Emma Mattesky Appointed Director of Innovation

Benchmark is excited to announce the appointment of Emma Mattesky as Director of Innovation. Emma is relocating to the area from New Orleans where she has had a multi-faceted career in education including teaching gifted students and serving as a director of programming for a girls' camp at an all boys' boarding school. Emma is a cum laude graduate of Tulane University and is pursuing a Master of Education in Educational Administration, Endorsement in Academically Gifted at The University of New Orleans.

Recently Emma served as K-8 Gifted teacher at Belle Chasse Academy in New Orleans and was an ASCD Teacher Impact Grant Recipient. She implemented a makerspace in her classroom with a variety of high and low tech materials. She encouraged her students to utilize the design thinking process as they addressed challenges they identified in literature, in their own lives, and in the local and global community. Emma noted that she witnessed a transformation in her students as they worked from prototyping ideas, providing and giving feedback, and testing possible solutions. "My students developed the courage to take charge of their own learning," she said. “Students became fully invested in both the process and the outcome of learning, as they are the driving force of both.”

Emma said that she is looking forward to working as a member of Benchmark's team of professionals supporting the creation of design projects that enable student thinkers to use their individual strengths along with learned skills to actively promote growth in the local and global communities. "As a member of Benchmark's staff, I commit myself to a place where innovation and risk-taking are part of the academic experience, where excellence will not exist to the exclusion of pure joy and curiosity in learning, and where intellectual, artistic, and innovative aspects of education are fostered to promote future success.”

We can't wait to see the amazing opportunities that Emma will share with our students as Director of Innovation at Benchmark!

Raising the Roof on the Middle School Lab

The Lower School Lab: Working Inside and Out

6th Graders Travel to SHoP Architects Fabrication Facility to View Assembly of the Innovation Lab Ceiling

On June 5, Bill and Chris Sharples '77, Benchmark alums and architects of our new Innovation Lab, graciously invited our 6th grade students to their fabrication facility in Brooklyn to observe the assembly of the ceiling panels for the Innovation Lab. The visit provided the students with an amazing introduction to how the process from design thinking to creation is put into a real world application.

Bill and Chris are especially excited about Benchmark's Innovation Lab, not only because Benchmark is their alma mater, but also because it is is the first time SHoP architects have designed an innovation lab for a lower/middle school. They wanted to use the visit to impress upon our students the concept that the space of the Benchmark Innovation Lab itself exemplifies a part-to-whole logic. Looking at their surroundings when in the Innovation Lab, the students will be able to identify the single member of a complex organism and its role in completing the overall composition. In other words, anything that's created by SHoP for Benchmark's Innovation Lab is something the students would be able to create themselves. As a reminder of the part-to-whole logic, SHoP is intentionally keeping labels on the roof panels to continually remind students of the design process and how they went about putting the pieces together to create the final product.

Several members of the SHoP team facilitated the visit, which included having the students move through four stations to experience the design process through virtual reality, computer design, robotics, and 3D printing. The students were fascinated to learn about the process and asked the SHoP team lots of great questions. It was especially exciting for them to realize that they were watching the fabrication of the very structure that will become the ceiling in the lab where they will be doing their own design thinking and making in the fall. 

Will You Inspire Innovation?

Will you consider joining us in making a financial commitment to the Innovation Lab in order to bring it to completion? Your gift will equip the Innovation Lab with materials and tools that will inspire students of all grade levels to explore the design thinking process and discover real-world applications.

To make a fully tax-deductible gift online, visit BenchmarkSchool.org/giving, choose "Other" in the designation box and specify "Innovation Lab." Here is how your investment can inspire innovation:

Thank you for joining us in this exciting expansion of our instructional program that will be tremendously valuable in preparing our students to thrive in a complex and ever-changing world.

To learn more about the Benchmark Innovation Lab, please  click here .