Well summer is almost here for me. A little more teaching, a few more tasks, and it is summer time. I decided that this summer, I am going to make my summer reading, audio books. I traditionallly make a summer pleasure reading list and devour 6-8 novels. I love to read but during the school year, I find that I do not pleasure read. Perhaps it is because I am reading so much other stuff. Summer offers longer chunks of time and it is not unusual to find a quiet morning, stick my nose in, and come up for air several hours and 500 pages later.
I do have several long driving trips this summer and I thought that I would make some selections from my Audible account, stick them on my iPod an do the bulk of my summer reading that way. The verdict so far, great in the car, especially my favorite genre - Science Fiction. "Reading" at night, is not so good. I fall asleep and the iPod moves along oblivious that I have gone ten toes up. At least with a book, if I fall asleep, my finger stuck in the pages remebers where I was. I'll keep you posted on the experiment.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Thursday, June 19, 2008
The End of the Innocense
The end of this school year brings a subtle yet great change. Over the summer a new security system will go into place and I will wear an ID card around my neck that will also serve as a swipe card to enter building doors. The main doors will have a camera and office personnel will connect with an intercom and visitors will be buzzed in. This is not in response to any serious incidents, although we have had our share of non custodial parent attempted pick ups. In our primary schools of 200-250 kids the ability to know and understand our families (and at times some quick thinking) has always been enough to stop any of these situations. In fact, we pride ourselves on being neighborhood schools as much as we can and work hard to develop those relationships where the school is stitched deeply into the fabric of the community.
And yet, the grant was there, the pre-audit by the police did reveal some interesting ways of looking at our school that we had not thought about before. It was cool that our network infrastructure that we worked so hard to build stood ready to be a part of a new security system. And, clearly the times are changing. Better to be proactive than at the other end of a sad, sad news story? On that I would agree. The most important thing that I do each day is that I take the most precious thing a parent has and keep it warm, happy, fed and secure for 7 hours and then I give it back. The fact that I get to stuff some knowledge into their heads, is merely a side benefit.
Maybe it will not be so bad, Maybe we will make it not intrusive. Maybe it will make us one more layer secure. But it will be different.
And yet, the grant was there, the pre-audit by the police did reveal some interesting ways of looking at our school that we had not thought about before. It was cool that our network infrastructure that we worked so hard to build stood ready to be a part of a new security system. And, clearly the times are changing. Better to be proactive than at the other end of a sad, sad news story? On that I would agree. The most important thing that I do each day is that I take the most precious thing a parent has and keep it warm, happy, fed and secure for 7 hours and then I give it back. The fact that I get to stuff some knowledge into their heads, is merely a side benefit.
Maybe it will not be so bad, Maybe we will make it not intrusive. Maybe it will make us one more layer secure. But it will be different.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Change At The End Of The Year
Many educational bloggers are taking the time at the end of the year to blog about the highlights of the year. For me, this has been a year of subtle, yet great change. Not so much in the day to things I do in my job but in the overall tenor and intellectual scope of my job. Much of that change will hit in September.
I serve 3 schools, PK-4, about 240 kids in each school. In those buildings I have 9 colleagues who will be retiring in a week and a day. I look at the folks moving on and all of them were here before I came. I looked to them because it was their schools, their school district. I needed to learn the norms and ways of how they were doing it. Making may mark, of course, moving the technology ball forward, but there was a sense that what they were doing was pretty good, and we needed to fit technology into that bigger picture.
I wonder now if it is "my" school system. The superintendent who hired me is retiring, the assitant supt, who has been my direct supervisor for the last decade is moving up. I am glad for him, he is a good man, an excellent educator and has an excellent prespective on the role of technology in education. The Town/School/Regional District IT department was reorganized last summer and a dear colleague became the IT director of all teh "entities" as we have come to call them. The movement of the Asst. Supt. to Supt, kind of puts the leadership of where we go w/ technolgy back onto this re-organized department. It is yet to be worked out but already I can feel it. We will be called on and turned to chart the direction for a variety of technologies. Fells like all of a sudden we are the grown ups. That is OK. I get paid well for what I do, and feel I can grow in that direction. However in the past it was executing a plan that was articulated in many other place, defined by other folks. I had a voice, but a small one. Now I look around and we are the planners, the one ultimately charting the course.
It is not good, it is not bad, it is just beginning to look and feel different. My plan is to retire from doing this job in six school years. In terms of what will be a 33 career, I look at it as kind of the last lap, the last chance to play with ideas and concepts on this stage. I wonder if it is best viewed as a long relay race and I have just been passed the baton for my section of the relay.
I serve 3 schools, PK-4, about 240 kids in each school. In those buildings I have 9 colleagues who will be retiring in a week and a day. I look at the folks moving on and all of them were here before I came. I looked to them because it was their schools, their school district. I needed to learn the norms and ways of how they were doing it. Making may mark, of course, moving the technology ball forward, but there was a sense that what they were doing was pretty good, and we needed to fit technology into that bigger picture.
