The Science of Character

Here's eight minutes worth of a wonderful tool to help guide thinking about your child's development, and how you talk with your children about their life, their day, setbacks, struggles, conflicts. Parents of older children might want to watch it with their child. Whatever you take away from it, it's definitely worth a look. You can find the video here.

Group Work

Group work and student collaboration are lynchpins of our work at Summers-Knoll, for reasons that range from the social development of our students (negotiation, adaptability, empathy, listening skills, and a whole host of other benefits) to academics (looking at a question from different perspectives, critical thinking, the deepened thinking that comes from having to explain yourself and argue) by way of increased resilience and opportunities to be active, take initiative, and more. It can also be a messy, unpredictable way to work, at least if it is done properly. 

The article linked here is a long read, and very much from a teacher's perspective, but for those of you who are interested it may shed a unusual light on the frustrations and the glories of this kind of work. Please don't take the title at face value. 

Enjoy!

The Importance of the Arts

Watching the work that Josh has been doing with the children all year continues to inspire my (and the whole team's) thinking about developing deep learning and ownership in our children. Here's a link to his blog, where in any given post you can get a sense of the autonomy and purpose that our kids develop in music. It's not just Josh, by any means - all the teachers incorporate the arts meaningfully and intentionally. Josh, as the music teacher, as well as Tracy and Monica, has a program that exemplifies the benefits of integrating the arts into education.

Immersion in the arts - visual arts, theatre, music, creative writing - is an crucial element of a well-rounded education. It gives our children a means to figure out who they are, by developing creativity and learning how to express their ideas. But it doesn't stop there. Engaging in the arts is also a processing tool. It allows people to take on new ideas and think about them in multiple ways. It is a way to grapple with difficult concepts and thorny issues, partly (in my view) because it enables each individual to internalize an idea in a way that makes sense to them. Involvement in music, theatre, and all forms of art is linked to advances in academic areas such as math, reading, cognitive ability, critical thinking, and verbal skill as well as social and emotional areas such as motivation and confidence. At Summers-Knoll, art is seen as essential. It is not an “extra". It is not an afterthought to reading and math. Every child in the school has dedicated music and art scheduled twice a week, and it is integrated into the homeroom and specialist classrooms in multiple ways.

If you are the parent of a 5th or 6th grader and were able to catch the Latin play (Imogen's post here), you'll have seen the calm, conversational ease with which they rolled off their lines. I'm sure you're acutely aware of the value theatre can have in developing confidence and deep understanding of foreign language, for example. Many of you saw the whole school play earlier this year, where Karl and Josh engaged every class in a production of A Sort of Complete History of America (Abridged), and witnessed the joy in which students participated. I had multiple notes from parents as well as hallway chats letting me know how inspired their child was to learn more about history during and after that experience. The Place Out Of Time project, in which Summers-Knoll has had a shaping and participatory role for the past twelve years, and in which every middle school student participates, is different kind of example of how dramatic approaches lead to heightened awareness, engagement, and processing of ideas for our kids. History, science, equity and justice, writing, research and debate skills are all developed through role-playing in this project. (Here are some photos of the culminating event on Jason's blog.)

It's not just theatre, it's not just music. It's not just the amazing artwork that decorates the school. It's classroom teachers giving our students ways both small and large to connect the dots through creative endeavors. Here's Elaine linking numbers, innovation, and the poetic forms with her 1st and 2nd graders. Sam French, the Academy Award nominated filmmaker, came into school and talked with our middle school kids about making his documentary "The Buzkashi Boys", connecting with the filmmaking work that the 5th and 6th graders (and also Jason's documentary EB) are doing and forging associations with culture and geography at the same time. Here's Lisa, working with students in science to develop their understanding of adaptation in animals through an imaginative assignment.

The benefits of this approach are many. Our students maintain and build on their creative natures in all subjects, rather than learning by experience that the arts are valued only as recreation. After years of engaging in integrated arts education, our students leave as creators who have experience giving expression to their ideas through multiple artistic forms, and with enhanced academic skills, including an ability to think creatively about whatever subject matter they encounter and whatever problems they are asked to solve.