Reading a Book with Zeke

We babysat our three-month-old grandson, Zeke, tonight. My daughter tells me that he has a favorite book - imagine that! It's called I Love Colors by Margaret Miller. Each two page spread has a picture on the right (a red bow on a child's head) and on the left is a small bit of text ("red bow") on top of a brighlty colored matching background (red).

So when I shared the book with Zeke tonight I watched his eyes catch the page of color. The bright colors seemed to fascinate him. As I turned the pages, each new color caught his attention.

I am looking forward to watching our beautiful grandson learn to read!

A Clean Desk

I spent a few days of the winter break cleaning my office at school. The piles had overtaken any available workspace! I was determined to begin 2009 with a clean desk. As I moved through the piles, it was scary to realize that so much of it went straight to the recycle pile! Someone told me once that I should handle every piece of paper just once. Good advice but I am not very good at following it. The piles grow no matter how hard I try. I am anxious to begin 2009 with a desk that sparkles.

The future...

I spent some time today looking into the future. While many feel that our education system is stagnated, I find it compelling to look at future trends and to think about how they will impact our schools, learning and teaching.

I visited the Cool Cat Teacher blog where she suggested in her Daily Spotlight on Education that readers take a look at an interview, Six Important Forces That Will Shape 2009 at Trends in Living Networks. I found Ross Dawson's points very interesting especially the trend he calls Constant Partial Attention (CPA). He states that "our attention is constantly divided between a massive array of channels." and that "to be successful, we need to thrive on constant interruption.

This makes me think about the times I often watch TV, talk to my husband or to a friend on the phone, and read blogs or twitter - all at the same time! It also makes me wonder how that will impact learning and teaching.

In education, we need to raise the urgency to understand and respond to future trends. While this information is connected to the business world it has huge impacts on education.

While I was at Trends for Living Networks, I also linked to Future Exploration Network where I discovered a few other fascinating things under FEATURED CONTENT.

Extinction Timeline - a fascinating look at what will disapper in our lives

Future of Medial Report 2008 featuring the seven driving forces shaping media

and Enterprise Social Network Strategy Report that features what people are saying about social network strategy

Ross Dawson also posted on December 23 a Trend Map for 2009 created by futurist, Richard Watson and points out a few of the elements of the trend map.

While this seems like an unusual post for me, my brain has exploded with information as I have blogged and twitted in the last month. Hoping that you will join in the conversation.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Educationally Significant

Cris Tovani shared this quote in her presentation at NCTE in San Antonio last Sunday.

"What was once educationally significant, but difficult to measure, has been replaced by what is insignificant and easy to measure. So now we test how well we have taught what we do not value." ~ Art Costa

Scary to think about!
I need to post this quote in my office as a constant reminder to do what is right for kids.

I attended the NCTE session by Karl Fisch on Saturday. I left with a sense of urgency. Some time ago I had seen the original video Karl put together. The one he shared in the session had some new thoughts added. It was great to watch.

I appreciate Karl's thinking. He said that it is not about covering the content but about students uncovering understanding. So smart! I am thinking about how we can build intellectual curiosity at our school.

He shared a great quote from Hellen Keller.

"It is a terrible thing to see and have no vision."

We have been working very hard this year on our school's vision. We created it the summer after the first year our school was open. At our summer retreat, we had students join the staff to collaborate on the vision statement for our school. The kids were amazing and really helped us create a meaningful vision statement.

Here it is:

Glacier Ridge Elementary is a learning community with high expectations dedicated to inspiring children to find a passion for learning in a safe and kind environmenbt that celebrates diversity, promotes leadership and encourages the unlimited potential of the whole child.

There is always the danger of a mission statement and/or vision statement lacking any influence or impact on the learning community. It's important that we understand the words we have put together in our vision statement and continually look for the influence it has on the way we teach, learn and live together.

This year we are "unpacking" the vision statement by looking at each phrase and brainstorming what it "looks like" and "sounds like" at our school. It has given us time to celebrate what we are accomplishing but it opens many opportunities to think about our goals and what we want our school to be.

Karl's presentation adds a whole new dimension to our thinking - a set of new eyes to view the vision statement and think about the impact it could have on 21st Century learning.

NCTE

I am in the airport waiting for my flight home from NCTE in San Antonio. It was a great conference this year. I am tired but energized. I will be blogging about it some this week.