On Friday, we will welcome 67 prospective families to campus for the second of our two Admissions Revisit Days. Last week, we asked our prospective families to ‘get real’ (read more in THIS BLOG) as they toured schools one last time before making their final decision. Today, we ask our visiting families to consider the role of an independent school in their child’s development.
As a lifetime resident of our little town of Andover, but still a traveler of the country and the world, I had been looking forward to every aspect of European Art Classroom since I first heard about it as a prospective Proctor student - which, as a ‘faculty brat’, has really been since I was born.
Mountain Classroom is spending our spring studying food. We started the term by getting our hands dirty on the Midland School’s farm in Los Olivos, CA. Ranch Manager, Nick Tranmer, was our gracious host, as we camped out in a beautiful field nearby campus, before heading into the San Rafael Wilderness for a first aid themed backpacking trip. After backpacking we returned our thoughts to food systems by visiting Duncan Family Farms, a large-scale organic farm growing salad greens in New Cuyama. Now we are en route to the Colorado River for a canoeing trip in the Black Canyon below the Hoover Dam.
Whether it’s hiking around the mall in Washington, DC or to the top of Mount Washington, walking the streets of downtown Boston or downtown Franklin, New Hampshire, the power of Project Period, Proctor’s four day, immersive small group program that kicks off the Spring Term each year, remains the same. While we pride ourselves on an educational model that features academic courses rooted in experiential learning, Project Period provides an opportunity for students and faculty to join together to explore their passions outside of the classroom.
The start of each academic term affords the opportunity for faculty to gather for designated in-service professional development. Past professional development days have welcomed guest speakers to campus, while other days rely on internal expertise to share innovative teaching practices and project based learning. Today, faculty gathered in academic departments to further refine our approach to fulfilling our mission as a school.
It would be easy to write something sappy about how this week was our final week spent at our home in Aix and how sad it is that it is coming to an end. But it has been such an incredible week, filled with excitement and adventure, and we still have plenty of things to look forward to next week!
The longest and often most challenging of our three trimesters is nearing its completion with just four class days remaining before final exams and the reward of a two week Spring Break. Not only does our latitude limit our daylight during the winter months, but a shift in academic schedule to accommodate the 50% of students participating in snow sports creates inconsistencies in the academic week that unintentionally silos our community when we need each other most.
For students with learning style differences, transitioning from Proctor to college requires a thorough understanding of the three R’s: Rights, Responsibility, and Reasonable Accommodations. Up until this juncture in a student's education, Learning Skills and/or parents have been the core support system. Here is some advice for our students who thrive on support systems on how to navigate the transition to college.
