Equal Rights For All

Every year, around Civil Rights Day, I take the time to present Martin Luther King, Jr.'s I Have a Dream speech.  Granted, this speech was originally presented back in 1963 and had a focus on the rights of African-Americans, but I think it still stands true today, if not more relevant, for the rights of all people. African-Americans, Asian-American, Catholic, Jew, LDS, gay, straight, men, women, rich, poor, we all have one thing in common:

"It would be like white people saying they are European-American. That is totally stupid. I was born here, and so were my parents and grandparents, and, very likely, my great grandparents. I don't have any connection to Africa,no more than the white Americans have to Germany, Scotland, England, Ireland, or the Netherlands. The same applies to 99 percent of all the black Americans as regards to Africa." (Dr. Willian Henry "Bill" Cosby)

Mr. Cosby has very similar meaning behind this quote as Mr. King in his speech.  We are all Americans. We're not African.  We're not German. We're not British. We're not Asian. We are Americans. We should all act like Americans.  We should all treat each other as Americans.  We should all be treated like Americans.  It's as simple as that.  I've yet to figure out why people make it any more difficult than such.

So I do have a dream.  It is a dream where I hope that our children can grow up in a world where they are judged by the content of their character.  Skin color matters no more than hair color. Religion matters no more than shoe size. Weight and height matter no more than eye color.  Orientation matters no more than food preference.  We are all the same people.  We should all be treated as such.

So what is your dream? What difference are you going to make?  How are you going to make the world a better place not only for the next generation, but for now?  There is nothing that says this world cannot be a better place now.  Let's make it so!

Clark Planetarium

Dear Parents,

                The sixth grade is planning an exciting field trip this year.  With the second half of the science core focusing on space, each year we take a trip to the Clark Planetarium.  This year, it will be a little different, adding a new level of excitement.  Rather than renting busses, which get more and more expensive each year, we are going to take the Frontrunner.  This does add a couple of challenges though. 

First off, rather than meeting at school, we will be meeting at the train station in Clearfield.  Getting to the station does present the first challenge as we know some parents rely on carpool to get their students to school.  Please return this form as soon as possible so we know if you will be able to get your student to and from the station, or if we need to arrange a carpool for you. We will then create a carpool committee which has a volunteer (possibly the class captain) from each class to help arrange the rest of the carpools needed for each class.

Since we are taking the train, we need more volunteers to go with us.  We are looking for 5 parent volunteers per class.  Each parent will be assigned to a group of students, allowing the teachers to supervise and make sure order is maintained.  If you would like to volunteer for the day of the trip, please return this form as soon as possible.  Due to the Planetariums’ constraints, no younger children will be allowed on the field trip.  We will take the first five volunteers. To keep it fair, if there are more than five that turn in on the same day, we will pull five names out of a hat.  Thanks in advance to anyone who is willing to volunteer.

The field trip will take place on February 14, 2013.  It will cost us $8 per person (volunteers included), but this cost will cover the train, the planetarium, and lunch. Home lunches will not be allowed due to storage.  Field trip uniforms still apply: white top, blue bottom. Students who show up with anything other than field trip uniforms will be sent home with the carpool that brought them.   We will meet at the Clearfield train station (1250 South State Street) beginning at 8:00.  We leave on the train at 8:30.  Please arrive by 8:15. The train leaves promptly at 8:30, and so do we.    

Weather permitting we will either walk the few blocks to the Planetarium or take the Trax. We are scheduled for events at the Planetarium from 10:00 until 12:00. The plan is to arrive early enough that we can spend some time looking at the exhibits as well. 

After the Planetarium, we will walk over to the Gateway’s food court where Subway will be catering our lunch.  There will be sandwiches, chips, water, and possibly a cookie. Lunch is included for volunteers as well.  After lunch, we will make our way back to the train station to board the 1:55 train getting us back to the Clearfield train station around 2:30.  The students will need to be picked up from the train station through the same carpool arrangements.  Parents who volunteer are required to wait with the teachers until the last student is picked up.

There is one final volunteer opportunity.  We will need one parent, who is willing to deliver the chips, drinks, and cookies to us at the Gateway.  You would need to meet us at the food court at 12:00 with the additional food.  This cannot be a parent who is coming to volunteer at the Planetarium as they will be assigned a group of students the entire time. This volunteer only needs to par for their own fuel; their lunch is free.

It has taken quite an effort to pull this together, but we are really excited about this field trip.  The train will add a new experience to the field trip that we think the students will really enjoy.  Please be sure to return all of the required paperwork as soon as possible.  This includes the permission slip, the $8 fee (per person), and the form letting us know if you are willing to help with any of the volunteer opportunities.  Thanks again to anyone who is willing to help us out.

 Sincerely,

The Sixth Grade Team

 

***If you need new copies and any of the documentation, please e-mail Mr. Pratt ~ apratt@syracuseartsacademy.org

Snow Day!

