Joplin school officials toured a modern high school in Grand Prairie, Texas, looking for ideas for the new high school, continuing a series of visits they have been making to schools in Missouri, Texas, and Nebraska:
And the Joplin educators came prepared with questions, like, "What would you do better next time?"
"We get to dream about the future of education," Besendorfer said. "So we're here to gather ideas of best practices, so we can continue to build on that and create the next best."
They also learned from students.
"They spent a great deal of time with the student panel," said Vicki Villarreall of Grand Prairie ISD. "We had 11 students come talk to them [one from] each pathway, and they seemed to glean a lot from our kids."
Already this group has toured schools in Austin, Houston, Nebraska and Kansas City, looking for the best.
"It is something that has been an incredible journey," Besendorfer said. "We lost kids, we lost staff members, we lost community members and friends. That is a horrific thing. We're now to the point to where we're re-building, and our community is committing re-building better. There can be opportunity in a funnel cloud."
4 comments:
This makes me ill. In one of the interviews, klista rader boasts of running into Angie two days after the tornado and how excited they were to get to build "their" 21st century schools--days and days before all the children were found and funerals had. Their dream is not our dream. Not all of us are opportunists. Some of us care about the kids more than self-promotion and career building. Shame on all of them. Heartless.
She's right. Think of all the books it gave you the opportunity to "write"
To 10:08 - You're wrong. In the case of Besendorfer and Co., the only hands in the pie are the low-level politicians / administrators, and their ill-thought-out personal glory is being served at the expense of others. They have real power and are actually paid.
Turner facilitated an opportunity for his classroom kids to write about their tornado experiences in a manner that was cathartic and had clear educational purpose, and had them published at personal expense given the personal meaning attached to these experiences. No glory comes from this except that he was their teacher, and to the extent that his name is included, it is appropriate as teacher and editor. This situation was then re-framed by administrators and lackeys who did not like Turner and who wanted to see him fired as exploitive.
Months afterwards, deeply embittered and isolated individuals like 10:08 continue to leave hateful comments on Turner's blog, well after he was fired. This is the best evidence of the corrupt character of Turner's opponents, if he hadn't struck a nerve they would have moved on and long ago ceased being so defensive.
It's important to continue to respond to these trolling comments so that, in the future, when people from other communities are googling names like Angie Besendorfer and Klista Rader, they will see evidence of the hateful and destructive atmosphere these figures wrought. Just as now, when we in Joplin google Angie Besendorfer and Reed Springs, MO, we can see evidence of the chaos she created in her position there.
It's also important that people will see reasonable responses in defense of Randy Turner. Where attacks against him will only come across as hateful, the responses will appear rational and reasonable, because truth is on his side. It is unfortunate that truth must campaign against falsehood, but that's the way of the world.
To 10:08--
Birds of a feather flock together. Apparently, you and Dr.Besendorfer have much in common.
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