Teacher Margaret's "View From My Window" - October 24th

Dear Westfield Friends,

Wednesday was busy with parents coming to meet with their children’s teachers. Parents are the overall expert on their child, teachers are the expert on the child in school. The parent-teacher partnership is crucial to each child’s success.  As they mature, children need to take more ownership of their learning. Therefore, our Middle School Students came with their parents. Each child was ready to share what was going well and where they needed help. Goals and strategies were discussed, successes celebrated, and paths forward charted. 

This past Sunday I heard the piano concerto “bTunes” by Betsy Jolas as performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra. About the piece,  Jolas wrote, “I have thus noticed in recent years, that most people’s attention to music has shrunk drastically to barely 10 seconds.” (2022).  The piece, a riff on that observation, was like listening to a playlist of 10-second snippets. Jon Haidt’s substack “After Babel” continues to explore the impact of social media and smartphones on our communities and our children - including their shortening ability to sustain focus. This fall, the faculty and I have been considering children’s attention spans and ways to build the mental and physical muscles necessary for sustained concentration. 

In our next Family Council meeting we will consider how we might, as families, support each other in creating device-free times so that homework and reading may happen without FOMO-type, smart device distractions – stretching and strengthening the ability to focus.  Hopefully, we will share other ideas we have tried as families, such as device-free family meals once a week. 

This Saturday is Boo Bash. This amazing, fun, joyous, creative, zany community event also strengthens our community ties. We know that the more we come together in face-to-face, multi-age groups, the more layers of connection we have with each other. Our school, like places of worship, provides us with a friendly space where we share the hopes and dreams we have for our children, where we learn from each other, and support each other in creating resilient human beings. 

Thank you for sharing your children with us.

Warmly,

Margaret Haviland

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