Author: Patrick Larkin

I have been in school leadership for over 25 years. I feel blessed to be an educator. I have had the good fortune of working as an English teacher, an Assistant Principal, a Principal, and an Assistant Superintendent in three districts in MA. I am also proud to be an IDEAS Instructor working with educators across the state and region who are part of schools and communities that promote anti-bias, anti-racist education.

My Weekly Diigo Bookmarks (February 15, 2015)

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Blizzard Bags A Potential Replacement For Some Missed Snow Days

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Screen Shot 2015-02-10 at 7.06.12 PM
Back in early January, before we were buried in over four feet of snow, the Burlington School Committee approved further discussion of “Blizzard Bags” for Burlington Public Schools to potentially make up days of schools lost because of snow. Burlington, along with Wayland, is one of two school districts in the state,  that has the approval of the Massachusetts Department of Education to explore an alternative model to making up snow days at the end of the school year.
This pilot program will explore the creation and completion of assignments and projects that students will be able to complete to meet time on learning minutes from school days that are canceled.  Of course the number of days that would be added back in would depend on the amount of work involved in the assignments. However, before going too much more into logistics, it is important to discuss school calendar construction/requirements and Blizzard Bags further.
School Calendar Construction:
State regulations require that the district create a 185 day school-year calendar although only 180 days are mandated.  The five, built-in days allow for up to five days of cancellations within an approved calendar year.  We are currently within our five day allowance already built into our school calendar.  If everything stays as it is (no more cancellations), the school year will end on Thursday, June 25, 2015 (except for seniors).
School Requirements:
Massachusetts requires elementary and middle school students to attend school for 900 hours per school year and high school students 990 hours per school year.  These hours take place over 180 days.  The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has not allowed any exceptions to the 180 requirement in prior years.  The “Blizzard Bag” pilot provides Burlington with the possibility of maintaining the learning hour requirement but over a reduced number of days.
What are Blizzard Bags?
The concept of Blizzard Bags is not new. The practice of assigning work to students to make up snow days is already happening in states like Minnesota, Ohio, and New Hampshire just to name a few.  One difference in some states, like New Hampshire, is that the students are assigned work to do on a snow day and are expected to have it completed when they get back to school. However, this “homework” will not be the option that we will be looking to replicate this year.
Our district is exploring using a model where a sufficient amount of lessons/projects will be developed to equal the amount of instructional time students would have received for the days of school that we are looking to count. Once the assignments are created for all Burlington students, we will create a due-date for their completion. We will continue to offer frequent updates and will have a website with all of the assignments as well as resources to support their successful completion.
We believe that these learning projects will be more educationally relevant than additional worksheets.  We are also exploring ways to leverage the technology that the community provides to extend learning.
Any proposal will require school committee and the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education approval.  In addition, there may be working condition considerations in regards to school staff.

An Amazing Story Of Courage And Choice – The Terrorist’s Son

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I stumbled across the Zak Ebrahim’s TED Talk last week on his experience growing up as the son of a terrorist and following the amazing nine-minute talk I was glad to find that Zak also has written a book titled The Terrorist’s Son.

For me, the idea of terrorism and hatred of a person or group of people because of a particular ideology is incomprehensible. Hearing an account from a family member of a terrorist is eye-opening and incredibly important to share and discuss.  We need to make clear to our children that their is no “guilt by association” for people from a particular ethnic or religious background and that ultimately horrific actions are the result of a choice made by an individuals.

I think the following quote from the book sums up how we need to look at terrorism:

“There’s a reason that murderous hatred has to be taught – and not just taught, but forcibly implanted. It’s not a naturally occuring phenomenon. It is a lie. It is a lie told over and over again – often to people who have no resources and who are denied alternative views of the world.”

The history of violence is clear – “People try nonviolence for a week, and when it ‘doesn’t work,’ they go back to violence, which hasn’t worked for centuries.”

Zak’s powerful and courageous story tells us clearly of the best option – “Everyone has a choice. Even if you’re trained in hate, you can choose tolerance. You can choose empathy.”

  https://embed-ssl.ted.com/talks/zak_ebrahim_i_am_the_son_of_a_terrorist_here_s_how_i_chose_peace.html

My Weekly Diigo Bookmarks (February 8, 2015)

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Once Again Fact Is Stranger Than Fiction – U.S. Toddlers Targeted For Online Preschool

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I remember reading an article back in the fall by the Onion which was titled 

Increasing Number Of U.S. Toddlers Attending Online Preschool. 


The article cited a fictitious report from the United States Department of Education which had an expert citing the following:

“With access to their Show-And-Tell message boards, recess timers, and live webcams of class turtle tanks, most toddlers are finding that they can receive the same experience of traditional preschooling from the comfort of their parents’ living room or home office.”

Image via http://i.telegraph.co.uk/

However, it appears that the folks from the Onion may have been on to something now that Vinci Education has created just such an option.  In an article in The Washington Post’s Answer Sheet Column, Valerie Strauss highlights Vinci’s endeavor by citing the following cautionary message to parents from the company’s website:

“The preparation needs to start when your child is 4, if not earlier. VINCI Virtual School provides you with a ready-to-go curriculum to make your time more effective, with the structured lessons and with the focus on building literacy and math skills while broaden knowledge on science.”

I can only pray that parents do not buy into this type of thinking and instead worry more about interacting with their preschool children and not letting some online program do it.

Great Job Fox Hill On Channel 5’s Wake Up Call!

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Fox Hill Elementary School was featured on Channel 5’s Wake Up Call yesterday morning. Check out the clip below to see how our students shared the Fox Hill message – “Be Respectful, Be Responsible Be Safe and Be Kind.”

