I posted the music for this song on our Esperanza FB page a couple of days ago. Felt it would be fun to have the lyrics, too. This would be a great song to teach our Esperanza scholars.
Augio Rios: ¿Dónde está Santa Claus?
Mamacita, dónde está Santa Claus
Dónde está Santa Claus
And the toys that he will leave
Mamacita
Oh, where is Santa Claus
I look for him because
It's Christmas Eve
I know that I should be sleeping
But maybe he's not far away
So out of the window I'm peeping
Hoping to see him in his sleigh
I hope he won't forget
To crack his castinets
And to his reindeer, say
Oh, Pancho, oh, Vixen
Oh, Pedro, oh, Blitzen
Ole (ole) ole (ole)
Ole (cha cha cha)
Mamacita, dónde está Santa Claus
Oh, where is Santa Claus
It's Christmas Eve
I know that I should be sleeping
But maybe he's not far away
So out of the window I'm peeping
Hoping to see him in his sleigh
I hope he won't forget
To crack his castinets
And to his reindeer, say
Oh, Pancho, oh, Vixen
Oh, Pedro, oh, Blitzen
Ole (ole) ole (ole)
Ole (cha cha cha)
Mamacita, dónde está Santa Claus
Oh, where is Santa Claus
It's Christmas Eve
Oh, where is Santa Claus
It's Christmas Eve
All right, Mamacita
I go sleep now
Monday, December 17, 2012
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Clear Communication
A FB friend--Flor Olivo--shared this today. It is a reminder that we need to be clear in our communication. :)
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Making Esperanza Safe
In the midst of this tragedy in Connecticut, I am reminded of the importance of making Esperanza as safe as we can. The following thoughts from an article http://www.newser.com/article/da363ado0/experts-talk-with-kids-about-conn-shooting-make-them-feel-safe-limit-exposure-to-media.html are some important reminders.
As students head back to their classrooms on Monday, parents and children should know that school shootings are rare and schools still are among the safest places, said William Lassiter of the Center for the Prevention of School Violence. He said parents can ask their principal or parent-teacher group for a copy of their school crisis plan.
Notice whether schools stick to their own security plans, he said. Do people have to check in at the door and sign in at the front office, for example?
"A lot of times, the parents are the ones who need to remind the school," he said.
Schools should have an emergency plan that is available to parents that explains what the school will do in various emergencies, such as a fire, hazardous materials spill, lockdown or evacuation. It should also say how the school will communicate with the parents: for example on its Twitter feed, Facebook page, website, or by email or automated phone call, said Kitty Porterfield, a spokeswoman for the American Association of School Administrators.
From the moment a child starts school, they are learning safety procedures such as lining up and following the teacher, she said. School districts in most major metropolitan areas also hold drills in which teachers and administrators practice what to do in a shooting or similar emergency. Most don't involve children so that they aren't upset, but some do, she said.
As students head back to their classrooms on Monday, parents and children should know that school shootings are rare and schools still are among the safest places, said William Lassiter of the Center for the Prevention of School Violence. He said parents can ask their principal or parent-teacher group for a copy of their school crisis plan.
Notice whether schools stick to their own security plans, he said. Do people have to check in at the door and sign in at the front office, for example?
"A lot of times, the parents are the ones who need to remind the school," he said.
Schools should have an emergency plan that is available to parents that explains what the school will do in various emergencies, such as a fire, hazardous materials spill, lockdown or evacuation. It should also say how the school will communicate with the parents: for example on its Twitter feed, Facebook page, website, or by email or automated phone call, said Kitty Porterfield, a spokeswoman for the American Association of School Administrators.
From the moment a child starts school, they are learning safety procedures such as lining up and following the teacher, she said. School districts in most major metropolitan areas also hold drills in which teachers and administrators practice what to do in a shooting or similar emergency. Most don't involve children so that they aren't upset, but some do, she said.
Friday, December 14, 2012
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Aligned Curriculum
At our 2nd ACES (Aspiring Charter Executive Seminar) last night we learned about aligned curriculum and student achievement.
One thing we discussed was instructional alignment. S. A. Cohen argues that "the lack of excellence in american schools is not caused by ineffective teaching, but mostly by misaligning what teachers teach, what they intend to teach, and what they assess as having been taught."
K. T. Wishnick, another researcher, found that alignment accounted for more than 36% of the variance in performance on norm-referenced standardized tests. Altogether, the remaining variables--gender, SES (socioeconomic status), and teacher effect--accounted for little of the variance in student scores. Moreover, the alignment effect was more powerful for low achievers than for high achievers.
