Great Expectations...

I was fortunate enough to be selected as an opinion columnist this year for the Dallas Morning News. It has been a great exercise in writing and editing. My first column was on the fallacies in the movie "Waiting for Superman." This time i wrote about something near and dear to me, expectations of ourselves and students. I really believe that having high expectations is vital to student achievement. I have seen any number of examples where setting high goals led to unimaginable student achievements. Too often we sell students (and sell ourselves!) short on what is possible. We put up our own roadblocks to success. We say the kids are too young, not experienced enough or we've just never tried to do it that way before. Kids will believe they can do anything if we let them. The way they perceive accomplishment depends on how we value what they do. We need to promote excellence and lead the there. Great adults are not necessarily the ones who scored well on state tests; they are the ones that found out early on that they were capable of accomplishment in all that they do. They were given the tools and guidance to believe in themselves and what they were doing no matter what facet of life they were engaged in. We are not in the test passing business, we are creating people. That is the higher calling.
Here is the link to my editorial. Feel free to add stories or comment! DALLAS MORNING NEWS

I Love my Librarian Award

I just returned from New York where I was presented with one of only ten "I Love my Librarian" awards. This honor is sponsored by the ALA, The New York Times, and Carnegie Corporation. It was a $5,000 prize. What a great evening it was! It was so nice to meet librarians from different parts of the country. We all have different jobs but ultimately the same goals. New York at Christmastime was beautiful and my wife and I turned it into a mini vacation as well. Thanks to all the sponsors for recognizing the work my teachers, students and I are doing. What a great life when you recieve an award like this doing something you love!

You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown

Right before Thanksgiving we performed the musical "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" with our 5th and 6th graders. You have to understand, despite this show's cartoon title it can be a difficult show to do. It was originally on Broadway in the 1960's and young voices sometimes have a difficult time with the music. Our kids don't have a performing arts program in our school district so my wife and I are providing that opportunity. Most of the kids we have do not have performing experience but they do have great desire and drive to try something new. I love the look on their faces when we spark some new idea in their head and open their eyes to an opportunity they had never seen before. Despite a shorter rehearsal schedule than we would have liked and logistic porblems involving scheduling 25 kids, 3 schools and administrators, we did a pretty god job getting it together. I thought the kids were amazing and we were rewarded by an audience of nearly 300 in a two day run. This is in a town of 4,000 and a district of 1300. Not to shabby for good ol' Charlie Brown!

Another Winning video

I recently found out that a video I produced with some of my students won the National Middle School Association Innovate. Create. Inspire. student video contest. The students were extremely happy to win because we have tweaked and entered this video into several contests. We got a flip vid and an I-Station license for our efforts along with awards for the major performers. There is more award news coming but I can't talk about it right now!

Sweet Dreams (of Technology) revised from Doug Valentine on Vimeo.

And we have a winnah!

Wow. I am so happy that one of our videos was voted to win in the 1st annual School Library Journal "Trailee" awards. As you may know, I believe in using video as a learning tool and it's alwys nice to see this process recognized by others. Our kids work hard when they get their "moment in the sun" and our student that won for her "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus" video is very deserving of the recognition. I love that so many of our kids are succeeding. It's not just the same ones or the most talented all the time. We give as many kids as possible the chance to shine and you know what? The great majority of the time they do! SLJ WINNERS

Doug Valentine: Why wait for Superman to fix schools?

I was selected for a program to write opinion pieces for the Dallas Morning News. The group is made up of educators around Dallas. We will get to write a piece of our choice several times during the school year. My first article has just been published and here is a link to it.

Doug Valentine: Why wait for Superman to fix schools? | Dallas-Fort Worth Local Opinion Columns | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News

Vote for us In SLJ "Trailies" contest

Holy frijoles! We have two, count 'em TWO videos in the School Library Journal Book Trailer contest. This is so cool because these videos did not win in another contest but here they are in the final four of this one. Our kids were thrilled, but they would be more thrilled if you would vote for one of them. I can't choose and I know that having two in the finals probably splits our vote. I guess that means we need twice as many votes to win :) PLEASE, if you've enjoyed my "Hot Dog" reviews, give us some love in this contest and pass it on. We are in the PK-6th grade student category. Either "Cam Jansen" or Don't let the Pigeon Drive the Bus." Both kids are equally deserving so I'll leave it up to you the viewer to decide. Look at the other categories as well, there is some fine work there. Thanks to SLJ for recognizing this kind of video work. It is time consuming and difficult at times. Here is the link:
SLJ Contest

Storytubes Contest Entry: Don't let the Pigeon Drive the Bus from Doug Valentine on Vimeo.

Storytubes contest: Cam Jansen from Doug Valentine on Vimeo.

The year so far

It's been a busy year so far. This is my third year at my school so a lot of the groundwork I have been laying is coming to fruition this year. The teachers are very responsive to the things I would like to do and of course this is a mixed blessing because they are now bringing me additional projects! I do enjoy it though. I had to expand our news crew because of the number of applicants. The thing I dislike about doing this is it really cuts down on the total time each student will get to work with the technologies. Our musical is also going well. It is SO different working with 5th and 6th graders as compared to 3rd and 4th. They actually have an attention span! They will need every bit of it as this is a far more complicated show than we have tried in the past. I don't know if I metioned it before but in a past life I directed a youth theatre group. It was made up of high school kids although we also worked with middle and elementary aged. We did a full season of plays and musical every year. I missed it a lot and felt like the kids at our small district school should have a chance to perform. Two years ago my wife and I created an after school program to give them that opportunity. I was so happy this year when several kids that had been in our program enrolled in summer performing arts camps in the area. We saw every show and beamed like proud parents. Here are a couple of pictures from our first choreography rehearsal:




I've also started my Hot Dog Book Reviews again. I hope to get a little more descriptive about the books this year. The problem is, the longer the review the more time it takes to actually create them. Maybe we'll work on our adjectives. Here is the latest from one of our 4th graders:

Hot Dog Book Review: Horrible Harry from Doug Valentine on Vimeo.

Success breeds success...

Wow. After starting a daily news broadcast last year I wondered how this year was going to go. We only have K-4th at our school so the 4th graders are the leaders on campus and make up the News Crew. Last year I had 3 crews with 5 in each crew. They rotated weekly since they had to come in early each morning to tape the news. So anyway, we put out the audition notice this year. 66 applications came in. 66! There are only 110 kids in the grade level! So I have to decide through audition and application which kids to take. I'm no stranger to this but it's always difficult to make these decisions. I don't always make my decisions based on talent alone, sometimes I base them on need. Who would really benefit from this activity? Not only that but I also have to cast our musical this week. My wife and I are directing "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" with our intermediate school so some of our former students can continue performing. We have 30 kids signed up for that. We are going to try to give them all an opportunity. Success is great but it sure leads to hard decisions down the line. Wish me luck!

New video awards

Earlier this summer we enterd four videos into the International Student Media Festival competition. We received word that all four received the honor of "Judges Favorite." This is given to the top 10% of the videos out of 1,000 entries. Our winning entries were our news broadcast from the Starship McKillop, an animated book review of Best Christmas Pageant Ever, a review of One Potato, Two Potato, and a video my wife did with her class called Super Duper Shopper Sophie. Our kids are the greatest!