Welcome, welcome! Welcome back to our returning families! And a hearty welcome to our new families. Welcome back, teachers!
A couple of weeks ago, I was working on clearing out our family’s storage unit. Buried in a giant pile of photographs was this story, dated 1956. Here’s this teacher with her second grade class. And guess what she’s doing? Turns out her second graders could do math on a worksheet, but they had no idea how to translate those worksheet skills to the real world. Students, raise your hands. How many of you have ever paid for something at the store? How many of you know how to make change? Do you know how much will your money buy and what things cost?
Armed with these questions, this teacher went to local businesses and found people to build a tiny version of a market in her classroom. Other businesses donated boxes and cans of food. The article explains that, “Each morning a [student] shopkeeper is appointed and he—or she, as the case may be—appoints a [student] telephone clerk and a [student] delivery boy. The merchandise must be dusted and arranged. Later, during activity period, the [student] shoppers arrive in relays. There is a coin phone where [student] customers may call to place their orders and the cash register rings [too].”
Super cool, huh? So there I was in the family storage unit, covered in dust and exceedingly grumpy, when I get to this wonderful, inspiring article. It turns out the dark-haired lady at the edge of the photograph was Joan Sproul, my mother.
Even in the 1950s, first rate teachers took a progressive approach to teaching. Imagine that! As a matter of fact, the idea that experience is the best teacher is as old as time and almost totally forgotten in most American schools today.
One easy way to tell what schools really value is to ask where they allocate time and resources. At ISW, we are out on field trips almost every Friday afternoon and our classrooms are filled with hands-on activities and projects that bring learning off the worksheet and into life. It is certainly important to get ideas on paper and worksheets have their place in building skills, but in the end, you haven’t truly mastered anything until you can apply the skill in the real world. This is the essence of progressive education. ISW may be relatively young, but we descend from a tradition that is, arguably, older than the idea of school itself.
And now, before we get any older, it is time to begin this school year…
Kindergartners, Lowers, Uppers, Middles, thank you for your excitement, your inspiration and your trust. This school is, as always, our gift to one another. Welcome to the new school year.