One thing we discussed was instructional alignment. S. A. Cohen argues that "the lack of excellence in american schools is not caused by ineffective teaching, but mostly by misaligning what teachers teach, what they intend to teach, and what they assess as having been taught."
K. T. Wishnick, another researcher, found that alignment accounted for more than 36% of the variance in performance on norm-referenced standardized tests. Altogether, the remaining variables--gender, SES (socioeconomic status), and teacher effect--accounted for little of the variance in student scores. Moreover, the alignment effect was more powerful for low achievers than for high achievers.
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Suspensions
Food for thought about why we want to avoid suspensions at Esperanza.
From: http://ideas.time.com/2012/12/05/does-suspending-students-work/
Education
Does Suspending Students Work?
By Christopher J. Ferguson Dec. 05, 2012
Every now and again we hear stories about a kid getting suspended from school for some absurdly minor infraction. In October, four teenage boys in Pekin, Illinois, were suspended for two days for eating energy mints in the cafeteria. Last year, there was a rash of suspensions of students for hugging, and examples of cases involving dress codes such as haircuts or t-shirts are too many to list. Although the misdeeds are very small, the incidents raise a bigger issue: does suspending a kid from school work? In other words, does it actually ameliorate behavioral and academic problems?
Increasingly, the answer seems to be no. In fact, suspensions may do more harm than good. As Pamela Fenning and her colleagues noted in the April 2012 Journal of School Violence, most school districts continue to use out-of-school suspensions even for minor disciplinary issues even though they tend to actually exacerbate problem behaviors and also may lead to academic problems. Further, out-of-school suspensions are not fairly applied with minority youth being assigned punitive suspensions at greater rates than non-minority youth according to a 2012 report by the US Department of Education.
Reasons why out-of-school suspensions don't work are fairly obvious. Giving students what amounts to a free day or two off doesn't actually feel like punishment for most kids, especially those who may already be hostile towards school to begin with. But if the student then misses school work, his or her grades will decline, further increasing the student's detachment from the academic environment. Out-of-school suspensions leave kids at home unsupervised and able to cause more problems. And they also do nothing to teach appropriate alternative behavior nor address underlying issues that may be causing the bad behavior.
In fairness, schools often struggle to find alternatives for kids whose discipline problems are truly serious and who may disrupt the learning environment for other students. I've worked clinically with enough kids to understand that, although they are a tiny minority, some can be so disruptive that the interventions teachers have at hand will have little impact. Unfortunately, we don't yet have any empirically-validated alternatives. Some schools have implemented either in-school suspension or Saturday suspension (effectively a Saturday detention) so that students are not rewarded by being excused from school and won't miss out on schoolwork.
Ferguson is associate professor of psychology and criminal justice at Texas A&M International University. The views expressed are solely his own.
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Lessons in Leadership
From www.inc.com
Lessons in Leadership: How Lincoln Became America's Greatest President
It wasn't Abraham Lincoln's strengths but the self-discipline with which he used those strengths for the right purpose.
There is much we can learn by studying Abraham Lincoln's journey from being just another politician to becoming America's greatest president. (Wikipedia provides a compilation of "Historical rankings of Presidents of the United States" which makes it clear that in the eyes of many experts, and the public, Lincoln has consistently held this status). A key to this transformation was how Lincoln, whose birthday is today, developed the self-discipline to take one of his signature strengths—his mastery of language—and used it to serve the interests of the American people rather than his own.
One of the best communicators of all time
Lincoln was undoubtedly one of the greatest communicators among all American presidents. His words—as a public speaker, writer, debater, humorist, and conversationalist—continue to entertain, educate, and inspire us to this day. With only one year of formal schooling, Lincoln consciously cultivated this mastery of language and expression. As a young boy he would practice public speaking by gathering his friends together and stepping onto a stump to address them. During his days as a lawyer in Illinois, Lincoln would frequently meet up in the evening with friends at a tavern where they would engage in story-telling contests. And he gleaned valuable lessons in rhetoric by diligently studying Shakespeare.
As he began forging his political ambitions, Lincoln recognized the power of words to weaken and even destroy his opponents, and so he started to attack them with powerful volleys of criticism and mockery. Upon provocation at a political gathering in 1840, Lincoln mimicked and ridiculed his opponent, Jess Thomas, to uproarious cheering of the crowd. Thomas, who was present at the event, was reduced to tears, and for years afterwards, the people referred to it as "the skinning of Thomas."
