Sabot School Stories

Explo: The Documentary

Sat, 06 Dec 2025 16:52:41 GMT

Explo:

The Documentary

Created by

Aubrey G. & Helena Y., '26

With mentorship from teachers Richard Garries & Callia Wolff

Spring 2025

In the spring of 2025, two seventh graders, Aubrey and Helena, set out to learn the craft of filmmaking as part of their Exploratory project in our Grades 5–8 program. Exploratory, “Explo” for short, invites students to pursue a personal interest over the course of a trimester, following a question or curiosity wherever it leads. For these two, that path led to documentary work. After exploring different ideas, they chose to turn their cameras toward the class itself, hoping to capture what it feels like to learn through independent study.

They filmed hours of footage, interviewed peers and teachers, and learned to shape a narrative using Adobe Premiere Pro and CapCut. Along the way, they studied documentary structure, pacing, and filming techniques, experimenting with how each decision changes the story a viewer sees. The final piece offers an honest, thoughtful look at Explo through the eyes of the students who live it. Now eighth graders, Aubrey and Helena have given us a window into the kind of deep, self-directed learning that takes root when young people are trusted to follow their questions.

Demystifying ‘Project Work’

Fri, 31 Oct 2025 14:30:59 GMT

Earlier in October, Third Grade had a long class conversation around the question:

What jobs are never finished?

Teacher-Researchers Patrick and Macee asked this question of the children in their class “to start thinking about stewardship and to eventually get across the idea that stewardship isn't a one time thing, but a commitment. The class came up with some great ideas:

Counting the days/ calendar
Taking care of a pet.
Eating and getting food.
Growing
Taking care of each other - police, hospitals and firefighters are always on duty/ready to help.
Things you never start.”

“Things you never start.” Wow.

That last response, “Things you never start,” is profound. Imagining something is one thing; bringing it to life is another.

In the Reggio Emilia Approach®, the Italian term progettazione describes a process that is a combination of project-based learning, emergent curriculum, and curriculum planning. It is a continuous dialogue between adults and children. Project work can emerge from any aspect of the learning experience - foundational concept, the environment, the daily routine, or an individual curiosity.

Sabot Teacher-Researchers harness children’s natural engagement with the world to guide them toward deeper inquiry. From the earliest years, children learn to make their own learning process visible. Teachers model planning, support follow-through, and help children transform their ideas into action. Through thoughtful observation, questioning, reflection, and iteration, children develop critical thinking and bring their theories “to life.”

Inquiry, at any age, is complex and non-linear. To capture this process, Sabot has framed this as the “5 R’s” of project work:

Relationship: Children are part of a community at Sabot.

Research: Children have curious and open minds.

Representation: Children have a hundred languages.

Reflection: Children think about their thinking.

Reach: Children seek continuous improvement.

By documenting each stage of a project, teachers and children can trace how understanding evolves, both individually and collectively. This documentation allows for interpretation, feedback, and reflection on how learning happens - not only for the adults but, more importantly, for the child.

A few weeks ago, the children in Shayla’s and Laura’s First Grade , developed ideas for projects they would like to work on and created their plans. Here they explain the process that took place in the studio.

“The kids focused on creating plans that demonstrated the evolution of their project ideas. They learned about the materials they would be using and many of the kids opted to use clay. Paige (Preschool to Grade 3 Atelierista) demonstrated how to work with clay safely and effectively. Through their studio work this week, the children were able to explore several things:

the affordances (what a material can or cannot do) of clay as a material for creating
how to create a step-by-step plan for a project (with sequencing!)
how to label their own drawings to make their thinking visible
how to revise their ideas and show perseverance when their initial attempts do not work”

A similar process unfolds for older students in Exploratory . When students enter Sixth Grade at Sabot, they begin the Exploratory curriculum, designing and presenting original research projects each quarter. As Richard, the Grades 4-8 Atelierista , explains:

“Exploratory is a space dedicated to process building: how does one accomplish what they set out to do? At its best, a student can develop practices here that will last a lifetime and guide them in exploring any subject or topic they choose. But how does one get there? How does one learn the process of learning a process?”

“6th grade has begun that very journey. They are learning to build arguments that support their chosen areas of study. They are researching who has explored these fields before them and identifying the masters and makers within them. And they are developing systems of reflection and presentation so that knowledge can be revisited, deepened, and shared.”

Across ages, children’s ideas and theories are treated as valuable contributions. Teachers listen carefully, ask purposeful questions, and offer multiple forms of expression so children can make their thinking visible. Through guidance, practice, and persistence, students build the skills—and confidence—to transform their theories into reality.

Notes :

Stewardship is our schoolwide Umbrella Project Theme.

Affordances is a word to describe what a material can or cannot do.

Exploratory is the title of the independent study studio class for students in Grades 6-8 and the curriculum is student-driven project work.

Progettazione i s the Italian word for which there’s no direct English translation. It means ‘projected curriculum’ or the way we plan curriculum by taking big ideas, teacher goals and children’s interests into account. Progettazione is created through the process of documentation, making children’s learning visible.

Honoring Our Past, Inspiring Our Future: The Installation of Emma Ferek

Thu, 30 Oct 2025 14:18:00 GMT

On October 23, members of the Sabot community gathered at the Virginia Museum of History & Culture to celebrate the installation of Emma Ferek as Sabot’s fifth Head of School. The evening marked a meaningful moment in the life of our school, bringing together parents, grandparents, alumni, and friends to honor our history and look ahead to Sabot’s future under Emma’s leadership. We were especially pleased to welcome VAIS President Betsy Johnson; Education Group Consultant Margaret Moore, who supported Sabot’s Head of School search; several fellow VAIS Heads of School; and community partners from across the greater Richmond area.

The program featured remarks from several members of our community, including Brooke Purcell, Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees and parent of Riker ’27; founding Head of School Irene Carney; Board Chair Grant Shivelight, parent of Solace ’26; and Associate Head of Academics and Research Carol-Margaret Bitner.

In her remarks, Emma reflected on Sabot’s enduring spirit of curiosity, connection, and courage, expressing gratitude to the Board of Trustees, the administrative team, and Sabot’s extraordinary faculty and staff for bringing the school’s mission to life each day. She shared her belief in the transformative power of education and her vision for strengthening Sabot’s impact through joyful inquiry, collaboration, and the continued growth of the Sabot Institute for professional learning. Emma emphasized that Sabot’s commitment to its approach prepares students not only for school, but for a lifetime of meaningful engagement with the world.

Throughout the evening, guests explored an exhibition of student work that highlighted the depth of children’s inquiry and creativity. An interactive community art project invited everyone present to contribute to a collective piece that will live on as a symbol of connection and care. Together, these elements reflected the spirit of Sabot, one rooted in relationships, reflection, and joyful learning.

We are deeply grateful to Board member and parent Dave Kunnen for his support in bringing this event to life, and to our Board of Trustees and Administrative Team for their partnership in making it such a success.

Special thanks to the Atelieristas, Paige Archer, Jāna Vītols, and Richard Garries, for their creativity and contributions, and to the Installation Committee, Carol-Margaret Bitner, Maggie Barrett, and Kelsey Donegan, for their thoughtful planning and execution. Additionally, we extend our gratitude to Brandon Archer for his generous support behind the scenes and to the Virginia Museum of History & Culture for so graciously hosting us. It was an evening that celebrated where we have been, who we are, and all that we are becoming together.

Finding One Another: Connection in Community

Mon, 01 Sep 2025 17:05:40 GMT

Finding One Another:

Connection in Community

“The light in me honors the light in you.”

- rough translation of the Sanskrit salutation, “Namaste.”

The start of a new school year is always a gift of renewal, surprises, and fresh starts. Children’s voices once again fill the campus with energy, curiosity, and joy. Adults are astonished by the accelerating passage of time ( How is my once-preschooler now in 6th grade?! ), and children are embracing each present moment. One of my favorite moments of the day is greeting each child and adult at morning carpool; for me, it is a small but significant act of recognition and connection.

Preschool Teacher-Researchers Maddie and Taylor share that, “For many of the children in the Nest, this is their first time in a school setting away from their families and surrounded by other children. The children come into the classroom and immediately begin learning how to negotiate, regulate, and collaborate. Through this, we see an innate desire to reach out and connect with each other.”

Building trust and understanding in our community is at the heart of our work together, and it is especially important at the beginning of a new school year. Sabot Teacher-Researchers, from Preschool to Grade 8, intentionally curate learning spaces - both indoors and outdoors - and learning experiences that foster connection between children as well as between children and adults. This may look like placing a basket of stones with each preschool child’s symbol on a low table at the classroom entryway. It may be a daily survey question on a small whiteboard board or a journal prompt before the class gathers for morning meeting. It is also evident in the thoughtful design of pairs or small groups that discover and learn together.

The Nest teachers reflect on a connection between two children at the start of the school year:

“Duri ng the first week of school, two children were drawn to each other. One of them often comes up to the other, stands right in front of them, looks into their eyes and then reaches forward to hug them. They immediately light up and are visibly filled with so much happiness. We often see the duo sitting together and chatting, just enjoying each other's company. We aren't exactly sure what drew them to each other originally, but they both have gentle and joyful demeanors - maybe they noticed that in the other.”

7th Grade Advisors Amber and Callia reflect on the community building taking place in their advisory group,

“A few times each week, our 7th grade Advisory group gathers for circle time, an intentional space for slowing down, listening, and building a strong sense of community. This past week, we were able to enjoy our circle outside in the crisp morning air, which was an energizing way to start the day. We began with mindfulness practices, taking deep breaths together to settle into the moment. Nearby, the ever-curious chickens looked on, clearly bummed they weren’t part of the circle. Each meeting includes a check-in and a thoughtful prompt, sometimes created by a student and other times offered by a teacher. These moments offer more than routine; they create space for authentic connection and help students feel supported as they navigate the year together.”

During this first month of school, as we discover, build, and strengthen connections and support for one another, we are simultaneously deepening our understanding and capacity for empathy. This work will, of course, continue over the next nine months and beyond, as Maddie explained, through a process of negotiation, regulation, and collaboration. And it is these connections that transform our own lives, the lives of children, and the world we are shaping together.

The Emerging Self: A Portrait Project

Tue, 22 Jul 2025 13:42:06 GMT

The Emerging Self: A Portrait Project

Created by Tania del Carmen/Photographer,

in collaboration with atelierista Richard Garries, Jess Khawaja, Sarah Lile, and Jennifer Strickland.

The Emerging Self: a Portrait Project began with a simple but urgent question: Do we truly see and hear our children?

In the wake of the 2024 election, as headlines dominated the public imagination, I was struck by what was missing: the voices of youth. Not as future citizens, but as present observers — watching, absorbing, and forming their own understanding of a world they didn’t create but will inherit.

The project is a portrait-based collaboration that centers the inner lives of adolescents —those navigating the in-between years of 10 to 15, when childhood recedes and a new sense of self emerges. Through photography, interviews, and mixed-media transformation, this project offered students a platform to ask themselves: Who am I? What do I see? What do I want to say?

As an image-maker, I approached each portrait not as a static portrait, but as a mirror — an invitation to reflect. Richard, Sabot’s Atelierista for the older children, conducted audio interviews using three open-ended questions that invited each student to speak freely and honestly. As the process unfolded over two weeks, it became clear: the final works could not exist without the students’ active transformation of their own image. Their participation was not supplementary —it was essential.

The portraits were returned to the students to be altered, reinterpreted, and reimagined. The transcripts of the interviews became the source material for their exploration. With guidance from Richard, the students engaged in a process of visual storytelling —layering meaning, revealing insight, and claiming authorship of how they are seen.

(more below)

"For many artists, that first mark on an empty canvas can be daunting and difficult. You are ultimately sharing intimate thoughts on how you see the world and yourself with others, and that can cause one to be hesitant. My job in the classroom is helping the students, the artists, be comfortable with this uncomfortable situation. Guiding them, without steering the ship, through example and equal acts of creative vulnerability. " (Richard Garries)

Through trust, encouragement, and play, that hesitation gave way to empowerment.

The resulting works are powerful, personal, and wildly diverse. Some are raw and emotional. Others are whimsical and bright. Together, they speak to the emotional complexity of adolescence: confusion and clarity, joy and sadness, resistance and hope.

Our role was not to shape their message, but to make space for it.
To listen. To witness. To honor.

These are their voices — unfiltered, unapologetic, and wholly their own.

— Tania del Carmen & Richard Garries

Deep appreciation to Dave Menges, Karen Hurlbert, and Janna Fuentes for their support of this project,

along with the financial support of the Jamie Lahy Fund.

Tania is the parent of Lucien '24 and Anais '28

See her work at taniadelcarmen.com

Mending Walls: Screening & Artist Panel

Wed, 11 Dec 2024 20:12:15 GMT

Sabot School to host Mending Walls: Screening & Artist Panel

 Rescheduled Date: Friday, February 28, 2025

Time: 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.

Location: Sabot School Gillette Garden, 3400 Stony Point Road, Richmond, VA

Please join us for an evening with acclaimed artist Hamilton Glass and local muralists as they present their Emmy Award-winning documentary, Mending Walls: A Healing Art Project . The event will be held at Sabot School and is open to the entire Richmond community. This “pay what you can” event will raise funds to support a Sabot School student workshop led by Hamilton Glass, where students will learn about the Mending Walls project and processes and create a collaborative mural.

Following the screening, engage in a panel discussion with the artists as they explore the role of art in healing and uniting communities. Wine, beer, non-alcoholic drinks, and light hors d'oeuvres will be served in an adults-only setting, offering a reflective space to engage with the power of art to create change.

Attendance is limited to the first 100 people who RSVP. This is a 21+ event.

What is Mending Walls?

Mending Walls began in May 2020, in response to the widespread protests against racial injustice and the need for social change, particularly in Richmond, Virginia. Hamilton Glass, an architect-turned-artist, brought together a diverse group of artists to use collaborative public art as a means of initiating tough conversations about race, inequality, and healing. Through murals created across the city, the project sparked dialogue and reflection, bringing together people from all walks of life.

The Mending Walls documentary captures this journey, showing how artists from different backgrounds came together, worked through uncomfortable conversations about their experiences, and channeled those discussions into powerful visual expressions. It’s not just about the colorful murals—it’s about the stories behind them and how these pieces of art facilitated difficult, yet necessary, conversations about race, equity, and community.

At the January event, Hamilton Glass and several local muralists will present the documentary, followed by a panel discussion about the role of art in healing and bridging societal divides. The evening will be a unique opportunity to engage with the creators and gain deeper insights into the Mending Walls project and its lasting impact.

How This Connects to Our Middle School Classrooms

As a school that takes great pride in fostering curiosity and critical thinking with a focus on social justice, we strive to empower students to become global citizens who actively seek to make a difference. Through student-led inquiry and real-world applications, our Middle School students engage with concepts that emphasize empathy, collaboration, action, and reflection. The Mending Walls project offers a tangible example of how art can act as both a mirror to reflect societal truths and a bridge to connect diverse perspectives—lessons that align with our mission to help students understand the intersection of personal experience and collective history.

This event also directly supports a special opportunity for our Middle School students. Funds raised will go toward a workshop led by Hamilton Glass, where students will have the chance to learn firsthand about the Mending Walls project and its processes. They will gain insights into the role of art in healing and social justice, and will collaborate on a mural of their own right here on campus. This workshop will provide students with the tools to engage deeply with these themes and contribute to our school’s ongoing commitment to creative expression and community-building.

Celebrating Student Achievements at Sabot School: Highlights from VHD and VJAS

Tue, 04 Jun 2024 14:14:41 GMT

Sabot Middle School Students Bring Home Awards from NHD and VJAS

Sabot School’s values are reflected on our campus and in our learning every day across all ages, from age 2 to grade 8. As students mature and deepen their learning, year after year, opportunities for long-range, in-depth projects truly highlight the strength of our unique educational approach. Students WONDER by choosing thought-provoking subjects that hold meaning for them. They LEARN side-by-side with skilled teacher-researchers who guide them in researching, writing about, and presenting their topics. Students GROW by seeing the inquiry process through to completion, even when it gets tough. And CARE , of course, is emphasized through the tapestry of connections made along the way. Thank you to Eli, Jamie, and the other faculty and staff members who supported our students through these projects.

Recently, our students showcased their talents and hard work at two prestigious events: Virginia History Day (VHD) and the Virginia Junior Academy of Science (VJAS) Symposium. We are thrilled to share their achievements and celebrate their successes.

Virginia History Day (VHD) - April 2024

Virginia History Day is part of the broader National History Day (NHD) competition, with this year’s theme being "Turning Points in History." Our students excelled at the district level, with all seven participants advancing to the state level—an impressive feat given that only 6% of participants move on from regionals. The competition was fierce, but our students shone brightly, earning accolades for their outstanding historical research and presentations.

Virginia Junior Academy of Science (VJAS), May 2024

The Virginia Junior Academy of Science State Symposium is a highly competitive state-wide contest where students in Grades 7-12 submit research papers and present their findings to a panel of expert judges. This year, Sabot School students demonstrated exceptional scientific inquiry and creativity, securing top honors in various categories. The fact that our students took home so many awards at the state level makes it even more impressive.

It's DONE! Phase 2 of Honor Hall Is Complete and Ready For Move-In

Mon, 03 Jun 2024 14:14:57 GMT

We are beyond thrilled to announce that with the completion of Phase 2,

Honor Hall is now fully complete!

Being Moved: The Story of a 3rd Grade Aqueduct

Wed, 15 May 2024 16:51:25 GMT

3rd Grade has spent the year learning about movement and creating a working aqueduct

Celebrating Anna Golden

Thu, 29 Feb 2024 21:32:47 GMT

After nearly 30 years, Anna Golden will leave Sabot School in March

"My hope for Sabot is that it will continue to honor its founding teachers, especially Marty Gravett, by remembering their contributions as some of the few who had a vision to bring the Reggio philosophy to older children and their families. Thank you all for your guidance and partnership. I’ve appreciated working with you." - Anna Golden

Community members have been invited to write a letter or make a drawing for Anna; we honor her humble wish that there be no fanfare or community event to say farewell.

Sabot Middle School Students Shine

Wed, 14 Feb 2024 18:08:31 GMT

Sabot Middle School's Class of 2024 students are making waves nationally with their outstanding achievements. Caroline S. serves as a Virginia House of Delegates Page, proposing legislation on climate change, while Lucian P. earns accolades for his research on imperialism in the Caribbean. Both students exemplify Sabot's commitment to academic excellence and active citizenship, showcasing the school's dedication to nurturing future leaders.

Open Doors: Sabot Institute Hosts Sold-Out Experience for Educators

Sat, 21 Oct 2023 12:01:45 GMT

From New York to Florida, from Missouri to Maryland, educators visit Sabot to see Reggio in practice and our mission in action

The Reggio Emilia-inspired theme for Sabot's October 2023 Open Doors event—Representation: The Role of Documentation in Developing Critical Thinking—inspired like-minded teacher-researchers from across the country to travel to Richmond, Virginia, to see our campus, tour our classrooms, engage in workshops and conversation, and explore topics of mutual interest. Because there simply is no Reggio-inspired teacher's manual, Sabot honors its unique responsibility to honor what we have learned from others, to communicate what we have come to know from our own experiences, and to engage in collaborative conversations with colleagues to grow this approach to education. Experiences like Sabot Open Doors and the Sabot Symposium (to take place in April 2024) are ways a larger community can learn about this revolutionary pedagogy; Sabot's own teacher-researchers and atelieristas have a chance to showcase their work and it is an equally valuable opportunity to learn from those educators who believe, as we do, that we are always working toward a better world through education.

The Sabot Symposium will be held April 26 & 27, 2024. The Symposium is an opportunity for educators and education enthusiasts to listen and engage in the work of Reggio-inspired teaching and learning. Join our mailing list or visit our website to learn more.

Phase 2 of Honor Hall Begins

Mon, 09 Oct 2023 20:18:43 GMT

Construction is underway with plans for a Fall 2024 move-in

Sabot is thrilled to announce that "Phase 2" of Honor Hall construction has begun in earnest. The upper level, completed in January of 2023, is currently home to students in Kindergarten through Grade 8; Preschool students continue to use the Main House and the cottages at the back of campus for their learning spaces.

Of course, as enrollment increases, so does our need for space! The bottom level of Honor Hall will provide six additional classrooms including a science lab. We anticipate completion of the project this spring so that the 2024-2025 academic year may begin with K-8 students and teacher-researchers occupying the entirety of Honor Hall.

Nothing of this transformative improvement to Sabot's campus would be possible without the generous support and dedication of our community who believes that indeed we are a Small School for Big Change. To give and to learn more, visit: https://www.sabotschool.org/capital-campaign#GiveToday.

Update: October 16, 2023

This week in the Honor Hall lower level, contractors will be working on completing the framing of the walls and installing the remaining electrical ceiling “rough-in" — the electrical wiring between the main panel and the walls.

The major work over the next three weeks or through early November will be on the mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) in the ceiling and in the walls. The mechanical work includes all the HVAC equipment which will keep the building warm in winter and cool in the summer.

Onward we go!

Richmond Magazine features Sabot School

Thu, 17 Aug 2023 12:57:42 GMT

The August 2023 Private School Guide Highlights our 'Small School for Big Change'

as printed in the August 11, 2023 edition of Richmond Magazine, by Mark Newton and Will Thalhimer

Sabot Returns to Its Roots

16 years after its merger, a name change links the school’s past and future

In a move that looks both backward and forward, Sabot at Stony Point, an independent school for preschool through eighth grade education, has been renamed Sabot School .

Just over 200 students attend the school, which was formed by the merger of Stony Point School and The Sabot School in 2007. It stands next to the 106-acre Lewis G. Larus Park, named for the original landowner of the area near Bon Air where Stony Point School stood.

The decision to reclaim the school’s earlier name was made as the progressive education center in September celebrated 50 years of the Reggio Emilia Approach, under which, according to the school, “children are seen as capable thinkers and theorists who, working together, research and come to understand themselves and their world.” At the same time, Sabot opened Honor Hall, a 16,000-square-foot classroom building. The confluence of events felt like “a serendipitous link from the past to the future,” according to Allison Seay, director of communications.

“Now 16 years in [since the 2007 merger], the school has tested and refined these ideas and created purpose-built spaces to enable and honor its foundational beliefs and values [that children can be powerful agents in their education],” says Irene H. Carney, Sabot at Stony Point’s first head of school and executive director. “At this juncture, our school can lay claim to having developed a unique and important offering in independent education for our region.” —

The original article appears here.

A Gift from the Institute for Contemporary Art

Mon, 14 Aug 2023 19:00:20 GMT

August 14, 2023

Sabot receives piece from artist Nicole Killian

Nicole Killian, artist and Associate Professor in Virginia Commonwealth University's Department of Graphic Design, has recently completed a project at Richmond's Institute for Contemporary Art titled "between a book and a soft place," work that explores notions of play, gathering, and reading. The piece has been generously donated to Sabot School and recently installed on the campus Quad. Formed from recycled rubber, Killian's "book cradle" now serves as an interactive, dynamic and purposeful space where students can relax, play, read and gather.

Killian will speak with the Sabot community at some point in the fall semester to discuss this design project, their other work, and Killian's uniquely expansive approach and inspiration for art-making, specifically "objects as containers for language—language that gets activated when read, passed, held, and handled." For a school deeply committed to engaged, co-constructed learning, this gift, in the artist's words "is a vivacious learning environment... a play-space for language."

Inspired by the Italian radical design movement, "between a book and a soft place" is made of pressure-treated, coated wood that is covered with the same recycled rubber material used below playground structures. Over 8 feet long and by 7 feet wide, it is just under 3 feet at its highest point.

In addition to the Institute for Contemporary Art, Killian's work has been exhibited at Sediment in Richmond, CAVE in Detroit, Arcadia Missa in London, Present Works in Milwaukee, Little Berlin in Philadelphia, Embassy in Los Angeles, Sadie Halie Projects in Brooklyn, Nomade Gallery in Hangzhou, and Dreamlands: Immersive Cinema and Art at the Whitney Museum of American Art for Lorna Mills’s Ways of Something.

Students from Sabot's summer program witnessed the installation earlier this week and were among the first to be invited to interact with the piece.

Much to Celebrate!

Wed, 02 Aug 2023 12:10:20 GMT

Staff and Faculty Updates, 2023-2024

July 31, 2023

To the Sabot community,

We all know that a lot happens in a year; a lot also happens in a single summer! This post is to provide you with important information about faculty and staff at Sabot School for the 2023-2024 academic year. Like most schools, our hiring season begins as early as February and does not conclude until the final weeks before the school year begins—and perhaps even later than that! The hiring process at Sabot is one of considerable discernment—of course we are always recruiting new and qualified candidates, but we are also keen to hire from within our own community. And, just as we hope to teach our students, thinking flexibly and interdependently are essential Habits of Mind we aim to model.

Before we celebrate our new hires and other changes, we thank and applaud those who have bid farewell to Sabot since the school year concluded. We offer our gratitude, respect, and deep appreciation for the following members of our community.

Kendall Nordin accepted a job with The Byrd Theater as a development assistant after five years of service at Sabot. Her mark on our preschool and lower school programs is significant and her talents as a teacher and as an artist will be deeply missed. Kendall was an essential and steadying presence during a time of transition at our school, and we are grateful for her generous spirit and good humor.

Naomi Rader was pursuing other opportunities within education after a fabulous year teaching Grade 2. Though her time with us was brief, it was clear to all and from the outset that Naomi’s gifts are many. We wish her all the best.

Kristin Switzer accepted a part-time position with Riverside School in order to earn her Orton-Gillingham certification, a specialized training in literacy instruction for students with dyslexia. We are eager to learn from her in the months ahead and hope to stay in close touch with her. Her wise presence in Grade 3 especially has been one of calm and compassion.

Here are other important updates we are eager to share with you, all effective August 1.

In preschool

We announced two new hires in an earlier communication and look forward to introducing you more warmly to teacher-researchers Paige Archer and Hannah Larney; we are also pleased to announce the hiring of Madeleine McGann, who joins our gifted preschool faculty as well.

We have added a fifth preschool cohort. In addition to the Garden Room, Rainbow Room, Nest and Nook, we now have the Hive! We have enrolled a total of 64 students in our thriving preschool program; in part because of this growth and in part because we are aware of the unique responsibilities and challenges of operating this kind of program, Elaine Phillips will serve as Director of Preschool and provide dedicated support and leadership, allowing Aja Jones to serve more specifically as the Director of Kindergarten to Grade 3. With two sections of Kindergarten and Grade 2, Sabot’s steady growth calls for the kind of committed leadership Aja has already demonstrated; Elaine has served Sabot for a number of years and her familiar presence and long history with the school make her a valuable companion for families, a generous mentor for faculty and, simply put, the steward we need for such a large and complex program. Elaine will be supported by current faculty, especially Frances Martin who will assume the role of lead teacher-researcher throughout the preschool as well as Jeannette Prest as preschool operations coordinator.

Additionally, Jāna Vītols will assume a new role as our music atelierista, a position Sabot has long hoped to have and one we know our students deserve. She will be teaching music with students in preschool to Grade 2.

Other news in Lower School

With the addition of a second section of Grade 2, we knew we needed to find just the right person to work with Jen Miller as a teacher-researcher. Allison Seay will assume the role of second lead teacher-researcher while maintaining some of her responsibilities in our Communications office. Allison has long wanted to return to the classroom and when this position came available, she jumped at the chance. A career educator, she has worked with students of all ages from age 3 to adults in a variety of settings—university, upper school, primary, middle school—and the best part is that she will still be able to write and blog and post for Sabot, and will continue to work closely with other administrators to promote and nurture our school.

Another significant first for Sabot this year includes a second section of Kindergarten. We are thrilled that Hope Pianello has accepted this teacher-researcher position after many years of teaching preschool in Richmond, most recently at the JCC. A dedicated educator with a passion for art, she believes curiosity and creativity should be celebrated to encourage expression and discovery. Hailing from Harlem, Hope is a New Yorker at heart and a Richmonder in spirit! A graduate of Mary Baldwin University with a BFA in Ceramics and Early Childhood Education, Hope is a paint instructor, the owner of a small business, and parent to a five-year-old son.

Our assistant teachers in lower school are nimble, ambitious, and eager and their experience in various classrooms will continue to serve our students well and provide invaluable collaboration and support to faculty. Kathryn Miesse will move to Grade 2 from Kindergarten; Nyisha Straughter will move to Grade 2 from Grade 5; both Jake Schmader and Catherine Boyd will move from preschool to Kindergarten; Anne Rodriguez will move from Grade 1 to preschool.

In Grade 5 and Middle School

As our middle school program has evolved, it has become clear that Sabot’s strong partnerships among our faculty and administrators are key not only to ensure a well-guided high school application and transition process but to appropriately scaffold and steady the experience of the Middle School years. To that end, we will more intentionally collaborate with Grade 5 faculty and students; details of this new model were shared with rising 5th grade families last spring and can be read again here.

We are excited to share that Sarah Lile will continue to teach Language Arts in Grades 7 and 8 and she will assume additional responsibilities as our Middle School Coordinator, working closely with Jess Khawaja, Director of Grades 4-8, and Ann Reavey, School Counselor. Marla Wilson, our long-time Grade 5 teacher-researcher will co-lead Grade 5 with Ashlei Peters and teach, with Courtney Anderson, Language Arts in Grade 6.

Over the next couple of weeks, these changes will be reflected on our website with pictures and bios for both new and returning faculty and staff. Of course, in the meantime, you’ll receive additional grade-level details from Director of Enrollment Karen Hurlbert, from your child’s classroom teacher and from the division-level program director.

As you can see, there is much to celebrate at Sabot. We are positioned well for a fabulous 2023-2024 academic year and look forward to welcoming you to campus later this month. As always, be in touch with any questions you may have and know what an honor it is for us to partner with you.

With gratitude,

Shannon M. Montague

Head of School

'Umbrella Night' : A School-Wide Investigation of Peace

Fri, 23 Jun 2023 12:00:01 GMT

Reflections on a Year

by Kendall Nordin

It made sense— with the level of conflict in the world, with the amount of transition we anticipated the community going through– to find an idea for the year’s school-wide investigation, or Umbrella Project, that students could use as scaffolding for their understanding. The previous school year, we had watched young children playing war at a level we hadn’t seen in the few years before. Was it pieces of news from the larger world coming to them? Was it stories from their families or movies? Was it simply a working out of the adult anxiety they’d surely been channeling throughout the pandemic? Was it a shorthand way of being back in connection with each other after a strange time of isolation and masking?

We needed a way to explore the questions we realized they were already asking. We needed an avenue into thinking about our practices around war play and what children need to feel peace in a time of turbulence. Where can we build resilience? Where can their ideas help us and other grownups to understand Peace? And so we chose Peace—that simple, that complicated— for the school-wide Umbrella Project.

For me, I started out the year with a question— How do we teach Peace? — and I meant it as both a theoretical and a practical question. What do we already do that teaches peace? What are ways other people have tried to teach peace? What can we try that might deepen what we already know?

The philosophical underpinnings of the Reggio Emilia Approach ™, the approach that guides Sabot’s programs, are fundamentally driven by a quest for Peace. After World War II, there was a generation of mothers (so the legend goes, but I imagine there were a number of fathers, grandparents and childless citizens sympathetic to the cause) who wanted to build a world where the atrocities and dehumanization of that time could never happen again. Italy had gone through the horrors of Mussolini’s fascism and been front seat to the Nazi regime. In fact, they say, there was a leftover tank and selling the tank was what funded the beginning of those schools with the core intention of making a better world. The basic premise— if we raise our children in ways that allow them to learn their own capacities to hold differences, construct meaning together, listen to each other, represent their ideas, stand in their agency, experience delight, value expression, take action, and be aware of our collective need for each other, then we will have a world that looks different in the end. Loris Malaguzzi’s educational approach was the exact right fit at the right time for those schools. And the approach has traveled around the world. Contextually driven, child-centered, ambitious, collectively oriented– in all those ways and more, it was—and is— a revolutionary model.

At Sabot, the particular thinkers who helped to shape our practice and pedagogy, instilled some habits that are rooted in building peace. Things like: trying to understand children’s intent, moving through conflict productively and not fearfully, representing different ideas and coming to a new understanding together, realizing that everyone makes mistakes and must be supported in making repairs and amends. These begin with the youngest people in our community. In the preschool, when children have hurt one another, we help them move through their feelings and sit down to work it out rather than always imposing an adult driven solution. Eventually they learn that making amends is the best way to help our own bad feelings that come from hurting others. We encourage children to communicate their needs– and we listen deeply to them. We help them listen well in return. We encourage interdependence, kindness, and slowing down. We encourage co-construction of peace in the mess of conflict. We hold our understandings with complexity and build tolerance for uncertainty.

This year, I watched students of all ages wrestle with questions like What is peace? How does peace feel to me? Where do I find peace? What do we do when there is conflict? In the spring, when some of the classroom work culminated in displays and exhibitions for our Umbrella Project Celebration, it painted a picture of possibilities for creating peace:

We build and produce signs to remind each other of how to be with each other, in peace.
We notice and wonder at the natural world that may not always be “peaceful”— birds eating worms, red blood cells fighting white blood cells.
We celebrate music and fire and community and how being together can bring peace.
We give gifts, just because.
We find modes of economy that are based in what people can give and what they need, not on arbitrary value controlled by profit.
We think about whether peace is a lasting condition— or one we have to perpetually work towards.
We learn about our collective history and teach others skillfully.
We learn to make something big together, bringing all of our ideas into something richer than any of us could have done on our own.
We marvel at all the ways patterns can emerge in our environment and all the ways we can describe and know them.

In terms of what I was trying to understand this year, how do we teach peace? , Umbrella Night put front and center the notion that none of us can do this alone. When we step back and take in the school’s work as a whole and the children have time to see each other’s work, then we see a nuanced understanding of peace. Without all of their insights together, we be tempted to think that teaching peace is having children do only the one thing.

There are times when what is called peace is not peaceful. As in a frozen conflict or a negative peace, the absence of conflict. The children leaned into metaphors that alluded to the fact that conflict is a part of our lives. They were able to see complexity in blood cells and the garden. There are always opposite forces or counteracting forces, just like a see saw. Peace may seem like it can be stillness— and sometimes that is true— but peace is always a process. People point to meditation as an example of peace. For anyone who has a committed practice, they know that sitting can be very un-peaceful. The goal is not achieving perfect stillness, but returning again and again to the hope. It is in the effort that we learn how to inch our experience closer to that still point.

I am grateful for all that I was able to explore and watch the children grow into this year. We know that the Umbrella Project not only serves to provide a direction for the children but also for teacher’s research and for families’ involvement. Teachers apply things they learned in previous year’s shared wisdom to the coming years and new ways of practicing. Based on what I saw on Umbrella Night, I can only imagine what a treat it will be to see how these ideas evolve and take shape in coming years.

Kendall Nordin has spent a large portion of her life teaching and working with all ages of learners in many different settings—from a one-room schoolhouse in the Costa Rican cloud forest, to the library at the top of a fjord in Alaska, to museum trips with young children in Washington, DC. She started learning about the pedagogical philosophy of Reggio Emilia in 2006. She holds a BA from Georgetown, an MFA from RMIT in Melbourne, Australia, and is currently working towards an MDiv at Starr King School for the Ministry. Most recently, she served as Sabot's Preschool Pedagogical Coordinator.

Sabot at Stony Point becoming Sabot School

Fri, 16 Jun 2023 16:00:00 GMT

New name to take effect July 1, 2023

This week, we shared with our faculty, staff, alumni, current families, and friends of Sabot the exciting news we are eager to post here. Effective July 1, 2023, Sabot at Stony Point will become Sabot School.

While the change, in effect, is subtle, the decision itself is highly symbolic. Though the Sabot School was founded as a preschool in 1972, it was not until 1995 that its foundational values were cemented in the Reggio Emilia Approach™, borne of the vision of Loris Malaguzzi in Reggio Emilia, Italy. As our School grew (and later merged with the Stony Point School), we became increasingly aware of the unique space we occupy in the independent school landscape in Richmond, Virginia. We are one of the only preschool to Grade 8 Reggio-inspired schools in the United States, which is a tremendous privilege and responsibility.

Our name change recalls and honors our roots, reaffirming our commitment to Reggio values and practices, while also establishing us firmly as a leader in progressive education. While the logistical tasks of the change are important—you’ll begin to notice updates to our website and social media pages as we refresh our print materials, merchandise and signage—one significant matter to note is what the change does not mean: our values, philosophy, mission and vision are not changing. In fact, our name is one way of underscoring those very things we cherish. As Sabot's former and long-time Head of School Irene Carney notes, "Now 16 years in... our school can lay claim to having developed a unique and important offering in independent education for our region. At this moment, we affirm that the original vision of the founders of Sabot School - founded 50 years ago - has been nurtured and expanded and continues to live and thrive."

In a time of global uncertainty and with the complexities of an unknowable future, Sabot is as certain as it has ever been about its purpose. We are claiming with confidence our commitment to this particular way of learning, our allegiance to our mission, and our clear responsibility as path-forgers on a quest to revolutionize education. Our work ahead is to sustain the vision and promise of our School’s beginning: to deliver an excellent, thoughtful, and contextual program that recognizes the environment as a third teacher; that is responsive, collaborative and inquiry-based; and that honors the Image of the Child as a creative and capable citizen and a protagonist in the story of their own learning.

As we said to our faculty and staff, the vision that formed Sabot is the vision that continues. In that spirit, this is not a welcome back to Sabot School…it’s a welcome home . There’s never been a better time to be here.

Want to show your support? Click here to help make us even stronger.

'Yes, world, they are prepared!": Graduation, 2023

Mon, 12 Jun 2023 12:25:15 GMT

Remarks from Shannon Montague, Head of School

Good evening and welcome to this day of celebration and gratitude as we hear from our graduating class– their last time speaking on campus as current students. Of course, we hope you will come back as often as you can; from here, you are officially our newest alumni!

It’s lovely to see parents, siblings, relatives, alums, faculty and friends here in our Gillette Garden on a perfect evening. This is a ceremony that so many have worked hard to coordinate…

First, thank you to Pippin Barnett whose role as Sabot’s facilities manager has him doing everything from making sure the stage, chairs and sound are set up for this event to escorting our graduates and their second grade buddies in by drum. He, of course, is aided by a number of helpers including Sabot’s own faculty and administrative team and a team of volunteers, especially parents Elizabeth Sundberg, Morgan Vickery, and Betsy Phillips. Thank you all, for all you do. Thank you, as well, to the graduation committee: Maggie Barrett, Carol-Margaret Bitner, Jess Khawaja, Sarah Lile, Allison Seay, LeAnn Mazzeo, Ann Reavey, and Tappan Vickery for helping to plan this event.

And, I offer my deep gratitude for every single faculty member—past and present— who has been a part of the journey of these graduates at Sabot at Stony Point, and I express particular thanks to those who have been part of our faculty this year. Our middle school teachers, especially, have done the daily, consistent, difficult, inspiring work of shepherding our 8th graders and I ask that you please join me in thanking them and our entire Sabot at Stony Point faculty. Please stand and be recognized.

Finally, my greatest thanks goes to the families who are part of the Sabot community, especially those who are here in support this evening. Your job is a difficult and often thankless one. Please hear me say, on behalf of your children who may or may not have said it yet, THANK YOU. Thank you for the hundred ways that you love and support this school, the hundred sacrifices you have made on our behalf, the hundred ways you give your child the support and challenge and love (and snacks) that they need. THANK YOU for getting us this far, to right now, to this very evening where we celebrate all we have done, all that we have, and all that is yet to come.

Today, as is the tradition, each of our graduates will share their personal reflections with us before they are presented their student-made diploma. For those that may not know, Sabot diplomas are–literally–works of art. Each is tailored for its recipient by their peers who find ways through a variety of visual media to represent a graduate’s interests, passions, talents, and unique qualities. They really are exquisite works.

I know we are all eager to hear our students’ remarks, so I will keep mine brief. Really, what I have to say to you is nothing I have not said before though it cannot hurt to say it again: We Are SO Very Proud Of You. Finishing Middle School is, truly, one of life’s most difficult passages. It is not always graceful; it is not always fun; and it is certainly not always easy. You have done it and you have done it well and we are proud that you are not only a graduate, but you are a Sabot graduate.

Whenever it was that you came to Sabot – whether as a two-year-old entering preschool or a Kindergartner or just this year– it is likely that someone (your parents, or your grandparents or your parents’ friends) someone somewhere has likely asked a question that sounded something like this: “Are you really prepared ?” Although I’ve spent my entire life with middle school students, this is my first time working at a school that ends in eighth grade. Now I hear this question more frequently than ever before: are your students prepared? Are they ready? Do they have what they need? Have they gotten what they were supposed to get?

And here is my response – which is the response I give to anyone who asks . . . prospective parents, current parents, alumni parents, other Heads of School, counselors, advisors, and anyone who will listen: YES. YES. and YES.

You are prepared. You are ready. You do have what you need. You have gotten what you came for.

No matter where you are going, there will be students you meet who are arriving from all different points, all different walks, all different educational experiences. Every rising 9th grader has had a different journey and as anyone here can attest, no two students– even those who have had the same teacher in class– have identical experiences in school. In that way, every single rising 9th grader is in fact brand new. High school is a whole new ball game.

But let me tell you again: You are ready for it. What Sabot has prepared you for is what some take a lifetime to learn (if they ever learn it at all). YOU are prepared to ask a good question. YOU are prepared to think about good questions that may or may not have answers to them. YOU are prepared to answer what can be answered. You are prepared to sit with what cannot be answered. You are prepared to work alone. You are prepared to work in a group. You are prepared to speak with adults, to speak to an audience, to speak to your peers, to speak to those younger than you with respect and dignity. You are as prepared to accept support when you need it as you are to offer support when you can give it. You are prepared for test-taking. You are prepared for essay-writing. You are prepared for the great experiment that is your life. You are prepared for difficulty. You are prepared for joy. You are prepared for a new cycle of learning that is not a straight line but a wheel and you are prepared to take the wheel with courage and confidence.

Trust us. Trust that the work you have done here – the mistakes you made here, the accomplishments you achieved here– trust that the work you have done here – all of it – has prepared you well for whatever may come. One of my great hopes–and I have many hopes– is that you will come back often and tell us just how right we were. Everyone you’ve encountered at Sabot knew you could do it all along, and we can’t wait to see where you go from here.

Sabot Achievements at the Virginia Junior Academy of Science Symposium

Mon, 22 May 2023 17:27:55 GMT

Sabot Scientists Make Their Mark at VJAS

The Virginia Junior Academy of Science is an essay-based contest that includes an oral presentation. Students' research papers are months-long projects which undergo multiple judging steps, first screened by readers who are experts in their fields before moving on for review and score ahead of a final Symposium.

Several Sabot students placed in the V JAS Research Symposium in various categories.

An imal and Human Sciences

Avery S., 3rd Place

Penelope D. and Renna T., Honorable Mention

Fin B. and Leo P., Honorable Mention

Chemical Sciences

Caroline S., Honorable Mention

P hysical Sciences

Avery H., 3rd Place

Weston M. and Keira B., Honorable Mention

Plant Science and Microbiology

Lucian P., 2 nd place

Congratulations to our Middle School students and faculty!

Sabot Students Earn Awards at National History Day Competition

Mon, 22 May 2023 17:19:54 GMT

7th graders earn top awards

10 Sabot 7th-graders participated in District 8's National History Day Competition in February and several of our students took top honors. Those who placed were invited to present at the state-level competition at the end of April. This was the culmination of months-long research and Sabot extends its congratulations to all who participated.

Middle School participants—and winners—in the Virginia History Day State Contest include Caroline S. , who won the Ann e R. Worrell Junior Project Award and Lucian P. , who won first place in the individual junior paper category . Lucian also won the Asian & Latino Solidarity Alliance Latino History Award and is eligible to move on to the National competition in June. Congrats to Raymond, Penelope, Julia, Renna, Shayna and Eve for participating at the state level as well.

Updated May 2023

Sabot Hosts Community Film Screening

Mon, 22 May 2023 16:17:46 GMT

Community invited to view Birth of a Planet: Richmond on Paper

April 11, 2023

Sabot has partnered with local filmmakers for a community viewing of Birth of a Planet: Richmond on Paper to be followed by a facilitated discussion and Q&A. The documentary details a postbellum African American newspaper in Richmond and the life of its editor, John Mitchell Jr. The viewing will take place on Saturday, April 22, from 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Childcare will be provided during this time. If you are planning to attend, we ask that you register here so that we may plan well.

Ida Mitchell and John Mitchell, two descendants of John Mitchell Jr., will guide our discussion and the Q&A session after the viewing as they did with our older students at Sabot last month. We believe this event is an important learning opportunity for our community, connected in no small part to our larger Learning Group initiative which aims to ground the whole of our School—students, teachers, families—in a posture of co-learning and co-working. Just as we tell students, an important part of learning requires a seeking out of multiple voices as we grapple with difficult topics, ask complicated questions, and listen for varied responses.

This documentary does contain brief, archival images of lynching and, in general, the documentary is suitable for an audience of ages 10 and older. Of course, parents may certainly choose to bring their younger children to the screening. You may view the trailer for the documentary here .

As mentioned, students in Grades 6-8 attended a viewing several weeks ago, on March 15, and 5th graders joined them afterwards for the Q&A, facilitated by John Mitchell, Reggie Carter, and Ida Mitchell (pictured, left to right). Reggie designed a Virginia license plate that features the Richmond Planet and explained his initial interest and idea as well as the process for the design and its ultimate approval by the Division of Motor Vehicles.

We know that conversations at home are vital in supporting this learning process. This is why we would like to share some of the historical connections Grades 4-8 have been making to our Umbrella Project this year: "Peace."

Grade 4 has been exploring the concept of whether war is necessary for peace and looking at what it means to "protest." The children are passionate about certain causes, and have seen media coverage of protests. Sharing their drawings with classmates, the children noticed marches and signs, protesting institutions and fighting for human rights. They even pondered the idea of counter protestors and the presence of the police. Perhaps the summary of the work so far was this powerful quote: "If you believe in it enough or if you feel like you are not being heard or if something is not fair, then that would call you to action."
Grade 5 has been exploring information about the Larus family which has generated questions about our government, voting rights, political campaigns, and protest. They've also been looking at the story of Virginia, to begin to align it with what was happening to the Laruses and their company at this time in history. When students learned that Larus Brothers Tobacco, founded in 1877, used prisoners for labor in their factory, which was segregated by race, it sparked a vigorous discussion: "...while this was clearly wrong, many companies probably treated their workers badly, and it probably improved their profits" and "While enslavement was not legal when Larus Brothers was founded, using prisoners as labor was the workaround allowed in the 13th Amendment, which outlawed slavery by law."
Grade 6 has been studying Colonial America and preparing for an upcoming unit involving a lot of hard history. They have been having small-group conversations, navigating complicated feelings about race, learning to define race and racism (in order to have a common language and understanding in class), and beginning to understand the difference between intent and impact as well as calling out and calling in. The class has engaged and leaned into these conversations. They have been able to take the time and space to listen to one another, make connections between their own experiences with what they've discussed, and have been really supportive of one another's continued learning.
Grade 7 recently participated in the National History Day Project, completing research on topics like: The Ideal Woman: How Charles Dana Gibson set the Feminine Standard from 1895 through the Early 20th Century; Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott;American Imperialism in the Caribbean: The Negative Impact of US Law from 1900-1920 on Puerto Rico; Clamoring for Change: The Equal Suffrage League of Virginia; and The Manhattan Project: A Frontier in Warfare and Politics. Additionally, one of our current 7th grade students, Lucian, researched John Mitchell Jr. last school year.
Grade 8 is working on a unit-long research project on the Constitution. Students started with comparing a draft of the Preamble with the final version to consider the purpose of our government. The class settled on investigating whether our Constitution creates a just government. In order to answer that question, they are striving to understand how our government is currently organized and how it operates, why it was set up the way it was (including its flaws), and how decisions are made. They have also been comparing news coverage from different websites. Students continue to look for similarities and differences in how different news agencies approach and handle the news, opinion, and bias.

Below are some details about the creation of the documentary, as written in a recent Richmond Magazine article by Davy Jones.

We hope you will all join us for this shared learning event. Please know that this invitation is extended to all families, all faculty and staff, and all members of Sabot's Board of Directors.

_______________________________

excerpted from Richmond Magazine, ‘This Isn’t a Mural Anymore,’ by Davy Jones

Birth of a Planet is a collaboration between Tilt and artist Hamilton Glass, a 30-minute film about the influential newspaper The Richmond Planet.

Scot Crooker, chief content officer at the Richmond-based Tilt Creative + Production marketing company, describes the moment that the project to honor Black-run newspaper The Richmond Planet with a mural began to grow beyond the outdoor wall of its Scott’s Addition studio this way: "Oh, this isn’t a mural anymore, is it? There’s a big story here."

The documentary, which premiered in June at the Richmond International Film Festival, air[ed] Feb. 28 on VPM. At its center is the Planet’s firebrand editor, John Mitchell Jr., who led the publication for 45 years, starting in 1884. The paper was 2 years old when Mitchell took over; he was just 21 years old. Under his guiding hand, the Planet was a daring counterbalance to established newspapers, which glossed over early Jim Crow racism and injustice that Mitchell knew well, having been born into slavery.

The makers of “Birth of a Planet” were intentional about representation, as well. "Let’s try and tell the story through as clean a lens as possible," Crooker says. "Let the people who own the story, in effect, tell the story." In addition to on-camera interviews with John Mitchell, great-great nephew of John Mitchell Jr., and descendants of Planet co-founder Albert V. Norrell, the documentary features narration from local rapper Daniel Jones.

The full article is here.

The Doors Open: Honor Hall

Mon, 22 May 2023 16:06:20 GMT

Media Advisory: March 27, 2023

THE DOORS OPEN AT SABOT AT STONY POINT

School’s long-anticipated campus expansion project will have its ceremonial ribbon-cutting this week

RICHMOND, VA— Sabot at Stony Point’s state-of-the-art, 16,000-square-foot classroom building now has its official name. In a ribbon-cutting ceremony to take place Friday, March 31, at 6:30 p.m., the name will be unveiled with accompanying remarks from Shannon Montague, Head of School. Younger students at the school suggested Sabot’s graduating class should do the honorary cutting and indeed members of the 8th grade will officially welcome guests inside the newly-occupied learning spaces. A major milestone in the life of the school, the completion of the building allows for continued growth and campus expansion while preserving the aesthetic qualities of the historic Larus estate.

For more information, contact:

Allison Seay

Director of Communications

804-272-1341

aseay@sabotatstonypoint.org

###

Sabot at Stony Point is a progressive, independent school for children age two through Grade 8 in Richmond’s Bon Air neighborhood, adjacent to the 106-acre Lewis G. Larus Park. With a Reggio-inspired, social constructivist curriculum that is inquiry-based and child-led, Sabot is a leader in the national movement to create an education that is meaningful and relevant. For more information, visit sabotatstonypoint.org .

A Preview of the Umbrella Project Celebration

Mon, 22 May 2023 14:38:28 GMT

Mission Moment, May 2023: An Invitation to "Umbrella Night"

The theme for the 2023 Umbrella Project Celebration is Peace. Also known as “Umbrella Night,” the evening is a celebration of student work across all grades, unified by a common theme. This year, from preschool to Grade 8, teachers and students have been contemplating “peace” and have, through a hundred languages, made manifest some of their ideas. From a “peace party” to the “Museum of Peaceful Sounds,” from a Trading Post Peace Spot to the study of peace and protest through an historical lens, students have been engaged in rich and inspiring work—discussion, research, projects—as they consider what makes peace, how we contribute peace, what might threaten peace, and how we can keep, spread, and celebrate peace.

“Umbrella Night” is a unique kind of gallery walk and exhibition—much like an open house, or self-guided tour though outdoors, as weather allows.

Cross-grade connection has been an unexpected (though not surprising) gift of this year’s project work. The sc ene above is from the 3rd grade’s Trading Post/Peace Spot, built from hand, which many—our youngest to our oldest — have visited .

Other projects on display include First grade’s “caterpillar playplace ," a place " for caterpillars to have fun on the caterpillar wall. We made it to make peace for caterpillars. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH!”

Guided by our atelieristas Anna & Richard, and teacher-researchers in every grade, there has been an ongoing dialogue in the quest to make meaning of the question: “What is Peace?” For additional images as glimpses into this year-long project wo rk, click HERE.

Umbrella Night is one way our students have of making their learning– and their thinking–visible. What began as teacher provocations, evolved through co-construction, dialogue, inquiry, and representation. No one has solved the problem of war and aggression; but there has been a depth of thinking, question-asking, and understanding that offer hope for a more peaceful future in the hands of Sabot students. There are a hundred languages for Peace.

Observational Drawing and the Image of the Child

Mon, 22 May 2023 14:19:14 GMT

Mission Moment: April 2023

Paying Attention, Cultivating Empathy , and Discovering the ‘Larger Patterns’

We say we’re “different for a reason.” But, what is the reason? Different how? Different why?

The essential way in which we differ from most other schools is that everything we do is guided by our Image of the Child.

We are not primarily guided by – though we are attentive to– an image of an outcome, an image of a future, an image of an institution, an image of a global community. Certainly we are not guided by an image of the child as one inferior to the image of an adult. We’re different because we believe children are capable, collaborative and creative and that they are as responsible for the progress and improvements of our civilization as the adults who care for and companion them. Moreover, we believe that they are capable of discovering their proper and fulfilling roles in the larger story of humankind.

_________________________

For children to live only in contact with concrete and steel and wires and wheels and machines and computers and plastics, to seldom experience any primordial reality or even to see the stars at night, is soul deprivation that diminishes the deepest of their human experiences.” (Thomas Berry, “The University,” in The Great Work , 82).

Seeing the stars at night is of course a metaphor for an ability to marvel at all. “Seeing the stars” does not only mean understanding their origin and makeup. Facts matter. Science matters. If you are going to send a human to the moon on a rocketship, you better get your facts right. But those facts do little in telling us why we are interested in seeing the ends of the earth in the first place.

To see the stars and experience the awe of wonder does not tell the whole story of the universe. And yet, to see the stars puts us in intimate touch with something essential. One way to encourage a capacity to marvel at enormity is to pay close attention to the small. Awe of the seedhead in winter begets awe of the bloom to come.

The reason we prioritize certain pedagogical practices— specifically, observational drawing—that may seem impractical or inefficient to some is because those are often the very things that strengthen and clarify our Image of the Child and our belief in their capacities. Where traditional models might prioritize (understandably) efficiency, evaluation, templates, and tasks, they almost always undermine the image of the child we seek to uphold by reducing or diminishing complexity, nuance, difference, and individual gift.

The image of the child is always complex (because the human is always more complicated than the system of which she is part) but the image should also always be clear.

from Anna Golden:

“Here at Sabot, we believe that drawing to learn enhances understanding, and in order to be able to make thinking and learning visible, children need to feel comfortable drawing and have the ability to draw from observation… Children don't usually need much teaching. [Instead,] I try to show that noticing and observation is the most important thing in drawing, and I teach about making 'studies', or a series of drawings to try to capture something. The use of studies really helps children with perfectionist tendencies stop throwing away draft after draft, and begin to learn that every drawing, no matter how flawed, is still valuable.

Most important, after learning to notice, is to give people time to mess about and practice drawing….I really believe that direct instruction in art technique leads to stilted, superficial work, unless the student applies and practices the technique enough to make it their own.

…Sometimes it seems hard for people to imagine the fine line between scaffolding and instructing in a school like ours. I do want to loan skills to the students, but I have utter faith that just telling them something (or just demonstrating it) doesn't make much difference in the construction of new understandings.”

When Piaget and Inhelder developed their theory about a child’s ability to comprehend multiple perspectives (the Three Mountains Task, 1956), it inspired a new body of research and collective understanding that even very young children–though they may not be able to represent or draw this accurately– do know that others see a different view of a given figure (or landscape, etc.) than they do, depending on where a person sits in relation to the object of study.

The crucial revelation is of course that this concept of perspective-taking is at the heart of empathy, or “theory of mind,” that essential consideration of another’s point of view. Multiple perspectives can all be “true.”

Anna Golden, again: “One of the ways teachers at Sabot support growing the development of perspective taking is through observational drawing. When children spend time drawing an object and then seen that same object drawn by someone else at the table, that is perspective taking appearing right before their eyes.”

An experience of observational drawing includes many benefits and Habits of Mind:

Striving for accuracy
Thinking and communicating with clarity and precision
Persisting
Creating, imagining and innovating
Questioning and problem posing
Responding with wonderment and awe

Observational drawing is infused with science, literacy, and math concepts (the relationship of one thing to another; distance and direction; texture; proportion.)

It involves an understanding of multiple perspectives and a knowledge that though things are unseen first-hand, they do exist, an essential step toward empathy.

It requires sustained attention, fine motor control, self-discipline, and appreciation for detail.

Sabot's Ecology and the Environment as the Third Teacher

Mon, 22 May 2023 14:07:37 GMT

Mission Moment: March 2023

Ecology: from the G reek oikos , or “house, dwelling places” and logia, or “the study of,” denoting the study of the relationship of living things to their environments. The study of the house of life.

Sabot’s “house of life” includes its newest building, of course, but it also involves the consistent, persistent, nurturing of its other spaces and relationships. The environment that is crucial to our mission is helped by its rooms, designs, and structures, but it is important to remember that

those things are scaffolding for the deeper work, the heart inside, the larger and fuller story of Sabot life.

Of course, Sabot’s ecology depends on more than furniture, functionality, and square footage, though those things matter a great deal. But for Sabot to create the environment that is central to its mission, one that supports co-construction, creativity, collaboration, the giving and receiving of feedback, the willingness to change one’s mind, self-confidence, self-correction, re-direction, it is important to appreciate the aspects of its larger “living house,” even beyond its newest building.

A s we shared in January’s Learning Group message, there is always something bigger at stake in a school, something bigger at work than the structures on its campus. And while spaces are portals to learning and living in a community, not every school includes the importance of those spaces in its mission. Sabot should be celebrating its serious attention to the value of its environment, even the spaces that are not new, for they are all pointing us to our mission at work. In fact, those older, familiar spaces are already doing the important work of sustaining the ecological balance of things. They are houses of life already lived in.

To read the entirety of this presentation, as prepared for the Board of Directors, click here.

Diversity Matters: Sabot's Statement of Belief

Mon, 22 May 2023 13:53:41 GMT

Mission Moment: January 2023

Diversity matters at Sabot. We nurture a learning environment where diversity is valued, respected, and celebrated. Diversity, and the variety of experiences and perspectives it provides, is central to our approach to education. Our emphasis on co-construction – an environment where everyone teaches and everyone learns – is strengthened by a community that includes diversity of race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, family structure, learning style, religious belief, political affiliation, and life experience, among others. We strive continually to engage with each other in ways that develop a sense of belonging among all community members, and value the powerful contributions that each individual makes to our shared learning and understanding.

Diversity matters for learning. At Sabot, students are at the center of our mission and educational philosophy. We recognize each student for their individual abilities, interests, ideas, and identities. We provide a safe, supported space for students to bring their authentic self each and every day. The ways each student observes, acquires knowledge, interacts, and tests and refines theories make for a more powerful collective experience while enriching their individual path as a lifelong learner.

Our Diversity is a designated value and priority - and also a VAIS accreditation standard - in our Strategic plan. To review terms:

Diversity is the presence of difference.

Inclusivity is creating a sense of belonging by accepting, respecting, and affirming diversity. Inclusivity requires intention.

Equity is being just, fair, and recognizing that not everyone has the same opportunity for equality. Equity requires institutional and systematic change.

________________________

At the end of November, Sabot sent a group of 5 faculty and staff to the National Association of Independent School People of Color Conference. On January 5th, administrators met with the group to hear their takeaways and insight into Sabot's community & diversity work.

“People understood how we felt. Had lots in common, teachers of color. It’s so uncommon to see [another] teacher of color. It was refreshing. It was healing. You felt a sense of peace, we’re in this together.”

“It was worth it. I want to go again. It was the bomb!”

“People are afraid of me. I think there is a fascination but that doesn’t always feel popular.”

“My husband and I have not always felt welcome on this campus.”

“When it happens to you [being judged] the first time you doubt yourself completely, that you aren’t good enough. Everybody else gets to be different and I don’t get to - it has to be about race. Even physically, (tattoos, hair, etc.) everything is so different. If you don’t conform enough, we are automatically afraid of it. And this goes against what we are teaching kids.”

“Not being a native English speaker. If you have an accent, you are seen as less smart or just less. You always feel on the lower step.”

“Code switching is a way to survive. We need to talk about code switching as a community. It doesn’t take into account the many languages someone speaks.”

“What does diversity look like? We say we welcome everyone but we don’t.”

“Acknowledging the differences is a beginning - but we can do more. Where are the gaps?”

“Our community of color are experiencing trauma that breeds resentment.”

“It is welcoming, the faculty [at Sabot], but do we really have a safe space? Do we have a place where we can go and share without being judged?”

“We heard from a group of HS students that [they] are so traumatized. They are very aware that they are always being photographed and they intentionally spread themselves out. They will even hide themselves.”

“We’re dealing with it [the trauma] quietly so no one knows.”

“We need to look at how students with learning differences are treated.”

“Differences in cultures and how an African American teacher might talk about something than a White teacher. (“Ask the black lady.”) The perception that a black teacher is mean when they really won’t sugar-coat anything. They had to be strict in order to access education; they take it very seriously. There are a lot of alumni that have gone on from Sabot that haven’t been exposed to different cultures and aren’t even aware that there are other cultures.”

“We shouldn’t judge each other on our different approaches if the outcome is the same. Understanding people is the only way to have a relationship. You need to know their life experience, their background, culture etc…. White people need to take off their blinders and be willing enough to be uncomfortable. If you’ve never been in that environment, the first response is fear. If you’re the only black person, you can get depicted as the ‘angry black woman.”

“Every person is going to be different - no matter the color of our skin. We also have to be aware of that. We are not a monolith. We can’t have expectations of assimilation. We need to educate one another.”

“We need to talk with the existing community as a whole - it’s just sprouting [now]. How do we even grow that discussion?”

“Mentally and emotionally, I can’t exhale. Knowing that I am so different. All of these things start to go through your mind when you are the only POC in the room. Constantly doubting yourself, is mentally and emotionally draining. I have to dig deep, I have to be the bigger person. I am waiting for it to happen again. I don’t feel safe in any way. I have to come in and be professional. It’s affecting me physically. You’re [I’m] the expendable one. All the triggers.”

“Community building doesn’t even happen that effectively. It seems like a whitewashed experience. Even food is not representative of everyone - it feels cultish. That doesn’t create experiences where we get to know one another, it creates an extension of that assimilation. There’s a feeling of being “un-Saboty” that you just have to hide.”

“At Sabot, it’s as if “joy” can only be “organic” or in a limited way. It feels monolithic.”

“There needs to be a level of cultural training for the community. What is the responsibility of the school to do this education? How much do I expect my community to just be willing ?”

Sabot's next steps include monthly meetings to include POC staff and faculty, then gradually invite other members of the community to attend; draft a Diversity Strategic Plan for Sabot to present to the Board; hire an external trainer to lead the entire Sabot community through ongoing anti-bias work.

