Reflective Teaching

On Fit and Fitness at The Galloway School

2011-03-27T16:24:00.001-04:00

What comes to mind when one considers the word “fit?” To fit in; a good fit guarantees comfort (If the shoe fits, wear it.); one size fits all; physical and mental fitness; survival of the fittest.

Charles Darwin is often quoted as follows: “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the most responsive to change.” Although these exact words never appear in Darwin’s writing, we think we know what he means; hence, the resonance and durability of this misquote.

How does “the Galloway Way” relate to Darwinian (or any other rendition of) fitness? John Elliott Galloway often spoke about the inextricability of mind, body, and spirit; about how a fit body augments clarity of thought, and how a spiritual nature completes a whole person. Does the putative Darwinian interpretation of fitness – i.e., adaptability to change – relate to the philosophy of Mr. Galloway and of The Galloway School? Is the school, itself, fit?

A school, such as The Galloway School, that allows individual teachers and individual students to decide on important components of their own teaching or learning develops maximum – optimal – adaptability. We who teach at Galloway are free to interpret our specific curricula as we choose (within a broad framework of Georgia and national standards); we can focus on what we are most passionate about and what we know best; we can make our teaching topical and relevant; we can seize the teachable moment. Students at Galloway have considerable freedom in the way they engage with their own educational process. They may choose many of the courses they take or subjects they study (although more choices exist for seniors than for five year-olds). Upper Learning students may, in effect, select a major – humanities, arts, math-science, technology – and pursue it to breadths and depths unavailable at less progressive schools. Or they may sample from the full array of courses of study and participate, as well, in drama, sports, music and visual arts, or student leadership and governance. Students graduate from Galloway with diverse cognitive and social skill sets along with a capacity for handling choice and change in practiced, systematic, and growth-promoting ways. One of the most important skills Galloway graduates possess is a well-developed capacity for working in social groups. Group work and group dynamics are very important at Galloway.

Over its forty year history, The Galloway School has evolved; adapted to changes in educational practice and in society at large. Galloway is certainly surviving – even thriving – in a competitive private school environment. As such, Galloway is a fit school that survives without compromising its core culture.

“Fit” from another perspective suggests congruence with sociocultural mores. The Galloway School is a diverse community that is tolerant of – even celebratory of – a wide range of co-cultures, types, and individual adaptive patterns. Because of its complex ecology, Galloway provides niches into which most individual students can comfortably fit, for fit implies comfort. Comfort and fit are both reciprocal and dynamic (in the analogy of the shoe: a shoe that fits is comfortable and becomes more so with the passage of time; yet, as the well-fitting shoe changes – fits better and better – it alters the foot in subtle ways; this is a feedback loop*).

A student new to Galloway undergoes a period of adaptation to the culture of the school. To be even marginally successful, he or she must quickly learn the approaches, habits, and quirks of seven or eight adults (teachers, principals, advisors, counselors) and enter into a reciprocal relationship (i.e., craft a fit) with those individuals. Simultaneously, the new student must cast about for a cadre of friends with whom he or she can fit in. To the adolescent, the fitting in with peers is more immediately important than fitting in with the academic culture, hence, there is often a lag phase in the scholarly performance for students new to the Galloway community. Students find their new friends within (and between) all the micro-cultures that exist in a school: cultures that relate to music tastes and/or music performance skills; athletic interests and skills; broad academic content interests (“I’m not a math person.” “I’m into drama.” “I want to go to Georgia Tech.” “Art is my thing.” “I am a reader.”); and a variety of other co-cultural domains such as pop culture(s), sexual orientation, socioeconomic class, ethnicity. Personality (introversion versus extraversion; openness; neuroticism; risk-taking; temperament and energy level) also affects and predicts the niche(s) a student comes to occupy at The Galloway School.

The Galloway School is a rich, ecologically complex, synergistic environment in which children and young adults can become who they are. It is a place where all of the people that comprise its community can find a place to relate, to learn, to grow and adapt.

* Extremely tangential footnote (to a blog post filled with tangents): students at The Galloway School often report that the only school rules are “behave yourself, try… and wear shoes.”

Philosophy in Elliott's Circle

2010-05-16T21:31:00.004-04:00

Philosophy in Elliott’s Circle

During the waning days of MM’s Philosophy class -- on Cinco de Mayo – the class met in recently inaugurated Elliott’s Circle. Coincidently, the philosophy students have been learning about educational philosophies, including Mr. Galloway’s thoughts on education and on The Galloway School. As soon as we arrayed ourselves on the circle of logs, talk turned specifically to Elliott Galloway, himself, and the bronze statue of him. Students knew that the representative cup in Mr. Galloway’s hand contained hot water, not coffee. They thought it appropriate that he was holding a book, but that his attention was on the student(s) in the circle. We talked about the process the sculptor, Marty Dawe, used to “get it right”: looking at photographs and videos of Mr. Galloway (running, talking, interacting with students); talking with people – the Galloway family, students, and teachers – who knew him. They learned that EL art teacher, CG helped especially with verisimilitude, pointing out to the sculptor that Mr. Galloway had, at some point in his long and active life, broken his nose; that he usually wore Navy-style brogans.

Following the aforementioned lively and poignant conversation, the class turned its attention to the final reading in our philosophy text, entitled “The Will to Believe” by William James. We took turns reading passages and discussing their meaning. The essay ends as follows:

We stand on a mountain pass in the midst of whirling snow and blinding mist, through which we get glimpses now and then of paths which may be deceptive. If we take the wrong road we shall be dashed to pieces. We do not certainly know whether there is any right one. What must we do? “Be strong and of good courage.” Act for the best, hope for the best, and take what comes… . If death ends all, we cannot meet death better.

What better way to end a philosophy class in Elliott’s Circle. We think Mr. Galloway would have approved.

