Great River Strategic Work

Great River Strategic Work

Last spring Great River’s Board and Student Experience Committee developed a strategic plan and identified key Montessori principles to review and discuss.  This fall and winter our community will be building on this valuable work to identify 3-5 core principles that will serve to both focus and deepen our work at Great River. To prepare us for crafting these guiding Montessori principles the Great River community will engage in some intensive work this December.

The four main components to this work:

1. Faculty conversations: Conversations with Great River faculty guided by the question “What does Montessori mean at Great River?”
2. Think Tank conversations: Faculty, Students and Board members will: Study Montessori pedagogy and other Best Practices in education to frame key questions, Engage in conversations with a panel of regional Montessori experts, Distill this into 3-5 key principles that integrate best practices in Montessori education with the unique talents and opportunities of the Great River community.
3. Observations: A faculty member and student will join Katie to observe at three established Montessori high school programs to study other successful interpretations of Montessori’s vision for the adolescent plane of development.  Opportunities for local observations by elementary and adolescent faculty will be made available for guides at those levels.  
4. Community Conversations: The final phase begins in late February and March as we bring forward proposed principles and invite feedback and discussion from Great River Board, faculty, students and families.

~Katie Ibes, Pedagogy Director

Dearest community,

The fall at Great River is a time of adventure, experience, trips and new relationships. It's also the essential time when we refocus ourselves on the foundations of why we work so earnestly for establishing community.

Pollinator and flower at the Land School

Respect for each other, for our selves, for our work, and for our environment - these are the cornerstones of our work together across all ages. We want to make sure we are living and working and learning among a group of people we know and we care for.  I was lucky enough to join the 9th and 10th year students this year on their 4 day trip to the Land School farm in Wisconsin. Students engaged in the work of  agriculture, forestry, woodworking, and artisanal crafts. Apples and squash, maple syrup, felted wool, woodworking projects, and fine photography were all products of our days at the farm. Also, a sense of interdependence, as two student kitchen crews cooked for all 100 students, and all students supported each other through the work of the week.

And the work of community extends to our volunteerism. Thank you all families for your time and energy this autumn, as our community has shown up to lend a hand in so many ways. Over 35 families pitched in to help recover from trips and care for our school equipment. Our Parent Engagement Group (PEG) has organized and taken root! We have level representatives and a structure for volunteer organization.  The next PEG meeting is Monday 10/26 - check the school calendar for all PEG meetings!

We, altogether at Great River, are in a place where relationship with each other is the container within which we learn. Our work in the real world - in learning how to connect our hands, head, and care - establishes real experiences that help us throughout the whole school year.

A2 students processing onions at the farm

I encourage you to look at the material on restitution presented by my dear colleague Katie Ibes at the parent education event in September. Also, make sure you're subscribed by email to the school announcements blog!

I look forward to seeing the whole community at our Harvest Festival on October 10th! 2pm-5pm we will have crafts and produce from the Land School for sale, caramel apples and treats from the farm, free hot soup made over an open fire for all attendees, a bouncy house, a bluegrass and square dance band, and fun! (volunteer for the harvest fest here: http://goo.gl/RvQ2Ca)

Thanks for joining in, pitching in, and welcoming the community altogether this autumn - it's been a wonderful beginning to the year.

State Championships, Collaboration, and a more peaceful global society.

Last week I answered the phone midday, and spoke with Steve from Metro Transit. Steve drives the morning 3b route, and brings a crew of 20-30 students to Great River 5 days a week. He wanted to let me know that the students he drops off at Great River are "calm, kind, and considerate. They always take care of others on the bus, give seats to those who need them, and treat everyone well." Steve reports that this behavior is exceptional, and "gives teenagers a good name - something must be going well at school to have students behave that way."

2015 State Champions! Congrats Women's Varsity Stars!

Ah, Steve, it's true. There are a lot of things going well at Great River School. Just a couple highlights from the week:

First off, our Ultimate teams were amazing this whole season. Both JV teams (women's and men's) finished as state semifinalists. Varisty men finished 3rd in the state. And our Women's Varsity team won the state championship! We compete against some of the largest schools in the state - public and private - and our student athletes carry themselves with classy determination in fiercely competitive games. They are ambassadors, athletes, and champions. You must come cheer on our ultimate teams next season. 

Second, a note about how collaboration and teamwork benefits your students and our global society!

