In the Fall of 1988, when I was a junior in college I had a rare and unique opportunity. I was able to listen to John McDonnell, the then Chairman of the McDonnell Douglas Corporation. McDonnell Douglas was the largest provider of military aircraft for the United State until 1988, when it merged with Boeing. Boeing, as most know, is THE largest provider of aviation tech in the United States.
The irony of meeting Mr. McDonnell was that it was simply coincidental. His daughter was one of my classmates at the University of Rochester and she and I lived in a 24 person super-suite that shared a common room. The 24 of us (12 boys and 12 girls) represented a pretty diverse amalgam and we developed strong friendships. 6 of the girls were in the same sorority, the 12 boys all had friendships that were bread out of athletics and the teams we played on, and the other 6 girls were similar in this regard.
One day, just prior to a long break and as parents were picking kids up to take them home, a small group of us were sitting around our common room when Mr. McDonnell arrived. I digress but his daughter is one of the most humble and grounded individuals I have ever met. Not a one of us knew who her family was and she never flaunted the affluence of her background prior to her reluctant introduction of Mr. McDonnell to our group. It was only after one of our group prodded him that he was willing to share some of his experience with us.
I’ll never forget what he talked about.
When asked about what type of students became successful in his company he recounted that there was a time when his company looked for straight-A students who were pretty self-sufficient. He said that he immediately noticed that these students struggled to work in teams. These students became so self-sufficient through their educational experience that they often lacked the social intelligence to work as a part of a team and in his field (designing airplanes and problem solving) working in teams always created the best results. He further stated that what he observed from these people is that they struggled to allow others to evolve one of their ideas. They additionally could not achieve synergy (the ability of a group to become more than the sum of its individuals) because they refused to accept that other people’s ideas might be better than their own.
Mr. McDonnell said that the type of student that he found did best in his company was the type of student who worked well with others, who could admit that they needed help, and who could share the credit of success with members of a team. He said that these were sometimes straight-A students but just as often they were B, or even C students. He said that there were many times when they hired someone who had to struggle through school but who was outstanding at seeking help from professors, who was a leader when it came to forming study teams for tests, and who often had to radically revise their understanding of concepts. This type of person, he said, often became a great problem solver because they had the determination to not give up when no solution seemed apparent, the tenacity to find solutions that were great rather than just ‘good enough’, and the perseverance to not give up when they encountered failure, not to mention the teamwork skills to put finding a solution through any means ahead of their own ego.
As my group of friends listened to Mr. McDonnell it confirmed things some of us learned from our sports teams but that we seldom saw in our college or high school classrooms. Throughout my teaching career this experience compelled my research into cooperative learning, help-seeking behavior, and social and emotional intelligence. Little did I know back then, when I had no vision of becoming a teacher, that those words would have such a huge imprint on my future!
Our staff at BCMS continues to stress and emphasize help-seeking behavior in our students and the post above, that I shared with our staff, was inspired by conversations with BC Parents of newly minted college freshman. Those freshman comment to noticing immediately both how rigorous college is, but also that they feel either equally or better prepared than peers from other places. Sometimes life's best preparation is not how much we know but well we can learn what's ahead!
End of Week News and Notes
Monday was our BCMS Faculty Meeting
- Staff introduction to the tool Lanschool
- With 10 new laptop carts in our building (1 per team) this tool allows a teacher to view all students computers on their own teacher station screen, allows the teacher to project any student's screen at the front of the room, and allows the teacher to take over a student's screen (from their teacher station) to assist the student. A teacher can now have a student take over the class to model how to complete any process directly from that student's work station.
- Staff introduction to Socrative
- Socrative is an on-line quizzing / teaching software that allows a teacher to poll students while students are using their laptops and their answers are gathered and analyzed in an excel spreadsheet
- Writing Continues...
- In our November Faculty Meeting our ELA teachers worked with our department areas (science, math, etc) in how to best implement the use of writing rubrics.
- Our content areas (other than ELA) will be using rubric driven expectations to reinforce students' writing development and skill throughout the 2nd and 3rd quarters
- Our ELA teachers are finishing up their Narrative writing unit and preparing to enter the 2nd of three units this year in the coming weeks
- I hope all parents received the email I put out on 12.4.14 about our safe driving rules & norms around BCMS. I have reprinted portions below but for parents who did not receive my email please be sure to update your profile information within our Aspen system and if you need help with this please feel welcome to Joan Chadderdon at the Middle School at 439-7460.
- Driving Rules in and around BCMS
- All drivers must yield to walkers in crosswalks both in the school lot and outside of it
- All drivers should be aware that the posted speed on Kenwood Avenue during school hours is 20 mph and that the posted speed in our lot is 5 mph at all times
- All drivers should be aware that there is no dropping of students on Kenwood Avenue, in our bus area, or in the back lot of our building
- This time of year inspires gratitude and I know I speak for our staff when I share how grateful we are to have the support of a community so 'tuned in' to education and the importance it plays in the lives of children. Our American Ed Week saw a little more than 400 parents visit the school and with the help of our PTO and parent volunteers for our book fair this event is one that we look forward to every year. Thank you to all who participated and for taking the time to get to know our routines at BCMS! Our Literacy Committee and our Tech Committee have already started planning for next year's event!
Mr. Klugman
Principal
BCMS
