Author Archives: Kimberly Moritz

Last Day in London

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Anyone who’s ever visited London may find it hard to believe, but the weather here is fantastic. Not even a jacket needed, sunny skies, gorgeous. Yesterday was a jam packed day filled with Windsor Castle and a “Jack the Ripper” tour, among many other things. The Jack the Ripper tour took us to a different part of London, at night, and our students saw some interesting people. It’s good for us to realize that life is different. Some students embrace it while others long for home. And I ended the night glad that my own kid didn’t smack the drunk guy who thought he might enjoy the tour with us. 🙂

Today we have planned our own itinerary and it’s ambitious, Westminster Abbey, the London Eye, Harrod’s, the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London, and the museums. We’ll see how far we get. While some students want to pack in as much as possible, others are clamoring for more sleep. I’ve already used the “your parents didn’t pay $2400 for you to sleep in” speech and it’s only the third day. 🙂

As far as time with my son on this trip, forget about it. He’s a fourteen year old boy and scarcely talks to me–I’m getting to know the other students quite well and that’s a pleasure. I suppose if my son were glued to my side I’d have other problems, wouldn’t I? Much better that we’ve raised a strong independent young man who doesn’t need his mother.

I sincerely hope that our students understand the magnitude of everything that we’re seeing and experiencing. I somehow think the glamour or the idea of the trip is different for some than the actual experience despite the number of times that we tell them pre-trip that it’s a student tour, non-stop, lots of walking and busy. It’s no day at the beach. We’re trying to see as much of this part of the world as we possibly can, quickly.

One last thing, our trip to the Jack the Ripper tour included navigating the London Tube, subway system, on our own. Ashley, Patrick, and Becky  totally took the lead on this, navigating and figuring out the lines needed, the stops to take. Allowing your children to go on this trip just might bring them home changed somehow, stronger, more confident, independent “almost” adults. I don’t know about all of you, but you can’t put a price on that. Love to you all. Missing my husband and daughter, so am sure your children are missing you. Know that we are well and happy and squeezing every minute out of our trip. Off to Paris tomorrow morning, we’ll write when we can.

London Bridge Is Not Falling Down

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Our EF trip is off without a hitch, everyone on both flights arrived safely and all luggage was even here on time. We’re in London and tomorrow we tour the city followed by Windsor Castle. Today was a walking tour of the city and we saw Trafalgar Square, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, and Covent Garden. This was after no sleep in 24 hours, but we’re stilling going strong.

The phone cards and phone access codes we’ve come with don’t work well, either from EF, MCI, or AAA. It’s been tough to get through and we’re all sharing one phone. Thanks to Courtney and John who bought this on-line time for myspace and couldn’t get on, so here we are blogging. Courtney thinks it’s important that I note that we passed the hospital where Michael Jackson went to turn his skin white. I must admit I missed that pertinent piece of information.

The students are all fantastic, exhausted, but fantastic. We all need a good night’s sleep and then the enthusiasm will be renewed. For all of our families, we are very safe, cautious and well taken care of by Alexandra, our EF tour guide. The city and our hotel are very safe, no worries. Love to all of you from London.

Passport Problems

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I cannot even believe our government. One of our students applied for her passport months ago and has not received it. We leave tomorrow morning. It’s not even in transit. Her mother has tried every contact she can think of and no luck. I don’t even know what recourse she has or if she loses the cost of her trip. It’s heartbreaking.

And that’s not all. Last night, another student and her parents drove all the way to Boston, about a nine hour drive, so that they could arrive at the passport office when it opened. By 11:30 am, her mother called to tell me the passport was in hand and they were making the return trip home.

I’m all for heightened security measures. Lord knows I’m looking forward to them to provide us with safe travel to and from Europe. But, geez.

These are young women, teenagers, born and raised in the United States. It just shouldn’t be this hard.

G-Town Show Down

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Our third annual G-Town Show Down was another huge success today, showcasing our kids in a big way. This is a great opportunity for our kids to shine, especially for those students who excel in something other than school sports and activities. A couple of terrific bands, a great teacher band–they ROCKED–and Kelly D. stole the show with her 1st place winning song.

Once again, I love the G-Town Show Down! And I love the guts and the talent of every kid who got up there.

G-Town Travels

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I am about to be completely unplugged, disconnected, not even a phone to my name. Early Saturday morning, we leave for a G-Town trip to London, Paris, and Madrid. Eighteen students and four adults, three countries in 10 days, non-stop action, little sleep, and see as much as we can possibly fit in.

