Internally it is always "Chelsey and John" fondly in one breath, as if the newlyweds are interchangeable -- inseparable for sure -- but these two bright young Columbia/Hawaii graduates certainly have their own distinctive identities and their students know best. On this lovely morning in May, Chelsey takes her students on a fascinating ride from Gothic genre to realistic fiction on the 7th floor, while John works with older students tackling human development index right below her on the 6th floor.

  

Chelsey's Kids Canon Advanced 'B' and John's Anthropology and Geography are both 3-hour, 15-session, 2-semester courses, that demand a lot of reading, intelligent discussions, full attention and participation, and writing of young learners. At the beginning of the class, Chelsey begins by collecting homework and having students update their red folders. Victoria then reads out a Gothic story written by herself, for her 7 other classmates to identify Gothic elements -- setting, characters, imagery, themes and character background/context. The bright young things are quick and alert -- a ghost's house, tragic background (parents leaving children to fend for themselves), blood, old trees, dark and scary weather, forest, a secret letter... all pointed out.

Chelsey then projects high-level vocabulary words with images on the screen -- emaciated, yearn, altitude, swift... words in the coming chapters that students are required to read. The class also talks about literary devices and genre attributes.

This week's new book happens to be the Twenty-One Balloons by William Pene Du Bois. Chesley hands out images and text for Andree Balloon Crash and the class went through "A photographic journey through the most surreal Arctic disaster". Students are supposed to write realistic fiction of their own. And some of them already have great ideas -- plane crash, kidnapping and robots among a few. They are encouraged to read newspapers, NASA and science fiction for inspiration.

Time just flies for both Chelsey and her students on the 7th floor.

Downstairs in the library, sitting around the most un-Harkness table of Studio, older kids are engaged in the most Harkness discussions with John. John's class generally has four parts -- reviewing, introducing new concepts through reading, working with the concept by applying it to data and then students working on their own paper. Today at 10:30, students go through United Nations human development Index, making sense of the datasets, identifying outliers, discussing the pitfalls of economic growth measurements and exploring policy implications.

Time flies on the 6th floor too.

And they make it look so effortless -- consantly throwing intelligent questions to students and engaging them deeply.

Chelsey and John, are you just natural?

Well, we make ourselves natural over time. We talk like that between the two of us all the time -- should we look at it this way? Can we analyze it from this angle?....

Chelsey's professor actually had to say to her once, could you read this book just for fun?

Well, they don't get it. This is FUN. Having an intellectual Sunday with Chelsey and John is as much fun as playing soccer or singing in a rock and roll band.

Chelsey and John have both worked with naturally gifted and/or well-read kids, who thoroughly enjoy the additional stimulus from their dynamic American teachers, and those who started with limited exposure but are totally transformed after one semester or two.

Fire and Ice, Studio's innovative summer learning tour to Hawaii and Alaska is the brainchild of this talented couple. The three-week trip incorporates scientific and cultural exploration, research, reflection and creative rigor. The couple vows to develop more tours -- to Japan, the Southern Hemisphere, and Jerusalem.

  

You don't want to miss a ride with Chelsey and John.

Chelsey Kueffer teaches Kids Canon and BELLA.
John Dietrich teaches Kids Canon and SALA courses.
Both are course leaders for Global Learning.

To receive notifications of new blog posts, please follow us.