Russellville School District’s Post

Thanks Talk Education for visiting us! Max, Ceri and Lizzie in our Lower Sixth interviewed Mr Williams for Talk Education's series, '10 Questions for Heads' and discovered some surprising facts! Watch the full interview here: https://lnkd.in/eFVADcqY

The Courage to Measure Love Open Letter, October 18, 2023 The vision of measuring love began with a school visit in the fall of 2022. Director Rictor Craig has an open-door policy for aligned visitors to witness the teaching and learning experience they’ve designed in the building. When I visited, I was struck by how the adults and children nurtured each other. This wasn’t my first school visit, of course. I was raised by two teachers so I was always that kid. For as long as I can remember, I had an interest in critiquing learning, especially as a student. Informed with this upbringing and my time visiting schools across the country through fellowships, I have the usual education reform themes to pull from. These themes are usually excellence, structure, joy, routine, expertise, rhythm, and play. Students on group projects, immersive learning, laughter, art-centered, music-infused, independent study, and clear and supportive redirection were all there. All those things were also, mostly true in other schools I’ve seen. Statesmen is different. At Statesmen College Preparatory Academy for Boys, the one word that came to me was love. This feeling engaged my imagination [to measure] this feeling and the series of practices that flow through the building. I felt the interconnected ethos of both adults and children as I walked through the halls. It became clear, this is both a healing and an excellence school [at the same time]. While all the feelings of youth are safely displayed as they rise and flourish, including tears and conflict resolution too. All this while this school was born in a country reckoning with the racial awakening of George Floyd’s murder, a COVID pandemic that lingers, and an education reform movement originally designed to address the same achievement gap issues that have persisted for an additional 50 years. Many unanswered questions persist. How can we continue to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on our education system with such little progress for humanity?  At Statesmen College Preparatory Academy for Boys, we’re grounded in asking what does it mean to love our Black boys? In the words of co-founder of Statesmen, Shawn Hardnett, where has this love gone? And humbly, why isn’t school and love talked about in the same sentence every day? The courage we offer with this study is to do just that. Talk about it, learn about it, provoke it, and capture this story of love. Our goal for you is to engage with this report and address some of these questions while we measure love. With your active engagement and echoing this story, we can go much further in building a bridge of love across schools so that this work becomes the norm. Lastly, this study can go deeper and even more impactful with your support. Christopher C. King CEO, WAM Academy

We're bringing you another installment of our K-8 teacher series with a Q&A featuring 7-8 social studies teacher Elijah Church! Read our full conversation with Church on the blog, below

Transformative change can happen.

Beyond Proud of You Mark! To all of my educators if you have any words of wisdom for my younger brother please drop them in the comment section!

If you want to raise the bar of your teaching skills, one possible source of inspiration is to look at the accomplishments of Jaime Escalante. Traveling to America from Bolivia, he ended up teaching at Garfield High School in the city of East Los Angeles, California. At the time, few people had the expectation that students there—low-income minorities—could master more advanced mathematics. Mr. Escalante believed differently, and he filled his students with high expectations and a high level of motivation and purpose. In 1982, every one of his advanced math students passed a calculus advanced placement test. This was so shocking to some people that it resulted in the test company refusing to accept the results. The students were forced to retake the test, and they again achieved good scores. [A movie was made about this called Stand and Deliver.] The entire level of expectation and belief in the students at Garfield High School changed. By 1991, about 600 students were taking advanced placement tests in math and other subjects—a huge change. Mr. Escalante was dynamic, caring, and highly committed to his students. He was able to connect with and inspire them. While the class was highly productive, there was always an upbeat, fun environment with lots of humor. Mr. Escalante exuded the belief that his students would reach a high level of achievement, and he backed up this confidence with effective teaching techniques: a competency-based approach with lots of practice done on a step-by-step basis, group learning and collaboration amongst students, providing students with real-world examples, etc. Mr. Escalante firmly believed that, with proper instruction, he’d make an exceptional learner out of every student. I bet he would also believe that, with proper instruction, every aspiring teacher could reach or surpass his level of achievement with his students. In fact, Mr. Escalante wrote the following: “I always have to laugh when someone suggests that my program is dependent upon one teacher’s personality (my own) and could never serve as a model for use in other schools. It just shows how far away we have drifted from the fundamentals of teaching.” https://lnkd.in/ezn9DwBi

Powerful insight, Andi Fourlis. Your statement resonates deeply: "Teachers are not leaving their profession; they're leaving their working conditions." It's a critical reminder that as leaders, we hold the power to transform these environments. Thank you, Carole Basile for bringing this important perspective to light.

As I make my way home after two months on the road teaching at various locations, I so appreciate teaching at Columbus AFJROTC. The school was created after segregation ended. In the late 1960s two high schools, one for "white" and one for "black" students, were closed and Columbus opened. It's a treasure trove of history! This is an original guidon of the AFJROTC unit. In the center is "General 'Reb'", an icon well known in Mississippi. I'll be posting more of the incredible finds I made. I was hired by the instructor to teach not only the color guard after school, but each flight (class) during the school day for three days. I really like doing that (I've done it a dozen times, if not more). It's an opportunity to make an impact with every cadet in the program, from first-year cadet to the cadet who graduates this year. I've worked with traditionally run schools and those on a block schedule that cadets finish a year's worth of instruction in a semester. A challenge either way that I enjoy meeting. I'm going to write, from all three (four?) views of the issue, about the guidance counselor that puts a student into JROTC because "that'll fix ya'", for whatever "fix" the student apparently needs. It doesn't work, by the way. More on that soon. #DrillAndCeremoniesHistory #DrillMasterHistory

🍎📚 Ready to make a difference in Kentucky classrooms? Discover the 6 essential steps to kickstart your journey to becoming a teacher in the Bluegrass State. Read more on our latest blog post! #KentuckyTeachers #EducationJourney

Literacy Leaders out here leading literacy!