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Alice Deal JHS Weekly Bulletin
“Think globally. Listen compassionately. Act Inclusively.”
Week of June 4, 2007
Thought for the Week:
“If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in.”
~ Rachel Carson
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Monday begins Day A
- Final Evaluation Sign-Up
- Please sign-up for a block of time on the final evaluation sign-up list posted on the counter. Because of time constraints these are the only available time slots, so please make one of those appointments work unless you want to meet prior to June 6. This conference should not take more than 20 minutes. And that is why you need to prepare your self-presentation qualitatively, involving all possible resources, as well as buy custom college essays if it is necessary and will help you in self-presentation. Please come prepared with your portfolio prepared according to the PPEP rubric. This is your chance to show what you have accomplished this year.
- Teaching Continues
- Teachers please remember to remind your students that teaching and learning continues. Class work should be engaging and homework should be assigned. This is the time of the year when you must step-up your instruction so we can keep students taking school seriously. This is an effort that all teachers must take on so that the lack of academic rigor in a few of our classrooms does not negatively impact the school tone. Do not show videos that are not directly connected to curriculum! Thanks for keeping up the integrity of our school by remembering to teach until the very last day.
- Congratulations!
- Congrats to all of the students who were recognized at the awards assembly last week. Your accomplishments are truly worth celebrating! Thanks to the teachers who participated and helped to create such a warm experience.
- 9th grade choir shines!
- The 9th Grade Choir did an amazing job on Saturday’s competition in Bush Gardens. They placed first in their division and received the highest rating of the festival - Superior. There were 2 different adjudicators and each gave them 91/100 possible points. They also won the Overall Outstanding Choral Award. All in all they had the highest score of all 13 choirs that performed in all divisions. The 9th grade choir represented our school so well, both with their performance, their manners, and behavior in the park and performance area. Nice job!
- Student Council Officers’ Elections Speeches and Voting on Thursday
- Seventh grade sections will hear speeches from the candidates running for Student Council on Thursday morning in the auditorium during period 2. Teachers will be asked to escort and stay with their sections during the speeches and to help with voting immediately afterwards in the auditorium. The assembly will not require an entire class period, so students should leave their books in section. Students will need a pencil or pen, however, to cast their ballots in the auditorium. Please come prepared.
- Welcome to Deal - - 1st PTA meeting this Thursday
- We will be hosting our annual “Welcome to Deal” meeting for our incoming 7th grade families this Thursday. Teachers, this is a wonderful opportunity to support the PTA and impress the new families with your presence. Please attend and be visible.
- On Tuesday, we will train student ambassadors who will give tours of the building at the event. Please recommend students to sign up at the office and allow them to miss a part of your instructional time on Tuesday. We will have a parent volunteer, Ms. Mary Ball training them.
- Safety Drill
- The active shooter drill is to take place on Monday, June 11 at approx. 9:30 - 10:00 am. It is being coordinated with the MPD's SWAT team and any other MPD in the area that can respond. A more detailed flyer will be sent home this week after the final meeting with MPD. I will also send a phone message to everyone as well. We are excited to take safety precautions to another level with this drill. Homeroom teachers and PE teachers, please take steps to remind the students once again about the procedures of this drill as you did earlier in the year. If you have additional questions, please see Mr. Dacoba.
- Faculty meeting and IB meeting
- We will have a faculty meeting on Thursday. We will also meet with all teachers attending IB MYP level 1 and level 2 courses immediately following the faculty meeting.
- Bulletin announcement from Ms. McFarland and Ms. Blakeway
- The Mediation Training for 7th Graders will be held all day on Thursday, June 7; Friday, June 8; Monday, June 11; and ½ day Tuesday, June 12 (if needed). The training will be conducted in Room 204. Students will eat lunch during their regular 7th grade lunch. The names of those to be trained will be placed in teacher’s mailboxes before the training begins. Please contact Ms. McFarland or Ms. Blakeway with questions.
Also, the 8th and 9th Grade Peer Mediators will have their end-of-year pizza lunch during 5th Period (9th Grade Lunch) in Room 204 on Tuesday, June 5. The following students should attend.
9th Graders
Gabriel Allen Jasmine Beltran
Michael Fische Yuhana Gidey
Melanie Lawrence Julia Lewis
Ashton McNair Aspen McNairBabaak Parcham Oliver Nedab
8th Graders
Minahil Bajwa Isamar Campos
Nam Dao Jackson Knapp
Nicole Marero Jack Nessman
Rachel Reidenback Serena Seward
Kira Ullman
- Reptile World Assembly on Friday, June 8, 2007
- Students will report directly to homeroom (period 2) on Friday morning without books, pens or other materials. We will be on a Bell 2 time schedule shortening the length of each period on Friday.
