Summer Work: Hackley Professional Development

Willie Teacher (US Drama), Michael Canterino (US English), Jessica Migliore (MS English), and Richard Robinson (English Chair) attended a two-day workshop with performers and instructors from the Royal Shakespeare Company hosted at Horace Mann. Grounded not only in the RSC’s traditional approach of close-reading by means of acting, but also in current research on the role of play and varied activities in learning, the workshop allowed teachers to experience firsthand a series of exercises that help students explore Shakespeare’s use of language, character motivation, the nature of character interactions, and the deeper significance of a text intended not to be read but to be seen in action on a stage. Instruction explored approaches appropriate to varying age groups.

Roy Sheldon (Chinese), Mary Murray-Jones (LS), Jessica Migliore (MS English), Cassandra Hatcher (PE/Health), Steve Fitzpatrick (MS/US History), Jenny Leffler (US English), Andy King (US Director) and Charles Colten (Wellbeing/Health) attended the University of Pennsylvania Positive Psychology and Resiliency Project, where they participated in three days of intensive training in strategies and skills to help students build resilience and “grit.” As part of the program, they explored applications for multiple settings to enhance academics, athletics and arts.

Richard Robinson (English) and Rebecca Garfield (Spanish, MS Dean) attended a five-day workshop at the Omega Institute in Rheinbeck New York. Focused on strategies for incorporating mindfulness techniques into the classroom and exploring the importance of mindfulness as a component of a twenty-first century curriculum, the workshop was led by Daniel Rechtschaffen, author of The Way of Mindful Education. Sessions explored how to introduce meditation and other mindfulness methods into the classroom, not as add-ons, but as ways to help students to clear away the clutter of stressful multitasking and to focus on the work of learning, to help students deal with emotional crises, and to help students think more clearly not only as scholars but also as ethical and engaged members of the community.


Willie Teacher (US Drama) and Bettie-Ann Candelora (Director of Performing Arts) attended a 10-day Intensive at Yale University in July to study theatrical directing. Sixteen Theatrical Directors from across the globe were selected for the program to study Directing, Design, Text, Stage Management, Movement and Vocal Production with Yale Drama professors. Students additionally studied three scripts-The Winter’s Tale, House of Blue Leaves and The Glass Menagerie as part of their course work, and saw and analyzed a production of The Winter’s Tale at the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival. Directors were presented a certificate at the completion of the course.

Chris McColl (Admissions), Karen Beatty (Business Office/Financial Aid) and Peter McAndrew (Director of Finance) attended the SSS (School and Student Service by NAIS) Financial Aid leadership conference in Denver in the last week of July. The conference was divided into three components: a day and a half “Institute for New Financial Aid Professionals,” which provided Karen a great opportunity to learn the process and to gear up for her new role; a day and a half “Advanced Tax Workshop,” in which the three spent time exploring complex case studies of families with elaborate financial circumstances and working to ascertain their true need; and a two-day “School Leaders Forum,” in which they, along with a room full of other FA Directors, Admissions and Enrollment Directors, and Heads, tackled practical and philosophical realities facing our schools and the implications of these realities for our financial aid budgets and families.

Individual Pursuits
Suzy Akin (Communications, English) completed her MA in English at the Middlebury Bread Loaf School of English. Her work this summer concentrated on James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, and in creative non-fiction writing.

Melissa Boviero (MS Science) started a NYSAIS leadership program called the Emerging Leaders Institute, or ELI. The ELI program is a cohort program for educators in NYSAIS schools who have demonstrated leadership and are interested in further leadership training. The two year program consists of 18 participants, and includes participating in an accreditation committee, monthly virtual discussions, attending various conferences, and a mentorship with a head of school.

Nicole Butterfield (MS/US English) began a MasterClass online workshop in novel writing with James Patterson.

Thomas Chin (Visual Arts) spent the summer in Exeter, English, and traveled to nearby towns to draw sceneries of nature and architecture. A highlight was a visit to Emsworthy Valley inside the Dartmoor National Park where he enjoyed the intertwining of the rolling moors with large rocks on hilltops intercepting white puffy clouds, while sheep and cows strolled freely among the lush green fields. The park includes Widecombe, the site of Steven Spielberg’s film The War Horse, with elegant windy roads flanked by farms, small houses and the Church of Saint Pancras, as seen in the movie. He sketched in Teignmouth, Topsham, Totnes, Plymouth, Powderham, Kenton, and Newton Abbott, visited Dartmouth, where he took the paddle steamer on the River Dart, traveled to Cornwall, and enjoyed a ride along the English Channel where the lovely scenery was reminiscent of paintings by Turner and George Inness and seemed untouched by time and progress. In additional to his drawings, he took many landscape photos, and he looks forward to expanding the focus on landscape photography in his Upper School Photography classes while adding a nature drawing component in his sixth grade art curriculum.

