Words of Inspiration
the collection appears at http://www.easternct.edu/depts/edu/news/words.html

If you're young and not really clear what D-Day was, let
me tell you it was a day unlike any other.

There've only been a handful of days since the beginning
of time on which the direction the world was taking has
been changed in one twenty-four-hour period by an act
of man. June 6, 1944, was one of them.

. . . . I landed on the beaches of France four days after
D-Day thirty-five years ago. No one can tell the whole story
of D-Day. Each of the 60,000 men who waded ashore that
day knew a little part of the story too well. To them the
landing looked like a catastrophe. Each knew a friend shot
through the throat, shot through the knee. Each knew the
first names of five hanging dead on the barbed wire offshore,
three who lay unattended on the beach as the blood drained
from the holes in their bodies. They knew whole tank crews
that drowned when the tanks were unloaded in twenty feet
of water.

There were heroes here no one will ever know because they're
dead. The heroism of others is known only to themselves.

. . . . What the Americans and the British and the Canadians -
don't forget the Canadians - were trying to do was get back
a whole continent that had been taken from its rightful owners.
It was one of the most monumentally unselfish things one
group of people ever did for another.

It's hard for anyone who's been in a war to describe the terror
of it to anyone who hasn't.

If you think the world is rotten, go to the cemetery at
Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer on the hill overlooking the beach.

See what one group of men did for another, D-Day, June 6, 1944."

Andrew A. Rooney
Author, Columnist, Television Essayist
From:
The Most of Andy Rooney

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/american_voices/message/74

Announcements

1) Sad news from Joan Culpin -

"I thought you would like to know this. Paulette fell the other day and sprained her ankle & broke her arm. I spoke with her last night and she is doing okay. She isn't able to move around like she'd like to. She goes to the doctor today to see what has to be done with her arm. The type of break and where it is may require surgery for pins. Not a very good way of starting off with her retirement :("

David - I spoke with Paulette on Friday evening.  She will not need a cast but will need to relax and rest.  Still, if invited, she would be happy to return to the office for a couple of days a week to keep the department afloat.  We truly miss her and all our wishes are with her for a speedy recovery.

2) Message from Paulette Mares, who retired from the Education Department on Friday, May 30, 2003:

Thank you and good bye:

Hello Everyone,

First of all, I would like to thank you for respecting my wishes not to have a retirement party.  Emotionally, I know it would have been too difficult for me.  After all, you have been my family away from home for all these years and you have been a very important part of my life.

I cannot begin to express my appreciation for all the wonderful gifts you have bestowed on me over the past few weeks.  They will be a constant reminder of the friends I have made at Eastern.   I never realized how sneaky some of you could be.  I have to admit, it was rather exciting coming back to my desk to find yet another gift.  Everything was perfect!

Leaving Eastern is going to be one of the most difficult things I have ever done.  You have all found a very special place in my heart and I feel very fortunate to have been able to work with such a wonderful group of people.  I will never forget all the happy times I have had working for the Education Department and I am going to miss you very much. 

With a heavy heart it is time for me to say goodbye and to smell the roses.  I am so looking forward to enjoying the time I will be able to spend with my wonderful husband. 

Love,
Paulette

3) Great news relayed by Dr. Sudha Swaminathan on June 5, 2003 -

Nancy Hines and Kathleen Piquette, teachers at Naylor Elementary School in Hartford and partners in our Tech4 PreK program within the UTC-Hartford Public Schools-Eastern CSU consortium "have been selected to receive the first Kay L. Bitter Vision Award for Excellence in Technology-Based PK Education.  We would like to thank Sudha Swaminathan who nominated you, as a team, for this award citing the creative integration of technology in your classroom at Naylor Elementary School."

"This award will be announced by our [ISTE's] CEO, Don Knezek, at his Keynote Presentation at the 2003 National Education Computing Conference (NECC) in Seattle, Washington on Tuesday, July 1st.  We sincerely hope that you are going to be attending NECC to receive this award.  If not, we realize that this notification may have come too late for you to make plans and we will certainly send your $500 check and award to you immediately following the Conference if you cannot be there to accept it.

We are so pleased to be able to honor the work that you are doing in a PK setting and look forward to meeting you.  If you have questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me at any time.
 
Kind regards,
 
Chris Traver
NETS Project Manager
 
and
 
Christine Traver, CMP
ISTE Professional Development
Voice: 541-349-7572"

 

4) High school students for the Institute for Future Teachers Using Technology

There are still spaces for high school students for IFTUT, Sunday, June 22 - 27, 2003.  This is a no-cost EDU 102 - Special Topics for Future Teachers week of workshops in professional presentations, webpage publishing, video production, and writing for the media.  Students from all over Connecticut will reside on campus, dine in the Hurley Food Courts, and will participate in daytime workshops and evening fun and group development activities.   If you know a high school student who might be interested in this program, please have them contact David Stoloff at stoloffd@easternct.edu or call 860 - 465 - 5501 as soon as possible.  

5) Message from Dean Kleine -

"You did it!!!  Eastern’s history/social studies program has been recommended for national accreditation by NCSS! "

Special congratulations to Dr. Leslie Ricklin and Dean Kleine for all of their efforts in making this dream possible.

6) The Summer Institute for Future Teachers has accepted 30 high school students for the program based on EDU 101 - Teaching in the 21st Century seminar, from July 7- 25.  Theresa Picard plans to present a workshop on literacy resources.  Please let David know if you would like to also present during the institute.  

7)  Request for Collaboration by Ruth Ettenberg Freeman, M.S.W. ,  POSITIVE PARENTING   positiveparent@earthlink.net

    

I know that it is winding down time for you but I am thinking about something interesting and would love some feedback from you or from one of your colleagues.

   

I am working on a small parent/school partnership project in Windham with the Windham Parent Network, Windham Regional Community Council and Windham Public Schools. As a result of some of that work, Jack Giordano, No. Windham principal, and I fell into a fascinating conversation the other day about homework and the role that parents, kids, and teachers play in that nightly drama. From my point of view as a parent educator, homework is in some ways where the parent/school partnership rubber meets the road. I hear from parents that homework can be a nightly battle that often negatively affects parent child relationships and family life in general.

   

I sent an inquiry to a wonderful listserv of which I am a member called the National Parenting Educators Listserv and I got back very interesting and rich responses to my question about homework. Mostly what I have concluded from my conversation with Jack and many distinguished parenting educators from across the country, including many who are doing research at big universities, is that homework is a key educational issue for both teachers and parents. And there is some information written about what is effective homework and what are the appropriate roles for parents, teachers, and kids in that effort.

   

Jack and I have an interest in creating a pilot project in which we create or locate a training curriculum to provide an experiential learning experience for a cohort of teachers, parents, and maybe kids around the homework issue which clarifies who does what – roles, how it can be done effectively, and what is effective design for homework and appropriate feedback, quantity, etc. 

     

Do you have any material in this area or any folks up at your shop that might be enthusiastic about creating something like this with us? I hope to talk with Graustein about possible funding for this effort. It is a long shot but I think worth the effort. Homework seems to be a universal challenge! 

    

Let me know your thoughts. Thanks for listening, Ruth