NCS: lunch

Hello. As you probably know, every meal starts with tables holding hands, and your children are assigned to new tables every two weeks. Our meals use as much home-grown and local produce as we can get. As often as possible meals are made from scratch, using as little processed foods as possible. Bread is baked daily, we have a low sugar diet, and we always provide daily vegetarian options. For lunch today: sweet and sour meatballs with brown rice was supplemented by and extensive salad bar. For dessert we had homemade chocolate cookies.

NCS: complex learning tasks

Educational experiences can be arranged in a continuum from simple to complex. One such continuum is known as Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning (link enclosed below). The two enclosed pictures: one of the 8th grade team in last minute preparations for their debate on the entry of the United States into World War I, and the other is a group of 6th graders huddle around their frostbite poster which illustrates the concepts to be covered in their simulated role-play. Synthesis, evaluation, and creative application of knowledge are all very high order thinking skills exhibited by these learning tasks.

http://www.odu.edu/educ/roverbau/Bloom/blooms_taxonomy.htm

NCS: homenight

Wednesday evening usually starts with the 3:00 PM locker check, and then on to sorting dirty laundry and putting away clean clothes. However, it has been snowing all day and so several staff opened the ski hill, and about 25 students headed out to the rope tow for 90 minutes before chores. The local roads are in pretty poor shape and so there will be no town trips tonight, just movies and quiet games in the houses

NCS: inaugural reflections

This morning Libby facilitated a terrific Town Meeting in which our community interactively processed yesterday's inaugural address. As something of a model for our activity she showed us a short musical video by Will.i.am (link enclosed below). In this 4-minute video a speech from then-candidate Obama has been broken down and turned into a song and video montage. After watching it, each table group was given a snippet of President Obama's inaugural address -- "those ideals still light the world," "giving our all to a difficult task," "new era of responsibility," "extend a hand if they will unclench a fist," etc. -- and asked to write a line for a group poem related to that phrase, which was then shared with the community. In the next week or so, John Doan and others will assemble the lines and set it to music.
Hock

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjXyqcx-mYY

NCS: inauguration

As you can see from the enclosed pictures, we have been watching the ceremony on a large screen, and will do so for another 15-20 minutes. A historic occasion that your children were fully engaged in. The past several days have been a terrific teaching opportunity about the workings of the government, and tomorrow we will have another all school Town Meeting to reflect and review the transition process.

NCS: special town meeting

Hello. Given that it is Martin Luther King Day, we moved our all-school Town Meeting to this morning.

The interactive presentation was coordinated by Jane our 8th grade language arts teacher and Balcony houseparent, with 8th grader Emerson as the MC, and several of his classmates as readers. The enclosed pictures show the building of a civil rights timeline stretching 135 years. We were using students and staff as “data points,” and this human timeline snaked around the Quonset. Some of the events that were plotted on our continuum included: Emancipation Proclamation, Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier, Brown v. Board of Education, Montgomery Bus Boycott, lunch counter sit-ins, James Meredith integrating “Ole Miss,” the March on Washington, assassinations of Medgar Evers and and Martin Luther King, the Voting Rights Act as well as a reminder that tomorrow’s Inauguration represents the first time an African-American will be sworn in as President. This morning we also had readings of poems from Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou, as well as a reading of sections of the “I Have a Dream” speech.

At lunch council I will remind students that Camp Treetops was the first racially integrated “sleep-away” camp in New York state, and that James Meredith sent his sons to NCS.

NCS: Saturday evening activity

Last night's after-dinner activity was the Muddy Pig Café. Several times a year the stage crew rigs a portion of the Dining Room as a cabaret. Walter, the student MC, has children setting up, warming up, and tuning up, for the first of more than a dozen acts is moments away. Flashing a peace sign below is Jason, getting ready to do one of the opening comic monologues. A good time was had by all, and of course, the café's hot tea and homemade brownies with ice cream were a big hit with the students.

The temperatures have finally climbed into the double digits!
Hock

NCS: professional responsibility

Hello. I am in Manhattan meeting with 20 other school heads from the New York Association of Independent Schools. Our Commission on Accreditation met at The Nightingale-Bamford School, and we approved accreditation reports on 12 member schools. FYI ... Our 5 year NYSAIS evaluation is next year. Finally, you should know that over the past few years many of our staff have been involved with evaluating other schools as well as taking part in many critically important professional activities.

NCS: dance class

This is the Level I movement class taught by Bonnie; the class was working on “balance” and “falling” skills. In the latter category they learned three different ways to “fall” ... “melting butter,” “water going down a drain,” and “a house of cards collapsing.” Next she is off to teach her tap dance class.

It was –20 this morning at the barn, and tomorrow morning it is going to be even colder!

NCS: art and ...