Kurt Hahn Educator Initiative

2007-07-23T21:02:00.000-04:00

Scattered Showers & Peak Experiences –

Kurt Hahn Fellows Spend Eight Days on an Outward Bound Voyage of Self-Discovery in the Pisgah National Forest

Without self-discovery, a person may still have self-confidence, but it is a self-confidence built on ignorance, and it melts in the face of heavy burdens. Self-discovery is the end product of a great challenge mastered, when the mind commands the body to do the seemingly impossible, when strength and courage are summoned to extraordinary limits for the sake of something outside the self – a principle, an onerous task, another human life.

— Kurt Hahn

Kurt Hahn Educator Initiative Fellows include six teachers from The Galloway School in Atlanta, Georgia and six teachers from Myers Park High School in Charlotte, North Carolina – Henry D., Peter E., Lexi H., Thalley M., Mark M., and Wyatt P.; Andy D., Kristen O., Jim S., Julia T., Chalisa W., and Steve W.. We twelve backpacked through an Outward Bound course in the Pisgah National Forest of North Carolina from June 23 through 30, 2007. Our collective goal is to transfer some of our outdoor/experiential learning – environmental ethics, woodcraft, interpersonal dynamics, and Kurt Hahn philosophies and practices – back to Galloway and Myers Park, and we will pursue this goal over the years to come. Personal goals ranged from simply surviving the rigors of the course to mastering the complexities of expedition life to expanding our physical and human networking limits. All twelve of us came home, more or less intact, evidence of the mastery of the skills of wilderness living. We hiked approximately 25 miles through rough and spectacular country; we climbed rock faces and negotiated a high ropes course. All twelve of us are changed by the experience.

What did we learn?

First and foremost, we learned to trust our selves and our fellows. Secondarily, to leave no trace – no discernible trace. To find our position and chart our course using map and compass. We learned the vulnerability and beauty of the southern Appalachian rainforest. That it can hail in the mountains. That solitude is a blessing. We learned about red efts, the McCall family’s Long Branch legacy – real or imagined – the pros and cons of tarps. We learned to trust one another with our life stories; to trust one another and ourselves to find a route, to prepare a palatable supper, to carry the requisite weight. That cloud/sunrise on Pilot Mountain is tantamount to heaven. That the eroded, steepest portion of the Art Loeb trail is hell. We learned the phenomenal biodiversity of the temperate rainforest – mosses, ferns, rhododendron, laurel, tulip poplar, loblolly pine, and hemlock – and the sickening disease of the hemlock forest. We learned that a few square meters of forest floor can contain dozens of species of plants. We heard the plaintive call of the whippoorwill. And witnessed the glory of blooming flame azalea, buttercup, jack-in-the-pulpit, rhododendron, saxifrage, wintergreen, rattlesnake plantain.

There is a curious rhythm to expedition life. Time expands and contracts oddly. A dozen steps up and up a steep trail take forever, while hours of vigorous hiking pass in a seeming blur. Life is simplified, overall, yet the simplest acts become complicated. The elemental aspects of existence stand out in relief: relieving oneself, personal hygiene, cooking and eating, foot comfort, the seeking and protection of dryness, and the conundrum of thermoregulation. Quotidian tasks are carried out against a backdrop of spectacular natural beauty – grandeur that diminishes the human scale, starkness of rock contrasted with ecological diversity and strangeness, sporadic glimpses or hearings of wildlife (a fox ghosts through a solo campsite; the distant mating sound of the ruffed grouse is mistaken for one’s own heartbeat; the haunting call of the screech owl raises the hairs on the back of one’s neck). It is as if our hierarchy of needs is reduced to a mere two levels of existence, the fundamental biological and the transcendent. These coexist or are, perhaps, coequal. One trudges along and looks up or aside to see ancient, richly cloaked mountains broken up into grassy balds, stands of hemlock, rhododendron thickets; one absorbs the intricate plant community in parts and in wholes. One’s heart thumps along at 150 bpm while simultaneously, consciousness slows and expands and reaches into the dream landscape and apprehends it as if of a piece. The oceanic feeling overlies and almost obviates one’s burning calf muscles and tender knees. The two seemingly irreconcilable levels of experience are brought together by pure will.

None of us knew fully what we were getting into when we signed on for the Kurt Hahn Educator Initiative. We pored over the literature, met with one of our facilitators, and fantasized about what it might be like, but there is virtually no preparation for carrying a backpack containing everything one needs that may weigh in excess of one-third of one’s body weight.

The first day, after sorting gear and food and leaving North Carolina Outward Bound Cedar Rock Base Camp, we hiked less than five miles from Graveyard Fields in the Shining Rock Wilderness and exhaustedly set up our first camp. During this initial hike, we began practicing map and compass use. After we reached our first bivouac at Ivestor Gap, we implemented black bear precautions: cooking at a site at least 50 yards away from sleeping areas; stowing anything edible or sweet smelling (baby powder, toothpaste) with cooking equipment and food and then suspending it ten feet above the ground in a craftily engineered bear hang. We broadcast gray water (cooking/cleaning/ toothbrushing water) and left no food scraps lying about.

As day followed day, we mastered the Outward Bound food system, and each day our loads lightened as food mass was converted into ATP for trekking. Each morning, we consumed a high carbohydrate breakfast and divided up trail snacks – mostly dried fruits and nuts. Lunches were equally simple, but suppers were more sumptuous: falafel stew served on a tortilla (what a glorious ethnic crossover); pasta alfredo with carrots and pimento (?); the infamous chili-mac-n-cheese. We licked our bowls clean after such meals. We met the Pudding Goddess.

