 As many of you who subscribe to our newsletter know, we just sent out an announcement for the annual Summer Institute in July. As usual it will be in San Antonio, and attendees will experience not only fabulous workshops, but plenty of opportunity for enjoying the Alamo, the beautiful River Walk and many other things to see and do! Next week we will be sending out our regular newsletter which will once again be stuffed full of ideas for your classroom. We will have some of those ideas on this blog as well! I hope that you come to the Summer Institute. The topics could not be more relevant to teaching and learning in the new millennium: You will find that Media Literacy is not only absolutely required, but it's a lot of fun; the students will be highly motivated and learn more when you incorporate it into your lessons in the classroom. And of course Greening the Classroom - I can say the same thing - it is equally necessary, fun and motivational. Designing the 21st Century Classroom is where you will learn and utilize all the nuts and bolts of a truly 21st century curriculum, and create a framework to use when you return to your school. If you have attended Media Literacy and Greening the Classroom, your experience, and the product/framework you create will be that much the richer. Our travels this past year to many countries served as a real wake-up call to us regarding the desperate need for schools to develop Innovation and Entrepreneurship in their students. The final workshop, Web 2.0 Tools for the Classroom, will introduce you to so many incredible tools and great strategies for everything from motivating students to creating significant, real-life global classroom projects - and so much more. So you see, if you are able to attend the entire Institute you will experience an intensive, holistic round of professional development that 1.) is not offered elsewhere, and 2.) will provide you with enormous preparation and enthusiasm for the new school year. Please help us spread the word about 21st Century Schools! I hope to meet you in San Antonio. Yes, it's hot here! But after an incredible day (in air conditioning) you will be free to explore, relax and have dinner on the Riverwalk, perhaps enjoy one of the famous Margaritas, and take a ride on a river taxi, enjoying the sights as well as the cool breeze from the water.
Please see our latest newsletter here. You will find ideas and resources for several relevant and rigorous thematic units. They are flexible enough to be adapted for any age group, and can be integrated into one or two courses, or (the best method) be implemented by an interdisciplinary team of teachers. The next newsletter will be out later this week. Please share with your friends and colleagues. They may subscribe here.
 Where? San Antonio on the beautiful River Walk!
When: choose one or more -
July 9 & 10 - Media Literacy
July 11 - Greening the Classroom & the Curriculum
July 12 & 13 - Designing the 21st Century Classroom
July 16-18 Innovation & Entrepreneurship for Education July 19 & 20 - Web 2.0 Tools -integrating into the curriculum. For complete information see Summer InstituteRegister Here
Please see our latest newsletter here. You will find ideas and resources for several relevant and rigorous thematic units. They are flexible enough to be adapted for any age group, and can be integrated into one or two courses, or (the best method) be implemented by an interdisciplinary team of teachers. Please consider attending our Summer Institute for professional development on how to design and implement this type of unit.
Thank you for visiting our blogs! We have two - this one, which is primarily devoted to classroom strategies, tips and ideas, and the other one, Becoming a 21st Century School. That blog is devoted to why and how we must change education to meet the needs of the 21st century student. Classroom teachers will enjoy the posts below for first day of school activities! Be sure to come to our Summer Institute in San Antonio in July. We will also come to you - anywhere you are in the world!
Also see our other blog, which is more up-to-date at Becoming a 21st Century School.
I sincerely apologize for taking so long to post a blog. Since April we have been to Turkey, Malaysia and India. In two weeks I am going to Vietnam to speak at an international conference for textbook publishers!
Each country has been exciting, beautiful, friendly and very different, and we have many new friends around the world now. We also brought some items from each country which we will cherish forever, but not as much as the memories of the angelic children's smiles.
We will be sharing more video and pictures with you from these trips very soon.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Here is a quote from Matt Damon's speech at the Save Our Schools March in Washington, DC. "I had incredible teachers. As I look at my life today, the things I value most about myself — my imagination, my love of acting, my passion for writing, my love of learning, my curiosity — all come from how I was parented and taught. And none of these qualities that I’ve just mentioned — none of these qualities that I prize so deeply, that have brought me so much joy, that have brought me so much professional success — none of these qualities that make me who I am ... can be tested." Read the entire speech here or watch it on the video below.
 Coming later today . . . in the meantime, please send an email to us to request detailed lesson plans for this activity! Director@21stCenturySchools.comThe video below is from the old El Sullivan Show. The object of this lesson plan and strategy is NOT to get your students spinning plates. I use the "Spinning Plate" a a metaphor for getting the students in your class to begin working independently, and it works great! Of course, you must begin with the the First Spinning Plate. Once it is going you start another spinning plate and so on. I will be sending detailed step by step plans on how to implement this in your classroom. It is a teacher's and a student's dream come true once they get used it to, which take a bit of time, but it is so worth it!.
 As soon as my students and I have completed the Take What You Need activity, I follow with this discussion. Here is where high expectations are set - firmly! We have discussed that we will continue to build our classroom community on a daily basis all year long and why that is important. Then I do an informal survey, asking the students how many of them make all A's, B's, etc. My point is not to embarrass anyone, but to get an idea of how the students already think of themselves as learners. It was amazing to me as a fourth grade teacher how many students, nine years old, came into my classroom on the first day of school believing that they were stupid, slow, losers, failures and would always be so. I pointed to a huge banner across the front of my classroom (which our art teacher has so graciously created for me). It said:If It Isn't Good, It Isn't Done!I then informed the students that NO ONE in this class would EVER make a grade of less than a B. If I were back in the classroom today I would change that to "No one in this classroom will ever make a grade of less than an A!"Many of the students looked at me with incredulity - they simply could not conceive of the possibility of making grades that high. But I promised them that they would, and that I would help them. Essentially I told them that learning and succeeding was NOT AN OPTION in this classroom.Let me make one thing clear right now (I sound like Richard Nixon here.) The students in this classroom were a diverse group, except that none of them were identified/labeled as GT (gifted and talented). We had regular kids, and lower level achievers, and some students were "special ed". Some came from homes with good incomes, and some students lived in poverty (about half of them). Also, for about half of the students, English was a second language and not spoken at home. There were plenty of family conflicts, dysfunctions and crises to go around - for example, parents in prison, siblings in constant trouble with the law, drunkenness, divorce, boyfriends running off with mom's paycheck so the child had no way to purchase school supplies. I'll never forget a little boy coming to me on the second day of school, tears streaming down his face. He was ashamed and thought he would be in trouble because he had no school supplies. Mom's boyfriend took her paycheck and left.So these students weren't what some teachers would call "the cream of the cream of the crop". They were good, regular people. And these students achieved beyond their wildest expectations. I always say to teachers: "What are you really telling a student when you assign them a grade of 42, or 57 or 73? You are telling them two things:1. You are not smart.2. You do not have to learn this"So, just do not let learning something be optional. Do NOT let failure be optional. There are ways to set up, organize and run classrooms, curriculum and instruction that WILL enable the students to learn all the content and skills you want them to learn, and they will learn them at much higher levels than you, or they, expected.Get the classroom and curriculum set up, teach them the strategies, provide the support, maintain the highest expectations, and then - get out of their way! One of the biggest problems we have in education today is seriously, shamefully low expectations.Once your students realize that you are serious, and they begin to experience success, their self-confidence will grow. They will be willing to take on much greater challenges than they every have before, and succeed.That's what school is all about!
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