Join Lindsey Toft for Extended Day after school from 2:30-5:10 with visiting instructors on Tuesdays and Thursdays:

• 1/3-126 Miniature Building Workshop with Tobias Glidden
• 1/31- 2/23 Yoga for Children with Susan Lazarus
• 3/6-3/29 Ceramics with Aaron Pszwaro

To learn more about the Extended Day Program or to register, visit our web site.  (Thanks to Georgen Charnes for updating our Web site with this information!)     

• 2012-2013 Tuition set by the Board
• Open House January 12, 5pm 
• Interviews with prospective families and enrolled families with eligible siblings
• Financial Aid Information distributed to enrolled and prospective families

February:

• Re-commitment packets mailed to enrolled families
• Financial Aid Personal Financial Statements due Feb. 10
• Financial Aid Letter of Need due Feb. 10  

March:  

• Re-commitments due March 5 
• Financial Aid Tax form 1040 and W-2 due March 5
• Acceptances announced March 12 
• Financial Aid Awards announced March 23
• New Family Commitments due March 30

If you have any questions or concerns about Admissions, Re-Commitment or Financial Aid, please do not hesitate to contact me to discuss by email, phone: 508.228.0427 or by appointment.   

Cheryl Evans 

Hand and Heart at Work

After waking up early and opening all of his Christmas presents, Eli sat near the tree and said, "I wish it was dark out and I could open my presents again." I knew what he meant. That sentiment was echoed in conversations with adults who concurred with the idea that the best days were those leading up to Christmas rather than the day itself. The spirit of anticipation, which encompasses feelings of hope, excitement, and purpose, is afire in the stringing of lights, baking of gingerbread, and gathering up of tokens for others. In its most materialistic translation, and stripped of its religious roots, Christmas can represent raw materialism for some. Without balance, children can lose its greater meaning. One might feel that it is all about the 'stuff.' However, the magic, generosity and abundance that Santa Claus personifies and the spirit that Christmas elicits can feed the imaginative heart which believes in hope, goodness, and joy... and that there is more to human experience than meets the eye or hand. Part of what children love about Christmas is that the workaday world around them pauses for a moment, people take a break from their pragmatic pursuits, and the festive playfulness and joy that they feel within is reflected, for however so briefly, without.

It is at Christmas that the 'heart and hand' aspects of our Lighthouse curriculum come to the fore as we seek to establish that balance, changing the focus from 'getting' to giving. At Lighthouse School December is a flurry of felting, stitching, glitter and play practice. We harness the bustling energy of the season in those few short weeks leading up to the holiday, engaging children's hands in the work of the heart in the creation of things for those we love. These projects, and many that comprise a Lighthouse student's work the year round, often involve multi-step processes and are executed over a series of days. They represent lessons in focus, patience, perseverance, and working over time to achieve a goal. (See the article 'Crafting a New World' below!) Often we talk about keeping our gifts a surprise and waiting to give them until Christmas morning. Some children don't want to or can't wait. "I already gave it to my mom and she already opened it!" While it may seem insignificant as to whether the gift is given and opened when it comes home or is put away until the 'appointed' day, the waiting until is part of the fun... and part of the lesson.

In the years preceding Lighthouse, I had my own pre-school turned Kindergarten program- A Small School. Returning from Christmas, one mother relayed one of my favorite-ever stories. Her daughter awoke early on Christmas and ran down the stairs and stood gazing at all of the presents under the tree. "Wait!" she exclaimed and turned right around to run upstairs and rummage under her bed. She came down bearing the handmade gifts she had hidden the week before. "I forgot- your presents!"

This story illustrates what we are working towards- generosity of spirit, a sense of meaningful purpose, the realization of a goal over time. The waiting and anticipation are significant and, interestingly but unsurprisingly, recent studies underscore the importance of these capacities. A study that renewed interest in the capacity for 'delayed gratification' was published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science and originated in one initiated by Walter Mischel and fellow researchers at Stanford University in the 1960's. A group of four-year-olds were asked to delay eating a marshmallow given to them. If a child succeeded for 15 minutes he/she would received additional marshmallows. Why the big deal about marshmallow saving or eating? Well, they decided to track those pre-schoolers in later life and here is what they found (following are excerpts from Sarah D. Sparks' article in Education Week Magazine- link provided below):

• The findings add to a growing body of research suggesting that a student's ability to delay gratification can be as important to academic success as his or her intelligence.
• Numerous follow-up and variation studies have found that the preschoolers who managed to delay gratification were also more likely later on to do well in school, avoid substance abuse, maintain a healthy weight, and even perform better on the SAT than peers who couldn't resist temptation.
•  The studies ...have helped change the way scholars and educators think about why students succeed academically. In a separate self-control study, Angela L. Duckworth, an assistant psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, even found that self-control was a better predictor of a student's academic performance than an IQ test.

These are particularly pertinent findings when we have grown accustomed to the speed and instant gratification that we expect in our increasingly technological times. Modern culture and our evolving lifestyle are not cultivating the qualities our children most need to sustain them in life. As a result, parents and teachers need to thoughtfully create and provide experiences which do. The art of being human is complex in its simplicity and we have a responsibility to educate the whole person- head, heart, and hand. While it is heartening to see research that speaks to the work we do with children, we see the results of this work in the world.