Skip to main content

Ever Curious and Innovative

The focus, concentration, and smiling eyes speak volumes. 

One month into our 71st year, examples of active engagement in the scholarly and creative abound at Saint David's: Our young scientists in first grade learn how to use pipettes and microscopes. 

Second graders engage with museum educators and their Saint David's teachers for a months-long collaboration with the Guggenheim Museum on an art inquiry and creation unit that takes place just down the block at the museum and in our art studios. Our eighth graders, as part of their micro-to-macro exploration of human anatomy, prepare to dissect cows' eyes; this hands-on experience will provide a deeper comprehension of anatomy than can be gleaned through illustrations in text books or videos.


The Philharmonic Ensemble, Chamber Singers, and Percussion Ensemble are all back - our boys are flexing their creative muscles as they play instruments or sing, all safely and in accordance with pandemic protocols.  It is wonderful to once again hear music through the doors of the Otto-Bernstein Theatre on our second floor. 

In these and all our endeavors, Saint David's teachers guide and coach the boys to think deeply and creatively; to explore the questions "why," "what if," and "how;" to be ever curious and to innovate. 


And our teachers have modeled this, themselves. This past summer more than 50 of our faculty members engaged in a variety of professional development experiences that sparked innovation in several units. The very nature of these workshops used tech creatively to eliminate the barriers of time and space. 

Led and organized by our Director of Teaching and Learning, Jamie MacNeille, the experiences ranged from workshops and conferences, such as the International Boys' Schools Coalition seminar on relational teaching, to Teaching for Understanding workshops, and innovative curriculum-related projects. TFU, developed by Harvard's Graduate School of Education, is the common pedagogical framework we utilize to design or redesign our courses with the goal of maximizing learning and depth of understanding. 

Most exciting on the professional development front was the launch of our new Exploring Action Research initiative the summer. The initiative enables our faculty members to engage in original action research on a topic that has pedagogical and practical implications for the effectiveness of teaching. At Saint David's, it is driven by real-world questions that arise in the classrooms, within the context of our school's mission, values and pedagogical imperative. It is where the science and craft of teaching boys intersect, honoring our school's rich traditions while inspiring research-based innovation. I look forward to sharing more on this topic in later entries. 




Popular posts from this blog

"The Wisdom Within" - Building Student Motivation Through Choice

In the third entry of our Teaching Boys Initiative quarterly blog series, Master Teacher Jim Barbieri explores how providing boys with agency to choose builds motivation and enhances learning. BUILDING STUDENT MOTIVATION THROUGH CHOICE By the time I was eight years old, I had become completely absorbed in all things baseball. Living in New York was perfect for a baseball fan; although I was a Mets fan thanks to my idol, Tom Seaver, I was also interested in learning about all the amazing Yankees stars of yore. How could I call myself a baseball fan if I didn’t know the history and records of stars like Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Yogi Berra? I loved collecting baseball cards and reading the career statistics of each player on the back. Looking through my collection one day, I discovered that I shared a birthday with the legendary Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder Roberto Clemente. At eight years old, I was crushed to hear the news that he had died tragically in a plane crash while trying to ...
Read more

"The Wisdom Within" - The Superpower of Performance

In the following entry of our Teaching Boys Initiative blog series, Saint David's Director of Music and Master Teacher Jeffrey Moore explores how participating in performances and productions build transformative competencies, transmit values, and inspire boys to excel. Jose Antonio Abreu, one of the leading educators in classical music and the founder of El Sistema said this: “Music has to be recognized as an agent of social development in the highest sense, because it transmits the highest values  — solidarity, harmony, mutual compassion. And it can unite an entire community and express sublime feelings.”¹ At Saint David’s School, performance begins in the very first years. Each class, from Pre-K through Eighth Grade, presents their work to an audience of peers and parents, whether it is a story, a skit, a play, a lecture, or a musical presentation. But the increasing complexity and demands on our boys to push themselves to another level is the key to their development and succes...
Read more

"The Wisdom Within" - Writing and Thinking

In our continuing efforts through the Teaching Boys Initiative at Saint David's School ™ , one of our visiting scholars, Dr. Ric Campbell, engages in ongoing reflective practice with our faculty. Below, Dr. Campbell shares an example of a freewriting initiative that was born from the collaboration between literature teacher Jamie MacNeille and history teacher Drew Burton, who sought to address forms of student engagement in their respective disciplines.  WRITING and THINKING:  A Learning Community Engaged in the Knowledge-Making Practices of the Disciplines “Whoa, this freewriting is really helpful !” The above quote by a sixth-grade literature student captures a revelatory moment; he has discovered the wealth of ideas at the end of his pen as he writes to describe what he is noticing in the novel the class is reading and discovers that what he notices leads to questions, and that those questions, in turn, lead to bigger ideas. “All there is to thinking is seeing something not...
Read more