It's been several years since we've had a winter of any real magnitude.  2009 to be exact.  Posted above is one of my favorite pictures I've ever taken of my puppy.  It was taken after the storms of '09.  Honestly, those storms pale in comparison to what we received last night.  After night one of parent teacher conferences I came home to shovel around 7 inches off my driveway.  While I was shoveling I was pondering why I was doing it, because I knew I was going to have to shovel again in the morning.  As I was shoveling another 7 inches off in the morning, it hit me why I had shoveled the night before.  Could you imagine having to shovel 12-14" of snow off a driveway at once?  Not I!

I'm loving it though.  If it's going to snow, bring it on!  I would much rather a nice thick blanket of snow, than weak little storms that melt the next day.  Snow is a very beautiful thing, especially when accumulated like it is.  The funny part of it all, my dog pictured above is a little chihuahua/dachshund mix.  He's a sweet little boy, and a heck of a trooper, but sometimes, his size gets in the way, and doesn't allow him to march on!  I had to dig out some snow, just so he could find the backyard!  Poor little guy!  Lucky for him, he lives inside with the heater.

At any rate, I hope you are all enjoying the fact that you didn't have to drive your students to school this morning.  I realize not everyone is as lucky as the school teachers, so as you make your own way to work, please be safe.  Being late to wherever you're going is the far better alternative.

As for the second day of parent teacher conferences, which were cancelled today, the school is planning on making them up next Friday.  I think I'm going to stick to my original plan.  At some point this weekend, I will e-mail those of you who missed conferences, and let you know what I would have said.  Come Friday, I will plan on being at the school until 6:00.  I might specifically ask some of you to come in and chat.  Those who I don't are welcome to stop in at any time, if you want.  Just send me a response to the e-mail I send you this weekend and let me know what time would work for you.

Again, stay safe! And if you doing anything fun with this snow, please share!  I'd love to see pictures or hear stories!

"The first fall of snow isn't only an event, it is a magical event.  You go to bed in one kind of world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment, where is it to be found?" ~J.B. Priestley

Happy New Year!

I don't have a whole lot I want to say.  I hope your break has been as pleasant as mine, however, in all honesty, I'm ready to be back.  My body prefers routine.  See you all soon!

"Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties." ~Helen Keller

Burning a Candle for Newtown

My mind has been occupied all weekend with thoughts of Sandy Hook Elementary.  Words cannot express the empty feeling this kind of tragedy leaves me with.  I am not currently married.  I do not have children. I simply cannot imagine the heartbreak those families are going through.  Even if the family was lucky enough to have their students come home at the end of the day, I'm sure they are just torn apart.  I'm sitting here 2,300 miles away.  I don't know any of them directly.  I've never even been to Connecticut, and I'm torn apart, having fought bouts with tears several times over this weekend.

There is part of me that feels awful being so grateful that this was not our elementary.  I cannot begin to empathize with that community, how terrible it must be. When tragedy like this strikes, I can't help but think of Sophocles and a line from Oedipus Rex, paraphrased, "If this is how the world works, then why bother?" But really, it is because the world can be so irrational that we need to bother more! We need to be like the Whos down in Whoville who sing when it seems like there's nothing to sing about; Who sing especially when there's nothing to sing about.  Why sing?  Because, we need to let the world know that above all, love is louder!

I have done my best not to watch the news about this horrific event.  I have done my best to not know the horrible details.  I have done my best to not glorify what has happened.  I don't even know the name of the shooter, and I honestly don't care to know.  What I do care about is all of the innocent lives that have been taken way to soon.  I had a song that randomly came across my I-pod yesterday, and thus began one of my bouts with tears.  I could do nothing but think of those children and teachers.  I sang the lyrics as loud as my cracking voice would let me, in hopes that somehow they could hear.  I encourage you to do the same.  Pick a name, or sing to all of them.  Do not forget the victims:

Charlotte Bacon, Daniel Barden, Rachel Davino, Olivia Engel, Josephine Gay, Ana M. Marquez-Greene, Dylan Hockley, Dawn Hochsprung, Madeleine F. Hsu, Catherine V. Hubbard, Chase Kowalski, Jesse Lewis, James Mattioli, Grace McDonnell, Anne Marie Murphy, Emilie Parker, Jack Pinto, Noah Pozner, Caroline Previdi, Jessica Rekos, Avielle Richman, Lauren Rousseau, Mary Sherlach, victoria Soto, Benjamin Wheeler, and Allison N. Wyatt.

I had a friend wonder if I felt so much more emotionally connected to this because it was on my turf, and I don't know if that's the case, but regardless, I will continue to do what I do with my position.  I will not only teach the kids academics, but I will teach them character, and in that, universal acceptance.  I will grow to love, respect, care for, and protect every single one of my children, because, as much as I hope it never happens, in the event that I am put into the situation, I would stand up and take the bullet to protect every single one of them past, present, and future.

