"Progressive Schools"
Learning from Failure: A Key to Future Success
Nancy van Arkel, Westtown School Middle School Principal knows, lives, and practices Paul Tough’s New York Times Magazine article “What if the Secret to Success Is Failure?” Like Tough, van Arkel sees failure- more specifically learning from failure- as key to future success for her students. van Arkel rhetorically asks: “How many of us learn life’s [...]
Read MoreA Boarding School Offering Adventure & Travel
http://www.youtube.com/embed/DvrLju_wBkY We recently posted an interview with Lowell Whiteman School admission director, Derek Svennungsen, over on the Western Boarding Schools Association blog (Lowell Whiteman School: Local Outdoor Adventure and Global Travel). Regular readers might remember our announcement that we’re doing some production work with WBSA as they get their blog up and running. Derek shared [...]
Read MoreA Terrific Example of Showing Boarding School Traditions: Lowell Whiteman School Orientation
Camping in the Colorado wilderness has been part of Lowell Whiteman School orientation since 1957 and this impressionistic, free-form, flowing video shows the action, and feel, of one the LWS’ long standing orientation traditions. Viewers see students beginning to live and work together- building the bonds that will from the foundations of school life for the [...]
Read MoreCould a Westtown Grad Become The Next Iron Chef?
Celina Tio, Westtown School ’88, owns and operates Julian, a bistro in Kansas City, MO. Tio cites watching Julia Child as well the gift of a knife (with accompanying lessons on its use) from her grandfather as her culinary beginnings. After graduating from Westown, Tio earned a degree in hotel and restaurant management from Drexel [...]
Read MoreProctor Academy’s Native American Connections
Editor’s note: When we visited Proctor Academy’s campus in June, Aaron Thomas was kind enough to take time during our tour to talk about why he values Proctor. We had no idea that Aaron would open up a great back story that we had never heard. Aaron hails from the Navaho Nation and he attends [...]
Read MoreAaron’s Proctor Academy
Proctor Academy rising senior and incoming Assistant School Leader, Aaron Thomas shares his thoughts with Peter Baron on why Proctor is great place to go to school and why Proctor is a great fit for him. Moving from the Navajo reservation to Proctor, Aaron expresses his appreciation for the larger Proctor family and the school’s [...]
Read MoreAn Omission: When Saying “Thank You,” Don’t Forget the Kitchen
I forgot the kitchen. When I finished a piece on the end of the year transitions earlier today, I forgot to mention the kitchen. Luckily, the folks at Midland School jogged my memory with a warm appreciation of the school’s cook, Gloria Murillo. Never underestimate the importance of good food in a boarding school. Good [...]
Read MoreBuxton Students Learn & Share from their 2010 All School Trip to Nicaragua
Fulfilling one the tenets of progressive education, Buxton School students and faculty travel to a locale each March for a period of immersion and perspective broadening. The school travelled Nicaragua for ten days this past March. Students are still working on their documentary video of the trip- editing a reported 55 hours of footage. The [...]
Read MoreRoss School Installs Solar Panels: Benefits From Economic Stimulus Grant
Ross School has received a more than $200,000 grant to install solar panels on the school’s Barn Building. The grant comes through the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). “…According to school officials, it currently costs roughly $12,000 annually to power the Barn Building, where the 49.2 kilowatt system will be installed. [...]
Read MoreBenefitting from Understanding Fundamental Principles: Midland School Ninth Graders Build Pinhole Cameras
It’s easy to send photo students into the field, digital cameras in hand, to begin their photography studies. It’s quick and easy; go take some pictures. But the quick and easy assignment skips over some fundamental understandings and history. In this classically hands-on exercise of progressive education, Midland School 9th graders build pinhole cameras and [...]
Read MoreHyde School: Focus on Fundamentals
NBC Connecticut reporter Brad Drazen published a piece titled “A School to Shape Character as Well as Mind.” While we’ve covered Hyde School quite a bit, one part of Drazens’ article stands out. It provides a succinct, presentation of Hyde’s fundamental belief and teaching that attitude, work ethic, and character provide the foundation from which [...]
Read MoreGetting to Know White Mountain School
Josh Lawton, White Mountain School, Director of Admission talks about the special opportunities and experiences available to WMS students. WMS is the only school offering outdoor certification in Wilderness First Responding and Rock and Ice Climbing under the aegis of the American Mountain Guides Association. Fundamentally, WMS believes that its consciously small, tightly knit community [...]
Read MoreStudents Share their Perspectives on a Hyde School Education
Four Hyde School-Woodstock students share their perspectives and experiences about Hyde’s contributions to their personal and academic growth. Ranging from a new ninth grade student to seniors preparing college applications, the students share the ways their Hyde lessons affect their daily lives and decisions and how they will carry these lessons to college and beyond.
Read MoreColorado Rocky Mountain School Student Columnist Featured
The Aspen Daily News ran a column (Beetles: The Big Picture) written by Colorado Rocky Mountain School freshman Lea Linse. Linse nicely sets-up the conundrum faced by mountain residents as the pine beetle wreaks havoc eating its way through evergreen forests. Residents want to do something in the face of damage never seen before. But, [...]
Read MoreSupporting the Green Schools Alliance
This week Jeremy McGeorge & I attended a fund raiser for the Green Schools Alliance, a project of Global Environmental Options: GEO. The truly inspiring event was hosted in New York City at the Green Depot (an innovative supplier of environmentally friendly and sustainable building products.) The gala was framed by shelves of products ranging [...]
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