After evening meals, we formed a circle to talk about the next day, to share appreciations, and to exchange the “four pillar” ribbons (Kurt Hahn’s four educational pillars are self-reliance, physical fitness, craftsmanship, and compassion), a process that required us to think about who had exhibited what attributes during the day and to make difficult approach-approach decisions. Our instructors were both experienced Outward Bound leaders: Erin P. – a sanguine fifth-grade teacher who is empathetic, determined and funny – and Kelly M. – a former library/communications science professor with a passion for humane teaching and an intuitive knowledge of group dynamics – taught continuously during the early days, but gradually backed off to let the Kurt Hahn Fellows take responsibility for the expedition’s successes and glitches. We all shared observations as we moved through the country – of wildflowers, birds, scenic vistas, clouds and weather. We talked about our families, our lives, and about our home schools, as well.

Weather in the southern Appalachian mountains is nothing if not changeable. We experienced bright sunny days with mixed cirrus, patchy stratus, and towering cumulus clouds; we hiked, camped, and hunkered down amid drizzle, dramatic thunderstorms, and hail. Mostly it was warm and humid, which brought out the insects – no-seeums, mosquitoes, flies. Each day provided at least a little sun, so we were able to dry gear – wet packs, clothes and tarps weigh 10% more than dry ones. We relished sunny conditions. The rain and hail and bugs, we endured. We learned and practiced the Outward Bound lightning safety protocol.

Early in the trek, the dichotomous character of our crew was obvious. Some of us had significant outdoor experience; some none at all. Some of us moved slowly and determinedly through the landscape, one step at a time. Some of us strode forth to take on each new challenge. But as the adventure unfolded, the inexperienced metamorphosed. Woodcraft developed rapidly; fitness differentials were compensated for – as the less fit became better conditioned and as loads were redistributed. On the whole, we took very good care of one another; when we became aware that an individual was having a rough day, others filled in to carry some of their literal or figurative weight. The trek was characterized by collegiality among the Kurt Hahn Fellows and with our instructors, who increasingly deferred to our leadership. During the latter half of the trip, Kelly and Erin behaved as if they were just two other members of the expedition. They even allowed us to make some mistakes.

High points and low points came and went each day; however, for many of us, the paramount peak experience was solo – twenty-four hours in the woods by ourselves. On day four, each of us was blindfolded and lead by one of the instructor/facilitators to a solo campsite along bubbling Grogan Creek. Most of us chose to fast for the duration of the solo experience. When one is by oneself in the wild, one is forced into reflection mode, and each person took great advantage of this: journaling, meditating, looking at and into nature until she stood out in clear relief. The perceived risk of solo (no one was really more than a few dozen meters away from a fellow adventurer, although line of sight was cut off by thick vegetation) lends it piquancy, sharpens the senses. Solo also provided a welcome respite from hiking and an antidote to sleep deprivation.

On day six, we met Glenn, our climbing instructor, and we hiked with climbing gear to a sloping rock face on Cedar Rock. After top-belay climbs were set, individuals confronted their personal rock-climbing demons (several of our party had never climbed before) and ascended moderately easy to moderately difficult climbs. Thunder and lightning drove us from the cliff face before everyone had a chance to climb, but for those of us who did climb, the challenge was met with aplomb.

Glenn was also our high ropes course facilitator on day seven. He is a quietly encouraging fellow with obvious and impressive climbing skills. He urged us through the course, and all twelve fellows succeeded in meeting the challenge. No one fell (we were thoroughly protected by backup rigging, in any case), and no one even hesitated as we moved smoothly through the half-dozen ropes course elements.

On returning to NCOB Cedar Rock Base Camp, we felt greatly let-down by encroaching civilization, by the sense of the impending diaspora of our highly coalesced little community. Even the pond water shower was insufficient to bring us fully back into ourselves, but we participated, yeoman-like, in the educator workshops that will ultimately allow us to carry out the larger purposes of the Educator Initiative.

The first phase of the Kurt Hahn Educator Initiative – the eight-day Outward Bound course – was a great success. The first rule of expedition life is to come home, and we succeeded admirably in this regard, among many others. Each of us knows a little more about himself or herself, and we all know a great deal more about our Kurt Hahn fellow travelers. We are committed to bringing aspects of the Kurt Hahn philosophy of experiential learning back to our school communities, and we look forward to meeting again during Fall and Spring retreats.

— Mark M. – July, 2007

The Value of Perseverance in Learning Chemistry

2006-11-14T08:13:00.004-05:00

I frequently meet parents – successful physicians, lawyers, and other professionals – who recall their high school and college chemistry experiences with something less than pleasure. Things that cause discomfiture include the apparent memory-intensiveness of chemistry, the weird problems, and the obsessive attention to very tiny measurements or to unimaginably large numbers (for example, the number of atoms in twelve grams [a modest size stick of charcoal] of carbon is 602,210,000,000,000,000,000,000, a number greater than all the pennies spent by all the economies in the history of the world!). On the surface of it, chemistry seems remote and inaccessible. However, in my nineteen years of teaching chemistry – predominantly to sophomores – I have yet to encounter a student who did not go away from my course without the sense of mastering the fundamentals of chemistry. For some – those bound toward the science/math/tech track – it was pretty easy. Their brains somehow find that chemistry’s inherent logic and internal consistency made sense. For others, the mysteries of chemistry come with some effort; however, with perseverance and, perhaps a little help from their friends (and their teacher), they do well. For a few, chemistry proves quite daunting. These students require more attention, more practice, more stick-to-itiveness, even as they tend to shy away from extended practice. The success rate for these students in Introductory Chemistry is still very good, but it comes with considerably more effort on both the student’s and the teacher’s part. I personally know two people who were on the doctor pathway in college, but changed majors after failing organic chemistry (organic chemistry is the most memorization-based branch of chemistry; for example, the chemical name for Prozac® is “N-methyl-3-phenyl-3-α-α-α-trifluoro-p-tylol-oxypropylamine hydrochloride”, and there is no other way to master its nomenclature besides learning the rules by rote memory).

