Just before our staff team comes together for this Friday afternoon Common Planning, I have a bit of breathing room to send this dispatch. The key word on my mind now is one that is paramount to our school culture: Teamwork.
This is a cliche word in many places. Here it is lived to its fullest extent each day. It is an expectation for all of us here, students, teachers, and staff alike.
Unison Reading is well documented on our HSLI school website (languagehs.schoolwires.net). Another new team activity we began recently in social studies is Topic Teams. Students cooperate and learn interdependently as they complete curriculum-related tasks in historical studies.
Our staff personifies our message of teamwork by attending Common Planning meetings together daily--as an entire teaching staff. Additional school support staff join us occasionally in larger meetings. This has helped us build a strong foundation in which we all strive to remain on the same page. It is remarkable how much we achieve when we work together. For example, we have been having Barn Raising activities lately.
With a nod to our Amish brethern, we join together to raise the barn of classroom spaces. Rather than working individually, we join together in teams to ensure that each classroom is fully stocked and loaded with pre-determined supplies, "ladder of consequences" posters, work habits rubrics, etc.
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