Helping students find purpose.

In his article, “The Moral North Star,” William Damon urges educators to help students connect what they do in school to their lives. All of us in education like to believe that we can help students find out what they are great at! It’s a phrase I’ve used at various Freshman Orientations and other occasions a number of times to encourage students to get involved, try everything, and explore all of their potential talents.

In order for students to connect with school, with classes, with a team, or with something larger then themselves, they must become aware that they make a difference. “My actions matter” must be a thought that is real to students according to Damon. That means that educators have to help students discover a way to “contribute something of value through an engaging activity” that draws on academic, athletic, or artistic skills. In this time of accountability through standardized testing, Damon warns us not to forget that our purpose is to get “students to see the knowledge and skills we expect them to learn as important to their own lives and aspirations.” For some students who are academically motivated in the conventional sense, they will study hard to get good grades and meet all graduation requirements. More and more though, students need to understand the “purpose behind the requirements.” Damon’s question to us is “why should a particular student bother to learn the knowledge offered in school and strive to use it in a masterful and ethical way – that is, aim for intellectual and moral excellence?”

That is a great question for all to ponder!

It’s intimidating to the teacher who feels that questions like that only “distract attention away from the subject matter that schools are expected to convey.” But Damon argues the point with an opposite approach: “Only when students discover personal meaning in their work do they apply their efforts with focus and imagination.” Some students need a connection between short-term goals and purpose.

Most of us want to know, as we are doing something, where it will lead. So do our students!

Damon sums it up best –“Purpose acts as a moral north star on the route to excellence.”

It is amazing how much you can learn...

Anna Quindlen, in her graduation speech turned book, A Short Guide to a Happy Life, writes, “It is amazing how much you can learn in just one year.” Her quote is great advice for learners of all ages. Maintaining openness for discovery from each experience and challenge faced, promotes continuous learning. And, as educators, it is essential to model the idea of continuous learning. Any classroom teacher knows how much is learned just from interactions and experiences with students over the course of a year!

To Quindlen’s thought I would add the following: It is amazing how much you can learn from a great teacher in just one year. Embodying what we believe to be true as educators, this statement reminds us what an awesome responsibility we have! Every day in every classroom of the Bolton Public Schools, we are shaping a generation of learners. The community of Bolton is fortunate to have a dedicated group of adults who come to together each year and provide an education with a foundation of high quality academic offerings, artistic and musical opportunities, athletic programs, and a multitude of activities.

Improving schools is a shared responsibility!

Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Richard Elmore is a highly a highly respected author and visionary for educational improvement. Elmore believes that lasting improvement in schools is a result of “distributed leadership.” In School Reform from the Inside Out, Elmore redefines the role of leaders to be “primarily about enhancing the skills and knowledge of people in the organization, creating a common culture of expectations around those skills and knowledge, holding the various pieces of the organization together in a productive relationship with each other, and holding individuals accountable for their contributions to the collective accounts.”

Elmore describes five foundational principles for a model of successful distributed leadership:

1. All leaders, regardless of role, should be working at the improvement of instructional practice and performance, rather than working to shield their institutions from outside interference.

2. All educators should take part in continuous learning, and be open to having their ideas and practices subjected to the scrutiny of their colleagues.

3. Leaders must be able to model the behaviors, the learning, and the instructional knowledge they seek from their teachers.

4. The roles and activities of leadership should flow from the differences in expertise among the individuals involved, not from the formal dictates of the institution.

5. Policymakers should discover and take into account the circumstances that make doing the work possible, and provide the resources necessary for improvement.

In fact, Elmore drives the point home by declaring “in knowledge-intensive enterprises like teaching and learning, there is no way to perform these complex tasks without widely distributing the responsibility for leadership among the roles in the organization.”

In a distributed leadership model, everyone plays the role of leader, but it is up to the Superintendent, Principals, other administrators, and the Board of Education to implement and nurture this model.

I’m convinced that no one would argue against any of this. Where schools run into difficulty is that the nature of our school structure is counterproductive to shared leadership. The teacher is often viewed as the lone autonomous practitioner in the classroom with their day organized around set chunks of teaching time. This plays against an emphasis on collaborative work, conversations on improvement, and a team process of improvement. Implementing a strategy using the instructional rounds model is designed to open classrooms and engage leaders and teachers is conversation, collaboration, and a team approach.

