Fall2015progressions pen by Greene Hill School

progressions GREENE HILL SCHOOL NEWSLETTER

SPECIAL EDITION

PROGRESSIVE EDUCATORS ARRIVE IN BROOKLYN FOR THE

Progressive Education Network 2015 National Conference ACCESS, EQUITY & ACTIVISM: TEACHING THE POSSIBLE

PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION NETWORK 2015 NATIONAL CONFERENCE

GREENE HILL SCHOOL 39 Adelphi Street Brooklyn, NY 11205 718.230.3608 WEB SITE

www.greenehillschool.org

The Progressive Education Network (PEN) held their national conference in Brooklyn last week and our own GHS Director, Diana Schlesinger, helped make it a huge success.

E-MAIL

info @ greenehillschool.org BOARD OF TRUSTEES Nanci Berman David Horowitz Carrie Mauer Nils Mellquist, Board Treasurer Beth Schneider, Board President Amanda Smith, Board Secretary

More than 800 educators from all over the country came to New York for school visits, place-based workshops, break-out sessions and panel discussions with educational leaders and activists including Curtis Acosta and Deborah Meier. Diana was on the planning committee that has been meeting for a more than a year and worked tirelessly at the conference. She looked great in the official PEN Conference t-shirt. GHS was thrilled to join in the ongoing national conversation about the role of progressive education today. As a new and growing school, we have a lot to offer and a lot to gain by connecting with other schools and organizations. Open Work is a key part of our progressive curriculum here at GHS and Diana, Laurie and Jaime led a very well-received Saturday afternoon session on Open Work and how it is practiced at GHS. Our teachers enjoyed the opportunity to network with their peers at workshops and as they served as trip captains leading visitors all over the city to place-based workshops. Diana, Laurie and Jaime were able to meet with administrators and school leaders from schools all over the country. We are so proud that at only 6 years old, GHS is is becoming known and respected in the field of progressive education. GHS has already brought the PEN conference back into the school. As a whole staff, we had energetic reflections at our weekly meeting — and will continue to do so for many weeks. We are discussing how what was learned at the conference will inform our teaching practices in our own classrooms. Two GHS teachers are attending another workshop in December — the National Association of Independent School’s (NAIS) People of Color Conference. We look forward to adding their reflections to our conversations. GHS is grateful to be able to make a strong commitment to staff professional development this year. For more information on the conference speakers and panels, please go to

www.progressiveeducationnetwork.org

GREENE HILL SCHOOL

•

www.greenehillschool.org • 718.230.3608

SPECIAL EDITION

Here is a description of Diana, Jaime and Laurie’s workshop on Open Work. Sound familiar? Open Work is an important part of the progressive approach at Greene Hill School, providing daily opportunities for students to exercise choice and take ownership over work with a variety of materials and media. Teachers are sensitive facilitators and observers as students find multiple inroads to encompass and communicate an idea collaboratively or individually. Quite frequently Open Work becomes a time to take action and teach one another about issues and topics that students are passionate about in their community and the larger world. Some examples of projects include student research and advocacy related to fracking, GMOs, animal rights and student health. In this workshop we will facilitate a discussion on how Open Work supports a variety of learners as well as the activist spirit. Workshop participants will explore student work through photographs and video, break into small discussion and action groups, and will create and participate in a Wide Open Work experience.

GREENE HILL SCHOOL

•

www.greenehillschool.org • 718.230.3608

Teacher Reflections on PEN ANNA LUNDGREN, GHS 8S TEACHER, SHARES HER REFLECTIONS ON THE EXPERIENCE HERE: The PEN conference was thought-provoking, energizing and inspiring, not to mention an important chance for faculty and administrators at Greene Hill School — an independent school that boldly self-identifies as progressive — to be a part of a greater good. One of my take-aways was a series of diversity questions I can think about and encourage students in my class to consider when we select or read together literally any book, questions such as: “Whose voices are heard and whose are missing,” and “To what extent are the characters depicted as having the power to act?” I am sincerely thankful for having had the opportunity to participate as an attendee, teacher from a hosting school, and a tour leader for the Brooklyn Historical Society's workshop. Thank you for making this possible! COLIN MCMANUS, THE GHS 9S TEACHER, ATTENDED TWO WORKSHOPS: Equity through Inquiry: Divergent Thinking at the Met and From the Stage to the Page At “Equity through Inquiry: Divergent Thinking at The Met,” worship participants were led on a tour through the expansive collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Our tour guide, David Bowles, an education specialist at the museum, instructed us to focus on the specific theme of body language in six different museum pieces. By using this, or any, specific theme, David showed us how an unfamiliar and possibly intimidating piece of can be examined and analyzed in the classroom at any level. David also brought us to a diverse range of art pieces and showed us how art can be used to educate and inform students about a wide variety of cultures. At “From the Stage to the Page,” instructor Miriam Kopelow led worship participation through a method that uses improvisational acting techniques to help students with the writing process. In this very interactive and engaging workshop, we learned how students can use the improvisational techniques to create their own character’s. By living vicariously through their created character, students gain a sense of the characters personality, traits, and motivations. Without this method, students often find it difficult to construct a character out of thin air and therefore struggle to begin the writing process. This method makes the process of creating a character engaging and gives the students a head start in the writing process.

Thank you to families who supported GHS at the PEN conference. The PEN conference was a unique professional development opportunity for GHS teachers and we are so grateful to the families who made financial contributions to offset the significant costs to the school.

GREENE HILL SCHOOL

•