lunchbyteblog

Tuesday night at the regularly scheduled meeting of the Newton, NC city council we had a presentation given to council by our Public Works director Dusty Wentz. Mr. Wentz outlined the operations of the Wastewater Treatment Plant(WTP). He had several maps and diagrams showing the ins and outs of the Wastewater Treatment Plant. He later made several other presentations that involved budget ordinance amendments and approvals of money for the WTP.  It was an interesting night that showed that many of our tax dollars go to places where the general public may not see evidence of the monies being spent. In the past 5 years the city has spent $959,352 on 17 projects at the WTP. We approved another half a million in dollars last night. All of this is to keep the WTP up and running and in compliance with both state and federal regulations.  There's nothing exciting about spending these dollars. They don't really cause people to exclaim in admiration about the great job the city is doing.

Wander the halls of Discovery High School at Newton Conover on any given day and you will immediately see that this is not a traditional high school. Students might be sitting in the hall working on laptops, or writing on a “chalk-talk” board where students respond to open-ended questions, or they might be filming videos for a class project. If you happen to venture outside, the students might be sitting and eating at outdoor tables, or working in the school greenhouse. You might have passed one or two students on your way in, blowing leaves or tidying up the memorial garden. Students might be in the media center, working on online classes, or in the creativity room painting, or filming in front of a green screen. These students do not fit the stereotype of a surly teenager, though they are certainly teenagers. They are polite. They answer questions from visitors. They continue about their business. Teachers move in and out of these places purposefully interacting with these student

Just about every morning at Discovery High School I am in the hallway greeting students as they enter the building. Usually I refer to the day of the week and loudly proclaim something like "people of earth, I see you," or "people of the Discovery tribe, good morning!" I feel like it's important to let students know that we are happy that they are here. And I think that for some of them it helps to wake them up. I was thinking about this this morning because lately I have been considering the idea of community and what makes a strong community. As some people may know, I am currently in the middle of a campaign for city council. One of the things that people often ask me is "why did you decide to run?" It's a good question and it's one that I ask myself as well. "Why did I decide to run?" There are varying reasons that I will get into later and that might be better served in a different forum but for me the underlying idea is that

I've said in the past that I might use this blog for things other than technology or teaching. So here we go. One from the archives: a moment in march                                                   03/07/04       dabbed colors blur on the edge of vision and what cost is our sight worth? forgive me for the moment surrendering to the melancholy to fatigue, to often grim realities etched in stone for history.   this night is hopeful maybe because of lessons learned- sometimes it’s in the breathing, still others, when it abruptly stops...   do we perceive ourselves as those few lines in newsprint? or is this, “the stuff of life” greater than that?   are my dreams still real? are any of us where we imagined ourselves to be?   open hearts are, sadly, more in the realm of surgery than something looked upon with awe and understood when we remember days of “ill show you mine,” and how as children, we were transparent- lo

How often do you have to blog to be considered a blogger? If I haven't blogged in over a year am I still a blogger? Was I ever a blogger? A few friends have been after me to start writing again so I thought maybe we would take this old blog out for a ride. Knock the dirt off of the tires. See what happens. Today I want to talk about old habits. You know, they die hard. Just like our affinity for using the same old tools and the same old worksheets and the same old jokes. As humans we tend to gravitate toward the tried and true. But is it all so tried and true anymore? Just because something worked for students five years ago doesn't mean it's going to work today. Or maybe it will. I don't know. The point here is that we shouldn't be scared to try new things. New ways of delivering info, new ways of imparting knowledge. Just try it. You might like it. -Sam I am

Once of the things that I was trying to accomplish with my last post was to put forth the idea that, often, learning takes place outside the walls of the traditional classroom. In fact, I would argue that in the history of the world a very small percentage of learning has taken place inside a classroom.  Real knowledge comes from real experience and one of the things that we are horrible at manufacturing in schools is reality.  Most of the time, the things that students are supposed to be doing and learning have little obvious connection with the reality of the world outside the confines of the school.  Our reaction to this is the push for PBL. PBL seeks to make learning relevant.  Projects aren't treated as isolated bits of knowledge for students to learn. The projects should be integrated within the framework of the curriculum and should include as many real world experiences as possible. The audience should be bigger than the teacher and the project should include opportunities