we keep learning real. As much as possible this is done through actual, physical transportation to the place and community that is the subject of the work. Sometimes it has to be done through simulations or virtual connections, like the Global Village experience for our 5th and 6th graders (read about where that is leading now here), or the Out of Eden Walk that Chris's class is following through these online resources. Place-based education connects our students with their environment and their community in increasing circles from their immediate surroundings to the far side of the planet. 

When students are able to immerse themselves in the spirit of a place and participate firsthand in initiatives that strive to change the world for the better, they start to build a platform for environmental and cultural literacy. They learn to work with different kinds of people, developing their self confidence and increasing their understanding of cultural and personal differences. They experience the flavor of different places and develop an appreciation for the unique identity of each. They see the relevance of the work they are doing to the larger work of the community, and these connections lead to deeper understanding, greater motivation, and a stronger sense of self-worth. 

This doesn't have to mean long excursions; our 7th and 8th graders participate in work crews around our own building - here's a note from the Library - and you can read about Val's EB children working in the natural environment right outside our door. Our 1st and 2nd graders recently ventured all the way across Platt Road to our very own County Farm Park to work with a naturalist; here's what Elaine has to say about it.  Chris's group of 3rd and 4th graders is working with pioneers in the community to develop and maintain the Buhr Park Food Forest, a community gardening initiative that is part of the Wet Meadow Project. They're learning practical skills, building spatial reasoning, engaging in physical work, and developing thought processes around ecology and social justice. Scroll down in the blog entry to find the food forest section - and take a look at what Chris has to say about the Out of Eden project, too. The 7th and 8th graders recently spent some time working with Earthworks Farm in Detroit (amongst other things), garnering a photo in the Financial Times as they did so, and later spent two days in the Upper Peninsula, in a gorgeous setting where they were able to simply let go and immerse themselves in active, joyful connection with the natural world. 

Risk and Resilience

Middle school students head out onto Lake Michigan in kayaks.

On Monday Dr. Beth Pearson and Dr. Michael Bambery from the Arbor Psychology Group came to Summers-Knoll to share thoughts and expertise on the subject of developing resilience in children. This is a subject dear to all our hearts, as resilience is a vital characteristic of an independent learner and an engaged liver of life.

As Beth and Michael discussed, there are different aspects of resilience, one of which is the willingness to take risks. Students who have the confidence or courage to go out on a limb, whether it's to expose themselves in a spotlight (performing, presenting, sharing work) or take on a new challenge with the possibility of failure, are opening themselves to learning. They don't sit on the sidelines and let others get on with it; they put themselves in an active role and participate in the successes and failures, joys, disappointments, shocks and surprises of a full learning experience. In order to be willing to do this, they need to feel that it's safe to fail - that they are supported by their teachers and friends.

It's part of our work to develop that sense of a safe community for our kids, and to provide opportunities to take risks in that context. My last post  talked a bit about how we work with our students to build a safe and strong community. We strive to provide the kind of foundation and the kind of experience that supports the development of brave kids - kids who are willing to speak up for an unconventional point of view, or choose a new instrument to play, or sing, despite their fears, in front of a crowd at an art and music cafe, or go higher on that climbing wall than ever before, or find in high school that they've enrolled in a class that doesn't suit them, and have the courage to advocate for themselves and effect a change.  Our kids do these things, and it's testament to the kind of environment our teachers, families, children, and other invested adults both within and without the walls of the school have built together.

Academic risk is pursued as a goal at Summers-Knoll. Children are encouraged to present their work to others from the very youngest class to the time they graduate. Exhibitions at 7th and 8th grade level seem a long way off to our kindergarteners, but this week the kindergarteners will present at morning meeting for the first time, in the first step towards exhibitions and their graduation performances. (They are understandably nervous, but they've seen other classes present and they know that everyone will be kind, and Val will be there to help.) In Sam's group, students are sharing work with each other and giving each other unusual feedback.  Being willing to let others see and comment on your work is not an easy thing to do, but peer-to-peer feedback leads to an enriched ability to self-evaluate and learn from mistakes. Taking on a leadership role can be inspiring, and builds that sense of empowerment; from stepping up to find the answer to a problem, as Danny and Ishan did in Chris's group (read about it here) to teaching the whole class, as the children regularly do in Spencer's class (here's Lilith).  Physical challenges like archery and dance require focus and determination, and motivate the children to keep trying and trying until a skill is mastered. These situations all carry an inherent risk of failure as well as the potential for mastery. Sometimes the children feel victorious, sometimes they feel disappointed; either way it's a time to learn. They start to develop the understanding that they can overcome their fears, they can be brave, and that being successful isn't something that just happens; practice, hard work, and learning when things go wrong all help to grow that sense of pride and achievement.

A Community of Learners

Progressive schools think a lot about community, and Summers-Knoll is no exception. How do we connect our children with each other, the school as a whole, the local population and social structure, and the world at large? Teachers think and talk about these things constantly, discussing with each other and the children, and modeling collaborative thinking as they do so. 

