New York Times article- Middle School Stakes

The New York Times ran an article today highlighting parent's concerns in Manhattan regarding picking the "right" middle school. I began chuckling when I read about one parent's "bathroom test" for schools, in which she stakes out a stall, closes the door, and then monitors all that she hears as students come and go.

Although this provides a humorous visual, I imagine that she is desperately trying to get a sense of the second family that will be holding her child for the next few years. I was also interested with the strikingly different school attributes that concerned students (lockers) and parents (academics).

Underlying all of this is the fear of the unknown and no basis for trusting that the schools have students' best interests at heart, coupled with the knowledge that middle school is a foundational experience that can have a dramatic affect on student's life.

I am hopeful that Park families don't have to know this level of anxiety.

December Head's Letter

Invictus
William Ernest Henley
1849–1903

OUT of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance	5
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,	10
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:	15
I am the captain of my soul.

In this climate, it is natural to wonder about the institutions upon which we rely, and I feel it is important to address some of the specific concerns that I imagine you might have.

In October I wrote about The Park School’s fundamentals in light of the gathering financial downturn and posited a value proposition that has served Park families for nearly one hundred years: our ability to deliver a high quality, individualized, and experientially based education that transforms students into the person that they are meant to be. Since then, the economy has continued to decline and the country’s collective attention is now focused daily on financial matters as they lead the news. In this climate, it is natural to wonder about the institutions upon which we rely, and I feel it is important to address some of the specific concerns that I imagine you might have.

Is the school financially viable? Yes. Like all independent schools, the downturn has affected our endowment and raises concerns regarding enrollment and charitable giving. With this in mind, we are making very conservative assumptions when developing next year’s budget. However, we are committed to living within our means and are blessed with strong financial stewardship at the board level. Park has a history of delivering a high-quality education within relatively lean fiscal constraints. While we are working hard to lift some of these constraints in the future, they have also provided us with a sense of financial discipline that will prove valuable as we negotiate this downturn.

Will the school’s fundamental mission or program change? No. As we build next year’s budget, we have made preserving the strength of our educational program a priority. We are committed to maintaining the high quality education that we provide your children and will make all possible efforts to avoid budget cuts that affect our fundamentals.

Will aid continue to be available for those in need? Yes. We remain committed to providing well-qualified students access to the school, and 2009-2010 will most likely yield a slight increase in our financial aid budget in anticipation of increased need. While specific financial aid amounts are determined on a case-by-case basis, the odds are good that if a family’s financial situation has stayed at a steady state or declined, Park will be able to match or marginally increase its current level of support. As always, we will be following principles of best practice for financial aid as defined by the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) to ensure that we are scrupulously fair when making decisions regarding aid.

Will tuition increase? Yes. We have historically factored a tuition increase into our budget models, and this year a modest tuition increase will most likely be necessary to develop a balanced budget. Further, tuition alone does not capture the entire value of a Park School education, which is annually supplemented by charitable giving, endowment income, and other sources of revenue. Unfortunately, these revenue sources are particularly unpredictable in the current economy, and we hope to offset their volatility with a predictable increase in tuition revenue.

Are students applying? Yes. Enrollment is one of the keys to our financial health, and inquiries, shadows, and applications continue to come into our admissions office at a rate comparable to years past. Our new admissions team has a realistic goal of holding enrollment steady for next year and is continually adjusting their efforts to match market conditions in order to hopefully meet or exceed this goal. It is also important to note that we will not allow the financial crisis to compromise our admissions standards. In those instances where Park is not a fit for a student or family that seek us out, we will maintain our integrity regarding our beliefs about whom we can and cannot serve.

Are people giving? Yes. Charitable giving to Park remains strong this year and on par with our historic norms. We are tremendously grateful for the financial loyalty and support that we have received from current and past parents, alumni, trustees and other friends. Since the Annual Fund provides important support to the school's annual budget, including our financial aid program which supports our richly diverse student body, we urge all Park community members to show once again the outstanding participation rates that you did last year and make your gift.

What can I do to support the school in these difficult times? We know that our families understand that a Park education is an investment in their child’s future, and hope that you will continue to prioritize the school as you develop your own family budgets. I also encourage you to be as transparent and proactive as possible regarding any concerns or needs that your family may have. Finally, a fully enrolled school is the best inoculation that we have from the immediate effects of this financial downturn, as well as the most direct path to strengthening the long-term health of the school. Word-of-mouth is a powerful thing, and now more than ever we need our families to recommend Park to others.

What will the school do to support me in these difficult times? Above all, we will continue to deliver on our mission while providing a sense of normalcy for the students in our care, insulating them from any heightened sense of chaos that this crisis might bring to the world outside our campus. We will do these things not as a reaction to current financial concerns, but because our calm competence is part of the fundamentals that you have come to rely on. As always, we will remain a committed ally that is, and will always remain, dedicated to the transformative education of your children.

We are the masters of our fate. Together we shall prevail.

