When students take charge

Student-led conferences will be rolling around in a couple of weeks, and the preparation has already begun.  Students of all ages will choose pieces of work that show their strengths - and pieces that illustrate areas where they need to grow. They answer questions designed to foster self-analysis, "What do I do well - and which piece of work shows it?"and "What steps do I need to take to improve?"  They practice the presentations well before conference day.

Students gain a feeling of responsibility for their own learning and success - a key skill for life. Practice with self-reflection gives them confidence and self-knowledge.  From a parent's perspective, the typical question, "How's my kid doing?" segues into realization that their child is able to look deeply and set real goals.

In the Mindshift article Why Students Should Take the Lead in Parent-Teacher Conferences, the authors say, "Over time the parents begin to set a higher bar for their children at these conferences."

Walking around and observing the family groupings at student-led conferences is one of my favorite things at school.  The conversations are revealing and often touching.  The child holds his or her parents' undivided attention and feels their respect and pride.  They both glow.  So do the teachers.

The beauty of blocks

Big blocks, little blocks, hollow blocks - they're simple and classic  - and research says they increase kids' language skills.  Blocks promote slow play - the opposite of the beeps and buzzes that rev up the brain when kids use digital toys and games.  Blocks also promote social interaction, cooperation, and spacial reasoning.  Playing with blocks builds executive functioning - the skill that most predicts success later in life.

Blocks are a practically perfect toy in every way.  Read about Why Slowing Down Stimuli to Real Time Helps a Child's Brain.  At home or at school, blocks rule!

Teen hearts and minds

Insights into the adolescent brain are always welcome.  It is both wonderful and challenging to be an adolescent and to teach and parent one, too.

This interview with Frances Jenson Why Teens Are Impulsive, Addiction-prone, and Should Protect Their Brains, gives great insight about what is actually going on inside the developing mind of an adolescent.  Her book, The Teenage Brain looks like a great read.  

What most interested me in the interview was the advice about using media.  Teens (and preteens) don't yet have the ability to stop doing an alluring activity when they need to.  For example, they want to keep their phones under their pillow at night - texting and responding to "pings" and not sleeping.

Fortunately our teens have us - their parents and teachers - to help them when their brains are not quite ready to.  It's up to us to take the phone away, to set the limits, to help them remember that they can cope with setbacks, and to give them opportunities to practice good decision making.

A few things I have noticed about middle school children is that they are passionate about ideas, embrace causes with all their hearts, and thrive when given real responsibilities.  They deeply desire to be part of a close community and to be known - and accepted - for themselves, and forgiven for the mistakes they inevitably make.

The photo above shows preschoolers helping our middle schoolers take out the recycling.  Being in the role of a nurturer is something that most teens absolutely love.  Within the embrace of a caring community, teens can take intellectual and emotional risks.  When they feel confident that adults around them will provide the stops that their own brains can't, they are free to test limits within the bounds of safety.

Using a larger toolbox

This article from Huff Post about Union College's take on The Maker Movement and the Humanities: Giving Students a Larger Toolbox conveys elegantly what I was trying to say in my last blog post.  Valuable experiences for students' don't have to be boxed into only STEM-related or specific maker space environments.  The discussion around promoting the kind of learning that gives students meaningful and motivating experiences are right up our alley.  It is great to see that some colleges are expanding on what has largely been a movement limited to the primary level and some secondary science classes.

Work worth doing

At the recent Next World Conference, Thomas Freidman hosted a panel on challenges in education.  Tony Wagner from Harvard's Innovation Lab said, "Content knowledge has to be engaging to kids.  If kids aren’t motivated, you can pour content knowledge in their heads and it comes right out the other ear."  Richard Miller, president and professor at Olin College said he hoped that "...students will leave school thinking about how they can change the world, not about what job they will get."

STEM projects are inherently motivating to most kids and there is a move in education circles to emphasize them as vehicles for igniting imagination, cooperation and innovation. We have certainly seen this to be true at Parker.  From the middle school's Engine Project, Rube Goldberg Challenge, STEM week and First LEGO League competition to designing water wheels in second and third grade, students love these projects.

There are also many projects beyond STEM that engage students.  It seems to be immersion and choice within a topic that are the most motivating factors.  Students, when given agency within a framework, gleefully embrace the biggest and most complex - or even small or tedious - challenges.

Witness the recent areas of study across the grades at Parker.  Students worked in and out of school, in their spare time, feverishly near the end, to build models of historic regional landscapes (2-3) or displays of historic change-makers (4-5).  Kindergarteners carefully researched, drew, wrote, and invited peers and parents to an exhibition about communities.  8th graders honed speeches and coordinated photographs, made soup and researched world hunger to mount their complex and compelling Empty Bowls event. 

Basic skills like reading, writing, and problem solving were practiced.  The content knowledge gained was topic-specific and rich in detail and nuance.  Students also learned those larger lessons that are embedded in the school's mission: passion, curiosity and confidence.  And they practiced values like responsibility and ethics.

In a curriculum designed around projects of all types, students get to do work worth doing.  What a difference it can make!

The secret to math education in preschool

Here's an interesting article about math in preschool, Why Math Might be the Secret to School Success.  It refers to a recent study showing that math knowledge at the beginning of elementary school is the single most powerful predictor determining whether a student will graduate from high school and attend college.  That's a new one!  We usually hear about reading skills and the ability to delay gratification (The Marshmallow Test) as top indicators.

