Opal School Blog
Windows into Perspective-Taking
What we heard from the dialogue is that the children perceived the windows as a distraction to their work. What we did not hear was the children thinking about the possible perspective of the guests of the other people that might have an opinion about this situation.
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designing for tension
“The most frustrating, agonizing part of creative work, and the one we grapple with every day in practice, is our encounter with the gap between…
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Crossing the River: Recreating Scenes from Literature with PE Challenges
“… the chiefs decided to make the crossing late in the day…. Ollocot sent out rafts loaded with the things we had saved… The old…
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collaborating with colleagues
Recently I’ve been thinking about “developing a reflective practice” and the parallels I see between my own practice of reflection and the practices of reflection…
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Children, Complicated Times, and School
What rights do children have to think together about the world? Not our version of the world — but their own? What rights do children…
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Possibilities Within Our Intentions
At the beginning of the year, our teams of teachers draft intentions for the year. These intentions take the form of big, meaty questions that…
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Why Are We Doing This?
This morning, as we move through the final hours of 2018, Seth Godin (we’re big fans) posted a forward looking piece that included a list…
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Developing a reflective practice
Story Workshop began at Opal School many years ago with teachers and children working together to research the question, What is the relationship between literacy…
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Keeping space for creativity and inventiveness in PE
If developing creativity and inventiveness is a fundamental purpose of schooling, those dispositions need to be inspired throughout the day. In Story Workshop, children might…
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Listening With Intention to Go Big
The weeks leading up to Winter Break provide teachers with a unique opportunity to pause and reflect on the work that our learning communities have…
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