Brightworks Blog

Brightworks is a flurry of activity and we are thrilled to share peeks into the lives of the students, our school and the community.

Featured

Gender Expression & Expansiveness

Immersive Multi Day Event

Earth Day Clean-Up

May: Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month

Planning for Next Year

Mixed-age Classes

Reimagining Education to Honor Children and Childhood

Spring Gathering & Updates from Leadership

How do we measure success?

Spring Celebrations

Brightworks School Receives Historic $10 Million Gift

Break and Build Recap

Happy Black History / Black Futures Month

Brightworks ABC’s

Spreading Love, Peace and Hope

We kicked off Pride Month by inviting Drag Queen, storyteller and author Lil Miss Hot Mess, @lilmisshotmess to read from her own work! And our kids loved it!

Take a peak at these cute snippets and see what this playful and imaginary approach can do

We love to see our middle schoolers providing support to our elementary students in a joint effort to share about their current project work! And we are very excited to see these kind of cross age interactions being so beneficial to all participants!

What is happening around Gever's desk?

Take a look at these snippets and imagine the rich culture of learning we work to cultivate on a daily basis!

At the heart of our teaching philosophy is the belief that developing students' agency is vital t

When our Middle Schoolers go camping they always return with an epic experience!

This time they visited Sugarloaf Ridge State Park and The Robert Ferguson Observatory for some night time star gazing, studies of native & indigenous plants, memor

This majestic visitor was spotted right in our parking lot this afternoon— a reminder that at Brightworks, nature isn’t a field trip, it’s our everyday backdrop.

Nestled in the heart of the Presidio, Brightworks students explore tr

We are on Fire! Today was our first day of a two-day, all-school workshop with @audiopharmacy ! These snippets only show the beginning of today! Stay tuned for more to come!

By elevating the meaning, sound and purpose of Hip Hop, Audiopharmacy are p

We celebrated Earth Day with a good clean up around our school!
Our Student Government organized it all and sent groups of students out to collect garbage around our buildings and into The Presidio! And along the way these kids knew how to celebrate

Melissa Nocero 9/25/17 Melissa Nocero 9/25/17

Finding Value All Over the Place

The Teal Band began their second week of the Coin Arc exploring US dollar bills in pretty much every way they could think of. Hearing there is an owl hidden in the corner of the one dollar bill, the band called on Rich to lend them a dissection microscope to take a closer look. They all agree they saw one. We tried a number of techniques to look closer at the security thread in the $5, $10, $20 and $50 bills. The band looked for all the anticounterfeiting techniques used in the bills they were examining. These included the security thread and watermarks, as well as unique serial numbers. We recorded details of each bill we examined, including mottos, symbols of value, and drawings of people and places. Sometimes we even became the old, white men we found on the bills. Reflecting on the symbols of value we found on the dollar bills the previous day, we went on a scavenger hunt for them and other symbols of value in the Financial District along with the Violet and Amber Bands. We certainly found a large number of eagles adorning the massive buildings, housing everything from banks to Starbucks to gyms. We learned about William Alexander Leidsdorff, a West Indian immigrant of African Cuban ancestry. He built the City Hotel, the first hotel in San Francisco, and the first commercial shipping warehouse, along with becoming San Francisco's first treasurer. Leidsdorff was also one of the earliest supporters of San Francisco's public school system. He was good with money and knew where to put it. Continuing to look beyond just monetary currency in regards to symbols of value, we stopped to observe and take rubbings of our Zodiac signs in front of a Wells Fargo bank. It's interesting to find out how different people value their Zodiac sign and the qualities attributed to them. Moving on from the Financial District, we took our exploration of symbols of value to the SFMoMA. We found value in the artwork we encountered, especially those focused on sound. We valued the calm, meditative qualities of the bowls beautifully chiming as they came together in Céleste Boursier-Mougenot's clinamen. Many of us even discussed how we could build our own at Brightworks. Exploring a number of other works of art in Soundtracks, we reflected on how much we value our ability to hear. It is amazing to explore a piece of art, both silently and when accompanied by sound. We learned about Wells Fargo's stagecoach history of carrying money, people and mail across the US. How many times have you screamed, "SHOTGUN!" in hopes of riding in the front passenger seat of the car. Well, if you rode in that seat on the stagecoach, you'd certainly need a shotgun since it was your job to protect the bags of gold and money tucked under your feet. After all this money talk, who doesn't value a day out at the ballpark with their friends? The Teal Band certainly values it, especially when tickets are as cheap as $6 a piece. We also value getting the chance to see how our hands compare to those of Barry Bonds. Thanks to our early arrival, we were able to make our way down next to the visiting bullpen mound. Getting this close to the field and the players afforded us the first two baseballs we collected that day.