Too Cool for School.

What? You work at a school that has no grades?  You work at school that does not give homework?
You work at a school that does not give tests?  You work at a school that does not give report cards?

From these questions you may think that we are not a school at all.  Welcome to Progressive Education- its not just a place where children do whatever they want, it is not unstructured but it does allow for freedom.  A concept more schools should embrace. There are no grades because I believe that every child learns at their own pace.  No two people learn the same material at exactly the same time or in the same manner. Children that excel at reading should be able to grow, children that need support should be given the time to get the proper support.  No child should  "fall through the cracks" because there should be no cracks.  Every child should be learning to their individual potential. I once read a story that made perfect sense to me, it was during a parent teacher conference:
   Parent- "How is my child doing compared to the other children in her class?"
   Teacher- "Your child is doing fantastic compared to the other children in her class but this is the dumbest class I have ever had."
No two children are the same, why compare them to one another?

There is no homework because time at home should be time to spend with family.  Parents and children have full schedules as it is- time at home should be time with family.  There is also an on-going study supporting the idea that there is no correlation between academic success and homework. Here is another short observation- Next time you are done filing your taxes with the accountant ask him if when he goes home he would like to work on more financial plans that will be looked at and then thrown in the trash.

Personally I think that the best way to learn is by making mistakes, learning and then doing things differently next time.  The way that tests are conducted all that children are required to do is to memorize the correct information. Modern tests are by no means a measure of learning.  A wise director once explained it this way- one of the best ways to learn is to make mistakes and try again differently until you succeed.  The problem with tests is that if you make enough mistakes you fail.  That does not encourage learning, it encourages rote memorization with no context of learning.

There are no report cards because I believe children deserve more from me.  School and learning are challenging.  Learning to navigate the many rules of phonics and reading can be very difficult for a young child. Academics are a part of school but there is so much more to children.  Saying good-bye to your parents on the first day of school is hard, making friends with other children is not easy, learning to solve problems using language instead of arguing or fighting is challenging and some adults never learn it.  Standing in front of a group to give a presentation is a huge success, traveling from building to building is challenging, having the confidence to stand up for yourself is life-long, learning to treat others kindly regardless of differences is unmeasureable. All of these things are part of learning and for these reasons..children deserve more from me as an educator.

And so..the point of this post.  It is time for me to type 18 Year End evaluations.  My evaluations are done in narrative form with an Overview for each subject.  In the end I will have typed approx. 127 pages including the Overviews. So this will be the last blog post until my Evaluations are done. It is also our Second Annual Graduate White Water Rafting Trip with Moxie Outdoor Adventures! Pictures of this to follow on our return.

Thank You for reading.  Thank You for helping expand my audience and please, if you like it- share it.

Father, Son and Holy Greek Mythology.

I have been reading some of my earlier blogs and noticed that as time went on my blogs became more in depth and detailed, which is great. What I did realize is that I have been leaving out the quick quotes I hear through out the day, so here we go...

I was near the sandbox helping to fly a few kites for Kite Week and I overheard a great conversation. It was about Jesus- I just listened and did not say a word.


CHILD ONE-  "Did you know that Jesus is a real person, he was the son of God?'
CHILD TWO- " Yes, I know he is real but not really real.  I mean he does not live down here with us"
CHILD ONE- " Well, he can live here but we just won't see him."
CHILD TWO- "And...did you know that Jesus has an older brother?  His older brother is Zeus." said with conviction.

Apparently I missed that small detail during my four years of  Christian Brothers Academy Religion class.

...So full of Sap.

If you have been following my blog, you may have noticed a recent trend.  The classroom has been immersed in making Maple Syrup.  Yesterday we pulled out the last of the taps and as I am typing, the last pot of sap is boiling down.

A sight not commonly seen on an Elementary Playground.

