"21 Things That Will Be Obsolete by 2020"

No desks?  No Homework?  Differentiated Instruction As A Sign of A Distinguished Teacher?

These are some of the twenty one predictions in a recent Mind/Shift online article by Shelly Blake-Plock that was inspired by Sandy Speicher's vision of the designed school day of the future. 

What about no computers?  I do agree with the author that mobile computing will exponentially grow over the decade in terms of use and technological enhancements which will render the demand for the computer desktop to fall appreciably....to the point of total elimination....I doubt it.  One could argue that geo-socio-economic variables will still create "have and have not" school communities.  Also, there are huge network and security issues with students getting access to and sharing school information and data online with their own personal devices. 

This is a great article because there are posted comments for which the author has responded.  The article is on the link below.

http://mindshift.kqed.org/2011/03/21-things-that-will-be-obsolete-by-2020/

Thanks for reading.  Looking forward to your comments.

"Inside the Sin Bin"....there is an app for that!

This Sunday's edition of the Toronto Star had a very interesting article on how Catholics rush to confession to cleanse their souls.

The feature writer, Mary Ormsby, goes into great detail regarding the origins, history, sequence and purpose of confession.

Catholics are expected to make a confession at least once a year.  The practice has dropped off dramatically as many priests would concede.  However, Easter represents a time for renewal and brings with it many Catholics who have the need to participate in the sacrament of reconciliation.

I do get a sense of relief and re-birth after going to confession.  I am not sure if that is a result of meeting the standards of the Catholic Church, my Italian mother, or coming to terms with my own conscience.

What caught my eye in this article is that there is an app for helping one prepare for confessions!  For some reason I was not surprised.  I downloaded it for $1.99 onto my iPad. 

The app allows me to customize the examination of my conscience by adding sins, traking time of my last confession and choosing from seven different Acts of Contrition.

Here is the article if you are interested.

http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/975909--confession-the-inside-view

Thanks for reading.  Looking forward to your comments.  As an aside, mid-term reports will be distributed this Thursday, April 21, 2011.

School Field Trips

One of the things that I am most proud of is our staff’s compassion and caring for our students. The evidence …. our very successful student success and mental health strategies….our credit accumulation and pass rates….and more importantly…the student testimonials and many unadvertised cases of how we have truly made a difference in our students’ lives.

Many of our students come to CtK for a home…for attention….for care….for compassion…for direction…for mentorship…and most importantly and based on why we do what we do…for a holistic education as Christ in the nucleus.

We need to keep in mind that every staff member in our building is part of a complex system that implicitly and explicitly prepares the students under our care for their journey beyond CtK.

Experiential learning through school sanctioned field trips are part of this educational process.

The purpose of this blog is to address a concern from staff that some of our students seem to think that they are not responsible for the work that they miss and consequently should not be assessed on this material as a result.

As parents/guardians, please make every effort to remind your children that they are responsible for the work that they miss as a result of a school field trip in another class. 

Be assured that our staff will work with students to make alternate arrangements to complete the missed assessment or work as a result of going on a sanctioned field trip.  It is our hope that your children will understand their partnership in this process.

Thanks for reading.  Looking forward to your thoughts and comments.

Goldfish

School Generated Funds, school buses, board policy, teachers, suspension appeals, curriculum, assessment and evaluation practices, gay/straight alliances, school closures on a snow day, the parking position of the school buses overnight in our parking lot ..........and now goldfish!

I received an email from a student this weekend that questioned if our school will be more responsible with the care of goldfish at this year's Summer Blast Carnival in June.

We gave out goldfish to children at last year's Carnival as prizes. Apparently, this concerned student thought that it was a cruel and inhumane way to treat goldfish. Specifically, she cited that "fish are living, sentient creatures....and that it has been scientifically proven that they can feel pain in the same ways as humans. I see absolutely no reason that our students would need to be given a living creature in order to have fun. The thought that students take them home, put them in a lake or a river, flush them down the toilet, of put them in a bowl until they die makes me sick."

I shared her thoughts with some of my staff whose children received goldfish last year. Surprisingly, the fish are still alive on all counts!

I appreciate the young lady's concerns as our family has a horrible record of keeping our goldfish alive for any decent period of time.

That said....I will bring up this worry to our team as I do the majority of questions that I get from students, parents and/or community stakeholders.

Thanks for reading. Looking forward to your thoughts....How are your goldfish doing???