Where I'm From

I am from individuality,
from “be who you want to be”
and crafts that are always home-made

I am from the non-judgmental,
yet critical, the accepting once well-known
from different standpoints that come together
in a cluttered home of knick-knacks

I am from Kinkade prints and dolls
fake flowers and a crowded curio cabinet
from decorations for memories

I am from apple dumplings
and warm vanilla pudding
from goods made from scratch
kept within the family, a box of recipes

I am from readers, writers and artists
graffiti, poetry and free-style
from horror, mysteries and thrillers
yellowed pages of passed down material

Where I'm From by Jenn Wright

I'm from a small town

not in the typical sense but

a town within a large city 

a small place where you may know my name

  or my face

but it ends there

I'm from a medium sized house with a medium sized family in it

from Kevin, the other one of two children

two point five children and a white picket fence?

not so much, 

a gray wire fence though does the same job

       holds in the large dreams

       protecting them from harm

       as we sit together around the kitchen table discussing days on end 

I'm from a garden, 

tomatoes, peppers and more

planted and cultivated by Dad and now myself

but also of large dreams

where some lie dead in the face of financial distress

others, in lack of progress 

from dreams blooming like sunflowers 

large dreams speak to the hours and hours I spend 

pouring over books, fact and figures 

attempting to use the ingredients and execute the recipe

began by Mom

I'm from baking bread 

the doughy smell enveloping the house

the lock to the fence

the security blanket 

   keeping us from getting hurt 

   from being a convert, to the broken world

I'm from protection

  from family

  from 

"You're extremely lucky, 

so many would wish 

  for just this" 


Ruben Burenstein I am From poem

I am from Nature
From dirt and crawling creatures.
I am from the fields that I have played in.
I am from the box elder tree
The monkey caller
Whole sound would end our playtime every day
Making me sigh and walk back inside, even though I was looking fore ward to the next activity.

I am from Family

From place to place
No matter how far
I am from playing sports,
from friendly family competition in which we all try our hardest to impress the ones we are closest to

I am from Gaming

From an anger so uncalled for it amazes even me
From amazingly fun times
I am from breaking things out of anger
I am from screaming my head off
Whether it be out of rage
Or out of amazement of the miracle that just happened, but holds no significant meaning in the world.

Where I'm From

I am from those days that I now refer to as back in the day,
waking up to the smell of cinnamon buns and homemade iced tea.
I am from experience,
my parents guided me in the right direction.
I am from choices,
learning from failure has always been my case.
From football to chess,
I was always good, but always wanted to be better.
Being second best never bothered me though.
I am from prodigy
expectations did always come before failure after all,
I am from diversity,
growing up I learned to accept all types of people
I am from opinionated beliefs that always landed me in a hell of a lot of trouble.
From challenging authority to never accepting ranks, it never ended well in my favor.
But most of all,
I am from the belief that I have purpose,
I refuse to accept that the gift given to me is just for me to throw away.
I am from a time where I am forced to watch my friends and family,
succumb to the pain and weight of life.
I am from a time where numbness is just second to nothingness.
I am from the past,
Here to pave the way for the future.

Where I'm From


I am from long hard days,
from education and studies.

I am from the gentle breeze flowing
through the city like water.

I'm from the close knit family
with smells of baked apples
and hints of cinnamon.
I’m from the holidays
filled with laughter
and chatter of recent successes.

I'm from God Bless You
and songs of the saviour
whose notes I can say myself

I am from long nights of gaming
pushing on through the stars
as if the sun would never rise

I'm from the land of memories,
Mickey Mouse and Pluto.

I am from long melodies
of times long forgotten
and strumming of guitars
of the musical legends.

