To help encourage conversations and dialogue about a community of discussion, dialogue, discourse, and learning, our topic/question of the week is: What topic(s) would you like to see discussed in school? A Culture of Discourse (Week of 4/7/19) (This is an anonymous Google Form)
Blake's Guiding Lights
Our Students
Blake's Core Values: Respect, Responsibility, Resourcefulness, Reflection
Our Essential Question: How can we cultivate and curate the progression of student learning and growth?
Our Mission: Blake Middle School believes in a living mission statement, based on the concept that our community seeks and respects knowledge, integrity, character, wisdom, and the willingness to adapt to a continually evolving world.
Hopefully the sunny weather and warmer temps on Saturday were enjoyed by all - it was great to get outside for a few walks and take it in! We had a nice weekend as a family - a nice family dinner on Friday evening, some sports on Saturday, watching of the Final Four, and some pleasure reading.
We each gain inspiration from different sources at different times. For us to truly foster and build a ‘discourse community’ I think it is critical that we continually share and keep the lines of communication open, while also providing space for vulnerability and humility. As a ‘snapshot’ of inspiration and growth, this week I am sharing three sources for my own reflective process from the past week - a post/perspective on the future of education, a sampling of responses to a question posed to our students and staff, and quotations highlighted at #DLDMedfield...
Preparing Students for the Uncertain Future: Why America’s Educators Are Ready to Innovate — but Their Education Systems Are Not
by Robin Lake (@RbnLake) in The T74 Newsletter
Lake is the director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education and this post offers a 40,000 foot lens/perspective on the future of public education. I think it’s always important that we continue to keep our eyes on the future, share ideas, read, and consider implications of change.
America’s future depends heavily on whether education, from preschool through adult professional training, can adapt to a rapidly changing world. Our young people are demonstrating that they are willing and able to solve the most complex social, technological, and economic challenges and ready themselves for the future if we give them the chance.
A sober assessment of the research to date makes some things clear about which skills and competencies will be most needed in the coming decades, and has important implications for how education will need to change:
1. There will be more of a premium on skills only the human mind possesses…
2. Automation will affect everyone, but will create more problems for different groups...
3. We will need many more “creatives,” innovators, and effective leaders...
4. Change will be the new normal
Can America’s public schools and higher education systems respond effectively to these challenges, or will they drag students and communities down? We think education can adapt, but it will not be easy. This collection of essays suggests how we can approach the unknowns and draws implications, both immediate and long-term, for research and development, investment, and policy. The seven essays we present here point toward new principles and priorities:
1. Schools should teach to the extremes, not the mean, so they capture talents that are now being lost, and motivate many kids who are now settling for mediocrity...
2. The traditional lines between high school, college, and career must be completely reimagined...
3. Schools cannot be the sole learning space...
4. Families must have the power to opt out of rigid systems that refuse to change...
5. Schools teaching younger students would have outcome requirements focused only on a limited set of core gateway skills...
6. Teachers must be of two kinds—those who build deep relationships with students and curate personalization, and specialists who are experts at teaching specific bodies of knowledge...
7. Funding must increase, be more flexible, and follow students longer.
If the challenges before the education system seem daunting, the students themselves offer hope. Recent surveys of teenagers have found they are inclined toward lifelong learning and eager to have an impact on the world through their work. The question is whether the institutions charged with educating them can harness those inclinations in ways that allow them to thrive in our new economic and social realities.
Topic/Question of the Week (Week of 3/31/19): Share something good that is taking place in school right now.
- Project happiness, it was formed to try to make people feel happy and better.
- Gearing up for author visit by members of Blake retweeting about it. An example of working together to achieve the best possible outcome.
- Hearing the great news about Mrs. Gumas. She works so hard and deserves the recognition.
- I saw students playing ping pong and it looked so fun!
- I am in Community service club,and we are making an outdoor classroom
- Track
- MCAS
- My best friend sent me a text saying how much she appreciates me
- Hanging student art work. Extending recognition of students that were in the school musical. SMILING and saying hello to others....with well meaning.
- Meditation in SOCIAL STUDIES! 😊👍🏻
- We got to go outside for recess for the first time in a while and that was fun.
- Theater had a successful show!
- I am having a sleepover with my friends tonight (Wednesday night) because we don’t have school tomorrow woohoo!
- Everything
- Genius Hour
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Take care.
Nat