On the Same Page

The University of Chicago Laboratory Schools

Communications from the Director

On the Same Page: All Kinds of Minds

December 1, 2005
David W. Magill, Director

One of the Laboratory Schools' best decisions was to invite Dr. Mel Levine to speak with parents and teachers about his ideas to help struggling learners succeed in school. This first occurred in Spring 2001 and, shortly thereafter, our first cohort of teachers was trained in his Schools Attuned program. Fourteen members of our faculty traveled to Michigan where they were equipped with new knowledge, skills, and strategies to make sound and defensible judgments regarding the instructional practices needed for children who exhibit learning differences.

Since that first year, an additional forty-four of our teachers have been trained during the summers and, better yet, right in our own facilities. We have become the professional development site for the Schools Attuned Program in the greater Chicago area. Much of this training has been made possible by the generous gifts of some of our own parents. It is my hope that future professional development opportunities for our faculty will continue to increase so that we may serve our students even more knowledgeably.

From my perspective, this is an exemplary program because it continues to be developed in coordination with the standards of the National Staff Development Council and other research findings. Rather than trying to provide answers for a complex problem, the Schools Attuned program creates a framework to think about learning. It helps teachers to describe behavior more clearly rather than place labels on children. It demands collaboration among all of the child's caregivers and the educational diagnosticians. Because the program is updated continually to reflect the most current brain research findings, I don't see this program as a quick fix, typical of so many past educational innovations.

For those interested in digging deeper into Dr. Levine's "neurodevelopmental constructs," I encourage him or her to read the monthly newsletters found on his organization's website (www.allkindsofminds.com)

This month's guest writer is Sylvie Anglin, a third-grade teacher in the Lower School. She is among many of our gifted teachers who really want to find the right connection with each child assigned to her classroom. I know that she would encourage any faculty and staff member to enroll in the Schools Attuned training and to stay current with what is emerging from the field of brain research and learning.

Next month's On the Same Page—Albert C. Barnes, John Dewey and the Arts

A Third-Grade Teacher's Journal

by Sylvie Anglin

I'm in my classroom before school, wandering through a room bathed in sunlight and deliciously quiet. I go through the rituals of writing up the schedule for the day in white and yellow chalk, organizing writing folders and math books while thinking about my curriculum for the week. Learning in my classroom is full of noise and movement, and I relish the stillness before opening the door for the students. Once the door is open, the room fills with twenty-three children, and all of their energy, ambition, curiosity, hopes, and fears flow in with them. What kind of day will it be for each of us?

I teach third grade at Lab Schools. Having taught first, second, and fourth grades here as well, I must say that that some of the biggest challenges our students face are in third grade. Their school day lengthens, the number of special-area classes increases, and the much-anticipated homework begins. They are asked to be more independent and organized, and the demand for higher levels of understanding increases. As a teacher, I find myself facing a class with a wide range of abilities and interests, and my very important task is to make school compelling and fulfilling for each student. There are twenty-four minds at work in my room, and all of them work differently. Knowing how each one works and how each one learns best is what makes my job so interesting and so difficult.

I went through the Schools Attuned training two summers ago here at Lab Schools. I was introduced to the different ways that minds work and how educators and parents can use that understanding to help children who struggle in school. The principles of the Schools Attuned program address the need to respect neurodevelopmental diversity; to begin to understand each child's strengths and weaknesses; to collaborate meaningfully with professionals, parents, and students; to help students understand their strengths and weaknesses; and to celebrate and value all the different kinds of minds that create our classrooms and our world (from Mel Levine's All Kinds of Minds). The program struck a chord with me, and as I continue to learn about these principles, I find myself noticing the diversity of minds in the world at large, not just in my classroom.

The challenge, then, comes back to the classroom. How do I develop a meaningful, child-centered, John Dewey-inspired curriculum and apply all that I've learned about different minds? First, I work with my own strengths and those of my students. We learn about what we are interested in and work on skills that will help us explore those interests at a deeper level. Even so, children are often expected to be good at more than the things they are strong in or have an affinity for, and there are many who struggle on a daily basis. These struggling children may have weaknesses in attention, language, memory, or neuromotor functions. They may want to learn, they may be excited about what we are learning, but they still struggle. The more I understand about how their minds work, the better I can help them to learn and feel successful in our classroom. Thankfully, I don't have to do this on my own.

Mel Levine says that "no single source has all the answers" and that meaningful collaboration among teachers, specialists, and parents is the best way to understand and manage a student's learning differences. There is a natural flow to the years in the Lower School, and I began learning about this year's students before school started by talking with their second-grade teachers. These professionals were especially helpful when sharing what they knew about their students' affinities and strengths, and what strategies or accommodations worked well for each student during second grade. In addition to this wealth of knowledge, I met and continue to meet regularly with the Learning and Counseling team to discuss the children in my classroom with learning differences. These meetings might include sharing observations, reviewing reports or testing results, brainstorming and/or evaluating strategies and accommodations, or planning for meetings or further communication with outside specialists and parents. Perhaps the most crucial role to meaningful collaboration is that of the parents, who can be the child's best advocates and our greatest resource for information and feedback. It is the parents who see the whole child grow and develop throughout the years in the Lower School, and with positive parental involvement and support we have a much better chance to provide each child with what they need to succeed.

One of the results from testing and collaborating with specialists is that each child might have a file of test results, observations, or accommodations to review that are pages and pages thick. It can become overwhelming when you have a handful of children all of whom have recommendations for accommodations. What I have discovered is that many of the most common (and helpful) accommodations are already in place as a result of being aware of how different minds work. We take stretching breaks, we visualize, we keep lists, we move around. We celebrate those strengths that make us eager to come to school and use them to stay interested and invested. We set goals, and we reflect regularly on our learning. Parents and outside specialists, as well, take on the challenge of accommodating their children's learning needs at home. It takes everyone working together to be successful.

This work is never done. As one of my colleagues says, "each child is a work in progress," and it's important to remember that this is only one year out of the lifetime it takes to understand ourselves and our place in the world. My students teach me every day how to be a better teacher and a better person. We all struggle with different weaknesses. Some of us have to work extra hard to be organized, to remember things, or to express ourselves. Those students in my class who have to work perhaps harder than others because of their weaknesses are my inspiration to work harder myself. We combine all of our strengths and weaknesses to make our learning community as diverse and interesting as the twenty-four minds that live and work here.