Week of March 6

Thursday Thoughts  March 6

 

 

 

It is so true that in every life some rain must fall.  This week I received devastating news regarding the death of a close friend's child.  My friend's youngest child (age 20) passed away unexpectedly.  I have known the family for 18 years.   Coping with the loss of any loved one is difficult, but the loss of one's child is beyond my comprehension.  Throughout the course of the week, I have been visiting with the family each evening.  By nature I am a "doer" and a "fixer".  In just about any situation, I pride myself in being able to jump into action and come up with a solution.  This week I realized that sometimes the only thing left for you to do is just "be there."  Some things can't be "fixed".  Sometimes there is nothing you can "do" to make the situation better.  Words of sympathy and concern are all you can contribute.  However, I am learning that words can be of great comfort when they are genuine and heartfelt.  Several of our staff members have experienced the loss of loved ones this year.  When I share information about a staff member's loss, it is with the intention of making sure that our school family can engulf that person with love.  I am thankful that as a staff we are able to show our care and concern for each other and toward each other.   If you have experienced a loss, please know that we are thinking of you and truly care about what you are going through.

 

 

Staff Spotlight

This week I would like to shine the spotlight on Kate Brooks and Charm Snow.  Upon entering their classroom, you can immediately tell by the soft lighting that they intentionally create a calming environment for the students.  They have very high expectations and do not allow the "label" of Autism to dictate what they want their students to learn and do.  In interacting with the students, they are patient yet demanding.  They use technology to engage the students and during Digital Learning Day, I was amazed at how quickly the students were coding without our assistance.  I am proud of the student peer program that takes place within their classroom with general education students.  We are learning more and more about Autism everyday and I am thankful for the work that these ladies are doing.

 

4C's: Collaboration, Communication, Creativity, Critical Thinking Skills

What Every Student Needs

by Terry Heick

There is no perfect lesson, unit, or school any more than their can be a perfect song, flavor, or shade of blue.
Every student is different. Every single intelligent, forgetful, smiling, moody, enthusiastic, apathetic, reflective, short-sighted little (or big) human being that walks into your classroom on a daily basis has their own story–one full of promise, heart-break, and complexity. And this isn’t hippie nonsense. It’s true, and it matters.
So when we talk about student-centered classrooms, that too is a kind of generalization–more of an approach than a strategy. There can’t be one “student-centered” reading strategy, for example. Maybe a “class-centered,” but if it’s truly “student-centered,” well then you’d have one for each student, yes?
But what is universal? In our collective effort to design learning experiences, schools, curriculum, technology, and all the other bits of education just right, is it possible that we miss some of the more obvious pieces? Pieces that every single student needs?
That can be added to everything–curriculum, frameworks, school design, instructional strategies, and anything else that touches the mind of students?
What does every single student need–absolutely, positively have to have–to succeed inside and outside of the classroom?

14 Things Every Student Needs
1. Every student needs self-knowledge.
Who am I, and how do I relate to the world around me? What is required of me? How can I provide value to those memberships I value? Where have I been, and where am I going?
2. Every student needs inspiring models–and modeling.
Models offer ideas, can act as scaffolding, illuminate possibility, provide a pathway, and give students something to anchor their thinking to when everything else seems abstract and academic. The more creative, authentic, inspiring, and diverse, the better the chance every student can be reached.
Modeling–showing how, when, where, and most importantly why–matters too, bringing lessons from ideas to action.
3. Every student needs learning strategies.
And they need to know those strategies as well or better than the content. And they need ones that make sense to them. That they understand and can grow into. Don’t tell them to “use analogies” because Marzano said so. They need smart, intelligent, useful, flexible learning strategies that they can–and will–use unprompted because they know they need them.
4. Every student needs feedback, not judgment.
Feedback helps–acts as guidance. It’s corrective and can even be comforting.
Judgment is personal and emotional–and hurts.
You won’t always get this part perfect, but if you can at least try to hear yourself and know the difference, you’re better of than you would be otherwise. We often can’t tell how our “feedback” sounds no matter how we mean for it to sound.
5. Every student needs creative spaces and tools.
This could physical or digital, alone or in a group, with apps or saws, robotics or paint brushes, maker learning or academic, self-directed or outcomes-based. Creativity isn’t something that’s added on–it’s an honoring of a basic human need for self-expression and self-direction.
6. Every student needs ideas.
See #1. Students are infinitely more clever than the design of most schools and curriculum seems to suggest they are, but they’re still growing, with widely varying backgrounds of knowledge and schema. Sometimes they need ideas–and that’s all they need: An idea, and for you to get out of the way.
7. Every student needs an audience.
If no one is really, truly listening–barring exceptional natural ambition–why bother?
8. Every student needs a champion.
Every student needs a champion–someone to believe in them when their own conviction falters.
9. Every student needs a chance to practice.
And not only practice, but with a variety of support (none, a little, and a lot), with a variety of collaborators, with and without technology, with and without an audience, with and without prescription and instruction, and both ends–but still within–their Zone of Proximal Development.
10. Every student deserves as many chances as it takes.
Because what else are you going to do? Tell them this is real life, and that they’ve used all of their chances? That they should’ve listened the first 12 times? That you’re done with them?
11. Every student needs to play.
Not at recess–with ideas. With collaboration partners. With apps. With digital media. With networks. With their own thinking. With possibility. With models.
12. Every student needs self-efficacy.
This one’s a bit of a bugger because it’s not a teacher action but an outcome from a bunch of stuff you may have nothing to do with. But without the belief they can–which often is preceded by complicated notions of self-worth–everything else is less.
13. Every student needs to be able to read and write.
And it’d be fair to say read and write exceptionally. No, they all won’t be professors or lawyers, but literacy struggles will haunt them until the day they die, and they’ll form all kinds of painful and often damaging self-defense mechanisms to protect it.
Literacy is the foundation for all formal and academic learning.
14. Every student needs approval that isn’t always contingent on “success.”
Genuine affection and acceptance are far more inspiring that even the most widely-praised performance.

Technology Tidbits: (If you have websites to share please email me and I will share with all)

Check out the following website:

http://www.cpalms.org/Public/ Resource for Common Core resources by grade level


News & Notes:
Summer Summit for elementary teachers is June 9th & 10th.  1 PLU will be earned for attending both days.  Please read the PL Post that came out on Monday for more information.