I wonder now if it is "my" school system. The superintendent who hired me is retiring, the assitant supt, who has been my direct supervisor for the last decade is moving up. I am glad for him, he is a good man, an excellent educator and has an excellent prespective on the role of technology in education. The Town/School/Regional District IT department was reorganized last summer and a dear colleague became the IT director of all teh "entities" as we have come to call them. The movement of the Asst. Supt. to Supt, kind of puts the leadership of where we go w/ technolgy back onto this re-organized department. It is yet to be worked out but already I can feel it. We will be called on and turned to chart the direction for a variety of technologies. Fells like all of a sudden we are the grown ups. That is OK. I get paid well for what I do, and feel I can grow in that direction. However in the past it was executing a plan that was articulated in many other place, defined by other folks. I had a voice, but a small one. Now I look around and we are the planners, the one ultimately charting the course.
It is not good, it is not bad, it is just beginning to look and feel different. My plan is to retire from doing this job in six school years. In terms of what will be a 33 career, I look at it as kind of the last lap, the last chance to play with ideas and concepts on this stage. I wonder if it is best viewed as a long relay race and I have just been passed the baton for my section of the relay.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
What Comes Around?
I have written here before about the case of Avery Doninger, the CT high school student who got in trouble for calling her school administration "douche bags" in her blog. It is a complex tale and I invite you to look at earlier entries as I wrote and reacted to the story as it unfolded in the news media.
The latest chapter appeared in today's Hartford Courant. The article, as written, has a jumbled flow, presumably edited to present a headline and focus on details that grab the most attention. As I read it, the story goes like this. There is a different Superintendent in place than the one that was there last spring when the incident happened. In the last year the case has moved through the court system. Currently it is at a stage where a recent ruling said that the school did have the right to punish the student and we await the next round.
As that recent ruling hit, a Wisconson man, Mike Morris, who had been following the story in the news, emailed staff at the school saying that the school's reaction to Avery constituted evidence that she had been right about them all along. The principal of the school took it upon herself to email back to the guy, saying in her email in part that Avery had been warned about her language in the past. Morris forwarded the reply to Avery's mother, who used a Freedom of Information request to get the school to give her the orginal email and original reply.
The story is a bit unclear in the next details but the upshot and headline is that the current superintendent suspended the principal without pay for two days for an "uncharacteristic lapse in judgement" for releasing information about a student in violation of state law and school policy, because her reply email revealed information about Avery. Avery's mother for her part obtained a complete set of her daughter's school records which predictably have no mention of any disciplinary actions, or comments about difficulty with inappropriate language.
You just can't make this stuff up.
Does it sound like it was a comedy of errors that resulted in a self satisfying "gotcha" by the Doninger family? A parting shot for Avery who was a junior when this started and will be ending her high school career in a couple of days?
One of the things that I learned in following the story in the local news over the year was that the devil was in the details. The mainstream media (or what constitute mainstream media in CT) presented the story in a way that highlighted the details to keep the reader flipping the page. It was not until I read a longer piece by Larry Bloom where you got to see a fuller, richer picture of the give and take of what went on in the days last spring when Avery got mad about the cancelation of the Jamfest concert. I think that today's article is about the same. An above the fold sidebar headline, and a focus on the "suspended Principal", burries the actions and context of the now very media savy family.
I said before that the actions of the school administration were designed to provide a lesson about responsibity and accountabilty of action. The incident continues to be an ultimate "teachable moment" for everyone involved.
The latest chapter appeared in today's Hartford Courant. The article, as written, has a jumbled flow, presumably edited to present a headline and focus on details that grab the most attention. As I read it, the story goes like this. There is a different Superintendent in place than the one that was there last spring when the incident happened. In the last year the case has moved through the court system. Currently it is at a stage where a recent ruling said that the school did have the right to punish the student and we await the next round.
As that recent ruling hit, a Wisconson man, Mike Morris, who had been following the story in the news, emailed staff at the school saying that the school's reaction to Avery constituted evidence that she had been right about them all along. The principal of the school took it upon herself to email back to the guy, saying in her email in part that Avery had been warned about her language in the past. Morris forwarded the reply to Avery's mother, who used a Freedom of Information request to get the school to give her the orginal email and original reply.
The story is a bit unclear in the next details but the upshot and headline is that the current superintendent suspended the principal without pay for two days for an "uncharacteristic lapse in judgement" for releasing information about a student in violation of state law and school policy, because her reply email revealed information about Avery. Avery's mother for her part obtained a complete set of her daughter's school records which predictably have no mention of any disciplinary actions, or comments about difficulty with inappropriate language.
You just can't make this stuff up.
Does it sound like it was a comedy of errors that resulted in a self satisfying "gotcha" by the Doninger family? A parting shot for Avery who was a junior when this started and will be ending her high school career in a couple of days?
One of the things that I learned in following the story in the local news over the year was that the devil was in the details. The mainstream media (or what constitute mainstream media in CT) presented the story in a way that highlighted the details to keep the reader flipping the page. It was not until I read a longer piece by Larry Bloom where you got to see a fuller, richer picture of the give and take of what went on in the days last spring when Avery got mad about the cancelation of the Jamfest concert. I think that today's article is about the same. An above the fold sidebar headline, and a focus on the "suspended Principal", burries the actions and context of the now very media savy family.
I said before that the actions of the school administration were designed to provide a lesson about responsibity and accountabilty of action. The incident continues to be an ultimate "teachable moment" for everyone involved.
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