Identity Day

This past Thursday, our school held our first Identity Day.  The idea came from a couple of blog posts that Jen had read last year about Identity Days held at a couple of other schools.  Jen thought it would be a good idea to hold one at our school this year.  I agreed.  Jen did most of the heavy lifting, but I helped pitch it and gave her moral support.  In short, Jen deserves most of the credit.

That's mine on travel.  There's a cool slide show playing.

The premise of Identity Day is that all students would choose one aspect of themselves to share with the rest of the school.  Most of our students participated.  There were some skeptical parents and a few that were outright hostile.  Change is never easy, and I find for rural people it's harder than for most.

That's Jen's project.

The day was a smashing success.  The classrooms were full of students excitedly talking to older and younger kids alike, about their project and the listeners asking questions.  The students were engaged and excited.  We had several parents show up and tour the displays and they were all very supportive and impressed with how the day turned out.

Personally, I learned a lot about my own students, but also about a lot of older students that I really don't have much day to day contact with.  The whole idea was to build school community and I think that it succeeded in that aim.

Myself and many students are already thinking about next year's Identity Day and what we'll do our projects on.  I wonder if it's time to roll out the man dollies...