At this time of year, two weeks into the start of school, every teacher is watching what works and what doesn’t work for which kids, constantly modifying what we’re doing with individuals and groups and the full class, with a particular intensity that all of us recognize as September. Nothing else feels more important [...]
Polly Brown
Polly Brown is a head teacher of 10, 11, and 12 year olds. Polly came to Touchstone as a parent in the school’s second year. Her daughter, Sarah Brown Stoller, is a member of the first graduating class. By the time Colby Brown graduated as a member of the first class leaving from the Grafton campus, Polly herself had evolved from paren volunteer who couldn’t tear herself away, to first-call substitute, to head teacher, getting a masters in middle school education from Lesley University along the way. As a member of the first Program Leadership Group, she helped to organize and document the teacher portion of the 2001 AISNE self-study process. Most satisfying of all, Polly served on nearly 20 years of committees to dream and then plan and finally implement the Older Student Program at Touchstone. As a sort of human hinge, she taught in the Older Student Program (OSP) for its first two years, during the making of Voyage to the Sea. She has been very happy to return to the 10, 11 and 12 year olds with whom she can teach and learn all sides of the curriculum. In her life outside school, she is a member of the Cambridge poetry collaborative known as Every Other Thursday, and has two books: Blue Heron Stone, from Every Other Thursday Press, and Each Thing Torn From Any of Us, from Finishing Line Press.