Beyond STEM: St. Christopher's BUILD Program and the Art of Learning Through Doing
This week we join our co-host Hiram Cuevas and his colleagues from St. Christopher's School as they delve into their unique "BUILD" program, designed to integrate innovation, learning, and design across all grade levels. Discover how this all-boys school cultivates curiosity, encourages hands-on projects, and fosters a safe environment for learning from failure.
- BUILD (Boys Using Innovation to Learn and Design) program, combining STEM/STEAM approaches with a broad, skills-based, project-centered focus
- Album of photos from St. Christopher’s BUILD program lab
- The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway, author, professor, and entrepreneur Scott Galloway brings business analysis and insights four times a week.
- St. Christopher's School
- International Boys' Schools Coalition (IBSC)
- Canva
- Glowforge
- Cricut
- FIRST LEGO League
- St. Catherine's School
- University School (Cleveland)
- Richard V. Reeves (Books)
- Photo of Bill with his melee weapon gift from Hiram
Transcript
Peter Frank 00:00:02
Ed, welcome to Talking technology with Atlas,
Peter Frank 00:00:05
the show that plugs you into the important topics and trends for
Peter Frank 00:00:08
technology leaders all through a unique Independent School lens.
Peter Frank 00:00:12
We'll hear stories from technology directors and other
Peter Frank 00:00:15
special guests from the Independent School community,
Peter Frank 00:00:17
and provide you with focused learning and deep dive topics.
Peter Frank 00:00:21
And now please welcome your host, Kristina llewellen, hello
Peter Frank 00:00:25
everyone,
Christina Lewellen 00:00:25
and welcome back to talking technology with
Christina Lewellen 00:00:27
Atlas. I'm Kristina llewellen, the president and CEO of the
Christina Lewellen 00:00:31
Association of Technology Leaders in Independent Schools.
Bill Stites 00:00:34
And I am Bill Stites, the Director of
Bill Stites 00:00:36
Technology at Montclair Kimberly Academy in Montclair, New
Bill Stites 00:00:39
Jersey, and
Hiram Cuevas 00:00:41
I'm Hiram Cuevas, Director of Information Systems
Hiram Cuevas 00:00:43
and Academic Technology at St Christopher school in Richmond,
Hiram Cuevas 00:00:46
Virginia.
Christina Lewellen 00:00:46
Hello and Good Morning, guys. I have
Christina Lewellen 00:00:48
missed you, and I always look forward to seeing you each week.
Christina Lewellen 00:00:51
So how's everybody? How you doing? I'm doing
Hiram Cuevas 00:00:53
very well. That's good. It's smiley spring. It is
Hiram Cuevas 00:00:58
finally
Christina Lewellen 00:00:59
getting there, and Bill. We're gonna
Christina Lewellen 00:01:01
drop this pod in a while, so it'll be some time, but it was
Christina Lewellen 00:01:04
your birthday. It was can you tell everyone what your darling
Christina Lewellen 00:01:09
bromance gave you your BFF, Hiram? Oh, yes. What did Hiram
Christina Lewellen 00:01:15
get you for your birthday?
Bill Stites 00:01:16
Hiram sent me a melee weapon for the zombie
Bill Stites 00:01:23
apocalypse. It's about as long as my forearm has got multiple
Bill Stites 00:01:30
cutting surfaces as well as a nice sharp pointy end, because,
Bill Stites 00:01:35
as they say in Game of Thrones, sticking with the pointy end, I
Bill Stites 00:01:41
literally got this box. It looked like a small box of roses
Bill Stites 00:01:45
one might send their loved one. That's what it looked like. And
Bill Stites 00:01:48
it was sent from my loved one, and it was, in my mind, equal to
Bill Stites 00:01:53
a bouquet of roses. It was my new melee weapon of choice. My
Bill Stites 00:01:57
wife looked at it, and she's just simply said, Oh no, what
Bill Stites 00:02:02
did Hiram do? And I pulled it out, and I showed it to her, and
Bill Stites 00:02:07
she looked at me, and she said, What are you going to do with
Bill Stites 00:02:11
that? I'm going to sharpen it up, run around and pretend I'm
Bill Stites 00:02:15
in the zombie apocalypse in my backyard. I'm going to play like
Bill Stites 00:02:18
a big kid, and then when Hiram comes, we'll just act stuff out
Bill Stites 00:02:21
like we did when we were in the VR zombie at the last Atlas
Bill Stites 00:02:24
conference. You can't
Christina Lewellen 00:02:26
go wrong, Peter, producer, Peter, I think
Christina Lewellen 00:02:28
you need to make a little note that if the guys are fighting
Christina Lewellen 00:02:31
with weapons in the backyard, I think we're gonna need to record
Christina Lewellen 00:02:34
that. I mean, oh my god, y'all well, and
Bill Stites 00:02:38
we've got a picture, so I'm happy to share
Bill Stites 00:02:40
pictures. I'm sure Hiram can provide purchasing advice for
Bill Stites 00:02:43
those concerned about the zombie apocalypse and when it comes and
Bill Stites 00:02:47
what you need to do. This will never need to be reloaded. This
Bill Stites 00:02:50
will never need any type of spark to ignite anything. This
Bill Stites 00:02:54
is the perfect weapon. And
Hiram Cuevas 00:02:56
as Nicole mentioned, World War Z is the
Hiram Cuevas 00:02:59
book to read 100%
Christina Lewellen 00:03:02
is it a toy or is it a real weapon? Oh,
Bill Stites 00:03:05
no, no. No, no. It's legitimately forged steel.
Bill Stites 00:03:11
No. Chrissy, check your text messages because you've got a
Bill Stites 00:03:14
picture of it in your phone. I thought it was
Christina Lewellen 00:03:17
a toy. I mean, it's kind of colorful.
Christina Lewellen 00:03:19
Jen, you sent a weapon in the mail to Bill. What is wrong with
Christina Lewellen 00:03:23
you?
Bill Stites 00:03:24
Oh, and it came in a zombie box. It was designed
Bill Stites 00:03:27
for zombie aficionados.
Hiram Cuevas 00:03:30
This is out of control, it is, but you brought
Hiram Cuevas 00:03:33
it up. It's about as close as to Lobo as you could get. That's
Hiram Cuevas 00:03:36
what I was thinking.
Christina Lewellen 00:03:38
For all of you curious listeners, we will
Christina Lewellen 00:03:41
put a link in the show notes to the picture that was dropped in
Christina Lewellen 00:03:45
our group chat a few days ago. I'm not sure how I feel about
Christina Lewellen 00:03:48
mailing weapons to people, but Bill Happy Birthday anyway.
Bill Stites 00:03:52
Thank you very much. I will tell you side note
Bill Stites 00:03:55
for a wedding gift. I did get a potato cannon from one of my
Bill Stites 00:03:58
groomsmen, so it's right in line with the type of gifts I get.
Bill Stites 00:04:02
It's a perfect segue. It is, and that came from a friend called
Bill Stites 00:04:06
Evil Paul. That's his name, and my wife loves him, as she does
Bill Stites 00:04:10
with Hiram.
Christina Lewellen 00:04:11
Okay, y'all bill is fired up today. I mean
Christina Lewellen 00:04:14
potato cannons, and do not bring a potato cannon to the Atlas
Christina Lewellen 00:04:19
conference. Okay, I don't have enough insurance for that. All
Christina Lewellen 00:04:23
right, so here we are today, recording another fiery podcast,
Christina Lewellen 00:04:28
and we're really excited because we've been wanting to do this
Christina Lewellen 00:04:30
for a while. Some of you who have been listening to us for a
Christina Lewellen 00:04:33
bit know that on occasion, Hiram will talk to us about his stem
Christina Lewellen 00:04:37
and innovation program at St Christopher school in Richmond,
Christina Lewellen 00:04:41
Virginia. He refers to it as the build program. And what I think
Christina Lewellen 00:04:45
is really cool is that we've decided to actually talk about
Christina Lewellen 00:04:48
that program. We've talked about some of MKA stuff with Bill and
Christina Lewellen 00:04:52
his team before, so now we're going to spend some time on
Christina Lewellen 00:04:54
Hiram school with some of Hiram colleagues. So Hiram, I'm going
Christina Lewellen 00:04:58
to actually give you just a second. To to tell us a little
Christina Lewellen 00:05:01
bit about what build stands for, and you've got a couple of
Christina Lewellen 00:05:05
friends with you there in the office, so please introduce us
Christina Lewellen 00:05:08
to your colleagues.
