Stepping Out On a Limb

Dear Families,

For the past two days, fifth and sixth graders have taken to the woods, ponds and craft shops at the Ashokan Center with joyful enthusiasm. This annual three-day trip provides students with an opportunity to build community while they explore the natural world and consider our place in it. The trip also provides numerous situations where students must work collaboratively in order to solve a variety of challenges. Tonight, they will take on the roles of developers, environmentalists, community residents, politicians and members of the media as they work to resolve a proposed development plan in the simulated community of Enchanted Valley.

Throughout the three days, each student will likely confront moments of personal challenge as s/he ponders how to do something new or how to address something that s/he knows is difficult based on prior experience. In each of these situations, students will likely take advantage of the support of a friend or teacher who will help them to navigate through the risk at hand. It is this support and safety that helps students to explore the obvious and not so obvious opportunities for learning connected to their efforts. In this way, the Ashokan experience helps to frame a set a habits that are essential to the on-going LREI learning experience. These habits have been defined in many ways, but I like the way that they are articulated by the educator David Perkins and his colleagues. They identify the following set of dispositions:

  • The disposition to be broad and adventurous
  • The disposition toward wondering, problem finding, and investigating
  • The disposition to build explanations and understandings
  • The disposition to make plans and be strategic
  • The disposition to be intellectually careful
  • The disposition to seek and evaluate reasons
  • The disposition to be metacognitive

In images, here are some of those dispositions being practiced at Ashokan as students push beyond the obvious and seek unusual ideas, see other points of view, challenge assumptions, explore new territory and go beyond the boundaries.
ropessaw
pondforge
smithsimoncanoecorn

Be well,
Mark

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