Excerpt from the February 2013 GHS ’70 Newsletter
The last newsletter noted the January 20 dedication and open house and included photos. This newsletter (and more in the future) continues the photos I took at that event.
ALSO, the high school Principal Matthew A Smith was very
gracious in granting me a January 31 interview. I was very impressed with what
he told me, and expect to share this interview with you in March.
Here you see math teacher Steven Rhoades
demonstrating a huge digital whiteboard, allowing easy use of internet content
in addition to his own input. Though he stands by the board here, he is actually
free to move about through the room, writing to the board with an electronic
notebook and stylus.
The focus here is on algebra (factoring
problems on the left) and geometry, and these digital boards are used in all
classrooms.
But is this really all that different from how we learned? There are two
important answers:
·
Maybe, in that the
internet provides a universe of
learning material that no set of textbooks could begin to contain, nor any one
teacher prepare ...
·
But the more
important answer involves the cyber/digital skills that will students learn in
this technology-based setting:
Many
people our age do not begin to appreciate how important it is that today’s children
grow up to be what some have called “digital natives,” whether or not they eventually
go to college.
There
are thousands and thousands of jobs right here in Indiana that do not require
college, but which definitely require cyber/digital skills: word processing,
document formatting, spreadsheet manipulation, database construction and use,
digital photo skills, electronic search skills, etc, etc, etc; skills which are
much too absent in Indiana’s work force.
There
are so, so many people who know a little but not nearly enough, and the loss in
potential productivity is staggering. It limits the people and the businesses
that employ them, severely.
We
simply must prepare all of our children for this reality … not just
those headed for college. And Garrett is one of the regional schools in the
vanguard. More about that development later when I share the interview with
Principal Smith.
Now back to the integration
of technological empowerment
with Garrett heritage:
To the right is Garrett’s 1934 FFA (Future Farmers of America) charter …
And to the left, the original drum purchased in the 1920s when the first Garrett High School band was organized. This relic is housed in a hallway window showcase just outside the media center (library ‘plus’).
Seeing this new school, I remembered the
JE Ober Elementary where most of us began
our schooling. That building was just a year or two old when we began, and its
newness communicated something to me, even as a young child. Though I hated school grades 1-12, I always felt that learning was important; and while I
couldn’t have said so then in these words, it was the community’s investment in
that new school that spoke thus to me. So, I am very happy that the town
continues to try to do the right thing for its children.
Future newsletters will feature additional
photos from the open house, and notes from my January 31 interview with high
school Principal Smith. Much more “show and tell” ahead.
Stephen Rowe welcomes correspondence of all sort at StephenRowe.OriGraphics@yahoo.com
(watch
for the period between Rowe and OriGraphics)
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