Dear Parents:
All of us at the School are
hopeful that you are still fully engaged in enjoying special time and experiences
with your children—activities specific to summer, perhaps some of the same that
we all experienced as youngsters.
My husband, Tom, and I
decided to forgo travel this summer (a fairly easy decision since there are
eight of us and, therefore, any travel represents a logistical and fiscal conundrum).
We decided to stay right here in Milwaukee and enjoy all this wonderful city
has to offer. “This will be relaxing, the children will have a chance to enjoy
each other as we explore together,” we told ourselves. The reality unfolded
something like this: Summerfest, complete with the Aerosmith concert for the
older ones (does an ear of corn really cost $3.50?), Six Flags (106 degrees on
the blacktop that day), fireworks that produced the most unusual bug bites, a
parent-led food production system that never seemed to satisfy these very
hungry children, and what seemed like at least 50 loads of laundry. What actually
played out felt not so much like the Brady Bunch vision we had sold to
ourselves, but rather a very weary rerun of, maybe, MASH! Yes, there were times
it really did feel a bit like triage…That said, when the photos were collected,
emailed, and downloaded from Shutterbug, the smiles on our children’s faces
were priceless and we felt as though we really were pretty good parents after
all. Tired, but pretty good.
Now, it seems that we blinked
and it is August! In this final full month of summer, the School experiences an
energy shift that I have always relished. This year, the faculty, not unlike
the students, has a summer reading assignment to complete. We are reading a
wonderful book that celebrates education, but at the same time challenges us to
be aware of the rapid changes occurring globally. These changes are rooted in the technological
explosion, which has not only transformed drastically the way we communicate but,
according to the author, has altered how our students actually think and
process information.
The Global Achievement Gap is a research-based look at kids, technology, schools,
and corporations. The links between all of these are the following questions, “Are
we preparing our students for the very different job arena they will enter—reacting
to the swiftly shrinking world technology has created?” “Are we teaching to our
past or looking forward and preparing our students for their futures?” The book challenges us as educators to better
understand the newly developing needs of corporate America: critical thinking
and problem solving, collaboration across networks, leading with influence
rather than command, agility and adaptability, initiative and
entrepreneurialism, skilled oral and written communication, ability to access
and analyze diverse information, and curiosity and imagination. One of the key
adjustments we need to make is in the way we deliver information to guide our
students through research, discovery, and drawing inferences and conclusions.
There is no longer room for a traditional classroom with the
instructor-centered lecture style we all remember. These days, children quite
simply learn differently and are no longer tolerant of long verbal or written
communication that is one-way and non-interactive. We need to develop in our
students a willingness to keep learning: to hypothesize, experiment, take risks,
and adapt. This represents quite a challenge for educators world-wide. We are
now expected to move away from traditional pedagogy and create a learning
environment that differs drastically from the one in which we learned. It is at this pivotal point that I believe independent
schools are positioned so favorably. Without the burden of standardized testing
restrictions and the subsequent restrictive accountability recently imposed on
the public sector, we are free to create the type of dynamic instruction
required by today’s students as they become tomorrow’s adults and world citizens.
I believe we have a responsibility to your children to prepare them for a
future infused with technology and communication and dependent upon global
interactions. We have a responsibility to the colleges and universities and
ultimately the professional landscape they will enter to prepare our students
to lead with influence. This is truly an exciting time to be a student and an
educator!
The very good news, which I
have observed at University School over the past year, is that we are a School with
the right approach to this rapid educational transition. A walk through our
hallways is all it takes to realize our students are definitely interactive
partners in the learning experience. In the Lower School, I have observed them
moving freely about spacious classrooms working individually, in small groups, or
one-on-one with their teachers. They are encouraged to explore, ask critical
questions, and draw complex conclusions. This style of learning continues into
the Middle School classrooms. Here, the energy to learn is palpable. Teachers
and students can be observed side-by-side exploring new ideas as our faculty
challenges the development of inquisitive young minds. It is not unusual to
hear animated conversations exuding from classrooms as students and faculty
pursue meanings and connections beyond traditional curriculum. The Upper School
builds actively on the benefits of “inheriting” a group of students who are
engaged in contemporary learning and are encouraged to challenge each other and
their teachers to reach higher levels of understanding. A lesson around a Harkness-style round table and/or
as part of the new Compass 9 and 10 Program provides insight into the
integrated, meaningful way in which our US students are encouraged to make
important connections between disciplines and as they look out at the world at
large.
At University School, our
faculty is fortunate to be able to take advantage of a variety of professional
development opportunities. Provided through the generosity of Annual Giving
donors and designated endowed funds, these opportunities for continuous and
extended learning are available throughout teachers’ USM careers. This
professional development results in what I believe are the enlightened educational
experiences we constantly observe in our School. To this end, many of our
faculty members chose to use their summer respite not only to spend time with
their family and friends, but also to pursue their professional education. In
the Lower School, six faculty and Head of Lower School Carolyn Lengh spent
several days in Detroit, working with an especially innovative team of experts
from nationally recognized High Tech High. The focus was to learn how to
design, plan, and implement the project-based learning strategies that are so
very important to our contemporary understanding of the way children learn.
