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 be invited to use clay or collage materials to find their stories; in PE, we use movement and game systems. Children might have a basic game with one or two […]
Inventiveness emerges through the tangles found in play
At a recent meeting Opal teachers were asked to reflect on the ways invention has emerged in their respective learning communities this year. Using a resource describing dimensions of invention education at Opal School crafted with Project Zero’s Ben Mardell and Mara Krechevsky (who will be sharing this work at our Summer Symposium), we revisited the […]
Reworking Scary Experiences Through Play
Pedagogical approaches and their political implications
Opal School led professional development workshops in Vancouver, BC last week. They were rich opportunities to connect and develop new ideas with educators in a region that has been inspired and transformed by Opal School’s work. Our second day’s session focused on play, the arts, and education for democracy. Before considering the role that play […]
Partner Explore
Play, the arts, and education for democracy?
Next month, Opal School will host it’s 16th Summer Symposium. We determined the theme, Play, The Arts, and Education for Democracy, a year ago. Knowing that it was an election year, we figured that questions of democracy would find their way into classrooms. Little did we know how forceful that impulse would be. As we inch […]
Boys Only Ice Cream
A response to the “Governing Cancer of Our Time”
Our focus for this year’s Summer Symposium is Play, the Arts, and Education for Democracy. Setting that theme guides our attention throughout the year. How might play and the arts support education for democracy? What might that look like when working with young people in Portland in 2016? When we turn our attention away from […]
All under one roof
To readers of Opal School Online, it might be easy to forget that Opal School is a project of the Portland Children’s Museum. To Portland Children’s Museum visitors, it’s not always visible that Opal School lives within it. It’s an unusual organization, doing so much under one roof – exhibits, programs, an elementary charter school, an […]
