I have been a classroom teacher for over thirty years.  Although my titles and job responsibilities have changed, I have always considered myself a teacher.  And as a teacher – although I am not quite sure when it started – I followed a rule of thumb: never leave the room without erasing the board.  This year has been about that: putting things in order for Walter Landberg, our new Head of School who will assume his position on July 1, 2013.  And things are in order … or at least ‘shaping up.’

New Roads is a different school than it was 18 years ago.  Back then it was a middle school for 70 students at the Boys and Girls Club of Santa Monica. Our original seven employees fit on two couches at our very first faculty meeting.  We had only one administrator.  (He was younger then.) When we open the doors to welcome our students in September of 2013, those doors will be located on two campuses with more than 660 students in grades K through 12.  Our opening meetings will likely take place in our new theater in order to fit everyone comfortably.

In those early years, we struggled to fill our seats and our coffers with enough students and funds to make it through the year. For the first several years we were dipping into next year’s tuition deposits  in order to make it through June. It seemed impossible in 1995, and every year since… but we have done it!

Next year we will have luxuries we never imagined back then.  Robotics, digital media classes, our game-changing 6th grade “playmaker school project,” Mac computers, more athletic teams, a thriving elementary school, plans for the next phase of our campus building project… and, and, and …. All of this and more will be fully in swing.  Of course we will still pay careful  attention to where we spend our funds,  but we are no longer living in that oh so precarious place  In fact we just completed a refinance of our obligation to the bank (savings to the tune of 200+ thousand dollars per year). To be sure, our Development Department continues to work hard to engage our entire community in philanthropic efforts in support of New Roads. Don’t forget, our financial aid program is still the largest we know of, offering need based aid to more than 50% of our families amounting to 40% of our overall tuition budget; New Roads depends upon continuing to  grow a ‘culture of philanthropy’ within our community. 

In those early years, only the most courageous family would sign on to a school with no track record.  But thanks to the efforts of so many talented people, the successes of our our students and the focused efforts from our Admissions and Communications and Outreach programs, the admissions season for the 2013-2014 school year at all three divisions was one of our busiest ever.  New Roads has gained a reputation for having an exuberant and intellectually challenging approach to education.  Our elementary program fans the flames of curiosity while giving our students the skills they need to succeed in middle school. Students at our middle school are as energetic as middle schoolers anywhere, but their passion for justice and equality has them actively engaged in ecological and social justice efforts, not only at the school, but in the outside community.  And our high school students are so dynamic on so many fronts!!  Whether they are competing in the FIRST Robotic World Championships, protesting the inequities of  immigration policies, playing jazz at local clubs, entering and winning one competition after another… . l they have time to come together, joyfully, respectfully and with so much compassion for one another.  Each year the lists of college acceptances and scholarships grow… in what seems direct proportion to their support for one another and their community.

Of course there are one or two issues I will continue to wrestle with through June.

‘Okay… fine, ‘erasing the board’… nice metaphor and all… but did you really have to get rid of The SIGN??’

I know it seem just to have vanished.  That wasn’t me…honest. It went something like this…

“… of course, you  will have to take the sign down,”  said our sign designer.  ”The city is insistent!”

It did not register at first.   ”Right. Of course.  Wait…?  Which sign?”  I felt myself pale.

“The marquee out front.  You have to take it down.”

“Wait.  You mean ‘THE SIGN!?’ We have to take THE SIGN down?!  WHY?!”  I felt slightly panicky! I vaguely recalled that the marquee had always been on borrowed time, but, as is true for so many things we do not want to think about, that fact had receded into the background.

We’d run into this before in 1999, when we were buying the first piece of our school property.  Apparently “Pylon signs had long been banned in Santa Monica.  Schools and churches were ‘grand-fathered’ in, but only until the institution applied for a new ‘sign package’ – permission for new identity signs – from the city.  Then, the sign would have to go.”

I felt as if I’d just been punched me in the stomach.  That was THE SIGN. It had become not only THE SIGN, but a significant symbol of New Roads School.  Not to mention a source of a hell of a lot of fun for the Head of School.   “What have we done?”  ”Why do we need that new building anyway?” “Maybe we can …. ”

Yes indeed … I can get a little crazy now and then.  But I have it on good authority that we will all see THE SIGN once again.  Me too!

“Are you still at New Roads?” “How much longer?” “What are you going to be doing next year?” “When are we going to be able to meet Walter?” “Yeah … come to think of it, what’s up with that?  When will Walter start?” “When will he be here?” “How’s the transition coming?” People seem to be growing  more curious daily.  I suppose it is only natural. There are fewer than fours months left in the year, and it is beginning to occur to folks that another face will be there to greet them in my office. Recently one parent asked, “Hey… what’s up with all that?  The process of selecting Walter  seemed so inclusive, Then Walter was hired… but since then… ‘RADIO SILENCE?’”

