by Susan M. Chilvers, Ed. D.

Children love traditions and rituals but it is often hard for parents and teachers to find meaning in holidays that are gift wrapped in commercialism.  It seems that stores go from holiday to holiday advertising anything that will sell in connection with this tradition and if food is involved they have a hit.  It would be unkind to ignore these opportunities for fun but if we examine why children enjoy them so much it can be possible to get more understanding and meaning from these experiences.  Anticipation is a central theme of childhood.  For children, time goes slowly so the waiting time for holidays and special events is full of anticipation and hopefully preparation.  This is a time when teachers and parents instead of saying “not yet” or “soon” or crossing off the days can offer more depth to the upcoming experiences by explaining the underlying historical significance.  Often this is religious and although it may not be the belief of all, or any, of the children participating in the holiday, it is a wonderful opportunity for adults to teach their children about different cultures.  Sharing customs and traditions is a great way to promote understanding between children.  Learning about the customs of other countries or religions broadens their horizons and also demonstrates how many similarities there are in the different traditions.  This can help clear some of the ignorance that might later develop into intolerance.  Sharing and reaching out to the community is an experience children can enjoy.  Making gifts for family and friends, dressing up and singing songs at a nursing home, cooking traditional “goodies” and taking them to people who live alone and collecting toys at holiday time all give that holiday an extra dimension for children as they learn the meaning of “outreach.”

Children can also create their own rituals in connection with traditional holidays.  At The New School we have our own Halloween tradition—a haunted house designed and created by the older children, ages 11-14, for the younger children, ages 5-10.  The haunted house operators offer really scary or less scary, lights on or lights off versions and the build up of anticipation for this is amazing.  New children quickly learn that this is an event remembered from year to year and younger children have a chance to share their memories of former haunted houses.  The encouragement and support given to the children before, during and after these tours is amazing and “don’t worry, everyone takes care of you” is the message passed on to the children.

For the winter holidays, in addition to sharing how each holiday is celebrated and its origin, we have a gingerbread evening—a fun time for families to build amazing creations.  These gingerbread creations are usually based on the school’s theme for that year such as art, food, boats, the environment, etc.  As this tradition has progressed, ideas have been added, making it a learning experience through fun!

In addition to adding personal traditions to existing holidays, families, community groups or schools can create their own traditions.  At The New School over 40 years we have developed some wonderful traditions.  Boat Day happens every year when the students build boats from milk cartons and water bottles and sail on them in the bay.  Each boat holds 2 to 3 sailors and they are built by a mixed age group of about 8 children.  This event, which grew from a one-time activity, offers lots of skill, not only math, science and art, but also social skills, teamwork, leadership and problem solving.  On the last Friday in September, parents come to help with the launches and it has become an annual event that everyone marks on their calendar.

Other New School traditions occur around graduation time.  Students who are graduating paint their names on the walls in the hall.  The names are re-read and discussed every time graduates visit and more than once a graduate has brought his or her child(ren) to see his or her name on the wall.

Also for graduation the older class teacher and graduate’s parents decorate kimonos to represent their child’s years in the school.  This started as a graduation present one year when the teacher purchased kimonos and put a symbol on the back created by one of his students for a class project.  They were such a success that the students begged to get kimonos every year and thus another tradition was born.

Traditions and rituals help children to feel that they belong to a family or group, something to anticipate and enjoy but it is in the sharing that they can learn more about one another and develop an understanding of why we need them.

By Susan M. Chilvers, Ed.D.

