If you’ve ever gone to a conference on anything, you know it can be hit or miss. The speakers you think will really motivate and interest you can be duds, or you can come across one you had little interest in that sparks your imagination and offers pearls of wisdom. At the National Small Schools Conference, that was the case for me.
Jordan Shapiro, author of The New Childhood: Raising Kids to Thrive in a Connected World and professor at Temple University, spoke about a new way to view screen time. As he waxed on about his interest in ancient philosophers, it became quickly apparent that I would have to dig deep to connect to his message. And then there it was. He was speaking in a way that helped me understand how we teach kids the expectations around behavior – from learning to playing. His analogy was that he has to help his kids learn to cross the street. He wouldn’t trust them to do that alone until he did it with them hundreds of times and was certain they would remember to look both ways and could cross without getting hurt. Continue reading
As this school year gets underway, I have had the pleasure of working more closely with a few classrooms. This has meant everything from meeting about supporting students, to discussing potential field trips, to helping plan lessons. Though these are not my “typical” responsibilities as head of school, they are things I thoroughly enjoy. Getting closer to student learning is always interesting and energizing.
Most of us prefer knowing to not knowing. We derive a degree of comfort in knowing and understanding things. The unfamiliar brings about feelings of uncertainty and maybe even doubt in our ability to navigate a situation or endeavor.
There was a time, and maybe it’s even still true in some cases, that people envied teachers. They wanted their schedules… The holiday and summer breaks, the sweet hours – school’s over at 3! And, how hard is it to teach a bunch of little (or big) kids? If you are aware of current events in the news, you know that time may have passed.