As we approach the end of the Fall Term and students are in the midst of completing final exams in each of their courses, we take a look back at recent field trips by U.S. History and AP Government classes. Proctor's teachers continue to work to tear down the walls of the traditional classroom by allowing students to live the history they are studying.
The Road to Character – not a novel – has a chapter on struggle and Doris Day’s life journey towards faith. A couple of sentences caught my attention and I’ve been rolling them over, particularly in light of last night’s stunning project presentations from various classes highlighting the hard work that goes on in the arts, in robotics, in psychology, and in social entrepreneurship classes. Fewer people today see artists as oracles and novels as a form of revelation. The cognitive sciences have replaced literature as the way many people attempt to understand their own minds. What? The novel and art dismissed by the cognitive sciences? No more fictional worlds explored, no more self-understanding deepened through characters? The arts unnecessary? Should the dismantling of English Departments begin tomorrow?
The fall athletic season is nearing its end and Fall Term exams are just a week away. While we all are anxious about the final week and a half of the term and the significant amount of work that awaits us, we must take a minute to reflect on the past ten weeks and all we’ve accomplished.
We know from the business world investing in a team is as important as investing in an idea. So how do we ensure our ‘team’ is as solid as our ‘idea’? No one will argue with the efficacy of our educational model of hands-on experiential learning infused through authentic relationships with teachers into classrooms both on- and off-campus. The success of Proctor’s educational model, however, is entirely contingent upon its successful implementation.
At first, the title of this blog post was going to be Innovation at Proctor, but then Robotics and Engineering teacher, Josh Norris ‘92, corrected me by saying, “I’m not sure that’s right, Proctor IS Innovation”. A trend at independent schools around the country is to build centers of innovation and makerspaces that afford students the opportunity to experiment, tinker, and develop prototypes of ideas. We, agree these makerspaces are critical to learning. We just have a slightly different approach to integrating these spaces into every student’s daily life at Proctor.
Faculty are engaged in Teacher Learning Groups as an on-going professional development initiative focused on modeling a growth mindset for our students. Small groups of three or four faculty members are observing each other's classes and meeting biweekly to coach each other through those observations. Today, I had the opportunity to sit in on Corby Leith’s A block studio art class.
Occasionally, visiting families embarking on the admissions process ask us how a small boarding school in rural Andover, New Hampshire can graduate a diverse body of globally aware citizens.
Last week an interesting article was published in Forbes magazine about the disruption occurring in the independent school world. Michael Horn discussed the challenges facing many schools as tuition prices rise faster than wages and technology and charter schools introduce new approaches to learning. At Proctor, we feel these disruptions all around us, and while we are cognizant of how we must adapt to an ever-changing landscape, we are as confident as ever in our educational model.
