Rabbi Nevins Visits with 4th Grade this Week

The biggest GOA story of my week can be described as a word problem in math: How many extraordinary teachers can simultaneously teach a single section of fourth graders? If you are at GOA, the answer is not one, nor two, but three! That is what I observed in both science and in math classes. 

In our Wilf Campus’s well-appointed science lab, fourth graders are studying geology, learning about the life cycle of rocks under the wise guidance of teachers Debra Feldman and Anna Shpilsky ’18, with the added attention of STEM director Dr. Shira Kelmanovich. The forty-minute class began with a brief review discussion and video on the three main types of rocks—igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary—and then the students dispersed around the room where they found numerous settings in which rocks can be found and transformed. Where is that rock, in a riverbed? On a mountain? Deep in earth’s interior? How do running water and ice sculpt stone? What forces of pressure and heat can cause rock to recrystallize (as limestone does to become marble)? Students noticed that rocks often stay in the same place but experience different environments all the same, and that just like water and animals, rocks have a cycle that takes them through different stages. Awesome!

Down the hall in math, once again three teachers helped our students understand word problems. Amanda Kagan and Sarah Steward were joined by learning specialist Marissa Edelstein. This is a new GOA initiative, to add a learning specialist to a classroom math team. So, tell me, if your family wants to drive from Seattle to Atlanta, a total of 2,636 miles, and you cover 1,460 miles in the first week, how many miles remain? If One World Trade Center has 2,071 steps and you stop to catch your breath after 1,236, how much more must you climb? Thirteen students divided into three subgroups, each led by a teacher, who helped the young mathematicians work such problems out. Some sat in desks, others plopped down in the carpeted corridor, and they got to work, learning how to round big numbers out to get close to an answer before finding the final score. I was impressed by the pedagogy, by the focus and persistence of our students…and, by my own math problem. How many students per teacher? I rounded the ratio to 4:1 but the exact ratio was 4.33:1 (don’t worry, the extra student remained a whole number!). 

Just think about it—how many schools provide their students with so much faculty attention? Of course, at GOA we take this for granted. We just assume that when kids get dropped off, they are greeted by name by a half dozen adults before they reach class. We assume that there will be smiles and encouragement throughout the day. And sometimes tears—one faculty member who recently suffered a family tragedy teared up when telling me how supported she has felt by the GOA community. These features of our school may feel normal to us, but I think they are extraordinary, and I am grateful to be part of such a team.