Finding Friends

Now that we are all feeling confident about our own behaviour (most of you wrote about your own personal effort in your report cards) the next step in our personal and class growth is to start to understand the intertwined dynamic between your individual energy and skills and the needs and energy of the group. To do that we need to start to put ourselves in others shoes, and to do that we need to start to understand what others are thinking. In that spirit you job today to is to add 4 classmates blogs to your reading list (the same way you added my blog). Read through their posts, comment on one post for each friend. Then read through your friends comments on your posts. When you're done we are going to help set up the gym for parent teacher interviews.

60 Seconds of You (Discovery Time)

I saw a great idea today from @hughtheteacher who got it from @deanshareski who got it from who knows where (I wasn't invited to his party last month).

For our Second assignment, which may take us into November as we are doing a Halloween "Clue" one week. For "Get to know you" round 2 we are each going to create a 60 second video. Easy right? Here's the catch... it has to be made up of 60 individual one second video clips. They should each be unique but work together to tell your Sulli story. When I watch it I want to get a sense of what you and your day are like at Sullivan.

We will spend a day or two planning out the video, and another day or two shooting and editing it. Sometime before Xmas we should be able to post on our blogs and watch each others videos. :)

I want you to think about what makes you a unique part of our Sulli community and what your place in our school is... then try to capture it in a short story through video.

There will be troubles and technical issues along the way but the reward will be worth it. :)

Here is an example.

http://www.psdblogs.ca/divisionprincipal/2012/10/11/project-idea-60-second-story/

A ... no... A++

It is that time of the semester again when teachers dutifully take out our marks books and report to students and parents their progress in our classes. Like learning, this has historically been a passive activity... where you as students simply receive your judgements in the form of percentages and letter grades.

At Sullivan there has been different philosophy brewing for several years and most of you have at least experienced the interview process we use to co-construct your grade. For those new to our school, here is a brief summary of what I'm on about.

You get to choose your own grade at the end of this course. It will be through a review/interview/portfolio process where you will be asked to demonstrate your efforts, understanding, growth, learning and goals to me and your peers.  While some students have trouble with this responsibility, most of our student body has embraced the opportunity to reflect on their own efforts and be a major part of the conversation on assessment.

Your next blog post will be your first chance at honest, critical self assessment from the reporting stand point. You need to write an entry that reviews your first six weeks efforts in: attendance, preparedness, consistency of effort, intensity of effort, respect for others, areas of weakness and strength, and your goals for the rest of the semester.

The more detailed and specific you are the better. Providing evidence (photos, videos, stories) is the best way of substantiating claims.

This post will serve as your interim report and will be commented on by me and your parents. You need not provide a grade, but rather report on your learning.

Be real, be positive, be ready to improve starting today.

Excuses

We all have stuff going on: work, friends, school, and physical issues. Sometimes your life does get in the way of PE class and that's okay. The problem occurs when we let ourselves accept small obstacles as big ones. When a small cough becomes an "I'm too sick"... when a long day becomes "I'm too tired" or "I have a sore leg". If we are being honest with ourselves, most of our problems are small ones that can be overcome with a small amount of mental desire. What is our biggest excuse?