Here’s a fun piece on SLA that ran on KYW News Radio this week:
A View From the Schoolhouse
Here’s a fun piece on SLA that ran on KYW News Radio this week:
New School Stands Out With Lab Coats and Laptops.
Hello everyone,
I just wanted to give everyone the latest update… Theo has had a rough couple of days. He has developed an infection, and while the doctors have quite been able to completely isolate it, all symptoms point to the colon / belly / gut area. He was doing well really well Sunday and Monday, and he was even able to have some milk on Monday, but then his condition suddenly worsened. He’s back on the ventilator and back on morphine, his belly is distended and red and sadly, he seems to be in some real pain. He’s on what one doctor called a "Nuclear Missile Assault" of antibiotics, and he’s had what seems like every neo-natologist, surgeon, nurse, physicians assistant and technician at CHOP in to see him, and they remain an amazing group of people. The doctors are frustrated that they can’t nail down exactly what is going on, and one of them said to Kat today, "He’s giving us some grey hairs." Funny thing… us too. Personally, I’m just hoping to have hair at the end of all this.
At this point, they have stabilized him, his vital signs are solid (with the help of the ventilator) and he’s classified as ‘critical but stable.’ They are watching him like a hawk to try to figure out what’s going on. Here’s what Kat and I have parsed out as the three possible next steps — Best Case: They figure out what is going on and treat it. Next Best Case: They never figure out exactly what is causing this, but the massive amounts of antibiotics clears up whatever it is that is causing it, even if we never complete know what it was. Case We’re Hoping Doesn’t Happen: Theo’s condition worsens (they start seeing higher levels of acid in the blood, the belly continues to expand, his platelet levels in his blood falls dramatically) and they feel compelled to put him back into the OR for exploratory surgery. Obviously, that’s not a great option, but again, he is at CHOP, and we do feel that if it comes to that, he’s got the best pediatric GI surgeons in the country working on him.
It is a very scary time, and Theo seems more fragile than he has at any time in the process, but through it all, he continues to be a real fighter. We’ve all noticed him giving us looks like "What the heck is going on here" look when he’s been awake. The good news is that nothing that has happened so far will have any long-term effect, and, of course, while Kat and I won’t forget this time, Theo will. And the other good news is, of course, that he is at CHOP which really is a truly amazing place. In other fun news, Jakob has been incredibly interested in Theo, and tonight, when I left to go to the hospital, I told Jakob I was going out, and he said, "Daddy see Baby Theo?" And he’s been really wonderful when we’ve taken him into the NICU to see Theo.
As always, thanks to everyone for your kind thoughts, words, karma and prayers. They mean the world to us.
Love,
Chris, Kat, Jakob and Theo
Some thoughts on schools, discipline and what we want in our schools as I struggle with trying to write the SLA Student Handbook…
A wise educational administrator once said to me, "Discipline is a hot air balloon, if you keep pumping air into it, it’ll keep taking it." Another administrator once told me, "If discipline is your first priority, you’ll never get to your second priority." And I think they were both right, and obviously, schools need a respectful learning environment, but if that comes before thinking about what you really want going on in your classrooms, you’ve put the cart before the horse.
I never have been very good at doing exactly what I’m told to do. I’m a very good worker when I work for someone who trusts me and gives me space to find my own way through what I’m supposed to do. But I’m really just enough of a pain in the neck when someone tries to tell me that there’s one way and one way only to do something. I think I taught that way too. Structure is good. Expectations are very good. But the standard procedure of "Rule -> Consequence, Rule -> Consequence, Lather -> Rinse -> Repeat" for several pages is, to me, not the kind of document that I want SLA to be about.
And I know we need to give kids a strong sense of what the boundaries are — and if we don’t want them to wear hats, we better tell them they can’t wear hats (for example). But I really would to have a student code of conduct that doesn’t say much more than this:
At SLA, we have come together to try to further each others knowledge, wisdom and abilities. To do that, we all need to feel safe, valued and respected. To that end, we offer the following three guidelines for student behavior:
1) Respect and care about yourself
2) Respect and care about the community and the other members in it.
3) Respect and care that we all are here to learn about ourselves and our world.All other specific guidelines for behavior stems from these simple statements.
Does it need to be any more complex than that?