Lincoln was also in the habit of writing anonymous letters to newspapers to sharply criticize his adversaries. On one occasion in 1842, for instance, he used the fictitious identity of "Rebecca" to castigate and deride the state auditor, James Shields, calling him "a fool and a liar" in a letter, and making mock-allegations of an unflattering conversation that James had had with Rebecca.
How Lincoln began to use words for a higher purpose
But the Lincoln we know as president was not this brash, impulsive politician who launched personal attacks on his opponents. What made him change? All along, something had been stirring within him. Right after the "skinning of Thomas" in 1840, one of his friends reported that "…the recollection of his own conduct that evening filled [Lincoln] with the deepest chagrin. He felt he had gone too far and to rid his good nature of a load, hunted up Thomas and made ample apology," according to an excerpt in Benjamin Thomas, Lincoln's Humor: An Analysis.
This inner stirring intensified when some of his verbal attacks drew unfavorable consequences for Lincoln himself. In fact, when the letter he signed as "Rebecca" was published, the recipient of his reproach, Shields, was so enraged that he forced the newspaper to divulge the writer's identity, and, when he was told that it was Lincoln, accosted Lincoln and challenged him to a duel. Good sense prevailed on both men just moments before they were to commence this fight-unto-death. Having learned a lesson by coming so close to an inglorious death, Lincoln never wrote such anonymous letters again.
Gradually molding his character this way, Lincoln also became highly attuned to the feelings of others, including his enemies, and highly measured in the way he communicated in adversarial situations. This was a crucial quality for leading America at a time when the nation was so divided, and the wounds of a Civil War had to be rapidly healed. Once, as he and his wife Mary Todd Lincoln were approaching Washington in a carriage, she remarked, "This city is full of enemies," Lincoln injected, "Enemies? Never again must we repeat that word," as told in Lincoln As I Knew Him: Gossip, Tributes, and Revelations from His Best Friends and Worst Enemies.
On an earlier occasion Lincoln had explained about Southerners: "They are just what we would be in their situation. If slavery did not now exist amongst them, they would not introduce it. If it did now exist amongst us, we should not instantly give it up," as recorded in Lincoln-Douglas Debates. And, in a stirring testimony to his power over words, the President pleaded, in his first inaugural address, "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection."
Lincoln had not lost his propensity for ridicule, but now it was mostly directed at his own self, in a self-effacing manner. When, during one of their debates, Stephen Douglas called Lincoln two-faced, Lincoln responded, wryly, "I leave it to my audience. If I had another face, why would I be wearing this one?" (This is from Presidential Anecdotes.)
How Lincoln masterfully handled criticism
Lincoln by now was also showing remarkable self-mastery in gracefully fending off the frequent attacks hurled on him by critics, even those within his inner circle. On one occasion, he was informed that the Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, had refused to execute a presidential order—and further, had called the president a "damn fool." "He called me a damn fool?" Lincoln asked. "Yes! Not once, sir, but twice!" replied the excited congressman, who had brought him this news. "Well, Stanton speaks what is on his mind, and he is usually right about what he speaks, so if he called me a damn fool, I must be a damn fool. I will go to him now and find out why," according to a 2005 Time magazine article The Master of the Game.
But changing oneself isn't easy, so even as president, Lincoln's anger occasionally consumed him, making him pour it out in letters to critics, errant generals, and others. He had the self-discipline though to not dispatch these "hot" letters; they were later discovered, unsigned, in a drawer in the president's desk. In this way, one small step at a time, Lincoln built his self-discipline, and through it, the character of his presidency.
Lincoln's journey suggests that the true measure of a leader lies not in how much we cultivate and exploit our strengths, but in how we work on tapping, in Lincoln's words, the "better angels of our nature" to use our strengths in the service of a cause much higher than our own personal gain.
Do you have the discipline to sculpt your character?
Do you view yourself solely as who you are today—some good, some bad—or do you see the potential for gradually sculpting your character further, the way Lincoln did?
How aware are you of your strengths? What have you been doing to nurture them? Are there times when you have misused these strengths? Has this led to any inner stirring in you, and have you been striving to discipline yourself to use your strengths in more and more purposeful ways? What kind of life story could you craft for yourself if you chose to do that?
In the comments section below, I invite you to share reflections from your own journey in life and leadership. Some executives and MBA students in my Personal Leadership & Success classes and workshops have shared remarkable stories of their own personal transformation and growth—in wisdom, character, and life direction. If you have experienced a similar turning point, do describe it below, for your story may inspire us just as much as Lincoln's.
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