{"id":499,"date":"2017-02-17T11:12:58","date_gmt":"2017-02-17T18:12:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/?p=499"},"modified":"2017-02-16T15:00:34","modified_gmt":"2017-02-16T22:00:34","slug":"uniquely-ours-the-hillbrook-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/2017\/02\/uniquely-ours-the-hillbrook-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"Uniquely Ours: the Hillbrook Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

“The Hillbrook Way at Home”
\n<\/strong><\/em>Contributed by Anne-Marie Strohman,<\/em>\u00a0Hillbrook Parent, Classes of 2019 and 2021;\u00a0<\/span>Hillbrook Parent Ambassador<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When I give campus tours in my role as a volunteer Parent Ambassador, many prospective parents are impressed by the students\u2019 curiosity, ownership of their learning, and autonomy. We\u2019ve come to describe this learning process as \u201c<\/span>The Hillbrook Way<\/span><\/a>\u201d: with students\u2019 choice and engagement at the center of their learning experiences, they ask questions, start testing ideas, collaborate to work toward an answer, and show what they\u2019ve discovered.<\/span><\/p>\n

While I\u2019m grateful to see this process in action during Wednesday tours, the most powerful experiences for me are when my kids bring this process home.<\/span><\/p>\n

On tours, I love showing prospective parents the \u201cMistakes\u201d poster in Susie Heeter\u2019s JK-2 Art room. It has five or six different suggestions for what to do when you make a mistake on an art project, including the final option: recycle and try again. She reads the kids Barney Saltzberg\u2019s <\/span>Beautiful Oops<\/span><\/i><\/a>, a delightful picture book about creating beauty out of mistakes. And when kids make a mistake, the class all sings, \u201cCe-le-brate mis-takes!\u201d It\u2019s a small picture of what happens in classrooms all across campus. Students can take a risk and start because if it doesn\u2019t work out, they can always start again. And they will have learned something in the process of trying.<\/span><\/p>\n

For my daughter Natalie, who is in 4th grade, baking and crafting provide her ample opportunities to engage in taking risks without fear. She is a self-proclaimed \u201cexperimental baker\u201d and rarely wants to use a recipe. Instead, she starts before she has a complete plan, consults with me during the process to ask for suggestions, and shares her \u201ctechnically edible\u201d creations. She\u2019s had a few successes, but her failures are what I\u2019m most encouraged by. When one of her creations doesn\u2019t taste that great, she shrugs and talks about what she might try next time.<\/span><\/p>\n

With prospective parents, I often highlight that students share what they\u2019ve learned in many different ways, from 1st and 2nd grade Author\u2019s Walkabouts to the Winter and Spring Concerts, from sharing with partners in Reader\u2019s Workshop to working out tough math problems on the whiteboard in Mr. Sears\u2019s math classes. But I didn\u2019t really understand how infused into students\u2019 learning the \u201cShow\u201d piece of the Hillbrook Way is until my son asked to post videos on YouTube.<\/span><\/p>\n

After my initial, \u201cNo way!\u201d I asked what he wanted to do and why. Evan, then in 5th grade, now in 6th, explained that he wanted to make Minecraft videos with tips and tricks for kids just starting to play the game. He had recently created a video using Scratch programming to share with his science class and assumed that sharing what he had learned was the natural next step. Ultimately, our family worked out a family YouTube policy that balances the values of sharing widely and preserving privacy, and both kids have created some videos they\u2019re really proud of. Once I realized that Evan wanted to share what he had learned–a natural extension of his experience at Hillbrook–I wanted to encourage him.<\/span><\/p>\n

I share with prospective parents that the Hillbrook Way is not just a process taught to students. It\u2019s a process teachers and administrators go through as well. From subject area audits to teachers speaking at conferences and publishing articles, faculty and administrators are engaged in learning about how to best serve our students. Student learning is still at the center, and what the adults at Hillbrook ask, start, and collaborate on is shared with the larger educational community.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m proud to be a part of an educational community that models and teaches a process that affects not only our students, but the learning of students around the world. And I\u2019m most touched when I see it in action at home.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Hillbrook Works for Us”
\n<\/strong><\/em>Contributed by Imma Calvo, Hillbrook Parent, Class of 2025, and Hillbrook Parent Ambassador<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

With both myself and Victor having gone through primary and secondary education in Europe, when it came to choosing a school for Max, we had to, as it were, start from scratch. We, of course, started by drafting an A-type matrix of pros and cons covering all the schools in the area, ready to embark on a journey of checking boxes and making informed decisions. The reality is however, that although we weren’t sure what to expect, we knew “us”, our family. We knew when and where we were the happiest, and what we valued the most. And with that, our first visit to Hillbrook’s Open House resonated with just that — a lot of “us”. Max and his brother Kai felt immediately at ease, I loved the energy of the teachers, the kindness of the administrators, and frankly, I saw a vibrant community of parents who seemed like a lot of fun to hang out with and people from whom I could learn.<\/p>\n

After the open house, I was “sold” on the Hillbrook experience for our family. Victor brought me back to our matrix of pros and cons, but I trusted my instinct that \u00a0Hillbrook would work for us, too. I wanted a place that would embrace Max’s energy, curiosity, and extroverted personality. I wished for a space where teachers that would welcome all of who he is and channel all of it to help him meet his fullest potential. I hoped for, a place where we all could forge and foster deep friendships hi that would bring us new experiences, introduce us to new cultures, and add a ton of fun and great memories into \u00a0our already active lives. I also wanted a place that would recognize the pace-of-life of dual working parents with demanding work and travel schedules, and would allow me to engage when and where I could, with no pressure. After our first 6 months as a Hillbrook family and I can honestly say, whatever the future brings, our instinct was right–Hillbrook works for us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“The Hillbrook Way at Home” Contributed by Anne-Marie Strohman,\u00a0Hillbrook Parent, Classes of 2019 and 2021;\u00a0Hillbrook Parent Ambassador When I give campus tours in my role …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","content-type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[128,57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-admissions","category-extraordinary-educational-experience"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":504,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499\/revisions\/504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}