Fun at Work
Dear Families,
Just below the eighth grade classrooms on the Bleeker Street side of the building, there is a small dedication plaque in honor of Rank Smith who followed Elisabeth Irwin as the school’s second director. You have likely walked past the plaque many times, but may not have read its words. It says, “Where school is fun at work.” Simple, but profound.
At our beginning-of-the-year meetings, the Middle School faculty talked about this quote and its relevance to our teaching practice. For us, the use of the word “fun” pointed to something deeper and more purposeful than just having a good time. A recent article in Educational Leadership by Steven Wolk explores similar ground as it examines the idea of schools as “joyful” learning communities. For Wolk, joy is the “emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something good or satisfying.” This “something” can produce moments of unexpected or easy joy, but the pursuit of joy most often requires a fair amount of dedicated and committed work. Seen through this lens, schools that are a joyful places are ones where “the hearts and minds of children and young adults are wide open to the wonders of learning and the fascinating complexities of life.” I find LREI to be just such a place; I hope you do too.
In our meeting, I asked the members of the Middle School faculty to think about some of the ways that they’d like to bring more joy into our work with your kids and with each other this year. Here is a collection of some of their responses:
- Help students to discover that the creative process is the learning process
- Ensure that learning process is safe, meaningful and personal
- Create opportunities for students to explore literary genres that interest them
- Continue to explore the ways in which math is embedded in other subjects and in day-to-day experience
- Allow students to engage in independent inquiry that is driven by their own interests
- Connect student interests to key skills and concepts that are part of the curriculum
- Provide more authentic opportunities for students to publish and share work
- Allow students to build on skills developed in PE activities by having them create their own games that we can then play
- Make sure that students know that they have a voice and that their ideas are valued
- Use student input to help shape projects and activities
- Let a sense of excitement enter into our investigations
- Use student-built models and machines to explore and discover how the natural world works
- Connect students’ science understandings to a better understanding of how things are interconnected
- Discover the joy of community service and giving back
- Allow students to be teachers
- Make sure that students are really getting to live their learning experience
- Challenge students to explore the range of places where learning can take place
- Make more room for laughter
- Provide a sufficiently wide range of “tools” for students to use as they play with ideas
- Make sure that students have “time to tinker”
- Connect language learning to real lived experience
- Engage parents in the learning process with their children
- Make our learning spaces comfortable
- Shift from working with to exploring with students
- Help students to discover themselves as active citizens within and beyond the LREI community
Taken individually and collectively, these statements provide clear evidence of our commitment to a program where “school is fun at work.” I hope that you were able to sense this potential for joyful work in your meeting with your child’s advisor and in your child’s comments on her/his first few days of school. I encourage you to join us in this on-going inquiry by spending time as a family thinking about ways that you can help to make this a truly joyful year.
In this spirit of collaboration, the members of the Middle School faculty are looking forward to seeing you this Tuesday evening at 6:30PM for our Middle School Curriculum Night. At the event, you will get to meet your child’s teachers who will provide you with an overview of their classes and their class expectations. We hope that all of you will be able to attend as Curriculum Night helps to provide a meaningful frame for the work that we will undertake together over the course of the year.
Childcare for this evening is available. Please contact Mary Shea at mshea@lrei.org to register or to inquire about the details. We ask that you make every effort to contact Mary by mid-day on Monday. and that you do not drop your child off on the evening of the event without having first contacted Mary.
Finally, the Middle School marked the 9/11 anniversary by attending and participating in the September Concert at Washington Square Park. The concert was coordinated by High School music teacher Vin Scialla and featured performances by the High School Jazz Band and Chorus and high school and middle school bands. All of the participants took part in a community singing of the Beatles “Let It Be.” In their advisory groups, students also had time to reflect on the significance of this day. Their comments were thoughtful as was their participation at the event.
Regards,
Mark
This Week’s Attachments
General:
2008-2009 LREI Calendar
Eighth Grade:
Permission form to leave and reenter the building
DC Trip Registration Form
Seventh Grade:
Permission form to leave and reenter the building
Williamsburg Trip Registration Form
Fifth and Sixth Grade:
Ashokan Trip Registration Form
Of General Interest . . .