Hiram Cuevas 00:05:09
Thank you so much, Kristina, and we're very excited
Hiram Cuevas 00:05:11
to showcase the build program. I think it's fair to say, when the
Hiram Cuevas 00:05:16
acronym build was developed, we were trying to really brand STEM
Hiram Cuevas 00:05:21
or STEAM or stream, because it went through multiple
Hiram Cuevas 00:05:24
iterations, yeah, into something that was very, very meaningful
Hiram Cuevas 00:05:28
for our community. We are an all boys school, J, K to 12, and so
Hiram Cuevas 00:05:34
we came up with the concept of build, which stands for boys
Hiram Cuevas 00:05:38
using innovation to learn and design. And since we also belong
Hiram Cuevas 00:05:43
to the international Boys School coalition, it really resonated
Hiram Cuevas 00:05:47
very well with that community. And one of our very own Ty
Hiram Cuevas 00:05:51
Campbell at the Gilman school is also part of the ibsc. As a
Hiram Cuevas 00:05:57
result, we came up with the bill program for branding purposes.
Hiram Cuevas 00:06:00
Really focused a great deal on how to execute this concept
Hiram Cuevas 00:06:05
across the lower the middle and the upper schools. And as a
Hiram Cuevas 00:06:10
result, I've brought in with us my colleagues from each of the
Hiram Cuevas 00:06:13
divisions, and our upper school person is also the build
Hiram Cuevas 00:06:17
coordinator across all of the curricular strands, and we're
Hiram Cuevas 00:06:21
all here to showcase and share what we've encountered and
Hiram Cuevas 00:06:24
learned that's really cool. I'll start with our lower school. So
Hiram Cuevas 00:06:28
we have Gayle Warren in our lower school. Good
Gail Warren 00:06:31
morning. I had the pleasure of working with JK
Gail Warren 00:06:35
through fifth grade boys and teachers. We have a unique
Gail Warren 00:06:38
approach to our build program in the Lower School. We have a
Gail Warren 00:06:43
Learning Commons model. I can speak more to that a little bit
Gail Warren 00:06:47
later, but it's definitely a wonderful program that we
Gail Warren 00:06:50
collaborate with our librarians, and we have instructional techs
Gail Warren 00:06:54
as well. Yeah.
Unknown 00:06:55
David Shin, in the middle school, hi Kristina.
David Shin 00:06:58
Hi Bill. Good morning. Nice to meet you. My
David Shin 00:07:00
name is David Chen. I teach in the middle school. I'm a science
David Shin 00:07:03
teacher here at St Christopher, nice
Jim Guion 00:07:06
to meet you, too. Hi. Kristina bill, I am Jim Guyon. I
Jim Guion 00:07:10
am the JK 12 build coordinator, Upper School teacher and
Jim Guion 00:07:14
instructional technologist. I teach few classes in the Upper
Jim Guion 00:07:18
School, and I work with teachers in the Upper School and across
Jim Guion 00:07:21
all the divisions to help integrate our build program
Jim Guion 00:07:24
across the curriculum.
Hiram Cuevas 00:07:25
Awesome and Christina, one of the
Hiram Cuevas 00:07:27
interesting things is, from a departmental perspective, it's
Hiram Cuevas 00:07:30
not in a computer department. It's actually incorporated in
Hiram Cuevas 00:07:35
the arts department as part of our overall JK through 12 model.
Hiram Cuevas 00:07:41
That's really
Christina Lewellen 00:07:42
cool. So you guys are obviously stringing
Christina Lewellen 00:07:45
this all the way through the life cycle of your students,
Christina Lewellen 00:07:49
right? That you start at the Lower School, and you have a way
Christina Lewellen 00:07:52
that this applies to them, and then to middle and then to high
Christina Lewellen 00:07:55
school. Tell me the origin of build, what that kind of stands
Christina Lewellen 00:07:59
for, and what has it come to mean? How long have you guys
Christina Lewellen 00:08:01
been doing it? Build
Jim Guion 00:08:03
actually stands for boys using innovation to learn
Jim Guion 00:08:06
and design. And like everything we do here at St Christopher's,
Jim Guion 00:08:09
our build program is informed by what we know about how boys
Jim Guion 00:08:12
learn. And so it's really based on the idea that we are trying
Jim Guion 00:08:17
to spark boys sense of curiosity and wonder. We know that boys
Jim Guion 00:08:21
learn by doing, and so our project across the curriculum,
Jim Guion 00:08:25
in all levels, is based on skills, space, Project centered.
Jim Guion 00:08:30
It incorporates best practices for what we know about boys,
Jim Guion 00:08:32
which is project based, learning, technology infused,
Jim Guion 00:08:35
applications, competition and hands on experiences. And so
Jim Guion 00:08:38
we're trying to bring that to our boys right across the
Jim Guion 00:08:41
curriculum, by getting their hands dirty, by actually getting
Jim Guion 00:08:44
them to build things and make things and think about how to
Jim Guion 00:08:47
design things. There's a lot of iteration. There's a lot of just
Jim Guion 00:08:52
actually doing things and being okay with failure. Having
Christina Lewellen 00:08:56
this program across all levels had to be
Christina Lewellen 00:08:59
pretty intentional, and I know we'll get into some of the
Christina Lewellen 00:09:01
specifics on that. But was this something that you had all
Christina Lewellen 00:09:04
buttoned up with a bow and said, Hey, here's our new build
Christina Lewellen 00:09:07
program, and went out to your community and your teachers with
Christina Lewellen 00:09:11
it all at once, or was it something that sort of grew over
Christina Lewellen 00:09:13
time?
Hiram Cuevas 00:09:14
Well, we were always interested in developing
Hiram Cuevas 00:09:16
a STEM program and finding opportunities for our boys to
Hiram Cuevas 00:09:20
engage in design thinking. And the challenge that we had is we
Hiram Cuevas 00:09:24
kept seeing this particular niche go into several
Hiram Cuevas 00:09:29
iterations. You had steam, you had stream, you had stem, and at
Hiram Cuevas 00:09:34
one point, the head of our upper school said, Why don't they just
Hiram Cuevas 00:09:37
call it school? Because they were trying to incorporate so
Hiram Cuevas 00:09:41
many different things that we needed to really hone in on what
Hiram Cuevas 00:09:46
we wanted to do. Make sure it was mission driven. Make sure it
Hiram Cuevas 00:09:49
satisfied how boys learn best, and the genesis of build
Hiram Cuevas 00:09:54
occurred. So
Christina Lewellen 00:09:56
now, can you guys talk to me a little bit
Christina Lewellen 00:09:58
about how it. This plays out in each of those divisions, because
Christina Lewellen 00:10:03
obviously you have the representation there. Let's
Christina Lewellen 00:10:05
start with the Lower School, with Gayle. How do you guys fly
Christina Lewellen 00:10:10
the build concept to your lower school? So I feel like
Gail Warren 00:10:14
ours is a really organic approach to the build
Gail Warren 00:10:17
program. We had the Learning Commons model, which essentially
Gail Warren 00:10:21
is the librarians and the technology instructional
Gail Warren 00:10:25
technologists in the Lower School, we meet with every grade
Gail Warren 00:10:28
level once a month, and so we are hoping that we're not
Gail Warren 00:10:33
teaching anything in isolation. We don't want it to be skill
Gail Warren 00:10:36
driven in that aspect, we actually talk to them about what
Gail Warren 00:10:39
their curricular needs are, and we build our build program from
Gail Warren 00:10:44
that, for instance, in kindergarten, they are studying
Gail Warren 00:10:47
communities and habitats, and they may be building igloos. And
Gail Warren 00:10:52
fifth grade, they're learning about Ancient Greece. And so we
Gail Warren 00:10:57
have the boys develop a breakout room, and we dress at our
Gail Warren 00:11:00
costumes, and we build Aqua Dots and catapults competitions. So
Gail Warren 00:11:04
we do all kinds of things with our teachers, and it's really
Gail Warren 00:11:07
been an awesome thing. It's been at least a decade in the making
Gail Warren 00:11:12
as far as the Learning Commons, and it has definitely grown.
