Design Your School Beginning with the Faculty's Ideas??!!

To just about any faculty member I know, the following idea will come as a giant “DUH:”  when a school undertakes the design of a new facility, it should include the faculty in the design process.  Sadly, most boards and administrations do not.  These institutions miss a GIANT opportunity to stimulate design ideas AND, ironically, faculty development. I have worked with four schools in the last two years that have begun the design process with a series of meetings with the faculty and administration, together.  In each case, everyone has been excited by the prospect of a new building, and honored to be included in the critical programmatic phase of design.  However, in each case, the rubber met the road, not so much on building design issues, as on educational program design.

The hard questions that the faculty tackled had to do with reflections on past and current successes and problems.  In all cases this led to projections that built on current success, solved problems, and created room for evolution.  The answers and discoveries in these discussions have become essential to the schematic design of the buildings.

My most recent experience was (and is) with Oregon Episcopal School.  OES has begun the process of designing a new Lower School (early childhood through grade 5).  They started with three guided discussions with the faculty in large and small groups.

Their first meeting, involving the whole lower school faculty, was guided by a parent who has considerable professional experience (Nike) with Design Thinking.  Using the decorum and process of Design Thinking, in one 90 minute session, the faculty generated 20 poster boards covered with sticky note ideas.  The poster boards wall papered their meeting room.

The following week, I met with the faculty over two days, in four small groups, in 90 -120 minute sessions each day, to develop the ideas on the walls.  First of all, we revisited and elaborated on the most compelling ideas, in their individual opinions, that had come up through the Design Thinking.  Then, each faculty member chose one idea that he/she found “most concerning.”

The next day, each session focused on teaching: tell us something about your teaching that has changed significantly...what was it that you learned that caused the change?  Then we asked, tell us one thing that you hope will never change.  Finally, we wondered together, considering both the change you have known and the stability you hope for, what do you imagine teaching at OES will look like 5 or 10 or 20 years from now?

From these meetings we discerned a “map” of ideas, or significant “drivers” for the schematic design.

• Ten Essential Ideas about Students, Teachers & Pedagogy
• Seven Essential Ideas about Program
• Ten Essential Ideas about Spaces
• Nine Essential Ideas about Design
• Nine Essential Concerns

Further reflection on the meetings distilled three compelling needs to be met in the design of the building, compelling for the Lower School, for the whole school and in the Portland community.

Somewhere along the way, a metaphor appeared: OES as a RIVERBOAT.  Throughout the sessions we had a lot of fun as we elaborated on the image.  By the end we had constructed quite a story, one that could become the unifying image for the educational program, the building design, and communication with parents and fund raising.

Hmmmm, all this...just by including the faculty!

Up Coming Green Schools Conference and Our Presentation

At 8:30 a.m. on February 24th, Cadwell Collaborative and two schools that we work with will collaborate on a presentation at the Green Schools Conference in West Palm Beach, FL.  Two Reggio inspired schools, La Scuola in Miami and The St. Michael School of Clayton in St. Louis, will share highlights of their year-long, whole school investigation: What is food? 

The presentation will offer participants a structure for this kind of investigation.  Those who attend will understand how to:

• design a year-long inquiry around one compelling question

• build curriculum maps to plan, reflect on and communicate learning goals

• use daily journals and blogs to track student work and project development

• create documentation that assesses students' skills and understanding

• guide student work in ways that engage students in the community

This is a story of how two very different schools followed similar paths with their students.  The story of their learning journeys and their collaboration make a compelling case that the 21st century skills of ecoliteracy, systems thinking, collaboration, creative problem solving, and youth engagement are critical and unifying themes of our time.  What comes through most clearly in the stories that these two schools tell is that students of all ages, when guided into meaningful, relevant explorations are excited and motivated to discover and learn more.  And, they are inspired to share what they've learned and to advocate for change.

If you are not aware of the Green Schools National Network, we recommend that you check it out.

If you are interested in designing curriculum based on critical themes of our time and 21st century skills, let us know.  We'd love to work with you.

Photography: A Few Thoughts on Why and How

Those of us who are drawn to the work of the educators and the children in Reggio Emilia, Italy are struck by the beauty that we see in the learning environments, in the work with materials, in the care for every detail of how experiences are presented to children and how wholehearted learning and joy are captured in photographs and other media.  If we are serious about acting on our inspiration from Italy, one thing that we might do is to consider what is involved in taking good, meaningful, beautiful photographs of children and of learning.  This takes time and learned skills.

I have loved taking photographs for most of my adult life.  I was fortunate to enroll in a photography course in college and I spent hours in a dark room with friends watching my photos come to life.  This course, with a beloved and excellent photographer, set the stage for me.  Photography became a vehicle to communicate what I was learning in a local elementary school while taking taking courses in education and sociology.  I loved being a photographer as a parent of small children and also as a young teacher, even before I knew about Reggio Emilia.  I realized the power of well composed photographs to tell stories.

Soon after I came home from the hospital about three weeks ago, I realized that I would be homebound.  I decided that I would shoot photographs every day and that I would choose one to represent each day.  Since I am limited to my Vermont home, these photos are taken from the inside looking out or they are of interiors of rooms. If family and friends are here, they become subjects.  In choosing my photo of the day, I am looking for strong compositions, interesting and good light, a new angle on a familiar subject, something of passing beauty that I do not want to forget.  I delete many of the photos that I take because they are not quite right in some way...too cluttered, not the right angle, too dark, for example.  Developing an eye for taking, selecting and displaying good photographs is a worthwhile pursuit.  In schools, students will be proud that their learning is documented.  Parents will be thrilled to see their children's learning in action.  All of us will be grateful that we have beautiful images to both represent and tell the stories of our learning journeys through the days, months and years of growth and change.

