Instruction permeates all aspects of a student’s day in the Lower School including: the care of personal belongings and personal responsibilities, problem-solving on the playground, listening carefully to each others' opinions during classroom discussions, working to protect school grounds, building reflective practices during mid-day quiet times and closing activities.
In addition to the life skills work that occurs everyday in homeroom and specials classes, the Lower School has designated life skills instructors to provide specific, explicit training in collaborative work, conflict resolution, and problem solving. Lessons focus on role-playing, case studies, and students' real recess experiences. Students in fourth grade also receive instruction on learning styles to gain an understanding of their personal learning profile. Students in second through fourth grade participate in “lunch bunch” sessions to work specifically in small groups on collaborative skills.
Several important goals of the Life Skills program in the Lower School are:
- Helping children develop the productive work habits and self-regulatory skills needed for lifelong learning.
- Building interpersonal skills enabling students to successfully navigate peer relationships in order to form lasting friendships.
- Practicing collaborative work skills to help students fully benefit from the cooperative learning tasks encountered in Lower School academics.
Studies show that students sustain higher-order thinking longer and achieve deeper understanding of complex concepts through cooperative tasks than any other learning activity. Hence, we provide ample opportunities for Lower School students to practice and develop the skills they need to work collaboratively at school and, later, in the workplace.
In these safe learning environments, students discover their own personal leadership qualities and develop their natural talents. Quite often this leads to student-initiated, student-designed service projects. Lower School students have created community cleanups, lead efforts to prevent erosion on campus, and rallied the community to provide water for the homeless, books for sick children, and sneakers to the needy overseas. In becoming productive and positive stewards of the environment and the community, students are fully realizing the goals of the life skills program.