Board member Barry Shuman helped the Science Task force get creative yesterday morning when he visited the new science room.  Barry imagined how best to form the main classroom and storage space, along with a special room for optics experiments.  This will involve removing some walls, which means a fun work party for those of you who enjoy demolition work!  We hope to begin the demolition in either the February break or spring break, dependent on removing some of the existing electical from the walls slated for destruction. 

Barry also schooled us in a creative exercise designed to create the lists of equipment we will need,  the best confiugration of the furnishings, and to delinieate specific space uses throughout the rooms.

In keeping with the theme of science and creativity, here is an interesting blog entry.

The Leadership Team (see ‘School Organization and Roles) meets every Wednesday afternoon for two hours to take care of some of the business of the school. Each Leadership Team member commits to attending two Board meetings per year.   Leadership Team members are:

Trish Bondurant, Pedagogical Chair
Laura Crandall, School Director
Andrea Eichinger-Wiese, Salmonberries Lead Teacher
Mia Fioravanti, Grade Eight Teacher
Bryan McGriff, Movement Teacher
Cindy Weinberg, Grade One Teacher

Some of our most exciting work this year has been around School Culture, our Mission Statement and Core Values, and our new science room plans.  We’ve brought these discussions to our faculty at our Thursday meetings, and continue with the theme tomorrow, when we discuss our school’s identity further and bring our Mission Statement for review.  On January 2, the Leadership Team and the Board of Trustees will ring in the new year by engaging in a half-day retreat to engage in work related to our Mission Statement and Core Values.   I look forward to sharing the fruits of that work with you in the new year.

• having alumni students be involved in the school in some way
• parent teas hosted by the Head of Administration and Head of Pedagogy
• small weekly email updates to complement a twice-monthly newsletter

Our next meeting will be before the February break.  Do you have a question for regional schools?  Let me know!

Seattle Waldorf School’s Board of Trustees hosted a winter spiral for current and former board members and administrators of area Waldorf schools on December 5th.  The spiral was held at Seattle Waldorf High School and was a welcome opportunity to build relationships between schools. This was my third winter spiral at SWS, and I always appreciate the opportunity to celebrate the season with beauty, light, and friendship. 

On Monday, December 12, SWS is hosting a regional administrator’s conference, during which we will discuss such topics as collaboration between schools and AWSNA membership.

Part of Grade Five with class teacher Beth Simpson and Handyman Dave DeShaw.

On Monday, December 5th, part of the fifth grade applied our geometry skills to the construction of the kindergartens’ gnome house roof.  To do that, we measured the radius of an arc to establish the roof’s dome shape.  Unfortunately, we ran out of tape measure space, so we determined the radius by means of a ‘magical’ string that ended up being the perfect length.  To complete our task, we measured the string, which was 32′ 1/2″ long.  Handyman Dave then asked us what the diameter of that arc would measure; the response was 65′.1″, no sweat!–Grade Five

Below is an additional shot of the gnome house under construction.  This is a final phase of the renovation of Honey Hollow, paid for in part by the Fund A Dream at last year’s auction.  The house will have a ‘green’ roof, with plants growing on top of it.  I’ll keep you updated as the house construction continues.  Thank you for your generous donations that helped us fund the renovation of the playspace for our youngest students.

On Friday, December 2, I attended Gayle Gregory’s workshop  Differentiation in a Brain-Friendly Classroom with Pedagogical Chair Trish Bondurant and two  members of the Education Support committee, Nazneen Kateli-D’Souza (Grade Three Teacher), and Marla Smith (Education Support Teacher).  Hosted by Hamlin Robinson School, this day-long workshop provided educators with practical tools
and ideas for creating a classroom that invites student participation and maximizes student success, making success less dependent on skill level. 

What is differentiated instruction?

• flexible grouping
• student-centered
• based on readiness
• for all learners
• changing all the time
• meeting individual/personal student needs

What differentiated instruction is NOT:

• tracking
• a new strategy
• static
• teaching to the middle
• lowering the bar

What is differentiated?

• content and materials
• process and stategies
• assessment and assignment

Waldorf education, deeply invested in creating thinkers who seek to understand, rather than test-takers who can ‘get it right’, seems naturally suited to optimizing differentiation.  To illustrate the importance of sparking student understanding, Ms. Gregory showed us a paragraph about the Montillation of Traxoline (this is incorporated in an interesting blog entry–if you’d like to just see the paragraph, click here). It’s easy to see the absurdity of trying to memorize facts that have been presented without any opportunity for students to understand the material through any other methods.  She humorously referred to this type of learning as ‘sit-git-spit-fergit’, and I’m sure many of us spent hours of our school life doing just that, rather than acquiring a real understanding of our subject matter.  On the flipside, we watched veteran teacher Kay Toliver (video above) inspire her students to succeed by creating  a classroom that was fun, safe to make mistakes in, and allowed for a high level of student participation.

