By Felix Chen

When I started teaching at Abington Friends School, the first thing I noticed was how attentive and immersed the students were in their learning. Instead of the traditional schooling that I had experienced, I saw teachers engaging students in deep discussions and working along side them in interactive projects.

I had some wonderful mentors in my early years, who helped shape a lot of my teaching. Today, in my 15th year of teaching third grade at AFS, I work in collaboration with a team of imaginative and innovative teachers who are dedicated to student growth.

With that growth in mind, I am able to design my lessons to help students challenge themselves and discover new interests and abilities, and then help them deepen their understanding of their own capabilities.

The School gives the faculty incredible freedom and support to shape the curriculum in creative, powerful and purposeful ways that allow students to take ownership of their own learning. A dynamic curriculum gives me, as a teacher, more opportunities to know my students in a deeper way. As I observe how they learn, I adjust the content or methods to further extend their experiences.

For example, a few years ago, our students, collaborating teacher Karoyle Eldridge and I were enraptured by Grace Lin’s book, “Where the Mountain Meets the Moon.” Our class conversations were so rich that we started to think about what to do with this magnificent piece of literature. A few students suggested that we put on a play for our end-of-the-year project.

Karolye and I set to work educating ourselves as teachers and as a class on how to put on such a big production. Our students wrote and rewrote the scripts to match the action and bring out the depth of each character.

Karolye led us in creating beautiful costumes, and as a class, we made glorious headpieces for the characters. Middle School Theatre Teacher Mary Carpenter led workshops on acting, improvisation and enunciation. Our hours-long daily practices were full of fun and self-discovery. Students chose roles that surprised us at every turn and challenged their abilities as readers, interpreters and performers.

As we worked on the play, I learned so much about my students, and as the weeks went by, Karolye and I talked about new learning opportunities. We invited students to be a part of the process of creating with us — it’s a delicate balance of learning in community while allowing individual personalities to shine. We all taught each other how to make the story come alive. I still remember students practicing the best way to walk like a dragon or growl and sneer like an evil magistrate.

The collaborative learning culminated with our families gathered in the Muller Auditorium in May, watching as their children astounded us all with their performance.

More recently, my collaborating teacher, Shana Silverman, and I have developed language arts and social studies units that opened new pathways for student learning in writing and research. One of the most engaging projects we’ve created is about Chinese lion dancing. We’ve been delighted to see how much excitement our students have had in making our lion heads and costumes and in learning about the history and intricate movements of this traditional custom. We also visited my alma mater, The University of Pennsylvania, to watch and learn in a fascinating workshop led by The Penn Lions, a dedicated group of college students.

Whether it is putting on a full-scale play, or immersing high-energy third graders in lion dancing, having the freedom to create a purposeful curriculum is invaluable to our students and revitalizing for me as a teacher. As the school year unfolds, I look forward to the opportunities I have to collaborate with my fellow teachers to “dream big” about how we can create the most impactful learning experiences for our students.