1) From Director of Advancement Pippa Gerard: Please see attached invitation to our Building for Action announcement, an essential moment in the future of the school, on September 24th at 6:00PM. We hope you will be able to attend.
2) From our librarians: Brooklyn Book Festival this Sunday, September 14th. LREI librarians recommend students and families check out speaker panels in the Youth category — some great authors will be speaking! Full details can be found at: http://www.brooklynbookfestival.org/
3) For updates on faculty performances, openings, presentations, and publications visit the Faculty in the News page on the school web site.
4) LREI is a member of NYC-Parents in Action (NYC-PIA). NYC-PIA provides parenting education, information and a communications network to help parents prepare their children and teenagers to cope with social pressures and to make sound choices towards a future free of alcohol and drug abuse. Please read the attached flyer to view their 2008-2009 calendar. You can also access their website at http://www.parentsinaction.org/.
For all grades . . .
1) Click here here to review revisions to the 2008-2009 Student & Family Handbook.
2) Click here to view examples of school-to-home letters.
3) Judo Team: We’re proud to announce that the LREI Judo club is now a competitive team! Practices will start this Friday, September 12th at the Thompson Street Athletic Center and will run from 3:30-5:30PM. There are no try-outs and all MS and HS students are welcome to join. Talk to head coach Larry Kaplan or assistant coaches Frank Portella and Victor Diggs if you need more information.
4) Middle School Chorus and Band—The Little Red Singers (grades 5-8) meets once a week on Tuesdays, 11:30AM-12:30PM. Lower School music teacher Ledell Mulvaney directs the chorus. The Middle school band (sixth-eighth grades) meets on Fridays from 2:15-3:15PM. We are in the process of identifying a practice day and time for fifth grade musicians. Middle School music teacher Matt McLean directs the band.
For Seventh and Eighth Grade Families . . .
1) As outlined in the handbook, seventh and eighth graders who want to leave the building after dismissal and then return to use the library or lab must have a signed permission form. Click here to download the form.
2) A reminder that students who intend to participate on athletic teams must submit a completed permission form. Click here for the permission form. I also encourage you to read the Sports Information Packet; it contains useful information about the philosophy and expectations of our athletic program. If you have questions contact Athletic Director Peter Fisher. Game schedules can be found at http://lrei.org/athletics/fallsports.html.
For Eighth Grade Families . . .
1) While the trip to DC is not until the spring, please use the attached form to register your child for the trip. If you have questions about payment, please do not hesitate to contact me.
For Seventh Grade Families . . .
1) If you have not done so already, please use the attached form to register your child for the upcoming Williamsburg trip. If you have questions about payment, please do not hesitate to contact me.
For Fifth and Sixth Grade Families . . .
1) Please note that the upcoming trip to Ashokan is scheduled for October 6-8 (not the September dates that appear in the Art Calendar). If you have not done so already, please complete and submit the trip registration and payment form. If you have questions about payment, please do not hesitate to contact me. Given that on the evening of the 8th some of you will be celebrating Yom Kippur, the trip is structured so that students will be back by 3:30PM.
2) The Middle School Intramural Soccer Program for fifth and sixth graders will begin on Monday, September 15th with practices on Monday and Wednesday mornings at 7:00AM at J.J. Walker Field on Carmine Street just west of Hudson. Students will be walked back to the school building after the practice. Click here for the permission form (you do not need to complete the travel page), which should be brought to the first practice. I also encourage you to read the Sports Information Packet; it contains useful information about the philosophy and expectations of our athletic program.
===============For additional information, follow these links: ===============
- View important middle school dates here.
- View all events with the LREI On-line Calendar
- LREI Athletics. For general LREI Athletics news go to this link . This page will provide general announcements, game summaries, league standings and season recaps.
- Click here to view the Middle School Photo Gallery.
A reminder that the individual homework blog and the “feeds” for every class can be accessed from the Digital Classroom link on the sidebar (you may want to bookmark this page for easy access). These feeds provide an easy “one-click” solution to find out what has been assigned for homework. Keep in mind that a feed will only show what has been posted as of the time you check it.
Don’t forget to check the LREI website for updates and other interesting school-related information.
Be well,
Mark