The American International School of Rotterdam
SHARK 04.05.12.
Bulletin...
From the Interim Director and Elementary Principal
The students arrived back safe and sound from Norway last Friday. We are very proud of how they represented AISR at this very special event - the CanSat European competition. Dr. Markham and Ms. Heinonen would like to invite you to the following: Our CanSat “Flying DutchCan” team has returned from their successful launch in Norway. They will deliver their final presentation and report to the school on Wednesday, May 9th from 2:30 - 3:30 p.m. in the AISR cafeteria. You are welcome to attend if you'd like to know more about this exciting project. Please do not forget that the Spring Fair and Fun Run is going to take place on Sunday May 13th. There will be many fun activities for students, a chance for families to purchase handmade crafts and other specialty items and this is a great opportunity for parents to win one of the super baskets prepared by each class level. Mr. Fitzpatrick would like to invite you to a very special evening. “On Wednesday May 16, the annual AISCAR Ceremony will take place! This year we are hosting it in one of Rotterdam's top Art House Cinemas, the “Lantaren Venster”. Needless to say, the evening promises to be one of the glamorous highlights of the year, complete with red carpet and several jury members from the film industry, who will be assessing the student’s work. So don’t forget to mark Wednesday 16th of May in your agenda's!” I would like to leave you with another article emphasizing the importance of balancing “Social Contact through the use of Media”. “Today many kids are rushing home from school to log on to social media sites to chat online or via text message rather than communicating in person. According to Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Therapist, Rachel Scharlepp "kids are texting frequently, they are talking a lot more, talking about things they maybe wouldn't talk about face to face in good and bad ways." New research from the pew Internet and American Life Project reveals the average teen sends about 60 texts a day. Older teenage girls tend to send and receive about 100 per day. Scharlepp says "it's no longer human contact it's more distant, and kids aren't getting what they need they're not picking up on social cues that they need. They're not comfortable making small talk and getting through those awkward moments and we know in the real world as adults that we have to be able to navigate those systems." Cont.
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Mother of two, Jessica McPike, signed her daughters up for Facebook after moving back to California so they could keep in touch with family and friends. She says, "I have to make them get off the computer sometimes and with the cell phone I continue to hear it ring as the text messages come in and sometimes it's kind of hard to really know what your kids are doing or saying" The American Academy of Pediatrics says using social media can be a risk to adolescents more often than you may think. It can open the door to cyber-bullying, privacy issues and lack of face to face communication between family and friends. Research found 20 million minors which is anyone under the age of 18, have a Facebook account and 7.5 million of that 20 million are under that legal age of 13 and 5 million of those are under the age of 10. The research also refers to cell phones and shows that 22 percent of young children ages 6 to 9 years old, 60 percent of tweens ages 10 to 14 years old and 84 percent of teens ages15 to 18 own a cell phone. Scharlepp states that "children want to be on Facebook, they want the social media and the gaming so parents have to learn to navigate that and what to do." According to Manager, Chris Gigglio at Verizon Wireless, many parents want their kids to have this technology to help them stay in contact. He says there are applications that parents can use to monitor how much and when the kids are on the phone and Internet. Gigglio says “there are also usage controls so they can kind of monitor what kids are doing on these phones and they can even block sites depending on what they feel inappropriate for their age.” Mother of two, Trish Wingerson, allows her 7 year old daughter, Kaia, to play on the computer but sets limitations. She says “you don't want them to lose that face to face and that's so important, we're human beings, we need interaction, we need communication and I don't want them to lose that so I think there is always a limit, there's a balance that you have to achieve.” When given the option to play on the computer or outside, Kaia Wingerson says “Nah, I'd rather play outside, it's more fun.” If your kids are communicating online, it’s important to remember, what goes online, stays online. Scharlepp states that “the information out there stays out there, the degree of safety and risk is greater then it was before because not only is the information coming in, kids are putting the information out there and it puts them at risk."
Have a lovely weekend. Anne-Marie Blitz a.blitz@aisr.nl
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Secondary Principal’s Message
Now that the first few weeks of Quarter 4 are completed, I am quickly settling into the role of temporary Secondary Principal, substituting for Alison Lipp who gave birth last week to a beautiful baby-daughter.
I appreciate also that students, teachers and parents are having to adjust too and are starting to come to me with secondary-related matters. There are a number of events and develoments I wanted to highlight from the past several weeks that are outlined below. CanSat and the Flying Dutchcan team Our science teachers, Nina Markham and Sanna Heinonen have been away leading a very successful CanSat trip with the ‘Flying Dutchcan” student team. The European Space Agency (ESA) organized this annual student design, build and launch competition. The competition was open to teams from universities and colleges from all over Europe and always fields very strong highly able groups. The AISR Flying DutchCan team did not let us down and represented AISR extremely well. We are very proud of them! Dutch School Grade 7 shared three days with a Dutch school in Friesland; a great way of submerging our students into the culture of their home country. Thanks to Mr. Temminck for organizing this and thanks to our Student Teacher Asa Husén for helping out. Homework Club The homework club is running on Monday and Tuesday every week. It is working well and we hope to run it from the start of the new academic year. Community of Respect (COR) Meetings The Secondary School students have now participated in three successful ‘Buddy’ days. These are lessons based on our COR Golden Rules and secondary students are responsible for designing and teaching a lesson in designated elementary classrooms. The elementary students thoroughly enjoy having their role models teaching them about behavior expectations at AISR. Report Cards Instead of paper progress report cards teachers finalized comments on Power School (due Friday 27/4). Exams International Baccalaureate examinations started Wednesday 2 May through 18 May. These are the final days for the senior IB students at AISR. I wish them all the best in preparing for this! Please don’t hesitate to contact me directly with any secondary matters. Regards, Marga Akerboom IB Coordinator and interim MS/HS Principal m.akerboom@aisr.nl
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PTSA Messages...
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