As we implement instructional rounds in Bolton, colleagues will engage in conversations that create a “normative environment around a specific approach to instruction…characterized by clear and binding expectations among teachers, among students and teachers, and among principals and teachers.” Instructional rounds ultimately promote clear expectations for student learning, fostering “coherence on basic aims and values.” This coherence is key in leading to a sense of distributed leadership – with our priorities being high quality instruction and the improvement of student learning.

The debate continues: Homework is essential – that is, if it’s well-designed homework!

ASCD’s Dina Strasser, in her blog, The Line, also available at: http://ascd.typepad.com/blog, tackles the homework question by referring to Robert Marzano.

Based on Marzano’s work, Art & Science of Teaching, Strasser indicates that,

“It is essential for students to not merely be exposed to new knowledge, but actively and authentically work with the knowledge… When teaching procedural skills (how to accomplish something step by step), you also need to allow students to practice those skills. This practice should be frequent and simple at first, giving way to more complex activities. Importantly, students should reflect consistently on their own use of the procedures and come to an understanding that works for them individually: changing, adding, or deleting steps as necessary. When teaching declarative knowledge (concepts or ideas), you need to create activities that allow students to review and revise. By making active corrections, connections, and reflections, students incorporate their knowledge into their long-term memories, like pressing pieces of pottery into a mosaic.”

Marzano himself provides a guide for homework:

- Homework needs to be completed in order to produce the highest achievement gains. Design it with ease of completion in mind.
- A large amount of homework does not result in better learning.
- Homework should be academically purposeful, not a punishment or a symbol of the seriousness of study.
- Homework should be explicitly tied to the current learning goals of the class.
- Homework should be able to be completed without adult assistance.
- Parents or guardians should not be expected to act as content experts.
- Parents should, however, be provided with clear homework guidelines.
- Assignments that involve using the parents' expertise or personal experiences (such as interviews) are often successful.

Practicing skills is very important in learning. Brain research clearly indicates a connection between practice and mastery. However, homework should move beyond practice.

It is clear that good assessments are based on authentic learning situations. It’s time to include homework as an opportunity for real-world, authentic application of skills. If teachers are true to the providing authentic learning, then it is important for our students to grasp the concept that not all learning will take place in the classroom. If our goals include creating life-long learners, then there should be discovery outside of the classroom in order to facilitate the connection between learning and life. Curiosity should be encouraged at home. Connections should be made wherever the student happens to be. Creativity needs to be sparked at any moment of inspiration.

With that said, how can schools not design well-planned homework experiences that encourage all of the above? It is possible to create homework that allows for practicing skills and discovery, creativity, and new learning.

How did you celebrate Mother’s Day? Did you go to a Swine Flu party, compare Alpo to luxurious foods, or did you give mom a musical card?

In the category of “signs of the time”:

1. The CDC is not only concerned about the outbreak of the swine flu, they are concerned about the sudden outbreak of “swine flu” parties. It seems that several moms have decided it is best to expose their children to the current mild (?) case of swine flu, allowing little Johnny to build up immunity now. Later this year when a more virulent form of the virus surfaces (?), their child will be protected. Maybe the children need protection from mom! Imagine the Mother’s Day card: Thank you mom for exposing me to the virus! I can tell you care!

By the way, the CDC actually has a recommendation about swine flu parties on their website (www.cdc.gov).

"Swine flu parties" are gatherings during which people have close contact with a person who has novel H1N1 flu in order to become infected with the virus. The intent of these parties is to become infected with what for many people has been a mild disease, in the hope of having natural immunity to the novel H1N1 flu virus that might circulate later and cause more severe disease.

CDC does not recommend "swine flu parties" as a way to protect against novel H1N1 flu in the future. While the disease seen in the current novel H1N1 flu outbreak has been mild for many people, it has been severe and even fatal for others. There is no way to predict with certainty what the outcome will be for an individual or, equally important, for others to whom the intentionally infected person may spread the virus.

2. Research was conducted recently comparing Alpo to several delectable treats. If you couldn’t afford to take mom out this year for Mother’s Day, consider the following as reported by The Week (5/15/09):

Researchers presented volunteers with five types of mashed-up food, including pate’, duck liver mousse, and dog food, and found that only three of the 18 were able to correctly distinguish the dog food form the pate’, the mousse, and the liverwurst.

Why bother with niceties, when mom can’t tell the difference? (I certainly hope the research was not conducted with the aid of stimulus funds!)

