Header

The TBS Mission

/in , , , , , /by

by Mitch Bostian

At The Berkeley School, our mission – ignite curious minds, awaken generous hearts, engage a changing world – guides and connects everything from the everyday interactions among students, teachers and learning environments to our academic program design and our long-term strategic planning initiatives. These ten words direct us, inspire us, and provide us with the sense of shared purpose that allows us to take on the dynamic and challenging work of teaching and learning with perseverance, resilience, and joy.

How can ten words be this powerful? For us, the answer lies in two values – agency and  interdependence – that are foundational to the way we approach education at TBS. Each of those ten words has agency – what they mean matters – and none of them is as meaningful as all of them, taken together. Their straightforward simplicity belies a complex relationship, and complexity always deserves a closer look.

Our mission begins with ignite curious minds. In schools, teaching and learning activities often focusing on developing minds, and minds develop as the result of interactions among neurological structures and processes that are influenced by the physical, intellectual, social, and emotional stimuli resulting from our experiences of the world around us. We believe that all minds are innately curious about that world – that all minds have the capacity and motivation to notice, to investigate, and to learn. Our purpose, and joy, as educators is to design curricula, environments, and experiences that ignite that innate curiosity – from preschool through middle school. Some moments of ignition are immediate and obvious, as when early childhood students move through the classroom to label items as “living” or “nonliving” and begin to think more deeply about what it means for something to be alive. Some are elongated and more subtle, as when an eighth grader studies the case of Korematsu vs. United States, and develops an interest in civics, law, and activism that unfolds through high school, college, and beyond. 

Curiosity ignited!

While much of our work centers around igniting minds, we believe that such work can’t be done in isolation. Physical, social, and emotional elements are critical ingredients in the holistic teaching and learning that leads to deep understanding, and that all children deserve. Our mission’s next three words, “awaken generous hearts,” speak to this belief, and to the relationship between minds and hearts.

We see that when children’s curious minds are ignited, they come into the present moment of their learning: they are fully aware, attentive, and alive to the sensorial input (and associated reflections) that flow from their curiosity-driven experiences. As educators, we know that if we provide space, time, and language for students to attend to that sensorial input, their hearts will awaken: curiosity will lead them to experience feelings, and those feelings are the language of their awakened hearts. We believe that each of those hearts is generous, because children want to see others experiencing the same kind of safety, happiness, and respect that they themselves want to feel. Consequently, when students whose ignited, curious minds identify problems or challenges that awaken their generous hearts, the solutions they propose will reflect an empathic desire for “fairness of experience” and use impact on others as a core criteria for evaluating success. We believe that these students will grow up to focus on more than simply making change – they will think critically, and compassionately, about the changes they and others want to make.

So while we ignite curious minds and awaken generous hearts to build academic and social-emotional skills, we believe our work has a greater purpose: to prepare our students to engage a changing world. We end with the world because we believe that all education should be done with the world, and the future, in mind. We add the word “changing” because we believe that education for the world of today is never enough. Children change from moment to moment, as does the world, and an education that incorporates both truths of our time and visions for a better future ensures that the skills and values children develop will lead to the adult agency that allows them to engage change. When, in the context of Dia de los Muertos, our K-8 Spanish students learn about the conditions and practices that have led to the deaths of young immigrant children in detention camps in the region bordering Mexico, they develop their understanding of a complex problem while deepening their empathy and compassion for others. In the process, they see their potential as changemakers, and strengthen their belief that what they do, now and the future, will matter.

White cempazuchitl (marigold) made by TBS students, to be woven into the fence of the UAC campus in memory of the young immigrant children who have passed away at the detention camps in the border region.

Engage describes the way we hope our graduates will connect to the world and build a relationship that is not transactional but deepens over time – one characterized by curiosity, mutual respect, and a desire to understand, learn, and grow. Such a relationship will continue to ignite minds and awaken hearts for decades to come.

What happens when children whose curious minds are ignited and whose generous hearts are awakened encounter the world around them? What happens when your child greets you after a full day spent with friends and teachers, working, learning, and having fun? On those days, you can feel your child’s satisfaction, contentment, and openness right away. The conversations on the way home these days surprise you – you hear your child ask a question or make an observation about the world that reminds you how quickly they are learning and growing, and how their lived experience is both similar to, and different from yours. In these moments, you’re witnessing the way that igniting curious minds and awakening generous hearts equips children to engage their changing world. We are grateful for the children reminding us of the school’s mission to connect us as a school community, learning, and living, together.

 

Copy of Copy of ONE YEAR LATER

One Year Later

/in , , /by

by Mitch Bostian

One year ago this week, our school closed both campuses, in hopes that we could return after spring break.

One year ago, teachers and families had just completed their spring conferences – two days when almost every student, parenting adult, and teacher comes to school and spends time together talking about what matters. Preschool students were getting ready for the annual Kindness Festival. Dress rehearsals for the middle school play were underway. And eighth graders were gearing up for their capstone trip to Costa Rica – and graduation in June.