Being “Politically Correct” is a term and an attitude that has been illuminated and emphasized a great deal over the last decade.  One would define the term as having a sensitivity for others who may be different from oneself, racially, sexually, religiously, etc. and not judging, stereotyping or condescending to them.  Given this climate it was interesting to be asked by a twelve year old “How come the politicians are so politically incorrect?” and that gave me food for thought.  With the amount of media exposure it is impossible to avoid all the political hype leading up to elections and discussing the process of democratic government and how it developed is a valuable educational experience.  However it is also a chance to discuss the value of respecting different individual’s ideas and the variety of views and priorities even within one political party.  Naturally parents will have their own views and biases as to which party and candidate they plan to vote for and generally younger children will follow their parents lead in their political views.  Sadly political discussion often bring out the worst in people and politicians frequently resort to what can only be labeled slandering matches in their campaign advertisements and speeches.  This provides great opportunities for educators and parents to discuss not only the content of candidates’ campaigns but also their attitudes to each other which brings me back to the 12 year old who suggested that politicians were not politically correct because they frequently disrespect each other or make generalized criticism about their party beliefs.  We need to get children to view individuals in the political arena as human beings with strengths and weaknesses like everyone else but at the same time tell them that we must hold our leaders to high standards of behavior and integrity—in other words encourage children from as early an age as possible to be discerning. When children bring in their parents political views form home, I think teachers should encourage them to express the positive aspects of those they support not the negative aspects of opposing candidates.  These can often be channeled through organizing mock elections and it is interesting to observe what ideas children bring to them.  Another good topic for discussion is the amount and use of money in a political campaign and how this affects candidates’ exposure to the public.  Due to the tremendous increase in media coverage, political candidates are exposed to minute scrutiny on a daily basis and thousands of tweets follow every public appearance or private leaking of information.  Parents and teachers can help children to understand why people act the way they do, what are the important things, what is hype and how are politicians using their power, is it unilaterally or responsibly?  We’ve all heard the saying actions speak louder than words.  This certainly applies to politics and can be a mantra for our children to learn.

 

OLDER CLASS:

This week we had many new assignments.  K started reading The Hobbit to us in bookcorner and L volunteered to help him on Wednesday.   When I first read The Hobbit I loved it and it was so good to hear it read aloud.  We also had 2 new vocabulary words a day with students each writing a paragraph using those words.  We made time to read those paragraphs and talked about each of these new words.  Sara met with the class to discuss ideas for setting up cooking groups later this year.  We had a new Scope Magazine and read the mini play and two articles.  We also started to study our 5th ecosysytem, tropical forests, by reading 9 pages in Earth Matters, selecting animals to research, and had several students start creating new life-sized animals.  Sara also added three new apps to our collection this week, two dealing with times tables and one on diagraming sentences.  Another new project was for each student to choose one of the 100 Top Stories of 2012 from Discover Magazine and create an 8 x 11 card presenting that information.  I read a story from The New York Times to the class about a cat that found his way home after getting lost 200 miles away!
Old work included math work books, and each person in the class tried to do 5 more pages of their magazine.  J continues his fish project with fish from the tropical forests rivers.
Today we were treated to a puppet show presented by J, A, and I.  We also had phys. ed. and music this week.
I hope everyone has confirmed that their conference time is good for them.  I am continuing to spend my evenings thinking about each student and writing my conference reports.

 

MIDDLE CLASS:

The middle class will be going with the little class to see Freckleface Strawberry, a musical performed by students from Mater Dei.
The children are excited about their upcoming individual conferences.  They have filled out their self-evaluations which I will use as a discussion tool to chat about their work, their school social life and their goals and ideas for work for the rest of the year.  I will be writing my conferences in the order they are scheduled so please contact Jill to make any changes to your conference time ASAP.
On Tuesday we read a book on Martin Luther King Jr. and discussed the civil rights movement and the concept of non-violent protest.  We followed that by watching President Obama’s inaugural address and a discussion of our rights and responsibilities as citizens.  So many of these ideas are relatable to our everyday lives in the classroom.

YOUNGER CLASS: 

Although this has been a short week, we have been working really hard to get many of the elements of our predator project finished for the open house on Saturday. Almost all of the life-sized murals and models are finished and on display. They are really turning out great. Of course there are a number of other elements to this project which we continue to work on until the deadline right before February Break. This week we also continued to work on Spanish with Kim and had indoor phys. ed. with Chris. Tomorrow we will do a big clean-up in preparation for Saturday.
My class and Kathey’s class are going to see Freckleface Strawberry, the Musical, which is being performed by Mater Dei.

 

MUSIC WITH HELEN:

This week in the Middle and Older Class we continued working on writing down music.  The children each have a music manuscript book and have been writing rhythms, notes, scales, and in some cases songs.  We’ve also worked on a singing and rhythmic project in the older class which reminds me of the “can you rub your tummy and pat your head” skill. In the younger class I’ve introduced a few of the kindermusik movement and music exercises and we will be working on a couple of songs for a year end project.

