April 2003

Exciting Program Changes for Next Fall

It’s April 1st, and as I sit writing this, a gentle snow is falling on campus. At any other time I would rejoice in its beauty. Now all I can think of is cold, wet feet. Enough of winter. I’m ready for spring! I’m ready for sunshine and warmth, and for the energy that these things bring each year!

This winter has been a busy time at PDS. We have accomplished a great deal, and we are well along on planning future improvements. Let me fill you in on some of our progress.

The Lower School
Throughout the year, the administration and the lower school faculty have given a great deal of thought to the best possible sequence of class configurations to meet the developmental and educational needs of our youngest children, while still preserving the richness and benefits of mixed-age groupings. We have talked with many of you about your views, and we have looked to good practice elsewhere. Together, we have created a plan that is a little more concise than our previous program and that provides a bit more clarity to our curriculum. Starting in September, our lower school children will be grouped as follows:

· One pre-kindergarten class
· 2 kindergarten classes
· 2 first-second grade classes
· 3 third-four grade classes

Class numbers will remain essentially the same, with some variability to take into account the size differences in the classrooms. We are finalizing staffing assignments, even as I write.

The Schedule
One of the most critical issues in school management is the way time is used, and this, to a large extent, is driven by the school schedule. The way teachers and students use their time has a significant impact on the quality and the quantity of the work they do. At PDS our schedule has been driven by two major concepts: block scheduling and the quint system.

Block scheduling means that instead of chopping each day into short, discrete periods, each devoted to a single academic discipline, and each meeting every (or almost every) day, days are divided into fewer, longer periods. Not all disciplines can meet in this kind of a schedule, but those that do, enjoy a longer period of concentrated study. It’s ideal for in-depth discussions, experiments or other activities that do not lend themselves to premature cut-offs. It allows students and teachers to go into important matters in depth, not race the clock to finish an idea or an activity prematurely.

Block scheduling has been around for many years, and, I think it is safe to say, it continues to gain support from those who study schools and learning. At PDS we are committed to it, and there’s lots of research to support our commitment.

On the down side, of course, block scheduling makes it difficult to find time for all academic disciplines to meet. You can’t have multiple ninety minutes periods of math, science, humanities, language, art, music, drama, physical education, and all of the rest of the academic program (not to mention the extracurricular program) to meet in a single day or even a single week. Many schools deal with this by developing a semester or quarterly system. Different courses meet for different proportions of time, but within the larger time chunks that these systems provide.

About twelve years ago, PDS developed a different system: the quint system. We divided the year into five sections, each about six weeks long. Under this system, each major academic subject in grades 7-12 is studied in depth during ninety-minute periods for three of the five quints. In the remaining two, the subject is not considered. With quints came the benefit of extended teaching and learning time. It also relieved students of the need to commit intensely to at least five academic subjects concurrently, and, as a result, we believe improved the quality of engagement and learning.

However, it has become increasingly clear that the mastery of different disciplines requires different kinds of learning/teaching situations and that significant interruption of instruction, particularly in math and second language acquisition, has deleterious effects. In other words, we need different time allocations for different purposes. An extended science experiment or art project, a history or literature seminar, or a discussion of the relationships between mathematical ideas need different kind of time than acquiring second language skills or mathematical fluency. Developing higher order thinking and reasoning skills require a different time structure than mastery of the fundamental skills that provide the foundation for their use. We need time to do both. Both need to be made explicit.

Finally, the balance of instructional time is sensitive to the developmental status of students. Older students can tolerate more extended time demands than middle school students. Indeed, an effective time allocation profile for upper school students is different than that for middle school students.

Therefore, after much thought and reflection and as a result of many conversations in a multitude of contexts, we have decided to retain the concept of block scheduling, but to move from the quint system to a system that, for some subjects, divides into quarters, and for others into halves. Schedules for the middle and upper schools will differ slightly. We are still working on the details (and the devil is in them, indeed). Some things I can tell you are in place:

- Upper and middle school schedules will differ slightly;
- There will be no extended interruptions in instruction in math, language, and science at any level;
- Throughout the year, periods of instruction will vary in length both between and within disciplines, the key determinant of class time being the academic objectives of instruction.

The Middle School
Perhaps our largest undertaking this year has been to develop a discrete middle school division responsive to the unique developmental and educational needs of middle-schoolers. We are moving toward a dedicated middle school faculty that will specialize in middle school education. In addition to scheduling changes, we have added to the group and changed some teaching assignments. A primary goal was to improve instruction, particularly in mathematics and science. Howard Gardner has described the responsibility of schools to teach young people to think by disciplines. For example, he describes the difference between mathematical thinking and historical thinking, thinking as an artist and thinking as a scientist. Although he does not place one discipline above another, and stresses the importance of all of them, he is clear that it is essential that the teachers guiding students in each discipline have a firm, deep structural understanding of that discipline. They need to be trained scientists or mathematicians as well as trained teachers.

To accomplish this, we have added a teacher to the middle school science faculty and assigned an upper-school math specialist to the middle school math faculty. The fifth and sixth-grade teachers will all be here, but they will have different, more specialized assignments. Combined with the scheduling changes, we are confident of a rich and targeted program, consistent with our PDS mission and with your expectations.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. The program is constantly evolving, and it is very exciting! We will keep you advised as we work. As always, if you have ideas about it or if you want discuss our thinking, please reach out. Call or e-mail me or any of the division heads, or stop in to talk. We’re always eager to see you. Alternatively, come to any of our monthly discussion groups. Upper school co-heads Don Fried and Liz Vinogradov hold monthly meetings for parents on Wednesdays as does middle school head George Swain on Thursdays. (Check each month’s Calendar as sometimes dates and times vary.). And of course, Mornings with Mary Jane. occur on the first Monday of every month at 8:45 in my office. Thinking together is the essence of successful collaboration. Let’s do that well.

With best wishes,.

Mary Jane Yurchak