While some of the material presented was not new to us (and reinforced what a great method Waldorf education is!), we did get new ideas for enhancing collaborative and group learning throughout the grades.  A productive classroom uses a mix of whole-class instruction, individual work, paired work, and small group work.  We found new ideas for paired and small group work, and are excited to pass on some of the methods to our colleagues.  Of great value were some practical, easy ways to assess student understanding and skill level without testing or singling out.  When teachers know where gaps in understanding and skills are, their lessons can be more targeted for student success.  Grouping students in heterogeneous groups is more effective than homogeneous groupings.

As much as we need quiet sometimes in the classroom, giving kids the opportunity to talk fuels learning.  Small group work allows students to ask a question more easily–it’s more comfortable for students of all ages to take risks in a small group rather than a large one.  Small group work also helps build up the sense of safety in the classroom,  and can give students the courage to voice new ideas.  Dialogue between students:

• clarifies thoughts
• allows misconceptions to emerge
• strengthens language patterns
• develops vocabulary
• deepens concepts
• assesses skills (teacher can overhear misconceptions)

• improves retention
• builds social skills
• allows for differentiation

Best scenarios for differentiation:

• discussion
• practice
• peer teaching

Other Resources: Classroom Culture and Learning Communities,Gregory, Gayle; Chapman, Carolyn (2007) Differentiated Instructional Strategies: One Size Doesn’t Fit All

You know how we love the topic of sleep!Here’s a Frontline presentation on teens: click on #5, From Zzz’s to A’s.

It seems that many Heads of School in our region are interested in getting out to meet each other and tour other schools this year. On Wednesday, November 30th, I met with Christian Sullivan, the Headmaster of Annie Wright Schools in Tacoma. We toured the school and discussed governance models, board work, faculty committees, and fundraising. Annie Wright Schools, which had a co-ed Prek-8 school and a girls-only upper school, has just introduced a five-day boarding option in an effort to attract more regional students to round out their mix of international students who board seven days a week. The school hosts a Scholar Search event in January to acquaint prospective high school students with the school.

Our next school visitors are faculty from Hamlin Robinson School, who will take part in an Educator’s Tour, a special event hosted by Vivian Syme. My next meeting with Seattle Waldorf School’s Director of Administration Tracy Bennett is Monday, December 5th. On Monday, December 12th, I will attend a meeting of regional Waldorf school administrators hosted by Seattle Waldorf School.

During Parent/Teacher conferences, the Science Task Force met and discussed equipment procurement, science curriculum, and began planning the new science room. The space is quite large, and is divided up into a number of smaller rooms. The area we are moving into used to be part of the photo lab when Cornish College of the Arts was in residence here.

You can see the eye wash on the right, just below the ‘safety’ bulletin board: this room was meant for science!

This area was for making photo prints.  There are two of these rooms.  Lighting upgrade is needed here.

Another shot of the photo print area–plenty of wall sockets available here.  Lighting upgrades are needed here.

Also in the photo print area, on the opposite wall.  This enclosure was for the big sink that held the developer, fixer, and water baths for photo prints.

This black hallway will be an excellent place for optics experiments and demonstrations.

There are windows, too!

We imagine that this may be the chemistry section, with locking cabinetry above the countertops.

This room is undegoing a multi-day cleaning by our cleaning crew.  Part of the construction of this room will involve removing at least one wall, installing cabinetry, appropriate countertops, and upgrading some of the light fixtures.  We may want to preserve some of the darkroom aspects for possible future use.  And of course, we will need to paint.  We’ll keep you posted on the work as it continues!

On October 24, four out of five members of our Social Inclusion Committee attended a workshop by Rosetta Lee entitled ‘Culturally Responsive Classrooms’.  Ms. Lee is a math teacher at Seattle Girls’ School who leads SGS’s outreach program. Some of her presentations can be found here. Social Inclusion members are: Laura Crandall, School Director; Lauren Kerr, Grade Four Teacher; Gust Burns, Eurythmy Assistant and Pianist, and Choir Teacher; Emily Affolter, Spanish Language Teacher; and Bryan McGriff, Movement Teacher. All but Mr. McGriff were in attendance at the workshop.

 The workshop was so informative and helpful that the Committee made a request to the Leadership Team that we host Ms. Lee for our March 12 In-Service day. The Leadership Team approved the request, and our group will meet with Ms. Lee in the new year to talk about our school’s diversity work. This will allow her to tailor our In-Service day for our school’s needs. Some of the questions I developed as a result of the workshop that may provide good break-out discussion topics for the day are:

•  How do you influence school culture through your role?
• Identity formation—as educators, we are responsible for co-authoring it.  How can we support kids’ identity plans? 
•  How does our own internal dialogue shut us off to or influence what we take away from the speaker? 
•  What do I (we) communicate to students from our own inner monologue?
•  How can we increase diversity within the parameters of Waldorf curriculum? 
•  What are age-appropriate ways to discuss culture and cultural differences? Mental Models—what is yours and how can you challenge it? 
•  How is our (school) culture co-created? Are our classroom processes and projects allowing all kids to participate and shine? Is the path to success clearly delineated? 
•  How can our classroom instructional approaches accommodate a wider range of ‘codes and modes’? 
•  Critical self-assessment of the school (fish in water)—what are the distinguishing behaviors? 
•  What are we talking about when we say ‘diversity’?