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the dates below to read any of the messages Click here to access the archive of messages from the 2005-2006 school year. Click here to access the archive of messages from the 2004-2005 school year. "YOUR RANK IN SOCIETY" "What do people mean by class?" So began last week’s Second through Fourth Grade Morning Meeting. I was describing a recent statewide diversity conference entitled Class Is NOT Dismissed (and chaired by our own Sandra Chapman!) I told students that this title was a play on words and asked if they knew what was meant by class other than what they knew it to be in school. One child thought of first class seats on a plane, then a Fourth Grader defined it for us: Class is your rank in society. The following is a record of students’ thinking about the meaning of class and about its reflections in their world. What I hope is evident is the growth that was occurring as children actively listened to their peers and grappled with increasingly sophisticated social concepts: Elaine: What do people mean by class?
Elaine: Can you think of an example?
Elaine: If there’s a privileged class, there must be others. Who knows what these other classes might be?
Elaine: Do you feel there is class at LREI?
Complicated indeed! Elaine Winter (Thanks to Michael Parrish for these minutes.) Dear Lower School Families,
Eighty years later, our school is still doing just this. As an institution, we value opportunities which allow our students to extend and enrich their studies inside the classroom by going out into the world: visiting places, interviewing people, and making observations to bring back. Here is a sampling of just a few places our classes are exploring outside of their classrooms lately, allowing a more meaningful experience of studies inside the classroom: Fourth Graders have been studying how instruments can work together as an ensemble through their work with recorders. To bring this idea to life, they traveled to Lincoln Center to attend a dress rehearsal of the New York Philharmonic, allowing children to hear many instruments working together in the performance of George Gershwin's An American in Paris and Melinda Wagner's Trombone Concerto (a world premiere!). As Third Graders come to the end of a recent collaborative research project on the planets, a trip to the Rose Center for Earth & Space on Monday will be a culminating experience. Students will view large scale models of the planets and other interactive exhibits, allowing classroom experiments, research and discussions about the solar system, stars and constellations, and universe to be considered through a different perspective and presentation. After interviewing, observing and gathering information at various local bookstores, Gina and Rebecca’s First Graders celebrated the opening of the "Booksey Boo Bookstore" this week! Children worked to create merchandise, modeled after important things they saw for sale in the bookstores they visited, including books, bookmarks, postcards, "books on DVD," and cupcakes. In Kindergarten, children have learned and discussed the ways that animals stay warm and survive outside during the winter months. To deepen this understanding, they traveled today to the Central Park Zoo to observe first-hand how animals living outdoors in New York City adapt and adjust to the challenges of and changes in temperature and weather during winter, and now the beginnings of spring. In a similar way, our school community welcomes visitors from the world of education, interested in learning about our progressive ideals, to come into our classrooms. For a school that is not associated with a college, university, or education training program, the number of educators who visit our school each year is astounding. Each year, we welcome educators to observe, listen, and learn – as Elisabeth Irwin believed, to go out of their own classrooms and into the world. By opening our classrooms to others, we have the opportunity to engage in conversation about our practice, and to connect with the broader educational community. During this school year alone, our visitors have included experienced teachers, undergraduate and graduate students, new teachers, and administrators from New York City, New York, New Jersey, Vermont, and even other countries, including:
In addition, many schools typically organize one or two professional development days during the school year – a day off for students, a day of learning from outside speakers, discussions, workshops or meetings for faculty. This year, the Children’s Aid Society school in our neighborhood used their professional development day to bring the entire faculty of more than 35 teachers to visit our school! This was another special opportunity for us to share our practices and ideas with other educators, and to deepen our connection with a neighboring school. As we move into warmer weather and the beginnings of springtime, may the coming of a new season bring you new opportunities to go out into the world, and to bring the world in. I’m happy to have had a chance to share with you in this week’s blog. Take care, Megan Dunphy