Honestly that has not been the intention.  In fact, Walter and I have been SKYPEing every Monday, speaking generally and specifically about the school, the remainder of this year and the year ahead. (Incidentally, although he surely does not need my seal of approval, my ongoing contact with Walter has me feeling better and better about the choice the Board made.  He’s a great guy! I know he will build on all that has gone on before and make New Roads an even better place for our children to be.)

Two weeks ago, Walter was here to meet with senior administrative staff and to attend a Board meeting.  He will be out for a longer time in early May – the week of May 6th I believe – quite specifically to meet with current and new parents, students (actually I could not resist taking him to one of my Mysteries classes to meet some of our great kids!!!) and staff. No radio silence intended in all this … apologies to all.  The other day, I suggested to Walter that he take a moment to speak directly to the New Roads community…. and so … here he is.

 Dear New Roads Community,  

I am honored to become the next Head of School at New Roads School.  I look forward to spending a lot of time observing and listening in the year to come, as I recognize that there is much I need to learn about the school.  While we all know that change can be scary, especially big change like getting a new Head of School, it is clear to me that David Bryan’s visionary leadership has prepared the school well for this transition. What initially drew me to New Roads School was the school’s mission in its aim to provide students with an education for an “ever-evolving world,” while recognizing the critical importance of diversity of all kinds.  I thought to myself, shouldn’t this be every school’s mission?  I also believed that New Roads School’s location, in Los Angeles, at the world’s epicenter of innovation and creativity, made for a wonderful setting for the school’s activities.  During each of my visits, I found a palpable sense of possibility as I walked around the campuses.  In my conversations with so many different people within the community, I heard a tremendous passion for creativity, inclusiveness and problem solving.  I discovered quickly that New Roads has a distinct and special school culture and is a place that lives and breathes its mission and philosophy. It is a tremendous privilege to join a school community that has committed itself to such important work and is on such an impressive path.  I look forward to learning from all of you and working together to ensure that we preserve the unique culture of the school, fulfill the school’s mission and meet the needs of each student. As I recently dug my car out from another New England snowstorm, I happily anticipated my move to my new home in beautiful and sunny Santa Monica. 

All the best, Walter Landberg 

Today we all read another tragic headline involving yet more violence at a school.  As I write this, the news is reporting that 20 students and 6 teachers from a New England elementary school have been killed by gun violence.  Yet another instance that reminds us that we never know what is coming; another instance that makes us feel fragile; another time when words fail.

There are no “how to” guides that can tell us what is best for our children, our families or our souls.  You know your children best.  Are we saying too little?  Are we saying too much?  Today I read a few things that can help when we speak with our children.

First, it is not always the case that what upsets us will upset your children.  Don’t over-assume.  Different children have different sensibilities.  Some will be moved deeply. Some will be curious and questioning.  But not all children will be deeply disturbed, and showing little reaction does not necessarily mean she is hiding or defending.  And of course, the fact that someone is or is not upset today, says little about tomorrow.  Some are quick to feel and respond.  For others, feelings emerge over time.

Do not worry because young people bounce back quickly. Yes perhaps this is a problem, but perhaps not.  If a child exhibits sustained mood changes, then it is best to consult a counselor or other trained professional.  Simple and direct information in response to questions can be very helpful.  News of such things upends our reality.  Often young people are trying to regain their bearings.

On the other hand, sometimes questions are generated by feelings. Sometimes the answer to a question is less useful than asking, “What made you think of that?” or “Can you tell me what you were thinking about?” If you know where the question is from, you can formulate a better answer.

If you do not know the answer to a young person’s question, better to say, “I don’t know,” than offer some obviously false and inadequate assurance.

Finally, charting a course through these waters is not a matter of technique.  Often the regularity of routine can provide a container within which young people can sort through the range of questions, feelings and ideas that tragedies of this nature can generate.  Sometimes it is enough for you to just be there – with them, around them, for them – ready with compassion, with affection and concern.

As I said, sometimes my words – perhaps all words – fail.  I am going home now.  I will breathe in… breathe out … and hug those I love.  I urge you to do likewise.

I don’t know about you, but I’m a big  fan of this year’s theme: “Keep New Roads ___________.”  And I’ve heard some pretty terrific adjectives in that blank:  inspired … weird … creative…exciting… imaginative … innovative… compassionate….  the list goes on and on and on.   Yes indeed.  And all so apt!

What about mine?  What would I choose if I had to pick a word or two to keep in mind as New Roads takes its next steps.

I want to keep New Roads RADICAL and BECOMING!

“Really??  Of all the words at our disposal, of all the things you could say about this extraordinary place and the wonderful people in our community, the best you can do is RADICAL and BECOMING?  Seriously??!?”

…Let me  explain.

RADICAL

When New Roads was mostly an idea – that’s early 1995 – the questions we asked when we sat at board meetings, at our initial admissions interviews, and at our very first faculty meetings were radical questions -  questions that go to the roots of things; questions that challenge fundamental assumptions about school, about student-teacher relationships, about curriculum, about how human beings learn and interact, about what makes an excellent education.

