“We need schools for ‘Artists’”

Guest blog written by Craig Dunk .

I had the pleasure of hearing Seth Godin passionately and humorously explain the concept “We need ‘Artists’” as a keynote speaker recently. If you are in the Information Technology field you may be familiar with Seth as an author and speaker and if you get a chance to hear him speak I strongly encourage you to do so.

The thesis resonated very well with me and many of the audience members hearing the keynote at Educause (an Information Technology conference targeted at Higher Education). You’ll note that the word “Artists” is in quotes because for the purpose of the keynote Seth did not mean visual artists or performance artists per se. He used the phrase “artist” to distinguish the activities from those tasks which are proscriptive or perform functions with a known outcome.

In talking about this Seth was adding his voice to the observation that the future needs of the societies in our world are unlikely to lie with repetitious tasks. So while many economists and pundits take the position that this means we should be educating children to work in computer science or other knowledge economy jobs rather than manual labour Seth and others are pointing out a more subtle point and that is the work people will do in the future is likely work that is being done for the very first time. Therefore it is not enough to learn how to perform a particular task in school: you have to learn how to adapt and learn how to do something for the first time. In Seth’s words to learn how to be an artist.

I was pleased to see he also acknowledged that being an artist was not an ivory tower or even a core academics type skill that is often promoted to the neglect of other courses or pursuits. He noted for example that the reception staff have two sets of function, the repeatable one of routing calls would have been for him “not art” and is often seen as replaceable by technology, but, the other function of solving problems and making people feel welcome was a dynamic problem and required a new response to each person and situation. So he explored briefly the concept of “Receptionist as Artist”.

However, while Seth is a great speaker his domain of expertise is marketing and internet technology and a 30 minute presentation does not allow time to fully explore the topic of how the idea of being an “artist” relates to different jobs, careers and interests. In fact one of the best explanations of this is by the author Matthew Crawford in Shop Class as Soulcraft where he talks both about what kinds of pursuits can be unexpectedly gratifying and immune to repetition (and therefore as a side effect remain economically viable; though the core thesis is about fulfillment rather than economics).

Being the conference was directed to teachers Seth also tied this concept back to how and what we teach children. In doing this Seth echoed many of the concepts of "factory education" explored by Sir Ken Robinson in a video on the origins of our education system. What both speakers suggest is that we are often working in an education system that provides answers and not skills to ask important and hard questions. Seth cites an example of speaking to a class of grade 4 students and bringing in a “drinking bird” toy. When he asked them how they thought it worked, they all pulled out their pencils and then waited for him to impart the answer. An “artist” to Seth would not wait to be told about something; they would explore.

For me Seth Godin and Sir Ken Robinson and Matthew Crawford make a compelling case that social and community resilience and individual fulfillment is served better by taking a lot of different paths to education, embracing a variety of approaches and encouraging questions over answers.

And that is our challenge as teachers and parents, how do we create environments that are not just about the facts and the specific skills but the ability to be independent to explore your own world and feel comfortable taking the risks that artists need to take.

Menu Online

We are using Oryan Catering for our meals. Orayan provides a variety of meals to fill a 5 week cycle. We have posted the full menu cycle so you can checkout the meal plan for the day. We have started this cycle at week 1 but you can also always ask and we'll let you know the current week number in the meal plan. Lastly, you can of course check it out at the school where this list is posted. Note there may be some changes in snacks that we prepare based on logistics or availability of seasonal fruit and we always make milk and juice available at snack.

Providing healthy and delicious meals and snacks is very important to us so please let us know any feedback and of course any special dietary needs.

Official Grand Opening

On September 1^st, 2011 we held a small ribbon cutting ceremony to celebrate Echo Montessori’s Grand Opening. It marked the official start to a plan that was conceived 4 years ago. A year ago we opened the doors of the school house to 5 children. We spent the winter renovating the building while we rented space at St. Matthias Church. On April 16^th, 2011 we excitedly returned to our newly renovated classrooms. By the last day of school we had 14 students who joined us throughout the week. On the first day of school this year 30 children walked through our doors.

We are so excited with the rapid growth of Echo Montessori and are pleased to have such a wonderful group of children, families and staff.

Luckily the weather cooperated as we all collected on the front lawn. Jan introduced new staff and thanked parents and family for their support and upon declaring the school officially open Ben and Nic cut the ribbon. All the group joined together in a celebration with food and drinks.

In addition, the beginning of year open house began with the children and their families touring the school and visiting with each other. (It was also a great opportunity to show your older siblings your class.)

We already have a couple of days of classes since our celebration and everyone is settling into the new routines easily. We are all looking forward to the year ahead as we build our community and our successes.

Great Partners, Great Results

This year we used an online photo album company to manufacture our yearbooks. At first we were a bit worried that this process would work out well but it was the best option for the number of books we needed; too many for most companies, too few for printers. And we have been so pleased about the outcome.

www.photobookcanada.com has been wonderful to deal with. They have specific software that we downloaded so that Mika could design the book and for those of us without design knowledge it is user friendly and a quick learn.

Not only did they negotiate a discount with us for the larger book order but they also sent us a proof so that we could make sure all was well. During that process we found a spelling mistake and a grammar problem!! YIKES!! They were great, allowing us to edit the book and resubmit.

Thank you photobookcanada for all your help and allowing us to have such a beautiful keepsake of our first year!!

OH DEER!!!

Left, Photo of a deer captured with a cell phone camera during forest school.

Since September the children have been playing a wonderful game at Forest School called 'Sleeping Fawn'. The children lay low and quiet in the long grass pretending to be a sleeping fawn and the coyote has to try and find them. A themed version of hide and seek. Today as the older children were decending the big hill they came across a real sleeping fawn curled up in the long grass. They were so excited!! They were able to stay and observe for several minutes before deciding to let the baby return to his nap. Their experience gave new meaning to the game they have been playing. By the time the younger group went out the fawn had moved. They were however treated to two adult deer walking through the park.

A Time to Plant

The beautiful weather has finally arrived with a vengence! We are so excited about chosing what to plant in our outdoor garden. The kids are talking about what they want to grow, most decisions seem to be made based on what food preferences they all share.

To learn about the parts of the plant and how they grow we have started a few seeds in the classroom. Our radishes, onions and carrot seeds are a very exciting draw daily. When the radish seeds began sprouting well before the other plants the children were concerned that something had gone terribly wrong with the other seeds. A few days later the onions began to poke through the top of the soil. Cheers errupted that morning! The sole carrot sprout has finally pushed it's way into the sunlight and is being ever so lovingly tended to. As a class the children are monitoring the plants progress and wondering when we will be able to eat the "fruits" of their labour.

Newsletter - Construction Update

Construction Update

It has been a long road but I think we are finally coming to the end of the journey to our renovated space!

Construction is now in the final stages and they are finally “reassembling” our school. The contractor has given us a finish during the week of April 11^th.

We are all very excited about moving back to our little school house.

Moving Information New Location April 18th

We will be moving over the weekend of April 16^th and 17^th. Therefore both the Toddler and Children’s House classes will be held in the school house at 798 Scottsdale Dr. as of April 18^th.

Children’s House Class PD Day April 19th

As a result of the move and licensing inspections we will be having an unusual PD Day for the Children’s House class ONLY on Tuesday April 19^th, 2011. Although we understand that this unscheduled and may cause some planning issues we feel this approach will result in the least possible disturbance related to the move. Please let me know if you have additional concerns.

Toddler Class Normal Class Beginning April 18th

The Toddler Class will be held at the 798 Scottsdale Drive location as of Monday April 18^th, 2011 and will continue at that location from that day forward.