3. What would Mother’s Day be without cards? Beware those musical cards, which, by the way, cost about $3.00 more than those already overpriced folded pieces of paper that we splurge on several times a year!

It was recently reported that an 82-year old German man called the police and complained that the neighbors were playing the same song over and over all night and all day. Upon visiting the man, the police found a musical card sent to him positioned by his window. The breeze caused the card to open and play a tune. The title of the song was not reported. You can fill in that blank!

National Teacher Appreciation Week, May 4-8, 2009

After decades of school improvement efforts centered on restructuring, curriculum standards, accountability, and testing, influential voices in school reform – President Barack Obama, the philanthropist Bill Gates, and national business leaders among them – have reached a novel consensus: The classroom teacher is crucial to learning. Policy elites, it would seem, have finally caught up with folk wisdom of parents and students. (Larry Cuban in EdWeek, 4/29/09)

What a nice thought during the week of appreciation for all of our teachers!

“Crucial” is really the key word! On a daily basis schools are asking teachers to develop common formative assessments, look at classroom data in teams, improve classroom results in every area, differentiate instruction for the success of all learners, respond and intervene in a systematic way when students in their classroom are not learning, master a plethora of instructional strategies, mentor students, coach students, parent students, and hold students to uncompromising standards of excellence.

Step back and say “thank you” to a teacher today!

Columbine. It must be read. It must be addressed.

Dave Cullen’s new book is a must for every student, parent, teacher, and school official. It’s a book about real people in a real life situation. It’s scary how evil, how innocent, how lost, and how ordinary the various characters are and how common the situations are to our own schools and communities. The student killers were organized, methodical, and diabolical – and their families, fellow students, school, and community had no reason to notice the clues.

I spent ten years covering Columbine, and was struck by how complex and

consuming it was. So many fascinating people, such rich stories, all knotted together.

I was compelled by two questions: what drove these killers,

and what did they do to this town? That's what I set out to tell.

From Dave Cullen

How to teach Reasoning, Resilience, and Responsibility

Advice from Robert Sternberg (Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, Tufts University) in his article, “Excellence for All” in Educational Leadership, V.66, No.2:

1. Emphasize excellence for all – not just those at the top, bottom, or middle of the distribution – and recognize diverse forms of excellence.

2. Provide all students with opportunities to learn through multiple intelligences.

3. Value subject matter not only as important in its own right but also as a vehicle for teaching students to think creatively.

4. Value creative thinking applied to a knowledge base, recognizing that knowledge forms the backbone for creativity.

5. Teach students to apply their learning to practical, real-world problems.

6. Promote students’ dialogical thinking ­– the ability to understand things from multiple viewpoints and to appreciate diversity.

7. Promote students’ dialectical thinking – the understanding that what is “true” now may not be true in the future and may not have been true in the past.

8. Teach students to take personal responsibility for mistakes and learn from them.

9. Teach students to care about people other than themselves and to think about the effects of their actions on others and institutions, both in the present and in the future.

10. Teach students to use their knowledge ethically, promoting universal values like sincerity, integrity, honesty, reciprocity, and compassion.

The danger of “energy drinks.” Read the label for ingredients!

It’s become very common to see students walking the halls of high school at 7:30 AM holding a can of Red Bull, Monster Energy drink, or a can from a whole assortment of unregulated drinks on the market, but parents and students should be warned that it may not be the ideal breakfast!

Teenagers are rapidly becoming the top consumers of energy drinks. Over 500 new brands were launched this year, giving teens a wide variety of styles, flavors and sizes to choose from. Although commonly marketed like sports drinks, which replenish some important nutrients lost during vigorous exercise, energy drinks have little proven nutritional value. Furthermore, the potential side effects should lead parents to give energy drinks a second thought.

Caffeine is the primary “boost” ingredient in energy drinks and potentially the most dangerous element. The drinks can also include sugar, taurine, ginseng, and other stimulants, such as ephedrine. Recently, health professionals have become concerned with the amount of caffeine consumed by teenagers, from energy drinks and other sources.

The side effects teenagers may experience from caffeine can range from stomach upsets, irritability and sleep disruption, to blood pressure changes and heart arrhythmias for those sensitive to stimulants. In particular, the risk of cardiovascular complications increases when energy drinks are combined with other drugs or stimulants, such as caffeine pills.

