How Do We Learn Empathy? - Year 3, Week 31
This week our Spark learners enjoy nature and the outdoors on Earth Day while our Middle School studio begins work on their own ‘Pilot’ tv show episode! Meanwhile Our Highschool Studio deep dives into different areas of Psychology and learning more about themselves and others.
spark studio
I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in. -John Muir
We hope you had a blissful Earth Day. We spent the majority of our day outdoors using all of our senses. Feeling the sun's rays warmed us up and made us feel so good. We played, planted, created habitats for new bugs we encountered and simply enjoyed each other’s company. Research shows that nature simply makes us happy. Get outside in nature, slow down and take five deep breaths, reset and just be. It does a body good.
Our entomology studies are fascinating as we are observing the life cycles of the mealworm and hornworm. An observation station has been set up in the studio and we are using our field guides to write down our observations each day. It will be exciting to see what changes occur over the weekend.
Make everyday Earth Day!
elementary studio
Empathy begins with understanding life from another person's perspective. Nobody has an objective experience of reality. It's all through our own individual prisms. -Sterling K. Brown
The end of the year is traditionally a stressful time for children in this generation as they prepare for standardized testing, meeting deadlines to finalize grades, and continuing to balance their social responsibilities. At the Forest School, our learners experience the opposite! They are challenged daily to work just hard while actively receiving social-emotional tools through real-life experiences such as check-ins, goal setting, and conflict resolutions.
Check-ins are a sacred time each learner spends with their Guide. During this time, the learner is encouraged to think deeply about their year in totality and set goals that get them to the finish line. While aiming for these goals, learners may encounter disagreements with their fellow heroes. When this happens, they are presented with the opportunity to practice their conflict resolution skills. Instead of the end of the year being a crucial time, every session is a crucial time here at The Forest School. At the end of each session, learners reflect on their work so they can make the following session even better.
middle school studio
At The Forest School, all learners practice what we call the Story Arts (you can read more about our approach and partnerships here: https://www.storyarts.co). This means that learners in the MS Studio get practice all year long in what it means to be a storyteller. For many of us, our writing education in school looked like a seemingly endless collection of five-paragraph essays. Here, though, learners practice storytelling across multiple mediums, whether that is creating stop motion videos or writing a research brief on a science project.
This session, learners are working in teams to craft a 6-8 episode television miniseries. They have put together their own Writers' Rooms, studied exemplars on how to "break" a season of television into episodes, and have started scripting the first couple of episodes. Along the way, they will receive feedback from industry experts (this week, they pitched their shows and received feedback from Ben Ward at 7Arts Consultancy).
The session will culminate with teams filming and showcasing the 'pilot' episode of their tv shows!
This project is just one way learners will practice their communication skills this session. They will also write pitches to local business leaders seeking apprenticeships, reflect on their learning this year by conducting an After Action Review to share with parents, conduct multiple science experiments and write up research briefs on their findings, and summarize their learning in Civilization by writing a brief history of the world. In all of these instances, writing is seen as a tool — a way to accomplish real work in the world. That's a far cry from spending class time writing essay after essay to no one in particular.
high school studio
Our first impressions are generated by our experiences and our environment, which means that we can change our first impressions . . . by changing the experiences that comprise those impressions. -Malcolm Gladwell
This week in the high school studio heroes dissected the difference between nature versus nurture and meaningless versus happiness. In addition they worked through the five stages of grief, change, and addiction recovery. Heroes continue to work through science experiments as they worked with partners to create A scientific storyboard using the scientific method. For civilization they created plans that showcase what productive conversations around sex education should look and feel like for today’s youth.
As we look to next week, heroes will continue to work simultaneously with the guide to build out and track completed courses as we formulated the final transcript. Parents, guardians, and caregivers continue to support and encourage your learner as they work hard to finish the end of the school year strong.
-Onward
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