We won a grant for honeybee education at Great River! (Thanks to Marie Rickmeyer and Tami Limberg for leadership and brilliance!) I mentioned in my last blog the challenges our students are inheriting in the world these coming decades. I wrote that

"real issues that will require cooperation, collaboration, and humanity to address solutions - issues of biodiversity, of water and land resources, and issues of fairness and justice in an increasingly interconnected world. Preparing students to out-compete their peers on tests and college admissions is not the solution to our local, regional, or global challenges." 

To be specific, the cooperation and collaboration we encourage and facilitate is the kind of skill that builds a more resillient society. To see one example of ecological challenge: honeybee protection has elicited a federal policy for action - one that requires international public-private partnerships to protect the $15billion that pollinators contribute annually to GDP.

Cooperating to install memorial design

I see our students using the skills of collaboration, problem solving, and ingenuity to solve real issues right here at school. Our 9th and 10th year students have collaboratively designed and installed a memorial space at the school in the north courtyard (and will host a dedication ceremony at 10am on June 6th.)

Student-Designed Memorial

Our Robotics team used gracious professional collaboration to join themselves to a state championship caliber robotics alliance and win a competition in order to attend the world championships this year. The Montessori value of collaboration which led them to the world championships is born out of knowing the talents of self, while also respecting and valuing the talents of an other.

presenting winning Robot to the board

This appreciation of differences, and valuing the success of others as well as self is the skill that solves issues of resource depletion, pollinator loss, and challenges that require global cooperative action. Our future engineers, ambassadors, architects, and leaders are working right now at Great River to build a better society at school. And that more peaceful society is spilling over into the bus, and demonstrating results in state and national competitions. What a wonderful sight to see.

Montessori education - cultivating a renewed social contract

As I explain the successes of Montessori education to many potential families, I am usually explaining the benefit to the individual student. Executive functioning is one of the highlights I touch on every time. Montessori practice allows students to make choices about their time, their location in space, and their work. The child has the freedom and independence to exercise responsibility and experience natural consequences of choice.

Better executive functioning skills lead to better overall academic results for students. A recent Atlantic monthly article articulated the benefit we hear so often from research on brain development - that time spent developing freely results in increased capacity for student performance.

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/06/for-better-school-results-clear-the-schedule-and-let-kids-play/373144/

However, individual results on exams and measures are not the core of our mission. The worldview of our school mission is about the contract we have with each other - personally, locally, and globally. How we treat people on the bus, how we make our society more peaceful, how we do in connection to others is the extension of our contract with classmates in a Montessori environment.

Our social contract to care for, respect, and support each person with dignity builds a more peaceful society. Preparing individual students with excellent job-ready brain function is great, but it's not the glue that holds high performing teams together. We have a specific task to facilitate cooperation among young people, and trust in their ability to carry dignity out into the public sphere so that they - as inheritors of our society - may construct a better world.

It's in the respect for each person, and the acceptance of their humanity, that we find ourselves able to solve problems together. And, in the face of challenges that will increasingly require cooperation, the social and emotional skills we practice become essential skills to create solutions. Kindness, inclusion, collaboration, respect for difference, and recognition of the value of human dignity become increasingly essential to addressing issues of inequity, resource competition, and imbalances of ecology, economy, and social order.

In growing together, and encouraging acceptance and respect of differences - we demonstrate a different value than most schools. We encourage students to shine, and we encourage students to raise each other up.  Preparing students to out-compete their peers on tests and admissions is not the solution to our local, regional, or global challenges.

Preparing students to work together in holistic thinking will find solutions to these challenges that face their world.

So, while we work with students to wrap up the year, and you guide your students toward a summer, I invite us to remind our young people how proud we are to witness their work establishing and carrying a more peaceful world within them. It's the mission we begin with each day at school, and the soul of our work.

Aiming for more than our #1 rating on from US News and World Report

What a week for Great River School. In case you didn't see the many social media shares this past week, Great River has been rated as the #1 high school in the state of Minnesota.

I am proud of this rating, but it doesn't speak to all our school does or to our true mission in education.  It does indicate the hard work of our students in preparing for academic success. Strictly based on college preparedness and standardized test scores among IB High Schools in the state of Minnesota, our results are the best in the state. 81st in the country for charter schools, and in the top 1% of all schools in the country.
That is a serious accomplishment, and we should share it with everyone. In the same breath, we should all also be able to speak to the responsibility for self, others, and the community that our students learn through real life experience!

Celebrating team work - unmeasured by test scores!