Three sap seasons ago the Founder and Director of the school asked me, "How come you have not tapped the Sugar Maples along the driveway?"  For one thing I thought that this process was a bit too dangerous to take on with the Lower School and secondly I knew nothing about how to go about this process. I proposed making syrup to the class and not to my surprise, they were very eager to begin this process.  We read books, watched videos and I talked to people that could help us start this process.  Our first year, we put in ten taps along the driveway and boiled the sap using a propane burner in the parking lot and the electric stove in our classroom.  I soon realized that this was an intense process-there were many days when our room felt so stuffy due to the steam.  During our first year, we even got to practice "Fire Drills".  I soon learned that sap can go from almost done to done and burned very quickly.  I also learned that if the pot was too small the sap will boil over, land on the electric burner turn to sugar and catch fire.  Lesson learned. We were also swimming in sap, who knew that it would take forever to boil down sap in lobster pot?  To solve this problem, we simply roped off a portion of the faculty parking lot and added two more propane burners.  It was going great, I could peek out the windows and look across the playground and see the steam rising from the pots.  There was one day, when I looked out the window and there was no more steam, it looked more like smoke.  I ran across the playground to discover the all of the sap had boiled away and there was no longer a bottom to the pot.  The pot got so hot that it melted, the entire bottom of the pot was in a pile of liquid metal on the ground.  Fear kicked in, what if the liquid metal dripped back down the propane valve and in moments, I would have an exploding propane tank in the faculty parking lot of our school...not good press.  Thankfully, my mind  got too carried away and that did not happen.  What did happen is that we were done for the year- way too stressful.  Propane burners and elementary school aged children do not mix well.  The first year we made enough syrup to send a small portion home with each child, give a small jar to our Founder and have a pancake party.

As the snow melted, we were ready to start our second year of making Riley Gold Syrup.  The name stemmed from an incident where one of the children spilled a bucket of sap and another child said, "Don't you know it takes 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup, that stuff is like gold."  For the second year I was pretty sure that there must be a better option than propane.  I searched the internet and found a photo of a home made boiler using a 55 gallon drum.  The photo facilitators husband said that he could make one of them for the school.  Now we had 25 taps and a safe way to boil.  We turned our sandbox into a make shift Sugar Shack minus the actual shack.  The children took turns wearing  fire resistant gloves and kept the fire going all day long.  I loaded up the wood stove and it would boil all night. We made enough syrup to have an ice cream party, a pancake party, send a bit home and raffle off 5 pints.  A great success and at the end of it all I thought that next year we could do more.

Starting in September I joined the Maple Trader website and read a great deal about how to be more efficient.  I decided that to take this sap experiment one step further.  Every third Sunday in March sugar houses across the state open their doors for Maine Maple Sunday.  I contacted the Maine Maple Producers Association and asked if our school could be on the tour.  Despite not having a Sugar House, we were on the tour.  They were pleased to know that children did most of the work using very primitive methods of sap collection and boiling.  Now the pressure was on.  We had to make enough syrup to give plenty of it away and we had to have enough sap stored so that people could actually watch the process.  We tapped our first trees in late January since there was a January thaw.  We also put in 50 taps, our most ambitious year!  One of the families also donated an old wood stove so that we could boil more at one time.  I also found two giant steel cooking woks- each one of them could hold 7 gallons of sap.  Now our sandbox was filled with a giant 55 gallon drum wood stove, a small kitchen wood stove and two open fire pits made from cinder blocks for the woks and the perimeter of the sandbox was surrounded by chords of wood.  Everyday the class went out with their five gallon buckets and hauled in the sap.  Once there was snow on the ground, it got a bit easier to haul the buckets using our sleds.  And then the snow was gone and we were trudging through mud with a Civil War Ammo cart with giant metal wheels.  The kids in my class worked hard!  They hauled and stacked the firewood as well as kept the fires going all day.  I bought a child sized ax and many recess were spent with children taking turns splitting firewood.  Every morning I would arrive at school at 7 and start the fires.  When we were not out collecting sap, we were in the classroom filtering sap or making labels for the pint sized mason jars.  As Maine Maple Sunday approached, the kids got excited and I got so nervous.  What if no one showed up?

As part of our Math Cooking Class the children prepared food to give out during Mane Maple Sunday.  They made Maple Cookies, Maple Bread, Maple Roasted Root Veggies and everyday they made sure that we would have enough ice cream for the visitors.  Needless to say that we made sure to sample everything!  We also started to paint Fact Signs about maple syrup around the campus and we used a software program to make a map of our taps.  Everything was falling into place nicely- the sap was flowing, the children were excited and I thought- Oh damn, what if no one shows up?  I had live music lined up, my family was coming from New Jersey, my wife's family was coming and "I hope people show up."  We had about 6 gallons of sap made by the time Maple Sunday rolled around.

One of the wok boilers..makes a nice smokey flavor.

