Brooks Families:
Today we celebrate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. His words were powerful then and they are even more powerful now. As the district and the nation continues to address issues of equity, I would like to share with you excerpts from his Nobel Peace Prize Lecture from December 11, 1964.
"The first problem that I would like to mention is racial injustice. The struggle to eliminate the evil of racial injustice constitutes one of the major struggles of our time. The present upsurge of the Negro people of the United States grows out of a deep and passionate determination to make freedom and equality a reality "here" and "now". In one sense the civil rights movement in the United States is a special American phenomenon which must be understood in the light of American history and dealt with in terms of the American situation.
...
A second evil which plagues the modern world is that of poverty. Like a monstrous octopus, it projects its nagging, prehensile tentacles in lands and villages all over the world. Almost two-thirds of the peoples of the world go to bed hungry at night. They are undernourished, ill-housed, and shabbily clad. Many of them have no houses or beds to sleep in. Their only beds are the sidewalks of the cities and the dusty roads of the villages. Most of these poverty-stricken children of God have never seen a physician or a dentist. This problem of poverty is not only seen in the class division between the highly developed industrial nations and the so-called underdeveloped nations; it is seen in the great economic gaps within the rich nations themselves."
No School 1/16/17
We will observe the great Dr. King's birthday this Monday.
Adult Learning at Brooks
As a district we are focusing on Mastery Objectives, Framing the Learning and Criteria for Success. The Senior Leadership Team has been focusing on helping departments write high quality mastery objectives. This means:
The learner is the subject
It is in kid friendly language
It uses active performance verbs (compare, justify, etc.)
It is connected to standards
It is worth knowing
Teacher Engagement
We all know that relationship building is very important for student success. I want to say thank you to all of you for staying connected outside of the classroom in some way.
75% of teachers have at least 1 non-classroom engagement experience
39% of teachers have 2 or more non-classroom engagement experiences.
?Best Buddies Fundraiser (1/18)
The Best Buddies fundraiser is th?is Wednesday at Lou Malnati's on Lake Street. For more details, please contact Ms. Hoyer at [email protected].
BRAVO Fundraiser (1/25)
Join the BRAVO team for dinner from 4pm-8pm on 1/25 at Chipotle on Lake street and 50% of the proceeds help support BRAVO. For more details please contact Susan Crane at [email protected]. See flyer HERE .
Yours in education,
LeeAndra Khan, Principal
Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School - Oak Park, IL