Progressive Education: Creating over Complying
In November, at the Fall Corporation Meeting, I spoke to you about progressive education. I described in a nutshell the essence of progressive education by sharing a story about my daughter???s disappointment in having to leave school on the day when her 4th grade science and technology class was demonstrating each group???s catapults ??? the ones they had been working on for weeks. To my daughter and her classmates, simply put, this project mattered.

It engaged their creativity, tapped their curiosity, and challenged their skills as engineers and collaborators in a way that a simple worksheet could not. The same could be said about our 8th grade magazine project, where students develop their own magazines and solicit articles from fellow middle schoolers. It could be said about the Kindergarten???s ???Hundreds Day??? Museum, where the children become docents for a museum that they design and stock with items of their choosing. It could be said about the ???kid talks??? in the Lower School, when students are asked to help solve challenges on the playground rather than simply being reminded of the rules. It could be said about the recent 6th grade debates, where pairs of students chose and researched topics of great importance to, well, 6th graders ??? such as whether we should continue our no-cut policy in athletics, whether we would be better served with a longer school year, or whether we should adopt a stricter dress code or even school uniforms!

This list of meaningful work with students could go on and on, grade by grade, experience by experience. Green Acres??? students spend their days busily asking questions, quietly writing, collaborating on group endeavors, taking initiative, making choices, and taking risks. They also memorize information???such as the 7th graders who this week were studying the geography of the Middle East???but our students spend more of their time using information to develop their ideas???more time, as I like to say, creating than complying. And the practice that they gain from doing this day in and day out, develops the habits that they will need for life ??? the most important habit, of course, being the intrinsic pursuit of lifelong learning.

But of course you all know this. That???s why you are here. It may not seem to you particularly novel or innovative.

Joyful Learning: What???s Likeable about School?
But in the world of education today, these ideas are cutting edge. They represent the latest, best thinking about what schools should look like and about the kind of work in which students should be engaged.

I attended a meeting last week where the Superintendent of the DC public schools spoke about his 5-year goals for the District???s schools. He outlined a series of objectives including increasing graduation rates, closing the achievement gap, diminishing behavioral distractions, and raising student achievement, particularly in reading and mathematics ??? all worthy goals, and particularly impressive to me in the way that he expressed his deep belief that all children could learn with the right supports in place.

One of the final goals he described caught me completely by surprise. The District has committed to working toward having 90% of DC public school students report that they like school. It???s an audacious goal for any school or district. The obvious question from the audience, and the one that most interested me, was how exactly the District planned to get more students to like school.

While I don???t in any way mean to criticize the leadership of the DC schools, who are addressing many challenges that we do not face (and on a scale we could only imagine) ??? what I heard in his reply disappointed me. The superintendent talked about ???spicing up??? the students??? experiences with extra-curricular offerings before and after school???not a bad idea, but not what I was looking for. He didn???t talk about ways to make teaching and learning???the core activity of school???more meaningful and engaging.

He didn???t talk about school work that connects the classroom to the community, such as the 6th grade service project related to their reading of the book Maniac Magee. He didn???t talk about school work that challenges students??? assumptions about themselves and others, such as the recent 8th grade ethics project on moral courage. He didn???t talk about finding opportunities for students to make choices and express their creativity, such as the 4th grade celebrations and explorers research projects. He didn???t talk about engaging students in problem solving, such as the 6th grade science project on hazardous waste and the 8th grade Model UN project.

That so many Green Acres students love coming to school every day is a source of pride. However, when we talk with prospective families, I remind them that the joy behind Green Acres is as rooted in our intentional, engaging approach to teaching and learning as it is to the close, caring relationships between teachers and students that permeate our small community. The latter???the nurturing community???is necessary, but true joyful learning comes when this is combined with the former???a curriculum and classroom approach that is designed not just to teach facts, but to offer authentic opportunities to think.

Green Acres: 78 Years Ahead of the Latest Cutting Edge
Of course, it shouldn???t really matter to you if Green Acres is cutting edge or not. The most important care I hope you have is whether we???re having a profound impact on your children now and for the future. However, you might find it interesting and validating that much of what is considered best practice in the classroom reflects progressive teaching pedagogy.

If today you walked into the classrooms at any of our nation???s best graduate programs in education, you would see an emphasis on the teaching of critical thinking skills over memorization; on active, student-centered classrooms over teacher recitation; on differentiating instruction to meet the needs of different learners over teaching in a one-size-fits-all manner; on performance-based assessment over traditional testing; on diversity and character education; on integration of disciplines such as math, science, and engineering; and on integrating technology and art with core academic subjects. In essence, you would see held up as the model, much of what we at Green Acres offer and continue to refine.

We also see this seismic shift in current thinking about schooling in popular writing by Daniel Pink, Thomas Friedman, Carol Dweck and others. A flat world, where unlimited information is accessible to everyone, and where anyone can become an author with a simple keystroke, demands different kinds of skills. Similarly, a world where creativity and innovation are prized above almost everything else, demands a growth mindset???so often the difference between trying, failing, and ultimately succeeding (versus never trying at all). Of course John Dewey and those who started schools like Green Acres would testify convincingly that the need for schools to inspire lifelong thinkers and innovators existed long before the Internet. Yet now, research and writing have caught up with Green Acres??? longstanding philosophy and practices.

More Big Shifts: The Next Iteration of School
Some of you may have seen the recent Ted Talk video by Pat Bassett, the President of the National Association of Independent Schools, our national membership organization. His presentation asks the question, ???What are the biggest shifts among schools looking toward the future????

Not surprisingly, much of his answer can be found in what we at Green Acres are already doing and working to do even better. One of his big shifts includes the change from knowing to doing???where students engage in real-world tasks, where subject distinctions are blurred, and where skills and products trump memorization. He provides the example of a high school robotics project, but he just as easily could have cited our 7th Grade Future Cities Project, our 4th grade Lego engineering unit, or our 8th grade hovercraft project.

Another big shift cited by Bassett is the change from teacher-centered to student-centered. He describes the teacher-centered, teacher-driven classroom as an outdated model. He argues that creative teachers, who facilitate student problem-solving and invention, will be at the forefront of the changing schoolhouse. Close, less hierarchical relationships between students and teachers will facilitate the kind of learning that builds both IQ (now no longer considered a fixed trait) and EQ (which includes all the social and emotional intelligence required for success). Perhaps one day, Green Acres??? use of teachers??? first names will be more the norm than the exception, as will our emphasis on student choice. The same passion that propels a doctoral student to pursue a research interest can be applied to Green Acres 3rd graders who choose to study a particular Native American tribe, or to Green Acres 8th graders who choose their research topics from among many in Victor???s World Studies class.