These are important questions for a young school; in fact, they are important questions for all schools, no matter how well established.  It is precisely because most schools and many educators do NOT ask these questions that we are confronted with so many woefully inadequate schools.  It is precisely because most schools, most school districts, and many in the classrooms fail to ask these questions or listen to the answers that we have tragic and growing drop-out rates in our public schools and in our colleges.

In fact, it is precisely because these questions are not being asked that, as it has for so many years, education continues producing what is perhaps the most embarrassing (and little known) educational statistic:  the  more years a person remains in a conventional education setting, the less divergent a thinker, the less adventurous, the less creative and entrepreneurial that person grows.   Think about that.  How truly sad, how truly embarrassing.  Were it not such a national tragedy, we might chuckle at the irony.  At a time when we know that our children need to be nimble of mind, curious, and able to find solutions to never-before-seen challenges, our children’s innate human talents, skills and inclinations to rise to those challenges are being “taught out of them” by the very institutions tasked with preparing them to survive and thrive in that world.

And so, perhaps more than anything else, New Roads needs to remain a place that questions conventional assumptions about how and what to teach, how and what to learn, how and what a classroom looks like.  We need to question not only the assumptions others make…we need to question our own as well… which brings me to my second word.

BECOMING

Part of remaining radical is remembering and reviving the energy and orientation New Roads has embraced since September of 1995, when 70 very courageous kids and their families said yes to a completely untested idea called New Roads School.  Back then it was easy to see that New Roads was in uncharted waters … in fact it was impossible to avoid seeing. Every decision was being made for the first time, and the school radiated the energy of “all things are possible. ” Would we have a science fair; would we have department chairs; do we need to give grades; can we order out for lunch; what will graduation look like ….?   It was new, it was undecided, it was always becoming.

For the past eighteen years, New Roads has been BECOMING a wonderful place for young people to get a fabulous education.  One of the challenges New Roads will face as it moves toward its 20-year anniversary – more popular and more successful than ever before – is a challenge that many institutions face as they mature.  Now that New Roads has become, there is a strong pressure to maintain what it has achieved.  The problem, of course, is that the energy of maintaining is very different from the energy of becoming. The choices you make when you want to hold onto something are often so very different from the choices that have gotten you there.

Perhaps because I have always been drawn to the wisdom of Buddhism, perhaps because Mrs. Thoms, my 9th and 12th grade English teacher, so often reminded all of us that “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines…”  or perhaps we were just lucky … but we have always been keenly aware that we are constantly inventing ourselves, we are always BECOMING what our choices are making us.

Will New Roads be willing to give up what it is in order to continue to evolve, in order to discover what is next, in order to BECOME one or another of those adjectives that we may not yet even be able to imagine!??   That will take the courage, the wisdom, and the support of our whole community.   I certainly hope so.

Every day brings us one step closer to the completion of our beautiful new building.  You probably are noticing that the site looks a little cleaner…and a lot greener, with fences going down and landscaping sprouting up.  Although our community has been speaking about this building for nearly ten years, quite a few faces have come and gone in that time, and many of you may not be familiar with the building and the tremendous benefit it will provide to ALL of our students.  A little clarification:

•    What is this building?  The Capshaw-Spielberg Center for Educational Justice contains:

o    The 344-seat Ann and Jerry Moss theater, a first-class performance space

o    A 2,000 square foot multi-media/multi-purpose community room (You may hear it referred to as The Leadership  Center.)

o    Art gallery/exhibit space

o    Classroom/theater/performance space for New Roads School including dedicated space for dance, music, drama, theater tech, set design, robotics, as well as an E-Lab for “entrepreneurial” design

o    Office space for The New Visions  Foundation (our partners in this project and our parent organization), as well as for other non-profit organizations whose purpose is to work collaboratively in pursuit of educational and other goals that complement the mission and focus of New Roads School

•    How will the common spaces (theater, multi-media room, gallery) be used and what is the benefit of the project to the New Roads Community?

  o     The most obvious benefit of the theater, multi-media room, and gallery space is our ability to use these spaces for student performances, productions, practices, and exhibits.  Although we will be sharing the space with New Visions and the other members of the non-profit collaborative, New Roads has the right to use these spaces 70% of the time.  This gives us ample time to meet our own growing student/community needs and also the opportunity to rent the space to outside organizations, generating income to support the building and our programs, and enabling us to attract other programs of interest to our community.  A theater manager has been hired to coordinate scheduling for what we know will be high-demand space.

o    Less obvious, but no less exciting, is the benefit to be derived from the presence of the non-profit collaborative on our campus.  Organizations currently slated for participation work in the fields of education, the environment, social justice, etc., presenting unique opportunities to enrich our curriculum, and to provide research/internship possibilities for our students.  This truly brings New Roads faculty and students to the forefront of new thinking about education, and we will be working hard to maximize the impact of this effort.   We know of no other K-12 school with the ability to make its voice so central in the larger community conversation about our common concerns and collective future.  (Over the next several weeks we will provide profiles of our ed-partners as we are calling them.  For now , a running list: Five Gyres, The Ojai Foundation, Young Storytellers,  My  Hero, Center For Effective Learning (C4EL) … yes, that’s our own New Roads research group.)

