Last Day in London

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.

Passport Problems

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.

Teenagers Talking

Go and read The Emotional Side of Self Learning over at Will Richardson’s Weblogg-ed. It’s a great post about how our students cope with the information they gather as self learners online. Will links to Rob Mancabelli at Educational Thinking who says,

At my session on the Changing Role of the Teacher, one of the participants made a remark that I thought a lot about last night. She’s a principal and trained psychologist who has worked with adolescents in private practice for many years. We were chatting about the growing importance of media literacy, i.e. how we can teach our kids to sift through and evaluate the mountain of internet-accessible information. In the middle of this discussion, she wondered aloud about how we can help students deal with the emotional component of having access to all of this information.

But when I asked her to elaborate, her concern was that students were seeking out and locating more and more emotionally packed information on their own time, often by themselves, causing them to come to our schools each day laden with a plethora of undiscussed feelings, questions and ideas.

Well, I’m not a psychologist by any means, but the kids I know aren’t exactly walking around in isolation without anyone to talk to–they have huge support systems among their peers which are often much more important to them than we are. Our kids are also connected to the adults in our building (a benefit of a small school) and in many cases, they’re connected to families at home. So this idea that kids in general have undiscussed feelings about emotionally packed information is escaping me. Our kids talk most things to death, either on-line or in our schools, or when they’re hanging out. They have more of a voice now than ever before.   As a teenager, I certainly read novels that were thought provoking and emotionally charged. Unless a friend had read the same book, the discussion part of it probably didn’t happen. But now, our kids talk to each other, online, constantly. They can send someone to the link of what they’ve read immediately. And they are happy to lead a teacher down a discussion path in the classroom if it’s even remotely connected to the instruction.

If our students are walking around with undiscussed feelings, questions and ideas, I’d guess they weren’t all that ignited by what they saw and read on-line. The point is that with most students little is left undiscussed. However, if students are walking around with feelings, questions and ideas based on what they’re reading and seeing online, I say they call that curiosity and that’s the point. I’m happy when they’re curious about anything and directing their own learning is a dream. The opposite is too often the case where our students don’t want to think, they just want us to tell them what to do. I want thinkers and learners to walk out the door of G-Town. Teachers first.

Blog Etiquette

I have been posting to this blog since July. In more than 100 blog posts, I have never stopped a comment from posting until now. I have a topic posted regarding a small group of students in our Physics class. I have allowed all but two comments. As students write comments, of which I am very appreciative, it is very clear about whom they are talking. I will neither now, nor ever, allow comments which specifically malign a student or teacher in our school or community. Those are private conversations I am happy to have, but I have maintained that my blog will not be used to call names or to demean anyone.

Students who comment appropriately will always be allowed, as they have been on the post “Cheating or Initiative?”

Simple Solutions

Sometimes the fix is so darned simple.

We give the January Regents to a large percentage of our students. We test all the English 11 students on the Comprehensive English exam, all Math A and Math B students, and all of the students who either need to pass a past Regents exam (and have been in a Regents review class) or who want to improve their score. Yes, Virginia, there are students who voluntarily retest to improve the grade.

In my first two years here, counselors spent a large portion of time after the start of every exam phoning those students who didn’t show up. This year, my genius guidance director, Beth, and her fantastic secretary, Janene, sent home a letter to every student’s home telling the family which exams the kid needed to be here for AND they hand delivered a copy of the letter to every kid.

Extra effort in planning=great results on test day.

Because of their extra effort to take on the task of informing kids, without the “well, it’s the student’s responsibility to check the test schedule” garbage, we only had two students who weren’t here yesterday. Two. Awesome attendance on test day.

Which brings me to another point on this topic. One of my son’s teachers. A couple of weeks ago, Tallon missed two of her classes, one for the orthodontist and one for a bass guitar lesson. The teacher called me, as she does with any other parent (and I know this because of the numerous parents who have stopped me to say how much they appreciate her), and she simply said “let Tallon know he needs to stay after with me today to get ready for Friday’s test.” He stayed on Thursday and on Friday thought he did a great job on the test. No attitude from the teacher of “it’s not my problem he wasn’t here, it’s his responsibility”. No big deal for the teacher. Very much appreciated by parent and child. That’s how we show our community we care about their kids, by making that extra effort.

Simple solutions. I like it.

Where, Oh Where, Are My Seniors?

I keep watch of our attendance figures and pay attention to trends from year to year. As a district, our overall yearly attendance percentage is relatively consistent. The elementary and middle school averaging around 95% each month, with our 9-12 building averaging between 91-94%. Change is incremental when watching attendance. I want to make enough of a difference in climate that attendance increases.

Here’s the part that has me fried today. We’ve made significant improvements in grades 9-11 for every month this year, but our Seniors are making me crazy! Their attendance was as low as 86.58% in November, while our freshmen and sophomores were each up to at least 94%.

And in case you’re wondering, yes, we have an attendance policy with negative consequences for frequent absences to include loss of credit in a class for 25 days missed in the year. We conduct positive school wide programs to encourage attendance and we work really hard to create a caring, supportive environment where students want to come here.

I’m frustrated because I’m at a loss in problem solving this issue. I’ve read the literature, I’ve tried different approaches, and still our attendance for seniors is down 2.63% in December and 4.41% in November. Even if I compare to the senior class of 2004, prior to my arrival, this year’s class is still down in October and November, lower than any senior class in the past four years. How do I turn that around?

Why do I care? Because currently our senior guidance counselor is meeting with seniors who have done little to nothing in some classes, possibly add in poor attendance, and will fail courses by January’s end that precludes them from graduating. They know they’ve done nothing–it shouldn’t come as a shock, and yet they’ll be frustrated and upset at the news that a diploma is not happening.