Master Class with Roman Mekinulov

Roman Mekinlov, the principal cellist of the BPO, visited us this week to hold a master class with the upper school string ensemble in preparation for the winter concert, where he and his wife Sebnem will be featured soloists.

ROMAN MEKINULOV WORKING WITH THE ENSEMBLE...

It was eye opening for me to watch Roman as he worked with our young musicians. As you might expect, his musicianship is impeccable and inspirational. But more interesting to me was the demonstrable improvement in the ensemble's performance that resulted from the polite yet firm way that he led the class.

...AND DEMONSTRATING MASTER MUSICIANSHIP

Music provides very clear and immediate feedback and professional musicians are used to maximizing their rehearsal time, so Mr. Mekinlov's expectations were very clear ("You are flat, please be sure that you are playing the right note...") and very immediate ("Stop!...now play it pianisimo, as written, from measure 20, Ready? Go...). The orchestra responded by raising their level of performance to meet the standard that he articulated and then reinforced through his own playing.

I must confess that I sometimes soften or delay the feedback that I give to others out of concern that it might somehow be hurtful to their self-esteem or damaging to our relationship, particularly when I am working with students. Roman's "polite but firm" approach reminded me that this might not always be the smart path to helping others improve.

A New Hamlin Garden

Mr. Deitzer's math class planted a new garden during our fall clean up day. This was the culmination of a math unit that sought to maximize the number of plants that could fit into the planting bed. Students were given a modest budget and then asked to factor in cost per plant as well as the geometry of the space to determine what should be planted and where plants should be sited.

Campus Clean-Up Day!

As I walk around campus and snap pictures, I am inadvertently building a time-stamped record of life at Park. The current view from my office window looks like this:

But I opened up my iPhoto library today and found a set of pictures from our fall campus cleanup in October, when the campus looked like this:


and this...

and this...



A great afternoon of physical labor that had the whole campus involved in raking leaves, painting fences, pulling weeds, and planting 250 narcissus bulbs that will greet us in the spring.

Obama's Choice

Washington D.C. independent schools were abuzz a few weeks back as the Obamas were making their decision about which school their daughters Malia and Natasha would be attending.

There was quite a bit of energy in the media around which independent school the President-elect’s family would choose, and some rather pointed digs at the independent school parent culture of Washington D.C. However, I was struck by the fact that there was very little public discourse about whether the Obamas should be selecting an independent school at all, or if they should be investigating the D.C. public schools for their daughters. (To be fair, there is a lot of energy around this topic in the “blogosphere”.)

When President Clinton was making a similar decision in the mid-90s, he sought out the advice of Al Shanker, the legendary president of the United Federation of Teachers, to see how choosing an independent school would play politically. My understanding of Mr. Shanker’s response was that he counseled the Clinton’s to choose a school that would best serve Chelsea’s needs and forget about the politics of the situation. They wound up choosing Sidwell Friends, the same school where the Obama girls will begin in January.

President-elect Obama’s choice was most likely less fraught with political meaning given the fact that he is a product of the Punaho School and his daughters are currently enrolled in the Chicago Lab School, both independent schools. It is also worth mentioning that John McCain is also a product of an independent school (The Episcopal School) as is President Bush (Kinkaid & Philips Academy). Both Mr. McCain and Mr. Bush sent their children to independent or private schools as well.

As the head of an independent school, I am attuned to the fact that our graduates tend to be disproportionately represented in the top tiers of leadership of our nation’s public and private institutions. Arguably, this fact has as much to do with the demographics of the families that choose an independent school as it does with the education that we provide. This said, I also have some sense that part of my job is to acknowledge a sense of noblesse oblige and to help our students become people of integrity, given the positions that they will occupy later in life.

As a citizen and a proud product of public schools, I long ago made an uneasy pact with myself regarding my choice to work in independent schools. Quite simply, the way we “do school” offers the fewest constraints and offers me the greatest freedom to be an effective educator. I hasten to add that there are many talented public educators who are very effective despite the constraints in which they work – I simply did not feel I was cut out to “do battle” on a daily basis.

Last year I sent my daughter to public school for kindergarten rather than my school, partly because I espouse a belief in public education. Unfortunately, when I compared and contrasted the education that she was receiving with what she could have had at Brimmer and May, I found my beliefs as a citizen were in tension with my concerns as a parent. She is now enrolled at The Park School as a first grader, and I am much less conflicted about my choice.

Which reminds me of a story. Years ago a publicly prominent father was going through the admissions process at an independent school. This was a person whose public beliefs would suggest that he should have been a champion for public education, and the admissions officer asked him why he was looking at an independent school. He responded that the local public district was going through some turmoil with budget cuts and restructuring and, as much as he believed in public education, his child was “not an experiment.”

Thanksgiving at Park

We had a fantastic Thanksgiving Feast and Assembly at Park. Below I have posted the text of my Thanksgiving remarks. More importantly, students throughout the school gathered food for those less fortunate including 500 pounds of canned goods for the City Mission and a full thanksgiving meal for the clients of Compass House.

MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS PEALING POTATOES AND MAKING STUFFING FOR THE THANKSGIVING MEALS DONATED TO COMPASS HOUSE
---

Thanksgiving 2008

Thanksgiving is both a time for personal reflection and a communal opportunity. As a shared holiday, the day has a complex history that should be examined from multiple perspectives. In its earliest origins it can be seen as an extension of traditional native celebrations of thanksgiving to the Creator; and it can be seen as a treaty celebrated between Wampanoags and pilgrims who were thankful for the sustaining knowledge that they had received; and, regrettably, it can be seen as a historical inflection point that marks the beginning of the demise of indigenous peoples and the rise of the Europeans who supplanted them.

Later in our national history, the day of Thanksgiving provided our forbearers an opportunity to focus on all that they held in common as a people. President Lincoln used this to great effect during the Civil War, elevating the day to a national holiday and calling on a fractured nation to pause, reflect, and hold itself together in the eyes of the rest of the world. In 1939, during the Great Depression, President Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving up a week to provide a longer period of holiday shopping in an attempt to stimulate the economy.

I am sure the older folks in the room can appreciate the parallels between these points in our history and today, and I want to close this assembly with an excerpt from a poem called "The Volunteer's Thanksgiving," written by Lucy Larcom in the 19th century. The poem describes a young Union soldier during the Civil War, not much older than some of us in the room, who is celebrating his Thanksgiving on a Southern battlefield, and is very much missing his family in the North.

If you close your eyes you might be able to imagine him thinking about his far away family, as he sit in a strange land…


They 're sitting at the table this clear Thanksgiving noon;
I smell the crispy turkey, the pies will come in soon,--
The golden squares of pumpkin, the flaky rounds of mince,
Behind the barberry syrups, the cranberry and the quince.

Be sure my mouth does water,--but then I am content
To stay and do the errand on which I have been sent.
A soldier must n't grumble at salt beef and hard-tack:
We 'll have a grand Thanksgiving if ever we get back!

I 'm very sure they 'll miss me at dinner-time to-day,
For I was good at stowing their provender away.
When mother clears the table, and wipes the platters bright,
She 'll say, "I hope my baby don't lose his appetite!"

O dear! the air grows sultry: I 'd wish myself at home
Were it a whit less noble, the cause for which I 've come.
Four years ago a school-boy; as foolish now as then!
But greatly they don't differ, I fancy,--boys and men.

I 'm just nineteen to-morrow, and I shall surely stay
For Freedom's final battle, be it until I 'm gray,
Unless a Southern bullet should take me off my feet.--
There 's nothing left to live for, if Rebeldom should beat;

For home and love and honor and freedom are at stake,
And life may well be given for our dear Union's sake;
So reads the Proclamation, and so the sermon ran;
Do ministers and people feel it as soldiers can?

When will it all be ended? 'T is not in youth to hold
In quietness and patience, like people grave and old:
A year? three? four? or seven?--O then, when I return,
Put on a big log, mother, and let it blaze and burn,

And roast your fattest turkey, bake all the pies you can,
And, if she is n't married, invite in Mary Ann!
Hang flags from every window! we 'll all be glad and gay,
For Peace will light the country on that Thanksgiving Day.

Soon after this was written, peace did indeed return to the country, and I wish us all this same peace as we leave today to enjoy our family celebrations.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all.

Euclid Says

A few weeks back I came across a geometry class playing "Euclid Says" in the circle. Turns out that one of their reviews for an upcoming exam consisted of using their bodies to represent aspects of Euclidean geometry, as called out by Mrs. Giancola.

I hear and I forget
I listen and I understand
I do and I remember

Healthy Competition

I recently attended a charter school fair that received some press from the Buffalo News. I was a little surprised that this event received the attention that it did, as similar "next schools" events have become fairly standard in communities where there is robust competition and a market effect around educational options.

When I did my graduate work in the late 1990s, one of the research projects that I worked on was a study of the nascent charter school movement in New Jersey soon after a charter school law was put in place. I personally had the opportunity to visit many of the original 13 schools that were founded in 1996 and our research team conducted extensive interviews with constituents from these schools in an attempt to tease out what their existence might do to the educational landscape.

At the time, one of the conclusions we reached was:

"The results of charter schools should be considered as a whole. The charter school movement should not be celebrated with one or two schools that stand out as shining stars, nor should it be damned by one or two abysmal disappointments. Beyond the constituents of the schools, success of failure needs to be measured, in part, by the impact of charter schools on the wider educational system. Charter schools touch the core of our nation's most pressing problems of equity and excellence -- issues that warrant our most thoughtful consideration." 1

In the ten years since this study, the original 13 schools have expanded t0 62 schools, and all but one are still in operation. Proof to me that charter schools are a "game-changer" for district schools, and that there is a hunger for small, "independent public schools," that will make good on their promise of trading autonomy from state regulations and union forces for accountability for results. I met a lot of good people and excellent educators when conducting this study, which helped me to understand that public schools are not intentionally monolithic, but instead seemed to be yoked under historical and bureaucratic structures that they can't seem to shake off.

