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Computers Make Me Waste Time

We have bought into the fiction that computers actually save time.This is not true. Some time-wasters are inherent in computers. Others are our own fault.Two decades ago, I picked up a morning newspaper and devoted perhaps 15 minutes to reading its contents. En route to work, I had already tuned into the on-the-hour local news from Sunny 106, and had listened to a snippet of National Public Radio news from around the state, the nation and the world, using time that could not be used for anything else besides listening and driving. So within 15 minutes, I was caught up.Today, I check the ...

Defeating Goliath: It’s A God Thing

There are many times in our lives when we face what seems like a huge problem - and we feel tiny in comparison. "But how can I ever overcome this?" we ask. "How can I ever get through this?"You all know one of my biggest issues is worry - and I am a champion worrier. Give me a problem, big or little, and I can worry about it like no one else.This week, I've been at it again - and lo and behold, it isn't helping the issue at hand.What I fail to remember so often, as many of us do, is that the Lord is greater than any problem. He's got it in his hand, he is in charge and he certainly knows ...

Effective Family And Community Engagement, A Priority At JPS

"Our main focus at Bush Elementary School is to have family engagement rather than just involvement," said Bush Elementary School fourth grade teacher and Family & Community Engagement team member, Amy Vezina. "We have great families at Bush School and have always had good involvement in activities like Family Movie Night and Halloween Fun Fair, but now we want our families to have an opportunity to be truly engaged with their child's learning. Parents have learning goals and dreams for their children, but we, as educators, haven't always provided tangible ways to allow parents to be ...

JPS Staff Learns How Family Engagement Is Different From Family Involvement

"The biggest takeaway from the Family and Community Engagement summer workshops is that there is a difference between engagement and involvement," Persell Middle School teacher, Lisa Stahlman-Colby, explained to the school's Family & Community Engagement (FaCE) Team. "In the past we have always involved families in our school but family and community engagement asks us to partner with our families and community to positively engage in the learning of our children so that they can be more successful in school."Mrs. Stahlman-Colby was introducing the Persell's FaCE Team to the shift in ...

JPS Asking Parents For Input On Family Engagement

Hanover Research will soon be assisting with the district's parent engagement efforts by conducting in-depth interviews with JPS parents over the phone. The goal of the interviews is to gain insight into parents' perceptions of, attitudes towards, and experiences with the district and the school(s) their children attend. The district hopes that by using Hanover Research, an objective third party, parents will be completely comfortable expressing candid thoughts, opinions and experiences. All phone interviews will be completely anonymous and the district will not know how individual ...

Let It Go

A side note before getting to this week's piece from the Bullpen ... special thanks to my sister, Sandy, and brother, Tom, for Facebook sharing a couple memories of our growing up which I included in last week's narrative. The piece was about someone very special to our family who recently passed away, and their memories were definitely a big piece of last week's story. Thanks guys!Now, on to today ...In 2013, Disney came out with a new movie, which, like most if not all Disney movies, was extremely popular, evidenced by the number of costumes from the film sold at Halloween time, and ...