Your Student Can Do Great Things: Teaching Approach Matters

Tiffany and Christie, along with their younger sisters Kimberly and Kathryn, realized that not only could they make a difference in preemie survival with their hats, but they could also provide psychological and emotional support to the families affected. That summer, they made a commitment to knit as many hats as they could, and by Christmas, they were able to donate 160 hats to the NICU at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. 

The hospital’s expression of appreciation, along with the difference they could see they were making towards the survival of premature infants, was compelling. So, they decided to formalize the group naming their new foundation Madhatter Knits. The executive team, including Founding President Tiffany Chang, younger sister Kimberly Chang, cousins Christie and Kathryn Huang, and her classmate Sara Lowin, collectively developed a plan to recruit, organize, and train volunteers to knit preemie hats for donation. From this simple beginning, their efforts to serve and protect infants has grown into a large volunteer force with a global reach.

This core team of motivated and accomplished young women are all Clairbourn School alumae — primed for early success in the areas of confidence, service, and leadership in a program that starts as early as preschool and extends through eighth grade. At Clairbourn, not only do students get individualized and differentiated instruction which leads to academic success, but the teachers are skilled at presenting lessons in a context that is meaningful and interesting to young children. Students love their positive and challenging learning experience.

Clairbourn uses both teacher-directed and child-initiated activities resulting in students who feel highly engaged in their learning experience. The acquisition of academic skills is combined with research-based opportunities to apply what they’re learning and for their minds to engage in wonder, discovery, and exploration. This means, students see their education as being of immediate use to their current situations, as evidenced by Tiffany and her cousin Christie who looked for ways to apply her new hat-knitting skills, and then took it further into philanthropic community service and involvement.

Their story shows that when students are able to connect with caring teachers, enjoy the process of learning, and feel comfortable in taking risks and applying what they know, good things can grow! Starting in the earliest grades, students have opportunities to bridge the gap between having an idea and making it a reality.  Classroom lessons, STEM activities, the Entrepreneurial Fair, and the Engineering Design Challenge offer rich problem-solving opportunities and help to develop executive function and self-regulation skills—the mental processes that enable students to plan, focus, pay attention, remember, and juggle multiple tasks.

At Clairbourn, children learn to adopt a growth mindset, an approach conceived by world-renowned Stanford professor of psychology Carol Dweck, which keeps them positive in the face learning setbacks. Head of School Dr. Patzlaff explains, “In contrast with a fixed mindset, which believes in a hard-wired capacity to be either good or bad at something, the growth mindset is a liberating approach to life, preparing students for success and ensuring progress. When students are learning something new, we want them respond to challenges with the acknowledgement that I may not be good at this yet, but I’m going to take-risks, grow, and stay persistent until I see results.”

Clairbourn teachers keep the growth mindset alive in the minds of students by the type of feedback and encouragement they provide. Instead of focusing on a narrow goal of having students show of their smarts with mistake-free or fast work, they reinforce the value of effort and persistence with a task. They encourage students to take risks to learn or try something new and step up to harder challenges—resulting in minds that grow strong and resilient.

Teachers at Clairbourn are also distinctive because of the school’s intention to hire educators who glow with love and kindness, who are effective models of the school’s Code of Ethics, and who are truly invested in seeing the children become their very best. In a word, it’s heart!  You can see Clairbourn teachers express heart in everything they do, and that’s what makes Clairbourn feel like second home to its students. 

Tiffany Chang’s life, along with her fellow alumnae, continues to be positively impacted by the  teaching approach and heart expressed by Clairbourn educator Mrs. Halferty.  Even the radio show host of “Heart visitors: The Transmission of Love ” on KAZN AM 1300, was moved by Tiffany’s story causing her to remark, “Wow what kind of school is this, that also not only teaches service learning at such a young age but also their teachers are so loving to teach you to knit?!”