The real danger teens face is forming a dependence on energy drinks, which is very easy in light of hectic school, activities, sports and part-time job schedules…Teens often assume that the caffeine in these drinks will allow them to get by on only six to seven hours of sleep per night, far short of the nine hours they need at this age. They believe the drinks will restore normal alertness levels or, even more dangerous, reverse the effects of alcohol. There is no research to indicate this is true.

While European countries such as France and Sweden have banned certain energy drinks, the FDA currently does not regulate them in the United States and does not require manufacturers to list the amount of caffeine in foods and beverages. Without this information, teenagers (and parents) are unaware of the amount of caffeine they are consuming, which can further lead to dependency. Breaking a caffeine dependency can be very difficult and produce a wide variety of withdrawal symptoms for teens, from mood alterations and headaches to impairments in school and athletic performance.

From:

www.lifespan.org/services/nutrition/articles/energydrinks.htm

Energy drinks are beverages like Red Bull, Venom, Adrenaline Rush, 180, and ISO Sprint, which contain large doses of caffeine and other legal stimulants like guarana and ginseng. Energy drinks may contain as much as 80 mg of caffeine, the equivalent of a cup of coffee. Compared to the 37 mg. of caffeine in a Mountain Dew, or the 23 mg. in a Coca-Cola Classic, that's a big punch. These drinks are marketed to people under 30, especially to high school and college students, and are widely available…

·

From: www.brown.edu/Student_Services/Health_Services/Health_Education/atod/energydrinks.htm

8.3 ounces of Red Bull contain 80 milligrams of caffeine

16 ounces of Dunkin Donuts Coffee contain 143 milligrams of caffeine

23.5 ounces of Jolt Energy contain 280 milligrams of caffeine

22 ounces of Rockstar Punched Guava contain 330 milligrams of caffeine

2.5 ounces of Redline Power Rush contains 350 milligrams of caffeine

0.17 ounces of FIXX Extreme contain 400 milligrams of caffeine

From:

www.energyfiend.com/the-caffeine-database - The most complete list of beverage caffeine content online.

Isn’t it already tough enough keeping cell phones out of schools?

Cellular News (www.cellular-news.com/story/36648.php) recently reported that curing teenage depression may be as simple as letting teenagers keep and use their cell phones. Having a cell phone glued to your ears at all hours of the day and night, at school or with friends, seems to be therapeutic because it is claimed that students communicate more effectively using the cell phone.

Perhaps these researchers are of the philosophy that taking cell phones away from students is like taking candy from a baby.

In the Cellular News story, “Using Mobile Phones to Monitor Teenage Mental Health,” a study is described in which one’s mental health status is tracked using a cell phone. But the “key” finding is that mental health problems can be treated by cell phones, as the process of monitoring one’s mental health provides an opportunity to express feelings via cell phones – feelings that seem difficult to express verbally. (Perhaps this is because verbal communication is passé in the cellular world?)

A program that uses mobile phones to track the mental health of young people suffering depression will be evaluated through funding from the Telstra Foundation to see if it is suitable to treat youth depression nationwide.

Following the successful world-first pilot of Mobiletype developed by the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI), the Telstra Foundation has committed a Social Innovation Grant worth $285,000 over two years as part of its ongoing community investment commitment.

The Mobiletype pilot assisted doctors to help treat 14 to 24-year-olds with mental health concerns through the use of mobile phones. The program monitored each young person's mood, stress levels, coping strategies, alcohol and cannabis use, exercise, eating patterns and general lifestyle factors.

Participants answered the Mobiletype program questions on a programmed mobile asking them about how they were feeling. The responses were sent to a website interface which evaluated and assessed each patient's mental well-being and produced an individual report for the doctor to help them determine what treatment was required.

Doctors involved in the pilot program said that the feedback report assisted them to gain a better insight into the mental well-being of more than 90 per cent of their patients and that 81 per cent of their patients had a better understanding of their own mental well-being after receiving their doctor's feedback.

Telstra Foundation Chairman, Herb Elliott AC, MBE, said mobile technology had a crucial role to play in facilitating the work of the institute, led by Research Fellow Dr Sophie Reid .

"The work that Dr Sophie Reid and her team are doing at MCRI pushes the boundaries in mental health treatment. Mobiletype will use technology to help unravel some of the confusion around youth depression and help doctors get the information they need to treat their patients in the best way possible," he said.

Dr Reid said that one challenge in detecting youth depression is the difficulty some young patients have in communicating their mental health issues to their GPs.

