Summer Readings

Both summer readings, the Reimers article and the excerpts from "Partnership for Global Learning," were thought provoking.  I am pleased that we will be focusing on global education at the start of school, and I agree with many who commented that such a focus in not new to BB&N.  One of the best examples from the LS is a science unit developed and taught by Maria Elena Derrien.  To complement the fourth grade environmental unit, she teaches a unit where the students learn about greenhouse gases and build lego cars with solar panels.  Not only to do the students learn about climate change, but also they must work together to construct the cars.  Each day the students evaluate how well they advanced their cars and how well they have worked as a group. 

At the LS (and perhaps at all the campuses), helping the students to work as a group and develop empathy is at least as important as teaching "the content" at hand.  I was struck by Howard Gardener's comment "That is why for almost two decades, my colleagues and I have been studying what makes good persons, good workers, and good citizens, and why in recent years we have sought to go beyond study and nurture these positive qualities in young people."

Carol