Food for Thought: Building on Tuesdays thoughts

Dear all,

Unless otherwise notified there is always a 10 minute meeting at 15:00 in the MPR. Last week's meeting is the foundation for this weeks Food for Thought. Following the Paris bombing I raised the question about talking to students about events in the world. I believe that if we are to produce thoughtful and internationally minded students they have to be engaged in conversations about current affairs and the array of differing perspectives that might emerge for any one event. This link discusses why we should be initiating such conversations with our students no matter how old they are. The key point is that the approach may differ but there is no excise for avoiding raising such issues either in class or homeroom and advisory.

Arising from these events or even just our service activities is the difference between empathy and sympathy. This 3 minute video illustrates this difference very well and might provide the source for an interesting provocation in homeroom or advisory. The question this video should raise for us as teachers if we are going to develop a successful service attitude in the School, which do we need to develop most in our students empathy or sympathy? How do we do this successfully?

For your information, with Michael leaving we have been conducting a world wide serach for an appropriate replacement. We have had lots of good applications and are creating a shortish list today and will be Skyping candidates next week and then looking to invite the best ones to school to meet our community the first week of December.

Finally, on Tuesday I talked about how successful the PD day was on the 13th November, and how we would like to build on these workshops at the next series of PD days at the start of January. These workshops should support the theme energized, engaged and empowered. I have already received two applications to run workshops and would like to receive lots more.  The aim will be to have two sets of workshops held over three sessions so that you can attend more than one workshop and so that workshop leaders also have the opportunity to join a session.

Have a good Sunday,

Yours
Adrian