"Mobiletype capitalizes on the familiarity young people have communicating via SMS to help them express their feelings and have their mental well-being effectively assessed," said Dr Reid.

Hmm…this whole study sounds a little suspicious to me.

First, an outfit known as “Cellular News” would likely promote all things cellular. The market was saturated until the “smart” phones emerged. Now you never need to let go of your phone.

Second, using the cell phone to monitor depression just doesn’t sound like the solution to curing depression. A depressed teen needs human contact and not the isolation that celling/texting/surfing promotes under the guise of enhanced communication. Hiding behind a phone and calling it a cure sounds like the initial problem is only enhanced.

Third, if one can only express themselves through mobile-type, how does that service them in school, at work, in college, in face-to-face situations?

Technology is great – but while it may increase our ability to connect with others, it hardly promotes human communication with others.

And…it is no cure!

“Singing” the praise of music in education.

Science Daily (March 16, 2009), “sings” the praise of music education in improving reading skills. The premise is not new. According to the article, “Children exposed to a multi-year program of music involving training in increasingly complex rhythmic, tonal, and practical skills display superior cognitive performance in reading skills compared with their non-musically trained peers, according to a study published in the journal Psychology of Music.”

Simply put, an organized music education program will enhance reading skills in students.

According to authors Joseph M. Piro and Camilo Ortiz from Long Island University, USA, data from this study will help to clarify the role of music study on cognition and shed light on the question of the potential of music to enhance school performance in language and literacy.

Studying children in two U.S. elementary schools, one of which routinely trained children in music and one that did not, Piro and Ortiz aimed to investigate the hypothesis that children who have received keyboard instruction as part of a music curriculum increasing in difficulty over successive years would demonstrate significantly better performance on measures of vocabulary and verbal sequencing than students who did not receive keyboard instruction.

Several studies have reported positive associations between music education and increased abilities in non-musical (eg, linguistic, mathematical, and spatial) domains in children. The authors say there are similarities in the way that individuals interpret music and language and “because neural response to music is a widely distributed system within the brain…. it would not be unreasonable to expect that some processing networks for music and language behaviors, namely reading, located in both hemispheres of the brain would overlap.”

The aim of this study was to look at two specific reading sub skills – vocabulary and verbal sequencing – which, according to the authors, are “are cornerstone components in the continuum of literacy development and a window into the subsequent successful acquisition of proficient reading and language skills such as decoding and reading comprehension.”

Using a quasi-experimental design, the investigators selected second-grade children from two school sites located in the same geographic vicinity and with similar demographic characteristics, to ensure the two groups of children were as similar as possible apart from their music experience.

Children in the intervention school (n=46) studied piano formally for a period of three consecutive years as part of a comprehensive instructional intervention program. Children attending the control school (n=57) received no formal musical training on any musical instrument and had never taken music lessons as part of their general school curriculum or in private study. Both schools followed comprehensive balanced literacy programs that integrate skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening.

All participants were individually tested to assess their reading skills at the start and close of a standard 10-month school year using the Structure of Intellect (SOI) measure.

Results analyzed at the end of the year showed that the music-learning group had significantly better vocabulary and verbal sequencing scores than did the non-music-learning control group. This finding, conclude the authors, provides evidence to support the increasingly common practice of “educators incorporating a variety of approaches, including music, in their teaching practice in continuing efforts to improve reading achievement in children”.

Note to educators: Do not pull students with deficits in reading out of their music classes! Intervention is important to struggling readers; however, to remediate in reading at the expense of music clearly is a move that does not pay off. Pulling students out of the arts is all too common in our schools. A direct result of NCLB’s focus on improved reading and math skills, this practice may end up doing much more harm than good.

Is there any evidence that a student, denied exposure to the arts, will make progress in academics with more time exposure to academics? Is there any evidence that teaching reading twice as long to certain students increases the skill in which reading is taught?

By the way, the argument of music as a skill for its own sake is still a justifiable reason for enhancing the artistic development of every child.

The argument is not content over skills…it’s all about the mind!

There was a great debate recently that played out in the press over the publicity that the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (www.21stcenturyskills.org) has been receiving. In a recent article in Ed Week (www.edweek.org), “Backers of ‘21st Century Skills’ Take Flak” by Stephen Sawchuk, the debate over whether skills acquisition shuts out important content (or stressing content reduces mastery of necessary skills for employment and life success) moves to the forefront.

