Dear Parents,
When I was working on my Ed.S. in Educational Leadership, I took a graduate course in “Program Evaluation.” For my course project, I led a team in completing a “program evaluation” of an equestrian center in Colorado that provided hippotherapy for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Throughout the course and the experience of that project, I learned so much about how to evaluate a program. Program evaluation utilizes a principle very similar to Stephen Covey’s “Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind.” In other words, when you are developing (and evaluating) a program, you want to first think about what the “desired outcomes” are.
At the beginning of each of the ten units in this year’s curriculum, I provide a one-page letter that I have written to you, the parents. When I wrote the final letter, at the beginning of Unit 10, I realized that it summarizes my “desired outcomes” for the year. As we begin this year, I would like to share with you an excerpt from that final letter. It will show you my vision, purpose, and objectives for this curriculum. It is what I desire will be the outcome for your student. Here it is:
I believe the work we have done this year has lasting value and will allow each student to apply the critical thinking skills of knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation to any area of their life, and to all that they read, hear, and learn.
This year has been about learning how to think, and not what to think. By knowing what our purpose is, and what questions to ask ourselves in line with that purpose, we are able to become deeper thinkers. And when we think deeply about stories we read, and information we take in, it is much more enjoyable, engaging, and even enlightening! As we ask ourselves questions and jot down our answers, as we categorize and organize our thoughts, and as we notice connections that give us “a-ha moments,” we make discoveries.
Discovery is when we learn from our own efforts rather than from someone else (be it a teacher, a web site, another writer, or the media) telling us what to think. Discovery is empowering. It allows us to realize that there is value in learning how to think. And there is value in learning how to write well-crafted paragraphs and essays, as that is what allows us to share with others the ideas that we came up with ourselves.
One of the many special parts of being human is the ability to interact with and form relationships with other people. That takes communication. As a communicator, we can express our ideas through speech or through writing. Being able to do our own writing, as opposed to having AI do it for us, is empowering. It allows us to be fully in control of our own thinking, and of how we put our thoughts together into an organized and eloquent piece of writing. Thank you for being a part of this effort to empower our children with good thinking skills and good writing skills so that they can become good communicators.
Elsie Lungren
