OPEN HOUSE last THURSDAY evening, was really great.  The turn-out and parent support was terrific to see.  Didn’t the sixth graders do an amazing job in their Egyptian museum, as did all of the students and teachers in all the grades!  I was very proud!

We awarded the 2008-09 Honorary Service Award to Dawn Tyra.  As you might imagine, selecting a single individual to acknowledge out of the literally hundred or so volunteers is very, very difficult.  This year we decided we would like to acknowledge six other individuals as “Honorable Mention” recipients who have gone well above and beyond the ‘ordinary’ in support of our students:

2008-09 Honorary Service RECIPIENT:

Dawn Tyra - Dawn is very deserving of this award.  Why?  Well, in no particular order of importance—she is currently serving as our Laminating queen, two time PTA president, Battle of the Books co-director, putting up the writing bulletin board, long time classroom helper in both of her children’s classrooms.  In fact, just today, as a perfect example, I happened to be passing her in the office complex—she was greeted by a teacher as “Dawn, you are my hero….” And Dawn’s reply was “I have a couple of hours do you need me to do anything?”   She is smart, reasonable, respectful—and we are just so lucky to have her with us.

Honorable Mention:

Herb and Marla White - These two amazing parent volunteers (husband and wife) have put on the last two outstanding Exploratoriums –—everything about their effort to help us provide this fantastic ‘hands-on’ Saturday at our school in February has been exemplary.   WOW! THANKS.

Jessica Irving - This woman is a parental dynamo—She has stepped up this year to organize a great series of hands on workshops during lunch periods on Fridays—She calls them Discovery Fridays;   Monday lunchtime book club for Grades 1-2-3. Go Jessica!!

Nadia Brenner - Three time PTA treasurer – She is total professional – and is keeping our revenues and expenditures in a very orderly fashion.  It hasn’t always been done that way; and when it isn’t, it helps you to realize how valuable a service it is to have it be done correctly.   We are so grateful!

Monica Randeen - Wrapping paper fundraiser chair (going for two?) -  Monica helped us with the highest grossing event this year AND she is PTA secretary.  Yeah Monica!

Lori Olson—She is a past Honorary Service Award  recipient –  and she continues to be an amazing gardener extraordinaire, club director, grant writer, organizer, composter in-chief– she works hard and contributes greatly to our school student wellness programs.

Jennifer Codron - She is Lori’s co-gardener and co-honorary Service Award recipient – and it is ditto for everything I just said about Lori.  Even though they have both already received this recognition we wanted to again acknowledge the great work they are doing.

Jennifer Hunt - She has done an outstanding job as our Box top coordinator – I think we brought in over a $1000 this year due to her efforts!! She is an awesome kindergarten room mom—that we look forward to working with for many more years.

Kristi Augusta - Krista is just absolutely great. Chief 6^th grade camp fundraiser this year; all around volunteer; worked many a walk-a-thon, field trip, — she is totally great!!

It is an absolute pleasure to be able to work closely with these types of people.  THEY MAKE our school great!!!!

Locus of Control- Do you think that you are in control of events in your life; or that other people are the cause of events in your life?   People tend to assign their chances of future successes or failures either to internal (causes inside of them)  or external causes (due to events outside of them). The Locus of Control is a concept in psychology, originally developed by Julian Rotter in the 1950s.

Persons with an internal locus of control see themselves as responsible for the outcomes of their own actions and events in their life. These individuals usually believe that they control their destiny, and are often observed to excel in educational or vocational realms. An example would be “The more I study, the better grades I get”.

Adults/children with an external locus of control, on the other hand, see outside causes and situational factors as being more important than anything to do with themselves. These individuals are more likely to see luck rather than effort as determining whether they succeed or fail in the future, and are more likely to view themselves as the victim in any given situation and express more unhappiness with life in general.  These students might say, “It doesn’t matter how hard I study, the teacher just doesn’t like me, so I know I won’t get a good grade.” These students generally don’t learn from previous experience. Since they attribute both their successes and failures to luck or chance, they tend to lack persistence and not have very high levels of expectation.  As a consequence, an external Locus of Control might lead to a rather fatalistic and passive attitude toward life.  Feeling that you have a lack of control over your life can lower motivation, initiative and willingness to take risks. Under such circumstances, chance of success can be diminished.

Some articles I read on the subject stated that it is very good for an individual’s self esteem to believe that their successes are due to internal causes while their failures are due to external causes. However, for an overall healthly outlook it is best to remain fully grounded; that is, to take responsibility for events, recognize your contributions and to learn from ‘failures’.

Locus of control is a very interesting psychological concept; examining yourself in relation to this concept can lead to personal growth.  While, it is important to understand and accept one’s own limits, it is equally important not to give up without doing one’s best!!  I found a short locus of control quiz on the web at: http://discoveryhealth.queendom.com/lc_short_access.html (I won’t tell you how I scored J).