Bassett also cites the shift from a focus in schools on individuals to a focus on teamwork and collaboration. Very few professionals work in isolation. This week, a discussion of a picture book in one of our early childhood classrooms led a teacher to share with me how much her students (and one could argue, all of us) rely on collaborative learning to sharpen our thinking.

We value collaboration because the world depends upon it, and because we understand that it plays a role in our intellectual development that goes far beyond just helping us to get along.

Finally, Bassett cites the shift from high stakes testing to what he calls high value demonstrations. Learning to take multiple-choice, standardized tests continues to be a valued skill, one that our students need to have. However, very few adult professionals take tests on a regular basis to show what they know. Instead, they produce products that have a purpose, whether a written proposal to seek funding, the design of a new building, or a presentation prepared for the Corporation Meeting. Students too can produce products that have value. At Green Acres, we continue to examine the ways that we assess students, and the degree to which we offer sufficient authentic, high value demonstrations. The next time you attend one of our school performances, such as the Weaving Assembly or the Roots Assembly, or last week???s 7/8 Musical, try considering it more as a high value demonstration of understanding and collaboration than simply a performance.

Not surprisingly, on our website, in the progressive education section, you will see descriptions that reflect all of Pat Bassett???s ???big shifts??? and more.

You should also take note of additional ways in which our program embodies new and powerful trends in education. This includes technology integration, and a focus on social justice, environmental sustainability, and anti-bullying. I???ve made it almost through my entire presentation without mentioning the iPad, not because it???s not important, and not because the iPads haven???t been well used this year in our 5/6 program, but because they are a tool toward the much larger purposes of helping students to learn more deeply and helping them to use technology effectively and ethically. And one couldn???t possibly have sat through the closing session of last month???s Middle School Day of Action, without understanding the depth of this school???s commitment to teaching respect and community.

The Extraordinary in the Ordinary
I???ll leave you with two thoughts.

Trends or no trends, cutting edge or not cutting edge, the measure of a school is often immeasurable. It can be found in the conversation taking place among a group of kindergartners who have decided to sweep sand off the sidewalk??? who cordon off the area as if it were a dangerous construction site, and who negotiate roles and delineate steps for clearing the sand. It can be found in the fear and ultimate joy experienced by the 7th grader who before last week???s musical had never sung on stage. It can be found in the 5th grader who just returned from Echo Hill having discovered that being away from home for three days was doable, and even fun. These things happen every day. Our challenge is to appreciate the extraordinary in these ordinary events.

And, my last point??? trends or no trends, cutting edge or not, all studies show repeatedly and without reservation that teachers remain the single most important influencer over student learning. Our Green Acres teachers, without any question, are our most valuable asset.

Thank you all so much for being here tonight. I greatly appreciate your dedication to this school and community.

I have been the Head of School at Green Acres School in Rockville, Maryland since 2008. Prior to that, I was Assistant Head of School at Nashoba Brooks School in Concord, Massachusetts. My teaching career began at Brimmer and May School in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. As a progressive educator, I???ve worked for the Coalition of Essential Schools, and I helped launch the National Center for Independent School Renewal (NCISR), a network of independent schools committed to school change.

My writing and thinking focuses on the ways that schools can ignite in students a passion for learning, on how adult behavior impacts the lives of children, and on the skills and qualities that have the most impact on future success. I am particularly interested in curricular themes such as interdisciplinary teaching, service learning, diversity education, and technology integration. Professional development, school leadership, student assessment, and school community are threads that tie together much of what I consider essential about schools.

In Green Acres School, I have found a school that is committed both to the principles of progressive education and to ongoing exploration of what that means in the 21st Century.

Follow Neal Brown’s blog at http://greenacreshead.wordpress.com/.

Perhaps least obvious to the community is the work that teachers engage in throughout the year to reflect and grow. We put a tremendous amount of time and energy into ongoing professional development for all teachers, and it shows in the level and breadth of skills and innovation your children experience every day. Consider that most teachers on the 5/6 team had never touched an iPad before late spring, when we began preparing in earnest for the pilot program. Consider also the most recent professional day on September 30, when several of our own teachers offered workshops for their colleagues on the topic of differentiated instruction. Building on last year???s professional development sessions in which teachers examined Charlotte Danielson???s Framework for Teaching, these workshops focused on topics including:

• Using Technology to Differentiate in the Middle School Classroom
• Using Open Ended Questioning Techniques to Meet Student Needs
• How to Meet the Needs of the Kinesthetic Learner
• Literature Discussion Groups
• How to Design the Classroom Environment to Facilitate Differentiated Instruction

Our sharing of in-house expertise augments what teachers learn from conferences, outside speakers, and the latest books on teaching practice and theory.

This sharing of classroom strategies begets more sharing, and it both builds on and deepens the quality of the professional culture that exists among Green Acres teachers. Last Friday???s sessions not only reflect a culture that values collective and individual growth, but also serve as a catalyst for ongoing, informal collaborations about how best to differentiate instruction???our professional development focus for the year.

The subject of professional culture was a hot topic in schools of education in the 1980s and ???90s for good reason. A number of researchers pointed to teacher collaboration as the most influential component of successful schools, arguing that teaching is too complicated to be done well solo, without regular input from colleagues. Students benefit when teachers have opportunities to learn from one another, to reflect on their work together, to plan units and lessons together, to observe one another teaching, and to develop shared language about teaching. In fact, in my own research, I discovered that these very principles often made the difference between a first-year teacher leaving the profession or staying and thriving.

On a related note, I recently submitted an article to Independent School magazine. When it is published this winter, you will see in it a lot of the ideas that I???ve been writing and speaking about as fundamental to our success at Green Acres. My overarching premise is that a school???s most pressing challenge is igniting and nurturing in children a spark for learning. This, perhaps more than anything, should guide our work as educators.

Speaking of articles, you may have read ???What if the Secret to Success is Failure???? a few weeks ago in the New York Times. See the link below. This piece focuses on themes near and dear to our mission, and which I have written about in several past HeadLines, particularly the notions that: 1) there are qualities and habits???beyond a narrow definition of intelligence???that lead to success and 2) that challenge and failure are necessary parts of learning.

It is interesting to see that educators and schools very different from ours are recognizing some of the education truths that progressive educators have known for decades. Last week the Gazette published an article describing the new Curriculum 2.0 being implemented in K, 1st grade and some 2nd grade classrooms in Montgomery County. The curriculum includes a new emphasis on ???mastery of material over the quantity studied,??? the integration of science and social studies into math and language arts lessons, and an emphasis on critical and creative thinking???concepts that have been important to the Green Acres program since its inception in 1934.

I look forward to seeing you at upcoming events this fall. As always, thanks for sharing your children with me and with all of us.

Neal

Learn more about how the iPad is being incorporated into the classroom: http://greenipads.wordpress.com/. Blog postings are made several times a week by teachers, administrators, and students.