But perhaps both sides should stop for a minute and listen to the always wise Howard Gardner. In an article in The School Administrator (February 2009), Gardner takes the focus of the instructional strategies and places the emphasis on the student. Gardner’s focus is on the mind of the student and the kind of minds that educators should “cultivate” for the future. He has five suggestions, which are reproduced below from the article:

• The disciplined mind – By this, Gardner means learning what it means to think mathematically, scientifically, historically, and artistically. This must go deeper than memorizing facts and figures, he says. Nowadays, mastering more than one discipline, or at least having multiple perspectives, is at a premium. A level of knowledge and perspective is vital for the other four qualities.

• The synthesizing mind – With so much information bombarding us, the most valued quality in the 21st century, says Gardner (drawing on the work of Murray Gell-Mann), is one that “can survey a wide range of sources, decide which is most important and worth paying attention to, and then put this information together in ways that make sense to oneself and, ultimately, to others… Those who can synthesize well for themselves will rise to the top of their pack, and those whose syntheses make sense to others will be invaluable teachers, communicators, and leaders.”

• The creating mind – Those with this quality are “eager to take chances, to venture into the unknown, to fall flat on his or her face, and then, smiling, pick oneself up and once more jump into the fray,” says Gardner. Americans value creativity, but it can be squashed by unwise practices, he says: “Educators protect creativity by encouraging multiple approaches to an assignment, asking students to explain their apparently flawed responses, and rewarding those who make mistakes but then learn from them.” Creativity doesn’t happen in a vacuum, says Gardner. You need disciplinary knowledge and some ability to synthesize. “You can’t think outside the box unless you have a box!” he says.

• The respectful mind – In the 21st-century we will all encounter thousands of people from widely differing backgrounds. “A person possessed of a respectful mind welcomes this exposure to diverse persons and groups,” says Gardner. “A truly cosmopolitan individual gives others the benefit of the doubt; displays initial trust; tries to form links; and avoids prejudicial judgments.” Parents, schools, and leaders in the outside world all shape children’s level of respectfulness.

• The ethical mind – Adolescents and young adults ask questions like, “What kind of person do I want to be? What kind of worker do I want to be? What kind of citizen do I want to be? What would the world be like if all persons behaved the way that I do…?” Parents and schools play an important part in guiding this quest. Ideally, an ethical person lives in accordance with the answers, even when they go against self-interest.

Don’t ever lose focus that we teach children. Debate all you want about content and skills!

When will we stop accepting senseless losses?

Excerpts from WFSB in Connecticut –

A man driving drunk and going the wrong way with his lights off early Saturday crashed head-on into a van, killing a college student who was headed to Africa on a spring break medical aid mission, police said.

The wrong-way driver, Daniel Musser, slammed into the van around 3:45 a.m. while it was headed south on Interstate 395 in Montville, about 45 miles southeast of Hartford, police said.

The vehicle was traveling south in the northbound lanes of Interstate 395 in Montville when it hit the students' van, causing the van to flip. The van was carrying eight Connecticut College students.

Elizabeth Durante, a 20-year-old junior and a trained emergency medical technician from West Islip, N.Y., was partially thrown from the van and died at the scene. She had planned to one day become a doctor.

"The Connecticut College community suffered a heartbreaking loss this morning," the school responded in a statement.

The other seven passengers were taken to area hospitals and treated, according to a statement from the college.

Police have charged Daniel Musser, 22, of Groton, Conn., with second-degree manslaughter with a motor vehicle, second-degree assault under influence, reckless endangerment, driving while intoxicated, driving the wrong way on a highway and operating without minimum insurance.

Police said the students were on their way to the airport because they planned to spend spring break on a special mission in Kaberamaido, Uganda, to provide orphaned children and other village residents with medical services and supplies. The trip was through the Asayo Wish Foundation and was organized by Durante and another student.
Durante, a certified emergency medical technician, had been on a similar trip to South Africa in 2007, and it affected her so greatly that she organized her first trip to the Ugandan village last year, according to a December 2007 story on her by the college's public affairs office.

In the story, Durante said she hoped to become a surgeon, "something intense enough to fulfill the EMT adrenaline-junkie I know will always be inside of me."

"I love the connection with other human beings that medicine offers," Durante said. "No matter where they grew up, how old they are, how rich or poor - a patient is a patient."

Connecticut College is providing counseling for students who are on campus. More counseling will be available when classes resume after spring break.

