I want to acknowledge our 2008-2009 Irwin Scholars. The Irwin Scholars program is a merit-based scholarship that recognizes eighth graders for their sustained commitment to academic excellence, active participation in the life of the Middle School, service to the community, demonstrated leadership, and the potential to serve as a community leader in the High School. This year we had a most excellent cohort of applicants; this made the selection process all the more difficult because the quality of applicants was so strong. I would like to extend my thanks on behalf of the faculty and administration to all of the applicants for their thoughtful essays and am pleased to share with you the 2008-2009 Irwin Scholars. They are Liam C., Thomas, Dominic, Edith, Anna, Isabella and David.

Congratulations again to the members of the Middle School Robotics Teams who continued their winning ways with excellent performances at this past weekend’s FIRST Lego League Manhattan borough competition. Both teams have now qualified for the citywide competition that will take place at the Javits Center in March. The Advanced Team won 1st place in the Champion’s Award category. It “is the most prestigious award that any team can win. It celebrates the ultimate success of the FIRST mission and FLL values”. When the scores from their Project Presentation, Technical Presentation, Robot Performance and Teamwork were added they received the highest score out of the whole event. The Rookie Team won 2nd place in the Robot Design Award category where “judges look for teams whose robot stands out for innovation and dependability”. This is an incredible achievement for a group of kids in their first competition. Click here for pictures of the event.

Middle School Science Teacher Sherezada Acosta has been selected as a National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) Teacher of the Future. Through this program,

NAIS has selected and support a cadre of innovative teacher leaders currently working at NAIS member schools who will help NAIS develop a new online community for independent school teachers.  This program and the development of online education communities are part of NAIS’s goals to provide valuable networking opportunities and to enhance the excellent education provided at independent schools. NAIS has selected these 24 outstanding Teachers of the Future to build, lead, and moderate this new online community.  The 24 Teachers of the Future exemplify excellence in teaching through their leadership, innovation, and commitment to environmentalism, equity and justice, globalism, technology, and other key areas of sustainability.

Beginning in January, Sherezada and the other recipients will lead online discussion forums for other NAIS teachers. Each recipient also created a video that highlights important aspects of her/his curriculum. To view Sherezada’s educational video, go to the Teachers of the Future Videos Page. The video provides some wonderful examples of our students hard at work in the science lab. It also provides an excellent overview of some of the foundational principles that guide our approach to science instruction.

Congratulations to Sherezada for this honor and thanks to all of the members of the Middle School faculty for their daily work in support of your child’s growth as a learner!

With the Thanksgiving Break receding into the past and the Winter Break just ahead of us, I thought I’d take a moment and share with you some of the highlights of our recent Thanksgiving Assembly. As one teacher commented to me after the assembly, “this year the students’ voices were so present.” And indeed they were . The assembly was a veritable feast of stories offered by each grade and as a collective group.The fifth graders shared stories of thanks written to important people in their lives. These stories focused in on the individual they were thanking and through rich description brought that person and why he or she was important to life for their listeners.

The sixth graders shared a collective poem that focused on those things for which they were most thankful. The poem touched on the personal and the global and built to heartfelt shared expression of thanks.

The middle of the ceremony was reserved for what I hope will become a new tradition for our assembly. During the weeks leading up to the assembly, Middle School music teacher Matt McLean worked with classes to create an original composition focused on the spirit of giving thanks. The sixth through eighth grade classes sang their verses and the community joined in on the choruses, which were composed by the fifth grade. Click here to read the lyrics of our “Thanksgiving Song.”

The seventh graders who earlier in the morning held their annual food festival offered  stories about food that were connected to their family, their heritage or their past. Following the assembly, the sixth graders joined them in the cafeteria to continue the communal “breaking of bread.”

As has become our tradition, the eighth graders offered their revision of  the Byrd Baylor story I’m in Charge of Celebrations. Their revision reflected the collaborative work of the entire eighth grade class. While adults provided some general context and support for the work, the process that gave rise to its writing and the final product were truly student-centered efforts and reflective of our progressive practice. I hope that the their version of “I’m in Charge of Celebrations” gives you as much pleasure as it gave us. Enjoy!

I also hope that your Thanksgiving like our assembly was filled with stories both new and old.