Members of our technology department — David Darefsky, Pam Adams, and Connie Coker — and Treena Selak have spent the past several months investigating various options and visiting other schools. They have narrowed their focus to Apple’s iPad, which we believe is the most flexible, affordable, and widely supported portable device of its type. Teachers have spent significant time this spring working with a few demo models, considering whether the iPad and the available applications (or “apps”) would suit our teachers’ and students’ needs. Over the summer we will purchase an Apple iPad 2 for each student in the rising fifth and sixth grades and we will begin using them upon the opening of school in the fall. We will also embark on a staff training program to begin this summer. We have chosen the iPad over other options for several reasons:

• It is a common tool that will meet most day-to-day school technology needs for middle school students

• It offers a common, reliable platform

• It is easy to use and support

• It offers a wide array of apps that are easy to learn and affordable

• We believe it is the most likely platform to begin to replace physical textbooks in the near future — in fact, some of the physical texts being used next year are likely to be replaced by digital counterparts

Overall, we believe the iPad offers enormous benefits to learning — from reading to analysis to presentation to creative outlets to resource conservation and more. We are very excited about this new direction. While we know iPads won’t fully replace traditional computers or printed texts immediately, we are confident that students will develop new skills and interests as we continue to educate them for the world they will inherit. We know that families will have many questions, and we have tried to anticipate as many as we can.

Review the Questions and Answers page in the Curriculum section of the website for more information about 1:1 iPad program.

Learning more, I saw a school that has a constant bustle of activity. Rather than sitting at desks, students more likely will be learning and collaborating in spaces designed as work centers. In fact, the entire school feels like a research and development center. The school’s science labs are filled with a range of ongoing projects, as students not only learn about, but also create, new technologies???to win contests and even in some cases to garner patents. At High Tech High, one sees students engaged in solving real problems, hunting for solutions using multiple disciplines and vantage points, asking questions, and often working in teams. Students and teachers even publish their work on websites and in books, believing that an important step in learning is presenting one???s work to an authentic audience. This is how they hold themselves accountable to the highest standards possible. The school’s academic and authentic demands are matched by its commitment to the arts, its focus on the use of digital technologies, and its emphasis on helping students to develop a global perspective. Moreover, High Tech High’s teachers and students appear to be learning together; their teachers work collaboratively in teams, and the relationships between adults and students demonstrate high levels of engagement and support.

Tie to Progressive Education
It’s no wonder that experts are touting a school like this???with its eyes so firmly on the future. But does any of this sound familiar? It should. John Dewey, the father of modern progressive education and Green Acres School???s founder, Alice Mendham Powell, didn???t know a blog from a wiki or an iPad from a netbook, but they understood, as we do, the lasting educational value of an authentic project. They knew, as we do, the importance of high standards, of positive, nurturing adult/student relationships, and of helping students to become engaged with the world of ideas and with the world itself. They knew, as we do, that society needs students well practiced in using their imaginations, communicating effectively, collaborating, organizing, creating, taking risks, and innovating. And they knew, as we do, that in order for society to thrive, students need to explore ethical issues, to develop minds open to new perspectives and experiences, and to come to see failure as a normal consequence of learning rather than something to be feared.

Reframing the Purpose of Education
I recently heard a speaker claim that with the explosion of information, half of what a college freshman science/engineering major learns is obsolete by the time he/she finishes the junior year. So schools are starting to figure out what we progressive educators have known for some time: that we must shift from simply teaching students information to helping them to develop skills; we must shift from giving students the answers to expecting them to grapple with the authentic complexity that exists in the world outside of school. Now, more than ever, acquiring information should be seen as the lowest, and least lasting, form of learning.

Recent Accomplishments
So what is some of what we???ve done this year to nurture and strengthen Green Acres? And what are we planning in the coming year to continue to prepare students for what they will need in life in the 21st Century?

First and foremost, we have continued to emphasize the kind of analytical and creative thinking, as well as problem-solving, required in today’s conceptual age. New and/or refined interdisciplinary units of study in every grade engage students in multidimensional experiences???from asking important questions about an interdisciplinary topic, to writing about that topic, to collaborating on a science project related to that topic, to analyzing statistics about that topic, to developing a video about that topic, to having to speak effectively about that topic. This year’s development of the Maryland Unit in 5th grade and the Explorers Unit in 4th grade are terrific examples of this approach, as is the ongoing development of a Model U.N. project in 8th grade and thematic units in the Early Childhood Unit.

Secondly, we have strengthened our focus on the kind of communication needed for success in high school and beyond. Spelling and writing task forces in the Lower School continue to improve our work with students in these important areas. We have further implemented diagnostic literacy and pre-reading assessments in the Lower School and standardized our expectations of children’s language arts skills, as many of you could see in our progress reports. In the Middle School, we have worked to fill curricular gaps in the area of grammar and punctuation.

Thirdly, we have continued to provide students with important opportunities to be effective leaders and team members. Service Learning initiatives, whether Penny Drives and Clothing Drives designed and led by Middle School students, or ecology and recycling projects orchestrated by our 3rd graders, show students that they have the power within them to lead and to make change.

Fourthly, we have moved well ahead of the curve in our approaches to teaching digital and quantitative literacy. We continue to tweak our implementation of the EnVision Math program in Grades K-5 ??? to make sure that we are clear about what we expect at each grade level, to make sure that we are meeting the needs of all math learners, and to strike the right balance between skill development and conceptual understanding. The Middle School technology curriculum, re-designed last year, has been more deeply implemented this year. Part of this success has had to do with the additional staffing allocated to supporting teachers in integrating technology into their classrooms. This year’s 3rd and 4th graders are benefiting from a new Science and Technology interdisciplinary approach.

We added six more SmartBoards this year, with more on the way this summer thanks to a generous donor. These interactive whiteboards bring the world into the classroom and offer teachers and students opportunities to explore, create, and present information. Next year, we will be piloting a one-to-one iPad program for all students in Grades 5 & 6. Leaving behind their heavy backpacks, students will have all or most of what they need to function in school in these small but powerful and adaptable machines. Paper notebooks and textbooks, as well as pen or penciled comments from teachers on printed essays, will quickly become things of the past.

Of course the mere existence of technology is not the solution, and, in some cases, as we know, it can become part of the problem. As in High Tech High, we continue to look for ways to use technology to provide engaging and authentic learning experiences that are meaningfully connected (literally and wirelessly) to the world.

Fifthly, we continue to help students see themselves as part of an interconnected world???and to develop in them a sense of ethics and integrity.

This year we have worked as a full teaching staff to develop diversity curriculum overviews. While these do not list every single diversity-related topic that we teach, they offer a clear sense for teachers and for parents of the key diversity themes and questions addressed at each grade level. Teachers recently met to finalize these documents, and the process of their discussions and planning has been an end in itself???as it has helped us to be even more clear about the central role that diversity plays in our program and community.

