Author: Jon Zurfluh

Director at the American School of Warsaw

Web: www.techtied.net

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Dear AAS Community and CEESA Friends, I’d like to provide an update regarding the political situation in the Crimea and Ukraine and the effect it may have on our school community. Since my last email to all on March 3, 2014, little has changed for the school¹s normal operation.  In the days leading up to…

Read More Ukraine Update #2
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Dear Family, Friends, and Staff of the Anglo-American School, The purpose of this letter is to provide important information regarding recent events in the region that may be causing you some level of concern.  As you may already know, the situation in the Ukraine is very fluid at this time.  It is important to note…

Read More Ukraine Update #1
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In a recent article from Jill Berkowicz and Ann Meyers, Are We Learning From Evaluations? – Leadership 360 – Education Week. they make a case for fallacies that stand behind new evaluation systems that use scoring mechanisms for reporting “what isn’t being done well enough.” I applaud them for their insight into this nutty problem…

Read More Are We Learning From Evaluations? – Leadership 360 – Education Week
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Thank you to all families who Contributed as a Globally Aware Citizen by participating in the Building Botswana Director’s Challenge! We have reached our goal of 20 families “taking the challenge”. The 2013-2014 Director’s Challenge is now closed. Started by the Prozorovo Village Tractor Campaign two years ago, the Director’s Challenge is a program that encourages adults…

Read More Director’s Challenge
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Teachers spent the day honing their skills on assessment during the first of our PD sessions for the 2013-2104 school year. I was impressed with the way we dug deeper into our standards and the degree to which we unpacked the learning targets in our work together. What was particularly powerful was the interaction across…

Read More Working on assessment @ AAS
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To all of our special guests, faculty, administrators, parents, friends, and family members — you honor us with your pride and presence as we celebrate this important moment for the individuals seated before you on this stage. I offer my deepest gratitude to Ambassador Cooper for his words in honor of our graduates. The Anglo-American…

Read More Graduation Speech 2013
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At our recent parent coffee, we discussed the important findings in the 2009 book by Bronson and Merryman entitled “NurtureShock.”  Our focus was on the first chapter where we discussed the new research on praise and what, at least in North America, has been a trend to utilize indiscriminate praise to bolster self-esteem since the…

Read More NurtureShock
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Dear Parents, Last Friday’s tragic school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut has caused many to stop and think in the awful aftermath of this significant loss.  As an educator, I feel an extra degree of sadness when confronted with the death of so many children.  While we shoulder many tragedies through…

Read More Sandy Hook Elementary Tragedy
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I got an email this morning from a group of concerned students that had come across something interesting on Facebook.  After watching the 30 minute video detailing the atrocities of a Ugandan rebel named Kony, a group of 7th graders were inspired to setup an email account (invisiblechildrenaas@gmail.com) and organize around this inspirational cause. Here…

Read More Kony 2012
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Kids are happy and showing up at our doorstep with a record number of smiles on this first day of the 2012-2013 school year.  It’s a pleasure to greet and encourage everyone as they arrive and it was fun to hear about snippets of summer vacations. We then proceeded to the PTO meeting and greeted…

Read More Can You Feel the Buzz?!
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Initial thoughts:   The initial question posited to the conference panel that I’ve been asked to address: Information Technology in school – Does it improve  learning? Gathered some resources to begin to address this question and related topics: https://www.evernote.com/pub/chinazurfluh/technologyitems The key issue associated with answering the question revolves first around how you define improving learning. …

Read More ECIS Panel Discussion – April, 2012
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Dr. Jamie McKenzie inspired us recently with a short visit and spent time with teachers, parents, and administration.  He reinforced the notion that our hopes and dreams for students are not always about preparing them for a technologically challenging century, but that we must always remind ourselves that the primary goal is nothing less or more…

Read More Jamie McKenzie Reflections
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You may have seen the notice in the recent Dispatch that I’m launching a new annual tradition that I would like to call“The Director’s Challenge.” From the Dispatch: AAS has always been quick to take on community service projects at all levels and divisions in support of good causes or to reach out to groups…

Read More Director’s Challenge