Identity: Seen and Unseen

Fri, 19 May 2023 16:48:11 GMT

Mission Moment: December

The quest for meaning and understanding is inherently connected to identity. Who am I and what is my purpose? From whom and from where do I come? What do I look like to others and how am I represented? How do I understand the parts of myself I cannot see? What is my body capable of and what is to become of it when it is no longer living?

This mission moment considers a particular thread weaving through Preschool, Grade 4, Grade 5, and Grade 6 concerning identity and the body—the seen and unseen details of a human being. Students are studying facial features and imagining their cells and veins; they are exploring concepts of memory and hiddenness; they are investigating specific movements the body is capable of making; and they are pondering questions of privilege, place and burial.

___________

Preschool children have been noticing and thinking about their bodies, the insides and outsides of them. They are tracing each other’s bodies, looking carefully at details, and they are drawing what they imagine, finding ways to represent what they know. One experiment involved Anna asking children to hold up someone else’s photo to see if they could be identified by the face, rather than by the body or clothes. Children were also offered the iPad to record various poses and movements, taking turns watching one another. (Teacher-researchers are wondering if using this device helped the children to notice more about movement.)

And there is a significant connection to the 4th grade where students are investigating music-making, sound and vibration. Studying vibration requires, of course, the careful observation of movement. The students have noted that vibrations seem different depending on the loudness of the sound or indeed the type of sound they are making. They were invited to show vibrations with their bodies and they blew through their lips. They then suggested we look carefully at the movement of lips using slow-motion videos. What the children noticed with slo-mo video recordings is that when we blow air through our lips the whole face vibrates. Students were invited to watch the videos carefully and then asked to draw what they observed. The resulting drawings highlight how when children directly experience scientific concepts and investigate them themselves, they do notice what other scientists notice. They not only drew waves but also could explain why they shaped them as they did.

We might recall Jean Piaget’s maxim, “Each time one prematurely teaches a child something he could have discovered himself, that child is kept from inventing it and consequently from understanding it completely.”

Meanwhile, in 5th grade, students are researching the Larus house. As Marla documents, their questions and reflections seem to fall within three major areas:

— Memory / Recalling their personal experiences at school in the Main House, looking for how the building remembers the Larus family, and wondering in turn how we might be remembered.

— Hiddenness / Looking at and for hiding places and hidden spaces and wondering why they exist and what purpose they (once) served.

— Public (exterior) representation / the co-existence of

beautiful cosiness and ostentation.

The students have a lot of questions and have begun their research, starting with photographs of the Laruses, who built the home, and internet research about Larus Brothers Tobacco, founded in 1877. They have discovered that the Larus brothers used prisoners for labor in their segregated factory, which prompted new questions in 5th grade concerning human rights, privilege, wealth, economic systems, the 13th Amendment, and the intersection of these facts with other historical events in US history.

Students are observing closely such details as the number and types of materials used, the style and size, and the attention given to comparatively simple elements, which indicate to them that the house was at least partially about “showing off their wealth.”

There is additional interest in hidden or secret interior areas of the building. For example, the downstairs bathroom has a door at the back, and the door clearly goes to the outside. One can see it through the ventilating fan. But the inside and outside are different heights. There is clearly some missing space.This is a study in identity, appearance, details, and representation, an important thread in the work across grade levels, beginning in preschool and continuing in 6th grade where students are marrying their work of Social Studies and Language Arts, practicing their foundational historical thinking and research skills (including identifying key information about a source, evaluating the usefulness and reliability of a source, and corroborating sources with others, an essential skill as Middle School students work intently on their National History Day Projects which depend on carefully curated primary and secondary sources.)

Of note, students are debating whether history changes and are discussing examples of the "Master Narrative." Their comments include:

"We can't change the past, but history isn't the past, it is the telling of the past. The telling of the past can change."

"Events in the past can't change, but when we find new information then our understanding of those events changes."

"Many of the things [events] on our list really seemed to back up the Master Narrative. Many of the events were either run by or centered around 'White Americans.'"

Their questions helped to frame a field trip to two different cemeteries in Richmond—Hollywood Cemetery and the African Burial Ground—with a guide from the Valentine Museum. They worked in small groups with iPads and clipboards and their documentation is, as Sarah writes, “an excellent example of their ability to devise inquiry questions, determine what is important, reflect on their experience and choices, and communicate it clearly to an audience of their peers.”

You may view this presentation, as prepared for Sabot's Board of Directors, in its entirety HERE.

World Children’s Day: Our Community, Sabot’s Mission

Fri, 19 May 2023 16:33:08 GMT

Mission Moment: November

"The child shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of the child's choice."

—Article 13, 1

Convention on the Rights of the Child

November 20, 1989

Seesaw as Metaphor: Heroes, Villains, and the Right to Resolution

Fri, 19 May 2023 16:05:42 GMT

Mission Moment: October

We have shared Dr. Loris Malaguzzi’s article A Bill of Three Rights with both the Board as well as with our parent and family community—our Learning Group readers and participants—and it is an article we share with all faculty at the beginning of the school year. It establishes from the start a tone of both seriousness and creativity, inspires both reflection and action, and states explicitly that our image of the child as a capable, active, and curious learner is inseparable from our belief that all children have “inborn endowments and potential of extraordinary richness, strength, and creativity,” as Malaguzzi reminds us. Adults, if they are attentive, learn concurrently with children, recognizing a depth of intellect and spirit.

Here is an excerpt of that article, translated by Lella Gandini and Eva Tarini:

“Children have the right to be recognized as the bearers of important rights: individual, social and legal. They both carry and construct their own culture and are therefore active participants in the organization of their identity, their autonomy and their capabilities. The construction of this organization takes place through relationships and interactions with peers, adults, ideas and objects, as well as both real and imaginary events of a communicative world.

…[C]hildren have the right to fulfill and also expand all of their potential, a process which can be accomplished by recognizing and valuing children’s capacity to socialize by giving them affection and trust, by satisfying their needs and desires to learn. It is equally important that children feel assured of an effective alliance with adults who are ready to give help and understanding which will favor more than the simple transmission of knowledge and skills, but rather the development of their ability to research constructive strategies of thinking and action.

This final point is precisely that which contributes to form creative intelligences, free thinking, reflective and sensitive individuals…”

Sabot’s mission, at its core, seeks to do nothing less than nurture these “inborn endowments” and potentials with its holistic program and in collaboration with supportive, creative adults. Here are recent examples of that mission in action.

PRESCHOOL

GRADE 1

In this next example, a little history is important. In the quad area, beside the treasured structure (the tree-fort platform), older children had wedged a log in a forked tree and had been using it as a seesaw. Days later, first graders found a weathered and ripped note which read, “don’t use this, it is hurting the tree” after which they realized that the seesaw’s friction against the bark was damaging the health of the tree. It took effort (and a couple of adults) to remove the log. The next day, however, middle schoolers had wedged it there again.

Older students disagreed among themselves about whether the log was indeed causing damage and a larger conflict emerged. First grade and representatives from middle school met to discuss the issue and first grade presented research on the ways bark protects trees.

This project is ongoing and while a resolution seems near and possible—a new seesaw in a different area—the conflict is of universal relevance: “how do you get people to listen,” first grade wonders, “when those who are disagreeing are equally certain of their own rightness.” They are thinking about the word “stubborn” as it applies to human beings.

They are also, by necessity, learning much about the needs of trees, wondering if they have feelings and if it is possible for them to have magic qualities.

These two groups of older and younger students remain in guided dialogue as they swap designs and questions, and as new ideas and proposals emerge. They are citizens in an environment that supports co-construction, collaboration, and respectful exchange in order to solve a problem that matters to them and with a resolution of their own design.

For the full text and additional photos of this Mission Moment, click here to keep reading.

Masks, Models, and the Hope for Peace

Wed, 17 May 2023 18:24:38 GMT

Mission Moment: September

Sabot at Stony Point is a school designed to sustain children’s quest for meaning and understanding, harness the power of their theories and ideas, and guide their inquiry and research. In an environment that supports co-construction, collaboration, and respectful exchange, we challenge our students to become effective communicators and disciplined thinkers, capable of solving problems in our increasingly complex world.

If there is a single document worth sharing again (and then again) it is LorisMalaguzzi’s “ Your Image of the Child: Where Teaching Begins .” This is an article we shared with teachers, brand new and years-experienced, before the school year began; it is an article we encourage parents to read; it is a document that distills the purpose of education down to a single but prismatic image of the child as a curious, capable, creative learner. This is a child who may have as her silent plea, “Help me do this by myself” and who might also, as Malaguzzi theorizes, say, “Ifonly you had seen all I had to do.” It is, after all, what most adults want as well—to work meaningfully and with independence, and to be not necessarily praised, but seen.

When Sabot says it is “designed to sustain children’s quest for meaning” it is purposefully not promising that children will “find themselves” or find their answers; it is not promising a clear map for the quest. The mission itself is the promise because the mission promises mission. The reason, of course, is that Sabot’s image of the child is not one of “lostness.” And if there is one answer for making meaning of one’s life, then there are infinite answers. Our mission is to sustain the quest, to feed students along the journey with the very best food, to observe them well, and to guide them when they would benefit from guidance.

Sabot’s mission depends on an image of the teacher, likewise, who is capable, curious, and creative. After all, the teacher who pretends certainty is not a truthful teacher and like the shepherd who walks as part of the flock, within the group itself, a teacher gains the trust of her children by learning alongside, leading from the middle.

Here are some examples of our mission in action.

Marla Wilson’s 5th graders are in the beginning phase of their Peep Village project. An oversimplified explanation of the project at large is that it aims to represent a real town made of real people; it is a micro-civilization. There are people (miniature ‘peeps,’ drawn to scale) who have families, and jobs, and who pay taxes and agree to the rules of citizenship. There is much to consider.

Though Marla has been involved with the project for many years and with many different student groups, the outcomes, questions, and resolutions are never the same. One issue currently up for discussion concerns relative job pay for the peeps. From Marla’s annotated album:

“Should all jobs pay the same, or should some pay more? For literacy on Wednesday, each student worked on the nonfiction journal prompt, and used their writing to make a speech about their position about how people should be paid. Interestingly, quite a few people announced that they had changed their position as a result of the speeches (and from the discussion at lunch afterwards). We are currently trying to figure out how to make this decision as a group. Should we all vote? Choose or elect representatives to vote? Have the adults choose? Work at it until we come to an agreement? There is a lot to think about.”

Indeed there is. And they are thinking about it still. I spoke with a group of 5th graders who were working on their drawings at lunch. I asked them, “Could you explain the peep project to me in three sentences or less?” One said, “I can do it in three WORDS! Tiny. People. Living.” Then another said, “The point of the peeps is that they are real people doing real stuff. They even pay taxes!” I asked them,“What do you think is the end goal of the peep project? Is there a ‘winner’?” They laughed, for it was an absurd question. “No, there’s not a winner... The point is that it’s, like, a world. A whole world. And it’s, like, all of us.” Another at the lunch table, finishing a bite of her apple exclaimed, “The goal is peace! Like world peace but in the little village!”

KEEP READING.

Mindfulness & Wonder: What Children Can Teach Us

Fri, 05 May 2023 15:01:53 GMT

A video reflection for learning groups at Sabot

We hope you will enjoy this brief video .

The Reggio-Inspired Learning Space

Fri, 05 May 2023 14:29:27 GMT

A message for learning groups at Sabot

January 11, 2023

As we finalize our move into the new building on campus, we cannot overstate the significance of these classroom spaces. The design is exquisite, every thing is clean, brand new, and beautiful. There is a crispness to it all and the smell of fresh paint might as well be the smell of hope, or of Sabot’s next chapter. Our faculty seem pleased; our students seem thrilled. It all feels very, very good.

But it’s important not to let newness outshine essence. And by essence I mean ‘lifeblood,’ ‘center,’ ‘substance,’ ‘heart,’ and—dare I say it?—’soul.’ By which I mean the invisible force inside that building which makes Sabot Sabot. Ours is a school that encourages students to be not only the “best” version of themselves, as the phrase sometimes goes, but the “full” version of themselves. We honor their hundred languages, their hundred expressions, responses, questions, attempts. We honor the hundred inside their hundred. And we honor the place—their classroom space—where they bring that hundred to share.

This is why arranging (and rearranging!) the classroom, particularly in a Reggio environment, takes time, attention, care, creativity, and collaboration. Since we believe that the environment is indeed the third teacher, the learning space cannot be arranged according only to the teacher’s desire nor can it be arranged according only to the student’s wish. It must be thoughtfully designed—neither prescribed nor chaotic, neither minimal nor cluttered—not for the sake of decoration or aesthetic, but for the sake of the spirit of the group and the possibilities therein.

“A Reggio Emilia classroom is designed to inspire relationships,” we read in an article recently shared with our faculty and which we link here . “We imagine children moving across different areas, interacting with each other, experimenting with different textures and tools, moving materials into different settings to explore new properties and characteristics...We also want to imagine students being able to be alone, have some pensive time, and relax,” it goes on.

In a Reggio classroom, there is often a dedicated quiet area, an area for group project work, a central area for gathering as a class, a library, and the ever-important Atelier, or studio space, where children explore, experiment, and express through a variety of mediums. It is home to their “creative thinking experiences,” the place where “connections, communication, and creativity are made visible through their works.

Theirs is a classroom of choice within structure and of freedom within limits. The proper materials in the proper environment are what help the teacher-researcher instruct without didacticism, observe without surveilling, guide without hovering, lead without ego. Above all, the environment respects the needs, languages, and capacities of the child, allowing them opportunities to imagine, concentrate, self-correct, negotiate, experiment, and reflect so that they might experience a satisfaction in learning and a joy of their own making.

We commend the article to you and we invite you to come inside the new building at Sabot to see for yourselves what your generosity has made possible and what we mean by a “Reggio space.” Make no mistake: the building itself is a dream come true, years in the making. But the heart of that building beats for the people inside—the children we serve and the teachers who guide them. It is they who are the very soul of Sabot.

Onward, and with much gratitude,

Allison

A Pedagogy of Generous Listening

Fri, 05 May 2023 14:17:19 GMT

A reflection for learning groups at Sabot

December 15, 2022

This week we are sharing an excerpt from another essay by Carlina Rinaldi, the revolutionary thinker and world leader in education, acclaimed for her lectures and research on the educational project of Reggio Emilia, Northern Italy.

This message comes to you in the spirit of what the poet Marilyn Nelson calls " Generous Listening " and we send this brief reflection with gratitude for all those who are participating in our Learning Groups at Sabot—whether by attending our in-person gatherings, reading these bi-weekly reflections, or simply showing up as members within our community each day in a posture of listening, of openness. As we have said befo re, just as there are a hundred languages to express and communicate what we know, so there are a hundred ways of participating in community. We value all of them.

It is a posture of listening—that is, a posture of deep and singular attention to a story, a theory, a question, a trouble, a triumph—that our finest teacher-researchers assume when engaging with their students. As Nelson writes:

[the] mind fireworks with unasked questions.

Who is this miracle speaking to me?

And who is this miracle listening?

What amazingness are we creating?

Out of gray matter a star spark of thought...

Of course there is always, too, the loud and distracted world of which we are also participants and many voices are vying for our listening, but Rinaldi's essay, linked here , speaks to the unique "capacity for reciprocal listening" and the power and "value of learning that is collective, collaborative and democratic." It's a fascinating read. For us at Sabot, this kind of listening is our great hope; it is what drives our pedagogy, our mission, and our vision. It is a pedagogy that depends on relationship.

We are honored by the one we share with you.

Going Gradeless, Growing Learners: Our Paradigm for Assessment

Fri, 05 May 2023 13:32:08 GMT

A message for learning groups at Sabot

November 2, 2022

“We seem to have forgotten there could be any other way..." —Steve Seidel

As we approach completion of the first quarter of our academic year, we turn our attention more intensively to the ways in which we measure and evaluate our older students’ learning, the ways we assess . You’ll notice the word “grade” is absent from that sentence, and this is significant. One of several formalized changes in Middle School at Sabot this year is a pivot toward individualized feedback and assessment and away from traditional modes of evaluation, such as the 10-point grading scale. It may feel like a radical move—and it is certainly bold—but “gradelessness” is a well-researched, well-documented approach that aligns with Sabot’s Reggio-inspired pedagogy and progressive principles: our image of children as active participants in their learning requires that they likewise be participants in their own assessment.

To that end, and in defense of their rights as learners, Sabot has adopted a standards-based portfoli o assessment model, relying heavily (as it always has, though less formally) on a cyclic rhythm involving documentation, feedback, communication and reflection in an ongoing loop year-round, not just during report season. Units of study or “learning cycles” are designed around grade-level and subject-area standards. While teachers track progress using multiple tools—narrative reports and conferences, for example—students also track progress, revising and presenting their work, providing both evidence and explanation of their own understanding. Together, teachers and students are able to contextualize their assessment reports that more accurately and thoroughly reflect progress and proficiency at a given point in time. A letter grade—while efficient, concise, and familiar—means very little without context and, quite often, has even less to do with real learning. Of course, grading scales make it possible for larger schools to evaluate a multitude of students efficiently, but Sabot is not other schools and Sabot can do better than “efficient.” In fact, Martin Luther King Jr. notes in The Purpose of Education , “education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society.”*

It is our belief that an antidote for the “menace” is the school that can support critical and creative thinking, that provides the time, space, and resources for its students to learn deeply, and that does not deny them access to feedback nor the opportunity to present and affirm what they know. Gradelessness, one could argue, is wildly inefficient and it may certainly be the more difficult path; it is, nevertheless, the path Sabot chooses, and chooses with confidence. Inefficient? Maybe. Difficult? Likely. Worth the effort? Absolutely. If we want our children to like school, we must help them to love learning. And this is one way we do that.

What we know is that students are more likely to love learning when afforded the right environment, one to nurture their innate gifts, languages, curiosities, and capacities without the false assumption that excellence and perfection are always synonymous. In the best conditions—with patience, diligence, good soil— a student sows the seeds of her own learning and self-knowledge so that she might feed and be fed for years to come. Just as a flower does not bloom simply because it’s been told to, a student does not come to love learning simply because the school says she should.

There is of course more to say on this subject and many details of Sabot’s assessment paradigm are not included here. Know that we are eager to engage in further conversation and to continue sharing our research with our Learning groups and Sabot families.

Meanwhile, we commend to you this brief article by Steve Seidel, the forward to a longer work titled Lessons in Reggio , which includes the following passages.

“The need for accountability in American education has been the cornerstone for the standards-driven reform movement of the 1990s and continues to dominate our educational thought and practice. We are, in this moment in the United States, so deeply invested in the idea of psychometric and ‘scientific’ justifications for our educational practices that we seem to have forgotten there could be any other justification paradigm. We seem to have forgotten there could be any other way to hold ourselves accountable.

…

“Perhaps we hesitate as we approach this alternative paradigm of accountability because we know instinctively that it is a difficult path, demanding much of those who follow it. Yet it seems always better to be on a difficult—even extremely difficult—path than a path that, in my heart, I believe won’t lead where I want to go. The challenge and beauty of coming to know the experience in Reggio is to confront the possibility that I could work—as they hav e—with others to create the reality I would like to live in…whatever the demands of that creative act.

*7th and 8th graders still need letter grades on their transcripts for many high school applications. For this reason, Sabot’s numerical paradigm (on a scale of 4-1, with 4 meaning “advanced application” of particular competencies within a given timeframe) will correlate with traditional letter grades of A-D. There are no “F”s and no “0”s. If a student does not demonstrate a basic understanding of grade level standards throughout a semester, an incomplete will be issued with further recommendations as appropriate. It should also be noted that assessments for younger students’ learning—Kindergarten through Grade 5—involve a necessarily different approach, though the model is similar; there are formal mid-year and final assessment reports and student learning is documented year-round in portfolios and communicated in conferences.

__________________________________

Steve Seidel is the director of the Arts in Education Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education where he studies the use of reflective practices in schools, the close examination of student work, and documentation of learning. This research currently included The Evidence Project, a study using student work as evidence of learning and teaching, and Making Learning Visible, a study of group learning and assessment in partnership with the Reggio Emilia early childhood schools in Italy. His work over the past decade has largely focused on the improvement of teaching and assessment across elementary and secondary settings.

'Extraordinary Richness' and the Rights of Children

Wed, 03 May 2023 18:14:03 GMT

A message for learning groups at Sabot

October 18, 2022

This week we offer Dr. Loris Malaguzzi’s article A Bill of Three Rights , an article we share with all faculty at the beginning of the school year. It establishes from the start a tone of both seriousness and creativity, inspires both reflection and action, and states explicitly that our image of the child as a capable, active, and curious learner is inseparable from our belief that all children have “inborn endowments and potential of extraordinary richness, strength, and creativity,” as Malaguzzi reminds us. Adults, if they are attentive, learn concurrently with children, recognizing a depth of intellect and spirit.

Loris Malaguzzi (1920-1995), founder of the Reggio Emilia Approach®, began teaching in schools started by parents just after the end of World War II. Through the years, he transformed that initiative into the internationally acclaimed program we know today and which serves as the pillar of Sabot's approach. Below is an excerpt of his essay, translated by Lella Gandini and Eva Tarini. Below is an excerpt of that article, translated by Lella Gandini and Eva Tarini:

This final point is precisely that which contributes to form creative intelligences, free thinking, reflective and sensitive individuals…”

Sabot at Stony Point is a school designed to sustain children’s quest for meaning and understanding, harness the power of their theories and ideas, and guide their inquiry and research.

To say Sabot is “designed to sustain children’s quest for meaning” is to purposefully avoid promising that children will “find themselves” or find their answers; it is not promising a clear map for the quest. The mission itself is the promise because the mission promises mission. The reason, of course, is that Sabot’s image of the child is not one of “lostness.” And if there is one answer for making meaning

of one’s life and one’s “potential of extraordinary richness”, then there are infinite answers and one of the child’s innate rights is the freedom to explore what those may be in alliance with supportive adults. Our mission is to sustain the quest, to feed students along the journey with the very best food, to observe them well, and to guide them compassionately, creatively, and respectfully when they would benefit from such guidance.

Sabot’s mission depends, likewise, on an image of the teacher—and one’s primary parent or caregiver is certainly a teacher—who is capable, curious, and creative and who also bears important rights as an active and seeking participant in a beautifully complex and, at times, unknowable world. After all, the teacher who pretends certainty is not a truthful teacher and like the shepherd who walks as part of the flock, within the group itself, a teacher gains the trust of children by learning alongside, leading from the middle.

We'll continue these bi-weekly messages as we grow together in our learning, ever mindful of "how friendly and fruitful is a pedagogy of participation..."

Our next gathering for Learning Groups will be Thursday, December 1. As before, these discussions will be facilitated by Carol-Margaret Bitner, Associate Head of School for Academics and Research. These written reflections are prepared in partnership with faculty and administrators.

Allison Seay, Director of Communications at Sabot, is a writer and educator with experience in various faculty positions: as an upper school English teacher at Collegiate School, as Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mary Washington, as Lecturer at the University of North Carolina Greensboro, and as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Lynchburg College. She is a poet, and the mother of two children, one of whom is in preschool at Sabot.

Inside the Forest, Part 3: Demystifying Reggio, Discovering Beauty

Wed, 03 May 2023 17:28:49 GMT

A message for learning groups at Sabot

September 28, 2022

If there are household names in contemporary poetry, Mary Oliver is surely among them. She published a new book every year or two until her death and, even so, her work did not exhaust the beauties and mysteries at the intersection of the human and the natural world. Her poems are, for many, an inspired field guide—as attentive to flora and fauna as to the heart and soul of humankind. Her poems remind us that life itself is astonishing and that paying good attention is a worthy and rewarding labor.

I share this poem of hers as an invitation to attend our first Learning Group gathering, which we have titled ‘Nurturing Our Attention’ and which we hope will encourage fruitful discussion and reflection, and strengthen a sense of shared purpose. Our work for the evening will draw on our Learning Group readings and reflections to date (you can find the first two of our three-part Inside the Forest series here) and we hope, even if you have not read a single word!, that you will join us for time together—to think, share, ask, listen, wonder.

At Sabot, you may hear us speak about the Habits of Mind and our older students especially come to know them well. Habits of Mind are a particular “framework for thinking,” as the Institute for Habits of Mind describes it, and no singular “habit” is of greater value than another. There are sixteen of them—including ‘Striving for Accuracy,’ ‘Communicating with Clarity and Precision,’ ‘Applying Past Knowledge to New Situations,’ ‘Thinking Flexibly,’ and ‘Remaining Open for Continuous Learning’—and together they provide a kind of universal cognitive architecture for self-education; they are the habits we practice and strengthen in order to become more thoughtful, innovative, creative, and responsive citizens.

And of course this is work not only for the young nor only for the enrolled student. A key aspect of the Reggio Emilia philosophy and curriculum is a group approach to learning that fosters whole-community engagement, co-construction of knowledge, and meaningful exchange among participants—families, teachers, and students. One of the Habits of Mind of particular relevance for us now, and at the heart of our first Learning Group, is ‘Responding with Awe and Wonderment,’ a habit that may, at first glance, be considered luxury rather than necessity, and perhaps not summarily perceived as a cognitive advantage. And yet, years of observation of children around the globe suggest that while most of a child’s early learning in school involves steps toward mastery and control of one’s own body, toward self-correction, confidence-building, and an ability to reason, one of the essential (and, arguably, most undervalued) habits a school can nurture is the ability to concentrate. Found within it, one’s capacity for stillness, attention, and wonder, and it is this habit—cultivating awe— that science now proves leads to greater likelihood of a healthier, happier, and more inspired life.

But who really has time to think about their thinking or wonder about their wondering? , one might be asking, or How can I take a walk simply for pleasure or “do nothing” but sit with my astonishment when there is so much else that must be done? These are good and important questions, inseparable from larger issues that surround education, work, culture, priority, and privilege. But they are questions that should not distract us from recognizing that there are great benefits from nurturing our attention. We know that efficiency, quickness, and multi-tasking are of little to no concern for the child who, instead, works for the pleasure of the work itself. It is an expression and fulfillment of a vital need, no less a need of the child’s than that of movement, affection, order, and independence.

So, come be with us, this Learning Group, and consider the work before us, realizing that our understanding of “work” is very different from–and not superior to—the child’s. We all have much to learn from one another. Let us continue.

Yes! No!

How necessary it is to have opinions! I think the spotted trout

lilies are satisfied, standing a few inches above the earth. I

think serenity is not something you just find in the world,

like a plum tree, holding up its white petals.

The violets, along the river, are opening their blue faces, like

small dark lanterns.

The green mosses, being so many, are as good as brawny.

How important it is to walk along, not in haste but slowly,

looking at everything and calling out

Yes! No! The

swan, for all his pomp, his robes of grass and petals, wants

only to be allowed to live on the nameless pond. The catbrier

is without fault. The water thrushes, down among the sloppy

rocks, are going crazy with happiness. Imagination is better

than a sharp instrument. To pay attention, this is our endless

and proper work.

from White Pine: Poems and Prose Poems , by Mary Oliver; Mariner Books, 1994.

Mary Oliver (1935-2019) was a prolific writer; her most recent books include A Thousand Mornings (2012), Dog Songs (2013), Blue Horses (2014), Felicity (2015), Upstream: Selected Essays (2016), and Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver (2017). She taught at Bennington College until 2001 and received such major awards as the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award. Oliver lived in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and Hobe Sound, Florida, until her death in early 2019. She was 83.

Inside the Forest, Part 2: Demystifying Reggio, Discovering Beauty

Wed, 03 May 2023 16:32:02 GMT

A message for learning groups at Sabot

September 21, 2022

“All of this is a great forest. Inside the forest is the child. The forest is beautiful, fascinating, green, and full of hopes; there are no paths. Although it isn’t easy, we have to make our own paths, as teachers and children and families, in the forest. Sometimes we find ourselves together within the forest, sometimes we may get lost from each other, sometimes we’ll greet each other from far away across the forest; but it’s living together in this forest that is important.” –Loris Malaguzzi

As most adults and children alike have learned from experience, living together well has its challenges. If we think of the domestic household as another metaphor for the “great forest” we inhabit, we know that to live together well calls for patience, stamina, grace, boundaries, mutual respect, and a shared understanding of expectations. Most of us also know how it feels when our living together is out of whack; we know what it’s like to “greet each other from far away.”

To live together well requires, at its core, participation . Relationships depend on it—interactive, emotional, and sometimes difficult participation—because it is at the root of our sense of belonging, our sense of safety and joy, our sense of purpose and kinship. When we are participants in the work of living together, we are much less likely to get lost in the forest.

So, what can this mean for education? In the Reggio approach, learning is an experience that depends on the participation, in all its hundred languages, of everyone—students, teachers, families, the whole school community—in order to balance and nurture the ecosystem of the larger forest of education. When Loris Malaguzzi, the founder of the Reggio Emilia Approach® refers to “our own paths, as teachers and children and families, in the forest” he is not valuing one path over the other nor is he surmising which path is the correct one. After all, “it’s living together in this forest that is important.”

In that spirit, Sabot’s philosophy runs counter to some modern understandings and models of education which typically involve the actions of an adult toward a child and which rely on the adult as the owner and giver of knowledge. The adult, often standing and positioned in front, has a prepared lesson to present for the benefit of quiet, seated students. This is certainly one way of delivering content and information, one path, and it is a way that works for some. It is not an incorrect path. But, in a Reggio setting like Sabot’s, we maintain that participation in the discovery and construction of knowledge and the ways it is represented and expressed—that is, one’s true sense of belonging to the process itself—is one of our school’s most important values. This means, in short, that our work is to provide spaces, arrangements, provocations, questions, languages, methods, and strategies that make participation in this way possible and meaningful from our youngest-aged students to our oldest. It is what we mean by “inquiry-led” and “student-centered.” We believe that children are not empty, passive vessels waiting to be filled; rather, that they are active and capable protagonists who deserve a rich and permeable learning experience.

Discussions of pedagogy and philosophy are generative and (we think so!) interesting. However, they often land in an abstract realm of thinking and with open-ended questions: “What kind of responsibilities does a school have to its students? To its families? What kind of culture should a school be working toward? What is the future of school?” It is our hope that learning groups at Sabot will delight in those questions but might also find concrete evidence of the work in practice; we are doing what we’re thinking about and our aim is for learning made visible.

Importantly, it is not only the students who are tasked with learning and participation, but all of us. Carla Rinaldi, a revolutionary thinker and leader in education, writes that true participation means “keeping our distance from an overriding sense of balance from that which has already been decided, reconstituted, or considered to be certain. It means staying close to the interweaving of objects and thoughts, of doing and reflecting, theory and practice, emotion and knowledge.” She goes on to say, “There is a constant relationship of reciprocity between those who educate and those who are educated, between those who teach and those who are taught.” We commend to you her essay, linked here, in which she speaks eloquently about schools as places of culture, value, and participation. It appears within a larger collection titled Making Learning Visible: Children as Individual and Group Learners (Project Zero, 2001), which weaves scholarship and theory of the hundred languages and the multiple intelligences of human beings.

Here is an excerpt of that essay.

“Because we are now in a phase of increasing globalization, we are inundated with information and kept abreast of events across the entire planet in real time. We are spectators, more than authors, of an extraordinary technical-scientific revolution that is changing the quality of human relationships, the definition of personal identity, and the construction of cognitive processes. New issues will certainly emerge regarding the concepts of privacy, ethics, space, and time.

So is the ‘new’ to be found in the media explosion? I think not, or at least not only there. The media revolution will be just one of the possible futures, provided we are able to produce another ‘revolution’; that is, the new is and will be found where individuals are able to overturn every rigid barrier of culture, class, ethnic group, and wealth. We will find the new and the future in those places where new forms of human coexistence, participation, and co-participation are tried out…. Today’s youth are already doing this. Young people are the great precursors and authors of these hybridizations: in music, in fashion, in design, creating new forms and new freedoms. Young people are extremely capable and sensitive in finding these common roots in different universes of thought….

Now more than ever, the concept of ‘the hundred languages of children’ seems to be an extraordinary intuition, as well as an obligation for all of us.

How can we make the languages truly one hundred in a ‘project of alliance’ with this cultural pluriverse that surrounds us? What can help us is the now-mature awareness of the unfinished nature of every tradition and of each of us. The new thus seems to lie in promoting an educational process based on the values of human dignity, participation, and freedom.”

_______________________________________________

Carla Rinaldi is a world leader in education, acclaimed for her inspirational lectures and writing on the educational project of Reggio Emilia, Northern Italy. President of Reggio Children since 2007, she is also a Professor at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. She worked side-by-side with Loris Malaguzzi, the founder of the Reggio Emilia Approach®, from 1970 until his death in 1994, as the first pedagogical coordinator. She has held visiting professorships at Webster University and Colorado University, and is responsible for research projects in collaboration with Harvard University, the University of New Hampshire, and the University of Milan, Bicocca.

Inside the Forest, Part 1: Demystifying Reggio, Discovering Beauty

Fri, 21 Apr 2023 17:45:02 GMT

A first message for learning groups at Sabot

September 13, 2022

“The child has / a hundred languages / (and a hundred hundred hundred more) / but they steal ninety-nine...”

When Sabot says it is a “Reggio-inspired” school, it means that our programs are based on a particular philosophy, one borne of the vision of Loris Malaguzzi in Reggio Emilia, Italy. This philosophy is rooted in a deep conviction that every child is a subject with rights, that every child benefits from relationships with others, and that every child is equipped with “a hundred languages.” It is with these beliefs that we form and hold our “image of the child” as a strong, capable, and creative learner, one with particular interests, gifts, and ideas which enrich and expand the learning and experience of a whole group. “The hundred languages” is of course a metaphor and it is a profound one. Children—and all human beings, we believe—have many ways of thinking, expressing, understanding, and communicating, and their hundred languages represent the various dimensions and potentials of children, the ways they construct knowledge and the forms and processes by which they create meaning. It is important to remember that one need not always speak in order to participate, and that there are as many ways of assessing one’s knowledge of a subject as there are subjects about which to learn.

Sabot’s work– and the work of a Reggio education– is not limited to the students in our school any more than it is limited to only our trained faculty. Parents of students are essential not only to the school’s success but to Malaguzzi’s original vision! After all, parents are the primary educators in a child’s life—the first teachers, models, witnesses, counselors, and guides. Just as it is a parent’s responsibility to seek education for their child, so it is the school’s responsibility to honor the students in its care, appreciating and dignifying verbal and non-verbal “languages” alike.

The success and depth of a Reggio-inspired education depends on parent-school participation and it is our hope, for this coming year and beyond, to engage more fully and more fruitfully with Sabot parents about what Malaguzzi calls “the daily presence of a plurality.” In other words, we are co-educators, co-constructors of knowledge, and—in the elemental break-down of the word ‘collaborator’— we are co-laborers in the work of educating children. The family has a primary place in the school’s work and we want our work at Sabot to have a primary place in your family.

So, may this be a beginning of our finding each other in the forest. In the weeks to come we are committed to providing reflections like this one that honor our school as what Malaguzzi calls a “living organism” (which is by its nature unpredictable, multimodal, and complex) while also acknowledging that a Reggio-inspired curriculum depends on a relationship between teacher and parent in which each are essential to the other’s learning, and all for the child’s sake. The following is an excerpt from Your Image of the Child: Where Teaching Begins by Loris Malaguzzi, though you may read the essay in its entirety here: https://www.reggioalliance.org/downloads/malaguzzi:ccie:1994.pdf

Finding Our Way in the Forest

All of this is a great forest. Inside the forest is the child. The forest is beautiful, fascinating, green, and full of hopes; there are no paths. Although it isn’t easy, we have to make our own paths, as teachers and children and families, in the forest. Sometimes we find ourselves together within the forest, sometimes we may get lost from each other, sometimes we’ll greet each other from far away across the forest; but it’s living together in this forest that is important. And this living together is not easy. We have to find each other in the forest and begin to discuss what the education of the child actually means. The important aspect is not just to promote the education of the child but the health and happiness of the child as well. We need to think of the school as a living organism. Children have to feel that the world is inside the school and moves and thinks and works and reflects on everything that goes on. Of course not all children are the same — each child brings a part of something that’s different into the school.

Loris Malaguzzi (1920-1995), founder of the Reggio Emilia Approach®, began teaching in schools started by parents just after the end of World War II. Through the years, he transformed that courageous initiative into the internationally acclaimed program for young children that we know today. His poem, “No Way. The Hundred Is There,” serves as both centerpiece and manifesto. You can read the full text here:

https://www.reggiochildren.it/en/reggio-emilia-approach/100-linguaggi-en/

Sabot in the News and in Print

kdonegan@sabotschool.org (Kelsey Donegan) — Fri, 14 Apr 2023 14:50:32 GMT

Sabot in the News

Richmond Magazine | August 2021
School News: Building a Future

Virginia Living | April 2021

State of Education

Richmond Magazine | August 2020
Best & Worst 2020 (Best preschool education & 2nd best after-school care program)

Richmond Magazine | August 21, 2019
Changing of the Guard

Richmond Times-Dispatch | August 11, 2018
Stony Point: From a squire’s country estate to an academic village

Richmond Times-Dispatch | July 30, 2018
Sabot at Stony Point names new head of school

Richmond Times-Dispatch | January 15, 2018

PHOTOS: “Celebrate MLK Jr.: Listen to One Another”

WRIC | January 15, 2018
Richmond students unfurl banner on T. Pot Bridge honoring MLK Day

Richmond Times-Dispatch | November 12, 2017
Sabot at Stony Point receives service award

WTVR | January 16, 2017
Students honor MLK Jr. with message of ‘building bridges’

Richmond Family Magazine | January 15, 2017
Students Honor Martin Luther King Jr. with “Day On” to Hang Memorial Banner

Richmond Times-Dispatch | April 19, 2015
Sabot program focuses on role of children in education

Richmond Mom | April 10, 2013
Sabot at Stony Point and University of Richmond to Host Education Institute

Richmond Times-Dispatch | November 28, 2012
Richmond Ballet program keeps area 4th-graders in motion

Grant Lichtman: The Furture of K-12 Education | October 26, 2012
Students Know Why and How They Learn at Sabot at Stony Point, Richmond

Style Weekly | November 10, 2010
The Power of Play

Sabot in Print

#EdJourney: A Roadmap to the Future of Education
by Grant Lichtman

Authentic Childhood: Exploring Reggio Emilia in the Classroom
by Susan Fraser and Carol Gestwicki

Beautiful Stuff from Nature: More Learning with Found Materials
by Cathy Weisman Topal and Lella Gandini

I’m Okay! Building Resilience through Physical Play
by Jarrod Green

Innovations : The Quarterly Periodical of the North American Reggio Alliance | September 2016
“The Umbrella Project: One School’s Ongoing Research on Continuity and Intersubjectivity”
by Marty Gravett, Anna Golden, and Mauren Campbell

Nature Education with Young Children: Integrating Inquiry and Practice
by Daniel R. Meier & Stephanie Sisk-Hilton
Chapter 7: “Preschool Children Explore the Forest: The Power of Wild Spaces in Childhood” by Anna Golden

Nature Preschools and Forest Kindergartens: The Handbook for Outdoor Learning
by David Sobel
Pages 198-199: “Forest as Piazza” by Anna Golden

Our Inquiry, Our Practice: Undertaking, Supporting, and Learning from Early Childhood Teacher Research(ers)
by Gail Perry, Barbara Henderson, & Daniel R. Meier
Chapter 6: “Exploring the Forest: Wild Places in Childhood” by Anna Golden

Teaching and Learning: Collaborative Exploration of the Reggio Emilia Approach
by Victor R. Fu, Andrew J. Stremmel, and Lynn T. Hill
Chapter 13: “Big Ideas and the Essence of Intent” by Pam Oken-Wright and Marty Gravett

Voices of Practitioners : NAEYC Journal of Teacher Research | 2006
“Exploring the Forest: Wild Places in Childhood”
by Anna Golden

Do You Know Where the “Deadman” Lies?

Thu, 28 Oct 2021 18:30:06 GMT

Written by: Dan Daglish, member of the Sabot at Stony Point Board of Directors

Happy Halloween, everyone.

As the end of October approaches, we thought it was time for a spooky update on the progress of the new building. Since the last update in September, the form of the building is beginning to take shape.

Foundations

Like a vampire waking from its coffin, the building is beginning to rise out of the ground! The significant earth moving activities have made way for concrete placement. Foundation trenches were dug and filled with concrete reinforced with rebar (reinforcing steel bars). These foundations support the load of the building. Without these solid foundations our beautiful new building could sink or slide down the hill! The lower-level foundations are in and the structural concrete walls that provide the backbone of the building are in process.

Structural Concrete Walls

With the foundations placed, the crews started to weave together the skeletal structure around which the retaining walls for the lower level could be poured. These walls are made of concrete – a mixture of cement and aggregate (a.k.a. stones) brought to the site by a coven of concrete trucks and pumped into the steel forms with a pump truck. These forms are made of steel plates that are interlocked together to form a mold for the walls. The mechanism for holding this all together is ingenious. The pictures below show some of the components of this system – can you work out how it works to hold the forms together so the concrete can be poured?

So where does the deadman* lie? One problem when you are pouring tons of flowable concrete into a tall thin object is the possibility of it falling over – while the skeletal structure is strong, it is not strong enough to ensure the steel forms don’t tip and make our walls crooked! The top of the wall must be secured in position – this is where the deadman comes to life! Have you noticed the large blocks of concrete just sitting around? These are the “deadmen” (see picture below)

Each deadman is secured to the top of the wall to hold the wall in place. Why do you think these blocks are called “deadmen?” We expect the cast-in-place concrete (CIP) walls to be completed in the next couple of weeks.

*Deadman: a heavy plate, wall, or block buried in the ground that acts as an anchor for a retaining wall

What’s Next?

With the cast-in-place concrete walls complete, construction will begin on the remainder of the structural concrete and steel CMU (concrete masonry unit) walls. The building will be supported with steel columns and the roof supported by timber trusses. The floors will be a combination of concrete slabs placed “on grade” (dirt and stone) and on hollowed-out concrete beams joined together to form a continuous support.

We will continue to provide updates as the building progresses, and we make it through each significant stage.

What does an Atelierista do?

Mon, 20 Sep 2021 15:12:00 GMT

Written by Anna Golden, Atelierista

Anna Golden is the Atelierista at Sabot. She is a visual artist and works with all of the children in the school from Preschool through Grade 3. An Atelierista’s job is to make learning visible by helping children make their ideas visible, form theories, and test hypotheses. You could say “studio teacher” to make it easier.

Because the school believes people have more languages than the ones typically favored in schools (verbal and written language), the Atelierista is an important contributor. Atelieristas scaffold both children and teachers in messing about with, and developing relationships with media and materials. We look at all media with which people can test theories and develop understanding and knowledge, not just visual arts. Together, the teachers and Atelierista make sure there is enough time in the school schedule so that children can develop languages beyond written and spoken language in line with the school’s mission.

We try to bring important aspects of the Reggio Emilia Approach™ to classrooms, like small group work and pedagogical documentation. Atelieristas help teachers think about the big ideas and essential questions that drive long-term inquiry and the media and materials that could help children come to understand those big ideas. Arts integration is the melding of creative thinking with academic disciplines. We are artists and arts integration specialists who help the school integrate philosophy, theory, and practice. The Atelieristas have a special duty to bring the big ideas behind Sabot’s Umbrella Projects to children and teachers each year.

What does that look like every day? Like other resource teachers at Sabot, Atelieristas bring materials from class to class or host children in studio spaces. The biggest part of our job is to nourish communication with classroom teachers by listening to them and sharing documentation at meetings and online. This documentation and dialogue between Atelieristas and teachers is hard work and is a model for the dialogue and collaboration we ask from the children. We are all learning to work as a community here at Sabot!

Sammy P., when he was 3
“I want to make the earth in the studio.”
“What do you know about the earth?”
“I know the earth is round and round and it has houses. I know the earth has all kinds of things.”

How would you bring out those words? How would you create an environment that was so amiable people would feel free to say what they were thinking? How would you help Sammy turn those words into something he could show to other people, maybe people who couldn’t read words? How would you share those ideas with people who could read but were very, very busy? What questions would you ask, and what materials would you have ready, right then? How would you bring other children into Sammy’s idea to see what would happen? How would you create intersubjectivity around this idea and document each person’s contribution?

This is what an Atelierista does.

Meet Anna

Hello, I am Anna Golden and I have been teaching at Sabot for 26 years. I went to unconventional schools growing up and have never stopped trying to figure out how people learn. I have always enjoyed embracing new things and keeping an open mind to the depth of our learning capabilities. I studied photography and printmaking, K-8 education, and art education. I volunteer for community radio, teach teachers at Mary Baldwin College, and am an artist working in paint and mixed media. I attribute my creative traits to having been around my entire family of artists and musicians. I enjoy connecting with educators and people from around the world who are interested in progressive education through my Atelierista blog. There is nothing more centering than watching children learn, helping them develop relationships with media and materials, and sharing the documentation with others.

The post What does an Atelierista do? appeared first on Sabot at Stony Point .

The New Building – What’s Up?

kdonegan@sabotschool.org (Kelsey Donegan) — Fri, 03 Sep 2021 18:34:14 GMT

The New Building – What’s Up?

It has been a long, hot summer and much progress has been made on the building – even if it may not look like it! So what exactly has been going on since school ended in June?

There have been five major projects completed in the past ten weeks.

Retaining wall

Because of the slope of the site, a retaining wall was constructed to help level the site and provide an access area to the lower level of the building. When looking at the site from Founders Hall, the retaining wall may look insignificant, but from the opposing view, the size of the project becomes clear. At its highest, the wall is about 20 feet and this area will ultimately be protected with fencing. A friendly reminder, this area is strictly off-limits to anyone except the contractors and project managers.

Stormwater Detention System

The retaining wall not only allowed us to level the site but also hides a stormwater detention system. This is a system of large pipes – approximately five feet in diameter – that are buried near the bottom of the wall and connected to the storm drains. These pipes act as tanks to store the stormwater and run in two rows along the whole length of the site.

They can hold thousands of gallons of rainwater. They allow the storm sewer to drain the site quickly and efficiently and then release the stormwater in a controlled manner back into the environment. This is a best management practice for runoff. The outlet for the detention system is at the bottom of the retaining wall.

Moving, Drying (and Removing) Dirt

Even casual observers of the site may have noticed that there was a lot of dirt that was dug up and moved around – multiple times. One thing we discovered during the dig is that the area underneath the location of the old third, fourth, and fifth-grade trailers (previously opposite Founders Hall) was a valley running down into the woods. This valley had been filled with the garbage and detritus from the old Larus estate including plenty of organic matter such as dead trees. Not surprisingly, it is not a good idea to build a large building on top of a garbage dump. As the organic matter decomposes, it creates holes that may collapse and undermine the foundations of the building. Not a good plan! Much of this part of the site not only had to be dug out to make way for the stormwater detention system and the building itself but also the dirt had to be “cleaned” to remove all the organic matter so it would be suitable to support the new building foundations.

In addition, because of all the rain, the dirt had to be spread out and dried before being replaced and compacted. Properly compacted dirt will help to prevent settlement under the parking areas and the building itself.

Utilities

Utilities are also an important component of the building construction project. For this site, we have been concerned with water lines, sanitary sewer lines, and fiber-optic lines. The water lines provide potable water and also feed our fire protection systems. The sanitary sewer lines take waste from our campus into the public treatment system. Finally, the fiber optic lines afford phone and internet service.

Water lines needed to be relocated away from our new building footprint. This work involved installing new lines and then completing taps, where the new lines connect to the old lines on each end. Water quality testing was also accomplished before calling this work item “complete.” As this work required some brief outages to our water supply, we are excited that it could be completed while students were away from campus.

Similarly, sanitary sewer lines needed to be relocated away from our new building footprint. This involved installing a new line connecting between manholes. The sanitary sewer system is deep in the ground and relies on gravity.

There will be additional water and sanitary sewer lines installed later during the construction as the building is connected to these main lines. At this time, the field house will be reconnected.

Comcast is our current vendor for telecommunications. Their lines also needed to be relocated out of the project footprint. This was done on a temporary basis at the beginning of the project but additional boring, and a more permanent relocation was completed this summer.

Site Drainage / Stormwater System

There is also a network of underground concrete pipes and structures being installed to manage the stormwater. This drainage system helps move the rainwater away from the building and pavements and into the detention system. Of course, this system is totally separate from the sanitary sewer system as the (un)sanitary water is not allowed to mix with the stormwater and pollute the environment. When complete, the stormwater system will only be visible on the surface with access manholes, drop inlets, and curb and gutter in the parking lot.

What’s next?

The site itself is in the final stages of preparation, leveling, and compaction before the contractors start their work on the concrete foundations and building pad. We expect this to begin in the next few weeks, and once the foundations and pad are complete the building will start to rise out of the ground. We will also begin to see the new parking lot taking shape between the building site and the field house.

We look forward to providing additional updates as the building progresses!

Thank you to Dan Daglish, member of the Sabot at Stony Point Board of Directors, for providing the photographs and update.

Oh, the paths we take…

Fri, 27 Aug 2021 21:44:00 GMT

I was born and raised in Philadelphia until my family moved to southern Delaware when I was six, and during that time I attended Oak Lane Day School, my own Sabot at Stony Point.

Oak Lane was founded in 1916 by parents and educators who believed that students should be the center of education and endeavored to build a school community that was racially, religiously, and economically diverse. It was amongst the first private schools in Philadelphia to admit students without regard to religious, social, or racial background. They were inspired by the Progressive Education Movement and the other progressive schools in the United States (such as the Francis Parker School) and the work of John Dewey among others. Later pedagogist Loris Malaguzzi in Italy would marry many educational philosophies, including Dewey, to develop the Reggio Emilia approach. Like Sabot, Oak Lane sought to be on the cutting edge of educational innovation, influenced by the faculty’s own work and research as well as the thinking of their students. Oak Lane was situated on 30 acres of land owned by a man named John Cadwalader in Blue Bell, PA. Again similar to Sabot’s use of the Larus House, the school tried to use the existing buildings and land as much as possible, including an art studio in a renovated barn and administrative offices in the Cadwalader mansion. Memories of Oak Lane remain deep in my memory. I remember driving down the long driveway to the school itself and seeing all that it entailed, including a creek, forests, and the school’s resident donkey, Christopher.

Recently, I’ve been reflecting on the question of why my family made the choice of Oak Lane Day School. Before I was born, my mom was a fourth-grade teacher and reading specialist. Although she changed career paths, earning her MBA and working as a human resources consultant, clearly education was important to her. Moreover, what was important to her was an education that honored “ each child’s unique individuality while fostering intellectual, creative, academic, and personal growth within a diverse community of active, engaged learners,” as was stated in Oak Lane’s mission. The school’s philosophy supported development according to the needs of each child. My mom was pretty cool. . . and pretty forward-thinking if I do say so myself.

Although I didn’t remain at Oak Lane beyond Kindergarten because my family moved, it’s clear that the approach to learning is not only instilled deep in my foundation as a learner but also deep in my DNA as a teacher. There was a reason that my family chose for me a school that fostered active and engaged learning. There was a reason why, just as important as the academic skills that I obtained, that my family also wanted me to know and trust my own mind. It’s one of many reasons why parents today choose Sabot. Our community members believe in our mission and align with our values, understanding that Sabot will help to develop no ordinary student, but someone who will be “capable of solving problems in our increasingly complex world.” When I think of the myriad of challenges in our world today, I am grateful for the Sabot student leaders who will find solutions through inquiry, invention, imagination.

There is no doubt in my mind that Sabot is not only the school for me but also the school for so many families in the greater Richmond area. And whatever the reason that you are brought to Sabot, our paths are meant to cross at this moment in time. We are meant to be where we are today . Today , I take on the role as the third Head of School at Sabot at Stony Point with a sense of gratitude, respect, and reflection. I welcome the responsibility to lead by Sabot’s values, empower faculty and staff with tools to execute Sabot’s mission across ages and classrooms, and determine the next best steps to ensure a focus on diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. As I prepare for the joys and demands that lie ahead, I will remember my mom’s decision for my early educational needs from the past and take lessons from my current experiences to bridge a future of hope, sustainability, and growth for our Sabot community . . . where everyone teaches, everyone learns, and everyone flourishes.

[ See image gallery at www.sabotatstonypoint.org ] Pictures from Oak Lane Day School Facebook Group

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Collaborative Storytelling

Tue, 17 Aug 2021 18:02:00 GMT

by Amy Pack, Andrea Pierotti, and Kerry Mills

The doll, while unknown and a curiosity, was immediately loved and became our Garden Friend. We held a garden meeting and introduced her to everyone in the class. At once the doll was cradled like a baby, patted like a pet, and talked to like a friend. In no time, the children began to tell a story wondering how the doll got there, where it came from, and what it was doing in the garden.

The Garden Friend spent a week in the classroom so ideas could continue to percolate, and the character and story for our Garden Friend began to emerge. We learned that the stuffed friend was from Kerry Mills’s friends at Milk River Arts (an art community for neurodiverse artists). Milk River made these dolls as a fundraiser for their organization and as a way to acknowledge how we haven’t been able to do as much with our friends during COVID as we have in the past. When these stuffed friends come together, it will be a friends’ party!

The children started to draw their ideas for the character and worked to create a story.

As they shared their stories with each other, we started to notice a few common threads.

Many stories contained…

As Kerry, Amy, and Andrea reflected on these common threads, we realized they were profound and a great summary of so much of our year in Kindergarten together as a learning community.

We combined the students’ stories into one and shared the combined story with the class to see what they thought. They loved it, especially the character’s extra-long name: Mrs. Corn Marie Rosie Lucy Lilly Ella Belle Rosafina August. We honored all of their ideas for names and their stories of the Garden Friend.

Here begins the story of our Garden Friend, written by the Kindergarten class:

She loved the garden so much, she decided to stay. That is why we found her hanging out in the garden watching the birds. She was lonely but not anymore since we found her. When we found the doll in the tree we rocked her like a baby.

Our Garden Friend really likes to garden. Her grandma taught her how to grow things. She has garden magic and stayed in our garden because we needed help. Our garden has so many weeds. She uses her magical powers with the help of a unicorn sidekick to help us have the power to pull all the weeds and for the flowers to grow for the birds and bees. She helps us water, plant new things, and keeps watch while we are not there. She really likes us and wants to stay, but after us, she will move on to help another garden.

Tired of her computer work and social media, our Garden Friend came to the garden for some peace and rest — to take a break. Once when she was resting in the garden, she had a dream. In the dream, she went to work at the Dollar Shop. She likes to give people money even though they buy things. In the dream, she was at home sleeping and then walked to the garden. She woke up in the dream. She was lost and scared, so she was looking for friends. She found the kindergarteners. She sat up on Kerry’s lap and wanted to play with them. When she woke up for real, she realized she was in the garden from her dream.

Our Garden Friend loves to sit under the fig tree and rest. She feels peaceful in the garden. Our Garden Friend is a garden guard who protects the garden with her magic powers and abilities.

The Kindergarten wanted to add more details to their Garden Friend such as clothes, a face, and hair. Kerry talked with them about it… which of the different characters would we choose? That was a tough question, because each of the characters created was loved by each child. So, it was decided as a group they would each make a mask of their character for the Garden Friend, like a paper doll, so the character could be changed. We had a character parade where each mask was worn by our Garden Friend.

The Garden Friend was introduced to the Kindergarteners with the hope we could come up with a character, or a bit of a story, but there were no expectations. We waited for the relationship with the doll to develop organically, and the class became engaged and enthralled with the doll. They really came to love her and developed a bond with her and her story. The project work and discussions that emerged around the Garden Friend illustrated the threads of the Kindergarten year: hard work and perseverance, our sense of community, cooperation, stories we tell, supporting and caring for one another, pushing our comfort zones, as well as developing relationships and being friends.

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Fostering Interdependence in the Middle School Classroom

Wed, 02 Jun 2021 13:32:00 GMT

by Sarah Lile, Middle School Teacher-Researcher

In Language Arts, 7th grade students read Alan Gratz’s gripping novel Refugee about three refugee families during three different time periods in history. Thanks to the magic of Zoom, we were able to welcome representatives from the International Rescue Committee and Reestablish Richmond , two organizations that help refugee families settle into the Richmond area. This sparked many questions:

Students were asked to generate project ideas around one of the questions. After much discussion, three projects emerged: a guide to RVA, a school supply drive for refugee children, and an illustrated children’s book about our city.

In a year where some students are in-person and some are virtual, project planning and logistics were critical. Before I came to Sabot, I would have designed the project for them, given them a project plan with expectations and specifications, templates to fill out and deadlines to meet. Here, I know to step back and let the magic of collaboration and student agency drive the project.

After spending hours researching and compiling information about a variety of activities around RVA: restaurants, museums, parks, and family-friendly activities, students working on the guide had yet to figure out which medium to use. Suddenly, a student sprang from her seat one class period and said, “Guys, we can make this in Google Sites! I’ll set it up!” And she proceeded to set up every student in the room on the shared Google Site they would use to create the guide. It was the catalyst that pushed the project to completion. This would not have happened if I had laid out the project for them.

The virtual students needed to rely heavily on written communication to execute an in-person school supply drive. That meant many emails to the administrators, teachers, and parents at our school, all from the students themselves. To excite students, they shared a read-aloud video of a children’s book about a refugee child going to school in America. They also wrote a letter:

“We have learned when refugees come from their country they have to leave a lot of stuff behind and start a new life in the United States, or wherever they go. We also know that they may not have the money to buy school supplies for their children. That’s why we are doing a school supply drive for refugee children.”

The academic challenges of learning virtually are well known to many families this school year. One of the ways we’ve supported our virtual students here at Sabot was to focus on the social-emotional needs of our virtual students. During this project, students asked to meet on campus to work on the project, almost exactly one year from the initial shutdown. The most beautiful moment to witness was the gradual transition from discomfort to pure joy. At first, students stood six feet apart, staring at the boxes and poster board in front of them, then ever so gradually, as they talked and laughed with one another, their joy started to bloom. The roots of this community grew in a virtual environment, steeped in shared experiences and frustrations. And this created a stronger bond, a more beautiful flower if you will, when they saw each other face to face.

Toward the end of the project, the group working on the RVA Guide hit a speed bump. After working to create content for the Google Site, students remembered that many refugee families in the area have limited English proficiency. They requested a call with their contacts at the IRC to discuss how they might get around the language barrier. In a zoom conversation, they learned that the IRC might be able to translate the guide into the top four languages of their clients (Dari, Swahili, Spanish, and French). They learned that it was critical that the guide be visual and concise, and in addition to the photos and written reviews, students decided to create audio recordings giving the audience an opportunity to hear them speak about a particular place in the guide.

After completing the content, fact-checking, testing, and proofreading the site, students felt the guide was ready for publication. They arranged to present it to the IRC.

Meanwhile, the school supply drive met up to sort the trunk-load of donations and deliver them to the IRC. The students who wrote and illustrated the children’s book dropped off copies that will be translated.

This project required motivation, stamina, and drive. Students had to create and execute a plan, with minimal teacher input. They had to collaborate, step into leadership roles, consider their audience, and communicate with the broader community. But most importantly, students were creating something real. Something meaningful. Something that would positively impact the lives of people in the Richmond community.

At the end of the projects, students wrote reflections. Some highlights:

What struck me most about this project was the ability of the students to figure out the entire process with minimal teacher interventions. Sure, there were times when I wanted to insert my opinion, or send an email for them, or even just sort some school supplies. But I resisted the urge and trusted the process, and it paid dividends. The students quickly learned that this was their project, their drive, their book, their website. They had agency over the entire process. This isn’t the first time I’ve trusted students to lead the way, and I learn so much every time. Given the opportunity, students will show you that they really are capable of amazing things.

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Building Meaning Through Collaborative Investigation

Thu, 18 Mar 2021 15:21:00 GMT

By Melanie Nan, 4th Grade Teacher-Researcher

When we returned to school after an ice storm, 4th Grade found that two trees in the garden had fallen. The children immediately wanted to be around the trees, to climb them, sit in them, jump from them.

After reminiscing, students started noticing and asking questions. Why is the soil underneath the tree so wet and muddy? Did the tree release all the water and nutrients that were in its trunk? Is the tree dead? How do we know if a tree is dead?

The work that they are doing so beautifully reflects our pedagogy . One student’s question, “How do trees carry water and nutrients through their trunks?” was of interest to the class and was truly a collaborative investigation.

For a first provocation, students placed cut plants in colored water, giving them a way to see the science in action. They then theorized: Would the plant change color? Would just the flowers change color? Would the plant die?

The next morning, the children rushed to the window sill. “Wow” was heard over and over. At Sabot, aesthetics are so important to the students’ work. We find it beautiful when children see beauty in their work. A student submerged a flower into the water to see if that would cause the petals to change color. As he recorded his observations, he also notices the aesthetics of his work.

As is often the case, questions lead to more questions and after sharing ideas as to what was happening, the children chose to further their inquiry with new experiments. This enabled them to confirm a theory or to take their thinking further. When children are discussing their ideas with each other, it is often a good place to offer a vocabulary word to allow for easier communication. Xylem was one such word this week.

After each set of experiments, the children are invited to share their work with each other. We chose the “gallery walk” where the children walk around the room to observe the drawings and read theories and results. This strategy allows all the children to share their findings in a low-stress way. It also gives everyone a chance to see ideas that match their own and also others that cause them to rethink or add to their own understanding. After the gallery walk and discussion, the children agreed that the plants sucked up the water through their xylem.

But still more questions: If the water is sucked up, how does it work?

What happens to the water after they suck it up?

We decide to investigate the question of what happens to the water that is sucked up through the stem. The children place plastic baggies over leaves and leave them overnight. The next day, they eagerly investigate the baggies. They notice the water straight away and also some notice that the baggies in the shade seem to have less water in them. This supports Eliza’s idea that the sunlight pulls the water up through the plant.

The children have presented theories, conducted experiments, shared results, discussed findings, and as more questions arise, created further experiments. By slowing down to observe, dissect, and draw the children have come to understand how plants take in water and also what happens to that water after plants are finished with it. Their research is real and important. They are building meaning together.

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Early Literacy Learning in the Preschool

Tue, 23 Feb 2021 18:12:00 GMT

by Anna Golden, Atelierista

Dexter plays a game that involves switching colors for each “letter” he writes.

More than a child’s ability to identify letters, numbers, or shapes, preliteracy includes skills such as verbal language, experimentation with symbols, and the ability to listen to other people. Since learning to read begins at birth, when children come to Sabot’s Preschool, they are already curious about letters and words, and we encourage them to take risks by playing with them.

Developing stories while pretending with friends is learning to read, so there are lots of things to play with. Play inspires stories that can be captured by teachers or dictated by children.

Listening is learning to read, so children practice listening to stories and responding to them by asking and answering questions.

Noticing word sounds is learning to read, so teachers point out sounds of letters as children dictate notes or stories.

Playing with letter and word sounds is learning to read, so we sing, chant, and play rhyming games, like creating a birthday song for a classmate, The Dinosaur Dance:
It’s time to do the dinosaur dance,
It goes like stomp, stomp, stomp in brance,
It’s time to do the dinosaur dance,
Everyday the bromp bromp’n brance

Learning to read means recognizing that symbols convey meaning. Visual symbols accompany letters and numbers in the Preschool, and each child chooses a symbol for their name. Symbols are used to mark children’s places and belongings in a visual way. Children can “read” each others’ symbols before they learn letters. You will also see children sharing drawings or other images and figures with each other to communicate ideas.

Signing in first thing in the morning is a no-pressure way to develop an interest in learning to write your name.

