Areté Summer 2016: Play is Serious Business

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Areté

June captures 2016, our aspirations Classical Greek for excellence, justice, or virtue, the concept of areté nicely for children at Moses Brown. We seek to foster the inner promise in all students, and promote habits of mind, body, and spirit that prepare our graduates to do both well and good in the world.

Welcome to

Learn to Play, Play to Learn By Matt Glendinning The 2015–16 school year at Moses Brown came to a close on June 9, when members of the Class of 2016 walked across the stage at Commencement to receive their diplomas. And just like that, the delightful din of learning ordinarily heard on campus has faded into the leisurely days and languid nights of summer. Summer is a time for fun, sleeping late, and vacation — for adults as much for kids — and here in Rhode Island we look forward to savoring Del’s lemonade and the state’s many spectacular beaches. And yet, for all its promise, summer recreation can feel harder and harder to justify these days. Many educators and parents fear the proverbial “summer slump,” a child’s tendency to forget acquired learning during the down time of June, July, and August. Some worry that unless children are doing something to expand horizons or sharpen expertise — like internships, sports camps, or service — they will fall behind in the competitive race that is modern education. Is there no longer room for recreation, pure and simple?

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Middle & Upper School Students Take the Puerto Rico Plunge Cross-curricular connections and hands-on adventure come together during spring trip Over spring break, 11 students travelled to Puerto Rico, exploring an island culture that has endured and evolved from the Taino Indians through Spanish occupation to its present status as a U.S. territory. They visited canyons, caves, and watersheds with the conservationist organization Para La Naturaleza and recorded data on its beaches and streams. Students snorkeled, deep-water fished, cave-crawled, and toured rainforests for rich immersion, experiencing the island’s geology, history, and science firsthand. Math teacher Matt Herreid led students through an itinerary that offered Spanish language experience and historical perspective. Says his colleague and co-leader English teacher Yulie Lee, “This was the perfect opportunity to ‘do’ science! What

an incredible and gratifying opportunity to travel to Puerto Rico with MB friends. We were just awestruck.” The trip highlighted the power of immersion in a new culture and environment. “Your Spanish means more when you actively converse in it,” says Matt. “Understanding geologic time changes after you see giant stalactites growing one centimeter every century. The importance of balance of an ecosystem sinks in when you see 20,000 bats exit a cave at dusk. How many tons of bugs do they remove each day?” Freshman Shaan Hossain enjoyed looking over the edge of a cliff and peering straight out into an undisturbed ocean with no boats, buoys, or anything man-made. “I signed up for this trip for an adventure, to

Students pose outside of a cave in Puerto Rico. get out of my comfort zone,” he says. “I wanted to broaden my horizons. The trip had a monumental impact on me. There are so many beautiful things to see on one small island. I was intrigued by almost everything I saw, and horrified by the thought of anyone not taking care of this beautiful place. We only have one earth; there are so many things worth preserving.” Last year, Matt Herreid was awarded a Leonard Miller ’51 Travel Grant to plan the trip in advance.


Areté, June 2016 In Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul — the summer reading selection for the MB Parents’ Association — Dr. Stuart Brown makes a compelling case for play in all its wonderful incarnations.

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It turns out that disparate and seemingly purposeless activities like skipping stones, day dreaming, and role playing not only foster empathy and social skills, but also help to develop key areas of the brain such as the frontal cortex (the locus of much of what we call cognition). Play fosters creativity, adaptability, and resilience, says Dr. Brown, and its benefits do not end with childhood. “Many studies have demonstrated that

lead to a lifelong sense of purpose. Indeed, it’s remarkable how childhood play features so prominently in the life stories of some of the most innovative people of our times, e.g., Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google, or Jeff Bezos of Amazon. What can schools learn from Brown and Wagner? Should education be all fun and games? Not exactly. The world today demands broad and deep knowledge, critical thinking, clear communication, and cultural competency, all of which can (and should) be fostered in the rigorous intellectual environment of schools. And yet, educators would do well to heed the research on play. Learning and memories are encoded more strongly and durably through play. Play provides a low-risk way to develop and test innate skills and talents. And it develops the neural circuitry necessary for understanding and solving problems. As Dr. Brown says, “Play is like fertilizer for brain growth. It’s crazy not to use it.”

