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A BOY’S VOICE

March 14, 2013 in /by

Vance Wilson

Headmaster

St Albans School

In one of my past lives, I taught courses in creative writing. In these courses I often felt I was providing, not advice on how to write, but therapy. Nevertheless, I soldiered on for my paycheck.

The most essential concept a fledgling writer needs to understand and seek to master is voice. Most simply, voice is the personal, idiosyncratic, and distinctive way an artist puts words together—why William Faulkner doesn’t sound like Richard Wright and Maya Angelou doesn’t sound like Louise Glück.

SAFETY AND SECURITY IN OUR SCHOOLS

February 9, 2013 in /by

Richard T. Ewing, Jr. Ed.D.

Head of School

Norwood School

A school’s first obligation is to provide a safe and effective environment for student learning and growing. Unfortunately, we are reminded all too often that this is a difficult commitment to keep. Now, more than ever, everyone who cares about our schools and the people who populate them needs to participate in the national dialog about school safety and to understand that the issues involved relate not just to physical safety,

CHALLENGE OF ONLINE LEARNING IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS

January 2, 2013 in /by

Andrew Slater

Head of School

Edmund Burke School

One of the roles of a Head of School is to provide “the vision thing,” (to quote the first President Bush.) I try to be aware of emerging educational trends – what are parents reading about in the paper? What are teachers hearing about at conferences? As the head of a progressive school, it’s even more important for me to be up on the latest research because part of our mission is to incorporate proven innovations into our teaching.

MAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING ACCESSIBLE

October 19, 2012 in /by

Darlene Pierro

Head of School

McLean School of Maryland – www.mcleanschool.org

mclean-schoolJust how does a school make learning accessible in a discipline such as foreign language?  This has been both a challenge and a success at McLean, where our students bring varied learning styles and learning differences to the classroom and where our mission is to make learning accessible to a broad range of learners.

When McLean was a kindergarten through grade 9 school,

A LETTER TO PARENTS: GETTING THE RIGHT START FOR THE SCHOOL YEAR

August 13, 2012 in /by

John Thomas

Headmaster

Flint Hill School

Welcome back to another great year of learning!  The start of the school year is always a moment of great anticipation and excitement.  Whether your child is new to school, they are making a change and this is going to be their first experience in a particular school, or they are simply returning to their school after a fun-filled summer, this is going to be a very special moment for them.

NEUROSCIENCE IS INFORMING AND CHANGING EDUCATION

May 18, 2012 in /by

Katherine Schantz

Head of School

The Lab School of Washington

One of the greatest challenges for a head of school is to anticipate which of the advances in neuroscience, technology, psychology and cognitive sciences will transform the way we structure our schools, train our teachers, and educate our students.  Embedded in a society that is absorbing the impact of tremendous advances in these fields, we are constantly reassessing our beliefs about learning.   In the last few years,

PARENTING IS ON-THE-JOB TRAINING

March 4, 2012 in /by

Clayton W. Lewis

Head of School

Washington International School

If there is anything that has changed dramatically over the course of my educational career, other than technology, it is parenting. Being a parent has never been an easy role, but the demands seem to be ever increasing.

I have had lots of conversations with parents that suggest their high level of uncertainty about their role, or conversely, suggest a certainty that in itself can be problematic.

DO YOU WANT YOUR CHILD TO BE HAPPY ALL THE TIME?

January 5, 2012 in /by

Douglas Norry

Head of the Middle School

Landon School

Before coming to Landon, I taught and coached at Bryn Mawr, an all-girls independent school in Baltimore. During my first year there, I served as the assistant coach for a high school AAU basketball team. The head coach had more than thirty years experience, including many at the collegiate level; he even served on Tubby Smith’s staff at one point in his career. The team,