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RichTherrn's LiveJournal  July 28, 2006 Friends: After several weeks of open deliberation, I have given my intention to accept a job with New Haven. (They will be officially voting on the position on August 14th.). As of August 20th or so, I will be K-12 Science Supervisor for all of New Haven schools. Yup, all of New Haven. That is a step up in terms of responsibility (and salary). 50 plus schools, 20,000 students. I have expressed all along my strength, as you may know, is in working with teachers. The New Haven job includes curriculum, supervising, some budget, prof development, and of course trying to get elem principals of failing schools to even consider science. There is some talk of possibly hiring a science "coach", or continuing working with CT Academy and state consultants. I have not a lot of experience in urban education, and certainly hadn't considered such a big job, but they like my vision, credentials, and ideas. Certainly presents some interesting challenges. If I feel as if I want to work with teachers to make an important difference in the lives of students, this is a rare opportunity. I do feel as if there is work unfinished in Suffield. Implementing new curriculum in several grades in the high school, preparing for new CAPT and CMT science testing, reaching out to the agriculture and business community, looking at science competitions, NEASC, initiating new programs and electives, utilizing the StarLab in all curricula, and raising the level of meaningful science and engineering learning expectations for all students and staff. I will continue to work through the summer . I stand ready to assist throughout the year in whatever way I can, through ideas for staff development, curricula, to "hey Rich, where did we put the batteries for the calculators?". I plan on still living in West Hartford for the foreseeable future. Most family and friends remain in the Suffield/Agawam area. Please don't hesitate to call, write, email anytime for advice, ideas, invites, dinner, events, stress management workshops, or just to get together and say hi. My six years in Suffield have been the pinnacle of my twenty years in teaching. The caring town and community, the dedicated staff, and especially the amazing students. They have always held me as a teacher to the highest standard; they want to learn. Thus, I will forever remain in my mind and heart a Suffield teacher. Richard Therrien http://www.richtherrn.net richtherrn@mac.com Just finished my course on curriculum leadership at Central CT State University. Even though I love teaching physics, it made me realize that I really like the freedom that elementary and middle school teachers have with the curriculum. I was able to help other teachers, use technology a lot, and really philosophize on the meaning and purpose of school. It's for the kids, of course, not for the teachers. Especially in teaching science, we sometimes forget that. I've talked to so many students from back when I taught middle school, and now, that tell me that my course(s) have been useful to them because it helped them develop skills, or ways of looking at the world. No matter how we say it, too much curriculum is focused on trying to cram in a lot of facts into a student's head. Really, we want to prepare thinkers, dreamers, researchers, doers. When we write curriculum, we should be looking at what we want students to be able to remember and do ten years from now... not next week. Of course, there should be fond memories of fun with the teacher and the class, but that's all to help with the learning. Ten years from now. I'm looking forward to taking some time processing and thinking before the start of the next school year. I want to go through a bunch of books, and really start applying those curriculum leadership skills. So, at the end of another school year. Why do so many of my students keep these blogs? Would they rather their friends/parents/strangers see things written than converse? Anyway..... teachers, especially those that teach seniors, have the only job where 90% of their coworkers leave every year. Just something I will never get used to. And I know physics was really hard, and kids struggled and it was rough... but I hope they learned stuff and had fun.... Current mood:  contemplative.
This blog entry... Basically it points to all the blogs I have set up. I still haven't decided which one to stay with. First: My Pages for my Physics Students: Mr. Therrien's Physics Class Home Page RichTherrn's Physics Class blog Physics Class Atom/RSS Feed My Own Home Pages/Blogs next: Richard Therrien Home Page RichTherrn'@ Blogger (BlogSpot) RichTherrn @ Myspace.com RichTherrn @ LiveJournal RichTherrn @ Bloglines RichTherrn @ Xanga Site RichTherrn @ BlogSite RichTherrn @ egoweblog richtherrn @blog-city.com RichTherrn @ ModBlog My Atom/RSS/XML Feed to subscribe in your favorite browser RichTherrn's Atom/RSS Feed My own feeds from blogrolling BlogRolling - Members Home RichTherrnHome, Go Here For my homepage! |
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