•    Timing?  The building is on target for completion over the next several months.  Non-theater portions of the building should be complete in less than two weeks.  Because the theater requires additional acoustical treatment and “tuning,” we will need to wait an additional 4-6 weeks before occupying the building.  In order to make smooth transitions, we likely will move-in around or during the holidays so we can be up and running from the start of second semester.  We are planning a community event in late January to introduce everyone to the space, and you will hear more about that as the time gets closer.

Our new facility also provides us the opportunity – important to us as eager participants in a larger urban community – to make connections and invite our neighbors in.  This project is fully in line with the forward-looking urban plan that the City of Santa Monica has drafted for our neighborhood, and the City correctly regards the project as one that enriches the life of the City as well as our school.

I hope this provides you with an understanding of the tremendous resource that is about to enhance life at New Roads.  I will look forward to ushering you all through the front doors in a few short months.

Maybe it has to do with “the sign,” or perhaps I just have a bigger mouth than most of my colleagues.  When we compare notes, it seems that, more than any of my colleagues at other schools, I get asked questions about New Roads School’s agenda.  Yes indeed, the word can be neutral – without valence – but it turns out that even now, even after all those conversations we all had in the sixties and seventies, even after years of leaving so many children behind, more than a few people, and, as it turns out many educators, fantasize about schools without agendas.  The facts, ma’am… just the facts.

I wouldn’t be surprised if, over the past seventeen years, I have been asked this  ‘question’ more often than most .(And let’s just be honest, rarely is it simply a question…. more often an accusation!) So it seems appropriate that my first column – or is it a blog now – of the new school year ought to be about New Roads’ several agendas.

New Roads School’s Social (educational) Agenda

Yes indeed, we have one… perhaps two.  Simply put, New Roads’ inception – and certainly the reason I agreed to take on the role of getting this oh-so-very- bold idea off the ground – had to do with two things.

Foremost was New Roads’ stated commitment to diversity.  Why was it that in one of the most diverse cities in the world, it was nearly impossible to find diversity in our schools – public or private?  Since we began, New Roads has valued an ethnically, racially, culturally, and socioeconomically diverse community:  Genuine diversity has been an explicit  goal since our doors first opened.  And not only because this reflects a value held by our founding Board of Trustees (which it did), nor simply because it allows greater and more equitably distributed opportunities to our community (which it does), but because it is better for our children.  By living with, playing with, working and thinking with people whose perspectives, backgrounds, assumptions and inclinations are different from our own, our children grow more capable and prepared for a world that will bring them to many more places.  Their lives are enriched, and they are not alienated from others for reasons that we all know have only to do with fear and ignorance

A second agenda has to do with doing our best to ensure that young people remain willing to take a look at the real world and demand answers to the questions, “Why?” and “Why not?”; to genuinely, critically, intelligently and ferociously examine, before believing. The challenges to our common future will be better met by citizens who do not simply accept that we are “doing our best”,  but who sincerely and persistently demand to know what “doing our best” means with respect to matters of social justice or how we treat the planet. This second agenda,  I believe, contributes to folks assuming that New Roads is a left-wing or liberal school.  It is not!

It is just that so much of conventional education has been about taming our children rather than encouraging critical thought; so often school has been focused on lauding the child who lines up or takes the common path, rather than encouraging independent exploration. To be sure, we can make too much of this, but making nothing of it will result in yet another docile generation… something none of us can afford.

New Roads School’s Educational (social) Agenda

New Roads School’s approach to education has always rested on a few simple assumptions.  The first is perhaps so obvious that it need not be said. But it is powerful, and it ought not be forgotten.  Students will be more open to explore and be curious when they feel encouraged, engaged and happy. Young people ought to show up with smiles on their faces, because they know they will feel welcome and appreciated for who they are.  No, this does not mean that everyone always gets a “good grade” or that no one is ever frustrated; sometimes learning is frustrating.  Rather, at New Roads this means that the place can be both serious and zany, both humble and exuberant.  Not without problems, but with a genuine belief that if we stay with one another long enough, and with good intentions, we will find a way back to a sense of mutual respect and appreciation.

On the other hand, school is not a game of Chutes and Ladders. It is not supposed to be ‘easy.‘ Students need to be challenged. No, perhaps not all the time or by everything, but school is better when students are reaching for places they have never been. Just as they should arrive smiling, they ought to leave with smoke coming out of their ears because they have been thinking hard.  Indeed, some things come more quickly to some than others. Sometimes things just click. But if a young person is not doing some heavy cerebral lifting, what’s the point?