We intentionally introduce students to concepts and engage them in developing skills that build collaboration, inclusion, and service to others. A safe, strong, supportive community is an essential platform for learning, and the students are an integral part of building it. This creates a dynamic where they learn more, as learning to value the differences others bring teaches them to look at things from different perspectives, question assumptions, collaborate better, and be more confident about the things that make them unique. 

How do we do it? We design many of our activities as exercises in team-building, so that the children are consistently practicing collaborative skills. Reading and discussing, cooking together, building mini-golf courses, trying to make interesting cubby doors that match up, attacking a group math problem - all these things demonstrate to the children how to take on roles in group work to further the progress of the whole, how to compromise, how to support each other. In Chris's blog last week, for example, he talked about explicit roles for readers. The teachers watch for opportunities to bring conflict resolution, inclusion, and discussions about individual differences, respect, and friendship into the foreground. Some teachers spend dedicated time on this as a part of the curriculum, and all of them engage their classes in this kind of work on a daily basis, through group discussions and activities. Support for social and emotional development is a core part of every day in every classroom. 

The classrooms themselves are set up as collaborative and inclusive spaces. There are areas for relaxed, comfortable, community building activities. There are areas for group work. There are circles and soft shapes. It would be a rare moment to see desks set up in rows, and only for a specific activity or purpose at a particular time. 

Students participate in authentic jobs to benefit the classroom and the entire school. We foster a sense of responsibility and community through opportunities such as lunch clean-up - each of the 3rd-8th homeroom classes takes a turn each week at cleaning up the lunch room as a service to all. 1st and 2nd graders take on different "Environmental Superhero" tasks such as making environmentally friendly cleaning solutions and making the school sparkle. 7th and 8th graders participate in work crews, rotating through different supportive activities throughout the year, from assisting in younger classrooms to weeding to library duty. This leads naturally into all the classrooms taking part in service to others beyond the school. Susan's group is about to embark on "Read to Feed," just such a service opportunity to benefit the work of Heifer International. Karl's recent trip into Detroit with his students to work at Earthworks Farm gives another example. These service learning projects are integrated into the academic goals of the class, and also provide students with a way to make a difference, to know that they have the power to work towards good change. 

Events that bring groups of students together, such as performances (music and art cafés, plays) and middle school game nights, or annual events such as the EcoFair/Halloween Parade, or project-sharing days like theme celebrations (last year we had the Magic Show, this year we have several such celebratory days in mind) and middle school exhibitions provide opportunities for students (and their families) to enjoy, grow, and celebrate together. Cross-classroom projects and partnerships also lead to the building of relationships and community throughout the school. Morning meetings offer a time for students to share moments of learning and joy with everyone in the school. 

Summers-Knoll is an intentionally diverse community. We work hard at it, and do our level best to support the growth of a student body that hails from multiple walks of life. We support a third of our families with varying levels of financial aid, to ensure that it is not only the well-to-do that can afford to benefit from the kind of education we provide. This is a crucial service to all the children - everyone is richer and better for a community where value is not determined by wealth, and differences of all kinds are accepted and expected. 

Hands-On Learning

Progressive education differs from traditional education in a number of important ways, one of which is experiential learning: the emphasis that progressive schools place on learning through doing. Students learn more, they learn more deeply, and they are more likely to retain what they’ve learned when they engage in active, hands-on ways in the educational process—when they build their knowledge of the subject matter rather than being told what, how, or why by a teacher. So “teaching” at Summers-Knoll is actually more about creating rich experiences through which students understand something because they’ve done it - they've explored it, questioned it, designed it, measured it, cooked it, acted it, turned it inside out and back again. It’s both a more compelling and more challenging way to learn.

It makes sense that when we’ve actually done a thing, we have a stronger memory of it, and the learning is deeper (and more fun) than if we’d merely listened to someone talk about it. Experiential learning encourages more zest to "do", and our students become people who like to get out there and try things - and have developed the confidence to do so. Engagement with learning is strong because the kids are involved in it actively. They see the point of it. They are not jumping through hoops.

So what does this look like in practice? We set up situations in which answers to important questions are discovered by the students, not given by the teachers - such as the 5th and 6th grade Global village experience, or the 3rd/4th grade collaboration with the Buhr Park Food Forest. This leads to project-based learning experiences, in which students learn to set goals, develop plans, execute their plans, and reflect upon their developing skills. For example, in music our children learn not only by listening to music and learning to identify the elements of it, but also by composing their own songs and learning to play them on different instruments, mastering each different part and learning to understand the elements of music deeply by actually crafting it. In early childhood classrooms, children learn the importance of accurate measurement, careful execution, thoughtful choices, patience, and good manners by making their own classroom pillows, including field trips to buy the fabric, and learning how to use the sewing machine. This is echoed in 3rd and 4th grade with more challenging projects such as designing and building doors for classroom cubbies. Take a look at the different classroom blogs this week to see more (links to all of them are on the right sidebar of this blog).