 Our students leave Great River ready for the world, and the data supports what we've seen for many years - students who experience independence and personal responsibility have great outcomes. Let's celebrate our students for their work succeeding in their coursework and preparing for college and careers. In fact, let's celebrate them for having a top rank among all IB high schools in the state of Minnesota. However, I have to acknowledge that the #1 US News rank does not satisfy our mission as a school. Top academic outcomes on a narrow measurement like standardized tests

I want to celebrate our school for aiming for more than academic success. Our #1 in MN rating is based solely on test scores and raw data on academic student capacity for standardized and summative tests. I want every one in the community to recognize that our students, in addition to academic outcomes,  demonstrate much more important learning.

Installing a Zen Garden - project unmeasured by ratings!

Responsibility for social relationships, for justice, and for I would love a US News & World report award for schools that change our cultural approach to education. I'm preparing a longer blog post for early next week on what our mission really is, and the mistake to look only at academic outcomes for a school. The mission of Great River is to prepare students for their unique role as citizens of the world. Our mission is global citizenship, not solely first-rate test scores. In fact, I believe our first rate test scores are a result of the way we support students emotional, ethical, and interpersonal abilities. Our students engage in caring for each other and responding to adversity with creativity.

 Sir Ken Robinson has the most watched ted talk of all time.  He talks about changing educational paradigms.  The need is for schools that approach education with a bigger world view than test scores. I invite you to watch the illustrated version of one talk given by Ken Robinson below. I think the reason his TED talks are so popular result from our shared hunger for hope and inspiration in education. Something more than test results - a human, connected, and holistic desire to support each person in dignity and development. The way we create a more peaceful society for the future is by creating a more peaceful society for our children to live and learn in today. Our school has that vision, and though we rank #1 in the state for tested outcomes in High School and college preparedness, I hope we can use every opportunity to open the conversation about the role of education to create a more peaceful and humane global society. Thanks for being our ambassadors!

And the winner is....

Bike Shop at work!

7 things I loved about this week:

1) 3 families at the Spring Fest carnival on May 2nd telling me they missed the dinner and concert
because of how much fun they were having outside

2) The concert at Spring Fest - the best cover of purple rain. Ever. I hear the choices for next year's concert is narrowed down to Beyonce vs. Rolling Stones :-)

4) Students organizing for community - 
from high schoolers rallying for civil rights, to A1 students experiencing mock trial, to elementary students planning a milkweed campaign for monarch habitat, and A2 students planning a memorial community meeting space,
A1 bike shop running a professional business....
Inspiring to see our future leaders leading

Dunked 19 times at first annual dunk tank :-)

5) Students organizing for fun! Student planned events of the week: set list of Spring Fest concert, all the carnival games, the A1 spring dance on 5/8, A3 students willing to play frogger at community meeting, Elementary students delivering May Day baskets of handwoven paper

6) Volunteers coming out to make Spring Fest Happen! Bake sale, food prep, setup, cleanup, and snocones... thanks volunteers :-)

7) Reflection in person with parents who watched the video from last week on vulnerability, and connected to their own experience of the school.


We have a long way to go as a school to reach our potential. And, what rewarding work it is when we come together, in the name of passion and fun, work on behalf of this community, and dunk our head of school in 50 degree water.
Pure gratitude.
Happy May to all!

Vulnerability, Creativity, Innovation - let's get ready for the real world!

I think the mainstream expectations at schools are generally about performance and 'preparedness for the real world'. 

The real world is not a high stakes test. The real world is full of problems that require collaboration, persistence, and real empathy. 

I forget how unique it is to see students freely pursuing creative and rewarding work, and how different that can be from a 'typical' public school. We live in a school culture that is counter to the mainstream. We ride up against mainstream expectations each day. 

Take a moment and view this video from social researcher Brene Brown:

https://youtu.be/AO6n9HmG0qM?t=17s

This week was typical at Great River  - I saw students ages 8 to 16 playing together each morning, teaching each other,
elementary students working on projects with junior high mentors, seniors planning a year-end intensive that focuses on celebrating their friendships, and a group of 14-16 year olds planning an end of the year memorial.

Our biology teacher Tami Limberg hosted a gathering of local community gardeners to work with our student urban farmers to build planting boxes for a mini- greenhouse in our garden, and our 7th and 8th year entrepreneurs planned carnival activities for Spring Fest. I saw dozens of students celebrating the return of spring by taking their independent work outside to the garden, to the courtyard, and to the sunshine, studying for IB exams, debating models of society, and enjoying each other...

