From your north campus principal, Ann Taylor
Hopefully everyone has power and is warm and safe. Parts of town look like war zones due to downed trees. As I am writing, we are still without power at north campus. I so appreciate several things in this unique week: your quick response to our text of early dismissal due to weather and getting to north campus to get your students in a timely manner (we cleared the campus before 1:00 pm!!); your patience with the uncertainty of whether we were having school each day for multiple cohorts (first was ice and then no power at north); and last but by far not least, everyone’s flexibility with our moving sixth grade conference to Midtown campus with very little notice and/or to Zoom/phone calls with your equally gracious teachers in response to the changes I imposed on them – done with a smile and joy. What a great team we make even in the midst of another 2020 opportunity from our Lord!!
Final Exams at The Academy
This year we are reconfiguring the way we manage final exams for all Dialectic & Rhetoric classes. While students will complete the semester with some sort of assessment (project or test), this assessment experience will follow the same pattern of assessment procedures used throughout the semester. We are transitioning from intensive testing procedures that entail 1-2 hour exams and require a complete restructuring of the last week of school. We believe that students retain information best if it is built upon in a cumulative manner without the presence of stress-induced situations that force intensive cramming. Research fully supports that depth of learning and lasting retention occurs most when students gradually develop deepening knowledge with continual opportunities to strengthen conceptual memory. We believe this new assessment practice will provide healthier opportunities in the school culture to deepen memory retention and deepen understanding of knowledge. This shift also provides more opportunity for class instruction time at the end of each semester. If you have questions about this shift in practice, I welcome the opportunity to discuss this with you further.
Calendar Notes
Thank you again for all your assistance this past week. I have prayed for all our families but specifically for north campus this week during this time of challenge and uncertainty. Have a good weekend however it looks due to clean up or repairs – hopefully very little of either one. Look forward to seeing our students back on campus starting Monday (Lord willing) and parents in carlines! Take care – be careful and safe!
Prayer I often come back to from Valley of Vision that is instructional and comforting
Joy
O Christ,
All thy ways of mercy tend to and end in my delight. Thou didst weep, sorrow, suffer that I might rejoice. For my joy thou hast sent the Comforter, multiplied thy promises, shown me my future happiness, given me a living fountain. Thou art preparing joy for me and me for joy; I pray for joy, wait for joy, long for joy; give me more than I can hold, desire, or think of. Measure out to me my times and degrees of joy, at my work, business, duties. If I weep at night, give me joy in the morning. Let me rest in the thought of thy love, pardon for sin, my title to heaven, my future unspotted state. I am an unworthy recipient of thy grace, I often disesteem thy blood and slight thy love, but can in repentance draw water from the wells of thy joyous forgiveness. Let my heart leap towards the eternal sabbath, where the work of redemption, sanctification, preservation, glorification is finished and perfected for ever, where thou wilt rejoice over me with joy. There is no joy like the joy of heaven, for in that state are no sad divisions, unchristian quarrels, contentions, evil designs, weariness, hunger, cold, sadness, sin, suffering, persecutions, toils of duty. O healthful place where none are sick! O happy land where all are kings! O holy assembly where all are priests! How free a state where none are servants except to thee! Bring me speedily to the land of joy.
