A Wonderful Evening of Film

Tonight, the two fifth grade classes had their film festivals, simultaneously. I got to watch only a bit of the second, since my daughter’s group was in the first group. All of the films turned out great. I will be creating links to each of the offerings from each festival so that you can see the end result of what fifth graders can do, with time and support. What will be missing, unfortunately, is an examination of the process which they went through, which is a more important journey that was experienced by each group of students. Stay tuned for […]

My Current Puzzle

I wonder sometimes why I say yes to different duties and responsibilities, but one of the tasks that I am currently responsible for is creating our high school schedule. Right now I am trying to start with scheduling our rising seniors. Imagine this puzzle, trying to create a schedule based upon 48 students who have generated 358 requests for 39 unique courses all in a seven-period day. What was I thinking? Well, back to the third attempt to piece the puzzle together. At least I have gotten a tablet PC to demo for the next week.

When Students are Empowered to Help Change the World

Every Monday and Wednesday mornings, all 550+ students, faculty, administration, and staff, enter our theater to participate in Morning Exercise, or better known on campus as Morning Ex. Historically, this was the headmaster’s class and when originated, calisthenics were part of this curriculum. Today, we are treated to presentations from teachers sharing their passions, to a class presentation, show previews, and occasionally an outside speaker. Today’s Morning Ex was a powerful example of what can happen when students are empowered to change the world. We had several student led presentations about the situation in Darfur and then attendees were challenged […]

Mother’s Day Reflections

I enjoyed a wonderful Mother’s Day, honoring the wife of my two girls, by waking up with the dog at 6:00 a.m. and then after just dozing off, waking up with my youngest to start “her” Mother’s Day breakfast, which I ended up doing most of the work. After breakfast, I did the dishes and then went on a nice bike ride with my wife to the Botanic Gardens. In the evening, I drove to the airport to pick up my mother and father-in-law, who were traveling home from a funeral service. This is the fourth Mother’s Day since my […]

How Technology Has Begun to Change Teaching and Learning at North Shore

On Thursday morning, Tom Doar, our Head of School, wandered into the library where I was getting ready to help work with our fifth graders on their iMovie project which I wrote about last week. He told me: On Tuesday evening, at a meeting of the strategic plan committee chairs, Pam Whalley, our Lower School Head stated that the accessibility to technology has changed the way that teaching and learning are done in the classroom, especially in the last three years. Teachers need more time to research and develop curriculum to take advantage of these new tools. Since I have […]