In short order, we began to see that many of these familiar and welcome events would need to be re-imagined, or postponed. And we came to understand that our hopes for a quick return to our campuses didn’t align with the evolving reality of a global pandemic. Our school’s mission – ignite curious minds, awaken generous hearts, engage a changing world – ensured that we didn’t rest in the magnitude of that understanding. Our faculty and staff’s collective focus on continuing to educate, care for, and love our children left us no time to marvel at the unprecedented situation or speculate about the longer term future. We knew we had big work to do – and we needed to do it together.

How does a 57-year-old school transition from a deeply place-based educational program – built around daily interactions among teachers and students in intentionally designed classroom and campus environments – to a home-based educational program? 

And how does that transition happen over a matter of weeks?

DSC

TBS teachers gather for a crash course on teaching and learning at a distance.

How does a 57-year-old school transition from a deeply place-based educational program – built around daily interactions among teachers and students in intentionally designed classroom and campus environments – to a home-based educational program?.    

This formidable challenge truly ignited our minds. Teachers and administrators dove into the process of overhauling our entire program structure. They created our first-ever schoolwide Distance Learning Plan. And, somehow, they found time to engage in collaborative, time-intensive professional development – by themselves, with TBS colleagues, and with a local, national, and international community of educators dedicated to seeing and supporting students everywhere.

Even with ignited minds, we struggled to learn new ways of doing familiar things. And that struggle was supremely frustrating. As educators, we’d spent years and years honing the skills and practices that made us the successful teachers and administrators we were; but, in many ways, the circumstance called for a whole new set of skills. 

Learning to build and incorporate those skills took time — it took tolerating the ways in which we felt like our results were falling short of our goals, even though we were working as hard or harder than we ever had in our professional lives. As people quite familiar with encouraging students to push through obstacles, we were now processing what it feels like to hear that advice with those stumbling blocks directly in front of us. We realized this is how our students can feel when they are learning – and we did our best to remind ourselves and each other of this truth.

One of our favorite examples of this is “The Backwards Bike” – an experiment that reveals the difficulty of executing a familiar task with a tool that looks the same but responds in very unfamiliar ways. 

At the same time, we knew our families were grappling with the same challenges – creating their own “Home-Based-Everything Plans” and reconfiguring schedules and patterns that were dependent on children being seen and supported on a school campus every day. Our children experienced the unique feelings of uncertainty that arise when even the adults around them aren’t sure what to do. 

But what’s true of all children – and especially TBS students – is their ability to show resilience, their capacity to adapt, and their combination of comfort and skill when faced with change. They inspired us to exercise those same qualities.

TBS students demonstrating the flexibility needed to learn in a whole new way.

Three weeks into March, TBS was up and running in full “Distance Learning Mode”. Some things were familiar: being greeted by a teacher’s voice in the morning, seeing classmates’ faces, and continuing with the projects and assignments that had been in place before March 13. Some things were different: joining morning circle from the bedroom or the kitchen table, figuring out which link was the “door” to the next classroom. And some things were just strange. We were having a group experience but most often processing it by ourselves – and that is not how TBS students and teachers learn to operate.  

We persisted. We led with our curious minds: identifying challenges and opportunities, looking for possible solutions, gathering as much information as we could, and making difficult decisions to guide the way forward. Those decisions resulted in rapid implementations and iterations that moved at a pace unfamiliar to all of us: students, educators, and parenting adults. We expanded our use of Google Classroom. We began to integrate SeeSaw, NearPod, and other platforms designed to help teachers and students work together more effectively. And we worked to adjust to the challenges and opportunities of Zoom.

So we made progress. But it didn’t always feel like that. Each member of our community wrestled with the fear and uncertainty that arose from the onset of a global pandemic with no end in sight. Each of us experienced the feelings of worry, frustration, anger, and grief that come with ambiguous loss. Those were – and are – feelings that even ignited, curious minds couldn’t erase. 

Along the way, we kept talking directly with each other about what was easy and what was hard, what was working and what wasn’t, and how much we felt we didn’t know. Parenting adults became intimately familiar with the daily challenges – and joys – that teachers experience when working with students. Teachers learned more about the ways that students learned differently online, surrounded by family, without the multiple social interactions that had previously characterized their days at school.

Those conversations were heartfelt, complex, and often difficult. We did our best to be real with each other while also understanding that none of us had the ability to magically wipe away the frustrations we felt or miraculously produce clarity about what, exactly, we were facing.

‘Keep going’ meant doing what the last phrase of our mission calls us to do – engage a changing world.    

Meanwhile, the pandemic continued. We learned more about the nature and impact of COVID and watched helplessly as more and more people became sick, died, and suffered from the economic and social impact of shutdowns. And just when we thought we had reached our emotional capacity, video of the murder of George Floyd catapulted our drive and resolve to fight the other lingering plagues of our world — in this case, the plague of racial injustice. Many of us took actions in support of the Black Lives Matter movement that made us feel simultaneously more uncertain, more hopeful, and more determined.

TBS students and faculty show support of Black Lives Matter during the “Bury Racism” march in Berkeley.

As TBS educators, our ability to share what was and wasn’t working with ourselves, our students, and our families led to adjustments that made our distance learning plan more effective with each revision. But what mattered more was the way these conversations awakened our compassion and sharpened our awareness. Those experiences gave us the strength to see and solve new problems – and to keep going.

