Each week Head of School, Steve Warner, addresses
GreenMount parents in a weekly letter. This is his letter from October 17,
2011.
Greetings
GreenMount Community,
Who are we? With the upcoming Open House event on
Saturday, it is important that our message to prospective families is accurate
and consistent. We enjoy talking about
the fact that we allow our students to develop “deep smarts” and that we are
not constricted by a state-mandated curriculum that is “a mile wide and an inch
deep.” Indeed, we do allow our students
to find areas of interest and to explore them in depth with the objective of
having them become curious, reflective learners. I should mention that we do reference the
state curriculum a great deal because our students ultimately end up in public
school at the high school level. But
unlike public schools, we are not constrained by the Voluntary State
Curriculum. We can pause along its K-8
highway to create projects and experiences for our children for which the VSC
has little time allotted. We are happy
with our ability to make these kinds of choices for students.
When we talk to others about our
classes being multi-aged, do we all know what we are talking about? Is it simply that we group students of
different ages together because we like the idea of kids at different grade
levels together? Actually, there is a
lot of research to support the idea of multi-age grouping. One article can be found at http://www.multiage-education.com/multiagen-b/themulticlass.html, which is a web
site for multi-age education and at which other information on the subject can
be found. When this school was started
in the basement of a church, the whole school was one group of just a few
children. As the school grew, the
founders saw the advantages of the multi-age concept and continued to form classes
in this way. In the article referenced
above, the author states: “A common
belief is that multiage classrooms benefit the younger age group, but
short-change the older students. This couldn't be further from the truth! From
my experience as a multiage teacher and mother, it is the oldest age group that
benefits the most in a multiage class. They have the benefit of continuing
their learning with the same teacher, of developing leadership positions within
the class community and of reflecting on their academic progress as they
revisit basic concepts with their younger classmates. The more advanced student
is freed from the constraints of a graded curriculum when the teacher is
designing a program from a child centered perspective. At the same time, children
that would struggle in a traditional graded classroom experience success when
given more choice in the level of daily
activities. An experienced multiage teacher learns to provide a balance of
challenge and success for all students.”
The author references “experienced
multiage teachers.” Given our long
history with this type of grouping, I don’t think you are going to find too
many staffs that are more experienced with this concept than ours.
Finally, I would like to thank the
parents who came to the Adjunct Back to School Night. These 15 parents were able to hear directly
from the teachers who teach our Keystone programs and came away with a better
understanding of their value to the overall program. I am sorry that more parents with concerns
were unable to make it. We also had our
first parent meeting on Thursday last, attended by seven parents who were there
to ask questions and suggest ideas.
Although poorly attended, we had a good discussion and it is hoped that
at least some small portion of our parent community came away with some useful
information. Perhaps more of you will be
able to attend our next get-together.
“When your children reach
adolescence, they fire you as parent. You’ve got to scramble to get rehired as
a consultant.” - Mike Riera
At some point, your children will find ways to keep
you out of the schoolhouse. Come now
while you still can.
Cheers,
Steve