Dear Lower School Families, Life on the Second Floor: 30 QUADS and a UNIT BLOCK Yesterday I stepped out of my office to find 3 kindergartners with their teacher lining up unit blocks (the long quadruple units or quads) end to end down the center of the hallway. Students were intent on estimating how many more would be needed to reach the full length. They looked, conferred, and ran back to their classroom for additional blocks. Finally, only a small space remained between the tip of the last block and the end of the hall. Ks put their heads together and decided a small single unit block was needed - and, indeed, they were correct. The next step was to count - and re-count - the number of blocks. It was "30 quads + 1 unit block". Ks then discussed how best to record this finding - do we write 30 + 1 on paper clipped to clipboards, or on papers taped to the blocks themselves? Practicality worn out, recordings - including drawings of the "30 + 1" blocks - were recorded on sheets of paper and shared with classmates. Children spoke in mathematical language, using comparisons such as: longer than, too many, not enough, halfway, almost. They estimated and counted, and tomorrow their classmates will repeat the exercise with double, then single unit blocks and these sums will be compared. Personalized measurement, as this is called in textbooks, allows students to have meaningful experiences with measurement before tackling yards, feet and inches. FOURTH GRADE, 1907 This same day another line formed - all 38 Fourth Graders lined up silently outside a classroom waiting to be guided into long rows of chairs. Their teachers, dressed in turn of the 20th century garb, maintained stern and disapproving airs as they admonished them to sit with their backs "straight as rulers". They first led the Pledge of Allegiance, then instructed these students, many of them immigrants, to copy several times, " Boys and girls have perfect penmanship." Fourth Graders learned breathing exercises and received lessons in hygiene including, among other things, the advice that girls' hair should be parted in the center and collected in a bun. They were called to stand, hands behind their backs, and recite the Emma Lazarus poem, Great Colossus - which they did to perfection. This you-are-there moment contributed to students' appreciation of the Immigrant child. Afterward, reflecting back on the experience, students said:
LREI's Lower School students have many such opportunities to construct models of meaning that inform and instruct, connect and clarify, as they explain the world and the learner's place in it.
Elaine Winter Thursday, January 18, 2007 Lessons from Dr. King Dear Families, In the Lower School we celebrate the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. belatedly – at the end rather than in the middle of January. We do this with a purpose: to give children time, after the winter break, to settle in and focus on the issues he championed. These issues are presented in ways which reflect children’s ages and worldview and range from topics such as fairness, equity, inclusion (vs. exclusion), standing up for one’s own or others’ rights to the specific dynamics of racial discrimination and segregation. In classrooms, teachers help children to describe what fairness means to them and initiate exercises such as the Third Grade activity of "Xs and Os" in which one of the two groups is left out. Teachers pose questions such as "Have you ever been an ‘X’?" "Do you remember how that felt?" Across the grades, books are read and discussed, from the picture book Martin’s Big Words by Doreen Rappaport to Free at Last by Angela Bull. Kindergartners guessed that, were he alive today, Martin Luther King would be our president. Fourth Graders discussed the language of the time – black and white – and learned that the civil rights era was a time when segregation, not slavery, was combated. Additionally, this week faculty received a packet from our Lower School Multi-Cultural Committee. Among other things, it contains a sample homework sheet. From this, Fourth Graders were asked this week to respond to the homework question: What can you do to continue Martin’s dream? Their thoughts included: "I would continue Martin’s dreams by helping the elderly, finishing what MLK was not able to finish. I want people to listen to everyone and my words to serve; for every city, state, country to be equal." And now, with this background and these discussions under our belts, we excitedly await two pivotal events. The first will occur this Friday during Morning Meeting, as the Second through Fourth Graders, following an introduction by the faculty committee, position themselves around long sheets of butcher paper to illustrate a time when someone they know, or even they themselves, stood up for someone or something. Then, next Wednesday morning the entire Lower School will squeeze into the auditorium for our annual Martin Luther King Assembly. Students will share songs, watch the video of Dr. King’s I Have a Dream speech and listen to a birthday dedication by the Middle School band. Individual students will offer suggestions on "peaceful ways to solve problems", and - possibly most special - former kindergarten teacher Cleo Banks will read to us from Honey I Love. Ours is a belated celebration and it is well worth the wait! Special thanks go to our Faculty Multi-Cultural Committee and to our music department: Caroline Johnston, Tasha Hernandez, Ayanna Greenidge, Sue Ribaudo, Helen Yoo, Kelly O’Keefe, Thomas Murley, Stacey Miehe, Suzanne Cohen, Laura Araman Elaine
