Maximizing brain power

On a recent visit to 4-5 science I came upon a happily buzzing classroom where small groups were deeply involved in exploration and filling notebooks with information, diagrams and drawings. They are learning about a big topic - energy.  As a start to the study, their activities involve several ways to find out information, process and use it.  From simulating coal formation (above) to explaining how a hydroelectric dam works or drawing a house that uses 3 forms of alternative energy, students are asked to: Read it; Sort it; Match it; Tech it; Draw it; Explain it; Analyze it; Create it!

This is an example of using the variety of ways that our brains process information, moving from making connections by sorting and matching to the complex skills of analyzing and creating.  Later this winter these students will design and test wind turbines and make solar ovens.  I am definitely coming by on the day they bake brownies!

Feeling thankful (for friends, food, and fun!)

Fourth grader Liam R. was thinking about things he was thankful for.  Over the break he typed up his list and shared it today with classmates.

20 Reasons I'm Thankful for Robert C. Parker School

1. Amazing Faculty
2. The amount of good fundraisers
3.  Great friends
4.  Fun clubs, activities and competitions
5.  Awesome summer camps
6.  The great organization
7.  Buddies
8.  Just the fact that there's a pond
9.  Education
10. 70 acres of land
11. The amount of fun!
12. Spaghetti lunches
13. Pizza lunches
14. Pellegrino lunches
15. Nature hikes
16. Studying of continents and countries
17. Good projects
18. Teacher-student interactions
19. Friendships
20. Awesome physics

What's inside a middle school brain?

6th graders are designing a recreational center for the school
using Google Sketch Up. 

It is amazing how much the brain changes from baby to kindergartner - parents are constantly awed by it. In this article by Katarina Schwartz, Harnessing the Incredible Learning Potential of the Adolescent Brain, she says that the teen years are akin to the years from birth to 5 for the ability of the brain to grow and develop.

I believe it!  In my experience, middle school kids are some of the most passionate learners there are. They need novelty and stimulation, for sure, and when their learning environment also gives them some autonomy, the magic combination spurs them on to amazing feats.

Witness the intensity of learning that happens in 6-7 STEAM Week - the joy kids show when designing and building bridges or launching rockets.  Or the concentration and grit it takes for 8th graders to complete a 20 page thesis and prepare and give oral presentations.  From thesis topics like Sugar, America's Favorite Drug, or State of Dreams, Panama's Role in the Power of the United States, you can just hear the passion.

Temple University neuroscientist Laurence Steinberg says that without novelty and intellectual challenge in school, teens are bored and they underachieve.

This past Friday, three eighth grade girls asked me if they could organize the whole school in a drive to collect clothing for a local homeless shelter.  Because they know they are supported in taking initiative, they have the courage to challenge themselves and to do good for others.

The developing brain of an adolescent is a wondrous thing!  Giving it a place and a chance to grow is a no-brainer.

Social-emotional learning at home

I love this article, Set Your Kids Free, that lists ten things that they should know how to do before they get to middle school. We tend to do things for our kids - but that deprives them of relying on themselves and gaining the satisfaction of being competent self-managers.

Teachers know that kids can be quite independent with some training, coaching and practice. Students are their partners in keeping classrooms functioning smoothly (cleaning up materials; doing chores; getting from place to place).

Here are some of the things that Elizabeth Stitt suggests that kids should be able to do before middle school.

• Get up, dressed and washed on their own
• Make their own breakfast - and lunch!
• Get all their stuff to school on their own
• Do homework on their own
• Do some cooking and cleaning
• Choose their own extra-curriculars (within your limits of time and funds)
• Ask the teacher for clarification or help when they need it

Making sure your children can do these by the time they are eleven is your assignment, parents!  I know you will feel a deep sense of satisfaction and competency when you are done.  :)

Why is mindfulness important?

Weekly time with Buddies is one way we help children develop kindness, empathy, and caring. 

In a world where violence, discord, and disrespect are in the news on a daily basis, it is imperative that we give children (and ourselves) skills in becoming calm, kind, controlled and responsible.

To help our faculty become even more effective teachers in this area, Director of The Inner Resilience Program, Linda Lantieri, spent a day with us on Monday.  She urged the Parker faculty to continue to hold on to the courage to teach to the whole child - with compassion and collaboration front and center.

Linda gave us methods and practices that go beyond what we do with Responsive Classroom, daily calm breathing, self-reflection, and time outdoors.  To help children (and ourselves) be "in the moment," mindful and empathetic, she recommended daily activities such as building an increased vocabulary around emotions, writing gratitude journals, finding "pin-drop" moments and founding peace corners.

We know through research that children with well developed social-emotional skills do better at pretty much everything in their lives, so it behooves us to teach these skills explicitly.  Linda helped us learn a framework and techniques to build our own and our students' emotional intelligence.

Let 'em play

Play is the joyful focus of childhood - and the kind of imaginative play children do is something that fades as they move into adulthood. Can you picture a cocktail gathering of grown-ups who begin spontaneously racing all over the place chasing each other, clambering up a play structure and down the slide (over and over), and then deciding to take on roles of say, doctors with sticks as medical tools, while digging a hole in the dirt for their dead bug patients?  I love this image!

