Diversity

September 25, 2009

One of the challenges in any school is thorough communication of all that goes on in the different grades and classrooms over the course of a year to its various constituencies—parents, guardians, faculty, staff, trustees, students, and interested families. That is, as a parent/guardian you generally have in-depth information and experience on one or two classrooms at a time, and at best, a cursory sense of the grades not yet experienced. At RDS, one of the overarching goals of the Friday Folder is to give everyone a better sense of our philosophy and what goes on day to day at the School, along with all the logistical information you need to know.

Besides the obvious and valuable green benefits to going paperless, our shift to an electronic, web-based newsletter was based, in part, on the goal of more comprehensive and varied communications. As you have no doubt observed, we have been adding recurring sections to the Friday Folder. The first new section we introduced was Learning Spotlight, which focuses on a specific moment of learning and teaching in the classroom. Our goal is to bring the learning and the expertise of our faculty to everyone’s attention. The second, Greening, is designed to keep you abreast of all that we are doing throughout the campus and in the classrooms to teach and implement environmentally-sound thinking and practices in our community. The third, Honoring, was created to share with parents and guardians a vital and mission-driven ritual practiced at RDS—in classes, at assemblies, and during faculty/staff meetings: honoring. While you will see some of these sections intermittently, Honoring will appear each week, which speaks volumes about how much our parents, guardians, and other family members contribute to this community.

This week, we introduce a fourth recurring section, Diversity Spotlight, which is a re-designed version of last year’s Diversity Corner. In this feature, which we will publish every four or five weeks, you will find entries from teachers about an aspect of diversity that was part of a planned piece of curriculum or arose during discussion on another topic. (Please note: due to space limitations we can only give teachers one entry.) We are presenting these stories because we believe that one of the most effective ways to describe what we mean by diversity is to show you what we actually do.

In creating the Diversity Spotlight:

1. We want everyone to have a better sense of the range and depth of diversity education happening at RDS during any given period of time.
2. Through your knowledge of what is happening in the classroom, you will be able to engage your children in follow-up conversations that otherwise might not have occurred
3. You will see the multiple ways our teachers define and make use of the concept of diversity, which in turn will help you to see how this diversity work deepens our students’ thinking, as well as hones their critical thinking abilities.
4. You will also see how this work permeates our thinking at RDS and works towards creating the “diverse, intimate community” to which we aspire.

One of the side benefits of our new web-based Friday Folder is that we can archive these new sections. Thus, six months or a year from now, anyone wanting to know what RDS does in terms of diversity or environmental education and practice will have numerous, on the ground examples to read and learn from. Finally, through these sections, we will all develop a deeper understanding of the rich educational work that our teachers are engaged in with your children, on a daily basis.

Have a great weekend.

Mike

Special Honoring: As many of you know, last Friday was Malia Connor’s last day as RDS Receptionist due to scheduling conflicts that came up this year. We honor Malia for her four years of service to the Redwood community and wish her the very best. She will be missed. Thank you, Malia. Stepping in to help out in the Front Office this week and next is Tiffany Brown. Please stop by and say hello.