Wicked Smaaht

During a recent trip to Boston I was amused to see street vendors selling "Wicked Smaaht" shirts and sweatshirts along with those with the Harvard and MIT logos. As much as I like Boston, it does not have a corner on the smart kid market. We have our fair share of wicked smart students at Shorecrest. Last school year when the community was identifying the top values that we wanted our community to embrace, the students ranked Knowledge higher than any other constituent group.

 

There have been some interesting discussions on whether knowledge is a value. One definition we used during the discussion is...  “Knowledge is the pursuit of understanding, skill and expertise. Continuous learning.” An important element in the Mission of Shorecrest is the charge to “educate students to be lifelong learners.”

In the same survey where Knowledge was tapped by our students to be a Core Value, those same students listed lifelong learning as one of the most important outcomes of a Shorecrest education.

 

Knowledge has taken on a broader meaning for our students than for generations before them. They may still enjoy participating in Brain Bowls and games like Trivial Pursuit, but the need to carry bits of trivia in our heads has been replaced by the phones we carry in our pockets. While a certain number of basic facts allow us to quickly address day-to-day functions, knowing how to analyze information, develop systems for addressing challenges, think creatively, test assumptions and problem solve is the kind of knowledge that allows students and adults to make a broader use of our brains.

 

Students no longer need to wait until college, graduate school or career experience to become knowledgeable about how to learn, to organize complex information and to solve real world problems. Surely, the study skills and discipline students develop while in Lower, Middle and Upper School contribute to being successful when acquiring knowledge that requires more than skills in memorization, application of rules and organization. All of the above mentioned skills allow learners to advance to higher order thinking and problem solving. Fortunately, teachers are finding that a blend of basic skills education, higher order thinking and problem solving can occur simultaneously and result in a more meaningful education for our students at Shorecrest.

 

I love seeing our students and their teachers engaged in academic activities that require everyone to think big. We want our students and their teachers to Be More.

I give them three big Cheers for all their efforts to embrace knowledge.

 

Cheers!

 

Mike