I have often commented on the affect of winter weather on school assemblies. Well this week has been a brute! Throughout large parts of the midwest school assemblies have been shut down due to schools closing. Northwestern Ohio and Northern Indiana were hit earlier this week with bad morning ice, causing countless schools to close and countless school assemblies to be rescheduled.

My son is in college now, but a great part of his time and energy while in elementary, middle and high school was taken up with Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts. The scouting program is a great leadership training program and my son followed it all the way through the rank of Eagle. Dad was also drafted as Cub Master and Scout Master at various times, I am sure to everyone’s distress.

Based in Michigan, as we are, many of our school assembly performers are Michigan artists and teachers. It also happens frequently that performing school assemblies will get into your blood. A great school show performer, having worked for us for awhile, will retire to some other profession only to find they miss our odd little world.

With March coming up you should know about a great midwest school show, perfect for celebrating Women’s History Month. As you are aware, we often write about Abraham Lincoln school assemblies, and Martin Luther King school shows, or about Frederick Douglas assembly programs or school shows about Ben Franklin. It seems like it is always the famous men who get all the attention. Several years ago we decided this just wasn’t fair! So we created a great school assembly about a bunch of famous women from history. I guess you might call this one “Herstory” !

Mobile Ed Productions is based in the Midwest, sending school assemblies all over Michigan and out into other states all over the country. All year, every year, year after year. Including all through the winter. We have seen our share of snow days over our thirty-one years of existence!

We have looked at State Educational Standards a few times now, examining how school assemblies can so strongly support what children are supposed to be learning. The last few times I used Kentucky as an example, but the results can be similar in any state. This time let’s look at Indiana instead, and instead of science let’s take a look at Social Studies, and, in particular, history!

I had to share this. As January kicks off and Schools begin to enjoy our Martin Luther King school assembly program, reports begin to come back. I spoke to representatives of two schools this morning and thought I would share their responses.

Recently it was brought to light that several species of Australian birds now driven into extinction might have been saved with today’s knowledge and a little human effort (http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=six-australian-birds-declared-extin-2011-01-06) In fact, it is estimated that a quarter of the species on Earth may disappear forever within the next quarter century. These include many lesser known creatures, but also some very well known animals, such as black rhinoceros and the Siberian Tiger. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2000325.stm).

A couple of articles about those massive mysterious Black Hole things caught my eye recently. One is about a newly discovered Black Hole apparently so unbelievably ancient that it may hold important clues to the very beginning of the universe (http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1dVPzk/www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2011/01/epic-discovery-ancient-light-from-a-massive-black-hole-reveals-unknown-history-of-universe.html). The other article was about the types of matter that feed these ravenous monsters and from where most of it comes (http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/01/black-hole-feeding/).

"What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet..." Yes, Shakespeare said it best, as always. But in the world of school assemblies, names can be quite confusing.