The natural developmental impulse of children to play is something that we tamper with at our own risk.  Taking it away is like taking away their tools for genius.  This recent article in the Straits Times, Let Kids Play to Help Them Succeed in Life, tells about five distinct types of play, (some of which adults still like to do): physical play, play with objects, symbolic play, pretense play, and games with rules.

The author tells about the creativity researcher George Lands who called children "genius-level divergent thinkers" who are naturals at coming up with multiple responses to problems, solutions that are highly imaginative and unrestrained.

Cultivating this natural genius seems like a good idea for educators to embrace.  For sure, giving children time for exploratory play is key.  At Parker, with a mission of inspiring curiosity and nurturing confidence, giving time and importance to play is one of the most important parts of our curriculum.

Leave 'em smiling

A walk down to Pre K on any school day leaves me grinning from ear to ear.  Here is a glimpse of Parker Pre K at 10:15 this morning.  (For interpretation, see previous blog post...!)

How can you not smile when visiting
costumed friends hard at work in Pre K?!

How do you say popcorn in Spanish?

This is a pirate ship!

We always remember to wash our hands

What you learned in preschool...

Baking apple muffins for a snack in Pre K

What should we be teaching kids to assure their future success?  

Claire Cain Miller in Why What You Learned in Preschool is Crucial at Work in the Sunday New York Times, cites recent long-term studies that support the basics of the preschool curriculum - for everyone.  It turns out that flexibility, empathy, sharing, negotiating and playing well with others, combined with intellectual acuity, are absolutely key.  Jobs and wages for those who possess all these skills have far outpaced those where just one or the other domain, either social or cognitive, is required.  

Of course, that's no secret for us here at Parker.  Part of our mission after all, is "nurturing confidence and community."  On the ground level in the classroom that means giving children daily challenges to work in cooperative groups - for example during middle school STEM week when small teams of "engineers" design and build a bridge, and then produce a documentary video to go along with it.

This year in the 2-3's teachers are piloting a "Flexibility" curriculum, specifically teaching children how to give up rigidity and embrace cooperation.  Teacher Lynn Schuster writes, 

This week's Power of Flexibility work involved the kids running through an obstacle course with a rigid body and then with a flexible one. The average speed for completing the course with a flexible body was twice as quick as with a rigid one.

Other skills that build emotional control and response inhibition - some of the basics for what is called executive function, are incorporated in practices like Responsive Classroom and time for sustained make-believe play.  In this way, children learn to think before acting, take turns, recover from disappointment, or deal with perceived unfairness.  

It is always nice to have our basic values and teaching philosophy supported by research. With graduates in their early 30's who are Emmy winning film-makers, mechanical and mathematical engineers, successful social and business entrepreneurs, doctors, artists, lawyers, and not-for-profit founders, we see it in action!

Middle School kids cooperate on the "Up and Over",
an element on our Low Ropes Course

Magical learning

Finding living treasures in the woods.

Testing for air and water temperature in a study of
human and weather impact on water systems.

Observational drawing at the pond.

At a school where being outside is the cornerstone of learning and a daily expectation, where kids eat lunch at picnic tables, have 2 daily recesses, go to the pond or a stream for science class, wander the meadows or gardens for observation, inspiration and contemplation - the passion for learning is palpable.  We are so lucky!

It's just no big thing, that during Friday Muddy Boots Club kids will get dirty and wet while building dams.  Or that climbing around on a ropes course in the woods is a gym class activity.  Or that iPads will be used for documenting pond life in preparation for video nature-news presentations.

We take it for granted that schooling at Parker will bring transformative connections with nature, push students into zones of challenge, and bring them insights and purpose.  It's not a big secret, what we are doing.  It is completely intentional. The practice of getting outside all the time makes it seem commonplace to us.  It has become ingrained in the way we function.  That is actually kind of magical, given the conversations around the purpose and practice of education in today's world.

Testing what colors honey bees are attracted to.

Technology in our children's lives

Have iPads replaced conversation at the dinner table?  What do infants observe when their parents are on their smartphones?  Should you be your child's friend on Facebook?

In her terrific book, The Big Disconnect, Catherine Steiner-Adair writes about our dilemma as parents and educators: How do we find the right balance with our own and our children's technology use?  She walks us through these tricky waters with evidence based on interviews with hundreds of children and families and the latest neuroscience research.

I hope you will read this book.  I couldn't put it down.  It speaks directly to our worries about how a toddler's brain is affected by screen time. About how we need to heighten our attention to our tweens and teens and what their hidden internet lives are.  She helps us grapple with whether to give our second graders iPads.  And how to set limits for ourselves and our kids.

Steiner-Adair is practical and sensible and the book is a great read.

We will have two discussion sessions at Parker using this book as a jumping off point.  You don't have to read the book to participate, but it would be great if you read even one of the chapters. I'll be there and I'll recruit a teacher or two to weigh in.  Let's talk about these issues together!

Tweens,Teens and Technology
Wednesday, October 7
5:00 - 5:45 PM in the Library

Connected Lives - Ages 3 to 10
Thursday, October 15
8:30 - 9:15 AM in the Library

Let me know if you are interested in a later evening time for another session!  mtaylor@parkerschool.org