Our Plan in Action: The Joy of Learning at Burke's

10/17/2017

A 21st-century learning model makes space for joy and wonder in even the most serious academic endeavors.

We Americans take great pride in our work ethic, and why not? Old- fashioned, hard work has been the ethos behind some amazing achievements in our country’s short history. However, over time, the valuing of work for work’s sake seems to have led to a rather narrow — and, frankly, uninspired — definition of productivity. Consider some of these well-worn American adages:

• “Work isn’t supposed to be fun, that’s why they call it work.”
• “Success is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.”
• “No pain, no gain.”

The message for today’s youth: If you’re having a good time, you’re probably not getting anything done.

Fortunately, that bleak message is patently false, and the science exists to prove it. Researchers at the National Institute for Play (nifplay.org), a 501c(3) non-profit public benefit foundation founded by physician and psychiatrist Stuart Brown, M.D., draw on evidence-based knowledge to spread the word that “play” is an absolute necessity to our society’s future. Brown, who is also the author of Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination and Invigorates the Soul, notes in an interview with Amazon that adults who fail to exercise their sense of playfulness “demonstrate social, emotional, and cognitive narrowing,” are “less able to handle stress,” and “often experience a smoldering depression.”

At a time when our own educational system places increasingly greater emphasis on test results and less on the learning experience itself, Burke’s takes the science and philosophy espoused by the Institute very much to heart. Not surprisingly, Brown and the Institute also advocate for playfulness in the classroom, as it helps learning become a joyful experience. “Play promotes true intellectual curiosity,” Brown says. “It has been shown to increase lifetime performance, just as adequate recess time leads to increased long-term academic accomplishments.” Here, Burke’s educators prove every day that hard work and joyful play not only belong together, but that this combination helps develop lifelong learners primed to make the world a better place.

Engagement Matters

“I’m glad my child is having fun, but is the program rigorous enough?” It’s a fair question, says Alice Moore, Director of the Lower School, and one answer may seem obvious: A lesson that’s fun is one that’s more likely to be remembered. “This word ‘rigor’ seems to imply ‘hard and unpleasant,’ and yes, you can have an exercise that’s just rigorous and a grind. But when you show a student why [a lesson] is meaningful and how they can engage with it, it becomes an authentic learning experience,” she says. “And that’s where the joy comes in.”

But for many, the idea of joyful learning means “academic light,” according to Head of School Michele Williams. “Happiness and play are seen as trite, but these elements are deeply connected to how children learn,” she says. Those connections run deep: Reading and imaginative play, for example, interact when children begin to write. The activities that Burke’s teachers develop are carefully designed not only to bring joy to learners, but to be “substantive and have meaning and connection to what’s being taught,” Williams says. “That’s one of the things the teachers do amazingly well here.”

Consider the way in which Burke’s fifth-graders tackle the study of ancient Greece: “They read the translations of works and study mythology in the way you and I might have in school. But after reading and learning different stories, they also write original plays to summarize one of the myths, and then perform those plays, wearing costumes, in front of the school and their parents in the center of campus,” Williams says. “Those fifth-grade Greek plays are a real rite of passage; they’re witty and clever, and natural performers and storytellers emerge. Yet, it’s all around a standard, important content piece in the Western world.”

Burke’s Lower School Counselor Jessica Nenner sees firsthand how such engaging yet demanding lessons affect students. “Sometimes the most academically challenging classrooms are the ones children are most excited to come to, because they’re engaged — they’re not just being asked to memorize things and spit them out,” she says. “Joyful doesn’t mean easy. You want students to be grappling with hard things and taking on big questions.”

Parents and grandparents may wonder where the hardcore memorization and drills that characterized their own education went. To technology, responds Dr. Tone Rawlings, fifth- and sixth-grade science teacher at Burke’s. “We can bypass a lot of that because we now have all the information we need at our fingertips,” she reasons. “The real question now is, what can we do with this information?”

