Why do we learn? Do we continue to learn? What is school all about? As someone that tries to lead a school, these are thoughts that ring through my head daily. How do we close the achievement gap? How do we address the digital divide? How do we engage our brightest students? How do we engage any of our students? Why would anyone want to help someone that doesn't want to be helped? What is a learning disability and do you inherit it or is it something preventable? What is our society suppose to do with unwanted children? How can children learn when they are not loved?
Education is a different practice to different situations. When I read blogs and my twitter following I'm feel like I'm reading about schools and school leaders that don't have to deal with some of the issues I'm dealing with daily. Some days curriculum is the last thing I get to think about and it should be the first. However, Maslow's Hierarchy of needs is true. Because daily we have students that have psychological problems and they take a lot of our time and energy. But the worst part of the story is their parents have the same issues and I just have to throw up my hands on some days.
The positive, by creating a weekly schedule which focuses on observations, interventions, and helping teachers with BYOT, and other curriculum issues helps me maintain my sanity. This Friday, I helped second graders create spreadsheets and within the same hour dealt with parents with psychological problems. I didn't let my focus stray and I always keep my vision on what I can change. I can't always change parents but we can change children.
BYOT progress - I'm proud of my BYOT teachers because they keep pushing forward. Every failure is a learning opportunity. I'm hoping one teacher is going to keep the spreadsheet idea going with lunch choices and collecting data from that adventure. Both teachers are experimenting with Remind101 and I think we need to share that with the staff once we have a few messages and get some feedback from users.
Goal this week is to survey some students to see what they think of technology and does it improve their engagement.
How can we use technology to improve learning outcomes? I think we have to constantly remind ourselves that this is our goal with BYOT.
Goal during the break is to get Goodreads on my blog and to introduce that to the staff. Ahead of schedule, you should see it tonight.
I'm excited about next week because it's a week before a break, and I get to work on my garden. However, I'm really excited to see how many third graders read over this weekend, what project Mr. Larkey's class will come up with and continue over the break, and what Mrs. Cline and I can figure out to do with spreadsheets and second graders. I can't wait!
One more thought - Last week going over intervention data with a parent, I noticed as I was explaining to Dad he was focused on the dates of the up and down data. He wasn't listening to me but he was focused on the dates. He saw something I didn't know the inconsistency was caused by his daughter going between parents and they weren't being consistent with her. When you actually have enough data points you can really show trends that you don't anticipate.
Balance - two sleeping dogs and a rainy afternoon - ordering seeds for the vegetable garden.
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