June 2008

The Career Development Office at Smith College is a wonderful resource for recent graduates. The staff at the CDO will create a file of your letters of recommendation and send those letters to prospective employers upon your request. They also offer workshops on interviewing skills, will review your resume and cover letter, and have ideas on how to find the schools who are looking for new teachers.

Janice Schell at jschell@email.smith.edu and David Machowski at dmachows@email.smith.edu are two of the staff at CDO who are actively involved in supporting new teachers searching for jobs.

Helpful links and resources for alumnae -- including access to the home page for the Smith College Alumnae Directory -- can be found at: www.smith.edu/cdo/alumnae/index.html

Locally, SchoolSpring.com, masslive.com, and boston.com are web sites that list teaching jobs.

May 2008

Exciting Opportunity for Teachers This Summer

Arts Immersion Teacher Institutes – Open to All Massachusetts Teachers from All Disciplines

Register now for Arts Immersion Teacher Institutes, to be held at three Massachusetts cultural organizations this summer. The institutes are open to K-12 teachers from all disciplines and teaching artists. The institutes receive funding as part of the Massachusetts Cultural Council's (MCC) Creative Minds initiative to expand arts education and creative learning experiences for students statewide.

Each institute focuses on a single masterpiece or “anchor work,” giving you the opportunity to:
work in depth
explore the contexts and meanings of an exemplary work of art
engage in criticism and art-making
transfer experiences to the classrooms

During the summer institute, you will design a 5-lesson curriculum unit to implement in the classroom during the fall. Each institute will then reconvene to discuss your experiences teaching the units and share student work.

The 2008 Arts Immersion Teacher Institutes are:

Crewdson’s Untitled: An Exploration of Narrative Berkshire Museum

39 South St., Pittsfield
June 30 – July 3 & July 10, 2008

Explore contemporary photographer Gregory Crewdson’s innovative approach to visual narrative by focusing on Untitled. Explore creating meaning with this single visual image of a single moment in time through in-depth discussions with the artist, hands-on artmaking in photography, and study with scholars from the Guggenheim and Berkshire Theater Festival, among others. Open to teachers of grades 3-12 from all disciplines.

Cost: There is no fee to participate in this institute

To register: Contact Education Program Manager Curtis Asch (413) 443-7171, ext. 19. Teachers receive a $200 stipend to develop and implement a 5 lesson unit.

Elizabeth Clarke Freake and Baby Mary Worcester Art Museum

55 Salisbury St., Worcester
August 11 – 15, 2008

Experience an intense examination of the painting Elizabeth Freake and Baby Mary, painted by an unidentified artist and considered the most important painting created in colonial America in the late 17th century. Scholars, art historians, conservators, a food historian, and others will guide you through an exploration of this one painting – its style, dress, accessories, identity as a pendant portrait, and visual depiction of mother and child – to reveal the history, aesthetics, religion, literary and relationship stories that it has to share. Experiences will include hands-on artmaking (in the studio and the computer studio), creative writing, and a field trip to Boston. Open to K-12 teachers from all disciplines.

Cost: $170 for museum members/$150 for nonmembers. Teachers receive a $200 stipend to develop and implement a 5 lesson unit.

To Register: Call 508-793-4333 or register online.

Looking at Galileo: A History Play for Our Times Underground Railway Theater in residence at the new Central Square Theater

450 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge
August 11 – 15, 2008

Engage with theater artists, scientists and historians in an inter-disciplinary exploration of Bertolt Brecht’s science theater masterpiece, The Life of Galileo. Examine questions that cut across the curriculum: How does scientific discovery affect our everyday lives? How do we know what we know (or think we know)? How does this play reflect our world today? This institute is timed to mark the UN’s declaration of 2009 as “The Year of Astronomy.” For teachers of language arts, science, history, classroom teachers, drama and arts specialists, grades 5-12.

Cost: $100. Teachers receive a $200 stipend to develop and implement a 5 lesson unit.

To Register: Contact Maggie Moore Abdow , Education Director, Underground Railway Theater.

April 2008

"Miss Walton! Miss Walton!" Almost all the 18 second-graders in Robbie Murphy's classroom at the Smith
College Campus School had their hands in the air, eager to answer the math question posed by their 28-year-old student-teacher, Anna Walton, who had a smile to make the day begin. It was clear they wanted to
please her, to make her happy . . . Read the rest of the article about Anna Walton, a student teacher in our Elementary Teacher Preparation Program from the Daily Hampshire Gazette article entitled "Teaching the Teachers" at http://www.gazettenet.com/beta/2008/04/12/teaching-teachers Saturday, April 12, 2008

Northeast Foundation for Children

We are fortunate to have one of the most important resources for teachers located in our area. The Northeast Foundation for Children is located in Turners' Falls, Massachusetts. This group, largely through the effort of Chip Wood, the author of "Yardsticks: Children in the Classrom Ages 4 - 14," developed and refined the "Responsive Classroom" approach to building comminuty in the classroom. NEFC publishes a newsletter that helps teachers think about ways of beginning and ending the school year, offers ideas for community service learning, and shares student and teacher success stories.

The Responsive Classroom newsletter is available on-line at
http://www.responsiveclassroom.org/newsletter/index.html

Back issues can be found at http://www.responsiveclassroom.org/newsletter/backissues.html

A Summer opportunity:

Hampshire Education Collaborative is an agency located in Northampton. They offer professional development to teachers and support to local school districts, partents and students through the HEC Academy, an alternative school.

HEC's 5-week summer programs are scheduled from July 9 - August 12. HEC operates an outdoor-based camp in Leeds for students with physical & cognitive disabilities; summers schools at HEC Academy, Northampton, for middle & high-school students; & a summer school for high-school students in North Amherst.

Contact Alex Chesner, Clinical Services, at (413) 658-5548, for more information

March 2008

As part of our math methods (EDC 345) class, we are taking one afternoon and setting up a panel of principals and alums who will offer their advice/experience on the things that student teachers should do to help find their first teaching job.

The session will be from 3 to 5 on Tuesday, March 25 in the Browsing Room in Nielson Library.

Our guest include Gwen Agna, principal of the Jackson Street School, Johanna McKenna, principal of Bridge Street School, Scott Goldman, principal of Smith Academy in Hatfield, and Lucy Perez, Director of Human Resources for the Springfield School District.

Current News

May 2008

April 2008

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Smith Grads at Work

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