Letter From The Principal: Inspiration From The St. Louis Auto Show

This weekend, my husband, Scott, attended the St. Louis Auto Show. While there, he stopped by an exhibit that was run by a group of students and their chemistry teacher.

Their exhibit showcased work they have been doing as part of an after-school club at Rockwood Summit High School. These students have been taking the vegetable oil waste from their cafeteria and converting it into biodiesel fuel and Glycerin soap. They are using the biodiesel in two vehicles that they purchased from grant money and they are marketing and selling the Glycerin soap to local businesses.

Scott was really interested in what these students were doing, so he asked the teacher how this got started. The teacher said that one day in class he was talking about biodiesel fuels and how waste could be recycled to make these. Initially, it was nothing more than a five-minute discussion; however, the next day  one of his students came to class with documents she had downloaded from the Internet and she asked, “Can we do this?”

That question started the project that has now grown into an after-school club—involving chemistry, marketing, and business students. In a quote from an article from www.stltoday.com, the teacher, Darrin Peters shared, “A lot of students take part it’s a real project, not just the classroom. We get waste vegetable oil from the cafeteria. The rest is a chemical conversion, turning it into fuel.”

In last week’s e-news, I began a series of letters explaining the Common Core State Standards and their role in meeting the 21^st Century Learning Skills. This story of a high school student asking her teacher, “Can we do this?” is a wonderful example of the type of curiosity we need from our students, but it also highlights the type of learning the common core standards require of our schools.  

, I mentioned the four “C’s” of learning that are necessary in preparing today’s students with 21^st century skills. These “C’s” are:

1.      Critical Thinking and Problem Solving

2.      Collaboration

3.      Communication

4.      Creativity and Innovation

There is no doubt Mr. Peters’ students are fully engaged in the four “C’s.”

As I close this week’s letter, I want to share some questions Tony Wagner, the author of The Global Achievement Gap posed in the introduction to his book. I hope you will take some time to reflect on these questions then ask your child to respond to them. Hopefully, your child’s responses will provide evidence that the four “C’s” are present in our classrooms, today. If not, we need to look more closely at what the standards are asking of our students and we need to adjust our practice so all students are prepared with the knowledge and skills necessary for “college, careers, and citizenship.” (Tony Wagner, The Global Achievement Gap, 2008, p. xxi)

Here are the questions:

• How many of your high school teachers demanded that you really think in your written and oral work—as opposed to merely memorizing and regurgitating?

• How often were you required to write an essay in which you developed your own well-reasoned interpretation of a piece of literature or the significance of an event in history?

• How frequently did you have to develop and test a hypothesis for a science class or explain your thinking about how you solved a complex math problem?

• How often were you asked by a teacher, “So what do you think about?” (Not once in awhile, but every day!)

Enjoy the week!