Which brings me to a third salient feature of a New Roads education:  recognition that despite the explosion of scientific insights gained from brain and cognitive research, teaching remains an art.  Although we certainly know more and more about the brain and human cognition, people think/learn differently.  New Roads teachers have always been an inspired and inquisitive bunch. We teach with our own voices, with an awareness that what inspires this student does not necessarily do likewise for that; what dazzled the students in period one may lull students in periods two and three to sleep. Students can expect an array of approaches both in and out of the classroom.  Some will feel familiar; others will demand exploration in ways that do not feel “school-ish” at all.

I want to be clear:  gaining a wonderful education cannot be achieved by following the latest formula.  More testing, less testing, piles of homework, no homework, lecturing, “flipping” a classroom….  In recent years, the conventional educational machismo that tells us we can either make someone smart or discern whether or not they are smart by the sheer volume of work they complete has been discredited. But neither should quick-fix, simplistic  solutions be swallowed whole.  “If only the school would use Khan Academy videos.”  “If only the school would  flip the work from home to classroom…

*                       *                       *                       *                       *                       *

Well there you have it.  Our agendas… certainly mine.  These goals and assumptions have shaped so much of what we have done here since we opened our doors in 1995. Over the years our understandings of and commitment to these ideas have deepened and evolved, but  they remain on the front burner.  It will be my effort this year to make sure they remain there.

Welcome back.  We wish you a wonderful and exuberant school year.

Without fail, the end of every school year brings a huge exhale from students and teachers, and some combination of “Wow, wasn’t it just September?  The year just flew by.” and   “Whew… I wasn’t sure I would make it.”  We look out toward  those long and languorous days of summer and see miles of empty sky. Plenty of time to read those books on my summer list.  Plenty of time to complete those projects. “And I will have all that time to relax.”   (Yes, we know … not nearly that much time.)

But those of us who stay at school are not quite so relaxed.  In fact, we are already working hard to make sure we  complete the things planned for next year.  Here are a few.

Technology Initiatives … Walls,Walls ,Walls

As we all know, the world rarely presents its puzzles in neat and discrete subject areas.  Global warming is not simply a math-science problem; it involves our political and economic systems which cannot escape our geopolitical realities.  Poverty is not simply economic; its tendrils find their way deeply into psyche and result in sociological and biological challenges with which we must reckon. We know this is true, and yet stubbornly schools remain organized in discrete pieces. Students take math, science, English ….

Many of you already are aware that next year we will initiate some very exciting technology projects school-wide.  What you may not  know is that these projects are less  about the technology itself and more about the ways technology can help us breach the “walls” and assumptions that continue to parse education into conventional and somewhat arbitrary subject areas; walls that support only certain sorts of thinking and learning, and all but eliminate others.

Growing out of the work of  New Roads Center For Effective Learning (C4EL) and anchored by emerging partnerships with colleagues at GameDesk and SmallLabs – two think tanks affiliated with USC and the University of Arizona – New Roads will launch our School of the Future Project.  Using compelling computer games and puzzles developed by teachers, students, software developers and researchers from GameDesk and SmallLabs, students in our 6th grade will enhance learning and embed skills, content, and habits of inquiry into engaging instructional games.

At Malibu (sadly our last year at this beautiful campus) the small size of the student body and our strong teaching team coupled with a very generous gift from one of our parents will allow us to launch our Tablet Program.  As you know, tablets are growing in popularity; more and more appear every day.  Although much has been made of tablets, few educational programs have incorporated this technology in ways that open meaningful new educational vistas.  We hope to be among the first, using tablets for all facets of student work next year at Malibu.  Powerful Android tablets fully-loaded with relevant applications will provide everything from textbook content to the platform for research, paper-writing and submission, video/photo projects, and more.  Student work will be directly input into our Learning Tool, resulting in ongoing formative assessments of student progress.

And speaking of tablet applications, next year the high school will launch an Interactive Digital Media program. Beginning with a class in Creating ‘Apps’ and expanding into more software design classes, students will learn valuable and required skills by designing projects in response to real world questions generated by students themselves.  Across all campuses, you can expect a series of ‘classes’ that blast the walls off  ‘the box’ by which we know so many young people feel constrained. We look forward to our young people generating solutions to problems that confound and impede efforts to solve social and political challenges.

Physical changes

Our physical plants will undergo quite a transformation this summer as well.  At the  Elementary School, the art room and the third, fourth, and  fifth-grade classrooms will be expanded to provide much-needed additional space for student and teachers.

At the Herb Alpert Educational Village, home to our Santa Monica Middle and High School campuses, the Capshaw-Spielberg Center for Educational Justice (the official name of our new building ) will be nearing completion.  The impressive  main structure of the building is already making a statement on Olympic Boulevard, and  build-out of the interior will continue through the summer months.  The shape of our 350-seat  Ann and Jerry Moss Theater is already visible, and the walls are going up on a conference/workshop/meeting room (the Leadership Center); offices for non-profit organizations including our partner, the New Visions Foundation;  as well as additional classroom space for New Roads.  In addition to utilizing the theater, theater control room, video and sound room, and backstage/dance area for classroom instruction, New Roads will have specialty classrooms located on the first floor of the building.