Play provides a low-risk way to develop and test innate skills and talents. people who continue to play games, who continue to explore and learn throughout life, are not only much less prone to dementia and other neurological problems, but are also less likely to get heart disease and other afflictions that seem like they have nothing to do with the brain.” A childhood strongly rooted in play can provide a powerful foundation later in life. In Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World, Harvard professor Tony Wagner suggests that play in children often fosters exploration and the discovery of passion, which in turn can

This understanding of how people learn guides our approach to curriculum design at Moses Brown. We value applied, experiential, and expeditionary learning. We encourage students to work in groups, using their hands as well as their heads. And we encourage joyful and freeranging exploration — characteristics also associated with play. I’d like to thank the entire Moses Brown community for a wonderful school year, and invite all of us to find time for authentic recreation this summer. We’ll all be smarter — and happier — as a result!

SUMMER READING! Lower School

Middle School

Not a Box

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

Antoinette Portis

Jacqueline Kelly

To an imaginative bunny, a box is not just a box.

A summery tale of a self-possessed and ambitious young naturalist.

Wonderstruck Brian Selznick

Stitching words and pictures, present and past, a boy’s and a girl’s quests come together.

Wildwood Chronicles Colin Meloy

Prue’s brother is abducted by a murder of crows, taken deep into the Impassable Wilderness, and so the story begins.

Upper School and Parents Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life William Finnegan

100,000 perfect words on a life quest for perfect waves. For a Little While Rick Bass

Artfully crafted tales from where the human, natural, and mythic worlds meet. Play Stuart Brown

A groundbreaking look at the science of play, and its role in fueling happiness and intelligence throughout our lives.

Seniors, Tinkering, and Play By Laurie Center Director of STEM Education

In May, seniors complete their final requirement for graduation — senior projects — where they are asked to “create a project that exemplifies your passions and interests, and demonstrates academic curiosity, physical ability, and creative problem-solving.” I have been involved with these projects for many years. Each spring I am impressed by the way students extend an interest sparked in a course, sharing their passion and creativity. With the project’s open-ended nature and important resource of time, many seniors reinvent themselves as designers, inventors, and tinkerers. In one of my favorite books, Invent to Learn, tinkering is defined as an alternative approach to traditional problem-solving, one that encompasses a creative design process: “Tinkering is a mindset — a playful way to approach and solve problems through direct experience, experimentation, and discovery.” This process plays out in senior projects while addressing driving questions like “How can I use my knowledge of robotics and astronomy to share my passion for the night sky with our community?” Many seniors have taken the MB Engineering Design class where the seeds for their projects were planted. The class focuses on design learning, paralleling that of Mitchel Resnick from the MIT Media Lab, who describes “a model for design learning where students imagine, create, play, share, reflect, and then re-imagine again.” Tinkering and play are a major part of our class process and key components of senior project learning. In one project, students designed and built a boat out of wood, calculating volume, density, and flotation — but the true test was balance and buoyancy in an actual water launch one chilly evening. Countless projects here reveal authentic learning and an understanding of design: flight with remote control airplanes, rocketry through water pressure, and a self-designed hovercraft that elevates and rotates. These experiences have me excited about the opportunities for student learning in our new Y-lab. In it, individuals and groups of students will work on complex problems. The Y-lab will encourage play and prototyping. This spring, watching our students explore and experiment in the fifth grade Math Arcade, eighth grade Rube Goldberg projects, and senior projects, I know our students are more than ready for the Y-Lab. For more information about the Y-Lab visit mbbelieves.org/y-lab.


June 2016, Areté

Bringing Green to the Classroom Hands-on professional development in first grade

First grade teachers Jeremy Saksik and Sam Bradshaw show off their earth box currently growing radishes. Children — and teachers — love to get their hands in dirt! Many MB teachers take advantage of the Teachers as Scholars program each year, which provides professional development seminars led by university faculty. This spring, Samantha Bradshaw and Jeremy

Saksik attended TAS sessions on class gardens and greenhouses in support of their farm-to-table unit. Both jumped at the chance to “green” their classroom, approaching the topic through the lens of horticulture as a science. “We learned how we can not only benefit from the

Cultivating Imaginations

Science and creative collaboration at Camp Invention This summer Moses Brown will once again host Camp Invention, a week-long experience for 70 elementary-age learners from Rhode Island and nearby Massachusetts. These children will work with Moses Brown teachers and upper school student interns to create innovative and exciting projects. To lead this effort, Moses Brown has chosen drama teacher and theater director Steve Kidd.