Gail Warren 00:11:15
It's more like I said begin with. It's more organic, and
Gail Warren 00:11:19
every year, I feel like we add and morph and evolve, which has
Gail Warren 00:11:24
been really a great process to be a part of, really fosters
Gail Warren 00:11:28
curiosity with the boys. A lot of it's project based, which is
Gail Warren 00:11:33
just incredible. Some of the things that the boys come up
Gail Warren 00:11:35
with, and I think that really has helped. As far as our
Gail Warren 00:11:39
curriculum overall, we're seeing such growth as far as the
Gail Warren 00:11:44
application process with other subject areas we work with
Gail Warren 00:11:48
everything from art to social studies and history and science
Gail Warren 00:11:53
foreign world languages that we have. We just did a program last
Gail Warren 00:11:56
night. It was our Saint celebrate the world. And there
Gail Warren 00:11:59
were lots of components of build within that process where we
Gail Warren 00:12:02
invite community members in parents and the boys get to
Gail Warren 00:12:07
actually showcase them and their families what their heritage is.
Gail Warren 00:12:11
And so it's an awesome process to see
David Shin 00:12:14
Hi again. This is David. I'm really encouraged,
David Shin 00:12:18
and I think Jim and Gayle and Hiram can agree to this, that
David Shin 00:12:21
COVID Or no COVID, zoom or no zoom, the idea of curiosity and
David Shin 00:12:27
wonder has not died. And I'm so optimistic that whether it's a
David Shin 00:12:33
boy school or a girl school or CO ed school, like the idea that
David Shin 00:12:37
we really have amazing kids who wonder and who are curious about
David Shin 00:12:42
things is really cool. And I think schools should really
David Shin 00:12:46
foster that and encourage that, and love that. In the middle
David Shin 00:12:50
school, the idea of tackling a problem through a project, and I
David Shin 00:12:55
guess you have to grade it, because there's a report card,
David Shin 00:12:58
so there's part of that too. But in the science department, we
David Shin 00:13:01
have really low tech stuff, like we drop a raw egg off of our
David Shin 00:13:06
second floor balcony and the third floor balcony and, Oh man,
David Shin 00:13:10
it's like, so low budget, and it's still so so much fun. And
David Shin 00:13:15
we still calculate kinetic energy, potential, energy,
David Shin 00:13:19
force, velocity, acceleration, really, really neat, like
David Shin 00:13:23
science variables. And then we also use some high tech stuff,
David Shin 00:13:28
like computer assisted design software through some a company
David Shin 00:13:32
called white box, in the beginning of the year, we design
David Shin 00:13:35
bridges, and you get first place if your bridge is the lightest
David Shin 00:13:40
and carry the most weight. So we do a competition using those
David Shin 00:13:45
bridges. So we go kind of from high tech to low tech, and the
David Shin 00:13:51
theme of curiosity and competition and just the love of
David Shin 00:13:56
like, I wonder, what happens if I rip this parachute in the
David Shin 00:13:59
middle? You know, is it going to go faster straighter? What's the
David Shin 00:14:02
physics behind this? So I love that part of our curriculum. My
David Shin 00:14:06
least favorite part is like, I still have to grade them. But
David Shin 00:14:10
beyond that, they're still really happy if their egg drops
David Shin 00:14:13
without cracking. So I love that part. Hi. This
Unknown 00:14:17
is Jim in
Jim Guion 00:14:18
the Upper School. This is just my second year
Jim Guion 00:14:21
here. So over the last two years, the build program in the
Jim Guion 00:14:24
Upper School has incorporated largely Well, every ninth grader
Jim Guion 00:14:28
goes through my classroom, they get essentially a quarter of
Jim Guion 00:14:31
instruction in the build Lab, which is basically an
Jim Guion 00:14:34
introduction to all of the tools that we have there, which is
Jim Guion 00:14:37
everything from just basic build tools like screwdrivers and
Jim Guion 00:14:40
hammers, and we also have 3d printers and laser cutters and a
Jim Guion 00:14:43
lot of different tools, sewing machines. We have a kitchen, a
Jim Guion 00:14:46
little bit everything, and I try to get the kids hands on every
Jim Guion 00:14:49
tool over the course of their time with me. In addition to
Jim Guion 00:14:52
that, we want to give them an introduction to sort of a
Jim Guion 00:14:55
structured problem solving method that they can use just
Jim Guion 00:14:58
across their lives. But in this classroom specifically, and for
Jim Guion 00:15:02
us, that's the design thinking model. And so we try to
Jim Guion 00:15:04
incorporate that. I try to teach them that through the projects
Jim Guion 00:15:07
that we're doing, just get them through to go through a
Jim Guion 00:15:10
structured process, to solve problems, working their way
Jim Guion 00:15:12
through what is an iterative process, one that has failure
Jim Guion 00:15:16
built into the model, because particularly our high school
Jim Guion 00:15:19
kids don't have a lot of opportunities in their academic
Jim Guion 00:15:22
life to fail being able to do something that the process is
Jim Guion 00:15:26
the point. Yes, of course, we want there to be a thing at the
Jim Guion 00:15:29
end, but how you get there is more important than necessarily
Jim Guion 00:15:32
what's at the end. So that's a big part of what we do. And so I
Jim Guion 00:15:35
do that in that ninth grade class. I get every single ninth
Jim Guion 00:15:38
grade I also have an elective that's open to anyone, and then
Jim Guion 00:15:41
a good part of my day is just being in that lab and being a
Jim Guion 00:15:44
resource for students who have other projects in other areas
Jim Guion 00:15:49
that involve making a poster or making a model or doing
Jim Guion 00:15:52
something else, and being a resource in that room for that
Jim Guion 00:15:55
opportunity. We're at the point now, though, where I'm finding I
Jim Guion 00:15:58
have now students that have been through the program since Lower
Jim Guion 00:16:02
School, and so some of those introductory skills are becoming
Jim Guion 00:16:06
less and less important. And so what we're thinking about now
Jim Guion 00:16:09
is, how does that program morph into something that's different?
Jim Guion 00:16:11
How do we use our time better? How do we be a better resource
Jim Guion 00:16:15
for the kids? Because I'm not having to teach, here's how you
Jim Guion 00:16:17
use a 3d printer. I'm not having to teach, here's how you use a
Jim Guion 00:16:20
CAD program. They've already seen that, and they've heard
Jim Guion 00:16:23
some of these ideas of how design thinking works. And so
Jim Guion 00:16:26
how do we build on what we've already done? And so that's
Jim Guion 00:16:29
where we're at. Now,
Bill Stites 00:16:30
Jim, I want to dig in on something because you
Bill Stites 00:16:33
mentioned something earlier. You kind of just expanded on it
Bill Stites 00:16:35
there, and it's something that I'm very intrigued by, and I've
Bill Stites 00:16:40
tried to talk to as many people about what it means to them, and
Bill Stites 00:16:43
that has to do with the idea of being okay or embracing failure
Bill Stites 00:16:49
as something that you can learn from how do you have those
Bill Stites 00:16:53
conversations with the students? How do you have those
Bill Stites 00:16:56
conversations with the teaching faculty there, in terms of using
Bill Stites 00:17:01
failure as a teaching tool, as a method for learning and growing.
Bill Stites 00:17:06
From what do those conversations look like?
Jim Guion 00:17:08
So with students, those conversations are very
Jim Guion 00:17:10
often you seem like you're paralyzed here. What is your
Jim Guion 00:17:14
concern? Why is it difficult to start? Why can we not get moving
Jim Guion 00:17:17
forward? And a lot of times, if you can tease out where that's
Jim Guion 00:17:20
coming from is it is a genuine fear of failure. The idea that
Jim Guion 00:17:24
your first draft has to be a perfect draft is really powerful
Jim Guion 00:17:26
with a lot of our kids, many of whom consider themselves to be
Jim Guion 00:17:30
and by all accounts, are high performing students. And so
Jim Guion 00:17:33
being able to just say, look, it is okay. It's a draft. It's
Jim Guion 00:17:36
supposed to be a draft. In fact, if you did it right the first
Jim Guion 00:17:39
time, what would you learn from it? You'd know only what you
Jim Guion 00:17:41
know now. And so being able to sort of divorce that from what
Jim Guion 00:17:46
is traditionally a writing assignment or a math assignment,
Jim Guion 00:17:50
being able to divorce that and put it together with building a
Jim Guion 00:17:52
bridge or designing the ultimate desk organizer, being able to
Jim Guion 00:17:57
divorce that from what's a traditional sort of academic
Jim Guion 00:18:00
goal, and then say, Look, do you know if this is going to work?
