Happy New Year Woods!

     We were lucky to have the cousin of two of our students visiting from Taiwan this week, and she spent time in art classes throughout the school to teach lessons in calligraphy and landscape.

Here's Happy New Year
with the symbol for Monkey
on the right.  (February 8th marked
the beginning of the Year of the
Monkey in the Chinese calendar.)

And here's the symbol for Woods!






And the work of our students that our visitor inspired . . .

Getting Particular About Particulates

     Even our relatively small school parking lot offers an array of different vehicles . . . and that's what Ms. Younger and her 7th grade scientists needed for testing the particulates produced by different engine types.  They took exhaust samples from . . .
     one of our school buses,
     a large and old Ford pick up truck,
     a Subaru Crosstrek, and
     a Prius.

Then, it was back to the lab, and under the microscopes, to take a closer look at the different particulate levels produced by the four different engines.

Steering Clear of the Shallows

     Peter A. Coclanis's column in this past weekend's News and Observer reminded me of the compelling argument that Nicholas Carr made a few years back in his book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing To Our Brains.

     No Luddite am I, but I do share Carr's and Coclanis's concerns for the effects of digital communication on our live, in-person, and in-public conversations, particularly when we engage in conversations that are difficult, gray, and gritty.  I hope that Woods is a place where we can be "counter-cultural" by engaging in conversations that have real depth and where we maintain civility and respect even when we, perhaps, disagree passionately.

     Here are a few excerpts from Coclanis's column that have stayed in my mind:

“Not to romanticize pre-digital times, but people today get bored easily, are afraid to be alone and are uncomfortable with the spontaneity and messiness involved in unedited human communications and civil, sober public dialogue and debate. Hence, part of the reason that we do face-to-face increasingly badly.”

"Without regular face-to-face conversations, we increasingly lose the ability to empathize with others, much less to engage their views. Indeed, we seem to be detaching from people even when we’re ostensibly with them."

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/op-ed/article58702328.html#storylink=cpy
"Not to romanticize pre-digital times, but people today get bored easily, are afraid to be alone and are uncomfortable with the spontaneity and messiness involved in unedited human communications and civil, sober public dialogue and debate. Hence, part of the reason that we do face-to-face increasingly badly."

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/op-ed/article58702328.html#storylink=cpy

High School Gets Loud for BeLoud!

High School Student Council with Lucy and Niklaus Steiner
of BeLoud! Sophie Foundation

     Two things I know about student life at Woods:

     1.  We're better when we're together, and

     2.  Building community within Woods and community service (helping others beyond the walls of Woods) are often "good friends" that get along well naturally (i.e., when we help others we tend to grow closer to each other!).

     In December our high schoolers held a Charity Ball with all proceeds going to the BeLoud! Sophie Foundation whose mission is to support adolescent and young adult cancer patients at UNC Hospitals.  We had a great time at the Ball . . . and we were able to raise $1000 for BeLoud!

…Be loud

And move with grace

Explode with light

Have no fear…

      ~ Sophie Steiner

On your feet!

     At the beginning of each school year I regularly share my major goals for the year with our School Board for their feedback and approval.  This year I attempted to portray each goal graphically (albeit informally . . . I'm an artist more in hope than in actuality) to provide a simple visual as I discussed the goals with them.  One of my depictions looked like this . . . 

    and in case that drawing doesn't make it perfectly clear, I will explain that it represents my hope that our students are always able to apply what they're learning in the classroom (scene depicted on the left) to the world beyond the classroom (student engaging with globe) and that they are able to assert and explain what they know actively "on their feet" with confidence (student with exclamation point).

    A far clearer--and certainly more powerful--"depiction" of what I'm talking about came from one of our students who spoke at a public meeting of the NC Department of Environmental Quality on December 17th in Raleigh.

     I hope we are always able to graduate students who still love the world enough to engage with it.  I hope we are always able to graduate students who are inspired to take on our toughest problems and find creative solutions.  I hope we graduate students who are bold.  Thank you, Caroline, for being bold!

     Here are my other drawings I used to present my goals to the Board.  In case they're not immediately self evident (and I can't imagine that they would be!), you can always look back to my September 21st post.

Take a Book, Return a Book

     I wonder how many of you have a Little Free Library in your neighborhood?  For some, I imagine that phrase Little Free Library is very familiar, while for others it probably comes across as new.  It's a grassroots movement whose mission is . . .

To promote literacy and the love of reading by building free book exchanges worldwide and to build a sense of community as we share skills, creativity and wisdom across generations.

To find an official Little Free Library near you, you can visit their map.

    Well, at Woods we definitely share the mission of wanting to promote literacy and the love of reading.  We also believe in building a sense of community and in sharing skills, creativity, and wisdom across generations.  That's what inspired us to build and install our own book exchange on the first floor hallway.

     This bookcase was custom built for us by our own Amy Dowden, who, in addition to being a dynamic and dedicated teacher of chemistry, math, computer science, and physics, is also a very skilled and experienced woodworker with her own woodworking business.

Annual Fund 2015

A screenshot from this year's Annual Fund launch video.

     I've always admired the work of RSA Animate and particularly appreciate the white board animation they did for Ken Robinson's famous Ted Talk about changing educational paradigms.  (Robinson's original Ted Talk is here.  It's definitely thought provoking and worth a study -- and it's approaching 10 million views!)  It was the model we used (roughly) for this year's video to launch the annual fund drive.  This white board animation that we created is one of the stories of Woods.  Please take a look if you haven't yet seen it.