something new out of the materials at hand. Steve also identifies a parallel working dynamic between theater arts and Camp Invention. “Though this program has a

outdoor time, but how taking care of a living space helps teach the kids responsibility and life lessons,” says Jeremy. This spring, they began implementing some of the ideas they learned about, including a worm farm and the earth boxes shown here. Both teachers are already predisposed to hands-on learning. Jeremy has a degree in computer/electrical engineering and spends weekends fixing bikes; a competitive bike racer, he appreciates fresh, home-grown food. Sam comes to MB from South County and a home oriented to the natural world, with dogs, a cat, guinea pig, a horse, and a large vegetable garden. Sam and Jeremy spent two days with David Epstein, a horticulturalist and meteorologist, learning about all things green — from how to build a terrarium with students to starting a school garden. They explored growing food, composting, sprouting seeds, greenhouse basics, beneficial insects, local flora, container gardening, germination rates, and climate. Dave has been a meteorologist in Boston and Portland, Maine for over 25 years. An avid gardener, he’s also a columnist for The Boston Globe, the founder of GrowingWisdom.com, and author of Gardens of New England. He teaches at Framingham State and Colby colleges. With a small group for the class, attendees also enjoyed learning from one another. “It is exciting to think about how we will be able to approach this in a more holistic manner in the future,” says Jeremy.

framing context of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, it requires a similar kind of collaborative creation that actors need when they’re making a scene come to life.” So while the materials may be new, teaching children to work with each other and their imaginations to create something the world has never seen before is squarely in Steve’s wheelhouse.

The theater director? Don’t look so surprised. While some of the camp will be focused on accomplishing specific projects, there is also a strong emphasis on undirected time for discovery and invention — or said more simply: playtime. “In our Moses Brown acting studio,” says Steve, “we spend most of our time cultivating our imaginations. The act of watching and participating in a play is an agreement to engage our imaginations and believe that a wooden cube is actually a throne, a wire hanger a crown, and the seventh-grade student a king. This is the same capability children need to envision a device that’s never been made before.” While the Camp Invention students will be using cardboard, duct tape, and elastic bands instead of Chekhov, Shakespeare, and method acting, they will still need their imaginations to create

Campers will stretch their imaginations with a multitude of engaging, hands-on activities.


Areté, June 2016

Jane Ritson-Parsons P’17, Group Executive for Hasbro Brands.

Work at Play One of Rhode Island’s strongest corporate citizens is known worldwide for its devotion to play: Hasbro, Inc. With beloved brands including MONOPOLY, NERF, PLAYDOH, MAGIC: THE GATHERING and TRANSFORMERS, Hasbro’s mission is Creating the World’s Best Play Experiences. Group Executive for Hasbro Brands, Jane RitsonParsons P’17, offers her expertise and enthusiasm to the play conversation. “So much has been written about ‘the play deficit,’” she says. “Being in the business of play, we know how important it is to children’s

cognitive, social, physical, and mental health, and to the adults that they’ll grow up to become.” Hasbro’s research division studies play in all demographics. “In the past two years alone, we’ve interacted with more than 100,000 parents, kids, and caregivers in 14 countries.” To better understand the evolution of play with emerging media, Hasbro recently commissioned a study with Center on Media and Child Health at Boston Children’s Hospital. “Our goal is to determine the environments, social settings, and material that make play most beneficial to the development of children,” says Jane. Early findings include: • Girls who participate in pretend play often develop better creative and math thinking. • Board games with numbers improve young children’s ability to count. • Physical play can increase happiness, reduce stress, and help kids learn to cooperate and share. • When kids use aggressive language during play, they are less aggressive and more prosocial later. • Child-directed play with a parent is one of the best types of play, building social skills. For Hasbro employees, play is the path to innovation. “We’re encouraged to play every day, because it’s that childlike spirit of wonder

that fuels creativity. In our offices, you may see people testing NERF blasters in the hallway or playing board games, testing new concepts. And there’s a strong culture of balance, with flexible schedules and benefits like year-round half-day Fridays, so we can deliver excellence while thriving personally.” In shared dedication to Hasbro’s purpose, to make the world a better place for children and their families, teams visit schools, hospitals, and clubs globally, giving time and products to those who need them most. “Playing with children who need to laugh and smile,” she says, “that’s a big part of what inspires us to innovate.” “Being part of both Moses Brown and Hasbro affords me a unique perspective to see and appreciate play, design, engineering, and innovation woven through both communities,” Jane notes. “MB students, faculty, and staff use these skills in a way that’s both holistic and intuitive. Incorporating them into a lifetime of learning, collaboration, and creativity is super exciting, as students can draw from them in so many ways.” Moses Brown and Hasbro share many connections, from the company’s long-time CEO and Board Chairman Alan Hassenfeld ’66 to current Chairman & CEO Brian Goldner P’14 (Goldner is also co-chair of MB Believes). This summer MB faculty and administrators will visit Hasbro to learn how play can inform the development of MB’s engineering and design learning program.

