Oh... To be a STAR at Sullivan Heights

In spite of the labour unrest being played out on the political stage of public education, good things are still happening. Our students are safe, teachers are teaching, activities are being organized, students are being engaged and learning is evident.

Here are some highlights from semester I at Sullivan Heights. Thank you to our Sullivan Heights Department Heads for celebrating and highlighting our Sullivan Height’s successes. 

SCIENCE

Some successes in Science this past semester include:

• Preparing for the Michael Smith Science Challenge
• Extensive use of Gizmos and guest speakers
• Our very own Ms. Rogerson allowing us to ultra sound her to educate students on pregnancy and fetus growth
• Using twitter as a communication tool in all classes
• A successful grade 7 to 8 transition project

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

This past semester Ms. Painchaud has been very busy organizing and orchestrating the implementation of our Technology Grant.  We are all very impressed with Ms. Painchaud’s efforts to education and enlighten us on our new journey. We are all very excited about what’s new on the technology front. For the best updates regarding our grant progression, visit our newspaper at

http://paper.li/painchaud_n/1322108217

http://sullivanheights21stcentury.blogspot.com/

PHYSICAL EDUCATION

Congratulations to our Physical Education Department on a great semester. A special thank you to the recent teacher additions of Mr. Davis, Mr. Dewinetz and Ms. Vaters and of course a thank you to student teacher’s Ms. Fowler and Ms. Dalzel and their work orchestrating the memorable Zumba dance unit.

This past semester:

• field trips included: skating, broomball, curling, golf, martial arts, rock climbing, grouse grind, orienteering, gymnastics, bowling, skim boarding, beach volleyball, and billiards.
• we had out very first “Get Fit” senior girls PE class with Ms. Phillips. The feedback to date is overwhelmingly positive and we’re hoping for at least 1 block per semester next year.
• we had weekly block-wide fitness days featuring; strength, endurance, agility, balance circuits, aerobics, and running
• we redesigned and revitalized our "Sulli Fitness Centre"
• we had period-wide, peer-led activity days
• we had department-wide, student and teacher assessment interviews
• we had ongoing development of our future ping-pong Olympian

BASES

New to our BASES program this past semester is the BASES blog entitled Buzz in BASES. The ‘Buzz in BASES’ Blog was born on September 1, 2011 at a Professional Development Day on Technology. It has been a perfect vehicle for the BASES Teachers to communicate to parents and inform them of the activities and events in the BASES class.  It is written by BASES Teachers but often includes writing excerpts from students.  Subscribers to our BLOG have even posted personal comments for our students, which has been exciting for them.  On our BLOG, we have the opportunity to display student work and include highlights in BASES from one week to the next.  We have included our favorite recipes from our cooking and baking program.  Finally, information about upcoming field trips and community outings is shared.  Most importantly, Buzz in BASES allows subscribers to catch a glimpse into the wide variety of learning and fun we have on a daily ‘basis’.  For updates see http://buzzinbases.blogspot.com/

           

            

CAREER PROGRAMS

Grad Transitions Interviews will be held on Feb 15^th  and 16^th with all grade 12's completing an exit interview with a teacher, administrator, or community member. 

This past semester we successfully saw students gain admittance to these district programs:  Automotive Service Technician Program, Plumbing Program, Culinary Arts and Hairdressing Program and also the RCMP Police Observer Program. 

Our Career department also hosted the first annual Drop it and Drive Presentation for risks associated with distracted driving.

Health and Career Ed 8/9 first semester activities included:

• Grade 8 Retreat - Team Building
• Grade 8 - Anti Smoking Presentations   
• Grade 9 - Anti Drug Presentations
• Grade 8/9 - Career Avenues in Science and Technology Presentation

MODERN LANGUAGES

‪Spanish

Our Spanish 11 class is proud to have modelled an approach that encouraged students to communicate using as much Spanish as possible.  This approach saw students speaking over 90% of all spoken words in Spanish. Students finished the course speaking more Spanish than ever. Our students commented that they found themselves thinking and writing in Spanish outside the classroom. 

French

This past semester our French classes used:

• student input on feedback and assessment criteria. This gave students a sense of ownership in the assessment process, and made them far more effective in providing peer feedback.
• Twitter and Google Docs for student homework, assignments and study & supplementary resources.
• www.socrative.com for student input & participation (similar to iClickers but using any internet enabled device).
• www.storybird.com for collaborative storytelling.
• www.voicethread.com for online discussions and responses to questions posed by students.
• more Technology–related tools  like iPods, iPads, cell phones, desktop computers, etc.
• Google Forms to survey grade 11 students at the end of the course with the outcome being many students commenting on how different the collaborative, technology-based projects were and how much they liked them. 

