Furthermore, the acquisition of higher order concepts and skills that result in numeracy and literacy takes years to emerge and fully develop. This guarantees that effective teaching is always something of a moving target. Educators must be intellectually nimble and fully committed to professional development if they are to address the multivariate challenges they face annually from the diverse populations they serve.
The human brain is an incredibly intricate organ. The architecture of the individual mind is nearly as unique as a fingerprint. Genetics determines broad patterns of human development, and sets parameters for just how far we can develop our various intelligences. However, research shows that environmental factors, from nutrition and the availability of clean water, to external stimuli and emotional and social supports, have just as much influence on the upward boundaries of one's intellectual, social, and emotional development. This is why reading with and to your children, providing high quality lean proteins and vegetables within their diets, and ensuring a wide array of challenging learning opportunities, are among the most powerful ways to stimulate your child's overall development. It's the same reason why "baby talk", isolation from or limited quality interaction with adults, the regular consumption of highly processed, simple sugars and fatty foods, and too much time in a virtual electronic environment, can so negatively impact a child's overall development.
Baldwin has undertaken the International Baccalaureate. As a result, our teachers have been in continuous and robust conversations about teaching and learning. They are learners themselves, working diligently to identify their preexisting, most effective approaches and practices, while focusing their efforts on reimagining their pedagogy and assessment models relative to current research on learning and best practice.
Inquiry-based pedagogy is the backbone of our initiative. In the coming year you can expect an even greater emphasis on critical thinking. We will further challenge your children to consider big ideas, and to ask critical questions about the real world. We will become less workbook dependent. We will promote divergent thinking and creative, collaborative problem solving. We will begin to reshape our assessment practices so as to truly inform your child's learning. We are working to identify gaps and redundancies in our curriculum and to smooth transitions. Words fail to express the magnitude of my gratitude for our faculty, who collectively has risen to the challenge of IB.
Infrastructure is also an important factor in developing a rich and highly effective learning environment. The Visual and Performing Arts Center (VPAC) is altering the cultural and creative landscape of our campus, as evidenced by what we can now do with our performances and by our ability to fully integrate campus activities such as Art Week and Town Hall. Over the last two years and continuing in the coming years, we are replacing technology and furniture in batches, with a focus on technologies that facilitate teaching and ergonomic furniture that supports collaborative learning. We have and will continue to update and grow our inventory of equipment in the sciences and visual and performing arts. This summer, a long neglected area of our campus, our Elementary play areas, will be completely overhauled. The new design is an extension of our teaching mission, and will foster the physical and social development of our students.
Our current major initiative, the Center for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Innovation, will, upon completion, transform our campus for decades. The design incorporates state-of-the-art, university-grade laboratories in chemistry, biology, physics-engineering, mathematics, and computer sciences. It will also offer a fabrication workshop, a greenhouse, a modern M/US library, individual and group study areas, and a language laboratory. The building of the Science Center will allow us to convert the current M/US computer lab into a complete robotics laboratory and free up much needed classroom space in the current M/US quad. Most importantly, it will allow us to designate and remodel the current library as an Elementary Literacy Center.
To date we have raised roughly $400,000 dollars towards this project, not including a generous donation of preliminary architectural renderings by parent Monique Lugo. The Science Center and Elementary Literacy Center will together cost an estimated $5.5 to 6 million dollars to complete. We will need plenty of help to realize this goal. Our Giving Tree Annual Fund provides you the fully tax deductible opportunity to make both projects a reality in our students' near future. My wife and I have already committed our gift. Please join us as you can. Every gift of every size matters, especially as we pursue grants and major donations.
Congratulations to the Boys Varsity Futsal team that beat a very competitive St. John's team in a spirited matchup this week for the league title!
Please join us this week for the Third Grade Opera.
See you around campus.