|
Social Curriculum
NGFS
focuses on developing the "whole child" through an intentional social
curriculum based on Ruth Sidney Charney's Teaching Children to Care:
Management in the Responsive Classroom. New parents often have
questions about our school-wide curriculum and about "time-out" in
particular. Visitors occasionally comment when they see children go to
time-out without being aware of the teacher sending the child or even
of the behavior that precipitated a need for "time-out". Without
knowledge of our social curriculum, it appears to be a "hair trigger"
use of time-out. In fact, what is occasionally witnessed by visitors is
the final stage of a very long careful process that includes
rule-making, pro-active modeling, practicing of all procedures, and the
teachers' use of the "three R's" - Reminding, Reinforcing, Redirecting.
Through this process, students internalize each new rule and procedure.
Multi-Grade Classes
New Garden Friends School has multi-grade classes beginning with grades 1 and 2 in the Rainbow clases. Students then proceed through grades 3 and 4 in Horizon, grades 5 and 6 in Galaxy, and grades 7 and 8 in Middle School.
There are many benefits to students involved in multi-year classrooms. Students and teachers develop lasting relationships throught the two-year time frame. Students and teachers come to a greater understanding of each other as individuals and as learners. These relationships often continue throughout the students' NGFS experience and beyond.
Second year students' anxiety over yearly transitions is lessened with the knowledge that they will be returning to the same classroom with familiar teachers and many familiar classmates. Students also look forward to seeing some of the friends from another grade level that they made while in a multi-year class as they transition into and out of the various levels.
The atmosphere of the classroom also is enhanced by having multiple grades within. Returning students understand expectations and routines of the class, and enjoy becoming leaders within the classroom as they guide the younger students. Studies have shown that when one can teach a concept, idea or procedure, the retention rate is 90%, whereas learning information simply to complete a test has a 25% retention rate. Older students become teachers and mentors to the younger ones, thus enhancing their own learning experience and self-esteem, while caring for others.
| Making Our Rules
Rather
than hand our children a set of rules that have been created by
administrators or teachers, each class at New Garden participates in a
comprehensive rule-making process. We begin by brainstorming all the
rules that the children think might be important for us to have a safe,
productive year. These rules are usually highly specific, and the list
consists almost entirely of "no's" and "don'ts" (e.g. " No yelling",
"No shaking the trees".) It is soon clear to all that we have far too
many rules to remember and that we will need to think of rules that are
more inclusive but still clear and concise. The proposed rules are then
sorted into overlapping categories. For example, past categories for
the Rainbow (grades 1-2) class have been: rules that help us keep our Bodies Safe, rules that help keep our Feelings Safe, and rules that help keep Learning Safe. Once categorized, the students help to find ways of working their rules using clear, concise, and positive "child language".
The
obvious benefit of this process is that children will better understand
and be more willing to follow rules that they themselves helped to
create. Also children who have worked on this process daily for the
first several weeks of school (and beyond) are kept more consciously
aware of their own behavior and capacity for self-control. During this
time, students make strong progress in becoming "ethical thinkers" as
they learn to interact succesfully in the school environment.
|