At the Malibu and Santa Monica Middle Schools, some of our classroom spaces will take on a new look to accommodate the technology innovations described above, giving students both individual work/office/design space and shared collaborative space.

Is that it?

Hardly!

Diversity …. Our current plan is to begin next year with focused celebration of the diversity that has made New Roads such a unique,vibrant and healthy community.  As New Roads has grown, so has our understanding of the value of diversity of all sorts. Honest conversation about those things that have long shaped – and misshaped – so many of our social and economic realities requires care and courage.  We hope to exercise both in recommitting ourselves to our core beliefs as the school prepares to enter a new phase in its history.

Creativity…  As our academic classes have grown, our arts offerings have grown along with them.  Results of our commitment to those ‘less bookish’ areas of study are evident at every campus. The work of our students across all grades in all areas of the arts grow more and more impressive. Next year expect expanded offerings in music, drama, writing, visual and graphic arts, and film.

Mindfulness …  Perhaps you have heard the term. A decent working definition comes from Wikipedia: “Bringing one’s complete attention to the present experience on a moment-to-moment basis.”   With roots in philosophies of the East, in recent years both modern psychology and medicine have looked seriously at mindfulness practices and effects.  In education, simple mindfulness techniques have been shown to yield positive results in areas of memory, concentration, self confidence, motivation, and overall academic performance.  Next year we will be exploring ways to bring organized mindfulness practices into the school day.

And more?

Yes indeed, there is always more.  But it is now summertime.  Time to relax and renew.  We wish you all a wonderful time with family and friends.

by David Bryan, Head of School

Over the next several months, you will begin to hear about some of the things ‘on deck’ for the coming year.  In particular, we recently announced that next year would bring several new educational initiatives in the areas of curriculum and pedagogy.  All involve different approaches to education, and all take advantage of tools that simply did not exist when those of us with a wrinkle or two were students.

Tablets, Tablets, Tablets…. With the help of a  very generous New Roads family we will be creating a  one to one Android Tablet  Program at Malibu Middle School.  Each student and faculty member will be given a powerful Android tablet fully loaded with all the applications required to do (or, in the case of faculty, to present) his or her academic work. Teachers and campus director and master teacher, Evan Beachy, already are hard at work designing an academic program that takes full advantage of the technology and the most current innovations in teaching and learning.  What we are likely to see is a view into  one future of education.  Books, educational videos, online communication, projects, music and art … all available on the screen in front of them.  Not learning at a distance, not learning from  teacher at some remote location, but learning that will maximize the possibilities offered by technology with teachers and classmates engaged in face to face collaboration.

Curriculum not Classes … “We know what they are supposed to learn, so why does it matter where they learn it?”  Of course we are all used to thinking of school in terms of grade levels.  Tenth graders are not eleventh graders.  Second graders are not fourth graders.  Certainly there are some developmental realities that make this true;young people’s emotional worlds emerge and develop is complex ways.  There are good reasons for terms like “the terrible twos;” every parent of teenagers know that you can practically ‘set your clock’ by eighth grade.

But so often in our schools, classes and subject matter divisions have historical roots that are more a matter of convenience and the structure of the universities from which teachers come than wise lines drawn to enhance our children’s progress.  In the coming year, our Santa Monica sixth graders will reap the rewards of that simple insight and more.  Under the leadership of Joe Wise, the Director of our Center For Effective Learning, and  Middle School Director, Dan Weslow, and in conjunction with partners from GameDesk and SMALLab Learning[i],our sixth grade faculty and curriculum will be freed  - both literally and figuratively – from some of the walls  that often stand in the way of student learning.  Immersed in curriculum and enhanced by software  they will help design, students will learn by creating  projects and grappling with questions and ‘puzzles’ that they formulate, guided by teachers who know what our students  need to master to succeed in later years.   Students’ daily experiences – their learning – will be kinetic, lively, challenging, and fun, taking full advantage of games and gaming technology.

Entrepreneurs and Interactive Media … So often young people develop passions for or fascinations with one or another activity or idea.  Surely you see it at your house.  At mine it was skateboarding.  Young people seem to be willing to spend endless amounts of time reading about,  thinking and speaking about,  learning about, practicing and creating things that relate to their passions.  They have ‘tigers by the tail.’