When I was a teacher, I was the group leader for two tours. I’m still extremely fond of the students who traveled with me and I proudly display the group photos in my office, one in Florence and one in Versailles. My daughter and my mom were on those tours with me and it was unforgettable. Well, at least for me, the two of them tend to blur some of the details. (Sorry Mom, it’s true, Madrid can’t be your favorite city, we never toured there.) 🙂

This time around I’m going as a chaperone who’s also the principal and I’m hoping it doesn’t make a difference, that the kids aren’t worried I’ll be a drag. Honestly, everyone’s so completely exhausted by the end of each day, there’s little worry that someone’s going to do anything wrong.

My son’s going this time, so I get to see part of the world through his eyes. Very cool. I’ll sign on and blog about the trip if at all possible–I’ll be looking for an internet cafe or for our tour guide to have access she’ll share. But I won’t miss seeing anything wonderful to sit on a computer, I promise. 

Blogging Gig

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Here are a few interesting things coming out of this blogging gig. . .

1. One of our BOE members reads the blog and was kind enough to tell me at last night’s Board meeting that we are getting our desks after all–it’s a planned expenditure for this budget year. WOO HOO! I’m glad he read the blog post from the other day and shared the great news.

2. There’s an article by Will Richardson in the April, 2007 DistrictAdministration magazine, p. 89, called “Administrators Who Blog”, in which Will talks about G-Town Talks–feels very cool.

3. I mentioned in a post the other day that Jeff Archer is writing an article about blogging for Education Week. He’s reviewing my stats with his tech expert, Jeanne, and I’m hoping to really understand what my “referers” information, my daily hits, means. In edublogs, there’s a referers list and this is where I’ve seen my counts grow over the past nine months. For example, so far today my referers hit number is at 1217. What does that mean? Is it that my blog has been accessed 1217 times today? My high number was 1800+ and I’ve hit it twice. How does that differ from page views? Techie friends, an explanation please. . .

Challenging Thinking Meets Current Thinking

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Earlier today, I spent about an hour talking to a writer named Jeff Archer from Education Week about my blogging experience. From my point of view, it was a great conversation because it forced me to think about where I’ve been over the past nine months. As we talked, I thought about my purpose in writing. How it helps me to organize my thoughts about G-Town for the blog post and also allows me to try to influence or challenge some thinking.

What’s really most important about the blogging process though, is how it challenges and influences my own thinking which in turn guides my leadership, and well, influences teachers, staff, students, parents, and community members. As my thinking evolves, I still struggle with the entire School 2.0 discussion that I keep reading on many different blogs and in print. My struggle lies in my core belief that the majority of our constituency will be extremely reluctant to, and may never, consider an entire reinvention of school. While I can sit at my computer in the evening hours and dream about ideal, I often find it hard to reconcile what I’m learning on-line with what I live every day. And the people who I know don’t exactly embrace change, generally like things the way they are, and figure “if it was good enough for me, it’s good enough for them”.

So imagine my connection when I read Will Richardson’s post about reinvisioning schools where Will, who by the way is someone who greatly influences my thinking, says,

but what I’m realizing in this process is that for now, we have to work within the frame of what schools can become in the current environment, not necessarily some vague idea of what we think they should be.

Thank you Will, because that comment makes me feel as if we can actually get there in my professional lifetime. While I’m all in to embrace new ideas and approaches, certainly new ways to help our students find success, I need to find a way to make it happen within what we already live–our school walls.

I’m completely ready to view the plans for a remodel, just can’t imagine a demolition and rebuild.

Wait A Minute Please

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Cross Posted On LeaderTalk

Largely because it’s the last week of school before spring break which can be a bit crazy, I signed on to bloglines for the first time in days and found 20 posts to LeaderTalk that I haven’t read. Consequently, I missed the whole April Fool’s Day joke on Chris’ post. This turned out to be an advantage, because I got to see the answer right along with the problem.

One of the things I’ve learned as an administrator is that waiting can be a very good thing. Not when it comes to returning parent phone calls. And not when a student or a teacher requests a meeting with me. Those are things better attended to immediately.

But “wait time” can be just as effective as an administrator as it is in the classroom. When it comes to problem solving, sometimes waiting can be the best solution of all. Just like with Chris’ post, the answer presents itself along with the question.