“Keep going” meant doing what the last phrase of our mission calls us to do – engage a changing world. It’s a line we often use when we refer to our graduates and how we prepare them for high school, college, and the world to come. In May, our eighth graders faced the reality that the milestones and experiences they had looked forward to throughout their entire career at TBS – the middle school play, spring dances, the volleyball season, their trip to Costa Rica – would not happen. On top of that, the formal graduation ceremony they had watched for years as younger spectators would not be the ceremony we’d be able to give them.

We faced this reality with them. That awakened our hearts, and gave us the motivation to design a graduation ceremony that would be meaningful, memorable, and give people as much “seen and supported” feeling as we possible. With minds ignited, we set out to engage the changing world once more. And we did it – together.

Our mission cycle – ignite curious minds, awaken generous hearts, engage a changing world – has played out countless times over the last calendar year..    

The Berkeley School’s first-ever “virtual” graduation ceremony.

The 2020-21 school year came to a close – but our school’s journey was just beginning. Over the course of the summer, TBS teachers and administrators worked constantly to understand what the upcoming school year might hold, building on lessons from the spring and doing everything possible to plan for an unprecedented and hard-to-predict beginning for the 2020-21 school year..

During those summer months, we were reminded that the practical realities of interdependence make it much more challenging to engage change. Frequent updates to federal, state, or local guidance would upend, redirect, or pause work that we had been planning for weeks. Even though that turned out to be good practice for the school year, it’s impossible to capture how all-consuming, and exhausting, those iterations were. It was a “summer” in name only. 

But we made progress. When our Early Childhood Campus reopened on July 12, 2020, the sights and sounds of children and teachers in classrooms and outdoor spaces again reminded us about how much school – and being together – matter.

Sima taking temp

Our mission cycle – ignite curious minds, awaken generous hearts, engage a changing world – has played out countless times over the last calendar year. Teachers on both campuses are now equally skilled at teaching children in person, online, or both simultaneously – and can “code switch” between modes with astonishing speed. Students on both campuses have adapted to protocols and routines that allow them to be together safely while preserving room for joy and excitement. And families have found ways to build and maintain community with each other even when physical proximity is limited or impossible.

While we try to celebrate these mission-connected successes regularly, we have also been careful to keep those who have contracted the virus and who have lost friends and family to the virus on our minds and in our hearts. In honor of MLK Day this year, and using Dr. King’s commitment to service as a model, our community wrote letters of gratitude to the people who have truly gone above and beyond during the pandemic: our healthcare workers.

Students wrote letters of gratitude to send to local healthcare facilities.

We also made a point to remain the civic engagement school. Already agile at incorporating current events into curriculum, TBS teachers designed lessons that focused on what was going on in the world and the ways that TBS students could take action to make things better –  like this project on the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on our Latinx community, and a student-created website all about the 2020 election. Just after the website was published, this 8th grade explainer article about the Electoral College was listed second in a Google search on the topic.

365 days later, I’m writing this reflection from a place of gratitude and hope, looking back on a pandemic year that – like a rollercoaster ride – has felt both incredibly long and shockingly short. We put together a video retrospective to help ourselves see our journey more clearly – and while it helps, I am certain we’ll be shaping and telling the story of “pandemic school” for years to come.

In a few short weeks, our teachers will be fully vaccinated. On-campus students will leave school on Friday, April 2 for break and return on Monday, April 12 to routines and protocols that are now as familiar, and reassuring, as those we left behind in 2020. And we are planning for a graduation ceremony for the Class of 2021 that will include all of the community support and love our students need and deserve. 

We aren’t “there” yet – but we know we have an opportunity. See and work towards a “there” that builds on what we’ve learned this year. Our hearts are awakened. Our minds are ignited. And we are more than ready to continue engaging this changing world – together.

Capitol Insurrection

Responding In Partnership To “Days After” At TBS

/in , , /by

by Mitch Bostian, Head of School

At TBS, we work hard to infuse our students’ academic learning and school experiences with civic engagement truths. Those truths start with “we are interdependent” and “what we do matters” and extend to include many others. TBS students learn that impact matters every bit as much as intention, that words and actions have consequences, and that “freedom of speech” should not mean “freedom from consequences of speech,” no matter how unaccustomed to those consequences a person, or group, might be.

Our teachers help children learn these lessons every day – not just on “days after” – and we encourage and support them in doing so. We know that students whose academic and life skills were shaped by these truths will grow up to create better civic outcomes for people everywhere, and that a collective brighter future depends on their ability to do so.

Yesterday’s civic events transcend politics in the same way that homelessness and climate change do. And our community’s willingness to meet children where they are in their responses brings the school’s mission to life. When we can be present to children’s questions and hear both what they are asking and why, we can ignite their curious minds, awaken their generous hearts, and help them engage our changing world.

Our teachers spent time yesterday and today creating spaces and opportunities for students to process their thoughts and feelings in developmentally appropriate ways. Their ability to do this work skillfully arises from hours and hours of practice and experience, collaboration, dedication, and a deep commitment to helping children feel seen and supported. From conversations this morning, I know that many stayed up late last night to make sure they were prepared for whatever might arise today. They put children first every day – not just on “days after” – and we are all grateful.