A Growth Mindset

Effective education is a giant balancing act that requires keen understanding of where each individual child is in that moment. “It’s essential to keep child development in mind,” affirms Mike Matthews, Director of Curriculum and Program Innovation. “Students learn at different stages, so cultivating lifelong learners necessitates providing the ‘just right’ challenge for the moment, in an environment that values learning and provides regular opportunities for play, discovery, and joy.”

Burke’s curriculum is developed with a clear understanding of and commitment to end goals in learning. The key, according to Moore, is “finding that sweet spot that offers just the right amount of challenge,” which is called the “learning edge.” “It’s a little out of reach, but not so far that they can’t do it,” she says. “There’s great joy in being in that spot and it propels you forward.”

Naturally, in the Upper School, challenges increase — but engagement must remain at the forefront if students are to progress. “It’s a lot about mindset here at Burke’s, as well as the idea that intelligence and skills are not fixed,” Moore says. “You can move them by practicing and working hard. People with fixed mindsets tend to think they have a fixed quantity of intelligence that could run out if they try too hard. That’s where students’ fear of failure comes in, and why we talk a lot about how mistakes are welcome because that’s how your brain grows.”

This growth mindset is of particular importance at Burke’s. “With girls, there’s often a sense of perfectionism that keeps them from trying things and taking chances,” Williams says. The school works toward banishing that fear from the beginning, taking light-hearted and humorous approaches to acknowledging mistakes. “We tell the girls that when you make mistakes, that when you fail, sometimes that’s when the most learning happens,” Moore says. “So it’s really valuable to make mistakes — they’re supposed to happen.” In this way, a personal sense of joy is not reliant on any particular accomplishment, but rather something a person carries around with them.

“When you’re helping folks to shape a joyful life or value joy, you’re doing it not because it’s frivolous but because life is complicated,” Williams says. “Part of it is knowing social-emotionally how to ride the highs and the lows. So, if there’s import placed on the feelings you have for things, then you’ll see that as valuable in your life.” In the end, you’ll be able to say that you enjoyed a math class because you learned something you didn’t previously know or you worked with someone you hadn’t before.

A Culture of Joy

The Burke’s commitment to joyful and rigorous learning runs deep. “We’re very upfront about the fact that we celebrate childhood and think joy is an important component of learning, and that academic rigor must be provided with a real and equal commitment to social-emotional learning,” Williams says. “As adults, we all know smart and talented people whose social-emotional side wasn’t as well developed, and they run into issues. We work to create an environment where kids feel emotionally safe so they can develop into emotionally strong kids. They understand their values and they feel grounded.”

Adult modeling is a key part of this effort, from the school staff to others in the community, to — of course — Burke’s families. “We can’t accomplish for the girls what we want in terms of development if we aren’t doing the work ourselves,” Williams points out. Professional development for Burke’s teachers is innovative and ongoing, and that keeps them happy as well. “I think part of being joyful as a teacher is having agency, a say in what you’re doing in your classroom and when you’re doing it,” Moore says. “Yes, we have a framework to design curriculum, but within that, the teachers have a lot of independence and creativity. It’s pretty exciting.”

Anyone who has worked with children knows they can instinctually pick up on how adults are feeling, and will often take their cue from them. “I think all of us take our work and our mission to educate, encourage, and empower girls seriously, but we try to do in a way that we’re not taking ourselves too seriously,” Williams explains. “These are young girls! You should hear laughter on campus, you should be able to see adults get up on stage and act goofy.”

It’s natural for parents to want their daughter to be happy, but they also want her to be ready to take her SATs and get into a top college. However, Dr. Brown advises parents to resist the temptation to maximize every minute of their child’s time “to increase their competitiveness and performance” for the sake of a college resume. “With every moment scripted by adult ambitions for them, kids cannot become naturally attuned to their innate talents,” he says.

Fortunately, Burke’s has plenty of program divisions that fulfill accountability and data-driven educational requirements to ensure that students fully prepped to attend great high schools and colleges. The good news is that joy and academic preparedness are not mutually exclusive. “Be honest with yourself about your end goal for your child,” suggests Moore. “For instance, you may say you want your child to be capable on her own in the world, to be curious and confident. Then work backward from there.”

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