laurieslens’s posthaven

Along with the 30 or so other members of my school's Public Purpose Task Force, I was asked to read Zeroing in on Impact, a September 2004 article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review. (The Public Purpose of Private Schools will give you an idea of the focus of our Task Force.)

The article discusses two tools for nonprofit organizations to utilize in fine-tuning their goals, how they go about achieving those goals, and how they measure whether or not those goals are met. The authors share the process undertaken by the Rheedlen Centers for Children and Families as it morphed into the Harlem Children's Zone. Intended impact and theory of change are the tools utilized by the Rheedlen Centers as they underwent their process, and the tools the authors see as necessary for guiding a nonprofit towards restating goals and prioritizing resources in order to achieve those goals.

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Intended impact is a statement or series of statements about what the organization is trying to achieve and will hold itself accountable for within some manageable period of time. It identifies both the benefits the organization seeks to provide and the beneficiaries.

Theory of change explains how the organization's intended impact will actually happen, the cause-and-effect logic by which organizational and financial resources will be converted into the desired social results. Often an organization's theory of change will take into account not only its own resources but also those that others bring to bear.

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The authors go on to elaborate upon intended impact and theory of change, clarifying how the process would work. The major issue I see is that we are going to attempt changes to the way our school has functioned these past many years. To do this successfully, so that people have a greater likelihood of not only "going along" with the change, but believably incorporating the change into their daily school lives, we will have to carefully construct and explain our vision. We will have to ensure that its scope is manageable either within the existing structure of our school, or be prepared to systemically alter that structure to support this new scope.

I am curious to see how this initiative plays out over the coming year. It could be the gorilla in the room, in the sense that like the folks earnestly watching the basketball game, they did not notice the person in a gorilla costume walking through the game. Or it could be the gorilla in the room, in the sense that the gorilla is all too noticeable and people do not move while it is present. (Hmm, maybe it will be a playful gorilla that everyone is willing to "play" with ;-)

Flipped. That's exactly what I've done – flipped over Flipped.

An 8th grade Language Arts teacher at my school told me I would love this book. She was 100% correct. I may be 55 and a half, but that didn't stop me from completely relating to both Bryce and Julianna as they flipped turns telling their tale of the same events.

Sheesh, I even had tears in my eyes and got choked up as the book came to a close. I am a romantic at heart. I teach mostly middle schoolers. And let's face it, emotions related to love and friendship and family are not reserved for just middle schoolers.

This same LA teacher said that her past 8th graders had quite liked the book, which is one reason that all the incoming 7th and 8th graders, and their advisors (of which I am one) are required to read Flipped this summer. I have often had pause to think that young adult fiction is every bit as good as the adult counterparts. Or to put that another way, well written young adult fiction is not just for young adults; it appeals to us older adults, too. Emotions do not disappear as we get older (thankfully!), but presumably we become better able at dealing with them ;-)

I am looking forward to seeing what my new advisees have to say about Flipped, and am wondering if there's a way to talk about the story rather than just asking "So, what do you think?" The kids will be returning from summer vacation, our homeroom and advisory groups will be – for the first time ever – mixed groups of 7th and 8th graders, and I definitely don't want this to wind up being simply a required academic conversation. Hmm, food for thought. Perhaps this conversation could set the tone for our advisory for the year.

Ha, school has ended and here I am thinking about the next group of students. Surely I've flipped!

Feel free to share your results in one long comment to this post.

NING

How many pools in Fred's Seussland SketchUp? HINT: Visit Fred's Ning page.

How many members in the isenet.ning? HINT: Find the appropriate button in the menu bar.

Who created the isenet logo? HINT: Search within isenet and check with the Librarian in your RCDS PLN if you need appropriate search terms.

Find the names of two books around which there are discussions. If possible, at least one of the books you list has to be different than one of the books listed by someone else in Digital Wave. Also, if you have read any of the books around which there are discussions – jump in and add a comment. HINT: Find the appropriate button in the menu bar. SECOND HINT: Within the Books discussion is another discussion: What are you reading?

TWITTER

Find the RCDS faculty who have Twitter accounts and list their Twitter names. HINT: Pool your talents to do your searches and also ask your growing PLN.