Because children see and hear so much, we expect and anticipate that your child may come home with questions about yesterday’s events, particularly since so many children have become aware of public demonstrations, protests, and actions over the past four years and will notice significant differences in the ways that law enforcement, newscasters, and government officials responded to yesterday’s actions and those from earlier in 2020.

Some parenting adults will feel completely equipped to answer these questions, since they are part of ongoing family conversations necessitated by the systems and structures that make their daily lives less safe. Others won’t know where to begin and will worry about saying the wrong thing. And all of us will be grappling with our own responses as well.

What all of us want is to help children feel safe. And wherever you are on the confidence spectrum, please know that what you do or say is less important than the fact that you take time to do it. Children feel safer when adults listen carefully to them, ask questions, and build a mutual understanding of shared experiences – and you are the adults who matter most in your children’s lives.

I know you’ll be hearing from teachers about the school days your children are having this week – whether at home or on campus – and that they’ll be sharing ideas and resources with you. Please share yours with us – and with each other. We are interdependent. What we do matters. And at times like these, the fact that we do it together matters even more.

Take care,

Mitch signature

TBS copy

Flowers for Magnolia: Hard Pruning During COVID-19

/in , , /by

By Rebecca Blythe, Preschool Head Teacher
Magnolia Classroom, The Berkeley School

When I left my classroom for the day on March 13, 2020 the plan was to close for three weeks. I thought that seemed a little optimistic at the time, but I never in my wildest imaginings thought that our COVID 19 closure would wear on as long as it has. The Berkeley School’s early childhood campus will reopen for the 2020-21 school year this fall looking very different. Among the most significant changes is a steep reduction in class sizes and the accompanying faculty required to support those classes. Complicating matters even further for me personally, while preschools are allowed to be open with wide ranging health and safety protocols in place, K-12 schools in our county (and most other California counties) must remain closed until community spread of the virus declines significantly. As a parent of three school-aged children who will be at home for the foreseeable future, I have opted to go on furlough for the coming school year. While heartbreaking and scary, it’s the best (least worst?) choice for my family.

face shieldsToday I went into my classroom to collect a few personal items and make sure things are in order. As I walked around campus I found myself feeling demoralized. Newly purchased child and adult sized face shields hang ready for use when singing (or, I imagine, the equally common preschool vocal activity, crying). Their presence is a stark reminder of the times we are in.

I found myself looking for signs of hope. I found it in a corn plant I left behind back in March. When we first learned that our closure would last well beyond 3 weeks, I went in and collected most of the indoor plants in the classroom. There was an old corn plant that was too big and unwieldy for me to move, so I tucked into a shady spot outside that would be convenient for occasional watering.

 

 

flowers for magnolia ()A few weeks later I came by and discovered that it had been moved into the full sun and was scorched to a crisp. I moved it back into the shade, cut back all the dead leaves, gave it a little water and left it for the fates to decide. Well, today as I was packing up, I checked on it and noticed lots of little green signs of life. The hope I was looking for! One year from now I will report back, hopefully, the plant and I will both be better for the hard pruning.

Follow Rebecca on Instagram (Flowers for Magnolia) to stay connected with her during her furlough and watch the short video below to see Rebecca’s innovative and inspiring teaching in action!

 

Copyright by Leah Fasten

Introducing Sima Misra, Interim Early Childhood Director

/in /by

By Sima Misra, Interim Early Childhood Director

I am honored and excited to follow in Kathy Duhl’s footsteps to become the new Interim Director of the Early Childhood Campus here at The Berkeley School. Two decades after my eldest son Kiran started in the Eugenia classroom, and 16 years after my son Aden started in Cedar with Alice, I feel like I’ve come full circle.

My children’s experiences at the ECC and in the TBS K-8th classrooms inspired me to switch careers in 2006 from Bioinformatics at Cal to take Montessori training and become a teacher. My first teaching experiences were as a substitute in early childhood classrooms, where I learned the joys and blessings of witnessing our youngest students explore and learn. For me, education is a calling, and working with early learners is foundational: forging their trust, nurturing their curiosity, and guiding their development socially, emotionally, and academically as their brains grow and change in stupendous ways.

Sima’s son Kiran hosts her at the Family Tea at the old Hillside site.

I have had the opportunity to play many diverse professional roles at our school: teaching students 1st-7th, coaching teachers in the Director of Teaching & Learning role for 7 years, facilitating SEED for the past 8 years, serving on leadership teams, and providing family education. It has been an immense privilege to learn and grow, and the equity and inclusion work I have done has transformed me as a human being. I deeply believe I have a responsibility to ensure that every student learns every day, and I’m motivated by our school’s commitment to civic engagement, equity, inclusion, and justice: to prepare all students for life and to transform our world into a more thoughtful, sustainable, and compassionate place.

I believe that children deserve to be in rich environments with professionals who are experts at child development and this particular age group, with all its joys and challenges, and the ECC teachers are truly experts. Given the time in which we stand right now, so much is uncertain. I believe that in partnership, our community — masterful early childhood educators, committed administrators, and you, our families — can face these challenges and find creative solutions for the problems presented by COVID-19 in order to provide your children with a safe, high quality education.