- Yearbook Sales
- If you have not purchased your Yearbook please make sure you do so by Wednesday, June 6, 2007. The cost of the yearbook is $42.00. Please see Ms. Baxter after 3:15 p.m.
- Congratulations Nurse Susan Hoffman
- Deal JHS Achieves 100% Immunization Compliance. For 2 consecutive years, Deal JHS has achieved 100% immunization compliance. This is an important success for public health in Washington, DC. Thanks to Mr. Dacoba for his support with this.
- Westat Youth Risk Behavior Survey
- The Youth Risk Behavior Survey will be given on Monday, June 4, 2007 during Period 2 only. There are only certain teachers involved in the testing.The teacher’s names are as follows:
Ms. Abbas
Mr. Feucht
Ms. Bright
Ms. McCullough
Ms. Suarez
Mr. Frye
Ms. Jackson
Ms. Spann
- 9th Grade Invitations
- I order to facilitate the distribution of 9th grade invitations for the promotional exercises on June 6, 2007, all students will report to period 2 (homeroom) at the end of the day on Tuesday, June 5, 2007. The announcement will be made at approximately 2:45 p.m. for the students to report to homeroom. Thank you. Ms. Suarez and Ms. Waddy-Lewis
- Bulk Trash removal
- After much arm-twisting with Facilities (thanks Ms. Streeter!), we finally got a roll-up dumpster for the bulk items that have been accumulating in the rear of the school during this school year. Since we see this as a rare moment, we’d like to capture this time as time to clean house. We need to act quickly, though, before our neighbors decide to clean house, too!! Therefore, we ask that you look around your room for any bulk items (and other junk) that need to be disposed of.
- Please fill out the attached form letting us know what items you have so that we can figure out to organize this exercise. Please return the form to Mr. Greenhill’s mailbox no later than today.
- King’s Dominion Meeting with Administration, Students and Sponsors on Tuesday
- Seventh and eighth graders who are traveling to King’s Dominion on Wednesday will meet with the Deal Administration and trip co-sponsors today to review the itinerary, what to bring and what to leave at home, and to discuss school expectancies for student behavior and demeanor. Teachers are asked to wait for an announcement at approximately 2:45 p.m. before releasing students to the auditorium.
- King’s Dominion Chaperones List and Bus Assignments
- Below are listed the final list for chaperones and their bus assignments for Wednesday’s Student Council trip to King’s Dominion. Chaperones are required to be at school by 7:30 a.m. to help monitor students and to remain at Deal when we return until all students are picked up in the evening (approximately 7:30 p.m.) Student Council and the Deal Administration thank you for volunteering your time to help our students celebrate the end of the school year.
Bus 1 Bus 2 Bus 3
Mostoller Simpson-Wayne Aguilera
Hernandez Washington Mason
Kaplowitz Miller Kelly
Ngwa Feucht Philip
Veselick
Bus 3 Bus 5
Geremia Santiago
Brewer Dryden
Brown Hughes
Lerum Klein
- CPR/First Aid Class for Teachers and Staff
- The CPR/First Aid class will be held at Deal Monday, June 4, 2007 from 3:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. Those teachers/staff who have pre-registered with the nurse need to confirm with her that they will be attending. Thanks. Susan Hoffman, RN
- 8th Grade Promotional Activities
- Monday June, 4, 2007 8th grade council meeting at lunch in RM 206
- Wednesday, June 6, 2007 Trip to Kings Dominion
- Friday, June 8, 2007 Practice for promotion Periods 5, 6, and 7
3:00 p.m. dismissal for dance from 7-10 p.m. at Deal
- Monday, June 11, 2007 Practice for promotion in auditorium all day
- Tuesday, June 12, 2007 Promotion! 9:30 a.m. in auditorium
- Upcoming activities:
- June 4th Westat Youth Risk Behavior Survey Period 2 only
- June 6th 9th grade promotion
- June 7th AED Student Survey during Period 2
Faculty meeting - 3:25PM
IB teacher meeting immediately following
- June 8th Reptile World Assembly
- June 8th 8th grade dance 7-10pm
- June 12th 8th grade promotion
- June 14th Last day for students
- June 15th Last day for teachers
Food for growth…
Carol Dweck’s Work on Acquired Versus Innate Intelligence
In this article in Stanford Magazine, freelance writer Marina Krakovsky describes psychology professor Carol Dweck’s work on achievement motivation. Originally fascinated in graduate school by the research on “learned helplessness”, Dweck began to suspect that there was something else going on in people who underachieved. In the 1970s, she and a few other researchers, including Jeff Howard, had an insight that has had a profound effect on the field: people who believe intelligence is fixed do not achieve as well as those who believe intelligence is malleable. What fascinated them most was children who put forth lots of effort and didn’t make negative attributions when they failed. Their attitude was, “Failure is information. This didn’t work. I’m a problem solver. I’ll try something else.” One boy, who became a poster-child for the get-smart belief system, reacted to his first stumper by pulling up his chair, rubbing his hands together, smacking his lips, and saying, “I love a challenge.”