I arrived on campus at 6 30 in the morning with a giant to-do list in my head.  My support team (my family, in-laws, wife, brother and nephews) all started to arrive around 9.  Everyone had a list of chores; put up Fact Signs, start building the cooking fire for a cookout, spruce up the place, make an art project, get the ice cream and syrup ready, go to the grocery store and Shit...what if no one shows up? At 10:30 a few people started to arrive and then HOLY KRAP....there was a non-stop line of cars pulling in the drive way.  It was all becoming one blur.  One of the parents from school had to make two runs to the grocery store because we ran out of hot dogs, burgers and ice cream.  People just kept coming!  There were kids everywhere..all over campus.  I encouraged people to take a tap map and a five gallon bucket and tour the grounds collecting sap along the way.  At one point, all of our five gallon buckets were full of sap and so were all of the pots and woks! There were a few families that stayed on campus for the entire afternoon.  We gave away all 6 gallons of syrup (with a suggested donation) in no time.  We had to take syrup orders.  We went through 8 gallons of ice cream, three dozen cookies, three loaves of bread and a countless amount of burgers and dogs for a dollar each. It was a whirlwind and thank goodness people showed up.

Maine Maple Sunday 2013..and we thought nobody would come.

Everyone I talked to prior to Sunday said that we could maybe expect 40 - 50 people.  By the end of the day we estimated that over 300 people visited our Riley Gold Syrup operation.  We kept collecting and boiling until the sap slowed down and frankly, we got very tired of emptying sap buckets.  In the end, we made close to 12 gallons of syrup. Children ages 4 -9 did most of the work- we hauled approx. 480 gallons of sap using sleds and a metal wheeled Civil War Ammo cart.  We boiled 480 gallons of sap using an old wood stove, a home made drum wood stove and two woks boiling on open flames in the sandbox. Next year...who knows what will be next, but there are a lot of Maples on our campus.

Hopefully next year we will have a sugar shack and an evaporator in addition to our Sandbox Setup -this way we can put in more taps and make more syrup and raise more money. More people will visit our campus and more families can come to Maine Maple Sunday and celebrate with us.


The Fact Signs...helpful, informative and a great way to practice writing.

Here is the our Map of the Taps.

A class unlike any other.

We always have a ton of projects going on in the classroom.  We cook, we have a section of the room dedicated to woodworking and lately we have been chopping wood so that we keep the sap boiling.  Over the years I have had many conversations with parents about the bumps and scrapes that children get from recess or running on the path between classes.  Last week I had to talk with one the children's parents to tell them that he cut his hand, here was the conversation:

 Me- "Well, we had a bit of an accident today George cut his hand."
Parent- "How did he cut his hand?  Did he cut it with a saw in the workshop or was he chopping wood for the sap?"
Me- "Neither of those actually, he cut his hand with a knife while chopping vegetables during cooking class."

The parent was fine and I thought to myself that this is a great sign of my classroom.  After being told her son cut his hand, her first line of thinking was that he must have been using a saw or an ax.  Nope, it was kitchen cutlery.

STORY NUMBER TWO

One of the children in the class was flipping through a National Geographic Magazine.  I am always nervous about this project.  You never know when you may come across a butt shot or some carnage caused by a car bomb somewhere.  Most recently there was an article about child development and the picture of a baby's bottom was endless fodder for giggles.

I was walking by and noticed that Dave was flipping through an article about Tibet.  As I passed by I heard him exclaim, "Holy cow, look at how these people have to hang their laundry, the clothes are everywhere and they have to climb a mountain to hang dry their clothes."  I look closely at the picture and he was looking at a photo of a mountain top village that was surrounded by Prayer Flags.

"Second Hand Rose"

Five months ago I wrote about welcoming my son into this world and now, sadly, I will write about a great person leaving.

I have always had an alternative philosophy regarding education and children.  I waited to find the perfect fit to start my teaching career.  My first school was a great place and I was confident in my stance on Progressive Education.  Over the years the school started to change, I started to change and by the end I was questioning my approach and my ability to support and teach kids.  I left teaching with a sour taste in my mouth.  For four years I worked building patios and stone walls until one day I realized I felt out of place. Although I met my closest friends while landscaping, I was ready to be back in a classroom surrounded by the energy of children.  I sent out 108 resumes all over the state of Maine, New Hampshire and Alaska. I replied to a job post for the Riley School, located in Glen Cove, Maine.  I drove up to visit the school and interview on Wednesday, did a day of teaching/observing on Thursday and drove home Friday.  I remember vividly turning onto the driveway of Riley and being in awe of the campus and its buildings.  I knew then, that this is where I wanted to be.  And then I had my interview and there I met the person who founded and created the Riley School, Glenna.  My interview was like chatting with friends about education, children and how teaching is an art. I was automatically drawn to her energy, excitement and love of children.  My interview lasted nearly two hours.  After the interview I toured the buildings and grounds.  On my drive home Friday I could not contain my excitement and then my cell phone rang.  It was Glenna, I was offered the position of being Riley's Lower School Facilitator.

