Distinguished Honor with 22-24 points (~top 1%)
22 -Cameron C.

Honor Roll with 17-21 points (~top 5%)
21 – Spoorthi B.
20 – Monica A., Kevin H.
19 – Jeremy C., Lior H., Ansh J., Avery P.
18 – David K., Philip L., Lexi N., Devon P., Sophie P., Nicholas P.
17 – Jordan D., Alex G., Eric H., Steven S.

On Friday, February 10, the Junior Division prepared 100 lunches for families staying at Mainspring House, a homeless shelter in Brockton. Mainspring House is a program that helps people obtain a home by giving temporary shelter and food, finding safe and affordable housing, and providing permanent housing with supportive services.

On Friday, January 27, Sage’s Kindergarten class went on a field trip to the Museum of Natural History & Planetarium in Providence, RI. This field trip was funded by a grant that Kindergarten teacher, Manisha Jain, received through a Sage parent that is a Harvard Pilgrim Health Care employee.

About the Community Spirit 9/11 Mini-Grants Program:
Harvard Pilgrim Health Care created it to commemorate the first anniversary of September 11, 2001 through a special contribution to its Foundation. The Foundation administers this special fund and distributes the Mini-Grants to non-profit organizations that Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Health Plans Inc. and Dell Perot employees nominate. Since 2002, hundreds of Harvard Pilgrim, Health Plans Inc. and Dell Perot employees have had their Mini-Grants approved — benefiting schools, social service, and cultural and other community-based organizations where our employees live and work. Just last year, we distributed more than $370,000 in Mini-Grants throughout Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

Sage second graders were each given an iPad for the 2011-2012 school year as part of an experiment to see if mobile devices could enhance learning at Sage.

Sage is committed to helping shape global citizens. We want our students not only to be curious about the world and its people, but to be educated, as well. It is so rewarding to be able to offer such a variety of opportunities and experiences to our students in an effort to open more doors to the world. In addition to recently hosting The Flamenco Dance Project (www.flamencodanceproject.com), we are excited to be sponsoring several exciting opportunities in the coming month.

International Night: Monday, February 13

Sage will be holding our second annual International Night, an evening designed to celebrate the world and our collective cultures. Students and families are invited to come by to sample some tasty international dishes, hear new music, enjoy student performances, and have a great time!

International Visitor dates: February 6 – February 16

Additionally, Jenn Tanner, Sage’s Foreign Language Department Chair and Spanish Teacher, has been selected as a recipient of a fellowship administered by the American Councils for International Education, a division of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (partner organization of the Commission for Educational Exchange – Fulbright Commission) of the U.S. Department of State. This particular grant is an educator exchange. In February, Sage will host an international educator from Uruguay for approximately two weeks. Then, in July, Ms. Tanner will travel to Uruguay for several weeks. The main goals of this exchange are to increase international understanding, and to share teaching techniques and classroom methodology.

Ignored: Gifted Children in Massachusetts

On this particular day, our kindergarten class was studying the short o vowel sound, the sound we hear in box, fox, outside, or socks. After an exciting lesson together on the rug, (imagine a teacher who can make vowels exciting!) some students completed a practice exercise compiling a small book, and in this book, they read about and drew many strange animals and objects, each inside a box. As I watched those students hard at work, one drawing a big gorilla to put into a box, I realized that I was doing exactly the opposite, stepping outside my classroom box.

Palmer says that, “[w]hen we walk into our workplace, the classroom, we close the door on our colleagues. When we emerge, we rarely talk about what happened or what needs to happen next, for we have no shared experience to talk about. Then, instead of calling this the isolationism it is and trying to overcome it, we claim it as a virtue called “academic freedom”: my classroom is my castle, and the sovereigns of other fiefdoms are not welcome here” (142). Whether or not I agree with the latter part of his reflection is a subject for another day, but it is true that the nature of our profession is such that we usually have few opportunities to see our fellow teachers at work.

My pre-holiday observations were a part of our faculty development/evaluation at Sage. While the process is still quite new for us, the classroom visit portion basically goes like this: each teacher is assigned an intense observation team every three years, and team members are to observe that teacher at least twice during the year. My work life has been a little crazy lately, so I didn’t schedule my recent observation times until the last minute. Yet instead of resistance about visiting their “castles,” both of my colleagues, a kindergarten teacher and a 4th/5th grade math teacher, were most gracious, warmly welcoming me to watch them at work. In doing so, they not only moved toward melting their own isolation, they also gave me an opportunity to share my experience and dissolve my own seclusion.

If I had to choose one word to describe both of my colleagues that day it would be joyful. Of course, teachers are always a little nervous having someone observe, but it was clear that after a few minutes, the kids fully absorbed all their attention, and I was forgotten. The enthusiasm of these teachers and the conversations and writing that followed my visits energized my return to my own students. The same has been true for every observation I have been privileged to complete over the last two and a half years. While ostensibly the process is intended to help the teacher being observed, I benefitted as much or maybe even more.

So thanks to Julie, Rick, Gina, Shauna, Manisha, and Gary, the teachers I have been privileged to observe since we started this process at Sage. Along with those folks who inspired me as a young girl, they have reminded me of what is best in the classroom, even though they teach completely different age levels and subjects from my own. The content doesn’t really matter; rather, it is the teaching. In sharing their experiences, they have made me a better teacher.

Posted by Sandra Cordes-Vaughan, Middle School Division Leader/Humanities Teacher

Article source: http://asageteacher.blogspot.com/2011/12/outside-box-part-2-my-colleagues.html