Everything Old Is New Again
Dear LREI Community,
Welcome to March—today it was warm enough for adventurous sixth graders to pull out a pair of shorts only a few days after our second snow day of the year. I missed this historic event as last Friday I was in San Francisco for the National Association of Independent School’s Annual Conference. It was a fascinating two days during which I heard a number of engaging speakers. Among the sessions I attended was a panel discussion entitled, “Building Schools for a Digital Age, Imagining Schools of the Future.” During one exchange, the moderator, Wanda M. Holland Greene—the head of the Hamlin School in San Francisco—asked what the panelists thought that schools would look like in the future. One panelist, Milton Chen, senior fellow at Edutopia: The George Lucas Education Foundation, said, “The future is changing, but it’s going to look a lot like the past. We’re returning to an age when kids were taught in a more intimate way.” As recounted on the NAIS web site, he then “cited the intersection of what technology offers with the ideas of progressive education pioneer John Dewey, calling him ‘Saint John.’ Chen said that Edutopia, the Lucas Foundation online space, is very much about project-based learning and integrated studies that break down the boundaries between disciplines.” “Dewey wanted to make kids more responsible for their own learning,” said Chen. Sounds a lot like LREI.
Stanford education profession Shelley Goldman also spoke of Dewey. In response to Chen’s comments she said, “Milton reminds me that I love Dewey, and his quote, ‘Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.”
In a conversation of where we all need to be headed, it was nice to hear references to one of LREI’s founders and about one of our ongoing guiding principals.
On other fronts:
· GO KNIGHTS! Congratulations to our JV Boys Basketball Team on winning the league championship!!! We are so proud of you. We are also proud of the members of our other intermural basketball teams—middle school boys and girls 7th/8th grade teams and the varsity boys and girls teams—all of whom made it to their league’s playoffs. There are still two Fridays of 5th/6th intramural basketball left—Friday, March 5th and Friday, March 12th from 3:30-5:30 in the Thompson Street Athletic Center. Come and cheer for our youngest athletes.
· Congratulations to the cast and crew of the high school’s production of Urinetown. Mark your calendars now; the middle school musical is coming the first week in May.
· Speaking of the first week in May….Grandparents/Special Friends Day is coming on May 7th for Lower and Middle School students. We will be sending invitations out very soon. If you have not given us addresses yet, please email them to lsacks@lrei.org. Thanks.
· Our seniors are finishing their last full term of classes and are preparing for their senior projects, which include a six-week internship. We have students looking for internships in a number of fields, including: human rights, film/television/music production, medicine, photography, animation and the hospitality industry. If you are able to offer, or have access to, internships in these fields or in others, please contact our high school principal, Ruth Jurgensen at rjurgensen@lrei.org.
Enjoy,
Phil