Baby Therapy

Last weekend, we had our whole family at the Middlebury house in Vermont. Whole family means, oldest son, Alden, daughter-in-law, Caroline, grand baby, Asher, 9 months, and youngest son, Chris. Oh, and Olly, the chocolate lab.  What a pick me up for a girl with a broken bone!  To have a full house with baby brought with it a powerful dose of super endorphins and healing laughter.  My favorite times were the play times with Asher in my single bed downstairs, right off the kitchen.  One or the other parent would deliver Asher to me in the morning and we would find a great children's station on Pandora and start to dance and play with his musical toys, bells, shakers and cymbals.  I forgot about my hurting hip and we rocked out as much as is possible for being in bed!

Wide-eyed, curious, smiling, giggling, open, terribly enthusiastic about just about everything.  These are qualities that we all might aspire to and they are just what the doctor ordered for me.  I remember once, long ago, when a friend asked me how old Alden was and I said, "Nine months." "Ah," she said, "that is my very favorite age."  I realized at the time, that she had something.  Fully still a baby, and yet, almost not a baby...full of bursting, responding, participating joy.  That is what is so irresistible.

As I wait out this time, when I am missing the rest of Asher's ninth month so that I can heal properly and get back into the swing of life as I knew it, I am so grateful for him, for family, and for the love that we share.  And, I am grateful for the wonderful colleagues who have showed such support during this down time.  I am feeling more and more energetic and I am starting to launch back into projects with the schools where I am part of teams that are doing wonderful work.

As far as reflection goes, and the value of stopping and truly appreciating all that life is, a dear friend sent me this video today. I had seen it before and I am a great fan of Brother David Steindl-Rast who narrates it. I was so happy to see it again.  It too, is just what the doctor ordered.  I think you will like it.

Homebound

Homebound.  That's what it's called, medically, when you are basically going to be at home for a while and need services and the world to come to you instead of visa versa.  And, sadly, for better or for worse, that is what I am.  Here is how it happened.  Twelve days ago, I remember one of those sparkling 24 hours, including a Friday night, candle lit dinner with wonderful friends...my first down hill ski day of the season on a bright blue Saturday fluffed with new white powder...a star lit night and an "all is good" kind of feeling through body and soul.  Then, all of a sudden, swift as lightening, I slipped on unseen black ice in a dark parking lot and crashed onto my hip such that it fractured and shattered and I was told, after an ambulance ride and x-rays, that I needed to have a total hip replacement. Now, this week, instead of working with one of my favorite teams at IPS Butler University Laboratory School in Indianapolis, I am homebound.  And, all of my work and travel plans have been rescheduled or canceled for the time being while I recover, slowly.

I am fortunate to be living in the perfect recovery room.  It is a small, first floor study in our newly renovated, fresh Vermont house.  Ashley and a good friend moved one of the single beds from upstairs down and from here, I can see the world.  Out of 6 windows in this small room I can view the changing weather, the comings and goings of chickadees and cardinals at the feeder, the sky through the day and night, the distant traffic on route 23 traveling out of town, and one of my mother's little Italian stone men, the one with the long pipe, placed under the birch tree, today with snow on his cap.

It is strange to go from fully engaged, moving through work and life at a robust pace, healthy, strong, fit...to full stop, going nowhere, life is what you see and do from here, and that is that.  One friend called and left a message, "Hi, I am calling Cadwell Calamities and I want to leave a message." My friends, colleagues and family are so wonderful...bringing soups, sending cards and flowers, calling, writing, sending emails and books.  And, Ashley as well as being a stellar business partner and husband, is an excellent nurse and cook!  I believe that I will recover especially well because of the cheering squad and blessings of this wonderful support team.  Below are two examples that I want to share with you.

The day that I came home from the hospital, my mother-in-law, Mary Cadwell, sent me the following email:

I was delighted to read that one of Ashley's chores in preparation for your homecoming was to hang a bird-feeder outside your window. We have a flock of little juncos busying the spillage in the snow under our feeders. They make me think of one of E. B. White's little essays, "Winter Back Yard: "Even the drabbest yardscape achieves something like elegance when a junco alights in the foreground - a beautifully turned out little character who looks as though he were on his way to an afternoon wedding."

This all comes from my having time now to pull out some of these lovely books which have stood on our book shelves tantalizing me while days filled up with "busy work." E B W has lovely observations on Spring coming in the city. But I won't aggravate anyone's itch for a change of season by quoting those .... yet.

So, I guess we must be patient, patient, patient, patient with all things.

And, a few days after, I received a book from my dear friend, Carol Hillman, entitled, The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating.  This little book, written by Elizabeth Tova Bailey, is both a memoir and an account of a naturalist's research and observations. The author is struck by a mysterious virus that attacks many of her body's systems such that she becomes very ill and must stay in bed for a long time.  This is the tale of her relationship with a woodland snail that a friend brings by one day in a flower pot of spring violets.  While reading it, I began to feel much less sorry for myself and somehow more able to calibrate myself to the rhythms of the natural world that surround me.

I am grateful for the wisdom of my mother-in-law, Mary, and my friend, Carol, manifest in what they thought to share with me as I adapt to my new life during this dead of winter time and trust my body to heal.  And now, just as I conclude writing this post to glance up from my lap top, the blue and pale light has turned to soft gray and a spiral swirl of soft snow falls all around.  I am in my very own snow globe.