News

By Dean of Admission Malika DeLancey
 

New partnerships with Johns Hopkins University and the Baltimore Forest School strengthen Oldfields

Oldfields School has entered into two exciting partnerships with area schools. One is with The International Teaching and Global Learning Program (ITGL) at Johns Hopkins University, and the other is with the Baltimore Forest School. The partnership with Johns Hopkins is designed to connect Oldfields students and faculty with international graduate students attending the Johns Hopkins University Graduate School of Education while the partnership with the Baltimore Forest School will allow our students to focus on Environmental Justice projects alongside students attending Baltimore City Public Schools.

Cultural Exchange Program with the Johns Hopkins University Graduate School of Education

The partnership with Johns Hopkins began with five of our seniors joining the ITGL graduate students for a workshop led by Dr. Norma Day-Vines P’19, Associate Dean for Diversity and Faculty Development at Johns Hopkins. For our second meeting, 25 of the ITGL graduate students spent the afternoon visiting classes at Oldfields and getting to know our students and teachers. Our most recent partnership activity was a Lunar New Year celebration led by our friends in the ITGL program. The celebration was simply spectacular! To conclude the celebration, we ate delicious pineapple cake and traditional Chinese candy while playing a lively game of trivia!

Our new friends in the ITGL program are interested in learning more about American high schools, connecting with American students and teachers, and volunteering or interning at Oldfields at some point in the future. A special thank you to Fangfang Ma, Johns Hopkins University lecturer, doctoral student, and mentor to the ITGL graduate school students and the Oldfields Admission team for creating this partnership and planning the activities. We look forward to future events!

Environmental Justice with the Baltimore Forest School

Oldfields is making a concerted effort to share our gorgeous campus with the larger community. Students, parents, and administrators from the Baltimore Forest School, a before- and after-school program for children in PK-8th grade in Baltimore City, worked with teachers Mr. Drew Shelton and Ms. Michelle Goodrich and our talented Oldfields students to examine big questions about our environment and to think about innovative ways to steward our campus. Guest teacher, Rylee Wernoch, graduate fellow with the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, joined us as well. The Baltimore Forest School community is very impressed by our dynamic teachers and our bright and curious students. Oldfields, in partnership with the Baltimore Forest School, will continue to think through complex environmental justice topics.