New Robotics Class Builds Success
September 20, 2012
After their stunning rookie year success last year, the MPA FIRST Robotics team has been working to improve their game. So over the summer, MPA physics teacher Marc Shapiro developed a new Robotics elective. Click below to visit the class, and stay tuned for the big spring FIRST Robotics national contest.
September 13, 2012
As we approach Homecoming week at MPA and the halfway point of Panther Pride Month, I asked students, faculty and staff what “spirit” means to them:
September 1, 2012
As this message goes live, it is exactly two months to election day – November 6, 2012. In a few hours, the second of our two major party nominating conventions will conclude. According to the pundits, this is the time when most Americans start to really pay attention to the contest. Those families fortunate enough to share meals together find politics becoming a regular topic of conversation. Carpool drivers listen in on lively student-to-student debates about candidates. So what is the place of politics in schools? Before all of the Republican primary debates of last year and the summer media blitzes, I shared these thoughts with the MPA community (with a few edits) in anticipation of the season to come.
If you’re
like me, you rely on half a dozen or more different media sources for
news of the day. As I wrote a few years back on the subject of our
fourth grade conflict managers, for all its benefits, our political
system is designed to anoint winners and losers, and there is a
political advantage to be gained by demonizing the other side. Our
elected officials are grownups and they know that, in running for
office, they are engaging in a blood sport.
But the effects on
the rest of us “on the ground” can be polarizing. You discover that
your next door neighbor is a staunch supporter of “the other side” and
it leads you to walk gingerly around a host of topics from that moment
on. You’re horrified to see your brother’s car sporting that
bumper sticker. Is he serious, you wonder? Or your child comes home
from school spouting ideas you certainly didn’t put in her head.
What
makes all of this worse is the fracturing of the media landscape into
ever more target-specific outlets. It is too easy and comfortable to
only dial into those outlets that reinforce our existing worldview. And
in today’s media environment, that increasingly means that our channel teaches us to be suspicious of the motives of anyone watching their channel?
MPA
is a place that works hard to welcome different perspectives. And
we are in the throes of a political season at a time of considerable
struggle in our society as a result of economic conditions and rapidly
evolving global political movements. It is challenging enough when
times are good to help students to “communicate effectively with
respect and integrity”, but when the public context is political
posturing and unsettling economics, the challenge increases
significantly.
When your ninth grade daughter’s best friend
makes a snide comment to her about the elected official of whom you are
ardent supporters, it’s hard enough. But if one of you lost your job or
took a pay cut because of policies you hold the other side responsible
for, the snide comment can permanently rupture a relationship. These
are times characterized by levels of worry and anxiety in most of the
adults in our students’ lives.
The key in schools is how we
communicate about deeply held views. How effective are we, for example,
at creating a safe place for differing views over deeply held beliefs.
At MPA, we talk often about the respect for different viewpoints that is
fundamental to our healthy community. We remind students that their
words are powerful tools and should be used with respect for the
beliefs and feelings of those around them. Conflict is a fundamental
part of the human experience. To disagree is to be human. It is the
manner in which we air our views that makes all the difference.
Last week I stopped in on the annual fourth grade conflict managers retreat. And after many years of these training sessions, a strong majority of MPA students from grades 5-12 have taken the training and
spent a year serving as playground conflict managers. Think about that:
more MPA students than not have hands-on experience as conflict
managers. It bodes well for their ability to shape the nature of
dialogue and debate on campus.
What parents can do to help is encourage your children
to speak their minds if they feel as though their particular viewpoint
is not being respected. When students feel like they are the
only one in class who holds a particular view, then that is the time to
speak up. In so doing, they will earn the respect of peers, even those
(and perhaps especially those) who disagree. Our arguments are made
stronger the more they are tested in the challenge of contrary opinion.
Perhaps you can even model that behavior by respectfully
disagreeing with your neighbor, talking with your brother about that
bumper sticker, and asking your child, gently and respectfully, to
support with facts the ideas she comes home from school with if you disagree with
her. You’ll both come away better off for the engagement.
