A Focus on Learning How to Learn
At a School Meeting in October, Emily Gum, Assistant Head of School for Teaching and Learning, talked with students about the Academic Merit system, and the ways that it exemplifies Frederick Gunn’s educational philosophy. “Academic Merit is our secondary grading system. It’s really core to how we think of our academic identity,” Gum said. “It’s part of our school motto, A Good Person is Always Learning. Academic Merit gives you feedback on learning how to learn.” Academic Merit is feedback that comes from every teacher at the end of the term and is intended to help students measure their progress in five key areas: preparedness, completion and conscientiousness, engagement, collaboration and group work, and self-awareness and persistence. These are the skills that help students to understand how they learn, and to develop a lifelong love of learning. “We basically teach three big ideas,” Gum explained. “We teach a knowledge-rich curriculum. We teach that what you learn should 22
The Frederick Gunn School Bulletin
help you have an impact in the world. And the thing that holds it all together is learning how to learn.” Students need deep knowledge. They need math and the sciences, and they need history, a world language, and to be able to write and communicate, but what a Frederick Gunn School education also teaches is that the purpose of possessing all of that knowledge is to be an active citizen in the world with an entrepreneurial spirit. That is why students engage in a four-year citizenship curriculum under the Center for Citizenship and Just Democracy, why they are encouraged to take a deep dive into one big question or idea during Winterim, and why they are encouraged to problem-solve in the Ideas Lab and entrepreneurship classes, Gum said. The idea that holds all of this knowledge, imagination, creativity, innovation, and impact together is being a great learner. “It’s how to be great at learning and putting that knowledge into practice. As a learner, you have strengths and weaknesses and