For more information and updates go to:

http://digitallanguagelearning.blogspot.com

http://snfteacher.blogspot.com

http://mrdavisfrenchclass.wikispaces.com/

VISUAL ARTS

We’re proud to say that grade 12 student Thomas Nelles received post-secondary admission to a visual arts program at Parsons (New York), University of Chicago and Emily Carr University.  Thomas also was awarded a significant commission from DIVERSECity (Surrey) to create the city's first digital outdoor mural near the Newton Bus loop. Parts from his overall design will be used to create street banners, which will line the streets of Newton, this summer.  

We are also very proud of the Visual Arts students who swept this year's Royal Canadian Legion Remembrance Day poster contest (Surrey level), winning first prize in three of four categories.  Congratulations to Lazar Savic who took first place for his Sr. Black & White poster. This is his third consecutive first prize standing!  Congratulations also to Joy Penpenia who won first place for her Sr. Colour poster.  Last year, Joy took second place at the Nationals for her intermediate Black  after achieving first place at the Surrey, Peace Arch Zone and Provincial levels.  Congratulation also go out to newcomer, Sage Stevenson (Grade 8), who took first place with an intermediate Black & White.  And finally congratulations to Teresa Lam (Grade 11) for coming in second place for Sr. Black & White.

PERFORMING ARTS

Drama

This past semester success includes the drama show “Fawlty Towers”. The performance was very entertaining and had a feature story in the Surrey “Now”. They had three night performances in December as well as a matinee in which they performed for the elementary schools.

 

Music

The Music Department had a fantastic performance on December 13^th for the annual winter concert. They did a great job performing and raised approximately $230.00 for the Surrey Food Bank.

Dance

January has been a very busy month for the dance department. They performed at “Breakout” a competition here in Surrey, at the “Strictly” dance competition where the students placed very well.  Jacob Soriano and Jesko Guiang and Erik Perena were featured performers at the ‘Strictly” dance competition.  As well, the students recently had their semester end dance show, which was very well attended. The students did most of the sound at the Bell Centre so that is a great achievement for them.

We look forward to our performing Arts Department providing more excellent opportunities for our students to showcase their talents.

HOME ECONOMICS

Semester I highlights include:

The use of Technology ... such as: 

• the use of Online Digital Database, Learn 360 and Discovery Schools, downloading and using them in Tourism 12.
• the use of Document Reader in Tourism 12, Sociology 12 and Foods 12.
• the use of an LCD to present theory and DVD’s in all areas and grade levels of Home Economics.
• research based assignments at all grade levels using different subject related websites including Foods and Nutrition, Sociology and Tourism.
• the use of Smart Board for student media and Young Adulthood presentations in Sociology 12.
• the use of Live Binders in Tourism and Foods.
• using YouTube and Facebook for assignments in Tourism and Sociology 12.
• researching ways to integrate the applicable use of ipads in Home Ec. 
• fostering social networking etiquette conversations and assignments related to speakers in HACE.

Curriculum

• A class quilt was created in textiles by all class members including BASES students, SEAs and our textiles teacher.
• More collaboration among department members, sharing of resources and team planning with new teachers
• using an Aboriginal Education Speaker in Sociology 12 (Mr. Yellowfly) who presented for four hours in total to two Sociology classes.  Students learned about the medicine wheel and the holistic approach to living.  Dallas also addressed stereotypes and myths associated with First Nations Culture.
• incorporated the use of the Simulation Baby which taught students how difficult teenage parenting can be.
• Two children’s Christmas parties were planned, organized and implemented by Sociology students for children, birth to ten years in our community and the BASES students at Sullivan.
• A Thanksgiving dinner was prepared and served by the Senior Foods Class.
• Field trips for tourism students included: the Peace Arch Travel Information Centre, Peace Arch Park, various venues downtown including The Vancouver Trade and Convention Centre, The Spaghetti Factory, Robson Square, The Hyatt, and Kyoto Sushi.
• continued to use Developing Reader’s strategies for all our curricular areas.
• used AFL rubrics and activities – Sociology, Tourism and Foods 12 classes participated in interviews to assess the number of learning outcomes they have achieved by interim time and end of the semester.

TECHNOLOGY

Some notable success in Technology include:

• Congratulations to our electronics students who under the direction of Matthew Knight's (grade 11) leadership managed to break a glass at 1325 Hz / 130 dB and also, a job very well done for building a foxhole radio out of random simple electronics components found in a WW I bunker.
• Having a senior engineer from MDA Corp (Space arm people) come to Sullivan Heights to talk about the importance of Imagination and shop skills.
• Congratulations to drafting students who under Navtej Heir' s (grade 11) leadership built a solid model of a Lego helicopter and then made an animation in 3D Studio Max. This was a major accomplishment that required a lot of dedication.
• Congratulations to Lazar Savic (grade 11) and Zac Jewell (grade 12) for their combined efforts in designing and building a prototype steel catapult, which can be used by district wide students as a project in metalwork.
• Congratulations to Codye Brown (grade 12) and Justin Stapleton (grade 12) who designed and built a TV stand for P.E. Dept.
• And finally, congratulation to our robotics design team who successfully used their robot to shoot Sully T-Shirts in audience at our Pep Rally.

