RattleBag and Rhubarb

The IBM Selectric Typewriter and Kenyon House: “You must have been drunk!”

Cross-posted from Josie’s Blog Did you know that Poughkeepsie Day School now has a Fab Lab? It’s short for fabrication laboratory – a place where people tinker, design, code, create, re-purpose, mess about, invent, make  and play with stuff. It’s right off the Chapman Room. It’s in the pilot and prototype stage but we are already seeing results. Do you…

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RattleBag and Rhubarb

Ready or not, here they come

After more than a year of preparation we’re as ready as we’re going to be.  This Sunday a team of experienced educators arrive on campus to begin an intensive three-day evaluation of our school. Poughkeepsie Day School is proud to be a member of NYSAIS (New York State Association of Independent Schools).  It’s a great organization of 180 schools across enrolling 78,000…

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MSLC Floor Plan
RattleBag and Rhubarb

Middle School Learning Community

How we took four classrooms and a corridor and created a contemporary learning space for the middle school in the summer of 2012. Watch the short video. And then look for the pics of the new space with the sliding glass doors now in place!

RattleBag and Rhubarb

The Web of Respect

Cross posted from Josie’s Blog It was the spider started it. A noiseless, patient, useful spider had spun a tremendous web right there in the playground, across the chains of the swing. It was Sue Parise’s class that noticed it and made the sign that said: “This swing is closed because of BIG spider!” Lynn Fordin took the photo and…

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RattleBag and Rhubarb

“What do you want to do?”

Today is back-to-school day for the faculty at PDS and today we are launching Project Innovate: Five Teams with a Mission. The faculty were invited last June to sign up for cross divisional teams loosely organized around five major and interconnected themes: Cultural Competency I Digital Citizenship I Learning and the Brain I Project-Based Learning I Wellness   There was no obligation to be on a…

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Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Child Education Magazine – a window on the past

On my recent visit to England I came across a small trove of Child Education magazines (published by Evans Brothers Ltd. of Russell Square, London) from the early 1960’s. They had belonged to my mother – a regular subscriber – who looked forward to reading each edition. Although she was by then near the end of a long career as…

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Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Change hits Welcome Back to School

This cartoon is making the rounds this morning:  Reminds me of those words often claimed to be either a Chinese and Hebrew proverb: Do not confine your children to your own learning, for they were born in another time. And this from John Dewey: The world is moving at a tremendous rate. Going no one knows where. We must prepare…

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Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

The One Cool Thing

I had the privilege last week of working with a great bunch of educators at the NYSAIS Think Tank at the Carey Conference Center in Rensselaerville, NY. The location was perfect, the company inspiring and the work energizing. And facilitator Ann Mellow provided leadership and kept us all moving forward. It was at this event last year that we re-branded…

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RattleBag and Rhubarb

Four Reasons Why Poughkeepsie Day School is Not the Real World

Poughkeepsie Day School – it’s just not the real world. Of course it’s not.  And – thank goodness for that. And here’s why. 1. The Future: Schools work with children and young people whose lives are ahead of them. We need to be ahead of the curve and working to make things better not reflecting the status quo. Real world?…

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Books, Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

World Class Learners Do More Than Bubble It In

Looking forward to reading Yong Zhao’s new book due out soon:  World Class Learners: Educating Creative and Entrepreneurial Students The focus is preparing global, creative, and entrepreneurial talents. “College and career readiness” is the mantra in the global education reform circle. Uniform curriculum, common standards and assessments, globally benchmarked practices, data-driven instruction, and high-stakes testing-based accountability are touted as the…

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Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Learning to Live (then going home for tea)

“So the children of a democracy learn to take their place in the world of tomorrow.” The British Council has made its film collection public. What a wonderful gift. Take for example Learning to Live.  Made in 1941 it presents: A typical school day for the three children of the Brown family at Nursery, Junior, and Senior Schools, and the…

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