Learning to write means holding a pencil, so you will see teachers coaching children on their pencil grasp. Teachers know it’s important to develop good habits of pencil grip early so children can learn to write with the most comfort and efficiency later.

Strengthening hand and arm muscles is part of learning to write. Working while seated uses different muscles than when standing, so you will see children writing and painting with big and small gestures, on tables, easels, and on walls.

Developing preliteracy skills means creating a culture of reading and writing. This is why we read and write each day in as many authentic ways as possible.

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Thoughts on the Playground Oak and Progressive Education

Thu, 21 Jan 2021 23:07:00 GMT

By Marty Gravett, Director of Early Childhood

Photo by rethink twice on Unsplash

An ancient bit of wisdom has been making its rounds in the media in recent years, “The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time is now.”

Every time I hear this quote, I think of children and their schools. Twenty years ago would have been the time to start a school, a school that would grow and have a positive impact on our social environment just like trees have an enormous impact on the natural environment. A progressive school.

At Sabot, we did just that. We planted that tree by expanding our Reggio-inspired education through to the 8th grade, a new seed of progressive education in Richmond, VA. And now, in this pandemic landscape, our task is not to plant but to keep watering. In this metaphor, the pandemic year could be reflected by a tree’s narrow growth rings. It could be one of those years where the tree will retract and take care of itself because the environment is lean and hard. But, curiously, that is not what is happening. We aren’t waiting out the challenge; instead, we are continuing to grow. In fact, this year has the natural effect that hard times give: new strength is forged.

The life of a tree has an ongoing, vital, and long-term effect on everything around it. Two summers ago, we used the algorithm for determining the age of a tree (the circumference times the growth factor for the species) and learned the white oak that shades Sabot’s preschool playground has stood in place for approximately 264 years; it was here before any of us, before our historic school building was someone’s home, even before the creation of our country.

We have not heard stories in which the Sabot oak figures importantly in the life of the historic, Tudor-style house and campus; yet we know the kitchen staff and the children sat on the back steps and snapped green beans in the summer. And we can infer that even at 200-years-old, the tree was then providing much of the same solid, cool shade it now provides in the summer. We have observed that every few years, there is a massive acorn crop that rains down, providing the children with infinite hours of delight in collecting, sorting, counting, multiplying, dumping, examining, scooping, and designing. In addition to this is the everyday pleasure the tree provides as children balance on its massive roots; try to climb its scaley bark; hide behind its huge trunk; and observe squirrels climbing its branches, birds lighting on its limbs, and chipmunks ducking into their tiny root-hidden homes.

A few years ago, both Sabot’s four-year-olds and second graders spent months exploring the life of trees. One idea among many that they both came to – the preschoolers through magical thinking and their budding understanding of scientific strategies and the second graders in academic research and solid testing of their ideas – was the theory that trees communicate with one another. This arboreal communication, albeit slow, very slow, is one that multiple points of research bear out. What if we think of the children in a progressive school setting like the discrete elements of communication between trees? Imagine children now absorbing and creating growth-inducing ideas, solid ideas that, like the trees, spread slowly but surely through children’s connection with one another and with others. In this imagining, the children help create a forest of connection, a greening presence that moves slowly out and around them, spreading the fulsome ideas they bring everywhere they travel.

The tree creates a culture of its own for safety, inclusion, pleasure, and inquiry. Can our school create such a culture for our children? A culture that grows slowly but lasts at least 264 years? I think this is exactly what progressive education offers. Loris Malaguzzi, the founding philosopher of the Reggio schools, is paraphrased in the American Journal of Play saying, “history can be changed, and is changed by taking possession of it, starting with the destiny of the children.”

When you plant a tree and allow it the space and the freedom to grow, decades later, the treeness of it will bring pleasure to future generations, providing joy and shelter and cool shade and a spirit of inquiry long beyond the life of the planter. For this reason, we must plant now. If we are already planting, let’s dig in with awareness and invite others to join. Let’s avoid the temptation to give way to what some call the factory model of education that still lives in America. Let’s consider what we are doing now to give children, like trees, the time they need to grow. Let’s provide the space and the opportunity to communicate with others. Trees share nutrients, let’s share our resources with children and encourage them to share resources with each other. Let’s embrace their glory, their brilliance, their fruition so that in the future, beyond even our time, there is a flourishing in our region… our country, one which reflects this spirit of communication and provides for this fertile culture of engagement that we so happily enjoy at Sabot.

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A School Growing in Context

Wed, 16 Dec 2020 16:02:00 GMT

by Marty Gravett, Director of Early Childhood

Context – the environment, the setting in which a school grows and lives – gives shape to the school. This is a tenet of the municipal schools of Reggio Emilia, and at Sabot, context informs all of our celebrations. You won’t find any traditional or conventional observances on the school calendar. At this time of the year, when the North East of the United States is getting darker and colder, we celebrate warmth and light. Our Winter Night celebration melds myriad Sabot inspirations from decades of winter experiences and provocations. Philosophically, the event is an extension of children’s ongoing fascination with light and the change of seasons.

The faculty has scaffolded these big ideas for years by supporting children’s play and inquiry. There is the Light Studio where all the children across campus have access to transparent and translucent materials, light projectors, and shadow play. And then there are projects. Once, Sabot preschoolers engaged in a nighttime exploration of the school exclusively by flashlight and then were led to the forest where their parents surprised them with a labyrinth outlined in glowing votive apples. One group of children darkened their classroom windows with cardboard and “painted” with light. And several years ago, the second graders explored the sounds of seasons and created the kinetic, tinkling sculpture, The Sounds of Winter Night , that hangs to this day outside the Studio.

For more than two decades, the preschool children have been given colorful bits of beeswax to warm in their hands, to explore, and then to use as decoration for a small candle. This is a gift for their family to mark the darkest season of the year. As they leave for the winter holidays, they celebrate in as many different ways as there are families… all suffused in light. These candles are a reminder of the light and hope all children bring to Earth.

As the school grew, the candle tradition followed the children into the lower school and middle school. Wanting to gather families to share in and display these beautiful expressions in beeswax and wanting to give children, families, and faculty a chance to mark the season with a goodbye to each other and the animals and nature on campus, we launched Winter Night.

Winter Night has now become an annual exploration of light in the darkness—engaging all the children and families of the school. It is highlighted by luminaria lining the walkways, lantern making, and winter stories by the glowing fireplaces in the Main House. In Founders Hall, with the garage door wide open to the cold night, there is the making of fruit garland and pinecone bird feeders. Families then traipse into the night by moonlight or with flashlights to hang their bird feeders on trees and bushes in the Gillette Garden, all the while imagining Sabot’s feathered friends will miss them but be well-fed while we’re away.

Winter Night ends with families gathering in the Great Hall to sing songs of light in the solstice season, songs like Round and Round the Earth is Turning and This Little Light of Mine . Because light and the change of seasons are essential to the rhythm of life on this planet, we should not be surprised that children are naturally aware of their essential nature and joyously revel in their value and possibility, especially with their families. What a thing to celebrate!

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Thinking of Thanking

Thu, 19 Nov 2020 18:48:00 GMT

by Tom Bendel, Head of School

We have all gamely worked to adapt and to meet the needs we see. We have given and been asked to give again, only to have new demands continue to rise. In these times, it would be easy to give in to anger or frustration or to just give up. However, one thing we might give that will help is thanks.

At morning carpool, I try to greet every student by saying “Happy Tuesday” (on Tuesday, of course – mostly remembering what day it is and using the appropriate greeting). I began this as a gratitude practice many years ago to remind me as much as the children that there is much to be happy about on each day, even – or especially – school days.

Experts suggest that we would all benefit from practicing gratitude, which is particularly important in times of adversity. Importantly, intentional gratitude reminds us that even on difficult days, there is lots of good. Moreover, thankfulness reminds us that those good things are external to us – helping to break us free from self-focus and turning our attention to those around us. Sharing gratitude affirms the bonds between us, signaling and strengthening community norms. It increases our resilience, connects us with other people, and lifts others up. Gratitude builds and strengthens relationships because it shows us how we’ve been supported and affirmed by other people.

Just this morning, the most wonderful thing happened; several of the classes arrived with notes of thankfulness for members of the community. In these past weeks, I have had no moment that was more affirming than getting these notes and having an opportunity to say “thank you” back to the children. It was a much-needed reminder of the strength of our community and the importance of our relationships, and a real-world, real-time validation of the ways that gratitude sustains both.

Outside of carpool, I am surely less good at visibly acknowledging my gratitude for the day that we are given and the people who fill it, so I’d like to take this chance to say thank you. I am always grateful for:

I invite you to take a moment to think about or write down what you are grateful for and to hold those special people, moments, and notions close to your heart.

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Election Support

Sat, 31 Oct 2020 11:30:00 GMT

by Ann Reavey, School Counselor

As anyone who follows the news cycle knows, we are living in strange and difficult times. From COVID-19 to the recession to wildfires, the message seems to be: if you are not afraid, you are not paying close enough attention. And this crescendo of alarm is building towards Election Day and its aftermath.

As I talk with students and faculty, I see evidence that fears about the election are impacting our children. Many have specific concerns about safety and health. Some are finding it tough to sleep through the night. Others are noticing their parents’ worry and are carrying it with them.

Right now, various educational organizations are preparing for the student support that will be needed in the days and weeks following the election. No matter how this election plays out, Sabot’s faculty will continue our commitment to civil discourse and respectful listening. Providing support, accurate information, and respectful norms around this dialogue will be key.

Here are some ideas for how you can support your child during this time:

Do your work. One of my mantras for 2020 has been this quote from Lama Rod Owens’ Love and Rage : “If we don’t do our work, we become work for other people.” Manage your own emotions so that your child is not 1) responsible for listening to you vent 2) absorbing your stress or 3) put in the position of caretaking for you. Instead, model positive coping strategies for managing emotions.

Support your family’s fundamental good health. Adequate sleep, good nutrition, exercise, sunlight, social connection. These are the basics, the fuel in your tank, the charge for your battery. Ignore these requirements at your own peril; doing so will compromise your ability to regulate your stress as well as to manage your cognitive load.

Listen deeply. Let your child express emotions without judgement and without problem solving. (I definitely struggle with leaping into problem-solving mode too quickly!) Allow space for your child to experience their emotions. Reread our previous blog posts about co-constructing understanding , listening , and supportive conversations ; although these blog posts are not about the election, they explore the practice of deep listening and how it supports the child.

Limit the news. This is a simple and effective, albeit difficult, strategy. Turn off your news alerts and notifications. Stop checking the polls. Limit how much news your child consumes whenever possible. Be more present in this moment right now.

Clarify your values . Children from preschool through to 8th grade are strongly and primarily influenced by their parents’ beliefs and values. Use this moment as an opportunity to clarify these values. Shared beliefs ground children during difficult times and provide resiliency and meaning. We are a family that believes in self-sufficiency and working hard. We are a family that values service to others. In this family, we speak up when we see injustice. Our spiritual beliefs guide our behavior and our work in the community.

Demonstrate empathy. Model empathy for your child. As I mentioned in a previous post , empathy is a foundational skill for co-constructing knowledge, creating connections, and growing metacognition. It can also help bridge the divide between people with different political viewpoints and values.

Embrace the gray . Encourage your child (this is harder for children fourth grade and younger) to move away from binary thinking – right and wrong, Republican and Democrat, liberal and conservative, winners and losers. Find the nuance and look for the places where we all exist together.

Have difficult conversations. Model for your children what it looks like to listen closely to others who have different views. If your experience has been marginalized in our society, model for your child what it looks like to assess when and how to speak up and speak out. For White Americans this means being aware of privilege and allowing yourself to sit with and learn from your discomfort; you can reread our blog post on Talking to Young Children About Racism (From a Perspective of White Privilege) .

Stop talking through machines. I will acknowledge that this is tough during a pandemic! Instead of commenting on social media threads, whenever possible, engage in face-to-face, respectful conversations about the issues that matter to you this election. Consider staying off of social media in the coming weeks.

Reassure and look for reassurance. Don’t dismiss your child’s fears but do talk about the ways that they are protected and loved. Emphasize the constants in life – family, nature, your religious community. Even something as simple as focusing on your breath. Some children, especially our preschoolers but our older children as well, need the physical reassurance of a hug. Consult with the wise people in your life – an older relative, a religious leader, a mentor. Seek out those people that can help you stay calm and grounded.

Look for hope. Look for signs of unity, common ground, and shared beliefs. Point out progress and nurture positivity even if only about the small, simple things. Establish a family gratitude practice.

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The Outdoor Classroom Comes of Age at Sabot

Thu, 22 Oct 2020 15:49:00 GMT

By Marty Gravett, Director of Early Childhood

The outdoor classroom has a new cache. While progressive and nature educators across the globe have been testing and touting the value of the outdoor classroom in the early childhood profession for the last decade, something new is afoot. In the time of COVID-19, there is now intense longing in even the most traditional classrooms to get rid of ceilings, walls, and enclosed spaces and instead embrace lots of fresh, unfettered air. The dilution of aerosols is the outdoor classroom raison d’être .

It is not like Sabot hasn’t been preparing for this since 1995 when we first placed step stools and binoculars by a window and invited our four-year-olds to step up and notice the tiny parcel of wild space right outside. This led to a year in the forest with our three-year-olds, which became the catalyst for the school, in its search for a new home, to prioritize outdoor access. With 106 acres of parkland adjacent to us, our fourth graders spent a year in the forest creating their own classroom. Eventually, every classroom from two-year-olds to middle schoolers committed to spending one morning every week in the forest.

Since settling at Stony Point, we have valued this outdoor space, indeed pinched ourselves at this marvelous gift of nature, but suddenly, our long-term commitment to nature as a part of the Sabot experience has a new purpose. We need the outdoor classroom. It doesn’t just supplement our program, it makes our program possible during this pandemic. We have divided up gardens, play yards, and forest space to create a dedicated outdoor classroom for each cohort of Sabot children… all day long.

What does our Reggio-inspired curriculum look like in this new landscape? Anna Golden, the Sabot atelierista, writes cogently in Nature Education with Young Children about the power of wild spaces when children are allowed to explore. She tells us that “the integration of play in nature with visual representation helps children develop a relationship with a wild place, and helps teachers and parents understand children’s sense of that place.” Anna brings her studio perspective to the outdoors and reminds us that as teachers and parents, observing the way children represent in natural spaces through “pretend play, magical thinking, visual representations, and discussion” gives us the fodder for planning how to further their inquiry. Never one to forget the primary goals of early childhood, Anna points out playing in a wild space not only offers an opportunity for a child to understand their own identity but also the “play in the forest unites children with common goals, perhaps because their bodies are small in comparison to tall trees and big spaces.”

How does this work? Our fourth grade teacher-researcher, Melanie Nan, tells us “Working outside is not simply doing what we do inside, outside. It is a way to think differently, to use the affordances of the space, and to use nature as the pallet and the muse.” At this moment, many families and educators may view the outdoor classroom as purely a COVID mitigation strategy. However, one of the inquiry questions that several teachers are considering this year is, how does working outside support learning and provide additional challenge to the children—what we call reach . Reach is a combination of the willingness to take cognitive risk and to accept rigor in the questions we ask and the research we pursue.

As a precursor to fiction-writing, the fourth graders were challenged to use the loose parts of nature—stones, sticks, leaves, nuts, and buds—as a medium to create a character of their own. After collecting, choosing, and creating characters with natural loose parts, the children were then challenged to recreate their characters in another medium—watercolor. The new medium gave rise to new thinking, and some students placed their characters in a specific setting or hinted at more information about them. Only after the challenge of translating their ideas from one medium to another were the students asked to write and introduce their character with words.

While the year has just begun, we are seeing many examples of the kind of thinking and exploration of natural media that could lead to further inquiry and develop into full-blown project work. For example, r ecently changing events in the garden sparked Kindergarteners to theorize about what had happened to caterpillars they saw days before on the fennel and milkweed. They had counted them one day and then a few days later there were not as many there.

In the preschool, teacher-researcher Kendall Nordin, writes, “Since we use primarily natural materials that we find outside as the basis for our outdoor classroom this year, there are always surprising and interesting things to do.” She focuses our attention on the work of two students saying, “There is so much order to these arrangements. We can see sequencing, intentionality, and tacit knowledge of gravity and balance. This is what pre-math/physics looks like in our classroom.”

David Sobel, in the introduction of Nature Education with Young Children , points to a Sabot story as providing “a great example of how spontaneous natural phenomena provoke descriptive language and metaphor-making” bringing us “right down into the world, space, and minds of children.” Curiously, we have never seen ourselves as outdoor educators or part of the nature classroom movement, even as we wrote and published, provoked lots of interest, and invited lots of use for natural materials.

Now here we are outdoors, every day. And it feels like a natural next step for Reggio-inspired classrooms during a pandemic; there are new media to explore, provocative new experiences, and a worthy new purpose in nature.

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Replenishing Energy

Mon, 14 Sep 2020 16:59:00 GMT

by Ann Reavey, School Counselor

One thing that I know for sure is that as the pandemic has continued, we have grown stronger. We possess a host of new skills born from necessity, from scheduling extended family Zoom gatherings to wearing masks. Our strength has grown, and also our challenges remain taxing.

This is exhausting work for us all – faculty, students, and parents. Sustaining this pandemic-style engagement may be especially emotionally and cognitively fatiguing for children. Even with breaks during the school day, we will all need to carve out intentional restorative time following the school day.

This does not have to be a parent-lead activity, but it may take parental oversight to provide free time for your child to actively de-stress. Younger children may need more guidance and prompts, whereas older children can be more independent as long as they have space in their schedule.

Here are some ideas (this is certainly not an exhaustive list) that can help you and your child establish a calming time after school.

The Basics: Your child will probably need a bit more sleep during the transition back to school. You may also want to offer some additional healthy snacks. Nutritious food and sufficient sleep are essentials to keep your child fueled for the school day. If your child is a virtual learner, plan for outdoor time, off of screens and in nature. Offer lots of water! When the weather is hot and the kids are outside for most of the day, watch out for dehydration.

Sensory Input: Each child’s sensory needs will be unique; however, some children may miss the input that comes from hugging friends or rambunctious recess play. These children may appreciate some hugs and snuggles after school. Other children may be sensory overloaded with the socializing and activities of a busy day at school, especially after a summer of being at home. These children will need a quiet and subdued environment for a bit after school.

Literature: Some children want nothing more than to curl up with a book after a busy day. Depending on the age of the child, this may look more like curling up with a parent to enjoy a read aloud or to look at a well-loved picture book. Audio books may be a good choice especially paired with snuggling with a family pet, eating a snack, or an activity like drawing. Your child may want to return to a comfort book that they have read (and reread and reread again). Other children may seek a series with a familiar rhythm and pattern to the narrative.

Sounds and Music: Play some favorite and familiar songs or listen to relaxing sounds such as a campfire , bird songs , or ocean waves .

Guided Meditation: Through apps such as Calm on YouTube , you can access numerous guided meditations. Experiment to find one that clicks with your child. Go Noodle has a number of meditations for younger children.

Visual Relaxation: This might be watching a pet fish or the wildlife in your backyard. You can also just take the time to watch the clouds changing in the sky or the rain falling outside your window.

Mindfulness Activities: Jigsaw puzzles, doodling, knitting, board games, puzzles, sandbox play, gardening – all of these activities engage the senses and can bring us deeper into the present.

Live Animal Cams: Immerse yourself in the animal world! Here are a few engaging animal cams that can provide a restorative break from the school day: San Diego Zoo Penguin Cam , Georgia Aquarium Beluga Whale Cam , National Zoo Panda Cam , or Monterey Bay Aquarium Jellyfish Cam .

Water: As mentioned above, make sure you are well-hydrated, but also remember how refreshing it is to splash in water. Water play in the bathtub or in the backyard with a sprinkler and buckets is extremely restorative after an exhausting and hot day.

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We’re breaking ground for our new classroom building this fall!

kdonegan@sabotschool.org (Kelsey Donegan) — Sat, 12 Sep 2020 18:43:37 GMT

This long-anticipated campus improvement is possible because of the generosity of our community. A community that believes in how we do school. A community that believes in our future. A community that believes in children.

We are taking a phased approach to construction. With fundraising and financing in place, the first phase will include the site improvements, the building envelope, and the ten classrooms on the main level. Once more funds are raised, we can begin the second phase of the project, which will outfit the six classrooms on the lower level.

This phased approach will keep the project moving forward and allow us to move into the building sooner. We expect the first phase of construction to take approximately one year. So the construction will start, but the fundraising is not finished.

A Framework for Community

Thu, 20 Aug 2020 16:12:00 GMT

By Mary Driebe, Director of Teaching & Learning

This does not happen overnight. Our teachers lay the groundwork. The steps are small and incremental, generated by the child’s zone of proximal development. Teachers watch, observe, and begin to understand what students need to gradually move forward, stretching their skills in a way that is tenable. Cultivating empathy requires a practice of reflection and also vigilance.

We ask our students to consider their connection to their class, peers, and community. Why are you feeling disconnected? When you feel connected, what decisions do you make? What does your friend’s face look like when they are feeling frustrated? What words did they use to convey frustration? Do these words make sense to you? Perhaps it is okay for your friend to feel mad and for you to give them space to have these feelings.

The experience of students in our classrooms affirms that together we are better . Individuals construct understanding and meaning together. Their questions and curiosity ignite excitement which generates theories and a shared language of understanding. Communities thrive when students feel that their voice and thinking is necessary and a part of the process.

Community learning and growth occur with productive struggle and cognitive dissonance. As educators, parents, and community members, we must recognize and avoid the happiness trap. When people we respect or love struggle, our compassion is triggered and we want to help. Our teachers support students through a productive struggle with active listening, problem-solving, and skill-building.

The vision of our Sabot approach, to encourage and scaffold collaboration and feedback, in the evolution of any community is evident. As we look forward to reuniting with our students, we are fully committed to cultivating community. This has always been a priority for Sabot and is now essential for moving forward. These deep connections will sustain our students and our learning community.

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Talking to Young Children About Racism (From a Position of White Privilege)

Thu, 16 Jul 2020 12:31:00 GMT

By Marty Gravett, Director of Early Childhood Education

She of course was talking about calling on the telephone.

What does this story have to do with talking about racism? The young child, on the cusp of magical and concrete thinking, hears something they don’t fully understand and easily fills that murkiness with magical thinking. They frame a literal interpretation of things that they take in with their own eyes and ears. The combination leaves the young child vulnerable to their own hopes, fears, and understanding.

Children at very young ages have lots of thoughts and plenty of ideas about the world around them. They interpolate adult tone, movement, and levels of emotion and, based on these, form theories and develop personal schema for understanding. This universal process suggests that conversations with children are an important approach to helping them rethink misconceptions. If the conversations are an authentic interchange between adult and child, they can help children develop a strong sense of personal control and safety and, most importantly, can help them to value personal agency and change.

We certainly know that in this moment in history, adult lives are filled with anxiety and strong feelings. If you have read any parenting literature lately you will be familiar with the adage “take care of yourself first”. In the case of talking about racism, this means assessing where you are in your own understanding and growth, acknowledging your privilege and biases frankly, and starting to work on what you’ve found. Then, assess and repeat.

While conversations with your child cannot wait for you to do this work, it does mean that you need to start the work and also to find a place to vent your emotions so you are not carrying your own immediate triggers into a conversation with your child. This upfront work will help you avoid situations in which you might be ambushed by your own emotions and unwittingly scare your child with the intensity of your response. From the start, just know that it is always okay to say, “I don’t know, let’s figure that out together.” And to say, “Wow, that created a strong feeling in me that I didn’t know I had.” In this video, Patty Wipfler , founder of Hand in Hand Parenting, shares ways we can do our own work in order to support our children.

Racism is an encultured perspective. Believing that lets you hope that with your help, your child will have a greater degree of freedom or distance from some of the cultural biases that were our lot. It is hope that leads you to embark upon this work with your child, although it is not likely to be very comfortable – nor is it supposed to be. This work will take courage and risk-taking, and possibly (most probably) you are not going to get it right all the time. But forge ahead. This is important parenting. This is about raising a citizen of the world.

Be proactive. Open the conversation by finding out what they already know or think. Even if it is magical thinking. While you are opening the conversation let them take the lead. Then as you see misconceptions emerge, ask questions that address the misconceptions and then “lend” or share information to keep the conversation vital and full of reflection and good thinking.

Give them time, space, and affirmation for whatever feelings they might have.

Know that this will have to be the first of many, many conversations on this and related topics. This overview from CNN provides resources, suggestions, and support for conversations about protests and racism for multiple age groups.

Share your perspective in a conversation. Give over lots of time for questions and wondering and theorizing. Start the work of making sure they understand that you value differences and are not afraid to notice your privilege. Although it is uncomfortable, it is important to look carefully and to own your personal biases. Chantal Harrison tells us in her Hand in Hand Parenting post, “Parents Need to Talk about Race Early and Often” , that we need to acknowledge that “having a choice about whether or not to have these conversations is a privilege.” Give them concrete examples of your experience, and ask about theirs.

Read to them as an entrée into the subject. Buy some of the great books available on anti-racism and read with the idea of taking time for conversations along the way. This is a sure way to keep the conversations fertilized and ongoing. One of these excellent reads is Antiracist Baby by Ibram X. Kendi. This board book is a primer for all of us – not just babies. It outlines nine steps for building a more equitable world, and there is lots of language to help us talk with young children about this important concept. See Sabot’s reading list for more titles for this age group.

Make sure your child knows there are things to be done and steps to take. Don’t leave them feeling powerless. That is not the goal in a society seeking social justice; the goal is to empower everyone and to create a more equitable society that supports everyone’s health and wellbeing. The American Academy of Pediatrics notes that “ racism is a social determinant of health that has a profound impact on the health status of children” . Include children in what you are doing to create a just society. There will be marches that are not too much for youngsters, making signs, raising money to donate (make sure that they really are fully involved in the work of raising the money), voicing their opinions when they hear things that are wrong, and speaking up for others.

There is such a lot of work to do; we need their help.

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Home Work: A New Course for Us All

Thu, 28 May 2020 19:41:00 GMT

by Ann Reavey, School Counselor

Photo by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash

My home is usually a place that restores my energy and fills my soul, a place to recover from the demands of the day. Now it’s a place where those demands pitch a tent. My erstwhile sanctuary is filled with work meetings, online classes, school projects, and a kitchen that constantly accumulates coffee cups and dirty dishes.

I’m far from alone in this. Many of you are living in your work while parenting or parenting while living in your work, or some chaotic situation like this. Possibly your work right now consists of being in a queue on a phone line trying to access unemployment benefits. Or filling out forms for small business relief. Or wondering how to continue caring for an elderly loved one – all of this as you parent your young children and tweens.

The protective line between work and home, professional and personal, has crumbled, resulting in constant tension. Is this a workplace now, or the family kitchen table? At any given moment, I need to be a parent, learning support, or working professional. Switching gears like this is sure to raise our cortisol levels and keep them elevated.

There are a crushing number of big, heavy reasons to feel overwhelmed, and this home invasion by school and work has created a situation where it’s hard to escape from the stress. There is a layer of burnout and fatigue that is a struggle to peel away.

Noticing and sitting with these uncomfortable feelings is important. Be present with these emotions, look at them head-on with courage. Then find what you can do to address even just a small piece of this stress productively.

First, read this advice from Lisa W. Coyne, Ph.D.: Dear Parents: You Aren’t Perfect & That’s Just Fine . This is really the best advice that’s out there! Do what you can. Love your kids. Ask your child to do what they can with connected learning. Care for yourself. Ignore the many lists of how to be the best pandemic parent/worker/spouse. Breathe. Connect and engage. Repeat.

If you would like more resources, check out the links below that address your current needs. Remember, use what you can and disregard the rest. This is not intended to pile on more stress and obligation.

Websites and Quick Reads

Podcasts

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Listening to Reveal Children’s Thinking About the Coronavirus

Fri, 22 May 2020 12:50:00 GMT

by Lisa Kelly & Fran Withrow, Preschool Teacher-Researchers

As we began our connected learning experiences, we noticed how often the children brought up the coronavirus, often randomly commenting, “you know there is a virus,” or “people are getting sick”. While our impulse was to protect the children from the worrisome news, we began to understand that the children were telling us they already knew some information and needed to talk about it.

To explore this topic, we needed to do so together, carefully, and with an emphasis on listening. Our job was not to fill their minds with news reports but to reveal their thinking. How could we help them make better sense of what was happening? If we were in the classroom, we would begin asking questions during morning meeting or by pulling together a small group to begin thinking together. How could we use our new virtual small groups to explore this sensitive topic?

Change

We introduced the concept of Change through web albums to gradually begin to explore how all of our lives were different now than they were before we left school for spring break. By thinking together about all of the different ways the world changes, for better or not, we knew we would stumble upon some wonderings about the new virus and feelings about the requirement to stay home.

Creating Our Own Change

We explored the ways we can create positive change in our own lives, which helps us feel empowered during a time when so many things feel limited. The prompt to look for ways to create more kindness invited children to respond in many ways: One student found a way to share happiness by drawing a huge sign for her neighborhood on her street. Another sent a letter filled with love to her neighbor. One started with change in her own home by helping her dad by cleaning and vacuuming. And another set her sights on creating global change by creating her own cure for the coronavirus made from tears, soap, and hand sanitizer, among other things.

Masks

After setting the stage with exploring change, we felt confident that the children were thinking about the coronavirus and perhaps looking for ways to talk about what they knew. We decided to prompt the children to think about wearing masks – an item that represents change, is associated with the virus, and is likely present in their lives. We brought masks to small-group and put them on.

Co-constructing Understanding

Over time, the small groups became more comfortable talking about what they had heard about the virus, sometimes with heated exchanges. Children learned to listen to each other and examined information they felt they understood from trusted grown-ups and the news. Instead of correcting them, we asked them to consider different points of view and offered careful questioning. This provided a safe way for them not only to think more deeply about their assumptions but also to refine their understanding by critically examining their beliefs. The children were co-constructing their understanding, a process that brought them both disequilibrium but also new insights about their world. When friends felt they could challenge each other and even disagree, we knew our virtual classroom was working!

Drawing and Dialogue Reveals the Children’s Thinking

By using the language of drawing to represent their theories about the virus, children are invited to turn their ideas around and take a close look at them. Does this make sense? What do I still need to know to understand this concept better? Drawing brings these questions to the surface.

As co-construction continues, theories are refined and big ideas emerge. Thinking together about the size and function of the virus leads to new insights. Questions, not corrections , lead the children to a more thoughtful understanding of novel concepts and strengthens skills critical for problem-solving.

Over time, Amira and Juno were able to refine their thinking often arriving at very different insights from where our conversations began. Our role as teachers was to help the class slow down, respect the children’s thinking, and scaffold learning through listening. This process helped the class not only to think more deeply about the coronavirus but also to cope with a topic that feels distressing at times. When children feel supported to take risks in posing theories or asking questions, they learn to become more flexible, creative, and tolerant of the ideas of others.

The questions will continue, and their theories will change as the children change. We are still discovering more about the virus and modifying our response. Our virtual classroom has provided a safe harbor for wondering and playing around with theories, but more than anything, it is a place to connect.

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Finding Connection Through Connected Learning

Fri, 08 May 2020 17:15:00 GMT

by Melanie Nan, Fourth Grade Teacher-Researcher

At Sabot, we haven’t moved to distance or virtual learning but connected learning. This wording is so important to the philosophy and pedagogy of our school. We place a high value on the collaborative environment, recognizing that many minds coming together leads to creative problem-solving.

Straight after spring break, we made the move to connected learning, a new way of teaching and learning, and that feeling of connection became fuzzy. The children had been apart for a week and, no doubt, did not expect to be apart for the rest of the year.

One of my fourth graders was worried that, in September, “we won’t recognize each other.” In our first virtual hangout, the children continued to share their feelings with each other:

Noticing the need for connection, I decided to utilize the blog section of Seesaw so the children could see each other’s work. As soon as it went up, photos of favorite shoes appeared… artworks, pictures of pets, little notes to each other that encouraged conversation. One child began videoing a question of the day.

Learning a New Language

At Sabot we value the time spent “messing about” when we are introduced to a new language. This is important as the children grapple with the affordances of that language and become familiar with it. Because of the pandemic, the children were suddenly introduced to a whole new language – that of connected learning in a digital environment.

First, the children needed to “mess about”. They played with the tools on Seesaw. They chatted in silly ways on the first Google chat, preferring to write rather than talk.

Twice a week now, we learn in a synchronous environment. The focus on these “classes” is that we can learn from each other. Most times, we share ideas in small groups, which allows everyone the chance to speak and to listen to their classmates. Other times, we meet as a whole class if something needs to be clarified, like a math strategy.

But the answer is not total synchronous learning. In fact, research shows that a combination of synchronous and asynchronous learning is most successful. Additionally, with varying family schedules and circumstances, total synchronous learning just isn’t possible. So the question becomes, how can we keep the synchronous meetings down, yet keep the connections high?

Keeping Connections High

The children need to make connections with each other and with me, daily. They need to know that I am there to help them navigate the activities, to give them feedback, to ask and answer questions. They need to know that their classmates are with them too, that they can still learn in a collaborative environment.

So how can I, as their teacher, help them to maintain their connections?

I make sure to be on Seesaw for most of the day and to comment on everyone’s work, every day. So very often that they might reply with a simple thanks, but the connection is there. Very often, I find myself in rich conversations, like this recent one:

Inspired by the children in my class with dyslexia who very often give voice comments rather than written, I make sure to give them voice comments back. I now find myself recording audio more often to more of the children, and they have reported that hearing my voice is helpful.

On the blog posts, the children are following suit; they are giving each other voice feedback, and in a strange way, it feels like conversation. When everyone comments on everyone’s work, the feeling of connection and community continues.

Building on this, I have recently added video instructions. Sometimes I simply explain the work, other times I use the Seesaw tools to show an example. By allowing the students to see and hear me every day, we create connection. Students respond with video, and I can easily see their thinking process as they solve problems and share ideas.

Now that the children have become more familiar with connected learning and the digital tools they have, their connections are evolving too. At first, they were purely social and now have moved to the academic. They ask for input from their classmates for their project work through a Google Doc or a blog post. Others have Facetime sessions to work on a math problem together. Now, they have started to use these new languages as a regular tool.

Children who have been feeling overwhelmed by the change have been using connection to bring themselves back into the group, be it attending a synchronous class or by posting pictures of pets, sharing some music, or sending a “Hi!” on the blog.

My fourth graders have been thrown into an unknown and scary world where they have little control, but they still feel the need to be part of something. The need for connection is important, and it is powerful. Even though we are not together on the campus of our school, the connection is there. It is in their photographs, their comments, their questions, and their work. By hearing each other’s voices and seeing each other’s faces, they are fostering the connections they need to stay part of a larger community.

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Building Empathy at Home

Thu, 30 Apr 2020 21:17:00 GMT

by Ann Reavey, School Counselor

Teachers help develop empathy in students as they prompt children to reflect on perspective – throughout the curriculum and across the grade levels. When a teacher asks a student to stand in someone else’s shoes, the practice facilitates a shift in orientation that allows for new perspectives, creative connections, and co-construction of knowledge.

As teachers continue this important work of empathy building and reflection through connected learning, parents can offer support at home as well. Here are a handful of simple tips for varying ages that can help build empathy.

Help your child notice and name emotions. Offer prompts such as “I notice that your face is tense and your voice is loud. It looks like you’re angry. Is that right?” Let your child express how they feel before you pivot to asking how they think someone else feels.

Facilitate perspective sharing. Once your child can identify how they feel in a situation, ask them how they think the other person feels. “I hear that you felt angry when Laura took your Legos, how do you think she was feeling when you knocked her tower down?”

Play Feelings Charades. Demonstrate an emotion without words but with facial expression and body language. Also have your child guess your emotion while reading a sentence with varying tones and facial expressions.

Use emotion words. Normalize feelings, even powerful ones. Build your child’s emotion vocabulary by moving beyond mad, sad, happy, surprised, and disgusted. Michigan State University provides a great list of emotions .

Look at a baby or a pet to explore how we express and read emotions. This is super fun and a great way to practice reading non-verbal cues.

Provide some empathy preparation before video conferencing. Prior to video chatting with extended family, ask how your child thinks the family member might be feeling. “Grandma got the card that you sent, how do you think she will be feeling?” “Uncle Joe just got off his shift an hour ago, how do you think he will be feeling? What are some signs that will tell us that he needs to leave the call?”

Explore empathy through literature. When reading with a child, ask about how they would feel in a character’s situation. Would they act differently?

Be Feelings Detectives. After reading a story or watching a show, use props (shoes, hats, etc.) to help kids get into character and explore how a character might be feeling.

Have a family debate on an issue. Civil dialogue, which involves empathy, is a skill that we all could stand to practice. Topics can be family issues (allowance, chores, etc.) or current issues (relaxing of stay-at-home orders, government relief money for franchises, etc.).

Practice kindness. Mow a neighbor’s lawn. Pick up groceries for someone on your block who is immune-compromised. Sew masks for family, friends, and neighbors. Send a kind message to someone who needs a boost. Talk to your younger children about filling people’s buckets. (Watch a video of the book Have You Filled a Bucket Today? )

Value kindness and generosity. You can demonstrate that you value kindness by practicing it as a family. Here are some ideas for creating opportunities for kindness that can be adapted for the home. Make sure you talk about times when someone has extended you kindness and what it meant to you.

Play cooperative games. These games leverage collaboration, not competition, and can be super fun! My favorites right now are Space Team and Forbidden Island. Here are some other game ideas .

Books for more information:

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Finding Meaning Through the Routine of Learning

Fri, 24 Apr 2020 01:38:00 GMT

by Ann Reavey, School Counselor

We don’t need to look beyond Viktor Frankl, Nelson Mandela, Ruby Bridges, or Hellen Keller to know that a higher purpose can provide the impetus to overcome immense challenges. However, motivation is a fickle muse. When obstacles are less monumental than the fight for human dignity, motivation may be harder to summon. Investing time and energy in an exploratory project, word study, or math practice probably does not feel deeply important.

Skill-building for a lower or middle school student can be challenging even when we are not in the midst of a global pandemic. Certainly, the quotidian work of education pales in significance when families are facing serious illness and/or financial hardship. I would argue that the practice of learning enables connection with a higher purpose, which can serve as an anchor in a turbulent sea.

In every Sabot classroom, we see that when children construct their own knowledge, the more routine aspects of learning become infused with purpose, curiosity, and wonder. We believe that the process of education is what matters, not merely the knowledge acquired. The journey to the answer is far more important than the answer itself.

In his book Drive , Daniel Pink writes:

Engagement with Seesaw or Google Classroom is not the carrot. These platforms are tools that we must wield to maintain our connection, skills, and collaborative projects. Our educational tools have changed, and we will experience cognitive dissonance as we adjust to new conduits of learning. But we will not reject the learning process simply because these tools are initially difficult. Thinking flexibly and persisting are two habits of mind that emerge under duress but yield tremendous growth and opportunity.

Sitting with the discomfort of a new way of learning nurtures the skills that students need to make sense of the complicated world around them. Reading for understanding and information, writing for communication and expression, quantitative and qualitative reasoning for critical thinking – all of these skills are enhanced with practice and purpose.

A daily journal that seems a chore can become an outlet for worries and a crucible for solutions. A history reading can provide context and reference for the economic collapse unfolding around us. The discipline of focus needed when listening to others’ opinions can also be leveraged to listen to the inner voice that informs our values and morals.

I believe our 5th Grade Teacher-Researchers, Marla Wilson and Jon Patmore, said it best:

As counterintuitive as it may sound, engaging with classmates, teachers, and the activities of the school day provides students with the opportunity to have personal agency in a world that feels increasingly out of control.

Finding a student’s zone of proximal development and maintaining reasonable expectations with Connected Learning demands persistence. This means sitting with a student through the discomfort of skill-building – sometimes providing a break but also extending the encouragement to return to the task. I know this is hard. You can do this.

As psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi states in his book, Flow : “Most enjoyable activities are not natural; they demand an effort that initially one is reluctant to make. But once the interaction starts to provide feedback to the person’s skills, it usually begins to be intrinsically rewarding.” As parents and educators, we must provide support for our students to find that magical balance between challenge and joy.

When we stay in connection with our learning community, despite the many difficulties, we honor that deep human need to seek meaning and purpose in our lives. Our routines and learning tools have changed dramatically, but we will craft them into worthy vehicles for our curiosity, dreams, joy, and wonder.

Read more in Scientific American : Everyday Routines Make Life Feel More Meaningful

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Talking About School Closing and Coronavirus with Young Children

Thu, 16 Apr 2020 14:48:00 GMT

by Marty Gravett, Director of Early Childhood Education; Ann Reavey, School Counselor; and the Sabot Preschool Teacher-Researchers

Most children before the age of two are not ready for any real conversations of this type. Even at two, a child is not likely to get much from a conversation unless they use language extensively for communication. But a child of any age is likely to understand that there are changes around them and that these are affecting the adults in their sphere. What follows are examples of language that will provide entry to both tough conversations and ideas for supporting your child’s engagement along the way.

Let the Child Lead the Conversation

When you start from where the child is, you will be able to help them adapt and build new understandings based on the ideas they have already formulated.

Respond by noticing and wondering:

Respond by reflecting their thinking:

Respond with questions to help them clarify and expand:

Respond by acknowledging their feelings:

How to Start if Your Child Has Shown No Interest

If your child has shown no particular interest in these topics, here are a few ideas on how to launch or provoke a conversation. You might say:

Be Direct About Coronavirus, But Not Alarmist

When families are together, children are likely to absorb more than they are demonstrating, even if they only hear small bits. A conversation that directly addresses information about the coronavirus could be very helpful, even reassuring, to a child.

Give correct information, but only as much as the child needs:

Expect questions, like:

Respond:

Be Direct About Not Returning to School, but Not Dramatic

If there is no conversation yet, don’t be afraid to be straightforward and share information about the school closing. You can be ready to share how things are different for you too.

Give information, such as:

Expect questions about not returning to school, like:

Respond:

Resist the Feeling that You Need to Have All the Answers

Recognize that it is okay if you don’t have all the answers.

Figure out answers with your child:

Answer honestly:

Relaunch a Conversation You Want to Continue

If there is more conversation to be had, find a time during a moment of connection—over a meal or in a quiet moment to talk.

Remind the child what they have done before:

Support the Conversation with Your Best Guess

Sometimes a child may not have all the words to describe things, so try filling in the blanks with a guess or a proposal. You might say:

Assure Your Child that You Will Keep Them Safe

Assurances of help and safety should go along with every conversation. Emphasize your confidence in your ability to take care of your child. You might say:

Above all, enjoy the conversations with your young one! In challenging times, remaining in connection and finding your way together will be the most important learning and the most memorable experience.

If you would like to further your understanding of the theory and approach underlying these recommendations as well as the philosophy Sabot teachers use in creating conversations in the classroom, see the full article, “Guidance on Engaging in Tough Conversations with Young Children.”

The post Talking About School Closing and Coronavirus with Young Children appeared first on Sabot at Stony Point .

Settling in for the Long Haul

Thu, 09 Apr 2020 14:13:00 GMT

By Ann Reavey, School Counselor

“Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” – E.L. Doctorow

Photo by Jake Weirick on Unsplash

We know that we must stay at home until June 10th. The enormity of this may seem unbearable. That is why we visit that place of thinking about the long haul, but we don’t live there. We go there to plan, to set goals, to determine support. And then we leave. We do not stay there.

One of my husband’s hobbies is running marathons and ultra-marathons. A race mantra of his is “Run the mile that you are in.” If you are focused on mile 30 when you are running mile 3, you will feel overwhelmed and defeated. You certainly want to prepare and plan for mile 30, but during the race, be present in the moment.

Mental toughness for long-distance running generalizes beautifully for life during a pandemic. Plan and prepare for the future, then pivot to taking one step at a time, one day at a time. It’s too heavy to stay with the big picture for long.

The truth is, our certainty about the future has always been an illusion. We have never had control over the future. However, in life pre-pandemic, we were better able to plan and predict. Now we are faced with the truth that we have no idea what the future holds or how the world will change.

So how do we plan for the long run and also be present in the moment? Our path forward will be unique to our circumstances but here are some considerations.

Plan for the long haul.

Listen to your worries. Be brave and take a moment to sort your worries into what you have control over, what you can influence, or what you have no control over. (See 6 Ways to Stop Worrying About Things You Can’t Control .) Plan to put your energy where you have more control and influence. Some of your worries give you productive information. Act on this information. (The anxiety of “I’m stressed about financial security in the coming months” can be a message to develop a reasonable budget that anticipates limited resources.) Other worries are unproductive and your challenge will be to let those go. If you are a worrier by nature, put a time limit on this activity. If you tend to minimize or avoid your worries, work to stay present and avoid denial. This is tough work, so plan to follow this with a restorative practice of some kind.

Find appropriate and effective supports. We may feel isolated right now, but no one is alone in this. Identify your needs and investigate healthy supports. These may be family members, friends, your church or spiritual community, recovery support, or community mental health professionals. In your long-term planning time, think honestly about your needs. Taking care of yourself is not frivolous. There is great dignity in acknowledging that none of us is super human. Find the help you need. See below for a short list of the many local therapists and supports that are still providing services during this pandemic.

Set goals for healthy stay-at-home habits. We actually develop these healthy habits when we focus on our daily routines, but first we must set our goals. How much news consumption is sustainable for you? What stress-busting habits fit your personality and lifestyle? What is a reasonable balance between convenience and health when considering family meals? How much child-free time do you need to stay sane? It takes a huge cognitive load to revisit these questions daily or multiple times a day. Set aside a time to reflect on your needs, make a plan that is achievable, and follow through. If your goals become unsustainable, revisit and refine.

Focus on the present.

So you have made your plans, set healthy goals, and found an effective support system. Now you need to actually make all this happen! Allow yourself large helpings of grace and compassion. Just do your best with what you have in the moment.

Practice grounding exercises, meditation, or mindfulness. When you begin to feel overwhelmed (maybe your heart rate increases, thoughts race, muscles are tense, stomach is tight or upset, breathing is more shallow), PAUSE. Breathe in. Breathe out. Practice a simple grounding exercise to focus on your senses. Be present to all the messy chaos that may surround you in that moment, and know that this too shall pass. Consider using an app such as Calm or Headspace to help in these moments.

Engage in positive self-talk. Monitor the messages that you send yourself; are they helping or hurting? Consciously change negative self-talk or anxious ruminations into positive affirmations. Practicing mental toughness is powerful. Watch this video on how NFL players use positive self-talk to improve performance. I love using mantras to coach myself through challenges. One of my favorites right now is: This may get harder but I will grow stronger . Try to reframe worries as challenges with your self-talk. One message that I frequently use is: There will be bad days but I love my odds in meeting these challenges. I have gotten through 100% of my bad days so far. That’s an excellent track record.

Exercise and get outside. You have heard this a million times. Here is your reminder one million and one: exercise and outside time boosts your resiliency and reduces your stress. Don’t be a perfectionist about this, just do it! When you are getting caught up in the uncertainty of the future, grab a mask and step outside for a walk around the neighborhood. Notice the blooming flowers, the rainbows on homes, the air on your face. Rain or shine, this is an excellent remedy and one that can involve the whole family.

Be alert for signs that you need more support than you currently have. If your sadness and/or worrying are causing more than temporary struggles in sleeping, eating, or performing normal life functions, seek professional help immediately. Contact one of the practices below or your physician for individual or group support.

Determining goals and developing plans for the future while staying focused on the present moment is not easy. We are each facing enormous challenges. But when we activate our supports and personal resiliencies, we grow stronger. Strong enough to meet the challenges set before us.

Local Counseling/Therapy Resources:

Family Support:

Recovery support:

Other resources:

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Understanding Our Grief

Thu, 02 Apr 2020 20:27:00 GMT

By Ann Reavey, School Counselor

Image by Kenny, 4th grade

One way to understand and manage our current feelings is through the lens of grief. We are currently a global community grieving: Grieving the loss of movement and human interaction. Grieving the loss of important milestones, events, and plans. Grieving the mounting loss of lives.

I know that I have dipped into each of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance) multiple times in one day. Maybe in a single morning?

David Kessler, Kübler-Ross’ collaborator, was recently interviewed in Harvard Business Review on the pandemic and grieving. Kessler’s focus is on adults, but our children are experiencing this grief as well. They are mourning the things they have lost, and those they expect to lose: playdates, recess games, Reading Buddies, the 8th Grade Play, the extended day turtles, and so much more. Children grieve differently than adults but no less deeply.

Kessler’s description of anticipatory grief is powerful. Our anxiety about what the future holds activates our primitive brain so we feel under threat. As we know, our primitive brain is great at fight, flight, or freeze responses but not so great at creative problem-solving. So how do we handle our grief, especially our anticipatory grief?

Consider Kessler’s recommendations for healthy coping:

For children, use the Five Universal Needs of Children that I explored in my last post, Supportive Conversations with Your Child . Also consider Dr. Alan Wolfelt’s suggestions for supporting grieving children . Here are some of his guidelines:

Be patient with yourself and your family as we all move through these stages of grief. Allowing yourself to fully experience your emotions will keep them moving. It won’t always be comfortable but to quote David Kessler, “Let yourself feel the grief and keep going.”

The post Understanding Our Grief appeared first on Sabot at Stony Point .

Supportive Conversations with Your Child

Thu, 26 Mar 2020 20:01:00 GMT

By Ann Reavey, School Counselor

Image by Eliana, 1st Grade

Your children may be asking you some tough questions. When will this end? Will I get sick? When can I see Grandpa again? Will I ever see my friends again? If I wear a mask, why can’t I hang out with my friends?

What do we say when we don’t know? Do we deflect and try not to directly answer the question? Do we give them an honest response and risk having their anxiety spike? Will our hesitation reveal how scared we are and how little we know? Is it okay to say “I don’t know.”?

There are many resources available to help you respond to your child’s worries and questions. (Some of which are posted below.) However, I thought it might be helpful to explore a framework for these difficult conversations.

I’ve adapted Deb Roffman’s Five Universal Needs of Children (originally intended for engaging in conversations around sexual development) to help with these intense and scary questions about COVID-19. The following universal needs are a lens through which we can respond to these tough questions from our children.

Affirmation: Children and adolescents need adults to affirm their curiosity, worry, fears, etc. Validate whatever emotion your child is feeling. It’s okay to have those feelings. It’s okay to have conflicting feelings. It’s okay to not be scared. It’s okay to be really scared.

Information Giving: Children and adolescents need ready sources of factual knowledge about COVID-19 and to have information presented in ongoing and age-appropriate ways. I was impressed that the Prime Minister of Norway held a press conference just for children in order to answer their questions. Try to answer your child’s questions without too much elaboration. If they have follow-up questions, you can answer those, but try not to dump too much information at once. Here is a helpful resource from Common Sense Media for explaining the news to your child.

Values Clarification: Children and adolescents need adults to clearly share their personal values, and as children become more socially aware, they need adults to clarify and interpret competing values that they witness around them. Why are the neighbors having a party when we can’t see our friends? Why can’t we just go visit Grandma? Without judging, clearly state your values and how they have informed your perspective and decisions.

Limit Setting: Children and adolescents need adults to create a healthy and safe environment by clearly stating and consistently reinforcing age-appropriate rules and limits. It really does make children feel safer to have boundaries (more information on this can be found in the book Negotiation Generation by Lynne Reeves Griffin).

Anticipatory Guidance: Children and adolescents need adults to help them learn how to make healthy choices. What does six feet really look like? How long is 20 seconds and how can you make sure you wash your hands long enough? What can I do when I feel lonely? What can I do when I need to get my energy out?

These five universal needs provide a solid foundation for support and dialogue. They reinforce a loving, respectful parenting relationship that honors your child’s emotion and cognition while providing the necessary guidance and protection.

These conversations will not be easy for you or for your child. Processing these restrictions and changes will be a grieving process. (I will address this process specifically in an upcoming blog post.) It’s okay for your child to see your emotions. Talk about how you feel as you also talk about how you are managing and coping. Right now, it’s essential to explicitly talk about your strategies for regulating your emotions. This is important information and modeling for your child.

Remember that your child cannot support you, so be sure to find appropriate ways to regulate your own fears and worries. Call a friend, set up video chats with family or neighbors, meditate, play music, be in nature, etc. Sabot friends, please remember that you can always email me if you are struggling.

Additional Resources:

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COVID-19 Coping

Fri, 20 Mar 2020 13:09:00 GMT

By Ann Reavey, School Counselor

Photo: Jess Lucia

With the COVID-19 pandemic, we are facing unprecedented times. School closures and social distancing are keeping us at home and isolated from friends and extended family. As I’m sure you’ve discovered by now, this can present some obstacles, and if we take care of one another, opportunities as well. Below, you’ll find some ideas for creating success in homebound learning and living. This is a lot of information but my guess is that you are already practicing much of it!

Establish a rhythm of the day.
Whether your child is a preschooler or a middle schooler, establish a rhythm of the day. I use this phrase rather than “establish a schedule” intentionally. Some children (and adults) respond better to flexibility, others to a more rigid schedule. Think broadly about the rhythm of the day and how that will work for your family. Different days may have different rhythms.

Focus on regularity around sleeping and eating times. Creating a visual schedule of the rhythm of the day (learning time, snack time, playtime, reading time, lunchtime, etc.) is helpful for children of all ages and learning styles. Transitioning between activities can be hard for children; make sure you plan accordingly. Transition songs help with younger children and advance notice helps with all ages. Consistency and routine will support smooth transitions.

Limit media exposure for your child. And for you.
It’s super important for the adults in the family to have accurate data on the quickly changing landscape of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, set aside a time or two to get caught up with the news and then turn it off. Too much time focusing on things that are outside of our control is stressful.

If your child is older (middle school), some information may be helpful and may relieve stress. However, for most children (especially preschool and lower school), the tone and tenor of news shows can be extremely stressful and scary. Children need to feel that home is a protected, safe space, and media coverage of COVID-19 can increase a child’s feeling of a lack of control. Of course, this will depend on your child and their age, but make sure that you err on the side of being cautious.

Take time to talk with your child.
Check in with them about how they are feeling. Verbally expressing emotions is tough for younger children (preschool through second grade) so start by talking about how the body feels. “My stomach hurts.” “I feel like crying.” “I want to jump around.” “I want to punch a pillow.” These physical sensations can be clues to our emotions. You and your child can be Feelings Detectives!

Patty Wipfler’s organization, Hand in Hand Parenting , provides excellent resources for building powerful parent-child connections through deep listening .

A daily check-in at mealtime – formally or informally – can provide a time for support and problem-solving. Children will drop one to two developmental levels when under stress. Be prepared for some regression and lack of emotional regulation at some point during this time of social distancing.

Create space.
Determine what each person’s needs are: Will you be sharing a family desktop? Does your child need supervision or support for learning? Do you need space and quiet time for conference calls? Will there be added chores to negotiate and schedule? Are there off-limit areas?

Each student should have a workspace for connected learning. Where this is will depend greatly on who your child is as a learner. Do they need more supervision? Do they need quiet and privacy? You may want to install stronger parental controls during this time so that online learning time does not turn into binging YouTube.

Establish clear expectations.
If you absolutely need space and quiet for working from home, be clear about this with your children. Determine how each person can be successful in making this happen. Respect the rhythm of the day (see above) and try to refrain from scheduling an important video conference during noisy times (e.g. mealtimes, transition times, free play, etc.).

If you have a child who needs support with learning, be clear about when you will be available for this support.

Plan time for play.
Remember that time for screen-free imaginative play is essential stress relief for all ages. Combining this with outdoor time would be ideal. Take some time to play family board games and card games. Draw together. Have your child teach you the mindful magic of sketching. For more ideas, visit Atelierista Anna’s Instagram .

Create space and time for online connections with friends. We will all need to find ways to be with each other virtually for the safety of our family, friends, and neighbors.

Plan time for exercise.
Renee Kunnen, phys. ed. teacher, has this one covered! Check out Renee’s YouTube videos on exercises for the whole family . Get outside as much as possible and move your body!

Avoid excessive screen time.
It’s understandable to use movies, TV, and video games as independent activities for your child, but use these intentionally. I usually recommend treating these activities as family time for children. Take this opportunity to learn how to play your middle schooler’s favorite video game, try your hand at Minecraft, or watch your child’s favorite YouTube star.

Find a moment.
Don’t forget to take just one moment to be present, to be mindful, to be grounded. Martin Boroson’s How to Meditate in a Moment is a short, fun video for the whole family.

Phew! This is a ton of information! Take your time to digest this. As the Sabot teachers always say, “I know this is hard, and I know you can do it.”

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Peer Feedback in the Middle School

Mon, 24 Feb 2020 17:45:00 GMT

by the 2019-20 Middle School Teacher-Researchers

At Sabot, students look to their peers for answers, thought-provoking questions, and engagement. The dialogue that occurs student-to-student builds understanding and an agency for learning, which is the foundation for constructivism, an important educational approach at Sabot. In these interactions with their peers, students provide and receive feedback, which influences their learning and decisions and ignites motivation and innovation.

The Cycle of Inquiry

Sabot students are encouraged to develop a growth mindset when teachers scaffold peer feedback in the classroom. The teacher’s role in this process can take many forms depending on the situation. At times, teachers give immediate, clear, and concise feedback so that it is meaningful and relative to the students. At other times, the teacher’s role is to give the students space to take risks, make mistakes, and collaborate. Whichever role the teacher chooses, they enable students to make connections between the conceptual and procedural understanding of the concepts.

Students learn that the teacher often doesn’t provide an answer, but instead supports the student as they seek the answer. Students learn to look to their peers as they collaboratively seek answers to questions. These questions then initiate new questions in a cycle of inquiry.

With this constant questioning encouraged, feedback is often embedded in group discussions. As questions are raised, the teacher will remind students that someone else had asked the same and could be a resource. The teacher may reflect back to them a similar or new question with the intention of encouraging them to dig a little deeper or redirect their inquiry. Feedback, in this way, may simply question, and it looks different in this form. It isn’t as neat or as straight of a line to the “answer.” It is certainly not the “yes, that’s right” or “no, try again” answer students might expect or even want. In fact, initially, it can be frustrating for students who think finding the answer is the goal.

As we so often discuss as faculty, the goal is usually the process and not the product. Providing questions as support encourages the process and ultimately gives students a richer classroom experience.

Constructive Feedback: Practice and Skill-Building

Sabot teachers scaffold students as they develop skills in providing truly useful and effective feedback. We use two guiding principles to scaffold the students’ feedback: it must be positive, and it must suggest constructive change. When providing feedback, our students are encouraged to look for what they like about the work they are reviewing. This not only helps the student receiving feedback to feel more comfortable but encourages the student reviewer to think carefully about their own work as well as the work they are reviewing. This “positive first” approach makes the reviewee more comfortable with what the reviewer has to say, though providing constructive feedback can still be tricky.

The teacher and the reviewer focus on particular skills that are being targeted. This scaffolding often takes the form of questions that the student may consider as they review the work. “How did the writer come to their conclusion?” or “How did the writer determine that their data was, or was not, accurate?” are questions that require the reviewer to think about how they would have demonstrated the skill and then compare to what the reviewee actually did. This requires a higher level of thinking by the reviewer.

When students give each other feedback, it’s important that they discuss not only how and what type of feedback to give, but also how to be receptive to feedback. It is never about defending their work; the work should speak for itself. Students learn to embrace the feedback given by their peers, knowing that they ultimately have the choice of whether or not to apply it. Peers are encouraged to ask questions in addition to offering suggestions. This helps to keep the tone of the discussion neutral and helpful. It is not always easy for middle school students to make themselves vulnerable in front of their peers, but the students know that their peers are invested in helping them.

In Civinomix, students choose a meta-topic – this year it’s the social contract – and then proceed to research subtopics. They present their findings in a series of witty, often humorous, sometimes didactic, provocative, educational skits. A key part of the method is for students to present drafts of their skits in front of their peers and then receive and incorporate feedback in subsequent drafts.

We ask the writer(s): How did it play for you? Did it achieve your objectives? After seeing it live, can you already see things you want to change or do differently? We ask members of the cast: Did the scene make sense to you? Do you have suggestions on how to develop the characters or the language differently? We ask the audience: Do you think the scene worked? What was the author’s purpose? Do you think the scene, as constructed, will stimulate our audience? What adjustments do we need to make to integrate the scene to the entire play? Only after the authors have heard from each of these distinct sub-groups does the teacher offer constructive criticism and suggestions (most often on how to develop or expand content).

Recursive Writing as Peer Feedback

Middle school students are becoming more independent and less concrete in their thinking, and are, therefore, ready for more complex conceptual studies. It is often the case that students arrive at a conceptual understanding of a process or strategy for problem-solving before they are able to describe it using precise language. In a classroom where co-construction is the basis for students’ understanding of the material, the practice of using precise language becomes imperative.

Students learn to write and develop projects recursively – we outline/brainstorm, draft, peer edit, and revise our work. Feedback is essential to revise the representation of our ideas with clarity and precision. As a class, we co-construct an understanding and set expectations for a “good” piece of work. What does it need? What does organization, evidence, or analysis look like when it’s approaching, meeting, or exceeding our expectations? How can we represent this information on a spectrum which is easy to understand? Once we’ve agreed upon answers to these questions, we share the rubric for use throughout the process.

After students have created their first draft, we sit down together, take out our criteria, and swap our work with at least two peers. It’s important that students understand that what they are evaluating is a piece of work, but not the student who created it, their capabilities, nor their character. Students are asked to provide feedback by citing the criteria and writing their own feedback directly on the draft. They practice remaining open to learning by taking in all constructive criticism from their peers and making sure that they understand it. Whether providing criticism or receiving it for their work, all students involved strive to communicate clearly and to ask follow up questions to clarify intent. Agency, too, is important to more fruitful feedback and is achieved by listening with empathy and speaking up for themselves. Students help one another to be better communicators and editors of the many languages we explore here at Sabot and beyond.

One way that students reflect upon their learning in math is by writing a personal mathematical reflection essay in which they detail what they have learned over an investigation or mini-unit and describe, to the best of their ability, the different strategies they use for solving problems. In order to be understood by their peers and understand what their peers are saying, they must know the more precise details in the way they describe these processes. In writing this down, another student may look at this process and be able to give the writer feedback that helps them develop not only a better understanding of what is really happening in this strategy, but also gives insight into why precise language is important in mathematics. They start to realize that precise language is necessary to gain intersubjectivity.

With constant questioning, discussion, and writing, students receive valuable and meaningful feedback from their peers and benefit from analyzing, appraising, and evaluating their peers’ work.

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Bridges and Boats: Problem Solving in Fifth Grade

Thu, 16 Jan 2020 14:34:00 GMT

By Jon Patmore and Marla Wilson, Fifth Grade Teacher-Researchers

What do you do when you are faced with a problem? You might complain. You might try to ignore the problem, hope it goes away, or just do something else instead. You might try to fix it by doing something that has worked to solve other problems in the past or try something random and cross your fingers. However, to solve a new problem, you might decide to use some sort of strategic approach. One such approach is the design cycle . Another more formal, documentation-based strategy is the scientific method .

Problems big and small arise in just about every area of our lives. In fifth grade, as part of our effort to support and foster problem-solving across the curriculum, we incorporate the design cycle and the beginnings of the scientific method into our work. These systems are critical to internalize if we are going to solve problems that have not been solved before, whether by us or ever, at all.

