Community Update for 3/16: Notes On Getting Back To Work
Stone Community,
Before I get into the pragmatic details of the upcoming week, I want to begin by again expressing my deep and very real gratitude for the way that each of you has met head-on this challenge. It remains a testament to who we are and what we have built together that across every segment of our community the response has been exactly the same: in the face of sudden change, this community has lead with empathy and generosity, this community has remained deeply engaged, this community has been curious and creative, and -- when appropriate -- this community has been really funny. Here’s a snapshot of just a few of the amazing things that have happened around Stone in the last 72 hours:
Friday morning, we decided to close the school. By 3:00pm that afternoon 57 members of our community -- 57! -- attended a completely ad-hoc test-run of Google Meet. The meeting was a little chaotic, it was also funny and so re-affirming. When it was all over, three different Stone faculty members reached out to say, “I love this place so much I want to cry.”
Friday evening, most of the Stone faculty reunited off-campus to check in, re-connect, express support, share ideas, and chew on how we can work with intention to understand this new model while remaining “very Stone”;
By Saturday, the Stone “wheels” began to turn. Our Director of Student Activities began working on the Discord server and the Twitch channel, the Echo Club built out a new Minecraft world and server, faculty began sharing ideas and stumbling blocks and concerns and discoveries.
And indecipherable “minecraft screenshots” began populating Slack...
Yesterday, the online servers were all up and running , and we held a 30ish-person “Virtual Stone Parents Social”, and there was some kind of “Sims 4” meet-up, and -- since none of that was quite enough -- Lou and Spencer released a single on Spotify (head right over here to check it out).
That’s a pretty great 3 days for any part of the school year -- that it all happened on a weekend, over Spring Break, as school is shutting down, is remarkable. As one of our students asked aloud on Slack, “Quick question: how have we made so much culture happen when literally no one is at school?”
In today’s email, I intend to walk through the details of what will take place next week. In accordance with Governor Wolf’s announcement Friday afternoon we will be closed for at least two weeks. With that minimum closure in mind, I will share with you that there really is no roadmap for what we are trying to accomplish as a community -- we do expect a fair amount of “onboarding” as we transition into our “Learning-From-Home” Model, our hope is that we will get a lot “right”, just a few things “wrong”, and continually reassess. Here’s how next week will work:
Tuesday. We ask that if you are able to stay out of our building that you do so. However, if you left any critical personal items behind, please come to Stone tomorrow between 11am and 4pm to collect them. If you do indeed come to the building, please Slack me and let me know when you will be in so that we can stagger visits; respectfully, I ask that you keep your time in the building as brief as possible. Tomorrow at 4:00pm the building will officially be “closed” and we will ask that no-one enter the building until the “all-clear”;
Wednesday (Day 1). On Wednesday we will commence the “Learning At Home” Model. We will begin with a brief All-Hands meeting between 8:30am - 8:40am and begin classes at 8:40am. All Stone faculty will reach out to their students to let them know how they will “begin” the work at hand;
All Day, Every Day: We will continue to follow our “regular daily calendar”. We will continue to run our usual academic blocks, our usual organizational meetings, MS Exploration, etc. We will indeed hold our first “morning meeting” at 9:55 on Wednesday -- we will all stand up and sit back down again!, we will have a Jacob Forecast, etc -- and work through our usual announcements from there;
In Preparation For Learning At Home: We ask that our community be prepared to use the following Stone tools:
#Slack, Google Classroom and Drive. As ever, much of our academic coursework, content and assessments will exist exactly where they always do;
Google Calendar. Let’s all pay close attention to Calendar and work it into our bag of tools -- Calendar is particularly powerful for online learning because it allows you to generate a Google Meet link whenever you set a Calendar appointment;.
Google Meet. For now, because of its relationship to our current ecosystem we will be holding all video meetings in Google Meet. Meet also allows us to hold meetings with up to 250 participants and stream to something like 100,000 viewers;
Also in Preparation For Learning At Home: We ask that our community approach “Learning At Home” as thoughtfully and professionally as “Learning at Stone”. We will certainly build out new community norms as we move forward, but we continue to ask that our students:
Dress appropriately for a day of learning;
Design a “learning/working” space which is respectful and conducive to the work of the day;
Continue to follow our mission with regard to how we work, speak and interact with one another;
As We Learn Together, we ask that all community members understand that we will need to adapt and change over time. We may quickly realize that certain tools are too constricting, certain tools are a little wonky, certain tools just don’t serve us. Our faculty may ask students to sign up for additional services; we may discover that Zoom is better than Meet; we may each have preferences for different paradigms. Conversely, I also ask very gently that we hold off on offering much feedback early on -- there is going to be all kinds of wonkiness over the next two or so weeks and I’d like to spend a little time “in it” before we make any quick judgements about what works and what doesn’t;
Ongoing Communication. We will continue to bias toward lots of communication in a lot of different ways -- a lot of Slack messaging for non-urgent communication; continued Google Meet meetings; weekly Sunday evening Parents’ Check-Ins (I’ll put those on the calendar soon); and my trademark incredibly long emails.
This model -- virtual, online, cyber, Learning-From-Home, etc. -- is indeed different, and lately I’ve taken to using the hashtag #differenting as a way to lovingly remind everyone that there is very real change in front of us, change into which we by necessity must lean. But as it turns out, online learning done really well is absolutely no less “human” than any other model -- it is just, well, different. Here at Stone, we continue to all want the same things -- we want to build a community of deep learners, we want to practice empathy and ethicality and gratitude, we want to incentivize joyfulness, we want our students to be known and loved.
Our delivery model is indeed changing, but as evidenced by the last 72 hours, our values are steadfast.
As you have questions, do not hesitate to text me, call me, email me, or slack me. I am so grateful to each of you,
Mike Simpson, Head of School