What a great message for us to begin every day with!

https://screen.yahoo.com/wake-call-fox-hill-elementary-105704008.html?format=embed

The Best TED Talk I’ve Seen – Brene Brown – The Power of Vulnerability

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Like many of my Massachusetts colleagues, I have had a little time on my hands with four snow days in the last week.  I am thankful that I stumbled upon this amazing TED Talk on vulnerability. I find it hard to believe that anyone would not be able to make connections with Brown’s amazing insights on the human struggle to feel worthy.

Enjoy!

https://embed-ssl.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability.html

My Weekly Diigo Bookmarks (February 1, 2015)

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A Couple of Useful Writing Resources – Burlington Blog Update (Edition 17)

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The post below is actually a copy of a weekly e-mail that I send to our staff  to promote our Burlington Public Schools Blog which shares the great work going on across our school district. I also try to give a quick technology tip/resource that I think would be useful. It is the 17th post in the series.

As we head into Super Bowl weekend, I couldn’t help noticing what they served for lunch at BHS today! Go Patriots!

I wanted to share a couple of writing resources that I learned about on Richard Byrne’s Free Technology for Teachers Blog:

The first resource is Common Lit, a collection of free texts for upper elementary and middle schools classrooms which are organized thematically. Here’s an overview from the Common Lit website:

    • Teachers identify texts that students love to discuss;
    • We negotiate with the copyright holders;
    • We identify the Lexile reading level;
    • We organize the texts by theme so teachers can use them in their lessons;
    • We put everything online for free.
    • Teachers know their students best. That’s why we created a flexible resource that works with whatever you’re already teaching.

The second digital tool is Citebite a neat little tool that allows teachers to share excerpts from websites with their students through a direct link. The cool part about it is that the link will share the entire article with the excerpt chosen by the teacher highlighted.

For an example, Check out my Citebite from a great article on Edutopia’s site discussing the value of a teacher’s time by Jose Vilson.



Burlington Blog Update

When It Comes To Social Media – I Say Bring On The Strangers

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The slide above was the opening slide in a presentation to parents last week at the high school that my children attend. As I sat waiting for the presentation to begin, I felt sick to my stomach regarding the message that would be delivered to the other parents who were in the audience. Then again, when I saw that this session would be led by law enforcement officers I have to admit that I expected a heavy dose of fear.

 The presenter introduced himself saying, “I would love to tell you that at the end of the presentation you will feel very good about yourself” and then proceeded to go through a list of various symbols which represented various social media tools and described why parents should be concerned about each of them. The low point of the whole evening was a video about a young woman named Alicia who was kidnapped when she was 13 by a sexual predator she met online and then held hostage in another state. Later on, the officer role-played a psychopath who had found a child online and then stalked him and kidnaped him without leaving a trace. “It’s your job to communicate with your kids before we pull them out of a hole in the ground,” he told us.

To be fair, the presenter works for the state of NH task force that deals with internet crimes against children. I can only imagine the horrific cases that he and his colleagues deal with. Furthermore, I am extremely grateful that we have individuals committed to dealing with the individuals who use the internet to hurt children. Later on the officer did weave in some personal stories of dealing with his own teenagers and some good parenting tips for keeping tabs on teenagers and their online activities. He advised parents to have a central place in the house for devices to be left after 9 p.m. and to have all of the passwords for the social media accounts of their children. He also shared some positive repercussions from social media use and concluded with “Social media is going nowhere and we have to get on top of it.”

The Message That Wasn’t Heard

 However, the message that wasn’t heard was that social media tools are neither good or bad, it is the people typing the keystrokes that are good or bad.  Just because we are hearing horrific stories does not mean that they are the norm.  As Danah Boyd stated in her book  It’s Complicated:The Social Lives of Networked Teens, “It’s critical to recognize that technology doesn’t create these problems, even if it makes them more visible and even if new media relished using technology as a hook to tell salacious stories about youth.” Boyd’s book should be a community read in every school community to help parents make sense of the foreign territory in which their children spend so much time.  

 Without supporting and educating parents on the use of social media tools, we will not be able to move past the misguided perception that they are something to be feared. The fact of the matter is that your digital footprint is also rapidly becoming your resume. We need to move beyond fear and start developing a comfort level in supporting our kids to create impressive online portfolios. Messages like the one I heard this past week are more likely to have parents denying access rather than supporting positive usage.

 Social Media Has Connected Me With Some Amazing Strangers

 Personally, I have met countless strangers online who have taught me more than I could have ever dreamed of.  In fact, I add more strangers daily to my Personal Learning Network (PLN) in the hopes of learning even more new things from educators around the globe who share my passion for supporting learners. These connections have opened countless doors for me that would not have been possible without my use of social media tools. We need to show parents these types of examples of what can happen for their students when they take advantage of the connections that are at their fingertips. 

 While there have been a number of stories about students who have lost opportunities due to social media use (i.e. They Loved Your G.P.A. Then They Saw Your Tweets and One Bad Tweet Can Be Costly To A Student Athlete), my worry is that these stories will cause students to go on lockdown with their accounts and operate under an alias or delete accounts all together. In a recent conversation with a former stranger, Alan Katzman the founder of Social Assurity, I was told that colleges take it as a red flag if they don’t find anything about an applicant online.  In my opinion, it means one of two things to the college. Either you deleted some bad stuff or you are antisocial, neither of which looks good. The former stranger also told me that Cornell became the first school in the country this year to accept students solely based on their social media profile. Cornell allowed students to apply to their MBA program using LinkedIn Profiles.

 There is no doubt in regards to the direction things are headed for our students and social media. The only question that remains is how many of them will be hampered by scared adults who are getting a jaded picture offered by someone with a narrow point-of-view? 

 For me, I’ll continue to push the power of building a network of strangers into a powerful PLN!


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