So the place for politics in schools must be one in which it is safe to disagree, respectfully, in a spirit of openness to learning from others. And remember, exercise your civic duty and let your voice be heard on November 6. In so doing, you model good behavior for those around your dinner table or in your carpool whose first opportunity to vote lies in their future.
Mike Downs
Head of School
The Start of Something Beautiful
August 22, 2012
Welcome back! The grass is green, the sky is blue, the
air a gentle caress on bare arms – at least as I write this. Weather report for the first day of school –
high of 80, zero percent chance of rain…a perfect day. Great things begin next
week, whether you are a senior looking forward to a special last year in high
school or a tentative pre-schooler ready to make new friends.
To start the school year is to launch great adventures,
to strike out on a path of discovery. Who knew you’d actually be reading by the
end of the year? Or solving quadratic equations, or editing another
award-winning yearbook? Who thought you’d have the stamina to ride the whole
way on the sixth grade bike trip or to actually resolve conflicts on the
playground in your first turn as a fourth grade conflict manager?
Who told you you could argue a case against real judges
in the Minnesota Courthouse or score a goal in your first year on the soccer team?
It’s all inside of you. It’s all there waiting to get
out. It’s a new year. Grab hold, make the most of it, and enjoy the ride!
Head’s Commencement Message to the Class of 2012
June 10, 2012
The following speech was delivered to the Class of 2012 at MPA’s commencement ceremony on June 9, 2012.
Tonight your paths diverge and we drop you tadpoles into ponds far and wide. We release you to create new communities and be created by anew. As you swim off, we retire to our screens to Google you, to YouTube you, to Facebook friend you, to i-chat you and i-this you and i-that you. LOL, XX OO…let the SKYPES begin.
In one of your classes this year, you considered the march of your school years through the lens of innovation. Facebook launching during your third grade year, Google going public in fourth grade, Youtube in fifth, the now ubiquitous iPhone unveiled in sixth. Each one world changing in its own way.
But as you sharpen your virtual tools for the next leg of your journey, never forget the power of flesh and blood. The hand that touches the face is greater than the tap on the screen. An O is not a hug. An X is not a kiss.
So sign off, get up from your screen, walk down the hall to the room of that classmate you’re collaborating with on a project. Feel the electric charge of an idea in the voice of a live person. Commune with the abundant humanity around you. Hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution can’t be wrong, can’t be wiped clean by a few decades of innovation. Live your life in the presence of others, encountering them with all five of your senses.
And from time to time, seniors, come home. Come home so we can see you in the flesh, see how the years have worked on you, see how the world has changed you. For change you it will, as it has changed all of us here gathered to share in this moment.
As hard as it may be to imagine, long ago in a galaxy far, far away, each of your teachers was once a high school senior like you. Dreaming of a future as yet unknown, as you are tonight. Look on all the good they have done and believe in your own power to change the world, as they have changed yours. For all they have done to bring you to this moment, please join me in thanking your Mounds Park Academy teachers.
Harder still for you to imagine perhaps, are your parents as high school seniors. Go ahead, take a look and imagine them sitting where you are now, eyes on the future, unlikely yet to be dreaming of you. As hard as it may be for you to imagine them in that high school world, they can conjure your baby image just by closing their eyes and imagining the smell of your newborn freshness, or hearing the peel of your laughter at a fifth birthday party. The physical, flesh and blood “you” will always be with them. For bringing you into the world and putting you at the center of theirs, please join me in thanking your parents.
So, tadpoles, off you go. Your new pond awaits. Jump in…the water’s fine.
And on behalf of the entire Mounds Park Academy Community, it is my great pleasure and honor to present the Mounds Park Academy class of 2012.
