Happiness, Mind Wandering, & Education

Brain research has always caught my attention in regards to educating students.  The latest research published this week on how often people's minds wander during activities in life. The study utilizes technology to find information in real time. According to the study, people's attention go astray up to 47% of the time, especially during mundane tasks, i.e. entering grades. As I read into the story, I did find the first comparison the researchers are wanting is to compare happiness levels and mind wandering. The intrigue for me was how does this apply to education?

http://www.fastcompany.com/1702117/the-pursuit-of-appiness
http://www.npr.org/2010/11/12/131274191/quantifying-happiness 

If we could teach kids how to understand happiness would they be more apt to focus? how do we teach happiness?

Technology in the Classroom

As a new school year begins, the challenge of setting attainable goals as a school, classroom or district come to the front of the list of things to do. My thoughts in regards to this issue come from a variety of sources, but I wanted to share a couple of web pages that give me direction in regards to the start of a new school year.

The following website comes from an education technology professor in the College of Education at Kansas State University Cyndi's Education Technology Place

The second is a blog posting from a principal in New Jersey that lists different ideas to creating a great learning environment for teachers and students A Principal's Reflection

Risk Assessment for Students

This topic comes up in Kansas after a week of severe storm warnings and several tornado sightings in the area. When is it too dangerous for students to be out and about compared to the lack of opportunity that is taken away because of the weather? As an administrator the safety of students is one of the major components of the position, but at the same time I feel it's important to still provide opportunities. There is a line between taking those opportunities away and keeping a student or child safe. To me it would be an interesting topic to survey the parents in the community to find out where that level of safety v opportunity exists.

What separates the compliant from the rebel?

As an assistant principal a large portion of my daily job involves monitoring student behavior during passing periods, classroom observations, break times, etc. This focus on student behavior brings about the question of the comparison between the compliant/rebel behaviors. I would be curious to know the thoughts of other people and what the beliefs are about why some students choose to be compliant, while others choose to be defiant.