I am particularly proud of this spring’s Middle School Day of Action, where we sensitively and appropriately addressed the experiences of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered youth and adults. While all schools struggle with some disrespect or bullying, we are taking active steps to talk about what it means to stand up for oneself and for others in need.

Our service endeavors reinforce this notion, as our students reach out to others, whether configuring donated bicycles for use in developing countries or making soup for the hungry. They learn that our personal experiences are not universal, though many of our feelings are. They learn that our world is actually finite and interconnected???that what we do affects others near and far, even if we may not see the impact immediately.

Similarly, for adults in our community, we launched a SEED (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity) group for parents this year, and our SEED group for staff is completing its second year. These opportunities for adult growth in the area of diversity also have an impact on the developing assumptions and beliefs of our students and children.

In doing all of this ongoing work to prepare our students for what they really need, we have emphasized the critical need for adaptability, initiative, and risk taking???particularly in a world where change is happening so fast and where learning has to be a lifelong endeavor.

Behind the scenes, we also have devoted time as teachers to professional growth ??? and we will continue to do so.

This year’s mentoring program for 1st and 2nd year staff included a strong focus on classroom practice and reflections on teaching. For all teachers, we have better emphasized goal setting, informal and formal classroom observations, and sharing of teaching strategies and lessons during faculty meetings.

We have increased funding for professional development and for our Summer Grants Program. Professional growth is the lifeblood of every school, and we continue to look for ways to make the best use of our staff meetings and to help provide the necessary support and guidance to each of our talented and hard-working teachers. Their work, more than anything else, is what makes this school a success.

We also have added new initiatives to engage and support students.

This year’s Homework Club for Middle School students provided quiet time and skilled support each Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. We will continue to offer this free of charge for Middle School students next year.

The Middle School Musical Ensemble is completing is inaugural year. It has provided a terrific musical outlet for a small but enthusiastic group of students and staff members.

For next year, we will soon hire a Learning Specialist to focus on Grades Pre-K to 2, and we are committed to ensuring that we have adequate supports in place for all of our learners and families.

We also are continuing to work hard to support families who make huge sacrifices to be part of this community.

This year we expanded Extended Day childcare to many of our conference, professional, and report writing days. We have heard from a number of you that this has made a dramatic difference for you and your families.

We also envision the possibility of offering a prepared lunch to students in the 2012-13 school year.

And we have worked behind the scenes to strengthen Green Acres as an institution.

Our Board of trustees has improved the work of its committees, focused on its communication with the community, reviewed and revised the School’s Bylaws, taken a more active role in fund raising, and examined our financial aid policies. Overall, the Board is committed to addressing the most pressing strategic and financial issues facing the School over the long term so that we can be here, 24 years from now, celebrating our 100th anniversary.

In the realm of fund raising, the Development Office, with support from the Board and many volunteers, has used new approaches to reach and engage potential donors. Already, thanks to many of you, we have surpassed last year’s fund raising and set systems in place for growth in fund raising capability for years to come.

No school, no matter how successful, can survive without a focus on marketing. This year’s speaker series, the showing of the documentary Race to Nowhere, the inclusion of alumni profiles on our website, improvements to our website, and evenings such as tonight, are all part of a larger effort to communicate who we are and why this school makes a difference in the lives of students and families???now, more than ever.

You may also have noticed the improvements we continue to make to our facility ??? with lighting and sound systems in this room, sound improvements in the AP Room, and efforts to work toward becoming a certified “green school.”

Why Green Acres?

At Green Acres, all that we are doing in classrooms and behind the scenes is geared toward building upon our tradition of teaching students not just knowledge, but helping them to be knowledge-driven and knowledge-able.

A professor I heard recently asked his students how many of them liked school, and less than half of their hands went up. He then asked them how many of them liked to learn, and almost every hand went up. This dichotomy is a shame but is the predictable result of schools that are beating the curiosity out of students. At Green Acres, we don???t want our students constantly thinking or asking, “What do I need to know for the test?” Rather, we want them thinking or asking “What do I want to know and be able to do for life?” We want them to be, more than anything, excited about school and about learning.

And this, I submit, is the reason why so many of us in this room feel so strongly about teaching or working at Green Acres, about having our children at Green Acres, or about being associated with this school as an alumni, past parent, or trustee. This is why we make the sacrifice to have our children here, why we are so committed to Green Acres School and to this community. This is why so many of us pour our minds and our hearts into nurturing and ever improving upon the vision that our founder and our predecessors had for a school that helps students develop a deep love of learning.

I submit that the inspiration for High Tech High could have come from someone familiar with Green Acres School.

At Green Acres, we want our students to learn by becoming similarly immersed in many facets of their topics of study. Doing so helps them to understand what they study more fully, more deeply, and from multiple perspectives.

Interdisciplinary Units
Subjects in the Green Acres curriculum are divided by permeable “walls”, which allow for connection across classes and for deeper, more engaged learning overall. Rather than sending children into a math classroom to learn math and then to a science classroom to discuss an unrelated topic in science, we often design a curriculum theme to carry the children through multiple subjects and classes.

For example, 1st and 2nd graders study Japan by experiencing elements of Japanese culture in each of their classes: math, music, humanities, science, creative movement, physical education, humanities, and library. Students are literally and figuratively surrounded by the culture of Japan by exploring its food, art, dance, music, literature, geography, weather, games, shelters, and wildlife. The children design their own kimonos, make origami, learn “Tokyo Dontaku” dance, write with calligraphy pens, taste miso soup, and play Japanese counting games.

Other examples of curriculum integration include the 3rd grade study of Native Americans, the 4th grade study of rain forests, the 5th grade’s Maryland Unit, the 7th grade’s wetlands study, and the 8th grade’s Model U.N. These topics are studied in most, if not all, of the students??? classes. Even within individual classes such as Humanities in Lower School, Language Arts/Geography in 7th grade, and the new Science/Technology class for 3rd and 4th grades, curriculum is presented from multiple disciplines.

Connecting Ideas and Embracing Complexity
Having read Japanese folktales in the library curriculum, students bring that experience into the music classroom and consider how the ideas in Japanese literature have also been expressed in Japanese song. Knowledge of Japanese songs, in turn, fuels increased understanding of Japanese literature. Learning with a broad, multidisciplinary approach, students comprehend a complex concept like culture, for example, in very immediate ways ??? through food, music, game playing, art ??? ways that make sense to them in their own daily lives. By examining information through such a variety of lenses such as language arts, math, science, and the arts, students gain practice seeing the many ways that ideas are connected.

