- Tim Breen, Ph.D., Head of School
The theme of students’ ShedTalks at Trimester 2’s FAIR is The Journey to Great Work.
At Watershed, we place a high value on students striving for high quality work – work they are truly proud of. Too often in schools the focus seems to be on quantity – on busywork. We want students to have the opportunity to invest in their work and experience what it’s like to see work get better through feedback and revision. We do this to help students learn what they are truly capable of (often more than they think!), and to learn how to apply their own high standards to their work. This emphasis on great work is one way we are future-focused – that is focused on what students need for their future.
Educator and author Ron Berger put it well:
When a student finishes schooling, she is judged for the rest of her life on the kind of person she is and the kind of work that she does. Rarely does this include how well she performs on a test. When we assess the growth and progress of our own children, when we assess the value of our co-workers, it’s not test scores but rather character and accomplishments that are the basis of our measure.
(from An Ethic of Excellence)
We take this truth to heart as we encourage and support our students to do work they are truly proud of, to have real accomplishments that matter.
We also know that the work a person produces does not always measure up to their standards – and that there are important learnings in this as well. That is why this next round of ShedTalks will be focused not just on the product, but on the process. What helped them along their journey to great work? Where did they stumble? And if they are not as proud of the work as they might have wished, what can they learn from that for their next project? These are valuable questions for students to ask and answer for themselves.
We are supporting students through the development of their ShedTalks in a variety of ways: in advisory, in the course where they did the work they are presenting, and finally in mixed presentation groups at FAIR. Presenting can be hard – but there is a reason we have students do this: it is an essential skill for their future success.
FAIR will be on Wednesday, February 9th from 5:30-7:45pm. We are really excited about this trimester’s version of FAIR and can’t wait to share it with you!
