The Transparency Files: Community of Kindness Parent Survey

MJGDS Teacher Selected to Become

“Google Certified” at Google Teacher Academy

Google has selected Andrea Hernandez as an attendee at the next Google Teacher Academy, to be held in Mountain View, CA on December 5, 2012.  The Google Teacher Academy is a free professional development experience designed to help K-12 educational leaders get the most from innovative technologies.  Each Academy is an intensive, one-day event where participants get hands-on experience with Google’s products and technologies, learn about innovative instructional strategies, and receive resources to share with colleagues. Upon completion, Academy participants become Google Certified Teachers who share what they learn with other K-12 educators in their local regions and beyond.

Google Certified Teachers are exceptional K-12 educators with a passion for using innovative tools to improve teaching and learning, as well as creative leaders and ambassadors for change.  They are recognized experts and widely admired for their commitment to high expectations for students, life-long learning and collaboration.  The Google Certified Teacher program was launched in 2006 with the first Academy held at Google headquarters in Mountain View.  The program has since held several academies across the US, expanding the ranks of Google Certified Teachers.  The Google Teacher Academy is produced by Google, in collaboration with CUE an educational non-profit organization.

There will be 62 attendees from all over the US as well as Canada, Mexico, India, Singapore, Ukraine and Dubai.

Of course we know how much we are leading the 21st century learning revolution at the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School, but it certainly is nice to be recognized by Google for the groundbreaking work we do!  You can see it in the video Mrs. Hernandez made as part of her application:

I look forward to reading her reflections on the experience and to the impact it has on her work and on our school in the weeks and months ahead.

 

The Community of Kindness initiative at Galinsky Academy is well under way.  We have, with our partner Jewish Family & Community Services had trainings with Preschool Faculty, sessions with Religious School, Makom and Day School classes, and we are prepping for our first parent forum.  And at least as important, the language of “community of kindness” is making its way into the common vernacular.  Last Shabbat, for example, it found its way (un-prompted!) into a Bat Mitzvah speech.  It has also come up in our Parent University courses [you may click to enlarge].

In fact, in one of the courses, we are reading excerpts from a book (and author) very much connected to this topic that I met through my experience at Harvard’s Independent School Institute (which I blogged about, here.)  We are currently reading [you may click to enlarge] Richard Weissbourd:

As the work continues, survey data is also coming in.  For the sake of transparency, I wanted to share some preliminary results and indicate the first tangible result.  Here are some data from the Parent Survey:

Parents with children in multiple schools were encouraged to fill out one survey per child.  We had a fairly decent  (25%) return rate, although higher is always better.  Here is the first critical data point:

Although we would have preferred the answer to be unanimous that “I don’t think there are any issues,” I think it is interesting that “bullying” scored on the low end that “social exclusion” scored the highest.  This was something that we intuitively predicted at the beginning and correlates to results we published year (click here).  With “social exclusion” and “improved awareness in accepting others” as high scorers, the feedback we are getting from the Weissbourd book, and in combination with what is bubbling up from our ongoing work, we have decided to move forward with the following parent forum:

We are looking forward to strong turnout and an even stronger program.  Working together we will ensure that “Community of Kindness” is not a slogan, but a way of life, at the schools of Galinsky Academy.  More results and more programs to follow