A Building Block to Solving and Creating
Experiencing these connections through a multi-disciplinary lens is a building block of critical thinking and problem solving. Once our students see how ideas are connected, they can begin to manipulate these connections into larger ideas, better solutions, or even their own inventive creations. If one of our students were one day to solve the vexing problems of the Middle East (don???t put it past them!), she or he would do so upon the foundation of interdisciplinary teaching.

Green Acres students practice every day the art of examining a topic from the vantage points of multiple disciplines???the key to solving complex problems. Our students may not even realize that they are training for complex problem solving. First graders have fun dancing, drawing, writing, and counting. They delight in imagining what it would be like to be a child living in Japan, eating miso soup for lunch. As educators, though, we know these very young learners are acquiring much more than facts about Japan. These themed units give children practice in thinking about and relating new information and ideas???the key to success in the 21st Century.

As always, thanks for sharing your children with me and with all of us.

Neal

Science teacher Nic Ryba reports that 5th and 6th grades have been thinking a great deal about the plight of people of Japan in the past three weeks. The 6th grade already had been studying natural disasters, including earthquakes and tsunami. The 5th grade then also undertook an investigation into rebuilding and planning a Japanese town that would include earthquake resistant buildings and would protect the population from tsunami waves. Today they began a unit on the biosphere with Japanese students in mind. They noted the Cherry Blossom festival in DC and discussed the importance of the cherry trees and the crane in Japanese culture.

Sixth graders were inspired to carry out this service project to promote the importance of books and literacy after reading Taste of Salt by Frances Temple. One theme in the book is the lack of education in Haiti and the significant amount of illiteracy among Haitian citizens, particularly children. In the book, the main character, Djo, is asked by Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide to teach other boys to read when Djo has not officially learned how to read himself. The students were very struck by this and embarked on a mini-project in class that asked them to work in partners to teach their peers a literacy lesson. After reflecting about how hard this was, they began their path towards empathy for Djo and other children in Haiti.

To promote their efforts, students are leading age-appropriate activities during the book drive, which is from March 31-April 11. For Pre-K ??? 3rd grade students the 6th graders are spending time leading literacy activities during library classes. For 4th and 5th graders the 6th graders are hosting a Movie Night where admission to the movie is a donation of a book.

As parents and as adult members of the Green Acres community, we have the power and the responsibility to lead, to make an impact, and to be role models for our children. The message of this year???s Auction ??? Sustain + Celebrate ??? speaks powerfully to this role that each of us plays in our school and in our global community. This Saturday, March 5, we all have the chance to make a difference. By attending the Auction, you will demonstrate your support for our students and for the work of countless volunteers???further strengthening our community. Your bidding online and at the event, purchasing Best of Live raffle tickets, and participating in the Hold ???Em High paddle raise on Auction night, will help sustain the excellence of our progressive educational program. Quite literally, every dollar that you spend benefits our children and our community.

Auction Co-Chairs Sharyn Glickfield and Megan Bowles, and their remarkable team of volunteers, have created an event that promises to be the social highlight of our 76th year. Their extraordinary leadership and commitment are a tremendous gift to our school, to our children, and to all of us.

The strength of our adult Green Acres community both inspires, and is a product of, the commitment to civic engagement that our children experience every day. Our community, indeed, is what sustains our school as a nurturing, creative, powerful place to learn. Let???s join together to sustain this excellence and celebrate the community that makes it possible.

See you on Saturday!

Neal

And make sure you buy your raffle ticket for a chance to select your choice of item from the Live Auction line-up. Drawing will take place on March 5 at Go Green! Sustain + Celebrate, but you do not need to be at the event to win! To buy Best of Live raffle tickets, click here.

Join in on the fun and excitement as the community works together to raise money to sustain and celebrate the Green Acres legacy for our children and many more to come!

What I wish that I could magically summon for our prospective families in these situations is a room full of Green Acres alumni. For as anyone could readily see (or read about in the Connections newsletter) our graduates demonstrate these qualities and more by the lives they lead. Without fail, as I get to know our alumni, I meet people who have continued to learn throughout their adult lives, who are open to new ideas and alternative perspectives, who think carefully and reflect on their experiences, who take risks, who exercise creativity, who demonstrate resilience in the face of personal or professional set backs, who are passionate about what they do, who speak up, who lead, and who collaborate well and respect others. The number of Green Acres graduates who have devoted their lives to making a positive difference, or who volunteer in the service of others, is awe-inspiring. I would argue simply that our graduates have a spark???one that was nurtured for life during their time at Green Acres.

How one nurtures this spark from ages four to fourteen is the question that guides all of our work. The answer begins with the understanding that children inherently bring with them a high level of curiosity. They want to learn; in fact, they???re programmed to learn. Our job as a school is to engage them in learning that excites their senses, that challenges, and that matters. To these ends, our students focus on finding solutions to relevant problems, on creative expression and intellectual risk-taking, on learning to ask important questions, on group endeavors when appropriate, and on open-ended projects. Green Acres students, like all students, memorize information, because having the right answer is often necessary; however, memorization at Green Acres is more often a means to a more gratifying end???an authentic task such as a presentation, a persuasive essay, or a performance.

More than constantly asking children to provide the right answer to an adult???s question, sustaining and igniting one???s passion for learning necessitates students asking their own questions and grappling with issues that may not have one correct answer. While tests are a necessary part of a menu of assessments, an atmosphere dominated by testing???at the expense of more open-ended, authentic projects???discourages students from trying new things, impedes their understanding of where they need to improve, and weakens their ability to recover self-confidently from disappointment. For example, our 7th and 8th graders learned so much more about environmental science, about energy, about writing, about computer modeling, about presentation skills, and about collaboration from their recent Future Cities projects than any test could possibly have taught them.

Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the World, would agree that these skills are the most critical for success in what he calls the ???conceptual age.??? I would simply suggest that creating is more interesting than complying, and it leads to habits that carry one forward as a passionate lifelong learner. As art teacher Marcelle James explains, ???The real art of progressive teaching is to allow students to explore, experiment, and take off in an unexpected direction without losing the integrity of the original lesson. We give students permission for their passion and enthusiasm to lead them.??? Practiced every year across every subject, this permission leads to a habit-forming zeal for learning.

The spark that our graduates demonstrate well beyond their years at Green Acres also is the result of the careful balance that we strike???challenging students with rigorous, meaningful work while protecting them from unnecessary pressure and overload. On December 2, we hosted the screening of the award-winning documentary, Race to Nowhere, which details the crushing pressure that students endure as they move from one measuring stick of achievement to the next in schools across the country. For me, the film and follow-up discussion illustrated the ways in which our nation???s children not only suffer from stress and sleep deprivation, but the ways in which they have become uninspired about learning and ill-prepared for the intellectual challenges of college and life. High school students today are trained, for example, to gain admission to college, but not necessarily to value and practice deep, conceptual learning.

