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The Gordon School

Use the energy

 
There’s no point in pretending that cultural milestones like Halloween don’t exist.

The trick, in the words of one Kindergarten teacher, is to “use the energy” to fuel the classroom learning.

So they will make skeletons, but only after a review of the basics of the skeletal system, with attention to the engineering of the skull (soft on the inside, hard on the outside) that they have discussed in the Early Childhood IDEA Lab. They then carefully cut out the bones, and labeling each one with their first names. The joints are labeled with letters, and the students need to match lowercase and uppercase know which bones go together.
 
 

It sounds like a simple technique.

But it’s part of a larger idea in multicultural education: if you welcome children’s experiences, cultures and passions in the classroom, you will get better work out of them.

If the students represent a variety of cultures and experiences, the benefit is amplified exponentially.
 
 

So in fourth grade, as students are pushed to add details and colorful vocabulary to their writing, the first assignment is the Who Am I? poem.
 
 
 
In fifth grade, when they rethink historical scale while studying ancient cultures, students begin with a personal timeline.
 
 

In seventh grade, as students prepare to write novels, they rewrite those timelines as “literacy autobiographies” documenting their first words, their first books, and their first experiences as authors.

And teachers don’t ignore the conversations that spring up around Halloween, Columbus Day or Thanksgiving.

They find age-appropriate ways to channel that energy into the classroom conversation.

Dressing up on Halloween is a Middle School-only privilege at Gordon.

In addition to the very specific costume guidelines, advisories are also preparing for Halloween by discussing the idea of cultural appropriation, based on some ideas originally posted by Rosetta Lee of the Seattle Girls’ School in a discussion thread hosted by the National Association of Independent Schools.

 

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