Problem-solving comes up in every subject area, and it is a primary human activity. (Even non-humans work to fix things and figure things out.) However, at Sabot, we take a social constructivist approach, so we emphasize another dimension in our process: teamwork. We not only ask the students to implement the design cycle and the scientific method individually, but also as a group. This means the class can work together to define a problem, learn from the mistakes and insights some might make or have, and reflect on the range of results that everyone gets.

The group approach is important, not just in the context of the classroom, but for us as citizens of the world. It is no longer enough to problem-solve as individuals. In the STEM fields, for example, the isolated genius making breakthroughs in their personal laboratory is a relic of the past. Teams work with other teams and collaborate to try to solve problems more complicated than any individual mind can tackle.

In Math/Coding/Science, we have been focusing on using the design cycle, first applying this approach (Define the problem; Research and access past knowledge; Try a solution; Reflect and improve) to the tinfoil boat challenge. The goal was to make a boat from a 12” x 12” sheet of foil which could hold as many pennies as possible, with a homework pass on the line as the prize (for anyone needing a little bit of external motivation). Per the rules of the challenge, each team of two would receive two sheets of tinfoil, one at a time, and each team would have two trials.

Faced with a problem to solve, partners could–and did–construct the knowledge necessary to build an effective tinfoil boat together. However, as the class went through the design and building process, teams also observed each others’ trials. This gave them the benefit of up to eight trials per round, not just their own.

Each team had many theories about what would help a foil boat carry the most weight in Round One. A reinforced hull! A pocket of air! An enclosure over the top! Scrunching the foil to make it thicker! But, after Weston and Carlin’s boat, with a moderately tall, rounded hull, and a flat bottom, floated a mind-boggling 297 pennies (We ran out of pennies before it sank) everyone’s design began to look more alike.

From there, at least three interesting things happened in the problem-solving process:

We had a second challenge for those who had time: make the tiniest boat (as measured in tinfoil area) which would float one penny. Teams each got a total of one 12” x12” sheet of foil and could make as many small boat iterations as the sheet would allow. Nathan and Harper won this challenge. This time, they made the first tiny boat to float a penny at all and then made several trials, removing small bits of foil each time.

By this point, the group had formed new knowledge from their work with the boats. We wanted to support them to access that knowledge, but we also wanted to make sure that the third challenge was just different enough to make using the design cycle necessary again. Teams had to make a bridge from a single piece of paper and no more than five paper clips that would support as many pennies as possible. Again, there was a homework pass in it for the pair whose bridge held the most. But this time, we saw a huge difference. On the morning the challenge began, each team wanted to build a wall around their work and not let anyone see or hear them. They were afraid that sharing their ideas with others would cost them.

After lunch, we reconvened the group and asked them to say what they could get out of this challenge. Their ideas were:

We reminded the group that these lessons were about problem-solving more than anything else. Then, we pointed out that, for the challenges we face today as a species, we are going to have to work together in order to succeed. No single person or idea is going to undo climate change, for example. Furthermore, we wanted each individual fully engaged in the project, using their best thinking to move the group as a whole forward. We asked them how to restructure the challenge so that they could learn from each other and work hard as individuals. Their suggestion was: if the group can get every team to build a bridge that will hold 150 pennies, everyone would win a homework pass. Knowing that one team had already reached the 150 penny mark, we upped the number to 160. Otherwise, we agreed.

As soon as we dismissed the group, the atmosphere changed completely. Barricades came down immediately and people began sharing their best suggestions with other groups.

The first two teams officially tested their bridges. They are similar in concept, involving cylindrical structures with holes for placing the pennies. Both of those teams breathed sighs of relief amid cheers from classmates and teachers when they reached 160 pennies, and both teams wanted to keep going. Each of their structures eventually held over two hundred pennies. Bragging rights may still be involved.

This process shows up in different forms throughout the classroom. In Science, we are working toward using the scientific method to design, conduct, and report out on plant experiments. The group is charged with giving feedback and approval for moving forward. In Literacy, we are reading a complex mystery, and the class is collaborating on solving it by collecting clues, tracking strands, and sharing theories with the group. In Village, citizens are writing laws to address issues as they arise. The laws are subject to revision and voting by the class.

Throughout all of these seemingly diverse projects and lessons, the class is learning content and process. They are also learning to harness the power of thinking and refining their ideas as a group, which will ultimately equip them to solve the problems of the future.

The post Bridges and Boats: Problem Solving in Fifth Grade appeared first on Sabot at Stony Point .

Exploring Our Own Story: Finding the Educator Within Us

Wed, 18 Dec 2019 21:07:00 GMT

By Marty Gravett

What do our childhood experiences of education bring to our adult experiences of teaching and learning? While most of us would agree, theoretically, that it is hard to teach in a way we haven’t learned, the harder part is the next step: learning from those early experiences. How do we develop an understanding or become metacognitive about these experiences? How do we explore deeply enough to impact our classroom (or even parenting) approach so that we can find a more responsive lens for our teaching and learning?

Our goals are threefold: to become metacognitive about our early experiences; to keep the image of children who deserve understanding and adult belief, who seek justice, and who inspire our new ways of being with children; and to explore the central role of pursuing a culture of engagement and an ethos of studio-thinking. These are the goals, but what is the process?

One central way is exploring story – our own story and the stories of our colleagues. Over the years, we have invited parents and our professional colleagues to remember a learning experience from their early years that stood out – a story that still resonates with them years later. We invite them to tell us and one another about experiences that put them in the center of the experience as a learner.

We recently took on this exercise while consulting with the faculty at a Reggio-inspired school in Florida. The learning experiences they described had many remarkable similarities. Their stories included mysteries and questions which were authentic and filled with choice and possibility; they often included messy and tactile experiences; they embraced relationships, shared experiences, connections to teachers, their parents, their friends; the experience often offered new windows on the world and new ways to think; and frequently the stories embodied hard questions and high standards.

To us, these sound like the foundation for rich moments in any classroom, almost like a template for the extraordinary teaching and learning we would want for any child. So we invite you to explore your own story. Start with the story that has the most salience from your childhood schooling. Reflect on it for a few moments on your own, then find someone with whom to share it. Maybe you want to reciprocate and listen to their story as well. Can you go a little further and compare your experiences? In this co-construction, what elements emerge, and what do they tell you about what you want in your teaching or parenting experience and what your children might want? Looking to story is important in any classroom: not only for the children in the classroom but for the child we all carry within.

While consulting is not new on the Sabot Institute’s docket, what is new is traveling to a public charter in Florida to spend time with teachers in a newly launched Reggio-inspired experiment in education. The Creative Inspiration Journey School (CIJS) opened its doors in August of 2019 and in October, invited Sabot Institute consultants, Irene Carney and Marty Gravett to spend two days in their K through 5 custom-built school. CIJS faculty have spent many a day on the Sabot campus observing in classrooms and jumping into conversations with Sabot educators but with a growing faculty, they were ready for the next step: onsite consulting.

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Matching Grant: You Did It!

kdonegan@sabotschool.org (Kelsey Donegan) — Fri, 06 Dec 2019 19:45:01 GMT

YOU DID IT!

YOU DID IT! Because of your generosity, we have secured the $250,000 grant from The Mary Morton Parsons Foundation! This is an extraordinary gift to the capital campaign — in fact, only the second gift of this size in Sabot’s history — and we are incredibly grateful for their belief in our school.

Thank you to each of you who gave so generously. Over the five weeks of our Fall Challenge, we received 145 gifts totaling $66,890. Your incredible support will not only fund a building, it will fund community cohesion, pride of place, and promises for our children’s future.

The Five Rs: A Learning Paradigm Embracing Reggio Fundamentals and Habits of Mind

Fri, 22 Nov 2019 18:11:00 GMT

By Mary Driebe, Director of Teaching & Learning; Marty Gravett, Director of Early Childhood Education; Anna Golden, Atelierista; and Tom Bendel, Head of School

After our first decade of Reggio inspiration, Sabot framed an understanding of our work to share with the numerous visitors coming to our door. We distilled the many fundamentals of the Reggio approach into an overview of our educational philosophy that today we call the Five Rs.

We extended our understanding of what being Reggio-inspired provides Sabot students by adopting Costa and Kallick’s patterns of intellectual behavior, the so-called Habits of Mind . The fundamentals of Reggio and the 16 Habits of Mind blend well and come alive in the classroom. They provide a through-line to describe this dynamic pathway of learning, which stretches from 2-year-olds to 8th graders.

Now in our third decade of being Reggio-inspired, we focus on each of the Five Rs in interactions and learning with students and encourage them to develop and use the correlative Habits of Mind in their work. They are described by Arthur Costa as learning processes that “human beings use when they behave intelligently.” He goes on to say that “Educational outcomes in traditional settings focus on how many answers a student knows. When we teach for the Habits of Mind, we are interested also in how students behave when they don’t know an answer.”

These frameworks guide Sabot students to be intentional about their learning processes. They are a bridge to the development of an engaged and curious learner at any age and are a common thread linking the educational journey through Sabot’s preschool, lower school, and middle school.

If an ant colony is noticed in the garden, students become curious. They observe the ants and wonder “What does an ant colony look like underground?” Students may participate in conversations, collaborate with other grades, and interview etymologists. They will begin to theorize and communicate their theories to others in writing or in a studio language. Because new knowledge is created in a social context, it’s important that children can show each other their hypotheses and ideas.

To help scaffold their discovery, teachers might ask: How might you find more information to answer your questions? How did another person’s idea change your thinking? Where was the break down that led to your misunderstanding or mistake? What are the most important parts of (the idea you’re researching) to you? How can you take this and apply it in the future?

Students represent their thinking through many media and methods accessed through classroom mini-studios or the main studio. When students shift their thinking from one symbolic language to another, each transformation generates something new. Representation builds solidarity and intersubjectivity amongst peers and within a learning community.

At Sabot, the teacher’s role is guided by close observation and knowledge of the children around us. Teachers provide just enough help to propel learning but step back as soon as learners can move forward on their own. We coach and scaffold students to remain intentional in their decision making, to accept feedback, and to reflect on the process as it unfolds.

Learners operate in the zone of proximal development, which is the thin line that divides challenging from overwhelming. With support from a teacher or a schoolmate, students can come to understand how they work best and what they need as learners in order to persist and strive for accuracy. With this self-knowledge, children take ownership of their own learning and see that they are responsible to share their learning strategies and new understandings with others.

The Sabot learning community is committed to students connecting and listening to each other, and teachers work hard to cultivate a learning community based on trust and relationship. This is a school where everyone teaches and everyone learns, but co-constructing meaning and developing intersubjectivity are not skills that can be learned quickly. Skills for collaborative learning require foundation building and practice, coaching, scaffolding, tears, frustration, and grit. This is very different from just learning to cooperate.

Children often try on many hats throughout their development. If I manipulate what happens? If I misrepresent the truth or I push a friend… do I get what I want? Teachers at Sabot are in the business of asking students to stop and consider. Did that choice get you what you wanted? At what cost to you? How did it impact your classmate and ultimately your learning community?

At the heart of this work is the image of the child as an actively engaged learner. We strive to empower them to make decisions for their learning and let their curiosity lead them to discovery. We scaffold these decisions and curiosity with the framework of the Five Rs and help them reflect on their progress using the Habits of Mind.

The Five Rs and Their Correlating Habits of Mind

Research

Representation

Reflection

Reach

Relationship

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A Pathway Through Feelings to the Thinking Brain

Tue, 17 Sep 2019 13:27:00 GMT

(or How Can We Support Children in Getting to Their Thinking Brain?)

By Marty Gravett, Director of Early Childhood Education

There is a paradox afoot in learning communities. While it makes enormous sense to respect the feelings and pay attention to the social-emotional life of children, allowing and encouraging children to make decisions based on their emotions – their feelings at the moment – is counter to their well being. Feelings are not a good source of decision making. We want children (and ourselves) to be making decisions from a rational place: from our thinking brain, not our feeling brain.

For more than 40 years, both popular parenting and educators’ literature have addressed this topic and given us this information from countless angles. In fact, this body of work looks a lot like we have sent in a blind-folded team to describe an elephant; each observation is one part of the larger whole. Alfie Kohn, noted American author, lecturer, and educator, tells us we are undercutting children by rewarding them in myriad ways, including with our constant reliance on saying “good job!” This phrase, among others, stops the child from considering their own work or judging their own behavior, and it gives over the child’s internal locus of control to the adult. Nancy Samalin, author and host of popular books on parenting including, Loving Your Child is Not Enough , minted the phrase “the happiness trap” to describe the hamster wheel parents find themselves on while infinitely trying to make the child happy. More recently, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt and free speech expert, Greg Lukianoff, in The Coddling of the American Mind , tell us that many students are arriving at college without ever having faced challenges and thus lack the resilience that struggle helps a person to create.

Embedded in the work of all of these authors is the premise that there is a cultural misunderstanding about the role of emotions in the lives of children. The consensus among this literature is that teachers and parents can take an active role in addressing the misunderstanding, perhaps redressing it. But still, this misunderstanding persists. Patty Wipfler, founder and program director of the Hand in Hand Parenting Institute , makes this cultural misunderstanding more explicit than most and gives us some ideas about how to proceed. She tells us it is important to respect the emotional challenge and turmoil children feel, but then it is necessary to take steps to help them move through these feelings in order to get to their good, rational thinking. And so the question we ask ourselves is “how can we support children in getting to their thinking brain?”

Patty Wipfler gives an important answer: Listen. This is not only the title of her 2016 book but is also the advice she offers all of us… LISTEN to children. At Sabot, this is a critical part of our language of respect. Like many progressive and most Reggio-inspired schools, we observe and share children’s thinking, enabling us to create this language. Listening with the whole heart and whole mind is not only an act of respect, it sometimes prompts a healing or an emotionally relieving response and can help the child (or anyone) move through an emotional challenge to a place where they can think more clearly. Be warned, the process is sometimes messy as, often, children need to tantrum, cry, rage, sweat, or act enormously silly as a way to get rid of (or discharge) overwhelming feelings. But once through those feelings, the child can regain a balance – a new perspective – and can even come back into connection with those around them and think rationally.

The classic example is the child who bristled when their cheese for snack was not the same shape as their friend’s cheese cube. When the adult said, “They are just about the same size; it is hard to cut them exactly,” the child began to cry then ultimately rage, stamping their feet. At that point, the adult realized the big feelings this child was having were not because the cheese was the wrong shape but that there was some other big feeling about how something was not right in their world. Perhaps the child had a fight with an older sibling that morning or was triggered to remember a small trauma from another time. Often, the person supporting the child with big feelings will never know what precipitated them. And so, in this story, the teacher waited calmly while the child processed these big feelings and let the child know, “It’s okay to cry,” and “I can be right here with you.” The adult also briefly reassured the child that they would get through these feelings and feel better again – a necessary reminder because it is difficult for anyone (adults included) to remember that they will get to the other side of such huge discomfort.

Granted these feelings can get too large for a teacher, a classroom, or a family, and the child may need more therapeutic help. But in the normal course of children’s development, helping children get to their thinking brain is not only desirable, it is entirely possible. The first step is having an adult who is willing to listen, who is an ally, who is willing to make a connection with the child.

References Sabot uses to guide our language of respect and our listening approach to help children to stay connected with us, with their peers, and with their clear thinking include:

Punished by Rewards , (1993) Alfie Kohn

The Blessing of a Skinned Knee , (2001) Wendy Mogel

How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk (2012 Edition) Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish

Love and Logic Magic for Early Childhood: Practical Parenting from Birth to Six (2015) Jim Fay and Dr. Charles Fay

The Power of Our Words: Teacher Language that Helps Children Learn , 2nd Edition, (2015) Paula Denton and Lynn Bechtel

Listen (2016) Patty Wipfler and Tosha Schore

The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure , (2019) Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt

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Field Day 2019

Sat, 25 May 2019 22:36:00 GMT

The theme for this year’s Field Day was “All About Irene”. The children created signs, pictures and poems to represent their love for Irene. Each of the stations was Irene-related. As you can see below, it was such a fun day!

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Unpacking The Nest: Mini Stories Inspired By A Box

Wed, 15 May 2019 02:00:00 GMT

Notice how Henry’s body language gives an indication that he might like to help Emerson move down the slide. A teacher made a choice to say, “Henry, Are you trying to help Emerson slide? You could say, Emerson, Can I help You?” We look for opportunities to support the body language and possible intentions of children so that we can support them with language. Collaboration can happen with very few words or no words at all but children can learn to be more specific in their own ideas and intentions and relationships can deepen when they can add words to tell more of their story.

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Transitioning From Home To The Nest, A Program For Two Year Olds

Wed, 15 May 2019 01:08:00 GMT

Jon and Chris revel in the light pooled together from the candles Jon chose to gather…

Jon and Chris revel in the light pooled together from the candles Jon chose to gather… Chris made a plan with Jon to play together for a few minutes when they entered the classroom. After putting things away and washing hands, Jon collected the tea lights from the darkened classroom. He and his dad shared mutual delight at the glowing candles. After spending some time together, Jon seemed ready to say goodbye to his dad and gleefully pushed him out the door! Jon turned to his new friends and teachers and enjoyed the day at school. Noticing how these interactions seemed to calm Jon, we shared their experience with other parents and children and they too spent time with their child playing with materials they had chosen. We wonder if this quality time spent between parent and child with materials in the classroom made the Nest a safe space bridging their home to school.

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Unpacking the Nest

Fri, 03 May 2019 19:20:00 GMT

(Part One)

This year we have a new program to Sabot, the Nest. A classroom designated for 2 years old and up, in a small cottage just outside the walls of our garden. It is different in that the youngest children on campus actually stay in the Nest all day— even if they come early and stay late. The staff changes halfway through the day— and this is different too. In some ways this mirrors the way things happen in Reggio a little more than in other Sabot classrooms.

Over last summer the space indoors and out was lovingly transformed by our facilities crew (mainly Pippin). We selected some basic furniture, rugs, and staples like a light table and a sensory table. Blackout curtains were installed for nap time. The bathroom was outfitted with a double toilet seat that fits both adults and children and an adult sink was put in along with a little fridge and countertop.

Filling a new classroom with materials was a bit daunting. We’d inherited many things from classrooms around the preschool but a reggio-inspired classroom often has the accumulation of years of natural and studio materials that can be used. Also we needed to consider licensing and two-year old likely behavior so we couldn’t use anything smaller than a ping pong ball to start (with the risk of children “mouthing” the items or choking on them).

As we unpacked the tables and cubbies and put them all together, we built up a pile of interesting packing pieces. Short cardboard tubes, corner stays, foam corner pieces, sheets of thin foam, and of course, boxes. Very quickly we both decided that we’d use these materials as the main “stuff” of the beginning of our year. The foam blocks stack with some thought and won’t hurt anyone when knocked down. The foam strips were a satisfying weight and length. What child doesn’t love a big box! We wondered what the children might do with all of these alluring yet pedestrian materials.

Six months later the Nest children are still using some of them. The short cardboard tubes prop up led candles and provide support in micro play with our little bird figurines. The long foam pieces wrap around people’s bodies or turn into lawnmowers, ramps, and things for tapping friends on their bodies with humor.

Our first box went from a box to climb into…

to a box to slide on..

to an outside slide.

We got two more boxes later, then a third, which were used in more architectural endeavors. And still, when there was that kind of moment, the children liked to climb inside and surprise each other, sometimes with eruptions of giggling that lasted all morning. What we witnessed at those moments was early relationship building, the moment of connection when two children’s eyes met as the box flaps opened. The boxes shortcut what could have been a more lengthy process of bonding and creating shared joy. Most importantly all of it was spontaneously prompted by the construct of the box itself.

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Bike Week

Sat, 27 Apr 2019 04:21:00 GMT

We concluded biking in PE with a run-bike-run duathlon in each grade. The duathlons tend to be a culmination of the sportsmanship principles we work on all year. At each grade level it is fun to see the students support one another as well as try their own personal best. It gives them a chance to take responsible risk as they work towards accomplishing a goal. Below are some photos from the past two weeks.

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Chewing on an Idea

Wed, 17 Apr 2019 01:38:00 GMT

by Andrea Pierotti, Kindergarten Teacher-Researcher

In Kindergarten, we’ve been reading about changemakers, people who have found ways to make the world a better place by taking a stand against injustices in many forms. We’ve thought about ideas from workers’ rights to civil rights, from women’s rights to rights for those who are differently-abled.

How are the children connecting to these ideas?

What are they coming to understand by hearing these stories?

For a while, the children sat and listened. They asked questions. They were taking it all in.

More recently, they have started to make connections between stories. They have noticed, for example, that many of these figures read books and educated themselves about the world, they speak up for themselves and others in peaceful ways and they often gain inspiration from other humans making a difference.

We can tell the children are chewing on these ideas.

They are writing their own changemaker books. They comment frequently about connections they are making to the stories we’ve studied together. We also see them chewing on these ideas through play.

Last week we had some injustices show up at our very own Kindergarten dramatic play vet shop.

We love to see the children making sense of these big ideas in their own ways. It leaves us wondering how these stories will impact them moving forward. We wonder together how WE can make a difference. How can we make Kindergarten a better place to be? We know they are starting to see themselves as forces for good.

“When someone gets hurt, I can help them up and get them a band-aid.”

“I don’t think it is okay that a few people’s decisions are making it hard for everyone. We want to get to recess!”

“I spoke up when someone wasn’t treating my friend kindly. I’m not OK with that.”

What will the world look like when we’re all feeling ready to reach out in kindness and ready to speak up about injustices we see?

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Poetic Metacognition, Vol. 3

Tue, 16 Apr 2019 00:07:00 GMT

Here is our final poet who responded to their original work:

Cats

Cats pounce about,

So nice and keen,

But when they see a single bug,

There eyes get a vicious gleam.

They wiggle their little behinds,

And crouch down to spring,

But nothing they do can reach the flying bugs,Yes, not a thing.

So they jump,

And leap,

And say in their little kitty speak:

“Get that bug! It’s right over the jug!

The one with the water!”

But the cats try, all they can,

Until one of their daughters says:

“Listen now, we could reach it,

If we can use teamwork and persistence,

Then we’ll teach it!”

And then erupts a mighty cat cheer!

While the bug,

Trembles in fear.

They jump, and bounce,

one tries a little kitty pounce,

But nothing reaches the small bug.

They form a cat ladder, and make quite the clatter,

Bringing in the little kids trampoline.

They pounce, then bounce,

And reach the bug!

The cats give off a cheer,

Their persistence and teamwork paid off,

So remember,

Next time you see a moth,

You can always get a friend to help you.

And the response:

4/2/19

Cats By Xander

Cats is my poem about a clatter of cats on a quest to kill a small bug that’s on the ceiling, so doing something ridiculously stupid because a small fly is on the ceiling and cats don’t have wings, so yey, purrfect oppurrtunity (heh, heh, purring jokes) anyway, in this response I will tell you three different things in my poem, tell you how I meant for them to be and how they are through the creator’s eyes.

So there you have it! 3 things in my poem Cats that I did not intend to be like that but whatever, how the cats are described, how the cats cheer but when you think about it you realise they are just meowing, and the cats dragging in the trampoline, I actually made this poem myself and really like it, because cats, I also have a few more that I typed up and printed out, I would like to recommend this poem to anyone who likes cats and funny poems.

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Poetic Metacognition Vol. 2

Tue, 16 Apr 2019 00:02:00 GMT

Here is the second of our three poets who responded to and analyzed their own work:

(Reese added line numbers so she could cite her lines, they were not part of the original poem.

My poem…..

FALLING

By: Reese

Dear Marla and Vanessa,

This is the poem that I will be responding to this week;

FALLING

1 The leaves fall,

2 Onto the dusty ground,

3 down

4 Away from the trees

5 Drying up

6 A fool of sorrow,

7 Forever living,

8 But it’s not a life

9 Forever falling

10 The trees stand taller than before

11 Over top

12 Higher up

13 Always growing

14 Into what used to be

15 And the trees,

16 They reign their world

While writing this poem, my intentions were to say that people who bully others seem to have higher expectations for people. I wrote this poem about someone who thinks highly of themselves. I used the fall season as a literary device to symbolize conflict from people that may exclude or are mean to others. I did not write this poem to point out people or things, but personally, I think that this shouldn’t be happening in the world. I symbolized the lesson with leaves and trees to display this situation in a way that would be more meaningful and easier to understand/picture in your mind.

Throughout the poem, I implied that the leaves are “lower” than the trees. The trees are to symbolize people who are mean, jealous, or think they are better, ect.,ect. The “leaves” are to symbolize people who are being bullied or have a low self esteem, ect.,ect.

My first example is from lines 1-9.

Throughout these lines I explain about the leaves falling onto the ground. As in the poem, it says: “fall onto the dusty ground down away from the trees”, I tried to make this as a perspective of what the “tree” people would think about the “leaf” people. So, because these two types of people aren’t fond of each other, I made the ground “dusty” and the “leaf people” are falling onto it. And as I wrote “forever falling” in line 9, they are forever falling into the dusty ground. In other words, always going to be lower than “me” ( tree person perspective only for the poem.) always going to be a “bad person”. That is what I think a “tree person” would be thinking about.

Going back to lines 4-8.

The leaves fall farther from the trees, meaning they never get closer to “the trees’ level”. On lines 5 and 6, I wrote about the leaves drying up, and a fool of sorrow. What I was implying was that once the leaves were on the ground, they would stay there forever. I also said this in line 9. I did this so a certain lesson would be told in different analogies. When I wrote “fool of sorrow” it meant that technically, the trees were the king, and the leaves were the fools of the sorrow. Sorrow as in sadness and a fool of it, would be a very sad and miserable life. Some people feel like this because of people that are mean. AKA “the tree people”.

In lines 10-13,I told about the trees being higher and standing taller than before. This part is self-explanatory but I was Implying that, to the “leaf people” the trees would be so much farther away now, because as said before, the leaves are forever falling. And once you are so close to someone, like the leaves were to the trees, and then suddenly you are torn apart by an autumn gust that blows you off into nothing, you wouldn’t be very happy. The tree people would be like a fake friend. And now that you are gone, in lines 15-16, the tree can now “reign their world.”

Overall, I really like the message that I gave through this poem, and this is probably my favorite poem out of my 5-poem poetry book. I really enjoyed writing this poem in honor of some people at my old school that would be bullied all the time, and were scared to talk to anyone else. This message means a lot to me and I hope that you enjoyed this poem too.

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Poetic Metacognition

Mon, 15 Apr 2019 21:27:00 GMT

Each student ended the poetry unit by choosing a poem and responding to it in the form of a reader response. Three authors chose to respond to their own work. We are posting those three, one per blog in this blog and the two following.

By Skylar:

Honey

Let the warm honey fall on the golden brown toast

almost as my mom tucking me in under a

warm blanket, almost as the honey and toast are becoming

friends I lay a blanket of strawberry on top

Today i will be responding on the poem honey by Skylar . In this poem honey can be looked at as protection or comfort but with food. what the author is telling us is that protection can look like anything even with food. Although this poem is short it has lots of descriptions that make you imagine what she is talking about. Poems of this size are called Couplets now i will be sharing with you three example on how the author used lots of detail on comfort, protection and happiness in the poem honey by Skylar.

Skylar starts the Poem with “let the warm Honey Fall on the golden brown toast”, when you think of Honey it’s brown Fluid and can be warm. It’s can be thick and Gooey and sweet to taste. Some even say that it’s good for Allergies. Toast and Honey can be very tasty for a morning breakfast or snack. Tasty and comforting and helping a person start their day. Honey can be finger licking and sticky at the same time but for people that like honey it can make then happy.

In the poem Skylar said that “Honey was almost like Mom tucking me in under a warm blanket”. the thought of Mom tucking me in is the Best. It makes me feel safe at night, warm and safe as I can imagine the toast would feel as the honey is poured over it. I think in this poem the Honey makes the Toast feel safe and it keeps the toast warm the same way that mom makes me feel.

When people talk about ice cream or a happy ending Sundae they talk about the Cherry on Top but in this poem the toast and honey is topped with Strawberries. Strawberries are my favorite! They are not to sweet and not too tart and when just right they bring me Joy. I can only imagine toast, honey with strawberries on top is everything. The strawberries in this poem are the happy ending!

This poem is yummy and reminds me of things that I love. It makes me feel safe, Comfortable and happy. The mix of toast, honey and strawberries make it yummy on my tummy. Who doesn’t want all of this and it’s all in this couplet by Skylar. You should read this poem and let me know if it makes you feel the same.

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Running Challenge 2019

Thu, 11 Apr 2019 22:57:00 GMT

This morning we finished our 10th annual Running Challenge with an all school run. The students ran over 400 miles today and 3,762 miles during the 10-week challenge. Below are a few images of the fun from today.

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Just-Right, Revolting Problems Build Persistence

Fri, 08 Mar 2019 03:04:00 GMT

We could tell by discussions during recent math warm-ups that it was a good time to work on problem-solving in a slightly more focused way. Table discussion has become longer, more focused, and the tables have been more willing to debate instead of yielding or quickly moving off-topic. We have been observing for these signs, so we thought it was time.

The open-response section of the Unit 7 test involved a code-breaking exercise of sorts. Four people refused to take their break because “they almost had it.” They chose to skip part of break to solve math problems. Then we knew it was time. Then C asked for a math problem involving poisoned cupcakes and poisoned apples. So we had an appealing context that had been “asked for.” Perfect.

Today, for the beginning of the main math lesson, we projected a problem on the board. Here it is. Names have been blanked out to protect the “innocent.”

All the teacher witches in a certain coven, which includes M____ and V_______, have either a poisoned cupcake or a poisoned apple to take care of pesky students. No one has both. All of the teachers are friends. M_____, who has a poisoned cupcake, has seven more friends with poisoned cupcakes than with poisoned apples. V_______ has a poisoned apple. How many more friends with poisoned cupcakes than poisoned apples does V________ have?

We were looking for a problem in which the math would be accessible to everyone in the group. We were looking for a problem that you couldn’t solve with an algorithm. And we were looking for a problem that was slightly ambiguous, so you would have to close in on problem-solving strategies.

Everyone was very engaged in the problem. Each table was assigned to figure it out, and each table had a whiteboard for sketches. People did not want be told the answer, and wanted to keep trying when we really did need to move on.

The first issue was deciding what problem to solve. Many groups wanted to solve “How many teachers witches were there?” That isn’t the question, and you can’t answer it from the information given. So first, they had to debate the question. At first, the only information we would share was that you could solve the problem with the information given. They responded that you couldn’t figure out how many teachers there were in all. We agreed.

Then they had to deal with how the groups changing relative to each other, because each teacher has a poisoned item but is not their own friend. And, you have to account for both teachers, not just one. Some people were sure of this, some were equally sure that only teacher/witch M_______ is at issue. So there was more debate.

S got it, but had a hard time explaining exactly why she was sure of the answer. But she was. (and when she got it, we confirmed) Then we looked at the problem as a group. It was fascinating to see who could figure out why, after having been given the answer, and who still insisted that the answer was wrong. Part of that is practice and part is development.

There were four possible groups. First, people who could figure out the problem and explain it. Then, people who had an answer they felt confident about, but could not explain or totally explain why. Third, those who couldn’t answer on their own, but could explain why when they were given the answer by a peer. Finally, those who couldn’t do either for this particular problem. Many in this group could do part of it- usually they could account for the movement of M_________ but not V______________.

When our class is at work, getting the answer right is not the only thing we are looking for. Sometimes, seeing differing conceptions helps us to figure out the best challenge for next time. Sometimes we change focus, and sometimes we can see that they are almost there, developmentally, and we just need more practice. When we see persistence, we know that the task is right, and that we want that persistence to keep developing. Because with persistence, no problem is too revolting.

Addendum:

We have had a puzzle a day this week. They are in different strands of mathematics, so of course, different people “get it” and explain every day. This spreads expertship across the group and makes everyone’s voice relevant. Different types of problems also favor different problem-solving strategies.

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The Design Challenges of a Cardboard Engineer

Thu, 07 Mar 2019 16:56:00 GMT

When we started working with cardboard, the immediate gratification of getting to take creations home was valuable–getting the children to push through the difficulties of working with a new material. However, the immediate gratification of taking things home kept children from pushing further to add detail. We are beginning to see that they are ready to focus on sticking with projects for longer periods of time.

As a next step, we let the children know that they would be keeping their work at school, even if they feel the projects are complete. During project time, the children can start something new or add to what they already have. We’ve seen a big shift in the willingness of the children to go back to previous work.

We are careful to talk about this process in motivating ways. Rather than seeing one’s work as something to be fixed, we frame this process as taking the amazing work they already have and making it better.

How can you make it EVEN BETTER?!?

Looking more closely at the process of one Kindergarten cardboard engineer will help us to illustrate the design process we are watching with them all.

On day one of his new creation, this is what one student makes. He has some body armor and a powerful weapon. He is eager to take them home. We let him know these things will stay at school so that he has time to add some details.

Another day of work leads him to make a mask, he even cuts out where his eyes should fit. He attaches it to his armor but then realizes that it changes his armor. Actually, he likes the changes but it doesn’t fit. His eyes don’t make it to the place he had designated in his design. We think together and realize that he could cut curves in the bottom to make room for his shoulders. Sure enough, that helps it slide on, but he wants to make the cuts even deeper to help get his eyes lined up. It worked!! Now he wanted to take it home. We let him know we’ll keep it at school. We let him know that his options are to start something new or to keep going and make this creation even cooler. After a moment of thought, he decides to keep going. This time he adds lots of colorful tape.

On a new day, this engineer talks himself through needing to leave such a great creation here at school and starts to talk through trusting the process. “It’s not like I’m going to have to leave it here forever and ever! Plus, this is WAY cooler than before, so I’m glad I kept it here. It was worth it!!”

Another student notices his classmate in his costume nearby and stops to check out his creation. In admiration, he says “That is super cool!! But it would look even better with some body armor.”

The engineer agrees and since he can’t take it home, he might as well add on. He wants to tape armor to his coat. But what if he doesn’t have the same clothes on every time? I point him to the work of another designer who has made really cool armor for his hands and arms. This arm armor slides on and off his hands. What can our cardboard engineer glean from his classmate’s designs? We look together at the construction to see if we can tell how they were made. We see that one is made by bending a large piece of cardboard several times to wrap around the hand. Another is made by taping two pieces together.

With new inspiration, our engineer tries again and is successful.

Next, he decides to try to make a chest plate but when he attaches it to what he already has, it blocks him from sliding into his helmet.

We look in the mirror to see where the chest plate needs to be in relation to his helmet. We realize that it needs to be below. He looks at the work of a few peers who have chest plates but when he goes back to work, he decides not to do what others have. He forges his own way by attaching the chest plate below his helmet. He adds armor to his feet. Little by little, one delay of gratification at a time, this creation is growing in sophistication and detail. He is learning so much more about his craft with each new addition. Others are looking on and gaining inspiration of their own. We see more and more children building things to wear.

The next day, again knowing that he isn’t going to be taking his creation home, the engineer is fresh out of ideas. We discuss the possibility of asking others for input. He agrees to bring his creation to project circle to discuss with his peers. As teachers, we love to see these discussions develop. These are not conversations the group is capable of having when we start the year, but after working to building our community and finding a project that brings such interest, we can see the children really listening and responding to each other’s ideas.

“How can I add more details?”

Katori: He can color transformer stuff.

Me: A picture of a transformer or a transformer symbol?

Katori: A transformer symbol.

Engineer: I forgot!!

Kaya: Maybe you could add some details to the chest part, some color because I don’t see much color on it.

Eli: I was wondering if you wanted to put some camouflage on it or some bumps that look like camo on it.

Kiyan: I was thinking you could put Spiderman on the chest.

Engineer: This is a transformer.

Kyan: Well what about a web and then the transformer symbol in the web?

Engineer: I could do a transformer who transforms into a spider, so I’ll think about that. Does anyone else have an idea?

Me: This little spot on the bottom where the paper is peeled off is showing the bumps. You could peel off the top layer and your chest plate could be this cool bumpy texture the whole way.

Eli: Then how would he draw?

Katori: Then it could be this thing and you could speak from it.

[several children begin telling ideas at once]

Engineer: There are too many voices talking at once so could you please just like raise your hand?

Me: Is there a different part that he could make to add on to what he’s got?

Engineer: I have such good ideas for myself. I could put wings on the back!!

Riker: You could put the wings on secretly!

Engineer: Do you mean so that the wings can go down and up? Oh, yeah!! That would be awesome!

Kiyan: You have your hands covered but what about things that go on your arms?

Eli: What about your legs?

Engineer: I don’t think I could make something like THAT, but I’ll think about.

Our cardboard engineer heads back to work adding details inspired from our class conversation. We see others take inspiration from the conversation and use ideas to make their own creations more sophisticated. We see them extending their work, persisting, problem solving. We see children seeking out classmates for help, allowing for small moments of collaboration. We see some children becoming experts in certain areas or developing a special technique and others coming to get tutored. We see children thinking and having the space to take their own initiative.

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The Perfect Recipe for Learning

Thu, 21 Feb 2019 08:43:00 GMT

Wolfgang Puck once observed that “cooking is an expression of the land where you are and the culture of that place”. Culture and identity are fundamentally important to understanding a language; therefore, cooking must also be integral to language acquisition. Not only do cooking lessons make vocabulary and grammar come alive, but they also foster practical skill building and shared responsibility in students. At Sabot, we are very fortunate to have great interest in cooking among the student body (who regularly cook as part of the Exploratory program) and the support of an administration that allows us the space and creativity for these lessons.

Beginning in late November, students in 6th, 7th, and 8th grade Spanish started learning basic Spanish vocabulary for cooking. This included common ingredients and recipes for the 6th and 7th grade, and cooking techniques and commands for the 8th grade. Students created menus, ideas for fusion plates, and games of blind taste-testing prior to our cooking lessons. As of February, all middle school classes have completed two cooking lessons: gazpacho (a cold tomato soup) from Spain and Argentinian empanadas (dumpling-like folded pockets that contain different fillings such as meat and cheese). By the end of the school year, each middle school class will have completed four to five cooking lessons in total.

Cooking lessons are carefully planned to allow for maximum amount of use of the target language and both individual and group work. Each dish must be completed with time allowed for clean up and reflection in the one-hour class. The element of choice and co-construction is integral to our curriculum at Sabot. It manifests in this class when students must choose their own ingredients, or work with their classmates to determine the exact order and amount of ingredients to add to a dish. There is always at least one step that students must figure out for themselves. Just as with Exploratory, the goal is to learn, assess, and reflect- not to produce perfection.

The general structure of a cooking class involves:

These stages are often happening simultaneously. Some students may be preparing food, while others are cleaning, and others are working on their reflections. The classroom is a living and dynamic area where students are not only learning and practicing the language, but also practicing knife safety, conquering their fear of the oven, or teaching another student an efficient way to cut or peel. We can’t wait to see what new skills and delicious dishes the students accomplish over the next couple of months!

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Fifth Grade Poetry

Tue, 12 Feb 2019 23:06:00 GMT

The fifth grade is currently studying poetry, and we are learning about and using some literary devices. Here are some intriguing examples that class citizens have agreed to share with you:

Drip Drop
By Skylar

Drip Drop
as the warm honey falls
on the golden brown toast
it’s almost as if
my mother is tucking me in under the warm blanket
I feel as if the honey and toast are becoming friends
as I tuck in the in the honey with a blanket of
sweet strawberries

Fetch and Skamp
by Xander

Fetch runs along the hallway,
fast as lightning. Sleek as silk,
the little tiger stops, and looks
at me for food.He meowls and mews as
loud as bright yellow next to dull gray,
his sister, Skamp, meows as sweet as a bunch of orange jelly beans.

Henry
by Dean

My dog is a cheetah
fast as lightning When he prances
he makes the sun come
out and the birds tweet
he is smooth as velvet
he can play like a lizard
but
when he is mad the thunder
rumbles the sky turns gray
he snarls and bites he is just
that way
and it’s all ok.

Cheyenne
by Gabriella

Her claws are sharp rocks
when she scratches the door
She is like water leaking as she runs out the door
She stands still as a dead mouse
She watches with eyes of a hawk
her barks are loud thunder
sometimes
she is fear
like a nightmare to somethings.
She stares at me with her piercing gaze
I know
soon
she will be a little fur-ball at my feet

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Create-A-Dance

Sat, 09 Feb 2019 01:28:00 GMT

The middle school students have been working in small groups to create a dance routine to share with the class. I am always impressed by their maturity to embrace the awkwardness that dancing can sometimes create and develop routines that their classmates cheered for in delight. One day during a group’s routine, 2nd grade students from recess inched closer and closer to the blacktop to copy the middle school students’ moves. The older students not only welcomed them, but went over and danced with them. We are lucky to be in an environment where these kind of interactions happen so frequently and organically.

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Perfect Running Weather

Sat, 09 Feb 2019 01:08:00 GMT

We had the perfect weather for the start of the running challenge. This week the students ran 434 miles! They have been very motivated to run extra laps, helping kick-start us to our goal of 4,000 miles. I really enjoy watching the students complete a lap and realize, “hey I think I’m strong enough to do one more!”

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Noodles of Fun

Mon, 28 Jan 2019 06:47:00 GMT

One of the things that is great about using unconventional equipment for PE, like pool noodles, is that it leaves plenty of room for students to come up with their own ideas on how to play. It’s also hard not to love swinging around a colorful pool noodle. Check out some of the fun the lower school had with noodles last week.

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Connection

Mon, 28 Jan 2019 06:37:00 GMT

Over the last few weeks I have really noticed the joy on the students faces when they are playing with one another. Their relationships have grown since the beginning of the year and they are really starting to feel and look like a team. Being in connection with one another in this way improves their strategies and skill by scaffolding their learning. It also makes them more willing to take risks and make mistakes.

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Snow Fun

Fri, 14 Dec 2018 00:44:00 GMT

Snow brings an extra element of fun to physical activity. There are so many great ways to exercise in the snow. Here are just a few ways we have been enjoying the snow in PE.

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Architect and Engineers: Small group work in the Oak Room

Wed, 05 Dec 2018 23:29:00 GMT

It’s really a paradox if you think much about it: a collaborative effort that depends on the individuals in the group. Perhaps we should change the phrase to “There’s an “I” and an “us” in genius !”

It was out of one of these team meetings that the idea for a small group evolved. We had observed over time that our block area was used mostly in parallel play. This type of play was in contrast to other experiences in our classrooms where children’s play was more collaboratively oriented. We also wondered about the children who had ideas for the block area, but were always overruled in favor of those individuals with more assertive voices. Anna suggested we invite an individual child to be “in charge” for the morning over what happens in that area. Maybe that child could draw a plan and share it with everyone else to make their ideas visible. With this idea in mind, Shannon and I devised a small group opportunity- coining it Architect and Engineers.

A different architect is chosen on each of the subsequent two days. Teams rotate weekly so that everyone in the Oak Room has this small group experience. As of this time, each group has completed one 3-day session. (In fact, each group will have another chance- we have extended this experience using the same groupings of children for a second time).

As with any small group- or indeed any provocation in the classroom- we never quite know what to expect. We may have some theories about how the children will respond, but ultimately every scenario is different. So we document the group in action and reflect afterward about what we notice and wonder.

But the one thread that Shannon and I keep returning to is the orientation toward listening that is consistently evident in every group. Over and over again children are holding their attention to their team mates: the engineers are building the architect’s wishes (and checking with that person for confirmation); and, the architect flexibly accommodates the interests of their team mates in their plans (while still maintaining their leadership position). Even when two children are at odds over who will be the architect on a given day- this decision being the only difficult hurdle any of the groups have encountered so far- the intention to compromise appears to trump individual opinions. Is this a reflection of their regard for each other and the group?

Stay tuned for follow-up blogs as we follow more threads of this small group experience!

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Taking a Closer Look: Observational Drawing With Four Year Olds in the Rainbow Room

Tue, 20 Nov 2018 22:28:00 GMT

Early in October, we brought a pumpkin to our morning meeting. We passed it around, allowing the children to both see and feel it. We invited them to share what they noticed about it, and then we all drew this object together.

This was our introduction to observational drawing for the year. Daily the children enter the classroom, wash hands, sign in, and then begin to draw. If we forget, someone will remind us: “Isn’t it time to draw?”

In the past, we have changed the object to be drawn daily; however, we decided this year to slow down the process. So we drew the pumpkin every day for two weeks.

At first it sat in the same position as we offered children ways to take their time, to notice the various lines and shapes, and to truly draw what they saw rather than just what their mental concept is of what a pumpkin looks like. This was hard!

We reminded children to draw a bit, then stop and look at the pumpkin, then draw a bit more. This process was challenging for some of them. But the exciting thing was that we saw real growth in their ability to notice and then draw finer details of this increasingly familiar object.

Still, many children continued to draw their idea of a pumpkin rather than the actual one on the table. How could we change their perception? After several days, we turned the pumpkin upside down and asked them to draw it again. This was a new challenge, and many of the children seemed stumped at first. Where is the stem when the pumpkin is upside down? What is that little circle on the bottom and how can it be represented on paper?

Finally, since our Umbrella Project this year focuses on reflection, we put the pumpkin on a mirror and asked the children to draw again. How do you draw a pumpkin and its mirror image? Where are the stems? Do the pumpkins (the real one and the image) look the same? How are they different? And how can this be made clear on the flat surface of a paper? We continued to increase the challenge by once again turning the pumpkin upside down, this time on the mirror. Each new perspective helped the children see the pumpkin–this individual pumpkin with all of its bumps and lines–with fresh eyes.

This way of offering children a chance to draw has been so rewarding we continued the process by setting out a watering can. Again, we brought it to morning meeting first. Again we passed it around and then drew it as a group.

This object is tougher: it has a variety of lines and arcs. There are holes in the spout and the can itself. It looks different depending on the angle of the child’s view. It’s more work to tease the various shapes apart and try to get them down on paper. But the children are resilient and eager to try. Right now many of them focus mainly on the holes in the can and the spout, and on the lettering on the side of the can.

We see observational drawing as a valuable part of our day. The children are gaining skill, self confidence, fine motor control, and a beginning understanding of how to represent a three-dimensional object on paper. We imagine the watering can will be on our drawing table for quite some time.

That’s perfectly fine! We are not in a hurry. We sit near the children with our camera, daily delighted by what their drawings reveal about their thinking.

And when a child draws something that really satisfies them, it is a moment to relish. As Luke said recently when he had finished his drawing, “That’s a great one!”

And so it is.

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The Colors of Kindergarten

Wed, 31 Oct 2018 23:30:00 GMT

“I have brown skin.”

“My skin is brown but it is black.”

“I have lighter skin– Peachy.”

“Mine is different on different parts of my body.”

“Yeah, my skin looks like this on top of my hands but then [turns to their palms] look!”

The children were commenting on their skin tone during lunch one day early in the year. We seized the opportunity to talk about skin tones more through our read aloud books.

The children worked with our atelierista, Anna, to mix a paint color that matched their own skin. They used their personal paint color to make a self-portrait.

“Mine is cool! It’s black.”

“Mine was white, yellow and pink.”

“Mine actually matches my skin!”

“This is as close as I could get to my skin color. I wouldn’t say it is perfect, but this is how close I could get.”

“Does mine look beautiful? Does it match me? There’s pink, brown, white and some orange.”

“I used brown and white and then made my skin into light brown.”

“I made a big mess. Then I made a picture.”

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It Begins With Curiosity – Reflection And The Investigative Process

Sun, 21 Oct 2018 19:54:00 GMT

________________________________________

What is reflection?

How are children and adults different when coming up with ideas, theories, and questions?

________________________________________

What is generating in your mind that you are testing out?

If you’re posing a question, you must be curious. You’re curious because you’re trying to make sense of the world around you…

____________________________________________

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Simple Reflections

Wed, 10 Oct 2018 17:13:00 GMT

Reflection is an important part of our practice at Sabot. Taking a moment to be more intentional, to turn our minds on and think back over our experiences can bring important insight and added value.

What does that look like in Kindergarten? Were there other places we could utilize this practice? We began to look for ways we could add to our practice of reflection without feeling burdensome or too complicated for us or the children. We wanted simple moments of reflection that would deepen the work of the class.

The children are beginning the work of observational drawing this year. They pause to notice and try to capture what they see from natural objects like our pumpkins, orchids and sunflowers. They see the details like the shape of the leaves, the color of the petals or the textures of the stem. They work to capture them through drawing. As teachers, we typically help them to date their drawings and note the object they were observing on the page. What if we had them pause for a single moment of reflection about their experience– just one quick thought?

Later, we stopped to study the thoughts of the children that we had recorded. We started to notices groupings. Many of the reflections they shared could be linked to one of the Habits of Mind (16 Habits of mind from Costa and Kallick). Here are a few examples.

Taking Responsible Risks

Tristan

Before: “I can’t draw flowers.”

After: “I did this SO good.”

Josie

“I’m proud of the whole thing because I didn’t think I could do it. I’m surprised about drawing the petals.”

Katori

“I hadn’t done this one before but I tried. I got better and I felt proud. I never knew I was not going to give up.”

Striving for accuracy

Will wanted to attempt the orchid for a second time.

“This is WAY better because I put more circles on better this time.”

Griffin

“I tried to get the right color for it.”

Sabine

“I was proud of the petal. I got the right shape.”

After trying the pumpkin leaf for a second time, Cameron named all of the parts he was able to capture.

“I’m just really proud how I did the spikes and I am also proud I did the stem and the middle. The top looks like a dragonfly head.”

Persisting

Sean

“I worked harder and harder until I got it. It took a long time.”

Kiyan

“I waited patiently to see what it would turn out like. I’m proud of the shape of my leaves.”

In the end, we felt like the thirty seconds that it took us to ask and record their reflections brought an added dimension to the work. We have always valued observational drawing because of the dispositions it fosters– it has helped us take on new challenges, work to be accurate and learn to push through hard things. Now, through reflection, the children were coming to value the process too.

Are there other places we could add reflection in simple, meaningful ways?

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Parachute Collaboration

Mon, 08 Oct 2018 21:23:00 GMT

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Jobs, Problem Solving, Learning to Make the World a Better Place

Mon, 08 Oct 2018 20:11:00 GMT

By now, everyone has turned in their job application, survived their interview, and worked at their job for a few weeks. We have fifth grade jobs for a number of reasons.

The librarians looking for overdue books.

First, we do the jobs that make the class function smoothly. Managing a classroom and keeping it tidy and well organized is lots of work. If everyone pitches in; it is managable. The class is better informed about room organization, so it is easier to use materials properly, and put them away. Once everyone sees how much work correcting a problem takes, they become much more willing to keep things clean and well organized. They also remind each other of what needs to be done to keep the classroom functional. This saves the teachers nagging. Classmate reminders are much more efficient than teacher reminders.

The Building and Grounds Team cleans floors and tables.

Class jobs give another avenue for practicing breaking down a large task into managable steps and completing them with other people. For some people, this is best begun with mental tasks, for others, the sequencing and organizing process develops more smoothly with real world challenges. Most of the jobs involve either working together with a team because of the size of the overall job, or coordinating with another team to get things done in good order.

Organizing the room with labels.

Jobs give each student an opportunity to be a leader and an expert. They learn the details of their jobs, and innovate to make their systems work efficiently. Each student is the authority about their job; they tell the rest of the class what needs to be done to make that sector of the classroom function well. Each job has additions, changes, and innovations which were figured out by a fifth grader. If a student needs something, they go to the person who is in charge of that area to ask them for help or support. This helps us become a more democratic classroom, and frees up a bit of teacher time for knotty problems and documentation.

The class blogger has interviewed class members about the first Math test.

The jobs pay money in the class economy that the group can use to purchase materials for the village project, as well as exchange goods and services with each other. This supports our Social Studies/History objectives, and also provides some Math practice.

The Cartoonist explains the use of the egg fidgets.

Jobs make everyone in the class helpful to each other and to the class as a whole. It is good for everyone’s self respect to make the world a better place for others. When you have a real world problem, then find a solution and evaluate it, you have made things in your world better for the moment. But, you have also learned about how to spot and solve your own problems, and that will make your world better for the rest of your life.

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Starting our day…Building Community through Morning Experiences in the Oak Room

Thu, 27 Sep 2018 12:36:00 GMT

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Weathering the weather: Hurricane Florence enters the Oak Room

Wed, 26 Sep 2018 21:56:00 GMT

The thing about hurricanes is how SLOW they are. We watch weather forecasts for days and days wondering if a newly formed storm in the Atlantic will hit us. Wondering what will happen if it does- will it be like 2003’s Hurricane Isabel here in Richmond? Or Hurricane Irene of 2011? How long will we be without power? Will a tree fall nearby?

You can imagine that all this build-up is not lost on the youngest children in our lives. They overhear the news in the car; listen closely as we plan with our partners what to buy and when; we comment on how long the grocery stores lines are when frantically shopping before an imminent impact.

The Tuesday before the possible Friday impact of the recent Hurricane Florence was our first clue in the Oak Room that our students were processing this future event. One child arrived in our hallway talking about a hurricane coming to her house on Friday. As part of our way of supporting children’s emotional lives here at Sabot, we often provide space to talk about difficult topics- if it comes from the children . So Shannon and I decided that we would leave some time in our morning meeting for people to share anything they wanted. And Hurricane Florence certainly came up.

Many children had a lot to share about hurricanes (and eventually tornadoes). Here is some of our documentation from that morning meeting:

We bought soup. Hurricanes bring rain, wind, and lots of water. -Ezra age 5

They make a stream around the world! -Cal age 4.9

Houses get knocked down. – Charlotte W age 4.9

Carlin (age 4.11) described seeing the hurricane from outer space on TV. It spins and is big. It covers Virginia!

Wind knocks trees into houses and cars and humans. -Calvin age 5

When one child (age 4.11) mentioned tornadoes sucking people up into them, we steered the conversation around what our students know for sure: is this statement true? What exactly are tornadoes? And what are the differences between tornadoes and hurricanes? Carlin knew that one of them had an “eye” but not much more was offered by anyone. The conversation became confusing and disorganized.

At this point our morning meeting needed to wind down- people were restless and some were anxious. A few people wondered, do my parents know about this hurricane? Will it come to my house? We suggested that children draw their thoughts or worries. This process is an active way to sort out feelings; make them visible to others. After all, the children’s questions were impossible for us to answer honestly and satisfactorily. They needed a way to explore their own thinking and to vent their big emotions.

We know as teacher researchers that providing more information to children is not always the cure-all to their anxious feelings. But in this instance we were quick to discredit any untruths about hurricanes and tornadoes so no misinformation was circulating.

We also know that time provided for children to process their fears ultimately serves them well. It’s in these moments that resilience is nurtured; children are capable of managing big feelings- they just need calm and willing listeners.

This sketch provided the teachers with great insight into this child’s fears about the hurricane. (Oak Room student age 5)

Dylan (age 4.8) depicted several hurricanes using this iconic spiral shape.

That’s my blue house in the middle that has fallen down. -Oak Room student, age 5

For the most part, the hurricane discussions withered away. Those children who were anxious on Tuesday seemed bright eyed and ready for their preschool day on Wednesday. Perhaps the worry about this storm ran it’s course; maybe these children processed their thoughts with their grown ups or on their own. The hurricane and tornado conversations- the few that were overheard- changed tone from fearful fascination to mild curiosity.

And then this conversation happened…

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Thinking about numbers

Fri, 21 Sep 2018 00:00:00 GMT

We often observe children in the classroom working hard in pursuit of a knotty concept that they’ve encountered. The child (or children) may become deeply interested in working out the problem, studying it for a lengthy period of time, or returning to the work until satisfied. Perhaps this process is a way to figure something out, to confirm or deny the truth of that something. Creating an “inventory” of what one knows, or what one is trying to know, may help someone to consider the concept from many angles, to see all sides of an idea. Maybe an inventory leads to the consolidation of a concept in one’s mind, so that new, more sophisticated knowledge can develop.

This Oak Room student is interested in large numbers and understands that many individual numbers collectively stand for a larger one.

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Building Community as the Foundation for Middle School

Thu, 20 Sep 2018 16:44:00 GMT

by Kara Page, Middle School Teacher-Researcher

“Why do you spend a whole week orienting students to Middle School?” This is a question the faculty hear each year, and the answer is fundamental to our belief about the middle school years: community is imperative. One definition of community is, “ a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals”. During the middle school years, when isolation can be especially detrimental and connection is imperative to healthy development, community is not just something we give words to, but a concept that is fundamental to how we teach, learn, and live together in the Middle School.

We spend our first days of Middle School in sessions with mixed grades, learning about one another and establishing collective expectations of each other and our community. Students begin to build the culture of the classroom by discussing what they believe is important to a healthy community and safe environment. Inevitably, this includes an emphasis on collaboration and building on one another’s strengths. The faculty and staff model for the students our own collaboration during this week. Faculty members work together to orient students to the Middle School, pulling from their own areas of expertise and collaborating with colleagues for many sessions.

Perhaps the most bonding experience during orientation week is the Challenge Discovery course at the University of Richmond. We arrive early in the day and begin group-building activities then move on to working in smaller groups to solve physical problems and eventually ascend and complete the ropes course. During this time, we witness students push and support one another in ways that will be repeated throughout the year, albeit often in less palpable and physical ways. Some students are fearful, others are eager and masterful on the course. In order for the group to work together, the masterful student must slow down and support, and the hesitant student must reach out and trust.

Our experience at the ropes course begins to build the culture of inclusivity and collaboration that is essential for the Sabot Middle School experience. Students must turn to one another and not immediately to adults. They must rely on one another and each other’s unique set of skills to move through the entire course. It is nearly impossible to complete the course without the support and involvement of everyone on the team. In moving through the course, it is inevitable that students learn the strengths of each of their classmates.

Some of the words used to describe peers during the debrief session: brave, supportive, leader, quietly strong, collaborator, always a helper, problem solver, different thinker that could solve problems, mathematical, and kind. That is a lot to learn and understand about a small group of people over the course of a day!

There are sometimes tears, initially perhaps tears of fear and trepidation, but eventually of both joy and relief. Students learn to be vulnerable in front of others, as they have to do each time they present a different way of looking at a concept in the classroom or present to an audience of their peers. They are building resilience, trust, and confidence on the ropes course as they will also do in the classroom.

Challenge Discovery introduces the idea of working at the edge of your comfort zone, not to the point of panic, but they encourage everyone to push themselves a little farther than might seem natural. This is not unlike our classroom. We talk to students about the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). This is that place where you are challenged, not so much that you want to give up but enough to push you to that next level of understanding. This concept is a place where we believe all individuals are challenged and pushed to be the best human they can. Simply put, this is what we hope for all of our students… that they each have the support and community allowing for them to feel comfortable in their individual ZPD.

Orientation week is of fundamental importance in our work for the year. It’s about building a trusting, respectful community of learners to support our model of a collaborative but challenging learning environment. The time spent in cross-age groups both on campus and at Challenge Discovery helps us pave the way for the coming year’s work.

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Playful letter exploration in the Oak Room

Wed, 19 Sep 2018 22:02:00 GMT

Notice all the ways that Oak Room students are engaged with letters, words, reading, and writing. This interest was evident on our very first day of school and continues to this day.

Bananagram letters are available for open-ended play with letters.

Combining letters in lots of different ways, then sounding out the invented word, is a source of delight. Some children spell their names, or their parents’ names.

Often we notice small groups of children creating words together. We hear comments such as, I can’t find any E’s! Then a friend replies, Here’s one!

Magnetic lower case letters are combined here with banana-gram pieces. Carlin knows how to spell WICKED from a TV show, and adds EYE.

Individual exploration of the letter pieces.

The connected letter trays have become a word tunnel.

Here’s a video showing the word tunnel construction:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/ux7m15YxKEbKZTeS7

Playing a game with the letters.

On Cal’s first day of school in the Oak Room, he noticed no symbols were available. So he made his own.

Practicing letters.

An X made at our mini-studio table.

The tactile experience of tracing letters is another way to learn letter formation.

Drawing is a symbolic representation of one’s thinking and is another way children prepare for a life of reading and writing.

This chart shows the sequential steps of the snack routine- from hand-washing, to cleaning the table, and going to the bathroom. Following each step- represented by an icon which is numbered and labeled- is a way young children can “read” and independently gather information.

Reading books together regularly encourages the connection between the words read aloud with the words printed on the pages.

Signing in every morning is part of our daily morning routine. Name cards are available for Oak Roomers to remind them of the letters in their names, and to provide clues for how to construct their letters.

Can you think of other ways children explore literacy in their daily lives?

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Juggling Scarves

Thu, 13 Sep 2018 22:22:00 GMT

We have been playing with juggling scarves in lower school PE. There are so many fun things to do with them besides juggling. They are a great way to help teach spacial awareness – moving over, under, or through them. They have also been a great way to introduce the umbrella project in PE as students have been a “reflection” of their partner while moving the scarves. And the best surprise about the scarves is they provide confidence to dancers! It seems less intimidating to move a scarf to the music than trying to come up with your own dance moves. They also of course had to do the “floss” dance with them. Juggling scarves for the win!

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Fifth Grade Friday Five- 9/7/2018

Fri, 07 Sep 2018 21:56:00 GMT

This week we kept working on group building and setting up activities, but we have introduced more than half of the academic subjects as well, so it was a very busy week.

We completed our mission. We have agreed on the classroom we want to have, at least in the abstract. Our mission will affect what we choose to do and how we choose to do it. We have begun to propose and vote on legislation for the class government. This is a little bit confusing at the beginning, because we have to both agree on laws and how to pass laws at about the same time. Several students felt that it wasn’t a good use of time to be particular about the requirements for passing legislation, and this led to the passage of a law that many people disagreed with. So, the process for voting on laws has been tightened up.

We had Spanish three times this week, and it was a lot of fun. The class is learning classroom instructions and the names of classroom supplies first, and we are practicing some of them in our classroom as well. Senora taught them a hand game- Chocolate. It has been played during any and all free time this year. The girls taught it to me too.

We are five lessons into unit one in Math. Unit one relates to prime and composite numbers, factoring, divisibility rules and multiplication and division.Yesterday, everyone was playing a game called factor capture. It builds fluency in rapid factoring. Today we worked on divisibility rules, and many people are still working on applying multiple rules to one number.

Today, as part of our umbrella project on reflection, we did an introductory provocation. Everyone looked at themselves through a small hand mirror and drew the part of their face that they could see in the mirror. The student at left has the mirror below her, therefore the perspective you see in the drawing is accurate. This activity required that you draw, yourself, and so quite a few people found some aspect demanding. There was some intense focus, but also a lot of laughter.

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The Fifth Grade Friday Five

Tue, 04 Sep 2018 21:34:00 GMT

Here are a few bits and pieces from our first week back. It was great to reunite and get to work again. We are already very, very busy.

We had a great first week, and we have even more plans for the weeks to come!

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First Day Scavenger Hunt

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 20:02:00 GMT

Middle School Students kicked off the year in PE with a Scavenger Hunt. The goal was to be active, learn a little bit about the school location and history while working as a team. Many of the items on the scavenger hunt were “take a photo of your team…”

Doing squat thrusts while waving to the mall.

Flossing with a lower school student.

Can you find us?

Your team’s reflection in something other than a mirror.

“Swim” next to the spot where there use to be a swimming pool.

Do exactly what a sign says. (This team gets bonus points for “stop” sign language).

Picture with a member from another team… (Mr. Ferrara trying to get away)

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The No Phone Zone: Oak Room

Thu, 07 Jun 2018 16:19:00 GMT

by Elaine Phillips with Shannon Fisher

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We Are All Fine the Way We Are

Tue, 05 Jun 2018 20:21:00 GMT

The Kindergarten Class has an important message for the world. Listen:

http://www.sabotatstonypoint.org/lower-school-blog/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2018/05/dont-bother-me-2.mp3

Do you want to help spread their message?

