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Touchstone Community School in the news:

Listening to Learn, Learning to Listen

Touchstone Community School Pairs with the Touchpoints Center and Insight Management to Re-Imagine Essential Skills

Grafton, MA, April 2010—Many people think of school as the place where children learn to listen. But sometimes, it’s the grown-ups who need to re-evaluate and recapture that skill. That’s what a group of some 40 parents, faculty, and staff of the Touchstone Community School (TCS) did over four Wednesday evenings this winter. The gatherings were part of a new venture for both the school and the facilitators of the workshops—Dr. Joshua Sparrow, Director of Special Initiatives for the Brazelton Touchpoints Center (BTC) in Boston and Charlie Kiefer of Insight Management Partners (IMP), a former TCS parent.

For 13 years, BTC has worked with healthcare and early care/education providers to create better and healthier family environments for children. For 15 years, IMP has worked with executives to increase the frequency of insight and wisdom in their business discussions.  Sparrow and Kiefer combined these experiences to create a course for the TCS community—the first of its kind.

Designed to encourage opportunities for insight and wisdom in communication among adults (parents, faculty, and administration— in all combinations) and ultimately do the same for adult-child communication, the workshop required intensive, small- group work from participants.

“How would you listen to a child so that you fully understand what they are trying to say?” Charlie Kiefer asked on the opening evening, setting the stage for a series of thoughtful interactions among the adults as they talked about how to listen to children—and along the way learned to listen to one another while suspending judgment.  . Participants practiced the technique of clearing the mind and not allowing the intervention of personal ideas and thoughts when listening, and discovered how a calm state of mind enhances the process of making new—and sometimes surprising—learning possible.

As TCS parent says, “I learned to enter a conversation willing to be changed by it.”

Another Touchstone parent took deep listening home with her. “Listening to my child without the intent to correct, instruct, or solve problems has allowed better and more complete conversations,” she says.

A third TCS parent  says, “I learned that I can learn from my children, if I let them teach me.”

Not only did participants discover new ways to communicate with their children, they also learned to identify and nurture the kinds of fresh ideas that emerge from what IMP’s Kiefer calls “insight thinking.” The workshop exercises were designed to help people recognize and seek those moments, which happen when the mind is calm, at rest, and unpressured.

“Everyone has had the experience of a striking insight that comes out of nowhere,” Kiefer says, adding that the project was, from his point of view as presenter and facilitator, a success.

“It was great; I think it proved our case that we could combine insight thinking and child-development ideas from Brazelton and—and that together they are an impactful offering. What I would hope is that parents and the teachers and the administration of any school would find a renewed commitment to the betterment of the kids and a recognition that no one person has the whole answer even if you think you probably do.. Together, a community brings a much richer array of support,” he says.

 To follow up the pilot project, Touchstone has created a Touchpoints Center Pilot Project Task Force to evaluate the experience and consider ways in which to integrate its lessons into the daily life of the school.

“The Task Force is excited about building on the Touchpoints pilot project.  We hope to offer parents who are new to our school in the fall a session on the importance of deep listening to families, teachers, and children.  At the same time, we anticipate telling the Touchstone/Touchpoints story to other schools—actually, to any educator who will listen,” says TCS head of school Don Grace.

Touchstone Community School (www.touchstoneschool.org) is an independent, progressive preschool, elementary and middle school located in Grafton Massachusetts. The school was founded in 1982 by a group of parents and educators and is accredited by the Association of Independent Schools of New England (AISNE).  The schools mission statement says, “We envision a world of lifelong learners, participating in communities in which each member cares for the social, emotional, physical and intellectual well being of all in the community.  We envision communities working together to care for, appreciate, and protect the earth and universe we inhabit. Touchstone’s mission is to gather families that share this vision and to offer a child-centered educational program and environment that will nurture competent, thoughtful and enthusiastic lifelong learners.”

Brazelton Touchpoints Center (http://www.touchpoints.org) is dedicated to strengthening the systems of care that serve young children and their families. Founded upon the research and practice of renowned pediatrician T. Berry Brazelton, MD, the Center provides knowledge development, professional development and training, technical assistance, and collaborative consultation in communities where professionals serving families of young children have made a commitment to forming empowering partnerships with them. BTC programs and services are designed to shift the paradigm of care so that our service delivery systems are appropriately focused on discovering and meeting the needs of families. Dr. Sparrow is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School and Director of Special Initiatives at BTC.

Insight Management Partners’ (www.insightmanagementpartners.com) purpose is to help organizations access their best thinking. This boosts problem-solving ability and improves decision-making, resulting in better business performance. At the core of their service offerings is Insight Thinking Methods (ITM), an approach that increases the frequency, reliability, and depth of insights. Mr. Kiefer, a former Touchstone Community School parent and one of the founders of IMP, is an organization consultant that helps global companies leverage the human side of their enterprise primarily by working with executives and their teams to improve the quality of their thought.

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Touchstone Community School is delighted to announce a partnership with J. White's Automotive to build connections between our students and the wider community.  J White's Automotive, located at 143 Milford Street in Upton, MA, is featuring a display of artwork created by students in our 7th and 8th grade classes.

The artwork was the result of an extended, integrated study of symmetry, in which the students had both mathematics and fine arts instruction. During the arts portion of their work, the students carved designs onto 4" x 4" pieces of foam which they printed in rotation in two directions. The finished prints were framed and are now on display in the waiting room of this local business.

J. White's Automotive has won local customer satisfaction surveys and is committed to treating their customers with integrity and respect. Eager to set themselves apart from others in the industry, their waiting room is designed to be bright, comfortable, and enhanced with artwork from the community.

Retired Touchstone Community School teacher, current Board of Trustees member, and extraordinary volunteer Marian Hazzard is honored by the state of Massachusetts for her work at Touchstone, Worcester Telegram & Gazette 5/14/2009

Education Springs to Life at Touchstone Community School, Worcester Telegram & Gazette 10/3/2008

Don Grace joins Touchstone Community School, Worcester Telegram & Gazette 8/23/2008

 Good nutrition is one key to a good education, Community Advocate 12/28/2007

 

If you need a media contact, please call either our Head of School, Don Grace, at 508-839-0038 or our Director of Admission, Jennifer Weeden, at the same number.
 
Our school employs a team of highly experienced teachers and administrators who are able to speak to members of the media on a wide range of education and child development topics. Additionally, many of the staff are accomplished, published writers themselves and could provide articles for your publications. Please contact Don Grace or Jennifer Weeden for more information.
 
Photographs to accompany our press releases or articles you are writing may be available to certain media outlets; please contact Don Grace or Jennifer Weeden for more information.