Charles Colten (Wellbeing/Heath) attended a three day intensive Character Lab course, learning classroom applications for teaching, nurturing and reinforcing character strengths, and networking with other character educators. He continued studies with his Aikido teachers and designed and taught a two day international seminar in Teaching Aikido to Children in Stockholm, Sweden, bridging best practices in education with best practices in the physical and martial arts. He designed and taught a 3-day Leadership Training and Communication Skills in Dallas, Texas- to 140 students and 12 faculty members at a new Cristo Rey School in Dallas, Texas, and designed and taught several weekend-long Aikido seminars for Adult practitioners in California, Vermont, and Louisiana. Meanwhile, on campus, he collaborated with Hackley faculty, staff, and administration on the Lower School Garden Project, which integrates science, language arts, math, music, art, and sustainability into a comprehensive program for all Lower School Students K-4, continued to collaborate to modernize the Health Curriculum, worked to bring recycling stations to the Middle and Upper Schools, and last but not least, moved his office! You can now find him on the second floor of the main building…between the development and communications offices.

James Flanigan (US English) completed his penultimate summer of graduate work toward his Masters degree at the Middlebury Bread Loaf School of English. While earning the championship in competitive team bocce on the side, he completed coursework in poetry studies and American Literature Post 1945, writing on William Blake, Wallace Stevens, James Baldwin and Thomas Pynchon.

Jason Gilley (US Science) continued work on his Masters in Chemistry Education at Western Governors University.

Sue Harmon (LS) completed The Bureau of Education & Research course: Meaningful Independent Literacy Centers and Activities to Keep Students Learning, Grades 3-6. She completed 45+ hours of summer grant work based on that course as well as a previous course, Heinemann's Teaching Reading in Small Groups, K-6. She completed summer grant work in the these areas, including extensive research with a final project in the form of a binder which includes both Independent Reading and Literacy Center lessons, activities, and projects. She read the book, Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul, by Stuart Brown, MD, which illustrates that "play is anything but trivial. It is a biological drive as integral to our health as sleep or nutrition. We are designed by nature to flourish through play…..Backed by the latest research, Play explains why play is essential to our social skills, adaptability, intelligence, creativity, ability to problem solve and more. Particularly in tough times, we need to play more than ever, as it's the very means by which we prepare for the unexpected, search out new solutions, and remain optimistic….” She also continued her work in how to incorporate mindfulness activities and meditations into every day school life.

In late June, Walter Johnson (Headmaster) attended the annual conference of the Country Day School Headmasters Association, held this year at the University of Virginia. Each year this association meets at different colleges and universities, to meet their Presidents and Deans of Admission, and to learn more about their curricular and extracurricular programs. In prior Junes, Walter attended this conference at Notre Dame (2014), Trinity College (2013), Pomona College (2012), Washington University (2011), Davidson College (2010), Bowdoin College (2009), University of Colorado (2008), and Cal Tech (2007).

Stacy Kaegi completed two STEAM (Science. Technology. Engineering. Arts. Math.) courses via Educationcloset.com, acquiring new skills and strategies for use in the classroom. The first course showcased various ways to incorporate STEAM into the curriculum, and imparted invaluable information on how to integrate STEAM lessons into the classroom. The second focused on the 4C’s: Creativity, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, and Communication—and the cultivation of the creative mindset with the 4C’s as the students work on project based assignments. By incorporating and fostering lessons with the creative mindset in mind, it deepens the understanding of a concept and it allows for experimental inquiry. She looks forward to encouraging and cultivating a classroom of creative learners and innovative problem solvers this school year.

Peter Latson (College Counseling) attended the annual convention of the Association of College Counselors in Independent Schools (ACCIS) in Tacoma, Washington in June.

Danny Lawrence (Modern Languages) shared both “formal” and “informal” professional development work. His formal PD included a 5-day workshop at Taft School in mid-July, learning all about the AP French Language and Culture program, which he will be teaching this year. He was one of thirteen participants, working intensively, three sessions per day. “We worked on the program, of course, and also the exam, with all its nooks and crannies, learning and sharing all the way, producing resources, giving demo classes in a total immersion situation,” he reports. As a French teacher, it’s not surprising that Danny’s “informal” PD would involve immersion in Francophone culture. He spent 8 days spent in Montréal, late June/ early July, coinciding with both jazz and circus festivals there. Danny says, “I stayed as usual in the east of the city, the Quartier Latin, near to UQAM, the French-speaking public university. This part of Montréal is 99% francophone and offers many cinema and theatre options, of which I took full advantage, while speaking French 100% of the time.” Then, he spent 10 days in France, mostly in Paris, where he attended public lectures at the Institut du Monde Arabe, the Bibliothèque François Mitterrand and the Musée Picasso, saw a great soccer game at the Parc St Denis, saw films and plays and checked to assure that a few favourite restaurants were still in business.

