Roundtables: Why and When

Dear Arts & Letters community,

January is always an exciting and action packed month for us. In the cold of winter (in most years), we have our bi-annual Roundtables (1/25 for 6th grade; 1/26 for 7th grade; 1/27 for 8th grade). Today, I'd like to share a bit of the rationale for doing Roundtables, and what it means to us. It is important to remind you that you are ALL invited and we hope you can share in this celebration of learning of our children. 

Here is the link to sign up to attend:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dGdHUTlXYXBSdUlCM01hMmt5cndfSVE6MQ

WHY DO WE DO ROUNDTABLES? 

Roundtables is based on a simple belief, which is that students should have the opportunity to share, reflect on, and discuss the work and learning they have done over the course of a semester, and they should do it with an audience that knows and cares for them. Roundtables is also an opportunity for our visitors to use the same metrics that our teachers use to look at how prepared our students are as they progress, be it high school, college or the next grade. Sadly, this is a belief that is not in practice in most of the schools in our nation. While all New York City public school children’s reading, writing and math skills are assessed many times throughout the year by state and city-sponsored standardized tests, at Arts & Letters, we believe that learning is broader and more complex than the snap shots that these tests give us. Learning at Arts & Letters also encompasses Egypt, the consequences of slavery, trees, the design of playgrounds, the study of ecosystems, animal behavior, the secret lives of snails and worms, problem solving strategies in mathematics, independent reading of books we love, and musical composition, just to name a few.

In many other schools, students are taught to study hard for tests and share their work only with their teachers, and occasionally their parents or a peer.  Too often teachers are taught to keep their doors closed and make sure that students do well on the tests and behave.  Students and teachers are rarely asked to reflect upon their work and are never expected to present it to other teachers, students they do not know, school leaders, family members, or (especially) “strangers.”  In fact, most students would be too scared to expose themselves to the public like this and most teachers would be too nervous to “put it all out there.”  However, we know that developing flexible thinkers requires a combination of success, failure, joy and discomfort. Roundtables is a practice that helps both the students and adults of Arts & Letters be better and more flexible thinkers. Revision and reflection are very important to us and they are central to this practice.

Sadly, when each day we are asked to do more and more with less and less, slowing down to listen to our students discuss their learning becomes a political act. We believe that our students deserve the time and energy of their parents, schools and communities. These two ingredients are essential in the raising of young people who are strong, caring and flexible thinkers who will be stewards of a vibrant democracy.

In the end, Roundtables is a celebration of student learning in all of its shapes and sizes. We hope that as a member of our community, you will participate in as many Roundtables as you can. Each time, we learn new things about our students and teachers, and get new opportunities to connect with others, and think about something in a new way. Please do come, and tell your neighbors and friends to sign up as well! 

We hope to see you soon,

John O'Reilly and Allison Gaines Pell, Co-Directors

A day in the life -- two scenes from Friday, December 16, 2011

A day in the life... 


Today, we had our first ever SING! for our kindergarten and first grade families. The SING! is inspired by Central Park East and Mission Hill, where Sing is a regular part of the routine, bringing children and families together in song. We can't wait to include middle schoolers in this as well. Thank you to those of you who could join us!! Here is just a glimpse: 

And, take a look at our 8th graders in their portfolio arts concentration course with Ms. Bennett, at the end of an assignment to capture the image of a live model (a fellow student) in three minutes. You'll see their disappointment when the time is up! 

Teacher learning and teaming

Every parent knows that the most important factor in a good education is a great teacher. Finding great teachers is one big important challenge, but keeping them and helping them grow is an even more important one. In our school, we believe that keeping teacher learning at the center is a critical factor to modeling the kind of learning we want our students to do. That is, if our teachers want to learn, so will our students. Because of this, we see our role as facilitators of teacher learning.

One important way we do this is through teaming. Each teacher is on a grade team (the 6th grade team, for example), and also a vertical team (the math team, for example). The grade teams are responsible for celebrating, monitoring, and studying their shared students (all of our teachers except the arts and special education teach only one grade level). They plan trips, write letters home, work together on advisory planning, culture and tone. The vertical teams are responsible for the professional learning of the school. They devise and ask questions such as "how can writing become an expression of student thinking in humanities," or "how will big, murky mathematical problems increase student problem solving skills?" or "how can peer critique, drafting and feedback deepen a student's artistic ability?" or "how can listening to and documenting student thinking during writing help us make more informed decisions about what to teach to our emerging readers?" among others. These teams, and the leaders of each team, ensure consistent practices across the grade levels, create the professional development plans for the year, and report back to one another about their learning.

At the center is this idea: the experts about our children are their teachers (at school anyway!). As school leadership, if we bring out their curiosity about children and how they learn, our school will continue to grow and change for the better all of the time. And, it is a big win for everyone: happy, curious teachers who are given the professional responsibility to push themselves to continue to grow translate into happy curious students who do the same.

The two meanings of "go public"

When I wrote the proposal for Arts & Letters in 2005, the initial name for the school was different, but included in the logo was the phrase: “go public.” It went by the wayside as “too academic,” but found its way back in our fifth year when we began to grow in to this idea of how to be more public with our work, both as educators and as students. Today, we are introducing one more way to invite you into our school, by exploring some “insider” topics here in a bimonthly letter. 

To us, “go public” has two important meanings. First, we want to provide many ways to make our students’ learning more public. Too often, the audience for learning is the teacher only. Children learn to do tasks and projects FOR their teachers; our work is to help students learn for themselves, and to share their learning to those they love as well as their larger community. For this reason, we have a variety of ways that we want to bring you into the learning process. One example is the implementation of Richer Picture, our digital portfolio system that Parent Association funds have paid for this year (thank you!). Our lower grades teachers have been discussing which work and which assignments would be most meaningful to upload and to document in our system, and how to build a sustainable structure for doing so (we need you, parent volunteers…). Our upper grades teachers are already uploading tasks and rubrics, and the students themselves are able to upload their work. This system will document student thinking for the whole school, and will help students and families leave here in 8^th grade with a portfolio of their work that spans nine years.  A second powerful routine is Roundtables, which takes place in January and June. Our middle school students sit with adults in their classrooms and discuss, defend, and present their work. Our lower grades students will also have their own Roundtables where they will share their learning and their progress with our community.

The second important meaning of "go public" is about bringing you in to the real every day work of public schools, and to rally support for public education generally. With all that is said today about public schools and public school educators, it is a risk we take to be this visible, for it means that you will see not only the great triumphs and beauty of the every day, but also the challenges and dilemmas of school. But we know that you came to Arts & Letters to be part of something special, and to work with us to build an incredible institution, one day at a time. This means that we need you to be here, to see us shine, to ask us questions, and to support us and your children when we need help.  Quite personally, I am hopeful that one unintended but positive consequence of the de-funding of public education is that communities will become closer through the bonds they share in their children; that in seeking to understand the work we do in schools, our public becomes more educated and knowledgeable about what happens in our public schools, and the consequences of federal and state level decisions on our daily lives and on your children. 

We are so thankful that you are on this journey with us, and we look forward to the continued dialogue.  

Sincerely, Allison Gaines Pell, Founding Principal/Co-director