DH_Teaching_17AUG11

Dana Hall School Teaching

Dana Hall thinks you learn more when you love how you learn

A short book about teaching difficult subjects featuring three Dana Hall teachers and a significant handful of impressive facts

Logic is Awesome Eleanor Millman Upper School physics B.S., Yale M.S., Harvard

Ms. Millman is a people person. She also happens to be incredibly smart.

She was working toward her Ph.D. in physics when she realized that teaching inspired her more than pure research.

“I hadn’t had a female science teacher in any discipline since middle school. I’m totally capable of believing in myself, but a female role model can make a huge difference. If you see a smart, accomplished woman who’s passionate about science, you say, ‘She did it. I can do it too.’”

“In the Upper School, we start with Conceptual Physics. Every ninth grader takes it, so it’s a unified experience.

And it leads naturally to chemistry, and then to biology. But what I really love about it is that we don’t have the luxury of using equations.”

“ We have to think for ourselves.”

“We do a lot of collaboration, a lot of hands-on lab work. The Science Center is so well equipped, I can put together almost any kind of demonstration or experiment. It makes sense to see physics in action. If I tell you about it, that’s not learning. You have to see it happening, get your hands on it.

“There’s something so beautiful about logical, rational thinking. But it’s also great to think beyond that.

“When I was in middle school I was talking to my mother about science questions, and she was struggling to give me an answer. And at a certain point it hit me: She didn’t know the answer because no one knows the answer. You could actually go out and discover something.”

Our Upper School offers 140 courses, including 17 AP courses.

Eighty-two percent of our seniors enroll in one or more AP courses during their time in the Upper School (and do remarkably well).

Most of our faculty and staff (64) have earned advanced degrees.

This is Your S

Story

Michele Gerdes Middle School math B.A., New York University M.A., New York University

Ms. Gerdes has been teaching at Dana Hall for 12 years. Before she came here, she taught at a coed school. “At my previous school, math and science were such a boy thing.”

“ Here, the best math student is Always a girl.”

“And the best physics student is always a girl. When you start with that fact, you can get to a lot of amazing places.”

She likes to use exercises that aren’t in any textbook—games, puzzles, investigations.

“ What my students are really getting is a different way to think.”

“They learn to strategize, to solve problems. And they’ll be able to apply it to more than just math.”

“I tell my students: I want every option open to you.”

“ Math is everywhere.”

“A lot of major activities in your life— buying a house, starting a business, working with technology—are rooted in math. I don’t want doors to close because you don’t know the language of math.”

Dana Hall’s Middle School offers coursework in Sixth Grade Math through Alegbra and Applications.

“Math isn’t someone else’s story. It’s happening right here, right now. Girls can take it and make it their own.”

Dana Hall’s student to faculty ratio is 8–to–1.

The average number of students in a class is 13.

Nearly every Dana Hall student (98%) takes more than the required course load in science and math.

The New World

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Jacqui Bloomberg Upper School Latin Chair, Language Department B.A., Tufts B.Mus., New England Conservatory M.A.T., Tufts

Ms. Bloomberg has a friend who keeps telling her she should write a book called “Did You Know That You Know That from Latin?”

“Because I’m always saying that to people.

In business, in politics, in science—

“ So much of what we know about our world was shaped by Latin.”

“I have a student who wants to study at Oxford this summer. We were talking about what classes she should take to get ready for it, and she said, ‘I struggle with Latin, but I really love it, so I’m going to keep taking it.’ I’m so impressed by that— the passion, the dedication, the willingness to be challenged.”

In the Upper School, Dana Hall offers five levels of Latin, French, and Spanish, and four levels of Mandarin Chinese.

“ You can’t teach language in a bubble.”

“We’re reading Latin, writing it, speaking it, listening to it. We examine its cultural and historical context, we explore its connections to other cultures and languages, right up to today.

“When you learn a language, you have to listen, you have to open yourself up to new experiences, and you can’t be afraid to make mistakes. You become a member of the global community. Our girls want that.

We make sure they get it.”

Dana Hall wants the classroom to be as big as the world.

Dana Hall School 45 Dana Road Wellesley, MA 02482-9010 781.235.3010 www.danahall.org