Weekly Message from Steve Warner, Head of School (May 28, 2013)

Greetings GreenMount Community,

            It’s Tuesday, and around here we are still reveling in the success of the theme event.  When we thought of this theme, we knew it would be an important learning experience for our students, but we also immediately wondered how a theme event would look.  As usual, the teachers examined the overarching idea and the curriculum Mr. Fletcher had written, and tailored activities and concepts for each grade level.  And we saw that, through typical GreenMount creativity, they were successful in getting the most out of this topic.

As we made final arrangements for the event, we began to worry that our audience would be sitting for a long time on those hard metal chairs, and that perhaps this would make the experience tiresome and uncomfortable.  But with a typical GreenMount response, parents and guests seemed happy to remain in one spot for this particular theme event.  In fact, I have received several emails congratulating us on the theme event, and some even commented on the fact that parents liked staying in one spot for most of the experience.  We also received praise for our student moderators who ran the discussion groups.  They did a great job!  I think also that the idea of skits was made particularly successful because of Sean Wilson and his sound equipment.  Wasn’t it nice to be able to actually hear the grunts of the cavemen and the funny lines delivered by our kindergarten students? The sound system made all the difference in the world for this theme event.

That said, let’s remember that our 20^th Anniversary Project is well under way to provide us with a space in the gym that will be enhanced by a sound dampening system, new lighting, curtains, new chairs, and a new sound system much like the one Sean used.  We still need about $8,000 to complete the project, so if you have a rich uncle who is interested in promoting the arts at GreenMount, bring him around to see what we are planning, or just shoot Jill Goodman a little contribution of your own.  Imagine what it will be like next year when we have all these things in place for our students!

            Speaking of our performances, tonight will be a special evening at GreenMount.  Ms. Laurie has been working all year with her students to present a culminating event of their own in music.  And following the spring music program, you will see a once-in-a-lifetime rendition of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. I have watched rehearsals of this play and you will be amazed at the children’s performances.  And the costumes and set design are a must-see.  Please join us this evening for another great culmination to our school year - a year that has flown by all too fast.

Swift as a shadow, short as any dream; brief as the lightening in the collied night…

Wm. Shakespeare,A Midsummer Night’s Dream

           

Cheers,

           

Steve

Schedule for the Culminating Theme Event, Thursday May 23

            Our final theme event will take place this Thursday from 12:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.  Students and teachers have worked diligently to present for you all the learning that has taken place with the theme, From Printing Press to Paperless.  Below is the schedule for the event, and we ask that you help us make the timing run smoothly:

12:30 – 1:00    Parents and Guests arrive to read student-made newspapers and find seating

1:00                 The program will start promptly with a welcome from students

1:05 – 2:15      Skits and presentations (the skits are great, but it’s a long time to sit – bring a pillow for your chair?)

2:20 – 2:25      The state of our presentation area – Jill Goodman

2:30 – 2:50      Breakout groups (7^th and 8^th grade students will lead discussion groups in 11 different classrooms.  Please be sure to follow the directions on your program for room assignment.  Seating is limited)

3:00 – 3:20      Reporting out from breakout groups (parents will be asked to volunteer their impressions of the group meetings and what students shared with them about their learning)

3:20 – 3:30      Closing                        

Weekly Message from Steve Warner, Head of School (May 20, 2013)

Greetings, GreenMount Community,

            An important part of our philosophical base is the fact that, to the greatest extent possible, we strive to maintain small classes that consist of students of different ages, commonly called multi-age groups.  This concept has been around for as long as one-room schoolhouses.  (Would you believe that I attended an eight-room schoolhouse?  Unfortunately, I guess you would.)

That aside, there is much research out there supporting this idea, and we have known for a long time that this concept works at GMS.  For one thing, we see how older students in a classroom take advantage of leadership opportunities and the younger ones can often find good role models.  At GreenMount, multi-age grouping has been working successfully since the school’s inception.  Indeed, that is how the school started.

  When teachers have two age groups in a classroom, they sometimes have expectations for all students to reach the level of the older students.  Because students often attain the level of expectation, this can be a good thing.  On the other hand, we have to make sure we are meeting the needs of students, especially those early learners. To address that issue at GreenMount, we look for every opportunity to group students for instruction with their age mates and intellectual peers.  For instance, students in grades 1, 2, and 3 are with their grade mates for 53 percent of the instructional day that includes the core subjects of language arts and math.

  As we look to the future of our school and reaching its capacity next year we will work to create these multi-age groupings and to keep class sizes small, placing students in the best learning environment for each of them.  Over the summer the staff will be working on scheduling so that our students are afforded the greatest opportunity to learn and grow socially and emotionally.  I have previously mentioned here that every staff meeting begins with an examination of our philosophy, which includes multi-age groupings.  As a professional learning community, your teachers confront the hard issues, constantly discuss student success and needs, and work to develop, refine and inform their craft.  One of our goals for next year will be to increase our communication with you about how the multi-age groupings are working.