 

 

Hōme-wərk – Not in my Vocabulary

by Susan Chilvers

There is a bright eyed six year old at The New School who bounces into the class every morning usually toting a complex Lego model he made the previous evening and then drags his feet when it is time to leave to go home.  He frequently sports a t-shirt that reads “homework is not in my vocabulary” and enjoys the reaction he gets from adults and older children.  Well, homework is in my vocabulary more than I care to say because the fact that The New School (ages 5-14) has no homework hits a chord with just about everyone and the reactions vary from, “But how do they keep up if they don’t have homework—those New School kids must be very behind” to “what a relief, I hate doing homework!”   Since it comes up in just about every conversation about school  and since I commented in a previous article that homework was not the silver bullet many people think it is, I will try to answer the question, “why not?”  Perhaps the best way to do this is to address the reasons given for homework.  Firstly, it is thought to be necessary for students to practice what they have learned in school or complete work that there is not time to do in school.  I would argue that if students are taught things at an appropriate time in their development and given time to consolidate what they know, they will not need endless practice at home.  Teachers frequently only have time to check small sections of homework, e.g., one or two math problems or simply see it has been completed without reading reports or essays and giving feedback.  Unfortunately, with the pressure of tests, teachers are often forced to “teach to the test” and have to assign sections of the curriculum to be studied at home in order to meet the deadlines.

Another argument for homework is that it really tests what students know because they are on their own, not with classmates who might help them, plus parents can see what they can do. The reality is that parents are doing much of the homework either because their children don’t understand it, or because it is just taking too long and robbing them of family time or simply because they want them to get a good grade.  Homework seriously limits family time when a movie watched together, a family board game or outside activity would be so much more beneficial.

So my vote is for no mandatory homework—ironically, New School students often work at home—their own choice because they have so much they want to do so home and breaks are self-chosen natural extensions of their learning in school.  They explore unique ways to present material and demonstrate critical thinking—a commodity said to be prized in the working world but sadly not necessarily nurtured in schools.

And one last word—no homework means less early back and neck problems for children who are not toting 20-30 pounds back and forth form school every day in their backpacks!

OLDER CLASS:

I really enjoyed the older class parent meeting on Monday night.  The meeting was full of energy and enthusiasm, and I really appreciated the input each person added to the meeting.  Posing the question  “What do you think it’s important to teach and not teach?”  led to very productive discussions.  I made a list of all of the topics parents mentioned and Sara actually found a way of working on two of the suggestions by looking for an iPad app that helps students with cursive and their signature.  Parents particularly enjoyed when we read a mixture of every student’s writing in a “collage” format.  Our next meeting in February will be on socialization in the older class.
A new project this week was for students to choose a current magazine and use that magazine’s format to create a magazine for a student their age.  An example that I gave them was if they chose National Geographic, they could choose to do a cover and a feature pictorial article on The Middle Class.  The article could include a visit to the class and a study of their recent bird project.   This week each person should have chosen a magazine and completed five pages – this project will last for about a month and the sky is the limit.
Other work this week included completing the self-evaluation, 9 math work book pages, music, phys. ed., wackiest White House pets, J’s fish, and N reading to us in bookcorner.  This week we will be completing our work on oceans.  Today we covered five pages on the way tuna, squid, shrimp, pollock, and swordfish are caught commercially and the pros and cons of those methods.  We also read the last ten pages in Earth Matters on oceans.  In addition, students wrote to Sara and me twice this week in their journals.

MIDDLE CLASS:

We had a great trip to Poricy Park today.  We learned all about the way the form of beaks, claws and feathers is adapted to their function and the bird’s habitat.  We were able to start the process of dissecting owl pellets and will finish at school.
One of the great aspects of the trip was that our naturalist was Danielle Rucinski, a graduate of TNS.  Thank you to Laura, Danielle, Mechele and Salvadora for driving.
I am looking forward to conferences.  Please let Jill know if you need to change your time ASAP.

YOUNGER CLASS: 

This week has been amazingly productive. We have begun working on every life-sized mural or model for our predator project, as well as completing a lot of research. Many in my class have also begun working on creative stories about their animals. I have been most impressed by how well they have worked together, helping each other in turn. Of course we have also worked on journals, math, and Spanish. We are working with Kim on learning the days of the week, months in the year, numbers up to 20, and words associated with our animals.
Next week we will continue to work on our projects as well as get our room ready for the open house.