Project-based learning is a dynamic approach to teaching, in which students
explore real-world problems and challenges, simultaneously developing
cross-curriculum skills while working in small collaborative groups. The Middle
School faculty explored opportunities to study in diverse areas and topics. Two
faculty members traveled to Oxford University to attend The Oxford Teacher
Seminar and the Library and the Academy. Here they studied Shakespeare in history
and topics such as the origins of the library and the role of the library in
society. Head of Middle School Pam Nosbusch attended a seminar by
internationally renowned consultant and author Barbara Coloroso on “The Bully,
the Bullied, and the Bystander: Breaking the Cycle of Violence.” Pam and her
team remain committed to dealing effectively with this phenomenon, recently
emphasized so dramatically in the news and an ongoing issue for families
everywhere with children of middle-school age. A representative sample of
ongoing learning from the Upper School is the work done by individual
disciplines, such as the extensive study done by our AP Biology instructor, Bob
Heun, as he explores the newly developed AP curriculum and exam as well as the
world travel opportunity to Cuba by four of our Upper School Spanish faculty. Indeed,
our faculty continues to be our finest asset. They are intellectual, creative,
and passionate in continuing to explore the very best way to educate your
children on their rapidly changing educational journey.
Looking forward to 2012-
2013, there is tangible excitement in the air. We will open the doors with a talented,
robust student body. I believe this reflects the growing awareness on the part
of today’s parents that this is the time of utmost importance in their
children’s lives when they are preparing the foundation for their entire
professional and personal futures.
Our students, your children, will most certainly enter
a world more competitive and sophisticated than anything we could even imagine
just a few short years ago. This is a world that is changing so rapidly that we
find it almost impossible to define. This is why we are dedicated to providing
the most dynamic educational experience possible—one that emphasizes skills
development and the inculcation of a desire to continue to learn that will be
so very necessary throughout their lives. Their Upper School experience is
carefully crafted to prepare students exceptionally well for the inherent
judgment of the college process and their careers beyond. The Middle School
program and faculty encourage and support these students at a unique time in
their development—a time when they need to learn to be strong, capable, and
resilient even when they feel unsure and challenged by the demands of growing
up. The Lower School is nurturing and
yet carefully designed to encourage each child’s independence and daily educational
progress.
As you know, this year will
see the launch of the well-planned and constructed 1:1 Program. Many hours of
training and planning have brought our faculty to the level of expertise
necessary for this significant initiative. Once again, based on what we know
about the path our students must take in the next few years, it is vitally
important that they are as technologically savvy as possible. They will need to
use, research, explore, and assess ideas rapidly and with the skill that is
only attainable with a sophisticated understanding of the use of technology as
an important tool that will continue to define their futures.
We are also committed to
providing your children and the faculty with educational spaces that are not
only highly functional, but also indicative that what they do is important and merits
inspirational facilities. I am therefore
delighted to report the new turf fields and outdoor athletic improvements are reaching
their remarkable completion, providing an outdoor learning experience second to
none. Additionally, we have a newly renovated Upper School library,
specifically designed for our new 1:1 Program’s
technology needs, and many freshly painted and upgraded Upper School classrooms
(now rivaling the beauty of the Middle and Lower School learning spaces) are being
completed.
The coming 2012-2013 school
year will also mark a time of significant planning and assessment of what we do
and why we do it. Our accrediting association, Independent Schools of the
Central States (ISACS), will oversee the second year of a three-year evaluation
process. The important self-evaluation year we will enter into this fall
provides the opportunity for us to ensure what we do is what we have defined as
important. This will be followed the next year by a thorough evaluation of the
School by a team of educational experts who will determine that we are who we
say we are. Coinciding with the ISACS accreditation process and nicely
dovetailing with the self-assessment will be the launch of a strategic planning
process by our Board of Trustees, administration, faculty/staff, and parents.
Some of you will be asked to provide information via survey or to serve as
members of focus groups. It will be a time to look at what we currently do well,
including the challenges that present themselves. This will be followed by a
plan that will take us most successfully into the foreseeable future. This
strategic vision will be informed by a collective and inclusive process, representative
of the many different constituencies that make up our community.
In conclusion, as I look
back over my own tenure in schools, everything in life that I have received or
achieved seems to have stemmed directly from my education and the blessing of
being associated with excellent independent schools for the past 18 years. I
have seen the end result of these amazing schools each and every year. Our
common goal as educators and parents, what brings us together as a team while
we support your child’s growth, is the realization that we are working toward
developing happy, successful, independent, ethical, and superbly educated
adults who can take care of themselves fiscally, emotionally, and with
confidence in both their professional and personal lives.
I ask you to join with us
at USM as we support and guide your children on this quest. Help us to continue
to reinforce the values you have already begun to teach so carefully at home. Let
us join together to ensure our children recognize the need to treat each other
and the adults in our School and at home with respect, trust, honor, fairness,
and kindness. This will ultimately provide the foundation they will need to become
the adults we all want them to be—adults who make a positive difference in the
world.
Sincerely,
Laura J. Fuller
Head of School
