Setting the Table: Big World
The “Setting the Table” series explores ways to engage the arts as languages for thinking and expression. This episode considers how dramatic play invites children to imaginatively interpret their experiences. Members can view the full-size version of this video – and the rest of the series – here.
How can we step out of our comfort zones to think critically about stories of injustice?
In the Willow Community of fourth- and fifth-graders this year, one big question we are chewing on is: How might we raise a generation of citizens that know how to sustain a healthy democracy and a healthy planet? We are exploring this question through the lens of American history as we pay attention to the interdependent […]
From Teaching to Thinking: Book Club Conversation
Opal School hosted a conversation about the book From Teaching to Thinking: A Pedagogy for Reimagining Our Work with readers and authors Ann Pelo and Margie Carter on November 5, 2019. Enjoy!
Developing Norms for Ambiguity and Complexity
This presentation, provided by Kerry Salazar at our October 2019 professional development retreat, is available for Opal School Online Sustaining Members.
Human Knots and Tangles
The Sitka Community’s year started in a unique position: all of the students and the teacher had a history of being together. Although this group knew each other well, I wondered: How will we make space for each of us to continue to grow and evolve our stories of who we are? How could we […]
Setting the Table: Loose Parts
How might materials support young authors and thinkers? Teacher-researchers Lauren Adams and Kathryn Ann Myers explore how processes of growing and and revising big ideas are catalyzed by working with loose parts collage. Sustaining Members can view these previous episodes the Setting the Table series: Setting the Table with Watercolor Black Line Drawing and Perspective-Taking […]
Setting Intentions to Guide Our Learning
Last week, Opal School staff came together to revisit our thinking about teacher-research. We cracked open “teacher-research” to unpack the varied meanings the idea holds to us (the photo shows the dry erase board by meeting’s end. We (re-)visited a piece of writing our colleague Hannah Chandler wrote about the practice two years ago this […]
Setting the Table: Tempera Paint
What does tempera paint do? So many investigations of a material start with a question just like this. This time is essential for developing the relationship they’ll depend on as they use it as a tool for thinking down the line. As children explore a new tool, they’re discovering its qualities. It’s a question that […]
Join our book club?
We believe that educators—like children—have a vast capacity for deep dives of mind, heart, and spirit. Their thoughts are “ample and greedy”; they seek substantive questions and complexity. Their work is challenging and exhilarating, and demands their full intellectual and emotional attention. Educators deserve—and are sustained by—professional learning that strengthens their development as thinkers, researchers, […]
Setting the Table: Not just filling the space
We design for beauty because we know that helps people slow down and notice. Listen in as teacher-researcher Nicole Simpson-Tanner reflects on the choices she makes as she sets up her classroom studio at the beginning of the year. How do the choices Nicole makes in preparing for work with nine- and ten-year-olds in Portland […]