Modern Day Glasnost: What Central Middle School kids have in common with
their counterparts in Krasnoyarsk, Russia—Justin Bieber
Last year, a White Bear Lake Rotarian talked my wife and I into hosting a Russian visitor
from Krasnoyarsk, Russia. A group of Russians were in White Bear Lake, visiting as
part of the Rotary’s outreach program to close the distance between people around the
world and to bring people of different backgrounds together to begin having
conversations with one another. The Russian who stayed with my wife and I was a
principal from a school in Russia. We talked and we both agreed to try to set something
up with our kids.
Paula Rittenhouse, the FACS teacher at both Central and Sunrise Park Middle School,
took the charge and organized the kids in both buildings to work together on a
cooperative project with the Russians. (She should get some kind of a medal for her
efforts.) A White Bear Lake Rotarian came in and spoke to the kids about Krasnoyarsk,
to give the kids some context about the cooperative project. One of our Geography
teachers prepared some materials about Krasnoyarsk, to help our kids learn more about
the city of a million people which hums with life in the middle of Siberia. Later, a
Russian businessman visited some of the classrooms to talk about what life is like in
Russia.
The kids in both countries made quilt-like friendship squares, with each square
individually made by a student or pair of students. For example, each square that our
kids made had something on it which represented something important to White Bear
Lake or the State of Minnesota. Common themes that our kids included into their quilt
squares were topics such as gymnastics, water sports, winter sports, the Minnesota
Gophers, seasons of the year, favorite movies and books, and of course, white bears. The
Russian squares had similar themes, except on topics which were familiar to kids from
Krasnoyarsk.
In a few weeks we will mail our squares to Russia and they will mail their squares to
White Bear Lake. Then our kids will put the Russian squares together and make one
large quilt which we will hang somewhere in Central. The Russians will put together the
White Bear Lake squares and hang them somewhere in their building.
But first…..the big event.
Last night a group of Central Middle School students from the FACS classes skyped with
Russian students from Krasnoyarsk. They showed one another some of the quilt squares
they had made and why they decided to put certain designs on the fabric. Afterwards,
they talked about what kids in Russia do for fun and what kids in White Bear Lake do for
fun.
I suppose you can say that what happened next was inevitable. The kids started talking
about musical groups and bands they listened to. The Russians rattled off a bunch of
musical groups our students had never heard of. Our kids then listed four or five musical
groups they listened to. One of our kids said they liked to listen to Justin Bieber, the teen
pop sensation. The Russian kids immediately became animated and began pointing at the
camera with their hands. They said, “Bieber, Justin Bieber. Yes. We like Bieber too.
To make the moment even more memorable, the FACS teacher quickly pulled out a
quilting square and gave it to the kids to show the Russians. It was a quilting square of
Justin Bieber’s face, which one of our students had made for the Russians, not knowing
they would really know the young singing icon.
So what do Central Middle School students have in common with kids from Russia? For
better or for worse, it’s Justin Bieber.
Think of it as a new form of glasnost.
Does my child really have to do their homework?
Is homework really important? If my child does their homework faithfully on a regular
basis does it really improve their academic skills? The answer is a resounding “yes.”
Robert Marzano, who is one of the most eminent educational researchers in the United
States, has done numerous studies on this topic and has come to the conclusion that kids
who do their homework (he calls it independent practice), tend to perform better in
school than kids who don’t do their homework.
We see this play itself out in Central all the time. The reality is that some Central
students are better at completing their homework than other students. Our teachers see
the end result happen again and again. Kids who don’t do their homework struggle more
in the classroom because they haven’t had the practice and experience that kids have who
have completed their homework.
Don’t you believe it when you hear that homework isn’t important. It’s simply not true.
Of course, to be effective, homework has to be related to what is going on in the
classroom and be talked about in the classroom the next day, but the newspaper articles
and radio pundits claiming that homework isn’t important don’t have their facts straight.
Those articles and pundits are based on the opinions of a few individuals, not on any
sound research.
So feel good about enforcing the importance of homework with your child. As long as
the homework is related to what is going on in the classroom and the teacher is discussing
the homework assignments with the students in the classroom after it is due, your child’s
academic skills will improve as a result of their having done homework.