Perhaps it is actually a richness of experience while they are little that gives children an edge.  Math is an important component.  Math that is intentionally incorporated into activities like cooking, gathering, sorting, building and making patterns is crucial for developing brains as a base for deeper understanding.  You can read Pre K 3 teacher, JoAnn Bennett's blog  This Week! (scroll down to the Looking Deeper section) to learn about the math activities involved in block building, for example. 

Engaging, exciting and loud are the key elements with math for preschoolers.  “We want kids running around the classroom and bumping into mathematics at every turn.” says Doug Clements from U. Denver.  That sounds like fun!  And a lot like our Pre K 3's and 4's at Parker.

It's all about the social stuff

I love this article about social learning by NPR's Anya Kamanetz, The Benefits of Teaching Lessons Learned in Preschool to Older Kids.  She reminds us that social learning is equal to academic learning in importance. 

In the public discourse, measuring students' success is all about testing for academic achievement.  Neuroscience research points to using additional measures, though.  The research shows that academic achievement holds little value without the social skills to communicate, self-regulate and empathize with others. "Kids who develop these skills early in life get better grades, are less susceptible to anxiety and depression and have healthier, more fulfilling relationships,” says Linda Lantieri, director of The Inner Resilience Program.

Emotional intelligence and respectful self-expression must be just as explicitly taught as problem-solving in math, or problem-finding in social studies.  As we seek academic challenges for students we can't neglect social challenges.

Programs we use at Parker like Responsive Classroom and mindfulness practices give us a common language and methods for helping children gain skills that are sometimes hard.  Second graders have an exquisite sense of fairness ("Sam budged in line - so I budged back") and sixth graders are finely attuned to social nuance ("My BFF doesn't agree with me on the project we're doing, so are we still friends?")  Helping students negotiate these choppy waters is not easy, and it takes a lot of time, but its essential.

In the block corner or at the robotics table, students need both intellectual and social skills to be successful.

Getting to a Deeper Level of Learning

Creating rich learning experiences that move young minds beyond factual memory - experiences that require them to dig deep for understanding - is a goal here at Parker.  On a walk through classrooms on Friday here are a few of the activities I saw that engendered deeper thinking:

4-5 students had divided into to teams to write several bills for the state legislature. They were deciding which bills were worthy of taking all the way through the legislative process in a mock session.  Bills and laws sponsored by Parker assembly members and senators that were deemed worthy: Recess Law, Medication Bill and Apple Pie Bill (new state dessert).

6th graders were launching toy cars around the room, making them crash.  They were testing Newton's laws of force and motion by sending one car faster than the one it hit, or at the same speed, and investigating and interpreting the results.  Next up: teams began brainstorming and drawing designs for Rube-Goldberg contraptions that would demonstrate five types of energy transfer.

Pre K students were baking pumpkin bread. "Cooking calls for identifying, sorting, ordering, measuring, counting, timing and observing, while at the same time providing exercise of small motor skills," teacher JoAnn Bennett says.  To find out about more the learning that happens while cooking together, scroll down in JoAnn's Pre K blog to the Looking Deeper section. 

Katarina Schwatrz in her article Beyond Knowing Facts: How Do We Create Rich Learning Experiences for All Students describes the competencies that define deeper learning:  mastering content, critical thinking, effective written and oral communication, collaboration, learning how to learn, and developing academic mindsets.

Deeper learning is a crucial component for developing curiosity, passion and confidence.  Plus, it's just so fun!

The curious brain

"Curiosity really is one of the very intense and very basic impulses in humans. We should base education on this behavior."  Mananvi Singh, NPR

The questioning brain - wondering, asking, seeking - is the brain that remembers things.   When curiosity is piqued, the brain's pleasure centers light up and memory is heightened.  What's Going on Inside the Brain of a Curious Child, an article in MindShift, is an interesting read that has implications inside and outside of classroom.  It appears that sparking curiosity in children actually gives their brains a shot of dopamine.  All the more reason to make school a place that invokes questioning and engages children's curiosity. No wonder Parker kids love to come to school every day! 

Getting kids to sit still

I love the things that neuroscience re-teaches us.  In this great article called The right- and surprisingly wrong - ways to get children to sit still in class we learn that the ways at Parker that we get children to "sit still" are supported by science.

We have lots of recess every day.  It's outside, unless it's raining.  Kids roll down hills, explore in the woods, and are determined to master the monkey bars.  (As it turns out, running around, rolling down hills, and hanging upside down are essential activities for stimulating the inner ear - leading to development of balance.)

There's Muddy Boots Club, too, and sled-riding in winter.  We have 2,000 Steps for middle school - a time in the morning for walking and talking - recess, and an outdoor "brain break" every afternoon.

Founder of TimberNook, a nature-based development program, Angela Hanscom says, "All (that's) needed is time and practice to play with peers in the woods – in order to foster emotional, physical, and social development."

It is interesting that the things that children do naturally - rolling down hills, building giant block structures, or lying upside down on the furniture - are almost absent in traditional school settings.  By giving children time to do what they love, they can much better do what we adults need them to do (for at least a little part of the day) - sit still.