Our school is in great shape, and next year promises to be one that sees improvement to an already successful program.  Curriculum has been rewritten and refined, the facility is expanding, and purchases will be made to upgrade our technology so that students can take advantage of their world more effectively.

Charles Kettering said, “My interest is in the future because I am going to spend the rest of my life there.”  Such is the case for all of us.  See you there.

Cheers,

           

Steve

Weekly Message from Steve Warner, Head of School (May 14, 2013)

Greetings, GreenMount Community,

            I have good news and I have bad news.  The good news is that there are only 19 days left (including today) until the last day of school.  The bad news is that there are only 19 days left (including today) until the last day of school.

I guess how you regard this fact depends on your perspective.  I am definitely on the bad news side.  This is the time of year when we always seem to be rushing to accomplish all of our goals.  Nineteen days until we teach all the math that our kids need to know before they go to the next level.  Nineteen days to get the eighth grade art project finished (actually, only eight for Kirsten).  And Laurie gets to meet with her music classes only five times before the Spring Concert on May 28. In every area teachers are under stress to “get it all done” by June 7.

I didn’t even mention the theme event NEXT THURSDAY (yikes!).  But, not to worry, we have a good plan for the theme event and you will be involved as an audience.  Our students have learned a great deal about media and journalism during this theme, and they are anxious to showcase that learning.  Surprisingly, this theme generated the greatest number of field trips of any theme to date.  I recently heard that a local public school was touting the fact that they take four field trips a year.  We take that many in a week!  You should know that we didn’t just saturate this theme with field trips to spend the field trip fees. With the help of many parents, we found some amazing experiences for our students.  The Newseum was a big surprise, and our ongoing trips to WMAR are giving our students a first-hand look at a real news operation.  All of our students were very engaged at the TV studio, or should I say parts of them?  Check out our Facebook page to see how green GMS shirts work against a green screen.

            Another end-of-year activity is the change from heating to air conditioning.  We have been very fortunate that the weather has been cool as we have not yet been able to have our AC activated because we are waiting for some new filters.  I hope to have that job completed by the end of the week, when it looks like the temperatures may start to climb.  But, hasn’t this been a great spring?  In Baltimore, we generally go right from winter into summer.  If this is a result of global warming, I’ll take it.

            Finally, the learning cottage is being readied to be shipped to us and it should arrive sometime in June.  Once here, we will have a lot of work to do, and there will be good opportunities for earning co-op hours and soaking up the sun.  We will be building a deck and moving lots of furniture around.  We also have some rather large projects inside the building too, for those of you who prefer working in air conditioning.  Please check with Heather (coop@greenmountschool.org) to be part of our ongoing improvements to our space.  A belated Happy Mothers’ Day to all of our moms; we appreciate what you do for all of us and for never quitting your number one job.

There is nothing in the world of art like the songs mother used to sing. – Billy Sunday

“Baby’s boat’s a silver star, sailing far away. Sailing to the land of dreams ‘till the break of day…..” (My mom’s lullaby)

Cheers,

Steve

Weekly Message from Steve Warner, Head of School (May 6, 2013)

Greetings, GreenMount Community,

            I have a question for you:  Could we have had a more perfect day for Walk to the Green?  What a grand day, and what a fabulous time for all of us to be together.  I cannot remember an event where I saw so many smiles, so much laughter, and so much good food.  It was almost Norman Rockwell-ish.  I can’t wait to see Chris Hartlove’s photos; I think we will see lots of friendly, animated conversation with parents getting together after a long winter hiatus. I loved watching the children running, laughing and tumbling down the Super Slide.  In my travels around the area I did not see a single unhappy face.  In fact, there were some very unusual faces thanks to our face painter.  Wasn’t she great?  My personal favorite was the gelato guy.  When my wife heard that there was gelato at the picnic, she predicted that I would be in line several times (we have a long story about gelato).  However, I was good – one gelato – one big gelato.

            Another favorite of mine was the classic race down the Super Slide between Mr. Fletcher and Ms. Tonette.  I think you can guess who won.  This event was very important, as the loser will be reminded many times about the thrashing and how that translates to other competitive events like who can best teach math! Speaking of the Super Slide, I think I understood that Lauren Calia raced 15 times?  And I think she won most of those races.  She reported today that her elbows are a little sore – the price we pay for victory.

            So, a special thanks to Jill Goodman, who organized this whole thing.  With a committee of fantastic parents, she was able to plan for every eventuality with the exception of the little girl who wandered into our party (actually, we think, sent by her father) and got her face painted, some food and lemonade before Jill spotted her.  I guess we can say that we reached out to the community (or they reached out to us!).

            It is very quiet here today as the fourth through eighth grade students are off to Washington to visit the Newseum.  I wanted to go, but have a lot to do here today.  Who wouldn’t want to ride on a cheese bus for 90 minutes with a bunch of excited kids?

P.S.  Don’t forget to plan on attending the parent meeting tonight at 6:30.  Child care is available.  Contact Elaine.

Cheers,

Steve