So, just how hard is chemistry, anyway? There’s no escaping the complexity of problem-solving in chemistry. Yet, in Introductory Chemistry, students internalize a problem-solving method that is extremely powerful; one that will serve them well in all future science classes both in high school and in college. Mastering a consistent problem-solving method (analysis, planning, computation, and evaluation) takes time. No one comes to chemistry with this methodology fully in place. Indeed, the key difference between 8th grade physical science/chemistry and high school chemistry is the latter’s focus on quantitative problem solving, which is what real chemists do, after all. The basic concepts are the same (although I have found sophomore amnesia for 8th grade chemistry to be a common disorder). Students grow into effective problem-solvers, some faster than others. It is important to note that I systematically reduce the memorization load in Introductory Chemistry by allowing students to use the periodic table and the chemical ion table during tests; I generally provide at least a partial formula set for students to use on tests, as well. My focus is on understanding, application, and synthesis rather than raw memorization.

Let me briefly address the cognitive functioning of the average sophomore. A friend and former colleague of mine discovered during her PhD dissertation work in science education that seventy percent of freshman chemistry students operate predominantly at the Piagetian level of concrete operations. Piaget’s ages and stages work with cognitive development suggested that most young people move from concrete operations – a level that allows them to solve complex problems, but only when they have physical means (i.e. manipulative objects, learning tools) at their disposal – to formal operations at about the age of twelve. Formal operational thinking allows us to understand figurative language and to truly grasp things like algebra, metaphors, and archetypes. My friend found that most 19 year-olds were still processing information concretely, yet they were, for the most part, passing freshman chemistry, many with A’s and B’s.

Chemistry, then, would seem to be a surprisingly concrete science. It yields its secrets to those who keep at it; who, in a word, persevere. I do not expect my students to know how to solve complex chemistry problems when they come to me. I do, however, ask them to plug away at the process until they achieve mastery, and this involves, essentially, a year-long program of study. Parents should be patient. Even if a child is struggling (and he or she should be consistently encouraged to assiduously apply themselves) with chemistry in September, I can say with confidence that he or she will be OK with the discipline by November, December… (although I can not guarantee that everyone will opt for a chemical engineering major at Georgia Tech – someone has to teach history and fill the law schools).

-- Mark McCandless

Why the Galloway Way?

2006-05-05T20:22:00.001-04:00

We at Galloway spend an inordinate amount of time talking about how we implement the Galloway Way, while at the same time, we reflect little on what the Galloway Way is and why we might want to look at everything we do through its lens.
· TGW calls to mind the parable of the five blind men and the elephant. Each has his own perspective on the elephant (leg, trunk, tail, flank, ear) and therefore perceives a part without grasping the whole, the gestalt. Similarly, most Galloway students, teachers, parents, and administrators understand facets of TGW without seeing the big picture, particularly the “why”.
· TGW is not so much democracy as anarchy: individuals treading their own path in ways that do not significantly impinge on the journeys of others. TGW assumes that people are essentially good, if necessarily self-interested. See below: a segment on TGW and anarchy from the Crane “Review and Reflection Paper”.
· TGW is relationship as well as individual quest. Teachers and students are collaborators in the learning process. At its best, TGW promotes caring and stewardship among students and between students and teachers.
· Why TGW? We follow TGW because we – students and teachers together – crave growth and freedom. Teachers want their students to grow to be whole, good, productive, caring, and fulfilled people capable of sustaining their own growth both individually and in relationship with others. Students, likewise, wish to grow and change and become who they are.
· Why TGW? We follow TGW because we believe that it underlies the best educational practice. It gradually places the onus of responsibility for learning on the learner. It promotes the movement of locus of control steadily inward; that is, students pursuing TGW with teachers who understand and practice TGW come to know that they are the ultimate arbiters of their fate.
· Why TGW? As teachers, we follow TGW because we are willing to be responsible for creating a safe yet challenging learning – and living – environment for our students.
· Why TGW? As students, we follow TGW because we are becoming steadily less egocentric and more able to accept responsibility for our freedoms and our choices.

Crane Metamarketing. “Review and Reflection Paper – The Galloway School”. 2006:14-15.

"Anarchy? Does this bring to mind chaotic lawlessness, the extreme methods of anarchist radicals? What on earth can anarchy have to do with the utopian ideals of the gentle Mr. Galloway?
In fact, the two philosophies have a great deal in common. Quite the opposite of advocating chaos, nihilism, or anomie, authentic anarchists offer positive, harmonious visions of what they consider a truly free society: one made up of self-governing individuals. We find the philosophy best stated as 'a desired form of human interrelationship based upon voluntary cooperation without coercion or control of others; also, a social orgnization modeled to accomplish this dynamic.' This utopian vision bears striking similarities to Mr. Galloway’s dream of a school where students are free to learn.
Again, we raise this loaded term not to shock or invite political debate – and certainly not to label Mr. Galloway as an anarchist – but rather to recast the current predicament of the Galloway School by drawing a useful comparison. The conceptual resemblance includes:

· minimal laws or rules;
· a high value on personal freedom;
· the reliance on internal motivation to behave and be a responsible member of a community;
· an abiding belief in the potential of every person to master such internal motivation;
· a belief that in every person exists the innate desire for acceptance and approval;
· and a reliance on natural and social consequences to curb destructive or antisocial behavior.

In this popularly misunderstood philosophy, we can see many of the very same, and often misunderstood, ideals that foster joyful learning at Galloway – freedom, self-givernance, personal responsibility, to name a few. And what a beautiful vision it is. Why wouldn’t every person want to live and work toward such a society?"

Indeed, why wouldn’t every person?