A pianist and flutist, she is interested not only in perfecting her performance but also in the audience’s experience of it due to concert hall design, acoustics, and the neuroscience of perception. This past year, Abby studied construction of the Woodman Family Community & Peformance Center, interviewing the architects and the acoustics consultant for the new building. Her love of music and mathematics — and interest in engineering — dovetailed perfectly with the Woodman Center’s construction, giving her a unique opportunity to see how key principles apply in real life.

Abigail Siegel ’17 performing at Carnegie Hall winter 2015.

The Human Experience of Music A musician and music scholar, junior Abigail Siegel explored the human experience of music in an independent study project last year. This summer, she’s using a Class of 1948 Award to explore music cognition and perception at the 14th International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition at the University of California – San Francisco in July. The conference will showcase cutting-edge research and introduce Abby to researchers from all over the world. A presentation titled “Back to the Blues: Music, Color, Emotion, and Synesthesia” tops her wish list, since she

studied the phenomenon in Kate Kenny’s Honors Biology class this past year. “I have long been interested in design and engineering, and have a long-standing passion for — and background — in music performance.” says Abby. “It would be the dream of a lifetime to work in concert hall design. Getting to attend this year’s International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition takes me one step further towards this goal. I am excited and honored to get a ’48 Award.”

Music is not only Abby’s focus during the school year; it’s also her pastime of choice on school vacation. Last summer, Abby visited the Reuter Organ Factory, Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium, Boston’s Symphony Hall, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, and New York’s Steinway Piano Factory to experience the acoustic profiles of different venues firsthand. This summer’s study at ICMPC14 will deepen Abby’s exploration of music perception and let her connect with others studying the topic, both in academia and industry. The interdisciplinary conference is a forum for new research in music psychology, theory and composition, education, therapy and medicine, ethnomusicology, linguistics, and more. Congratulations to Abby and her fellow award recipients and thank you, Class of 1948!


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Throughout April and May we celebrated the power of making and creativity at MB. With many performances and exhibitions, we showcased the hard work of students in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math, as well as writing, poetry, art, theater, and music.

above:

Keynote speakers, journalists Sheryl WuDunn and Nicholas Kristof.

right:

ol Musical Upper Scho

Students will also hear from Arun Gandhi (above) and Ndaba Mandela (below), the grandsons of Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela.

Change Starts Here

MB Students Visit The Hague, Netherlands, “International City of Peace and Justice” The Hague — the name alone invokes images of diplomacy, players on the world stage, hushed negotiations, inspiring outcomes. This summer, ten rising seniors will visit this nexus of international dialogue. They have already taken Modern World History and will use prior studies as scaffolding to ponder challenging questions: What are our basic human rights? What is our role in ensuring the human rights of others? How can we create conditions for peace through mutual respect and understanding? “Places like Berlin have such immense history, it is unbelievable we’re going there,” says Tom Lynch ’17. “I’m especially looking forward to visiting Anne Frank’s house; we studied her last year and I want to learn more about what she endured. I hope that I can learn how to work with some of the brightest young minds in the world, finding solutions to real-life issues. We must take responsibility for our planet and make sure we can pass it down to future generations. This trip is a great way to prep us for the real world.” Before attending the summit, students will visit Prague and Berlin. They’ll tour the Berlin Wall and talk with residents who lived through the Cold War. Their trip will culminate in the Global Student Leaders Summit on Human Rights

with 1,500 peers from across the U.S. and Europe. They’ll hear from keynote speakers Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn as well as Arun Gandhi and Ndaba Mandela, the grandsons of Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. Students will then work in teams, joining together to problem-solve human rights issues in their communities. When humanities teacher Beth Lantz first mentioned the summit, Grace Fay ’17 went right home to share the itinerary with her parents. Human rights have been a major focus for Grace in her time at MB; it was in freshman history class that she discovered a desire to work in international relations. “This trip will teach us more about human rights and ways we can serve others,” she says. “I hope to learn more about myself as a young, global intellectual, and to gain a greater sense of human rights, so I can bring what I learn back to my community at home.” MB TRIPs (Travel, Research & Immersion Programs) make discovery through travel a key part of each student’s school experience. Trip leader Beth Lantz says, “History is more than just a collection of dates and facts, but a discipline that provides us with countless stories to examine in order to understand our world today. This trip matches well with MB’s mission to guide students to becoming knowledgeable, caring, and active global citizens.”

8th Grade Rube Goldberg Machine s

5th Grade M ath Arcade

All School Art Show

s Choru l o o h e Sc M id d l

Senior Proje c ts


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This quarterly publication is designed to share strategic updates from Moses Brown’s Head of School and stories of growth and progress from across our campus.

PLAY IS SERIOUS BUSINESS!

JUNE 2016

A PUBLICATION FROM HEAD OF SCHOOL MATT GLENDINNING

Areté, June 2016


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