The SAN Script – The week of September 2 – 5
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
–Eleanor Roosevelt
Welcome to daily posts!
From now on, I will be sending you a post at the beginning of a new week or a new day. Usually, the posts will contain any information I have on the upcoming week. I will usually include an article that might be helpful and a reflection. I will also try to include a picture of student work that I have found at St. Anthony.
If you are subscribed to the blog, it will simply show up in your in-box. If you know of someone who is not getting it, it is because they have not subscribed yet.
I am really looking forward to the week to come. For the past three weeks, I have been trying to meet people and learn as much as I can about the St. Anthony Community. I have a long way to go so please be patient. As I said on Thursday, my main job at school is simple – it is to support you in the work that you are doing. You are the professionals that keep the school running and who teach our kids. We will all do a better job at this if we all work together and I support you in the work that you are doing.
As an overall goal for myself and for all of us, the most important thing is to provide the best educational experience we can for our students. We are here to enrich their lives spiritually, physically, intellectually and emotionally. We will use all our resources in order to fulfill this one goal.
It will be great working with all of you this year, we are all in for a great learning adventure!
After receiving their standardized test results, students at the Barrowford Primary School in Lancashire, England received a letter from their principal Rachel Tomlinson. The letter, posted below, reminds students of all the things a standardized test doesn’t measure.
The letter was inspired by fellow educator Kimberley Hurd, who penned a blog post last October with a similar message for students.
Please find enclosed your end of KS2 test results. We are very proud of you as you demonstrated huge amounts of commitment and tried your very best during this tricky week.
However, we are concerned that these tests do not always assess all of what it is that make each of you special and unique. The people who create these tests and score them do not know each of you—the way your teachers do, the way I hope to, and certainly not the way your families do. They do not know that many of you speak two languages. They do not know that you can play a musical instrument or that you can dance or paint a picture. They do not know that your friends count on you to be there for them or that your laughter can brighten the dreariest day. They do not know that your write poetry or songs, play or participate in sports, wonder about the future, or that sometimes you take care of your little brother or sister after school. They do not know that you have travelled to a really neat place or that you know how to tell a great story or that you really love spending time with special family members and friends. They do not know that you can be trustworthy, kind or thoughtful, and that you try, every day, to be your very best… the scores you get will tell you something, but they will not tell you everything.
So enjoy your results and be very proud of these but remember there are many ways of being smart.
We pray, O God, for wisdom and will, for courage to do and to become, not merely to gaze with helpless yearning as though we had no strength. So that our land, our world, may be safe, and our lives truly blessed.
– From the Jewish Liberal Prayerbook
Beyond Knowing Facts, How Do We Get to a Deeper Level of Learning?
from Mindshift
As educators across the country continue to examine the best ways of teaching and learning, a new lexicon is beginning to emerge that describes one particular approach — deeper learning. The phrase implies a rich learning experience for students that allows them to really dig into a subject and understand it in a way that requires more than just memorizing facts.
The elements that make up this approach are not necessarily new — great teachers have been employing these tactics for years. But now there’s a movement to codify the different pieces that define the deeper learning approach, and to spread the knowledge from teacher to teacher, school to school in the form of a Deeper Learning MOOC (massive open online course), organized by a group of schools, non-profits, and sponsored by the Hewlett Foundation.
you can read more here
