A Glimmer from Cobb County

I have enjoyed an entire morning at home, in my office, planning to catch up on my blogging. Yeah right! Now, with e-mail caught up, several phone calls, and travel details settled with Brenda, it’s time to pack and hit the road again. This time it’s sunny (hot and humid) Fayetteville, North Carolina, where I’ll be teaching middle school teachers to build and maintain classroom web sites.

But before I leave, I want to share something that Jim Wenzloff, a friend from the Detroit area, pointed me to yesterday. Now I must say that most school mottos leave me a little dull. But what appears on the home page of Mabry Middle School in Cobb County, Georgia indicates the kind of school I’d want my children attending.

“Making Learning Irresistible for Over 25 Years.”

I love this. It’s not about performance or achievement or any of the other productivity-style goals that appear, for good reasons, in so many school mottos. It’s about making students partners in a community of effort that helps them to grow into better people. I suspect that a school that makes learning irresistible, also makes good teaching just as hard to resist.

Another thing that impressed me about this school site, beyond the fact that the principal is an excellent blogger, was his urging that all parents read “The World is Flat” by Thomas Friedman, before the school’s open house night. He wants the entire education community to “…have a deeper insight into (his) remarks about what (they) are doing at Mabry Middle School to begin preparing students to be global life-long learners and collaborators…”.

This, from a county that does not want to buy laptops for their students. Cheap shot, but it’s how I see it.

Outstanding work by Dr. Tim Tyson, the school’s principal. A glimmer of hope for our schools.