A Hyla Tradition Continues by Cindy Schacht, middle school Math teacher A History of Service at Hyla Community service has been a strong tradition and core value since Hyla was founded. For many years, Hyla students have contributed to the Bainbridge, Kitsap, and Seattle communities through a variety of programs, just a few of which include stocking shelves at Helpline House, donating time and supplies to Coffee Oasis in Bremerton and Poulsbo, and serving meals at a women’s shelter in South Seattle. Starting with the words of our school motto, “we take care of each other,”…

by Brad Waugh, upper school Math teacher. Human-Centered Design for a Better World is an Aperture course at Hyla’s upper school that utilizes the design thinking framework pioneered by the Institute of Design at Stanford. This course is grounded in the idea of learning through doing by: With an emphasis on empathy, the design framework ensures that both the process and the outcome of the projects prioritize the human needs of those impacted and cultivate strong, sustainable relationships with them. Introducing the Design Cycle Students got their first insights into the design process by examining a…

By Cindy Schacht, middle school Math teacher. 3-D geometry, volume & surface area through architecture: The international architectural challenge is complete! Our student architects were hired to design and build homes all around the world. Working in teams, they reviewed a list of commissioned homes and associated specifications, like a canal home in Amsterdam, an eco house in New Zealand, a mud house in Zambia, a log cabin in New Hampshire, a Chinese Hakka house, and an Iceland turf house, among others. Specifications for each commission took into account the number of people living in the…

A conversation with David Maron, middle school History teacher. One globe. One question. That’s what 6th graders faced in history last week. “It’s not a test,” David explained, “but it does launch a process that reinforces one of our guiding values in the history classroom, and that is to embrace that we all have incomplete knowledge.” As students worked in teams to figure out when their globes were made, David learned a lot about his students. The globe challenge drew out what students already know about geography, human history, and research techniques. But for David the challenge…

With “history chills” and gratitude in our hearts, we share that our beloved humanities teacher Jennifer Haase has taken a new teaching position that fulfills her life-long dream to live in Gettysburg. When Jennifer told us about her brave new plans after the end of the last school year, we of course wholeheartedly supported her. Anyone who knows Jennifer knows that she lives and breathes history. Even when she’s not teaching during the school day, she’s still teaching history through living history demonstrations as a Civil War nurse tending to Union soldiers, as an interpreter at…

Student Voices: One Senior’s Perspective on Perspective. On June 10th, we hosted our first ever commencement ceremony to honor the first group of seniors to graduate from Hyla’s upper school program. Each senior had a role in the ceremony and used their voice to express appreciation, gratitude, pride, and wisdom for the future. Seniors recognized each other’s accomplishments as academics and athletes; they told stories about how they chose Hyla and the difference that choice made in their lives. They gathered teachers and fellow Hyla student musicians on stage to perform an inspiring version of “Come…

In the Classroom & In the Dirt: Hands-On Learning. Over the past few weeks, a familiar scene has unfolded in the back field: shovels, charts, brushes, and sieves – and lots and lots of dirt. Throughout the archaeology dig, students take on specific roles that replicate the different jobs of a true archaeological dig. Working as a team to excavate buried artifacts, they fill out an “Artifact Record Slip” where they note key data like the site, depth, and distance from the datum stake. They request help from “the lab,” which provides carbon dating and a…

Co-designing cross-disciplinary curriculum with students. By Brad Waugh, Hyla upper school teacher. Hyla’s upper school Aperture program provides students and teachers the space to co-design curriculum, investigate themes of common interest and build knowledge across disciplines collaboratively. The Green Tech Aperture does this by weaving together ideas from the humanities, science and engineering to address current environmental challenges, helping students build a powerful and versatile toolkit to address a wide range of real world problems. Aperture courses are semester-long and happen three times each week. The human-centered design thinking framework developed and championed by the Stanford Institute…

Hyla upper school teachers, Tom and Brad sent this dispatch from Grenada, Spain and their “Spain Unchained” Panorama course, a three-week immersive study in Spanish language, history and culture. Nestled in the foothills of the snow-capped Sierra Nevada mountain range of Andalucía, Grenada was once the capital of the Moorish empire in Southern Spain and remains to this day an important and renowned cultural heritage site and testament to Spain’s multicultural legacy. This Panorama course is an intense Spanish immersion with home stays, language classes with local professors, and expectations of ambassadorship. As students use their…

What does “ownership of learning” look like? We see it when students take initiative with self-direction; we see it when students are engaged and motivated with a sense of autonomy and choice in their work; we see it when students create original work that shows their learning and understanding. We see it when students take accountability as they articulate their own growth and progress. The most recent round of student-led conferences showcased student ownership with authenticity, vulnerability and creativity. For 8th graders, those conferences were a special chance to focus on a specific span of time within…