This approach contrasts with the born-smart, performance-oriented belief system. Children in this camp, even if they’re very good at things, tend to crumble when they encounter frustration and failure. They see each task as a challenge to their self-image, and each setback as a personal threat. They tend to pursue only challenges they think they can ace and avoid risks and other growth experiences. Long term, the belief that ability is fixed undermines effort and stunts achievement.
Dweck’s latest study divided a number of seventh graders into two groups, both of which received help with study skills and information on how the brain works. One group was taught that the brain is like a muscle that grows stronger through exercise, and this single intervention was catalytic; students in this group had far better motivation and math grades than the control group, even though all students had received the same educational interventions. “Study skills and learning skills are inert until they’re powered by an active ingredient,” says Dweck. In other words, students may know how to study, but they won’t study effectively unless they believe studying will help them do better. “If you target that belief,” concludes Dweck, “you can see more benefit than you have any reason to hope for.” She and her colleagues have developed a computer-based training module, Brainology, to tutor students in this belief system.
But aren’t there people who believe in innate ability and the idea that working hard improves ability? Dweck agrees that logically the two ideas aren’t incompatible – but many people who believe in fixed intelligence slide into the belief that you shouldn’t need to work hard to do well at something. Students who finish problems in ten minutes that classmates take an hour to finish tend to draw this false conclusion. “The fallacy comes when people generalize it to the belief that effort on any task, even very hard ones, implies low ability,” says Dweck.
Dweck’s work is now being applied to other fields. The Blackburn Rovers, a top-ranked U.K. soccer team, came to her for advice on how to combat the born-talented mindset that was undermining the team’s work ethic. Peter Salovey, a Yale psychologist working in the area of emotional intelligence, says that his field is struggling against the belief that EI is largely inborn. “People say to me all the time, ‘I’m not a people person,’ or ‘I’m not good at managing my emotions,’” Salovey says. Dweck has been thinking about the impact of the fixed-trait belief system on people’s love relationships. A person who enters a relationship with a categorical, all-or-nothing belief about a partner’s personality traits tends to ignore festering problems or give up on the relationship at the first sign of trouble.
Dweck is also doing work on young children’s moral development. Some preschoolers believe a person is either good or bad, while others think a person can get better by being good. Dweck has found that children with the latter belief system feel all right about themselves after they’ve messed up and are less judgmental of others. They’re also more likely to try to set things right and learn from their mistakes. If a classmate spills juice or throws toys, these malleable-goodness children are more willing to forgive and forget as long as the malefactor cleans up and resolves to do better next time.
“The Effort Effect” by Marina Krakovsky in Stanford Magazine, March/April 2007, available at http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2007/marapr/features/dweck.html, spotted in American School Board Journal, June 2007 (Vol. 194, #6, p. 10); Dweck’s latest book is Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (Random House, 2006) © Kim Marshall 2007
MEMO
TO: Teachers
FROM: Ms. Kim
DATE: May 31, 2007
SUBJECT: BULK ITEMS and JUNK PICKUP
After much arm-twisting with Facilities, we finally got a roll-up dumpster for the bulk items that have been accumulating in the rear of the school during this school year. Since we see this as a rare moment, we’d like to capture this time as time to clean house. We need to act quickly, though, before our neighbors decide to clean house, too!! Therefore, we ask that you look around your room for any bulk items (and other junk) that need to be disposed of.
Please fill out the form below letting us know what items you have so that we can figure out to organize this exercise. Please return the form to Mr. Greenhill’s mailbox no later than TODAY.
BULK ITEM PICKUP
(Return to Mr. Greenhill’s Box by 6/4/07)
_____ I have the following items (including junk) that I wish to get rid of:
_____ I do not have anything that needs to be removed from my room.
______________________________ ______________________
Signature Room #
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