Elaine Winter Dear Lower School Parents, The Art- and Importance - of Interviewing One strand that consistently wends its way through the Lower School is that of learning through interviewing. Guided by their teachers, students inquire as to how workers – be they LREI staff members, museum curators, store owners, construction workers, park rangers, or Union Square farmers – learned to do their jobs; how they grow their produce, repair a street, write a play or make the delicious lunches we enjoy each day. Students question both about the person they are interviewing and about that person’s area of expertise. But first, they are schooled in the art of interviewing. Below are two descriptions of recent curricula in the Kindergarten and Fourth Grade, and examples of student questions. As you will see, they are similar in many ways: Lauren and Laura’s Kindergarten class is immersed in interviews! With the goal of learning more about their classroom community, and eventually about the larger school community, Ks interviewed each of their teachers. Additionally, each student interviewed a classmate, and, after viewing collages of Picasso and Matisse, created collage portraits of this person. Since this process began, teachers have noted richer conversation among the children and an intangible sense that these shared experiences are strengthening our sense of community within the classroom. Teachers outlined the process and goals… …while students created the questions for their teachers: … and for each other: Interviewing in the Fourth Grade is designed to elicit information about an older relative’s Fourth Grade experience. As students learn about that person’s childhood, they also gather information on aspects of the global/immigration context of a past generation. The process began with students generating interview questions based on their own interests and previous knowledge of their relative. Then individual students selected two questions from within each of five categories: - Background Information (“What was your home like?”) Before students set forth, the class discussed logistics and teachers modeled interviewing techniques, such as the phrasing of questions to elicit open ended responses, strategies for “digging more deeply” and effective note-taking short cuts. In a carefully sequenced process, Fourth Graders then conducted their interviews, organized their notes, transferred these into outline form, and are currently in the process of creating their biography of a loved one. In addition, each student will create a papier-mache likeness of her or his relative as a Fourth Grader. Student biographies will be shared with parents and, when possible, with interviewees during a publishing celebration. The skills and comfort students gain from this process enable them to learn directly from others. Children gain a fuller sense of their subjects as they connect the personal with the professional and past with present, creating meaningful contexts for further exploration and study.
Elaine Winter
"Tell me about Assessment." Dear Lower School Parents, Not infrequently, I open the door to my office to find a teacher sitting on the rug with a Kindergartner or First Grader. They often have math cubes lined up in front of them ready to be counted or sorted and a book or sheets of words to be read. Typically, the teacher has with her a clipboard on which she's making notes. They are engaged in a formal-but-friendly individual assessment. Screenings such as these take place all over the school; teachers and students find quiet places to work together at pivotal points in the year - in early fall, before conferences and reports, and at year's end. Additionally, there are the formal assessments in which children participate as a class. We use measures such as the, the DRA (Diagnostic Reading Assessment) and the QRI (Qualitative Reading Inventory) to gauge children's reading abilities in the First through Fourth Grades. The timed Gates-MacGinnitie is first used in Third Grade. Teachers return and re-screen to measure growth and see the effectiveness of intervening interventions and supports. The TERC Investigations program also has within it a series of check points and assessment activities. In Fourth Grade, students prepare for and take the three-day ERB (Education Record Bureau) Achievement, officially called the Comprehensive Testing Program 4 or "CTP4". This is our students' first experience with timed test taking, #2 pencils and bubbling. These tests are scored outside of school and are mailed to us; we, in turn, mail them to parents. The results of this test remain in a student's file. These experiences allow teachers to measure progress as it is reflected in a testing situation. Only rarely do screenings hold surprises because, before any testing begins, teachers have a solid grasp of their students' conceptual understanding and performance levels - this because the practice of informal anecdotal assessment is daily and ongoing. It occurs as students participate in classroom discussions, as they compose a rough draft, construct a math strategy, choose a book and complete a homework assignment. Teachers take notes, recording them later in a log or journal. Whether a student excels in an area or is easily stumped, teachers talk with students about their process, asking them to prove the accuracy of their results, pinpoint an area of difficulty or simply describe their thinking. The request "Tell me about Assessment." is one frequently posed by touring prospective parents - and I respond as I have in this letter. I take it to mean more than how we as teachers chart our students' progress, but how do you as parents get the information and how does your child - the learner - know how they are doing? Information gathered has value only as it is deconstructed, communicated and used as a basis for further learning.