Will charter schools ultimately pose real competition to independent schools like Park? I think it is too early to tell, as many of these schools focus on under-served student populations and still don't fully enjoy the wide freedoms or all of the experience and resources that flow from independent schools' long history.

Regardless, long ago I made an uneasy peace with that fact that I serve a population that already has so much. I believe that doing so allows me to do my best work, in partnership with families who have both the will and the resources to provide the best possible education for their children. I wish that I could provide this standard of education to everyone, because all of us want what's best for our children.

I can't, but perhaps charter schools bring us all one step closer.

1. New Jersey Charter Schools: The First Year 1997-1998, Professor Pearl Rock Kane, et. al., Teachers College, Columbia University

MS Teachers Present at National Conference

Middle School teachers Jennifer Kwiatek and Martha Barrett recently presented at the annual convention of the National Association for Gifted Children in Tampa, Florida. Their topic was the integration of creativity skills into a middle school “biome” unit, and the change in quality that seem to occur in student learning when these skills were integrated.

This particular unit was originally taught in 2006, with students simply being encouraged to “be creative.” In the interim, Mrs. Kwiatek was trained in Creative Studies at Buffalo State, and she incorporated this training when the unit was being planned for spring of 2008.

This time, rather than directing students to be creative, the unit emphasized teaching students how to be creative using the Torrance Incubation Model (TIM), a framework for designing lessons that enhances students’ creative thinking skills. This model consists of three stages:

1. Heighten Anticipation: creating the desire to know and arouse curiosity
2. Deepen Expectations: sustaining the motivation created and encourage deeper exploration of a topic
3. Extend Learning: keeping it going even after the lesson is over

The following skills are associated with this model:

• Find the Problem - recognition or awareness of a situation
• Produce and Consider Many Alternatives - generating many and varied ideas
• Be Flexible - perceiving a problem in different perspectives
• Be Original - moving away from the obvious
• Highlight the Essence - identifying what is most important and absolutely essential
• Elaborate – but not Excessively - adding details or ideas and developing themKeep Open - resisting premature closure
• Be Aware of Emotions - recognizing verbal and non-verbal cues
• Put Your Ideas in Context - putting experiences together in a meaningful way and making connections
• Combine and Synthesize - combining relatively unrelated elements
• Visualize It – Richly and Colourfully - using vivid and exciting imagery
• Enjoy and Use Fantasy - imagine, play and consider things that are not concrete or do not exist
• Make it Swing – Make it Ring! - responding to sound and movement
• Look at it Another Way - being able to see things from a different visual or psychological perspective
• Visualize the Inside - paying attention to the internal dynamic of things
• Breakthrough – Extend the Boundaries - thinking outside prescribed requirements
• Let Humor Flow and Use It - perceiving incongruity and responding to a surprise
• Get Glimpses of the Future – wonder and dream about possibilities

In applying this model and these skills, among the approaches that Mrs. Barrett and Mrs. Kwiatek employed was asking students to determine why exploring Biomes might be important to their learning; brainstorming activities for teaching others about biomes; and making future predictions based upon past and present knowledge (to learn this skill, students began by making past, present, and future predictions regarding Mrs. Barrett!).

The result? Both units involved creating biomes and touring various grades through these biomes. The 2008 unit offered these enhancements:

• The creation of biomes involved the use of a much wider variety of material used in much more creative fashion than in 2006
• The focus on predicting the future condition of a biome encouraged higher level thinking than the previous unit
• Tour speeches were scripted for the new unit with a focus on information that would keep audience attention
• The unit eased the students into the material by heightening their anticipation and extended the learning after the guided tours
• Included activities that promoted reasoning, predicting, analyzing, and drawing conclusions
• Creativity was explicitly taught rather than expected

As often happens at Park, student provided a valuable assessment of the new unit:

“The 5th and 6th grade biome project was creative because, any teacher could have you research a biome, but we had to recreate the biome in a selected area. We had to be creative and use everything in our area to recreate our biome. On top of that we had to dress like we would if we were actually in that biome. We were required to explain different aspects of our biome and present to the elementary school, parents, and anyone who wanted to come and see what we did. This was a very memorable experience, especially because it was interesting to learn in a creative, and fun way. I got a lot out of this experience…”

~ Julian, Grade 5

Park School on WGRZ

Many thanks to some of our intrepid Parkies, who gathered at 6:00 a.m. at Spot Coffee to tell the world (well, Buffalo at least) about our open house. As always, our students are often our most eloquent supporters.

November Head's Letter

THE SECOND FAMILY

“Teenagers today have little reason to attach themselves to their parents or other adults. Most of their needs – to connect, to belong, and to communicate – are satisfied by members of their second family.”- Dr. Ron Taffel

I was recently reminded that one of the strengths of a school like Park is our ability to shape a student body through the admissions process, and that one of the seldom talked about benefits to independent school families is the knowledge that our sons and daughters spend their days with students who share similar broad goals (a focus on authentic learning and, ultimately, college preparation) and worldviews (a respect for self and others). This seems particularly important in a world where children often appear to be raising themselves and each other with less and less input from adults.

