By Colleen Schilly, Head of Lower School
At Back to School Night we shared the exciting path that lies ahead for Hillbrook with our new strategic plan, Vision 2020. One of the core initiatives of the plan is to reimagine the student experience. One of the most important decisions we make as educators on a daily basis is how we use the time available to us, and how we support students developing skills to independently, efficiently, and wisely manage their own time. As a finite resource it can be maximized…or wasted. Using Vision 2020 as a lens to interpret the present and plan for the future, we know that to reimagine the student experience means we need to take a deep, thoughtful look at how our decisions around time impact the day-to-day life of a Hillbrook student.
In a school setting, the most tangible manifestation of our use of time is the schedule. We are in the beginning stages of a 12+ month process to reimagine the schedule at Hillbrook. We will be using a design thinking framework to understand the current student experience, research practices at other forward-thinking schools, draft and test a prototype, and iterate as needed.
A group of twelve faculty from different divisions, departments, content areas, and experiences have formed a committee to steer this work this year. Our first project is to build empathy around the current student experience by shadowing a class/group for a full day. By essentially living a day-in-the-life of a student we hope to gain a detailed, personal “worm’s eye view” of what children experience in our current schedule model. Over the coming week all grades at Hillbrook will have a faculty shadow to listen, absorb, and learn from the student’s perspective.
I had the opportunity to shadow 4th grade yesterday and walked away with a wealth of insight, questions, and a profound sense of appreciation for the incredible experience that children currently enjoy at Hillbrook. The day allowed me to be a collector. I collected small moments and stories of learning, exploration, and development that helped me understand more fully the magic of a day at Hillbrook. I learned….
- Students take risks by trying something new every day. Over the course of the school day, I counted no fewer than ten moments wherein students were asked to try on a completely new skill, concept, or strategy. How often as an adult do you try ten (or more!) new things each day? Beyond the new academic, social, and emotional skills students are gaining by trying and increasingly mastering these new skills each day, they are also growing into perseverant, confident, reflective learners – critical skills that are transferable for their lifetime ahead.
- Learning at Hillbrook incorporates both community experience and personalization. Many experiences during the course of the day were shared and similar. Yet, when I choose to zoom in on different individuals for periods of time it was clear that with the quiet, wise nudging of a teacher, intentional grouping around shared learning goals or the individual provision of an additional challenge or support strategy, each child was taking a personalized path towards a shared destination.
- Collaboration is a thriving practice on this campus. My role as Head of Lower School means I am very familiar with how adults share and collaborate together on a regular basis. The shadow day reaffirmed that this skill not only deepens the learning of grown-ups, but that of children as well. Students worked in groups of varying sizes in varying content areas and in all instances were practicing and demonstrating growing competency in clearly articulating ideas, listening attentively, facilitating progress on a goal/project, leading, following, respectfully disagreeing, encouraging, and more. By using collaboration as a tool, students were able to solve meaningful problems and reflect on their learning at a level that would not have been possible alone.
- Joy is not just something children feel, but a moment that you can actually watch. One of my favorite quotes is from renowned educator Loris Malaguzzi who says, “Do nothing without JOY!” – and this is a thriving practice at Hillbrook. Yes, there are bumps and bruises, pitfalls and stumbles, challenges and obstacles. These are also real, sometimes powerful experiences that shape a child’s learning journey in class and relationships. However, there wasn’t a single child who didn’t laugh and break into a delighted smile when they designed and practiced a secret handshake with a partner. There wasn’t a bored or disengaged face when students compared their estimates to actual values of objects in a container. There wasn’t a voice that didn’t cheerfully join in the short song to start art class. There wasn’t a single body that didn’t loudly encourage and celebrate their teammates successful serve while playing a game of volleyball.
This is just a small window into the 7 hours I was privileged to spend with 4th grade, and I know it is illustrative of the students in other grade levels whose experiences, in the words of Hillbrook’s mission, are “full of laughter, self-discovery, imaginative thinking, creative problem solving, laughter and friendship.”
What my day of shadowing made clear is that our schedules and decisions around time are not broken or malfunctioning. This project is driven by a joyous, innovative spirit of “What if….?” A few of the questions I am eager to explore further:
How might a reimagined schedule change the experience for students who successfully complete tasks or projects at different paces?
What if the outdoor classroom was consistently more accessible from the indoor classroom?
How might we more closely align scheduled learning experiences with the predictable patterns of student energy/attention levels during the school day?
How might we continue to promote student choice and ownership within whatever confines of the schedule are necessary?
As we dive deeper into this process we are excited to examine where we might refine, reinvent where necessary, and purposefully plan to continue making the Hillbrook educational experience an ever more extraordinary one.