Dr. William Stixrud, a noted clinical neuropsychologist who spoke at Green Acres on January 12, echoed these concerns. His talk focused on the ways that adults can provide a non-anxious presence for children???and how critical this is given the explosion of anxiety and depression among young people. He expanded on the ideas from Race to Nowhere by reminding parents of the harm that undue stress and sleep deprivation cause children and adolescents. According to Dr. Stixrud, they may work hard at first, but over-stressed young people lose cognitive functioning and ultimately see a decrease in their motivation to learn. What we should strive for, instead, is what he referred to as a ???flow experience,??? where kids are highly focused, making a high level of effort, while also experiencing high enjoyment coupled with low stress.

We see this ???flow??? as the core of our progressive educational approach???engaging students in authentic challenges, encouraging them to pursue their passions, and enabling them to view learning and active citizenship as positive lifetime endeavors. Our environment, socially and academically, has been designed to minimize unnecessary stress. In our small community, each child is well known. Some teachers???in art, PE, and music, for example???work with students year after year, building relationships that endure from Pre-K through Eighth Grade. We assess students in broad, authentic ways, and while competition is a fact of all of our lives, we also emphasize cooperation, collaboration, and doing one???s best for oneself. This approach not only is more educationally sound, but it mirrors much of what we value in the real world of work—whether in a law office, a business, a service organization, or a government agency???where success most often depends upon what a group of individuals can accomplish together.

We are also reminded that education is not a race, and that being taught more, earlier, and at a faster pace, does not make kids smarter or more eager to learn. At Green Acres, we introduce students to new concepts when our knowledge of child development tells us they are ready to learn them. This is when concepts ???stick??? and when the opportunity for joyful learning is most ripe. Similarly, our students wait to begin formal homework until third grade because it is then that most are mature enough to do the work themselves. This gives them a feeling of responsibility and pride in what they accomplish. It is their work, not work they finish in order to earn approval from their parents or their teachers.

Ultimately, it is the early experiences our students have of meaningful learning, of reaching out to others, and of being actively engaged that are the most formative. As they come to see learning and citizenship as having intrinsic rewards, and as they challenge themselves within Green Acres??? safe, nurturing environment, our students are developing skills and habits for a lifetime. While we are proud of the impressive list of high schools and colleges attended by our graduates, as well as the depth and breadth of the knowledge and skills that they acquire in our program, we are most invested in the spark that you cannot miss in our students and in our alumni. This is a spark that sets one up for a life of joy, self-confidence, and ability to follow one???s passions.

A typical Green Acres hands-on science class in which the students learn about the development of the brain???s white matter myelin sheath, but with one important difference: This lesson is led by Dr. Jay Giedd, one of the world???s foremost experts on teenage brain development and chief of the Brain Imaging Unit in the Child Psychiatry Branch at NIMH. Dr. Giedd will spend an entire day at Green Acres ??? more than 13 hours ??? working with every 6th, 7th and 8th grader to present his findings about how adolescent brains develop. In this example, the ???Lucky??? group represents the axons that have not yet developed a myelin sheath, meaning that information travels slowly; the myelinated ???Charms??? axons have a wrapping that lets information hop along the axon, letting the brain fire signals 100 times faster.

Later that evening, addressing parents as part of the Green Acres Speakers Series, Dr. Giedd says that he hopes to empower students to take control of their futures by asking ???What kind of brain will serve me well as an adult???? While neuroscientists once thought brain development was complete by age 16 or 18, they now know that the brain is not fully mature until about age 25 and it continues to develop meaningful connections and to “prune” less-used ones throughout life. During adolescence, the brain undergoes a kind of ???neural Darwinism,??? pruning unused neural branches in a ???use it or lose it??? manner seen in both humans and animals. ???This is a neat time in your life: you can go in so many different directions,??? Dr. Giedd tells the students. One question this raises is about videogames and other electronics: Dr. Giedd makes no judgment as to whether electronics are good or bad, but notes, ???if you do a lot of multitasking, you???ll be good at multitasking.???

Dr. Giedd says he and three associates wanted to spend the day at Green Acres to get kids excited about science and inspire some to become neuroscientists someday. But this lifelong learner has come to learn as well as teach, peppering teachers and administrators with questions about Green Acres??? use of technology, which he views as cutting edge. He is intrigued by the way technology may change both education and the brain.

Back in the classroom, Dr. Giedd???s associate Ben engages students with a short exercise that the four researchers will present to all 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students throughout the day, analyze that afternoon, and then offer to parents as a snapshot of how brains change over time. The subject: the ability to delay gratification, which Dr. Giedd???s brain imaging research indicates improves as the brain matures. How do people weigh what happens now versus in the future when making decisions? The exercise: Each student responds in writing to 27 questions with two options about money ??? receiving a certain amount of money today, or a greater amount in the future. For example, would the student rather have $54 today or $55 in 117 days? ???I can wait 14 days for $60,??? one student remarks. ???The most I can do is 20 days,??? another says, checking boxes.

Later that evening, Dr. Giedd shows parents a chart illustrating ability to delay gratification featuring a stair step pattern by grade; not surprisingly, even in this informal exercise, younger students were less willing to delay gratification than their older peers. ???This might matter in terms of interacting with teens,??? Dr. Giedd says. ??? ???You???d better stop doing this or you???ll be on the streets 40 years from now??? doesn???t work. ???If you don???t stop doing this you???ll be off the team tomorrow??? works.??? It???s not a moral judgment, he adds. As he tells both the adults and students: ???The teen brain is not a broken adult brain. It???s a very good teen brain. It???s doing exactly what it???s supposed to do.???

The new understanding about the developing brain raises many questions for educators and parents, Dr. Giedd says. Studies indicate that by age 19 it???s impossible to tell anything about different IQ groups by looking at cortical thickness, though there are pronounced differences when children are younger, he says. This points to the ???tortoise and hare phenomenon??? of late educational bloomers. Yet our education system is set up with the assumption that younger is better, he says. At a conference in Stockholm last spring, he was struck by studies of international reading achievement. In Finland, ranked No. 1 in the world, students don???t even begin learning to read until age 7, whereas in fourth-ranked Japan it???s age 4. While Japanese students maintain an edge for a while, by age 11 there is no difference, a finding that surprised Dr. Giedd.

The brain uses dopamine, associated with pleasurable feelings, to determine which neural connections will survive during the pruning process, Dr. Giedd says. Dopamine goes up when you make a good decision, which helps the brain keep score of good decisions; when dopamine goes down, it tells the brain that was a bad idea. The brain learns best when students are happy and engaged. Education is not a race. Having fun is key to learning. Students learn best when they???re engaged. Dr. Giedd???s research confirms these familiar tenets of the Green Acres philosophy. With Dr. Giedd acting as a self-proclaimed substitute science teacher, learning even complex neuroscience is fun.

