HAIS Learning Walk

On Friday last week I visited Le Jardin Academy (LJA) in Kailua as part of the HAIS learning walk designed to encourage communication between independent schools. Visiting other schools is such a healthy way to get new ideas for the classroom--I loved it.  In each room a student “classroom ambassador” came up to us and explained the unit question, the area of interaction, and a brief summary of the work at the moment--the teacher just kept teaching.

LJA is doing so many things well it was nice to just walk around and observe them in action.  Things going well:

 1. An environment of collaboration
Several teachers had breaks between classes and shared lesson plans, book lists, summative assessments, and rubrics with our group. 

 2. Classrooms you can decorate
Many of the rooms we visited seemed to be inhabited by only one teacher and they put up student work, rules, and decorations that made the space unique and fun. At the brain conference speakers argued that what is on the classroom walls does affect students’ aptitude for learning.

 3. Printing access for students in every classroom
 We watched students write an in-class essay on their computers and print it in the same room. Very efficient.

4. Maximum 16 students to a classroom
 The classrooms themselves were small, but they fit the manageable number of bodies there.

 5. An administration firmly in favor of 21st century skills
 I don’t know if any school ever has all faculty members, parents, and administration personal moving together towards just one objective, but it appeared that this was very high on the school's list of priorities, and it showed in the student's focus on the material.

More from Christine Carter

Continued from last week, this was the last of Christine Carter’s suggestions for how to increase happiness in schools.

#3) Foster a culture of kindness

Apparently the research shows that you get a little squirt of dopamine in your brain every time to do things for other people. It boosts your immune functioning like an anti-depressant. Also, people who have received from others are more likely to give to others. This is all a very cursory overview, but similar to the way stress has harmful effects on the body and mind, positive emotions do too. The more students get out of the “fight or flight” mentality the more space they have to absorb the lesson of the day. Carter’s specific suggestions to use with students were:

 A) Show students how kindness can spread by modeling it. It can be small, like smiling at people a lot, giving up your seat on the bus, or tipping outrageously.

B) Help students broaden their giving vocabulary. Talk about different ways they can give (being forgiving, celebrating someone’s birthday etc.). Ask students: what kind thing did you do for someone else today? What is one kind thing that someone did for you?

Carter chose to present on the conceptual level rather than the research level and I’m glad because I was able to follow everything she said. I hope to read her book soon!

Raising Happiness in Schools

I feel so energized by my trip to San Francisco and the Learning & the Brain conference that I’m dusting off my blog to document the highlights. The focus this year was "Educating the Whole Child/ Student: Using Brain Science for Smarter, Happier and Healthier Learners." I have dreamed of attending this event since I first heard about it four years ago and it met my expectations as an inspiring opportunity for professional development (all except for the fact that the Fairmont Hotel doesn’t provide internet for a conference of this magnitude which was perplexing and frustrating).

Christine L. Carter, PhD gave a talk entitled “Raising Happiness in Schools.” Her primary thesis is that while we once assumed that getting students into good colleges would be followed by good jobs and lead to happiness, the research shows that happiness is more of a precursor to success than a resultant. According to Dr. Carter there are 3 ways to increase happiness in schools.

#1) Motivate students using the concept of a growth mindset as opposed to a set mindset. Students who operate under the assumption that it is their hard work that produces results as opposed to their innate talent tend to outperform students who think they are just “smart.”
Specific strategies:
A) Praise their specific process. “Nice job! You must have tried really hard” as opposed to “you are so smart!”
B) Create an environment where it is ok to make mistakes or fail as long as you get up and try again.



C) Help students identify their own fixed-mindset and beliefs about themselves. Many students believe they “suck at math” or “can’t sing” but really they just haven’t put in the hours of effort it takes to develop a skill.

#2) Consciously teach and practice gratitude
The idea here is that we foster what we see. If we only see hassles in life, we will find them. If we are looking for joys, they are all around. Some ways to practice gratitude are:
A) Positive affirmations

B) A gratitude box in the classroom where students can put in things they are thankful for
C) Gratitude posters in the classroom to be written on at any time.
D) A time at dinner when family members talk about three good things that happened to them in a day.
E) When people ask you how you are instead of telling them how busy you are, tell them something you are grateful for.

365grateful.com from hailey bartholomew on Vimeo.

Check out what my students did!

