As the founding faculty of Community Partnership School (CPS) prepared to welcome our first classes of pre-kindergartners, kindergartners, and first graders, we focused not only on the practical details of opening a school, but on developing a sense of schoolwide community. We knew that the routines and traditions we established at CPS would be a key to this, and also to fulfilling our mission: Providing children from low-income families with an excellent and affordable elementary school education.
What do you read to your class on the last day of school? I always put so much energy into that last choice. I wanted a book that would celebrate the community we had built, the friendships we had made, the values we had discussed . . . and at the same time, I wanted a book with a rich story or intriguing characters or beautiful illustrations—one the children would really enjoy.
I recently had the pleasure of watching a talented museum guide lead an excited group of fourth graders through a well-designed interactive exhibit about Lewis and Clark’s trip west at St. Louis’ Museum of Westward Expansion. It seemed to be just the sort of experience we want field trips to be—fun, safe, engaging, and productive.
Michelle Flores, lead teacher at Aspire Capitol Heights Academy in Sacramento, California, contacted us last week to share the news that her school had been designated a California Distinguished Elementary School for 2010.
It’s spring, and end-of-the-year-testing looms. The children are stressed.You’re stressed. You need to ease the tension—but how?
I’ve been thinking recently yet again about how important joy is to classroom life and learning. My ten-year-old niece got me started down this path when she returned from visiting a school her parents were considering for her next year. When my sister picked her up, my niece breathlessly told her, “Mom, they don’t do any work at that school, except for a little math.”
It's always affirming when studies corroborate behaviors that we already practice, or at least espouse.
For example, on the personal front, I've been thrilled to see nutrition articles lately citing evidence that kale and sweet potatoes are good for me, since they are two of my favorite foods. (And let's not forget those airtight findings on the health benefits of dark chocolate and red wine, a couple of other personal favorites.)
Recently, I was standing at an airport baggage claim area when a large ceiling tile fell and grazed my left shoulder. At about the same time as I felt the tile, I realized that a very large brownish-black rat had also been on top of it. The rat seemed as surprised to have landed there as I was to see him. It began scampering among my startled, screaming fellow passengers.
A recent series of articles published in the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel have me thinking about one of my favorite topics—the importance of forging connections between schools and parents.
Often, when I talk with teachers who have started trying out Responsive Classroom practices such as interactive modeling, they reflect, “Interactive modeling worked great for a while. My students did really well with whatever I modeled and they practiced. Then, things slowly started to slide.” Of course, I’m not in these teachers’ classrooms to know exactly what is going on, but I have a pretty good hunch—and an idea for how to change this trend.
Perhaps you've seen the news that First Lady Michelle Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack visited Hollin Meadows Science and Math Focus School in Alexandria, Virginia, last week as part of their promotion of the Obama administration's Healthier U.S. Schools initiative. Their visit was timed so that they could help students and parents harvest lettuce from the school's garden for a school community Thanksgiving dinner.
I firmly believe that the better I know students—the more I understand the joys and challenges of their daily lives—the more responsively I can teach them. Similarly, the better they know each other, the more cohesive and empathetic a classroom community we can build. In my classroom, several kinds of sharing help us get to know each other.
