by Robert Pritchard, Ed.D. | Dec 19, 2018 | Updates
The root of all prosocial behavior can be found in the trait of empathy. The good news is that empathy can be learned by, and developed in, children and we recognize the value of this as part of our character education programs at SOCSD. Empathy is sometimes referred to as the “social emotion” and we consider this to be one of the most important character education goals for our students. Recently, at Cottage Lane Elementary School, I had the opportunity to witness the character education assembly on EMPATHY and was impressed that the assembly was a 100% student-driven production. That is to say, the assemblies were written, directed, produced, and performed by students, for the benefit of students.
We believe that it is important to develop empathy in our students since this trait is elemental to all healthy relationships. Together we can teach our children to be empathetic and emotionally intelligent adults. Here are some suggested phrases that we can use to develop empathy, not just within our children, but within ourselves:
- Thanks for telling me about that. I’m here if you want to talk about it.
- I can understand how difficult that must be for you.
- Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help you.
- Please continue to let me know how that’s going for you, I’m so glad you told me.
- I am here as a friend. Is there anything I can do?
During the Winter Break, we often hear the phrase “peace on earth” mentioned in secular and celebratory language. The presence (or conversely, the non existence) of “world peace” can be explained by the collective presence (or conversely, the absence) of empathy. We believe that teaching our students to be empathetic will contribute to each student’s ability to be productive in a social setting and be an essential step towards a peaceful society.
In practicing empathy this holiday season, may each of you promote peace and discover the joy associated with spending time with those who are dear.
by Robert Pritchard, Ed.D. | Nov 30, 2018 | Updates
“There will be growth in the spring.” Chauncey Gardiner (played by Peter Sellers in the 1979 film, Being There)
Right now, in the chill of late autumn, much of the property behind the Tappan Zee High School campus is covered with hay and protective netting covering what will become rain gardens and meadow conservation areas. Underneath this protective covering are a variety of plant seeds waiting to sprout. I took a stroll around the grounds and couldn’t help but envision how beautiful this area will look when spring arrives in a few months (along with the new stadium turf upgrades). These areas are part of the Green Infrastructure Project (funded by the NYS Thruway Authority) designed to help manage rainwater runoff and provide an environmental conservation benefit to the Hudson River watershed.
After I walked the grounds, I went inside Tappan Zee High School to observe classes and gain some valuable insight into how our students are preparing themselves for the future. Naturally, the metaphors of growth and springtime were fresh on my mind after having inspected the site work behind the building connected to the Green Infrastructure Project. While making my morning rounds, I saw students busily engaged in a wide range of activities and elective courses that reflect the talents and interests of each (not unlike the concept of biodiversity from the natural sciences). For example, students were learning how to salsa dance in a Spanish class, making Belgian waffles while researching the Middle Ages in French class, playing paddleball in physical education classes, to name just a few of the activities I saw during my walk-through. My visit culminated in a visit to Mr. Adler’s physics class, where the students were enthusiastically discussing several topics in theoretical physics. The students were grappling with concepts of time and space (familiar concepts in Newtonian and theoretical physics) and in a manner that was largely driven by the students themselves. This was good for me to see since we ultimately want the students to take ownership of the learning.
The joy I was feeling was replaced by a small amount of anxiety when the students asked me to join the discussion. You see, the last time I studied physics was in college when I took a course on electricity and magnetism in 1981. Sure, I scored an 89 on the NYS Physics Regents Exam but that was back in 1979. I was a little panic-stricken when a student asked me, “Dr. Pritchard, what IS time, really?” I stared blankly and admitted that I had no good answer. Then a student responded with an answer that included the word “tesseract” in it and that was when I knew that I was truly in over my head (I must confess that my only reference to the term tesseract comes from my knowledge of the Marvel Comics Universe). I explained that my post-graduate studies were grounded in the social sciences and I was a little out of my depth since my only understanding of theoretical physics was an enthusiastic reading of Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time (I also watched a few episodes of the TV show, Big Bang Theory on an airplane flight once, but I’m pretty sure that doesn’t count).
