Norman breaks ground on new school
The $10.5 million school is scheduled to open by 2010. It is expected to help ease overcrowding on the district’s west side.
The 64,948-square-foot building will house about 520 students in prekindergarten through second grade. The new school will be paid for with 2007 bond money.
How do you handle tantrums?
Listen up Moms!
An Oklahoma State University researcher wants to know how you deal with the terrible twos.
Bob Larzelere is seeking volunteer mothers of tots between ages 18 months and 30 months. You could get paid $60 to tell how you handle your toddler’s misbehaviors.
Contact Dr. Larzelere at (405) 744-2053 and (405) 338-8094.
Susan Simpson, Education Writer
First day hardest — for Mom
I will not cry. I will not cry.
Who am I kidding? I’m gonna cry.
This is a week of goodbyes and new beginnings. Today is my daughter’s last day at the daycare she’s attended since she was five months old.
She started in the baby room at one end of the building and has moved up through every classroom, now finishing a year in pre-kindergarten.
Her teachers have advised me (how to get a breastfeeding baby to take a bottle), admonished me (where did Adi learn that “bad” word?), and helped me adjust to all the wonderful and bewildering changes of a child growing, learning and loving.
I don’t know Adi’s new teacher yet. I meet her today. I’m sure she will be wonderful and kind and enthusiastic.
I hope she won’t wonder why there are tears in my eyes. They are happy tears. My baby is growing up.
Susan Simpson, Education Writer
Will Q-W-E-R-T replace A-B-C?
Crayons? Check.
Lunchbox with hidden note from Mommy? Check.
Pink Backpack? Check.
Notebook computer able to run Windows, Word and Webkins? Ummm…. not yet. After all, my child is only 5.
So I didn’t get her a computer this year — nor was I asked to. But there could be a time when elementary school children tote laptops to school as easily as they now pack lovenotes and lunchables.
Already, many high school students rely on laptops to keep up in class, and you’d never dream of sending a college student to campus without a computer.
What do you think? Will old-fashioned “paper” notebooks become a relic someday?
Comment here or e-mail me at ssimpson@oklahoman.com
Susan Simpson, Education Writer
New York, New York
When New Yorkers say that 90 degrees is sweltering, I’ll no longer look at our weather map of triple-digit temperatures and scoff.
Here, we go from an air conditioned house to an air conditioned car to an air conditioned workplace.
In New York City at an education seminar this past weekend, I went from an air conditioned hotel to a subway station more appropriately referred to as a sauna, then up the stairs to conquer a few more blocks of pavement before reaching my air conditioned destination.
All with my laptop bag on my shoulder. So heat is all relative. This is one of the things I learned at the Hechinger Institute’s seminar for new education reporters.
Lifestyle differences aside, I learned an incredible amount about reporting on education. I was an eager student for three days, absorbing everything I could from the speakers and taking copious notes for everything I could possibly need to review later on.
I want to share a few interesting notes with you.
Oklahoma singled out
First, Oklahoma got a shout-out in a session about prekindergarten.
Albert Wat with Pre-K Now cited the Sooner State in his presentation for having at least 70 percent of eligible students enrolled statewide. We’re one of only three states (Georgia and Florida are the others) to enroll more than 50 percent of all 4-year-olds.
He specifically talked about Tulsa, where a study showed that all races of students gained from one year of enrollment, and noted that Oklahoma pre-K teachers are paid equivalent to K-12 teachers, which he said doesn’t often happen.
A few degrees of separation
There was another Oklahoma tie in the presentation about academic rigor, even if by a stretch.
One of the two presenters was Jerry Weast, superintendent of Montgomery County Schools.
If that school district sounds familiar, it’s because that’s the last place John Porter worked before moving from Maryland to Oklahoma for his abbreviated tenure as superintendent of Oklahoma City schools.
Working in uni(s)on
Another highlight was hearing from Randi Weingarten, who was elected president of the American Federation of Teachers just five days earlier.
Weingarten advocated for “real collaboration” — politically and practically.
Politically, that means doing reform with teachers, not to teachers, she said. And practically, she’d like to see a collaboration of services that put after-school enrichment, medical clinics and parent help in the school building.
‘Physicians of the mind’
During the Q&A afterward, I asked Weingarten what she thought the union’s role is in recruiting enough teachers in the first place.
“In this instance, money does matter a lot,” she answered. After boosting starting teacher salaries in New York City by more than $5,000 in 2005, the hiring halls were filled and the number of uncertified teachers fell from 17 to 2 percent, she said.
Teachers want to be treated as professionals in their quest to better the lives of their students and the institutions in which they work, she said, adding that “teachers are physicians of the mind.”
Upon reflection
I’m thankful for the opportunities I had to learn from and network with experts and colleagues across the nation, and I can’t wait to start putting all my newfound story ideas and tips to work.
It was all made possible by the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media at Columbia University’s Teachers College, which is supported by various philanthropies, including the well known Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Oh, and I’m also thankful I won’t have to wait in underground, un-air conditioned subway stations again any time soon.
Wendy Kleinman
Education Reporter
Lights, camera, education
Oklahoman editor Ed Kelley occasionally records videos that focus on education in the state for his “Oklahoma Matters” feature. One went online today in which he talks about the big job facing new Oklahoma City Superintendent Karl Springer.
Here are some other recent examples:
-Early education: The next Oklahoma City superintendent must be a champion of early childhood education if the district is ever going to improve.
-Dropout dilemma: Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor has intriguing things to say about Tulsa public schools, trying to put badly needed focus on the high number of teenagers who drop out.
If you haven’t been keeping up with them before, you can do so from now on at http://www.newsok.tv.
Wendy K. Kleinman
Education Reporter
A children’s garden
The word “kindergarten” is German for “children’s garden.”
But “garden” doesn’t describe most modern-day kindergarten classrooms — indoors and structured to a clock.
In Germany, where kindergartens first came to life, they are beginning to again reflect the spirit behind the name.
The country now boasts more than 500 waldkindergartens, or “forest kindergartens,” where the only doors children walk through to get to class are the great outdoors, and where they learn from nature and from play.
The idea has trickled into the United States.
For instance, Shining Star Waldorf School in Portland this year started a class called Mother Earth Kindergarten that operates on a community farm, and the Esalen Institute operates a similar Gazebo School Park Early Childhood Program in Big Sur, Calif.
Would you enroll your child or grandchild in such a kindergarten? How do you think this will prepare young children to learn the building blocks they’ll need in a competitive world?
Share your thoughts here on the education blog at http://blog.newsok.com/educationstation.
Wendy K. Kleinman
Education Reporter
The importance of a red plastic hammer
When I was four, I had a plastic tool belt with a red plastic hammer. I “helped” my dad built our swing set with that hammer.
As I grew up, my dad, the ultimate handyman, would tell me to come watch while he fixed this or that around the house.
On Sunday, I guess all that watching paid off. I spent four hours twisting and tinkering with parts under our bathroom sink — minus time for a few trips to Ace Hardware — and fixed a broken pipe all by myself.
Whoever thinks that type of work is a “man’s job” is wrong. It feels good to know that I can get my hands dirty and do the work just as well, especially since my husband had other things to do and I didn’t.
And besides, a plumber would have walked away from the job with just money. I walked away from the job with pride.
Thanks, Dad.
Wendy K. Kleinman
Staff Writer
On NewsOK.com: Ladies, what “handyman work” do you do on your own? Guys, do you ever help with the cooking or the cleaning? Go to our online forum at http://newsok.com/article/3122833/1189454861 and share your thoughts.