I am from those moments--
forever alive in memory--
'til the end of time

Where I'm From


I am from "Next time on Dragonball Z,"
from top ramen and hot dogs.
I am from training wheels until I was 9,
from melancholy Seattle weather.
I am from waking up at six only to go back to sleep at seven.
I am from reading Marcel Proust,
from practicing penmanship.
I am from "LET THEM EAT CAKE",
from venica por favor.
I am from treat others as you want to be treated, and what goes in must come out.
I am from tuna casserole,
from tandoori salmon.
I am from putting pearls in my little sisters ear.
I am from reading, playing , and loving life.
I am from the science of mind to who cares about religion.
I am from Goku can beat Batman
from are you from Great Britain.
I am from winning my first gym badge,
from losing to the elite four.
I am from space jam, who framed roger rabbit,
from catdog and keenan and kel.
I am from Gandhi Speaks, and Jesus walks,
I am from “Winston Why Do You Always Talk?”

Where I'm From

I am from The Office
- just kidding, but where they filmed the show.
In Scranton, where the landscape is green, luscious, and nice.
I am from all around,
Pennsylvania to North Carolina,
I am from different states and towns.
I am from families all around the East coast,
we don’t really have unique foods we like,
we can settle with spaghetti and toast.
I am from a plain, simple family,
we go through some bumps long the road,
from the lessons that not everything is about money.
I am like a nomad,
moving all around this city,
look at all these homes - do you like my pad?
I am from worry-free folks,
everything is fine as long as you’re still alive,
life’s too short to sit around and mope.
I am from a young family,
so their experiences make them overprotective
and never want to leave me be.
There’s not much else to share,
if there’s any questions just ask,
I don’t want to bore you with information if you don’t care.

SLA to Dismiss at 3:30 on Sept. 8th

Science Leadership Academy will have a shortened advisory and dismiss at 3:30 pm today so that students can get an earlier start on SEPTA. The only students who will be allowed in the building after 3:30 will be those who are waiting for parents to pick them up. We are urging all students to go straight home today given the traffic issues affecting the city.

New Course Tools Feature

As you know Slate has many new features for staff and students to use. Some of the new Features include course tools for staff. You will find it on the right side of an individual course page in bold. Course Tools includes a handy Copy Emails button which allows you to bring up all of the student's emails in that course. This way sharing with the class will be much easier.
copyEmails
copyEmails
email Window
email Window
​The next link is for downloading a roster of All students in that class. The roster is pre-sorted by "LastName, FirstName" and includes last name, first name, user name, email, student id, advisor, and graduation year.
Screen shot 2011-09-05 at 3.04.11 AM
Screen shot 2011-09-05 at 3.04.11 AM
More tools will be posted as SLATE development continues. Enjoy!!

First Two Days of School Schedule

All classes on Tuesday and Wednesday are 1's - X1, Y1, A1, B1, etc

Tuesday, Sept. 6th: 

8:15-10:15am - 2 hour advisory

10:20-11:35 - X band

11:40-12:45 - Y band

12:50-1:55 - A Band

2:00-3:05 - B Band


Wednesday, Sept. 7th:

8:15-9:15am - 1 hour advisory

9:20-10:25 - C Band

10:30-11:35 - D Band

11:40-12:45 - E Band

ISTE 2011 Student Presenters

I met two students at the ISTE Conference June 2011 in Philadelphia. Sorry, but lost your names. You volunteered to help coordinate a social network to advocate politically for all high school to do what you do, reduce testing and replace with real-world projects.  You also invited me to your conference in January.  I talked to your principal, Chris Lehmann about scaling what you do.  If this is you, please let your principal know you were the volunteer or add a post to my website www.knorth.edublogs.org so I can contact you.

Thanks again for your motivating presentations at the ISTE leadership and SIGLIT workshops,

Ms. North
Houston, Texas

Summer Institute

Reminder to all incoming Science Leadership Academy families:

SLA's Summer Institute will be held Monday, August 22nd to Thursday, August 25th, from 9:00 am - 12:30 pm. Students should bring a pen and paper for the first day, and lunch will not be provided. 

We look forward to seeing everyone!

When I Become A Teacher

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

When I become a teacher 

I'll put a map of the world on every wall in my classroom 

My students will always know to have a universal mindset 

When they hear freedom, they'll think of more than spirituals and Emancipation

They'll remember the stinking pits at Babi Yar

The curled steel at Auchwitz

Sarajevo’s rifle butts

Cambodia’s grit and sweat and death

These classroom walls will not fence their minds.