Our annual Family Heritage Fair (Sunday, Feb. 13, 1-4 PM) showcases all of this variety. This weekend, our community will share different styles of dance (salsa, cha-cha slide, and Irish dancing), artistic expression (freestyle poetry, henna body art, and Mayan face painting), and, of course, foods prepared by our families for the Fair???s Global Cafe. There will be an Iranian music performance, and you can even learn to play Cricket. The Fair truly celebrates what it means to live in a diverse community and offers all of our families the chance to learn from each other. As Diversity Committee Co-chair, Katara Aleem, reminds us, the Fair is not only fun, but important:

Cultural legacies inform our perspectives on self, others, and life. These perspectives are powerful and pervasive. The Family Heritage Fair provides us a door through which we can access authentic engagement with families from varied traditions and beliefs.

Teaching about Difference

Our curriculum guides children toward an increasingly sophisticated understanding of diversity, introducing more complex ideas and ultimately thorny issues of injustice as they grow and mature. Our Pre-K students hear and discuss diversity-related stories and take turns bringing home a ???Diversity Book Bag??? containing the literature that they have shared. Kindergarteners create ???Diversity Story Bags??? containing a variety of figures representing diverse people and family configurations, and write their own stories related to the collection of figures in their bags. In 1st and 2nd grades, the Roots unit allows students to share cherished heirlooms and favorite family recipes passed from previous generations. The World Celebrations unit in 4th grade contrasts festivals from around the world and challenges students to see what they have in common. Throughout the grades, our multicultural curriculum provides opportunities for children to learn about and to value people, families, ideas, and cultures different from their own.

Our Middle School students contemplate the distinctions represented by the ???Big 9??? social identifiers: ability, age, body image, ethnicity, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic class. As they wrestle with ethical dilemmas and evidence of social injustice, our students move from appreciating the diversity in their classroom to considering what binds people around the world???and what separates them.

A Community of Teachers

The Fair also reminds us that the Green Acres community is not just for our children. All of us ??? staff, parents, grandparents, and friends???can learn from one another. As adults with a range of professional talents, beliefs, political points of view, and more, we have new ideas to offer to children and to each other. Different experiences and ideas must not be simply recognized, but rather, considered and discussed. Katara reminds us:

This is an active process and is somewhat daunting for us to consider. The foundation for this process is trust, patience, and commitment to constructive dialogue that allows for multiple perspectives. It will take time.

Skills for a Complex World

Our children began their lives in a multicultural world that affects how they learn, the paths they can pursue, and the relationships they can build. Their limitless access to ideas, people, cultures, and conflicts around the world requires thoughtful education. At Green Acres we emphasize the skills of collaboration, persistence, creativity, inquiry, and persuasion. We insist that our students engage all the people, places, ideas, and things around them. We insist that they challenge the status quo and always work to improve their ideas, their relationships, and their world.

Enjoy the Fair on Sunday. Try your hand at Cricket; sample a food you???ve never tasted; and listen, perhaps for the first time, to some Iranian music. Follow your child???s lead and meet someone new, consider a different point of view, learn about a culture different from your own.

As always, thanks for sharing your children with me and with all of us.

Neal

Wednesday, January 12, 2011, 7:00 PM, at Green Acres School

William Stixrud, Ph.D. will focus on ways adults can help to reduce anxiety, and why the development of children???s brains is best supported in low-anxiety situations. Dr. Stixrud is a clinical neuropsychologist who has been in private practice since 1985. He is also a member of the Adjunct Faculty of the Children’s National Medical Center, and he holds a faculty appointment as Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the George Washington School of Medicine. He has previously held an appointment at the Georgetown University Medical School, and he has served as a consultant to the Division of Neuropsychology at the National Institutes of Health.

Brain Research and Child Development Revisited

Wednesday, February 9, 2011, 7:00 PM, at Green Acres School

Dr. Jay Giedd, M.D., renowned researcher at National Institute of Mental Health, returns to Green Acres to explore brain development in children and adolescents in greater depth. Dr. Giedd will address the impact of stress on learning, the brain’s ability to adapt to the challenges of its environment, the implications of critical parts of the brain not being developed until the mid-20’s, and how better understanding of brain development can inform educators and parents.

To read about some of Dr. Giedd???s research, visit:
Inside the Teenage Brain
What Makes Teens Tick
Nature vs. Nurture and Other Mysteries of the Brain
Why Do Humans Use Only Part of the Brain

Reservations are free, but required: speakerseries@greenacres.org.

Stress and Brain Development

On the evening of Wednesday, January 12, we welcome William Stixrud, Ph.D., a noted clinical neuropsychologist with an expertise in brain development and brain-based learning. Dr. Stixrud knows from both observation and scientific research that children???s brain development is best supported in situations where engagement is high but anxiety is low.

The environment at Green Acres, socially and academically, has been designed intentionally to allow students moderate stress, the situation in which ample research confirms they learn best. Our 15-acre campus enables kids to run and explore, and our daily schedule gives them the time they need to do that. Our small community means each child is well known. Some teachers???in art, PE, and music, for example???work with students year after year, building relationships that endure from pre-K through eighth grade.

The Value of Group Work

Our curriculum has been designed to minimize unnecessary stress as well. As you read in my HeadLine last month, we don???t ratchet up anxiety with endless paper and pencil tests; rather we continually assess students in broader, more authentic, and meaningful ways than a bluebook exam alone could possibly allow. The fifth grade???s Maryland unit, for example, culminated Thursday, December 16 with the ???Maryland Museum,??? where each student played the part of a docent. In this role, everybody displayed weeks of careful research and writing, demonstrating poise and command of information about his or her Maryland county. Students??? learning???and the assessment of this learning???was challenging and enjoyable at the same time.

Where anyone got the idea that education at its core must be competitive is a mystery. Again, mountains of evidence demonstrate that children learn most in cooperative situations. So our program emphasizes group work, valuing collaboration over competition. Just as our big campus allows students to run and explore, group projects allow students to experiment together and learn interdependently. By working together in a fourth-grade science class to build and test catapults, for example, students focus on working to solve a problem rather than competing with each other to win the title of ???Best.??? Group work allows students to engage in the process of learning rather than forcing them to compete for perfection???not only educationally more sound, but also a mirror of much of what we value in the real world of work, whether in a law office, a business, or a government agency???where success depends upon what a group of individuals can accomplish together.

The Progressive Balance

Progressive education balances this kind of collaborative work with attention to each individual student. Even as we offer students chances to work together, we invite them to pursue individual passions, and to express their ideas.

