Week 11

October 29 - Parent/Teacher Conferences 3:00-9:00 (reports handed out at conferences)
October 31 - No School - Collaboration Day
November 1 - No School

November 3 - Daylight Savings Time Ends
November 4 - New Teachers MMD training @ 3:00 (Central Office)
November 4 - PBS Meeting
November 5 - Picture retakes
November 7 - Leadership Meeting
November 8 - Staff Hayride

November 11 - Veteran's Day
November 13 - Grade window opens
November 13, 14, 15 - 6th SINGS to Mobile, AL
November 14 - Math training - 6th grade Room 618  3:00-4:00

November 17 - Grade window closes
November 19 - 2nd Quarter Mid terms go home
November 19 - 6th grade faculty meeting 3:00
November 20 - Math training - 4th grade Room 618  3:00-4:00
November 20 - 5th grade faculty meeting 3:00
November 21 - 4th grade faculty meeting 3:00

November 25-29  No School - Thanksgiving Break

December 4 - Math training - 5th grade Room 618  3:00-4:00
December 6 - Spring Fling

December 10 - Honor Choir Concert
December 12 - Leadership Meeting

December 17 - 6th grade faculty meeting 3:00
December 18 - 5th grade faculty meeting 3:00
December 19 - 4th grade faculty meeting 3:00
December 20 - Grade window opens

December 23-January 3  No School - Christmas Break

January 5 - Grade window closes
January 7 - Math training - 6th grade Room 618  3:00-4:00
January 8  - Math training - 4th grade Room 618  3:00-4:00
January 10 - PBIS Day  Assemblies: 4th 8:00-8:40, 5th 8:50-9:30, 6th 9:40-10:20  Parties: 4th 11:20-12:20, 5th 12:20-1:20, 6th 1:20-2:20

January 13 - Math training - 5th grade Room 618  3:00-4:00

January 20 - No School
January 21 - PBConnects
January 22 - Intruder Training 8:00 at Kay Porter

Principal Perceptions

There is an interesting article in Education Week magazine entitled, "Principals, Here's How Teachers View You". The results were interesting...


69% of principals completely agree that teachers at their school feel empowered to bring problems to them.


25% of teachers completely agree they feel empowered to bring problems to their principal.

45% of teachers completely agree their principal supports teachers who start innovative work or new initiatives.

86% of principals completely agree they support teachers who start innovative work or new initiatives.

87% of principals say it is very important for teachers to have a positive working relationship with them.

81% of teachers say it is very important for them to have a positive working relationship with their principal.

It's interesting how different perceptions can be. This was a national survey, but I'm sure it can't be too far off for every school. I guess my hope in sharing this is that someone will help me stay in touch with reality:)

For the last few weeks, I have been writing about the 23 Themes of the Artisan Teacher. The first six themes all came from the technical side of teaching. These are the things that you learn in your methods classes and teacher prep programs. The technical side of teaching are the basics that every teacher should come to us knowing how to do.

The next section of themes come from the scientific aspect of teaching. These are the things neuroscience tells us about how the brain works and how learning takes place. 

The first theme in this section is Conscious Attention. Conscious Attention is the ability of the teacher to gain students' attention, focus it on relevant learning tasks, and avoid distractions. Information processing theory suggests that the human brain handles incoming information like a computer would. The information processing model suggests that we are bombarded by information all the time. Numbers, words, faces, songs, or ideas move from the environment to the sensory register where they are scanned for importance. The most important chunks move into the working memory (aka - short term memory) for closer consideration. Some of these chunks, because of practice or a connection are moved to long term memory for storage and recall. Attention, can be thought of as the brain's extraction of a few important chunks from the sensory register. The chunks that are selected receive our conscious attention. 

That was a lot of sciency mumbo jumbo, but here is an analogy you can relate to. Conscious Attention works a lot like a radio. At any given time, a radio receives signals from lots of stations, but only "tunes in" on one and excludes all of the others. This is how the human brain can take in a lot of signals, but only pay attention to one.

So, how do you get the radio to tune into the station you want? There are three ways: Invitation, Discrepancy, the Emotional Hook.

Invitation - Humans can direct their attention. We don't always direct it where it is needed, but we can choose what we are attending to. An effective way to invite a student to pay attention would be to simply say, "I'd like you to pay special attention to..." The key to a successful invitation is to cause the student to make a conscious choice concerning his/her attention.

Discrepancy - As a feature of our survival instincts, we are compelled to pay attention to anything that is different. For example, hunters wear blaze orange so as not to be mistaken for game while hunting. The principal of discrepancy plays on this fact. The brain is designed to closely examine anything that doesn't fit into the expected background. Teachers can use discrepancy to direct student attention. If a teacher normally talks fast, but suddenly slows to a crawl for effect, students will notice and pay attention.

Two warnings about Discrepancy: 1) Don't over use it. 2) Don't over do the discrepancy.

Emotional Hook - We tend to focus first and best on events that have some emotional significance. Subtle emotional cues such as eye contact, facial expressions, proximity, curiosity, challenge, irony, or humor can be all that's needed to shepherd a chunk from a student's sensory register into the student's conscious attention.

Final thoughts - You cannot hold a student's attention all day, every day. Use this wisely and when you need it most.