Find the names of two books around which there are tweets. Add a tweet of your own about a book you have read. HINT: Search for the #books hashtag.

POSTEROUS

The CAIS (Connecticut Association of Independent Schools) Tech Retreat took place in early May of this year. Who do you know who attended the retreat, and what did they do while on the retreat? HINT: Search all of posterous for this, and don't give up till you find it! (Which means you might have to search twice.)

I have finished the first of my required summer reading books, and am already empathizing with students who are given required reading over the summer.

                                      

If this were not required, I would probably have put it down early on. Gardner's ideas made me think of Dan Pink's A Whole New Mind, which I found more interesting to read due to Pink's writing style and because I read it around the same time as Tom Friedman's The World Is Flat. The two books complement one another and combined provided a compelling set of ideas to mull over.

Gardner writes as if he is mussing aloud to himself, and his frequent parenthetical comments simply added to this one-way conversation. It struck me I was reading a long personal reflection.

With that said, here's the jist of Gardner's book. He believes there are at least five approaches, or habits of mind, to thinking about the future, and they are all necessary if we want to make positive change in the world.

The five minds, which to varying degrees overlap, are:

DISCIPLINED – This entails mastering a craft or subject area over the span of at least a decade, and then keeping current within that field.

SYNTHESIZING – Pulling together and combining what you know to demonstrate understanding in an area.

CREATING – Contributing original ideas to "extend knowledge".

RESPECTFUL – Understanding and appreciating the diversity of other people and ideas, and acting appropriately with regards to this diversity.

ETHICAL – Focusing on doing "good work", where "good" reflects an excellence of quality, consideration of the work's impact, and provides satisfaction to the doer.

None of this struck me as "new" or ground breaking, but since my school will be focusing for the next few years on Public Purpose and reimagining the Not for Self But for Service motto, I understand why we were asked to read the book. I'll be interested to see the discussion that comes out of our opening meetings in the fall.

Welcome to anyone who pops over to see these pics, but mainly, HI MOM and JAMIE! Thought you'd enjoy seeing what we were up to today :-)

• The red hibiscus is now out on the deck and it sure shows off the Pentax's (my new camera) microscope feature.

• We took a long walk in the cool of the morning, stopping for a rest at The Jay Heritage Center.

• Have always enjoyed those Adirondack chairs on the lawn of a house named "Casablanca" so have finally snapped their pic.
• Took a gloriously long kayak out to the Scotch Caps in Rye Harbour, though the crabs were snapped in the morning while the tide in the creek was still low.

• And as for that orange beaked bird, definitely have to get my bird-snapping technique down and my reflexes a bit faster ;-)

Food touches the senses in so many ways, not the least by evoking memories. I first had these ingredients in 2007, at Le Cercle, a brasserie near the Jardins de Luxembourg in Paris.

Having ordered the salmon salad, I was greeted by a plate of colorful and refreshingly tasty grapefruit sections, slices of avocado, radishes and salmon (lox) on a bed of greens. I've remade it multiple times since then, and this version substituted an orange for the grapefruit.

In the spirit of the Japanese, Garr Reynolds, and my son who is currently living in Brussels (and used to live in Japan), I share this picture!

Louie recently came home with us to stay through the summer. The Science Department Head kindly volunteered him to be our guest, making it a lot easier for the department to pack items for storage in preparation for summer construction.

I am thrilled to have Louie home, as he is making my study of human anatomy come to life! He hangs out in our dining room and perhaps you can tell from the second photo that it is a nice place for me to read, especially on a sunny day.

This overcast Thursday morning began with drizzle and morphed into glorious warmth and sunshine – just perfect for lunch on the deck and afternoon outdoor walking tech sessions.

Outdoor tech sessions? Oh yes! Walking and talking (excellent learning mode for the brain!) about Google Apps vs FirstClass, and brainstorming scavenger hunt ideas for introducing faculty to online PLN-building tools. Then there was the geocache session where 18 of us added our mugs and a note to the box of goodies found along the banks of the Housatonic in West Cornwall, CT.

Ah, a social learning retreat complete with technology, digital and otherwise :-) (And thanks to @BethRitterGuth (http://twitpic.com/photos/BethRitterGuth) for the pic with people.)