ATHLETICS

The winter season has been a wonderful reflection of the growing participation of staff and students in our school's success. A huge thank you goes out to the 6 staff members who volunteered their time to coach: for basketball, Mr. Davis – Gr 8 boys, Mr. Pederson - Jr Boys, Ms. Phillips - Jr Girls, Mr. Atwal and Mr. Ranu - Sr Girls, and for hockey, Mr. Vaughan.  A thank you goes out to Mr. Neufeld former for sponsoring two teams coached by former grad Mr. De La Cruz and our Sr. Boys and to our current student council president Navneet Sekhon for coaching the Gr 8 Girls basketball team. This collection of coaches spends an enormous amount of time in our school interacting with players as students and people first, athletes second. This has led to an amazing change in the community feeling around our teams and the members of one team are often found supporting the other teams in the stands and through our social media twitter stream @teacherneuf. The Jr. and Sr. girl’s teams are seeing great success in the tiered system, and the other ball teams are working hard in the top level of competitive Surrey basketball. Our hockey team continues to be a young group that has been battling admirably against much older, larger and experienced squads in the top tier of the league. A huge thank you to our leadership class who continue to support through set up and scorekeeping and we have had a number of students and staff put in time as referees as well. We are about to host our third basketball tourney of the season (Jr Girls) to help fund the Sr. Boys trip to Maui in December. 

Spring coaches are almost set up and the teams will be moving into high gear in the next few weeks with Badminton, Rugby, Girls soccer, Ultimate, Track and Field, and the golf/tennis club all get going. 

Identify the stakeholders…       Trust the process…      Trust the people…        Edu-Bring…

Recipe for Constructive Dialogue

Continuation from previous post…

If the line between professional and personal persona is being blurred through the use of social media, then we must dialogue about the ethical and moral implications of how we engage on-line. Choosing to leave your privacy setting open does feed into the true nature of how social media was designed, but it doesn’t provide a safety net for individuals who make comments that can be deemed controversial.

The internal litmus test on appropriate use within the school context should be the understanding that all comments are tethered to the core values of honesty, responsibility, respect, compassion and fairness. Further to this is the understanding that “the school context” is greater than any individual position or belief. Once tethered to core values, if there is still uncertainty, deferring to the 5 tests for wrongdoing is always a good idea. 

Various Tests for Right-versus-Wrong 

1. The legal test: is law breaking involved?
2. The Regulation test: Are there governing regulations stating not to do this?
3. The stench test: does it smell? Does it go against the grain of moral principles somehow?
4. The front-page test: what if everyone suddenly knew what you were up to?
5. The Mom test: if I were my Mom — or any moral exemplar — would I do this?  (The Golden Rule)

                                        Rushworth Kidder, How Good People Make Tough Choices, 1995

Accessibility and exposure is central to this discourse. When social media settings are open, anyone can access what is written. Accessing twitter accounts through the web requires no permission.  Anybody can access a twitter account by just Googling a twitter handle.  Just as it was designed, social media is driven by the belief that there should be no monitoring of who views content. In the school context this is unacceptable if what is tweeted or posted is deemed inappropriate for our student population.  In the highly visible world of social media, it is crucial to understand that the moment we dialogue on the Internet, we create a digital footprint or digital tattoo that cannot be removed.

Where do we go from here?  As Lao Tzu states, “The journey of a thousand miles begins beneath one’s feet.”

We propose a constructive dialogue where we come to agree on parameters on acceptable use and discourse. Not policies or guidelines, but rather a living mission statement that directs appropriate use and a common understanding. The recipe for a constructive dialogue should begin with:

• Creating a safe environment where everyone can be heard.
• Respecting that it takes time to have meaningful dialogue.
• Realizing that the outcome is not static, but rather dynamic and needs adjustment as issues arise.
• Understanding that controversial or challenging topics can be great catalysts however, they must be handled carefully and appropriately if learning, (rather than anger, frustration, and animosity) is to be achieved.
• Encouraging open and honest communication.
• Keeping in mind that one person from a particular group does not represent that entire group and that all views come from varying levels of experiences and knowledge.
• Being aware that some social or group identities are invisible. Religion, sexual orientation, gender identification, social class, culture, ethno-racial background, and disability status are some examples of identities that may be represented, but not visible to the eye.
• An understanding that “Evolution” of thought is necessary and more beneficial than “Revolution” of thought.

So, let the discourse begin...  To infinity and beyond we will boldly go where no educator has gone before!

