Lessons We Loved

Each week in our internal staff newsletter, Jason Crutchfield, our assistant principal, and I try to highlight a staff member who we observed teaching a great lesson.  I think it's important to begin sharing those lessons out with the community via this blog so that all of you can help us celebrate our incredible staff.  We'll be starting that this week and hopefully continuing it quite often in the coming year.  

Today's lesson write up comes from Mr. Crutchfield:

"Smile, We See You"

No more poor behavior in band class; students are being watched. That is because Kate Meier and Richard Baritaud have been collaborating in their district wide PLCs’ (Professional Learning Communities) to “broadcast” their performances for each other.

This work began in CAI (the division's Curriculum, Assesment and Instruction professional development institute) with the development of performance tasks for music groups. Music directors in Albemarle thought it would be a good idea to have their groups perform pieces for each other using sites like SKYPE to observe performances. Students would have a selection to play that they haven’t seen before while another band/orchestra watches remotely from their own school.  The plan is to have students observe and document their assessments of each other using the precise terminology the judges will use during district band assessments.

I was able to observe the trial run in Mrs. Meier’s classroom this past month. She collaborated with the band director at Burley Middle and their symphonic band. Our students were highly energized by the prospects of this lesson. They waited patiently as Mrs. Meier worked out technicalities of the hardware. As they experienced minor tech delays, Mrs. Meier’s patience was the hero of this lesson. Once SKYPE was up and running, Henley’s Symphonic band played their piece. Once complete, Burley’s band members were able to come to the microphone and give feedback using the precise language that their district judges will be using next semester. The process was reciprocated and our students were able to provide accurate and constructive feedback as well.

A quick trip to a few classrooms

I’ve written before about something that makes Henley great—the ability to walk into any classroom on any given day and see students who are engaged in work that is meaningful and relevant to them. I was out doing some learning walks last Friday and each classroom I visited, once again, had outstanding work taking place. In Lydia Beeler’s eighth grade language arts class, students were working on an activity in which they revise a paragraph full of sentence fragments into one that is more grammatically correct and much more well-written. Her kids were developing the skill of revising their own writing and combining sentences to produce more richly written text. Next door in Ciara Imbert’s seventh grade life science class students were studying one of my favorite life science lessons—genetics. It’s so cool to see how kids combine traits to determine the likelihood of offspring having those traits. The kids love seeing this and applying it to the way they look and the genes that their parents have passed on to them. Finally in Erin James’ seventh grade language arts class, Erin and collaborative teacher Kathy Verell were teaching students strategies to use when reading non-fiction text. They had a great graphic organizer that kids were working through in groups. The non-fiction they were reading had a direct connection to the fiction text they would soon be starting, making the activity even more relevant to the students as they develop background knowledge about a new novel. All of these lessons had students who were engaged and developing skills that they will use for decades. What makes these few learning walks even better, was knowing that I could have picked any three classrooms in the school and I would have had just as many great things to write about. The work our teachers bring to their classrooms every day inspires me as an educator and makes a difference for all of our kids.

A great community tradition

One of the things I love about living in Crozet is the annual Christmas parade sponsored by the Crozet Fire Department, the most recent version of which was held this past Sunday. If you’ve never been, you really are missing a piece of small town America. The “floats” are from local girl and boy scout troops, the Crozet Lions club, Peachtree Baseball, Sam’s Hot Dog Shop, the rescue squad and, of course, the fire department. Much like it’s Macy’s counterpart, it all ends with Santa Claus, the big man himself, riding into the fire station to meet the kids, hand out free candy canes and hot chocolate and hear what all the little ones want for Christmas. Also present each and every year are dozens of current, future and past Henley Hornets. If nothing else, it’s totally Crozet.

Events such as the Christmas parade remind me what a great community we have. I strongly believe that a school such as Henley is a reflection of and a contributor to the development of our surrounding community. The values that we strive to instill in our students come through in the outstanding neighborhood events such as the Christmas parade. Our work goes so far beyond tests, grades, report cards and the like. We’re building responsible citizens who are going to be positive contributors to our community. Crozet would not be the same without Henley and Henley would not be the same without all of our community members. Your contributions and the values you instill in your children touch people’s lives in ways that you may never know. There is no way that we could do it without the strong support of our parents and other citizens.  I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want to be living anywhere else.