November 2020
MIAMI
HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT- CENTERED LEARNING AT MIAMI
Gabe Escobedo headed for the end zone. Miami Vandals headed for Playoffs. Photo Mary Yazzie
Administrators and Board Watching COVID Metrics Miami Unified decided last spring to follow the health metrics in deciding when to have students on campus, to play sports, and to shift to distance learning. Those metrics guided us to start the school year with distance learning and, once the metrics
turned green, to have students attend campus on a hybrid basis. We will continue to work with the Gila County Health Department and to follow guidance from the state education and health departments. Our goal is to remain on a hybrid basis but, should
indicators turn red for multiple weeks, we will consider a return to distance learning. Families with questions are invited to contact their school principals. We will share what we know with parents, but do not post our thinking on social media.
Vandals Continue to Vanquish the Virus
What makes a great teacher great? Some teachers are incredibly nurturing, emotionally as well as academically. Other teachers are caught up in the subjects they teach, and convey their enthusiasm to students in exciting lessons and stories. Still others are tightly organized, meticulous lesson planners, or great at communicating practical life and career wisdom. What all of these great teachers share is that their students learn and enjoy going to class. No sitting-and-getting for the students while the teacher drones out a laminated lesson. These are not Charlie Brown’s teacher monotoning from the front of the room, or Ben Stein in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off filling in the blanks in an oral worksheet. Think instead of Jaime Escalante (Edward James Olmos) in Stand and Deliver, teaching the tough kids calculus in East LA. Or Sidney Poitier and Suzy Kendall in To Sir With Love. Or, after a long day at school, Tom Berenger in The Substitute. Learning isn’t always easy and it’s never effort-free. This new student-centered approach, which will prepare students for the future, takes extra work from everyone. Teachers have to work harder. Miami Junior-Senior High School is lucky in its extraordinary faculty, but making the curriculum available on a 24-7 basis to home-based or hybrid students necessarily means reorganizing lessons to create more opportunities for students to explore new ideas. Students have to work harder. When the bell rings and the teacher says to leave your assignment on the desk, it takes a lot of gall to walk out the room without doing so. But students working at home have to monitor and manage themselves, keep their own calendars, and meet deadlines on their own.
Last May we invited alumni and students to send in stories about life during a pandemic, and last month we asked for stories about great things that have happened to them at Miami High School. We have more than 50 short films and 150 stories in hand. Keep them coming! Email your videos or stories to vandalpics@miamiusd40.org.
Families have to work harder. School has never been the only place students learn. Students learn as much from their immediate and extended families, friends and their parents, ministers, coaches and Scoutmasters as they do from their formal teachers. It truly does “take a village”, and strong family support is critical to every student’s success. Miami Homecoming Queen Bryanna Hodson and King Tanner Peery. Photo Mary Yazzie
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