When it was time to apply for graduate school, I made the decision that I wasn’t going to take the GRE to get in. At that point in my career, I was a young teacher who had already experienced the pitfalls of standardized testing.

“What it means to be a progressive school is that we are preparing young people to be a full scale member responsible for the society we live in, exercising good judgment personally and for the commonwealth.” - Deborah Meier, Founder Central Park East School - Harlem

“Kids know how to assert themselves, and lead and work within a group. It’s these base skills that make them not intimidated for future learning. They want to learn how the world works around them and why...which is key to what progressive is. Without these base skills it can become problematic—either you’re afraid to take the risk or you don’t even think to take a risk. Our Westland kids feel they can try anything and not fail. They realize it’s worth the risk and to not try is to fail.” - Parent, Westland School

On May 15, Karen was reading the chapter book The Cuckoo Child, by Dick King-Smith to the Group Two students. There were moments throughout the 20-minute read that modeled - again and again - the skills effective readers do regularly: make predictions, ask questions, make connections (text to text, text to world, and text to self), appreciate an author’s craft, self-correct, notice vocabulary, and visualize images.

As part of their social studies curriculum, students in Groups Three and Five traveled downtown to speak with muralist Robert Vargas regarding his project “Los Angelus,” which will be the largest mural painted by one person to date.

Pictures of our recent field trip to LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art). Thank you for this very inspirational experience.

The process of creating the mural that represents Group 5’s learning about the Chumash people began where many studies begin at Westland: on a field trip.