Encouraging the students to transform the school environment is another aspect of hands-on learning, for example, taking over the school hallways to lay out a timeline of human history, or turning a classroom into a village. 8th grade legacy projects often involve leaving a lasting mark on the school building - check out the murals in the middle school area, the handprints of former graduates going up the stairs, and the play structure "SKeidelberg House," designed and built by a recent graduate inspired by the Heidelberg Project after his class partnered with Tyree Guyton and the HP, installing a structure of tires in the Heidelberg Project itself.  Watch out for the SKeidelberg House - it's going to be painted soon; current and alumni students will give it its first incarnation, and later it can be changed by future inspired young artists.

Experiential, hands-on learning has multiple, well-documented benefits. If you'd like to read more, you can find an article you might enjoy here.

Exploring the City

Last night, at the elementary school Curriculum Night, I talked briefly about the joys and challenges parents feel when they choose a progressive school with a responsive curriculum for their child, opting for an approach to designing the children's learning journey in which the students have an active and valuable voice in their own learning.

The rewards that potentially come from such an approach are many. Ownership, authentic learning, creativity, motivation - to quote the parent of a recent graduate, describing a triumph her daughter had achieved as she started her high school freshman year, "That creative initiative is exactly what I hoped Summers-Knoll would give her and it worked!" This is often what parents are drawn to as they consider Summers-Knoll.

The challenge is often the difference between what this kind of school looks like, versus the kind of education most of us experienced when we were at school. It can be a scary experience, it can be anxiety-producing, it can be frustrating. A parent can be drawn towards the clear and obvious joy that children here experience at school, and still be profoundly unsettled by the fact that sometimes it just doesn't look like what we have come to expect from a school. 

When the students are active participants in their learning, and have a voice in what and how things are done, the educational journey starts to look like an excursion through a city, where the travelers want to step out of the the traditional tourist circuit and see the "real" city behind the tourist trap. Not: "this is what everyone sees (ignoring everything that everyone does not see):, but "how do people really live here?" So they explore. The city has a structure, it has a flow, and it is also big - too big for everyone to see everything. Everybody will see some things - City Hall, the library, the art museum - and everyone will see other things that possibly no one else sees. One group may head down a side street and find a piece of public art that the guide books don't mention, and finding out about it will bring up threads of history and civic engagement and they will learn how it fits in with the culture of the city as a whole. Another group might come across a little Farmer's Market, and learn those same things through a different lens. They will run into local inhabitants, who will give them insights that they couldn't obtain any other way. Everyone will explore deeply, and the tour guides will start to feel rather irrelevant. 

We are not tour guide educators here. We are explorers of the world. We ask "why?" not just "what?", and that can lead to some unexpected places. It's part of the process, and it's worth it. 

Welcome to the New School Year!

A new school year, a new blog. I sit here on this beautiful evening, with school merely a day away, looking back over the summer and forward towards a year full of promise and expectation: every year for a child is a pivotal year; every student's journey is immense; every person will develop in important ways, many of which are hard to predict.

For a parent, it's exciting and often anxiety-provoking. How can I do the right thing for my child? What will be key to setting her up for success? What can I do to support him?

So I thought I would start with a few simple but crucial thoughts to consider:

• Be punctual. When your child is on time to class, everything starts in an unstressed, positive, confident way. Running late brings problems with it that might not occur to you in the heat of the moment: your child misses important information, feels wrong-footed entering the classroom, possibly feels embarrassed, may not be able to easily recover from this, may be confused as to what is happening, may not engage with the work, may find that the whole day feels off. Entering late is unfair to the teacher and the other students, but most of all it deprives your child of a solid start to the day. 
• Have a proper breakfast. All breakfasts are not created equal, and there is definitely food that helps your child through the morning in better ways than others. Here's an article that may be useful. (Remember, if you go with the peanut butter idea, make sure your child washes hands and brushes teeth afterwards. Peanut butter is sticky, it travels, and we want to keep all our children safe.)
• A good night's sleep. Good sleep habits are crucial to success in school. Here's an article that may be useful. 
• Plan vacations to coincide with school breaks. While sometimes an opportunity springs up that you just can't pass up, it is enormously disruptive to your child to miss an extended period of school. It is also enormously disruptive to the teaching staff. 
• Allow your child to be in charge of his or her school experience. This is a right and a responsibility for the child. They get to carry their own backpack, say goodbye with the dignity appropriate to their age, own their identity as a student in a school setting, take responsibility for whatever homework needs to be done. All this gives them power and confidence in their own ability to be masterly in their lives. 
• Be patient. Your child is learning, and must be allowed to experience that process. It looks different for everyone, and it looks different year by year. Breathe, and enjoy the journey.