Eyes will be opened. Again.


Instead of asking my students to adjust to my teaching style 

Fawn in silent awe over my genius

I'll ask them how they learn

Then tend to the visual 

Auditory 

and tactile learners  

the best way I can 

They’ll never doubt their place in my plan,

Confuse our classroom for a cookie-cutter

Stage where they must sit on their hands.

I’ll take criticism.

Gather it like gold dust between my fingers.

Never satisfied, I’ll Practice my practice forever.

 

My classroom will be painted bright blues and yellows

Along with students drawings, murals and poetry

Displays of Me Magazines 

And word walls

Scenes from books acted out 

Role playing 

and Mock trials 

I will appreciate their creativity 

 

I will teach my students inquiry 

Ask them questions about the world around them 

Their opinions on issues from health care to the Palestine Wall

I won't talk at them, but with them 

We'll have discussions and debates 

I will challenge them 

Ask them how they would tackle issues like budgets cuts 

Low reading levels 

And school safety 

I'll ask them how they feel about Pennsylvania finding money to build 3 more prisons but cutting funding from schools 

Or how they feel about districts paying millions for standardized test and curriculum but not having enough for extra curricular activities 

They will be informed 


My students will be poets

storytellers

actors 

artists 

analyst 

activists

All while being beautiful 

Everyday I will tell them they're beautiful



Sumario mi vida, pasado, presente y futuro.

pasado

cuando yo era un niño, yo era un poco corta, de gordito y muy saliente. Yo era gordito, porque me comí casi todo, pero mi comida favorita era nuggets de pollo, que podíacomer para siempre. algunas de las cosas que me gustaba eran, ver la televisión, y practicar deportes outside.I pensaba que iba a ser un atleta, cualquier tipo de deportista. Pensé que si yo era un atleta, me haría cargo de todas las personas que seinportant a mí, como mi mamá, mi tía, mi tío, mi primo, y su abuelo.


ahora

Hoy en día, soy alto y fuerte, pero sigo siendo la misma persona saliente que solía ser.las cosas que me gusta haber cambiado. Cosas que me gustan ahora son, deportes, electrónica, música, y las niñas. Mi rutina diaria es más o menos ir a la escuela todos los días en el SLA, y pasar tiempo con amigos.


futuro

En el futuro, tengo previsto ir a la universidad en la Universidad de Pennsylvania, y mayor en negocios. Quiero trabajar en negocios deportes. Im va a tener un buen coche y una casa bonita, con una bella esposa, y tal vez algunos niños. eventualmente quiero abrir mi propia firma de consultoría, que veo como un gran éxito. Y voy a vivir feliz después de todo.

Element Print Project 2011

- What is your element?

My element is Nitrogen.


- What are some things your element are used for?

Some things my element is used for is producing ammonia and fertilizers, and its used to manufacture nitric acid.



- How did you come up with the idea for your print?

I came up with the idea of my project by the fact that nitrogen is in all living things. That is were I got the idea for the earth part of my print. I also found out that the the word nitrogen means "burnt air". That is where I got the idea for the fire on half of the earth.


- What steps did you take from your idea for the print to the final print?

The first step of this project was to research a meaning behind the common idea of your element. It was very important for us not to pick the first idea that came into our mind. We picked three of our ideas and sketched then in our sketchbooks. Then we picked one and traced the good one onto a block. Then we cut out either the negative or positive space of our drawing. We then printed four prints with the carved block. 


- What are your thoughts on the project?

I liked this project, except for the carving part. The carving was really hard to do. My favorite part was making the prints. This project taught me how to turn simple negative space drawings and make them into something bigger, like these prints. Before this quarter I didn't know much about negative space drawings. Now I have learned a lot and am very happy with my print.


- What would you do differently if you did this project again?

If I was going to do this project again, I would most likely of researched more and gone a bit farther behind the element to get my idea. 

 

element project
element project