Habits of Mind
Dear LREI Families,
Next week marks the end of the first quarter and students are hard at work completing a variety of projects and units of study. Planning for Family Conferences is also getting under way. A reminder that conferences are scheduled for Wednesday, November 7th from 12:15-3:15PM (please note that the 7th is a regular day for students) and for the full day on Friday, November 9th. If your child is in the fifth or sixth grade, his/her advisor will be contacting you to set up a conference on either the 7th or the 9th. Sign-up sheets for seventh and eighth grade families are posted outside of core classrooms and on the bulletin board outside of my office (for conferences with specialists).
Advisors in all four grades and individual subject area teachers are working with students to identify significant pieces of work to share at the conferences and to identify areas of strength and challenge in their classes. It is our hope that the Family Conference will provide multiple perspectives on your child’s learning experience. In addition to highlighting her/his performance in individual subjects, we also hope that the conversations that take place during these conferences help to paint a clearer picture of who your child is as a learner. A related and overarching goal of the Family Conference is to bring into focus the broader themes and the habits of mind that we want to cultivate in our students.
Last year in advisory (and we will revisit them again this year), we framed some of our preparation for Family Conferences around an essay by Charles Slater entitled, “What does it mean to be an educated person?” In our conversations, we discussed his observations that students should be:
- Readers of literature
- Poets whose words envision new ways of being
- Writers who reflect thoughtfully
- Problem solvers who can use mathematics
- Observers who sense the wonder of science
- Citizens who study history and take action
- Speakers of two languages who cross cultural borders
- Workers who can create with their hands and use technology
- Artists who sculpt, draw or paint
- Musicians who sing or play an instrument
- Athletes who exercise for a lifetime
- Leaders who recognize the moral dimension
I think that these outcomes resonate strongly with our daily work in the Middle School and that they are characteristics that we want to see in our students. How do you answer the question, “What does it mean to be an educated person?” Make it the subject of your next dinner table conversation as a family. Let me know of any new habits of mind that surface in your conversations.
Be well,
Mark