Post date: Aug 24, 2013 12:24:48 AM
Hello Parents of DCS-25,
This is the first of a series of (usually) weekly newsletters that you will get from me throughout the year. Each time I hope to write about just a "Couple of Things" -- a summary of the week, a preview of upcoming events, general class issues, and maybe other random highlights. I try to keep them short but often my enthusiasm and verbosity gets the better of me and the newsletter gets quite long. I'll add paragraph headers if possible to facilitate the inevitable email scanning that we all have to do these days.
Your Input About Your Student: Item one on my list this time is about the responses that I've received to the questions I posted on the online form. Nineteen parents have responded, each with a level of detail and insight that helped me get to know quite a bit about your kids even before the first day of school. I noticed some very common threads that I would like to reflect back to you as if you were one voice. First, what you value in DCS is the strong community, the developmental teaching, and the personalized attention that your student receives. Your students are quite smart with diverse talents and needs, but who all respond best to an engaging curriculum and meaningful work. You also value a teacher who knows and cares about the students as unique individuals, has a good sense of humor, and can assert their authority when needed. Lastly, you hope to do important work in the classroom and with the students. You expect and appreciate a clearly defined set of tasks that use your time well, take advantage of your talents, and allow you varying degrees of autonomy and independence. Thanks again for all the great input -- I will use it wisely.
Middle School Mixer: I enjoyed meeting the kids on the Monday evening before school started. We did an introduction activity as a homeroom for the first half, and then went outside and joined the other 7th grade classes for a water relay, some big-group jump rope, and a few rounds of tug-of-war. The highlight was the all-grade 7th vs. 8th tug-of-war which broke the rope and sent all of us to the ground laughing. The energy was good and the kids seemed to enjoy the chance to reconnect and meet a few new people.
How I'm Learning About the Kids: On that first day of school, oh so long ago, we jumped right into the formation of self-descriptive word-clouds using a service called “tagxedo”. The instructions (to this and just about every activity) are on the daily schedule of my site and the results are on the “About Us” page as well. Some kids still need to finish, but it sure impresses me how well the students can follow a multiple-step process after I give them just a brief overview and demonstration – they certainly are adept at the tools of a digital age.
Yesterday, they worked in groups on a "similarities and differences" chart with the goal of finding the most odd commonality between the group. They also worked at two physical teamwork challenges: a marshmallow challenge, a cup stacking challenge, and (today) a blindfolded drawing activity. I'll leave it to the kids to fill you in on the details, but as I watch the individual kids deal with each scenario, I'm learning a great deal about their diverse levels of engagement, self-control, ingenuity, and communication skills. Lastly, the kids entered information into an “Aspects of Us” document and we will use that information to create and play a great jeopardy-style game (your kids has to sign in to their mydiscoveryk8 account to show you that one if you want to see it -- not for public viewing).
Water Balloons & Other Outdoor Games: Establishing a comfortable and productive learning environment is a high priority for all of the teachers and we are working towards that goal in diverse ways. One highlight of that type of activity was the towel-balloon toss activity that we did Wednesday afternoon. Groups of 3 or 4 kids were given a towel and a crate of very large water balloons. Through communication, skill, and practice, they were to learn to use the towel like a trampoline to launch the balloons quite high in the air and catch them again. Some teams then paired up and did cross-tossing, and I think a few even agreed to try “the soaker challenge” where, if their aim was good, they could soak each other from a distance. Yesterday we spent the last hour of the day playing "hook-up" (elbow) tag, chaos tag (which they taught me), and a spontaneous creation I called "stalker-stalker". I really enjoyed playing with this group and, if they are up for it, I hope to spend more afternoons doing outside games before selectives and PE officially start in October.
The Academic Stuff: In addition to the team-building and comfort-establishing activities, I've also given them some work in science, history, and English. Today they created a "What I Wonder" slide in which they simply state a semi-sciencey question that they have pondered. I posted the ones that had the proper sharing settings onto the About Us page and the kids will be adding more questions throughout the year, usually at the pace of about 4 per week. Although there will be a fairly structured science progression this year, posing, refining, and investigating their questions will be one of the ways in which I intend to ignite their curiosity about science and it's tremendous application to the real world.
Our first 'unit' in social studies will be on geography, and we'll be using the World Cup as a way to learn about various countries, geography, economics, and cultural diversity. I posed that idea to the kids today and they seem to be willing to go for it, so we got that rolling with an initial investigation into a World-Cup contender country of their choice.
English started up today as well with the setting up of the writing and vocabulary sections of their composition books and the pre-writing phase of their first writing assignment about their name. Instructions and examples are on this page and over the weekend, your kid should be coming to you for some information about their name. I'm eager to observe the current state of their writing process, style, and abilities.
Last Topic -- My Challenge of the Year: I've been teaching since 1986, but had never been in a school like quite DCS before. I can't express how appreciative I am that Dale exposed me to this place because it is proving to be a great match between by philosophies and the opportunities and practices that turn them to reality. One of my ongoing challenges is to constantly rethink some of the assumptions that have been pounded into me during the first 22 years of instruction in regular large public middle schools with thier almost blinding focus on policy, conformity, and academic achievement. In some ways, I've had to rekindle some of the innocence of my first years of teaching and have reveled in the excitement that comes with that freeing perspective -- building a new (to me) and open curriculum is exciting. You see, for better or worse, I had become accustomed to starting each year with the required clear and detailed course outline, the objectives and pacing for each unit, and a bank of tried-and-true science lessons, labs, assignments, and assessments. This year will be a new adventure as I let go of some of that predictability and journey into the world of a self-contained class, and an integrated curriculum that is created with a high level of student input. Admittedly there is some trepidation on my part and a bit of fear of the unknown, but I'm also eager to explore new things, especially with the hope that I'll have some wonderful travel companions in your students as we explore new realms together. If we (you and the students and the staff and I) work to our strengths, communicate clearly, and support each other, the journey will be as rewarding as the destination.
Thanks for reading this far; I know that this was a long email. Please let me know if you and/or your student have any questions or concerns. I always benefit from your perspective and suggestions.
Chris