Dear LREI Community,
So while today was a fun-filled celebration of our founder, Elisabeth Irwin, I can’t help wishing that she had been around this week to see all that was going on in school, in her “experiment,” as she called it. Here is a sampling of this week’s activity:
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The first grade restaurant, The Musical Magnet Crepe Café. So delicious, so engaging, and so much real work going on. Cooking serving, planning, adding, creating, and delivering (a new addition).
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The third grade Lenape Village and old New Amsterdam. There is nothing like walking into a Lenape Village and asking our well-prepared third graders to explain the lives of the original Manhattanites about what life was like after the arrival of Peter Stuyvesant.
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The fifth grade tomb provided an opportunity for the newest middle schoolers to guide us on a tour of all that they have learned about the ancient world. They own all that they have learned. Did you know that the Romans wrote graffiti on Egyptian tombs? I didn’t either.
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Last week, as many of you read, the eighth graders shared their social justice projects with the whole middle school; the students created a whole day’s worth of programming, having spent weeks out in the world digging into real issues. Amazing. Check out their public service announcements in the Sixth Avenue lobby.
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The high school students spent the last three days participating in final assessments for the second trimester—tests, papers, projects, presentations, demonstrations of all they have achieved during this term. Nicely done!
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Finally, we are quite proud of the students who organized and participated in yesterday’s National School Walkout, and of all who participated in conversations about the walkout both before and after the event.(Check out #whatdowetellthekids on Instagram.)
Most of the experiences above began as experiments, all of them demonstrate moments when the students’ skill-building activities and mission-focused curriculum and projects come together– where we truly test the depth of the students’ understanding and their ability to apply what they have learned outside, in the “real” world, or through other means of engagement. This was EI’s plan. Learn a lot, learn deeply, learn through study, learn through application, be involved. Participate. Bring others along with you. The big events in the list above are examples of many more just like them that happen all year long. They are also the outgrowth of hundreds, thousands, of smaller, though at least equally important, moments in a child’s life as an LREI student. This is what we celebrate today. Kids in the center with learning swirling all around. A long-winded way of saying, we are grateful to Elisabeth Irwin and her progressive colleagues for creating schools where learning and achievement are so enriching.
Wishing you all the best on this Founders Day and for a wonderful Spring Break. See you in April.
Warmly,
