MDY Academic Video

so [Music] our goal and our job and our task as educators in magandavidishiva is to ensure that the children graduate with the skills and the confidence to go out there in the world and be successful in whatever field they choose we want the kids to love to read and we want them to continuously read in school and at home so we have in every single classroom a huge library in the back of the class they're leveled and they go by interest they read every night at home for 15 minutes and we try to get them to read in class every single day independently because at mag and david we believe that that's where the learning happens the academic goal is to build lifelong readers and writers in our students there is a direct correlation between the amount of time spent reading every day and a child's academic performance about three years ago we brought a new curriculum to meg and david it's called el education expeditionary learning it opens their eyes to different countries around the world the third grade now is doing a unit on something called overcoming learning challenges they learn about students all over the world and then to culminate this unit they're going to be having a book sale to raise money for schools in third world countries who can't afford books on their own writing is such a key component of the world in order to communicate with others even in an email and really to be able to convey your thoughts in a productive way and we really want to build that confidence in our students and build those skills the best feeling that i get as a teacher is when students come back to me after they finish high school they're in college they're starting their jobs and they say wow you know the skills that you've taught in in writing class have helped me tremendously math is a critical part of child's education whether someone's going into finance real estate law medicine and even for those mothers who are staying home we use math on a regular basis we use innovative approaches we put students in small groups we'll pull students as we see needed we enrich and we provide challenges for students to ensure that every single child is mastering the skills that they will need to take with them in life here at meg and david after a long week we want to celebrate their successes with the students we will show them how what they learn during that week can really connect to their personal life to their community to their school and we have created private fun day our science lab is innovative and modern we have phenomenal teachers who are bringing exciting and hands-on opportunities to their classes we help them to find out the building blocks of life itself they're able to use a microscope and explore how a cell is structured they're able to dissect different living things through our science investigation students are able to explore parts of their world they would never see otherwise as principal i recognize the importance that to reach our goals of academic excellence we need the best teachers and thank god we have them being the best teacher you can be means that you're constantly learning more learning from the experience that you have with the students on a day-to-day basis and then actually furthering your education by going for another degree or involving yourself in professional development webinars and many other courses that our teachers are involved in throughout their career we partnered with bank street college a very well-known institution they will be bringing their educators into our building observing lessons reflecting on the lessons together with teachers and identifying areas that we could tweak or change to reach our goals it's not about a one-shot deal it's about this continuous process where we're working on something and continuing to improve it until we master that skill crew is a character building program that we have in mag and david the emphasis of crew is to build upon skills like responsibility and goal setting organization integrity all for students to have the ability to approach real life situations with the confidence that they need to succeed this year in seventh grade our students will have an opportunity to explore their interests through our elective program this elective program includes courses such as entrepreneurship learning about the stock market forensics learning a foreign language and so much more it's our job as educators to give our students the opportunity to explore their passions and bring out their talents having and maintaining the best possible general studies program involves a lot of factors one main one is listening to the parents and listening to the students listening to the teachers recognizing that what's successful in business today might not be what's successful in business tomorrow as a school we need to keep innovating and to keep on top of our game looking at what tools we need to provide in order to be able to pull out the full potential of our students we have our finger on the educational pulse and we're confident that our future is bright