December 16, 2012

I think I'll start off this week with a couple of pictures.  We had a couple of fun little assemblies for the kids to watch.  This first picture is the Jr. High's Theater 1 class.  Not only was this one cute, but I think it was important for our stundents to show their support not only to the elementary side of our school, but the junior high side as well.

The second one was on Friday.  The Utah Opera visited and gave the kids the very basics of the opera, even teaching them a little Latin along the way.  This assembly captivated the students.  It's been a while since we've seen this fantastic of behavior at an assembly, all grades 1-6 that were there, so they must have been enthralled.

The school year is seriously trucking along!  I just cannot believe that we are only one school week away from 2013. Crazy insane!  As far as what's going on here in the classroom, there hasn't been a whole lot out of the ordinary.  We just finished our fourth unit math.  With only 9 units, that puts us at almost halfway through.  I will only be reviewing math this next week as I'm not sure how effective it would be to start a new unit and then take a couple weeks off.  We're hoping to rework our reading program for the new year as well.  We obviously have the same concepts that we need to teach, but we'd like to have a little less with to do with our reading textbook, as some of the stories in the book are, shall we say, outdated.  We are going to try and incorporate a couple of novels that we will read as a class, as well as possibly some Shakespeare.

I hope the students have been telling you stories about the changes in our behavior management.  Honestly, that is one of the placest I struggle with most as a teacher.  It's so tough to find something that works for a class, and the when you finally think you've got it figured out, it's time for the new year, a completely new group of kids, and something completely different that will work for them.  However, on Wednesday I started implementing a few new things that really seemed to work for these kids.  The last three days of this week were some of the best behavioral days we've had since the honeymoon period ended (the first few weeks where they're too scared to act out). Wish me luck that maybe it didn't take me the entire year to get some things figured out with this dynamic of students.

With that being said, I would like to tell a short story before I announce the most exciting news.  The week after Thanksgiving break, I had one of my two required administrative observations.  This includes a debriefing that was done on a later date during our specialist time (when the kids are with a different teacher).  Well, before we knew it, that debriefing had taken about 15 minutes longer than planned, meaning the students had been in my classroom for about 15 minutes without any supervision.  I honestly took the long walk back to the classroom expecting carnage, but what I saw when I got there was the complete opposite.  The next thing on the schedule was to correct the Daily Language Review that we do as our morning work, and one of the students had taken lead and was guiding the class through the corrections on it.  I was floored, in shock, awed... needless to say, I walked over to their marble jar and dumped in what little marbles they had left, earning them a class party!

That's the exciting news!  We've finally earned our first class party!  I'm going to take advantage of the time of year, and we are going take a few hours (9:30-11:30ish) on Thursday to build gingerbread houses, well, graham cracker houses.  I will need some help with supplies.  We did this activity as a whole grade last year, and we are not this year, so I have a lot of stuff left over from it.  I should have graham crackers enough for everyone.  I also have some candies.  We will probably need more candy to decorate them with.  We will also need frosting to glue them with.  If you could help by donating any candy or frosting, that would be greatly appreciated.  I am also looking for probably 3 or 4 volunteers, just to help police the activity.  We have to do this in the classroom, so we'll have to do everything possible to keep the mess as little as possible.  Again, if you can donate, please send it in by Wednesday, so I know how much we have, and if you can volunteer, I will take the first four to let me know.  Any more than four and the classroom would start to crowd.

Mostly, that's it!  Only four school days until the holiday break.  Hopefully, we can make it a great couple of days.

"Some succeed because they are destined to, but most succeed because they are determined to." ~Henry Van Dyke

December 9, 2012

So I mostly want to apologize again for my lack of communication lately.  Life has been busy both in school: with my Tech Crew, observations, grading, prepping, and you know, teaching; and out of school with Scrooge.  Throw into that bronchitis, which took me out of school for two days and got me reaquainted with my couch for the better part of a week, and it's just a nightmare trying to recover.  I mostly feel like I'm getting on top of things, but it has definitely been a struggle.

With my apology for the lack of communication, I need to apologize for the late notice on the informance.  Thank you so much to those who were able to come.  It was a part of the pile that I knew was coming up, and we did our best to throw something together for, but I just completely forgot to send anything home until the night before.  I think it was a cute little performance.  For those who missed it, not to worry, as soon as we are done writing our anti-bullying musical, we will begin rehearsing it, and eventually perform it, so you will be able to see the finalized version of the song we performed at the informance.

All in all, I think I'm finally on top of the illness.  If I'm being honest, I'm still feeling some side effects from it with a congested chest, and I still don't think my energy is back to normal, but we're getting there.  I will do my best to not let myself fall that far behind again, but I tell you, when you get stopped in your tracks, life keeps going without you, and it's been a nightmare getting caught back up.  Thank you so much for your understanding and support.

"Sickness...and insanity were the angels that surrounded my cradle and they have followed me throughout my life." ~Edvard Munch