Hamilton, where students simulate their own space probes. Students run their own office and business. They even provide 30 percent of the clerical needs of the entire school. And students work with Emerald's business partner, Home Depot, in a wide-ranging program to beautify the school. The values program is integrated into all aspects of the curriculum. And many students volunteer for regular community service.
  "Because the Emerald staff is committed to using technology, we model its applications constantly," says Mrs. Girvin. "All teachers, instructional aides, office and support staff, the assistant principal and principal have their own desktop computers that are used throughout the day for email, word processing and data retrieval. Our students use technology to research on the Internet, word process assignments, access desktop publishing to create our yearbook, student newspaper business cards and stationery, create data bases and graphs for math projects and compile electronic portfolios." And the extensive multimedia facilities are used after hours by parents, teachers and students and as part of Emerald's role as one of San Diego's Model Education Centers for Student Teachers.
  Emerald has developed two concepts that are now being taken up by many other schools: an Emerald Way Teacher Curriculum Notebook, and a Powerful Learners program that encourages rigorous academic and behavioral goals through the widespread character-building program. And all this in a school where 74 percent of students come from poor families, and those families speak 20 different languages.
   Cross the Pacific from San Diego and you'll find similar break-throughs in the New Zealand city of Palmerston North, at Monrad Intermediate School. Only a few years ago the school and its district features in a scathing television expose on glue-sniffing, drugs and social despair.
  Visitors today would hardly recognize the same school. It has one of the most sophisticated computer systems in the country. Eleven-year-olds are learning every day to master computer skills like advanced desktop publishing, scanning pictures from videotape and photography on to a computer-produced school newspaper. Others are using computer programs to create music, solve problems and catch up if behind. Students turn up early each day to work at the computers and may, if they wish, stay in at lunchtime to continue.
  But probably the main changes at the school stem from a change of

First	Prev	Top	Next	Last

Contents Page   Preface    Introduction