Madeleine Lopez worked on a vocabulary program for the 4th grade that ties into the LS Balanced Literacy program. This program is tailored for our students with rigorous vocabulary from our 4th grade novels. She created weekly lists of 10 vocabulary words (15 for the latter part of the year) that the children will be asked to learn and then incorporate into their writing. She also created weekly worksheets to review the words that consist of matching definitions or filling out crosswords, and filling in sentences with the vocabulary words, and created an alphabetized word wall that can be displayed in each 4th grade homeroom. This program ties in with the spelling program she created two summers ago that has been successfully used across the 4th grade for the last two years, allowing for further horizontal integration. She also read widely on education topics, watched webinars on ADHD and 21st century education, and took technology classes on HOL and iPad use in the classroom.

Bill McLay (US Science) spent the summer revising the way he will teach the Advanced Physics class, including development of new topics. He was often at Hackley working on all new labs and computer simulations for the class.

This past June, Brigid Moriarty (US English, Boarding) participated in Columbia University's Klingenstein Summer Institute. Teachers with two to five years of teaching experience are eligible to apply to receive this two week fully-funded fellowship, and up to seventy five participants are chosen from a competitive pool of applicants. The awards committee considers a candidate's teaching promise, ability to work collaboratively, and leadership potential in their decision. Participants come together in a variety of workshops, seminars, and collaborative exercises, and are guided by prominent education experts, talented Teachers College professors, and distinguished master teachers. Dedicated to affirming beginning teachers and encouraging their continued growth, the Klingenstein Summer Institute challenges participants to embrace the complexities of the classroom and to explore the art of teaching through the delicate balance of subject mastery, judgment, intuition, and creativity.

Trevor Ogden (MS English) polished his fishing techniques, flying into fly-fish in back country Alaska, all to the benefit of his "Hackley Anglers" club.

Alana Reidy (LS) completed three classes at Columbia University, Teachers College in the Literacy Specialist Master’s Program. Literature for Younger Children explored how to facilitate effective as well as enjoyable literary experiences in grades K-2. Analyzing texts in various frameworks and learning how to encourage literary responses in a variety of modalities were studied extensively in this course. Art for Classroom Teachers investigated how to integrate various art media into the classroom curriculum, which can support the growth and development of children. She also completed the Institute on the Teaching of Reading, which is an intensive weeklong professional development opportunity. There were small and large group sections that allowed for teachers around the world to learn and participate in discussions revolving around the reading workshop model as well as the components of balanced literacy. One big take away was the importance of teachers creating a joy and excitement around reading. As Lucy Calkins, a leader in the literacy field stated, “It is our job to create this excitement to develop a vital and a live learning community.”

Susan Reynolds (LS) worked to restructure and enrich first grade social studies curriculum to align with Hackley’s focus on community (local and global); Round Square IDEALS; health, wellness and nutrition; and sustainability, while maintaining instruction in geography, maps, and culture. This work was part of our ongoing goal to help our young students develop competencies for the 21st century.

Linda Sadler (Support Services) learned about new ideas about diagnosing specific learning disabilities from a leader in the field of psychological assessment as part of an online session this summer. She also spent a lot of time practicing mindfulness and being in the present moment with her family as much as possible!

Roy Sheldon (MS/US Chinese) takes the prize for “busiest summer.” He met with senior staff at the Museum of Chinese in America and then the China Institute, both based in New York City, to discuss cultural diversity and language focused student field trips and began arrangements for speakers from both groups to make presentations on China related topics to the Hackley community. He interviewed two potential trip managers for the upcoming China trip in March, 2016, and sent out requests for proposals to two other trip management companies. He attended a discussion in New York City sponsored by the National Committee on US-China Relations on policy options to address the rapidly evolving US-China security competition in the Pacific and around the world. He attended a Middlebury College webinar on "digital world solutions on language learning.” He reviewed four Chinese short stories for use in MS and US Chinese classes for our "reading for pleasure in Chinese” (RPC) initiative, which seeks to build fluency in 2nd language acquisition. He also previewed a Chinese language movie recommended by the Chinese Language Teachers Association, and began planning for the upcoming Chinese New Celebration in 2016, February 7 – 13: the Year of the Monkey. When he wasn’t doing all that, he says, he biked, swam and hiked a lot!

David Sykes (US History) attended The Dean’s Roundtable, a forum where deans gather to reflect, share stories, collaborate, discuss, and laugh. Participants gain an expanded professional network, many new ideas, and a greater understanding about how other schools operate. He also attended the NAIS School Leadership Institute, an in-depth residential program that helps educators cultivate an individualized professional development strategy. The two sessions were a fantastic combination of discussions about the practical day to day issues of being a dean/school leader, and a more theoretical dialogue about proven traits of strong leadership. In addition to providing Dave with a number of interesting programs that could potentially work at Hackley, the conferences forced him to think about his own leadership qualities and reflect on setting goals to better himself. Lastly, the conferences offered a tremendous faculty and group of speakers from whom he learned a tremendous amount, as well as the opportunity to form relationships with an incredible network of bright, experienced, and knowledgeable colleagues.