Be a Stander Upper and purchase a t-shirt with this design.

Buy a shirt.

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Tracing our Traits: Seeing Ourselves In Our People

Mon, 21 May 2018 11:56:00 GMT

As an extension of the children’s thinking and conversations around their family trees, the students next began to think about how physical traits may be passed down over time through their genes, or DNA. Together they defined genes as “the physical and mental traits that are passed down within a family, sometimes skipping generations.”

This was a new lens from which to interpret the question: “Who are my people?”, shifting their thinking to a more scientific and corporeal understanding of who their people are and how that shapes the person they are today. Similar to their work with family trees, they were drawing connections between themselves and their people across generations, but they now had another layer of understanding- the physical traits that make us who we are- to understand how we are connected and related to our people.

Citrus Fruit Family Tree

In order to further their understanding of the inherited nature of certain traits, the children studied a citrus family tree. There was so much interest and theorizing coming out of their dialogue about the citrus family tree that we decided to set up a hands-on provocation to take their thinking on the connections between shared traits within family trees deeper.

Photo credit: National Geographic

The following day the children conducted a gallery walk of assorted citrus fruits and made predictions as a class based on various characteristics [size, shape, smell, taste, texture, seed quantity and size, rind composition, etc.] First, the children began with a study of the characteristics they could readily observe from the outside of the fruit.

They used their senses of touch, sight, and smell to observe traits of the fruit and then came together to make predictions about what they thought they might find on the inside. Theories emerged about the factors that might affect seed quantity, seed size, juiciness, and smell of certain fruits.

Once their predictions were made and theories shared, the children embarked on yet another gallery walk of the citrus fruits, this time using their senses to observe the similarities and differences among citrus fruits based on their insides.

After inspecting the fruits from both the outside and the inside, some students chose to participate in a comparative taste testing of the fruits. This allowed for yet another layer of sensory information- taste- from which to form theories about inherited and shared traits.

When the children shared their experiences tasting the various fruits, an interesting observation began to emerge, as the children noticed that there was disagreement over which fruits were sour, sweet, or bitter. This debate brought us to the discovery that many of us “taste [the same fruit] differently” and that that difference may itself be an inherited trait.

Why do we taste things differently?

How are citrus family trees like our own family trees?

Traits Drawings

Following our investigation into the shared traits within the citrus fruit family, the children applied that thinking to their own human family tree. The citrus tree experiment had gotten the children thinking about their own shared and inherited traits [hair color, eye color, tongue roll, widow’s peak, hair texture, facial features, etc.]. They became curious if they could map out- or trace- certain physical or mental traits in themselves and connect them to other family members. For some children, they had a strong and innate sense of the parts of themselves that they shared with or inherited from other family members. For others, however, the question proved more elusive. After their initial attempt at representing their traits, we came together to further discuss what it means to share a trait, as a means of inspiring and expanding their thinking.

What does it mean you have them (traits)?

Elina drew several generations of her family tree and then mapped out distinguishing characteristics (glasses, hair color, eye color) that were shared within her interconnected web of her people.

Sadie first highlighted specific traits (eye color, hair color, clover tongue) and then connected various family members to these traits.

Isabelle first diagramed various traits (tongue roll, eye color, bunny teeth) and then created trees of how those traits were passed down between family members, a “traits tree.”

Harper used text to describe personal traits and whom she got them from. “I got my blue eyes from my dad. I got my green eyes from my mom. And I got my body from my dad. I got me smarts and good drawing abilities from my mom. I got my hair color from both sides of the family. And I got liking sports from my dad. I also have the same mole as my great grandmother.”

The children began this year’s investigation into “their people” by zooming in and collecting personal stories through the recording of family interviews. They then zoomed out their scope by thinking of the interconnected relationships of their people through the creation of family trees and then expanded their thinking to consider themselves as extensions and reflections of their people in their study of shared traits.

In the next blog, we will detail how the students continued to consider this question: “Who are my people?” through yet another lens as they worked to develop both personal timelines for specific relatives as well as co-constructing a collaborative class timeline of world history, and in doing so contextualizing their people within the broader story of our shared human history. Even as the children moved on to new ways of thinking about their people, they continued to carry their curiosities about genes and traits over into their current and final stage of our project work, as they are now making books that represent their own individualized and personal connection to “their people.”

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Duathlon Day!

Fri, 04 May 2018 15:45:00 GMT

What a beautiful day for a dualthlon!

Once around the field then a hop onto the bikes to hit the road!

That hill is a tough climb, what glee at rounding the turn!

Three laps of the course, taking advantage of the forest shade coming into the final lap.

Then, once more around the field.

Thank goodness we had our rainbow Room PE buddies to cheer us in!

Phew!

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All School Run

Sat, 14 Apr 2018 00:01:00 GMT

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Finding Our Roots: Exploring “Our People” Through Family Trees

Tue, 10 Apr 2018 19:53:00 GMT

As we launched our history project, the children dedicated themselves to exploring one or two family members to investigate deeply through interview and storytelling. While this proved to be a meaningful way for the children to connect with a person in their family and to gain some historical context of that person’s life, we stepped back to reflect upon our third grade history question: “Who are my PEOPLE ?”

The question itself implies a plurality of experiences. With this in mind, we encouraged the children to visually represent a broader understanding of the relationships and connections within their family through the creation of a family “tree.” We did not require that it take on the literal shape of a tree, though most students chose this as a symbolic form of representation. The work of creating and revising a family tree served as a way for students to become engaged with their family story and our essential history question. Using information from their initial family research, the children began their first attempts to create their family trees. Each revision demonstrated a perseverance and commitment to uncover more of their family story and a deepening understanding of the vast and interconnected relationships that comprise “their people.”

Family Trees: First Attempts (Pencil and Paper)

The children were given pencil and paper to work with and were asked to simply draw the relationships and connections within their family, with no requirement of what it should look like or how far back it should go. Some set out quickly to work, filling up their page, engaged by the challenge of how much they could include and how they could represent the unknown, while others started off a bit unsure and frustrated by the the vast exponential nature of it all and the gaps that felt impossible to know.

Many recurring curiosities and creative solutions began to pop up in the process. In order to share their thinking, we set up a gallery walk in which the students observed each other’s first attempts. After doing this, they came back to circle and discussed as a group what they noticed in each other’s work.

They built a vocabulary together to show various strategies for representing divorce, death, stepfamilies, and unknown information through different symbols, keys, and lines. Their revisions show an evolution of their thought processes and gained understandings over time.

Family Trees: Second Attempts (Thinking Pens)

After the gallery walk and subsequent discussion, there was a palpable energy in the classroom inspired by each other and the new ideas they had co-constructed in the process. With this building excitement about their family tree work, we extended our project time to allow them to immediately revisit their thinking. In this second attempt at representing their family connections, we asked them to use a thinking pen and single piece of paper. As a result, the first minutes were quietly pensive, each student taking the time to think through their plan and decide how they were going to approach some of the elements we discussed as a group:

Harper’s Family Tree #1 (Left) and Family Tree #2 (Right)

On my first one, I did a family tree with just them [names] on it. My second one – I thought about it. Then I put the Imburg family and Walker family on one side, and then the people who were both on the other side. I put their age and when they died.

Thomas’s Family Tree #1 (Left) and Family Tree #2 (Right)

I had nothing on my first family tree. Just my family and grandparents. The tree I did [2nd attempt, top right] went up to great-great-great grandparents and it had a lot more detail. I started with mom, dad, me, my brother and sister. Then I went to grandparents, then aunts/uncles. Then farther and farther down. I kept writing stuff…a key. The age. All the question marks are the people I don’t know.

Nathan’s Family Tree #1 (Left) and Family Tree #2 (Right)

I added and changed my symbols. If I didn’t know their name, instead of a question mark, I put a blank square. If I did find out their name, I could add it in.

Family Trees: Third Attempts (Loose Parts)

While the children were all growing in their thinking with each revision of their family tree, some were frustrated by the limitations of working with pencils, pens, and paper as it made rearranging their ideas more cumbersome when they found out new information. In order to allow the children to more freely and continuously reorganize their family connections, we offered a new form of representation with loose parts.

With materials such as pom poms, bottle caps, connector cubes and sticks, straws, and buttons, the children were asked to once again represent the connections and relationships within their family tree,but this time they were given a more flexible and fluid template with which to work. As they revised their thinking, they could merely move a part or pick a new symbol of representation. At the completion of their loose parts family trees, each student created a key that explained what each material represented. Then they participated in a gallery work to examine each other’s final products.

Sabine’s Loose Parts Family Tree

Carlin’s Loose Parts Family Tree

Isabelle’s Loose Parts Family Tree

The children have now moved on from constructing family trees to creating a collective and co-constructed timeline, as well as a personal timeline for the relative they have chosen to focus on as a lens for understanding their people in the broader context of history. In the process of determining how they want to represent the culmination of all their project thinking and investigations, the students have spent time researching what life was like in the time of their chosen relative. Gaining a fuller picture of the past, they are beginning to have a clearer picture of how they would like to represent their understanding of “their people” in history. In placing their family story into connection with history as a whole – and with the family stories of their peers- they are driving their own questions for future research and a broader definition and understanding of “their people.”

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Relationship, Trust, and Open Dialogue

Sat, 07 Apr 2018 00:47:00 GMT

Not long ago, the topic of vaping – Juuls in particular – started to appear in the media, in school nursing blogs, and in every major news publication I read. It became apparent that a tool originally designed to help people stop smoking was now causing a whole new generation to begin smoking.

This epidemic was recently addressed in a Wall Street Journal article , for which I was interviewed. While the article provides excellent information and an overview of e-cigarettes and Juuling, it does not touch enough on the importance of prevention and having an open dialogue with students regarding issues related to health and human sexuality.

In health and human sexuality class at Sabot, we discuss an established array of topics, but each year we insert new topics, often based on what I am reading or what the students bring to class. After reading and listening to multiple reports on the dangers of vaping and the emergence of Juuls, it was clear that this was a topic that needed to enter our curriculum. When starting to discuss a new issue or topic, I first ask students what they know and what they think. Not surprisingly, students are often more aware of issues than adults realize, even though they may not comprehend the dangers and concerns that accompany a particular issue.

With any conversation, first and foremost, I know that it is important to establish, or maintain an already established, trust with the students. So, I listen. I listen to students share what they know, what they think they know, and how they feel about it. I listen to them tell stories, consider scenarios, and share experiences.

With Juuling, some students shared the intrigue of the smoke circles and tricks that can be done when vaping, admitting that they have seen multiple YouTube videos explaining how to do “cool tricks.” They talked about reasons people vape such as: peer pressure, the thought that it’s safer than smoking, the idea that everyone is doing it, and that it smells good. Some also confessed that it seemed much less dangerous than some of the other things adults tell them not to do.

One of the gifts of Sabot is the relationship teachers have with students. I strongly believe that our knowledge of their lives, their interests, and their community goes a long way in establishing trust. Each year, I encourage students to identify trusted adults in their lives besides parents. It could be a friend’s parent, a relative, a pediatrician, a teacher, a coach… I reiterate to parents and students alike the importance of having safe places to share information, seek advice, and discuss concerns or questions.

Teachers don’t expect to see the fruits of their labors immediately. We often don’t know if we’ve reached a student or had any significant impact on their lives. At least one of my students was really listening and heard the message. I’ll call him Aiden.

Aiden came to me wanting to talk through a situation. He had been invited to sleep over at a friend’s house. Aiden shared that this friend was vaping and had asked Aiden if it would be okay if he vaped during the sleepover. Caught off guard, Aiden had said yes, but within minutes, he knew he was not comfortable with the scenario. During our conversation, he processed his concern for his friend as well as his concern regarding peer pressure to try vaping. It’s worth noting that I never told Aiden what to do; he figured it out on his own. He just needed a trusted ear to listen while he processed the possibilities.

Ultimately, Aiden told his parents about the dilemma. As truly exceptional parents do, they listened, helped problem solve, and supported their child. Fast forward a few days, and Aiden’s mom reached out to the friend’s mom to share the concern. The Juuling was addressed and stopped, and Aiden let his friend know his reasonings for intervening. It wasn’t easy or without difficulties, but in this case, Aiden knew what felt true to him and followed that intuition.

It should go without saying that in health and human sexuality class, we talk about the realities of using e-cigarettes. We build on prior conversations about addiction, the brain’s wiring, frontal lobe development, healthy choices, and about how to resist peer pressure. I point out the powerful marketing that companies are using to appeal to teens and to encourage them to vape. We talk about laws – it’s illegal to buy or use e-cigarettes in Virginia if you are under 18. I try to share the potential negative health effects of using e-cigarettes and, like so many other teachers, nurses, and parents, I stumble.

The truth is, we know the harm inherent in nicotine, but we don’t know what a regular habit of using e-cigarettes does. We simply don’t have enough data. We know that some of the chemicals used in these devices create formaldehyde when heated. We know there are carcinogens in these devices. It’s clear that they cause damage, but the type and amount are not yet supported by years of research.

That’s a distressing reality for someone trying to convince teens not to use a particular substance. For some students, it’s an easy, clear-cut decision: they will never use. For others it might not be so clear. What if a friend is using? What if they are the only ones at a party not willing to try a Juul? These are questions and topics that we’ll think about more deeply in upcoming classes where we will also use role playing scenarios.

Armed with information and the support of trusted adults, Sabot students, like Aiden, are able to take a step in the direction we hope for everyone; one that supports their voice and stays true to what they believe.

Kara is Sabot’s School Nurse and Health & Human Sexuality Teacher

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There Must Always Be A Foundation: Listening, Mindfulness, “Turtleness,” and the Reflective Process, Part 5

Wed, 21 Mar 2018 18:16:00 GMT

Coming back from our winter break, we wondered how the children had processed their project work after so much time had passed. What would be their take-aways as they unpacked the experience together?

Every Friday afternoon at the end of our week, we discuss one of sixteen habits of mind as a launching pad for the students’ reflections on their individual and collaborative work. Sabot students are encouraged at an early age to more fully own their learning process through the identification, internalization, and utilization of problem solving skills that promote strategic reasoning, perseverance, empathy, wonder, and creativity. In introducing and cultivating these metacognitive skills, the children not only become more self-aware as learners, but also more cognizant of how their contributions impact the collaboration and intersubjective learning within a group.

Below are snapshots of the children’s insights into their project work, generated by our casual Friday discussions. Their elegant thoughtfulness powerfully reflects who they are, they way they work, what they are capable of, and how they see the world. Just as we follow the children’s ideas in their project work, their discussions about the umbrella listening project stand as testaments to the power of their process and their willingness to innovate through the languages of music, movement, and dance.

The third graders watching and reflecting upon their final turtle performance

How did you listen in your project work? What did you learn about listening?

How did you use mindfulness in your project work?

“When I was mindful…”

Why is thinking about your thinking so hard? What are the challenges of reflecting on the learning behind your work?

What did music and dance teach you about mindfulness and listening?

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The huge map!

Wed, 14 Mar 2018 02:14:00 GMT

The children immediately ran to the map, they gathered around it closing in tight. There was a frenzy of action as each child leaned in more and more. Soon the children were on the table!

Our umbrella project of listening pairs so well with how we structure our learning at school. Each day, many many thoughts and ideas are expressed by the children and we, as teachers are always listening to determine the next step in their learning journey. What will capture their interest? What may change a direction of thinking? What will encourage deeper thoughts or even further questions?

What will be the next successful provocation?

In math, the children had been very interested in some large number facts involving rivers and lakes. Their curiosity led us to explore maps in their math books. As they were exploring we noticed them not only finding out where the places in the math lesson more but also noticing other places, asking questions and sharing thoughts.

We have had a huge world map on the wall since the beginning of the year that Max gave us to plot his family’s boat trip, but as so often with things being up a while it had become simply wallpaper. So, we decided to place it on the table top (it took up 3 tables!) to be ready for them as they returned from a break.

I couldn’t capture everything but these are their words!

Xander: This is actually where some people would cut through to buy silk. Then people owned it, I don’t know if people have to pay to go through.

Hailey: Where is Bora Bora?

Sam: I found Alaska

Xander: Around here is the Persian Gulf

Juliet: There’s Philadelphia

Hailey: Philadelphia is where my brother’s girlfriend lives

Xander: Turkey was destroyed so they made a new Turkey.

Algeria! Greenland! Russia! Iceland! Las Vegas!

Robbie: Iceland is green and Greenland is icy – people named them that way for a strategy.

Hawaii! Ethiopia!

Lila: Where’s Miami? – Oh right there!

Robbie: Miami, Florida

“I was born here.”

Robbie: If you want to see Antartica – look here.

Max: There’s Barcelona, Spain!

Juliette: I found a Qy word! Q-Y-Z-L-O-R-D-A – it is in Kazakstan

Africa is all of this?

Spain, Spain!

Romania!

Egypt!

Robbie: – look my left foot is on Australia!

Petersburg and St Petersburg!

Saudi Arabia!

Lila: “I want to find Chengdu in China.”

Juliette: “I want to live in Europe.”

Sam: “I want to live in Santa Barbara, they shot my favorite TV show there – Psych.”

Robbie: “I found the largest lake in the world – The Caspian Sea!”

It was wonderful to see the children embracing the map, their enthusiasm encouraged them to get ever closer, to climb onto the map and explore it with their hands and feet as well as their eyes. To share stories, to spot both familiar and unfamiliar places. To share snippets of knowledge and ask more questions.

So we are listening again, and realize that very much so, the children want to know their world.

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Running Challenge 2018

Sat, 03 Mar 2018 00:50:00 GMT

In the most literal sense, running takes you to a different place. During the Running Challenge, I have been thinking about this concept for my students in a more metaphorical way. I have watched the kindergarten students gain more confidence in themselves as runners and even as mathematicians as they learn a new math concept. This is true across the grades as they push themselves to go another lap or think about distance, measurements, and pacing. They are also growing in their ability to navigate trying their personal best while also being supportive and encouraging to their friends.

I have also reflected back on several kindergarten students from my first year of teaching. I can vividly recall watching a spark begin for a love of running and exercise during the Running Challenge. Over the years, it has continued to grow, and these now-8th-grade-students recently organized and held their own fun run to raise money for a cause.

Running and exercise can be transformational. It can take you to a place you didn’t expect. The great thing about running is that you don’t have to be the fastest or go the furthest to feel the benefits. You just have to be willing to take the risk and try… and trying is something I have seen from each student in all of the grades.

Here are a few more photos from our first 4 weeks of the Running Challenge.

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Adventure!

Wed, 21 Feb 2018 21:52:00 GMT

MAGICAL THINKING

Fourth graders are great story tellers. This is in part because, while they have reached a certain degree of sophistication, they still have one foot—or at least a toe!—planted in the realm of fantasy. Ira Glass describes 10 year-olds as sitting “on the cusp of belief and disbelief ” regarding myths and legends, and that pivotal state seems to give them the ability to create fiction in a way that many adults just can’t.

In the fall, this year’s fourth grade class returned to Walnut Village, a break time project from previous years involving building a town for green walnuts and creating lives for them, even going so far as to design and carry out walnut funerals. During forest time , their play often centers on forts, bases, jails, and alliances, and it spools out in strands of imagination and very earnest beliefs about what is happening.

Given these ideas, among others, at the start of our fiction writing unit this year, Melanie and I decided to invite the class to take part in a group storytelling adventure. With a few parameters, they would create characters which would then be placed in a scenario. From there, they would need to make decisions in order to move the story forward, with some outcomes being decided by rolls of the dice. Gabriella commented, “This sounds like Dungeons & Dragons. I know because my brothers play it.”

THE CAST

The kids agreed to give it a try and set about making characters to inhabit a time 800 years ago in a world where magic was possible but there wasn’t much technology to speak of. One became a dragon named Geoffrey. Another was a fox named Lily, and yet another was a tortoise named Jake. Several chose to be wizards or elves or elf-wizards, including the delightfully named Elfonso.

We presented each player with a mushroom-shaped cork and asked them to decorate the pieces to represent their characters on the map. They set about adding features to the corks and outfitting them with satchels, headdresses, and finishing nails for swords.

THE MAP & THE TERRITORY

At this point, I announced the scene: All fifteen characters were on a boat. They did not know each other. I asked the players to think about why their characters were there. Then, they developed back stories. King King, the Upside Down Pineapple King, for example, was making his way back to his Pineapple Kingdom. Greg the Demon, on the other hand, was looking for souls to steal.

When everyone was ready for the adventure to begin, we laid out a large sheet of Tyvek, and I drew a line to represent a piece of the coast of an unknown island. I told the players that there had been a huge storm during the night and that the boat they were sailing in was destroyed. They were waking up on a deserted beach, along with a couple of barrels of food. I drew a second line on the Tyvek to show the interior edge of the beach and explained that areas on the island that had been explored could be colored in and decorated, along with the ocean waters. (For several, this became a project within the project.) The question, then, was what they wanted their characters to do.

COMPETING IMPULSES

In Reading Workshop and Writing Workshop, as well as in Musical Theater to a degree, we had already done some work with story elements: character, setting, conflict, and resolution. We had also looked at what motivates a character and the rise and fall of action in a story. However, right away, a couple of things came up.

First off, while some characters, such as Charlotte the princess-warrior-detective, sought to assess the situation and commence adventuring, others attempted to flee the island immediately or tried to zap each other in order to have the island to themselves. To keep the whole group involved, I decided to make it very difficult (but not impossible) to, say, teleport out of the story or sail away, and no one succeeded in doing so.

When Shorty, a wizard, tried to blast everyone else, Melanie and I felt it was important to let that decision ring out. Though Shorty’s effort did not succeed, we asked the other players to consider how what he had tried to do would affect the choices their characters made moving forward. We suggested that, in a story, actions need to have weight, and some sort of logic should govern a fictional world. (The same was true for players who wanted to announce random but major changes to their characters.)

CLASH OF PERSPECTIVES

One of the other issues to arise was that the group seemed inclined to split into factions from the outset. Cracks showed in the escape attempts, which involved individuals and small teams, not the whole cast. Then, although the group, including wand-wielding Shorty, made their way from the beach up to the forest pretty much together, they would not remain so for long.

When a giant boar charged onto the scene, some tried to flee or float up into the trees. Niomby, on the other hand, attempted to befriend the beast, while Tommy announced that he wanted to “turn it into bacon.” (Bacon won out, but the dying boar announced that, now, they would never know about the treasure on the island.)

Not long after, in an attempt to drive everyone from the woods, a tribe of angry squirrels started raining nuts down on them. The wizard Gerald cast a spell to shield the group and bounce the nuts back at the attackers, while Shorty and Tommy decided to join the squirrels in their bombardment. One cohort followed another out of the forest to safety, only to be accused of “always following” the first.

Apparently, the discussion has carried over outside the classroom. At some point, Skylar announced, “We’ve been working on this so much. We made a plan on group chat!” To help kids transition into and out of character (and build a bit of a firewall between the players and their creations in the process), Melanie introduced the idea of players turning around 360 degrees before moving from one world and the other.

BIG THINKING

It has been particularly interesting to hear the players interpret events as they unfold. Max declared that, if Tommy had not killed the boar, the boar would not have said anything about the treasure. When Gerald tried to teleport to where he sensed magic on the island and wound up flying around in circles, only to return to the cave he had been in, Xander said, “There’s magic all around the island. It’s a magical island!” Others argued that Gerald returned to the cave because that’s where the magic was.

After further peril, discovery, and ongoing adjustment, we are now near the conclusion of the story. (Amazingly, Melanie has been shaping her notes and observations into a written narrative of the adventure. Each of the players will receive a copy to accompany the work they have done during the course of the project.) At this point, it would seem that, when creating a story and, thereby, straddling the real world and the world of fantasy, a writer—or a storytelling team—is engaging in a process of nothing less than multi-level dynamic problem-solving. Pretty heady stuff for a group of fourth graders.

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Noticing: What do children notice about difference?

Fri, 16 Feb 2018 18:10:00 GMT

Every year our school chooses an Umbrella Project which is an overarching field of study for our entire school from two-year-olds through the eighth grade. This year our school’s project is Listen. My co-teacher Fran and I chose the same personal intention: to find ways of bringing social justice, and a way of listening that supports an anti biased point of view toward differences, to the children in our classroom. I am also part of IDEA (Inclusivity, Diversity, and Equity Alliance), a group of parents and teachers working to create more ways for our school to be inclusive of differences. Working with the group has helped me understand even more that people of different ethnicities and cultures would like to be seen and appreciated for the color of their skin and beliefs they have. Not acknowledging those differences has caused a culture of being unseen if you are not white. As teachers we work to help children find things they have in common so they can work together. We have emphasized a culture of listening. We scaffold children to hear each other’s ideas and respect them. Listening in this way can have repercussions. It may mean accepting that someone doesn’t agree with you or that you have to wait or take on more than one idea in play. To respect everyone’s right to be seen, heard, and respected, how can we help children notice differences? How do we talk about differences with children?

A group of children were playing together in our classroom:

Sometimes it is not clear if the children playing are enjoying each other so much they don’t want another player to join in. It is sometimes unclear if the children do not want someone of a different gender or temperament or someone who has a different skin color or someone who doesn’t have much language yet to join their play. We help children slow down and consider their own intentions for joining play while supporting them with language if needed. We also support children engrossed in play with language to explain their ideas. Observing children at play one day in the garden, I thought of something to try that might help us talk about differences and how to see them as meaningful in our communication with each other.

At circle, I passed a mirror around asking the children, “What do you notice when you look in the mirror?” I wanted to give them an open-ended question without forcing a particular response and was not sure how they would respond. I was surprised when each child looked, smiled and stuck out their tongues, or wrinkled up their noses. Some noticed their teeth. A few children noticed the person sitting next to them when looking in the mirror. I was awed by how the children noticed things we all have in common. I wondered if they would notice hair, eye and skin color, or the length or texture of their hair. When it was my turn I said that I noticed my freckles. I asked,”Does anyone else in our circle have freckles?” I chose a trait that I knew no-one else in the circle shared. The children looked around and noticed that no one else had freckles.

Meeting with Anna, our studio teacher, and Marty, our curriculum director, we talked about having small groups of children look together in a larger mirror. (We meet weekly as a pedological team to talk about the work of the children and discuss questions we might ask and provocations we might choose to better understand the children’s thinking.) What will the children notice when looking in a larger mirror in this way?

Teacher: What do you notice when you look in the mirror?

What I find to be so powerful in working with young children, two turning three, is their capacity to notice differences of all kinds and to also notice similarities they share with others. Will having these observations and discussions about differences help children see each other, appreciate each other, and be able to use language around our observations to make deeper connections with each other?

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Different spaces, different play.

Tue, 13 Feb 2018 15:59:00 GMT

One of the joys at Sabot at Stony Point is the many opportunities the children have for outside play. This time is so important to the children and they look forward to their weekly “forest” recesses. The play that they engage in is certainly space specific and very different from their experiences on the playground. The forest invites the children to forge new friendships, take physical risks or invent a new game. No equipment goes into the forest or comes out, yet the children are never at a loss for something to do.

I have noticed over the years teaching at Sabot that as the forest changes through the seasons the play changes too. Never do we have an autumn day when children are not burying themselves in leaves or throwing them into the air and in the spring the child scientists appear searching for crayfish and frogs in the creek. This year I have been taking the time to notice the forest play in winter and just a few weeks ago, a magical day came to the forest.

“ICE ICE! The Creek is ice!”

Immediately the children stepped on the ice, and the games and explorations began. At first the children joined friends on the ice, walking and sliding along the creek, so excited at this rare opportunity. As time went on the play and exploration grew wider in scale. Some children became scientists dropping rocks onto the ice to break it, or investigating the weight of large chunks of ice they collected like jewels. Others turned to sporting events, making “official” ice pucks to start a hockey game, or ice dancing in pairs and groups, speed skaters slid the length of the creek, while artists noticed patterns and shapes. Being in this new environment invited the children these choices, to play in a way they had not been able to in the forest before.

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Health with Kara, aka Puberty and Reproduction

Tue, 06 Feb 2018 21:32:00 GMT

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A Peek into Project Work

Mon, 29 Jan 2018 01:06:00 GMT

Each year, project work takes on a life of it’s own. As a teacher, it’s one of the most exciting as well as one of the most challenging parts of the work we do. Following the children’s lead requires a high level of attentiveness and reflection, as well as a willingness to let go of a certain degree of control.

One of the important elements of our work is documenting the children’s words. A benefit of having more than one teacher, one of us is often recording the children’s words while the other mediates the discussion. This allows us to look back at our conversation and identify the main ideas and strands that will take us to the next step.

At the ages of 7 and 8, children still retain a strong element of magical thinking while also thinking more concretely about the world. This magical thinking is something that is often dismissed or shut down by adults (or older children) but it is often the very thing that opens up questions and possibilities that lead to our richest explorations.

One of the most intriguing provocations was brought to us by our Atelierista Anna Golden who told us about scientists who discovered that trees respond defensively to the sounds that caterpillars make when eating their leaves. When caterpillars begin munching on leaves, trees normally emit an unpleasant chemical to deter the caterpillars. Scientists then recorded the sound of caterpillar feeding vibrations and played it back to a tree, and the tree emitted the chemical in response!

The children asked,

“ Do trees have ears?”

Here are just a few of their thoughts which we recorded during some of the project time discussions which helped inform the direction of our explorations and conversations.

On the life of trees:

Syd: I heard a beat in the log. If it didn’t have a heart it couldn’t stay alive.

Julia: I don’t actually think trees have hearts but I think there is something that keeps them alive.

Shayna: I don’t think they really have a heart that’s like a human but it has something that helps all of the water to flow through the tree and helps.

Zoey: I think inside of a brain there would be a controller of a tree that tells it what to do.

On communicating with trees:

Eve: You can’t actually communicate to it. It probably can’t hear you…since it probably doesn’t know what you’re saying. It can’t speak but it can feel you speaking through it’s roots.

Zoey: I think you could tap the ground to the beat of what you’re saying to so trees can hear the vibrations, and then listen to the tree and it might give you a tap back if you listen.

Shayna: I think that the roots absorb the sound and then it goes into the tree. The roots hear it- the tree doesn’t.

Kate: When I’m home I’m eating dinner sometimes I look into trees and I see a K there. It’s communicating things while it’s growing.

Shayna: If anyone has lettuce you should eat it and see if the tree does anything about it. Someone would have a stethoscope and see if it’s different afterwards.

Reflecting on some of their experiments:

Zoey: I stomped under a tree and then used a stethoscope on the tree while I was talking and I heard vibrations of me and Syd stomping on the ground.

Shayna: I ate my snack and Julia listened…..I think there was a response to the munching. Me and Avery listened to our hearts and we could hear it thumping, so if a tree had heart then you would be able to hear it.

Syd: We could have three plans and then X them out if they don’t work.

On the similarity between trees and humans:

Lorelai: The tree itself looks like a human.

Annabel: The leaves are like our hair. Soft like hair and beautiful.

Kenny: Bark and skin are alike and are pretty much for the same purposes.

Julia: [Like leaves and branches] our hair, fingernails, and teeth all fall off and grow back.

Shayna: Trees defend themselves with chemicals. We use our words, and sometimes our hands…and bodies.

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There Must Always Be A Foundation: Listening, Mindfulness, and “Turtleness,” Part 4

Sun, 28 Jan 2018 19:53:00 GMT

Sabine: Turtles are really mindful, so to be a turtle, the turtle needs mindfulness and mindfulness needs the turtle.

In exploring music and performance as non-verbal languages, the children developed a stronger awareness of how mindfulness could help them listen to (and with) their bodies in trying to slow down and communicate at the same time. As a class, they began to consider how thinking and performing like turtles requires significant mindfulness and attention to individually and collectively express the idea of “turtleness” to others. Over the next several weeks, they orchestrated whole group performances and then focused on smaller group turtle movement explorations which would later inform the entire group’s work. Throughout their investigative process, the children seamlessly integrated the mindfulness work and listening skills that they had been working on since the start of the year. It quickly became apparent that they were seeking a way to fuller representation, to more clearly distill their learning and share it with others.

As the class continued to learn about turtle and tortoise biology (and turtle- and tortoise-related world mythologies), we reached out to Sabot parent Laura Meyers to help the children integrate music and dance as languages to express the evolution of their thinking. Years before, I had called upon Laura’s expertise in helping a group of first grade students create a sunflower dance to represent the plant life cycle through dance, and her background in dance and choreography proved instrumental yet again in helping the third graders conceive of – and choreograph – their turtle performance. As a performance coach, Laura dutifully honored the children’s ideas and implicitly understood the importance of emphasizing mindfulness and self-control in their work. When she first met with them, they eagerly shared their understandings to date, and she in turn shared what she could offer them.

Providing a quick overview of their work for Laura, Nathan summed up the work of the class neatly: “What is a turtle? What makes a turtle or a tortoise? What are the differences?” The children related to Laura what they had done improvisationally and collaboratively. She then challenged them to think about aspects of a turtle that they could translate into movements: “You could think about the qualities of the turtle. The geometrics of the shell…Come up with a way to create a puzzle and then come up with three to four movements, repeat them, play around with the tempo, and interact with another group that has something going on…That’s active improvisation…”

We took the children to Founders Hall to begin trying out movement ideas. Before they began, Laura offered up a powerful provocation to invite them into the moment, reassuring them that: “I can be anything I want and I can come up with three movements that embody that for me. The sky’s the limit in terms of movement…Come up with a sequence of three movements that embody some aspect of the turtle.” Laura intro

After much experimentation, the children created – and then chose – three specific movements: a backwards crab-like turtle walk, a flip to a sliding movement to represent sea turtle movement, then a sit and spin to represent the spiral designs often found upon tortoise shells: turtle crawl , Sea Turtle Movement , spiral movement .

Students soon began to express their desire to be either sea turtles or land tortoises, and so the group became divided into two groups – those who worked together slowly as shells and tortoises [Group 1] and those who chose to be faster sea turtle hatchlings [Group 2], who would emerge from their nest in the sand to follow the moonlight to the ocean. The class determined that the sea turtles should be faster than the tortoises and shells based on their observations watching footage of hatchlings racing to the sea:

You can hear the children continuing to express these ideas as they practice as hatchlings: Sea turtle hatchling practice

The tortoises and shells in Group 1 had the unique challenge of finding each other’s center of gravity to best support one another – finding balance and security as the shell on top of the tortoise to allow the tortoise to support the shell’s weight and move without the shell falling off. As Laura expressed it, “You need to be trustworthy as the turtle. [The shell] is trusting me with its weight. You need to be super cautious and aware.” Together, we explored finding our center of gravity to achieve the balance necessary to execute the tortoise and shell movements: Center of gravity experiment #1 Center of gravity experiment #2

Together, the class chose a piece of music that they felt best represented their story and one that offered them distinct music cues for their performance: 3 Gymnopedies by Erik Satie, performed by trumpeter Alison Balsom.

Above: Recording the children’s choreography ideas on the whiteboard. Right: A record of their final plans for the performance in Founders Hall [T: turtles, S: shells, H: sea turtle hatchlings]

Figuring out the choreography took weeks of experimentation, practice, and refinement, and ultimately, the class settled upon a plan: Group 1 would begin the performance, executing the three movements [crawl, sea turtle slide, and spiral] before joining together as shells and tortoises [ turtle and shell opening practice ], while Group 2, as sea turtle hatchlings, would emerge from their nest, find their way to the sea, then come center stage to execute movements to represent the hatchlings diving into the ocean [diving through performers’ legs] and jumping over obstacles [leaping over performers], before retreating again to the sea offstage: sea turtle movement practice . After their rehearsals, the children reviewed their videotaped performances and thought collectively to find ways to improve and refine their work. In each discussion, we saw the children actively exhibiting the recurrent themes of our listening project: What does it mean to be a respectful listener and talker to build intersubjectivity? How does constructive and supportive feedback help us individually and as a group? How does mindfulness translate into focus, concentration, trust, and clear communication? How do mindfulness, music, and dance as languages foster deeper connection and understanding?

On the 14th of December before our winter break, the children gave a final performance for their parents and the kindergarten class. Together, the tortoises and the shells worked together to find balance, while the sea turtle hatchlings emerged from their nest in the sand and follow the light of the moon to make their way to the ocean.

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Listening to Trees: Second Grade

Mon, 22 Jan 2018 17:42:00 GMT

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Creating a Safe Space for Courageous Conversations

Mon, 22 Jan 2018 03:37:00 GMT

A group working on their expectations for each other.

As a veteran teacher who is new to Sabot, I have been struck by the warmth and closeness of the middle school community. I could sense that my students had built among them a safe space the moment my first class met.

It reminded me of the term “zimzum,” or “tsimtsum” in Hebrew. In their book, The ZimZum of Love , authors Rob and Kristen Bell write about zimzum reference to relationships. They describe zimzum as a separate energy field that is created between two people in a relationship. For the relationship to remain vibrant and healthy, this space requires attention and nourishment.

What I’m noticing of my 8th graders is a sort-of group zimzum. Their care for one another and shared values have created energy similar to the one that Rob and Kristen Bell write about. This safe space, fostered through years of community and relationship building in Sabot classrooms, reveals itself when my students have meaningful class discussions, one in which everyone takes turns and no one is mocked or judged for their opinions or ideas. They work in small groups, not without distraction, but almost always with kindness and respect. It is a joy to witness.

While conducting research for our journalism unit, I uncovered a plethora of resources from Facing History and Ourselves , an organization dedicated to engaging students in an “examination of racism, prejudice, and antisemitism in order to promote the development of a more humane and informed citizenry.” Their unit “Facing Ferguson: News Literacy in the Digital Age” guides students through a series of lessons exploring the role of journalism in a democratic society, helping us become responsible consumers (and producers) of information in the digital age. This particular news literacy case study explores the media and social media coverage of the events surrounding the shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager who was shot to death in a confrontation with Darren Wilson, a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri on August 9, 2014.

The first lesson focuses on creating a safe space for hard conversations about race. It asks students to create a contract outlining their expectations of each other in the classroom. They began our classroom discussion by answering the following prompt privately in their journals: “I mostly feel ____________ when discussing race, because _________.”

We took those feelings and, without using “I” statements or judgment, put them on the board for closer examination. (To protect our classroom, I will not list the children’s feelings here.) We discussed that these are feelings that may be in the room when we talk about race. What do they have in common? They are mostly negative feelings. They are deeply personal. And they are all valid. These feelings may be present on any given day while we are studying this unit, so we collectively agreed to create an environment where everyone is comfortable speaking up without the fear of being labeled if someone disagrees.

The contract created by the class that allows us to have courageous conversations.

We turned to a video by New York City hip-hop DJ and blogger Jay Smooth for guidance on how to respond when we take issue with someone’s point. I then shared Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum’s definition of racism as one we would be referring to throughout the unit: “In her book, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?, Dr. Tatum does not characterize racism as overt discrimination or individual acts of hate. Rather, she defines it as, “One’s benefiting from a system of privileges based on race that are subtly ingrained in the surrounding culture, making them difficult to detect. It is possible for people of color to be prejudiced on the basis of race, but the social system is never in their favor. This is racism. She compares racism to smog: “Sometimes it is so thick it is visible, other times it is less apparent, but always, day in and day out, we are breathing it in” (page 6).”

We discussed Dr. Tatum’s definition briefly, and I told them that we would return to it as we continue these lessons. It was time to create our class contract.

We wrote about a time when we felt safe, or unsafe, speaking our mind. When one student said, “I can’t think of a single time when I haven’t felt this way,” and a few more agreed, I quickly saw my assumptions about the middle school community coming true. They have experience learning in safe spaces! In launching these conversations about race and politics, we first needed to revisit the conversations that they have had throughout their careers at Sabot.

In small groups, they answered the question, “What do we as a community of learners need from each other to have a safe yet courageous conversation about race in this unit?” Each group came up with a list of 3-5 expectations. We then put all their expectations on the board and voted by placing tick marks next to those we felt should be included in the contract. Then we wrote up the contract, read it aloud, and signed it.

At the beginning of our class meetings, one student reads the contract to remind us of our safe space. I’m noticing my students open up in new ways. They are nurturing a supportive learning environment that with continued support and careful attention, allows for the vulnerability necessary to cultivate courageous conversations.

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There Must Always Be A Foundation: Listening, Mindfulness, and “Turtleness,” Part 3

Thu, 28 Dec 2017 20:17:00 GMT

(Top row: Students draw what they think a turtle looks like. Bottom: Later observational drawings created the same morning: a sea turtle, an alligator snapping turtle, a red-eared slider, and a Galapagos tortoise. Slowing down to build relationship and connection helps us to see and express details and differences we may have previously overlooked – or never knew existed.)

Throughout the month of October, we playfully (and intentionally) continued to listen to Debussy’s music and attempted to represent turtle movement as a group, while individually the children worked to represent artistically what they knew about turtles. It was only after offering up shared experiences – watching turtle movements in online nature videos, book research opportunities, thinking about turtles in world mythology, interactions with real turtles, and closer photographic examination of a diverse range of tortoises and turtles – that they began to think more deeply about what they thought they knew and what they were now learning by slowing down, observing, and processing. A rich discussion followed – what does it mean to be a turtle? How do we know what we know about turtles? Personal experiences and ideas were being expressed differently within our group, artistically and kinesthetically, but we noticed that even though we were all responding to the same slow music, pictures, and provocations, we had very individualized interpretations of “turtleness.” Questions were then posited around this idea: if everyone’s experiences with turtles and music are not exactly the same, how can we create commonality through dance and music (non-verbal means of expression) to convey a generally shared understanding?

The children soon realized that an audience’s ability to listen to and understand them as performers depends not only upon what the audience already knows about turtles, but also upon how the performers listen to each other and work together to communicate “turtleness.” We watched real turtle movements online to give them a shared observational experience to move their performance forward, and this helped generate some new thinking. They noticed real differences in the way that land tortoises and turtles move as opposed to sea turtle hatchlings emerging from their shells and rushing to the sea. Theories quickly emerged as to why (the hatchlings’ rush to escape predation on their way to the ocean). In the videos below, two students keenly observe that tortoises have broad, trunk-like feet to help support the weight of their shells, and suggest that we incorporate this information into our performance. Yet another student proposes that they all use their backpacks like shells to help them think more about the weight tortoises carry and how this would affect their movements.

EG tortoise movement

MH tortoise movement

tortoises with backpacks – trial

They quickly began to notice several things – it is hard to keep a backpack steady on your back, to use your fists and the palms of your hands to support your weight, and remember to stay slow and steady like a turtle with the whole class performing. Several students who were starting to get the hang of it offered to perform together for the class to figure out what was working and what wasn’t, and how we might reconceive our turtle dance [ Group of five – backpack tortoises ]. While we all noticed that their performance was far more focused and comprehensible, the performers themselves remarked that fewer people opened up the space, fostered concentration, and increased their ability to read others’ body language to inform movement decisions.

How is “turtleness” like mindfulness?

In revisiting our “turtle dance” again and again, the class quickly overcame any initial hesitancy, nervousness, and silliness, while continuing to acknowledge that these were real challenges for them. When everyone was asked to collectively participate and offer respectful and specific feedback to reflect and refine, the creative risk lessened and real buy-in and investment began to take hold. The connection to self-awareness and mindfulness and “turtleness” became a constant topic of conversation. The metacognition behind these forays into listening, mindfulness, and movement surfaced again and again throughout the process.

At the end of October, we were ready to expand upon our performance ideas, and we called in someone with dance and choreography experience to help the children move forward with their project work…

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Kindness: Laying the Groundwork for Social Justice

Sat, 02 Dec 2017 21:22:00 GMT

Wiping away another child’s tears with a tissue.

Every year, in addition to our school’s focus on an Umbrella Project, each teacher chooses an individual intention. This personal investigation is another way to deepen our teaching and explore topics of special interest. This year, Sarah Anne and I chose the same intention: to study how we might bring social justice and an anti-bias attitude into our everyday interactions in the classroom.

We always strive to be fair, respectful, and compassionate to every child and every family in our community. But we also realize that there is always more we can do. Current research indicates that it is never too early to instill these values in children. How can we identify attitudes of bias in ourselves and in the children? How can we bring out our awareness of those biases, painful as it may be to see them surface? How can we make our classroom one that welcomes all who come, that celebrates the rich diversity of culture and background we each bring to the Forest Room?

These are big questions, and we will be wrestling with them for a long time. But we have to start somewhere, and we have to start sometime. Sarah Anne and I have been reading “Rethinking Early Childhood Education,” edited by Ann Pelo. This book is all about bringing social justice into early childhood education. One way is to emphasize children’s social-emotional learning. We can do that by focusing on “the importance of collaboration and offer(ing) children coaching and practice about understanding multiple perspectives.”

Helping zip up a coat.

This week we began to invite this learning by calling attention to acts of kindness. We feel this is a good way to help children become aware of different perspectives. When we saw children assist others with a task, or help each other solve a problem by using their words (with or without the support of a teacher), we wrote it down on a slip of paper. When a child was moved to share without being asked or went out of their way to clean up materials or to get something someone needed, we acknowledged that as well. At circle, we read these thoughtful deeds aloud to the children, watching them beam when we verbally acknowledged their compassion.

These young children come into our classroom at a pivotal time in their lives. They are beginning to leave parallel play and branch out into collaborative social interactions. Learning to negotiate, wait, and care for others who have different ideas, backgrounds, and abilities takes practice. It is our job to support this valuable work, to delight in the children’s burgeoning skills in empathy and communal exploration of common goals. The world can always use more kindness, and we will continue to write the children’s acts down, read them aloud, and make them visible as a powerful way to lay the foundation for social justice and anti-bias in our classroom.

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There Must Always Be A Foundation: Listening, Mindfulness, and “Turtleness,” Part 2

Wed, 29 Nov 2017 22:13:00 GMT

Self-awareness is…

To be aware of ourselves and cognizant of what our actions communicate and how they affect others is the deeply introspective work of understanding how mindfulness works internally and externally. In processing what we had observed and learned through our talking and listening charade activity and Henry’s picture, we proposed that the children find their own solutions to help listeners and talkers in our class feel seen, heard, and supported, without teacher intervention.

We invited the children to come up with their own non-verbal signals to help the class focus and support respectful listening and talking. The children generally agreed that the simpler and more direct the sign, the better, and that there should not be any noise generated by the signal. One strategy, using a finger snap to get attention, was deemed by the group to be too loud and the potential for distraction too great. This was also their take on passing a two-fingered tap around the room…again too distracting, given the group’s propensity for silliness and physicality.

Together, they decided which signals would be best to keep:

This student-generated – and agreed upon – system then became another self-awareness tool in their self-regulation tool kit to promote better listening and supportive space for talking. It is a system that has admittedly needed weekly revisitation since its introduction, but it is a system that came from them as a self-regulation support. Coming to consensus on a system of signs meant that everyone agreed to use them and knows their meaning as a way to promote community and reciprocity.

My co-teacher Nicole Davis has been taking ASL (American Sign Language) classes in the evenings to learn how to communicate with her daughter and she shared some ASL charades with the class to help them think more deeply about how much of our communication is truly non-verbal in nature. In pairing up the students, she asked each partnership to use only their face (no body signals or sound) to communicate emotions – Partner A would show an emotion and Partner B would mirror that – then they would switch places with the next emotion given. The children noticed how very difficult it was to communicate without body language.

We began to wonder how the children would respond to instrumental music as a non-verbal language. We selected both energetic and slow, contemplative pieces of music and asked our students to tell us what they thought the music was communicating. In their discussions, they agreed that music is another way to express feelings and emotions, a descriptive language able to convey mood, tone, and narrative that can stand alone or add deeper understanding to verbal and other non-verbal modalities. Different styles of music provided very individual, subjective guesses as to their possible meaning, but regardless of the kind of music played, the children’s responses were immediate and intensely felt and expressed.

Left: N. invited me to perform with him in a turtle dance, as two turtles moving slowly to Debussy. Moments later, we noticed that “turtleness” and slowness were much harder to achieve when the music was faster (a la Herbie Hancock’s song Rockit ) just like focus, mindfulness, and listening can be harder in an environment with more energy and distraction. In the first video below, our bodies are listening and trying to slow down and communicate at the same time; we are trying with great difficulty to slow our turtles down, and you can see how some of the other students can’t help responding to the fun and energy of the music. In the second video link, the entire class tries on “turtleness” as we go back to listen and perform to Debussy once more. This is the first of their many preliminary attempts to figure out a turtle performance together, and here you can see we still have some work to do. It is quite revealing watching this in hindsight and knowing how their collaborative choreography has evolved from these first moments (posts to come).

CM and NY – slow turtles, fast music

Debussy – whole class trial

It was in honoring this playful moment, exploring it, and taking it seriously that the children began to build metaphorical and experiential connection to the work of listening. As a class, we began to consider how thinking and performing like a turtle (with only non-verbal communication tools at our disposal) requires significant mindfulness and intention to individually and collaboratively express the idea of “turtleness” to others. Continued revisitation of these ideas helped the children move past their early discomfort and self-consciousness in performing before (and with) their peers and created real investigative and creative buy-in.

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There Must Always Be A Foundation: Listening, Mindfulness, and “Turtleness,” Part 1

Sat, 18 Nov 2017 21:43:00 GMT

In many world cosmologies, the universe has a cyclical nature and periods of creation and destruction that repeat themselves ad infinitum . One compelling mytheme that comes to us from seemingly disparate belief systems – like the Hindu, the Chinese, and the indigenous peoples of the Americas – is that of the world turtle (or tortoise)who supports the world on its back. An image thought to convey this conceptualization of Hindu cosmology shows a tortoise supporting four elephants supporting the world encircled by a serpent. The expression “turtles all the way down” goes even farther to entertain the idea that the world turtle is resting on even more turtles indefinitely. In reflecting on the direction of our umbrella project work thus far, which surprisingly has taken us to turtles and “turtleness,” this image resonates powerfully as a metaphor for what our yearly umbrella project (and all of our independent research projects for that matter) can and should do. A foundation is provided – a theme, a touchstone, a catalyst – upon which our work can be guided, processed, and expanded throughout the course of a year. Implicit in all of this is the understanding that additional supports are in place to make it happen – trust, relationship, and community within our classrooms and amongst our faculty. We place great trust in the umbrella idea (and in our students) to take us new places where we will explore new concepts together and expand our understanding of ourselves and the world around us. Turtles all the way down and support all the way up, connecting the dots as we go.

So how did we take our umbrella project on listening to turtles? It certainly didn’t happen right away…

Since the start of the school year, the third graders have been thinking about the role that mindfulness plays in being an active listener and respectful talker. In the spirit of full disclosure, it is fair to say that overall, this was a group that we hoped would reap the larger benefits from an umbrella project on listening and focus. The learning in our classroom environment is always highly dialogic, but for a number of children it was a challenge to find the balance between managing impulsivity, building self-awareness, and fine-tuning their communication skills – to either be reassured of the space and safety to express their thinking or, conversely, to more strategically hold back their internal monologue and allow other voices to be heard. In the early weeks of school, we invited the children to build listening devices with materials, and this did allow us to pre-assess their strengths and challenges as listeners and communicators in a whole group setting. We hit the pause button on creating our devices, however, when we realized that we needed to build a stronger, more supportive listening community.

Listening is much different from simply hearing – and much harder. Active listening requires a great deal of self-regulation, and these two skills are dependent upon each other. Listening is hard because it forces us to slow down and really be in the moment. It requires us to be patient with ourselves as we resist the temptation to move, talk, or interrupt and to be patient with others – waiting for the right time to respond or react and finding the right ways to respond or react. It requires real patience and timing.

As an educator, it is essential to be open to listening to children’s energy, to sense when it is time to help them stop, refocus, and redirect in order to take their learning process where it needs to go, and to hold back our own experiences and thoughts to keep from interrupting the flow of their own. While the children are talking and sharing their thinking, I listen to figure out a way to bring those ideas together, alternatively talking and asking them questions so that I can help bring their ideas together. Being mindful of my role as a constructivist guide-on-the-side and listening attentively to their cues and insights to help them connect the dots to larger intersubjective learning is the goal in making the learning – and the listening – less about “me” and more about “us.” Children are just in the beginning stages of building these skills.

When we asked the class to try to self-identify as either a talker or a listener, many children straddled the line, literally and figuratively, and it was a challenge to consider which is their proclivity. We should do both, but what do we do most – talk or listen – and why do we choose one more often than the other? They are different kinds of processing and they differ in a variety of contexts. What happens if we cannot find balance between the two – for ourselves and for our peers?

We asked the children to play with these ideas kinesthetically through talking/listening charades. Within each partnership, there were listeners and talkers who were given the instruction to use movement alone to convey each modality. How do listeners use their bodies to listen? How to talkers use their bodies to talk? Each partnership created a performance presented for audience feedback, after which the actors could share their stories, motivations, and artistic choices. Most of the “talkers” showed themselves to be far more physical (and often overbearing) in their role playing, while the “listeners” exuded calm and control, only becoming physical when interrupted or treated unfairly in the course of their performance stories. While talking and listening seemed dichotomous, Leo and Sabine then clarified that listening is not passive at all:

A picture created by Henry to show students listening and talking further emphasized the point that listeners need to be heard:

Carter: The talker is just like,”No, I’m going to keep talking about this… blah, blah, ” and the listener is just like “Why can’t I talk for a few minutes?”

Luke: The talker is like, “I know, I know!” and the listener is like “Yup, he’s right…I didn’t even get a chance”(uses bummed out voice)

Harper: I think that the listener is really upset [the talker] yelled out because they wanted a chance to share something.

Leo: I think that since that guy is yelling out everyone else already knows the answer and the other person who knows the answer and wants to share it calmly is feeling left out.

Elina: I think that the person who wanted to speak is feeling really disappointed because they didn’t get a chance because the other person is shouting out.

Weston: He feels stupid that he didn’t get to share his idea.

Miles: He kind of feel a little annoyed because they keep on yelling out.

Harper: I think that the person is saying yup he’s right is feeling invisible.

In combination, their charades and this picture got the class thinking about how it feels when one form of processing dominates the other. How could they solve this problem so that both talkers and listeners feel satisfied and supported? That’s when we moved into other forms of non-verbal communication and took our project thinking to the next level…

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How Long Can We Go Without Math?

Wed, 15 Nov 2017 00:35:00 GMT

DO WE HAVE TO DO MATH?

On a recent Monday morning, Sam, still in weekend mode, looked at the schedule for the day and said, “Aw, man. Do we have to have Math? Can’t we just… measure that tree out there or something?” A couple of other kids murmured in agreement.

Melanie replied, “That’s an interesting question, Sam. What other questions do you think we could explore with math?”

Sam, who happens to be as curious and capable a mathematician as anyone in his class, sensed a loophole. He said, “We should see how long we can go without math before we go crazy.”

Melanie, not missing a beat, said, “That’s really interesting, Sam. How long can we go without math? Let’s write that down.”

The next morning, we presented the challenge. “Sam asked a great question: How long can we go without math? So, can we try to make it all the way until Math time after lunch without using math?”

The class agreed. Xander stood up and declared, “Okay. When someone says something with math in it, we have to write their name on the board. Then, if you say something again, you get a check mark, and–three checks and you’re out!”

Kids seemed to like the idea, but several shouted, “You said three! That’s math!” And so we were off and running. Every few seconds, someone seemed to mention a page number, the time, or the way a poem was divided into parts, leading to a growing list of names on the board, with more and more check marks. Throughout Writing Workshop and even at snack time, math terms and math applications cropped up at a surprising rate.

MATH IS AN EVERYDAY THING

When the class gathered in Circle after lunch for Math, Melanie asked the group, “How did it go? What are your thoughts?”

Noting how many checks I had, Max said, “Jon likes math.”

Neil replied, “He uses math.”

Juliet said, “You use it a lot during the day and just don’t realize it.”

Getting at why I had so many checks, Max said, “Jon wasn’t trying to not use math, but some of us were. We were trying to not use a math word.”

Robbie said, “I found out it is really hard to not use math.”

Neil said, “I only recognize it if we’re doing hard math. If it’s easy, I don’t notice it, but when I have to slow down, I realize it’s math.”

Skylar declared, “Basically, every sentence you say is math.”

Xander, testing that theory, said, “I can talk. Underline that sentence.”

Sam said, “That’s still math.”

Lila, thinking about underlining, said, “A line is something that goes on and on.”

Juliet said, “Even in Reading Workshop and P.E., you still use math.” She gave a counting example, and Neil and Gabriella chimed in with other examples involving counting.

Xander said, “Math is an everyday thing. You use it all the time.” He gave a money example.

Lila said, “Math is a language we don’t notice.”

Neil said, “Math is something you use.”

Max said, “That’s what this lesson was about. You wouldn’t be teaching it if we didn’t need it.”

Skylar said, “Basically, every sentence has math.”

Melanie asked Skylar, “Are you saying every word has a number of letters or that there’s timing in language.”

Skylar responded, “Yeah, timing.”

Neil said, “You have to have spaces. Otherwise, the words would just run together.”

Juliette said, “Math is like another language, and it actually is a language that most people do speak, just not fluently. It’s language in numbers.”

Lila said, “Math is another language, and it’s kind of like when you’re trying to learn Spanish. It’s hard, but then when you get better at it, you don’t notice that you’re using.”

Reese said, “It’s like English. You don’t even think about that when you’re speaking it.”

LET’S EXPLORE

So, where did this all come from? Sam’s comment about measuring a tree showed a desire to do real work, along the lines of the measuring project we did with the new structure on the playground at the beginning of the year. Other practical math questions have bubbled up this year, too. We pondered: If we have an all-school assembly in Founders Hall, will all of the students, teachers, and staff fit? If the school year is supposed to be 180 days long, how many weeks is that? (In working out that one, one student commented earnestly, “It feels like we’ve been in school for about 37 weeks so far this year.”)

The check marks seemed to be a lot about making a game of it. Placing that lens on it was fun, and there were gotcha/aha moments galore.

The kids also had tools in place for thinking about this. We had already done work around the myriad uses for numbers, for example.

The discussion, of course, had a lot to do with the culture of the class and the pedagogical approach of the school. It’s not just a willingness to sit in Circle and talk things through (although that’s clearly a part of it). Co-constructing our understanding of things is what we do.

It’s also about a process of listening to the kids, noticing when they ask thought-provoking questions, and then getting really curious about where those questions can lead. It would have been easy to write off Sam’s comment as him just wanting to make the weekend last a little longer. Instead of shutting that down, Melanie said, “That’s interesting. Let’s explore it more,” and we went from there.

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The Waiting Tree

Mon, 06 Nov 2017 19:29:00 GMT

In the Rainbow Room, there is much discussion about the “waiting tree” outside our classroom. At the bottom of our outdoor staircase, the waiting tree is a tree we gather by as we wait for each other to come down the stairs.

There are many questions about the waiting tree that started one day when a child laid their head on the bark and tried to hear the voice of the tree. Children began to ask: Does it hear? Can it talk? Does it have friends? Does it have human parts such as lungs, ears, a heart, or feelings?

A child made a “tower of pointing” to raise up into the tree. A portion of the children’s discussion while in the studio is below.

Currently, there is work between the children trying to figure out how to get “the tower of pointin'” up into the top of the tree so “it can hear the location of trees”. Last Friday, some children tried to see if balloons would go up to the top. Some children have been working on a pulley and rope system as well. Children are creative, deep thinkers, often coming up with ideas we might not think of as adults.

We are reaching out to the tree together, making it gifts, and trying to listen to it. An amplifier with microphone/listening device was brought outside and the children held it to the tree to listen to the sounds it might make. We are considering the difference between us and how a tree might experience things. Some children think the ears of a tree are in its leaves. Some think it hears from its “toes” (roots). This is all good practice for all of us in how to be thoughtful and attentive to another’s perspective.

As teachers, we have been discussing trees and we’ve discovered resources along the way. We would like to share them in case you are as interested as we are.

The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben is a book that discusses the feelings of trees and how they communicate. There was a podcast on NPR about it.

A bioacoustician, Bernie Krause, has made recordings of thirsty trees and the sounds they make.

Our classroom has a new book titled Wise Trees, a book of tree portraits. We will be looking at this in class very soon.

David Haskell has written a book about The Songs of Trees .

We invite you to leave us comments and questions as we are in the early stages of our tree study. Your voice will help us as we move along in this project.

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Our Class Crest

Tue, 31 Oct 2017 21:14:00 GMT

At the start of each year, we come up with agreements or guidelines that we want to establish for our community. This is an activity that could easily become perfunctory so we intentionally decided to slow down the process, both to emphasize the importance of the agreements as well as to make them more meaningful to the children.

We spent a few minutes over the course of a week just brainstorming on large scrap paper, recognizing the fact that oftentimes ideas need time to percolate.

Knowing that we needed to condense our ideas, children began to notice that many of the ideas belonged in the same family. We typed up their ideas on strips of paper and had the children sort them into categories that we developed with their help.

We were left with these five agreements:

The teachers initially hoped that the children might be able to condense them down to three agreements — three agreements would certainly be easier to remember than five! So we posed the question to the children — could any of these five agreements go together? This is when the children began to notice many relationships between the agreements:

“When you are respecting others, you are being kind.”

“When you have good sportsmanship, you are respecting others.”

“Having good sportsmanship means you should be safe!”

The relationships they recognized between these agreements prompted us to think of creating a visual image to represent our agreements. What are ways that a group of people communicate their values? A second grade family coat of arms or crest came to mind. We knew that the process of translating ideas into visual symbols would not be easy but would afford them an opportunity to process the agreements on a deeper level.

We began by looking at crests of a few countries and they enthusiastically offered ideas on what the symbols on the crest might mean. We then challenged them to come up with rough drafts for symbols that could represent our agreements and to submit their ideas anonymously into a class “idea box.” We emphasized that these were ideas that we were offering to the group without laying claim to them.

Some of the submissions

Silent voting

Tallying the votes

We were amazed at how well the children understood the democratic nature of this process — no one “cheered” that their vote won, or expressed disappointment that the symbol they had drawn did not get chosen. The process has become proof of the value and power of thinking together as a group — a good reference point for our work as a community the rest of the year.

The final product is a culmination of the work of a design team, who created the shape of the crest and redrew and arranged the chosen symbols and the paint team, who traced the crest and painted it in colors they chose together.

As always, we find that when we slow things down and give children the opportunity to revisit an idea in more than one medium, the learning is deeper and richer and in this case, gives the children more ownership. One child, as she painted the crest said, “This should be the crest for the whole world!” We agree.

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Beginnings of Village

Fri, 27 Oct 2017 12:27:00 GMT

The fifth grade is making a “village.” We are designing a culture in 1/24 scale. In this photograph, students are making their 3D “peeps” who will live in our village. We are also designing the village government.

The 3D peeps will be made like dollhouse dolls with pipe cleaner bodies. These are finished sculpy heads, hands and feet which are ready to be baked.

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Collaboration in Sport

Thu, 26 Oct 2017 22:57:00 GMT

PE at Sabot might look a little different than what parents remember from their childhood. There is no gym, no whistle, and on any given day it might be more likely to see us running through the forest, or playing strategy games with pool noodles than perfecting the perfect sports swing/kick/throw. That doesn’t mean that sports don’t happen at Sabot, because they absolutely do. It just might look a little different. Sports have a place for every kid, not just the kids who are naturally really great at them. This happens in PE through collaboration. The aspect of collaboration that I see most often is the zone of proximal development. This is the area of learning between what the learner knows and what they can learn from others around them. With any given sport, there are always students in each class who have more experience than others. I ask only two things of the students. The first is for those who have a lot of experience to be helpful. The second is for those with less experience to be patient and kind with themselves. That is a bit of a tall order, especially knowing how frustrating and process driven learning a new sport can be. Throughout the grades, however, the students almost always rise to the occasion.