How sad that so often what school requires of them stands in the way of those passions; how sad that their passions fall outside of the school’s curriculum.  But do they have to?  One of the rooms we are hoping to create in the new building at the Santa Monica campus is something we have been calling our “E- Room.”  E for entrepreneurial; E for enterprise; E for electronic.  Borrowing from models around the country – Stanford’s Institute of Design’s  d.school being perhaps the most widely known – we will be beginning our Interactive Media Program next year.  Beginning  with an app-creation class and growing from there, and with our E-Room as its anchor, high school students will be invited to allow school  to enhance their passions rather than be at odds with it.  Students will produce the content of their education rather than simply consume it.  Facilitated by faculty and student collaborators, students will be encouraged to create  – perhaps an invention, perhaps a product, perhaps a design, perhaps a business, perhaps a campaign – propelled by their imagination, congruent with their goals.

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Okay, I don’t know about you, but when I hear anything that sounds like almost every commercial for “new, bold  and exciting  yada yada yada,” I get a little skeptical … okay… more than a little.   “Yeah right!  Another ‘new, bold and  exciting’ basketball shoe.  Another ‘new, bold and  exciting’ video game.  Another ‘new, bold and  exciting’ soft drink.”  Face it…  ’new, bold and  exciting’ does not come along very often!  But in this case … in the case of the above,  I think our initiatives will bring some very interesting – dare I say new, bold and exciting – approaches to our children’s education.

… Yes.. and you don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out that they all seem to rely heavily on technology.  And if there is one thing we all know about emerging technology … FAST!  FASTER!! FASTEST!!!

So is that it?  Is the future of New Roads all about technology? … all about speed?

At this  time of year, I often feel the weight of time, the rush of time.  I suppose it’s difficult not to.  We are surrounded by it, saturated by it!  Zero to 60 in _______ seconds.  My printer prints 30 pages per minute.  Our copiers make 65 copies per minute.  People in the office are excited because soon we’ll have an even faster one … and it is networked so we don’t have to “waste all that time” walking to the printer.  Email.  Email pushed to my phone!  “Can I get a notification whenever a message is sent to my email?”  And how about those new, bold and exciting Google Glasses.[ii]  I can be speaking to you AND surfing the web at the same time!!

At school, parents want their children in Algebra in 8^th grade.  “How else can they get to Calculus before they apply to college?”   Students want to get ahead. Honors this, Advanced that … “How many AP’s does the school offer?”  Over the next weeks, teachers will be rushing to ‘get those final assignments in’ … it is, after all, the end of the year.  “I need to make sure I cover _______ by the time the semester ends, or next year they won’t be able to  _______.”   Students scramble to complete whatever remains incomplete.  “Can I still make up the work I owe you from February?”    … teachers get crazy, kids get crazy, parents get crazy!

It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that education is not really supposed to be all about speed, about quick answers, about solving problems quickly using cool gadgets.  All of that is fine, but that’s not what it is about!

What if we took this seriously.  What if we took a step back before we added yet another this or that to an already overbooked, overscheduled, over-goaled, overcrowded educational plate.  Is there another possibility?  Another way?  After all who can argue with the value of the quick and facile mind.

In fact, although we do not think much about it, there is another consideration, another world.  There are  kinds of knowledge other than the sorts we so often associate with school.    There is so much more to learn.  And I want to ASSURE YOU, we have not and will not lose sight of that!

Wendell Berry – essayist, poet, novelist, farmer – speaks of this when he writes about the need to teach and learn things that can only be learned slowly, things that we simply cannot learn quickly, that we cannot learn with the speed we have come to expect from excellent students doing excellent work in excellent classrooms in excellent schools.  David Orr, professor of Environmental Design at Oberlin College, refers to slow knowledge.  For many of us, it has become difficult even to imagine what these two gentlemen might mean.

In his book The Clock of The Long Now, Stewart Brand tells a story of the Swedish Forestry Department reporting in 1980 to the Navy that the 20,000 oak trees they had ordered were  ready for delivery.   The trees were ordered in 1829.  “Absurd!!  Wait 150 years for an order to be ready!?!  No one would do that.  It makes no sense!!”    But ask any carpenter over the age of forty-five, and s\he will tell you that “lumber is just not the same as it used to be.”  Although we have been able to breed trees that grow taller, straighter and faster, mature wood – wood from trees that have grown slowly – is very different.  It’s stronger.  It shrinks less.  It is … well … it is just better.   You just can’t grow that sort of wood quickly.  I do not know whether the story is true, but I want it to be.

It is all but impossible to really have this conversation with most educators – New Roads faculty and staff to the contrary.  Speed is all but synonymous with human progress, with being ‘smart.’  Knowing the answers quickly gets you higher SAT scores, higher AP scores, and in so many places, gets you into Honors classes.  Surely it is good to be able to find the area of this and the perimeter of that … very quickly.   To solve the chemistry or physics problem very quickly.  To know when the Treaty of Versaille was signed,  who signed it, and why… very quickly.  We applaud those who can code quickly, who can write quickly, who can gain acceptance to college early … those who can quickly recite all the states and their capitals, the Presidents and their Vice Presidents?  Their wives?  Their home states? ?

