Head of School's Message: Feb. 24, 2015

Catherine Allgor, the Nadine and Robert A. Skotheim Director of Education at the Huntington Library, Art Collection and Botanical Gardens, spoke to Chandler faculty and parents in the Johnson Library and Media Center on Feb. 11.
 
Chandler families are among the 600,000 annual visitors to the Huntington established by Henry Huntington in 1919 with the goal of preserving as much as possible of civilization’s heritage in a single location. As a center of advanced learning, it is one of the world’s most well known collections-based research institutions.
 
Catherine described the typical field trip or family visit to the Huntington as an experience of ‘random fabulousness’. People arrive with a plan in mind, but invariably take in something they have never seen before or see something familiar in a new light. It’s those experiences that keep visitors returning.
 
Shortly after joining the Huntington in 2012, Catherine started asking some big questions. What role can the Huntington play to improve the public school system? How can the Huntington be a force of engagement? Can a place like the Huntington effect real change? She set about answering them by revitalizing the field trip model for LAUSD schools and working closely with Pasadena Unified.
 
PUSD teachers were struggling to administer the Common Core curriculum without adequate training. The curriculum’s emphasis on research using primary sources, project-based learning and an underlying commitment to developing critical thinking and problem solving skills was aligned with the way that the Huntington approached teaching and learning. Working with her staff, Catherine put together a series of research-based workshops at the Huntington for PUSD teachers who volunteered to learn how to implement project-based learning.
 
The benefits were immediate. PUSD administrators noticed a huge difference in teacher effectiveness between those who volunteered to take the Huntington classes and those who did not. As a result of that early success, Catherine and her staff have a contract with PUSD to work with 1100 public school teachers over the next three years.
 
Catherine has developed partnerships with several LAUSD high schools. She sees the Huntington as being in a unique position to help by adding value to the partner schools. “I prefer deep relationships,” she said. Throughout the school year, high schools send students to the Huntington to work on projects with students from other schools. Independent school students are getting involved by collaborating with public school students on research projects at the library. “The Huntington should be a place of intense engagement. What happens here should not happen anywhere else,” she said. “Kids coming together in respectful, collegial ways across socio-economic lines to study and learn together enlarges their world.”
 
Our next speaker will be from Cal Tech on Wednesday, March 25. Details to follow next month.
 

IN-SERVICE DAY

 
Chandler teachers were divided into two groups for workshops at yesterday’s in-service. One of the groups worked with staff from the The Exploratory, an innovation and design lab based in Culver City. “Children are growing up in a rapidly changing technological era where success is measured not by what you know, but what you do with what you know,” said Jean Kaneko, the founder of The Exploratory and facilitator of the workshop at Chandler. Faculty spent the day working on mini design challenges as they tinkered with electronic circuits, textiles, cardboard and fabricating tools to end up with a finished product that solved a problem. The workshop expanded our understanding of the kinds of challenging projects that will engage students using materials that have to be assembled. The hands on “Maker Movement” is gaining traction in schools. “Making is learning by doing,” Jean said. As the day proceeded the potential benefits of adopting more maker elements in Chandler’s program became apparent.
 
The other faculty group participated in a workshop led by Marissa Nadjarian of CBK Associates on Service Learning Across the Curriculum. Community service needs to be more than collecting cans and filling grocery bags. To be a learning experience, service needs to have a defined educational purpose as well as a social purpose. Chandler faculty learned how to design effective service learning experiences that include five stages: investigation, preparation, action, reflection and demonstration. After lunch, as the maker group continued with their fabricating and tinkering, the service learning group participated in a seminar on student motivation with Dr. Heather Banis, Chandler’s school psychologist.
 

WHITE WATER MOVIE

 
Chandler parent and director Rusty Cundieff, JD '14 , Simone '17 and Hadyn’s '24 dad, released his latest movie, White Water, last month. Set in 1963, the movie is based on a true story of a seven year old African American boy in segregated Alabama who becomes obsessed with the desire to taste the water from the 'whites only' drinking fountain and sets out on a quest to drink from it. The film stars Sharon Leal and Larenz Tate and according to press releases, 'addresses the past with humor and honesty as seen through the eyes of a child.' Trina Cundieff, Rusty's wife, writes," This is an important subject that is delicately handled and appropriate for Chandler students in fifth grade and above."
 
White Water will be shown in the Ahmanson Foundation Performing Arts Center on Thursday, March 5 at 6:30 p.m. Director Rusty Cundieff , Producer Dwayne Johnson-Cochran and two of the movie's stars will be in attendance for a Q&A following the movie. Students and parents in fifth-eighth grade are invited.
 
Please RSVP to Sandy Hume shume@chandlerschool.org.
 
 

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF INDEPENDENT SCHOOL’S ANNUAL CONFERENCE

Gayle Cole, Anneke Emerson and I will be heading to Boston on Wednesday for the NAIS conference and will not be in school again until Monday.
 

FRIDAY, MARCH 6 NOW A FULL DAY

Chandler will not be hosting the invitational track meet on Friday, March 6. The grass in the corner of the field where the new play structure was installed has not recovered from the trucks running over it. The surface is rutted, uneven and unsafe for a track meet. March 6 will be a full day of school for all students as a result of the track meet's cancellation.
 
 
Most sincerely,

 
John Finch
Head of School
 
Back