Jim Guion 00:18:03
No, we'll try it. And then if it doesn't, then you know something
Jim Guion 00:18:06
you didn't know before you know what doesn't work. There's a
Jim Guion 00:18:09
great quote by I think it's Edison. I haven't failed. I've
Jim Guion 00:18:11
learned 10,000 ways it doesn't work. I think that's just
Jim Guion 00:18:14
fabulous, and I use it a lot. The only way to learn is to try
Jim Guion 00:18:17
something, have it not work, and then figure out how it can and
Jim Guion 00:18:21
so how I bring that to the teachers is the idea is, look,
Jim Guion 00:18:25
in this project, how many drafts are you doing? Are they all
Jim Guion 00:18:27
graded? How much feedback are they getting? And a lot of our
Jim Guion 00:18:30
teachers are already doing that. But putting that in terms of
Jim Guion 00:18:33
explicitly, in terms of a methodology for solving a
Jim Guion 00:18:36
problem, put it in terms in a structured way to go about
Jim Guion 00:18:39
getting to a goal with multiple iterations, I think it just
Jim Guion 00:18:42
helps reframe a lot of what they're already doing. Really.
Jim Guion 00:18:44
The
Bill Stites 00:18:45
other question that I have for that is something for
Bill Stites 00:18:48
all three of you. And Gayle, you kind of mentioned it with
Bill Stites 00:18:51
regards to the Learning Commons, in terms of going in and working
Bill Stites 00:18:54
with the classroom teachers. And Jim, you talked about it from
Bill Stites 00:18:58
the science perspective. And the egg drop is actually something
Bill Stites 00:19:01
we do, not at quite the technical level that I think you
Bill Stites 00:19:04
might be doing, but we do that with our third graders in terms
Bill Stites 00:19:07
of introducing those concepts. Jim, you said you have the kids
Bill Stites 00:19:10
for a quarter in the ninth grade. What does this look like
Bill Stites 00:19:14
in the context of, how does this get into the classroom, whether
Bill Stites 00:19:19
it's at the lower the middle or the upper school, are they
Bill Stites 00:19:22
pulled out classes? You've got them for a quarter to introduce
Bill Stites 00:19:25
it. At the lower school, you know, what does that look like?
Bill Stites 00:19:28
And at the middle school, what does that look like? Because in
Bill Stites 00:19:30
a lot of these cases, we'll hear about schools that are putting
Bill Stites 00:19:33
together like a maker space, or they've got stem but it's
Bill Stites 00:19:37
generally done in isolation. It's pulled out. It's a set
Bill Stites 00:19:40
class that really doesn't connect. What does that look
Bill Stites 00:19:43
like across the different divisional levels?
Gail Warren 00:19:46
Well, in the Lower School, it's not a pull out
Gail Warren 00:19:48
program at all. Like I said, we meet with each grade level once
Gail Warren 00:19:52
a month to talk about where they are in their curriculum, and we
Gail Warren 00:19:56
actually push into the classroom. We are a partner
Gail Warren 00:19:59
with. Teacher quite often. The first time we do it, it's really
Gail Warren 00:20:03
us modeling it for the teacher as well as for the boys that
Gail Warren 00:20:06
we're working with. But we are definitely in the classrooms at
Gail Warren 00:20:11
first, some teachers are a little leery about it, but they
Gail Warren 00:20:14
are quick to just love it and get right on board with us.
Christina Lewellen 00:20:19
That's a question that I had for you is
Christina Lewellen 00:20:21
about that rollout, that change management, tell me again, how
Christina Lewellen 00:20:24
long you guys have been doing this in a really, like,
Christina Lewellen 00:20:26
formalized way, and was the teacher piece of it harder in
Christina Lewellen 00:20:30
the beginning, easier now, because it's a part of the
Christina Lewellen 00:20:33
culture, like, how did you guys manage that?
Hiram Cuevas 00:20:35
So in many instances, it's similar to the
Hiram Cuevas 00:20:38
computer lab model that we experienced back in the day
Hiram Cuevas 00:20:42
where we would interface with the teacher, say, what exactly
Hiram Cuevas 00:20:45
are you trying to get done in the classroom? So we had a
Hiram Cuevas 00:20:48
little bit of that already in place with that model, and this
Hiram Cuevas 00:20:52
married along very easily to get to that next stage, because this
Hiram Cuevas 00:20:57
was ownership by the teacher. It wasn't driven by Bill, it wasn't
Hiram Cuevas 00:21:03
driven by the computer teacher or the computer lab. It was
Hiram Cuevas 00:21:06
driven by the curriculum and the needs of the individual
Hiram Cuevas 00:21:09
teachers. So there was already good buy in going into the
Hiram Cuevas 00:21:12
project, and we've been doing this now for just over 10 years.
Hiram Cuevas 00:21:16
Bill
David Shin 00:21:16
kind of going back to the idea of failure. I coach
David Shin 00:21:19
tennis here, and if you ask anyone at our school, who do you
David Shin 00:21:24
think is like, the least athletic person on campus, I
David Shin 00:21:28
would probably say, like, David shins up there, like, in the top
David Shin 00:21:31
three, like, for sure. So, like, I'm probably, like, the last
David Shin 00:21:35
person you would want on your team. So Hiram,
Christina Lewellen 00:21:38
do not give him a weapon, please. Yeah.
David Shin 00:21:42
No, you don't want me with a machete. What I
David Shin 00:21:45
realized when I'm coaching tennis is that it's a really,
David Shin 00:21:49
really perfect example of when you miss hit something, and you
David Shin 00:21:54
lose a point, you feel that failure, but you know that the
David Shin 00:21:58
next ball is coming, the next points come in. So I value this
David Shin 00:22:02
idea of failure so much, so I think it goes along with
David Shin 00:22:06
athletics, and the very little I understand about athletics that
David Shin 00:22:10
I love so much, that you got the next ball, the next point, the
David Shin 00:22:14
next serve to do, and you just keep rolling. And that I think
David Shin 00:22:19
really works well with a program like build or like STEM or
David Shin 00:22:23
STEAM, whatever you call it, in the classroom, because you're
David Shin 00:22:26
not playing basketball inside the classroom, but you could
David Shin 00:22:28
build a bridge in a science room and have that be very relevant.
David Shin 00:22:32
And you can see that just because you broke part of your
David Shin 00:22:36
bridge does not mean that you're a failure and that your parents
David Shin 00:22:40
don't love you, you still can do what you can to either fix that
David Shin 00:22:45
problem or just start over. And it's no big deal. It's just
David Shin 00:22:47
sticks and glue. So it's really that idea of, I'm not scared to
David Shin 00:22:53
fail. If I get an A minus versus an A, life will go on and we're
David Shin 00:22:58
gonna be just fine. And I think build and stem or whatever you
David Shin 00:23:02
call it, is just a perfect tool to get that very important
David Shin 00:23:07
lesson in life that failure is good and good for growth and is
David Shin 00:23:11
part of learning. So how do we get the teachers more involved
David Shin 00:23:16
and more buying in? I think the idea of failure is such a big
David Shin 00:23:19
part of education now that it's not something we have to win
David Shin 00:23:23
people over, just like we know the importance of athletics is.
David Shin 00:23:27
I mean, we don't have to convince people to play
David Shin 00:23:29
basketball. People play basketball. It's a very popular
David Shin 00:23:32
thing to do. I think people and teachers make that correlation
David Shin 00:23:36
really well nowadays, that part of learning is failing, and that
David Shin 00:23:40
building something or designing something's a great way to get
David Shin 00:23:44
to that part of education.
Christina Lewellen 00:23:46
If I could just ask one final high level
Christina Lewellen 00:23:49
question on the failure topic, my co hosts know that I'm a big
Christina Lewellen 00:23:54
fan of Scott Galloway, and he's a business professor and an
Christina Lewellen 00:23:58
entrepreneur and a podcast host, Scott Galloway talks lately a
Christina Lewellen 00:24:02
lot about young men in our country, and you obviously have
Christina Lewellen 00:24:07
as an all boys school are raising and educating young men
Christina Lewellen 00:24:11
as they head out into adulthood, and this topic of failure
Christina Lewellen 00:24:15
specific to boys and young men, I'm Just curious if, in
Christina Lewellen 00:24:21
particular, has your team ever had conversations about that?
