This week, the staff of Kairos Charter School spent a day at Opal School investigating Story Workshop. They wondered how Story Workshop might support their mission of “cultivating confident creative compassionate leaders.” Story Workshop is an approach that has evolved as Opal School teachers and children in the early grades explore the question, What might …
Opal School teachers and children share their work with the world through professional development workshops. The effort involved in this is significant – but it’s our way of fulfilling our mission of strengthening public education well beyond the walls of Portland Children’s Museum. Last week, we held a program called Reading the World. A …
Opal School teachers and children share their work with the world through professional development workshops. The effort involved in this is significant – but it’s our way of fulfilling our mission of strengthening public education well beyond the walls of Portland Children’s Museum.
We are so pleased to present our very first ebook! The first to come in our Symposium Series, this ebook documents a project facilitated by Opal Beginning School teachers Lauren Adams and Caroline Wolfe with children ages 3 – 5 years, which they presented at the Opal School Symposium in 2013. Lauren and Caroline inspire …
This post is written by Louise Cadwell and Yvonne Liu-Constant, who co-led this year’s Lesley University study tour at Opal School. It is cross-posted on the Cadwell Collaborative blog. From February 17 to 21, Louise Cadwell and Yvonne Liu-Constant, Assistant Professor of Early Childhood Education at Lesley University, led a study tour with eleven participants …
Last week a large group of teachers and administrators – from across the West Coast, Los Angeles to British Columbia, and east to Alberta – converged on Opal School for an extended study of our approach to learning. I thought that those of you who weren’t able to join us would be interested in hearing …
Opal School is a learning place for both the young people who come to class daily as well as for educators who attend our workshops and web-based projects. Recently, teachers, administrators, and specialists came from far and wide to attend a multi-day session focusing on playful inquiry. Our work together served as both provocation and …
A few months ago, it was hard to open a newspaper or turn on the radio without running into Paul Tough and his book, How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character (see, for example, this episode of This American Life.) As the title suggests, the book highlights the fundamental relationship between …