Important Questions for a Teacher

2005-11-25T22:25:00.000-05:00

Does he like his students? Does he communicate this liking through patience and consistent kindness?
Does he respect his students?
Does he teach individual students or merely classes?
Does he understand his students? Does he understand the psychology of adolescence?
Does he meet his students where they are – cognitively, socio-emotionally, and in terms of acquired knowledge?
Is he effective in his teaching (effectiveness is much more important than efficiency)? That is, do his students achieve mastery of essential aspects of the material, and do they grow in skill and confidence?
Does he know his subject matter? Does he understand the essence of his subject? Is he passionate about his subject? Does he convey this love of knowledge and learning? Is he, himself, a learner?
Does he keep up with the “best practice” literature? Does he reflect on his teaching while maintaining skepticism about the faddishness of “best practice”?
Does he consistently communicate to his students how they are doing? Does he manage his students’ learning so that none flounders too often, too much, or too long – understanding that some preliminary floundering is a part of the learning process while at the same time monitoring student vulnerability to being left on their own?
Does he take steps to revivify his teaching?
Does he create and sustain an environment in which learning can take place?
Does he learn from his students? Does he explicitly acknowledge that he is not the be-all and end-all, the arbiter of all knowledge and all ways of knowing?
Does he help his students construct their own learning?
Does he draw his students to learning rather than push them?

Art and Progressive Education

2004-09-19T21:14:00.000-04:00

The importance of art in every day life, of art in progressive education is eloquently laid out in Eric Booth’s book, The Everyday Work of Art. A series of short quotes from that work – of art – follow:

“Art is not apart. It is a continuum within which we all participate; we all function in art, use the skills of art, and engage in the action of artists every day.”

“If we can acknowledge and honor the art we perform… we can dramatically enrich the quality of daily life.”

“To engage fully in the work of art, all you really need are the skills you already have.”

“In claiming our rightful partnership with [masters such as Ludwig von Beethoven, Vincent Van Gogh, Dylan Thomas, and Rudolf Nureyev,] we neither diminish their achievements, nor set unrealistic expectations for our own efforts.”

“Aesthetic education is a practice that uses teaching-artists to engage people of any age inside works of art.”

“It has been proven that good high school arts programs reduce dropout rates and absenteeism.”

“In Paleolithic times, art was a life-essential, right up there with food, water, shelter, sleep, sex, and worship.”

“In the humbling process of making things with meaning, we have insights that deepen our study of other people’s work.”

“Any curiosity can take you into a world.”

“Art is reading the world… . ‘Reading the world’ is the practice of encountering the ordinary pieces of your life as if they were full of meaning.”

“When reading the world becomes a mindset we can adopt at any time, we attain the ultimate literacy: the capacity to see beyond the literal.”

“All people have this naturally healthy, joyful, creative instinct beaming in them.”

Art is wonder. “Wonder is both scarce and hard to kill.”

Because progressive schools consciously try to meet the needs of the whole child, art is an integral part of progressive education. Not only do performing and appreciating art tap into the deepest aspects of human cognition, they also resonate with spirituality. It is no surprise that a person feels awe listening to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony or standing before Monet’s Water Lilies.

One would be hard put to argue that art is not good for, and therefore pleasing to the spirit. But what about intellect? Robert Sternberg speaks of three intelligences rather than a single, general intelligence. Two of these, semantic intelligence (traditional schooled intelligence) and practical intelligence (everyday problem-solving) are animated by the third, creative intelligence. Is there any other realm of human endeavor that promotes creative intelligence more than art?

Progressive schools engage students in the creative construction of knowledge – knowledge of self, of one’s role in society, of the world. Music, drama, dance, painting, and sculpture all bring together disparate aspects of self for the purpose of public performance. Art exists for the act of creation, for the artist, and for the audience. As such, it is both intensely private and nakedly public. Art builds confidence in self. Art enlivens all domains of human knowing, and it is an integral part of the learning experience and of the daily life of students in a progressive school.

Thoughts on Teaching from the Neuroscience Perspective

2004-06-29T10:51:00.001-04:00

The mind-brain conundrum notwithstanding, learning obviously takes place within the brain. The parts of the brain involved in learning are manifold and include the reticular system of the brainstem, the amygdala, hippocampus, and thalamus, the sensory cortices – visual/occipital, auditory/temporal, tactile/parietal – and the associative areas throughout the brain and especially in the frontal and prefrontal cortex. Learning also involves the motor cortex and the cerebellum. It requires that sensory, attentional, memory, associative, and retrieval processes take place in a more or less coordinated fashion; like a concert.

Studies show that stress experienced prior to any learning effort impedes memory and learning. This is because stress floods the system with adrenaline and glucocorticoid secretions from the adrenal gland. While adrenaline marshals the body’s resources to fight or run away – rarely appropriate or even feasible responses to most modern stressors – it narrows focus, giving it a tunnel-vision feel, and overwhelms the emotional amygdala while suppressing the hippocampus whose job it is to move experience into long-term memory. Curiously, adrenaline given following memory tasks improves recall.

Glucocorticoids are produced by the adrenal cortex. These hormones back up adrenaline through their influence on mineral absorption and muscle and fat metabolism required for sustained effort. Again, most modern stressors do not require sustained physical responses, so glucocorticoid secretion is in some sense redundant. However, too many stressors over too short a period of time produces a buildup of glucocorticoids, and elevated levels of these neurochemicals actually damage the dopamine neurons in the hippocampus. The long-term effect is diminished capacity for memory and learning. Stress is harmful, not only to the learning process, but to the physical systems of the brain in which learning takes place.

A notorious bumper sticker reads, “I survived Catholic school.” It’s ruefully funny, but what does it really mean? That the school experience was fraught with stress, but the person displaying the bumper sticker endured and weathered that stress? That the famously – albeit stereotypically – harsh nuns inflicted physical and mental punishment on their charges? How much more might the victim of an abusive educational system have learned had he or she not suffered daily threats, ridicule, or frequent corporal punishment. The adolescent (middle school and high school) social milieu is tough enough without layering institutional stressors on top of it.

