Flattening a middle school
Monday, August 1st, 2005“I encourage you to read it before we have our Open House parent nights
so you will have a deeper insight into my remarks about what we are
doing at Mabry Middle School to begin preparing your children to be
global life-long learners and collaborators who will be competitive in
the global job market.”
The above is from Dr. Tim Tyson’s blog.
Dr. Tyson is a middle school principal in Cobb County in Georgia. He heard about
this book at a conference this summer. He thinks it is essential
reading for every parent of every child at Mabry Middle School and
should even be required reading for most of the students, at least in
the 8th grade.
Dr. Tyson, a principal in Cobb County, is requiring every subject area
coordinator at Mabry to read the book. Then the books will be passed around the
whole staff. Dr. Tyson went on to say…..
In a
very easy and assessable writing style, this book presents some rather
sobering and substantive ideas with which everyone should grapple and
give careful thought, whether you see the patterns in world events he
proposes in his book or not. But my guess is, the book will ring true
to what you are reading and seeing in the news, what may well be
happening in your workplace or that of your friends and colleagues.
The book he is talking about is…….
“The World Is Flat” by: Thomas L. Friedman
Now I
sure hope he gets his staff and community blogging about what they are
learning and thinking. Lots of blogs are being created at this school.
See the page that lists all the blogs, complete with teacher’s names,
number of posts, when updated, and the categories. The blogs appear to
be of an informational type.
I hope
the students get involved in the conversations. I hope the
conversations involve lots of rethinking about what we need to do in
our schools.
“Flattening a middle school” - it should make for an interesting year. I wish Dr. Tyson and his staff the best
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