My heart is heavy looking back on a violent year. In the past year, we’ve watched so many individuals gunned down, white supremacy viscerally stamped on their crumbling bodies; the revolving door of mass shootings, reminding us on an almost daily basis of our feeble inability to enact arms restrictions; we’re forced to listen to …
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] When the organizers of the TEDx West Vancouver conference called to ask if someone from Opal School would like to share at their event, I shot up my hand. I knew it would be a powerful exercise in synthesis – forcing me to develop clarity around what I care most about in the work …
We love hearing from colleagues beyond Opal School’s walls regarding how Opal School is provoking fresh thinking. Today’s post comes from Sarah-Luella Baker, who presented at our 2014 Summer Symposium. It is co-posted from the Tulip Tree Preschool blog. Matters of Opportunity. Does opportunity matter? Journals from the Atelier – Sarah-Luella Baker, Tulip Tree Preschool …
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Play is a strategy for learning for which humans are hardwired. This message seems clear, both in the literature as well as Opal School’s lived experience. This year, we’re challenging ourselves to learn more about this. What does it mean for a school to be guided by “a pedagogy of play?” Inspired by this question, …
Getting ready for next month’s Symposium, I find myself re-reading Ann Pelo’s The Language of Art. She writes, “we begin to use the word ‘art’ to describe a lively process of engagement with a range of materials – an engagement that is sensual and reflective, creative and deliberate, and that deepens and extends children’s learning.” …
I don’t think I’ve been so excited to begin a school year in a long time. Opal School’s continuous journey to develop an understanding of and approach to a pedagogy of listening and relationships has taken a significant step forward. Tomorrow, when we open our doors on the 2014 – 15 school year, our students …
As children journey through Opal 1 and Opal 2, they spend a lot of time considering with their teachers and their peers the ways in which we depend on each other in this world. What is a community? What is our relationship to the natural world? “The we that …
The Separatists from England, via Leiden, Holland, finally took their very well known journey on the Mayflower, which, by the way, was exactly this long (see photo above). It was an eventful journey, full of storms, broken beams on the ship, hunger, seasickness, and the birth of a baby, who was appropriately named, Oceanus. Landing (possibly) …
In recent years, much has been said about creative thinking, teamwork and research as positive resources that will support the advancement of human culture. I believe that it is important for those of us who work with the children and youth of today to constantly rethink these concepts, and make connections between them and contemporary …
Re-reading this article tonight, after a particularly creative third grade Literacy Studio today, I was thrown against the cold reality of the mindset of those who really would have us believe that control, certainty, and the dehumanization of the students in our care is the way to a more robust economy and stable society. In Creativity …