The enclosed picture is from the 7th grade ceramics class. The students have been fully engaged in this – and other classes – during the morning, however it is our first post-lunch trip to Whiteface that is on everyone’s mind. For the next six weeks our regular Tuesday routine (with the exception of the Inauguration), will to eat a hearty but somewhat hurried lunch, pile into vans and arrive at the mountain by about 1:10 PM. At that point, students have an hour-long lesson in their assigned ability groups, before they pair up with friends for another 90+ minutes of free skiing. We check-in at the lodge and have cookies at 3:45; we are home for barn chores at 4:30.

There will be lots of happy but tired children this evening!

NCS: music

In addition to private music lessons (piano and violin) and a mixture of music electives, here the 6th grade students are doing a unit on music notation. The critically important skills of reading music and eventually composing are being taught by John Doan. For a tiny school we have a reputation for significant achievements in music; for instance we currently have a graduate who is a music director with “Curtains” and ‘Sweeney Todd” to his recent Broadway credits, another who is a soprano with recent lead roles in “Tosca” and “Aida” at the Metropolitan Opera, and a composer whose work with “The Light in the Piazza” won a Tony Award for the best original score. Who knows about the class of 2012!

NCS: arts electives

The enclosed picture (excuse my photography) is from a 7th and 8th grade arts elective on jewelry making. It is amazing to realize that our 40 older students pick from a selection of over a dozen electives for their afternoon classes. Their choices run from guitar lessons to fiber arts, and from ceramics to woodshop, and on to African drumming. Prior to taking this picture I had spent 45 minutes talking with Martha about the art program and the positive impact it has on students. As I listened to her talk with passion and intention about the art program, I realized that she was describing individuals – both students and teachers – who were in a state of what psychologists describe as “flow.”

Which of course led me to return to a couple of links inspired by Mihaly Csikszentmihaly’s work with Montessori teachers (enclosed below).
Hock


http://blog.ted.com/2008/10/creativity_fulf.php

http://austega.com/education/articles/flow.htm

NCS: algebra

Sub-zero overnight lows last night and tonight. The temperatures today just briefly climbed out of single digits. The first full week of winter classes was a very productive beginning to our term. The enclosed picture is the 8th grade algebra class getting an early start on their homework.

Hock

NCS: outdoors

We only got a couple of inches of snow last night and we have had mixed precipitation since then, with conditions predicted to turn back to snow later this evening.

Nevertheless, as is often the case, NCS students are out in even the the yuckiest weather. This afternoon I had a group out cross country skiing on the hilliest Olympic trails in preparation for the 25K Lake Placid Loppet on February 7. Larry, Dave, Mike, and Tom were out on the ski hill with a bunch of students. Sam planned to have some students clear the snow off the pond for hockey, and of course the day ended with barn chores. Moreover, after lunch your children signed up for a variety of Saturday outdoor adventures: alpine skiing on our hill, hiking up Cascade, snowshoeing up Baxter Mountain, cross country skiing into Marcy Dam, snowshoeing at Dewey Mountain, and a snow olympics on campus.

As I think about this critical outdoor component of program I am reminded of an important book, Last Child in the Woods, written by Richard Louv. Enclosed below is an article from the Washington Post written shortly after the release of his book; well worth a look.
Hock

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/18/AR2007061801808.html

NCS: 7th grade novel

Peter is leading the class through a discussion of the first couple of chapters in Laurie Halse Anderson’s novel Chains. The book is a finalist for the National Book Award in the young adult category. This historical novel is set in the Revolutionary War, and the main character is a 13 year-old slave named Isabel. (Aside from the obvious literary merits, and the meticulous research that reviewers talk about, I can also tell you that the NCS chatter during recess has been quite good.) I have enclosed a link below for you to find out a bit more about this book.

We have a snowstorm forecast for later this evening!
Hock



http://www.simonsays.com/content/book.cfm?tab=1&pid=627531

NCS: language arts

We are off to a great start! Here the 9th graders continue their work on the Odyssey, as Liz previews an interview that they are about to listen to. The interview was broadcast on the Bloomberg Radio show called “The World in Time.” During the program host Lewis Lapham interviews Edith Hall who is Professor of Classics and Drama at the University of London, and the author of The Return of Ulysses: A Cultural History of Homer’s Odyssey. (The link for the program is enclosed below.)

Hock

http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/radio/show_99_edith_hall.mp3

NCS: successful travel day

The Trailways bus from Manhattan just arrived, while flights and parent drop-offs continue to go well. The students were excited, some obviously travel weary, but all seemed ready to plunge into the many challenges that await. I hope your holiday season was a good one ... many thanks for sharing your children with us!

CTT: Happy New Year

Despite the windblown hill, the iced over Lake, and the sub-zero temperatures tonight ... In just another 6 months the waterfront will be set up for swimming and boating. CTT enrollment for next summer is on track, Karen is putting her staff together, and in two weeks senior counselors will be on campus for a planning retreat. Everyone at Treetops hopes these last days of the holiday season are good ones, and we send you our best wishes for 2009.

Hock