The middle school students are currently in a football segment. The goal is not for everyone to like football. Some kids do and that is great, but the ones who don’t can still take something meaningful out of the experience. And they do so mostly by learning from their peers. If everyone is invested in making sure all students are able to participate then the ones with less experience feel more comfortable about taking risks. The kids in the class who know the most about a sport still stand to gain a lot by collaborating with their peers. It’s often a lot harder to teach a skill or set of rules then it is to actually play yourself.

One of the many beautiful things about Sabot is that in every grade, (except the 2 year olds in the Forest Room) students have a chance to be a leader to younger students. This year the 7th grade students have displayed much more confidence in the football segment. As 6th grade students last year, many of them came in with very few skills mastered and football felt very foreign to them. Those same students are now helping some of this years 6th grade students learn. I witnessed more peer learning during lower school recess. They have recess right before middle school PE and one day two of the middle school students jumped right in to play with them. I’m not sure who had more fun.

It has been fun to watch the students become more confident over time. It comes from first taking a risk in a peer-supported environment, then being committed to learning a skill, mastering the skill and finally teaching it to others. The confidence and leadership skills that happen during team sports transfer well beyond the physical benefits of the moment.

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Tune In and Listen

Mon, 18 Sep 2017 19:21:00 GMT

The first few weeks of PE always include a lot of discussion about form and mechanics. This looks different across all ages but one thing they all have in common is learning to listen to what their bodies are telling them. It starts in kindergarten, where the students are practicing kinesthetic sense. They practice moving through their environment while bringing awareness to what is going on around them. In the video below students are moving in the opposite direction of some of their peers and practicing paying attention to each other.

kindergarten video

Once students have a grasp on how their bodies move in their environment we begin to discuss pacing. We talk about pacing in terms of levels or zones. Their first level starts out easy enough that they can sing while running (you can catch a glimpse of this below). The levels increase gradually and when they reach level five they are working hard enough that they only have the breath to get out a word or two. Each student has their own set of “levels” and it takes practicing getting to know what that feels like in their own body.

Levels

By the time students reach middle school they are learning about pushing limits and taking bigger risks. One way this is demonstrated is by our time in the forest. Some students choose to run the out and back loop. They are not only navigating kinesthetic challenges (roots, rocks, etc.) but they are also navigating pacing strategies. The students in the photo below recently ran 2.5 miles in the forest at sub 7 minute mile pace!

I’m am looking forward to finding out the many other ways I see the students listening to their bodies this year.

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Field Day 2017

Fri, 26 May 2017 19:06:00 GMT

Field Day was full of joy… and mud this year. Thank you to all of our fabulous volunteers who made the stations so much fun. This year’s theme was “Wacky” and the stations were: Plunger Highway, Dancing, Head to Stomach Water Pass, Cheetos Head, Panty Hose Bowling, Giant Racing/Battles, Obstacle Course and Water Ball. We finished the day with parents versus kids tug of war. Enjoy the photos!

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Research and Representation: Climbing Into Our Family Tree and Finding Our Roots: Part 2

Fri, 19 May 2017 16:30:00 GMT

Once the third graders created their collaborative timeline to think about their ancestors and the historical events that shaped them, they began working on a new way to represent their learning – the creation of a history game that will encompass four centuries (1600 to 2000) and incorporate elements of their family tree and historical research. It’s altogether far too easy to dismiss the creation of a game to show children’s thinking – play is what they know best. How much learning could there be behind the creation of a history game? Below is a snapshot of their process, not only to show how the children arrived at representing their research, but also to provide a glimpse into how heavily invested they all came to be through the high level of passionate discourse, negotiation, cooperation, and intersubjectivity that was part and parcel of their methodology. Each and every discussion and design decision reflected their thoughtful deliberation, careful consideration, and mutual respect. Consensus was paramount in constructing a game that would satisfy all of our history researchers – and honor their ancestors.

As we began to shift into this representation phase to show what the children had learned, we revisited a previous conversation from the earlier phase of our research. How might we show time? What does time look like?

Among the initial ideas: Gabriella’s idea that the game could be conceived in terms of neighborhoods. Each neighborhood could be one of the four centuries, streets could be decades, and the year an ancestor was alive could be their address. You would roll a die to progress forward through the game and if you rolled a certain number on the die, a time traveling mailman would come to your house, to deliver an artifact or document. Graeme suggested a time traveling mailman on a time traveling bike. Other students proposed the idea of incorporating an artifact store where you could trade in knowledge points for artifacts.

At this point, there was quite a lot of disagreement about the goal of the game. Many students first thought that the goal would be to simply move through the game, gather as much information as you could collect about history, and simply survive. There were others who proposed creating a different game for each century, and then there were heated discussions about whether or not players would play as themselves or as the ancestors. Throughout it all, we continued to remind the children: What do you want people to learn from the game?

In the end, it was decided that it was essential that players collect as much information as possible, through experiences, documents, and artifacts. They began to imagine the game as a bridge – arriving at the understanding that the goal is to collect historical knowledge through game play. Incorporating information about history and their ancestors, the children decided to create experience, artifact, and document cards and “challenge” spaces on the board to weave the personal and the historical together.

Other passionate discussions included these topics of deliberation:

Below: A whiteboard record the children’s logo, card, & game board design ideas:

After several weeks of brainstorming and discussion, the children came to agreement upon the following elements:

Below: The Game Design Group works through their ideas. They decided to imagine the timeline as a spiral. Different colors represent different centuries (red = 17th century; blue: 18th century; orange: 19th century; green: 20th century). Top left: Looking at their second version to rethink and redesign their newest version. They decided to make the game smaller, with fewer spaces. Developing and refining measurement skills have been a large part of this year’s learning, and the game designers remembered what they’d learned about unit iteration as they strove to make each space the same length, width, and height. In the words of one student, “Now it looks like a real game!”

Other students worked diligently on the cards, complete with the agreed upon logo designs. Below: original idea for a scoring card, the final version of the score card (laminated for repeated use), and a sample of the playing cards.

Beta Testing One: The Power of One (click here for You Tube Video)

Above: Robbie’s calculations about the likelihood of always spinning a one in the game. Four players continue testing the game for playability.

Aterlierista Lauren Bishop has worked with us throughout this history project. While we still have a lot of beta testing to go before the game is completed, she has helped keep the children remain focused upon the essential history questions that they are seeking to answer through their work. As she so astutely pointed out, the children’s choice of representation through the creation of a history game means that “through each occasion that they play the game, they will deepen their learning about history in general and strengthen their connection to their ancestors.” “In this way,” she notes, “this mode of representation will continue to serve them and deepen their understandings over and over again. They will interact with these experiences, artifacts, and documents many times over and develop a relationship with their family history through these interactions built into the game.”

Keeping family history alive and relevant is what building a bridge to the past and being the bridge for future generations is all about. The past is a touchstone that we continually connect with and helps shape who we are – and who we are destined to be. All points of intersection into this investigative process have been powerful catalysts individually and collectively. The children’s design work, their writing, their play, their dicussions all remind us that the bridge to knowledge is intensely personal – physically, emotionally, and intellectually. It comes from within and shapes us, and broadens our sense of possibility and wonder. History itself works within a constructivist framework, shaped by the experiences and perspectives of those who create, record, and research it. Games are play, but deeply embedded in the richness of play is social and emotional connection, intersubjective agreement, and dialogic exchange – play with purpose. When given the time, space, freedom, and trust to joyfully and purposefully explore their ideas, children can collaboratively pursue their theories and stretch their collective boundaries, building the bridge between the unknown and the discovered.

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Research and Representation: Climbing Into Our Family Tree and Finding Our Roots: Part 1

Fri, 19 May 2017 03:45:00 GMT

Why is it important to know your family story?

Each year, the Sabot Third Graders explore the essential question “ Who Are My People? ” by thinking about family histories through the lens of immigration, working to unearth information about their first ancestors who arrived in this country. This spring, the children interpreted this question more broadly and personally: Are “my people” only the people who first came here? Their immersion into historical research was driven by a deeply personal connection to their people and their own intrinsic interests. The organic nature of their investigative process allowed each pivotal research moment to breathe so that with each step forward, they were able to more fully see the rich interconnectivity of history while creating new dimensions to their own definition and sense of self. They began to learn about history in a way that solidly placed them within it. A stronger awareness emerged as the children became more cognizant that they are indeed part of a larger narrative.

Third Grade Essential and Emergent Questions Guiding Our Research:

“How are they related to you ?” was a recurring question during our family story shares from the start, and one that continued to fuel the students’ interest and commitment to further investigate the birth, death, and lifespan of their ancestors. Using information from their initial family research, the children began their first attempts at creating a family tree. They were alternately engaged by the challenge of how much information they could include and frustrated by the seeming elusiveness of the task – the gaps that seemed impossible to know, the vast exponential nature of it all. Each revision demonstrated perseverance and a commitment to uncover more of their family story. The individual desire to uncover new information breathed life into their collective work.

The children generated symbol systems to articulate what they were still figuring out. They built this vocabulary together to show various strategies for representing divorce, unknown and step-family relations through different symbols, keys, and lines. Their revisions show the evolution of their thought processes and a new understanding of genealogical connections.

Above: Some of the first attempts at creating family trees. Below: Reese’s family tree. During her second revision, Reese created a legend to represent various types of relationships such as divorce, remarriage, and step-family relations through a series of different lines and boxes. She also created place holders for forgotten names.

Below left: Max H. began his family tree in a linear format, much like a timeline instead of a “branchier” tree. Below right: This revision demonstrates his growing understanding of connections across generations and family units. Bottom: Max’s final revision expands and clarifies his family’s genealogy.

Later, the children explored the idea of inherited and acquired familial traits by examining a color family tree. Sabot Aterlierista Lauren Bishop provided an example of a generational family tree that included grandparents, parents, and a child. As she mixed different colors down the tree, the children saw how a child was a product of all those colors mixed together (below left). In her second example of a color tree (below middle), she changed just one color for the grandmother but kept all other colors the same. The children saw that by changing just one person in their family tree, everyone else changed as well. Most of the children quickly understood that the colors were symbolic placeholders, representing the idea that we inherit the traits of our ancestors. They then set out to create a new version of their family tree to reflect traits that they felt they had inherited from their own ancestors, including both physical (or inherited) traits such as height, hair and eye color as well as more social (or acquired) traits such as a love of art, math, or music (below right: Lila charts her inherited and acquired family traits). Instead of being merely interested in their family story, the children came to understand themselves as part of it – to see themselves as interwoven and interconnected to their people, their ancestors. The influence of the past colors the present.

The next step in our research process was tasking each student to choose one of their ancestors to focus upon and then researching what life was like during the lifetime of their chosen ancestor.

Right: Whiteboard thinking: The children compiled a list of significant historical events that they felt should be included on their classroom timeline. They looked through our classroom library to see what informational resources were available to them, and soon our co-constructed history timeline began to take shape – four centuries, from 1600 to 2000, incorporating the big social, political, and technological changes that their ancestors would have experienced within their lifetimes.

Once their historical research was in full swing, the collaborative timeline quickly transformed and the children began to make their “ancestor peeps” to place on the timeline. These “peeps” are an amalgam of factual knowledge about their chosen ancestor and the time period in which they lived and the imagined, based on educated guesses as to how that ancestor might have looked and lived.

In the picture above, we see several “peeps:” Graeme’s grandfather who was a paratrooper in the 1940s; Virgie, Gabriella’s great-grandmother who had nine children, holding her family’s beloved biscuit recipe that has been lovingly handed down; Hailey’s great-grandfather Dan, imagined as his three-year old self living in the mid-1930s; Max H’s great-granddad Hansford, who served in the army during WWII; and Lila’s Mor Mor, her grandmother who was born in the 1940s who is holding a genealogy book.

Helping us to better understand and appreciate the importance of family history and legacy have been the grandmothers who graciously came into our classroom to impart their research wisdom. Skylar’s grandmother Vanessa Nixon came to share her research story with us. Over the past several years, Vanessa has worked diligently to begin the daunting task of piecing her family history together. She shared with us the family scrapbook that she has compiled through online searches, her family’s oral history input, historical records, photographs, and documents.

The image of the bridge came to us during these discussions. One of the habits of mind that we hope to instill in Sabot students is the ability to apply past knowledge to new situations. In our conversation with Vanessa, it became apparent that this habit of mind is fully evidenced by this particular branch of investigative research.

How do older family members become the bridge to younger generations – and vice versa ? In the course of our conversation, the power of the bridge metaphor helped us all gain deeper clarity:

The following week, Sam’s grandmother Carolyn Chenoweth came to share her research story with the class. With her sister, she has conducted family research since 2000, and while she has utilized the internet as part of her investigations, she has also relied upon census and court records, family histories, military records, and birth, death, and marriage certificates.

“Seeing” history through the lens of their ancestors has allowed the children to place their family story into connection with history as a whole and among the family stories of their peers, expanding their historical and personal schema. Consideration of “the bridge” only deepened our metaphorical thinking around this project – of how people are shaped by history, and how they, in turn, shape history – and how, by the very nature of their own investigations, the children themselves were becoming a bridge.

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Risk

Wed, 10 May 2017 18:04:00 GMT

We just wrapped up an eventful two and a half weeks of biking in PE. At Sabot we talk about risk as being one of the habits of mind. Bike weeks always afford plenty of opportunities for risk. We had five first grade students willing to take off their training wheels for the first time. Six years ago there were some other first graders willing to take this risk. Those are now the 8th grade students at Sabot who took a field trip and rode 11.5 miles on the Virginia Capital Trail. They were confident, happy, and definitely could have gone a lot further had time allowed. Our preschool and kindergarten students looked on while watching the duathlons (run-bike-run), absorbing the older students’ enthusiasm and sensing their feelings of accomplishment.

I spoke with each class after their duathlon. I thanked them for being willing to take a risk. It takes a lot of courage to start something when you know up front that it will be challenging and you don’t know exactly what the outcome will be. Students demonstrated that by taking the risk, they found themselves to be a lot stronger than they initially though. My hope for each of our students who participated in bike weeks is that they learned something about their own strengths that will translate beyond their physical endeavors and into their academics and friendships.

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Relationship: in Defense of…Teasing?

Thu, 30 Mar 2017 20:30:00 GMT

Teasing: can it ever be a good thing?

Our first response might be a firm “no.” After all, we know that the middle-school years are a period of rapid and significant social-emotional development and a time when social cruelty can have devastating affects on self esteem and mental well-being.

But the fact is that not all teasing is equal. And in middle-school, it can even be a valuable tool for teachers to use in building relationships with their students. That’s because during the middle-school years, children begin to make a vital and developmentally appropriate shift in the way they relate to the adults in their lives. While children still very much–in fact more than ever–look to those adults for support, for guidance, and for reassurance, they do so while also constantly pushing back and testing limits in ways that are sometimes subtle and sometimes glaringly obvious. They begin to demand, in short, that adults prove their worthiness to be trusted.

For teachers, engaging with students in middle school requires a deep respect and understanding for this developmental stage. But it also requires the ability to effectively convey expectations and help students develop successful learning practices: we want students to respect their teachers, to follow important rules, to take their work (and our disciplines) seriously. We want them to treat their classmates and themselves with respect, to accomplish and achieve, to open up and be creative, to be willing to take risks — and to feel safe doing so. That’s a lot we are asking of our students, at an age when their instinct can often be to question everything adults demand of them.

Engaging students in a lighthearted, back-and-forth teasing banter, then, can provide a framework that invites students into a new kind of relationship with their teachers, one that–seemingly contradictorily–actually conveys mutual respect.

Read on to learn how history and “civinomics” teacher Bruce Coffey uses friendly, good-natured teasing to help establish relationships with his students

On my Christmas vacation I spent a week with one of my nieces, a 12-year-old I only knew so well. Her mother (my sister) was eager for us to have the opportunity to get to know each other better—but at first my niece, like many middle-schoolers remained uninterested, otherwise absorbed in her own age-appropriate cultural passions and pastimes. Any straightforward efforts on my part to get her attention or engage her clearly seemed a conspicuous overture from The Land of Adults, and were ignored as such. “Your tricks won’t work on me, Uncle Bruce.”

So instead, I reached her indirectly. We did vacation-fun activities together, like playing cards, cooking, and skiing. And rather than take the usual adult tactic of endlessly querying her friends or what books she was reading or about her family life in the hope that she would “open up,” I just treated her as I would any other family member. I assumed an air of familiarity (that had not quite been fully established) and I expressed my enthusiasm for spending time with her by…teasing her. Not in a critical or mean-spirited way of course, but rather in the form of playful, humorous banter. It was an invitation that said, “We don’t have to take things too seriously here.”

And soon enough, it worked. It was more fun – and it felt safe — to engage with Uncle Bruce this way. She started giving it right back to me, with a playful, impish “take that!” twinkle in her eye, and as I responded in kind, we connected. She trusted me.

In the same way, teasing helps “grease the wheels” to build relationships with my students at Sabot. At first when they come to me as middle schoolers, they may perceive me as (cue Beethoven’s 5th)… Mr. Coffey!! They’ve heard about those infamous map tests. They see the thick history books lining my classroom shelves. As “Mr. Coffey,” I may be perceived as a someone much older, full of knowledge and information, with very high expectations—and a very long way from middle school!

As teachers, we understand that many students approach us warily, desperate at first to achieve and impress, to demonstrate their “chops” and establish their ground. Or they may be intimidated and afraid to speak up for fear of sounding “dumb” in front of their peers or the knowledgeable teacher. We worry that some students will be too focused on making sure they get every little thing right—a focus that will hold them back from taking the risks and even experiencing the failures from which true learning comes.

In my classroom, then, I might rib my students about what they’re reading or watching or playing; about my ‘taste’ and what I think is ‘better;’ I might talk smack about their favorite NFL team. And I welcome them to do the same back to me, in these “safe” topics. They provide a ground where we can interact and get to know each other, to be playful and have fun, outside the academic and sometimes anxiety-inducing context of readings and assignment and research and drafts and footnotes and website resources.

At first this can be a cognitively and emotionally challenging experience for students. “Wait a minute, I thought Mr. Coffey was my august, professorial teacher, with high expectations? Can I really talk trash about his beloved Patriots, like he’s one of my friends?”

But yes, as teachers, we are their friends. Not their peer friends. Not their parents. Not their family. But resource friends, people who will challenge them, people who will push them, but also people they can count on, people they are safe to open up to and share with and…even tease!

As a teacher, I find that this kind of banter makes the daily interaction with students fun and enjoyable. For them, I think, I hope, it makes the daily interaction…safe. The give-and-take, the humor, the getting to know each other well enough to know what topics are “fair game” (this student’s obsession with the Twilight series, that student forever needing to borrow a pencil, Mr. Coffey’s taste in music), and which students love to argue about ideas, or soccer players, or the benefits of playing video games—all these become essential to building a comfortable classroom environment together with my students.

Through this process students come to understand that ‘letting me down’ is not the end of the world. It might affect their grade. They might be disappointed in themselves. They might dread my disappointment. But if I can engage them all the same – outside of talking about their paper – if we can still ‘argue’ over which music streaming service is best or how to stop the Patriots’ offense – then failure is safe. Knowing that a teacher – or any adult, especially a parent – still ‘loves’ them even after they have underperformed is critical to establishing trust.

I also think establishing a playful, stimulating, interactive, witty relationship with students through teasing can help them achieve, too. They can learn you let your hair down in between classes and out on campus. I can approach a student across campus, and open up with some offhand reference to something non-academic (“Didn’t see you at the Folk Festival… Out playing Pokémon Go?” “No, Mr. Coffey. I had to help clean out my grandparents’ garage.” “A likely story…”) and then switch gears and offer a little academic reminder or encouragement or reinforcement (“Don’t forget to check those two other sources I sent you at the end of class. Right? We both know you got ‘em…?”)

And then in the Aedificium (my own precious name for my classroom, a place for scholarship), when it’s time to do research and re-draft, students will buckle down, put their nose to the grindstone and try to achieve. The safety of one realm, of one mode of interaction, makes the other safer, more tolerable, an alternative source of stimulation and joy. One can be a foil for the other. Playful mocking can be a goad to achievement.

Teasing builds relationships.

And relationships establish the ground for achievement.

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Running Together

Fri, 03 Mar 2017 00:30:00 GMT

Each year the running challenge starts with many of the younger students focused on their individual goal of completing their running log (running 26 miles over 10 weeks). Very quickly they start to notice that their peers are in the same pursuit. Some learn to put competitiveness aside to slow down and run a friend’s pace, while others learn to push themselves a little harder to keep up with a friend. Some shout encouragement across the field or give out high fives once they have finished their laps. This provides a strong foundation for a successful running community in the middle school. By 6th grade, the idea of running with peers is well established and students provide accountability for each other as they complete their miles.

Watching all of the different ways that the students support one another as they work to achieve their individual goals reminds me that although a single child’s name is written on the running log, there are many others who helped their accomplishment become a reality.

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Without Reach, the Rs are… incomplete!

Wed, 01 Mar 2017 01:24:00 GMT

by Dan Daglish

7th and 8th graders attend the Virginia Junior Academy of Science symposium, an exciting two-day event at a university campus in Virginia. After a year-long process in which all students devise, conduct, and report on a science research project, students present their research to a panel of scientists in a 10-minute presentation and answer any questions from the scientists.

There is an old saying about students, which I have focused on since I began teaching: “They don’t care what you know until they know that you care.” This saying reflects the fact that the very core of every teacher’s educational practice needs to be a focus on building relationships with our students. It is not putting the matter too strongly to say that teachers who forget the primary importance of relationship are doomed to failure; without that, we cannot hope to inspire our students to take on challenges, to take risks and to become driven independent learners. So rightly, “relationship” is one of our Five Rs.

But for this post, however, I would like to lay out the case for the equal importance in the Sabot MS program of another of the Rs: Reach .

At Sabot, we describe “Reach” as “the willingness to take responsible, personal and intellectual risks, recognizing the role of sustaining effort and embracing challenge.” Reach means going beyond “good” to strive for “great.” Reach means not letting yourself be satisfied with what you are confident you know how to do well, but rather stretching towards what you don’t yet know you are capable of.

And time and again, we have seen that when students are willing to take those responsible risks, when they push themselves to embrace challenge–that is when they truly expand their horizons and soar.

Without reach, what would we get in our students’ representations of learning? Sure, we will see reliably “safe” work that students can rightly be proud of: the well-researched PowerPoint, the respectably argued paper.

But without reach, would they really have grown? Would they have learned something new about themselves — maybe even surprised themselves with what they didn’t know they were capable of? Would the shy student have performed that interpretive dance in front of the whole class? Would the mathematician have written that poem or the poet discovered an unanticipated excitement for web coding? I’d suggest not.

Similarly, without reach, would a research project generate a new understanding of how to do and document research? Would it encourage that student to find five sources instead of being content with just one? Or to read that article in Science about the effects of Sepiaterin on cancer cells–just to learn more? My money’s on “no”.

And finally, without reach, what student would even think about truly reflecting? Isn’t it the nature of the adolescent middle school student to first procrastinate and then, finally at the last minute, get the job done? And once it’s done, it’s done – right?

But not if you are pushed, not if you are challenged, not if you are required to reach…that is when middle school students will start to reflect. That is when they take the risk to look inside themselves and reflect on what they have learned and how they learned it. And once they reflect, that is when they start to realize how great they really are and how much they are capable of as individuals, not only as part of the crowd. And that is something worth learning.

That is what reach does for us in the middle school…it makes all the other “Rs” work, Without reach we would be a successful but not an exceptional school; it is reach that puts us over the top.

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Theme for Midwinter: The Five Rs in Sabot Middle School

Sun, 26 Feb 2017 14:53:00 GMT

The philosophical and pedagogical “through-line” at Sabot from preschool through 8th grade, the “Five Rs” articulate interconnected elements essential to deep learning: Relationship, Reflection, Reach, Research, and Representation.

The “Five Rs” are therefore a foundational aspect of the middle school philosophy and experience at Sabot, guiding students and faculty in all we do. No one “R” is more important than the others, and the Sabot Middle School just couldn’t be the “temple of learning” ( Aedificium ) that it is with any one of them missing.

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Joy

Fri, 03 Feb 2017 15:20:00 GMT

When I look back over the pictures from the first week of the running challenge I see joy. In some images it is more apparent than others and is clearly seen on the child’s face and in their body language. In other photos their faces and bodies are focused and deeply engaged in the movement of running. The joy is still there. I see it after they are done and realize they have gone further or faster than they thought they could. I see it when the tension they brought to class fades and they are completely engaged in the moment, in tune with their body and with nature. I am excited for the students to take on this challenge over the next 10 weeks.

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Our MLK Day of Learning, Service, and Celebration: Honor MLK: Build Bridges to One Another

Sun, 22 Jan 2017 17:34:00 GMT

Students, faculty, and families of Sabot at Stony Point honored Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2017 by unfurling a 188-foot-long banner on the T. Tyler Potterfield pedestrian bridge over the James River here in Richmond. All of our students – preschoolers through eighth grade – worked on our banner, which read: “Honor MLK: Build Bridges Between One Another.”

As Sabot’s Head of School Irene Carney told local media outlet WTVR Channel 6, “We decided several years ago that we would rather honor Dr. King’s legacy by spending an intentional day together than by taking the day off from school.” In previous years we have participated in various acts of service throughout the city, and this year, our entire school worked together to paint a banner to share with our larger Richmond community. The third graders were partnered with preschool students in our Forest Room to create our section of the sign: ONE. [ Click here for a video of our banner on the bridge and click here for the Channel 6 news coverage of the event ].

In the morning before our school-wide trip to unfurl our banners on the Potterfield bridge, the third graders worked to build new bridges to deeper understanding of the day’s historical relevance.

Jasper Conner, my co-teacher Nicole’s partner, recently graduated from VCU with a degree in African-American studies. The focus of his final thesis was the civil rights movement, specifically the Virginia sit-in movements. Together, we discussed places where segregation was visibly present: schools, water fountains, bathrooms, neighborhoods, buses, churches, stores, and restaurants. To help the children understand what segregation might look and feel like, we split the class into two groups: children who have brown eyes (who would represent the privileged class) and those who have non-brown eyes. Jasper walked the children through two different scenarios – as travelers on a segregated bus and as diners at a segregated restaurant.

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Above: Jasper enacts a segregated bus scenario for the third graders…Below: …and then a segregated restaurant scenario.

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We then challenged the students to think – if this happened to you, what could you do to change things? How do you think segregation was eradicated? Jasper told the story of the restaurant sit-in movement, starting with the actions of just a few men and women to become a bigger protest, the people doing so at their own risk to expose racial inequality and injustice.

Why did people join the sit-ins?

Other questions bubbled up after we read the book, Freedom on the Menu: The Greensboro Sit-Ins by Carole Boston Weatherford. Below are questions that the children still have:

Reese: Why did the whites not like the blacks? It could have been the other way…

We will continue to honor and explore these questions as we move deeper into our investigative research into history.

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Complexity and Error: Spanish

Sat, 03 Dec 2016 20:22:00 GMT

“ Eye tin can goes to class” : Errors & second-language acquisition

Acquiring a second language is a cyclical process of trial and error, one that fools us into thinking that a rule is universally applied only to find out that languages evolve just as cultures and people do. It requires a willingness to accept that being wrong, uncomfortable and sometimes in over one’s head are all symptoms of the process to finding fluency in a new language and culture.

It should also be said that many learners only begin to understand the workings of their mother tongue through the learning of a second language and that all language learners do not begin at the same point of reference.

For example, when we consider the complexity that comes with changing verb tenses, there is a breakdown in the flow of language in both the target language, and also in the language of origin.

Relaying a complex message or thought is dependent upon one’s ability to break down spoken language into small bites or singular words rather than whole sentences. In other words, the meaning is more important than the correctness of the sentence. Essentially the speaker should strive for understanding rather than concentrate on errors such as gender or number.

For example:

I can go to class can be translated into Spanish as Yo puedo ir a la clase.

However, students may not fully understand the difference between a noun and a pronoun, the importance of tense and the use of articles. This student may translate the sentence as Ojo lata vaya a clase. Which roughly translates as Eye tin can goes to class.

Another example is Las niñas chilenas . This phrase can be translated as The Chilean girls . Many students may leave off an “s” or an “a”, which would change the meaning of the sentence either in gender, number or both.

A third example that commonly arises when working with infinitives is the idea that a word vertically translates consistently and uniformly. For instance the infinitive nadar can be translated as to swim, swimming and swim . However it should be noted that the sport swimming is translated as l a natación in Spanish, as it is a noun. The statement swimming is fun would be translated as nadar es divertido as this is the act of swimming and is the verb form. However to use the gerund (the -ing form) in Spanish, as in “swimming” there are two options. The first option would come up in a sentence such as He is swimming , which would translate as él está nadando, which implies that he is swimming right now at this moment. The second , él nada , implies that he is swimming in general, as in He is swimming at 2 o’clock.

Only after the comprehension of the sentence or idea is achieved can a student fine-tune all of the phonetics, word choices, and word order within the second language itself.

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Aero(dynamic) Thinking

Thu, 01 Dec 2016 00:39:00 GMT

No sooner had the class gotten deeply immersed in their car making than the annual Sabot Hoedown was upon us. Last year, Sabot preschool parent Rob Paige introduced derby racing to our fall festivities. He kindly donated car kits to the school for students to make derby cars and race them at the Hoedown. While the derby racing idea was in the back of our minds as our students made their cars to test for our Investigative Research project, we did not know that the Hoedown derby race would be reprised again this year…and then it was. This time around, however, Rob was only supplying specs for students, who would be responsible for getting their own materials to make their vehicles.

When we mentioned that the derby race would be happening again this year, we told the children about these changes ( Rob will give you the specs, but then you have to build the car on your own ). By this time, our cars were already in progress, and the children would be unable to reconfigure them to meet Rob’s spec requirements – but Rob did offer up another interesting proposition. If the children wanted to enter their project cars into the derby race ( and they met his specs) they could race them or they could simply take his spec sheet home, make another car at home, and then race it at the derby. This year would also include a design competition. The entries would not even have to move, but would be judged solely on their design and originality. Several of the third graders went home and made secondary cars to race – one student and his brother in kindergarten got second and first place in the racing competition, while another, who had begun work on a huge wooden truck in class, took it home to continue working on it and won second place in the design competition.

Rob graciously came to our classroom to share his building expertise and insights to help us move our project thinking forward. In sharing his knowledge about aerodynamics, he encouraged the children to think about how the shape of a car might affect its performance. Reese had mentioned something about drag during our earlier movement provocations, and again it came up in our conversations. With Rob, they began to understand drag as force, pressure, and friction.

Lila: We are using the force of our hands [to move the cars] because when we push something we are creating force.

Soon after our discussion, one student decided to make some new adjustments to the front of his car (“my car is long – like a missile;” his car is the blue one below, next to Max H’s vehicle).

Other children decided to go for a longer and skinnier wedge design (top: Max H. and Max P.), while others tried shorter wedge designs (middle: Juliette and Reese). Like Alexander, Reese opted to add some lengths of sculpture wire to the bottom of her car to give it more weight – and hopefully more speed and stability. Others stuck to their original ideas, like Lila, who felt comfortable with her car’s width and blockier front (bottom right).

At long last, the children’s cars were finished, decorated, and ready to go. Before testing them outside, however, the children took a cue from Rob and created their own car spec sheets. They had been studying measurement in math, so this was an authentic way to put their measurement skills to use. Knowing this information about the cars would help the children more purposely consider how the dimensions and design of their cars might affect their performance.

In reviewing their specs, we gleaned the following information our their cars:

Looking at this information (your car measurements), can we make prediction about what might happen when we take them out?

The children broke into groups to think about plans for our next steps – the testing phase. What do we still want to know about movement/motion? What do we want to do? To test? To figure out? How will we do it? What will our predictions be? Several big ideas came out of their plans:

It was clear they wanted to test their cars out on different tracks/different terrains to consider:

Left: Skylar: The ball would need weight to beat a car. It can’t be empty. We should test the ball with and without weight.

Left: Sam: I think grass will work with big wheels. There would be more traction to boost your car up. Smaller wheels will not work well. They’ll get caught and the cars will flip. Right: Neil’s prediction: We should test them on different courses. The heavier [the cars are], they won’t go far. The lighter ones will go further.

Below: Xander envisions an obstacle course…

and with that, we were off to the races…

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Studio Thinking and Scientific Research: Building and Tinkering with Wood

Tue, 29 Nov 2016 23:32:00 GMT

Teaching and learning trajectory [September through November notes]: S tudents to engineer plans for objects that move (drawings)/next steps –> playing with materials first (no nails, no glue) –> introduce tools (no instructions on how to build) — > children free build –> we discuss what’s working and what is not –> share engineering strategies –> figuring out the wheels and axles –> FRUSTRATION (put wheels on with nails or??) –> Aha! moment (screws!) – -> Rob visits to offer us new ideas about aerodynamics and design –> THE HOEDOWN DERBY/ specs –> conversation: better to build with a kit or no kit? –> constant refinement/retooling/rethinking –> what will this teach the children about movement? –> testable questions/variables arise –> children record specs for their cars –> TESTING on different terrain–> frustration/rethinking/retooling – lather/rinse/repeat…

It has now been several weeks since our class has taken on the daunting task of creating their own cars to think more deeply about movement, and in looking back upon my notes and our process, several things come immediately to mind. When you’re teaching in the constructivist model, you never do know where your project work is going to take you on any given year ( or week or month ). That is both the surprise and teachable moment for you as an educator that always keeps you on your toes. You activate your students’ background knowledge, you offer up rich provocations, and you wait to see what bubbles up…and then you try to discern the path that will take them to a deeper understanding through authentic experiences that cultivate rich intersubjectivity. On the outside looking in, you may wonder…how do you plan for this? How do you know where to go? How do you know that learning will happen? In my now five years of working in this way I can sincerely offer you this: it is never easy, straight-forward, or simple. Amongst my peers, we talk about the messy disequilibrium of our work and the trust we place in the process. Sometimes we cannot see the forest for the trees and that’s where we help each other suss it out. The children we are entrusted with share with us their understandings and in so doing also communicate their gaps in understanding. We listen for those silences and then work with them to fill them in. Ultimately, the children lead the way.

Our provocation experiences got the children thinking more about making cars to test their theories about movement.

When it became apparent that the children would need to build their own cars to learn more about movement, I realized that I would have to go outside my own comfort zone. We would need to work in wood.

MESSING WITH MATERIALS

Below: the children trying to figure out how they might attach the wheels:

When we did introduce the tools, we did so carefully, talking through what the tools could – and could not – do, and we discussed safety precautions. I brought in a work bench from home to help secure items that would need sawing, but also instructed the children on how to safely drill, saw, sand, and hammer.

Center: One student spent several sessions sawing walnut wood. When it later split, she was determined to try again with a less challenging wood. A friend saw her jump right back into building, remarking, “that’s showing flexible thinking!” Right: New staff member Maeve Shea was invaluable in bringing their woodworking expertise to assist the children.

Maeve: I was mainly helping the students cut wood with the hand saw. For many students, it was their first time using a saw, but that didn’t stop them from jumping right in. I loved seeing the students cheer each other on as they finished a cut. I think having patience in a process leads to results you can feel proud of. While working with the third graders while they built their cars, I was able to see their confidence grow throughout the weeks. Things inevitably failed and new ideas had to be tested out. As the students tried different techniques to make their cars, I noticed many students giving advice to their classmates. Wood is a great material to learn from because it forces you to plan ahead, but also to learn from your failures.

Persisting Through Trial and Error

SHARING STRATEGIES

Individually, each child tried figuring out how to attach the wheels to their cars. A variety of wheels were made available to the children – small, medium, large, smooth, treaded – as well as a variety of woods for the bodies of their cars (birch, cherry, poplar, walnut). Finding the right nails to use proved trickier than expected. Almost all of chidren tried nailing the wheels in first, but soon found this to be unsatisfactory – if the wheels were nailed in too far, they wouldn’t move, and even if you thought you had nailed them in correctly, the wheels might not turn well… and they had a strange tendency to pop off a lot during testing. As they continued to work, the children shared strategies. While a few kept their wheels nailed in, there was an aha moment when Reese, Max H., and Neil came to the realization that screws would work better to hold the wheels on, which prompted most everyone to make adjustments to their own cars. After some initial tries with the screws, the children also came to share their realization that drilling holes into the car first before attaching the tires with screws was optimal. In all of this, there was a lot of trial and error, moments of real frustration, design discoveries, and a lot of peer support. And joy.

Left: Alexander was the only one to try a unique axle and wheel arrangement, threading a wooden axle through a plastic cylinder and then attaching the wheels to the axle on either side of the cylinder. This was then duct taped to the bottom of the car (the wire beneath the tape is intended to give his car more weight and hopefully increase its speed).

In reflecting on the flexibility required of these tasks, Max P. considered all the design decisions the class had to make and how he and his classmates were able to navigate it all. “[We had to think about] what things to use, what kinds of wood, nails, wheels to make your car. Not just sticking with one thing, but thinking of other strategies to use [and] not saying, ‘I’m not going to stretch my mind out.'” We asked the children how many of them had stretched themselves in working through these initial building phases, and everyone raised their hands. Later I asked them about working without a pre-made car kit and the challenges they faced in utilizing their own ideas and designs – Why do you think we didn’t give you kits to make your cars? D o you think it would be better to work with a kit or not?

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Moving Into Movement: Part II

Tue, 29 Nov 2016 23:29:00 GMT

Our Lower School Director and Pedagogista Susan Barstow offered up several provocations to the children to generate more thinking about the physical processes involved in movement – a Newton’s cradle, a brachistochrone, an hourglass, and glitter jar. As they split into groups, we asked the children to sit and notice each object, discuss how the object works (or how they guessed they might work), sketch the object, and then interact with it. The temptation to play with the objects right away was irresistible, but this intentional slowing down allowed the children to establish relationship with the objects and share their theories about what forces might be observed. Then, once they had a chance to play with the objects and make additional observations, they would have the opportunity to discuss their initial theories and postulate new ones.

HOURGLASS AND GLITTER JAR

We flip the glitter jar and the hourglass at the same time to see which would settle first. The glitter jar won. The children estimate how much time it would take for the hourglass to empty. Ten minutes? Five minutes? A minute and a half? Using a stop watch, they see that it takes approximately three minutes.

The children consider why an hour-glass has two chambers and not one. They notice that an hourglass only lets a little bit of sand go down at a time, much better suited to measure time instead of a large cylinder of sand turned upside down.

NEWTON’S CRADLE

Some of the children’s observations:

BRACHISTOCHRONE

A brachistochrone is a set of two ramps – one straight and one curved. When two balls are released at the top of the two ramps, which ball will win – and why?

The majority of students initially predicted that the straight track would be the “winner:”

Left: Lila: On the Dipper, the ball might double back on itself because it’s a curve and it goes up at the end. Below: Testing the brachistochrone: putting predictions to the test.

Ada and Neil used a tape measure to see if the Dipper was the longer track. They discovered that the Dipper is nineteen inches long and the straight track is seventeen and a half inches long.

Lila: It’s longer, but it won!

DEBRIEFING – OBSERVATIONS AND NEW IDEAS

Above: Whiteboard sharing/thinking: What did all three experiences have in common? In your observations and experiments, did you learn anything new about movement? Words that kept popping up: gravity, friction, pressure, force/push, speed/momentum

The children considered the causes of the movements observed: the children themselves and gravity…gravity moved things, but they caused the objects to move which then demonstrated gravitational pull.

Alexander: [In the brachistochrone] the straight [path] had the advantage of being shorter, but the curved [path] had the advantage of gravity pulling [the ball] down and releasing it. When [the ball] shoots back up, it’s like a cannon – it shoots out.

Who supplied the movement in these experiences?

Where should we go next in our investigations?

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Moving Into Movement: Part I

Sun, 27 Nov 2016 20:46:00 GMT

Nothing happens until something moves. (Albert Einstein)

What needs to move first? Curiosity…the catalyst to set learning in motion…

In launching our science Investigative Research this year, we began by asking the children what they were curious about to help move us forward to our next steps. Two groups began to emerge – some students were intensely passionate about engineering while others expressed an interest in expanding upon the animal research that they began as second graders. While these topics were somewhat divergent from one another, what kept bubbling up in their conversations and drawings was a keen interest in physical science – forces, interactions, and specifically, movement.

Children are already experts at movement. They are movement incarnate. It almost seems unnecessary to ask children what movement is – but when we did, we got a window into their already rich understanding of the physical world.

What is movement? What has to happen to cause movement? Why do things move? How do things move?

Hunter: People pushing the stone so the stone moves. The stone is round. Squares won’t move unless you push really hard. A round stone will roll. Size and weight…if it doesn’t weigh much and it’s small, it will be easier to move.

GRAVITY – PLANETARY MOVEMENT

Xander: This is Uranus. There’s a meteor and a spaceship by it. Planets move because of the gravitational pull of the sun

Above: Max P: Uranus gives off a lot of energy. It has fifteen moons. The moons move around in orbit around Uranus. Energy and gravity pull them around.

Right: Graeme: Friction [comes from] something that is fast. The meteor is going fast. The speed makes it get hot. It starts slowly and then it gets faster because it’s falling into the earth’s atmosphere. Gravity makes it go down. Gravity is a thing that goes down. Atmosphere of the earth is where the gravity starts.

Above: Ada’s gravity picture

METEOROLOGICAL AND GEOLOGICAL MOVEMENT

Left: Reese: A river and the wind. The wind makes the current go faster. The waterfall puts pressure on the rocks and water. Right: Juliet: A tornado – there has to be a lot of wind above the clouds and it tunnels down because it is so strong. It lifts things up. It tunnels down and wind whirls around.

Left: Juliette: A volcano erupting. In the bottom, it got so hot, rocks started to melt. When it got full, it gets hotter and explodes. Pressure makes it shoot up. Right: Gabriella: A volcano – heat waves come from the bottom of the volcano. The heat comes from the earth’s core and that makes the volcano’s lava move and come out. 1. Heat waves push lava up and makes it hotter and hotter until it expands. 2. Then it shoots out of the volcano, shooting lava everywhere.

MECHANICAL MOVEMENT

Above: Alexander: [2 pictures] This is a train engine. There are gears that spin in circles with attachments to the wheels and they make them go around.

Reese: The person inside [the tank] pushes on the pedals and it makes the wheels move. The gears are on the wheels. They have ridges that grab onto the belt, which has ridges on it too, so then the squares go into the other two squares. The belt moves, which moves it forward. Without the belt, the wheels wouldn’t have enough friction on the ground to move forward. The belt is rough so that it won’t slip. Tanks are heavy.

PHYSIOLOGICAL MOVEMENT

Left to right: Hailey: The muscles move where you are and the bones and the blood control it. The heart keeps beating. If it’s beating really fast, you’re thirsty. Robbie: Q: What causes movement? A: Your brain. It signals things to move in your body. Your heart pumps blood up to it to make it work. Lila: Diagram: Eyes moving slightly. Heart pumping blood. Mouth moving to talk. Nose moving slightly to smell. Legs and feet moving slightly. Your heart and the air around you causes your body to move. The air is always moving you a little, always fighting the air.

Skylar: This is a red panda. The main thing that makes it move are its legs. It needs bones to walk. Your bones make you move. Without bones, you’d be spaghetti. Your bones make you strong enough to move your whole body.

HOW WE MAKE THINGS MOVE

Left: Neil: A person’s muscles push the pedals which are connected to the chain which spins around the gears and the gears are attached to the wheel which makes the bike move. What makes the bike rider’s muscles move? You have to be alive to move. If your heart is pumping, your muscles can move. Your blood makes your heart pump. Right: Skylar: On a bike, there’s a clear space with gears and chains. It helps the bike move. It helps move the bike when you pedal.

Sam: Left: This is a car. I’m driving it. Bob is putting gas into the car to make it run. It also needs to charge up (it’s a hybrid). You need electricity and gas – sometimes one or the other. My car runs on both of them. The pistons run the motor that make the engine run. Right: This is the key. It goes into the hole. A little light turns on. The engine turns on. Push on the gas pedal. It gives gas to the engine to make it run. The engine sucks up the gas.

Alexander: For animals, life makes movement. For machines, if it’s not powered by an engine that puts out smoke…there are electric cars. And batteries [are] kind of like a magnet and [they] attract all the energy and make [things] work.

In asking the children to tap into their background knowledge about various aspects of physical movement, we notice that there is already a rich interplay of personal observation, research, and attention to process – not simply in the recognition of things that move but deeply embedded in the inquisitive “how” and “why” behind the children’s drawings and discussions.

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Complexity and Error: Social Studies

Fri, 18 Nov 2016 20:19:00 GMT

Rewarding risk-taking: Mr. Coffey’s 8th-grade “civinomix” studies

At Sabot, we regularly ask students to take on challenging, “deep-dive” explorations of specific questions, topics, or issues, as a way to approach true understanding rather than simple content knowledge. In my 8th grade “civinomix” (that’s “civics” and “economics”), students complete a research paper on micro-economics in which each student is asked to choose a famous but declining company and trace its rise and fall — with an emphasis on considering what options or strategies might enable that company to survive today.

This is a new task for 8th graders, one that asks them to combine and utilize three different analytical writing skills they have been trying to flex: telling a coherent, accurately researched story; having a take or interpretation; and utilizing statistics by properly situating them in context.

It’s a tall order, and as they are fledgling economics students, the more they try to include — properly! — the more opportunity they have to make mistakes. I often joke with them, “Mr. Coffey is never satisfied.” Every time you strive to do something new or better or more complicated, there’s always something new to correct or refine or understand better.

This was the case with a student who chose to write on Barnes & Noble. She talked about the rise of B&N, the development of the company’s dominant superstores, the development of the Nook (remember that‽), and B&N’s struggles to keep up with and adapt to the subsequent rise of Amazon.com. She also referenced B&N’s then-current efforts to revise the emphasis of existing stores. She embraced the totality of the assignment and tried to include references to previous competing chains like B. Dalton as well as to the world of the Nook. She tried to account for swings in B&N’s stock price, not just its market share.

This was a heady, ambitious effort, embracing a host of new terminology, vocabulary, and concepts, including some virgin analytical points. And she got most of them right! But in trying to do that many things, her five-page assignment expanded to a nine-page paper –which left four more pages where errors of understanding or precision could creep in. And they did.

Yet, overall I applauded her reach and her work. It was ambitious and nearly masterful. Did her errors reduce her ‘grade’ to an A-? In this case, No. She had increased the degree of difficulty and embraced the layers of complexity that full-fledged execution of the task demanded. And pretty much mostly nailed it. The big-picture recognition of this kind of effort is rewarding the reach, not belaboring the errors: “Great job!”

When a student takes an ambitious plunge like this, we should acknowledge and reward the student for the new challenges they are willing to embrace and all the things they do right — and expect there to be a corresponding increase in errors, technical or conceptual, that aren’t always or normally there in their ‘regular’ work.

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We have a Government!

Tue, 15 Nov 2016 23:19:00 GMT

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Negotiating

Tue, 15 Nov 2016 22:26:00 GMT

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Lunch Advice from May:

Tue, 15 Nov 2016 21:22:00 GMT

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Fifthocracy for all.

Tue, 15 Nov 2016 21:22:00 GMT

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Inch By Inch

Sat, 12 Nov 2016 19:29:00 GMT

How hard is it to make your own ruler?

PROVOCATION: We estimated lengths – things that are about an inch, a foot, a yard, a mile. These are personal references, quick and relatively easy ways to estimate the lengths of objects by comparing them to other objects whose length is known (a paper clip is about an inch , an adult shoe is about a foot long). In our math workshop conversations, the children said that a sheet of paper is about a foot long, so we asked them to try making their own twelve-inch rulers with a simple sheet of paper, using what they already know about inches , without looking at a “real” classroom ruler for guidance. They then set themselves to this task with thinking pens and blank sheets of copy paper (which were only 11 inches long, unbeknownst to them). We asked them to be sure to put their names on their rulers and number their tries.

DAY ONE: FREE-HAND ATTEMPTS AT MAKING A RULER (with 11 inch long paper)

Hailey kept making rulers that ended at 12 near the edge of the paper, but not all the way to the edge of the paper. Knowing that a ruler has to be 12 inches, she decided to simply cut off the bit of paper at the end to make it 12 inches [literally making a short cut]. Many children saw that their concept of inch kept shifting as they noticed the variety of inch lengths they were producing. Even if they got all the way to twelve at the edge of their paper, they could see that some of their inches were bigger (or smaller) than others.

Some children tried using their digits – which they think are close to an inch – to try making their rulers, laying their fingers carefully across the page. After several attempts to make a ruler, Gabriella and Juliet expressed ideas that related back to an understanding of standardization:

This initial process required a lot of patience and persistence. Several tries were made by each student as they strove to create a “more exact” ruler. While other students seemed frustrated, Alexander kept making ruler after ruler without giving up. “I don’t back down from a task that easily. I’m on my fourth ruler now,” he calmly stated. “You need to use one of your digits and line them up to make an inch. For rulers #1 and #2, I used millimeters and inches. Now I’m just doing inches.” Alexander wasn’t the only child who was using and confusing metric and customary systems of measurement in these first tries, but as they kept working, these children came to this realization, on their own and in conversation with their classmates, and reverted to working solely in inches.

Is there flexibility in an inch?

In looking at the students’ ruler making, we noticed that many of them weren’t iterating units – perhaps they don’t quite believe the whole notion of iteration. In teaching measurement, they have heard (and have remembered) over the years that there should be no gaps, no overlaps, but it appears that they haven’t been convinced of the standardization of unit length and iteration. We assume they get it, but this experience is showing us otherwise – and that some of them are a bit confused about the two systems of measurement. Metric and customary systems are both used for measuring the same things, so it’s not completely illogical for some children to try a “mash up” ruler as a way to understand equivalencies.

DAY TWO: FREE-HAND ATTEMPTS AT MAKING A RULER (with 12 inch long paper)

On the second day, we revealed to the students that the paper they had used the day before was not a foot long – it was merely eleven inches long. There were several jubilant cries of “I knew it!” We then supplied them with 12 inch long paper to try again.

The paper we used today was exactly twelve inches long. Did knowing that make creating your ruler any easier?

Reese: Yes, because I knew it would be [12 inches] all the way across

Can you make your own inch?

If we all understand something about “inchiness” and rulers, why then is it so hard to draw an inch?

Why did I ask you to make rulers?

What happened each time you made another ruler? Did it get better?

Why do inches need to be the same size?

DAY THREE: FREE-HAND ATTEMPTS AT MAKING A RULER: FOLDING PAPER METHOD

Why might folding be a good strategy?

DAY FOUR: FREE-HAND ATTEMPTS AT MAKING A RULER: USING INCH TILES

The folding method the day before was getting the children closer to an understanding of iteration. If each fold was an inch – or close to an inch – wide, then you could make twelve folds of the same size to develop a twelve inch ruler. Anyone who has ever made an accordion fold with paper knows that this exercise involves a good deal of careful repetition. On the fourth day of ruler making, we decided it was time to give the children inch tiles to help them move forward – with manipulatives that gave them a better semblance of “inchiness.”

Using the inch tiles, do you think creating a ruler will be easier?

Would it work if you just traced it?

With the inch tiles, several children “got it” on their first try – and we asked them to go back to their rulers to add in 1/2 and 1/4 marks. Others still had difficulties. Below: even with the inch tiles, there was the challenge of figuring out how to keep them aligned to trace and record the measurements exactly.

Later, some intrepid souls tried their hand at making meters, even trickier as the units are smaller (centimeters and millimeters).

Robbie, thinking back to our study of Hindu myths and stories, remembered the tale of Ganesha, who was asked by the poet Vyasa to write the Mahabharata with his tusk, a story “so long that no man could ever write the whole thing – all the pens in the world would break when before it was done.” Any attempt to make your own meter stick, Robbie said, “would take so long that all the pens in the world would break…even Ganesha’s tusk would break.”

_________________________________________________________

In processing this lesson with Sabot’s math coach Cat Henney, she directed me to a quote that is particularly apt:

“Motion is a resource for coordinating measure and generation of attributes of length, area, volume, and angle.” [p. 38, Developing Essential Understanding of Geometry and Measurement, Grades 3-8 (2014)]

Regardless of the measurement tool, measurement implies motion – the physical act of taking something and measuring it quantitatively – and so this exploration speaks to the necessity of real physical exploration. An inch is an inch is an inch…which seems irrefutable…but is it? The social learning involved in making your own ruler reveals the subjective nature of such a task. We agree that a foot is a foot, an inch is an inch, but everyone has very flexible ideas based on perceptual judgement. Giving children the opportunity to use what they know in a tangible sense affords them the ability to grapple with measurement conventions in a deeper way. A ruler assumes that you know the transitive property and is loaded with cultural conventions and assumptions. A twelve-inch ruler is a a mutually agreed upon standard, but when you ask someone to draw a ruler, there is no real agreement about actual length (again, the flexibility of an inch). The inch that I draw may not be the inch that you draw, or that someone else draws. The relativity embedded in measurement is so revealing. It is all about perspective of length relative to individual understandings and experiences of length, which then shape our unique personal benchmarks.

That these children could use this experience to think not only about concepts of measurement but exactitude – the need for it and the inherent problems in achieving it – is quite astounding. When you think and work spatially, there is a high level of discourse and engagement. It’s all in the talking-it-out (and figuring-it-out) that these concepts come together. Most children construct unit iteration born of transitive reasoning by fourth grade, but hopefully this purposeful exercise afforded them a “task rich” opportunity to progress to their next stage of understanding.

Striving for accuracy is one of the sixteen habits of mind that Sabot educators work to inculcate in our students, in all grade levels. I asked the children to think about what this habit means to them:

So what does striving for accuracy mean?

The striving is in trying to improve your skills, inch by inch…and in so doing, finding new understandings…and questions.

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Complexity and Error: Math

Fri, 11 Nov 2016 20:11:00 GMT

Teachers and parents can sometimes make the mistake of assuming that once our students have learned something, then we can expect that learning to be “set” — ingrained, permanent, and readily available for accurate retrieval. On a math test, we might wonder how a student managed to tackle a complex math problem, but arrived at a wrong answer as the result of overlooking a simple and apparently obvious addition error.

In fact, however, when students are tackling new or complex tasks, the cognitive demands of that work can often result in exactly that kind of calculation error.

A simple error in scale during a complex investigation of graphing.

In the example above, as the student was working on the complexity of graphing, they forgot about the basics of scale that they had mastered previously. At first glance, it might seem as though this student doesn’t understand scale, but upon further observation it becomes obvious that the student is focused on the new, more challenging skill of graphing, and the “easier” skill of scale did not receive their attention. It is not that the student has failed to learn or has forgotten basic math facts — their brain is just consumed by more difficult concepts present in the problem. Teachers learn to recognize this kind of error as a sign that students are actively engaging with new concepts.

Interestingly, recent research suggests that making mistakes generates electrical activity in the brain even when we are not consciously aware of the error . As summarized by Stanford University professor of mathematics Jo Boeler , this research indicates “that the brain sparks and grows when we make a mistake, even if we are not aware of it, because it is a time of struggle; the brain is challenged and the challenge results in growth.”

In mathematics, it is valuable for students to play with numbers, ideas and concepts, and to test out ideas. Through this process, they can figure out why something works or doesn’t work, and then have the ability to apply what they have learned to other new and unfamiliar problems. This ability, transfer of learning , is an essential indicator of true learning and understanding. If students are simply given a procedure and told what to do, they can get the “right” answer when presented with similar problems — but they may develop no connection to or understanding of the bigger concept at work. Teachers and parents can encourage or discourage the way young mathematicians are able to view, incorporate, and learn from their mistakes, if we can recognize “productive mistakes” when they happen.

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Complexity and Error: Language Arts

Fri, 04 Nov 2016 19:39:00 GMT

Reading Student Writing: From Error-Hunting to Error Zen

“I throwed the ball” — to most grown-ups, this type of statement from a four-year-old is a cute, funny mistake — an error. But to linguists — and teachers of language — it demonstrates the fact that even very young children grasp and attempt to critically apply fairly complex grammatical concepts (in this case, that verbs in the past tense are often marked with an -ed suffix). Even more importantly, children demonstrate these kinds of understandings and applications independently and spontaneously, without any direct instruction. It is evidence that grammar is something much more innate and powerful than simply a set of rules and regulations that can be contained within a textbook or style guide — that grammar is a capacity , not a codex.

When experienced writers read student work, the first thing that most of us are likely to see are the “errors” — spelling mistakes, missing or misused punctuation, undivided paragraphs, unwieldy or erroneous application of grammar, and so on.

Yet these kinds of errors are far more the rule than the exception — indeed should be expected — in the work of developing writers. They are particularly common in first-draft writing, an indication that a writer’s focus is preoccupied with the cognitively demanding task of getting ideas down on the page. And in the same way that a young child’s “throwed” represents a growing sophistication and experimentation with language, middle-schoolers’ creative spelling, shifts in verb tense, and missing punctuation may in fact be read as evidence of a developing writer’s attempts at more complex sentence structures, sophisticated word choices, and abstract thinking.

Yet if we read a piece of student writing in what composition theorists call “error hunting” mode, this blinkered perspective prevents us from focusing on what the writer is actually trying to do with the writing. Just as significantly, it makes it difficult for us to attend to and recognize the difference between errors made out of haste or inattention — and errors that indicate that the student is trying out something more complex and sophisticated as a writer.

Spelling errors indicate this student’s efforts to use more sophisticated words to write about complex texts.

Above, a student summarizes pages and pages of notes from his independent reading over the summer. As he tries to capture sophisticated ideas from challenging texts, he makes a variety of spelling errors. But take a look at each of these misspellings: what if the writer had gone with an easier-to-spell word or phrase? Instead of attempting — and making mistakes — when trying to use “philosophical,” “transition,” “efficiently,” “inherent,” he might have gone with more familiar, less ambitious word choices. Similarly, as he focuses on the cognitively demanding task of crafting concise summaries of his reading, he misspells words like “cities”, “which,” “build” — words that, in a simpler writing task, he would have no problem getting right the first time around.

In her enlightening survey, Teaching Grammar In Context , Constance Weaver connects a half-century of research into language, teaching, and writing. In her chapter “Toward a Perspective on Error,” she argues for the following re-orientation towards “grammatical errors” in young people’s writing:

“Children do not learn the basic structures of their native language through direct instruction, but through their own discovery and by formulating increasingly sophisticated hypotheses. So it often is with the conventions of written language . . . Something we teachers need to learn, then, is how to recognize and deal effectively with “errors” that are actually evidence of the writer’s thinking, and in some cases, clear indicators of the writer’s growth in mastering the structures and conventions of written English.”

Suspending “error-hunting” is the first major way that writing teachers need to reorient themselves when reading through students’ work. ( Suspending is not the same thing as ignoring — it is important to return to the issue of writing errors when the piece reaches the stage of editing and proofreading!) Errors can be signposts to the important ways that a student is trying something new – and more complex – as a writer. Seeing these kinds of valuable errors is as crucial to assessing the development of a writer as putting aside the red pen in order to follow their thinking. A composition education teacher had the perfect term for this state of mind during writing assessment: not “error-hunting”, but “error zen”.

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Complexity and Error: Science

Fri, 28 Oct 2016 20:27:00 GMT

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back: The Role of Error in Science

This automated soccer-ball kicker required multiple design iterations – and much trial and error – before it was a success.

Continual forward progress in learning is sometimes an expectation of teachers and parents alike. It’s easy to think of learning as a continuous, upward trend of mastery. Is this a reasonable expectation? Is that how learning really happens?

In fact, true learning — true understanding — results from a constant process of problem-solving, of trial and error, of two steps forward and one step (and sometimes two, three or more!) back.

I am reminded of a student’s VJAS ( Virginia Junior Academy of Science ) project from a few years back. The project required the construction of a contraption that kicked a soccer ball. The design started as a simple block of wood, pivoted at one end and powered by a spring. It did not look much like the action of a human leg nor was it effective at “kicking” the soccer ball. Multiple redesigns, many of them successful and many of them failures, finally resulted in a hinged leg, complete with soccer cleat, multiple springs and a release mechanism that triggered at just the right time to mimic the kicking action of a human leg. It was a complex machine, built on the back of multiple revisions, many of them abject failures!

Advancing our understanding of the natural world requires us, as scientists, to push boundaries, to make mistakes and to respond to them. The goal is to improve our hypotheses and theories and ultimately make scientific breakthroughs that better explain the world around us.

(Continue reading after the jump for a look at the soccer-ball-kicker in action!)

Although it continually evolves, we have used the scientific method to manage this process of discovery and understanding for a very long time. Often taught as a linear process, the scientific method is not linear, but iterative , with each step being visited multiple times during an investigation.

Why is this necessary? Shouldn’t a process that has been used by so many be smooth and efficient? Not so much. The truth is that scientific investigation is a complex process, and, as with any complex process — especially one being implemented by a beginning scientist — there are going to be mistakes and errors along the way. Both learning about the natural world and following the scientific process follow the rhythm of two steps forward, one step back.

Long-term trends, short-term deviations

In science, we look for trends and patterns to help us explain changes in observed phenomena or behavior. But it is rare that these trends are continuous or complete. For example, this chart shows that there has been a clear and obvious increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air since the start of the Industrial Revolution, and particularly since 1950:

Carbon Dioxide Atmospheric Concentration since the Industrial Revolution

But look at the trend more carefully: at a more granular level, you see that the upward trend is anything but smooth. In fact, there is a continual pattern of “two steps forward, one step back”, as each year, the deciduous forests of the northern hemisphere shed and then grow new leaves:

Fluctuations in Carbon Dioxide Concentration Each Year

Like this hidden pattern, the learning process may look like a continuous, upward line from afar, but reveals something very different when studied up close. At Sabot, we expect there to be bumps and dips in the learning process on a regular basis. As teachers, we expect students to make mistakes in seemingly simple areas as they focus on the complex and challenge themselves to deepen their understanding. We expect that as they reach for greater understanding, they will follow paths that may seem like the right one – but turn out to be a blind alley. What we help them to do is to both allow them to follow these leads, teach them to recognize when they turn out to be mistakes, and point them towards another path that leads onwards and upwards. It is why we engage in long-term projects in science that allow students to flounder at times while they try to reach the next level of understanding. It gives them the opportunity to make mistakes and work out a solution or correct them before being assessed.

In the end we look at each student’s progress over the long term — for the whole project, the whole trimester, even their whole time in middle school. If we focus too much on the errors that were made today or this week, we might miss the bigger picture. And if a student doesn’t feel comfortable making those errors and blundering down a few blind alleys, they may never end up finding the paths that help them choose a voyage of discovery and growth.

Below: the soccer-ball-kicking contraption at work!

Jan 7 2013 039 from Sabot Middle School on Vimeo .

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Theme for November – Complexity and Error

Thu, 27 Oct 2016 20:41:00 GMT

“At Sabot, we see error as an essential part of the learning process.”