Elaine Winter
Student Wherewithal As the NY Mets won the Eastern Division Championship, commentators praised Willie Randolph for having had the wherewithal to get there. Listening, I thought about what qualifies as wherewithal in the realm of student performance. What exactly are those qualities that allow students to meet challenges head-on, persevere in the face of adversity and take personal risks? The short answer is their belief in process - in working step by step toward a resolution, their belief in strategizing - approaching work from more than one vantage point, and their belief in themselves - trusting that their own efforts will be appropriately valued. Students in our Lower School expect the road to mastery to be made up of many steps and component parts. They may begin with a "seed idea", an estimate or basic sketch, and then backtrack, revising and editing, computing more fully or adding color and detail. As children move through the grades and grow better able to extend their work over time, these stages become more complex and fulfilling. Wherewithal also reflects a child's ability to strategize, to choose one approach over another in the interests of accuracy and efficiency. Teachers ask, "How else could you solve that?" "What else could we put here?" "Is there another way to find out?", urging students to expand their problem solving techniques. In large measure, students also learn from each other as they brainstorm ideas, compare hypotheses and assess outcomes. Finally, wherewithal is about having the confidence to share your personal views, ideas and renderings knowing that these will be different from your classmates'. An especially beautiful example of this hangs in our main hallway - a collection of Fourth Grade paintings of an arrangement of sunflowers. Although painted from observation, each of these is different from one another. Some students focused on faithfully representing what they saw, others were inspired by more playful interpretations they'd seen in example from Van Gogh and Georgia O'Keefe. Some flowers appear to be a family; another is drawn from "a bee's perspective". As art teacher Ann Schaumburger notes, "All art is autobiographical"; this may be particularly so at LREI where a teacher's questions open the door for creativity. As students and teachers discuss goals for the year, plotting out the weeks and months ahead, let's not forget that the oft elusive quality of wherewithal resides in all our students, just waiting to be tapped.
Elaine Winter
Dear Families, With the goal of enhancing student experience, Lower School faculty and administration last year turned their attention to the dynamics of scheduling. We thought about pacing and how to make the most of those times when students are at their freshest, how to keep transitions to a minimum, and always, how to be responsive to children's developmental needs. We looked at ways that schedules influence the quality of student life, and at related educational issues such as the value of extended, interactive learning. The term "interactive", used so often in educational conversations, has two interpretations, both of which are relevant here: An interactive experience, whether it involves reading or block building, implies an activity that is shared with others and/or contains a hands-on component. The term also indicates that a child's inner world of knowledge and understanding is undergoing change; her conceptual reach, skill base and/or world view is being modified. For this growth to occur, children require time - to experience, reflect, consolidate and make new learning their own. Ensuring that time is our goal and it is our responsibility. The result of our collective efforts is a new schedule in which powerful learning can build with less interruption and we can provide opportunities for increasingly meaningful and lasting academic, creative and social growth. I look forward to seeing it in action. A word about our faculty - As is the case each year, our faculty community reflects veteran and new teachers. All of our new teachers come with graduate degrees, classroom experience and an eagerness to be a part of an exciting progressive program. We are extremely pleased to welcome them! There will be fifteen head teachers this year because of co-teacher pairs in the Second Grade. Among these fifteen, thirteen are returning faculty members. Half of our associate teachers are also returning, which gives us a solid base of continuity on which to build. As I look forward to a strong and vibrant school year, I encourage you to visit LREI - to bring your questions and share your observations.
Elaine Winter
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