Lighting the imagination
VIEWPOINT
Lizbet Carroll Fuller

At Nantucket Lighthouse School, we work to enliven and reimagine elementary education. Learning is a creative process and so is teaching. Given a comprehensive curriculum and an array of traditional academic skills to teach, a Lighthouse teacher works to creatively and imaginatively translate information and skills in a way that is meaningful, engaging and challenging to young children. Art and writing are integrated throughout the curriculum as we ask young children to creatively express what they know and to make new information and experience their own. Children actively work to develop very practical tools, both academic and social, that they need to create meaningful lives. We keep in mind that these tools are only tools and valuable only if the individual knows and understands how to use them in an imaginative, resourceful, and responsible way.

It has been eight years since we opened our doors in NISDA's Wauwinet barn with 12 students. This week, Nantucket Lighthouse School opens its doors to welcome nearly 70 Nantucket children and their families. Having moved in just one year ago, we have quickly made ourselves at home in our beautiful new school building at 1 Rugged Road. Currently, Lighthouse serves Nantucket's children from pre-school through the 5th grade. This year, we have expanded our Small School to include a third pre-school class and will be extending our program to include the 6th grade as of next year. We will continue to hold monthly Open Houses during the school day; our first is scheduled for Thursday, October 16 at 11:00 a.m.

We are often asked to sum up in a nutshell what Lighthouse School is. This usually means coming up with a few brief statements that don't tell the whole story:

The Lighthouse curriculum is "developmentally appropriate." This simply means that ideas, information and skills are introduced when children are able to make sense of them. We look to the research concerning child development and the human learning process and we build our curriculum from there.

We teach traditional academic subjects in a unique, meaningful and imaginative way. Studies are project-based. For instance, when the Kinderclass studies the Native American Wampanoag tribe, they are stitching moccasins, planting a Three Sisters garden, building model wetus, carving arrowheads and writing about what they learn. When the Upper Primary Class studies Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement, they recreate and translate what they have learned by creating an original slide show, writing, illustrating and taping their own script. Story, art, and writing are integrated throughout the academic curriculum. In other words, children are asked to be active learners, continuously making information their own as they practice very basic and traditional academic skills.

We teach the "whole child." We consider the social component of the Lighthouse curriculum to be as important to an individual's education as the academic subjects we teach. Each child is acknowledged, valued and educated in terms of his or her unique constellation of strengths, talents and challenges. The Golden Rule is one known to children throughout the school. From their very first years at Lighthouse, children learn to express themselves both honestly and respectfully, whether they are responding to a question in "circle" or negotiating a conflict. Children develop personal responsibility and accountability in regards to their schoolwork and their behavior. Lighthouse School is a warm and supportive community where children are respected and learn about themselves as well as their responsibilities to others, to their community and to the earth.

Most importantly, we inspire, develop and exercise the most essential human creative faculty - the imagination. The imagination is fundamental to the ability to think, to empathize, to problem solve, and to give form to that which does not yet exist. It is the bread and butter of what we do as a school. Is anything more critical at this juncture?

At our recent Back-to-School celebration, we dedicated our building to a family without which

Lighthouse School would not existthe

Chace family. Co-Founder Elizabeth Sundell devoted great time, energy, passion, and funding to the creation of Lighthouse School. Kim and Liz Chace, Elizabeth's father and step-mother, contributed significantly to the founding of the school as well as toward the construction of our new building. In honor of their commitment, generosity, and support, we have named our new building The Chace School House.

This year, we look forward to working with the Loring Foundation, the Nantucket Land Council and Strong Wings Adventure School on collaborative science and environmental education curriculum projects. We continue our partnership with the Nantucket Atheneum and the Nantucket Arts Council in bringing this year's Lighthouse School Storytelling Festival performers and educators to the island. This spring the festival welcomes Richard Lewis, Founder and Director of the Touchstone Center. Whether it be to join us at our festive Yuletide Fair, a storytelling workshop, or an Open House, we invite one and all to come and see Lighthouse in action.

Lizbet Carroll Fuller co-founder/director of education/teacher

Nantucket Lighthouse School I