When I was growing up, the greatest predictor of my success was who my parents were and how they chose to raise me. Today, the greatest predictor of success for the children we serve is whom they choose to hang out with. At least this is the prevailing wisdom among many child psychologists and adolescent health researchers, including Dr. Ron Taffel, whose book The Second Family: How Adolescent Power is Challenging the American Family has been in my thoughts lately.

Taffel makes the case that teenagers’ peer groups and pop culture are the dominant forces shaping their development, and he cites a host of cultural shifts that he believes gave rise to the “second family” phenomenon. Among these he includes an ever-increasing consumer culture that exerts a “tyranny of cool” that relentlessly markets to ever-younger children, a lack of “undivided” attention from parents, constant external stimulation, a sense of “entitlement” to be heard and respected, and a culture of “comfort-seeking” among teens.

These theories grow out of Taffel’s work as a therapist and he mostly supports them with anecdotal case studies from his practice. As such, I am leery of generalizing them to the entire “tween” and teenage population. However, much of his thinking seems to echo what we are learning about the “millennial” generation (those born between 1980 and 2000) and some of the attitudes they are bringing to the workforce: a need for constant personal validation, an inflated sense of self that belies experience or ability, a strong drive to please others, a demand for work/life balance, and an expectation that they should receive immediate rewards from their work. (For more on millennials, see Ron Alsops’s Trophy Kids: How the Millennial Generation Is Shaking Up the Workplace.)

Taffel believes that adolescent culture mimics adult culture, often taking its least appealing aspects to extremes. He posits that the current mantra of adolescent culture is “to be comfortable” rather than to rebel against authority or change the world, as it was when baby boomers came of age. Therefore, the predominant guiding ethic for today’s young adult is less “I am my brother’s keeper” and more “live and let live” unless someone else’s actions will have a direct impact upon one’s personal comfort. While I think Taffel is too monolithic in his thinking, particularly in light of the historic presidential election we just lived through, I must admit that some of his case studies seem to describe particular students whom I have worked with throughout my career, and that I found myself nodding along as he presented the more destructive forces in modern youth culture.

I am struck by the fact that Park School feels downright counter-cultural when contrasted to the world that Taffel presents. In our own way we comprise a second family for our students, but one that I trust is thoughtful and positive in nature. Park has a culture where student and adults interact in a very natural way, and we hold each other accountable to a set of core beliefs. We do believe that we are our brother or sister’s keeper, and that we should respect others as much as we respect our self and value service to others above self-service. We put more value on collaboration and cooperation within the context of our very real community of learners than we do on individual competition, particularly if it will be measured against the abstraction of standardized norms on a statewide test. We believe in a multigenerational approach to education that helps replicate our culture, and I am continually amazed at how well our older students model the school’s values and beliefs for our younger students.

In the language of our mission statement, this sense of belonging to community begins with our youngest learners and follows all the way through to our graduates, who leave with the skills essential to college success and the confidence and wisdom to serve and lead lives as good citizens after their formal schooling has concluded. This is the type of second family that harkens back to the close-knit neighborhood and back-fence conversations of my youth. This is the type of second family that inspires me to work tirelessly on its behalf. This is the type of second family that bonds alumni to one another years after they have left our campus. This is the type of second family I want for my own children.

As I bow my head in reflection during this season of thanksgiving, this is what I am thankful for.

Download a PDF of this letter

Lisa Earle McLeod in the Buffalo News

I came across the following quote in an opinion piece, Daring to Do What You Love, written by Ms. Mcleod:

"In today’s high stakes test environment, I’m amazed at how little time schools are allowed to devote toward self-discovery. It’s all about being good at everything and how well you do on the test.

Yet a lack of true self-knowledge is why so many people slog along in the wrong careers for decades. Personally, I think schools would be better off giving a Myers Briggs or similar personality test to the kids before they start asking them to chart out their entire lives"

This reminded me of what I am learning in my entry interviews. A common theme that has emerged is that Park has historically provided students both the freedom and the support to, in the words of one respondent, "discover who I am meant to be," and the self-confidence to then become that person. Heady stuff.

Election Day at Park

The Upper School Student Government sponsored a wonderful Election Day at Park. Students had an opportunity to cast their votes in a booth custom-built by students and faculty, and were given a choice between voting the Democratic, Republican, or Independent candidates.

MS. AJA EXPLAINS THE VOTING PROCESS TO THE FIRST GRADE

The process was replicated in fourth grade as well, allowing our lower school students to exercise some Chicago-style politics ("vote early and often"). The voting process represents the culmination of myriad lessons and conversations that have been happening through the school regarding this historic election.

MRS. WOODS EXPLAINS VOTING ETIQUETTE TO A SECOND GRADER

At the end of the day the upper school ballot, which consisted of several long rolls of craft paper, was analyzed by upper school students. As much as they had thought through the design of the process and as clearly as they thought they had explained it, students were surprised that they had some voting irregularities. The true implications of "Butterfly Ballots" and "hanging chads" became very real.