I think the mainstream expectations at schools are generally about performance and 'preparedness for the real world'. The real world is not a high stakes test. The real world is full of problems that require collaboration, persistence, and real empathy. I see students working together in real understanding of each other, finding solutions to problems, and applying their knowledge and learning. I see students working with each other to engage in a world that demands their courage. I see students who are learning to persist through challenge, which will lead them to success in any profession, as well as success in building the relationships that will sustain their life. 

We work hard each day at Great River to create a space that is safe for vulnerable, creative human beings. In the safety of trying and persisting, of bringing ideas and We are so lucky to have a counterculture of valuing relationships, respect, and responsibility as the foundations of our learning. We live in a world that demands creativity, innovation, and change in reaction to a challenging future. Whetherour students will be veterinarians, doctors, engineers, or entrepreneurs, they will have to apply their ability to persist and work in teams to engage in solutions to our local and global challenges. The real world requires the vulnerable, empathy filled society that we strive for each day in our school. I am so proud of our students for the courage it takes to switch mindset and embrace a vulnerable culture at Great River.

Thanks to all 423 of our students ~
Sam

"Write an uncensored letter to fear, from empathy"

At the end of a school day this past week, I received a text message from one of our in-house substitute teachers. He is new to Great River this spring, and has subbed in every classroom at least once this past month. I thought everyone in our community should get to feel the reward of his assessment. Below is the message: 

" There are incredible things happening at great river, I'm impressed daily by the creativity, expansiveness of vision, and health and vibrancy of the students you're serving. Please accept this as a virtual high five." 👋

One of the many compelling moments observed this week at Great River - this encouragement on an announcement board - 

"write an uncensored letter to FEAR, from EMPATHY"

Spring returns, and reminds us that resilience is a persistent and gentle force

As the spring returns, and I see so much growth and success for students at Great River, I am reminded that resilience is truly a persistent and gentle force. Coming out of the winter snowcover is never a single day of warmth - it is a persistent turning of the earth, relentless pushing of a sprout, a slow change that can feel at once endless and fleeting.

Spring and the return of life happens not when we demand, but without us - our job is to witness life and find our place within the cycle.

My use of metaphor here is intentional - poetry, metaphor, and natural cycles sustain me in putting our work as a school in context. We are coming out of a winter that has challenged us in sorrow, mourning, and resilience. I have seen our students and families bind together in support and care for each other, and demonstrate the kind of loving support that helps us heal from wounds.

As I've mentioned before, the school is a living organism. We are coursing with life and growth and sprouts of brilliance each day. It has been several months since my last post in this blog format. I will return to the blog again this spring with a clear goal of sharing the moments of gratitude I experience each day at Great River.



Some amazing successes for our school this spring:

• our student-planned Identity, Race Awareness, cultural education day (IRACE) was a huge success -featuring a panel of workshops and speakers that was truly worthy of national recognition for the level of respectful dialogue and engagement through the day. Our mission as a school of peace and peaceful relationships was echoed throughout the day. 
• our robotics team won the state competition! (they are currently competing in the international competition in St. Louis!)
• two of our students made it to the top 12 of the statewide poetry out loud competition
• 5 students of our graduating class of 2015 (over 10%) have been offered full academic scholarships to selective colleges, and over 90% of our seniors have been accepted to colleges.
• a parent organization is formed, meeting, and sustaining independent momentum!

G i v i n g

Last week, we mailed out a letter with a postcard for you - our dear families. We are an institution that cares for people.You are the network that makes this school possible. We need your support to care for our whole community!

When we speak of our generous community, we recognize that we are a public school and we provide our programs of travel, attention, and nurturing care to all students - without obligation. It is our generous community that allows us to engage in programs that any public or private institution would boast. Financial support makes these programs possible for all students. If you can give, thank you for giving generously. If financial support is not in your family budget right now, we thank you for sending post cards to the 5 friends and family that love your student. Each one of those friends giving $30 helps us to our goal. Your participation, and recruiting those who care for your students, is key to our success! 

Our annual fund allows us to provide the kind of engaging and amazing travel for key experiences, and low student to teacher ratios that build the foundation of our community. 

Meeting and exceeding our goal this year will allow us to dream big for the future - to plan for improvements for facilities for learning and play, physical active spaces for elementary, technology, travel and real world engagement for adolescent students. 

Great River is thankful for all the support we receive. You - the generous community - make the travel, attention, and extra care of our program possible. Thanks for sharing the story of our success with your network, and strengthening the foundation of our community. 

~Sam