Dialogue Night
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
How to listen in to students and ask questions about their experience of remote learning.
When a school applies to our program, one of the first questions we ask is about their investment in convening and working as a multi-stakeholder team.
In June of 2018, I graduated from a small independent school in Southern California, which I attended from kindergarten through twelfth grade. My thirteen years there were a journey filled with struggle and joy, anxiety and curiosity.
I recently read the letter you wrote to me, your senior self, when you were about to start high school at Menlo. You were long-winded, idealistic, and, yes, very nervous. You included two pages of motivational quotes, a long list of goals including a 4.0 GPA and a desire to start on the water polo team, and even predictions about the four years that lay ahead.
(Some) parents felt as if our proposal was lowering the standards to make it “easier” for students in high school. But we aren’t lowering the standards: we are redefining them. We are “challenging” what they define as a child who is “successful.”
Student-athletes at Head-Royce School face stressful challenges balancing the demands of school and sports. As an initiative to improve student-athletes’ health and well being, Challenge Success Club members decided to host a student-led H block discussing the issues and struggles of being a student-athlete in November 2017.
I love school. As a child in elementary school, I would be so excited to get the school supplies list and go get things like new sharp colored pencils and books.
Everyone wants to be successful in high school. Success comes in a variety of ways: academic success, social success, financial success (except babysitting hasn’t really been cutting it). But the kind of success that I’m describing is not something that comes in the form of a transcript or an Instagram post with this or that person. A couple of weeks ago, as college notifications were rolling out, my friend and I had a long chat and reflected on the end of high school. The conclusion we came to was one that will always stick with me: the people who truly succeed in high school are the ones that can look back and say “Wow, I had a blast doing the things I loved and I would not change a single thing.”
On the wall of the library, a discolored gray slab of concrete with chipped gold paint proclaims our school motto: “Achieve the Honorable.” It glares down upon an expansive collection of books, each awaiting a curious student. It hangs above shining computers, the drab concrete words contrasting sharply with the innovative technology. It lords over students who scramble to fulfill society’s lofty expectations for success, scribbling last-minute homework to the rhythm of “achieve, achieve, achieve.”