Building a safe, caring, fun School

At this week's PETE&C conference we were treated with Mr Bill Strickland as the keynote speaker on our last day. If you don't know who he is, check out this video (start at about the 5 minute mark) of his talk. It's pretty darned close to what he said to us, as well.

One point, among many, that he made was that when you build (schools that look like) prisons the students will act like prisoners. I hadn't thought about that much in those terms, but someone at lunch pointed out that a local tech school must have heard that phrase and kept it to heart when they built their tech school. It's open, modern, and comfortable, and I really see that the students appreciate that.

But thats not the reason I write this. I just read this post by Karl Fisch in which he embedded a youtube video of their yearly faculty dance. I HAVE to believe that the students must feel safe, cared about, and respected when the faculty will hang themselves out like this. It's certainly fun to watch, and it sounds like the students were honestly cheering them on.

LOVE it!