E x 3

Enrichment - Engagement - Excitement

Tomorrow I have the opportunity to share the vision and mission of our school with over 800 people. Many of these folks have never heard of me or my school. What I hope to accomplish is to challenge what they think should be happening in our schools.

Next year I plan to launch E Cubed, or E to the Third Power, or E x 3. What is this? Something that God laid on my heart of what we as educators should be focusing our attention on.

I'm challenging the crowd tomorrow to take a stance against high stakes testing. I pray that this message will spread like a runny nose in a pre - K class. I hope it goes viral, because we have the power to be the change we want to see (Maya Angelou)

It's a simple message. If we want real, long lasting, results, if we want every student to graduate from high school, if we want to make school a place that students look forward to every day we need to transform our three R's to the three E's.

The first E is Enrichment. Who are our students that typically perform poorly in our schools? I bet if you looked at any school system in our state you would remarkably find that schools that have high populations of students receiving free lunch are not performing well (according to standardized tests, and a system that is unfairly designed). What do these students lack? Enriched experiences. Enriched language, enriched opportunity, enriched exposure to people, places, or things. When these children come to school we need to enrich their lives. How can we expect a child to learn to read that has never been read to. How can they understand that this world has over 300 languages, thousands of cultures, amazing places and people, when they haven't ventured outside the walls of their home or their school. How do we do this? We create a school that creates enriched experiences. We bring the world to them through the arts and technology, we read to them as the character in the book. We get them to dramatize the poem they just read, or choreo graph a dance that depicts the water cycle or the life cycle of a butterfly. We expose them to the opportunity that enriches their little minds and makes them start to ask for more. Interest sparks curiosity ... tell me more.

The second E is Engagement. How do you spend your time? When you walk into a classroom do you see children bored to tears, do you see them as you would if they were outside of school. No! Our children live in a fast paced world. When they enter the doors of our building we slow their world down and dis engage them. We put books in front of them, which is a great learning tool, but the printed word on paper will soon be obsolete. We can not afford to put a lap top in the hands of every student at our school, but we can't afford to disengage them at the same time. At a school of the arts engagement comes through acting, singing, dancing, drawing, sculpting, our being an audience to a performer better known as what you and I might call a teacher. Engagement is accomplished by linking the learning style of each student to a learning experience that is engaging to that student.

The last E is excitement. How do we get our students excited about school? It breaks my heart to see a child that is unexcited in my building, or to here my son or daughter say they don't want to go to school. Remember your favorite teacher, or maybe even the excitement you had about something that happened at school. Mr. Gallagher read "Where the Red Fern Grows" I couldn't wait to get to school each day to see what would happen next. In high school it was sports, that got me excited. I loved school because I was a social being. I hated the classrooms that didn't allow us to speak or move away from our straight rows and our box. At a school of the arts its the excitement in knowing that I may have a professional artist come to my room today. I will get to play an instrument when we learn a concept about math today, or that I have drama club after school. As a student I'm excited because my teacher is excited to be here teaching me. My teacher is excited because she knows that I am learning each day and doesn't feel the pressure to have me pass a test that means very little to my individual success once I leave school. My success is moving on in school and moving to the ultimate goal of helping each child be prepared for a world that doesn't operate with a number two pencil and a scantron form. I will pass the test because when I operate in this type of school my learning is guaranteed.

What do I want for my school, for my students, for my own children. I want a school that enriches them academically, socially, and culturally. I want a school that engages them in meaningful and relevant activities, and doesn't merely attempt to prepare them to pass a test at the end of the year. I want my own children to jump out of bed and be excited about going to school because who knows what will happen to that character in the book their teacher is reading today or because they will get finish that science experiment today. Our goal in to prepare all students to succeed or PASS. What is success? I like John Wooden's definition. “Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best of which you are capable.”