I am eager to meet each of you and your children, even if it is necessary to do it at a socially distant 6 feet of separation, and would be very happy to set up time to talk with you about your child this summer, or the plans for our program.

Sincerely,
Sima Misra

DSC copy

Art as a Vehicle for Civic Engagement

/in , /by
By Julianne Hughes, TBS Teaching Artist
Art making is an important part of a child’s education because it encourages students to make connections to other disciplines like history, science, math, and language in a way that for can enhance their comprehension. Students practice the processes of learning through artmaking — making mistakes, changing course, problem solving, making a plan, and seeing a project through.
Some people believe artistic ability is gifted to some and not others. I don’t believe that at all. Each of us has the capacity to create as a means to express ourselves. As an art educator, I get the opportunity to observe which art skills come easiest for each student, whether it’s writing, building, drawing, storytelling, then guide and support them to understand the art language that they are uniquely equipped to express to others. By experimenting with materials, music, movement, and drama, students develop their art languages and use those to express themselves or an idea.

 

What does success in the art studio look like? Being open to trying new materials translates to success in the art studio, having things fail spectacularly and continuing to completion is what success can look like in the art studio.

 

Getting back to the idea of art as a language and as a form of expression, often times artists don’t know what they’re expressing until they look at it later. Process artists start with an idea of a process and materials, and find their way through to arrive at a product. Conceptual artists start with an idea of a finished product, then determine the materials and processes to achieve their vision. Students can be, and are often both!
Here at The Berkeley School, we’re constantly referencing the work of other artists, past and present, to inspire our own artmaking. One artist we’ve studied recently is Romare Bearden, an artist who came to prominence during the Harlem Renaissance. Romare Bearden used the materials around him to make art. He would collect paper ephemera (newspapers, posters, magazines) and create layered art pieces that authentically portrayed the essence and culture of his Harlem neighborhood. His work disrupted the narrative of the time about the African-American community and told a story that was not being told. Inspired by his work, TBS 3rd graders created a map of our University Avenue community using a layering style similar to Romare Bearden’s in order to emphasize the “layers” behind the history of our own neighborhood. The resulting piece gave acknowledgement to the indigenous Ohlone land that our school was built on, and harkened back to the fact that our historic building served as a train station at the start of the 20th century.

 

Art as civic engagement is not a new thing. Artists have always been at the forefront of supporting civic engagement.

Contemporary artist Alma Woodsey Thomas was an art educator for 40 years before she became known for her expressionist paintings. It was in her retirement that she was recognized with a show at the Whitney Museum in New York. she was the very first African-American woman to have a solo show at the Whitney in fact. During her youth, Alma was not even allowed into the Whitney Museum, since it restricted access to African-Americans. For Alma, giving her students another language to express themselves was her purpose as an educator. I feel a similar purpose in my role as one of The Berkeley School’s teaching artist. I hope to impart in my students the understanding that materials and processes can serve as modes of communication and expression. Materials — such as clay, metal, and fabric — respond in different ways during artmaking processes: what an artists does with or to those materials can inform the viewer of what it is the artist is trying to say.

 

Mildred Howard, a Berkeley-born interdisciplinary artist, recently inspired a project our kindergarteners took on in the Art Studio. Students used sticks and tape to create small house shapes that would all be used to complete one collaborative art piece conveying the importance of neighborhood. The magic of this lesson was showing very young artists that they can be a part of something big. Not only did the artmaking process help them learn how to share materials and make space for one another, it allowed them to learn to normalize conflict and practice stepping up and stepping back.

In the TBS art studio we ask how looking from another perspective can help us understand ourselves and others. Our throughline is “How does art invite us to engage with our community?” and “How can art facilitate change for the better? These are questions I ask myself not just as an educator but also as an artist myself.

This year, I represented The Berkeley School as one of 400 partner delegates to attend the For Freedoms Congress in Los Angeles, a convening of artists and arts institutions to ideate pathways for civic participation through art in the lead-up to the 2020 elections and beyond.
Artists from across the country and from of all different levels of renown gathered in Los Angeles over a period of four days to present ideas, learn from each other, and work together to formulate ways promote civic engagement in our home communities through art.
Founded in 2016 by artists Hank Willis Thomas and Eric Gottesman, For Freedoms is a platform for creative civic engagement. Inspired by Norman Rockwell’s paintings of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms (1941)—freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear—these public exhibitions and installations spark discussions on civic issues and core values, and advocate for dialogue and civic participation.
At the core heart of the “For Freedoms” movement is the role of the artist as the poser of this important question: “How can artists and other storytellers and creative people come together to move beyond division and uplift humankind?” In 2018 For Freedoms launched a nationwide public installation project — the largest group effort in history — to bring together artists from all 50 states to install projects that spark a national dialogue about art, education, commerce, and politics. The Berkeley School participated in that nationwide activation with a project of their own called “Lawn Sign Activation: What’s important to me”. Our 4th & 5th grade students designed lawn signs to post along the road adjacent to our school to communicate the issues that matter to us and inspire others to think about issues that matter to them.

 

screen time

Supporting Adolescents in the Screen Age

/in , /by

by MaryBeth Ventura, Middle School Division Head

Last week TBS hosted a community screening of the new film “Screenagers Next Chapter: Uncovering Skills for Stress Resilience,” a follow-up to the award-winning documentary “Screenagers” about helping young people thrive in our screen and stress-filled world. 

