Each week Head of School, Steve Warner, addresses GreenMount
parents in a weekly letter. This is his letter from September 26, 2011.
Greetings, GreenMount Community,
This
morning, at our Monday Morning Meeting, I talked to the students about being
active listeners and engaged learners, which are numbers 3 and 4, respectively,
under our Academic Pillars. I received some
good responses and even though it was Monday morning, they were, in fact, being
active listeners. Some students defined
active listening as using your mind to think about what you are hearing. Another student mentioned that to demonstrate
active listening you should be quiet and make eye contact with the
speaker. Still another student pointed
out that active listening is also showing respect. These excellent comments came from students
at all levels from kindergarten to middle school. I was very proud of how they are developing these
core learning behaviors.
When
talking about engaged learning, several students gave examples of when they have
felt engaged and interested in what they were learning. Teachers also chimed in with examples of
times when they saw children engaged. It
was a very good 10-minute meeting.
Somewhat
apropos of this is an interesting article that a parent sent to me this morning. It is based on research that was done
comparing the achievement of students in a very exclusive private school to
that of students from low-income families.
I will need to read this again for more detail, but the result of the
research was that, while the “rich kids” did well academically and got into
great schools, they often floundered and ended up dropping out, whereas the “poor
kids” who got to college had a much better shot at graduating. Though surprising, it is understandable when
you realize that those low-income families really had to work hard and
persevere in order to get their children into college in the first place. The research showed that while the private
school kids had a great deal of support, it was that enabling that may have led
them to crash the first time they had to survive on their own. The students from the low-income families
knew what it meant to work hard and overcome obstacles so that when they faced
them in college, they were able to handle them. According to the researchers, all
of this exemplifies the importance of character. Students with strong
character will live happier, more productive lives and be able to handle those
problems that life throws at us from time to time.
So where does GreenMount fit into this
scheme of things? We are very diverse,
with families of many income levels and a school where we value many of the
character traits that lead our students to become independent learners. We focus on many of the character traits
mentioned in the article through our Pillars.
It is good to know that in many ways we are teaching our students that
to struggle and fail occasionally (and what to do next) is going to help them
as they become more and more independent people. It will also be a good idea for us to keep
the idea of character education, as we have and to perhaps use some of the
ideas from the article to enrich our efforts.
My
thanks to parents who share their ideas and research as we continue to find
ways to make our program at GMS better each day.
“If you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you
don't have integrity, nothing else matters.” - Alan Simpson
Cheers,
Steve
