Dear All,

The 2011/12 school year is off to a great start. I would like to use this letter to respond to an article I saw recently in the New York Times regarding technology and test scores. This article may have raised some questions for you, but I am not worried about FASRI students.

The integration of technology in the classrooms is not something our teachers take lightly; the benefits and costs are carefully weighed, both from the student's and teacher's perspectives, and all interaction with such technology is well-monitored. With these innovations, we seek to expand and improve upon your child's educational experience and instill in them a love of lifelong learning.

This year, the goal of our program is to integrate this new technology with existing, traditional teaching practices. For example, we continue to believe in the importance of such methods as teaching cursive writing as early as Maternelle while simultaneously providing our students with the tools and support of technology: a medium that inspires and motivates this generation.

But improving technology is not all that we are doing this year. This summer, our teaching team had a full-day workshop on the Reggio Emilia approach to education, which will be implemented in classrooms this year. Reggio Emilia is certainly not new; in fact, it originated in the 1960s. Reggio Emilia champions hands-on learning, asking questions, and students taking an active role in their own education: skills that, today, are considered more important than ever. For this reason, an increasing number of independent and public schools are finding inspiration in this approach.

While we are certainly inspired by many elements of Reggio Emilia, FASRI will not become a Reggio Emilia school, per se. The French curriculum is the core of our program and will remain as such. What we will do, though, is harmonize elements of Reggio with our existing curriculum, much as we already do with the best aspects of the American approach to education and, on a closer level, the great resources and history that Rhode Island provides.

As a school of excellence, we are always seeking to improve and reach our highest potential; we encourage this, too, in our students. We push them to be resilient, take risks, and trust in their own potential. They are nurtured and given the structure and individualized attention that youngsters desperately need to become active and responsible citizens and leaders in their local and global community.

Lucky for us, the heart of our program-the best of French and American approaches-naturally cultivates excellence in our students. From the rebellious and critical French tradition, our students learn to think critically and ask questions, while American methods add the important skills of collaboration, leadership, and communication. Access to two cultures and ways of teaching opens our students to a world of possibilities in research and day-to-day learning techniques.

FASRI's faculty does not put much stock in standardized testing. Such tests are not designed to accurately measure the strengths of smart, creative and innovative people. They are essentially discriminatorily selective and predictable (Daniel Koretz, Harvard School of Education "Measuring Up: What Educational Testing Really Tells Us").

We do, however, believe in assessment: both formative and summative. The formative assessment is more informal; it occurs during class activities and is linked directly to the teacher's management of the class. It allows teachers to monitor the students' learning on a regular basis. While it is beneficial to the student, it also provides the teacher with assessment on the effectiveness of his or her classroom practices.

The summative assessment is a formal in-house test, given by the classroom teacher and seeks to confirm the student's retention of a specific unit or period of instruction. This is something we have always done and find quite effective. Our internal assessments are now ongoing and emphasized more than an A-F grading system. In fact, assessment for Grades 1 and 2 will no longer come in the form of report cards. Instead, they will have a portfolio that assesses their individual competences and skills. That's right: no more "grades" for first and second grades.

Technology in the classroom, partnered with French and American educational techniques and a hands-on approach to learning that emphasizes collaboration and critical thinking. Altogether, it is a winning combination for FASRI students and teachers. Together, we create, imagine, experiment. We try, we may fail, but we always get up and learn to do better. Most importantly, we learn how to learn, and carry these skills with us for the rest of our lives.

In reality, none of this is new to FASRI. We have always been about creative approaches to learning. But now, with our school's growth complete, we are digging deeper and improving our everyday program. Students today are growing up in a vastly different world, and we need to adjust to the pulse of the 21st Century. We must recognize what they most need to succeed, not what we needed as children.

Our faculty is a group of motivated, trained and experienced people. They are best positioned to evaluate and assess the students. We inspire our relationship with our faculty from the Finland educational system, where the teachers are highly trained professionals, carefully selected, inspirational and unanimously respected.

You chose the French-American School to give your children the best of the French and American education experiences, and we make sure they absorb and carry this with them for the rest of their lives.

I wish you all a great "Rentrée". I am looking forward to seeing you at Back to School Night and the coming up FASRI picnic.

Kind regards,

Dominique Thompson