Identify the stakeholders…       Trust the process…      Trust the people…        Edu-Bring…

Social Media – You can’t take it back

As we continue to move forward with advances in technology, the tools we use to communicate are creating an increasingly complex paradigm in our schools. As educators, we are professional communicators. So knowing that communicating is central to everything we do in school makes it crucial that we maintain an ongoing dialogue about the moral and ethical implications of social media engagement. We are educators 24/7, not just within the time constructs of the school day. When you write a post or tweet a comment, it must have forethought and clarity of context because once written, it can’t be taken back. One misinterpreted comment or post can cause irreparable damage to your professional life.

Social media has become a mechanism that can easily blur the line between personal and private life. If we want to lead the way as a school on the forefront of technology, then we must also lead the charge in educating everyone on the proper use of our new tools. We are not talking about platitudes of rhetoric and policy, but rather about the adult role modeling of what is acceptable and not acceptable in a school and professional context. We all agree that creating a policy of acceptable use is not necessarily the answer.

Social media is not going to disappear any time soon and we are not doing anyone justice by hiding our heads in the sand and avoiding it. In education, we spend a significant portion of time working with issues related to misinterpretation and communication. For some teachers, it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that life would be much simpler without Facebook, Twitter, and/or other social media. The fear is the belief that Facebook or Twitter exposes them to risks beyond their control or makes their life too complicated. Is the solution to create dual accounts / personas? Creating one for your “professional self” and one for your “personal self”, making sure you’re able to moderate the personal account so that it doesn’t spill over into your professional life? If the choice is to use social media, then we must manage its complexities. This may not be the final solution, but it is a step in the right direction. We must be aware that Internet searchers are savvy and will always try to find ways to peek into our personal lives. When we tweet or post, we should be aware of contextual and cultural implications.

So, the conundrum continues – more complex than ever. We have committed to participating in the wide world of social media, but we are learning that the lines between our professional and personal identities can be blurred beyond recognition and that whatever we write, regardless of our current persona is out there. As promoters of cutting edge technology in education, we must lead the way in defining and modeling appropriate use of the tools within the context of our schools. 

Identify the stakeholders…     Trust the process…    Trust the people…      Edu-Bring…

Who Knows Best

At what point do we let go and allow our children to have complete autonomy over their educational plan?  When our children are very young, we have complete control over what we teach them.  Don’t touch this, comb your hair, brush your teeth, sit up straight. etc.  As our children grow, they migrate to areas of interest through a form of natural selection driven by achievement and success.  As parents, we watch this and either nurture it or discourage it, usually basing our decision on what we want our children to do or where we want them to grow. Thus begins the age-old struggle between parent and child over what the child wants to do versus what the parent wants them to do or believes is right for them.

Do we have the same struggles in education?  When do we let go and have students choose what they want to do versus telling them this is what they have to do?  The wave of choice in education is our current narrative, but how far will we go to empower students to truly choose their own way?  In our system, students have to take a certain grouping of courses in order to fulfill graduation requirements.  There is some latitude in course selection, but it is often quite narrow and restricted to the skills of the teachers in the school.  If the core, non-elective courses are removed from the equation, we know that students choose courses based on their interests, teacher reputation or parental advice and vice versa, we also know that students choose to not take courses because it is out of their comfort zone or wasn’t one selected by a friend.

In high school, the number of courses that need to be taught is one of the major determining factors in allocating teaching loads. This in turn makes the course selection process a very hot topic for many schools. In high school, to meet the needs of students, the schedule should be driven by student course selection. A student-centered rather than a teacher centered schedule. Herein lies to dilemma. If the goal is to build a student centered schedule, we need to be open to the idea that some subject areas may decline and others grow based on student course selection. The reality is that no school wants to see an elective curricular area decline or diminish. The breadth of elective curricular choice is what defines a well-rounded educational program therefore; it should not be acceptable for a student to make a course selection choice based on comfort zone and or peer pressure. As educators, we need to encourage our younger students to explore options outside of their comfort zone and or peer influence so they are exposed to as many elective curricular areas as possible. Through basic psychology, the fickle nature of youth demands that we expose our children to as many experiences as possible so they become informed adolescents who can make better decisions. The basis of this belief is grounded on the mantra of “How do they know they don’t like it if they’ve never tried it?” or the familiar dinner table dialogue of “how do you know you don’t like it if you’ve never tried it?”

Thus we have come full circle… Who really knows best?  Do we as educators force our grade 8’s into an elective area exploration rotation, or do we allow them to choose their electives? If the goal is to produce socially responsible, productive members of society, it should be our duty to ensure our children are given a well-rounded education by exposing them to curricular areas beyond their comfort zone and beyond the safety net of peer pressure. Like the brussels sprouts, when your child says, “I don’t want to try it”, what do you do?

Identify the stakeholders…       Trust the process…      Trust the people…        Edu-Bring…