During a recent Opal School Mentorship Program gathering, a group was discussing the quality of conversation they hear in Opal School classrooms. They were intrigued by the ways in which children see each other as “brain buddies”, creating ideas together – a discursive environment where, in order for someone to be “right”, others didn’t need to be …
Read more “Constructing new ideas through dialog and the arts”
At the end of September, Matt Karlsen and I spoke to several groups in the Vancouver area about conditions that support playful inquiry. Over the last few years, educators in British Columbia and Alberta have shown a great deal of interest in Opal School’s work: it responds to their curiosity about the intersection of inquiry …
Read more “What does holding a strong image of the child mean in a complicated world?”
We’re looking forward to hosting Opal School Visitation Days, when 80 teachers and administrators from seven states, the District of Columbia, and two Canadian provinces will gather in Portland to wonder with us: How might play, inquiry, and thinking in questions sustain communities of learners, ages 3-11, and the adults who work with them? This …
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 …
Sometimes “Highlights” and “Ask Me About” just can’t capture the week. We need pictures! Historically Accurate Play in Opal 4 has moved – geographically and chronologically. We are now in the city of Boston in the year 1775. The first invitation into this new time and place was a map study of a few historical …