Personal Best Parent Update
...from Donald F. Gately Ed.D.
Volume I Number 1
..and We're Off!
We have just finished our first four weeks of school. Wow!! It is seems that we spend a good deal of the summer, Mr. Wiener and I, preparing for the opening of school. We squeeze every moment of preparation into the final week of the vacation (your vacation, not ours) then staff and students alike come rushing in here on day one and we're right back to learning. It's like we never left. This is especially true of our sixth graders. All the anxiety about starting middle school, opening lockers, finding their way around school, seems to me to have evaporated. Our sixth graders walk around the building now as if they own the place.
I want to thank you for your support and enthusiasm in this first month of school. Your children are such a joy to work with. Last year my wife and I got to see one of the Billy Joel shows at Madison Square Garden. At one point in the show Billy said, “I have the best job in the world, if you can get this gig, take it!” I say the same thing all the time. I have the best job in the world working with your kids and with their wonderful families.
Assembly Programs
In the last couple of weeks we have reviewed the Code of Conduct with students in assembly programs. Each grade went to the Little Theatre and listened to Mr. Wiener and I outline the expectations and the rules that we have in place here. You can take a look at the PowerPoint. Ask your child about it and follow up with the discussion.
The Teenage Brain: Great Read
Did you know that an adolescent mouse who is in a Plexiglas cage with other mice will drink twice as much ethanol as a teenage mouse in a cage by himself? This info comes from: “The Teenage Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Survival Guide to Raising Adolescents and Young Adults” (HarperCollins), written by Frances Jensen with Amy Ellis Nutt. It offers a parenting guide to adolescence laced with the latest MRI studies. I read a review of this book and I’m eager to dive in. Anybody want to do a book club? E-mail me if you’re interested.