Professional Blogging

I started this blogging business on a whim. In an effort to keep our friends and family in touch with our trip to last year's inauguration, I set-up a blog that chronicled our 4 days in DC. My family and I enjoyed recounting our experiences and hearing from those who were following us. As school started in September I launched this blog to have the forum to discuss various topics having to do with education, parenting, EFS, and anything else that came to mind. Although I hoped to post once a week, I haven't always kept up. Nevertheless, this will be my 19th post; not too bad.

As a result of my vast experience with blogging, I was asked to be one of four official bloggers for the National Association of Independent School (NAIS) Annual Conference - there are over 4000 independent school administrators and teachers at the conference. So here I sit, in San Francisco, attending workshops and general session speakers and blogging in every free moment. I've been to the conference many times over the years, but this is a very different way to experience it. It's meant that I need to be efficient and focused, but it's also been fun to be a voice of the conference for others. I had assumed that most of the followers would be folks who could not attend, but there are many attendees who have told me that they are following as well. Who knew?


I consider myself something of a luddite when it comes to social networking, so this blogging thing, this year and this week, has been an interesting new addition to my life. If you are interested in seeing what I've been up to in San Francisco, click here. Not included in the blog for NAIS, but definitely a highlight of the trip, was a dinner last night with a few EFS alums who live in the Bay Area.

One final note...don't feel too badly for me. In spite of dire predictions of rain all week, the weather here has been quite delightful. Although I've been stuck inside most of the time, it's struck me how nice 55 and sunny can feel for those of us mirerd in a cold and relatively snowless winter in Buffalo. The picture below was taken at a park across the street from the convention center during a break when I was able to sneak out for a few minutes.

 

Hopefully, this is what spring will look like when it finally arrives in Western New York.

Am I Really Too Old?

My mother clearly thinks so.

Last week I sprained my knee - grade 2 tear of the MCL I think the doctor said - playing hockey. I'm not really sure what happened, but I think I caught an edge, causing me to fall and slam into the boards. No one was near me, nor was I moving all that fast. Nevertheless, I wasn't able to continue playing that night, and the visit to the doctor a couple of days later resulted in my wearing a brace while the ligament heals. Hopefully, I'll be back on the ice in a few weeks, albeit with the brace under my shin pad.

Now back to my mother. We spoke a couple of days after the incident and she made it very clear that I was too old to still be playing hockey. "It's time to stop that," is what I remember her saying. Those who know Mother Featherston know she's nothing if not direct. And I think my brothers would agree that she continues to take seriously her role as mother and not-so-gentle voice of reason, even though we're all in our 40s. In other words, I expected nothing less. Just think what she might have said if I told her that before I played hockey that fateful evening I'd gone snowboarding with our middle schoolers. I'm certainly not too old to know there are some things you don't need to share with your mother.

So, back to the original question. Am I really too old? I guess the answer is that while my body may, in fact, be too old to keep up with my athletic aspirations, I'm not mature enough to know when to stop.

Sorry, Mom.

Let the Games Begin

Molly Clauss, Prep music and Friendship Club teacher, is our resident Olympics guru. In an effort to bring the Olympics home to her students, Molly has created a blog through which the class is communicating with people in Vancouver, fans, parents of athletes competing in the Games, and even some athletes themselves. In her first post, Molly spelled out the mission for the site and for her class: "We are a class from New York State that wants to know more about the Olympic experience, and we are hoping that people who are attending the Olympics will become our eyes and ears, and write to us about the events they attend." I think it's safe to say, we've all been surprised, pleasantly so, by the response. And it is great to see a committed and innovative teacher making use of technology to teach our students about competition, sportsmanship, geography, and more. Thanks, Molly!

 

Molly Clauss and the Prep students taking the Olympic oath.

Characteristics of a Good Student: The Top 10 List

Last night EFS inducted 20 7th and 8th graders into the National Junior Honor Society. This recognition is given to students who have earned an A- average in their classes and who maintain high standards of character, service, leadership, and citizenship. In my talk to the students and their parents I proposed a list of 10 characteristics that I feel are critical for success in school. While this list is not meant to be definitive or exclusive of other worthy traits, I do hope that it sparks reflection among students about their own strengths. I'm anxious to hear from others about important characteristics I've failed to include.

Top 10 Characteristics of a Good Student
10. Ability
9.   Luck/Blessings
8.   Humor
7.   Humility
6.   Self-awareness
5.   Empathy
4.   Confidence
3.   Sense of Wonder
2.   Discipline
1.   Positive Attitude

How Much is Too Much?

Is there a parent out there who didn't gasp a little when it was recently announced that a new study found that children 8 to 18 spend an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes a day using recreational media? It sounds unbelievable, especially when you realize that "recreational media" means time spent on the computer, TV, mobile phone, iPod, handheld game, etc. for fun; time spent on the computer for homework is not included. The research, conducted by the Henry J. Kaiser Family foundation found that the time on entertainment media had increased over and hour and a quarter since 2004, with most of that increase due to more access to mobile media. According to the study, "Over the past 5 years, the percentage of students owning cellphones jumped from 39 to 66 percent. The share of students who own iPods or other MP3 players rose from 18% to 76%." (Education Week, 1/27/10) And due to multitasking, young people are actually packing 10 hours and 45 minutes of recreational media content into the 7 hours and 38 minutes! If my kids can be considered normal in this context, I can certainly attest to the fact that they tend to watch a show on Hulu.com in one corner of the screen and browse the web or play a game in another corner. Not surprisingly, the study found that heavy users reported a negative impact on grades. The shocking piece of this is that a heavy user is defined as consuming, on average, more than 16 hours a day of recreational media content! How is that even possible?

So what's a parent to do? How do we balance the need to develop media literacy with the tendency of young people to overdo it? Is it possible to effectively monitor and limit all this access to the recreational use of media? Is it really worse than all the TV I watched as a kid? The best answer probably lies in what most EFS parents are doing already: engage children in athletics, theater, music, and other outside activities; spend as much family time...unplugged family time...as possible; continue to encourage independent, leisure reading. Over the summer, I read a great book, The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don't Trust Anyone Under 30). This fascinating, research-based book posits that all this time spent plugged-in comes at the expense of leisure reading, and is resulting in the least literate, least informed, and most self-absorbed generation ever. While it doesn't necessarily provide THE answer for parents, along with this recent study, The Dumbest Generation provides a compelling and cautionary tale for parents and educators alike.