What is your student's "Passion?"

What is your student’s “Passion”?  Inside every student is an interest that could develop into a passion that drives them in their post-secondary lives.  At CAM High School we provide student’s many opportunities to explore academic and activity based interests.  A question that needs to be asked is “are they taking advantage of these opportunities, and if not why not?”

How can we get student’s to turn away from their cell phones, TV & computers or is the question how do we reach them through those devices?  How do we teach them to utilize technology beyond entertainment?  Essentially enabling them to harness the power of the devices that range from laptops, to tablets to most students carrying smartphones.

We offer elective courses that introduces students to the world of virtual reality.  Our Project Lead the Way program gears students for a career in engineering.  CAM offers a deep and complete assortment of Math and Science courses.  What these areas all share in common is that they are under enrolled in by the percentage of students eligible to take them, to the actual number of student’s enrolled.

Student’s who are taking or have taken upper level math and science classes breaks down as follows - Seniors: science 63%; math 38%; Juniors: science 28%; math 38%.  Upper level classes included trigonometry, statistics, pre-calc or calculus in math; chemistry, physics and anatomy & physiology in science.  These are important classes for all students looking at two year or four year colleges and junior colleges.  About 20% of the student body is enrolled in a PLTW pre-engineering course.  These courses would be under the umbrella of the acronym “STEM” which stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math and are being touted by educators and politicians as important job areas.

We have a strong speech program, strong Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs, hard-working coaches in athletics, excellent Spanish courses, and a top-notch fine arts program.  In all of these areas are students finding a niche and exploring possibilities beyond the next assignment or next practice?  Are they working on things at home just because, not because it’s required?

Passion is important as studies have shown that it takes 10,000 hours of engagement (not just attendance) with something to “master” that skill or content matter.  It’s obvious that school, practice and rehearsal supervised  by a teacher, coach or sponsor will not get them there..they need to find the drive to want to engage their interest on their own.

We can no longer afford to watch our students wait until they graduate to focus on their interests, as a lot of times those change as we mature.  We need to take advantage of the free opportunities offered at CAM High School and help discover what truly motivates them and what their interests are now.

Class of 2000TWEET

Past years I’ve stood before you and told you a little something about each graduate.  This year, the Class of 2000tweet is going to do that for me through their postings on Twitter.
 
Twitter is like the New York Yankees - you either love it or you hate it.

IT is largely a narcissistic, mindless stream of babble that often ignores all rules of English, grammar, spelling and punctuation.

Studies have deemed Twitter more addictive than nicotine, food and all other impulsive human behaviors – does this sound like anyone in your household?

Twitter can be Inspirational, insightful, educational, giving everyone a platform to expose little pieces of themselves for their peers and the world -  thoughts thrown out easily and eagerly by our graduates riding the Twitter highway.

Often our graduate’s tweets were insightful, like -

Devan: Why is it that teachers let girls get way with everything?

Morgan, referring to Alex -  you cant go to college if you don't know what the acronym stands for – (you know) A.I.B. - American Institute of Business

Alex - So I was cutting peppers and after almost 10 minutes of wondering why it was so hard to cut, I realized I used the wrong side of the knife.

There’s the daily updates –

Dakota - 8 man final was today. …final score freemont....81 murry a giant 0 :) lol!

Adam - What's happening? Me typing this. That's what's happening this very moment.

Matt: Sitting in class... having fun; @Giegerich,

Justin: good ole johnny cash to start the day

Ryan: Taking the 3 wheeler on a 6 mile drive:) should be a good day lol

Kelsey: Corey, Seth and Shelby just held me down and tickled me #familylove

In a related tweet Angeline said- When a person is tickled the response is actually a form of panic, as the brain interprets the tickling sensation.

They are deep thinkers:

Morgan – Eventually you’re going to have to face your problems

Biz- Watching angeline’s video through the years.. So sad. Love this class

Lexi: People say hell is endless, they say its our worst nightmare, the face of our darkness

Angeline - The past can hurt. You can either run from it or learn from it.

Kelsey: Laugh when you can, apologize when you should, and let go of what you can’t change. Life’s too short to be anything but happy.

Trenda quoting Dr. Seuss: "Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive, who is youer than you."

Then there’s the Random:

Lexi: Even though I have seen Bring It On a million times I never get sick of it #fave

Stakey - "Riding a scooter around school, now that's a good day."

Justin: ffa float = greatest float ever!!!

Alex - I get upset over the most STUPID things.

Devan: I love when im in the tractor and people pass me and are all pissed off because how slow i am going #itsatractor

At the beginning of the year, most let me follow them on Twitter, but after some detentions were handed out for bad twitter etiquette many dropped me.  So for those who did, and for those who don’t tweet, here’s my take on how they’d might …

Spencer – I’d tweet, but you’d probably not notice.

Sami – I believe the color black is very expressive, not many people see all of it’s different shades.

Tanner – Take me out to the ballgame or Let’s play two!

Borts – What?  I’m on my way to class.

Jaylnn – If I can balance on these shoes, I can balance on anything.

Travis – Twitter?  If I can’t drive it, hunt it, or put saddle on it, I’m not interested in it.

Ian – When I’m not playing sports, I’m starring in rap videos

Emily - If I’m going to make a difference I’m not going to need anything for it.

Tayler – I’ll tweet something after this migraine clears up.

Ethan – Today I AM a graduate of CAM High School

Dan – I’m most comfortable 21 feet from the basket!  Yeah buddy

Michaela – Who has time to tweet?

One can glean insight about people through Twitter, and real tweets or not I hope I’ve provided you some insight about how fond I’ve become of these seniors and how much we’ll all miss them next year.