March 16, 2012

March 16, 2012


Reflections on Design Principles:
Success and Failure


"Your disability is your opportunity." - Kurt Hahn

"All students must be assured a fair measure of success in learning in order to nurture the confidence to take risks and rise to increasingly difficult challenges.

But it is also important to experience failure, to overcome negative inclinations, to prevail against adversity, and to learn to turn disabilities into opportunities."

Expeditionary classrooms nurture perseverance. Success without the experience of some level of failure, brings only a limited sense of accomplishment. How many times have you tried something and known it was 'okay' but if you gave it one more try, it might be amazing? 

It's difficult, as a teacher, to watch a student headed for failure without intervening. And yet, just as we facilitate team building in Adventure Education, we must allow students to experience the struggle because as students experience a few setbacks, the greatest learning occurs. 

As our students are engaged in their student-led conferencing are they sharing their successes and their failures? Are they reflecting on the struggle? Are they recognizing their accomplishments because they persevered? 
What about you...are you reflecting on where the struggles are for you and how this can be an opportunity? Do we reflect on our lessons and learn what it will take to make this lesson succeed the next time around? Isn't being a responsive teacher all about being a risk-taker, unafraid to acknowledge what was successful and what still needs improvement? Isn't this how we, indeed, improve our teaching? We forgo being defensive; we embrace the opportunity to learn again and again. We keep at it, we learn from each other and from our students, and we embrace this as a wonderful opportunity.

Calendar

Week of March 19th -23rd:

Student Led Conferences this week!

Fourth grade and Mr. Bill have made other arrangements and will be doing conferences the week after Spring Break.

Tuesday, 20th:

*RTI meeting 7:15 a.m.

Wednesday, 21st:

* All School Meeting

(post card, SAVE THE DATE, for Life is Art will be given out to kids to take home)

*4th grade field work to Art Museum

* Afternoon devoted to student-led conferences

Thursday, 22nd:

* 9:00 Evacuation Drill

* 6:00 Love and Logic Parent Night

* 6:30 2/3 Discovery Musical

Friday, 23rd:

* School IS in session

REMINDER to parents!

Please be sure to communicate to parents that our calendar was changed and we swapped a non-student contact day from Friday, March 23rd to Tuesday, April 8th. On Friday, March 23rd students WILL come to school. They will not come to school until Tuesday, April 8th following Spring Break. It's time to start reminding them!

Love and Logic

Teacher-isms: Wise Words for Teachers

Pencils are never lost...they're always "stolen".

And it's always somebody else who "started it."

Great teachers know the difference between what they can and cannot control. We can't make kids have good "attitudes," but we stand a good chance of instilling them with ours.


An email inspiration from one of our own:
Ms. Lindsey shared this email with me...

Hi Deborah-

So I have been thinking about the conversation our staff had about motivating the kids to care about the T-CAP/CSAP. I was on Facebook the other night and a friend of mine posted this you tube video. I guess her husband's staff has create music videos to motivate/encourage the kids at his school. Below are the links for the videos for this year and last year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g92olDuMsak&safety_mode=true&persist_safety_mode=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mf6fXSf_V5w&feature=g-vrec&context=G27f17ebRVAAAAAAAAAA&safety_mode=true&persist_safety_mode=1

I think this is an awesome idea Lindsey! I wonder what a video, with a spin based on the culture of Renaissance, made by Renaissance teachers and students might look like? What a great idea for integrating technology and motivating students! 

Any takers who might want to take this on??

As we talked about how to raise student investment in the TCAP, I love Lindsey's approach to increasing engagement in an authentic and compelling way! This approach is so in line with our philosophies.

Thanks for a great idea Lindsey!

Garden Reminder

Loving this spring weather! I took a walk after school to clear my head and enjoy the outdoors. I noticed green sprigs poking through the dry, dead underbrush. (Why is it that weeds are the first to 'bloom'?) It was a good reminder that we need to keep our garden plans on our radar. I've received some responses from first and fifth grade about being involved in our garden. We'll need to solidify those plans soon.

Peek Into the Life of Our School:

4th grade practices for the Colorado History Musical

The master teacher!

It looks like Triage... it's sixth grade making plaster molds of one another's faces!

Josh had some explanation for this:)
Maybe he just needed the sensory integration?

Words to Ponder




Instruction in a subject matter that does not fit into any problem already stirring in the student's own experience, 
or that is not presented in such a way as to arouse a problem,
 is worse than useless for intellectual purposes.
- John Dewey


(Hmmm...wonder if this is what we observe when we say engagement is low??
How does this statement impact planning?)






The True Meaning Of Life
 Is To Plant Trees 
Under Whose Shade You Do Not Expect To Sit.
-Nelson Henderson


Have a great weekend!
Deborah