As a school, we care deeply about the mental health and well-being of young people and believe our primary role is to support the critical relationships between young people, their parenting adults, and their school. 

TBS Social-Emotional Learning Coordinator and health teacher, Jared Briggs, screened the film with all middle school students during health class. Afterward he asked them to answer this question: “What is one thing you want adults, or your parenting adults, to know about your mental health and well-being that would be helpful to you?” 

Their responses, paired with the science and research from the movie, were compelling messages and critical for all parenting adults to hear as we focus on helping them discover and build their own skills for resilience in an increasingly-complex world. 

TBS students want their parenting adults to understand that the problem isn’t always as simple as “the phone.” Their emotional lives are complicated and the phone can certainly exacerbate challenges; but it isn’t always the singular or root cause of a problem —  a point supported by research in the film. They wanted their parenting adults to know that mental health is a real thing and that there are many ways, beyond limiting their phone use, that parents can support them in managing stressful feelings. 

A large portion of the film is dedicated to research on the negative impacts of suppressing feelings and emotions on the teen brain. Suppressing emotions day after day can slow down thinking processes and create different academic trajectories for students. How can parents support their adolescents to share their feelings and emotions and not keep them bottled up? Our middle schoolers have some ideas:

  • I wish my parents would share how they are feeling and share when they are stressed.
  • I wish my parents knew that having time set aside to talk about YOUR emotions and MY emotions is really helpful.
  • I wish my parents would listen when I ask for alone time, and also be there when I need and ask for them to be around.
  • I wish my parents knew when to hug me, when to leave me alone, when to say “are you OK,” or “I love you,” and when to be silly.

We know it can be challenging to do this successfully, but it’s important to not give up, even if you don’t get it right the first time. Despite their sometimes being outwardly critical of us, our children are deeply forgiving and want us to keep trying.

Another message our middle schoolers wanted parenting adults to hear was that they need to be given space and permission to ask and answer the question, “What can I do to help myself?”  The most compelling piece of research in the film was one that measured cortisol levels of children and their parenting adults while the child was engaging in a complex task in their parents’ presence. Cortisol is a stress hormone present in the brain, and too much of it negatively impacts learning and processing. When parenting adults stepped in to help solve the task, their own cortisol levels went down, while their child’s cortisol levels went up. Simply put: stepping in to solve a problem for your child makes you feel better, but makes your child feel worse! In our students’ own words:

  • I need to be given more responsibility so I can learn. 
  • It’s not always helpful to tell me what to do. Let me make mistakes. 
  • When I am trying to do something independently, taking control only raises my stress.
  • I wish my parents would listen to my problems and support me rather than try to fix or change how I am feeling.

If it isn’t enough to listen to the words of our middle schoolers, remembering the brain science behind their words can help us resist our desire (and biological need!) to step in. I’m excited to return to this idea in a few weeks as we start to prepare for student-led conferences in March!

If you are interested in learning more, ask your child about the movie, find another screening of “Screenagers Next Chapter: Uncovering Skills for Stress Resilience” to attend, or explore the exhaustive list of resources on their website. 

inclusion artwork

Community & Consent

/in , , /by

By Bliss Tobin, K-5 Division Head

BlissWhen interviewing a candidate for our K-2 Information Literacy position this week, we asked, “Why TBS?” She replied that in listening to the promotional statements among several peer schools, our message stands out as authentic and she sees it demonstrated in the warmth of our community. 

The strength of a school community cannot be taken for granted, where the fits and starts of growing up are inherent in the purpose of the institution. What do the well-worn words “respect” and “inclusion” look like in action among 200 children, ages 5 – 13, not to mention the teaching and parenting adults? They look and sound like consent and boundaries.  

Over the past 3 years, we’ve developed a strong relationship with KidPower, a non-profit organization that teaches personal safety skills to all ages. (Some of you attended the KidPower Family Education events offered at both the ECC or UAC campuses in the past week.) KidPower works to prevent abuse and violence in its worst form, and, as they remind us, the basic tenets about consent and boundaries apply to our youngest children on the playground. Games, affection and the way a group sits at a lunch table all contain messages of consent and boundaries. Students require the tools to respect their own and others’ personal boundaries by asking for and giving consent. 

If the kids aren’t clear on expectations for interpersonal behavior, it’s because the adults around them are not clear. KidPower’s approach has inspired coordinated professional development and family education as we clarify our expectations, deliver consistent messages, and ensure that our students have plenty of practice with the social-emotional tools they need. 

We’ve taken several steps to move from learning to action, including:

  • Hiring an educational consultant from Pathways to Learning to assess for areas of strength and growth regarding how we support positive student behavior. 
  • Creating a tiered structure of academic and social-emotional learning supports in order to meet a range of needs
  • Re-aligning roles and responsibilities with the establishment of our K-8 Student Engagement Team (SET), consisting of our Social-Emotional and Academic Learning Specialists and Division Heads in K5 and MS
  • Extending Middle School Second Step health curriculum into 3rd-5th grades
  • Providing workshops for K-8 and ExDay faculty to ensure fidelity in upholding our expectations across all learning spaces
  • Providing regular Family Education events regarding social-emotional wellness at each developmental stage

How can you support this work? 

