That Day the Next Santiago Calatrava Was Born
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FALL 2016 A PUBLICATION OF SHANGHAI AMERICAN SCHOOL THAT DAY THE NEXT SANTIAGO CALATRAVA WAS BORN. Preparing for the Future A PUBLICATION OF SHANGHAI AMERICAN SCHOOL FALL 2016 Managing Editor Director of Marketing & Communications The Eagle Review© is published three times a year—fall, spring, and Abigail Torres Kevin Lynch summer—by the Shanghai American School Marketing and Commu- nications Office. Information in the magazine is primarily about the Editor Staff SAS community. We encourage alumni, students, parents, teachers, Cristin Merker Kendall Sternberg and administrators to submit articles and photography for consid- Suzanne Loo eration to: [email protected]. All submissions will be edited for style, length, and tone. Designers Fredrik Jönsson Pudong Campus: Shanghai Links Executive Community, 1600 Cindy Wang Lingbai Road, Sanjiagang, Pudong New Area, Shanghai 201201. Telephone: 6221-1445. Puxi Campus: 258 Jinfeng Road, Huacao Town, Minhang District, Shanghai 201107. Telephone: 6221-1445. Above: Ms. Fishman’s grade 8 homebase class enjoyed visting The Bund this past September for their annual middle school bonding day. One day each year our middle school homebase classes take time to bond through fun adventures throughout the city to help them create a close knit community that will help them navigate through the challenges of becoming a teenager. Fall 2016 8 Preparing for the Future I NSIDE SAS We can’t predict the future, so how can we prepare our students for it so they are able to live From the Head of 4 and succeed? We answer this question and showcase through our stories how exactly we are School preparing our students for the future. From the Desk of... 5 News and Updates 6 IN EACH ISSUE A Closer Look 16 Student Voices 30 From the Archives 34 12 An Eagle at the Olympics 22 A Family Tradition What’s better than watching the Olym- We all have family traditions that have pics on TV, surrounded by family and been passed down through the generations. friends? BEING at the Olympics! Follow How do they start? We asked some of our one of our Eagles on her Olympic adven- students who are creating their very own. tures. 10 American Canvas 14 Modern Math Why read a history textbook when you One lesson was all it took to start a new can write and design one yourself? That’s conversation between a student and a exactly what our Innovation Institute teacher—one far beyond any human students did. language. The Eagle Review | 3 INSIDE SAS A Different World BY MARCEL G. GAUTHIER, HEAD OF SCHOOL I had a conversation with a friend the other day about a poem we both had enjoyed teaching in the past: The Writer, by Richard Wilbur. In that poem, the speaker offers an image to describe the sound of his daughter furiously typing a story on a typewriter in her room: like a chain hauled over a gunwale, he says. The problem, if we were to teach this poem today, is that students would not be able to connect with the image. The sound of a typewriter is not part of their experience...unless they Google it and listen to a typewriter from a movie clip on Youtube. From the My friend and I reflected on how things have changed since we were students. Different technology, different experience in school, different world. A student in his senior year recently told me that “middle-schoolers are a different generation.” When I voiced confu- sion, he said, “they use totally different apps than we do! We don’t even speak the same language!” Yup—different world. Head of School Perhaps too much has been written about the fact that we are educating our students in this new information-age economy for jobs that do not yet exist. Ongoing changes in social media, smartphone technology, and internet “cloud” management are creating new jobs as we speak. I would argue, however, that the quote “the more things change, the more they stay the same” still applies. What has not changed? Students are looking for meaning in the world around them and a purpose for their efforts. They thrive on creative opportunity, on supportive mentoring, on productive challenge; they thrive in an envi- ronment that allows for safe exploration and the opportunity to apply their learning in real-life ways. When we are recruiting teachers at SAS, one of our mantras is this: if you think you have all the answers already, don’t teach at SAS. We believe strongly that the best teachers never stop learning themselves, are constantly modeling the very zeal we hope our students will show as well. We commit to being a community of continuous learners, students and teachers alike, all engaged in building a platform for a meaningful present—and a successful future. And so in this issue of the Eagle Review, we focus on that future: on students empowered to learn and create and on the teachers who engage them. Whether it be applying learning in a computer programming class, starting one’s own record label, writing a book about America’s founding ideals, or teaching math from a conceptual framework, SAS is committed to igniting a “lifelong passion for learning.” I hope you too will be inspired by the following stories and the vibrant learning environment that is SAS. The future is at hand, and we are embracing it. Sincerely, Marcel G. Gauthier Head of School 4 | The Eagle Review INSIDE SAS Preparing Our Students for the Future BY EMMANUEL BONIN, DEPUTY HEAD OF SCHOOL FOR EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS hanghai American School prides itself for being a true operating in isolation from one another. They From the learning organization. In order to fulfill their obligation go back to their classes better equipped to help to students, teachers must commit to their own lifelong students meet their full potential. passion for learning. At SAS, investing in building our staff SAS also invests significantly in building Scapacity is a major way to make a direct impact on our students’ relationships with education consultants who experience in the classroom. We do it by following research-based visit the School, its classrooms, and give work- best practice and guidelines for what Dr. Webster-Wright (2009) of shops on a regular basis. We recently welcomed University of Queensland calls “authentic professional learning”. consultancies on Project Based Learning, It is common across all professions for practitioners to con- mathematics, and our English as an Additional Desk of ... tinue to learn on an ongoing basis. Anyone would probably feel Language (EAL) programs. This approach uncomfortable trusting their health to a doctor functioning solely allows for continuous professional learning on the skills and knowledge that he or she learned in medical and guarantees it is contextualized and applied school 25 years ago. Knowledge just a decade old would not have in our classrooms. More teachers are involved been sufficient for architects to build the brand new Shanghai in the same learning opportunity, and thus Tower. And engineers who design self-driving cars of the future able to work together more efficiently, than are using more than what they acquired in high school or college. when sending individuals to outside work- These professionals have in common the need and appetite for con- shops throughout the world. They can support tinuous learning. At SAS, our teachers share the same appetite, and one another with the implementation of new the school provides them with ample opportunities to satisfy it. thinking and practices. In doing so, we ensure that professional learning is authen- Nonetheless, SAS still sends teams of tic, meaning that it is ongoing, active, social, and related to the teachers to some of the best professional learn- practice of teaching. In order to meet these criteria, professional ing opportunities offered in our networks, learning must happen in the workplace, and inform ongoing including Advanced Placement (AP) and Inter- professional conversations between teachers. This is why SAS is national Baccalaureate (IB) workshops. There, currently focusing on creating collaborative teacher teams, which teachers gain valuable insights in the latest may use the framework of professional learning communities. On findings of educational research and practice. September 16-18, SAS held a successful three-day Institute on They also sometimes present as speakers or building professional learning communities attended by more than trainers and contribute to spreading the word 350 teachers from all over Asia, the Middle East, Australia, and of excellence in education at SAS. Africa, including 235 SAS faculty. With keynotes and breakout Finally, many of our faculty members are pursuing graduate sessions given by some of the world’s most renowned specialists, degrees. Since 2007, the school has developed a partnership with the Institute provided the foundational knowledge and skills our Plymouth State University, and over 60 teachers received a master teachers need to go back to their teams and develop collaborative in curriculum and instruction from its college of graduate studies. practice. But, the learning did not stop on September 18. Teachers We are proud of the excellence of our teachers and proud of will continue to meet on a weekly basis in small groups, sometimes our continuous efforts to develop capacity in our teams. With subject-based, sometimes by grade level, and sometimes in larger authentic professional learning, teachers are best prepared to make K-12 groups. Their work is facilitated by teacher leaders, instruc- a significant difference in the life of our students. tional coaches, and administrators who ensure that it is related to proven practices and will improve student learning. Richard References: Elmore (2002) of Harvard University suggests that this is critical to Elmore, R.