Give Me a Lever Long Enough: Practical Life in action

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.

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Practical Life in action

At the end of next week, Sweet Briar Creek (2/3) and Temescal Creek (2/3) classrooms will hold their annual Family Tea events. A huge amount of effort and preparation goes into putting on these lovely celebrations of family and community, one small strand of which is simply preparing the invitations to family members. This is a great opportunity to learn about -- and put into action in a project of relevancy to students' real life -- the different parts of letter writing, and there is so much to learn: the location of the date, drafting and finalizing text, creating the salutation and closing, preparing the visual presentation, figuring out how to folder the paper to get it into the envelope and how to arrange the letter, RSVP card, and any other elements in the envelope, and getting the address accurate and using proper postage.