SMS Principal Blog

"Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better." -Albert Einstein As I sit in my office on what is turning out to be the nicest day of spring so far, I am fighting the impulse to spend the afternoon observing the PE classes that are enjoying the weather over at the park. I'm probably not alone. I walked the building earlier today, and while there was real, quality teaching and learning happening in every classroom, the windows were all open, and I could tell that everyone, students and teachers alike, would rather be outside. So, now I have a crazy idea. What if we had a day where we literally held every class outside? We wouldn't even bring the kids in for passing periods. We would plan our lessons to use minimal materials. Teachers would have a designated "classroom" in the park where we could transport some boxes of whatever materials you would need (textbooks, etc). Kids would bring iPads, and we would run our entire da...

"The secret of joy in work is contained in one word-- excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it." -Pearl S. Buck As many of you know, I have been conducting interviews for our open teaching positions over the last few weeks, and it is both a very exciting and very stressful process. On the one hand, it is exciting to think about the fact that I may be meeting a teacher who goes on to spend three decades leaving a lasting legacy on Sullivan Middle School. I mean really, who hasn't looked at some great person with a tremendous career and wondered what it would have been like to meet them at the beginning, before they were a legend? Just me? Ok, but I do it anyway, so there is part of me that really enjoys the interview process because every candidate who walks through the door could be that future SMS teaching legend, and they don't even know it about themselves yet.  The other side of me finds the process very stressful because I know the h...

"Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterward." -Vernon Law This year seems to have had more disruptions to our "normal" schedule than usual. Some of this has been due to circumstances outside of our control (testing schedules, emergency evacuations, etc.) while others have been due to the opportunity given to use by outside resources paying to send speakers to share their knowledge and experiences with our students. I also know that some of them have been due to my idea to bring a focus on service to our school.  If you are one of the teachers who finds these interruptions frustrating, know that I hear you. There is a lot of pressure on educators to get students to certain benchmarks by certain points in their education. However, I also believe that there is tremendous learning that takes place when we take students out of the classroom and into the real world. Often this learning cannot be measure on a standardized...

"When we do the best we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another." - Helen Keller Here we are in the white flag lap of this school year. Growing up, this was the time of year when my dad would give my brothers and I a big speech about finishing strong and sprinting through the finish. I thought it was cheesy at the time, but as he likes to point out, none of us have been arrested, and we all have college degrees, so he did something right. As I've gotten older, I see the wisdom in his annual speech.  As the weather gets warmer and we have more and more conversations about planning for next year, it is easy to lose focus on the work that still lies ahead for this year. The small battles you have been waging for our students' futures over the course of the year are not over, and in a lot of ways the additional ground you gain with them over the closing weeks of this year will benefit them in the opening weeks of next y...