Headmaster's Blog

In a recent update from those on-site at Kalina in Tigray, Ethiopia, we've learned that although school construction is not progressing as quickly as anticipated, construction is 50% complete. The school remains on schedule for the start of the 2013-14 school year this September. Part of the construction delay has to do with the difficulty of working in such a remote area of Ethiopia. Below are recent photographs of construction at the Kalina School--  As Saint David's boys achieved and exceeded our three-year goal of raising the funds necessary to build the school, we now have the resources to help the Kalina community achieve secondary goals, including staffing, supplies and potentially another building and program ... more on this to come. Saint David's boys, led by three successive graduating classes has managed to raise over $125,000. They have embodied our school-wide goal this year: True Community in every sense of the phrase.

Our seventh graders recently completed their "Calder Mobiles" project, an activity in which boys are challenged to create a mobile from everyday objects, be they toy cars, keys, boxes of tic tacs, even sneakers!  To create the mobiles, the boys first need to determine a design that will allow the elements used to find balance by applying appropriate rules of mathematics, including the consideration of the mass of the objects and distance from the center.  Once the design is complete, the boys proceed with building their creations, which they then test. This type of activity, which involves real world application of math, is so important in increasing boys' comprehension and mastery of fundamental mathematical concepts. It's also a lot of fun!

This morning, our fourth grade boys welcomed the fourth grade girls from Sacred Heart to Saint David's for a spirited staged reading of four chapters from the novel Detectives in Togas , by Henry Winterfeld. The book, set in Imperial Rome, tells the story of six classmates who must come to the rescue of their friend Rufus, who is accused of  writing "Caius is a dumbbell" on the Temple of Minvera, among other crimes. Throughout this year in history class our fourth grade has examined the question "What is civilization?" and has studied ancient Egypt, China and Greece for insights. The selection of this historically-rich book for their spring reading dovetails with their study of civilizations, and is an example of the connections made across disciplines throughout the curriculum. The staged reading provided the boys the opportunity to practice presenting in front of new audiences, while inviting the girls from Sacred Heart continues our practice of building