Visitors to campus notice this immediately when they admire the variety of student artwork around school. Art teacher Marcelle James explains why we don???t see cookie-cutter art at Green Acres: ???The real brilliance of progressive teaching is to allow students to explore, experiment, and take off in an unexpected direction without losing the integrity of the original lesson. We give students permission for their passion and enthusiasm to lead them.??? Ultimately, we want our students to be comfortable being themselves. Green Acres students are proud of what makes them unique. This freedom is yet another inoculation against the stress many children feel today???and it sets them up for a lifetime of self-confidence and ability to follow their own paths. As John Dewey said over 100 years ago, education should help students develop the skills they???ll need to pursue their interests. Allowing students to retain???and to nurture???their passions and their enthusiasm is precisely what creates the joy in our classrooms and throughout our campus.

I appreciated that so many of you attended the screening of Race to Nowhere on December 2, as well as the follow-up discussion of the film at the most recent GASPA meeting. I also look forward to seeing many of you at the January 12 presentation by Dr. Stixrud. Together, these discussions and presentations enable us to redefine what schools can and should do to prepare children for a life of joyful learning.

As always, thanks for sharing your children with me and with all of us.

Neal

At Green Acres we have been protecting the joy of childhood for decades. As a leader in progressive education, we have always known that students learn best when they are actively engaged in problem solving, not memorizing facts for a test. Our program is built around the knowledge that children learn most when they feel that what they???re doing has meaning.

Rather than constantly asking children to provide the right answer to an adult???s question, at Green Acres we teach children to ask their own questions and to grapple with open-ended questions. We insist that students consider alternative views and work together. Our students are brave enough to take risks and resilient enough to learn from their mistakes. While tests are a necessary part of a menu of assessments, an atmosphere dominated by testing???at the expense of more open-ended, authentic projects???discourages students from trying new things, impedes their understanding of where they need to improve, and weakens their ability to recover self-confidently from disappointment.

The Dangers of Perfection

On December 2 we will host a screening of the new award-winning movie, ???Race to Nowhere.??? Endorsed by the National Association of Independent Schools as a “must-see documentary,??? the film details the crushing pressure students endure as they move from one measuring stick of achievement to the next in many schools across the country. The film???s title comes from one student interviewed, who explained that kids ???get caught up in a race to nowhere.???

After the film, I look forward to a spirited discussion about what Director Vicki Abeles calls ???a high-stakes, high-pressure culture that has invaded our schools and our children???s lives.??? Says Abeles: ???Cheating has become commonplace; students are disengaged; stress-related illness and depression are rampant; and many young people arrive at college and the workplace unprepared and uninspired.???

The Power of Curiosity

The movie???s lesson is one our founders articulated generations ago: Being taught more, earlier, and at a faster pace does not make kids smarter or more eager to learn. At Green Acres we have always educated children differently. For us it???s not a race. We introduce students to new concepts when our knowledge of child development tells us they are ready to learn them.

Our students begin homework in third grade because they are mature enough to do the work themselves. This gives them a feeling of responsibility and pride in what they accomplish. It is their work, not work they finish to earn approval from their parents or their teacher.

As a progressive pioneer we have always believed in the power of curiosity. While other schools demand high school level math competency before middle school age, our fifth grade students are speculating, experimenting, and calculating to determine how long it would take 280,000 dominos to fall (the World???s Record), and our eighth graders are using algebra and physics to design hovercrafts that can move an adult across the room on a cushion of air. As they learn essential principles of math and science, they also come to see these subjects as engaging, creative endeavors. How many of you exceled in math classes all through middle and high school but never took another math course in college or graduate school? I count myself among those who felt competent in math but uninspired to pursue it beyond high school.

Skills That Can Guide a Lifetime

After graduating, our students go on to be leaders at some of the most acclaimed high schools in the country and then to similarly impressive colleges. Green Acres gives them their foundation. Here they learn to ask questions, to research solutions, to advocate a point of view, and to always strive to improve the world around them.

These are powerful habits of mind that can guide a lifetime. They are not skills that can be taught in any one AP class, no matter how rigorous. They cannot be measured by a standardized test. And yet experts agree that these skills are the most critical for leadership in this new century.

Green Acres graduates are equipped with an admirable depth and breadth of knowledge ??? but more important, their innate curiosity has been fired up here, not burned out by the need get the highest score on the next test.

I look forward to seeing many of you at the December 2 screening of ???Race to Nowhere.??? The screening at Green Acres is sold out, but you can find additional local screenings on the “Race to Nowhere” website.

As always, thanks for sharing your children with me and with all of us.

Neal

Green Buildings

• The thermostat in all of our buildings is set to be energy efficient.
• Each building is equipped with low-flush toilets.
• Our school offsets coal energy by purchasing wind power from Clean Currents
• We repurpose/recycle office furniture before we buy any new furniture.
• We use rechargeable batteries in our 2-way radios.

Green Classroom

• Thanks to Google Apps, teachers have the capacity to go paperless.
• Students can submit work online, receive feedback, and work collaboratively with peers without ever printing a single page!
• Teachers have reduced the number of duplicate handouts by posting them to the homework site or on their class websites.
• Many classes have Class Gardens where students can learn first-hand about sustainability and environmental stewardship.

Green Community

• Team Greener ??? Committee of parents, staff, and students who help with initiatives to make Green Acres greener

• Compost ??? Students can compost lunch waste.

• Make community events ???green??? ??? no disposables, composting

Green Office

• In its day-to-day activities, Green Acres has been recycling paper, cans, and bottles for over 15 years.

• Many forms and instructions have been condensed and when appropriate, sent digitally.

• Transportation changes can now be made online to save paper.

• Instead of bringing them to landfills, Green Acres donates cell phones to charity and recycles batteries and toner cartridges.

• Our Technology team sets equipment not in use for sleep mode

• All the paper products are made from post-consumer waste recycled paper.

• We have been working to eliminate all of the catalogs/junk mailings that we receive.

• We try to buy from local vendors when possible to minimize our Transportation footprint.

• We only buy recycled paper for our printers/copiers.

Green Events

• Tuesday, October 26 marked the first Trash-Free Tuesday Lunch in which the community was encouraged to bring a lunch that produced little to no trash. Participation was so high, we are looking at sponsoring more Trash Free Tuesdays.

• Water is served from reusable pitchers instead of from plastic water bottles

• To reduce our carbon footprint, we???ve chosen not to serve beef at the Corporation Dinner.

• The decorations at the Corporation Dinner are from local farms and even our very own woods!

• The cider we are serving at the Corporation dinner will be from a Montgomery County farm ??? the apples are grown there and the cider is made on the premises.

Green Publishing

• When possible, we try to print our publications using soy-based ink.

• Our printers are FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified to promote and support reforestation.

• Green Acres no longer prints The Employee Handbook, it is available as a PDF.