• Curriculum Overview
• After School
• Events and Celebrations
• Service Learning and Partnerships
• Special Assemblies
• Mini Courses

By Lauren de Moll, Director of Program Administration, and Anu Anand, Technology Teacher and Director of Staff and Program Development

Every summer SRV teachers and administrators take time off with their families to travel, relax and renew. They also take advantage of the time away from students to do work that it is hard to get to during the year, and to pursue learning more about the art of teaching.

This summer, a number of staff members are planning to work individually and in small groups on any of several program initiatives in between trips to the pool and beach. At this time, it looks like this work will probably include:

• Developing curriculum integration and teacher collaboration models for use next year
• Revising our spelling curriculum
• Beginning to articulate our art and music curricula
• Beginning to write a new sustainability curriculum

In addition to working on program initiatives, many staff members will be undertaking individual professional development challenges. To help them decide what to pursue, the teachers were asked to reflect on their personal goals as educators, and where they feel they need to stretch themselves, and to think about some of SRV's strategic goals, e.g. community outreach (partnership learning and leadership within the educational community), diversity and multiculturalism, curriculum development and integration, environmental and social sustainability practices, and in what areas they feel they need the most challenge and growth.

The school is sponsoring three major staff development opportunities for teachers this summer and next year that forward the school's strategic goals. They are:

1. Cultural Exchange with Centro de Educación Creativa/The Cloud Forest School in Costa Rica – Our relationship with former SRV teacher, Scott Timm, now the Director of Centro de Educacion Creativa/The Cloud Forest School allows us a unique chance for direct experience of another culture in a progressive education setting. A visit there encourages the exploration of any number of relevant topics, including how progressive practices change and adapt according to cultural considerations, how environmental sustainability and social responsibility can be integrated into curriculum; and how experiencing cultural difference first hand can clarify one's own culture, enhance intercultural understanding, and help prepare us as educators to support students and families from diverse cultural backgrounds.
2. Progressive School Visitation Program – Paul Brahce, head of The Little School in Bellevue, Washington; with support from the newly reconvened Progressive Education Network (inspired in part by The School in Rose Valley's symposium, Progressive Education in the 21st Century), has proposed a visitation program among faculty and administration of U.S. progressive schools. This program will allow educators to learn from each other and from each other's schools in a cross-fertilization model that strengthens individuals, schools, and the progressive education movement as a whole. Rose Valley teachers could choose to visit...
   • Cambridge Friends School in Cambridge, MA to investigate their actively anti-racist social studies curriculum.
   • Wingra School in Madison, WI to investigate their approach to integrated curriculum.
   • Friends School in Boulder, CO to investigate their commitment to a play-based preschool.
   • Shady Hill School in Cambridge, MA to investigate their impressive achievements and ambitious goals around institutional diversity.
   • Francis W. Parker School in Chicago, IL to investigate their "Morning Exercise," a long-standing practice of school-wide assemblies to share classroom learning.
3. Progressive Education Network Conference in San Francisco in October – This is the inaugural conference of the network that was resurrected as a result (at least partly) of our symposium. SRV has submitted a proposal to lead a session on aligning practice with values, with a special focus on manifesting democracy at several levels of practice: classroom, institutional, and in relation to the larger community. SRV teachers attending the conference will have the opportunity to continue the leadership and learning that was sparked by the symposium by helping to prepare and facilitate our session and by participating in the other offerings. For an individual teacher, the conference could inspire classroom practice; for our staff, it could help bring clarity and momentum to our school-wide initiatives; for the progressive education movement, it could result in greater unity and a collective strategy that challenges the current educational paradigm.

Other staff development opportunities that some of our teachers and administrators plan to take advantage of include:

·
• An on-line course in Backwards Design, a curriculum planning tool we use at SRV, through the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
·
• A multicultural education class in Intercultural Communication and Miscommunication by Sharon M. Ravitch, senior lecturer at University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education.
·
• The Summer Diversity Institute of the National Association of Independent Schools, an intensive week-long program for teachers, administrators and diversity practitioners.
·
• The Financial Aid Summer Institute, also through NAIS, for directors of admission and financial aid.
·
• Teacher's College at Columbia University's Annual Institute on the Teaching of Reading and Writing. This Institute is designed to help teachers of grades K-8 develop a theoretical framework for teaching reading and a repertoire of strategies for enhancing students' independence and skills as readers.
·
• SMART Board Training with Lisa Lukens
·
• Classroom Technology Integration-Fundamental Strategies, a course that introduces teachers to a variety of educational software applications to enhance their knowledge and skills in instructional technology.

Don't be surprised if when you return to school next September, your children's teachers are not only tan and rested, but are also excited about the amazing things they have seen, done and learned, and anxious to apply them in their classrooms.