I was delighted to meet a director that shared my vision of education.  In her own way, she reassured me that what I was doing was exactly why she started the Riley School in the first place.  It was impressive to meet a women who stuck to her vision and philosophy at any cost and she was feisty.  Her main philosophy for the school was that her faculty should have nothing but unconditional love for the children at school.  When you love a child unconditionally they will thrive in all other areas of their life.  Adults always need to support and guide children but love and affection are the cornerstones that she stood by 41 years at Riley. She loved to engage in conversations about education that challenged my teaching practices and have I mentioned that she was feisty? She was an impressive lady that helped countless amounts of children and I am ever grateful for having her in my life.  I am honored to be a part of her school and vision, honored that I was chosen to be a part of her faculty and I will work hard to carry on what she started 41 years ago. Last night when I was falling asleep I thought about the message that she delivered every year at her '39'th' birthday and Riley graduation...

  " You know what is amazing?  It is amazing that there is not another person in the world like you.  Think about that, there is no one else like you in the world.  You can do anything you want to do, just be the best at doing it.  I don't care if you want to be a garbage man, just be the best garbage man.  And don't let anyone tell you that you can't do something.  You can do whatever you want.  They told me I would never have my own school and you know how that turned out."

this one is just business.

Sorry it has been a while.  Between vacation week and boiling sap there has not been a lot of extra time.  Thanks for being patient.

I have been thinking a lot about children and how they tend to bend the truth in certain situations. For example, it was the end of the day and all the children in the room were doing their part to help accomplish all of the daily chores.  With 18 children each doing their part, our room looks great in a matter of minutes.  I glanced around the room as everyone was buzzing around and I noticed one child was hiding in the cubbies.  He was not hiding near the cubbies, his entire body was crammed into a square box about two feet off the floor.  I didn't say a word, at the time.  The end of the day chores were done with time to spare, the children asked if they could go to the block room.  As they ascended the spiral staircase to the block room I stopped the boy who had been hiding in a cubby.  I reminded him that he still had to do his part to help clean the room.  A few tears ran down his face as he asked, "Why can't I go upstairs?"  I told him that I watched him hiding in the cubbies instead of cleaning, so before he could go to the block room he would have to do his share of cleaning just as everyone else had done.  He looked me straight in the eyes and said, "I was not hiding in the cubbies, that was your imagination."  Although he was real cute, I was insistent that he do his share before going to the block room.

This interaction really got me thinking about how children respond to consequences and the nature of fibbing.    My first thought was that this is a hilarious thought for me because I am sure my dear Mom and Dad have countless stories of my fibbing as I am sure I will have a few about my son.  But as far as the classroom is concerned I started to think that maybe I was focusing on the wrong detail. The only clear thought I could come up with is that children fib to teachers because they are trying to avoid the consequence.  I decided that I would focus my conversations more on the decision making process so that children associate a consequence with a poor decision rather than the actual behavior.  I will let you know how it goes.

This post was a bit heavy, the next will be amusing.  We have been real busy making syrup, so expect a post and photos relating to Maple Season.

David Banner and Yoga...

Not all posts can be long stories and tales from the classroom or from my experiences as a new dad.  Some have to be quick, off the cuff and slightly spontaneous; just like the children I work with.  So here are two quotes I heard today that made me stop for a moment and ponder, and then chuckle.

The kids were going about their business working on their math problems.  As usual, they were all deep in discussion while working.  For today's discussion the topic was Super Heroes. I loved listening to this one because, after all who doesn't like Superheroes and what a great way to introduce Greek Mythology at a later date.

  One of the girls said, "I love the Incredible Hulk, he is my favorite from the Avengers."
   There was some mumbling around the table-a bit of confusion as to who she was talking about.
 "Is the Incredible Hulk that green guy with a foul temper and purple pants?" someone asked.

What a great use of the word foul.  

OVERHEARD NUMBER TWO.

  We were meeting around the rug to read a book and one of the girls was sprawled out on her back, she grabbed her ankles and tucked them behind her head.  Words can not accurately paint this picture but her feet were sticking out from under her head like bunny ears.  This also put her rear end in the air slightly and it was aimed directly at the children sitting on the rug. The initial reaction of the children was obvious when I heard..."ummm, your butt is where your privates are."
She said that it was fine she was wearing clothes and that it was a Yoga move.  In the blink of an eye , 17 children were sprawled on their backs, reaching for their ankles in an attempt to tuck their feet behind their heads. Two other children managed this feat.