Schools

'Knowledge Cafe' Leads to Brainstorming for Future Students

Chappaqua schools committee cites communication, creativity, and social/emotional wellness as topics of interest.

How can children collaborate with classmates? Just what does it mean to be creative?

Dozens of people tackled these questions and more Wednesday at a Knowledge Cafe arrainged by the Chappaqua school district's administrators. The purpose of the meeting, held at , was to consider a series of questions raised by the Chappaqua Education for the Future (CEFF) committee, which is coming up with suggestions for how to teach kids under a modern curriculum.

The CEFF was assembled last year by Superintendent Lyn McKay to tackle the challenges.

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“Our goal has been to identify and prioritize, educational, structural challenges and the opportunities that we face," McKay told the crowd.

Committee members first came up with 49 ideas before narrowing and synthesizing them down to three. The final topics are: Communication, Collaborative, and Intellectual Agility, Fostering the Creativity Process, and Student Social, Emotional and Physical Health. Each topic has a subgroup working on it, McKay explained.

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“All of these things, all of them can be taught," she said.

At the knowledge cafe, attendees broke up into tables for the topics, switching places three times for each.

Principal Andrew Selesnick, who is part of the communication and collaboration topic subgroup, explained that they started off by focusing what would be 21st century skills, but noted that term can be "slippery."

“Our group is very interested in trying to figure out what those skills are.”

Principal Martha Zornow, part of the same subgroup, noted the importance of being able to think quickly.

“We cannot teach our students what they need to know to be successful in their futures," she said. "We don’t know, we may never understand it, but what we can teach them is how to think quickly on their feet, how to exercise habits of mind and persistence and bring different kinds of problem solving approaches to bear on a problem, and move very quickly.”

While the first topic came up for a talk, some folks wondered about the state of the current subject matter in schools.

CEFF member Pauline Daglio offered as an example, whether middle school teams could focus around certain interests, rather than by grade. She also felt that it's important to teach kids to pull each other's emotional strengths from each other.

Sharon Wiggins, a librarian at Bell and a CEFF member, noted that students can be learning the same things first at the middle level, then again in high school.

"Life goes fast for them, but how much of their learning is repetitive?"

Wiggins also noted that there are other pressures, such as testing, that vie for students' attention.

When the talk shifted to creativity, the subgroup noted that coming up with a definition was a big challenge.

“We are really looking at creativity as it plays out across the disciplines, across the curriculum in everything that we do within the school," said Carolyn Ellwood, a teacher in the district.

Some tackled the question of feedback from others or the role failure plays.

"With failure there is a learning curve for picking yourself up," said school board member Karen Visser. She was the only one from the board at the event.

Helen Harrison asked whether opportunities could be structured for kids to demonstrate their creativity. She also felt that there should be a way to assess kids' creativity.

When discussion switched to social and emotional wellness, Greeley student and CEFF member Arielle Kahn noted that it can help in areas such as motivation, behaviors and performance.

Nancy Becerra, a health teacher at Greeley, worried about the impact that budget cuts are having on class sizes. She expressed concern about how larger classes would affect the connection between teachers and students.

Elyse Falk, the mother of a 5th-grade son at Seven Bridges, suggested as a good example to help students, a group session the fifth graders have with guidance counselors that include topics such as dealing with anger.

Martha Alcott, a librarian at the , noted that they are trying to create a stress-free space for teens, a place where they could be with their friends.

Going forward, McKay said the committee will make specific recommendations by the end of the school year. The plans are intended for the next 2-5 years, McKay explained.


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