At Sabot, we place a strong emphasis on the idea that our faculty are teacher researchers . We learn about learning through individual research and study within our disciplines, through informal discussions and scheduled meetings with our colleagues, and, most important, through observing and engaging with our students in their work. To share some of what we have learned, throughout the year, the middle school faculty will pick topics or themes as a focus for our blogging. As we get together and discuss the different meanings and applications of each theme, we will also be documenting and reflecting on that theme in specific subjects.

This month, our topic is “ Complexity and Error ”. Although “error” is defined by the American Heritage Dictionary as “an act, assertion, or belief that unintentionally deviates from what is correct, right, or true,” the word’s Latin origin, “errare,” means “to wander, to stray.” This is actually a wonderful way of thinking about “error,” because all who wander are not lost.

Student errors can be seen from two different perspectives by teachers and parents. At first, we might only see a lack of understanding — we assume that students don’t know or have “forgotten” a mathematical concept, a historical event, a scientific principle, or a writing convention. But a closer look at the nature of the error may reveal that the error is actually evidence of increasing complexity in a student’s thinking or a student’s efforts to engage with more complex issues and analysis.

A complex problem correctly processed but with a simple error resulting in an “incorrect” answer.

At Sabot, we see error as an essential part of the learning process. This month, our research theme explores examples of “productive error” within our different academic subject areas.

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Third Grade Rules

Thu, 27 Oct 2016 00:39:00 GMT

Measurement conventions are operational assumptions that we all “know” and accept. Right?

For the past four years, I have taught first grade math, introducing concepts of measurement using simple standard and non-standard units of measurement. In what is now my fifth year of teaching at Sabot, I am navigating third grade math with former students that I had two years ago. My assumption going into our present math unit on measurement was that the children had started to lock in not only how to use measurement tools but had established a real understanding of the spatial units embedded in those tools: the attributes of “inchiness” and “centimeter-ness.” In all of this is a certain trust and cultural reliance on visual recognition, and yet, as I am learning, this spatial understanding can be so relative and subjective. What is your personal understanding of measurement? How do you perceive – and utilize – measurement?

The relativity of measurement speaks to the larger question at play here: why do we even need measurement? We need these intellectual and physical constructs to assure a modicum of precision and exactitude for purposes of mathematical reasoning, scientific investigation, engineering, material replication, and consistency. In math and in science, if a finding cannot be replicated, then it is deemed inconclusive and inconsistent. You must then suss out the flukes, identify and address any errors made, and formulate the necessary corrections. We as human beings love rules. Culturally we admire and uphold an aesthetic and intellectual idea of precision and exactitude – sense-making distilled to its very essence. There is distinct comfort in a semblance of certainty. Math in particular provides many learners with a reassurance of accuracy – the assumption being that there will always be an answer. Constructivism allows that there are many ways to arrive at an answer (and that those answers should generate authentically), but there is also the inherent presumption, regardless of context and purpose, that an answer can somehow, someway be found. Precision – or the illusion thereof – offers a certain contentment born of the need for regularity. Addressing the inherent problems therein is problematic (and theoretical), but speaks to the larger relativity of our mathematic and cultural assumptions.

Measurement seems to be a sure avenue to arriving at exactitude. An inch needs to be an inch, a foot needs to be a foot, a centimeter needs to be a centimeter…and so on. Yet our basic spatial understanding and physical memory of these units of measurement – and how to utilize them purposefully to measure – is so wonderfully and powerfully subjective and personal.

Nowhere is this more apparent and revelatory to me than in the rich provocation that I gave to my students last week – I invited them to try and make their own ruler, the reason being that I noticed their real difficulty in measuring objects to the nearest ½ and ¼ inch and millimeter. I just assumed that this would be an easy task, which was not the case. I became curious as to what they might intrinsically know about measurement. It is one thing to talk about these units and assume that children know their approximate length and usage, but it is another thing altogether to task them to use what I assumed that they already knew to make their own measurement tools. So challenging and yet so very epiphanous!

The very concept of “nearest” bears examination. “Nearness” is approximation. We talk about measurement in terms of “about an inch,” or “a little less” or a “little more” than an inch or centimeter. Approximation equivocates a certain level of subjectivity and relativity…and I noticed that my students were not quite getting this concept. An inch is composed of smaller units of measurement – fractions of the inch itself – a ½ inch, a ¼ inch – and of course the inch can be broken into smaller and smaller fragments. A centimeter can break down into millimeters, etc. The larger units of measurement are a little easier to get your head around, but even these units – those we assume that we all know and have some facility with – are really flexible when we are tasked to make our own ruler. Is it just the difficulty in iteration (the repeating of the same unit of the same size over and over) or the lack of physical experience in creating consistent spatial repetitions (which you might assume would be part of our daily experience and our bodily vernacular)? In working through these concepts with my students, I am cognizant of our role as gorgeously imprecise beings grappling with these abstract – and yet somehow physically tangible – notions of precision and exactitude. The provocation to make your own ruler seems to go beyond the impulse to instruct children to learn how to more effectively use a tool of measurement to measure objects with greater precision. Through my teaching lens, I see that this challenge speaks the larger difficulty of cultural and mathematical assumptions ( and yet I still want them to understand how to use a ruler, a yardstick, and a meter stick…) If we teach measurement to children year to year without truly gauging their understanding and giving them authentic experiences to productively wrestle with these concepts, are they really “getting it?”

Throughout this experience with my students, I have been reminded of a story on NPR that helped me understand the difficulty of teaching time – something that I found challenging when tasked to do so with my first graders. (NPR/ This American Life: Episode 583: It’ll Make Sense When You’re Older , originally aired 03.25.2016). I share excerpts of this transcript below to offer some illumination on what is happening in asking the children to create their own rulers:

Carl Duzen, who taught physics and mathematics, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at age 79. In helping him navigate this new stage of his life, his physician challenged him to try drawing a clock.

To grasp the concepts embedded in telling time on a clock, there are several layers of understanding, and so it seems to me that other superpositions are at work when children are tasked to create their own rulers. The number 1 on a ruler can mean several things: 1 inch, two halves, or four quarters. If I ask a child to measure an object to the nearest ½ or ¼ inch, will they recognize that 1 inch could meet those requirements? In understanding centimeters and millimeters, will children understand that each centimeter equals 10 millimeters? That an object that measures 4 centimeters and 3 millimeters is actually 43 millimeters? It’s a lot to keep in your head. The measurement tool you use – regardless of whether its operating within the world of customary or metric measurement – is embedded with several superpositions that are simultaneously operational. Developing facility with their usage requires many authentic experiences and building understanding of each tool’s component parts.

Enough about the thoughts percolating through my mind as I watch the children at work on their rulers. There is juicy dialogue bubbling up amongst the children as they work diligently to figure this whole “ruler thing” out…Next up: the children’s sense-making as they develop their tools of measurement.

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The news from Blogger May

Fri, 21 Oct 2016 15:42:00 GMT

– May

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A week in the life from Nolan’s perspective

Tue, 18 Oct 2016 22:47:00 GMT

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Birthdays: Becoming We

Tue, 18 Oct 2016 21:16:00 GMT

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Bad Weather Lends Itself to Good Teamwork

Fri, 30 Sep 2016 16:36:00 GMT

The first few days and weeks of school tend to be very warm and humid (and in this year’s case… wet!). In previous years I have felt a little frustrated by this and concerned that the students were not able to get as much exercise as they could on a day where the weather is cooler. Over time I have realized this time of year lends itself to something just as important as moving your body, it sets the stage for working with others as a team. Many of the activities we have done so far this year may be lighter on fitness but they are strong on building teamwork. The transferable life skill of working with others to reach a common goal is an added bonus to exercise and living a healthy lifestyle.

“Walk in with your best dance move and give your partner a high five”

Middle school students on a campus scavenger hunt

Third grade students working on strategies for a game called Giants Wizards and Elves

First grade students make a machine

We have also just dipped our feet into this year’s umbrella project theme of research. The kindergarten and first grade students are often interested in lifting my bags of equipment. One day they had a discussion about why it was easier to hold the bag from the bottom instead of with the handles.

The middle school students had a similar conversation later that day on our forest walk. “Why is my backpack so heavy but I can lift my sister?”. These questions are a good start into inquiry for understanding complex strength training principles. Stay tuned…

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From May and Nolan:

Tue, 27 Sep 2016 20:00:00 GMT

Blogger May was out sick last week, and therefore is a little behind. Cartoonist Nolan cartooned this apology at her request:

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Gender Gap II

Mon, 26 Sep 2016 22:07:00 GMT

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The Gender Gap?

Fri, 23 Sep 2016 21:54:00 GMT

The first blog entry from cartoonist Nolan.

Yesterday, Dillon’s family commented that they were wondering if there was a gender pay gap in the classroom jobs. I thought that was a very interesting question. The math would also be interesting.

So first thing this morning, I asked what a gender pay gap is. Several people told me that it was when a man and a woman do the same job and get different pay for it. I am old enough to remember when this was standard procedure.

So I asked if our class system had a gender pay gap. The firm answer was no- they didn’t know for sure who would have which job, so there could be no gender pay gap. And all of the jobs in a given category pay the same for now.

Then I explained a broader idea of a gender pay gap- jobs often held by women may be paid less, or women as a whole in an organization may be paid less because of what that organization values. How could we tell if we had one?

Tom suggested that we add up all of the girls salaries, and all of the boys salaries. The gender which is making the most money as a grand total would be the benficiaries of any pay gap, and if the total is the same, there is no gap. (If the numbers of boys and girls were equal, this would work.) But it was pointed out that we have more boys than girls, so in total, the boys should be making more- there are more of them. How could we account for this? Three or four people knew that the name for how two groups relate numerically is called the ratio, and Lorenzo could even figure out the ratio- 2 girls to 3 boys. But the group couldn’t quite figure out how to apply that. Tom had another idea- just compare the top five jobs – boy and girl, to the bottom five jobs, boy and girl, and maybe that would give us an idea. So we got the pay list and looked, and… All of the top five jobs are held by boys. The bottom jobs are split boy/girl. How could we account for this?

During job interviews, I asked everyone if there was any other job they might be interested in, or suggested a different job and asked if they would be interested. Part of what I was trying to do was see if I could steer some girls to what I suspected from preliminary discussions would be the higher paying jobs. I didn’t get takers. So I was interested in this topic myself. I let them know that this was what I had been going for. May said that maybe the girls just didn’t want to do a job that was a lot of hard work and took strength. But there were comments that we have a very athletic class of girls this year, so they shouldn’t have any trouble with any of the jobs. And Oliver said that the highest paying job, banker, is really an all brain job. So what is going on?

I told the group about a fairly recent study that found that men often make more than women in starting positions simply because they negotiate and women take what they are offered. Everyone may get a low offer, but the men counter offer and the women don’t. (Statistically speaking, of course- I am sure some women negotiate and some men don’t)

So Emerson wanted to know when men get taught to make that counter offer. I have NO idea.
Marcie theorizes that perhaps our grandparents or great grandparents were very sexist, and each generation has been getting less so, but it takes a really long time to get rid of it all.

At this point, we had to leave for PE. We have many more questions than answers. So I asked them to talk to you over the weekend. What have you found and noticed? ARE there secret negotiating lessons for men? We are going to think this over and see if we want to revisit any of this in the future.

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Getting ready for Classroom Jobs

Tue, 20 Sep 2016 22:06:00 GMT

Today, classroom jobs were announced. Everyone got their first or second choice, and they were all pretty excited about that. We had our first jobs time this afternoon, Plans were made and work has begun. I don’t think the overhead projector has ever been this clean!

The first thing that the group had to do was set their culture’s way of paying for labor. We talked about the things that do and do not get rewarded in the United States. We pay more for special skills, taking some sorts of risks, and special equipment, and creativity. We usually pay less for physical risks and hard labor.

The class felt that our culture should learn from the American culture, but not be exactly the same. For example, everyone agreed that hard physical work should be well rewarded. This year, very few people were in favor of everyone getting the same salary, but when they picked out the things that should be rewarded, at least one of the categories would cover most of the class jobs. Kristin and I have been observing this, but not intervening and forcing them to a decision. But the group decided that they should decide salaries BEFORE they knew what their jobs were, otherwise, most people would just advocate for their jobs to be well paid. And Kristin and I were ready to make announcements when they had made their decisions.

Nolan pointed out today that the discussion had been going in a circle with no resolution. He didn’t think we should try to discuss any more. But in order to vote, we would need written proposals to vote on. Randomly chosen groups of 4 had to meet for 15 minutes to agree on one proposal for voting. Only two people voted for everyone being paid the same, everyone else voted for a variable salary.
So then we had to come up with salaries. As you can see, there was negotiation in each group of 4. We projected the proposed salaries, and a few of they were very close together. Those we were able to quickly establish by consensus. For the final group of salaries, we voted by secret ballot. I announced salaries at $25 increments from the bottom salary proposed. Class members raised their hands when the lowest salary acceptable to them came up. When 9 hands (simple majority) were raised, we set the salary there.

Even more than starting salary, the group is committed to some structure for raises for good work- Tom said: “raises make you want to do better.” Everyone wants the chance to better themselves. The first proposal was that I would give raises. I refused to do so on the grounds that I might be biased and unfair. In order to give raises, there would need to be a fair system. Back to small group negotiations!

There were two major proposals:

Sydney proposed that people apply for a raise by filling out a form for people to list the ways that they were providing extra value in their job. They would have it witnessed by several people and approved by a teacher, then they would be eligible for a raise. This seemed like a good idea, but there were a few concerns. What if best friendism prevailed and people just signed off for each other? What if someone did an extra good job to get the raise but upon receiving it, just “got lazy”?

Oliver had an alternative proposal. There would be a list, constructed by the person and the group of what was necessary behavior for a raise. Each job group could have job specific things, and then there could be an overall list which would apply to any job. This was also well received,
but with a few reservations- what if you came up with something great which wasn’t on the list already?

The winning idea was a combination. For the next two weeks, we will brainstorm the lists, and see if we can come up with a good plan. No one thinks you should have a raise for doing your work without being told to, or respecting your work group, but it should be something “extra.” The last item on each list will be “to be determined.” You can fill out a request to add an item to the list later by filling out Syd’s form for a raise and getting a student and a teacher to sign off that you are doing it.

The pay cut list is not currently under discussion, although it has been suggested.

Kristen and I are giving information when asked for about the outside world, taking notes, and handling the organization of the meetings for now. Although we see several possible pitfalls ahead, we are not intervening. In this instance, constructivism will involve letting the consequences happen and not letting them be sidestepped, either by making them go away, or by stepping in to manage their decisions. It is dealing with the fallout of your decisions that allows for engagement, and makes for authentic learning.

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Social Life in the Middle Years

Wed, 01 Jun 2016 22:10:00 GMT

So if you are not hearing anything about social drama, you will in about 15 minutes, I am sure. It is the time. I thought about calling this post friendship in the middle years, but friendship and social life diverge at this point. They overlap, but they are no longer the same thing.

Sometime between the middle of fourth grade, and about 8th grade, many people develop the ability to think things through before they speak if they are calm and unexcited. This new skill may well vanish again, but it often makes a short preview. Before this stage, people say what is in their head, or not. Most kids can’t spin it very much. Sometimes harsh words are said and repented for. Sometimes they are forgiven. But it’s a pretty spontaneous thing.
‘
Once you know that you have some choice over what you say, you begin to think that other people might too. And you may wonder what they meant by what they said. On the other hand, progress in the prefrontal cortex means you are beginning to be able to talk to yourself internally. Sometimes your internal monologue drowns out everything else you hear. Sometimes it speaks in other people’s voices. So you may also attribute your own thoughts to others.

Now that children are starting to have some choice over what they say, they are going to need to experiment with their conversations. They are all going to have times when they try to be really kind and helpful. This could work really well, or due to either lack of practice on their part, or internal monologue going on in the other party, the whole conversation could go horribly wrong. This could happen even if their motives are completely pure and above board. I am with all of your children each day, and they talk to me a lot. I get a lot of comments which are completely kindly intentioned, but might not sound that way. I know to just laugh and tell them how that comment might have been taken from adult to adult (politely, of course). They are almost always shocked; astonished that things went that far awry. But they take each other very seriously, and can be very hurt by something that you or I would just crack up about.

No one is perfect, and the reverse can be true. Sometimes they are trying to be hurtful in an obvious or subtle way. And if the other party catches on, it definitely leads to hurt feelings. We talk a lot at SSP about language which is kind and not kind, categories of comments that are likely to be well received and those that are likely to be risky. Everyone has to try being mean at least a little bit, just to see how it works. You do not have to be a bad person to say bad things. And I am pretty sure that the pain of being on the receiving end is what leads most of us to be kind.

I have heard a similar story from teachers at a Richmond public and Richmond private school. The anecdote begins with a PTA meeting (or parent night meeting, respectively) about bullying. Parents are asked if their child has been bullied at school. Every parent’s hand goes up. Parents are asked if their child has bullied at school. No hands go up. Every child is going to do something mean at some point. If it is your child this time, feel free to remind them firmly that respect and kindness are expected in your family. If it is the other child this time, remember how you would like it handled if the tables were turned.

Remember that there is almost always a back story. Whether by design or misunderstanding, the child on the other side may feel ill-used and feel that they are simply defending themselves, whether or not we would strictly agree with them.

Suffice it to say, I have ample knowledge that obnoxious middle schoolers can turn into really lovely adults. It’s a stage, not necessarily a character flaw.

So language and conversation have become much more complicated for the pre-teen. It’s much harder to figure out what people mean by what they say, even if you are pretty socially adept. But that’s not the half of it. Preteens know that they are operating in a group or series of groups at school. You can’t just think of your effect on an individual friend. You have to think about your actions relative to how they affect your group status. Not only could what you say and what you hear be meant and taken several ways, but multiply that by several people. It makes you tired just thinking about it. Some of the worst social tensions for this age group are being in internal conflict about sticking with a friend or finding a place in the group. Trying to find this path is one of the reasons that pre-teens may seem to turn on each other for no good reason.

Today I had duty at recess. I saw a group of children playing “being crazy.” They had fake crazy names and made preposterous statements and requests. They don’t always play together. But their delight in a game where their comments could not be misinterpreted by definition since they were clearly uninterpretable, was palpable. They had many of us in stitches. And granted the grouping, I suspect they were craving a vacation from their various friendship circles.

Small children’s friends are chosen by their parents. You make the arrangements, you do the hosting. By fifth grade, your children are ready to make their own friendship choices. They are in more activities, in more places. They are exploring different interests. They will make new friends, and may want to shed some of their past connections. This happens. You are completely within bounds to insist that everyone treat others with kindness and respect. But friendship is not up to you. Relationships change.

Preteens develop rapidly, and not all at the same time. Interests that your child had in common with a friend may diverge sharply. It is so easy to blame friendship issues on the child whose interests are moving in a more teenagerish direction, but it isn’t fair. Neither side is in charge of their developmental schedule, and right now they aren’t a good pair. It is perfectly fair to demand kind, respectful behavior from all parties. (You may have noticed that that is my mantra.) But it’s not fair for either side to insist on maintaining a friendship that both sides can’t be comfortable in. If a respectful and friendly distance is accepted, the pair may reform later. If parents intervene and try to force things, I can tell you from experience that it won’t end well, and the relationship may well be irreparable later. Managing this change can be hard if the families are friends as well, but dealing with the fallout from a disastrously ending relationship is worse.

So far, I have talked only about your child. But you have a role too. Plus, you have to listen to the drama for HOURS. Supportive listening is a great start. You are your child’s safe harbor, and it is great that they still want to tell you all about it. Often, if given sufficient talking time, your child can work out a plan for themselves, or at least calm themselves down. The next step is to act as their consultant. Help them problem solve a kind and respectful plan. Keep in mind that your child is dumping their feelings on you, their safe person. They are not trying to lie to you, (most of the time). On the other hand, if you had been there, you might feel that the actuality was less dire than the report. Statements such as “tell me more,”that must have felt awful,”Ugh,” and so on, acknowledge your preteens feelings without reinforcing their point of view. Feel free to let the teacher know that your child is feeling some distress. Other adults in your child’s life may also have useful perspective for you or for your child.

Finally, the awful boyfriend/girlfriend rule applies to other friends too. This week’s enemy is next week’s BFF, and you are the bad guy for badmouthing them. Your child may be blowing off steam to you, which is super helpful for them. You may not be hearing the whole story of the conflict. Other children who are experiencing a social rough patch may be dealing with challenges you are unaware of, which would make you inclined to be merciful. And when your child is awful, and they will be, would you want all of the other parents saying mean things about your child?

I am on the other side now, so I can tell you. All of your children will grow up to be lovely people. Dealing with some unpleasantness will really help them to do that. They will experience some pain, some undeserved and some well deserved. All of them will do at least one thing that makes you cringe before they leave your nest. Support them when they are upset, insist on respect for other people as part of your family culture, and help them make their best amends when they have been mean. And soon, you will be sitting at various graduations amazed by your wonderful, wonderful young adults.

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Our Richmond Project

Fri, 06 May 2016 19:33:00 GMT

This year, the Our Richmond Project has made many twists and turns, moving into and out of pretty much every subject. We are making our city hall presentation in several parts, which the groups are required to make interact with each other. This has felt very challenging to the group, but ultimately they have scaffolded each other into some very interesting ideas and metaphors. Also, we have had fun.

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Student Led Conferences

Fri, 29 Apr 2016 20:07:00 GMT

As you know, Student Led Conferences are Monday. Some people don’t mind them, some people would rather have a disease than lead a conference about themselves. So we talked about why they are important, like them or not, and this is the list the class generated:
(You can see these with more of the details in the Google Drive Study Skills Folder.)

1. The individual is the best judge of their own progress and effort.
2. Your family loves you and is paying for your education, so they enjoy seeing your progress and have the right to.
3. Seeing your progress so far allows you to make a plan to catch anything up that you need to before the end of the year.
4. Charting your progress reminds you that you are ultimately accountable for learning.
5. Refining and presenting your ideas in a persuasive way is important if you want to be an adult who changes the world. This is practice.
6. Figuring out how you learn will allow you to learn other things more efficiently in the future.

All of these reasons, and probably several more, are very valid reasons for putting students through the annual student-led conference. I would like to focus on the last one for this blog.

When my children were in elementary school, they regularly told me they weren’t learning very much. The change in work from day to day is almost undetectable most of the time, even if you are a teacher. It is easy to feel that you aren’t making much progress. In the short term, work fluctuates for a lot of reasons- maybe you liked the topic especially well, maybe you didn’t feel well, maybe you were upset. It’s even possible to feel that you are going backwards, not forwards. But, when we went in for “curriculum fair” at the end of the year, the changes were amazing. It was clear to see how much they had grown over the course of a year. As we have prepared for conferences, I have heard many exclamations and outright laughter. “HA! I thought that was a reader response!” “It looks like I didn’t even know what I was doing.” “I guess I didn’t know you have to study for tests.” “Look at my time- how slow I was.” Taking a long view, improvements really stand out. Improvement and proof of success are the best motivations to buckle down and work hard. You can see for sure that it pays off.

When I was a young person, I assumed that the everything you learned had a different learning strategy, and that they would be really closely related to your natural talents. It seemed as though some people could do some things, and other people could do other things. And it is true that people have different natural affinities. It’s probably also true that to be the best of the best of the best, you need some natural ability. But you can get pretty competent by employing efficient learning strategies and practice. And even the best of the best don’t get to the pinnacle without them.

As I have watched a lot of people learn a lot of things, I have realized that the learning process is, in the larger sense, the same process over and over. Yes, the details may vary from skill to skill. But learning to read is alarmingly close to learning to play the piano. Once we have the learning process clear and put in some effort, most of us can become passable at most things.

So there is a general learning process, and you can figure it out IF you notice that you are learning. Student-led conferences let students take a slightly longer view, but with enough evidence at hand that they can begin to think about what they did and how they did it. It’s possible to see the improvements in their skills, knowledge and dispositions that they have acquired gradually over time.

Once a person begins to notice how they learn, they can do the most important thing of all- modify the general process so that it is more effective for their particular brain, and learn where their sticking points may be. For instance, some people really do improve a little bit each day. Other people seem to stay stuck in the morass way longer than they would like to, then suddenly take a huge leap. As you can imagine, it can be hard to be the second type of person (and I am the second type). You can easily become frustrated and decide that you are just incapable, as you are being passed by all and sundry. But if you KNOW that this is your usual pattern, and it will all come out in the end if you stick to the program, you have more power to stay the course in the face of what seem to be disappointing results. Some people need to do one task for a long time and get lost in it. Others need to switch up activities fairly regularly. If you get in the habit of comparing your process to your results, you can see which strategies were more efficient for you. This might be the most important thing you can learn.

You will be a participant in the conference process. So how can you help? I know I won’t have to say this to this year’s parents, but take a warm and supportive tone. No one is being cross-examined, or defending their dissertation here. Ask questions in an interested tone, and allow quiet, peaceful time for thinking about them. Sometimes comments, even compliments, that are too general add pressure to make everything amazing. Some of our work won’t be amazing, for sure, for everyone. It can be more helpful to reflect specific things- “I notice that in October you were _____________________, but now you are ________________________ most of the time. What do you think you did to make that happen?” Allow for nerves and a certain amount of fluster. After all, fifth graders are pretty new to a more formal presentation process as well. And enjoy the time. The years when you are the focus of their attention, and they are overtly thrilled to please you are rapidly coming to an end.

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Resiliency

Sat, 16 Apr 2016 20:13:00 GMT

If I were to pick one word for bike week it would be resiliency. Whether it was taking off training wheels for the first time, learning to make a tight u-turn around a cone, or pushing themselves during the duathlon, I consistently saw the students showing grit and determination. Watching their faces when something finally clicked and they mastered a skill is one of my favorite parts of being their teacher.

The second word that sums up bike week is fun. Students had a whole lot of fun over the past two weeks. Check out the photos below to see the students in action.

Getting aero!

A focused first grade student.

Younger students sending the 8th graders off for the start of their duathlon.

Kindergarten students came to cheer on their reading buddies.

Middle school students take to the road.

Working hard and still smiling.

Relaxing with friends after working hard in the duathlon.

Riding on two wheels for the first time feels good!

Focused going around the hula hoop.

Paying the “toll” on the blacktop highway.

Resting in the sun after the duathlon.

The garden room came to cheer on their friends in 3rd grade.

Thank you to all of the parents who came out to support and cheer on the students.

Starting the duathlon strong.

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The Don’t Panic Method of Studying for Math

Thu, 14 Apr 2016 15:20:00 GMT

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Studying

Fri, 08 Apr 2016 21:30:00 GMT

We have been talking a lot about how to study this year. We always talk about how to study, because before fifth grade, most people don’t really have to. If you don’t know how to study, you can work for hours and not see much improvement. It’s pretty demoralizing. You all will, of course, know everything I have to say, because you have lived it. But all of it is news to a fifth grader, and just like everything else, some people just intuitively know how to do it, and some people need to have the steps explained. I will start by sharing one small area which we have been discussing, since many smarter people than I have written entire books on the subject. Studying effectively means metacognition and a decision making process. The class is just learning the decision making questions you must use to study effectively.

The first category of things we are learning how to study is probably the easiest. We are looking at the things that you just need to memorize in order to do something else. This year, these have been things like math facts, fraction percent equivalents, or common irregularly spelled words. Being able to say or write them at will is the main point.

First, you have to see what you do know and check your progress.

Do you know few to none of the things you need to learn? Then you have to get most of it into your head by the most efficient route. You will need to think about how things that stick well in your brain are often presented to you. Take math facts, for an example. If seeing is the best for you, flashcards may be your best ally. If hearing things is the best, those awful songs in which various fact tables are turned into tunes might be useful. Or, having people call facts out to you while riding in the car. If you love playing video games anyway, perhaps the computer games which use solving facts to let you beat someone, or blast an alien may be less painful. If writing or drawing is your best, either writing them out over and over, or incorporating them into a picture which helps you to recall them could work.
You may need to combine strategies, but the odds are that one or two of these will work pretty well, some will be ok, and at least one will be completely useless. Checking progress may help you sort out which are good and bad for YOU. This type of practice is more permanent and less stressful if it is done a little bit at a time, say 5 minutes a day, than an hour the night before the school assessment. Last minute study does not transfer into procedural memory as effectively, and usually makes people hate studying!

So now you have the bulk of it down. There are still two possibilities.

First, you have most of your information, but you haven’t memorized the last few annoying facts. You should double down on those you don’t know. When we check benchmark tests at school, they are to circle the things they missed in colored pencil so that they will know what to study. If you are not seeing tests with colored circles on them, you should inquire. First, see if there is any memory trick or aid you can use- 56= 7 x 8- 5,6,7,8. 7/8 = 87 1/2 % . 7,8/ 8,7. Many adults alphabetize by hearing the ABC song in their heads. If you can make a joke about it, or a drawing of it that you can recall, that may help. As a class, we share these when we find them. Then, there is the index card strategy. Write them out, easily readable, on index cards and put the cards places you see a lot every day. In front of your car seat, your bulletin board, the bathroom mirror, over the kitchen sink. If you look them over when you are in these places, you hardly notice that you are studying, but you are. Make up your own silly song with the information set to your own tune and rhythm.

The second possibility is that you have the information,but you are not recalling it quickly or automatically enough. If there are a few problems that you are still having to solve or support mentally, apply the previous paragraph to them. But mostly, you need to keep doing the final assessment format over and over and keep trying to drop your time – so you’ll need a timer and the test paper. If we are doing it this year, the test paper is in Google Classroom and you can print as many as you want. In future years, you might need to construct something similar from a completed school paper. Once or no more than twice a day, probably not at the same time, is optimal. This should take less than ten minutes a day to do and to check- you can have a corrected copy on hand for quick checking.

Neither one of these take much work per day- perhaps the first day takes more time, because you have to set up whatever you are going to do, but after that it is minimal. But if you really need to recall two specific facts, and you do the whole test every day, you really aren’t studying what you need to learn.

During the school day, I structure things as much as possible to support learning the baseline information which we need to master so we can do the actual work. For instance, we started our decimal unit today. Many adults would read this number: 3.75 as three-point-seven-five. And that’s fine. But to pass the benchmark, they will have to read it as: three-and-seventy-five-hundredths, showing that they know the place values. I gave them the choice of studying in class, by reading each decimal they say out loud in the second way. After all, they will be here doing the work anyway, so it’s not really an addition to their workload. Or, they could do it however they want in class and therefore have to add this to homework. Everyone chose the first way!

Your role as a homework helper for this year and the next few will be two fold. First, you do know how to study. It’s fine to tell them how, especially if it saves drama all around. I have noticed that the instructions of one adult are often written off by children as unreasonable or odd. If they hear the same message from every adult, many of them will comply. Second, be their helpful observer. Notice and reflect what works well for them, and give them that feedback. The name of the game here is to do as well as you can in school with maximal time for other things, not seeing who can suffer the most. And if they suffer, you will get to suffer with them.

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Poetry

Tue, 22 Mar 2016 21:18:00 GMT

We have started a new poetry unit- we will be reading poetry, writing poems, and writing a literary essay about a self selected poem. This will be a reading and writing unit. We started today with a poem by Ronald Wallace, titled: You can’t write a poem about McDonald’s. It turns out that you can.

We read the poem together several times. One of the nice things about many poems is that they are comparatively short, so it is much easier to read them over and over. We began to look for sensory images in the poem, which we found, but the discussion quickly moved to the themes of privilege and surfeit found in the poem. Mallory commented on these ideas in her response to the poem, and several class members offered up evidence to support her thinking:

“All around me people are eating”

“As I reach for her,
she breaks into pieces
wrapped neat and packaged for take-out.”

“I’m thinking, how amazing it is
to live in this country, how easy
it is to be filled.”

“singing, my ear, my eye, my tongue
fat with the wonder
of this hungry world.”

It did not escape the group’s notice that the counter girl, “crisp as a pickle,” “fingers thin as french fries,” “breaks into pieces.” She is not participating in the plenty, but providing it.

After we responded to the poem, the final challenge was to choose another everyday object and write a poem about it which would hint at themes beyond the everyday. Some class members were willing to share their work with you.

Jude chose a similar familiar object to the mentor poem, but notice her vast difference in theme:

You can’t write a poem about food chain restaurants.
By Jude

On a Journey
hunger eating away my stomach
waiting to see something that soothes my

Rumbling hunger.
soon finding a place that I always know is everywhere.
I stop by it

not having to walk in or out
only having to reach out for the
Bag of fat Sugar and GREASE, of “food.”

tightly wrapped in the Simple Steps of a
chain restaurant

as I take a Bite of the thick Juicy
Monster of a chicken sandwich
feeling the salt of the crunchy pickles
the soft smooth architecture of the bun.
and the greasy taste of fried chicken.

and now I know I can always
rely on the restaurants that are
always their. getting every
last bit.

Mallory uses how one sees an envelope as a symbol for anticipation and fear.

You Can’t Write a Poem About an Envelope
by Mallory

I sit and the clock ticks faster than it should.
Fifteen minutes more.
I tap my foot.
I glow at the thought of a good answer
Five minutes
I glower at the thought of another.
Now. I run outside. I am scared.
I open the mailbox to the bright,
musty envelope.
I feel giddy at the sight of the white, sharpness.
I dpen it and the glower goes away.
No longer could it be a musty, sharp disapointment.
‘Tis only a bright, white happy envelope.
It could never be anything else.

Lila both holds and questions her perspective as an 11 year old.

You cant’ write a poem about 11 (but clearly you can)

I am 11
What does it really mean to be 11?
Well you might say Lila
all it is, is an age
Well what is age anyway
age doesn’t really matter
and yes I know that I sound
Like one of those Women’s Day
magazines, and some will say it sounds a bit gimmicky
but it is still true
I’ll still be the same person when
I’m
twelve, and 13, and 14. Or will I?
So tell me, What does it truly mean to be 11?

Sam uses a common childhood experience as a metaphor for mastering fear.

You Can’t Write a Poem About Performing
by Sam

I step into the Chesterfield Town Center
mall, hand held tight in my fathers.
If only my heart was as steady.
I see people, young and old, walking in my
sure to be grave. I see a face I know!
Two! My heart flutters, but stops as I think
I see my mothers face bobbing in the sea of people, growing, growing, until
I’m close enough to touch- her. I sit
on the stool, the last performance
still in my ears. I begin to play, my
fear seeping away with each note. I
stop, applause shattering my fear, replacing
it with pride. I shakily step
down, the applause still going.

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Mapping the Village

Mon, 21 Mar 2016 22:38:00 GMT

Our Village has a name! There were two names that we voted on- Queenstown, because we are all a Queen of something, and Owlsview, because of the owl- who is viewing us- in the tree next to the village. Chocolatetown (the town layout is a lot like a Hershey bar) was another offering, but it was quickly decided that it didn’t really sound like a real town. So it was adapted into the town slogan- “The biggest chocolate bar with the sweetest nuts.” Needless to say, we are the nuts.

A vote was taken by secret ballot, and the winner is…

Owlsview! Everyone has to map their property and record the map at the land office in order to lay permanent claim to her land.

Maps had to be to scale, and have a key, and an accurate compass rose, as well as several other elements. Almost everyone had to make at least , but almost veryone has now produced an acceptable map.

Stella’s is probably the most beautiful of all, and was admired and recommended for posting by acclamation.

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Rational Numbers Require Rational Thought

Mon, 08 Feb 2016 22:43:00 GMT

We are now in the middle of the rational number unit (fractions). This is an important unit, and predictive of future math performance, so I try to make sure we give this unit its due. Today we were playing a game called “fraction track.” You draw a card with a fraction on it, and you try to break it up to move as many chips as possible to one or two (depending on the version you are playing.) You get a point for each chip you get to one or two, and two or three people are playing on one game board. The parts to the game are in the Unit 4 Math folder in Classroom in Google Drive. Try to make time to play it, it’s fun.

Part of the initial activity is that you have to finish setting up the first side of the board. The two sides of the board are in the unit workbook, but there are missing fractions which you have to fill in by using equivalencies and measuring the distance between two given fractions. After you are done, you can play. (the directions are full size in Google Classroom.)

For closure of this activity, we projected the board on the board and looked at the shape of the space left when you “connect the dots,” that is, the unit fractions. We made the mirror image on the other side. Here’s what it looks like:

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2016 Running Challenge

Fri, 05 Feb 2016 19:09:00 GMT

The Running Challenge this year has gotten off to a wet, muddy and snowy start but that can’t stop a group of very determined Sabot students. In a week and a half the students have run 347 miles. Our goal this year is 3,080 miles. On our virtual map we will attempt to run from California to Washington, D.C.

Here are just a few images of our determined students.

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MLK Day

Mon, 18 Jan 2016 21:52:00 GMT

We decided as a group what do to celebrate Dr. King’s Birthday. It was really a collaborative decision, and not any one person’s idea. We started with an idea that it would be good to respond to Dr, King’s work by giving things to “poor people” or “homeless people”. Then someone remembered a recent time when they tried this and were rebuffed. We thought about how it would feel to have someone single you out because you appeared to be “poor.” It didn’t seem like it would feel comfortable at all. But not sharing at all felt selfish. Through considering a series of suggestions and scenarios, we decided that it would be ok to give things out if: We offered them to everyone that we saw, without starting with a value judgement about that person. And, if we offered, leaving them an opening to choose to take something or not. At first, we thought about fresh flowers, because they are beautiful, and symbols of growth and change. But it is REALLY cold sometimes in Richmond in January, and none of us had something in our gardens to pick, so we decided to go with tissue paper flowers. They are pretty, and we have the skills to make them. To each flower, we attached on of Dr. King’s thoughts.

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Village has Moved Outside

Fri, 15 Jan 2016 21:25:00 GMT

We have begun to construct our village back behind the trailers. We started in the classroom, and negotiated a town plan. We had to figure out the perimeter and area we would get for the town plan ideas, and then agree on one.

We had to cut the stakes for the town as a whole, and the individual properties (and figure out how many stakes we would need to stake the properties.)

We had to get the tools out, and measure the town line, and the angles. We chose a flatter site at the bottom of the hill this year. We kept it compact, because we have to cut all of the grass inside the town with hand clippers.

Every year, the string turns into a giant tangle!

This is an area where explanations and lessons may help some, but the only way to learn is to get out and try. Each girl had to compromise and combine ideas and mistakes to get the work done.

Finally, we started on our temporary shelters. These (hopefully) keep the peeps warm and dry enough to start mapping the land and working on a house.

And our “watcher” stood over us calmly the whole time.

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Another Post from Graphic Designer Lila

Wed, 06 Jan 2016 17:49:00 GMT

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Winter Circle

Fri, 18 Dec 2015 21:39:00 GMT

My closing circle day memories go back to when my 25 year old was a student at the preschool. Today, at the request of the eighth grade, who started here before there was a Founder’s Hall, we met again in the main building. I remember when they were just preschoolers- I can’t believe how quickly they grew up.

Eighth graders read a poem written for winter circle by an alumni.

The stairs make impromptu risers.

Every year we sing the winter circle songs. This one was written especially for us by Kelly Kennedy. I remember when the fifth graders sang it in concert at Agecroft.

Everyone listened with rapt attention as Pippin and others created a dramatic reading of Winter is Here .

Every year Winter Circle comes, every year, it is the same, and every year, it is magic.

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Code Week!

Thu, 10 Dec 2015 21:37:00 GMT

Today we participated in the “Hour of Code” in honor of the International Hour of Code. It’s an initiative to expose school age children to coding all over the world- 180 countries. I was especially interested this year because we had the technology at school to support it conveniently, and I wanted the girls to see that coding could be for them too.

We started with a Khan Academy tutorial which involves drawing with JavaScript. There were a few minutes of frustration, but the girls intentionally decided to stick with it and figure out the concepts. Everyone had a great time making the drawings.

The tutorial was very helpful, and to some people, the process was easier than for others, but I was surprised by how well everyone liked it, persevered, and really had fun. In reviewing the photos, there are a LOT of smiling faces.

It was a good opportunity for collaboration- as one person figured out how to do something, they showed the others, so how to’s were passed around quickly.

I had gone over the tutorials a few times myself, to make sure the system would work with our computers and wifi. I also wanted to make sure I knew what would be coming, since coding is new to me too. I learned so much more from watching them, and although I helped here and there, the group mainly relied on each other.

https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/hour-of-code/hour-of-drawing-code/v/welcome-hour-of-code

https://hourofcode.com/us

https://www.codecademy.com/

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Weird Ways to Add

Thu, 03 Dec 2015 21:36:00 GMT

If you start from the right, with 7+6 =13, you are still nowhere near the answer.

It’s not that I want the children to think about what they are doing instead of doing it. Accurate addition and subtraction are at the core of this unit. They will have to get the answers right. But by considering what they are doing, instead of blindly following a procedure,they will gain huge benefits. They will be much more likely to know if they are right, and much more likely to know what to do with the answer when they get it.

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A Post from Graphic Designer Lila

Fri, 20 Nov 2015 18:22:00 GMT

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First business payment in checks

Tue, 17 Nov 2015 21:03:00 GMT

One person was willing to have her check photographed, but not herself.

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Entrepreneurs

Mon, 16 Nov 2015 21:30:00 GMT

Stella has been making and selling necklaces and book marks for peep dollars. They are very pretty, and beautifully packaged. She has also given a few to students in younger grades who don’t have access to peep dollars.

It is always exciting to see the businesses begin. Other people have ideas for businesses, and they share and learn from each other. A few things: It is fine for your child to use up household scraps to make things to “sell,” or to “sell” their stock of party favorish items. Please don’t spend real money in order to make things to sell for fake money in any quantity. I have talked to the girls about why this does not make sense. I have also reminded them to check with you before they use household materials and bring in things to sell from home.

Most of the time, having a business is a lot of fun, and a real learning experience, so I encourage their businesses. Stella has already decided not to take custom orders, because then she would be under time pressure to complete jobs on days she might not have time. She will make stock when she has time, and sell it when she has it. There will be upsetting moments, however. Often children get very invested in their business, and take bumps in the road as seriously as we would. This is when authentic learning happens, but it is hard to be in the middle of it. Give a hug, and a calm listening ear, and trust them to work it out in time.

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Squirrel River

Mon, 16 Nov 2015 18:45:00 GMT

As you may, or may not know, being the parents of big kids, the preschool playground has a little water feature with a barrel and a little culvert for water to run through for water play.

Stella has seen it, and she and Stella and Elizabeth and several others on and off have been making a tiny dragon village in the corner of the playground with caves and clay roads and bridges. I repurposed a bucket for them to carry clay to their village, which gave Stella an idea. She borrowed the drill and drilled a small hole in the bottom of the bucket, and placed it at the top of her river bed. Then she filled the bucket with water. Now they have “tiny squirrel river” which runs through the river bed, under the clay bridge, and into the lake.

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Post field trip

Thu, 12 Nov 2015 03:22:00 GMT

We made a list of questions for the historical society relating to public health- they were mainly questions about things like factories, chemical spills, when and where different places had sewer service, etc. We did not find too much about those questions, but we discovered something else.

Very frequently, one group takes power over another over some sort of excuse or pretext.
The Europeans stole food from the Virginia Native Americans.
The Native Americans retaliated in a massacre.
The Europeans vowed revenge, and were also glad to be able to attack and occupy prime land.

African Americans were considered suitable to enslave because they were theoretically not adherents to Christianity. But when they converted, they were not freed.

Women were sometimes restricted in their activities because they had and took care of small children. This purported protection also served the purpose of limiting them.

We have thought of several things so far which seem to confer power. They are: wealth, sex, perceived race, connections and religion. Of course, assuming that the ones you have line up with what is valued in the group you participate in. We can think of several examples across cultures where these things in some combination confer power. We wonder if access to power could possibly affect life expectancy?

We ended our day by going to Westover Hills/Forest Hill, which has the longest life expectancy in the city of Richmond by census tract. After we ate, we canvassed several blocks and compared the number of trees to cars to houses to special buildings.

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Math Manipulatives

Wed, 11 Nov 2015 22:48:00 GMT

In our current Math unit, Prisms and Pyramids, we use many materials and manipulatives to allow us to experiment and form understandings about volume. Here are some of the things we have experienced over the last couple of weeks.

Our first investigation involved finding volume in “cubic units.” We tried to design a box that would hold packages which were various dimensions. We used pop cubes to make the packages to be held.

Next, we looked at the relative size of different measures of volume. There are a million cubic centimeters in one cubic meter, and the whole class will fit into a cubic meter with plenty of room to spare.

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We have a Government… Sort of

Tue, 10 Nov 2015 21:49:00 GMT

There has been a good deal of progress on the government since I last mentioned it. Of course, implementing, refining, seeing the pitfalls and refining again will be the work of the year.

We used the book Who’s in Charge to help us with terminology, and referred to them for information. Many forms of government were proposed, and several were shortly taken off the list. Since no one has an army, Military Dictatorship won’t be an option.

But several suggestions that I would have assumed to be frivolous were serious and proposed for different reasons than the traditional ones. Mallory was very interested in a Timocracy, where property owners make the rules. But what she was thinking was that they would have the most vested interest in preserving the environment, since it was their environment. She also knew that in our society, we would all be land owners, so no one would be shut out.

Dylan advocated clearly for an anarchy. Usually this is proposed by the smart alecky students, but she was very serious and argued well that in our group, we really shouldn’t need rules. We should all know by now how to treat people and materials respectfully and kindly, and we should just do it with no outside pressure. Also, in an anarchy, no one is above or below another. She introduced the word “hierarchy” to us.

In the book we found the government types of “lottocracy”- choosing leaders by lot, and theocracy- your God is your leader. As many of you know, Chompy the staple puller is the classroom god, although everyone is clear that that is a joke. Several people wanted a theocracy element to be officially included in our government- we would call the random choices that we make by choosing popsicle sticks with names on them: “the voice of Chompy”. Grace was not comfortable with having this an official part of the government. She said, “The government should not be run by an inanimate object.” There was some discussion of how this could offend people’s sincere beliefs.

I was happily surprised to see that with no prompting or questioning from me, they constructed the idea that someone has to speak for Chompy, and that person would really hold the power. This was a concern of Grace’s. You could be inadvertently putting a dictator in place. So officially, these things are chosen at random, although Chompy is still joked about.

Every goverment had some strengths and some weaknesses, and that was becoming clear to everyone. Dylan had a suggestion. “Can we “squish” different types of governments together? I would like to combine direct democracy, polity, and lottocracy?” Everyone liked this idea and it was swiftly passed.

So now we had a form of government, but the question remained- who is the leader?

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Personal Narratives

Tue, 10 Nov 2015 21:38:00 GMT

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First Post from Class Reporter

Mon, 26 Oct 2015 18:07:00 GMT

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We sent our letters off to AJCES

Wed, 21 Oct 2015 20:25:00 GMT

With many questions, friendly drawings and stickers.

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A Vulgar Friday offering from Jude

Fri, 16 Oct 2015 18:49:00 GMT

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The One Minute Rainy Day Vestibular Break Dance Party

Mon, 05 Oct 2015 17:43:00 GMT

This is the second day. It turns out that you can’t dance while you are recording other people dancing…

The One Minute Rainy Day Vestibular Break Dance Party

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A day in the Life of the White Board

Fri, 02 Oct 2015 15:18:00 GMT

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So what About Homework?

Tue, 29 Sep 2015 21:04:00 GMT

Ah, homework… everyone’s favorite topic. In some ways, we would all like to just skip it, but it has some important jobs. First, it provides practice of a skill or topic at spaced out intervals to support permanency and automaticity. This is completely necessary. Second, it is assessement and feedback. I look it over to see what is solid and what needs work, both in skills and organization. Third, it gives slower processors a non time pressured way to practice and possibly keep up. Finally, it gives an opportunity to practice the system while the stakes are still pretty low. I slash out all homework which is mindless repetition or busy work on the front end. So, if I assign it, I think that is important that it be done the vast majority of the time.

In order for homework to be useful, both the child, teacher and family will have to play their role. I will start with your part.

Your family will need to be comfortable with, and clearly communicate, that homework which is done and done well constitutes a value for your family. The class standard is “NCC” – neat, complete, and correct. Now, clearly, neat varies from person to person, but it should be neat for your particular student. Everyone has a day when there is illness or an unexpected emergency, or a special occasion, and I am completely fine with that. Just let me know. But special occasions to have a tendency to proliferate. Most of the time, other after school activities are not a reason not to do homework.

The second thing your child will need is space and time to do their work and keep their stuff. They will need a place to work that works for them. If the kitchen table or counter works, completely fine. A desk or table in their room is fine too. You will have to choose what works for your child and family. Your child will need a place to put their books and completed papers (like a drawer or file box). They will need a specific place to put papers which are for you. And they will need some basic supplies- paper, pencils, colored writing implement, a calculating device.

Most children need a dedicated time for homework. It can be a set time, or vary according to the activities of the day, but you are going to have to remind or insist on the time unless your child has completely bought into homework culture. In my personal family, we had family homework time, and everyone did paperwork or homework together, including my husband and I. If it is too late, they may be too tired, so keep that in mind. Each year, I have one organized soul who can mysteriously get it all done neatly in the back of vans and first thing in the am with no support at all. If that is your child, count yourself lucky, and know that you are the super minority.

Your child plays a role as well, of course. They should give each assignment the reasonable best that they have. You may of course guide them. This is an art, and takes practice. Really, it’s not reasonable to hand letter your two spelling sentences every day, but they should be legible. On the other hand, I expect a reader response to reflect two weeks of work, not a half hour the night before. Practice is how you figure this out. Hysteria has never helped anyone to learn more efficiently, so feel free to have them take a break from assignments that are unexpectedly challenging. On the other hand, some people need drama to move along. Don’t let the drama prevent them from moving along.

On routine sorts of homework that are checkable, I expect them to check their work as part of the process. Using a calculator is fine. If their answer is wrong, they should take 5 mins to try to figure out what went wrong and correct it in color. They may well need prompting now, but they should be moving toward doing this independently. If 5 mins work doesn’t show them what they missed, they should leave ALL of what they did, in regular pencil and in color for me to look over. They could also look it over quickly the next morning if they have time. Spelling words should be spelled correctly in one’s spelling homework.

I would also expect any student to express frustration without attacking their family or violating family standards, follow directions as to homework time, take compensating steps if they,say, forget to bring home their agenda, and ask for needed supplies in a polite way and a reasonable time frame.
There is a blog from a couple of years ago which has more detail about organization. Feel free to enforce your family standards in this area. You are at home with your child; I am not. So I tell them that you are the final word.

So finally, I have a role to play in homework. Here’s what I do:

Try to keep the homework amount reasonable and balanced over the days. Sometimes, illness, things like snow days, failure to complete class work or class choice- i.e. having an assessment before a break rather than after- have an impact, but keeping work under control is always on my radar.

Give instructions as to what has to be done. This might be done in class, or in writing for larger assignments.

Assess progress with homework. Because of the nature of our school, a lot of classwork is done

collaboratively. I am checking to see what everyone is “getting” and not “getting” independently. When I see what’s right and what’s wrong, I adapt mini lessons and provocations to add another approach, review, or skip something everyone clearly has. So it’s ok if your child’s best efforts have left the work “wrong.” I need to know, and I will provide support.

Give feedback to allow improvement and maintenance. This tends to vary with the assignment. For super quick simple things like a word sort, it could be a check. For things like reader responses, there will be a lot more writing. I may explain something in writing on the page, or add additional interesting or challenging material. So your student should check their books and journal if they have a question. There is a chance that I have answered it. I really want to encourage them to take initiative, so if they e-mail me directly and I possibly can, I will respond as soon as possible.

Finally, I give reasonable consquences to those who do not complete their work. Often this is doing it at lunch or break or first thing in the morning. If that doesn’t get the job done, it may be added to the following night’s work (this could lead to a lot of homework in one night). If the assignment was to prepare for an in class activity, they might not be able to participate, as they are not prepared. Or, there might be a “grade penalty” for late work like reader responses. There are occasions where I am not off schedule during the day for some reason, and an assignment waits a day to be checked, but I have to do what they have to do times nine. As for them, the pile grows quickly, and I don’t want to get behind.

It takes more practice than you would think to master doing homework calmly. If you haven’t made it a part of your family routine, it will take attention from you. Also, when a totally new type of assignment comes home, you may want to look it over with them. Make sure that the time and supplies are ready to go, and help them problem solve questions they may need to ask at school. The payoff is that in the storms of adolescence, they will know what to do, and you will just have to listen to them complain about it. That part never goes away.

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We got beautiful notes from the fifth grade at AJCES

Mon, 28 Sep 2015 21:11:00 GMT

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Hosting the Anna Julia Cooper Fifth Grade

Mon, 28 Sep 2015 20:45:00 GMT

“Buffalo”

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Forming a Government

Mon, 28 Sep 2015 20:39:00 GMT

In order to function as a community, we think we will have to form a government. Anarchy has not been completely ruled out. That is, a system in which there are no external rules, and people’s innate sense of self discipline, fairness and compassion are the system. No one is advocating for the popular meaning of anarchy.

We have defined -archy- which means rule and comes from the Greek word for beginning or first place. It refers to who makes the rules in a system. -Cracy also means rule and comes from the Greek word for power. So government is about who sets the rules and who has the power to enforce them.
The third thing we looked up was -ism- which means state of being or belief system. What you believe about people or money is not your government system, but it will influence it.
We defined our values as a community

when we worked on our mission:

We want our government to support us in developing a community which functions according to our values, which we wrote down as we worked on our mission.

Another important thing to think about in constructing a government is what the government is thinking about as it constructs rules and enforcing them- the enrichment of those in government, or the best interests of the governed? And who checks to see that this stays constant?

We have been looking at several different forms of government, and we will have some sort of blend, as do most current governments. We decided to take some thinking time and not rush to a decision, so the final decision is upcoming.

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The Board Manager and Schedule Manager are on the job!

Wed, 23 Sep 2015 20:44:00 GMT

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Learning about Learning

Tue, 22 Sep 2015 21:34:00 GMT

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Sabot Welcomes the World

Mon, 21 Sep 2015 18:27:00 GMT

If you passed by me in your car today you might have wondered if I was celebrating Halloween a little early because I came to school dressed in my bike kit (complete with aero helmet and cowbell). I did it to get students talking about the UCI races happening in Richmond this week. It is pretty exciting that the best cyclists in the world are putting tires down on our streets. If you didn’t get the chance to check it out this weekend here is the schedule for the rest of the week. Also be sure to grab a “Sabot Welcomes the World” t-shirt for sale in the main house.

We had some fun in PE today playing bike themed games like “scooter time trial”, “mechanic wheel fix” and the “jersey run”.

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Reading

Fri, 18 Sep 2015 20:56:00 GMT

Reading is a huge part of fifth grade life. It is woven into every part of our day. This year’s class started checking out books from the class library before the first day of school. They have been returning for more ever since.

In the 13 days we have been in school, in excess of 60 books have already been checked out, with many already read and returned. Reading is the reward for finishing early. Reading is a way we take a break. Reading is what we do when it is too hot to run around.

Reading is the icing on the cake.

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Vulgar Friday

Fri, 18 Sep 2015 19:34:00 GMT

Someone went to a new research link, and there was one of those annoying ads which have a soundtrack. It was for toilet paper. Permission was asked and granted to go to the full ad, and we saw the most ridiculous ad for toilet paper I have ever seen. Everyone fell over laughing. Of course that was a popular event, so we decided that last thing Friday afternoon would be “Vulgar Friday.” If we keep the vulgarity under control for the rest of the week, last thing Friday afternoon, we have 5 minutes of some kind of bathroom humor.

One of the first things I was asked this year was if we were going to have Vulgar Friday. I hastened to assure the class that they did not have to endure such a thing. But I misunderstood. There was unanimous enthusiasm for continuing the tradition.

So here are the rules:

It provides some welcome emotional release after a busy week at school. The first week, we watched a Poo-Pourri commercial . This week, we listened to the WC letter ; my grandmother had a typed copy of this when I was a kid, and it is still out there. I can tell who had had a long week, because they are the people who are laughing especially hysterically.

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Second Post from Graphic Designer Lila

Thu, 17 Sep 2015 19:28:00 GMT

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Getting Paid

Fri, 11 Sep 2015 21:32:00 GMT

Now everyone has a job, and they are taking their work quite seriously. The reason that all of us do some parts of our job is that we get paid. So we have to make some decisions about salaries.

We started by talking about how people get things they want from other people. (Legally, of course). Jude had heard the word “barter” just this morning, so she explained bartering for what you want. Everyone thought it was a good idea. So then I asked what would happen if I wanted something from you, but the thing you wanted came from someone else. Three way barters were suggested, then gift cards. Jude then pointed out the other downfall to barter. You might want to travel, and your trade goods might be heavy or awkward. There was a running joke about carrying cows to Europe. Dylan came up with a great answer- money! You can use it to trade with anyone, you can save it if you don’t want something right now, and it’s easy to store and get through airport security. So we are going to pay people for their work with money, which is quite easy to manage with an online bank. We even have direct deposit.

Later in the morning, we looked at the things people get paid for in the real world. We came up with:

Special training or skills- usually pays relatively well by our estimation
Protecting others- does not pay as well as you might hope
Taking some other kind of risk- could pay off really well, ok, or terribly. You just have to try.
Giving up one’s time- these kinds of jobs tend not to pay much by comparison
Having special tools or materials- is usually stacked on top of another category and improves the pay.
Doing things that are unpleasant that other people don’t want to have to do for themselves.- Does not pay very well, but perhaps better that jobs that just require time.

So we figure that these are the things our culture values, because we will pay for them.

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The first post from our Graphic Designer:

Fri, 11 Sep 2015 20:22:00 GMT

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Mission 2015-2016

Wed, 09 Sep 2015 21:33:00 GMT

As you know, part of our discipline system is making sure it is truly a discipline system- that everyone in our groups is learning to control and focus themselves. Each year, the fifth grade writes their own mission statement at the beginning of the year each year, where we focus on the kind of class and relationships we want to have.

We began the discussion by talking about mission words that we know- a spy’s mission, missionaries, and how those people have a specific job or jobs to to that are more important than anything else in their lives at that time. Our mission statement should be, for us, a statement about what are our most important goals so that we can decide where to put our time and energy. It will control our choices about work and our behavior. We looked at the school’s mission, last year’s fifth grade class mission, and the preamble to the Constitution- which is, in a way, the Government’s mission statement.

We started by listing some of the things we thought were important about school or to have in school:

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Visual Literacy to Literacy

Tue, 08 Sep 2015 21:46:00 GMT

This year, my research question is: How can visual literacy/learning about visual devices support written literacy and learning about literary devices. There are a great many parallels, so how can I use pictures to support reading and writing instruction this year? Our research questions give us a focus and help us decide what to pay attention to, document and reflect on in a classroom environment.

We have been working in class about writing a reader response, since that will be one of the first literacy tasks the class faces. We began with a picture book- Skippyjon Jones. Past experiences and reflection have shown me that a picture book is a good place to begin. It is short enough to finish, they have a wide variety of literary devices, and the pictures support understanding the literary devices.

First, I read the book out loud and showed the pictures. Then I asked each person to pick out something about the book that caught their interest, and we wrote them on the board (some people chose the same thing). Then I re read the book, and everyone looked for specific examples, with page numbers, of the idea they were interested in. Jude began with the idea that the illustrator holds our attention by making attractive and warm colored illustrations.

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Working as a Team Through Silly Play

Fri, 04 Sep 2015 18:28:00 GMT

During the first week of school students across the grade levels spent time working as a team and encouraging each other. Each grade also had a healthy dose of silly, with games like tooth fairy tag in the lower grades and a scavenger hunt in the middle school. This week of fun is forming a great foundation for the year in PE.

Third grade class cheer

Scavenger hunt activity: take a picture that says “weeeeee”

Cheering each other on in a game called “Ultimate Fan”

Fourth grade students play “Ham and Cheese”

Middle School “statues”

Best dances moves

Magic tooth fairy wand

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Community Workers, Field Day 2015

Thu, 04 Jun 2015 23:01:00 GMT

This year’s Field Day theme was Community Workers. It was a fun end of year party to celebrate several themes that the different classes have been discussing all year. Each of the eight stations corresponded to a community worker’s job, albeit sometimes in a very silly way. There was dancing with the folk festival workers, an obstacle challenge with the soldiers, agility ladder and water challenges with the firefighters, noodle battles with the spies, egg tossing with the chicken farmers, wacky water carry and ball pass with the construction workers & plumbers, bean bag tossing with the trash collectors and wagon & scooter driving with the bus drivers. Here is a look at the fun.

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Bike Week 2015

Sun, 03 May 2015 23:54:00 GMT

Students in grades 1-8 had two exciting weeks of biking in PE. In just a short time they improved their skills and demonstrated excellent sportsmanship. They were eager to help each other fix a mechanical problem or learn skills such as when to change gears in the older grades or starting from a stop in the younger grades. Several students rode their bikes without training wheels for the first time. Biking in PE concluded with a duathlon (run-bike-run). I shared with the students that my favorite part of competing in a triathlon is that there is often a moment in the middle of the race where I say to myself “I’m done” I feel as though I can’t push any longer or faster. Overcoming these thoughts is such a great feeling. I could see many “I’m done” faces in the middle of the duathlon but only huge smiles at the end. Below are just a few images of the fun.

A seventh grade student demonstrates excellent bike handling skills.

Fourth grade students at the start of the duathlon.

Third graders celebrate their final lap of the duathlon.

Kindergarten spent the week learning about sportsmanship. Here they are with signs that they made to cheer on the 4th and 5th grade students.

Second grade students were all smiles after completing the duathlon.

Middle school students works on their bike handling skills while trying to toss a penny into a cup while riding.

Third grade buddies racing each other to the line.

A sixth grade student practices his mountain bike skills while riding over a log.

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Andy Griffiths author visit

Tue, 21 Apr 2015 20:40:00 GMT

The author visit today was really the best one I have ever seen. Andy Griffiths was hilarious, and managed to sneak in a few writing tips at the same time. He has a website and a blog- here is the link to the homepage:

http://www.andygriffiths.com.au http://www.andygriffiths.com.au/index.htm /index.htm

We have one of his books in the class library- The 26 Story Treehouse- and we will probably order a few more. He autographed our class library book for us- the class likes it quite well, I’m not so sure.
That’s the shark tank I am on the way to.

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Sabot Runs Richmond

Sun, 05 Apr 2015 16:57:00 GMT

The middle school students enjoyed a nice spring morning exploring the beautiful nature of our city. Here are some photos of our trip to the James River Park system.

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Running Challenge Concludes

Sun, 29 Mar 2015 16:23:00 GMT

We just wrapped up our last week of the running challenge with some exciting news, our middle school students won the Sports Backers Healthy School Challenge in the small school division. This means we had the highest percentage of runners participating in the 10k among other small schools in the area. Some of our students got the chance to accept the award and $500 prize on Saturday morning before the race. It was an exciting day as it was the first time most of the students completed the 6.2 mile run. We also had a few lower school students participate in the 10k. All of the participants were sent out with cheers from their peers the day before the race during an all school cheer rally. Over the 10-week running challenge the students in grades k-8 worked collectively to run 2,482 miles. It was fun to watch students in all grade levels improve their endurance over the 10-week challenge. They exhibited great sportsmanship and supported each other every step of the way. Below are a few mages from the last few weeks of our journey.

Middle school students pose for a photo at the 10k finish before accepting the award.

A fourth grader can’t be stopped by a little snow.

One of the lower school students receives high fives from his peers the day before the 10k.

7th graders were all smiles while completing their first 10k.

Kindergarten students receive high fives from the older students for their participation in the running challenge.

