Archive for the ‘Schools’ Category

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

3 Interview Tips for Students

Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011

Standing Out!

Here in Los Angeles, we have a wonderful program available to our students called C5. Run by the Coca Cola foundation, students in eighth grade are chosen to spend the next five summers before college at camps where independence, social skills, and college prep are practiced.

The kids are taken all over the country and aren’t allowed the use of cell phones or computers. Just an old-fashioned letter or two home. All this is great, and we could have an entire post/story about the program. An element of the process made me think there’s something else to be considered.

To be chosen for C5, students must be nominated, then recommended by two teachers, then go through an intense interview process. It’s quite a process, and very intimidating to thirteen year-olds.

This year, it made me really think deeply about how to help kids with their interview skills, because soon they will face college entrance interviews, job interviews, scholarship interviews, and who knows what else. I told my nominated students this year the following:

1. Have excellent body language. Don’t appear nervous. Open up and lean toward the interviewer. Be (more…)

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Adult/Child Communication, Colleges, Steve Franklin | 5 Comments »

Celebrating Our Environment

Thursday, April 21st, 2011

Tomorrow is Earth Day! In honor of Mother Earth, here is a compilation of posts Parentella has done about the environment.

  • In Our Schools:

The Science Club at Bloom High School in Illinois is doing amazing things in terms of teaching students to be leaders in environmentally friendly science.

Parents and teachers communicating online helps protect the environment while simultaneously increasing learning time.

The Alliance for Climate Change offers free seminars to schools teaching about global warming and how to stop it.

Teachers may want to consider a “school supplies closet” where kids can donate leftover supplies for the next class coming in.

  • Food

Bento box lunches are not only fun for kids, they are good for the environment, too!

  • Fundraisers:

Recycling programs at schools not only bring in money, the kids that run them learn important leadership skills.

Fundraisers at schools should reflect our values, and one of our values should be protecting the environment.

At one school, re-selling used prom dresses made the school a lot of money while saving the girls a lot of money, too.

At another school, re-selling used Halloween costumes also brings a lot of money to the school, while simultaneously saving parents money on new costumes.

  • Crafts & Books for Kids:

Earth Day flower craft & “Let’s Celebrate Earth Day” book

Spring Sun Flower Craft & “One Little Seed” book

Recycle used strawberry baskets into fun and useful baskets.

For back to school, make your own book covers out of grocery bags.

Make your own Halloween costume rather than buying pre-made.

At Christmas time, recycle old boxes into fun crafts.

————-

Compiled by Christi Grab, Parentella’s Editorial Director and author of  The Unexpected Circumnavigation: Unusual Boat, Unusual People Part 1 – San Diego to Australia.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Ainslie Hunter, Allison McDonald, Aparna Vashisht, April McCaffery, Back to School, Christi Grab, Dawn Huntington, Food, Guest, Holidays, Learning Activites, PTA, Parent teacher communication, Parentella Social Networking, Sarah Auerswald, Schools, Steve Franklin, Teacher Perspectives, Technology, Wendy Copley, arts and crafts, extracurricular activities | 3 Comments »

School Bans Lunches Brought from Home

Wednesday, April 20th, 2011

No lunches from home

A couple weeks ago, the Chicago Tribune reported that a Chicago public school has banned lunches brought from home. With the exception of those with allergies or medical issues, all children at the Little Village Academy must purchase and eat the lunch provided in the cafeteria or go hungry. Principal Elsa Carmona was quoted in the article saying that the policy was put into place to protect students from making unhealthy food choices:

“Nutrition wise, it is better for the children to eat at the school,” Carmona said. “It’s about the nutrition and the excellent quality food that they are able to serve (in the lunchroom). It’s milk versus a Coke.”

I believe that Carmona implemented this policy with the best of intentions, but as a parent I question the wisdom of this choice. I’ve heard stories of children bringing a bag of chips, a donut and a can of soda to school for their lunches. While I feel that the adults in these kids’ lives need to do something to guide them toward more nutritionally sound choices, I don’t think that banning all lunches from home is the best way to go about it. Perhaps the school could work with students and/or families by implementing a nutrition curriculum or they could request that particularly problematic foods not be brought to school in lunches from home. The schools in my area do not allow children to bring soda to school and I have yet to meet a parent who has a problem with this rule.

A School Lunch

For me, this is primarily an issue of (more…)

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Food, Parent Perspectives, Schools, Wendy Copley | 22 Comments »

School Mission Statements: Do You Know Yours?

Sunday, April 17th, 2011

This is part 4 of an ongoing series. Click on the links for part 1, part 2 and part 3.

Does your school have a mission satement? It probably does. If so, do you know it? Our school has been asked by the Los Angeles Unified School District to, in effect, reinvent itself. This is part of a process called Public School Choice (PSC) that is designed to help the District compete for federal Race to the Top funding. Schools on the PSC “list” are required to submit lengthy reinvention “proposals,” and the schools are also open to bids by outside groups and charter schools.

The first thing that the PSC bureau wants is for schools to come up with a mission statement. I found out that our school already has one, which was a surprise. My colleagues and I were unaware one existed. I asked teachers at other schools, and except for one, no teachers were aware of a mission statement at their school.

I wonder if professional sports teams have a mission statement. If so, I suspect they’d be pretty similar from team to team, something along the lines of “win.” What about businesses? “Profit,” I suspect. At first, to me, it seemed that a mission statement for a school was at best irrelevant, and at worst something that was a lot of work for nothing.

Our school opened in 1950, but it’s obvious that the mission statement was written within the last 20 years or so. It was pretty good, but our school’s PSC “design team” decided we could do better. We spent two months devising a mission statement for our submission, and what we came up with was a giant paragraph, with educator-themed language. It was hardly what was asked for: something parent, teacher, and student friendly. I jokingly said a good one would be: “We teach, you learn.” Of course, I didn’t mean it, but all jokes have a grain of truth to them.

As the discussion has gone on (more…)

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Education Policy, Education Reform, Public Schools, Steve Franklin | 6 Comments »

Starting a Parent Revolution

Wednesday, April 13th, 2011

The familiar is comforting to us. We don’t fear what we have experienced before, the known.

When we as parents visit our kids’ school, its no wonder that we feel that the schools are fine. Most of us attended the same type of schools; the setting is familiar. The rooms have desks with attached chairs, notebooks, textbooks, crayons, pencils, backboards etc.– perfect images of how school was when we were kids. The way schools communicate with parents is also the same. They send us a notice on paper in our kids’ backpack or on a notebook and even that is exactly like how our parents got the notes.

What is wrong with this picture?

Our kids today have more access to information at their finger tips than we ever did, but the schools have done woefully little to keep up with the information revolution. Why are teachers still giving assignments that can be solved by one simple Google Search? We are so used to the concept of school being the same as it was in our youth that we don’t notice, don’t think about, how desperately it needs to change. I am not saying that schools should be inundated with the latest technological gadgets, but that the basic premise of our Education system needs to change.

  1. We need to meet students where they are, which is a more advanced place than we were at the same age.
  2. Parents need to be engaged and schools need to do more to engage them. This means moving beyond notices in backpacks to seeking parents’ input.
  3. We need to put the T back in the PTA or even evolve the 100+year organization.
  4. We need to move away from (more…)

Tags: ,
Posted in Aparna Vashisht, Education Reform, Parent Perspectives, Parent teacher communication, School Involvement, Schools | 15 Comments »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »