Our Wildwood, Summer 2018, Volume 43

DRIVEN BY “WHY?” “‘Why?’ is the spark of all deep learning,” she says. “And it’s a question that is essential for middle schoolers to keep asking.” Research supports her reasoning. Recent studies at the University of California, Davis, and Goldsmiths, University of London, make a direct link between increased curiosity, the brain’s neurochemical

Wildwood middle schoolers engaged in a range of hands-on experiences in science classes throughout the year. For the inaugural Wildwood cardboard boat regatta, Division One 6th graders designed and launched handmade boats at the Santa Monica College pool. The race was the culmination of a cross-disciplinary project guided by science teacher Na Xue and her math colleague Scott Blanding. In Division Two, teams of 7th graders researched, designed, and 3D-printed scale models of bones in the human body. With guidance from teacher Paul Waked, students combined learning about the skeletal system with learning the technology behind 3D printing. Some boats in the Wildwood regatta made it across the pool. Many eco-columns flourished. It worked! Those successes both gratified and taught students a lesson, encouraging them to grapple with an essential question of science and life—“Why?” Director of Middle School Emily Johnson says that for middle school students, considering why things work, or don’t work, matters most.

reward system, and a heightened ability to learn new information. 1,2 Maintaining curiosity in the middle school years is a challenge for both teachers and students. Author and question expert Warren Berger posits that question- asking among children peaks around age 4 and plunges after. Additional research shows that question-asking (a key indicator of curiosity) falls off precipitously once students leave elementary school and continues to decline through middle and high school. Berger also points out how the corollary measure of student engagement in school drops from 76 percent in elementary school down to 61 percent and 44 percent in middle school and high school, respectively. 3 Emily sees antidotes to this trend in some of Wildwood’s current strengths, as well as in areas she believes are ripe for continued programmatic growth. BUILDING ON A STRONG PLATFORM Wildwood’s rich history as a progressive learning institution supports its culture of inquiry. The middle and upper school program launched in 2000 is based on the Coalition of Essential Schools (CES) model, a nationwide school reform movement steeped in the spirit of student- centered, progressive education. Our much-emulated Advisory program, the Habits of Mind and Heart, Gateways, and Senior Exhibitions are all hallmarks of the CES. Emily sees her work at Wildwood as inspired by one of the CES’s essential precepts: the idea of student-as- worker, teacher-as-coach. She is particularly focused on deepening the middle school’s commitment to cultivating curiosity.

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