Give Me a Lever Long Enough: Images from the first day of school!

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, September 3, 2013

Images from the first day of school!

Sweet Briar Creek is the name of the new stand-alone Kindergarten classroom.

In Blackberry Creek (one of the mixed 1st/2nd grade classrooms), students created their own placemats for lunch, which were then laminated.

In Laurel Creek (the other mixed 1st/2nd grade classroom), students got busy with stretching their writing muscles and thinking about the stages of the writing process.

In Temescal Creek, the new stand-alone 3rd grade classroom, students jumped right into their science curriculum with their first experiment: creating compasses out of magnetized needles floating in bowls of water.

Cerrito Creek students (one of the mixed 4th/5th grade classrooms) were given time to explore the room and then asked to draw conclusions about what they'd be studying based on what they found.