There is an old Chinese curse that says “May you live in interesting times!” Well if that is a true curse then we are really cursed these days!
School Assemblies play every day of the school year, so on any given day we have performers all over the country performing school shows.
School assemblies today? Forget it! The weatherman promised an inch of snow last night for South East Michigan schools, but he was wrong. Michigan schools in the lower peninsula awoke this morning to as much as a foot of snow. A foot of snow! It was over the bumper of my car! Now, being that today is Presidents Day, many schools are closed anyway, but some were scheduled to be open. Not anymore! Ohio schools, Michigan schools, Indiana schools ... schools from Texas to Pennsylvania are all closed today!
April Showers Bring May School Assemblies, or something like that... more like January snow brings a longer school year. This winter has been tough and a lot of school districts are facing the prospect of a longer school year in order to make up the lost time. Sadly, in many cases, with the extra days thrown in at the end of the year it does not help schools prepare for testing which occurs in most states in the Spring. By May and June testing is usually done. School are looking for things to do. And with a longer school year, in some areas stretching into nearly the end of June, there is a lot of time to fill.
Just a reminder! It is the middle of February and the last thing you want to think about is school assemblies for next year, but.... just like taxes, you have to do it!
One of our best school assembly performers was in New Jersey schools recently. We just had to share some comments that we received following his performances. Dave Mitchell does a wonderful Ben Franklin school assembly and our New Jersey schools just loved him.
So what do Green Bay, Wisconsin, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Dallas, Texas all have in common? The 2011 Superbowl, right? Well, yes, of course! But something else, too. Mobile Ed visits schools in all three places to perform school assemblies.! There, now you knew that, right? :-)
Here is something current. In Queensland, Australia, recent flooding caused massive evacuations and covered an enormous area with deep water. The water damage will run into the millions of dollars, and was responsible for some loss of life. Overall, it has been a huge and unprecedented tragedy. An early article from the NASA Earth Observatory (http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=48420) shows some amazing photos of the affected area. All this reminded me of the mind-boggling technology available providing these simply awesome satellite images and how they contribute to our being able to understand the magnitude of our planet in ways previously unimaginable while at the same time bringing everything closer. Google Earth alone stands as one of the most incredible tools I have ever seen for teaching about our planet. Even your aging writer continues to marvel away hours with that toy!
I have spoken before about Rojo, one of our great school assembly performers, but this came across my desk today and I had to share it with you.