Christina Lewellen 00:24:25
Because obviously, failure is a part of innovation, regardless
Christina Lewellen 00:24:28
of gender. But I think that just stopping down and recognizing
Christina Lewellen 00:24:31
that the kind of tough guy image of young men, it's almost as if,
Christina Lewellen 00:24:37
in some ways, we're breaking the mold of them perceiving that
Christina Lewellen 00:24:40
they shouldn't fail, or that they're not allowed to fail,
Christina Lewellen 00:24:43
like the whole you're not allowed to cry thing. I'm just
Christina Lewellen 00:24:45
curious if you guys have had conversations about that,
Christina Lewellen 00:24:47
because I would imagine that creating a safe culture of
Christina Lewellen 00:24:51
failure, it's not just that you're creating a failure
Christina Lewellen 00:24:54
culture. You're creating a safe space to fail. And I'm just
Christina Lewellen 00:24:58
curious if you have any thoughts. Us about that specific
Christina Lewellen 00:25:01
to boys and young men.
Jim Guion 00:25:03
I've had those explicit conversations with boys
Jim Guion 00:25:06
in my classroom because part of being okay with yourself failing
Jim Guion 00:25:09
is understanding that you have to have empathy for other
Jim Guion 00:25:12
people's failings as well. And so I've had those explicit
Jim Guion 00:25:16
conversations where we're in a group, boys love to joke with
Jim Guion 00:25:19
each other, and there is a line where that crosses from simply
Jim Guion 00:25:22
joking into something else, and so that line in my classroom,
Jim Guion 00:25:25
when we start to approach that line, those conversations happen
Jim Guion 00:25:28
right away that yes, what he did didn't work. It may have turned
Jim Guion 00:25:33
out funny, but if we're not all laughing together, then we're
Jim Guion 00:25:35
doing it wrong, right? We are all going to come to a point
Jim Guion 00:25:38
where we have hit something that we don't yet know how to do.
Jim Guion 00:25:41
That's what we're trying to do. That's what we're getting. We
Jim Guion 00:25:44
are stretching ourselves to a point where you're not going to
Jim Guion 00:25:48
know how to do it right the first time, and if you're not,
Jim Guion 00:25:50
you're not reaching far enough. And so those conversations
Jim Guion 00:25:53
explicitly happen in my classroom, and I'm sure in
Jim Guion 00:25:55
everyone else's
Gail Warren 00:25:56
I can speak to the Lower School, we also have those
Gail Warren 00:25:59
conversations. You know, our boys can be anywhere from four
Gail Warren 00:26:02
to 11, and that's actually part of the process. When we talk
Gail Warren 00:26:06
about a build project and we're working on something, we have
Gail Warren 00:26:10
something called our core values in the Lower School, and we
Gail Warren 00:26:13
adhere, as Jim mentioned, to like the kindness piece of it,
Gail Warren 00:26:16
not just your failure, but your partner. It's a collaborative
Gail Warren 00:26:20
model. We're really intentional about talking about that, that
Gail Warren 00:26:25
the first time you try something, it's probably not
Gail Warren 00:26:27
going to work, but that's what scientists do all the time. And
Gail Warren 00:26:30
so we try, try again. It's worked very well. I feel like
Gail Warren 00:26:33
we're so boy centered. I always say to my friends around town,
Gail Warren 00:26:38
we do boys. Well, we know boys, and we try to make that a boy
Gail Warren 00:26:43
centered environment, and it's safe to fail. It's good to take
Gail Warren 00:26:46
a risk there.
David Shin 00:26:48
So Kristina, we talk about masculinity a lot at our
David Shin 00:26:51
school, obviously, because it's a boy school, and the guy that
David Shin 00:26:54
came by to Richmond last week was Richard Reeves. I don't know
David Shin 00:26:58
if you've ever read any of his books, but he talks a lot about
David Shin 00:27:01
this kind of like masculinity and how boys are not doing well.
David Shin 00:27:05
There's higher rates of suicide, higher rates of mental issues.
David Shin 00:27:09
And I do a lot of research around international boy school
David Shin 00:27:13
coalition. And just recently, we had a conversation with several
David Shin 00:27:17
coaches around the world about how athletics programs or being
David Shin 00:27:23
in a team environment and then not doing well or losing is just
David Shin 00:27:28
the right place and time for coaches to intervene. So rather
David Shin 00:27:33
than looking at the typical like boy spaces in the locker room
David Shin 00:27:37
where you have terrible jokes or whatever, that really offend a
David Shin 00:27:41
real positive part of athletics, or anytime you're in a team and
David Shin 00:27:46
you fail, is that it puts you in a safe but vulnerable place. And
David Shin 00:27:51
it is the place where you have those guards down and you can
David Shin 00:27:56
talk to them like a human being and really have an effect on
David Shin 00:28:00
really, the rest of your life, not just a little point that you
David Shin 00:28:03
just missed. So I love having those moments with kids,
David Shin 00:28:07
especially in the Middle School, where they are making decisions
David Shin 00:28:11
about the rest of their lives, just about their character and
David Shin 00:28:15
who they're going to be and who they want to be, and who they
David Shin 00:28:18
believe that other people are seeing them as and using those
David Shin 00:28:21
moments as times where we can really make changes in their
David Shin 00:28:25
lives. Yeah,
Christina Lewellen 00:28:26
that certainly stretches beyond your
Christina Lewellen 00:28:29
traditional STEM program. So forgive me the question, but I'm
Christina Lewellen 00:28:33
the only non educator on this call at the moment, and so I'm
Christina Lewellen 00:28:38
curious, what is a Learning Commons is that well known?
Christina Lewellen 00:28:42
Like, if I were a teacher, would I know what that is? I
Gail Warren 00:28:46
feel like it's a relatively new when I say that
Gail Warren 00:28:49
ours has been in place a little over a decade, and we were one
Gail Warren 00:28:52
of the first pioneers of that, and it was the idea of not
Gail Warren 00:28:56
teaching tech skills or media skills or research skills in
Gail Warren 00:29:01
isolation. And so it was adopted by our lower school. At first,
Gail Warren 00:29:08
our administration had to kind of say, we're going to go to
Gail Warren 00:29:10
this model. And we do our librarians and the other
Gail Warren 00:29:15
instructional technologist and I, we work together as partners.
Gail Warren 00:29:19
We're always going into a classroom, and the librarian may
Gail Warren 00:29:23
be more focused on the research part of it, and I may be helping
Gail Warren 00:29:27
boys decide what tool is the best tool for their presentation
Gail Warren 00:29:31
or their project, or their build project. And so I really love
Gail Warren 00:29:35
the model before coming here, I haven't used it before, but I
Gail Warren 00:29:39
really feel like it's a very strong model. It promotes
Gail Warren 00:29:43
collaboration, not just amongst the boys, but the teachers as
Gail Warren 00:29:47
well. They work collaboratively with us and with our grade
Gail Warren 00:29:50
level. It's just amazing. And Kristina,
Hiram Cuevas 00:29:53
it shows also the importance of having your
Hiram Cuevas 00:29:56
librarians involved with the tech department. Yeah. Because
Hiram Cuevas 00:30:00
they have so many skills and so much knowledge about what is
Hiram Cuevas 00:30:04
needed also in the classroom, that it's a great marriage
Hiram Cuevas 00:30:08
between the instructional technologists and also the
Hiram Cuevas 00:30:10
librarians. Our librarians actually attend our tech
Hiram Cuevas 00:30:14
meetings, so that they are completely aware of what's going
Hiram Cuevas 00:30:17
on across the school. And all of a sudden we find that the cross
Hiram Cuevas 00:30:21
pollination has really enhanced our conversations, that we're
Hiram Cuevas 00:30:24
actually after the same things. So it has built a great deal of
Hiram Cuevas 00:30:29
trust and a great deal of respect between the two
Hiram Cuevas 00:30:31
departments. It's
Bill Stites 00:30:33
a model that we've had here at MKA since we
Bill Stites 00:30:36
launched our one to one program. It's one where, again,
Bill Stites 00:30:39
understanding that connection between technology educational
Bill Stites 00:30:42
technology in the library specifically for us, not
Bill Stites 00:30:45
necessarily around this build example, but for us, it was
Bill Stites 00:30:49
around our research cycle, and the way in which technology and
Bill Stites 00:30:54
the adoption of technology in the classroom can be impacted by
Bill Stites 00:30:58
that research cycle, because that's something that begins in
Bill Stites 00:31:01
the early years and goes all the way through high school, to the
Bill Stites 00:31:04
point where our director of Ed Tech in the various people that
Bill Stites 00:31:09
we have in that role, our previous director of Ed Tech was
Bill Stites 00:31:13
our head of libraries at our Upper School in research. So
Bill Stites 00:31:16
it's a model that learning commons are. We refer to it as
Bill Stites 00:31:19
our upper school, is our academic center, because, again,
Bill Stites 00:31:22
you go in, the library is there, the tech office there, the ed
Bill Stites 00:31:25
tech office is there. At the middle school, it's adjacent.
