Learning Something New!
Source/Author: Mike Murphy, Headmaster
November 06, 2014
Last month during new parent interviews, I heard more than one parent share with excitement stories about the new things their children are learning at school. Many of the families sharing the stories with me have children in The Experiential School. They are seeing their young children come home with expanded vocabularies and interests in ideas and activities that were not there when the children were dropped off earlier in the morning. Parents of young children can observe huge leaps in intellectual growth, if not day to day, at least week by week.
Also last month many members of the community were able to share in the pride of the parents of our student performers as we witnessed a growth in ability. The show left me, and I imagine others, with moist eyes and on our feet in ovation. Acting, singing and dancing, like we saw in the production of “Anything Goes,” does not happen without intentional efforts of teachers and students. Beyond the enjoyable experience of the show, I watched and celebrated the fact that our teachers are able to transform the lives of students.
Learning is a big deal!
Sometimes we are able to see our children grow before our eyes. On other occasions, we need to wait to see how the long-term cumulative lessons, experiences and practices combine to allow a learner to demonstrate skills, habits or knowledge.
The Heads of our four schools and I have been encouraging teachers and parents to nurture growth mindsets in our students. Applauding the hard work and persistence our students invest in order to achieve short-term and long-term goals is believed to be the best practice for future motivation and achievement.
We live in a world that likes to see quick results. Learning, to the contrary, especially mastery level learning, takes time. We need to resist the temptation of expressing impatience or dissatisfaction when one of our children is working hard but not demonstrating the anticipated progress he, she or we want to see. Instead, we need to praise them for their efforts and support them in age appropriate ways.
Cheers!
Mike
