RattleBag and Rhubarb

“Not where the light is”: Schools and Creativity

by

There’s a really useful article in  Education Week that reviews, summarizes and connects the basic thinking and research out there on what helps promote creativity and helps children incubate the curiosity that leads to innovation, discovery and invention. There’s little here that is new and indeed I have written on all of these topics many … Read more

Cookie Cutter Kids: “Send us your winners…”

by

…and we’ll make winners out of them” There’s a good article in the latest edition of Independent School magazine that challenges some cherished notions of excellence and the hypocrisy of so many claims about diversity, equity and justice. It is starts with a question and a well-aimed slice at the euphemisms of so many school … Read more

A is for…A Poughkeepsie Day School Lexicon

by

A is for Algebra, Anthropology, Arts and Athletics. We teach them all. People often refer to the STEM curriculum (It’s an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, Math). Our program however, is fully SEARCHED (Science, Engineering, Arts, Recess, Community Service, Humanities, Exercise, Design. No T because technology is everywhere – from paint brushes and  blocks to … Read more

Learning by Teaching

by

Students who teach others learn best The Protégé Effect For thousands of years, people have known that the best way to understand a concept is to explain it to someone else. “While we teach, we learn,” said the Roman philosopher Seneca. Now scientists are bringing this ancient wisdom up to date, documenting exactly why teaching … Read more

The Kindness of Strangers

by

We received a wonderful letter yesterday and here it is: Dear Ms Holford: I volunteer at The Queens Galley in Kingston on Tuesdays. I had the pleasure of working with your students, who volunteered yesterday at the soup kitchen. They were enthusiastic, helpful, industrious and all around fantastic. The teacher who accompanied them was so … Read more

After the Storm….

by

I just tried to take a look at Central Hudson’s Storm Central page and in particular the Outage Map. But it seems our utility company is down and out right now. I was hoping to see all the triangles gone indicating that now everyone is fully powered up. Last week was certainly a challenge for … Read more

More Failing, Fewer Failures, Greater Success

by

The November Educational Leadership is devoted to the topic of grading. It includes an article by Alfie Kohn an expanded version of which you can read here: The Case Against Grades. I’ve given grades. For years I worried about how to get a system right, tried to focus students and their parents on the learning … Read more

Don’t panic: Experience success and failure … as information.

by

Probably the only two responses to constant change are: A. Ignore it (shrink back, retrench, resist,  go off the grid, become irrelevant, turn inwards, stay put, get run over, and so on) or B. Keep on keeping on with the learning life. Clearly Option A can take you only so far. But what happens if … Read more

My camera and me

by

It’s no secret – I like to carry my camera around school and take photographs. I am endlessly fascinated by kids and what they are up to and how they go about learning and the choices they make. I’ve now got thousands of photographs of life at Poughkeepsie Day School going back five years. And … Read more