September/October 2024 Ted Talks: What do we mean by Academic Excellence?

Ted Graf, Head of School
An Example from Project Week.
Imagine you’re an eighth grader and one day in December, ten days before winter break, you walk nonchalantly into one of your classes; let’s imagine it to be math. Everyone gets settled and a fellow student leads the class in Centering. It’s a gentle and typical Headwaters day—there’s laughter, wonder, and connection. The guide thanks the student who centered the class, checks in and asks, “How’s your energy and stamina today? How has your morning been?” Following the din of responses, she says, “One of my jobs is to challenge you, to push you out of your comfort zones, to test your ability to apply your math skills, your drawing skills, your organizational skills, and your fine motor skills. So, your assignment is the following and you have about ten weeks to complete this while you’re doing all of your other school work:”


  1. Choose a building on our campus that has meaning for you. In other words, you love the building and hope it stands forever.
  2. Draw it inside and out as best you can. Know it well, including the nooks and crannies. Sketch it and explore it from all angles.
  3. Research the building you chose and learn as much about it as you can, including the dimensions and floor plans. You may be able to get these details from Facilities and/or the Business Office. It’s also possible they may not have them, so if that’s the case, you’re going to have to measure the building yourself.
  4. Make a work plan for recreating this building to scale but as a 2-foot by 3-foot LEGO model.
  5. Collect and find the LEGO bricks of the right sizes, paint them to match the color of the building. You may not send the dimensions or photos of the building to LEGO.
  6. Assemble the model.
  7. Display and present it at Project Week Fair, then publicly reflect on your efforts, the product itself, and what you learn about your capacity for managing a multi-step project.
Just so you know, this was not an assignment “given” by a guide to a student. Rather, it is an “assignment” conceived of and imagined by a student, with the support of their guides and advisor. The student gave it to themselves during eighth grade and what turned out to be their culminating project for Project Week.
 


Earlier this fall, and in order to explore what we mean by academic excellence, I brought this model to faculty meetings and asked the guides to study the model closely, to offer observations about the piece of student work, to consider and imagine what the student might have been working on, and to reflect on what about the model makes it excellent. Here are some of their observations:
  • Remarkable attention to detail.
  • The attention to detail reflects a degree of patience and executive function skills.
  • Remarkable knowledge of the building.
  • Lots of evidence of self-motivation and intrinsic motivation.
  • Manifestations of originality and problem-solving.
  • Application of different areas of content.
  • Inventive and creative choices in that the roofs are hinged so the viewer can see inside the building.
  • And they offered that only a student who had love for the building (and probably the school) could devote themselves in this way.
As we navigate this school year together, we are collecting examples of excellence from across the campuses. We want to celebrate the inspiring work made by students, but it’s also so we can explore and explain what’s happening in our classrooms. When our students are propelled by curiosity and grounded in empathy, they can do a lot, and we believe this prepares them for any challenges that life may bring their way.

Our focus on excellence will continue all year, and our intention is to craft a definition and build a common understanding among the faculty of how our programs stretch and challenge our students. Because we create education WITH our students, it’s important that we celebrate their work and listen to their voices.

If you witness or experience an excellent project, event, activity, assignment, performance, art work, film, publication, or presentation, take a photo of it and send it to academicbrightspots@headwaters.org. As the year unfolds, we’ll share them and share our thinking about excellence as it evolves.




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