Category Archives: Baxter

Another graduating class. This makes three.

Last year, I wrote about the Class of 2017 and their plans. Seems only right that I should write about the Class of 2018. They, too, are a remarkable group of individuals who care about the world they live in – the world they will soon be leading. So, without further ado, here are the schools that look forward to welcoming our graduates.

• Acadia University
• Bard College
• Bates College
• Bennington College
• Clark University
• Earlham College
• Hampshire College
• Hobart and William Smith Colleges
• Landmark College
• Lesley University
• Maine College of Art
• Maine Maritime Academy
• Marlboro College
• Mount Holyoke College
• The New School
• Saint Anselm College
• Saint Lawrence University
• Salem State University
• Smith College
• Syracuse University
• Southern Maine Community College
• University of Maine
• University of Maine, Farmington
• University of Southern Maine
• Wentworth Institute of Technology
• Worcester Polytechnic University
• Yale University

Among the group who stated majors, there are 22 scientists, 10 engineers, 10 working with arts or design, 7 looking toward the liberal arts, 2 business, 2 working toward skilled trades, 4 entering the work force – including one with his own landscaping/snowplowing company – several are undecided and 7 are taking a gap year.

This group is also full of the pioneering spirit that brought our original group of students to Baxter. Like NASA’s “next nine,” they are the “next class.” And the world #bettermakeroom.

Today was the first day of school. Okay, that’s not entirely true. We had a whole week, last week, of teacher workshops – and they were all great. Even the insurance guy was hilarious – and that takes some skill, right?

So, let me clarify. Today was the first day with my new advisory. I’ll admit I was nervous. I couldn’t quite figure it out. I’m typically nervous meeting new people, but I know what that feels like. This felt different. And then I realized that “my people” weren’t going to be there today. They’ve all graduated and gone of to wherever it is they’ve gone off to. So that was part of it. Then my husband/colleague said to me, “And they’ve always been there.” Wow. That was it. That thing I was feeling. I was going off to school to meet 16 new Baxter students and the people I had come to really depend on weren’t going to be there. So this was my transition day. Graduation didn’t make me sad. Today made me a little sad.

And then I met them. We played my silly, stupid name game which, even though some of them hated it today, I know they will appreciate why I made them do it at some point in the future. We spent an hour together, just us with a couple of Baxter Ambassadors (returning students who know the ropes), getting to know each other, getting the rundown of today’s schedule. Then we met up with four other advisory groups at the park and did some fun team-building activities, led by other Baxter Ambassadors and fabulous colleagues. The afternoon held a couple of workshops about Baxter, in mixed advisory groups, and a “Genius Session” about a cool thing that other faculty wanted to offer.

This week is just for the 9th graders. There will be a total of six workshops, two Genius Sessions, a Scavenger Hunt, building a float, and a little bit of testing. I like that we are giving time to develop them as a group – an advisory group, a workshop team, and the Class of 2021. They come to us from all over southern Maine. In this advisory group I have students coming to Portland from as far away as Bridgton, Alfred, and Auburn and as close as Portland, Westbrook, and Scarborough. It’s worth the time to help them get to know each other. They leave their hometown friends behind to come to Baxter. That’s kind of a big transition. And each one has their own reason for coming to us.

Every year we get to iterate the start of school. Every year it gets better. I am grateful to work in a school that learns by doing and reflects on how to improve next time.

Our seniors. My advisory. They’re graduating. On June 3. Tomorrow.

We’ve spent lots of time together, building this school. We’ve spent one and a half hours together every week for the last four years, plus 10 minutes every morning. We’ve learned together and grown together. When we first started together, we came from all over – from Kennebunk to Topsham to Lewiston and everywhere in between. One of us even came from Owl’s Head. Some of us knew each other, but mostly we didn’t. It was awkward.

I’ve worked with other advisory groups in the past, but they knew each other. They lived in the same town, or at least in the same local district. This time it was different. Would my same, silly “get to know you” games work? Which, of course, in the past had been more for me than for them. Why not try, anyway?

So, I explained the rules of my silly name game. You will introduce yourself using an adjective that begins with the same letter as your name. I modeled what I meant: “I’m perfect Pam.” Then we’ll go around the circle and you have to name everyone before you and then yourself. They looked at me funny. They wanted to build the furniture. I told them that we needed to know each other’s names before we could try building IKEA furniture together. They humored me and played my game, even though they didn’t quite get it and thought it was stupid (they tell me now). And we built some furniture. That was in September of 2013. Two days after receiving a building occupancy permit.

Since that time we’ve had lots of conversations. About important things that were happening in the world, about decisions that we needed to make at school, about nothing in particular. We laughed and played games and had “TED Talk Tuesday” and played “Dancing Queen” whenever someone turned 17. We built our community. We became “PRawson and the Funky Bunch.”

And now they’re graduating.

