Our 3 Focus Areas for the 2019-20 school year:
Communication
5 Questions to help us focus as we move into 2nd semester:
1. Am I modeling what I want to see in others? (Newsletter 1/20)
2. Am I making others better? (Newsletter 1/26)
3. Am I caring for others, personally and professionally? (Newsletter 2/2)
4. Am I making others feel valued? (Newsletter 2/16)
5. Do I care about what's best for all kids?
Kids are different. This should go without saying. What’s best for one is often not what’s best for another. Some students love reading and only need to be given time and books to improve as a reader. Other students — reluctant to read and lacking basic skills — need much more instruction. Examples abound:
- Lunch is a social time for some kids, but it’s a source of anxiety and a daily reminder of their lack of friendships for others.
- PBL is authentic and engaging, but some students struggle with focus and self-motivation.
- Group work teaches kids to collaborate, but it can also mean some students do much more work while others hide in the background.
Additionally, what’s best for an individual might not be best for the larger group. A student distracting the class and making it difficult to teach is an issue. While being removed from the room means the student is missing valuable, educational time, it might be best for everyone in the room if the distraction is eliminated temporarily.
Perhaps the phrase “doing what’s best for (blank)” was borrowed from the field of business and industry. In business, there exists a true bottom-line. You need to make a profit, and to do that, you delineate the bottom line to make that happen. As a business person, you make your decisions align with that.
The bottom-line in education is our kids. But perhaps there’s a bottom-line for every single student who walks in the hallways of our schools, and because of this, our jobs are even more difficult. We may not get it right 100% of the time, but gone are the days where certain groups were not expected to learn, where it was accepted that we could only help some students and others would fail.
One of the advantages of being a small school is that we can know every student as an individual, as a person. When we know students this way, we can always be thinking, "how can I help this student to learn and succeed?" We are not alone, we are a team, and we have to lean on each other for help and support because this is difficult and we are going to struggle at times. Teaching is more than a profession; it is how they make a difference in the world. And we make a difference by striving to help every student regardless of their circumstances.
Reading
https://www.inspirationboost.com/8-reasons-why-reading-is-so-important/
Social/Emotional LearningThank you for your participation in the Sources of Strengths training. I hope it helped give you a better idea of what the program is all about and how it can positively impact our students and school. If you would like to take on a more active role within the program, please let Jamie Worman know.
