Dear Friends- One snowy day in Elementary School I was in trouble for something (Talking in class? Getting out of my seat? Not paying attention?) and my punishment was to spend the hour inside quietly in the Library while my friends played outdoors. This short-sighted attempt to teach me a lesson ended up having unexpected consequences. As I wandered around the the stacks of books that day, I stumbled upon a small private nook that housed a phonograph and small collection of

Dear Friends- It is a tough time of year to talk about the idea of community. It is easy in these winter months for us to feel like we are in a physical and spiritual state of hibernation, waiting for the arctic cold and constant snow to fade into spring time so that we can come out and play together once again! I am eager to note, however, that the Randolph School community has been able to rise up in activity over these last few months, and our students, teachers, and paren

Dear Friends- I feel heartened by the increasingly mainstream public discussion of the benefits of approaches to education that are not focused on standardization and high stakes testing. Recently, an article from the Washington Post challenged the troublesome trend of expecting all children to learn to read at the same age (and more specifically, in Kindergarten). The article drew heavily from a recently released report that also cites studies showing greater long-term acade