7th Grade Christmas Project!

What an inspiring piece of work by members of Mr. Nicholson's 7th grade home room and what a great way to begin the New Year!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9hYLIXrgeU

Wright's Law

What is IT all About?

Perhaps it is Christmas, or my age, or the fact that we have had lots of wonderful times exploring Japan with my son over the break but it is that time of the year when I find myself asking those big questions of life and particularly about education.  Is education really about getting into that top college?  Is it about graduating #1 in the class so that you can go on to become rich and/or famous as you go through this world?  Or is it about discovering Wright's Law about the universe and what it means to be truly human?

How do we help our student's find that pathway that will lead to the love that Mr. Wright teaches through his physics class and through the modeling he does with his family?  How do we instill both the love of learning and the love of helping make the world a better place through reaching out to others in need of kindness?  It would be a good use of your time and the time of your son to watch this video clip sometime over the holiday and to take some time to discuss it.  How do we teach those things that really matter while, at the same time, instilling a passion for learning and not for just enduring homework or for figuring out how to get good grades?

Wright's Law

Teach Your Children Well

Teach Your Children Well

I thought a guest editorial by a friend of mine in the USA was worth sharing.  Take a look at:  http://www.decorahnews.com/news-stories/2012/12/4349.html  and think about how important it is to take the time to teach your children about some core values that help shape our world.  I believe the line, "First we create our habits and then our habits create us" is especially true for children.  What habits are we creating for our boys both at home and at school?

Sandy Hook Elementary Tragedy

 

Mental Health in Schools

 

     The utter and profound sadness that the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy in the USA has created for all of us leaves me with wondering exactly how we begin the conversation with each other and with our students at St. Mary's International Middle School about what it all means for us as families, as a school, and as a school community..  The article I have linked to the title of this entry above points to the reality that this adolescent boy and, usually it is adolescent boys involved with these horrific tragedies, not only had access to an obscene number of guns but also that there is no doubt that he was not getting the kind of treatment for his mental illness that would prevent a young mind to do such an awful thing.

     It seems as if our society and ours schools just cannot figure out how to create a system of prevention as opposed to a system of reaction and then it is only a reactive system when a disaster occurs.  When is it that we will collective ask "Have We Had Enough?" and begin to realize that these are average children who are doing these things,  children who attend average schools, children who are part of everyday families but also children who suffer from mental illness.  Is there anything that we can collectively do to be sure that our students are as mentally healthy as they can possibly be?  I offer a few suggestions.

1. Know your child well and tend to both their physical and mental well-being.  Primarily this means to spend lots of time with them doing all kinds of healthy physical and mentally healthy activities with them.
2. Do not turn the transmission of values over to media and to the internet.  Be sure that your child knows what you value and help them to acquire values by modeling the values you hope to transmit to your child.
3. Monitor the kinds of video games that children play and videos they watch and don't believe that constant violence does not desensitize your child to violence.
4. Know your child's friends and try to get to know the parents of these friends.
5. Do not ignore signs that your son is struggling with some level of mental health issues.  Do not be shy or afraid about checking out these signs out with a professional health professional.  Do not believe that your child will "grow out" of these unhealthy behaviors.
6. Take notice if there is a sudden change of performance, a change of friends, a change of attitude toward you, or a change of sleeping or eating habits.  Do not chalk it up to adolescent behaviors alone. 
7. Do not be afraid of talking with teachers and counselors about issues related to your son.  Know that you are not the first one and won't be the last one who have dealt with difficult issues.
8. Treat any violent behavior whether it is violence toward animals, violence toward siblings, violence toward you or violence toward peers seriously.  Bullying behaviors clearly fall into violent behaviors and should not be taken lightly or as a matter of "Boys will be boys."
9. Acknowledge that issues need to be dealt with as a family systems matter.  Changing the behavior of your child will mean a change of behavior in family systems.
10. Know where your child is, what they are doing, who they are doing things with and hold them accountable for their behavior 24 hrs. a day, 7 days a week.   Adolescence is a particularly important time in the development of a boy's brain and helping them through this critical stage requires that parents and other adults are actively monitoring their behavior and assuring that they are safe both physically and psychologically.

At the end of the day, we need to keep the conversation going.  We need to sit up and pay close attention to the physical and psychologically needs of our boys and realize that that this takes hard work on the part of parents and on the part of the school.  We need to take control of what our boys are exposed to and to provide the kind of guidance and support that will result in healthy development for them in a very complicated and fast changing world.



Hallelujah!

Hallelujah Chorus

Created and performed by a group of 5th graders with a teacher who was a former student of mine at Luther College, this Hallelujah Chorus will put a smile on your face no matter how many times you might watch it.  With over millions of hits on the internet and because of the many contributions that were sent it in response to it, a scholarship fund has been set up to help support the children in this very poor village as they look toward a college education.  Much can be accomplished with some good ideas and some good energy.

Happy Holidays.

Service Learning

Service Learning

Soccer for Peace

"Sport has the ability to change the world."-Nelson Mandela

     Throughout my career I have held the belief that linking learning to service should be the ultimate focus of an education.  If we can find the intersection between "students' greatest passions and the world's greatest needs" (Fredrick Buehner) we will have students who will come away from their education prepared to make a difference in this world.  St. Mary's International School is a school that priorities Christian values in the lives of our students and encourages them to live a life that contributes to the greater good in this world.

     One of the most ambitious service learning projects I help organize and sponsor was a service learning trip to Accra, Ghana with a group of college students who linked their passion for soccer with a focus on conflict resolution with middle school students in Ghana.  This project attempted to help young people understand that the ultimate purpose of sport is to learn about life, to help solve conflict between people, and to focus on what we all have in common as opposed to looking at our differences.

    I am hoping to instill an attitude of service with students at St. Mary's International Middle School as we move forward throughout this year and as we move into next.  Through the second quarter "STAR" program, all students are working on individual, family or class service projects with the hope of igniting some interest in this important aspects of education.  Service learning is not about fundraising alone but rather about working side by side with others to learn about their lives, about their struggles, about their stories and to focus on what we have in common as opposed to focusing on our differences.

    Thanks for your efforts to continue to build an attitude and habits of service with your sons.  We need citizens and leaders who are not focused on individual needs but rather on the needs of our communities, our countries and our world as we look toward the future of the planet.