June 5, 2012
These hours wring the last bit of energy from teachers and staff at MPA. And the energy thrown off by students who are just hours away from finishing another year could power a small city. If you read this around posting time on Thursday, less than 24 hours remain of the school year, unless you are a senior, then it’s about double that. On Saturday, the class of 2012 scrubs up, dolls up, rises up and flies off. Birds to wing.
For the uninitiated, MPA commencement exercises are unlike any I’ve known. Because of course….it’s MPA. We do things differently. So think about it for a moment. What would distinguish an MPA graduation ceremony from others? Where would the focus be?
No, not on a well-heeled circuit-traveling guest speaker, no matter how much star power they might bring. The star power is in the blue robes on stage. Speeches? Seniors. Music? Seniors. We ask our seniors, for one last time, to show us who they are. To share their thinking with us and pose hard questions for us to consider. To pour their hearts into song. And to be the agents of their own send-off.
By Saturday, faculty have become spectators. Proud surrogate parents marveling at what that squirrely seventh grade boy has blossomed into; how that shy fourth grade girl has grabbed the reins of public speaking and could pass as some lucky politician’s spokesperson.
Great teachers, of which MPA is blessed with an abundance, ARE parents to their students. They take personal responsibility for their students’ growth and well-being; bleed and cry with them, and exult in their successes. And when the race is run each June and the last charge has headed off for the summer, secretly miss them.
To be sure, the end of school brings great relief and a welcome chance for teachers to recharge. Soaking in the sun, drifting through a summer novel…and sleep. “Sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care,” wrote Shakespeare. The impulse to care is at the core of a teacher’s being. It is the crystalline exercise of humanity – the hand that gently reassures, the voice that encourages, the glance and nod that say “I believe in you.” And the caring impulse does not stop at the water’s edge…at the end of the school year.
We’ll dream of you in your absence this summer, and believe in you always.
A Fond Farewell and a Bright Future
May 31, 2012
What happens when you mix 5 year olds with 18 year olds? MPA’s Class of 2012 and Class of 2024 come together to reflect on the past and ponder the future.
May 22, 2012
I spoke at Jan’s funeral this week. Hers was the smiling face that often met you if you came to MPA for an evening event or were leaving at the end of a long day. Her daughter Laurie came to work for the founding head of MPA over 20 years ago and still keeps things on track…keeps me on track. And Jan’s great-granddaughter Emily skips and dances down the hall with all the others in her PreK class.
For many, Memorial Day is hotdogs and a three day weekend. For many more, it is the remembrance of loss, not so sharp as that dark day when it first came, duller perhaps with the passage of time, but there all the same. How would my life be different today if only…?
We shield our young from death in our culture, and we avert our eyes, more and more, from the death of young men and women on the field of battle. Memorial Day. The presence of death weaves its way through our community. The boy in second grade whose grandfather lies in the open casket, his image seared into the boy’s memory. It is the shadow that makes the light of life sharp and clear and real.
Our days in school are filled with light and joy and learning and growth. The green of new grass, new ideas, the challenge taken, the inch grown in height since last Thursday. Furtive glances between young ones trying on love. And those among us walking for a time under the shadow of a recent loss. There is comfort and safety in a community where the light and the shadow can exist openly, side by side. We share in your joy and your pain.
Memorial weekend marks the beginning of the end of the school year. It is a time to look forward and to say goodbye. Past the classrooms, at the end of a long hallway, someone switches off the light and a door is heard closing. Voices die away into the night of celebrations, tinged with excitement for what the future will bring and with the sadness of goodbyes.
Memorial Day. We remember Jan and so many others who brought light into our lives.
May 10, 2012
Thanks to the dedicated efforts of a small group of alumni leaders, and the generosity of a growing group of alumni, a new endowment fund has been created to support financial aid for MPA students. Meet a few students who ponder the question, “What are alumni?” and learn more about this groundbreaking new fund from those who got it off the ground.
May 3, 2012
This week, MPA seniors declared their intentions for next year. Come along with me to find out where they’ll be.