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“The Onion” Spoofs USDA School Lunch Guidelines
I laughed and laughed at this article from “The Onion”:
USDA Rolls Out New School Brunch Program For Wealthier School Districts
About the author:
Jane Thursday is a freelance writer, a mother of two young children, and an elementary school principal. She holds a doctorate in educational leadership, a master’s degree in school administration, and 6-12 English Language Arts teaching licensure. She has studied public education in the United States, South Africa, the Philippines, and England.
Please click here to get updates from Jane Thursday Enterprises. For more from Jane Thursday, visit http://www.janethursday.com
Decorating Guitars
The Roberts children have officially traded in their tv satellite subscription for kid-sized guitars. It is going to be an interesting summer.
Please click here to get updates from Jane Thursday Enterprises. For more from Jane Thursday, visit http://www.janethursday.com
Jane Thursday’s Summer Tour Announcement
Who: JaneThursday Enterprises is a North Carolina-based company founded by Dr. Reida Roberts, an educator, author, and public speaker who specializes in educating children. Dr. Roberts loves speaking and writing about the issues that make educating children exciting!
What: Dr. Roberts is now booking seminar dates with churches and other organizations interested in her topic: Biblical parenting principles that can be put into place in any home, Sunday school class, or classroom immediately.
When: Reserve your organization’s date for summer 2013 by visiting JaneThursday.com and completing a contact form.
Where: Dr. Roberts is based in eastern North Carolina, and is accepting invitations anywhere along the Eastern seaboard (travel fees may apply).
Why: Dr Roberts’s book, God’s Most Difficult Children, is set for publication on August 31, 2013. The purpose of the tour is both to promote her book and to connect with her audience while doing what she loves best, sharing her testimony of God’s love for children and families.
For more information, please janethursday.com or connect with Dr. Roberts on Twitter @ReidaJane
Bladen County Education Association Jail-a-Thon, Bail set at $125.00
Urgent Parenting Lessons From the Old Testament
Some of the most important lessons of parenting come from the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. Some Christians might find this idea to be unusual since the New Testament is often emphasized in churches. As a Christian I believe that the birth, life, and resurrection of Jesus Christ brought about a new covenant between God and humans. In this new covenant, Jesus paid for our sins by dying on the cross. We must lead good, moral lives–not to win God’s favor–but because it is the least we can do to honor the sacrifice made by our Lord and Savior. God hates sin, and Jesus’ cruel death is evidence of God’s abhorrence to the evil of this world.
And yet the Old Testament is chocked full of God’s mercy and grace, even as His people disappoint him at every turn. How could he love those people who turn against him when things aren’t going well for them? How about people who murder, blaspheme, are plagued with greed, and worship idols? The miracle of this story is that God did indeed llove the people of the Old Testament, just as he loves us today in spite of our sins.
How could God bless Jacob after he had the audacity to wrestle with an angel? Sampson delighted in his fraternization with the enemy. God still used Sampson to propagate His will, and Sampson used his last breath to destroy the temple that housed his traitorous wife and his captors. King David is the ultimate example, as he returned to God’s love after committing both adultery and murder. Adam and Eve, King Saul, the Babylonians… the list of examples goes on and on.
The only way we could make ever make sense of God’s love for humans is to compare it to a parent’s love for a child. My heart warms to see my own children make heartfelt attempts to please me by obeying my rules, even though my heart aches when they make wrong choices. I never give up on my kids. I want them to succeed; I cheer for them at every turn!
What better way to improve our parenting than by studying God’s relationships with His chosen people? The Old Testament offers many, many, examples of people–both good and evil–in many, many situations. People make their own choices, but they are influenced by their personalities and their circumstances. We can’t completely control our children’s actions, just as God doesn’t choose to completely control our choices. However, by carefully studying Biblical stories we can understand how we might set our children up for success in their lives.
About the author:
Jane Thursday is a freelance writer, a mother of two young children, and an elementary school principal. She holds a doctorate in educational leadership, a master’s degree in school administration, and 6-12 English Language Arts teaching licensure. She has studied public education in the United States, South Africa, the Philippines, and England.
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My Visit To Asheville Middle School
Elementary School principal and author of JaneThursday.com visits Asheville Middle School
On the surface Bladen Lakes Primary School, where I serve as principal, and Asheville Middle School (AMS) are quite different from each other. Bladen Lakes houses about 350 students in rural eastern North Carolina. It borders on the state forest land, and occasionally a real black bear will come onto campus and “alter” our landscaping. Asheville Middle School is centered in the heart of the city of Asheville and houses about twice as many students. Even the layouts of the two schools are different. Bladen Lakes is an open campus, made up of pods and mobile units in separate buildings. Many Bladen County residents don’t know where Bladen Lakes Primary School is exactly, as it is nestled in the expansive forests of the northern side of the county. Asheville Middle School sits on a hill near the downtown area of the city. Its campus forms a square block surrounding a hill-shaped, grassy quad. I understand that this quad’s slope is converted into a water slide each year for AMS’s Field day. How cool is that?
You might be surprised at the similarities between the two schools, considering the obvious differences. All public schools in North Carolina and around the country compete with charter and private schools for students. When a public school loses students, it loses money, and public schools are making aggressive efforts to keep their children on their attendance rosters. Asheville Middle School has always competed with local private schools to attract students from Asheville’s more elite clientele In the last few years, new private and charter schools have been opened in Bladen County, and competition is intensifying.
Seventy-five percent of Bladen Lakes students receive free and reduced meals, and we take in about fifty migrant students in the spring, while their parents work in the blueberry fields as seasonal migrant labor. Asheville City also serves an underprivileged (though inner-city) population. I don’t know their exact statistics, but Asheville City surely does not qualify for Title One funds for the federal government.
