In my last post I wrote about the need for the district to be cautious of trying to take on too many improvement efforts. My analogy (in that post) of driving a car at a fast speed, also applies to our classrooms. One of the challenges that our teachers face is finding how hard they can push their students to learn. If they are too soft, the students do not make adequate progress and if they miss the mark and push too hard, then the kids burn out and school becomes a slog. Further complicating matters, is that our digital native students often have a difficult time staying focused in a traditional classroom.
I attended Soldotna Middle School’s Turkey Trot today. This is an annual event where the 7th grade competes against the 8th grade in a series of fun games such as blowing a ping pong ball across the gym floor while suspended in a sling of bath towels. Although the staff tries to maintain a semblance of order during the games, (I’d call it pandemonium) the main purpose of the event appears to be to scream as loudly as possible. While the games and competition are fun, I sense that the main reason for the Trot is to offer that diversion or balance to our students’ schooling that we may overlook. It was a great way to begin the Thanksgiving break.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Taking Ownership
As students move from elementary school to high school, their success is more and more dependent on them taking greater ownership of their learning. Teachers gradually relax the student hand holding of the early years so that at graduation, our students are independent enough to tackle what is next. That is the plan, but as we all know, it doesn’t always work out that way.
On Tuesday I attended a youth court event that was held to address the on-going vandalism problem at Kenai Central and Soldotna High School. It assumed that this problem stems from the two schools’ rivalry. After a brief introduction by the youth court director Ginny Espenshade, the youth court student members ran the meeting. It was attended by about 25 students and six adults . The goal for the evening was to examine the KCHS/SOHI rivalry and to look for ways to move the students away from the retaliatory mindset that is probably the main motivator for the vandalism. I thought it was a great first step in breaking down the barriers that are preventing the students from moving past the negative side of this rivalry. More impressive to me, was the students leading the effort to make this improvement. As we strive to have the student take more responsibility for their lives, it was good to see that this group is doing just that.