Seniors who read G-Town Talks, I know you’re not many and you probably don’t fall into these categories, but please realize that poor attendance and lack of effort have dire circumstances for your peers. I really want to give every one of you a diploma on June 22, but you have to earn it first. Your Gowanda High School diploma means something, it’s earned, not given away. Show up here and participate. Please.

Life Happens Despite Our Plans

So I’m hanging out at Childrens’ Hospital in Buffalo these days and even here I’m learning something that affects how I view G-Town.  On Tuesday night, our 14 year old son was sparring and took a thrust kick to precisely the right spot to lacerate his spleen. For any parents who have experienced the agonizing wait of a helicopter, followed by the decision to send a pediatric stat unit to move him via ambulance, you know the “nothing else matters in this world but getting my child the care he needs to come home to us whole” panic. As it turns out, he has a grade three laceration which means total in hospital bed rest for at least three more days and tons of restrictions for the next several weeks, if not months. There goes wrestling, and hockey, and kickboxing, but that seems inconsequential, because our kid is going to be okay. 

My coworkers have been outstanding and Tallon’s friends are texting him constantly. The communication link that’s helping to alleviate some boredom for my bed bound boy is worth any amount of money. And after going home last night for a Board meeting, I’ve made the decision to stay here (we’re about 45 minutes from home) for as long as he is here. I rushed home yesterday so that I could take care of my work responsibilities and then came back to spend the night. Did it matter that I attended that meeting? Absolutely didn’t seem to and it certainly added a tremendous amount of stress to an already stressful day.  So what does this teach me as a principal? As a leader and a manager, my employees need to know that family ALWAYS comes first. At the end of the day, I’ll know I did right by my son and he’ll know I chose him over my career. In the long run, school will have functioned well without me and my kid will remember that his mom was there for him. 

I’ve also thought about the amount of work we give kids to “make up” when out for an extended illness, particularly one of our students who’s out for more than my son’s week. Our teachers shouldn’t expect a child to do all of the work, every assignment given, during the absence. That’s definitely what I always did as a teacher. And I figured giving the student extra time was helpful. Instead, it’s so much harder because the student has to complete all of the work without the benefit of instruction, while coping with an illness, missing out on all the good parts of school, and while worrying about maintaining grades. I wish I could go back and do it again, because I’d say to those students “this is the learning that’s most important from your week or two hospital stay. Take care of these two assignments and I’ll help you with the rest.” Instead, I worried that every missing assignment in my gradebook was filled in. How ridiculous that was considering the magnitude of what the child and family may have been facing.  Every now and then life seems to get in the way of our best laid plans. This is exactly when I’m going to pay  attention to what life’s trying to teach me.

Educating Trumps Blocking

We’ve been blocking Google from our school computers because of the image search portion of the engine. This has made teachers insane because they can’t search for anything without being screen-doored. One of our elementary teachers couldn’t even search for a picture of a dove to supplement a reading activity today. Our students don’t even try to look for anything while at school if they’ve got access to a computer at home. One of our seniors, Nick, reported at the technology committee meeting that students who only used the school computers produced substandard projects for English class because their search for advertisements was so limited.

Enter the alternative to blocking everything—education. Stop filtering everything, teach kids how and where they can go on-line while in school, and give consequences to the 2% who make a mistake. Our students are supervised at all times in school, so add software that allows the study hall teaching assistant to monitor all computers from his desktop. Talk to teachers and students about appropriate use. Remind parents in the district newsletter about our acceptable use policy and explain our philosophy about educating our students rather than prohibiting them.

I think they call this common sense. Wise use of our computer investment. Using our resources to educate our young people. Preparing a response through consequences for those few students who get past the filtering of salacious content. Talk about our plan.

And yes indeed folks, that’s just what our technology committee, including Superintendent Rinaldi, decided to do today.  Teachers and students of G-Town prepare to get back out there, investigate, discover and LEARN.

Thank goodness I work in G-Town where learning comes first, where students are respected, trusted, and held accountable. Thank goodness we’re not fashioning little lockers outside of our school where students must leave their connections locked up. I’d rather we help them make good connections right inside our door.

On Common Ground

I woke up this morning, earlier than I wanted to, thinking about those 30 students who stayed after school to form a GSA, or Common Ground, or Acceptance and Tolerance, or whatever else they decide to call themselves group. I began to imagine a conversation with those who believe strongly that this group is wrong, or that if we pray enough we can change them, or whatever other arguments they may bring to the table.

Toward those who may stand on the outside and point their fingers, I began to feel angry and defensive about my G-Town students who are moving forward saying that everyone deserves to be treated well, that we need to accept everyone for who they are, that we must respect one another, support one another and protect one another. I feel protective of them, proud of their self-advocacy, and inspired by their desire to stand up for one another.

I know there will be those who judge them, and me for my support. And those who judge will most likely be those who rely on teachings that should inspire them to do anything but that. It’s ironic that those who may judge the most harshly won’t see beyond their own beliefs to the beauty of teenagers looking for acceptance and respect for every child. I will be there loving each child for himself, in all her differences, on W.K.’s “common ground”. I will remember that we live in a country where every man, woman, and child has the right to say what he or she believes, without prosecution. And on my watch in G-Town, without condemnation or fear.

Court Consequences

How did we reach the point where a student smoking marijuana in school is merely an appearance ticket in family court? We have the strictest of school consequences, a Superintendent’s Hearing, and the NYS Troopers do all the right things with us–only to result in a barely felt slap on the wrist.

Yeah, that’ll keep my kids off drugs. We only have about four or five of these incidents per year (that we catch and we’re diligent in our efforts), but any school who believes they don’t have a drug problem better wake up. We need stricter penalties in our court rooms–school intervention isn’t getting it done alone.