Education is About Growth Mindset

The first classroom I remember being in as a student, my first-grade teacher, Mrs. Hurst, would draw five lines on the board using this: 

The first classroom I used as a teacher had a green chalkboard with the lines already drawn on it: 

In my first four years of teaching, I evolved to using an overhead projector: 

When I was a high school principal, e-mail was just starting to evolve as a way for families to communicate with teachers. In the same building, every teacher asked their students to first send their papers to turnitin.com to check for authentic writing. Students would then print their papers and physically hand them in to their teachers. 

The last time I taught a class, it was entirely virtual. We met online. I taught online. I graded papers and projects on the university's platform. It was a far cry from Mrs. Hurst in 1981. 

Education, by its nature, is about evolution. It's about growing and changing to meet the needs of the students as they grow and change over time. That includes advances in technology, acceptable societal norms, and educational research. 

Under Tim Munoz's leadership, the Policy Committee has started discussing artificial intelligence parameters. This is a brand-new experience for all of us. We've never had to ask questions about content that can be created by Claude AI or Chat GPT. We will rely on the experiences of our teachers and students to shape our expectations. 

Artificial intelligence is just the next chapter of how education will grow into the future. We know that we won't teach our students of tomorrow the way we learned ourselves or, to take it a step further, how we teach our students today. That is our commitment as educators. 

The challenge will be for us as adults. When we were students, we didn't learn that way. When we were taught how to teach, we were not taught that way. If we must grapple with this as educators, we will need our community to grapple with us. It won't be how we all learned when we were in school, but it will be what our future students expect of us. Of all of us. 

We are breathing new life into the buildings in East Greenwich over the next five years. We must make the same promise about how we teach. The students of tomorrow are waiting. 

Greatness Not Perfection, So Far

During the Winter Holiday Recess, we welcomed 2025, and this past Monday, we welcomed back our Faculty, Staff, and Students. With more than half of our year of Teaching and Learning still left to go, I reflected on the first seventy-five days of our academic year. At our Convocation in August, I shared with our employees that this year, we would be about greatness, not perfection. Here are some of the moments of greatness so far: 

• How this community responded to the needs of the EGPS Families impacted by the Brookside Terrace fire in December. In particular, Andrea Coelho, one of our social workers, has been a consistent presence and an advocate for these individuals, communicating with them regularly and sharing what their needs are. This highlights the work of Strategic Plan Priority 2 (Distinguished Teaching and Talented Staff), Priority 4 (Engaged Community) and demonstrates the importance of Connection (one of the tenets of our Vision of a Graduate). 
  
  
• Helping Hands of EGHS, a student-run group, organized a 5K race in honor of Ryan Casey, who passed away in 2023. Mr. Casey was a graduate of Meadowbrook, Cole, and EGHS as well as a dedicated husband and father. This event was a concrete example of how our high school students are Reflective, another tenet of our Vision of a Graduate. 
  
  
• The Cole Girls Soccer Team raised money for the Women in Need (WIN) program at Kent County Hospital. Led by Coach Steve Shelton, this highlights again Strategic Plan Priority 2 (Distinguished Teaching and Talented Staff), Priority 4 (Engaged Community) and Connection from our Vision of a Graduate. 
  
  
  
  
  
• Michelle Lambert, a paraeducator in EGPS, opened a Fitness Center with her daughter. Ms. Lambert offers a class called "Unified Fitness," particularly for those eligible for special education. This continues to highlight our Distinguished Teaching and Talented Staff and demonstrates that All Means All extends beyond the school day for our employees.  

• Cole Students in Steve Garneau's classes recently participated in Lego Education's project #BuildToGive. For every heart-shaped Lego model built and shared on social media, Lego donated a kit to a child in need. There were a total of thirty-two models built at Cole. Another exemplar of our Distinguished Teaching and Talented Staff, our Engaged Community commitment, and the importance of Connection. 

With more than half of our Teaching and Learning year left, EGPS will provide many more examples of greatness, not perfection. We will demonstrate our commitment to the priorities of our Strategic Plan and our emphasis on the Vision of a Graduate. This is the work of Teaching and Learning in this community. 

Happy 2025!