Bill Stites 00:31:28
We're doing some renovation that'll bring the two of them
Bill Stites 00:31:31
together. And at the primary school, it's in a similar model.
Bill Stites 00:31:34
So it's a great way to infuse and inject technology best
Bill Stites 00:31:39
practice in to the classroom in ways that, you know, Hiram
Bill Stites 00:31:43
mentioned earlier, the computer lab model. Well, the computer
Bill Stites 00:31:46
labs are gone. And if we don't have classes where people are
Bill Stites 00:31:49
coming in, how are we working to get these skills brought into
Bill Stites 00:31:55
the classroom? And it's either through the work that you can do
Bill Stites 00:31:58
with the librarians, or, similar to what David was saying in
Bill Stites 00:32:02
terms of the ways in which you go in in the different
Bill Stites 00:32:06
curricular areas to work through those things, it's a great
Bill Stites 00:32:08
marriage of the two areas. Yeah.
Christina Lewellen 00:32:11
So if the fabric of your school, Hiram and
Christina Lewellen 00:32:16
I guess this question for Jim too, if you guys are baking this
Christina Lewellen 00:32:21
in to the experience as st Christopher's. So how in the
Christina Lewellen 00:32:24
world do you allocate resources? Like, how do you decide what
Christina Lewellen 00:32:29
technology and or resources to invest in when it's not like,
Christina Lewellen 00:32:34
you're just trying to solve for x for, you know, a science
Christina Lewellen 00:32:37
class, like, we're gonna drop an egg off a building. Go buy eggs
Christina Lewellen 00:32:41
if you're trying to kind of bake this into everything that you
Christina Lewellen 00:32:44
do. How the heck do you approach the acquisition of these types
Christina Lewellen 00:32:50
of resources to support your build program? Well,
Jim Guion 00:32:55
the way we have done it here, and much to the school
Jim Guion 00:32:56
of credit, I think, is that build has its own budget, and so
Jim Guion 00:33:00
all of these pieces that touch lots of different areas that
Jim Guion 00:33:03
might get in a different kind of situation. Well, who's paying
Jim Guion 00:33:05
for that as a technology, as a classroom, it just comes out of
Jim Guion 00:33:08
my budget, and who uses it is not really all that important to
Jim Guion 00:33:12
me. If it's being used for the purposes that we've decided,
Jim Guion 00:33:14
where it ends up in the school is not that important to me,
Jim Guion 00:33:17
because we want these things distributed across the school.
Jim Guion 00:33:20
So for me, it's really easy. I just hand them a credit card,
Jim Guion 00:33:23
and there it goes. For us, it works really well having someone
Jim Guion 00:33:27
like me in this position, really. It makes me a
Jim Guion 00:33:29
facilitator. It makes me the champion, and I am the one who
Jim Guion 00:33:32
can say, Look, this is a thing that's great. I can give you the
Jim Guion 00:33:35
five school entities that are gonna benefit from this, and so
Jim Guion 00:33:38
let's just get it,
Christina Lewellen 00:33:39
but you would have to know a little bit
Christina Lewellen 00:33:41
about what the teachers are doing or what the program is
Christina Lewellen 00:33:43
like, right? Because otherwise you would just have this endless
Christina Lewellen 00:33:46
shopping spree. And that's not the case either,
Jim Guion 00:33:48
absolutely, most of the projects either I'm involved
Jim Guion 00:33:52
with in some way, or at least, sort of get passed to me. We
Jim Guion 00:33:55
meet every week as a technology build, library department, that
Jim Guion 00:33:59
group meets together every week, and I am out in the classroom as
Jim Guion 00:34:03
much as I can. I'm maybe not in the Lower School as much as I
Jim Guion 00:34:06
would like, since they're way across the street the other way,
Jim Guion 00:34:09
but I am out and talking to teachers as much as I can.
Jim Guion 00:34:12
Though I'm not a department chair, I attend a department
Jim Guion 00:34:14
chair meeting, so I'm keeping in touch with what's going on in
Jim Guion 00:34:16
the various Upper School departments.
Hiram Cuevas 00:34:19
And Kristina, one of the things that I think is
Hiram Cuevas 00:34:21
helpful is my former job was to be a middle school science
Hiram Cuevas 00:34:25
teacher, and when I first arrived here at St
Hiram Cuevas 00:34:27
Christopher's, our budget was just a few $100 and I burned
Hiram Cuevas 00:34:30
that up in buying safety equipment. So the school has had
Hiram Cuevas 00:34:34
the benefit of recognizing that science, art, athletics are
Hiram Cuevas 00:34:39
typically the three areas that are most costly, and Bill just
Hiram Cuevas 00:34:44
fits in all of those different areas. Now you add technology to
Hiram Cuevas 00:34:47
the mix, and it is definitely something that we needed to make
Hiram Cuevas 00:34:52
sure that each of the divisions weren't spending monies out of
Hiram Cuevas 00:34:56
other areas when we needed to really get a sense of. What was
Hiram Cuevas 00:35:00
the overall expenditure for the program? And I think consumables
Hiram Cuevas 00:35:04
are the things that really burn up a budget very, very quickly.
Christina Lewellen 00:35:08
Okay, so you kind of have a sense of what you
Christina Lewellen 00:35:10
guys are trying to get to. You have a vision of what your build
Christina Lewellen 00:35:14
program is, and that certainly helps keep it all in a really
Christina Lewellen 00:35:17
focused place, so that the probably the messaging is pretty
Christina Lewellen 00:35:20
good in terms of working with your faculty and having and
Christina Lewellen 00:35:23
having them understand what's available. So now, if I could
Christina Lewellen 00:35:26
ask each of you to tell me a little bit about some examples,
Christina Lewellen 00:35:30
we'll start with lower school and kind of work our way through
Christina Lewellen 00:35:33
the whole experience, the whole pipeline of your students
Christina Lewellen 00:35:36
experience. What does build look like? In terms of some examples?
Christina Lewellen 00:35:39
If you could either give us a couple of projects that are kind
Christina Lewellen 00:35:43
of like the things that the boys always look forward to each year
Christina Lewellen 00:35:46
as they progress along their journey with you, or some cool
Christina Lewellen 00:35:49
projects that you thought turned out better than you could have
Christina Lewellen 00:35:52
expected. I'd love to hear how this actually plays out on the
Christina Lewellen 00:35:55
day to day. The
Gail Warren 00:35:56
first one that comes to mind is a relatively
Gail Warren 00:35:59
newer project this year. So in world language in fifth grade,
Gail Warren 00:36:03
the boys were studying Spanish, French and Latin, and they were
Gail Warren 00:36:08
on their Spanish unit, and they were studying different cultural
Gail Warren 00:36:12
components of Spanish language. And Gowdy came up, who's a
Gail Warren 00:36:16
famous architect, and so I partnered with our Spanish
Gail Warren 00:36:21
teacher, and we partnered with our art teacher and all of our
Gail Warren 00:36:25
fifth grade teachers. And so the project started out small. We
Gail Warren 00:36:30
had some research based knowledge of Gaudi and his
Gail Warren 00:36:33
architecture in Spain, and then in art class, the boys were also
Gail Warren 00:36:40
given some more information about Gowdy and some of the
Gail Warren 00:36:42
artistic qualities of his work, the uniqueness of them. And the
Gail Warren 00:36:46
boys in fifth grade used Canva to create a pet house based on
Gail Warren 00:36:54
some of the characteristics of Gowdy, and that was printed out.
Gail Warren 00:36:58
But they also created their own animal. And they created an
Gail Warren 00:37:02
animal using Canva, but we export it as an SVG file. And
Gail Warren 00:37:07
the boys made a glow forge 3d animal. And so they were able to
Gail Warren 00:37:12
showcase learn their skills with the glow Forge. And so we had
Gail Warren 00:37:17
this very collaborative project with basically art, library,
Gail Warren 00:37:23
technology, fifth grade teachers and Spanish. It was the entire
Gail Warren 00:37:26
curriculum that was one of my favorites, and the boys, it will
Gail Warren 00:37:29
be in the hallway. They made a Gowdy village of their famous
Gail Warren 00:37:33
pet houses and their pets. And they also use a print press,
Gail Warren 00:37:37
which Jim and some of his Makerspace boys actually built
Gail Warren 00:37:42
the printing presses for us, and we used that to make prints of
Gail Warren 00:37:47
the animals to scatter throughout the hallways as well.
