May 25, 2021

Dear Colleagues,

First and foremost, congratulations on an exceptional year in the classroom and a sincere thank you to all who made that happen. There were times throughout this past academic year when I thought that I may not make it to the last day of school – thoughts of running off to a mountaintop or isolated lake entered my head on more than one occasion. Happily, we are still here, and we need to celebrate successfully ushering our students through an academic year like no other; teaching, coaching, and advising our students in ways that were a mystery to us two years ago. And now we deserve the rest and relaxation that comes with knowing that we've completed a job to the best of our ability. John Howley's speech at graduation was a wonderful reminder that no matter what we face, there are lessons that we can draw upon for the future, even when we walk away with our new, "back to school" white shoes and tee shirt muddied and looking a bit worse for the wear.

So, what will I take away from this academic year? The following are some initial thoughts - I look forward to talking with you about your takeaways, as I have absolutely no doubt that you have much to add to this list.

I have to know my students in order to ensure that each of them see themselves represented in my curricular choices.
I will continue to develop authentic assessments and the authentic activities that help my students demonstrate their knowledge, skills, and wisdom.
I will strive to create a classroom environment where all feel seen, heard, represented, and valued.
I will do my best to give timely, succinct, relevant, actionable feedback, understanding that what my students do with that feedback is of equal importance.
I will recognize the need for movement during class (here's to a post-pandemic classroom with no physical distancing – please!) and find ways to bring more joy to my students' learning.
Finally, I will continue to seek out opportunities to collaborate with my colleagues. Some of the best work I accomplished this year only happened by listening and engaging with my colleagues. I have missed the visibility of my colleagues' teaching and look forward to Open Classroom Week next fall. Observing, sharing, and collaborating with colleagues allow us to move forward.

I want to close out this final Monday Musings with a few student reflections from the fourth I-Tri presentation this spring. One of the highlights of ST1 and ST2 for me was attending these presentations and witnessing the culmination of these eight seniors' work. Ethan Lavalley, Baihan Zhang, Simone Moales, Max Clemens, Winston Ware, Matt Tombaugh, Kariuki Massio, and Thierno Diallo honed their ability to collaborate and listen attentively, demonstrate empathy and a deep sense of respect and trust toward the people involved in each of their projects; each of these students reflected the qualities that we hope to see in a Loomis Chaffee graduate. I was blown away by their ability to communicate, convince, and convey their message to their "partners" and the sense of connection that each felt to their project.

At the conclusion of the final I-Tri presentation, Jen and Scott opened the floor for 30 minutes of Q & A in which we heard mentions of the pedagogical practices and the primary tenets at the core of any good education. The students made it clear that the best work comes when they are involved in the construction and design of their classes – the ability to voice their opinion in their learning gives them a sense of ownership of their learning, a sense of purpose, ultimately motivating them to push themselves further. As we begin to think about the design of next year's curriculum, let's see how we can challenge ourselves to incorporate their ideas and reflections. I have transcribed a few of their comments below.

Congratulations again on a complicated, unprecedented, and successful year. Please click on this link for some outstanding professional growth opportunities available this summer.

Best,

Sara, on behalf of the Kravis Center

I-Tri 2021 Final Presentation - Zoom

I will begin with Simone's words, a powerful commentary about the importance of DEIJ in our curriculum: "My favorite part of the program was being partners with people who looked like me. Having a woman like Leticia be a change maker and a mover and a shaker in the industry, not only in sustainability but politics - and when you put your screen on Chef Jay… I said 'Oh my God, I get to work with a Black man!' I love connecting to people, and I love seeing the representation go through our curriculum and being able to work closely with people who look like me, to show me that it is possible to make change, even though for years it has not been [out] for Black women for Black people to thrive in these environments, predominantly white communities - just seeing you and seeing Leticia really helped me to see that these things are possible . . .it's definitely not going to be the last time to see a change maker like you come into a room and that we can make change together."

On the importance of instilling a sense of inclusion and collaborative team building in the classroom, Max stated: "Innovation in a group really relies on the dynamic and chemistry everyone has… instead of fighting over someone want their ideas, it was always a mixture of talking about it and then bringing the idea into one thing, then coming together as a team…altogether it was the cooperation and the chemistry that really allowed us to become successful."

Kariuki spoke about the importance of learning to communicate with others: "The main thing that I took from it … was the real-life aspect. I've matured so much in these past five weeks, just learning how to communicate with different people, learning how to talk with professional adults and be professional. … really learning how to carry ourselves, talking to real people with real consequences, because all of these partners we're working with and these projects have a lot of weight. I'm really excited to do more types of partnerships like this in college and in the future – I appreciate that Ms. Soloman and Mr. MacClintic for always pushing us and making us break out of our shell."

Ethan spoke to the importance of feedback and reflection: "One of my favorite parts was sitting down and answering the simple question: "What do you need to work on?" It was probably one of the harder questions that I had to answer this term, and I think it really helped me because we did talk through weaknesses and what we could build on and throughout the entire term we worked on those weakness and it was interesting to see how we developed...That was definitely my favorite part."

Simone on the importance of authentic assessment: "Making sure to have real world application through project-based learning which was a fundamental pillar of the I-Tri program which really helped us to see why each activity was important. At the beginning we were learning how intentional it was to do the brainstorming activities, and what that was teaching us about innovation, about communication, about rhetoric, about design, about marketing… Making sure that every activity is intentional and a way to do so is through this project-based learning which can be undergirded with this idea of real-world application which is something that we don't often see in the classroom. But I think that if it were integrated into the classroom, it would be a more wholistic experience, and engage us some more so that we can be connected to the work we are doing and not detached if it was busy work or just random assignments without any meaning or purpose behind it."

***Click here for professional learning opportunities for this spring and summer.