Reading -   Arguably, the most important thing to teach and learn in elementary school is the ‘how to’ of  reading.  It also is one of the most complex human brain activities.    Consider that reading, as a wide  spread social phenomenon, is only a couple of hundred of years old.  Prior to that, for the duration of human history, reading was an activity reserved for only the most elite members of society.   So in effect, our composite human brain has not yet become pre-wired for reading (like it is for hearing, seeing or talking), which is one of the reasons it is such a complex and complicated process to learn.   In addition to learning letters, sounds, letter combination sounds, sight words, and punctuation, reading should be fluent (sound like talking) and above all should ‘make sense’.   The human brain innately processes all the incoming information and attempts to organize it ina  way that it can ‘make sense’ of.  If the brain is presented with too much information it doesn’t undertsand it tends to shut down and disengage from further struggles.    In order to read, the brain must orchestarte  seeing the letters and words and connect them to hearing sounds and meaning, visualize the meaning, connect to prior knowledge,  and think about what the author is trying to tell us.

Our teaching staff has been working collaboratively to increase our understanding of how students learn to read and what is needed for them to be succesful readers.  The Monarch Grove School Site Council allocated funds for up to three ‘release’ days so that teachers can assess individual student progress in areas of reading and writing and plan instruction accordingly.

In grades K-1, the instructional emphasis is on decoding (sounding out) words, developing sight word vocabulary and oral fluency (making reading sound like talking).  Our staff uses the Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA) to assess emerging literacy skill levels.  The DRA determines oral fluency according to ‘levels.’  For instance, level 16-18 corresponds to an ‘end of first grade’ fluency level.  We also have been successfully using the Reading Recovery intervention program for over ten years to ensure that every, or nearly every, child leaves first grade a reader.

Beginning in grade 2, instruction in reading and writing grows increasingly complex and students transition from reading short stories with many picture cues to longer pieces of literature (‘chapter books’) with few or no illustrations.  Instruction increasingly emphasizes plot and character development, elements of story telling (setting, mood), literary devices (similes, metaphors, hyperboles), knowledge of genre, text structures and text features as well as increasing complex vocabulary.  Students in the lower grades often work in small and variable groups.  Students in upper grades have traditionally worked more in whole groups, but we are starting to examine ways to ‘differentiate instruction’ – that is, to craft the instruction so it more exactly suits individual student needs.

Every reader has two levels of ability: the ‘independent’ reading level (the level of text difficulty that can be read with little or no assistance) and ‘instructional’ level (the level of text that can be read and understood by a student with teacher assistance).  Therefore, assessment is an important component of our overall reading program.  It is a tool, which can objectively measure a student’s reading achievement level.  We use this data to help craft and plan effective reading instruction targeted to student needs.  Our teachers use a wide variety of assessments; for example, the CST (California Standards Test), DRA (Developmental Reading Assessment), SRI (Scholastic Reading Inventory), Houghton-Mifflin or teacher made assessments.  

It is very important for all students to read and read A LOT!! Independent reading should be with material that does not present a struggle– that students can fluently read and easily comprehend.   At school we will present students with more challenging material and instruct them on how to successfully navigate the text and make meaning of it.   It is just about equally imprtant for adults to model good reading strategies. So READ ON!!

A historic event.   

In case anyone was wondering, nearly every educator I know is experiencing a range of emotions over the swearing in of our new president.  These emotions generally range from relief to ecstatic enthusiasm.   And personally, I like Barack.  He is obviously intelligent, well-spoken and seems to excel at grasping issues and explaining them to people.  Still, I am not overly optimistic about his/our prospects because the issues facing our country are enormous and the mechanisms we have at our disposal to fix them are ponderous at best.  But even with that said, along with most of my colleagues, I am happy to see a change in federal leadership as it relates to education policy and the general welfare for our nation.  And I especially appreciated President Obama’s  comment in his inaugural address that this election represented the choice of  ‘hope over fear’.  Boy, does that seem accurate.

I grew up in a segregated Midwestern city — one in which major thoroughfares unofficially lined out the difference between white and black neighborhoods.  It existed as if there were a legitmaite and logical reason for it and everyone seemed to accept it as ‘normal’.  It wasn’t until I was in junior high school (yes, that’s what we called them way back in the day) that I began to question the status quo.  I understand things are appreciably different in modern day Cleveland, Ohio.  Thankfully.

Yesterday we were all treated to the historical spectacle of a dark skinned man being sworn into the office of the presidency of the United States.  And coincidentally, this year’s inauguration occurred the day after our national holiday for Martin Luther King Jr. the articulate and passionate leader for civil rights movement in the United States.   For people of my generation this was absolutely inconceivable when we were children.  Unquestionably, this is a remarkable moment for our country.

I know that this has happened because our country has matured as a people and because our education system has expanded our ability to think and reason.   I hope that everyone seizes upon this event as an opportunity to act with kindness, generosity, gratitude and to strive for personal greatness – for I believe that is what will define our future and allow our country and people all over the world to prosper.

We are living in what some folks call ‘exponential times’.   That is, change and information distribution are occurring at an amazing and ever increasing speed.   I have been interested in technology in schools since I started as a teacher way back in 1984 with those green screen Apple IIc machines. And now I am finally getting around to experimenting with the idea of a principal’s blog. The web address is:  http://jarvisedtech.net/monarch/   or you can find a link to it from the school website mg.slcusd.org.  You can even leave comments!!!!