Gail Warren 00:37:50
So that was just a big, huge collaborative project in the
Gail Warren 00:37:53
Lower School. One
David Shin 00:37:55
thing that Jim did I really appreciate last year was
David Shin 00:37:58
that the Lower School had a Lion King play. And my son's in third
David Shin 00:38:02
grade. He was in second grade last year, and so he was in that
David Shin 00:38:05
play. And it was really cool to have upper school boys build
David Shin 00:38:08
some costumes and, like, animal structures, and then lower
David Shin 00:38:13
school kids were able to, like, put that on for the play. I
David Shin 00:38:17
thought that was a really cool thing for the middle school. One
David Shin 00:38:20
other project that I could think of is the car bill. So we learn
David Shin 00:38:26
about gear ratios and electricity, and we put a car
David Shin 00:38:31
together and learn about what if you had a small motor gear
David Shin 00:38:34
connected to a big axle gear, a lot of techie stuff. And then we
David Shin 00:38:38
race it across the basketball court to see who can make the
David Shin 00:38:41
fastest car, who can make it accelerate the most. So that's a
David Shin 00:38:44
lot of fun. Another project that comes to mind is we are involved
David Shin 00:38:49
with the FIRST LEGO League every year in the fall. This year, our
David Shin 00:38:53
theme was something about marine life, and so we had bunch of
David Shin 00:38:59
little missions to do with our robot, and they design gears and
David Shin 00:39:04
motors to accomplish like 15 to 20 different missions on a
David Shin 00:39:08
little table. But with that, they have a little project
David Shin 00:39:11
component where they have to solve a problem. And the kids
David Shin 00:39:15
came up with this idea of a solar powered beach umbrella.
David Shin 00:39:18
And I thought it was a really cool idea, because they always
David Shin 00:39:21
run out of phone charge when they go to the beach. And so
David Shin 00:39:24
they came up with this idea of putting on solar panels on their
David Shin 00:39:27
beach umbrella and then having your phones charged, since
David Shin 00:39:31
they're going to be playing outside all day. We used our
David Shin 00:39:34
wood shop teacher to come up with a prototype for that. And
David Shin 00:39:36
so we showed our judges. It was really cool, and they won a
David Shin 00:39:41
little innovation award to boot for that. So I thought that was
David Shin 00:39:44
really cool, and a great use of our build system in
Jim Guion 00:39:49
the Upper School, we do a variety of projects, both
Jim Guion 00:39:52
in the build class and then with other classes, but we've done
Jim Guion 00:39:55
things like introduce them to the ideas of universal design,
Jim Guion 00:39:58
just sort of incorporate. Operating the idea that they
Jim Guion 00:40:01
have to think about the user and accommodate for a diverse
Jim Guion 00:40:05
variety of different kinds of users. And we had them design
Jim Guion 00:40:08
from scratch and build scale prototypes of an accessible
Jim Guion 00:40:11
playground. We have sort of taught the ideas of computer
Jim Guion 00:40:15
aided design and taught them additive manufacturing by
Jim Guion 00:40:19
designing their own sort of personal improvement device. We
Jim Guion 00:40:22
call it some small device that makes their life better in some
Jim Guion 00:40:25
meaningful way, usually, because this is what our kids are
Jim Guion 00:40:28
focused on. It takes the form of some sort of box or holder for
Jim Guion 00:40:31
their phone. But sometimes you get some really innovative
Jim Guion 00:40:34
designs from the kids. But it's really, again, all about the
Jim Guion 00:40:37
process having them think about, what are the problems in my
Jim Guion 00:40:39
life? What can I solve using something that I can make on my
Jim Guion 00:40:43
own? As David mentioned, we, again, this year, produced some
Jim Guion 00:40:47
costumes for the lower school play. It was Finding Nemo this
Jim Guion 00:40:50
year, which was great. I have kids that are now building a
Jim Guion 00:40:53
power tool drag racer for a competition at a Maker Faire,
Jim Guion 00:40:56
which is going to be, if it doesn't kill anybody, it's going
Jim Guion 00:40:59
to be awesome. And we just finished one of my favorite
Jim Guion 00:41:03
projects, where we have a physics class that comes into
Jim Guion 00:41:07
the lab. They have done some research already. In class about
Jim Guion 00:41:10
optics. They come into class we talk about cameras and how
Jim Guion 00:41:13
cameras work. They design and build their own pinhole cameras.
Jim Guion 00:41:17
We take them over to St Catherine's, where we have a
Jim Guion 00:41:19
dark room. They take pictures with their cameras that they've
Jim Guion 00:41:22
developed. They develop those pictures, and then we just hung
Jim Guion 00:41:25
them in our art space for an art show, and we just sort of
Jim Guion 00:41:27
highlight the whole process. And so it sort of runs the gamut of
Jim Guion 00:41:31
things that they're producing on a computer using devices and
Jim Guion 00:41:34
things that they're making out of cardboard and aluminum foil.
Jim Guion 00:41:37
The idea is that each of those projects allows them to think
Jim Guion 00:41:41
about design, to think about the design process, and to go
Jim Guion 00:41:44
through the whole process with failure in mind, and the idea
Jim Guion 00:41:48
that we are going to iterate this and come up with something
Jim Guion 00:41:51
at the end that hopefully works.
Unknown 00:41:53
So Hiram,
Bill Stites 00:41:54
I remember probably about five or six years ago, Ben
Bill Stites 00:41:57
gurage and I came down when we were looking at our information
Bill Stites 00:42:01
systems, but we were also looking at what these types of
Bill Stites 00:42:04
programs looked like in schools. And I remember what it looked
Bill Stites 00:42:07
like in the science area, where you had this set up there was
Bill Stites 00:42:11
kind of like the robotic station amongst many taxidermied animals
Bill Stites 00:42:16
in the space. And then there was like a little work room that you
Bill Stites 00:42:20
had where it had some of the building type things, and that
Bill Stites 00:42:23
was five years ago. If I was to come to campus today, what would
Bill Stites 00:42:28
those spaces look like, where this is actually happening
Bill Stites 00:42:31
across the different grade levels?
Hiram Cuevas 00:42:34
Yeah. So I think the key thing to always be
Hiram Cuevas 00:42:36
mindful of is that real estate is always at a premium at a
Hiram Cuevas 00:42:39
school, and they're always competing for space. Our build
Hiram Cuevas 00:42:44
program is no different. So that space that you saw there is
Hiram Cuevas 00:42:48
essentially been replaced by the we have a full fledged build lab
Hiram Cuevas 00:42:52
in the luck Leadership Center that Jim manages, and Gayle and
Hiram Cuevas 00:42:57
David could bring kids over there as well to work on various
Hiram Cuevas 00:43:01
projects, but we do have what I'll call ancillary, or small
Hiram Cuevas 00:43:05
auxiliary spaces in the other divisions as well. They are not
Hiram Cuevas 00:43:10
as fully functional as our massive build lab. And what
Hiram Cuevas 00:43:13
we'll do is we'll include photographs of our large space
Hiram Cuevas 00:43:16
for the show notes, so that you can see the tools that all of
Hiram Cuevas 00:43:20
our faculty and students have available to them in terms of
Hiram Cuevas 00:43:23
accessibility. Gayle, what would you say would be on your wish
Hiram Cuevas 00:43:27
list for the Lower School?
Gail Warren 00:43:28
Oh, my wish list for the Lower School. I say it
Gail Warren 00:43:31
all the time. I think they're tired of hearing me say this. I
Gail Warren 00:43:34
would love a maker space like Jim has, and the upper school,
Gail Warren 00:43:38
like we said, real estate's at a premium, and so sometimes I
Gail Warren 00:43:41
coach the robotics team in the Lower School, and we're in a
Gail Warren 00:43:44
particular room with our big table, and then our glow Forge
Gail Warren 00:43:47
is in another space, and we have our Cricut and our 3d printer,
Gail Warren 00:43:51
that type of thing. Yes, that would be my wish list. Would be
Gail Warren 00:43:54
to have a full fledged maker space, to have everything in one
Gail Warren 00:43:57
area where the boys could actually come and visit, same
David Shin 00:44:01
with me right now. The middle school robotics team
David Shin 00:44:04
kind of uses like a hallway slash outside of the classroom
David Shin 00:44:09
space,
Christina Lewellen 00:44:10
wherever you can get it done. Right? Some
Hiram Cuevas 00:44:12
of your more advanced stem steam programs are
Hiram Cuevas 00:44:16
also beside a wood shop. I think Jim, you've been having
Hiram Cuevas 00:44:21
conversations about what would an expansion look like for the
Hiram Cuevas 00:44:24
build program.
