Give Me a Lever Long Enough: math

Welcome!

Welcome to the blog of Zaq Roberts, Associate Head of School at The Berkeley School in Berkeley, CA. I blog about a wide variety of topics, from classroom moments I witness, to administrative events and conversations, to the educational blogs, videos, and books I am reading and watching, and how they are influencing my thinking. I hope this eclectic approach will give you insight into the many ways that I am engaging in advancing the school and strengthening our program, and I welcome your thoughts and comments!

This blog takes its name from a quotation by Archimedes that reads "Give me a lever long enough, and I can move the world." The TBS mission speaks directly to the need to engage a changing world, while many of the experiences in our program focus on the development of students' agency and authority. TBS is the lever by which we all - administration, faculty, students, and parents - can together move the world to be more humane, compassionate, and responsive. To borrow an important Montessori phrase, it is our way to remake the world.

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

A Lovely Note

Sent to one of our teachers yesterday from faculty at another East Bay school:

Mike,

Our 5th grade team so appreciates the time and effort you have made to connect with us. Sharing your Stock Market Project has been incredibly helpful as we begin our unit on decimals, fractions and percents. Not only have you emailed your materials and answered questions, you’ve taken the time to FaceTime with us to provide greater detail on the sequence and pacing. As a teacher, time is always short and yet you’ve been upbeat and responsive to our on-going requests. We really appreciate this!

We also look forward to sharing our tweaks as we roll this unit out later this month. We feel very fortunate to collaborate with you and hope you’ll ask us questions in the future.

All the best,

Amy, Eric and Nicole

Friday, December 6, 2013

Images from Step-Up Day

By now you've likely heard all the stories about your child's experience at yesterday's Step-Up Day, so here are some images to accompany the narrative!

Sweet Briar Creek (K) explores shapes and materials.