If our school community comes to know us as efficient problem solvers, they may not take the time and the initiative to solve a problem on their own. And sometimes, their solutions turn out to be better than ours. In a practical way, this “wait time” can help too. Earlier this year I became so excited that we were finally getting new desks for our classrooms that I conducted a walk through to estimate the number, told everyone the news, then found later that the funding wasn’t going to be available after all.

Why do I know that waiting can be effective? Because I’ve learned it the hard way time and time again. In planning and problem solving for the next school year. In addressing student concerns. In working out a problem between two staff members. In responding to a complaint. And the riskiest area of all? When I’m asked what I think on an issue or a concern before I’ve spent the proper time thinking about my response or asking questions or gathering details. I have learned the lesson well over the last seven years–to wait before answering. I’m still working on it though, trying to remember to answer carefully, buy time, exercise caution, and to be prudent with my response.

Because our jobs so often entail problem solving, big and small, I often rush to answer the question or to solve the problem. I do this because I realize the next problem to be solved is probably standing on line right outside my office, just waiting to be told to me. If I don’t attend to everything right now, when will I be able to? What I’ve learned is that few things require my immediate response and most are better off “settling for a bit” before I rush in to “settle them”.

G-Town Goes Bald

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MAJOR PROPS to the G-Town students, teachers, staff and community members who fund-raised in our first annual Bald for Bucks. We watched 35+ caring individuals go bald on stage this morning, after raising money for Roswell. It was wonderful to watch everyone come together to raise $7426.01 through pledges and our dress down day.

Nice job from the Student Council who put it together especially emcee Aaron B. and advisors Margaret K. and Brian H. And that Mr. S. who raised $1000—NICE.

I actually think they all look better bald. And props to our eight participants who donated their beautiful hair to Locks of Love–another worthy cause. Once again, it’s good to work and live in G-Town.

Potential New Hires

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I spent this evening at a local university speaking with graduate students in education on the topic of the Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) at Gowanda. I had the privilege of joining Marvin L. Henchbarger, Executive Director of the Gay & Lesbian Youth Services of Western New York.

Readers may remember earlier posts on G-Town Talks about the evolution of this group, and more specifically, the evolution of my thoughts on the subject. Some might say it’s curious that I spoke with any authority on this topic when a few short months ago I was saying “I’m not sure what we’re going to do, but here’s a way that our students say they need us.” Marvin and I presented our ideas, we answered a few questions, and we talked to students at the end of the session.

What struck me tonight was the importance of the subject versus the relevance to the audience. I’m remembering Will Richardson’s recent post,The Next Generation of Teachers,  that generated a terrific comment conversation concerning graduate students and the hope that they’ll take the lead with technology. As Marvin and I shared our experiences and thoughts on the GSA, I kept looking at our audience and thinking “they just want to get jobs, they’re not worried about the GSA or the use of technology or taking any risks. These kids just want to get hired somewhere and earn a living and they don’t want to do anything to screw that up.”

Again, I go back to the model of a teacher that we all have in our minds. I’m more convinced than ever that teaching requires risk takers, people with passion about something outside of the classroom, like their hockey team, the band they’ve been playing in for years, or fish. Teachers who want to challenge thinking in their students, who want them to think deeply. Teachers who ask hard questions and better yet, help students find the answers to questions none in the room can answer.

I just heard a collective gasp. What’s she thinking? Risk takers, challenging thinking? What if these new hires push kids to think differently than we do? What if they disagree? What if they find an answer that differs from mine? What if they’re inappropriate? And for my friends to the very near north, what if they do something just plain wrong? What if they lead kids astray, in the wrong direction?

Who decided what the right direction was anyway? 

A few questions came, more out of kindness to the speakers than anything else. One young man, an English teacher in the making, asked what to do as the student teacher, in the cooperating teacher’s classroom, to stop “hurt comments”. I told him to step up, take the initiative, develop a presence, tell them you won’t have them talking like that on your watch. Others suggested he play it safe, don’t make waves. I understand why this was suggested, I truly do, but I still hate it. I just heard the collective gasp give way to the sound of those new teachers falling into line.

So there I stood in a room full of potential hires, waiting for the questions, the curiosity, the initiative, the spark. Those who didn’t have it need not apply in G-Town, because that’s what I’m hiring. Those who only want to play it safe, to keep their heads down, to do things the same way we’ve done them for the past 100 years, apply elsewhere. The teachers I have in G-Town are as willing as I’ve ever seen to at least “give it a go”, I can’t afford to hire new teachers who say “leave me in the status quo”.