BALLOTS UNROLLED AND READY FOR ANALYSIS

Nonetheless, the USSG was able to quickly announce the following statistics:

87% of Park students voted
5% voted for an Independent candidate
21% voted for the Republican candidate
75% voted for the Democratic candidate

VIDEO: Where I Came From...

On my last day at Brimmer and May I toured through the school with a video camera to record the physical space where I worked for six years...

On Current Events

As I was sitting through our 10th grade history class today the current events conversation turned to news of the recent uncovering of a plot against Barack Obama's life. I was duly impressed by both our students' grasp of current events and Ms. Aja's deft weaving of the historical perspective that the assassinations of JFK, MLK jr., and RFK give to this type of news.

I was also struck by how poignant this election is for our students. One of the comments that will stick with me: "My mom asked an older gentleman on our block whether he would vote for Obama. He told her to 'leave that man alone before he gets killed too.'"

For some of our students, history is an abstraction. For others, it is an immediate and living thing.

Exploring Buffalo

BUFFALO CITY HALL

A while back I was able to tag along with yet another Earth Spirit adventure. Last time I was able to shadow the 1st grade. This time the fourth grade visited Buffalo's City Hall and other historic buildings. Once more, Mr. Scott served as our faithful guide and taught us quite a bit about the history of city hall and of Buffalo.

Did you know? At a cost of nearly 7 million dollars to build in 1929, Buffalo's city hall is one of the most expensive city halls in the country. It is also one of the tallest city hall buildings in the nation. There is quite a bit of artwork to be found around the Art Deco building, including a frieze of a historian ready to record the next 100 years of Buffalo's history. (Click here to find out more).

THE MAYOR'S OFFICE!

While we just missed Mayor Brown, his staff was gracious enough to let us visit his office for a few minutes! We very much enjoyed all the history on the walls and spending a few minutes with his fish. We also had a nice chat with the President of the Common Council, Mr. David Franczyk. and the visited the council chambers.

THE COMMON COUNCIL CHAMBERS

We ate lunch at the top of City Hall and were treated to wonderful views of the city. Then we took a walking tour, including a visit to the Grover Cleveland's statue outside City Hall.

STATUE OF GROVER CLEVELAND
34th Mayor of Buffalo (1882)
28th Governor of New York (1883-1885)
22 and 24th President of the United States (1885-1889)(1893-1897)

I very much enjoyed the field trip, and was delighted to discover that a few days later the downtown Buffalo skyline began to take shape in the 4th grade room. Note the radial "hub and spoke" layout upon which the city is founded (as is Washington D.C.). A very powerful way of making our local community come alive for our fourth grade friends.

ALUMNI PROFILE: Heather Marks Palmer, '83

Over Columbus Day weekend I had opportunity to visit with two alumni in Vermont, Patricia Burns Richardson, '58 and Heather Palmer Marks, '83. I love speaking with alumni as our conversations let me experience Park vicariously and give me insight into how our school has helped shape lives, and I very much enjoyed my time with both Pat and Heather.

In speaking with Heather, I was particularly struck by the fact that Park seemed like it was absolutely the "right" fit for her. Heather, who is dyslexic, came to Park as a lower school student. She found, she said, a community that was "mindful and kind." Not all students may need a school that concentrates its efforts on individualized instruction and attempts to conform to their specific learning style or needs, but for those who do a school like Park can make all the difference.

HEATHER MARKS PALMER, '83

Heather is now the president of Creative Pages, a graphic design and print production firm based in Stowe, with core clients in the national textbook and educational resources market. In response to an expanding business, Heather recently designed and constructed an environmentally friendly building that houses her studio. This expansion drew accolades from the local community, including a visit from the governor of Vermont. Despite the economic downturn Heather has just hired an additional five employees and is beginning to diversify her clientele.

CREATIVE PAGES Inc.

Current students might be interested to know that Heather did not find her design career until after she graduated from Boston University with a degree in International Relations. Like so many things in life, her current position is the result of circumstance -- a chance visit with some friends in Vermont, a friendship with someone in the publishing industry, and a feel for the work -- coupled with a foundation that provided her with the confidence, ability, and drive to succeed.

SOME OF HEATHER'S WORK

SATs and ACTs May Go MIA

A recent New York Times article reported on a report from a college admissions panel charged with studying the reliance and impact of tests like the SAT and ACT on the college admissions process. The panel, chaired by Harvard's dean of admissions, William Fitzsimmons, recommended that colleges "move away from their reliance on SAT and ACT scores and shift toward admissions exams more closely tied to the high school curriculum and achievement."

The article noted that over the last few years many colleges have moved towards a "SAT/ACT optional" stance in their admissions process and pointed out many of the inherent flaws in the current SAT and ACT exams and their precursors, the PSAT and PLAN.

To me, the biggest flaw in these exams is that they are better predictors of a family's social economic status than they are of whether a student will be successful in college -- which is what they were originally designed to do.

A few days later the Times reported that Fitzsimmon's presentation regarding SATs and ACTs at this year's National Association for College Admissions Counseling conference (NACAC) was a huge draw for admissions officers and high school counselers alike. The article implied that the panel's recommendation were lauded by the group and reflected the reality of the admissions process, at least for those in attendance.

