At the start of every school year, I schedule beginning-of-year conversations with every faculty member in the Upper School.  The purpose of these meetings is for me to hear about what professional development they have done over the summer, and to discuss how teachers might bring their new-found knowledge and strategies back into the classroom.  Second, I generally focus on two or more of the initiatives the school is undertaking at the moment.  This year, teachers were asked about the ways in which they are incorporating iPads into their daily instruction or classroom practice, and how they intend to bring our character and culture work into their teaching.  Finally, we do some goal setting and discuss what their professional development plans are for the upcoming year. 

The highlight of these conversations (for me at least!) is always the brainstorming part where we talk about new possibilities for their teaching. Like students, faculty start the year full of fresh ideas and ambitions, and I use these opening meetings to encourage them and offer support in any way I can. No surprise that teachers are highly creative people, and they can generate a plethora of new ideas, all of which serve to enhance the learning environment at CA.

Among the many amazing things I have heard about this year are Jane Kelly's trip to Cuba, where she scoped out a potential student trip (stay tuned for details). Ms. Kelly also attended a workshop where she was trained in a new teaching technique called Organic World Languages (OWL), which she has employed to great effect this school year.  (Parents of her students learned all about this at Back-to-School Night). Several members of the math department, led by Peter Horsch, worked on revamping the 9th grade math curriculum, leading to the new course called Math 1, which is now more of a hybrid of geometry and algebra concepts.  Paul Kim spent time in Guatemala, bringing the design thinking process to a new school in one of the more rural parts of that country.  Charity Smith and Kim Jans both attended computer science conferences.  Brigitte Debord went to a French language conference in Quebec, where she presented a workshop on using mindfulness in the world language classroom.  Joel Allen and Chris Roads both spent time in Alaska, plotting out the details for a future field studies program there.  I could go on, but it shoud be obvious by now that our teachers stayed busy over the summer months, and that they are bringing that energy and passion with them as they start the school year.  In the next few weeks I will be getting around to as many classes as I can, seeing first-hand how this training has been turned into classroom practice.