The Lions' Den

The Why...

In the day-to-day of coming to work, our routines sometimes obscure why we choose to educate children.  The daily and weekly gathering, analyzing, and reporting of data can be cumbersome and seen by some as "additional."  The student who disrupts our carefully laid plans and brings discomfort to our peaceful environment can be annoying and cause distress to our ideals of teaching.  As we move forward, we must keep focus on "the why" we choose to educate children and why we must be successful.

Every student that enters Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School is our student.  I stated in our holiday letter that together we are the amalgamation of the perfect adult, the perfect role model for students.  It is our job as education professionals to be certain of our craft and use strategies that support learning.  Our demographics are known; students come to us from generational poverty circumstances, some have been exposed to traumatic situations, some come to us without knowledge and fluency in  the English language, and some come from perfectly stable situations.  But ALL students come to us each day to learn and challenge their knowledge, building on concepts they have previously experienced and connecting it to new learning.  It is our job to engage students in learning and support their learning through challenging activities and opportunities to incorporate their interests, culture, and talents.

We are the foundation for their future.  We do this work to place students on a trajectory for success and post secondary achievement, this means each student leaves King with the requisite skills for middle school so they are ready on day one of that next level.

I challenge us all to revisit our beliefs about student success and make absolutely sure our expectations are high for every student, every day, and every minute within a school day.  If we expect nothing, we get nothing.  If we complain and blame children, we are ridiculous and not the professionals we pretend to be.  If we expect to have perfection each day and collapse if we don't, we need to go work in bubble or find a position that keeps us in total isolation.

Every student will be successful at King and there will be no exceptions and no excuses.  Be great today and better each day, our students deserve our best work.  

Reminders

• The iRead representative will be here Tuesday (all day) visiting classrooms and meeting with teachers during planning
• Check the living calendar and daily updates throughout the week
• I have principal PLC Tuesday morning at 8 AM, there will be visitors in the building