Teachers have a great impact on their students. Every adult carries indelible images of both kind and cruel teachers. Neurologist Martha Denckla states: “Every teacher is a brain surgeon… making little dendrites sprout and connect up neurons. So we are always training the brain.” Likewise, every teacher has the power to do harm. Sarcasm, ridicule, and excessive punitiveness have no place in the teacher’s bag of tricks. These things damage developing brains and squelch learning.

Good teachers harness their students’ innate impulse to learn as well as their creative bent. Creativity results from hard work carried forth in a minimally stressful environment. Schools that promote creativity emphasize cooperation – that uses the associative parts of the brain – over competition because competition is inherently stressful and often (note that some individuals, children and adults alike, perceive the stress associated with competition as eustress – good stress that does not trigger a buildup of glucocorticoids) interferes with the playful interworkings of the creative brain.

Good schools possess a culture of tolerance and respect among students and between students and teachers. Relationship is important. Stress is minimized and learning is, therefore, maximized.

Who We Are and How We Present

2004-06-19T13:50:00.001-04:00

The Galloway School – Upper Learning Perspective
By Mr. MM, Dr. GK, and Mr. HK

Defining who we are as a school and how we communicate that self-image to insider (Upper Learning teachers; the Board of Trustees; our students and their parents; Middle Learning students and their parents; Early Learning parents) and outsider (other schools; the broader community; applicants and their parents; colleges) audiences:

We are an institution that supports, promotes, celebrates, and reveres the primacy and worth of the individual, and this leads to child-centered approaches to teaching and learning.

Philosophy

· we hew to the philosophy of The Galloway School
· we adopt humanistic as opposed hierarchic philosophies; democratic as opposed to authoritarian approaches
· we teach the child as opposed to the subject or the class
· we understand and accept that it is imperative to take students from where they are (with respect to their diversity) to where they should be – to help them become who they are
· we put the child at the center
· we continuously strive to make Galloway a good and safe place for each student, not just some of them
· we stress cooperation over competition while acknowledging the uses of competition

Nature of the Child

· we accept and glory in the diversity of learners (development, background, neurology, differentiated abilities)
· we accept that the student may come to us either as a proven learner or as an inchoate learner

Relationship

· we are aware of how do we talk about children and youths; we avoid the zoo or laboratory specimen model; the student is always a human being, first and foremost, and as such, is always accorded due respect
· we do not gossip about the student, use sarcasm, or demean him or her in any way
· our conversations about the student are always solution oriented
· we explicitly acknowledge the teacher-student relationship – teaching and learning are social activities, and, as such, are personalized

Reflection & Best Practice

· we routinely reflect on what we do; indeed, reflection is organically enmeshed in all that we practice
· we, as continuous, life-long learners, study, reflect upon, and apply best teaching practice
· we strive to understand and apply the concept of mastery learning
· we design our teaching around essential questions that, in turn, drive both learning activities and demonstrations of mastery
· we reflect on cultural and technical ramifications of the mastery learning model
· we reflect on the difference between freedom in the classroom versus license; professionalism – this goes beyond paperwork professionalism
· we accept that one of the roles of the colleague is professional oversight; there are joys and burdens of collegiality (or freedoms and responsibilities)
· we seek out critical friends who accept responsibility for helping maintain a professional dyad; who are neither a rubber stamp nor solely part of a support group
· we act as a critical friend to colleagues
· we focus on the process of learning and on growth rather than on grades

Curriculum

· we teach reading in all subjects – critical literary and textual analysis; reading for pleasure and reading for information
· we teach writing not only in English, but in all disciplines
· we teach problem solving, a divergent or convergent process rather than a linear quest for putative correct answers
· we teach effective communication in a variety of languages including English, Spanish, French, and Latin
· we acknowledge that valuing and moral development are a part of all curricula
· we teach students how to think critically rather than what to think

We believe that if we accept and act on these things, that if we focus on our vision, then the externals – what we expect of all graduates of The Galloway School, college acceptances, public relations, admissions and retention, and communications with all constituencies of the school – will fall into place.

The Galloway Teacher's Hierarchy of Being

2004-06-17T21:12:00.000-04:00

(Not unlike Maslow’s Hierarchy -- Pyramid -- of Needs*)

At the lowest level of being a Galloway teacher is daily survival: maintaining a grade book; remembering the schedule; negotiating the press of adolescents in the West Wing Hall.

The next level relates to pedagogy and best teaching practice. Once a teacher has grown reasonably confident about day-to-day survival, he or she can focus on building a repertoire of lessons, refining classroom management skills, differentiating instruction, and generally improving teaching performance and effectiveness.

The penultimate level is the teacher-student relationship (also teacher-teacher). If students are to learn, and if teachers are to reap any of the rewards of their craft, there must be a social relationship based on mutual respect and acceptance.

The highest level – the pinnacle of Galloway being – is the Galloway Way. The Galloway Way that can be named is not the true Galloway Way. The Galloway Way draws children to learning without compulsion. The Galloway Way possesses children without holding them. Through the Galloway Way, children become who they are within a social matrix of children learning from adults and adults learning from children.

*Maslow’s hierarchy has as its lowest level the biological needs – air, water, and food. If these requirements are met, a human being can seek to satisfy safety needs – shelter from the storm, safety from physical and emotional harm or abuse. Once one is fed and safe, one can think about belonging – to families, friendships, partnerships, and societies. Belonging frees one to have a positive and relational image of one’s self. This, in turn, allows one to love fully and to be loved. At the peak of the pyramid is the striving of all human beings to complete themselves; to grow always; to know one’s self; to be fully human. In Maslow’s words, the highest level of humanness is to be “self-actualizing.”

Teacher Evaluation in Upper Learning at Galloway

2004-06-17T19:18:00.000-04:00

In Upper Learning at The Galloway School, we have established an approach to teacher evaluation that is consistent with the philosophy of the school. It involves reflection and introspection on one’s teaching strengths and weaknesses followed by formative and summative conversations with the Upper Learning Principal. Historically, these conversations have been ameliorative as well as problem solving in their orientation, and they have been both helpful and productive of growth. It would be useful to add scheduled conversations between teachers and their critical friend and with the learning specialist.

● Philosophy of education criteria include understanding and accepting the Galloway philosophy; possessing essentially humane attitudes towards adolescents.

● Best practice criteria include staying current with best practice literature, attending workshops or staff development, and being involved in some sort of mentor relationship – eg, a critical friend dyad.

● Professionalism criteria include being at one’s teaching post, being available to students, sustaining membership in a critical friend dyad, dealing with paperwork and ancillary responsibilities (for example, advising and supervising students), and carrying out committee work (followship and leadership).

● Content criteria include thoroughly understanding one’s discipline(s) at both microscopic and macroscopic levels.

● Communication criteria include providing timely and effective feedback to students and parents and to one’s critical friend (see earlier post).

Traditional clinical supervision checklists and observations, taken by themselves, are ineffective tools for teacher evaluation. Just as relationship between student and teacher is paramount if learning is to occur, so too is relationship among colleagues if teachers are to grow in their professions. Relationship requires mutual respect and trust.

Upper Learning teachers welcome administrators, the guidance and college counselors, and the learning specialist into their classrooms because they value what other professionals have to offer with respect to improving teaching practice. Upper Learning teachers are also encouraged to reflect on best practice and to work to continuously improve their craft, a process that may involve consultations with administrators, mentors, critical friends and other colleagues, and learning specialists or psychologists, along with student evaluations. In addition, Upper Learning teachers are open to constructive parent feedback.

1988 Position Paper on the Galloway Philosophy

2004-06-17T19:13:00.000-04:00

Galloway School and its community philosophy -- and the educational philosophy of its founder, Elliott Galloway -- are inseparable. Central to this philosophy are several assumptions: children learn best when they are drawn rather than pushed to learning, when they are comfortable, when they are respected, and when they are challenged.

Children from ages two through the end of high school enjoy learning at Galloway School. Their learning experiences encompass structured group interactions as well as teacher-directed activities, free-flay, physical skill development, problem solving, and socialization, all across broad curricula. Yet, even with the range of activities that take place within and without the walls of Galloway School, each experience is thought out with respect to individual differences among students. Children are drawn to learning at Galloway because they are neither asked to do things for which they are not ready nor held back when they are able to move ahead.

Children from ages two through the end of high school are comfortable at Galloway School. They sit in circles and around tables rather than in uniform rows of desks. The overall atmosphere is caring, encouraging, and conducive to the development of self-esteem. Students, parents, and teachers recognize that individuals develop along diverse pathways and at different rates. Children have different styles of learning, different backgrounds, different interests, and different aspirations. At Galloway School, respect for these differences is paramount. It is a respect that supersedes simple expediency and that guides the entire planning and teaching processes at Galloway. It is, finally, a respect that permeates the Galloway community of children, parents, and teachers.

Children from the age of two through the end of high school are challenged at Galloway School. A low student-teacher ratio of ten to one makes it possible for teachers to effectively address individual differences. Throughout Early and Middle Learning, the development of problem-solving skills is an important part of the curriculum. This focus continues in Upper Learning as students are encouraged to select from an array of rigorous, college-preparatory courses. The core curriculum in Upper Learning is four years of English, three of mathematics, science, and social studies and two of foreign language; students throughout all levels of the school are exposed to music, art, and physical culture. The whole program at Galloway School is crafted to bring children into themselves, to bring them to a point of acceptance of responsibility for their actions, their freedoms, and their learning for life.

Galloway School is many things. It is a place, an idea, a process, a student body, and a faculty. It is all of these things together and more. Galloway School is a community of learners and doers and thinkers.

Who Should Teach?

2004-06-14T14:40:00.000-04:00

My critical friend* once asked me what the requirements are for being a teacher. I responded, without having to think about it too much, that to be a teacher you must like kids, have a sense of humor, and be flexible. On reflection, I have decided that this is a pretty good answer, although I might add that it is a good idea to know something about your subject(s) as well as about child or adolescent psychology either from pursuing academic or self-taught pathways and from experience. To expand on the notion of liking kids, I would say that you must be interested in them, as well; you must be essentially a humanist and a humanitarian. High school teachers that are excellent teachers possess all of the attributes of teachers of younger children; however, they also know their disciplines very well, keep up with what's going on in their field, and they are passionate about their content. These first two can be faked; the last one can't.

* critical friend -- a professional colleague who believes in you but who is not afraid to tell you the truth about your teaching practice. To be in a critical friend relationship requires understanding, empathy, honesty, diplomacy, and an absence of hypersensitivity. It is different from a mentoring relationship because the partners are equal (which is not to say that you don't learn from a critical friend.).

Comparing Progressive and Traditional Educational Approaches

2004-06-10T22:23:00.000-04:00

Progressive Schools – Progressive Education

Comparing Progressive and Traditional Education:

Progressive Education

• progressive education is child-centered.
• each child is honored and celebrated.
• the teacher-learner relationship is considered primary – a pre-cursor to effective teaching and student learning.

Traditional Education

• traditional education is subject/content and classroom oriented.
• the individual is largely subsumed by the group.
• the teacher-learner relationship is secondary and hierarchical.

Progressive Education

• progressive education is characterized by a whole-child orientation: cognitive, social, and emotional development of each student are considered key to that student's educational and personal growth.

Traditional Education

• in a traditional educational environment, each child is treated the same. Students are generally assumed to be equally ready to learn the prescribed content. Individual differences in background and social/cognitive/emotional/physical/moral development are largely ignored except insofar as they allow students to be grouped by ability/achievement into advanced, average or remedial tracks. Students with learning differences are largely expected to keep up by compensating on their own for attention, executive-function, and psychosocial deficits.

