Parent Teacher Conferences
On Tuesday, Oct. 22, we have Parent Teacher conferences from 4:00 to 7:30 pm in the commons and on Thursday, Oct. 24th, from 8-11:30 am in your rooms. Please take steps to invite parents personally to come and meet with you, especially those parents you most feel the need to see. Also, if there are any obstacles to your being available during those hours, please communicate that to me, your students and their parents, and make parents aware of the options for meeting with you outside of those hours.
Professional Development Day - Oct 25th
There is not a building- or district-wide PD offering on next Friday. If you have banked the required amount of Professional Development, it is a vacation day for you. If you are in need of PD hours, please speak with me about your plan for the day.
Google Training Options
Again, I want to take this opportunity to remind you that John and Ryan have developed a Google Training to help all of us be more comfortable with the Google Aps Suite. If you are interested the next offering is at 3:30 on Oct. 30th in John Dollar's Room.Also, here is another Google training I would support:
Naomi Harm and Tim Nielsen with Innovative Educator Consulting are presenting Get Your Google On! in Iowa-Grant on December 4th. This workshop is open to all districts, but pre-registration is required. The cost is $100/person. If you register a team of three from one district, you can also send an administrator (superintendent or principal) for FREE! More information can be found on our website --http://www.naomiharm.org/upcomingworkshops.html. Or click here to register today!
Come explore the wonderful world of Google Apps, Chrome Apps and Extensions for education. Participants will be immersed in innovative ways of how to use Google Apps and resource tools to extend mobile learning opportunities for all of their students. The Innovative Educator Consulting Team will also showcase how Google tools can support the productivity and efficiency of today’s 21st century educators and administrators. Examples include: mobile walk-throughs to collect instant data sets to support student and educator assessment practices, advance searching techniques, collaborative web-based applications of Chrome Apps and Extensions, Google scripts to automate tasks across Google products and third party applications, and digital product creation. This full day of interactive presentations and hands-on activities will be provided to enhance your instructional approaches and empower the k-12 teaching and learning environment.
Graduate credit is available through Marian University for an additional $175.
Naomi Harm is a great trainer and I would encourage you to attend. I obviously can't afford for the whole building to go, but if you have the money in your department budget to go, I will authorize, and cover the sub cost, for up to 4 staff members to attend that day.
Organizational issues:
I will be out of the office on Thursday, Oct. 24th until 10:00 am. I am attending a regional superintendent and principals meeting with Dr. Thompson. I will also be out of the office all day on Friday, Oct. 25th. I am taking a personal day.Marcia will be out of the office Oct.29-Nov. 1. She will be chaperoning the FFA trip to the annual convention.
Please plan accordingly if you need either of us during those times.
On a personal note:
Last Thursday, I discovered that one of our retired staff members at Rice Lake High School, Char, had learned she had an inoperable brain tumor. She had been diagnosed three weeks prior, and the news was shared with me via a conversation with my former associate principal. Char elected to seek a second opinion, and flew earlier this week to Houston for a risky surgery at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. On Wednesday, I learned that the surgery was unsuccessful and by 4:00 pm, she had died. I find myself troubled by Char's death. Because of the suddenness of it. Because of her youth. (She had just turned 60.) And because I never felt like Char and I saw eye-to-eye on educational issues and as a result, we didn't have as warm of a relationship as I wish we would have had.
I had a ton of respect for Char, but because of declining enrollment issues and state finances and the subject she taught, I don't think she ever felt any of that respect. That is my fault. I was young and stupid and arrogant and not willing to spend the time to work through all of that to get to the person underneath...for either of us. Times of loss always force me to reflect on who I am and who I want to be. I don't ever want to feel this regret again.
So while we may disagree in our future together, I hope I don't ever forget to make you feel the respect I have for you and to interact with you as a human...before we tackle the hard work of school reform. If I don't or am not living up to that hope, please call me on it.
Things I am reading and thinking about this week:
I hope you know I love the idea of empowering students to take the lead in their learning. So it should come as no surprise why I love this blog post!
Ten Rules for Living by David Wee
I'm a sucker for lists like this. I enjoy the way they make me think, especially when I don't agree with one of the rules. :)
Clarifying Collective Inquiry by Rick Dufour
I frequently revisit DuFour's writing, just to try to keep my eyes on the prize. I hope you do to. This one is short and thought provoking, especially at the end of a PLC week.
I'm a sucker for lists like this. I enjoy the way they make me think, especially when I don't agree with one of the rules. :)
Clarifying Collective Inquiry by Rick Dufour
I frequently revisit DuFour's writing, just to try to keep my eyes on the prize. I hope you do to. This one is short and thought provoking, especially at the end of a PLC week.
Thanks for another thought provoking blog. Which of one of the ten rules for living do you not agree with?
ReplyDeleteI'll disagree with #9. I suspect there was a time when television came to be and there was great concern about the time that would be wasted watching television for no gain. Is history repeating itself with time spent surfing the internet? I would like to think I become more informed depending on what I watch or read. The key is to make sure my viewing and reading is an appropriate use of time.
I think the issue with TV the author brings up is about comedies and dramas, not information sources. When I watch any broadcast TV, I am struck by how shallow most of the characters are and that they really just occupy stereotypes that make it easy for us to laugh without knowing who they are. Luckily, I don't spend much time watching broadcast TV anymore. Most of the TV I like to watch is on the premium channels, things like Treme on HBO. Or some reality shows like the Voice. So I think I am a bit insulated from David's concern, if I am right about his admonition.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment Mary!! You win the prize for being the first commenter on the Eagles View!!
(PS. I'm not saying which one I disagree with. It's more fun this way.)
Ten Rules For Living....I'd have to disagree with #4, if it's meant to be taken literally. Philosophically, it has some merit...yet, working for a boss or someone else can provide valuable work experience..especially in learning to communicate with others. Whether you work for someone else or yourself, I believe you should always be focusing on taking pride in your own work and doing the job well (no matter how menial or grandiose the job is) and improving your own skills and knowledge. Not to mention,even if you are your own boss and not taking any orders from someone else, we all have to start somewhere and that is usually at the bottom even with our own businesses and career endeavors. Yes, we can all selfishly work for ourselves, but I would rather work to serve others so that at the end of the day, I can feel good about what I've done...then it might not seem like it was work at all.
ReplyDeleteI felt the same on my first read too, Mary. I think I've come to accept it as a philosophical statement, now though. Sort of a "no matter who your boss is...you work for yourself and the pride in what you do." Maybe that isn't how the author meant it, but I think your explanation about how it's important to focus on doing the best job you can is related to what he meant. Maybe I am wrong.
DeleteThat's how the author intended it. :)
ReplyDelete