Hamrick's Friday Focus
4-7-17
Character Education
The need for a program is overwhelming. At the time of the meeting me had 144 discipline referrals in 134 days of school. We see the effects in the way kids treat the school from the bathrooms, buses, and classrooms. We also see it in the kids motivation. So many kids are unmotivated or have a negative sense of self. I often ask kids what they want to be when they grow up and they have no idea. They do not have goals or dreams for themselves.
I think we all realize that a large group of our students learn their moral code by what happens in the neighborhood. We have to be more intentional in how we address and teach kids to have self-worth and treat other humans
Our goal is to make this as impact and reasonable as possible for the first year. We have some committees set up to look at dong things like at-home projects, expectation walks, daily announcements, and positive referrals. We will be working a schedule to use 2 days a month of WIN time next year to help teach some of these habits to our kids.
Our committee's goal is to have a plan ready when we return from summer break to discuss at our opening meeting. The application and work involved in the implementation will not be overwhelming but the commitment needed in sharing a common message to our will be extremely important.
Resource of the Week
I have shared this in the past but some teachers have been asking about how to know what guided reading level their books are in the library. I would preface this with saying these levels should not be the sole determining factor on if the kid can read the book from your library. They should read books that interest them for independent reading. As long as the text is accessible to the child. Don't abandon teaching "good fit" books for the convenience of levels. The levels can help kids understand better the range a good fit book could be.