Too Good to be True?
1. As an exemplary campus, Smithfield does a good job of educating students. What ways do you feel we can take our school from good to great?
2. Imagine you are the Patel family and are looking for a quality school in the area. What qualities do you consider a great school to possess?
*We have a great discussion going on here! These two questions are simply to get us started thinking about the chapter and relating it to our campus. I encourage you to share any additional questions over the chapter. :) I LOVE this book!!!
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I think that we are a good school because we do academics well. I think some of our kids have gotten into the mindset of doing just what they have to do. We are not spending enough time on the whole child and giving them a vision for what is possible, not just what is required
ReplyDeleteI agree with Teri, we are great at the 3 R's and recognizing the achievements of the students who are already doing well. But as our community changes, we need to focus more on character skills which will help our students achieve success beyond the walls of our school.
ReplyDeleteHow do we go from good to great...
ReplyDelete1)we need to have a clear and focused mission (we are working on that).
2)we have to have high expectations. I think Teri hit the nail on the head. We have to work on the whole child.
3) we have to monitor student progress frequently (this is part of the continuous improvement model)
4) we have to continue creating relationships with our school community.
For some of you seasoned veterans it sounds like the effective schools correlates (The Correlates of Effective Schools as identified by Lezotte, Edmonds, Brookover, and others.)
I think it takes everyone: Principal, teachers, support staff, office, cafeteria workers and custodial staff. Everyone has to have ownership in Smithfield!
ReplyDeleteWe can’t let standardized testing be our only measurement of our students.
I believe we are all on the right track. Everyone does a great job at teaching the 3-R's and I think most of the staff has high expectations for our kids. As I've been reading this book one thing is evident; teaching kids to take responsibility for their learning (start with the end in mind). One issue with that, is that we also will have to teach some parents how to help their kids. AND we have already started this with the Strong Fathers and the Love and Logic training.
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ReplyDeleteOops!! I meant to just make a change to my previous comment and I deleted it forever. Oh well...what I wanted to say was in response to comments made by Bicknell and Kerrie. Bick mentioned building relationships with the school community. I noticed many businesses are more than willing to make donations when we need them, all we have to do is ask. But I think local businesses and churches would have a sense of ownership, like Kerrie mentions, if this partnership worked both ways. I'd like to find ways to bring in people and organizations from outside our school community. Any great ideas?
ReplyDeleteI agree with everyone that stated that the relationships with the child and parents and building character should come first. Fifth grade had a rough year with discipline and we finally had to make the decision to put the brakes on the academics (no one was learning anything anyway the way things were) and concentrate on relationships and character buikding. We learned that taking the time to form those personal relationships with the parents proved beneficial because those parents became very supportive of our classroom practices, discipline, etc... We had parents showing support who hadn't before. We also used data folders as a tool for regularly communicating with our students about personal academic performance, behavior, and goals. This opened the door to form a relationship with each child and they heard something positive from their teacher no matter what at some point during the week. I believe we honestly helped many families this past school year. We were so worried at the time that we were losing time on academics and that they would do poorly on TAKS. However, ya'll know that turned out to be not true by the slightest. Our students learned! It goes to show us that if we put emphasis on our relationships with the child and parents, the acedimics will follow suit! The power is in the relationships and honest/regular communication. Shannon and I actually had a "hall conversation" about this back in March.
ReplyDeleteIt's all about student leadership and empowering the students to embrace "the leader in me". If I'm not mistaken, the magnet school just changed its focus and not its clientelle. Every student in the school did not start with amazing leadership skills. That potential was developed. Every one of our students has leadership potential, but we will need to shift our focus to character education and leadership realization. I'm really excited about this!
ReplyDeleteI agree that our arrows are still going in different directions. One of our first items when we return is to again define our top 10 SES beliefs. I know that we all want to be moving in the same direction and this book will be a great guideline for us to use.
ReplyDeleteThis is an awesome creative way of teaching, disciplining and creating leaders in our students. I believe our school is very close to these schools. We have a great learning environment that concentrates on the achievements and learning of the individual. I believe our parents would grasp this and learn with us as we get ready to activate this. To me it is not another program, it is a "culture" as the book stated that I am excited about implementing. I want to start it a little at a time in my classroom. Instead of helpers I thought I would have leaders in the classroom. I agree with Ronda and everyone else in the direction to go. We are all working together to get there. That is why I love our Smithfieldamerica!!!
ReplyDeleteIn order for Smithfield to go from good to great we have to build relationships with students, their families, and the community. Once these relationships are built, we will be more equipped to focus on the strengths and weakness of the students whether they be academically or personally. Having strong relationships with parents will better enable us to have trust from parents.
ReplyDeleteMy grandbaby is back in Colorado so I no longer have an excuse for not participating in the blog or reading this book. I am having to play catch up since you have already posted Chapter 4. I am totally in awe and honored that I work with you all. Your insights and comments are so astute. Your scholars are so lucky to have you as their teachers/leaders. Amazing things have always been going on at Smithfield and now that we will have a common vocabulary and culture we will go from good to great and beyond!
ReplyDeleteSmithfield is good but we all want to achieve more. We want our students to achieve their potential. Reaching out to our students and their families is a good place to start. We need to all speak the same language even in music and the other special classes. I think music is a great place to build character through songs and activities. Character buiding creates good students who make wise choices. This is what Smithfield needs and what every teacher and parent wants for their students and children.
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