Spaceship Earth

Over Spring Break, I had the honor of going on the PC Band Disney trip with Justin and the rest of the band. While I may never do 4 parks in 4 days and sleep two nights on a bus ever again, it was a great time to be with family - both my personal family and school family. On top of that, the sun was shining and it was warm, a much needed bonus.

One of my favorite rides was in Epcot, Spaceship Earth. It wasn't a thrill ride, but a travel back to the dawn of humanity, when early man painted on cave walls and humans didn't have a great way to communitcate. It then allowed us to navigate all of the changes in communication and watch how ideas spread as humans went from no communication, to writing on cave walls to the invention of the Gutenberg's printing press. As books were printed the wheels of time turned even faster as we entered the age of media, from newspapers announcing the end of the Civil War to the televised broadcast of the moon landing - and beyond. As we traveled, it was evident that society never stopped changing and as education (books/reading) became more and more available our society moved even faster.

This ride really resignated with me as we are living in such a pivital time of change as our information is not even in books but now with the Internet, social media, artificial intellegence, and more. Information that was once at the mercy of a printing press and slow transportation modalitites, is now at our fingertips with our cell phones and Amazon Prime next day delivery! For me, all of that change made me think about two things: 1. the importance of literacy AND 2. the way we engage students in learning. The days of teaching from books and memorizing information are skills of the PAST. Students need purposeful lesson that create meaning, skills that allow students to critically think across several pieces of text and professional skills such as communication, teamwork and resiliency.

We have all heard the quote, "The only thing constant in life is change." and sometimes we get frustrated in education because there are always "new things". But the truth is, education has to change because education is the driving force of the economy and the world we live in. We will continue to try to be intentional and only chase research based change, but as professionals in the field, we have to make sure we are preparing students for their FUTURES, not their past. It can be an overwhelming but exciting/rewarding task - but worthy of the effort.

Speaking of Change - Here are some Design Thinking Examples from Twitter and our own Payton Malone (Payton's students are learning about scientific design through their Workplace Challenge with Anu, vertical grow towers - they are designing a scientific experiment to determine how much water is needed for a grow tower of lettuce. They have each created their designs and hypothesis and are sharing with each other - practicing their public speaking skills and learning from each other):

           

Important Information: 

PLC Meetings:  This week, I will be sending a few agenda items to Science, Social Studies and English PLC teams and will catch up with math, Island and Special Education soon.  My goal is to talk with each group about progress made in our PLC process along with other goals that pertain with disciplinary literacy and discuss goals for the last quarter and next year.    

Advisory Board Meeting:  We will be hosting one of our quarterly Advisory Board meetings on Tuesday morning for community members.  CTE teachers are encouraged to visit our partners from 7:45 - 8:00 a.m. We will ask a few students to share some of the work their work, get feedback on our core values (professional skills grading scale we are developing), and more.  We appreciate our community members and need them to help lead us so we can be preparing students for skills of the future.

Internship Training:   We have been working on making our internship program stronger.  One of our ideas is to host a training for our incoming interns.  So, on Wednesday, March 29th we will be hosting a lunch and learn for junior who have signed up for an internship.  The training will be from 11:00 - 12:30 on this day, so students will be out of 4th period a little early.  Whitney Zellers from Work One will be presenting to students and we will provide lunch for them.  I will send a list of students.

Spring Dates:  I realized that I forgot to prepare a list of spring dates for everyone!  HERE is a link to a google document with upcoming dates.  We will be adding to it.  This helps for your planning purposes.

School Play: The school play will be this Friday, March 31st (7:00 p.m.)  and Saturday, April 1st (2:30 p.m.)   Hope you can make it out to support our students!   

HAVE A GREAT WEEK!