New Roads Shares Best Practices with NY Sister School

As part of a community of progressive independent schools across the nation, New Roads' teachers often look to share with and learn from their peers at other private schools. Recently the upper school History and Social Science Department Chair, Ronan Hallowell, welcomed educational technology integrator Joy Piedmont from Little Red School House/Elizabeth Irwin High School (LREI) to observe his 10th grade World Civilizations II classes and tour the middle school. LREI, located in lower Manhattan, was founded by progressive education pioneer Elizabeth Irwin in 1921 as an alternative public elementary school. Due to the Great Depression in the 1930s, Little Red School House lost its public funding and became an independent school. Like New Roads, LREI has a strong commitment to social justice and diversity. Joy shared insights about LREI’s approach to technology integration in a progressive school context and was eager to learn more about New Roads and its mission.

Ronan forged the connection with LREI while producing a teacher professional development workshop for the October 2015 Progressive Education Network Conference, held in Brooklyn. The workshop, Awe-quest: Story, Wisdom and Teaching the Possible, was a 4-hour experiential exploration of Hudson River Park and the West Village. Inspired by Rabbi Heschel’s statement that “awe is the beginning of wisdom,” Ronan developed the workshop to help teachers explore ways to provide students access to awe-inspiring experiences by unearthing stories of awe and wonder embedded in the landscapes we inhabit. With the World Trade Center and the Statue of Liberty as a backdrop, Ronan led a group of administrators and faculty from LREI and several other top independent schools through a “landscape orientation” exercise that provided scaffolding for the subsequent small group “awe-quests” that took place in the surrounding neighborhoods.