Yet, sadly, at the end of the presentation admissions officers in the room were asked whether their school's would follow these recommendations and become SAT/ACT optional or do away with exams altogether. Most responded that they would not.

Regardless of the future of these exams, schools like Park are afflicted with the same type of schizophrenia as we get caught between the "college preparatory" and "progressive" aspects of our mission. As a college preparatory school, we have an obligation to make sure that students are fairly represented in the process as compared to other students who attend college preparatory school, which includes having them do well on standardized exams. As a progressive school, we believe that standardized tests are dubious measures of student learning and achievement.

A few years ago Harvard changed the college admissions process by deciding to phase out early admissions, which caused other colleges to rexamine their early decision/early action policies. If they should decide to do the same with SAT and ACTs, they might once again shift the playing field for admissions.

A Fantastic Day at Griffis Sculpture Park

The 5th Grade visited Griffis Sculpture Park today and I got to tag along. Our guide, "Mr. Jamie" is both an artist and a naturalist, and was one of the most gifted docents I have ever encountered.


We packed a lot into the day: here we learned about found-object sculpture (this "egg" was created from shipping pallets)...

...and about Staghorn Sumac, which contains three times more Vitamin C than an orange, but tastes kind of bitter (yes, we tried it!)...

...and about "Gunface" a sculptor's visual protest of inner-city violence...

...and a more whimsical steel tower set out in the middle of a pasture, "just because"...

...and about negative space. This piece is made from sheets of metal left over from stamping auto parts (you can see the outline of brake pads in one of the sides)...


... finally, we learned how to be living pieces of art. A great day in the field!

Alfie Kohn on Progressive Education and Teaching and Learning

In a recent Education Week commentary, It's Not What We Teach, It's What They Learn, author Alfie Kohn writes:

"The fact is that real learning often can’t be quantified, and a corporate-style preoccupation with 'data' turns schooling into something shallow and lifeless. Ideally, attention to learning signifies an effort to capture how each student makes sense of the world, so we can meet them where they are. 'Teaching,' as Deborah Meier has reminded us, 'is mostly listening.' (It’s the learners, she adds, who should be doing most of the “telling,” based on how they grapple with an engaging curriculum.) Imagine how American classrooms would be turned inside out if we ever really put that wisdom into action."

To my mind, this is a fine way of thinking about our role as educators. We are not so much teachers as we are designers of educational experiences and assessors of student understanding. As Kohn argues in his commentary, "to capture how each student makes sense of the world" and "meet them where they are" requires deep pedagogical knowledge and the autonomy to apply this knowledge in slightly different ways to each student with whom we work.

Cultivating a Sense of the Natural World

"A turkey vulture, snapping turtles in the pond, squirrels, and rabbits," were among the critters that 1st graders observed during a recent outing with Mr. Scott of Earth Spirit.Mr. Scott spent a few hours walking around campus with students and explaining the seasonal shifts that were taking place and looking for evidence of the coming winter.

After perfecting their best bunny hops to figure out how rabbits move, students learned about the various types of food around campus including nuts, fruits, and berries, and examined various hollows and dens that had evidence of animals preparing for winter. The campus hike culminated with a trip to the pond, where Mr. Scott asked students to identify the creatures that could be found in an aquatic habitat.

I have been on lots of field trips as a teacher, but I have never been in a place where I could walk out of my classroom and be "in the field."

Making Math Make Sense

"Well, it can be an angle or a vector" declared one of the students I came upon working outside in Mrs. Giancola's math class. She held up a branch and pointed out how it fit the definition of both of these mathematical terms.

"What's the point of this lesson?," I asked, in order to get a sense of the rigor of this class.

"We are looking for examples of our math vocabulary in nature."

"Why?"

"So we can understand it better. Math is not just in the classroom, it's all around us."

Lessons from the Garden

"Students don't understand where our food comes from" says Glen Herman, a member of our science faculty and our greenhouse conservator. To rectify this situation, Mr. Herman has made good use of a small garden plot next to Stone Hall, where he has planted a variety of vegetables and flowers.



On a splendid Friday afternoon, the 1st grade joined Mr. Herman to examine the garden and each student was invited to take a piece of basil or a tomato home with them. On his tour, he also pointed out some of the fundamentals of a garden ecosystem, including the interplay between male and female flowers, the role that pollination plays in whether a plant yields fruit, and the purpose of corn silk (each piece of silk transports first pollen, then water to an individual kernel of corn).


The garden, like so many facets of our campus, is a practical, outdoor classroom that we employ to make lessons relevant to students.

If Mr. Herman has his way, the next generation of Park students will know exactly where their food comes from.

Standards vs. Standardization

This morning I was struck by the following add-on to a report about Business First rankings of elementary schools on WGRZ:

“Private schools that don't participate in the statewide testing program are not included in Business First's rankings, since their performances can't be measured against standardized benchmarks. Among the well-known schools that don't participate are Elmwood Franklin School, Nichols School and Park School of Buffalo.”

