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Journal: January- March 2001 > Observation Deck
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You
are here : Home >
Journal: January- March 2001 > Observation Deck
From the Observation Deck
With the beginning of the new year, we are making further changes in our virtual building. It's fortunate that it is not cast in concrete, since we are always anxious to make our resources increasingly accessible and useful. Each floor is being updated along with bibliographies and other new resources. You will notice that we have completely remodeled the floors focused on special needs/inclusion. The response has been extremely positive, and users of those areas have increased nine fold. There is also growing traffic over the "sky bridge" to our conference center where fascinating and informative conversations are going on with our resident experts Tom Hoerr (on Multiple Intelligences) and Dr. Ilene Schwartz (on Autism and early childhood special needs). We will be introducing additional topics and experts soon and will be happy to receive your requests for others.
This month we will be adding to each floor a series of critical questions for reflection and suggested actions for teachers, school administrators parents, and others interested in education to consider. For example, on our Restructuring floor we are including:
Critical Questions:
What kinds of support are there for public schools in your community?
Is there a database of the individual and organizational resources available to your local schools (i.e., individual skills and talents, organizations with opportunities for internships and service projects, organizational and institutional partnerships, and monetary resources)?
How would you characterize the educational systems in your area?
From your perspective, what positive changes in education are currently underway and what changes are needed?
How are you catalyzing positive change or actively participating in the process?
Possible Actions:
Become well informed about the characteristics of excellent educational systems utilizing some of the resources in the website and current issues of The Journal.
Share this information with your colleagues, friends, and others interested in educational change.
Know your national, state, and local school standards. You will find them on the Internet.
If a database of resources for your school or school district does not yet exist, you may wish to begin one through a collaborative effort.
If a database already exists, utilize it to form an alliance of individuals and organizations interested in supporting your local school or district. (See http://www.alliance4ed.org as an example of how one was formed to support Seattle Public Schools.)
We look forward to hearing from you about specific actions you have taken to assure that every child has an opportunity to become a successful learner and that every school offers the means to make this possible.
Copyright © January 2001 New Horizons for Learning, all rights reserved.
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