When a college friend of mine who is a teacher at Asheville Middle invited me to visit her classroom as an observer, I gladly accepted. At the time it was spring break at Bladen Lakes and I was err-cationing (a road trip that involves both errand running and vacationing) and the visit worked perfectly into my trip itinerary.
I had so many questions! I wanted to know how the school manages and invests in technology, how the master schedule was built, and how electives were offered. I had questions about the bully program (surely every middle school has a bully program, right?). I wanted to know how sciences and maths are promoted.
All technology devices must be approved at AMS. FaceBook is approved for certain adult users so that the school can maintain a presence in social media forums. Lots of lap top carts and three stationary labs are available. Additional lap top carts belong to teachers. There are about ten iPads in the school. Just about everyone seems to have an interactive white board, but I’m told some teachers still don’t.
A wonderful eighth grade student gave me a tour, and I was so grateful for her intelligent insight and patient answers to my questions. One really doesn’t understand a school until seeing it from a student’s point of view. Here are some bits and pieces of what I learned:
The school has a strings program, as in stringed instruments. Cougar News is filmed day prior to the airing of the show the next morning. The school participates in the OLWEUS program, a comprehensive anti-bullying program that involves a weekly course. I found the website and I intend to research OLWEUS (www.violencepreventionworks.org). My student guide recalled a survey that went out at least a year before regarding parent interest in uniforms. The idea of uniforms must have been voted down, because the students dress in regular clothes. I was very interested in the school’s master schedule. My guide said she attends three blocks on her team and two explorative classes each day. The blocks stay the same but the exploratory classes change each semester. Chorus and string classes are all year. Each week there is a special session for Cougar Time or special enrichment.
Single gender teams are available at AMS, when there is enough interest from parents. Of six 6th grade teams, two are all-girl, one is all-boy, and three are mixed-gender. Spanish is available all three years at the school, and it is optional as an exploratory course.
I am so appreciative of principal Cynthia Sellinger for graciously allowing me into the school, in spite of the fact that I accidently interrupted morning announcements. Her leadership is obviously a huge part of why the school is as successful as it is today. Many thanks to Mrs. Jo Peterson Gibbs Landreth, to her students, and to the school’s faculty for making me feel welcome at Asheville Middle School. Although it was nice to return home to my cozy little school in the forest lands, it was also a joy to visit AMS. 
Bladen Lakes Primary School Students Participate in School Wide Paideia Seminar
On Friday morning, students at Bladen Lakes Primary School participated in the school’s third school-wide Paideia seminar. The Paideia seminar is a teaching method in which students discuss reading selections at high levels. The teacher serves as the facilitator and the students are responsible for establishing the direction and content of the conversation.
The students were discussing a science article from Science News for Kids, a free online magazine. The title of the article is “These Ants Boast Mighty Grip” by Susan Milius. Students pointed out the most interesting points of the article and then explained some of the key facts and vocabulary in the article. Many of the students took the opportunity to recall their previous experiences with ants. Students concluded the seminar by discussing what the job of an ant researcher might be like and whether or not they would enjoy that kind of work.
Prior to the seminar, students labeled text features such as the title, subtitle, author, and illustration. Teachers reviewed the rules of the seminar and rearranged student desks into large circles in each classroom. Following the seminar, students were to complete a journal reflection or graphic organizer outlining what they learned.
Bladen Lakes has implemented the Paideia Seminar as an instructional method this year as part of the transition to the state’s Common Core curriculum. Common Core emphasizes high level thinking, student collaboration, information texts, and vocabulary study.
Twitter for Educators!
How cool is this: a high level Department of Public Instruction training on Twitter…Watch out folks, I’m tweeting!
Presenting at the 2013 Collaborative Conference for Student Achievement
I recently had the opportunity to do something I’ve never done, present at a state conference. I was invited to present at the 2013 Collaborative Conference for Student Achievement in Greensboro, NC. My topic was “An Elementary School Master Schedule to Support Reading Instruction.” A lot of people don’t realize how important scheduling is at the elementary school level, even when compared to middle and high schools. Time is a precious commodity!
I wanted to share with other educational leaders across the state what the reality of the elementary school day actually is. Deciding how and when to allocate time across grade levels gets complicated. Everyone who has a stake in the elementary school day should have a say in the process, although almost no one will end up with their dream schedule. In fact a lot our time is mandated by rules from the state government, especially number of school days and the amount of instructional hours per school year.
I planned to talk about the steps I took to actually sit down and write the master schedule over the summer. Every daily schedule is based off of a time allocation chart that describes how much time each grade level should spend on each activity. Time allocations are given for everything from reading and math to lunch and recess. From there, I plot which teachers on are campus on which days, as we share several other teachers with other schools. Only one class at a time can use each computer lab, and the cafeteria can only hold so many classes for lunch. Because the school has chosen to emphasize reading instruction, the reading block should be protected as much as possible.
My first thought in entering the room where I was to present was “Oh no, the room’s too big! What if not that many people come to hear me?” Also to my surprise was that the room filled up quickly. I would guess about 75 educational leaders from across the state were there. Some of my colleagues from Bladen County were there to support me. It was also really neat to see some familiar faces from across the state from my previous jobs and from my doctoral program.
After my presentation—which was just over an hour in length—several participants stayed to ask me questions about my topic. Several more emailed or tweeted to ask for more information. I love getting the opportunity to brag on the great things that are happening at Bladen Lakes Primary School and the wonderful people who make the magic of teaching and learning possible each day at the school!
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