Mr. Paige -- Blogmeister

Yesterday, the wind reminded me of the Wizard of Oz. When I was little I would watch this movie UNTIL the flying monkeys showed up. These monkeys scared me so much that I had to leave the room and wait until the next year to try and make it to the end of the movie. It probably took two or three tries before I made it all the way to the end. This meant two or three years because we didn't have VCR's let alone DVD players back then.

It was nice having a DVD player yesterday, because the wind was too strong to go outside safely. At times it was blowing 50 MPH and tree branches were breaking and my basketball hoop fell over. Instead of going outside I watched, An Inconvienent Truth. It is a documentary about former vice-president Al Gore and what he is doing to tell people about global warming. The movie inspired me to help our environment. Today I rode my bike to work instead of driving my car.

Polluting the world scares me more than those flying monkeys!

Ok, Larrabee students you have been asking, begging and encouraging me to do more blogging. As many of you know, last month Ms. Conlon and I visted Boston, Massachusetts to talk about the great things Larrabee students are doing in science. I won't bore you with the details of the meetings. They were very long, but they gave us enourmous pieces of cake every day after lunch.

The best part of my trip was visiting the historical sites in Boston. In college, I majored in history so I was fascinated by the historical importance of Boston. On Sunday, before the meetings started, Ms. Conlon and I started walking to different historical sites at 8 a.m., and we didn't stop until 8 p.m. Some of the things we saw were Paul Revere's house, where the Battle of Bunker Hill took place, where the Boston Massacre happened, Harvard University (the oldest university in the nation). On Monday, we visited President Kennedy's library which also has many manuscripts from Ernest Hemmingway. He was the author of my favorite fictional book, The Old Man and the Sea.

Hopefully next time I go back I will be running the Boston Marathon.

For me one of the greatest gifts of being an educator is that I, very often, become the student. For instance, Brandon, a fifth grader, has helped my enter the 21st Century as a blogger today. Like any good teacher he began my learning with a seemingly simple conversation. "Mr. Paige," he said, "I noticed most of the other teachers and students at our school have at least one entry, but you don't."

He had me right then and there. Had he been assessing me along? Did he know that as a competitive person I wouldn't want to be the only one without an entry? As the principal of the school isn't it my job to model appropriate behaviors, including being a life-long learner?

Shamefully, I confessed that I hadn't written anything because I had never even heard of a blog before this school year. Being the good teacher that he is, he instantly came up with a plan for support. "Mr. Paige, I can come in during recess and help you."

"Sure, see you tomorrow," I replied, thinking he would forget I and would be able to finish the strategic plan that was due in a few days.

The next day came and during recess time there he was at my door. Unfortunately, we ran into a problem with my password. That didn't dissuade Brandon. He got some tech support and showed up at my door again the following day. He even stayed after school to make sure that I followed the proper steps to submit it to the blogmeister.

Thanks Brandon!

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