Engaged Learning

Kids holding marshmallows on sticks over a bonfire

A Place Around the Rug for Everyone

Throughout the month of September, in community meetings and in our Looking-glasses [4th-5th grade] meetings and journaling, we have been reflecting on community: what makes a community, how we feel in a community, the challenges of being in community, and what our responsibilities to one another are. Given the ways in which our society often…

Two students wearing masks and reading books, sitting on a rug in front of a bookshelf full of books

Looking for space, joy and grace

A few months ago, I was in a Zoom call with Deans of Students at various Quaker schools. One of the questions asked, to which everyone took turns responding, was basically, “What does it feel like at your school right now?” And what I said, a few months ago, was, “It feels like we’re trying…

NaNoWriMo

In the middle school writing rotation, fiction writing came up on my unit map this year. While I have a curriculum that I regularly use to teach writing, I had a crazy idea- what if my students participated in the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)? NaNoWriMo is traditionally an adult-led tradition where people worldwide commit…

Getting to know you (and me) through buddy letters

A date, a salutation, at least five sentences, a picture they’d like, a closing, and your name.  It’s good to ask at least one question so they have something to respond to.  These were the parameters of a buddy letter, as a few complaining middle schoolers explained to me.  What were they complaining about?  Not…

Gender Relations in the Classroom

A couple of weeks ago, two students in my room—a boy and a girl, friends who often play as part of the same group—were on the outs. Small conflicts kept erupting. On the advice of one of our parent volunteers, who had just finished a difficult recess with them, I pulled those two students aside…