Hmmmm, so in this post-modern instantaneous worldwide information system– posting to blogs is being outpaced by even quicker, hipper and more impersonal postings.  And I haven’t even begun to Flickr or Twitter yet.    School systems (and their employees) are notorious laggards when it comes to adopting innovation.  And the fact is, we do lag well behind the popular society in acquiring the latest ‘whatever.’  For instance, schools around here at least, and elsewhere I imagine, still are using ‘the overhead projector’ as standard classroom tool as we have been for the last 50 years. According to Wikipedia (the people’s encyclopedia) “the U.S. Army was the first to use overhead projectors in quantity for training as World War II wound down. It began to be widely used in schools and businesses in the late 1950s and early 1960s.”   I wonder if the US Army and the corporations are still using the overhead projector.  Where are the smart boards, LCD projectors and document cameras in our classrooms? Like the ones that they have at the Palo Alto Research Center and other corporate facilities?

The reasons for our slowness to pick up on better technology tools are not due to lack of desire or intelligence…but rather I believe it’s a commodity problem– mainly time and money.  We aren’t provided with and we don’t have the money to invest in appropriate equipment and infrastructure nor the time to figure out the technical and artistic details to put them to good use.  Hey, we have work to do — relentless and exhausting work.  And when and if we finally do manage to get them onto our campus—it may no longer the useful and bright new innovation that it was.  Like a cat chasing its tail.

Regardless of that,—you have to check out this posting by Karl Fisch, somewhat of an internet celebrity at least among some educators that I know.  I have never met Mr. Fisch and may not ever; he is a public high school teacher in Colorado, and at the least is well known for the very thought provoking “Did You Know” slide show—if you haven’t seen it you should give it a google or link to his blog: http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com.   In another posting Mr. Fisch makes a very compelling argument for the use of blogging in schools.  He maintains that not only is blogging a creative teaching and learning exercise, and a potentially very rich way to feed your Professional Learning Community: http://go.solution-tree.com/plc/ -but it also has the unique and distinct advantage of meeting the students where they live socially.

http://www.lps.k12.co.us/schools/arapahoe/fisch/bloggingintheirownwords-short.mov

After I saw Mr. Fisch’s movie and I was compelled to at least try and make use of this technology.  So I have a principal’s blog set up and linked to the Monarch Grove school website.   But I am still just trying to get LCD projectors installed and to find funding for document cameras.   The corporate world would never stand for this oafish adoption cycle.  What’s a principal to do?

Homework.

I wanted to take a little of your time to discuss homework.    Homework is a long standing tradition at schools.  In addition to being a principal and teacher, I am also a parent and have experienced homework from both sides of the coin.  I have also been reading research on the subject and thinking it over.   

First, I think we can all agree that homework is a time consuming activity for everyone who is involved with it – teacher, student and parent.   We know that students spend a lot of time completing homework assignments, and that teachers and parents spend a lot of time planning and following up with homework assignments. I have begun to conclude his may not be the best use of everyone’s time as well as a stress creator which does not contribute to a positive learning

experience.  So we are making some efforts to simplify the situation.   Our district school board has a policy which delineates approximate homework times and expectations.   It states that students in grades 1-2 can expect 30 minutes of nightly homework (M-TH).  Students in grades 3-6 can expect up to one hour per night (M-TH) but actual times may vary.

Next, for the research — it is clearly not conclusive but does tend to support the notion that for older students, starting around fifth or sixth grade, academic achievement is positively correlated to the assigning, completing and evaluating of homework and the effect tends to increase the older the student gets.   However, for younger students there has not been a clearly established link between homework and academic achievement.  For students in grades K-4, the largest positive effects of homework are attributed mostly to learning responsibility and organization skills (doing and completing the assignments).   In addition, the somewhat traditional weekly spelling homework assignments have not been shown to have any significant impact an actual spelling achievement and performance.

So, the staff and I have had some discussions about homework.   We recognize that assigning homework is a given and in accordance with the District policy.  But what is assigned is up to us.  For one thing, all students at Monarch Grove should have independent reading as the main assignment.  Research clearly shows that ‘volume reading’ (reading a lot) leads directly to improved reading achievement and comprehension.  And for parent this is an easy, understandable and fun assignment to monitor.  Reading to and or with your child, listening to them read and then discussing what you have read are excellent examples of effective and meaningful homework.   The other homework assignment that should be common for all grades is a follow up to math instruction—typically in a worksheet format and directly related to the instruction of the day. 

I have given the teachers permission to limit the homework to these assignments in grades K-4.  Fifth and Sixth graders may see some other variations in assignments as homework material at upper grade levels is more complex and often requires outside/extra study.    Additionally, there is a link to increases in student achievement.  Also, I have asked that all teachers provide ‘optional/extra credit homework assignments’ for students and parents who do wish to have additional academic work in any grade upon request.

I am interested in any comments that you parents may have on this subject and the material that I have written about.