Amazing Things Await Those that Can Learn

       Our school system has an event we call Future Link.  Seventh grade students come to the local community college and participate in conversations with scientists and botanists and engineers; and they think about what they want to do as an adult.  Every speaker has the same message: People and companies are doing amazing things and you can be part of this world of discovery if you work hard in school and learn as much as you can.

       I listened to a talk about the building of the James Webb Space Telescope and was amazed by the scope of the project.  Over 1000 people from 17 countries have been working on the design and building of this telescope.  Eighteen specially designed mirrors will be used.  The telescope is so big that it can't fit in the spaceship, so it had to be designed to fold in sections and then to unfold once it got into space.  Huge problems had to be solved, designed, and built.

       I was particularly impressed with the list of engineering fields that were employed by the team that build this telescope.  All sorts of specialties and specialists were needed to work together to build this amazing product.  Some of the seventh grade students in today's classrooms will one day work with the James Webb Space Telescope on its 5 to 10 year mission to identify stars and galaxies and planets and black holes that we (today) don't even know exist.

       It's amazing and it all starts in school.  Math, Science, Technology, Coding, English, Foreign Languages; everything that are students learn today will one day be used to do amazing things.  I can't wait to see their future.

The Science of Learning

       This is an exciting time to be a teacher.  The field of education, like medicine and energy and information technology, is growing in the knowledge domain.  We are constantly learning more about how children learn and the best ways to help them to learn.  Brain research and its connections to learning have been able to provide to our teachers simple strategies to help students to learn.  For instance, we now know that our student's brains grow and thrive when they are able to have good social connections with other students.  Therefore, we need to provide time for student-to-student discourse in the learning environments of our classrooms.  We know that the brain and the body are interwoven and are built to help each other.  That's why it is important for students to get up and out of their seats regularly during class time; and recess is an important part of learning and brain development.  Also, we know that fear and stress prevent students from doing their best in school because our brains are designed to err on the side of caution.  Fear shuts down our student's ability to explore and to try new things because their brains are more concerned with staying safe.

       In the past, teachers and relied on their own experiences as students themselves and later on their own teaching experience to help them to reach their students.  But this is never going to be good enough because we are all limited in our experiences to a particular school or a particular town or a particular age group of students.  The research findings and subsequent professional development about these findings help our teachers to learn about learning beyond what they see in their classrooms.  Initiatives such as Blended Learning, Universal Design for Learning, and Flipped Classrooms all stem from relatively recent research on how children learn best and how to incorporate these research findings into the classroom.

       Of course all of these exciting frontiers in education require (at least) some level of changing from the "known" image of the classroom to something different--and that can be scary for some people.  Present-day parents who sat in neat rows in every classroom and rarely spoke in class and worked on (the now-dreaded) worksheets all day long may be against anything different from what they experienced simply because "It worked for me."  That's why the research is so important.  It isn't some guy with and idea, it is actual science that is informing us of the most effective classroom strategies to help students to learn.  This is a good change for our students and a necessary change.

       This is an exciting time to be a teacher!

We Want to See You Everyday

     Public schools have something for everyone.  Aside from the "core four" subjects of Math, Science, English, and Social Studies, schools offer Art, Music, Physical Education, and Foriegn Language.  But even more than that, schools at every level offer all sorts of clubs and teams and groups for students to join and to learn more about.

     While school is mandatory for all students, we know that students will not come to school everyday if they don't feel a good and positive connection to their school.  We also know that students who come to school everyday tend to have better grades (see chart).

     Of course, it makes sense that you have to be in school to learn.  We know that students who are absent a lot, often struggle to keep up academically.

     Sometimes we have students who struggle in their core-four subjects, but love Art and Music and come to school everyday because they don't want to miss their Art and Music classes.  Even these students will do better in Math and Science than students with poor attendance--just because they come to school everyday.  And maybe as they grow up, they will learn to actually enjoy their Math and Science classes more!

     Every day counts in school; every day is important.  And, we want to see you everyday because we like to see your smiliing faces too!  So come to school to learn, to play, to socialize, to be on team--but be sure to come to school everyday.