News of the School Summer 2013 Park Tudor School
PT joins Global Online Academy
Sidwell Friends School in Washington, DC; Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan; The Dalton School in New York City; and international schools in Jordan, Japan, Indonesia and China. By becoming a member school, Park Tudor will both expand the elective course offerings available to Upper School students and provide them the unique opportunity to work and connect with students around the world. Examples of GOA electives offered for the 2013-14 school year include Japanese I, 9/11 in a Global Context, Bioethics, and Game Theory. The small class sizes (limited to 18 students) enable close collaboration among the students and the teacher. The online classes will not replace any current classes at Park Tudor but instead will provide additional course options for students. According to a study by
Marketdata Enterprises, Inc., one in three college students takes an online course. As preparatory schools, the participating GOA schools prepare students for what they will encounter in college and beyond. Peter Kraft, Associate Head of School for Academic Affairs, says, “Given the shared values around quality teaching and rigorous standards, we are confident the courses will maintain the high standards of quality of which we are proud.” Students will receive Park Tudor credit for the classes and will receive individualized feedback and customized assessments from GOA instructors. The Global Online Academy also enables Park Tudor teachers to become part of an expanded network of outstanding independent school educators and extraordinary professional development opportunities. Park Tudor teachers will have the opportunity to teach the classes, receive rigorous training in online teaching, share best practices and discuss new ideas related to both online and traditional teaching. Learn more about the Global Online Academy, including a complete list of participating schools and course offerings, at www.globalonlineacademy.org.
just getting to the destination was part of the adventure. For most students, the trip from Beijing to Xi’an, for example, was the first on an overnight train. “By visiting China, students see different aspects of Chinese culture,” says Lee-Thompson. “They see the bright side of China and the not-so-bright side. A trip like this is a good example of Park Tudor’s focus on the ‘growth mindset’ for students. It was a good experience, and challenging.” Before leaving Indianapolis, LeeThompson showed students YouTube videos of how to haggle with Chinese merchants. Once in China, they proved adept at getting good bargains. “They loved to shop,” she says. “At the Pearl Market in Beijing, they did very well. They haggled in Chinese.” Not on the official tour but just as memorable were moments of meaningful connection between Chinese people and Park Tudor students, Johnson says. In Beijing’s Beihai Park, for example, they encountered a group of elderly men doing calligraphy with water, brushing Chinese
characters on the sidewalks. PT students joined in and could brush their own Chinese characters, to the surprise and approval of the men. “Thanks to our Chinese language program, Beijing retirees and Park Tudor teenagers were communicating artfully in one of the word’s most venerable scripts,” Johnson says. “It was a simple but meaningful interaction.” This was the third trip Park Tudor students have taken to China. On this visit, students spent much more time visiting schools than on previous trips, and it was the first trip in which students stayed with host families, Johnson says. Staying with host families challenged students’ language skills and forced them to be more resilient than the average tourist, according to Lee-Thompson. “Home stays are good for kids. They are challenged to break out of their comfort zones. We don’t want them to just be tourists,” Johnson says. For Sophie Spartz ’14, who has studied Chinese for three years, staying with a
This spring, Park Tudor School joined
the Global Online Academy (GOA), a consortium of 30 of the world’s leading independent schools that offers rigorous online courses for Upper School students. Students have the opportunity to enroll in the courses beginning with the 2013-14 school year. “Joining the Global Online Academy represents an important moment for our school and an exciting opportunity for our faculty and students to explore the emerging world of online learning,” says Head of School Dr. Matthew Miller. “We join a network of leading schools that is proactively defining this niche, creating new learning environments, developing a global community, and leveraging technology and 21st-century learning skills to help students connect, share and learn with other students around the world.” The academically rigorous online courses are taught by educators at the participating GOA schools, which include
China trip includes home stays
Eighteen Upper School students spent
spring break in China on a school-sponsored trip led by Director of Chinese Studies Dr. Caroline Li-Chun Lee-Thompson and Social Studies teacher Jeff Johnson. From March 24-April 6, students visited the cities of Beijing and Xi’an, attended classes with Chinese middle school and high school students, played with children in an orphanage, and spent four days staying with Chinese host families in the city of Tianjin. On the packed itinerary were mustsee sites such as the Great Wall, the 2008 Olympic Park, the Temple of Heaven, and the Forbidden City, palace of China’s last two dynasties. The group also visited less famous but equally illuminating places such as residential areas, the Muslim Street in Xi’an and public parks. Each stop offered opportunities to sample food and culture, and sometimes
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