A Goat Rodeo of Our Own

With permission, I'm reposting an email that Head of School Mitch Bostian sent out to the faculty yesterday.

Happy Thursday!

Last Saturday night, I was lucky enough to see "Goat Rodeo" perform at the Greek Theater.  

Goat Rodeo is a string quartet that's atypical for three reasons:  it features a mandolin instead of a second violin, it includes a vocalist, and each performer is a well-known and successful solo performer.  The history of collaborative efforts (music, acting, athletics, restaurants) is littered with groups like this:  they've looked good on paper but have failed to succeed in practice.  

In contrast, Goat Rodeo is clearly succeeding.  The passion and enthusiasm with which they collaborate are consistently visible, and they're achieving both critical success and popular acclaim.  They're breaking down some genre walls in the process, too.  Whether they know it or not :), they're a great example of how working together to ignite minds and awaken hearts can equip artists AND audiences to engage a changing world.

If you have 9 minutes today or this weekend, please take a look at this video for some inspiration.  It begins with the group talking about their creative process for one particular song, "Attaboy" -- in a way that's genuine, funny, and taps into a real truth about passion and "work."  At the 3:37 mark, the group plays an encore, "All Through The Night," which is one of the most beautiful renditions of that traditional song that I've ever heard.  

As an organization, we're ready to make this kind of music together in 2013-2014.

Take care,

Mitch

The Depot at Night

Image courtesy of Julianne Hughes

How to approach the first day of school

This article by Wendy Mogel (author of Blessing of a Skinned Knee) was just shared with the incoming K parents by Araxi Gundelfinger, mother of a new K student and TBS Director of Advancement. It's got some great advice about getting ready for the first day of school, how to talk and act with your child that morning, and how to respond to your child at the end of the day. Definitely worth the time to read!

That's the way the cookie crumbles!

A high school math teacher in New York had his students measure and weigh Oreos, Double Stuff Oreos, and Mega Oreos to find out whether the larger cookies really are double or mega stuffed. This is a creative application of data and measurement concepts to the "Real World", and I'm sure it was incredibly fun too! It reminds me of an activity I saw in our 4th grade math class last year, in which students were challenged to find out the width of a single piece of paper. They were able to do so by stacking 10 or more papers together, measuring the height of the stack, and then dividing by the number of pieces of paper. By posing interesting questions that engage students in thinking about everyday objects in their lives in new ways, teachers are able to develop students' appreciation of and motivation for mastering academic skills and concepts.

In other news, a school district in Delaware has built the world's largest Lego tower. While this activity probably led to increased community cohesion and provided the experience of overcoming a seemingly impossible challenge based on the scale of the tower, I'm left wondering, what's the instructional purpose? There are wonderful opportunities for measurement and engineering in this project, but the articles I've seen don't delve into any of that. I hesitate to judge based on the reporting alone, but I would love to hear the people involved speak to the educational value of the project. If they were simply pursuing "A dream of eternal Lego fame", all the time and energy and effort could have gone into something that would make a real difference in the lives of the students and community.

Inside yesterday's Administration Retreat

Although the administration works throughout the summer, for many years we have gathered together for a full-day off site retreat the week before teachers return, to greet new faces and orient ourselves to the year ahead.

This year, like last year, we met in a small studio above Magnini's Market at the intersection of Hopkins and California, and began by looking together at 40 Maps, which is a collection of interesting maps documenting a wide range of ideas and concepts. This was a launching point for two ideas of data collection: both what is chosen to be looked at, and also how the data is presented.

Countries that don't use the metric system - from Wikipedia Commons

This led into an activity in which we broke into pairs and walked around the neighborhood, selecting a concept to document and present.

After a delicious lunch from SLOW, Mitch led us in a conversation about some of the important values and practices that underlie the three major strands of our philosophy and pedagogy.

We ended the day by doing the "Grow Your Garden" activity (which first came to TBS several years ago through a Positive Discipline training), which we do with all 4th and 5th grade students each fall. This is a reflective activity that asks participants to express ideas about themselves through a visual metaphor -- you can see my finished product at the end! Someone commented that my visual layout looked like a rock concert poster, which I thought was pretty cool, since I collect concert posters and have several hanging on my walls at home.

Site Work Day a Smashing Success!

Many thanks to the fabulous crew of volunteers who showed up to work inside and outside getting the University Campus cleaned up and ready for the new school year: Pat, Ann, and Ben Beuchner; Karen and Keith Emery; Michel Faure; Frank, Chris, and Liam Holden; Marley, Erin, and Stacey Janoff; Jaime, Indie, and Flynn Robinson;  Lila Rose Roberts and Liza Rozen: and Stuart, Sowmya, and Shiva Strickland. My apologies if your name was left off the list!

Thanks too to TBS staff Amy Coty and YuRen Lin, and of course parent volunteer extraordinaire Jeanine Strickland, who developed the punch list and led the charge

Teacher pay rates and hours spent working

This link to upworthy.com was shared by a TBS administrator this week. I have no way of knowing how accurate the information is, but it certainly gives food for thought.

University Campus Work Party on Sunday, August 18