Mindful of the adage "what gets measured, gets done" I took a look at the 4th grade ELA tests upon which these ranking are based. On the math portion, the following question caught my eye:

This is a fine question, as one of the things that it seems to be measuring is whether students have learned the important mathematical concept that multiplication is a shortcut for, and function of, addition. Unfortunately, students can also find the correct answer by simple computation and miss this concept entirely.

This is a fine question, I would argue, for a classroom teacher to pose to students to gauge both their computational prowess and their conceptual understanding. In educational jargon, this is a standard, which my dictionary defines as: an idea or thing used as a measure, norm, or model in comparative evaluations. At Park, we willingly align our curriculum and pedagogy to such standards, as they represent what students should be able to know and do in order to be engaged and productive adults.

I am hopeful that in many of the high ranking public elementary schools, the same thing happens as well, albeit constrained by the need to cover all of the computation and conceptual items on the state test (which frankly seem to skew towards the computational, which is much easier to measure) and without regard for the different developmental stages that students may bring to a fourth grade class.

Unfortunately, as a "standardized benchmark," which my dictionary defines as: causing something to conform to a standard, such a question falls short, as the test can not discern how a student arrives at a correct answer, and whether he or she is simply "solving for x" or has developed a true understanding of the underlying mathematical concept that is being taught.

This is the difference between standards and standardization.

"3 Rs" for the Twenty-First Century

In a “flattening” world, I hear more and more parents express concern about whether their children’s schooling is providing them with the 21st-century skills they will need to be successful in the global market. The next time you talk to your child about school, try asking the following questions:

1. What is the purpose of what you are learning?
2. How are you challenged to think in your classes?
3. How will you apply, assess, or communicate what you have learned?
4. Do you know how good your work is and how you can improve it?
5. Why is what you are learning important?
6. Do you feel respected by other students in your classes?
7. Do you feel respected by your teachers?

These seven questions, formulated by Professor Tony Wagner of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, are designed to measure how much schools demonstrate elements of rigor, relevance, and respect in their educational program: “3 Rs” that comprise a framework for effective teaching and learning

Rigor is often misinterpreted by schools and parents as simply giving more and harder work to students. A more thoughtful and humane demonstration of rigor is holding students responsible for clearly defined objectives with qualitative standards and regularly measuring students’ progress towards mastering these objectives. The first four questions above assess the rigor of a school or class.

Relevance is the key to students’ intrinsic motivation and drives students towards deep understanding and the achievement of rigor. This is different from external motivators – such as high-stakes testing or college admissions – that may result in learning that is shallow and temporary. To make lessons relevant, teachers must know students well enough to work with their current experiences and interests, and be passionate and knowledgeable enough to make meaningful connections to students’ lives. Question five assesses the relevance of a school or class.

Respectful relationships are key to students’ embracing rigor and understanding relevance. In research conducted by the Public Agenda Foundation, only forty percent of adolescents surveyed reported that they thought most of their teachers treated them with respect. Two-thirds of respondents also said that they “learned ‘a lot more’ from a teacher who treats them with respect, explained lessons carefully, and cared personally about them.” Questions six and seven assess levels of respect in a school or class.

I suspect that if you ask these questions of Park students you will receive very different than you might receive from students attending other schools.

Advice For a New Head of School

Today we began our first day of school with an opening assembly in which I asked students to share some advice with me on how I can become a true Parkie, a Buffalonian, or a good head of school. This is what they told me:

• Wear a lot of orange
• Wear a lot of brown
• Visit every classroom
• Always wear a good outfit to school
• Be myself
• Respect the kids
• The tables in the first grade room have tops that lift up, so be careful sitting down in those seats
• Follow the rules
• Have good school spirit
• I have to become a Bills or a Sabres fan
• I have to do my homework
• I should listen to the teachers
• And keep the campus clean
• Have a good sense of humor
• Don't run in the halls
• Try to be a good teacher
• Learn to play an instrument
• Be open to new ideas
• Help someone when s/he needs help
• Eat healthy
• No fighting with others
• Don't play basketball inside

It's going to be a great year!

About this Blog

Hello and thanks for visiting!

My name is Chris Lauricella and I am the newly appointed head of The Park School of Buffalo. After much consideration, I have taken the title of this blog from the 1928 book of the same name written by Park's founder, Mary Hammett Lewis. An Adventure With Children traces the founding and evolution of our school into a unique institution that, as Ms. Lewis recalled: "averaged as many as six visitors per day...teachers and principals and superintendents from almost every large city in the country came to us. One morning we had an M.P. from England, two physicians from Austria, two Japanese students from Columbia University, the president of a great college, a superintendent of schools from the Middle West, and a Harvard professor..."

This blog, I hope, will recount my own adventures with children as I become fully engaged as the School's leader, expand upon the Progressive pedagogical tradition that distinguishes us, recount our daily work, and reconnect with Park's proud history in preparation for our centennial in 2012-2013.

I hope you will visit often for regular virtual glimpses into this truly special community.