  • Stay informed! Read your blogs and Newsnotes weekly!
  • Attend Family Education events whenever possible  
  • Learn our School-Wide Agreements, and model them for all of our children.  
    • Be Inclusive
    • Be Respectful of Ourselves, Others and Our Surroundings
    • Be Safe and Responsible
    • Try Our Best

Click here for more information about KidPower and to sign up for their workshops.

Composite Numbers

Introducing Students to the Beauty of Math

/in , , , /by

By Sima Misra, Director of Teaching & Learning

As K-8 Director of Teaching & Learning, I am grateful to focus my efforts on ensuring that student learning is always at the center at The Berkeley School, and that teachers and students have the curricula, resources, motivation, and skills to support that learning. My background as a PhD Molecular Biologist explains part of my passion for math and science education, and why Math Night is my favorite evening of the year. I wanted to provide you with some behind the scenes understanding of the math teaching and learning families experienced at Math Night earlier this month.

What is Math?
I love this short video, because it captures the richness and power of mathematics.

Our goal is to open up students to appreciate the beauty of math, while giving them the skills and conceptual understanding to use it in flexible ways.

Early Childhood
Our school’s early childhood and elementary math program evolved from Montessori roots, which you can still see today, particularly at the ECC. The beautiful Montessori materials help make abstract concepts concrete, build a sense of order and attention to detail, and provide geometrical and numerical ways of looking at mathematical concepts. Students continue to learn math using Montessori and other materials, building their understanding of number sense, geometry, and sequence by counting, building, and comparing. As students mature, they use materials to add, subtract, multiply, and divide; learn to recognize and read numbers through 1000; skip count; and even compare odd and even numbers.

Elementary
Last year we switched to the Bridges Mathematics (2nd edition) curriculum, which dovetails nicely with Contexts for Learning Mathematics units we have taught for the past few years, providing rich problems with low entry points for all students and high ceilings for those who need more challenge.

In the Bridges program, mathematical routines are practiced during Bridges Number Corner, an engaging calendar activity, and during explicit instruction, games and activities, including pattern recognition and prediction; number skills, geometric shapes, money, and time; and Problem Strings, a set of problems which are woven together conceptually to help students identify strategies. The students are encouraged to share and internalize strategies, use them flexibly, and choose strategies that will be efficient. Articulating their thinking allows them to solidify their learning, apply their approaches to more complex problems, and make meaning together. Enjoyable games encourage practice and build fluency and skills.

This year all of our 1st-5th grade students have subscriptions to DreamBox, an online personalized learning tool which meshes well with the Bridges curriculum, and which students can use both at school and at home. Teachers can quickly gauge students skills and understanding, assign lessons, and measure growth. We have already noted increased growth in students who use the tool regularly. In addition, our Learning specialists Katherine Campbell in K-3rd offer students support by pushing into math classrooms and providing intervention outside of class where necessary.

Middle School
Last year, Middle School math teacher Kim Huie led a task force to seek out the best research-based math curricula with NCTM standards, engaging floor to ceiling problems, alignment with the elementary math program, and strong preparation for a wide variety of traditional and more progressive high school math programs. After a very successful pilot last spring, the faculty chose Illustrative Mathematics, which we rolled out in the 6th and 7th grades this fall. Kim will pilot this program in the 8th grade this year, in addition to the standard Elementary Algebra textbook we have used for many years.

Supporting Your Math Student
Research shows that one of the most important things you can do as a parenting adult is to develop a growth mindset about your own math abilities and your child’s. Every person can learn math, and there is no such thing as a “math person,” just people who have more experience learning math. There are many helpful resources at Youcubed.org, and support for elementary families at the Bridges 2nd Edition Family Support site. If your teacher suggests that your student needs more practice with math, support your student in using DreamBox; you might also consider purchasing apps from companies like Dragonbox or Brainquake. Students in older grades may be pointed to individualized practice by their teachers at sites like Khan Academy. And if you have concerns or questions, please talk to your child’s teacher, as they are the true experts in your student’s learning.

DSC

Student Pathways for Civic Engagement

/in , , , /by

by Kate Klaire, Director of Civic Engagement

Student pathways for civic engagement often start with noticing how environments, beings, and communities are doing – how their situations differ, recognizing whether they are thriving, and wanting to find ways to support them.

At The Berkeley School, we know that civic engagement requires rigorous goal-setting, planning, action, and reflection, and we know that children at all grade levels are capable of all of these. TBS students develop a civic and social awareness about the community around them, appreciate the impact of their choices, and hone their sense of agency in order to engage a changing world that requires their empathy, active participation, and effective leadership.  

Civic Engagement through Student Leadership

With such a strong focus on civic engagement The Berkeley School was invited to become a member of the global Ashoka changemaker network in 2014. As an Ashoka School, TBS is dedicated to cultivating a spirit of activism within our student body. Students in 5th through 8th grade have the opportunity to join the Ashoka Student Leadership Team, a group facilitated by the Director of Civic Engagement that meets regularly to plan and enact changemaking initiatives that impact their local and global community.

