Hi Everyone,
In different classes, and in both grades, students at RJ Grey are taught skills and strategies that will help them evaluate the credibility and reliability of online sources, and thinking about how to identify sources for bias and accuracy. As the online platform continues to serve as the primary entrypoint for individuals to search for and acquire information about the world around them, becoming a more thoughtful consumer of the not-so-regulated internet will be a valuable life skill for our kids. Lucky for us that the recent New England victory over Kansas City in the AFC Championship game provides us with the perfect opportunity to show students how information online can be so easily manipulated by individuals to support a particular narrative or viewpoint, especially on Wikipedia - the free online encyclopedia where many students’ research for assignments often (and unfortunately) begin. While I consider myself a loyal fan of the Patriots, the recent editing of the Wikipedia description of the AFC Championship Game to be the game “where one team gets to play the New England Patriots for a chance to play for the Super Bowl” (see photo to the right) is going a tad far. To be sure, some of this bravado and boldness is understandable given that it’s borne from a level of success that may never again occur in our lifetimes, but that’s also led to some foolish decisions - like the Northeastern University student who last year added a tattoo of LII (Roman numerals for 52) to commemorate the Patriots’ sixth Super Bowl before the game was even played. I wonder how much mental energy that young man spent this past year hoping that the Patriots reach and win this year’s Super Bowl so he can just add another I to his most recent tattoo and it becomes an easy fix to last year’s misstep. While we’re on the subject of tattoos and reviewing evidence to verify claims and statements, I hope you will all forgive me for going on a slight tangent and offering a nod to one of the more bizarre news stories from last week by noting how having a tattoo of Richard Nixon’s face on your back does not, among other things, mean you get to claim to have been an advisor and aide for the former President’s campaign in the late 1960s. Let’s all applaud my decision to include a screenshot of the Wikipedia page about the AFC Championship game instead of a photo of the aforementioned tattoo of the 37th President (which you can easily Google if you’re morbidly curious).
A couple of notes and reminders for this week:
Many thanks to those involved with organizing and supervising last Friday’s Summer Fun in Winter event! We had a lot of students attend the event, and many seemed to enjoy themselves. Ms. Ahl and the Student Council officers put a great deal of work into the preparations, and thanks also to the many parents who donated food, along with volunteers Tracey Estabrook, Karen Finkelman, Melissa Clayton, Rebecca Carlson, Sheila Bauer and Mai Nguyen for staffing the snack table.
A friendly reminder to families that we have our next early release scheduled for Thursday, February 7. This will be a professional learning session for staff, and students will be dismissed at 11:06am. Please plan accordingly.
This is a reminder to 7th grade families that we will be finishing our Signs of Suicide (SOS) lesson and screening tool to 7th grade teams this week. The lesson will be delivered tomorrow (Monday) to 7 Blue students, and then to 7 Green students on Wednesday the 30th.
Now, two articles that I wanted to make mention of and pass along for you to consider reading should it be of interest to you. First, as a follow up to my recent musings about managing screen time and social media usage by our kids, here is an article from Common Sense Media that provides an overview of a few new apps that are becoming popular amongst adolescents. I appreciate this site’s efforts to keep families updated since awareness of the next “big thing” is a perpetual uphill climb. Once you get accustomed to one social media platform, twenty new ones appear - some with useful applications, and others for less-than-noble purposes. The second article is a piece in the New York Times by Lisa Damour that I was excited to read on the subject of helping teens manage social conflicts. I’ve felt as both a parent and a school principal, that this particular aspect of supporting teenagers has gotten trickier and a bit messier, and a really important area for us to explore together. It’s become a bit harder to discern which conflicts and moments of hardship warrant more direct parental intervention, and which are the ones where it’s appropriate and even helpful for the adults to remain on the sidelines. Still observing and supporting, to be sure, but not solving. Several years ago, child psychologist Dan Kindlon warned against what he calls our “discomfort with discomfort” and argued that if kids aren’t allowed to experience painful feelings, they won’t develop “psychological immunity.” He likens this process to the body’s immune system. He explains, “you have to be exposed to pathogens, or your body won’t know how to respond to an attack. Kids also need exposure to discomfort, failure, and struggle” and that also includes what the Times article refers to as social friction and social injury. It’s easy, and tempting, and certainly understandable, for many of us to develop an instantaneous and emotional reaction to unpleasantness that our kids may encounter, especially social situations that sting and are common at this age due to the constantly shifting landscape that defines these teenage years. Not sure how this piece will land with each of you, but at the very least it offers some food for thought, and some language and vocabulary, to help with conversations you may have with other parents and friends.
Finally, we had our latest installment of Poetry Fridays at the end of last week, with Ms. Carter (8 Red Social Studies) offering us a reading of Robert Frost’s poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”, a poetic acknowledgement of the recent snowfall that has “finally” arrived this winter season. Click here if you’d like to read the poem as well.
Have a great week, everyone.
Cheers,
