Lower School Notes

Modeling Lifelong Learning

One of the most significant lessons that I have learned over the years, mostly as a parent but also as an educator, is how important a child’s earliest experiences are in shaping who they become and how they approach their world throughout their lives. The interplay between a child’s individuality, as defined by their personality, their strengths, weaknesses and their affinities, and their environment begins as soon as they are born. Whether it is in the area of social and emotional development or attitudes toward learning, parents, as the primary role-models, are the most important constants in their environment. How they see you form and nurture friendships and respond to challenges are arguably the most important determinants of how they will come to respond to their world as they mature.

The objective of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives. - Robert Maynard Hutchins

Anyone who has more than one child has been surprised at how it is possible to have such different human beings emerge from the same mother and father. There are different energy levels, interests and personalities that become apparent almost immediately at birth, and they definitely do not always cleave across gender lines. As a parents of four (two boys and two girls), Melissa and I just shook our heads at how different they were, each having their own set of strengths and weakness that needed to be recognized and responded to.

It is not what you do for your children,
but what you have taught them to do for themselves, that will make them successful human beings. –Ann Landers

As they moved into their teens and twenties, it was interesting and sometimes unnerving to recognize in them different aspects of ourselves. Beyond physical appearance, one can catch glimpses of shared interests, personality traits, affinities, and yes, even weaknesses. Yet there are important similarities that we see in them as they have grown into adults.

Seniors shared their Halloween costumes with the
Lower School

If you want your children to turn out well, spend twice as much time with them,

and half as much money. –Abigail Van Buren

It is hard to generalize only from personal experiences, but adding more than 40 years of teaching, I venture to say that attitudes toward learning is an area that reflects parental modeling more than the individual differences in children. We have seen in our own children very similar positive, adventurous, problem-solving approaches toward learning and life, expressed, of course, in ways that reflect their own individuality.

The times when learning was front loaded into the first quarter century of life are long gone. The ability to be a lifelong learner is now an essential requirement. I encourage you to generously share with your children how you work through new situations that require learning and problem-solving. Take the time to age-appropriately describe and unfold the process for them as you make choices in planting a garden, decide between a gas or hybrid vehicle purchase and respond to new opportunities as well as setbacks. Even the youngest children can absorb your attitudes toward meeting challenges. It is most important for them to see you react to change as something normal, expected, positive and full of exciting opportunities. Problem-solving requires research, and research requires learning and decision making. As often as possible, involve your children in your own lifelong learning. This gift will most definitely last their lifetime.

Who knows, one day you may even recognize your approach to learning and life in your grandchildren.

This is a science class! Why are these third-graders leading a cheer??

This third-grade class decided to perform an experiment to see what might be an effective way to promote healthy eating in kindergartners. They decided to promote carrot eating and made a plan to measure the effects of two different approaches. Their hypothesis was that using a catchy song, would encourage more students to try carrots than simply talking about how healthy they are. They learned the importance of only changing a single variable, how to collect data (# of students willing to eat an offered carrot), and how to analyze and interpret data and realize that they could not make too firm a conclusion based on a small sample size. This was all while, in groups, they were creating their jingles and routines. Ask them what they got out of it and they correctly used the words hypothesis, variable, data, analysis and sample size. They certainly enjoyed the creative process, promoted something they value - eating healthy from the garden, and they discovered, using their limited sample size, that their creativity seemed to lead to a bump in carrot-trying in kindergarten!

This kind of experiential learning about what scientists do and what it feels like to design and conduct an interesting experiment is in stark contrast to the textbook-based, content heavy science instruction that was the focus of most of our own science education.

A West African Music Assembly

Valerie Naranjo, Barry Olsen and Ba-ere Yoteri played West African music for last week's Lower School assembly, accompanied by Robert Levin and four of his 7th and 8th grade drumming students, three of whom learned West African drumming when they were in our 5th grade.

Everyone got into the action! And it continued in a third-grade music class that followed.

There is a new Preschool 4 Blog Post.

Help the C.O.D.E.S (Community Outreach of Dwight Englewood School) club collect food for our annual Thanksgiving food drive!

The drive will be going from November 4th to November 24th. All food will go to the Center For Food Action, then given out to local communities and families. Some examples of items we collect are: