Deeper Learning: The Conference and the Connections that Followed
At the end of March, I attended the Deeper Learning conference, which took place at High Tech High’s campus in San Diego. This was my first time at Deeper Learning, and I got a good sense of why this is an important gathering for progressive educators throughout the...
read moreWhy I Want to Speak on College Campuses
I wrote When Grit Isn’t Enough for lots of reasons. As I got into the writing and research, I began to realize that one of the main reasons I was writing was to help influence the way college financial aid and student success offices do their business and work with...
read moreReflections from Chile
In the south of Chile, there’s a small town, Frutillar, named for the abundance of wild strawberries that grew there years ago. The town was originally settled in the 1900s by German cattle and sheep farmers (the Chilean government wanted to increase the population in...
read moreBrought Together Through Music and Lang Lang
Lang Lang walked into the room, dressed in a snappy red t-shirt with a black front pocket and black border trim, and a black jacket, high-fiving the wide-eyed students who had been waiting for him. His entrance was rock star-like—not the way I think of a classical...
read moreBack at School Again
After two years in full-time academia, I am back in a school. It feels right. Labor Day and the ritual of children returning to school are, once again, part of my daily world. I am the newly appointed Executive Director of the Center for Artistry and Scholarship (The...
read moreDesign Comes Alive
During the last week of the school year, thanks to the support of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and TERC, we were able to select three artist-engineers to work with our 9th grade Engineering classes for "Design Comes Alive." The projects culminated in...
read moreCelebration of Fernadina Chan
On Saturday, June 23, we celebrated a remarkable woman and educator as she retired from BAA: Fernadina Chan. I have the privilege of working with some of the most amazing teachers at Boston Arts Academy, and it was an honor to celebrate Fern at The Boston Conservatory...
read moreIntervention into Personalization
One of the ten common principles of the Coalition of Essential Schools is personalization. This is explained as: “Teaching and learning should be personalized to the maximum feasible extent… the goal is that no teacher has direct responsibility for more than 80...
read moreAlvin Ailey
Saturday's Boston Globe ran an article on the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (they performed at the Citi Wang Theatre Thursday through Sunday last week.) Many may not have known that two Alvin Ailey dancers (Kirven Boyd and Belen Estrada) are graduates of Boston...
read moreBoston Marathon
Boston Arts Academy is now in our second year of a three-year relationship with the Boston Athletic Association as an official charity of the Boston Marathon... We have a dynamic team of 15 running the marathon on Monday, April 16- they have already raised over...
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