Excellence in education

I recently was able to attend a conference at the University of Washington called Excellence in K-12 Education: Lessons from Finland and Washington. It was a most inspirational and informative day, filled with a variety of stimulating speakers, but I was particularly intrigued by Vivien Stewart, Vice President of the Asia Society and author of A World Class Education, who discussed the common features of school systems around the world who consistently produce exceptional students. These systems exist all over the globe and vary considerably in some ways - after all, they are all products of the cultures they inhabit. Yet they all have a few commonalities, a significant one being the professionalism of their teachers.

In these highly successful school systems, teachers are given ample time and support both to pursue professional development off campus and to observe and collaborate with one another - to learn from the expertise already available on campus. This is something we do at OWS for which I am most grateful! In addition to being able to regularly attend conferences and training that help us remain current in our fields, we also engage in observations of our colleagues. Last week I saw a wonderful 4th grade lesson taught by our Drama Specialist, Ms. Edwards, in which students creatively re-enacted poems, complete with props.

Today I watched a 5th grade Humanities lesson by Ms. Russell about transmogrification in which students took familiar nursery rhymes and cleverly rephrased them, injecting them with vocabulary that had more pizzazz. They practiced creative writing for sure - but also respectful listening, public speaking and the offering of constructive feedback as they took turns volunteering to share their work.

Here is just one example produced by a young man without the aid of dictionary or thesaurus. See if you can guess which classic nursery rhyme he transmogrified! (Click on the link to see if you were right!)

Females and males, come out to perform recreational activities / The lunar cosmic debris pulled together by gravity orbiting the earth is reflecting sunlight of many lumens / Abandon your potential energy in the form of calories served in the evening / Abandon your state of mind in which your consciousness is dormant while your unconscious organizes information / And come with your peers into the pathway on which automobiles roam.

Don't you love it?

Learning & growing

Students are not the only ones who get to learn interesting new things! I feel very fortunate to work in a school where professional development for teachers is so strongly supported. In the past 10 days I've had exposure to a number of incredible, inspirational minds!

I got to spend the first weekend in October at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, the oldest town in Tennessee. Thousands of people from all over the US and abroad showed up to hear an incredible line-up of diverse storytellers sharing everything from traditional Lakota tales to memories of Okinawans who survived the second World War to family stories from rural 1950s North Carolina. Storytelling is a wonderful vehicle for instruction in the classroom - as well as being an activity that teaches students a variety of skills connected to those all-important executive function traits. I do storytelling with students regularly in addition to reading books, and in the upper elementary grades also give them opportunities to practice these skills themselves. Attending the festival gave me the chance to learn at the feet of masters and gain inspiration for my program here at OWS.

This past Friday was the PNAIS Fall Educators' Conference at Annie Wright School in Tacoma. It was a day packed with incredible speakers! I was especially impressed by Kathryn Schulz, who spoke about her book Being Wrong; Rob Evans, an entertaining and engaging speaker who talked about risk and resilience; and Ashley Merryman, whose writing I have enjoyed for some time and whose work always challenges me to reconsider my "obvious" assumptions.

I highly recommend all of the above authors! And if you are interested in storytelling, check out events sponsored by the Seattle Storytellers Guild, or do a keyword search of the public library catalog for "storytelling" with "book on CD" as your material type.

Lighting Their Fires

As a parent and an educator, one of my personal heroes is Rafe Esquith, an extraordinarily dedicated and gifted teacher and writer whose students are known worldwide for their achievements.

Last week I finished listening to the audio version of his latest book, Lighting Their Fires: Raising Extraordinary Children in a Mixed-up, Muddled-up, Shook-up World, which talks to parents and teachers about concrete, specific things they can do to help their children soar.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough, along with his other works and the documentary about his classroom, The Hobart Shakespeareans, available to borrow from the public library.

While Esquith is a truly incredible human being who I can only dream of one day emulating, what shines through all his work is a deep humanity and desire to help children shine. If you are not already familiar with him, do yourself and your child a favor and check out his latest work.