Welcome, students to our very own Marin SEL blog. Our first few weeks together have been a whirlwind of community building, learning and laughter (not to mention your first weeks of high school--quite a big deal!). After a few days learning the layout of your new school, meeting your teachers and getting settled--well, almost--it was off to Walker Creek for four days of Leadership and learning. Of course, in addition to picking your power animal, creating ad campaigns for sustainable change and deciding on the future of Walker Creek (as we saw it, anyway), we also managed to get several cases of poison oak, get lost in the woods, face off with raccoons, push our teacher in the pond, and of course get "If You Like Pina Coladas" permanently stuck in all of our heads (thanks a LOT for that). Now that we're back in school, the year will begin to take on a real shape, and that means it's time for us to start blogging about our experiences so we can share them with our families and community, build our base of knowledge together, and synthesize what we learn in all of our core classes.

What is synthesis, you ask? Thanks for asking! Synthesis is the bringing together of many different elements to create a more rich and complex whole. Your teachers are working together to create a synthesized curriculum, which means there will be ongoing, evolving connections between all of your classes. Though traditional schools tend to separate subjects for simplicity's sake, the reality is that many concepts, ideas and patterns tend to repeat in many areas of life. For example, we might associate the term "evolution" with science, but it's also true that cultures evolve, that people evolve, and that even our academy itself will evolve over time. And while you may associate writing with English class, truthfully writing as a skill and method of communication will serve you in all academic areas. Ideally, education should be about the synthesis of various elements (subjects, themes, skills and ideas) that create a powerful whole.

With that said, our academy still operates within a traditional school day, and though you'll see all of your teachers every day, we certainly don't see each other every day, and there will be times we are more aligned than others. There will be moments of incredible connections between classes, and moments when we diverge from each other a bit. Your job on this blog (individuals coming together to create a powerful whole, the MSEL team!) is to reflect on what you have learned and how you have learned it, share key discoveries with each other and our community, generate questions and dialogue about important topics, and give one one another feedback (and your teachers feedback!) as we get our academy up and off the ground. This is a little bit like building a a plane while somehow needing to keep in the air (a great analogy I once heard applied to learning to teach!), and we are bound to have high and low moments. Our collective ambition, however, is strong, our group is unified, and our vision clear. So let's make sure we don't forget our own evolution. Let's use this wonderful technology to create connections with our larger community and create a lasting archive we can keep learning from.

My next post will explain what each Synthesis blog entry should cover.

I'm thrilled to get started. Welcome!

(I STILL have that song in my head, by the way...)

Ms. Leonhart