"Elizabeth was a student of enormous talent, commitment and compassion. Her passing is an incalculable loss to our community. Our deepest sympathies are with Elizabeth's family and with her many friends on campus," Connecticut College President Leo I. Higdon Jr. said in a statement.



A life of a vibrant, driven, selfless young woman cut short.


Senseless.


Will we just accept losses like this as senseless?

There’s many ways to save money – even if it’s not educationally wise!

Dave Weber of the Orlando Sentinel reports that Florida public schools have the answer to tight budgets.

Make the school week four days long instead of five. What’s an extra 40-45 days of school worth?

School boards have been mumbling for months that a four-day school week would save a bundle on utility bills, diesel fuel for buses and certain other expenses, if only state law would permit it. Now some legislators are pushing just such a proposal.

"School boards and superintendents all around the state have been asking for this flexibility," said Sen. Evelyn Lynn, R-Daytona Beach, a veteran lawmaker who has filed a bill to make the change during the upcoming legislative session.

Under her plan, schools no longer would be required to be open 180 days a year, as long as they put in the same number of hours. The common interpretation of the plan would be to have four longer school days.School-district officials aren't eager to go to a shorter week, which they acknowledge could be detrimental to students. But they see a four-day week as a desperation move that may be necessary if state funding for education continues to decline.

"It is not something that anybody would want to do, but it would save a whole lot of money," said Cindy Barrow, a Lake County School Board member.

Weber reports that Education Commissioner Eric Smith has warned Florida schools to expect a 15% state funding cut. That threat, along with local concerns has caused notion of the four day week to surface.

Officials in school districts across the region say such an extreme funding reduction would be devastating and would force them to take extreme measures to cover it.

"Everything is on the table right now until we see what the budget cuts are going to be," said Peg Smith, superintendent of Volusia County schools.

Weber also reports that there are several states in which rural districts have explored the shorter school week, including Colorado, Idaho, Louisiana, Minnesota and Montana.

Talk to teachers about this idea. While the economy is demanding drastic measures, it just doesn’t seem right to play with the school schedule especially when we are being told that students need more time in schools and more focus on instructional hours during the school day. Four longer days will not equate to the cutting of 20 percent of the week.

Talk to students about this. Do students really need more unstructured time? If the point of the four day week is to save on utilities and support staff in the school, then the schools will be closed preventing additional activities to keep the students busy during their hiatus. How many students will make good use of this free time?

Talk to parents about this. Ask the parents of younger children who work the traditional work week of five days what day care or babysitting charges will do their own budgets at this point.

Eighty percent is just not good enough for our students.

Here is the one thing for which duct tape cannot be used!

According to Meranda Watling of the Indianapolis Star (www.indystar.com), a teacher from the Tippecanoe School District is in a very “sticky” situation.

Watling reports that the “Tippecanoe Schools has dismissed a veteran teacher who reportedly duct-taped a student's mouth shut.”

OK…bad judgment noted there.

“In a letter to the School Board dated Dec. 19, Superintendent Scott Hanback recommended ending Battle Ground Middle School teacher Pamela Dahnke's contract. The School Board voted Wednesday to cancel her contract.”

It seems that the “Battle Ground” for taped mouths centers right at this appropriately named school!

“Dahnke, an 18-year veteran of Tippecanoe County schools and a former high school softball coach, taught eighth-grade health and nutrition.”

Perhaps the health curriculum taught by the teacher did not cover the negative self esteem adolescents can experience when demoralized and embarrassed by adult role models in their life.

“Dahnke has been on paid leave since September, when a special-needs student accused her of taping his mouth shut.”

It would seem logical that taping the mouth shut was probably not in that special needs student’s IEP nor discussed at any PPT. It is hard to imagine that it was ever conceived as a modification to the student’s instruction.

“‘On September 30, 2008, Ms. Dahnke placed duct tape over a student's mouth during class in an effort to correct his excess talking,’ the letter states. ‘Placing duct tape over a student's mouth for approximately half the class period (15-20 minutes) and allowing that student to leave the class with tape on his mouth demonstrates behavior which cannot be tolerated. It is good and just cause for contract termination.’”

Perhaps if she had removed the tape before he left class…?

“Dahnke said Wednesday she was unaware that the board had made a decision and had no further comment. The finding of facts and conclusions of law, which the board adopted, indicated that when confronted about the incident, Dahnke ‘stated she was very sorry and that it was intended to prove a point.’”

I think the point of all this is clear. Even duct tape has its limitations!