Can we teach emotional intelligence to our students? Yes, we can. In fact, you as a parent are teaching your child emotional intelligence from birth. The moment you hold your baby and soothe him when he cries, you are teaching him to calm down after being upset. You teach emotional intelligence in everything you do with your child, and you are the first teacher.  Emotional intelligence is a skill that can be learned and practiced. It is the ability to understand what we feel and how other people feel. It is the realization that emotions matter and attaining the ability to manage them. Emotional intelligence is as essential for success in life as academic skills are. We teach emotional intelligence to our students in four steps: Self-awareness: We teach the child to identify what she is feeling and understand that what she is feeling impacts her responses, e.g.; “I noticed you are getting upset about....” Every emotion has its place. Every emotion is an importan...

Gathering at the farm for Fall Farm Fest last week inspired such gratitude. I saw the children grounded, parents connecting, guides, staff, our community. As an Abintra parent for a decade now, I get to see that what happens in the classroom, outdoors, the lessons, the work — it all steeps beyond the land, beyond the school day, it’s engraved into our children’s minds and hearts. As Board President, I often get messages of gratitude for the work I do for the school.  Last week as we enjoyed the farm, I had several parents thank me. I explained to them that most of the time it’s really about letting others do their work. A little over a year ago, Sherry, our Executive Director, approached the board with the idea of a farm. She explained why this would serve the children ; she passionately advocated for them. A few months later, the farm was born. Sherry, her team, and the kids made it happen. We the board just moved out of the way and honored what was for them...

In the LS1 and LS2 classrooms, art, music, and learning a second language are as important as learning math and the English  language.  As a part of our first continent study of North America, the students in both classes are receiving lessons about Jackson Pollock's art and technique.  They are learning that Jackson Pollock was an American painter, famous for his style of "action painting." This style involved Pollock dripping and splashing paint on a large canvas, making movements and gestures with the brush-strokes. His paintings look careless and unplanned, but they were not. Pollock took great care over where the paint would fall and which colors he used.  The students are learning that Pollock's painting are abstract, which means that they don't represent anything that we can see, but his paintings tell us a bit about the artist's energy and emotions.  The students have been creating their own pieces inspired by Pollock's style of art using a mar...

The Upper School Newsletter is a collaboration between students and guides. Alia M, Olive S, and Lily S. are our student writers, and Jonell is the faculty advisor. We will strive to produce a newsletter every two weeks. The Memory Project by Lily S. The Memory Project is an art project that several Upper School students are doing with John. We have received pictures of children who live in orphanages in the Philippines, and we are drawing and painting portraits of them. If you think about it, our parents have been taking photos and videos of us since we were born, and many of us have pictures on Facebook and Instagram for the world to see. However, these children are from families that are not fortunate enough to have the resources to catalog their lives by taking videos or pictures of them. We hope they will be happy to have portraits of themselves to look at and see that people care enough to make paintings of them. A Day in the Classroom with an...

Our Civil Rights Trip to Montgomery, Alabama was great. I think everyone had fun and learned equally a lot. Some of the places we visited are t he Legacy Museum, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, and the Civil Rights Memorial Center.      I learned so much about Alabama's history as a state, and our history as a country. I learned the horrible past we as a country, the United States of America, have, and that so many people have tried to hide it. This includes slavery, lynching, and the horrible treatment of African people and their descendants. Sometimes I wish I could hide that history too, but we as humans need to face our past and we do not need to do it alone. We need to do it as a team, as a group, with our families, and no one will need to face our history alone. The Civil Rights Group faced history by going to Montgomery, Alabama. We were sad, but we faced a big part of our history and ther...

An exciting part of our curriculum at Abintra is the Farm. During the time of puberty (beginning around 9 or 10) and adolescence, children reach a new plane of development. This is a foundational time for the development of skills in the larger world. We know that they need opportunities for challenging work, risk-taking, and novelty. They seek social engagement at a new level and display an impressive capacity for creative, out-of-the-box, thinking. Extending the classroom to the farm follows the Montessori principle referred to as erdkinder (“children of the earth”) and continues the development of the skills necessary for academic advancement in a way that remaining entirely in the classroom does not. It fosters independence, interdependence, and an ability to meet challenges. The farm is, by nature, project-based work. Students in the later elementary and middle school years need activities that involve building and understanding connections. They need to feel tha...