Skip to main content

From the "Middle School: A Place to Belong and Become" presentation

By
This presentation's mantra was essentially "teach the kids, not the content." It was all about how middle school is such an important time in our students' lives to be recognized as individuals and to form relationships with each other and with adults. I really responded to it.

One of the tips that I took away from the presentation that I really thought, "Wow, we have to do something like this at Patton!" was about how to ensure that every student in our building feels connected somehow. The two presenters (building principals) said that something they do is that they print out an entire spreadsheet of every student in the building and ask teachers to place a checkmark next to the students whom they feel they have a good connection with. After each faculty member has had the list, it becomes evident that the students with abundant checkmarks are the very high achievers and the students who receive the most academic support. The students in the middle, however, are often going through middle school without any one significant adult relationship.

Afterwards, the principals would take it upon themselves to unofficially delegate those "unchecked" kids out to faculty members who felt that they could form a better relationship with them. They would make it their mission to check in with them, to sit down with them at lunch every now and then to have a conversation, and just to make sure that they knew they had someone to go to in the building if they needed it. The idea of every single student in the building having an adult connection is tremendous and definitely something we should aspire to do. I'm sure there is some tricky ground there - what would parents think if they knew we were putting check marks next to kids' names about our relationships with them? - but I think the overall goal and purpose of such an activity negates any risks.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

By Anonymous
I attended a short Speed Learning Session with Vicki Meigs-Kahlenberg and enjoyed it so much that I ended up purchasing her book The Author's Apprentice . Essentially, Vicki's session was on not letting narrative writing fall by the wayside in the world of high-stakes testing. She talked about teaching students to develop their writing voices by studying the works and process of popular young adult authors such as Kwame Alexander, Jacqueline Woodson, Jason Reynolds, and Lois Lowry. I have always been interested in using mentor texts to teach students writing strategies such as "Show, Don't Tell" and dialogue that develops characters, but I felt like Vicki's process takes this one step further because she has students research the actual authors and learn about their lives and writing processes. There is no one correct way to write. Every author plans, drafts, and revises differently, and I think sharing this with students makes the whole writing process seem m...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Developing Adolescent and Creating a Positive Learning Environment

By
This session was more about the developing adolescent than creating a positive learning environment.  Having read The Teenage Brain , a lot of the information shared was not new to me.  One interesting take away - an MRI of a brain after eating sugar is similar to an MRI of a brain on drugs (I think it was heroin).  The few examples of creating a positive learning environment included incorporating movement and allowing for interaction.  I was hoping to take away ideas on how to get students who are hesitant to join groups and participate more involved.
Post a Comment
Read more

"Hacking Google for Educators" by Brad Currie

By
I attended a few technology sessions rich in ideas that can be implemented very easily into most content areas. I’d like to share some of those here, in case you’d like to check them out. Hacking Google for Educators (by Brad Currie) Poll Everwhere: Add-on; Can be embedded into Google Slides Flip Grid: Post video clips (like asking students questions) and use in lieu of or in addition to a live classroom discussion; can be accessed through Google Classroom Mind Meister : Google Doc Add-On; takes bulleted lists and turns into a more dynamic mind map Screencastify: Google extension; use to create tutorials or how to’s; students can create these to demonstrate a skill; teachers can use to create tutorials which can be uploaded to Canvas ReadWrite for Google Classroom: Google extension; use to differentiate reading content for students at various reading levels Google Classroom: now has the ability to give different assignments to each student And a few good ...
Post a Comment
Read more