8th graders finding joy in the moment.

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The Forest

Wed, 25 Mar 2015 22:24:00 GMT

One of the things that I love about teaching at SSP is that it feels like the fifth graders get the last year of their childhood back. There is less pressure to be a teenager when you are ten and eleven. Never is this more visible than when we go to the forest on Wednesdays. Sometimes they complain about having to go, but when they get there, they are completely engaged with nature and each other. Their joy in simple activities is so lovely to see. These pictures were taken right before break when I was lucky enough to have duty on forest day.

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Tue, 24 Feb 2015 03:24:00 GMT

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Planning for parenting teenagers

Thu, 19 Feb 2015 23:09:00 GMT

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Organization

Thu, 05 Feb 2015 22:03:00 GMT

Organization is an important topic for fifth graders and their families, especially as they move into middle school. I, personally, am naturally completely disorganized in many ways.

I have three children. One is completely and utterly organized. She never forgets her lunch, or her papers, or loses her barrettes. One is pretty organized, and uses lists and technology to manage an extremely busy life. The third one is like a reverse force field. He goes through the door and, I swear, things start hurtling away from his body. He and I have worked together for many years around this issue, and we have a few suggestions. They are not all unique to us, but we learned every one of them the hard way.

There are two big categories of organization. Some people can organize ideas, and some people can organize stuff. A few lucky people can do both. Being able to do both is an area of giftedness in my opinion, and it frustrates me when these skills are not valued and respected. It feels easier to me to help with stuff support for people who can, for instance, remember that they have homework, but have forgotten the book.

To organize something, you have to be able to put together what needs to be done, remember it, and you have to either want to do it or be sufficiently averse to the consequences of not doing it to do it anyway.If your child has all three of these things, and they are 10-11, they can usually manage 3 or so categories of things on their own. A category would be: routine homework, medical or orthodontic needs, or sports equipment for one sport. Often, children are given many more categories than that, and they are going to need some help. Or, realistically, they do NOT have time to do everything they have to do, especially since they are just learning how to do it.

It is possible that disorganization can also be a handy tool to defend against doing things you don’t want to. If you don’t have your math book, it is harder to make you do your math homework. So you don’t want to invest a lot of emotions into other people’s lack of organization, but you do have to make sure it does not usually pay off.

Depending on individual strengths and challenges, there is not one system which works for everyone. You have to be prepared to try different things and make changes.

For the basic things, it is really important to make yourself a creature of habit. I have trained myself over years, to touch my essential gear each time I move from one location to another. I look at my keys, phone, and wallet, and I touch them, before I shut a door. Josh does this too, and we have little wooden boxes next to the front door for these objects. They never go farther than the front door. It takes work and practice to make this an iron clad habit, but we have had some fairly spectacular consequences when we failed. This saved me as recently as last night, when I left my phone on the desk at school. I couldn’t see and touch it at the car door, so I went back and found it. I forgot once, but I have 2 checkpoints before I leave school.

If you have a hard time breaking down a task into steps, you will have a hard time getting and staying organized. You will have to go through each task with your child and help them to break it down, including where things may go wrong- which they always will. Try to arrange things so that you put things forward in time as much as possible- for instance, you clean your soccer cleats and put them back in the bag when you return home from the game, not the morning when you need them shortly. This also moves the activity to a time when tensions are lower. A half hour before the big game is not the time to calmly problem solve over missing shoes (ask me how I know this). The backpack papers should be repacked as part of homework, not the next morning. At our house, we had printed and laminated tags on each backpack and sports bag which told what the contents were supposed to be. Bedrooms for the challenged, or in my case, the kitchen, had a cork board of titled lists and flow charts. It is possible for brains to slip in a memory from the day before, so some people need to touch each item in the pack as they go down the list. You can improve your skills with practice here, so it is worth the time investment.

You can’t put things away until they have a place to be. And they have to fit in the place. There should be a designated, agreed upon place in the house for each thing that your child is expected to deal with. It’s fine, in fact preferable, if these spaces reflect family reality. For many of us, clean clothes are put away by putting the laundry basket in the proper room. The clothes stay there. If that works, that’s fine. Your child will need a space to post assignments and place papers that they are done working on but not done studying with. If they work in their rooms, it should be in their rooms. If they do their homework in some other room, it should be there. A porta file box should be fine for this year and next. Eventually, lots of it will migrate to the computer, but you keep graded papers until the final grade is in. Here, in elementary school, they don’t have that kind of averaged grade. But I do want them to look at old tests and reflections to remind themselves of what they want to do before they take a test.

You also have to have a place for all of your other “categories.” Where are the school supplies to do homework with? Where does your sporting equipment go? How about your dance things? In most houses, more than one person processes these things for reuse. So you have to decide with your child- where does this go when it’s dirty? When it’s clean? We had a bag for every sport or activity, and as soon as things were clean they went back in the bag, and the bags went in a giant cupboard in the living room. It’s really near the front door, and near the boxes with keys, wallets and phones.

The organizing rule is- it has to be easier to put back than it is to get out, because once you are done with it, you’re not going to make a lot of effort. If your child has to open, close and move four things to put their back pack away, then they are not going to put it away. I’m not going to put mine away under those conditions either. You may have to have things out in plain sight or taped to your door.

One lesson about organization was taught to me by Josh, and to me it was counter intuitive. I always tried to have extras on hand, so if the original was missing, we could still function. What really happened was that he lost the original, and then the extra. At the end of middle school, he cleaned out more than half of his stuff. He has terrible subject field discrimination, and things disappeared right in front of his face. All the posters, little toys, outgrown legos, trophies and ribbons, books he had read and wasn’t going to read again- out it all went. From then on his personal space was very spartan. He figured out exactly how many of each category of clothes it took him to go a week. From then to now, he owns one week’s worth of clothes, and one of each type of specialty item. He says that that way, he has to deal with missing things right away, before it’s too late. If he felt he had a back up, he would want to wait, and then soon things were missing all over town. That was too overwhelming for him. I was not in favor of this plan at first, but the number of lost things dropped by about 75%.

Fifth graders are just a little bit too young to have unlimited access to technology, but it is a lifesaver. Google Docs saves for you, and you can get to your work from anywhere. With minimal effort on your part, it organizes your stuff too. Google calendar will remind you to do things, and of your due dates. You can put your grocery list on the phone. Also, smart phones are expensive, but they replace many things you can lose. And if you use them all the time, you notice quickly when they are not where they are supposed to be. Next year, your child will have a computer for school, so be prepared to take full advantage of all the organizing that will do for you. And the more times per day they do something with it, the less likely they are to mislay it permanently.

Sometimes, everyone forgets something that they need. It’s better not to get too upset about that, or fuss at the time when emotions are high. That transfers responsibility to you in your child’s mind. You are being mean and unreasonable, and that’s the problem to them. So I really tried to stay calm. BUT, life, especially the fun parts, did not go forward until the problem had been rectified in the best way available. You can call someone to get the homework. You can go back to school and get the book, if the school is still open. Josh took the bus home some days, but when I picked him up, he went through his back pack and his homework list in the parking lot when he could go back and get things conveniently. That saved him about 25% of the time. Just asking if he had things did NOT work. He had to look through the back pack and touch them. You could pull over next to the soccer field and implement this maneuver. You can go over to a friends house, borrow their work, make a copy, or have your mom copy it, white out their copy, make a new copy, return the original, go home and do your homework. Yes, we did that more than once. I didn’t impose extra punishments, but that pretty much ate up the afternoon’s discretionary time, which was not a desirable outcome to him.
Soccer gear got managed in my house when travel soccer started. If you were not at the field on time- defined as stretching 15 minutes early- you were benched for the first half. Missing playing time was enough to make soccer gear management and finding directions a high priority.

Sometimes you can make things easier. I have already talked about how technology can help that. In a simpler way, I used to buy 10 pair of of the cheap black reversible gloves each winter. On glove days, everybody would take two when they left the house and return as many as they had when they returned. We lost about 7 pair per winter, but there were gloves all winter. I bought sport socks in huge identical quantities, so that pairs did not have to be retained, just getting any two socks out would work. Josh didn’t put extra socks in his dresser, but the fact that they all matched made life easier. I am sorry that cargo pants are now unfashionable, because they saved us. You could put something moderately sized in the side pocket and carry it everywhere you went all day. And the pockets usually had a zipper or velcro, so stuff didn’t fall out. If you can make any system easier for the organizationally challenged, it’s worth it.

I found that children under 15 can not usually untangle their systems for organization to deal with more than one category at once. So if piano is next, you can get your books. If piano was last, you can unpack your stuff. But you probably can’t get up in the am, get dressed, take your medicine, eat breakfast, pack your backpack, get your soccer gear together and put your piano books in your backpack. Or if you do, you may not be wearing socks when you get to school.

People and friendships can help too. Josh had perfectly organized friends in middle and high school. They reminded him to get his stuff, turn it in, take it home, due dates had changed. He, on his end, tutored in math and science. There are more than the average number of well organized people in this class, so there are support options. Each year, there is a student who is stellar at organization. I have suggested the other parents would probably pay for a newsletter with due dates, assignments, test dates, and related info, but so far no one has taken me up on it.

It was easier for me to relate disorganization to a medical condition that had to be treated. On the one hand, you wouldn’t yell at someone for having an asthma attack. On the other hand, you would see that the day to day treatment plan and the plan for episodes was followed. And if you found out that the treatment plan was not being followed, you’d follow up at a calm time to figure out how to see that it got done. You wouldn’t yell at your wheezing child.

Under the best of circumstances, people who are ten and eleven can only remember, organize and keep up with so many things. Medical and orthodontic needs are super important, and can’t be skipped, so if your child is managing this, count them twice when you tally up the things they have to keep up with. If you can’t help with the organization for many activities per week, and they can’t do it themselves (this would be the vast, normal, majority) consider cutting back. It is not fair to assume that a general interest in say, piano lessons extended to the specific understanding that this involved sorting one’s books and piano shoes and recital outfit and getting them to the right place. Most of my children’s secondary activities look much less important in retrospect. (Or they didn’t pay off in the way we wanted them to anyway.)

Everyone needs some calm, alone, downtime where there are no demands being made on executive function. Some people need a lot of it. It is also important to have enough experience with household chores to know how to do them when you are on your own, and that takes time. So help your child with organization strategies, because that’s important. But remember that that is not the only important thing people learn to do.

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Fires- yes or no?

Wed, 04 Feb 2015 23:16:00 GMT

The group interest has mostly divided sharply. One group is still trying to make awe inducing fires, sparks, or explosions within the bounds of safety and safe and cheap materials. The other group, perhaps wisely, is working on fire extinguishers and fire retardant materials.

Aggie videotaped one of Rhode and William’s fire extinguisher trials. It did very well at providing a nice stream of something that put out a fire. Now they are working on controlling the direction.

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2015 Running Challenge Kicks Off

Fri, 23 Jan 2015 15:58:00 GMT

Our 6th annual Running Challenge kicked off this week. This year the students will “run” loops of cycling’s 2015 Road World Championships course which takes place in downtown Richmond. The course for the road circuit is a little over 10 miles and I have challenged the students to run over 240 loops of the course (around 2,500 miles). Clearly, that was not enough! This week we set a new record for miles in a week with students in grades k-8 running/walking over 550 miles! Below are a few images from the week.

Students in grades 1-3 started off the running challenge together on Monday morning.

Students were excited to see the map of our “run” course and were quick to point out all of the places they have visited.

A middle school student runs downhill on our weekly forest run.

Several classes have had the opportunity to run together, with older students encouraging younger students.

2nd graders running in the fog on Thursday morning.

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Coming to Consensus

Fri, 21 Nov 2014 02:51:00 GMT

This year, the class decided on a form of representation I haven’t seen in Village yet. They decided to make all decisions by consensus. This would be challenging for any group of adults, so I expected that an elementary group would have to work really hard to make this work. How it works in practice is that the group votes on a proposal, by open or secret ballot. If the measure passes, a consensus vote is held. Everyone but the moderator puts their heads down, and if anyone objects to the proposal, they raise their hand. If any one objects, the proposal is defeated.

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The family life of Peeps

Fri, 21 Nov 2014 02:23:00 GMT

We just finished up our “peep biographies.” Each Peep has a backstory. It can be what you want, as long as it is consistent and makes internal sense. You also have to be able to draw your character.

Usually, the Peeps are footloose and fancy free young adults. They have been orphaned, and have left all of their connections on other continents.

This year I am seeing a really big difference. All but two peeps have a spouse and at least two children as part of their story. Everyone has already asked how you get spouses and children in Village, and they want to have them.

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Reports on the Great Churro Caper

Fri, 21 Nov 2014 02:20:00 GMT

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A cartoon from our cartoonist, Emery

Fri, 14 Nov 2014 02:31:00 GMT

One of our areas of investigation in science this year has been, broadly, making things spark or glow
We discovered that electricity that is produced by tearing or compressing is called triboluminescence.
One time that it happens is when you chew wintergreen lifesavers.

It has to be dark to see the green flash, and of course, we can’t eat lifesavers at school. So we went up to the main building basement with a pile of lifesavers, a tray and a hammer. Emery recorded the action in cartoon form.

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Wonder and Awe

Fri, 31 Oct 2014 19:20:00 GMT

Max and Steel Wool

Max is continuing to work on making sparks, and he may have a few people who choose to join in this research. This very short video records the first time he used graphite and steel wool. The effect is very much like a small sparkler. (And Emory found out that iron is what they use to make the glittery, sparkly fireworks.) We have been amazed by the beauty, and wondering that it is still really hard to set paper on fire, even though there are lots of sparks.

Max and Steel Wool (Click on the title to view the video on vimeo)

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Max and Rhode’s research

Sat, 18 Oct 2014 00:45:00 GMT

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The Business Community

Sat, 18 Oct 2014 00:38:00 GMT

Everyone paid their taxes and rent by today.

With this focus have come many schemes for making money. Several people have brought in things to sell from home. Aggie is making wallets and checkbooks to order. We have two businesses being proposed. After some spectacular fallout in previous years, I require businesses of more than one person to sign a contract in advance of beginning the business. We had a meeting, and I shared some of the things that are necessary in a contract, and the group added several more important ideas.

We talked about negotiating and why you shouldn’t sign things you aren’t sure are ok with you. After the contract is signed, the government will require people to live up to the terms of the contracts they sign.

One group is at the end of the negotiating process, and I will review the contract and decide if it will be validated. I will judge on clarity, not fairness.

The whole class is abuzz with schemes for businesses and making money. Just as we all felt as we learned financial responsibility by making decisions, your child will feel distress and disappointment with this process at some point.

It is fantastic if class members can use scrap materials to make a product, and if they would like to sell things that are truly not wanted and needed by families. I require that they clear anything they want to sell with you first, and I would ask that you not invest real money on things that will be sold for peep dollars.

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“Getting Funding”

Thu, 16 Oct 2014 20:28:00 GMT

The group has decided that if you want to do an experiment in Science, you have to write up your procedure and present it to the group. If the group decides that your procedure is a. likely to do what you think it will do,(your procedure is reasonable) and b. will advance the whole group’s understanding of electroplating and how it works, they will agree that you may have the materials for your experiment.

Aggie presented her research proposal today:

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Science Work

Thu, 09 Oct 2014 00:48:00 GMT

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First Day Scavenger Hunt

Sat, 30 Aug 2014 15:40:00 GMT

The umbrella theme this year for Sabot is “Our Richmond”. The middle school students got a little taste of “Our Sabot” during a scavenger hunt on their first day of PE. It proved to be a great way to get exercise and to explore their school. Some of the scavenger clues involved the history of our school. Did you know the slate in the Gillette garden came from Libby Prison, a prison and hospital during the Civil War? You can still see the jail cell numbers and the holes where the bars went.

Below are some of the clues and images of the fun.

Find what letter is on one of the chimneys in the main house.

Entire team takes a picture of “I can’t believe we all fit here”.

Squat in file formation. Last player leapfrog over other players; then squat at the front of the line until all players have leapfrogged.

Run the perimeter of the garden.

Crab-walk greeting to everyone in your group. Do this in front of a lower school audience

Do a 30 second “wall sit” on a tree that borders the forest.

Stretch at a pole or fence.

Fit your entire team on a slide.

Do 10 push ups on a prison floor.

Take a picture of the entire team jumping in the air.

Do 10 jumping jacks while waving at Dicks Sporting Goods.

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Time Travel

Sun, 25 May 2014 17:38:00 GMT

The theme of this year’s Field Day was time travel. Each class arrived from a different time period. We had travelers from the 70s in matching tie-dyed shirts, passengers from the Titanic, soldiers from World War I, immigrants from Ellis Island, students from the future, gladiators from ancient Rome, guys and gals from Grease Lightning, New Yorkers in the 80s and 8th graders from 2014 who are ready to graduate. Upon arrival each class presented their time period and flag to the group.

Our station volunteers went above and beyond to make the day enjoyable. Several even came in costumes that corresponded with their station theme.

Students travelled back (and forward) to 7 different time periods.

Time Period # 1: The 1980s

Students rocked out to 80s music. Like totally rad.

Time Period # 2 The Oregon Trail

The students travelled to the river by wagon and then forged the river. After crossing the river they completed a series of obstacles down the trail.

Time Period # 3: Ancient Greece

Students travelled back in time to the first Olympics and participated in a toga run.

Time Period #4 1950s

Students travelled back to the hula hoop craze of the 1950s. They participated in a variety of hula hoop challenges, including a “shuttle relay”, racing their hula hoop and threading the needle with the hoop.

Time Period #5: Colonial Williamsburg

At this station students completed an egg and spoon and wheelbarrow race.

Time Period #6: Medieval Period

Students faced off in a head to head “sword fight”.

Time Period #7: Year 5120

At this station Robots of the future had taken over New York City. The robots’ weakness was water. Students tried to knock down the robots with water bombs.

Thanks to our many volunteers and teachers there were smiles all around!

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Story Example

Tue, 29 Apr 2014 01:27:00 GMT

The Quest Maze

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Student Led Conferences

Tue, 29 Apr 2014 01:08:00 GMT

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Letting Go

Fri, 25 Apr 2014 00:09:00 GMT

Biking in PE is a highlight of the year for the students as well as myself. Students practice techniques that make them safer and more efficient on the road. They exhibit good sportsmanship and cheer each other on. They have fun and beg for more. The true magic happens; however, when a student learns to let go and trust their body. You can see it all over their face- the sense of accomplishment mixed with a bit of surprise and overall giddiness. In just two weeks I can see the students grow in their confidence. That confidence continues to grow from one year to the next. This year I had the joy of watching a student who learned to ride her bike in PE two years ago help another student learn to ride this year.

Each year we conclude bike week with a run-bike-run duathlon. On the day of the duathlon the students anxiously await putting their skills to the test. This is something I can relate to, finding joy in working hard and pushing yourself a little harder than you thought was possible. At the end of the duathlon they tell me how exhausted they are- with some of the biggest smiles I have seen all year.

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Why the meltdowns?

Tue, 25 Mar 2014 19:26:00 GMT

I have had several e-mails in the last few weeks letting me know that various children have had a rough patch the previous evening. Yes, fifth grade is the year it starts IF your child isn’t super precocious.

So what’s going on? The limbic system, which regulates the emotions, is currently in a period of rapid growth. That system may be pretty much developed as early as age 12. So your child is currently in an emotional surge, or will be soon. Also, growth hormones, while not the “hormones” we blame everything on, do increase as your child enters into their rapid growth years. They do have some relation to emotions, and growing rapidly drains physical energy. No one is at their best when they are tired.

The prefrontal cortex, in contrast, may not develop completely in some people until almost thirty. The prefrontal cortex deals with reason, logic and thinking things through in advance. These two aspects of brain development explain a lot, don’t they?

As I mentioned in my last blog, fifth graders are usually starting to realize that at some point in the future, they are going to have to be responsible people, people who take action. This is one aspect of the “conscience.” A voice is beginning to appear in their thoughts, and it reminds them of what they “should” be doing. The interesting thing is that at first the internal voice sounds exactly like their parents and sometimes, their teacher. So they think we are demanding things that they are, in fact, beginning to demand of themselves. And as we all know, there is a huge gap between knowing you should do something and doing it well and on time, even if your prefrontal cortex is fully developed.

Fifth graders are just beginning to understand a more consistent workload, and the pacing that that requires. To do well over time, you have to put forth consistent effort. But if you really give 110% each day, you won’t last long. They are just learning what the necessary effort level is, and that means not doing enough, feeling the pain, over doing and wearing out, over and over until you have the level that works for you. And of course, the success level is different for each person. Adding to that, almost everyone is now aware of, and at least a little worried about, their relative weaknesses. The things you are good at feel easy to you, so you are not really aware of them as strengths. Fifth graders really are expending effort to figure out what to work at, how hard and for how long.

One huge contributor to meltdowns is fatigue. Your child may be growing rapidly, and trying to figure out their schoolwork and how to handle it. Fifth grade social life is also very wearing. This is a very sweet group, so this is a lot smaller problem here that at many other schools. But, you have to be cool. You can’t fall apart at school, you “have” to look like you are in control. At the same time your limbic system is taking off like kudzu. Being upset, but acting calm, is a monster energy drain. Everyone will have “shiny eyes” at a minimum at school this year. By the way, crying in fifth grade is completely normal and I am fine with it. But they aren’t. A ten or eleven year old is only going to be able to hold that in for so long, and then someone is going to hear about it. You are their safe people. The fact that they can act fine at school, or deal with a friendship situation while at least pretending to be laid back is a sign of tremendous intellectual and emotional growth.

So meltdowns are almost guaranteed. They are a good sign that your child loves you and trusts you completely. How do you deal with them? The first stage is warm and supportive mumbling. Hmmm, oh, and then…… Often, people can talk themselves through something if they have time and a safe space with someone who loves them. Cars are super great for this, as are walks, because your child doesn’t have to look you in the eye. Often, they aren’t even completely aware of why they are upset. A chance to spill it all out can help them sort it out; just maybe figure out isn’t the end of the world after all. In cases where more is needed, reflecting back what they said can help them focus. The next step is acting as a consultant. Would they like you to help them make a plan? Stop by the library and pick up more books? E-mail/talk to the teacher? Help them develop talking points for a conversation they would prefer to have themselves? The key here is that they are the driver and you are the helper. They are practicing solving their own problems with a support system. Also, if you can start this pattern while the problems are comparatively small, you are more likely to stay in the loop when problems become bigger.

The bad news is that this is going to be one of the periods when you see your child’s hardest moments. The good news is, with their developing ability to control themselves, you will get more and more feedback about how mature, kind, charming, etc. your child is. And they are! You loving parents are going to get “dump calls” until they get married, at least. They talk to you, they feel much better, you absorb the worry. So start practicing supportive mumbling now.

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Why are they writing such gory things?

Fri, 21 Mar 2014 01:53:00 GMT

EVERYONE is free writing very enthusiastically, and begging for more time for free write. Free write is the warm up for writing,where you get to write anything you want in your journal. After we write, three people are picked at random to share if they want to.

Many of the stories are totally gory. We have protagonists dealing with terrorists, domestic and foreign, zombies, garden variety murderers, and mechanized agents of terror. An apocalypse, post apocalyptic horror, we have it all. A few people are writing parody skits, and some of them are pretty harsh too.

Why the interest in this completely icky stuff?

Well, there are several reasons. Fifth graders are beginning to leave concrete thinking and reason more abstractly. That means that they now realize that we can’t always protect them. They can think things through for themselves in a way that they couldn’t 3 years ago. It’s a more mature cycle of when they were four and wanted to know about death.

Many fifth graders come to this realization at about the same time that they are seeing themselves moving into the adult world. This goes along with the brain development. So if there is a crisis, many of them see themselves as a party who will have to take action. This is empowering, but it is really scary. Really, most of them know they aren’t full grown, and don’t have a great deal of life experience. Writing and hearing the stories they are writing gives them a safe way to “rehearse.” We may not think they are assessing their options in a crisis, but that is what they are doing, in the best way they have available.

Life has never been safe, but this may be a time when we perceive more crisis due to the multiplicity of news sources, and the short news cycle. And we have all heard “if it bleeds, it leads.” We, and the children, see and news of war and crime every day. After the common advent of literacy, and before TV and radio, it was possible to shield children from some of this information. Now, they hear it all. Our response as a society has changed as well. We have fire drill, tornado drill, and most scary, lockdown drill. This provokes anxiety in everyone, and most of all, in children who don’t have enough experience to assess real risk.

The teachers had a discussion after lock down drill. The younger classes will believe that they are practicing to keep safe from stray animals. I can assure you that every single fifth grader is completely aware that we are trying to keep safe from a crazy person with a gun, probably lots of guns. These seemingly harsh stories are a way in which children work through their anxieties about these currently unavoidable subjects. And exaggeration of the possibilities, imagining worse than the worst, is a good way to make yourself less anxious.

These writing themes have persisted throughout the year. I have been very interested to see that they have become much more realistic in a good way. The fall stories were much more likely to have cartoonish, over the top, consequence free violence. Now, writers are thinking much more carefully about the physical and mental consequences for their protagonists. They feel pain and have lingering difficulties when they or their families are injured. Protagonists also have regret and upset if they must injure or kill someone else. By the way, the dilemma involved in having someone hurt or attack your family instead of you is very prominently featured in their stories, so I can tell they are all very attached to their families.

I see these themes repeated year after year. The scarier the news, the more sensitive the students are to realizing there may be risks in the world that will cause pain to their loved ones and themselves, the more I see. Writing is a really good way to work these anxieties out. And as a side benefit, spelling and punctuation have improved tremendously in many cases!

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The Polar Vortex Can’t Get a Grip On Sabot Runners

Mon, 03 Mar 2014 18:25:00 GMT

We just wrapped up week six of the kids challenge and the polar vortex that has had a grip on our city didn’t stop the students from running- they are already up to 1,263 miles. It also didn’t diminish their enthusiasm for running and most students agreed that while running in the snow was more of a challenge it also added a greater element of fun.

In addition to running in the snow another highlight included 2nd graders running extra miles for a middle school student who couldn’t run due to a broken arm. There was also a discussion in kindergarten about what happens in your body when you run. Some of the most memorable quotes include: “you have to breathe harder”, “your muscles gets air”, “you feel warmer”, “your heart pounds faster” and “you get a runny nose”. As in previous years other highlights include students spending their entire recess running, begging “just one more lap” in PE and having students eagerly tell me about the miles they ran at home over the weekend.

Below are a few images from the first six weeks. I am looking forward to what the next four will bring.

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Present in the Moment

Tue, 10 Sep 2013 14:40:00 GMT

I find this year’s umbrella project theme, “time”, to be very fitting for me personally. Time is at the forefront of my mind these days. I am acutely aware of how much time I have left until my first child’s birth. For the last nine months I have watched my belly get bigger and my running speed get slower. I am also aware that the time that lies ahead of me will be distinctly different from the previous time in my life. Much of this pregnancy I have spent reflecting on the past or looking forward.

My hope for students in PE this year is the opposite. It is my desire for them to be present in the moment verses thinking only about the past or the future. Bringing mindfulness to the body during exercise often has a way of making one present to the moment. It can be hard to focus on what might be going on later in the day when your legs and lungs are demanding your utmost attention. It is also difficult to draw awareness to your breath and think about what happened yesterday at the same time. Practicing mindfulness techniques can be a benefit in the classroom as well. Students learn how to pay attention on purpose in a particular way. It is one way to help students think about their thinking.

In addition to the movement aspect of PE, at Sabot we are blessed with the gift of expansive outdoor space. Being outside can shift your focus away from the stresses of the day to the birds overhead or the feeling of the sun on your skin. It alerts the senses and draws awareness to the body.

Don’t get me wrong, I see great value in learning from the past or setting goals for the future. But it is my desire to use exercise as a way to help students enjoy the moment that they are in.

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Field Day 2013

Fri, 24 May 2013 23:10:00 GMT

This year’s Field Day theme was Community. Each class came as a town to visit Richmond, VA. We had visitors from Mary Land, Troy, Om Nom Nom, LaLaLand, Hillville, Ullypsis, La Seis, The Independent Republic of Swammerdamia and Las Vegas. Once they arrived in Richmond and presented their native flags they had several local attractions to visit.

Stop 1: Richmond International Raceway

Racecar drivers were transported to the track where they were dropped off at their race cars to complete 4 laps around the track.

Stop 2: Richmond Ballet

Town members danced their way to a good time!

Stop 3: James River

Town members walked on logs, hopped over rocks and paddled their way down the river.

Stop 4: Monument Ave 10k

10k runners participated in the Dress up and Run contest.

Stop 5: Downtown Y

Town members completed a strength and flexibility circuit.

Stop 6: St.Mary’s Hospital

Members of the town were responsible for delivering Renee’s baby safely home.

Stop 7: Fire Station 25 on Huguenot Road

Firefighters completed an obstacle course and carried hoses to put out the fire.

Thanks to our vounteers who braved the wet conditions. A good time was had by all!

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Fun on Two Wheels

Sat, 04 May 2013 00:46:00 GMT

Biking in P.E. might be my favorite time of year. Being a cycling enthusiast myself, I enjoy watching kids fall in love with biking and all that it can teach you. Here are just a few of the lessons learned this week:

Biking is all about balance. You must maintain a focus and look where you want to go. If you stop paying attention you might end up somewhere you hadn’t planned.

A bike needs maintenance. If you ignore putting air in the tires or grease on the chain, you have to work much harder. It is like listening to our own bodies. Ignoring an injury or not fueling up before exercise can make things a lot more difficult than they need to be.

You have to learn to trust yourself. Riding a bike is all about taking risks. One of the first graders rode without training wheels for the first time this week. It took him a few minutes to decide if he wanted to take them off, but once they were off there was no looking back. The older students had the opportunity to try riding on a see-saw, which at first glance looks pretty daunting but there were only shouts of enthusiasm when they reached the other side.

Camaraderie. This was a common theme of the week both on and off the bike. The older students rode together to challenge themselves while Kindergarten students came out to cheer along the older riders.

Overcoming obstacles. You have to get back up when you fall. Falling is almost an inevitable part of riding a bike. Sometimes the fall can be pretty scary and it is tough to gather the courage to get back in the saddle. But once you overcome an obstacle like a fall it only makes you stronger.

Hard work makes you feel good. Even though it takes a lot of physical and mental effort to get up a long climb, I have never gotten to the top and thought “hmmm I really wish I hadn’t of done that”. I could see the kids felt the same about the duathlon. Hard work was plastered on many of the faces during the event but they were all smiles at the finish.

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Sleep and Teens

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 21:04:00 GMT

the MayoClinic recommends nine hours or more

Frontline program on adolescent sleep needs and how sleep affects learning and memory

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Running for more than the physical

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 19:37:00 GMT

It has been a true joy to watch how excited the students have been about running over the past five weeks. While it is great to see how their endurance is improving, what I enjoy the most is seeing them reap the non-physical benefits. As a runner myself, I can contribute a lot of success in my daily life to skills I learned while training. Here are a few “a-ha” moments the students have experienced:

In the third grade I have noticed that boys who are normally fairly competitive with each other put that aside to run together and push each other to each achieve their personal best.

In almost every class I will give a set number of laps and then add “or more”. It has been really fun to watch the students choose to add more and more laps. Especially those who thought the original number of laps that I gave them was too tough.

I had the pleasure of cheering for many students and parents at the Holton Hustle 5k and 1 mile last Saturday. It was fun to watch the faces of the students as the crossed the finish line. For some they were excited to have set a goal of running a mile and then following through and achieving it. For others it was the shock when they realized just how fast they could run and that all the hard work they have put into running the past few weeks has paid off.

Teamwork. Encouragement. Finding a new limit. Happiness. Just a few of the benefits running has provided the Sabot community.

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Some Bumps in the Road

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 16:35:00 GMT

I apologize for my recent lull in posting. When work and life get busy, I don’t always have time to blog. However, I am recommitting to blogging even if my posts are short!

Today I met with two lower school students who are working on friendship skills. I introduced the idea that friendships are like riding your bike on a trail – there are often obstacles in your path. Every trail is going to have bumps and dips but if the obstacles are too big, you can’t move forward. The students described the obstacles that they have experienced and then drew on the board the size of these bumps.

There were some big bumps! One was so big that the path was completely blocked. The students talked about how with some friends, there were more bumps than with others. Some bumps were much bigger with certain friends. With other friends, it was much easier to just enjoy the ride with few obstacles to have to work around.

Here were the biggest obstacles for these students:

We also talked about how, as in the case with these two students, friendships can start off with difficulty but then smooth out after some time and effort. What makes for a smoother path? These were their ideas:

Great advice for us all!

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Kids Challenge Kickoff

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 18:52:00 GMT

We kicked off our fourth annual Sports Backers Kids Challenge on Monday, February 4th. The students were excited and ready to run! Below are a few highlights from the week.

Many students pleaded “just one more lap” during P.E.

There were opportunities for cross grade interactions and siblings were able to run together.

Several K-2 students decided to spend their whole recess running.

There was plenty of cheer and high fives to go around.

Many took the opportunity to run with their peers.

A good time was had by all!

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Create a Game

Sat, 05 Jan 2013 22:00:00 GMT

brainstorming sheet

The middle school students recently completed a segment in P.E. during which they created their own games. Working in groups of five, I gave students the following instructions:

1.) include as many people as possible

2.)make the game as physically active as possible

3.) if the game includes people getting “out”, find a way for people to stay active/return to the game

After a few brainstorming sessions the groups were ready to test out their games. Most groups found that things didn’t always translate from paper to the playing field and made several adjustments. Next, they introduced their game to the larger group and everyone was ready to play…or were they?

problem solving

At the conclusion of the segment, I asked students what the most difficult part of the process was and a majority agreed that explaining the game to others proved to be a challenge. One student said “everyone has a different understanding of how to play”. Another student added “it was difficult to explain exactly what you were thinking in your head”. As I listened I could sense and understand their frustration. There are times as a teacher when I have an idea in my head of how things will play out. Often is the case, however, that students’ interpretations lead lessons in a completely different direction. While this might cause momentary frustration, it is also the place where the “magic” happens, where teamwork and problem solving are at their best. This was certainly true for Create a Game as it provided challenges that the students had not anticipated but out of teamwork and problem solving came a healthy dose of exercise in a unique form.

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Talking With Your Child About Tragedy

Sat, 15 Dec 2012 14:36:00 GMT

an excellent guide

a page of advice

reassuring and instructive article

a factsheet about children’s responses

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Evan and the New Chairback

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 20:50:00 GMT

offered

return

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Fri, 07 Dec 2012 22:44:00 GMT

Well, we had an all science day before and after the field trip. We started out by building and sharing some background knowledge about the rock cycle and types of rocks. Why, you may ask, if we have been looking at rocks for a long time, would we just be getting to this point?

The teachers have found that when to introduce background material depends on the subject. You must have some eventually, or you won’t be able to think and reason well about the subject at hand. You really can’t discover ALL of it for yourself. It took lots of smart people thousands of years to figure out what we corporately know now. Sometimes it also requires materials that we don’t have. (If anyone has a nice sized vacuum chamber, a spectrometer, or an electron microscope lying around, we’d love to borrow them.)
In science especially, however, we have found that giving out the information right away seems to limit inquiry and interest, not support it. Possibly, once you have named something you think you know all about it. Maybe, you need to see and handle something to figure out why it might be interesting.

We began by taking a Friday forest time to look for rocks in the forest. We decided to look for “interesting” rocks to bring back to the class and “investigate.” One thing that I noticed right away was even then, how much more often people were naming the rocks than observing them. I heard “oh, that’s just quartz” many times. When I asked how they knew, or why it was, I might or might not get an articulated reason, but it didn’t take very long to get to questions that the student couldn’t answer.

When we finished our pair work, we chose one characteristic to sort the rocks by. We chose hardness. We assembled all of the rocks that had scratched glass or quartz (the hardest ones). Each pair then chose a hard rock and a rock from their work. They made Venn diagrams to show what the rocks had in common, and how they were different. At this point, observations were much more thorough, and there was more information to choose from. The class was paying much more attention to the variety of characteristics that each rock had. Now we had much better questions.

What is a rock or a mineral?
Why do some of them fizz when they come in contact with acid?
Why do a few of them float?
Why are some harder than others?
Are some of them the same except for color?
Why do they break in different patterns?
Why are some easy to break, and some almost impossible?
(This is a partial list of the total group questions. Different people had different questions, and this isn’t all of them)

For the last few weeks, we have been accumulating the background knowledge. We are much better able to sort our understandings, and see what is relevant and why, because we first built some ideas of rocks and minerals and the characteristics they might have. I have also noticed, having taught a similar “unit” to a more traditional fifth grade, that students are recalling information more easily, and making more, and more accurate, connections between one fact and another.

Here are some ways we will check to see if we are successful (generated by the group):

1. We will be able to answer questions that they ask.
2. We will be able to hold their attention.
3. They will know they have learned new things.
4. The third grade will have good questions to ask.

Ideas for presentations have moved from diagrams to 3-D diagrams and models, to power points or booklets, to samples and demonstrations. They are adding glossaries to include the words that are important, but 3rd graders might not know yet. At least 4 people are teaching themselves more about PowerPoint. A is taking pictures of erosion and weathering in the forest to add to a PowerPoint.

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Point of View

Fri, 07 Dec 2012 22:29:00 GMT

We reflected on how our experience may be different from someone else’s in the same situation and how our truth may only be a part of the whole picture. At which point, one student said, “That’s like Plato’s Cave .” The other students leaned in with interested, questioning expressions. The student explained how the people in Plato’s Cave were shackled to the cave wall and could only see the shadows of reality, never the true, authentic reality. “They could never see what was really going on.”

Wow. I was impressed with this student’s insight and I was equally impressed by the rapt, respectful attention of the other students.

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Forest Today

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 21:08:00 GMT

Today was Forest Friday. Everyone needed to make a work plan, since our current science is sort of tied to the classroom. Alex did decide to take pictures for his project. Three girls made a fairy house last week, and most everyone else decided to make one too.

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Who you gonna call?

Sat, 17 Nov 2012 19:46:00 GMT

…well according to my husband we needed to call CVWMA Recycling due to our accumulation of Propel water bottles. Instead they served as nice targets for a Ghostbuster game that we played in the lower school last week. The object of the game was to knock down the other team’s ghosts while also trying to protect your ghost.

A silly premise? Maybe. A realization that I am old and that kids don’t know about Ghostbusters? Definitely. What was most interesting, however, was the observation of risk versus reward. In order to knock down other ghosts a student had to leave their ghost a bit unprotected. This was something that many of the older students were comfortable with, while the younger students hesitated to venture too far way from their ghost. I can relate. Each time I toe the line for a race there is a decision to make. How hard can I push without going too far? I have found that learning how to face these challenges is transferable to much more than sport. It is my hope that the kids will also learn skills on the field that they can use in the classroom or when faced with other challenges. Plus it is also fun when the risk pays off, as you can see below.

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Sleepovers, Summer Camp, and Resilience

Mon, 05 Nov 2012 15:17:00 GMT

Paul Tough’s book, “How Children Succeed,” has me pondering how we encourage resilience in children. I’m sure I will have many more posts on this subject, but I thought I would share an article from The Washington Post by Carolyn Butler that I had filed away this past summer on sleepovers, summer camp, and resilience.

“ One of the things that troubles me about this generation is that we want our children endlessly challenged academically, but we don’t seem to want their resilience challenged in other ways. You can’t know you’re resilient until your resilience is challenged. And resilience or grit is key because it’s what gets you through the hard times in life .”

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NoodleHockey

Sat, 03 Nov 2012 13:12:00 GMT

During our hockey segment in 5th grade, we took a break from traditional hockey to play a less structured version. I gave the class 1 beach ball, a pool noodle for each student, 4 cones and very few instructions. At the beginning of class each student started out holding their noodle in the way you would tradionally hold a hockey stick. “This is really hard” they exclaimed.

Noodlehockey encouraged the students to take risks, think outside the box and not take themselves too seriously. Plus… it was really fun to watch, check it out here .

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Wings

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 16:20:00 GMT

For the past month or so, I have been visiting the 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade classrooms talking about Bullying. One concept that I’ve explored with the children has been the role of a bystander. Who is a bystander? How can a bystander make a difference? When have you been a bystander and what happened? What is the responsibility of a bystander?

Last week, I read “Wings” by Christopher Myers to the 5th graders. I absolutely love Myers’ collages and I thought that the class would also appreciate the dramatic tale of Ikarus Jackson. They did. We discussed the artwork, Ikarus and his wings, and the powerful impact of a bystander.

We talked about superpowers and how sometimes what makes us special, powerful even, can make us feel different. The other kids (and adults) in the story took Ikarus’ difference and used it as a tool for bullying. But one bystander, with her courage and truth, celebrated Ikarus’ wings.

What are your wings? What is your superpower? Has someone ever helped you when you had a tough time celebrating your differences?

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Looking at Rocks

Sun, 28 Oct 2012 01:49:00 GMT

We have started in on the Geology section of our Earth Science curriculum objectives. We have been looking at rocks this week, and trying to determine some of their characteristics. We teachers have learned by observing and collaborating, that starting by looking at books OF rocks, or starting by identifying rocks, cuts off a lot of the learning. Naming something is interesting (probably knowledge in Bloom’s taxonomy). But we tend to think that we are done with something when we have named it. What’s really important is the characteristics of the rocks and minerals, why they have those characteristics, and what they are useful for. Also, rocks are variable, so trying to identify them from pictures in a book, with no other background knowledge, is pretty hard.

So we are seeing what their mass is.

What they scratch, and what things scratch them.

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How do negative numbers work?

Sun, 28 Oct 2012 01:28:00 GMT

We have a section of each math lesson called 10 minute math, as you know. This weeks challenge was to devise different methods of estimating, by solving problems that we get from drawing cards. As you also know, we are getting a long running start on our final probability unit by doing some things at random. So we are drawing the digit cards for our estimation problems at random. When we got to estimation for subtraction, we ran into problems that result in a negative number solution.

Everyone looked at the problem that appeared on the board as I laid out the digit cards, and said: “that will be a negative number.” When I asked why they thought that, several people chimed in- the second number is bigger than the first.

So how do you solve such a problem? Two people had a suggestion- flip the numbers, solve the problem, and make the answer negative. Will that work? We did that, then I initiated a number line strategy to solve the problem. Sure enough, the two answers were the same.

So this leads to a question- is the distance (difference) between two numbers the same no matter which number you start with? Can you cross the zero line, and will the same thing happen? (that is, will what we call the absolute value stay the same, whether the answer is positive or negative) Some people are sure that it will, some people think it might, but don’t really trust this idea yet, and to some students this is ridiculous.

10 minute math is a place where we can check for understanding of many different mathematical concepts, and stretch ourselves a bit. There is no assessment visible to the students, so there is no risk. It’s safe to theorize, and try to get your head around a new idea. We will have many more opportunities to work with this idea this year.

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Lego model of the classroom, by Cole

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 19:56:00 GMT

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Process

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 00:00:00 GMT

If you have visited the main building recently you may have seen the health and wellness board. Students in grades 2-8 were encouraged to set a health and wellness goal.

It is a difficult – but invaluable – lesson to learn that hard work and persistence don’t always deliver. This type of challenge puts your values to the test. Can you show resilience in the face of disappointment? I had that opportunity this summer. I shared with the 6th grade students how I trained all summer working towards a triathlon related goal. On the day of the race, things didn’t come together like I planned and I did not reach my goal. At first I felt a lot of disappointment but over time I can reflect back on why I do triathlons in the first place. My joy can’t be associated simply to the time on the clock or my place. While setting a goal might motivate me to get out and train, triathlons allow me to achieve so much more than fast times. Resilience – one of the many traits that can be transferred from sport to life – is at the top of the list.

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New Businesses

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 21:00:00 GMT

Jobs have taken a whole new direction. Everyone is still doing their classroom job for pay, and quite a few people are trying to figure out what you do to get a raise. But there is a new dimension. Almost everyone is starting a business to provide goods and services at school. This was initiated by the students, not by me.
The third grade is involved in a similar classroom economy. Any students reading this- could you tell us if fifth got the idea from third, third got the idea from fifth, or both classes just happened to come up with the same idea? I don’t feel clear about how the businesses got started.

There are goods for sale at recess, and a couple of teams are advertising their services to the other classes and teachers.

Here are the conditions so far:
You can work on your business at break, at recess, or when your class work is entirely complete- if you finish early and don’t have unfinished work in your “in progress” folder, for instance. People may form partnerships. I am not requiring a business plan as I will in Village, because this is entirely voluntary. I have distributed business plan forms, so that people can look them over and think about what they are going to need for a successful business. We have agreed that it isn’t wise to spend real money to get materials when you are going to be paid for your product in peep dollars. If you have scrap or extra materials around the house that you can spare, it would be lovely if you shared them with your young entrepreneurs. But please don’t go out and buy supplies. Lots of businesses get started on spare bits, but eventually buying supplies is part of the cost. We will get into that more in Village.

Since we are now going to be buying and selling, every one has checks, and a check register, so that they can keep up with their money. Every one’s bank account shows a summary of their transactions, but of course checks take some time to clear the bank. We went over keeping a check register today; I am sure that we will need to do it again. Feel free to show your child your check register or show them how you keep your books.

This is leading us, and me to larger questions of how an economy works. Last year, in Village, we kept our economy closed- it could only increase in value if someone put resources or effort in. I paid salaries, but if I ran out of money, we had to have taxes, or kidnap soccer balls, or something. This year, we are paying taxes for Village improvements in the spring, but I am giving the other teachers money, and just printing more when we need it. The salaries actually don’t come out of my account, they are deposited from a mysterious location. So the question is- will this lead to inflation, or will it keep our economy growing? A tightly controlled economy made growth difficult, so we are going to try a different way this year and see what happens.

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Finding Stillness in One Moment

Thu, 11 Oct 2012 02:17:00 GMT

by Ann Reavey, School Counselor

Have you felt it lately? Maybe it crept in with the cooler weather, the high pressure slipping under a cold front. It arrives without fail each autumn for me: an ever-increasing tempo of obligations, expectations, and not-to-be-missed opportunities that snowball into Thanksgiving and then crash into the winter holidays.

My first line of defense is to just breathe. Breathe in. Breathe out. Repeat.

Breathe. Relax the face. The shoulders. Breathe. Let the world spin without me for one minute. Maybe two. Breathe. Ground my feet. Straighten my spine. Find a lightness.

Breathe in peace. Breathe out stress. Breathe in expansion. Breathe out confinement. Breathe in acceptance. Breathe out judgment.

I wake early in the morning to have my quiet moment of the day. To sit with a cup of tea in the chilly darkness of the morning and connect with that which will always be, no matter what the day brings. My breath. This earth. The stillness.

I will carry this core of peace inside me throughout the commotion of the day. Returning to it whenever I need it. Returning to calmness. To stillness.

I find that this stops the snowballing stress and I can find greater perspective, patience, and tolerance.

If right now you are saying to yourself, “That’s fine for others, but not for me. I have no time and no quiet in my life,” I offer you this video on One Moment Meditation. Try it out…

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Learning and Thinking

Fri, 05 Oct 2012 16:34:00 GMT

On the first day of school, I introduced the children to Erikson’s stages of moral development as a part of our community building activities and our study of relationship. I showed them the common triangle visual representation as shown below:

(please note that there are several presentations of this theory, and I chose a child friendly model)

We talked about what this means for people as they work together and they grow up. It seemed to the class overall that this was a set of stages that people hopefully passed through, leaving the larger areas of the pyramid behind. So the pyramid could also be looked at as the rough proportional number of people that are at each stage. I did point out that most adults never make it to the top, although the class counter proposed that the world would be better if more people were higher. At the end of their discussion, there was consensus that perhaps the best state would be being at a combination of the final two stages. One would act according to one’s principles, but one would check with the larger group and consider how their principles were affecting others. Hitler was given as an example of a person who may have possibly been acting according to his principles, but the consequences were horrible for millions and millions of people.

Several weeks later, I presented Bloom’s Taxonomy to the class. I had been planning to from the beginning of the year. The immediate impetus was seeing how many people didn’t clearly answer the “why” question on the first math assessment. I did not know how interested they would be or how long our conversation would last. I again chose a triangular graphic to present to the group. They had notes in their project notebooks about our previous discussion.

Please notice that I used the original Bloom’s taxonomy, not the revised. That will come up later.

I showed the graphic to the class, and gave a brief description of what the different words meant, or what kinds of thinking or job a person might be doing at that level.

Then I asked them how they were the same-

“they are both sets of stages,”
“you probably move up as you get older,”
“you would have to try to move up”

Then I asked how they were different-

“one is about being a good person, the other is more about thinking”

“but thinking would help you to be a good person”

there were several more good responses, then one child said:

” in the stages of moral development, you want to go up and stay up, in Bloom’s taxonomy you would have to keep going up and down. You don’t understand something if you don’t know what it is, and you can use it.”

This sparked a whole new layer of discussion-

“if you don’t try hard and practice, you can get worse at some of these skills. You can get better at them if you work.”

“in Bloom’s taxonomy, you have to be using more than one level at once. You have to have knowledge to understand, you have to understand to analyze.”

During this time, there was just bit of discussion about whether or not evaluation was really the highest stage.

A few comments were made that the triangle is perhaps not the best way to explain Bloom’s taxonomy. 2 students took markers and went to the board to draw their versions. After their explanations, and the class’ comments on their models, I asked if everyone would like to draw their own representation. Everyone wanted to, so a couple of days later we came back to it. At first, we had to re-establish the conversation. However, it turned out that the thinking time had been helpful. Many students had more ideas than they had had previously. We got paper and colored pencils and markers. The class could talk about Bloom’s Taxonomy at tables as they diagrammed. When a student felt they were finished, they were to show the drawing to someone else and have the someone else try to explain what the someone else thought it meant. After this feedback , they usually added more to their representation.

A few class members are still working and elaborating, but most are done, at least for now. Here are some of the finished representations.

Notice that all of them share some sense of development, and a sense of using more than one level at a time.

Also there is a sense of building- the more you analyze, the more knowledge you can organize and retain, the more you have to analyze, etc.

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Being Yourself

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 14:07:00 GMT

Here is a review

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Co-constructing the relationship between multiplication and division

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 21:39:00 GMT

At the beginning of each math lesson, we have an activity called “10 minute math.” It is designed to get students thinking mathematically in a fun way, and it is usually designed as some sort of game or puzzle.
Last Thursday, the arrangement to the right was shown on the board. The students were to make a division statement which matched the numbers shown. Everyone who had an answer was asked to write it on the board for comparison.

Many people came up to the board, and many wrote the statements 84÷ 12=7 or 84÷7=12.
We all agreed that this was accurate. Emma, however, wrote that 84÷14=6. Several people told her that she had made an error, that she should have used 12. Emma insisted that she was correct. So we factored 84. We discovered that it has factors of 7, 2, and 6, which would make both statements correct. I wrote this on the board:

7×2 6 x 2 7 x 6

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Meditations on Creativity and Risk

Sun, 23 Sep 2012 13:57:00 GMT

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Locomotion

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 18:25:00 GMT

Locomotion is a fitting title for the first post on Sabot Moves . On this blog you can expect to catch many glimpses of how lower and middle school students at Sabot at Stony Point are exercising and moving.

kindergarten students drive their hula hoop cars

So far this year our youngest students have focused on moving in the simplest of terms. I asked them for examples of things that move and travel. They came up with a long list of things: cars, planes, trains… HUMANS! We explored some of the many ways we can move: running, walking, crawling, hopping, skipping and galloping. It was clear that each student preferred one method over the other. Several enjoyed crawling low and using their upper body, while others preferred running as fast as possible. I enjoyed watching them and thought about my goal for each student at Sabot this year: to find their way of moving. In middle school the students might find more complex movements enjoyable such as yoga or kickboxing. The important part is that they each find movement to be fun and that they want more of it.

dancing to the radio in the hoop car

hoop car speed limit increases to 45 mph!!

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Fact Checking

Sun, 16 Sep 2012 15:34:00 GMT

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Forming

Fri, 07 Sep 2012 15:33:00 GMT

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Thu, 06 Sep 2012 20:58:00 GMT

For those who have not been here at just the right time, I am sending some photos from the afternoon bunny check. Evan’s mom Cheri is in contact with some wildlife rehabilitators who are advising her on baby bunny support. The white circle around the nest is flour, to see if the babies are being visited by their mother. Cheri is checking each day on their health, so we are trying to stay away from them at all other times so that the babies and mother will not be stressed. I took a few photos so that those who weren’t here at just the right time could have a peek.

The babies were lively and healthy, we could see them moving around. Their eyes are open, and they are starting to hop.
Sometimes you can see the top of the nest quiver as they move.

Please be careful as you move around the front of the trailers. The babies will be out and moving around shortly.

Please share these photos with your children, so that everyone can have a look without bothering the babies!

Thanks
Marla

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Beginnings

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 21:02:00 GMT

We are already hard at work. We began Math lesson one on day one, and we are in the midst of finding factors, prime factors and all multiplication combinations for a given natural number. Everyone is remembering what they learned in the past, and pushing along further to see connections and patterns.

Students who were interested are working on a demonstration of the “Sieve of Eratosthenes”- it’s a very old way to find prime numbers.

We have been talking every day about our umbrella project relating to “relationship.” We are first thinking about our relationship as a group- we will form an understanding between ourselves, a “social contract” in which we will decide how we should treat each other to work toward our class goal or mission-
Here is our mission- “To become the kind of person who knows their principles, and sticks to them.” This would be a huge goal for any group, so we know that we will have to work hard (and change, which is really hard), and we may not get all the way there this year. Anyone who would like to join us on this most difficult of quests is welcome.

Part of our work together, so that we can really be democratic and work together, will be the job that each student has. Each member of the class will apply for and perform a classroom responsibility which helps the class to function. Everyone has a job description list, and an application. They are due in on Monday, and interviews will begin then. These jobs have salaries, paid in “peep money.” There will also be table rent and taxes. The amount each student is able to save over the year will be their stake when we play “Village” after spring break. “Village” is a 1/2 dollhouse scale town with houses and jobs and government and….

Now for some super basic information-
We have PE on Wednesday mornings and Friday mornings
We have Spanish on Monday morning and Thursday afternoons
Starting on Oct. 1 we have Minds in Motion on Tuesday afternoons (Hooray!)
Lunch is at 12:30 Monday -Thursday.
On Fridays, lunch is at 12:20 so that we can leave for Forest recess at 12:40. We will have a work time in the forest after recess on Friday. Usually it will be Science, but it we do have a few other things planned.
Water bottles are highly recommended. They may be stored in cubbies (everyone has one) or next to your table leg on the floor. Snacking is allowed during classwork time, at work tables, IF it is something neat and easy to eat. I support reusable packaging, however, the laptop lunch type lunchboxes take up too much room on an table full of classwork. If you could send in something in a separate container if your child wants/needs an extra snack, that would be highly appreciated.

I am really looking forward to seeing you on Back to School night, and I will have more to tell you then. I will be happy to answer questions then, by e-mail, or in person.

Warmly,
Marla

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The Invisible String

Fri, 31 Aug 2012 17:39:00 GMT

This is one of my all-time favorite books to read with children! Patrice Karst’s picture book is simple and helps when we need to feel connected to someone who is not right here, right now in a physical way. Twins, awakened at night by a thunderstorm, run into see their mom who explains to them that she is always with them, no matter what. People who love each other are connected by invisible strings of love – such a powerful concept that children, big and small, get in a very deep way. (I use it with children Pre-K through 5th grade but have given it to older children to read and discuss as well as adults.)

I like to ask kids where their strings go – who are the people connected to them by love? It’s a great way for them to identify their support system. They often start with family (and pets, of course!) but will also include friends, neighbors, teachers. We explore questions such as “Can you be connected by love to the earth?” or “What happens when someone tries to cut a string by being mean?”

I have read this with children who miss mom or dad during the school day. I have also shared this with students who could no longer see a parent or family member due to death or incarceration. It is such a lovely and reassuring book for us all – who hasn’t felt alone and scared at some point? As Karst writes:

“… they started dreaming of all the Invisible Strings they have, and all the Strings their friends have, and their friends have, and their friends have, until everyone in the world was connected by Invisible Strings. And from deep inside, they now could clearly see … no one is ever alone.”

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More First Day Prep …

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 15:26:00 GMT

Here is some advice from Diane Peters Mayer (via Tracy Grant’s Momspeak) specifically about transitioning to a new school. And yet with advice like “Don’t dismiss the child’s worry” and “Believe in your child,” her suggestions are great for those of us returning our kids to a familiar school as well!

The post More First Day Prep … appeared first on Sabot at Stony Point .

First Day Prep

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 17:23:00 GMT

I know that it’s coming. There it is on my calendar: The First Day of School . Yet I never feel ready. It always sneaks up on me, hiding behind family trips or last minute pool parties, until … Gotcha! I’m scrambling to buy lunch bags and binders, everyone is up way too late, and no one is ready in the morning.

Does this sound familiar? Here are some tips for easing the transition from summer days to school days. Many are for all age groups, a few are more geared towards older or younger children. Please add your own suggestions in the comments!

Before School Starts:

The First Week:

If Your Child Seems Anxious:

This is my favorite time of year – full of expectation, possibility, and community. It’s a time to meditate on how your child is growing and changing. A time to fully, deeply appreciate the person they are now while pondering how this person will develop in the coming year. A time to trust your child’s abilities and sovereignty.

Welcome back! It’s going to be a magical year!

The post First Day Prep appeared first on Sabot at Stony Point .

Helping Children Cope with Death

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 22:53:00 GMT

One of the topics that sends even the most seasoned of parents into a panic is death. What do you say? When do you say it? What if I don’t have all the answers? Is it okay to cry? Is it okay not to cry? Phew!

Tracy Grant gives a brief, basic primer on talking to kids about death in her Momspeak column here . Parents often avoid this difficult conversation in order to protect or shield children from sadness and pain. However, as Grant states below, having honest and early conversations about illness and death is more helpful.

“Sudden death is particularly hard for anyone to grasp, but often the deaths that children confront – those of older relatives or beloved pets – can be anticipated. Don’t assume that kids will notice Grandpa’s declining health and extrapolate that that means he may not live much longer. A death that seems obvious to you may come out of the blue to your child if you haven’t talked about it first.”

Here at school, we have so many organic opportunities to discuss death with children. Children and teachers explore the cycle of life and death in nature. They observe dead bugs, plants, or animals in the forest and garden. And we often find a dead mouse in the garden that has been dropped by a raptor flying overhead. In one instance last year, a small group of young children chose to accompany a teacher outside the garden wall for an impromptu burial service for a mouse. These small yet essential conversations about life and death help prepare children for the larger losses that they will encounter.

I will post more about children, grief, and mourning throughout the year. Please email me if you have specific concerns or questions.

The post Helping Children Cope with Death appeared first on Sabot at Stony Point .

Talking About Alcoholism

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 20:41:00 GMT

Every Thursday, I flip through The Washington Post to Marguerite Kelly’s Family Almanac to see what wisdom she has to offer. Back in January, she addressed how to talk with children about a grandparent’s alcoholism.

“Tell them that nobody ever wants to be an alcoholic; that alcoholism flowers in some people but not in others; and that Grandma just drew the wrong straw. And then add this reassuring fact: It won’t happen to them, because you’re going to teach them how to avoid the problem, no matter what straw they draw.”

My only addition to her advice would be to find an Al-Anon group or other support group for family members of alcoholics for on-going support. Read the entire column here .

The post Talking About Alcoholism appeared first on Sabot at Stony Point .

Welcome!

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 20:25:00 GMT

The 2012-2013 school year is fast approaching. I’m thrilled to incorporate this blog into my work. I hope to bring into sharper focus those meaningful daily interactions, exchanges, and experiences at school and at home. This will be a forum for sharing what works and what doesn’t; a link to resources that support families; and a space to strengthen connections.

Please check in often and do not hesitate to email me about topics of interest!

The post Welcome! appeared first on Sabot at Stony Point .

Sabot School Stories

Explo: The Documentary

Explo:

The Documentary

Created by

Aubrey G. & Helena Y., '26

With mentorship from teachers Richard Garries & Callia Wolff

Spring 2025

Demystifying ‘Project Work’

Honoring Our Past, Inspiring Our Future: The Installation of Emma Ferek

Finding One Another: Connection in Community

Finding One Another:

Connection in Community

“The light in me honors the light in you.”

- rough translation of the Sanskrit salutation, “Namaste.”

The Nest teachers reflect on a connection between two children at the start of the school year:

The Emerging Self: A Portrait Project

The Emerging Self: A Portrait Project ﻿

Mending Walls: Screening & Artist Panel

Sabot School to host Mending Walls: Screening & Artist Panel

What is Mending Walls?

How This Connects to Our Middle School Classrooms

Celebrating Student Achievements at Sabot School: Highlights from VHD and VJAS

Sabot Middle School Students Bring Home Awards from NHD and VJAS

Virginia History Day (VHD) - April 2024

Virginia Junior Academy of Science (VJAS), May 2024

It's DONE! Phase 2 of Honor Hall Is Complete and Ready For Move-In

We are beyond thrilled to announce that with the completion of Phase 2,

﻿ Honor Hall is now fully complete!

Being Moved: The Story of a 3rd Grade Aqueduct

3rd Grade has spent the year learning about movement and creating a working aqueduct

﻿

Celebrating Anna Golden

After nearly 30 years, Anna Golden will leave Sabot School in March

Sabot Middle School Students Shine

Open Doors: Sabot Institute Hosts Sold-Out Experience for Educators

From New York to Florida, from Missouri to Maryland, educators visit Sabot to see Reggio in practice and our mission in action

Phase 2 of Honor Hall Begins

Construction is underway with plans for a Fall 2024 move-in

Richmond Magazine features Sabot School

The August 2023 Private School Guide Highlights our 'Small School for Big Change'

Sabot Returns to Its Roots

A Gift from the Institute for Contemporary Art

August 14, 2023

Sabot receives piece from artist Nicole Killian

Much to Celebrate!

Staff and Faculty Updates, 2023-2024

'Umbrella Night' : A School-Wide Investigation of Peace

Reflections on a Year

by Kendall Nordin

Sabot at Stony Point becoming Sabot School

New name to take effect July 1, 2023

'Yes, world, they are prepared!": Graduation, 2023

Remarks from Shannon Montague, Head of School

Sabot Achievements at the Virginia Junior Academy of Science Symposium

Sabot Scientists Make Their Mark at VJAS

Sabot Students Earn Awards at National History Day Competition

7th graders earn top awards

Sabot Hosts Community Film Screening

Community invited to view Birth of a Planet: Richmond on Paper

The Doors Open: Honor Hall

Media Advisory: March 27, 2023

A Preview of the Umbrella Project Celebration

Mission Moment, May 2023: An Invitation to "Umbrella Night"

Observational Drawing and the Image of the Child

Mission Moment: April 2023

Sabot's Ecology and the Environment as the Third Teacher

Mission Moment: March 2023

Diversity Matters: Sabot's Statement of Belief

Mission Moment: January 2023

Identity: Seen and Unseen

Mission Moment: December

World Children’s Day: Our Community, Sabot’s Mission

Mission Moment: November

Seesaw as Metaphor: Heroes, Villains, and the Right to Resolution

Mission Moment: October

Masks, Models, and the Hope for Peace

Mission Moment: September

Mindfulness & Wonder: What Children Can Teach Us

A video reflection for learning groups at Sabot

The Emerging Self: A Portrait Project

Honor Hall is now fully complete!