Ashoka students lead change by:

  • Identifying problems and opportunities 
  • Imagining a way forward that benefits everyone, not just a few
  • Investigating solutions and modes of support
  • Adapting and making changes
  • Bringing others into the action 

Ashoka student leaders started the 2018-19 school year with the student-driven goal of impacting the issue of homelessness in Berkeley. They met with educators, activists, and government officials to understand the ways Berkeley and Oakland have currently work to address homelessness. Students developed an ongoing partnership with Berkeley City Council member Cheryl Davila and worked over the course of the school year, built a relationship with folks living at the Sea Breeze encampment down the street from our University Avenue Campus. They made meals, held necessity drives, offered trash pickups for the encampment. Their main initiative was to advocate for the encampment to get the same regular trash pick-ups other Berkeley residents get by attending city meetings and promoting education within our school community to influence their advocacy. 

Students from our 2018-19 Ashoka Leadership Team with District 2 City Councilperson Cheryl Davila.

Members of the Ashoka Leadership Team mentor their younger peers in a group we call Ashoka Jr. comprising students in grades K-4 who are also interested in taking the lead as changemakers. After visiting the Berkeley Recycling Center on a field trip, Ashoka Jr. made a plan to raise funds for Peoples Breakfast Oakland by collecting recycled materials on campus and turning them in to the center for money. Over the course of 6 months, the students collected 384 cans and bottles, a haul which amounted to just $50. The exercise taught the Ashoka Jr. students what an incredible effort it took to raise just $50 and considered that, for some unhoused folks, this is their only income. 

At the close of the 2018-19 school year Ashoka students led their classmates in an “End Homelessness Now” walkathon and rally in Downtown Berkeley’s Civic Center Park to help keep the issue of homelessness at the top of mind.

DSC copy

We opened the 2019-20 school year with a visit from Donald Frasier, Executive Director of Building Opportunities for Self Sufficiency (BOSS), who came to speak to our faculty about emergent issues affecting the unhoused and discussed ways to grow our partnership, including support for the Children’s Learning Center. 

In September, we welcomed 2013 TBS grad and current Northwestern journalism student Maggie Galloway back to speak about her experience interning with KQED investigating the complexities of homelessness in the Bay Area.  

Maggie presented at an all-school assembly and then worked with the Ashoka team to build their understanding about common biases associated with our unhoused neighbors. She then led them through an activity in small groups to generate ideas about ways they could support unhoused individuals with pets, as well as how to educate the community. 

Civic Engagement through Service Learning

Transitional Kindergarten students on our Early Childhood Campus were introduced to the complexities of food access through a service learning unit that combined their study of and partnership with the Berkeley Food Pantry with a yearlong focus on showing kindness. Students aged 4 and 5 were led through these five stages of service learning:

Investigation – The Director of the Berkeley Food Pantry came by the Transitional k classroom to talk about who they serve and why. Drawing from this visit, as well as from other discussions, the students presented what they learned to their peers in the other five classrooms on the Early Childhood Campus.

Planning & Preparation – Students thought about a meaningful action that could make a positive impact and meet a real community need.

Action – They spearheaded a food drive that resulted in 194 pounds of goods for local neighbors. They delivered their donations to the pantry and learned how to help stock the shelves.

Ongoing Reflection & Assessment – They reviewed together, noting how much and what types of food were needed (canned items, pasta & rice, no candy) and how food access needs remained, even after their action.

Demonstration & Celebration – By sharing the results of the food drive collection and offering thanks to those who contributed, students honored the fact that they couldn’t have made the impact they made without the help of others.

While students already had an understanding of the fundamental need for food to survive, the food pantry study helped them to realize food dependency impacts the way people live and helped them grasp the concept that some people have access to food while others don’t — and most importantly — we all must act to remedy that.

Civic Engagement through Project-Based Learning

7th graders tackled the same issue of food access through a collaborative interdisciplinary Project-Based Learning unit between their health class and humanities class. Students were invited to answer this guiding question: “How can we make healthy and nutritious foods more accessible in our community?” In order to take action to this end, students researched what makes food healthy and nutritious, what are the modern day barriers to access, what are the historical legacies of these barriers, and for whom these barriers exist. They covered the foundational elements of this project by examining a recent study undertaken by PolicyLink and The Food Trust titled The Grocery Gap: Who Has Access to Healthy Food and Why it Matters and hearing from guest teacher, Asia Hampton from Phat Beets Produce, an Oakland-based grassroots organization that aims to create a healthier, more equitable food system in Oakland and beyond by providing affordable access to fresh produce.

Additionally, students travelled to the Alameda County Community Food Bank to volunteer and to learn about why making healthy food more accessible in our community is so vital to the health and success of Alameda County residents.

To culminate their unit, students designed a digital map of our neighborhood’s food sources to share with the larger community, called FindYourGreens.org. In order to do this, students created an evaluation tool to assess the variety and cost of healthy foods at neighborhood food sources, as well as proximity from public transportation to indicate accessibility.In the art studio, they designed and produced tote bags to promote the FindYourGreens.org site within the community.

As a private school with a strong, outward-facing mission, we have a particular need to walk our talk. We believe that the way we educate our students will have long-term benefits for local and global communities alike.