Schools try so hard to stay current, to stay up with the times.  Schools are often criticized for not having the “latest this,” the “newest that,” the “most recent just-came-out-with-it.”  State of the art computers, projection units, the newest science equipment, the latest math-manipulables, the most recent language learning software, information access, communication equipment ….   Cutting edge technology.  Cutting edge methods.  Cutting edge … whatever.  One year it’s speed reading.  The next it is Kumon math.  Community Service.  No … Service Learning.  No … Community Action. No … Community … blah blah blah.

But why?  Why do we want to insist that our schools ignore the slow, the enduring, that which has taken lifetimes to learn, centuries to learn, civilizations to learn?  Why should our schools ignore wisdom, driven instead by media, markets or elections?

How much more important is it to learn how to evaluate evidence, to recognize patterns when direct observation reveals nothing?  What are the qualities of character?  Of beauty?  How does one bring about justice?  What does a careful and thoughtful evaluation reveal about our ethical landscape?  What does it take to sustain a community?  To be kind and compassionate?  How do we listen to the whispers of the world?   The whispers heard by animals before an earthquake?  The whispers heard by farmers before a rain or a particularly hard winter ahead?

Years ago I wrote this.

“There are so many ways in which our lives are better than they have ever been before.  Our food is safer and more plentiful, we have warm homes, public libraries and freedoms to explore and express the likes of which were never before contemplated.  But the problems we face today are many.  And our children are afraid that during their lifetimes they will see the end of what matters.  Indeed this may be true, if … well … if the wrong things matter.  Our children are living at that time we began hearing about when we were their ages.  A time when the earth would warm because of our industry.  A time when heavy reliance on oil and other fossil fuels would have an end in site.  A time when clean water and clean air would no longer be guaranteed.  Problems … big problems.  But cultures have confronted big problems before, the solutions to which were neither obvious nor inevitable when they came.  The difference now, the difference and difficulty for our children, is that our collective memories are short.  We look to quick fixes, to fast knowledge for hope. But the belief that tomorrow can be better does not come from the last gadget, the last innovation, the last faster-better-best fix.  Our hope comes from our collective memory of the past.  The glue that holds community together, the glue that invites the soul, the glue that holds all of us together are those things that seep in slowly.” 

And so  next year, at New Roads, you can count on all of this.  Yes indeed our technology will be enhanced, our programs will be slicker and more engaging.  But I assure you that next year- as has been true every year since I have been here – the  NEW, BOLD and EXCITING will also be SLOW!

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[i] Educational researchers and creators of games that enhance student learning.

by David Bryan

Kaleidoscope, New Roads School’s annual community celebration and fundraiser, is almost upon us.  We hope you have made plans to join us.  If not, you still have time.  Please purchase tickets…invite a friend.  I know we all are busy…we all have things to do…we get invited to this and that event all year long… But hold the phone! Kaleidoscope is different; and Kaleidoscope enables New Roads to be different in ways that matter to your children — while they are part of the New Roads community and throughout their lives as they create “community” for themselves.

Why is it called “Kaleidoscope?”  That’s easy.  Right from the start New Roads has been a community of a different color than most … certainly different from other independent school communities.  Although many things differentiate New Roads’ approach to education – a curriculum informed by social justice and ecological sanity, a vigorous effort to make our teaching reflect the most salient and powerful insights about how young people learn most effectively – none is more significant than the rich diversity of our community and the ongoing commitment by all participants in our community to preserving that unique educational resource.   Diversity of race, ethnicity, cultural background, socioeconomic status and learning style; a community that accurately reflects and appreciates the kaleidoscope of cultures and communities that is Los Angeles, that is the world…We have believed from the beginning that this matters in fundamental ways; we have chosen it, and continue to choose it over the latest toys, or the greatest gadgets (although we have nothing against those either!)

“How do you do it?” We are asked all the time.  “How do you offer financial assistance to more than 55% of your families?”  “How do you devote more than 40% of your tuition budget to need-based aid?”  “How do you create a coherent community from people whose cultural and

community experiences are so different from one another?”  Easy!  We work hard at it.  We work hard at empathy, inclusion, and understanding.  We watch our pennies, and we raise funds. Kaleidoscope is key to this endeavor since it is our only community event dedicated entirely to generating financial aid dollars.  I repeat:  100% of the funds raised at Kaleidoscope support our uniquely generous financial aid program; and this has been true every year since 1995 when we first began.

A community becomes and remains a community because it shares its stories, it celebrates its successes and it honors those whose actions represent its aspirations.  Kaleidoscope is our annual effort to do all of this.  This year, we will have the pleasure of recognizing several people in our community:  Rick Rappaport, alumni parent, Trustee, and Chair-elect of the New Roads Board of Trustees will receive our Founders Award; Kathy and George Hicker, current parents and ardent supporters, will receive the Inspired Education Award; and dear friend and faculty member Mario Johonson will receive the Jonny Eliga Spirit of New Roads Award.  Join us at Kaleidoscope to hear their stories, to thank them, and to contribute to the constantly evolving story that is New Roads.