The students in my class are trying to publish a quality literary magazine of all the best artists and writers at our school. We are trying out kickstarter.com as a way to advertise beyond the walls of our school community and the response has been surprising--already we are halfway to our goal!
This kind of a class is incredibly fun to "teach." It has a culture and feel all of its own.

Green School

Space really does affect the way we learn and this is the coolest physical space I can imagine teaching in. Recycled white boards seem like a pretty easy step in the direction of sustainability that we could take with us into our traditional-style classrooms.

Saying Goodbye

Last Monday I went to the retirement party of a beloved French teacher who has taught at my school for many years. I didn’t expect to, but I cried. I cried after four students played Chopin on the cello and collegues read The Little Prince aloud. I cried during the speeches and the photo montages, cried at the hand-made center pieces on the tables and the group of retierees who surrounded Jack for a photo. I cried at all the mommies and babies in the wings, bouncing and cooing. This school is such a family—it is really hard to divorce yourself from the cyclical ceremony of it all, the comfort of feeling part of something larger than yourself.

Everyone feels the year winding down; it’s like reading the last few pages of the favorite book you want to read quickly and slowly at the same time. Does so much emotion bubble up annually at jobs outside of academia? Do people cry when they leave boardrooms for the winter holidays? When they retire from 25 years of ibanking? When their airline goes bankrupt and it’s time to seek a new management job?

I’m leaving too—off to work at a small private school in Kapolei which, new and unformed with regard to tradition, is the polar opposite of the established school I now part from. So perhaps my tears came partly from selfish attachment, or a sense of personal loss. But I mostly just felt overwhelmed by the evidence that careers unexpectedly end and begin and take sudden turns. Therefore, the time we spend together is finite and must be honored and relished like a dragon fruit devoured with a spoon. I am grateful to have been at my school for two years (the second really helped me to ground myself in the classroom) and awestruck by the opportunity I had to work with such talented faculty and students. I hope I teased the fruit's flesh from the rind, munched through the seeds, and cleaned my plate.

Teacher 1, Teacher 2

My friend Nick wrote me a great email in which he described two of his favorite high school teachers.

Mr. Miller, who taught physics and AP Bio, was renowned as the coolest teacher in the school. He was about 50 and skinny, with a wily black beard and a ratty blue lab coat. His room had a piano and herbariums, and full-spectrum lights and classical music always playing softly on the stereo. Every student in his classes was required to read the entire NYTimes every day. He always told us about how he had taught in every possible kind of school-- private, public, big, small, boarding, Quaker, catholic, Jewish, hippie, suburban, inner city, middle of nowhere--and that that was how he learned how to teach. And he was damn good. I got a 4/5 on the AP bio exam without memorizing a single thing. I don't even remember taking a single test in his class, just drinking tea and dissecting squid and talking about evolution and the anatomy of the eye. He came to my school during my sophomore year and after my senior year his "contract was not renewed." The administration always thought he was kinda unconventional.

The other teacher, Mr. DallaGrana, taught recent American history, global issues, and American political systems. Except for the survey intro to American history class, all the classes he taught he designed himself. "Global Issues" was devoted to the influence of one country's history on another, with special emphasis on the history of apartheid and democracy in South Africa. DallaGrana organized charity 5K run/walks, took students on trips abroad (even took my brother to South Africa junior year), was an ultra-marathon runner, and lived a block away from school with his wife and kids. He was and is still an institution at the school---took a bunch of kids to Obama's inauguration this fall. He was also a peace corps volunteer in the 70s in Lesotho, and goes back to the village where he lived EVERY YEAR! He did a 1 year Fulbright exchange a few years ago, where a South African teacher brought her family to live in his house and teach in his classroom and he took his family to live in her house and teach in her classroom. The guy is completely committed to TWO communities on opposite sides of the earth---and for most of the time he was doing it the internet didn't even exist.

They really both sound wonderful and raise questions about what it means to be a teacher rooted in place. I originally thought teaching was attractive as a profession because it would help foster a global perspective but it is becoming clearer to me how central tradition and culture are in schools and how being a part of that takes physical presence. There is a "this is how we do it" feel in schools that I'm not sure pervades in other institutions and it takes a while to learn that, become part of that, and then shape it in some way. I don't know which teacher (#1 or #2) I aspire to be, but I'm thankful there is more than one way to be good at this job.