Campus Connect Articles
LEARNING ABOUT CURRICULUM
FROM READING COMMENTS
Dennis L. Calkins
Head of the Upper School
Only a couple of weeks ago, comments were mailed home for every student in the Upper School. I hope you found those reports to be informative and helpful in learning about your child’s academic strengths and any areas where improvement in effort or performance is needed. As I read the comments over the last two weeks, I not only learned about the progress of your sons and daughters, I also am reminded about what takes place in our classrooms every day – what knowledge and skills are important, how our curriculum is delivered, and what our faculty members value as integral parts of their courses.
Following is a sampling of phrases and sentences from comments written by our faculty that I hope will provide you with some additional insight into our curriculum in the Upper School and what skills, behaviors, attitudes, and accomplishments we believe are important for your sons and daughters.
From Fine Arts:
Remember the sensory work we have studied as you take off on the scene work for Theater Night. Those exercises coupled with relaxation and concentration play the largest part in creating truthful work on stage.
She did nice work last quarter with the hand building. She always came up with unexpected and unique solutions to the assignments. We are working on wheel throwing now. Working on the pottery wheel is a process that takes dedicated practice in order to learn basic skills.
From Mathematics:
Part of my responsibility as the teacher is to get students to view problems and solutions from different perspectives. I’m trying to appeal to a variety of learning styles and examine possibilities through different lenses.
The BC Calculus course requires remembering much of what was studied (and hopefully learned) last year in Honors Math Analysis and using those skills and ideas within our calculus work. And, the earlier ideas in the calculus course keep re-appearing in the new themes. So, our study and work is often cumulative, rather than one topic and then a different topic. So, students of calculus have to have tremendous recall of important ideas and techniques.
Foreign Language:
He has participated in small group discussions on various topics, investigated news items from Spanish language newspapers, done a couple of AP listening exercises, studied grammar and vocabulary, and given a couple of oral presentations.
Science
By seeking connections between her observations and the concepts introduced in the text and class discussion, she is practicing a very important scientific skill. She is also learning to look for other relationships such as structure and function and cause and effect.
He is learning to write and present his work in the format of a formal lab report, which is quite demanding and requires that the writer also master the technological issues of scientific writing such as insertion of figures and diagrams.
While he may not end up in a scientific career, the analytical skills he is acquiring will be valuable in whatever field he chooses. I hope he understands the value, beyond the grade, of the work he is putting in to this course.
History
Our project involves a small area plan for the west bank of the Arkansas River. The students are working on a detailed narrative report and an accompanying set of visual plans showing details of our vision. We hope to present this plan to a public audience in December.
She identifies the most essential ideas in texts, connects literary themes with historical narratives, and analyzes, synthesizes, and evaluates ideas insightfully. She works well with other members of her small group, helps create an inclusive environment, and assumes responsibility for her group’s progress.
This is a seminar-style course that is based on decisions students make about source material, and the ideas of other students in the class. It is not enough to simply understand the material – we insist that students develop some aspect of their own analysis. We ask our students to develop their own lines of thinking by asking questions.
English
My experience shows that students tend to learn more when they are personally engaged in the conversation, as the articulation of ideas in front of a group tends to stimulate deeper and more careful reading and thinking.
We have been analyzing how horror texts work to scare us, and more importantly, we have been studying how the genre criticizes some aspect of our culture. We have looked at several different uses of the genre: novels, movies, and songs. Students present a 40-minute clip of a movie that is thematically related to the unit we are studying, then craft a question that connects the movie to the class. Everyone responds to the question via our class blog. This activity allows students some autonomy over our class content and, even better, it gives them a chance to teach.
She is still working on the skill of translating her thoughts into organized, precise language that clearly communicates her point. She has demonstrated skill at choosing excellent quotes to support her argument, and she makes strong organizational choices that help build her argument and connect with her thesis. I suggest lots and lots of reading. Strong readers make strong writers.
From this small sample, I hope you have gained some insight into what our teachers believe are the important aspects of a Holland Hall education. And, I hope you appreciate what our teachers are doing to prepare your sons and daughters for college and for life after college.
Archives:
11-2-11 News from the Upper School
10-4-11 What We Teach, How We Teach, How We Assess
9-6-11 Summer Reading – Raising Cain
8-9-11 The Home-School Partnership
5-3-11 Lessons Learned from Performing and Competing
4-6-11 The Most Important Goals of American (and Japanese) High School Education
3-2-11 Life in the Upper School – What Students Are Saying
2-7-11 How We Raise and Educate our Children- What’s in the News
1-11-11 Want to Know Something Just Google It Now What
12-7-10 Adolescents, Sleep, and Advice for Parents and Students
11-2-10 Excellence in Teaching – My Definition
10-5-10 The Modular Schedule Revisited Again
9-7-10 Thursday Morning: A Snapshot of Life in the Upper School
8-10-10 Musings on Circles and Cycles
5-19-10 What I Tell New Parents About the Upper School
4-20-10 Endings
3-23-10 The A. P. Discussion…Continued
2-23-10 Success in Athletics – What Does it Mean?
1-26-10 Right Brain Thinking
12-15-09 A Whole New Mind
11-17-09 Gifts
10-20-09 Grades and Grading
9-22-09 The Upper School Curriculum – 20 Questions
8-25-09 A Great Beginning Thanks to Outstanding Student Leadership
5-20-09 Endings
4-21-09 What is Art? Who is an Artist?
3-26-09 Enrollment in Courses for 2009-10
2-24-09 Skills for the 21st Century
11-20-08 The Modular Schedule at Holland Hall
10-23-08 A Great Day of Community Service in The Upper School
9-24-08 More About the AP Curriculum at Holland Hall
8-28-08 New Students and New Enthusiasm
