Week Three

Week three continued with mapping exercises, going from a small scale, 5 item map, to a larger, outdoors representation of an irregularly shaped plot of land, with numerous images represented. Some had difficulty with spatial awareness, but this is not surprising. In fact, this is why we attempted the exercises. More with mapping next week.

Students discussed books with me, and I was impressed with the love and passion they approach their reading. This is the case every year, but each August I am again struck by the love of the written word, despite other forms of media that beckon for their attention.

Maybe the most far reaching news from week three remains hidden to date. Connections are being made between our grade 6 classroom and one in Malaysia, one in Canada, and one in Mexico. Slowly we will be building relationships with students in other schools with whom we will collaborate on academic projects. We've not attempted this contact on this scale before, so it will be very interesting to see what grows out of it. Stay tuned.

Week Two

A very good week of work, though we only had 4 days to accomplish tasks. Maybe the biggest item we accomplished is the organization of homework/writing blogs. Students now have a place where they can keyboard their homework, and I can have a place where their efforts are easily accessible for evaluation and coaching comments. When I think how long it took us to get to this place last year, it gives me a good feeling to see so much progress so soon.

Open house on Thursday gave a fine forum to see parents and once again sample the feeling of how and why JIS remains such a fine place to work. When students come to school to learn and parents willingly support their child's efforts, we can accomplish great things.

Ghost Map

Ghost Map
by
Steven Johnson
*****

Ghost Map is about the story of cholera, how it spread, and how quickly and grossly it killed many, many people. What was really cool about the book is how two men thought differently about the disease. Water looked good, tasted ok, but smelled very, very badly. Most people at that time then thought you caught cholera through the smell, which seems logical. Still one scientist and one clergyman thought differently and focused on the water itself. Eventually they found the cause of the disease and were then able to eliminate cholera from the city of London.

The best part of this book, though was the detective work they were able to do and actually find the one person, the one situation where cholera began in the city. It was all about the poor sewage and sanitation at the time. One mother disposed of her baby's diaper in a septic system that was overflowing. That pollution got in the drinking water, and that caused the cholera outbreak. I thought the detective work they went through to actually find the cause of the first case was very, very cool.

I have recommended this book to my friends. Kevin Hughes has already read it and enjoyed it as much as I did, and now Christian Medina has it. I know he will love it too, especially because he is into science so much himself.

Three Day Weekends

Sometimes I wonder about 3 day weekends. There is more free time for sure, but I do a lot of schoolwork as well. It's nice to work in a more relaxed atmosphere.

Week One, 14/8/09

A gratifying day today as students went to P1 and established their blog presence. I remember last year how long it took to get to this point. Fair to say, we started at a different point, with site creation, but still we are up and ready to role with electronic homework by the end of the first week of school.

Additionally, it has been great to see the progress Tobin Zolkowski has made in class, and hugely gratifying to see students approach him and begin to communicate. It will be fascinating to see how this goes, including the attendance at signing club.

We've had a very fine opening week of being together.