WHS Staff News - Week of 4/19/21

And down the stretch we go! I hope you enjoyed your Spring Break and found time to rest, relax, get things done or just be lazy. It was your time and it was well needed. As we start back up again, let's remember the article I shared, "Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teachers" and focus on those habits. We covered 3 habits so far; Find joy in others' success, Cultivate perspective and reframe, Ditch the easy caricature. I'm going to jump to #7 in the article, Maintain Passion and Playfulness. Please read the excerpt I took from the article below. It's timeless to good teaching and more than ever, we all need to be reminded of it.

Habit # 7 - Maintain passion and playfulness.
The Seven Habits of Highly Affective Teachers

Having fun with your subject and your students will give students permission to engage, even invest, in their learning, and it will elevate your spirits. There's so much stress involved in teaching today's students; moments of true passion and playfulness bring back much-needed humanity.

Save your sanity, then, by incorporating students' names into your test questions and their community culture into their projects. Use props in lessons, take on the manner of a different character from time to time as you teach, and add something startling to two of your lessons this week.

Invite a colleague to burst into your class at a specific time and blurt something related to the lesson then leave quickly as you respond to the commotion with, "That was bizarre, but by good fortune, we can use the information!" Put a mysterious box in the middle of the room with yellow police tape around it and a sign that says, "Warning: Open one week from today, only in the presence of an adult." Activities like these build a sense of wonder and curiosity in students.

Show students you don't take yourself too seriously by daring them to find a mistake in your lessons. Insert random humorous slides into your media and lesson presentations, and embrace non sequiturs from students and yourself. Let students step into your shoes by teaching a portion of a lesson (perhaps using a family-friendly puppet you have on hand). Or have a student emcee a unit review game while you take a seat as a contestant.

Speak with just as much enthusiasm about your topic during 7th period as you did in 1st period—after all, it's your students' first time hearing this lesson. Find ways to turn seemingly boring material into a great romance or heroic drama. Get manipulatives into students' hands, and ask them to build physical models of abstract and intangible things (justice, algebra, metaphor, or genetics).

Ask students to think creatively by ranking a cantaloupe, a beach ball, a suitcase, and a copy of the Magna Carta in order of importance to one of the characters in a book. Or have them compose a dialog between two punctuation marks about who's more important. Make learning fun for yourself and your students whenever you can. I can't control everything that goes on in education, you can't control that either. But what you/I can control is; Your Attitude, Your Effort, Your Behavior and Your Actions. We have overcome so much this year, let's finish with smiles, laughter, memories that our students will take with them for ever.

Free Positive PD

The Power of Positive Summit from John Gordon.  Great speakers, short videos sent to your email each day.  You can watch them on your time, decide which ones apply to you and rewatch any of them until a certain date. 

Testing Meeting (PSAT 10 / SAT)
On Wednesday, 4/21, at 2pm, there will be a testing meeting to review the testing schedule and proctoring responsibilities. Mrs. Gastman and Mr. Hagen will be running the meeting. There is a Meet link on the calendar. It will not be a long meeting.

PSAT 10 and SAT coverage schedule (4/23 & 4/27)
Here is a draft of the schedule. I am only asking grade level teachers and some elective course teachers to cover. 

April PSAT/SAT Coverage (See link in Email)

For each testing day we will run a full virtual day for all students not testing (AM and PM classes). The expectation is that you will be teaching your classes synchronously as though it were a normal day.
4/23 (Spirit B) - 2, 4, 6, 8 PM 3 & 7
4/27 (Pride B) - 2, 4, 6, 8 PM 1 & 5

Celebrate "21" continues on Wednesday, 4/21 

All staff are welcome to stop by the turf on Wednesday at 5:45am, yes 5:45am for a Sunrise with the seniors. Bagels will be served.  

My Spring Break 

I kept myself busy with getting a few things done around the house and decided to Pay it Forward with thanking people that believed in me, before I believed in myself.  I finished three posts, but there will be more to come.  If you are interested in reading them you can find them here:  https://carrollkc.medium.com/

WHS Principal's Blog 

Music Parents Association - Cloth Drive