So, thank you, for being the Funky Bunch: Awesome Aidan, Brianna Butterfly, Brilliant Ben, Eccentric Eddie, Ethan “Wheat Thin”, Evil Eli, Glitterific Gracelyn, Goofy Gabe, Ironic Irial, Jazzy Jenna, Loopy Lizzie, Marvelous Maddy, Nick (who likes chips), Novel Nicholas, Sassy Seham, Tenacious Tucker, and Terrible Theo (who hates mayo).

Remember that you built more than just a school. You built a very special community.

On Friday, May 5, Baxter Academy celebrated its first #CollegeSigningDay. While it’s true that we graduated a class of 49 students last year, our first graduation, this year’s senior class has been with us for 4 years. Plus, it takes a bit to get organized around these celebrations. This year we were ready for it.

These are the schools that our soon-to-be graduates have committed to:

• Bennington College
• Bishop’s University
• Catholic University of America
• Concordia University
• Cornell University
• Eastern Maine Community College
• Florida Institute of Technology
• Green River Community College
• Goucher College
• Hampshire College
• Johnson & Wales University
• Maine Maritime Academy
• Marlboro College
• Mercyhurst University
• Mt Ida College
• Mt Holyoke College
• NASCAR Technical Institute
• New England College
• New England School of Photography
• Parsons School of Design
• Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
• Rochester Institute of Technology
• School of Visual Arts NYC
• Simmons College
• Smith College
• Southern Maine Community College
• St Joseph’s College of Maine
• St Michael’s College
• Stonehill College
• Union College
• Unity College in Maine
• University of Maine
• University of Maine, Fort Kent
• University of Massachusetts, Amherst
• University of Massachusetts, Lowell
• University of Rochester
• University of Southern Maine
• Virginia Polytechnic Institute
• Wagner College
• Worcester Polytechnic Institute
• Word of Life Bible Institute
• Xavier University

Among the group of those who stated majors, there are 23 science, 16 engineering, 8 creative design, 7 liberal arts, and 4 business. Of the 20 or so remaining: One is apprenticing with a Master Plumber, two are starting a game design company together, one is designing and producing storm chasing instruments, one is continuing to build his music production & performance skills, and the rest are taking a gap year or are undecided on their major.

I will always be grateful to these pioneering students for taking a risk to build a new school, not knowing where it would lead them. Well, it’s led them to some pretty great places.

As the hashtag says, the world #BetterMakeRoom.

There’s lots of talk out there, and especially in New England, about standards-based education. Whatever you think about standards-based, or proficiency-based, or competency-based education (they are all the same to me – just using some different words), the bottom line is that we teachers are now supposed to be able to certify that, regardless of any other factors beyond our control, our students are able to _________. Fill in the blank with your skill or habit of choice. This is tricky business. The tricky part is

• not to distill learning into a checklist of discrete items that have no connection to each other.
• to maintain a cohesive, robust curriculum with a clear scope and sequence.
• to develop cross-curricular, integrated courses that give students rich opportunities to build those skills.
• to build an assessment system that students, teachers, and parents have a common understanding of.

My school has put a lot of energy into creating a standards-based assessment (and reporting) system. Since we are still a new school, there is nothing to change except our own perceptions. We started out using the old 1-2-3-4 system, but ran into trouble with different interpretations of what those numbers represented and how students were able to achieve, or not. Some teachers maintained that standards in a course were global and that there was little chance for a 9th grader to demonstrate at a level higher than a 2. Other teachers defined course standards as local, so that students could earn a 3 or even a 4 on the standards within that class. Clearly, this was a problem.

The other problem is that any time grades are represented using numbers, people want to operate with them, or break them down further (using 2.3, for example). But those numbers represent discrete categories of performance or understanding. A 2.3 doesn’t make any sense if it isn’t defined. So we had to create a brand new system.

Each reporting standard – those big things like Algebra & Functions – has indicators that are connected to each level on the big scale toward graduation benchmarks. These are defined in a rubric. For any given course, we identify what the “target” knowledge & skills are, what level of the rubric we are targeting. For example, in the Modeling in Math class, the target level is Entering.

During a course, we report if a student is “below target,” “on target,” or “above target” for an assessment on particular indicator of a reporting standard. This way a student can be “on target” – meaning that the student is making solid progress and is doing what is expected in the course – but still not be at the graduation benchmark for that standard. After all, Modeling in Math is the first course that our 9th graders take. It’s unlikely that they will meet the graduation benchmark after just this one twelve-week class.

Report cards and transcripts report the big picture status toward graduation. So that 9th grader who was “on target” during the class has made progress toward graduation, but still has work to do to meet that benchmark. And that work could happen in a series of courses or through some combination of courses and portfolio, giving the student control over her education.

Hey everyone! I just felt like I should email all of you to say hi, and to assure you that I haven’t forgotten Baxter, and to remind myself to stay in touch, and to tell you that [college] is great and almost everything is going really well! I’m actually kind of tearing up writing this, which surprised me since that’s not something that happens to me very often. I’ll try to remember to stop by the school if it’s in session while I’m visiting home!

Teaching is about building relationships with our students.