In all seriousness, my final thought to the students was an expression of my amazement that they were training their minds to think theoretically. Specifically, I came to the realization that the students were exploring topics that were not bounded by time, space, and the dimensions of the known universe – just because something can’t be seen or measured doesn’t mean that it can’t be studied. That reflection felt somewhat like one of the simple aphorisms from the Chauncey Gardiner character (from the Jerzy Kosinski novella/script) but hopefully provided some motivation to the students. It was also just around lunchtime and I had a sudden craving for Belgian waffles so I headed back to the World Languages wing.
by Robert Pritchard, Ed.D. | Nov 20, 2018 | Updates
Over the past several years, I’ve been trying to make the holiday of Thanksgiving more meaningful for myself and for the people I care about (that includes all of you folks), without being revisionist. In order to create this sense of meaningfulness, I attempted to distill this popular American holiday into its basic components (hoping that the end product is a social phenomenon greater than the sum of its parts). In summary, I found this time of year to be a welcome opportunity to reflect upon things for which I am grateful, to commit to being more resilient, and to express appreciation for the people around me. Here’s what I’ve learned from the people who celebrated that first Thanksgiving feast and what we share with our students year-round:
- Gratitude: The first Thanksgiving feast was originally intended to celebrate the successful fall harvest, a tradition that the pilgrims brought with them to America. They had much to celebrate since only about half of those who made the journey survived. They probably didn’t eat mashed potatoes, they didn’t have flour for pies, and there is little evidence to support that they ate more than meat and fowl (not necessarily turkey). Through our character education programs at SOCSD, we teach students that there can be no joy without gratitude.
- Resiliency: The 53 pilgrims at the inaugural Thanksgiving feast were the only survivors of the original 102 colonists. Disease and starvation reduced the community to nearly half by the first winter. Thanksgiving is a great time to celebrate our own triumphs over adversity and to recognize that it’s perfectly acceptable to fail before we succeed. We encourage our students (and ourselves) that “failing forward” is an important way to grow, survive, adapt, and innovate–all traits that are critical for us to thrive.
- Teamwork and Community: These colonists survived the first winter through cooperation with and support from the local Wampanoag tribe. Working together, these people leveraged the strength of their diverse talents and resources. We Americans have a long history to demonstrate that hatred weakens us and diversity strengthens us. Collaborative problem-solving is something that we encourage through problem-based learning in all of our schools. This is as important in the 21st Century as it was in the 17th Century. Today, we should all be vigilant against senseless acts borne out of weakness, cowardice, and hatred, specifically those acts of social injustice and cultural intolerance that seem to be increasingly present in our society. As a school district, we stand united against violence aimed at dividing and destroying our communities.
In 1621, my direct ancestor John Howland participated in this inaugural harvest celebration as a member of the Plymouth Colony. If he were alive today, I would hope that he would be honored by the fact that his descendants were still committed to the ideals associated with being grateful, resilient, and the love and respect for all humanity. Happy Thanksgiving and I look forward to seeing everyone back safely after the break.
by Robert Pritchard, Ed.D. | Nov 9, 2018 | Updates
In observance of Veterans Day, schools will be closed on Monday, November 12, 2018. This is a day when we honor the men and women who have served in the military. I am grateful to all of those service members who have taken the oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic” as the basis of their service. I took this oath back in 1980 just after having graduated from high school and that was a big day for me. We recognize the commitment that our veterans make towards protecting our Constitution and that this service often involves great sacrifice and hardship.
We can all benefit from a good working definition of service (or more specifically, selfless service) whether we are students, teachers, staff, families, community members, veterans or non-veterans. As a U.S. Army veteran, I have found the following definition of selfless service to be most helpful (especially in my current role as superintendent) and this may have practical meaning for our South Orangetown community as well:
SELFLESS SERVICE
People who demonstrate selfless service:
- Put the welfare of the nation and others before their own.
- Sustain team morale.
- Share others’ hardships.
- Give credit for success to others and accept responsibility for failure themselves.
Sometimes serving selflessly is difficult when we are trying to promote our own self-interests – for many of us, being selfless is something that we have to consciously think about. It’s not a natural instinct for most humans. Some of us join service organizations or faith-based groups to make selfless service a habit. A good example of this is our Tappan Zee High School Blood Drive Team in collaboration with the American Red Cross. These are students who make an effort to serve “the greater good” beyond those personal benefits afforded to each.
The best way to honor the selfless service of our veterans is to engage in a service project of your own or through a non-for profit, service-oriented group. If you are not a member of a service organization, now is a great time to get started.
