STILL WATERS RUN DEEP

Education today can be like a vernal pool – a rich environment teeming with information ready to be explored. Yet many teachers in Lexington yearn to search the deeper waters where the more thoughtful learning hides. When given opportunities outside the classroom, teachers and students alike can make discoveries which are profound, unexpected, and as varied as the settings themselves.

Spend one evening with the Boston Book Club, twenty-five Diamond Middle School students and families who gather monthly in Roxbury for a lively book discussion and you’ll see what can happen. In the two years since LEF funded the book club, there have been gratifying surprises: a doubling in attendance and a nearly even distribution between Boston and Lexington families. But for seventh-grade teacher and book club co-founder Alice Madio, the most unexpected occurrence is her changed perception of students. “I now expect more of students whom I previously perceived as quiet and withdrawn. And I believe that my showing that expectation, which is a form of respect, elicits their participation. It is as if the ice had been broken.”

Yet, it’s harder than ever for educators to find the time and resources for activities that lead to this deeper understanding. State and federal mandates shape the curriculum and high-stakes testing holds teachers accountable. In turn, the daunting amount of information requires teachers “to be more nimble in finding ways to cover material,” noted Vito LaMura, a 31-year veteran teacher and President of the Lexington Education Association. Combine stringent academic requirements with diminishing school budgets and there is a shrinking opportunity for innovation, with teachers and students losing out.

That’s where LEF comes in. “Bringing creative ideas and curricular approaches is what LEF does best,” said LaMura, as “the opportunities to pursue ideas that teachers are passionate about are fewer and fewer.” With LEF grants and fellowships, Lexington educators are able to explore these unscripted moments, with positive benefits for students.

Time with colleagues can also yield the unexpected. In the summer of 2005, forty Lexington teachers from diverse disciplines spent a week with a drum master for the LEF grant Facilitating Drum Circles. Since then, drum circles have been used throughout the school system to teach academic subjects, build community, alleviate post-MCAS stress, and facilitate staff meetings. During the initial training, however, teachers learned something which had little to do with percussion. Because participants ranged from the musically gifted to the challenged, teachers gained perspective on how students cope with risk. One teacher voiced what many colleagues experienced, “We now understand even more what we often ask of students – to go out of their comfort zone and to try something hard.” In multiple ways, this LEF grant continues to resonate throughout the schools.

For Lexington High School guidance counselor Melissa Buttaro, her opportunity came in the form of a 2006 Summer Fellowship in England. “Without LEF, I wouldn’t have applied” for the Oxford Round Table Seminar, said Buttaro. During the week-long session she made a presentation on the LHS approach to prepare students and parents for the college application process. While attending workshops and lectures and sharing perspectives on post-secondary education with participants from around the world, she took a fresh look at how the guidance department helps students make the right choices for life after LHS. It was an insightful personal experience and allowed Buttaro to “grow professionally, expand my horizons and promote Lexington High School and its students.”

While Buttaro took in the rarefied air of Oxford, 2006 Summer Fellow Rick Comeau breathed the much thinner air at the summit of New England’s highest peak. For five weeks, Comeau interned at the Mount Washington Observatory, where he immersed himself in scientific exploration, an opportunity that changed both his sixth-grade science classroom and his teaching. “LEF helps teachers think expansively about what teaching can look like, and values things that cannot necessarily be measured,” he explained.

With excellent teachers and programs, Lexington schools provide students with the tools to navigate the broad shores of learning. Because of the partnership with LEF, these broad shores have become launching points for educators to expand teaching in its depth and breadth.