As Robert Frost commented, “Good fences make good neighbors;” and so it is with the fences surrounding the tree pits in Little Red Square. Born of the hard work of middle schoolers during advisory period, lower and middle school students, parents and faculty who attended “It’s My Park” Day, and a dedicated group of middle schoolers who helped to build and paint before and after their Family Conferences, these fences are truly the product of a communal effort. As the fences went  up, it was as if the community suddenly rediscovered the tress that had always been there. Neighbors and passers-by commented on the much appreciated care that students were taking of this shared community space.

While seemingly simple in their appearance, the fences tell a story of students and their advisors thinking about ways to take care of our urban garden, of thoughtful planning and preparation, of physical labor and of committed work. A number of Middle Schoolers completed some of this work in the Lower School woodshop, a place they had not been for several years. As one student commented, “the saws used to seem so big,” and as Peggy commented on her former students, “it was amazing to watch them work; they worked with such energy and a sense of purpose.”  These fences also embody a core LREI value originally stated by Elisabeth Irwin, which is “to encourage children to respect the dignity of manual labor by working with our hands as well as with our heads.” And as Agnes De Lima observes in The Little Red School House:

This labor has a value of its own. The children hammer, saw, file. They lift heavy weights; they pound into wood; they enjoy their bodies. When they put their bodies to a definite task, like planning and sawing, the medium of the tool forces them to coordinated, economical, and rhythmical movement which is excellent physical education and which the children unconsciously enjoy.

So these fences are an extension of the classroom and as such they connect the work of students, families and teachers to the broader world of lived experience. Take a moment to enjoy the fruits of this labor.

Civic Engagement and the Student

Dear Families,

Whether through class discussions and projects, current events presentations, or registering voters on Sixth Avenue, the current election has provided an authentic opportunity for middle school students to consider what it means to be informed and active citizens. Last week in Middle School meeting, the class reps read a series of quotes without attribution to Senators McCain and Obama and asked their classmates if they could determine which quote was spoken by which candidate. It was not quite as easy as students thought and through this experience we affirmed the need for citizens to research the issues and to be thoughtful and critical thinkers. This activity served as a kick-off to our Mock Election project. In order to participate, students were required to register in advance of the election day and were informed that they would need to give up some time during recess and lunch on voting day if they wanted to vote. Students were also given a chance to review the ballot so that they could consider thoughtfully the set of issues questions on which they would be asked to vote.

There was a strong turn out of eighth graders who voted early on Tuesday because they would be at Minimester on Wednesday. The polls opened for fifth through eighth graders on Wednesday and while students had to wait in line to vote electronically in the computer lab, the polling place was well monitored by the class reps. Students were able to vote for President and Vice President and Representatives. They were also asked to consider a number of critical domestic and foreign policy issues, a slate of issues specifically relevant to young people, and a number of issues relevant to life in the Middle School. The results of our election will provide opportunities for additional discussion and inquiry as the real election approaches; the results of the questions specific to LREI will provide important information for the class reps and their on-going work.

As John Dewey observed in Democracy and Education (1916) “A democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience.” That shared sense of experience was clearly evident in the conversations and palpable excitement that surrounded our mock election. Moving beyond their relevance to this particular experience, Dewey’s words have profound implications for how schools conceive of the educational process itself. Schools that consciously organize themselves around this foundational idea are, through their very structure, educating students for active participation in a democratic society. We’ve worked hard to structure LREI in this kind of way and as Dewey observed elsewhere in Democracy and Education, “In static societies, societies which make the maintenance of established custom their measure of value, this conception applies in the main. But not in progressive communities. They endeavor to shape the experiences of the young so that instead of reproducing current habits, better habits shall be formed, and thus the future adult society be an improvement on their own.”

With that in mind, I encourage you to consider our students’ take on some of the issues that are at the center of the upcoming election (click here for a summary of our mock election results). They present a unique look into what is on their minds. I hope that their responses will inform the on-going dialog taking place at home about these important issues. Regardless of the outcome, on Wednesday, November 5th, we will run an extended morning homeroom so that students can share and discuss their responses to the election. We will also meet as a whole community at our regular Middle School meeting that afternoon.