Have a safe Veterans Day and please remember to thank a veteran through your own commitments to serving others.
by Robert Pritchard, Ed.D. | Oct 26, 2018 | Updates
“The true currency of life is time, not money, and we’ve all got a limited stock of that.” – Robert Harris
Over the past several months, we have made the community aware that we are reviewing how we schedule students for the purposes of instruction. More generally speaking, we want to have a better understanding as to how to use time as a component of improved student learning. The manner in which time is allocated during the day for the purpose of student learning is often called the “master schedule.” The vast majority of school master schedules and calendars in the U.S. are based on the 19th century agrarian cycle and reflect the antiquated needs to keep afternoons free for farming chores and summers free for the related harvest. What works for growing crops may not necessarily work for student learning – although ending the school day around 3 p.m. does permit a variety of after-school enrichment activities. In any case, the Tappan Zee High School Master Schedule Inquiry Team was organized to review the attributes of a potential master schedule that will best serve our young learners in modern times.
Heidi Hayes Jacobs frames this task by referring to “time as currency (Jacobs, 2017).” More simply stated, how do we “spend” time to accomplish the tasks associated with learning. The period of time spent should be a function of the time required to master the learning. With this in mind, the TZHS Master Schedule Inquiry Committee surveyed a representative group of stakeholders (students, staff, and parents) in order to identify the top three most important attributes of a high school master schedule. These attributes are:
- Accessibility of elective classes for students
- A community lunch, preferably with an advisory/enrichment component
- Common academic planning time for teachers to ensure continuous and responsive curriculum.
In the weeks ahead, our committee will look at other school districts in the surrounding area to learn how they match time frames, or periods, to tasks associated with student learning. We are aware that the habitual 40-minute “block” of time to complete a daily task in a course is becoming a more infrequent instructional practice in contemporary learning environments. Indeed, employing a habitual block of time to complete a task in an innovative, modern-day workplace would be impractical (if not just plain silly). For instance, can you imagine a bio-tech research facility or software design company working on a high school schedule? As comical as that scenario may sound, an analysis of how we schedule students’ time for the purpose of learning is a fundamental principle of a 21st century learning environment.
We will keep the community posted as to the progress that the Tappan Zee High School Master Schedule Inquiry Committee is making. As for now, no decisions have been made and no changes to the schedule have been identified. We are currently investigating those options that will permit a more flexible approach to matching the time to the task of learning. It is important that as we conduct our review and analysis that we avoid preconceived notions about what works (and what doesn’t) and that we are open-minded to the possibilities that lay ahead. We recognize the significance of transparency and communication throughout this inquiry process, and the need to be deliberate and thoughtful in our planning.
We have not committed to any definite changes to the Tappan Zee High School master schedule and we are aware that we have a responsibility to create contemporary learning structures for our students (to include redesigned learning spaces). Over the coming weeks, the team will be identifying schools and conducting site visits. Once site visits have been completed, members will reconvene to discuss their findings and form recommendations to present to the South Orangetown community.
by Robert Pritchard, Ed.D. | Oct 19, 2018 | Updates
The New York State School Boards Association recognizes October 22-26 as School Board Recognition Week. This is a time to promote awareness and understanding of the important work performed by school board members. The South Orangetown Central School District is joining all public school districts across the state to celebrate School Board Recognition Week to honor local board members for their commitment to the communities that they serve.
It takes strong schools to build a strong community, and these men and women devote countless hours to making sure our schools are helping every child learn at a higher level. They make the tough decisions every month and spend many hours studying education issues and regulations in order to provide the kind of accountability our citizens expect.
The key work of school boards is to raise student achievement by:
- Creating a shared vision for the future of education
- Setting the direction of the school district to achieve the highest student performance
- Providing accountability for student achievement results
- Developing a budget that aligns district resources to improve achievement
- Supporting a healthy school district culture in which to work and to learn
- And much more!
School board members give our citizens a voice in education decision making. Even though we make a special effort to show our appreciation in October, their contribution is a year-round commitment. Please click on the link to learn more about our Board of Education (from left to right: Dan Lamadrid, vice president; Rosemary Pitruzzella, president; Christine Lee, Thomas Henry, and Leon Jacobs).
Here is the official proclamation for School Board Recognition Week 2018 signed by the governor.