An example of progressive approaches to teaching and learning:

Two students – who happen to be brother and sister – take a required computer course. The brother is a techno-wizard and is given the opportunity to work with other students in the capacity of assistant teacher while at the same time pursuing Java (the language of AP Computer Science) programming. The sister, an artist, has little interest in computers as anything other than fancy typewriters; she is invited to explore graphics protocols. Both students become engrossed in their differentiated tasks. Both master the basic requirements of the course; one earns the highest possible score on the AP Computer Science exam, while the other produces original and aesthetically pleasing fractal art.
Progressive Education

• students actively participate in constructing their own learning, building their own under-standing, and integrating skills, information, and concepts.
• progressive education is service oriented; students have opportunities to give back to their communities on a voluntary basis.

Traditional Education

• learning is primarily prescribed by curriculum guides, textbooks, and standardized measures of achievement. Grades and standardized test scores dictate the track to which a student is assigned. All students complete the same work and are evaluated in the same way, usually through paper and pencil tests over content knowledge.
• community service has only recently become a part of traditional education where it tends to be prescribed and required.

Progressive Education

• subjects are often integrated and taught in interdisciplinary ways.
• in progressive education, ethics and morality are explicit parts of all curricula.
• all students succeed, albeit in different ways.
• cooperation is stressed over competition.

Traditional Education

• subjects are treated largely as separate entities; inter-disciplinary instruction is comparatively rare.
• morality and character development are thought to lie within the domain of students' parents or of religious institutions.
• if one student earns an “A”, another will earn an “F”. Some students fail.
• students compete against one another and are compared to each other.

Progressive Education

• learning atmosphere is characterized by low anxiety and high challenge.
•process orientated: students learn critical thinking skills, cooperative social skills, and adaptability within a broad framework of subjects and disciplines.
• features continuous progress – students are met where they are and moved toward who they are to be. Students move on once they have mastered skills, processes, and content knowledge.

Traditional Education

• learning atmosphere is often characterized by high anxiety – low challenge and boredom for gifted students and fear of failure by average students.
• product oriented: graduates who have learned the information required by mandated curriculum standards are thought of as the end product of a traditional education.
• a goal is to make curricula "teacher proof", meaning that students will learn the content irrespective of the skills, knowledge, and resourcefulness of individual teachers. The teacher uses the same methods, materials, and evaluations for all students.

Progressive Education

• characterized by differentiation by teachers with respect to instructional strategies, curriculum, and the way in which standards are met.
• characterized by relatively high levels of choice by students with respect to course of study, learning modalities, dress.

Traditional Education

• students have few choices as to what classes they take and even fewer choices as to how they demonstrate their mastery in a given class (performance on tests).
• characterized by explicit dress codes for students and teachers, and often by uniforms for students.

An example of progressive approaches to teaching and learning:

Three students comprise a problem-solving triad in a physics class. One is a superior math student who has shown herself capable of quickly mastering any new type of problem. She divides her group work time between tutoring her partners, who are not so facile as she, and finding – with the help of the teacher -- difficult problems with which to challenge herself. All members of the group benefit. By teaching others, the physics ace cements her understanding of processes and content. At the same time, her partners learn from more one-on-one instruction than the teacher alone can feasibly provide. As the partners practice with core problems, the ace pursues advanced problems.

Note:

Many traditional schools exhibit some progressive education characteristics – for example, approximations of differentiated instruction, mixed-ability classrooms, cooperative learning, and so-called authentic assessment. Many teachers in traditional schools, despite a climate that does not reward progressive approaches, intuitively employ progressive methods. Many schools that are predominantly progressive possess traditional attributes, particularly at the high school level. For example, they may use numerical grades, and offer AP classes or honors curricula. They are more content-driven as dictated by the conundrum of college preparation.

Does progressive education work?

Progressive education is a rich Western (and Eastern) educational tradition. In the United States in 1918, the Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education promulgated a set of Cardinal Principles of education that included health, command of fundamental processes, worthy home membership, vocation, citizenship, worthy use of leisure time, and ethical character. These principles are at the heart of a progressive education movement whose proponents include Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, John Dewey, Jerome Bruner, John Gardner, Lev Vygotsky, Jean Piaget, and Maria Montessori.

Students educated in progressive school perform as well as students in traditional schools on all measures of learning and achievement. In addition, once they enter the world of work, they are better problem-solvers, they are more adaptable to change, and they are better work-team members than their traditionally educated peers.

One of the reasons that the United States maintains an edge in technical inventiveness and general creativity is that progressive approaches have been a significant part of American education since the early 1900's. That the U.S. has begun to lose ground in the inventive/creative realm is attributable to a resurgence of strictly traditional approaches under the guise of efficiency and accountability.

The educational and social science literature explicitly validates many aspects of progressive education; other aspects are supported anecdotally. Progressive education provides teachers and students multiple pathways toward meeting real-world educational standards.

What impedes progressive education in the Twenty-First Century?

The current political climate seeks simplistic and inexpensive solutions to the problems of education in America, specifically, over-emphasis on testing for specific content standards that results in so-called ability grouping or tracking of students. A politics-imbued educational philosophy that attempts to take the teacher-learner relationship out of the education equation. Many families have sought to escape the problems of public education by sending their children to private schools or by home-schooling them. Parents expect their children to live better – meaning materially more successfully -- than they, themselves, have lived. For example, they expect their children to attend prestigious colleges, to score well on standardized tests, and to secure high paying jobs. These expectations can yield an emphasis on material wealth over ethical character and lead to a sense of entitlement among students, especially those in the higher socio-economic strata of society. Parents place too early and too much emphasis on learning ultra-specific skills such as ballet, sports, and foreign languages – the so-called hurried child syndrome.