Author Archives: Julie Rust

First of all, we can all agree that among all the students that know him, DBram is a bit of rockstar.  Also, I have now been at the school long enough that I’ve started to absorb my favorite rhythms of the year long season. For example, in the same way that I begin to craveContinue reading “D-Bram & the Film Festival”

Authored by Jessica Parker-Farris It’s no secret that the Lower School is in need of a major renovation, and thank goodness, the school has steadily been envisioning and planning to make that a not-too-distant reality. But what are we supposed to do in the meantime? Folks at the South Campus know that we teachers huntContinue reading “Take Your Pick: A Bouquet of Zinnias, Sticks, and Other Findings”

At the end of his life, the great picture book author and illustrator Maurice Sendak said on the NPR show Fresh Air, ‘I cry a lot because I miss people. I cry a lot because they die, and I can’t stop them. They leave me, and I love them more.’ He said, ‘I’m finding outContinue reading “St. Andrew’s, Reviewed”

The other day I awkwardly tried not to eavesdrop in my office when Greg and Brad were having a logistics discussion about setting up one of the billion events this week right outside my door. Greg caught my eye: “ You want to help with the 5 am setup, Julie?” I audibly groaned.  These peopleContinue reading “I Feel Rage Sometimes & Other Surprises”

Authored by Matt Luter My last two blog posts here introduced the idea of ungrading by making the case that grades are not effective and talking about what ungrading is and isn’t. I wanted to follow up on the latter—which emphasized that ungrading is an imprecise blanket term for a wide variety of practices thatContinue reading “Some Initial Ungrading Strategies”

If anyone thinks that PE and fitness class is nothing more than round upon round of dodgeball, I encourage you to speak with Burney King or Stacy Sullivan or Britney Wolfe or any of our inspiring fitness instructors.  Working with these folks this school year on our fitness programming curriculum review cycle this year hasContinue reading “Fitness: More Than Just Dodgeball”

“Dr. Rust, your ability to sustain optimism in a class with this degree of senioritis on display is nothing short of inspiring.” -A senior in my English class in April . . . with definite senioritus. It’s been a minute since I’ve had an update on “Teaching while Julie Rust.”  It’s time. The date isContinue reading “Julie’s Teaching Journal”

Authored by Hannah Williams-Inman Somehow, we have found ourselves at the end of another academic year, and I’m sure among faculty there are a wide array of adjectives we would use to describe it. As Buck would say, your mileage may vary. This might have felt like the longest year so far, or the shortest.Continue reading “If Only You Knew (how much kids love you!!!)”

Have you all gotten to know our amazing new French faculty member, Dr. Jocelyn Van Tuyl? She’s not only brilliant, experienced, and down-to-earth . . . she’s also a pretty darn good at improv.  I had the good luck of being in an improvisation PLC that David Kelly led this past school year with JessicaContinue reading “French Cooking!”

Authored by Jessica Parker-Farris Let me paint my own end-of-the-year classroom experience: eight children interrupting me all at once; children arguing over markers, personal space, or fidgets; children staring into nothingness or, better yet, rolling their eyes; children seeing just how far they can stretch one piece of bubble gum (Where did they get gum???);Continue reading “An Eraser is “Born””

Tadaaaaaa! The 2023-2024 school year is over so that must mean we most certainly successfully conquered and now fully have unlocked the mysteries contained in the PD theme of the year: “Teaching These Days.” HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! (We barely scratched the surface.) Still, I am grateful for all of the questions we have unearthed together, and theContinue reading “Goodbye, Theme of the Year!”

Contributed by Matt Luter The easier thing to define is what ungrading isn’t. So what should we know about ungrading, then? The first thing to understand is that ungrading is more of a dial than a lightswitch. Everything I’ve read on ungrading practices emphasizes that, because ungrading can be a difficult shift for some studentsContinue reading “What Ungrading Does and Doesn’t Mean”

Contributed by Matt Luter One of the reasons I wanted to work with TEAM this year is so that I could have some opportunities to broach the (admittedly, somewhat sensitive) subject of how we, as a community, think about grades, their purpose, and the act of grading. I have read fairly widely at this pointContinue reading “Let’s Talk About Grades. Let’s Talk About Ungrading.”

Authored by Hannah Williams-Inman As part of a Global Studies trip, I had the opportunity to go to Peru for 2 weeks (!!!) over spring break this year. To say the trip was amazing would be both an understatement, and inadequate in properly conveying some of our extraordinary experiences – let’s just say, I nowContinue reading “Andean Musings”

Written by Jessica Parker-Farris Still on that continued mission to find joy, this year I signed up for Upper School Theatre teacher David Kelly’s Improv PLC! Here’s what I sat down and wrote after our first full meet: It’s Thursday, October 10th, and 4:49pm. I just got home after having completed our first improv sessionContinue reading “Lost in Translation”

Hannah Williams-Inman wrote this glorious blog. I wish I had. It’s that good. As I sit down to type this – definitely not the day the TEAM blogs are due (OOPS, why am I like this) – we have just wrapped this year’s spring show The Addams Family Musical. It has been busy last fewContinue reading “The Theater, the Theater”

Note: All credit for the idea of this blog post goes decidedly to Anna Frame. Four/fifths of the Rust household has been obsessed lately with the very edifying and high-quality reality show, Dance Moms. I won’t tell you which four out of the five love it, but let me just say you might be surprised. Continue reading “Science Fair Moms, The Reality Show”

There are really three places the Rust family finds the focus and time to really talk: Sometimes a kid plays DJ and we share songs we like with each other.  Other times we play “roses/thorns” or some version of the game to talk about our days.  But you can usually count on one thing: AliannaContinue reading “Anna Frame is Fun & So is Fourth Grade Social Studies”

Some days, you rise princess-like from your bed before the alarm goes off and you trot into the room to do yoga and your dog licks you appreciatively and you don’t spill an ounce of oatmeal over your clothes.   But most days, it seems like every day this month for me, you knock over yourContinue reading “I Can’t See Anything Anymore & Other Confessions of a Middle Aged Woman”

It was weeks ago, and it was one of those dreams right before the alarm goes off that you remember with startling clarity.  Picture a big auditorium-like space (not the CPA, but in my head during the dream it was definitely the CPA), zooming in on a massive event we had at the school called:Continue reading “School Dreams”