Bullying, violence, discrimination and the ethical climate of high school. Charles Blow wrote about what he termed the Private School Civility Gap in the OpEd pages of the NYTimes last Friday. He was drawing on the study issued last month by the Josephson Institute Center for Youth Ethics. It surveyed over 43,000 students on a whole range of issues concerning…
Childhood is another country: they do things differently there.* Great researchers and thinkers about education (think Froebel, Piaget, Vygotsky and so many others) have always known that children are not miniature adults. Their work demonstrates basic truths about childhood development: While growth can be encouraged, supported and enriched, the essential developmental milestones and timetable for growth remain fairly constant. What’s…
I rewrote Seth Godin’s blog entry for today: Organizing for joy. I hope he doesn’t mind. The word “joy” made it irresistible. Traditional schools, particularly large-scale high schools, are organized for efficiency. Or consistency. But not joy. Traditional schools crank it out. Students show up. They pay attention. They get grades and awards to measure success. The problem with this…
Prior to the industrialization of education, the education model was centered around a single-room school house consisting of one teacher with many students throughout many grades. The teacher was a facilitator of an instructional design that had students teaching each other. The younger students benefited from the knowledge of the older students and the older students benefited by reinforcing what…
100% of PDS high school students agreed with all of these statements on the HSSSE : I feel safe in this school I am treated fairly in this school There is at least one adult in this school who cares about me I feel supported by the teachers in this school Adults in this school want me to succeed Teachers…
This is the second post reporting on the results of the survey we administered at PDS last spring: The High School Survey of Student Engagement. The HSSSE has 34 main questions across key dimensions of school life and many are broken out in subsets making for many scores of questions in total. Number 35 allows a few lines and asks:…
We asked….They told. The High School Survey of Student Engagement (known as the Hessie) is a highly regarded survey measuring the academic, social, and emotional engagement of high school students across the United States. It is administered annually by the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy at Indiana University. Since the survey’s inception, over 500,000 students nationally have participated in…
A colleague from a neighboring school has sent the following link from the New York Times. It’s a cautionary tale of just how much can go wrong when the political focus is test scores and not learning. On New York School Tests, Warning Signs Ignored. When New York State made its standardized English and math tests tougher to pass this…
We need a broader vision of success. We believe that real success results from attention to the basic developmental needs of children and a valuing of different types of skills and abilities. We support parents and schools who are willing to set the bar high for children, and who understand that real success encompasses: Character Health Independence Connection Creativity Enthusiasm…
A PATH TO COLLEGE, CAREER AND CIVIC SUCCESS Talents, when revealed, need to be celebrated. Challenges, when discovered, need to be addressed. Problems, when they arise, need to be solved. This is never so true as when we are talking about our children — their health, their growth, their education and their development. It is not enough to alert people…
Some days just stand out. And this was one of them. First there was breakfast in the new dining room and conversations with high school athletes (there were two games from yesterday) and parents. Then the always weekly standout lower school assembly. Since last year we have taken away the 1960’s era sunken pit. Interesting to begin to see what…
The coffee houses of the Enlightenment; the Paris salons of Modernism – two examples of the spaces conducive to innovation and new ideas. Here’s Steven Johnson on how good ideas happen to good minds and how they are incubated over time and in spaces where intellectual diversity thrives and connection happens. Could classrooms be like that? Faculty meetings? Admin meetings?…
From the NYTimes Scientifically tested tests …there are few indications that the multiple-choice format of a typical test, in which students are quizzed on the specific formulas and bits of information they have memorized that year, actually measures what we need to know about children’s education. Susan Engel was also on The Academic Minute on WAMC this morning. You can…
First day of the new food service and a great lesson from the lower school lunch line. “I don’t eat salad.” “Just try it.”
Ever wonder what happens in an all-school assembly when all students and faculty pre-k through 12th grade gather in the James Earl Jones Theater? Along with all-school activities we we have these regularly scheduled throughout the year including Thanksgiving and the annual Peacemakers Assembly every winter. The welcome back assembly last week did not include our very youngest children in…