SCHOOL NE WS
FA I R F I E L D C O U N T R Y D AY S C H O O L
to that. We would lose them. Instead, we began with the boys themselves and talked about what it means to be a man and what it means to be a good man.” Teaching the boys about healthy masculinity was the first part of the project. The boys learned that many of the male role models in the media are very unlike the real-life men the boys know. Often the messages they get tell them men need to be athletic, financially successful, and in command of women. They saw how limiting this is and realized the good men in their lives are much more varied and nuanced than these simple, hyper-masculine ideals. One of the most important results of the workshops was the global viewpoint the boys began to exhibit. They came to understand that the actions we take in our own community have a ripple effect that can ultimately help or hinder the global community. The boys’ final assignment was to list ten adjectives describing global citizenship. Far and away the word they used the most was “kindness.” Hemenway said, “If that is the only thing they learned, this has been a great success. We are happy to report they learned quite a bit more than that!” Based on the interviews and the feedback from the boys, the workshops were successful in making the boys better global citizens by raising their awareness of gender equality. The boys began to understand that gender equality is not just a women’s issue, it is a human issue. It was clear from the interviews that they understood the idea that if any group of people is treated unfairly, it affects all people. Participating in the IBSC Action Research Project is one of the more challenging and rewarding experiences for teachers. The high standards required by IBSC make the researchers accountable for creating quality teaching practices that can be used in the future. Burchill and Hemenway presented their project at the 2016 IBSC Conference in June in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Wordmaster Challenge A team representing Fairfield Country Day School recently earned Highest Honors in the 2015-16 WordMasters Challenge™—a national vocabulary competition involving nearly 150,000 students annually. The sixth grade team scored an impressive 178 points out of a possible 200 in the last of three meets this year, placing them seventh in the nation. Competing in the difficult Blue Division of the WordMasters Challenge™, sixth graders Blake Braun and Tom Powell each earned a perfect score of twenty in the recent meet. Nationally, only fifteen sixth graders achieved this result. Other students who achieved outstanding results in the last meet of the year include fifth grader Troy Ashkinos and sixth graders Ryan Collins and Alexander Halpern. Troy Ashkinos and Blake Braun also qualified for individual Highest Honors in the overall competition. Troy’s cumulative score of fifty-six points and Blake’s score of fifty-seven points placed them among the top ten to fifteen students in their respective divisions. Congratulations to these boys who represented FCDS and made us proud!
Left to Right: Troy Ashkinos ’20, Ryan Collins ’19, Alexander Halpern ’19, Blake Braun ’19, and Tom Powell ’19
The students were coached in preparation for the WordMasters Challenge™ by teachers Mrs. Deborah Sullinger, Mrs. Margot Pearce, and Mrs. Nancy Stevens. The WordMasters Challenge™ is an exercise in critical thinking that first encourages students to become familiar with a set of interesting new words (considerably harder than grade level), and then challenges them to use those words to complete analogies expressing various kinds of logical relationships. Working to solve the analogies helps students learn to think both analytically and metaphorically. Although most vocabulary enrichment and analogy-solving programs are designed for use by high school students, WordMasters Challenge™ materials have been specifically created for younger students in grades three through eight. They are particularly well suited for children who are motivated by the challenge of learning new words and enjoy the logical puzzles posed by analogies.
In the Loop Summer 2016
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