Jim Guion 00:44:25
That's my wish list as a building where all of these
Jim Guion 00:44:28
things happen together, where we can incorporate a separate lab
Jim Guion 00:44:31
for the Lower School, separate lab for the middle school,
Jim Guion 00:44:33
separate lab for the upper school, but then also take
Jim Guion 00:44:36
advantage of the shared space, where we can put tools that none
Jim Guion 00:44:39
of us are going to use all the time, but all of us would love
Jim Guion 00:44:41
to have access to and then near that, or off of that, we'd have
Jim Guion 00:44:45
a wood shop. We'd have our robotics programs, maybe some
Jim Guion 00:44:48
science classrooms, maybe some build areas for our technical
Jim Guion 00:44:52
theater and all of the people that we work with, which is a
Jim Guion 00:44:56
lot, but to have it all in one place. Call it a build.
Jim Guion 00:44:58
Building. Call it a. A industrial arts, call it
Jim Guion 00:45:01
whatever. I think it'd be great if we were all in one central
Jim Guion 00:45:04
place. Because every time we're together in a just in a room
Jim Guion 00:45:07
like this, we find the ideas sort of bounce off of each
Jim Guion 00:45:10
other. It'd be great cross curricularly and cross
Jim Guion 00:45:13
divisionally, if we were closer to each other. Yeah, I feel
Gail Warren 00:45:16
like when we're ever together, we do it's kind
Gail Warren 00:45:18
of a spiral thing. We talk about, like the Lower School,
Gail Warren 00:45:21
and how pertains to boys in the middle school and the upper
Gail Warren 00:45:23
school. It's a really nice format for us to have an
Gail Warren 00:45:26
opportunity to get together and talk about those projects. We
Gail Warren 00:45:29
actually
Jim Guion 00:45:29
had kids in our engineering class last year to
Jim Guion 00:45:32
actually design a sort of build building and what that might
Jim Guion 00:45:35
look like, which is a really interesting process for them to
Jim Guion 00:45:38
go through, because it gave us a lot of insight about what is it
Jim Guion 00:45:41
we actually would be looking for in a space like that. So that
Jim Guion 00:45:43
was a really fun process. It's always in the back of my mind
Jim Guion 00:45:46
when that comes up, I have
Christina Lewellen 00:45:48
no doubt that you guys will move down
Christina Lewellen 00:45:50
that path for sure as time unfolds, and we'll definitely
Christina Lewellen 00:45:54
keep an eye on that, because we have Hiram here to give us
Christina Lewellen 00:45:56
updates and reports as you go, before we start wrapping up and
Christina Lewellen 00:46:01
letting you get on with your day. I do have a question to
Christina Lewellen 00:46:04
kind of bring this home, and that is, if listeners are
Christina Lewellen 00:46:08
inspired by this approach, that you guys have figured out how to
Christina Lewellen 00:46:12
click into place at St Christopher's if they want to
Christina Lewellen 00:46:15
walk this path, do you have any guidance or recommendations on
Christina Lewellen 00:46:18
where they can start, or any potholes to avoid in their
Christina Lewellen 00:46:22
journey. I
Hiram Cuevas 00:46:23
think you should definitely visit as many
Hiram Cuevas 00:46:25
campuses as possible that have premier facilities. My first
Hiram Cuevas 00:46:30
exposure to the joint, I'll call it build and workshop approach,
Hiram Cuevas 00:46:35
was at University School in Cleveland, and I came back was
Hiram Cuevas 00:46:37
like, You're not gonna believe what I just saw. It was amazing.
Hiram Cuevas 00:46:41
This is what our community does. We share, and we share often,
Hiram Cuevas 00:46:45
and there's no need to recreate this wheel. Go visit schools.
Hiram Cuevas 00:46:50
Bill has done it. I have done it. We've all done it. You go
Hiram Cuevas 00:46:52
and you visit schools and you talk to people. Use the listserv
Hiram Cuevas 00:46:56
to get hints about what are some of the premier schools that are
Hiram Cuevas 00:46:59
out there. We're also always welcome to and accepting of
Hiram Cuevas 00:47:02
visitors who want to take a look at our build program here. So
Hiram Cuevas 00:47:05
feel free to give us a call and we'll give you a tour. My
Jim Guion 00:47:09
recommendation is cardboard and tape. I love
Jim Guion 00:47:13
technology. I absolutely love
Unknown 00:47:15
it. That's a great recommendation.
Jim Guion 00:47:19
I absolutely love it. But save every Amazon box, cut
Jim Guion 00:47:22
it up and buy some duct tape. And there is just no end to the
Jim Guion 00:47:25
things that you can create and the projects that you can make.
Jim Guion 00:47:28
I agree,
Gail Warren 00:47:28
consumable. That's all we use. And glue sticks.
Gail Warren 00:47:31
Yeah, we
Bill Stites 00:47:32
just had a STEM Day here at our middle school, and
Bill Stites 00:47:35
the amount of cardboard that was throughout the building was
Bill Stites 00:47:39
unbelievable. It was everywhere. I'm assuming that the recyclers
Bill Stites 00:47:43
knew something was going on once that project was done. I
David Shin 00:47:47
think one thing that I would like to add is just go
David Shin 00:47:50
ahead and reach out to community people around your school. All
David Shin 00:47:54
they can say is, no if you want to reach out to your patent
David Shin 00:47:58
lawyers and see what kind of things are going on. Maybe they
David Shin 00:48:01
have ideas that you'd like to take on. If you want to reach
David Shin 00:48:04
out to local businesses, what kind of problems do they have
David Shin 00:48:07
and really try to make a connection, reaching out to
David Shin 00:48:10
members around town, I think is a great way to start too. Yeah,
David Shin 00:48:14
those community partners are a blessing.
Christina Lewellen 00:48:17
This has been so useful for us. You guys,
Christina Lewellen 00:48:19
thank you so much for sharing a little bit about your program,
Christina Lewellen 00:48:21
you are more than welcome to come back and give us updates as
Christina Lewellen 00:48:24
you go, and we're so grateful that you shared, because I think
Christina Lewellen 00:48:27
sometimes there's a little bit of a tendency to throw some
Christina Lewellen 00:48:31
spaghetti against the wall and see which of these types of
Christina Lewellen 00:48:33
programs stick. But it sounds like st Christopher's has done a
Christina Lewellen 00:48:36
really great job allocating both the energy and having a vision
Christina Lewellen 00:48:41
and a budget to make this a really wrapped up little
Christina Lewellen 00:48:45
program, and make it a real integral part of how you guys
Christina Lewellen 00:48:48
deliver on your promise to your students and your family. So
Christina Lewellen 00:48:52
it's been such a pleasure getting to know all of you and
Christina Lewellen 00:48:54
This program, and I want to thank you for coming on the
Christina Lewellen 00:48:56
podcast. It wasn't too bad, right?
Hiram Cuevas 00:48:58
Not at all great. It's fun, Hiram, took good care
Hiram Cuevas 00:49:01
of you.
Christina Lewellen 00:49:03
Hiram, thank you so much for bringing your
Christina Lewellen 00:49:04
team. We hear all this stuff from you on a fairly regular
Christina Lewellen 00:49:08
basis, but how cool is it to have your colleagues sitting
Christina Lewellen 00:49:11
there with you to share the same energy that you have. This has
Christina Lewellen 00:49:15
been a real privilege for me and Bill to get to know you guys a
Christina Lewellen 00:49:17
little better. You guys are the best. Thank you so much for
Christina Lewellen 00:49:20
joining us, and good luck in your continued amazing work,
Christina Lewellen 00:49:23
your superhero work you're doing. Thanks so
Unknown 00:49:26
much. Thank you. Thank you.
Peter Frank 00:49:29
This has been talking technology with Atlas,
Peter Frank 00:49:32
produced by the Association of Technology Leaders in
Peter Frank 00:49:34
Independent Schools. For more information about Atlas and
Peter Frank 00:49:38
Atlas membership, please visit theatlas.org if you enjoyed this
Peter Frank 00:49:42
discussion, please subscribe, leave a review and share this
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