No Shouldas, Couldas, Wouldas

Twenty of Mercy Vocational High Schools’ students, 15 girls and 5 guys, and five chaperones spent a week working in the Towanda, PA area on a service-learning trip. Homes in the area were severely damaged when the Susquehanna River flooded the area during Tropical Storm Lee.  These students accomplished a lot. Several, our carpentry and electircal students,  used the skills learned in class to install sister joists, run electrical wire and install outlets. However, the majority of our students learned some new skills. The computer techs, nursing assistants, cosmetologists, and business students were given on-the-job training and learned how to spackle, sand and paint. They were quick studies.  The students exceeded the expectations of our site leaders. One site leader thought it was an April fools joke when he was told he would have an all-female team. This was a new experience for him and the girls totally impressed him.

These students chose a vocational education. It is apparent they learn a lot by doing versus studying a lot of book work. There are many lessons learned from an experience such as this – more than just he physical skill.

This is an experience these twenty students will always remember. It was a pleasure working with them.

Please visit their wiki to learn more about this service-learning trip: Operation Katrina-Lee.

In September we handed netbooks to all of our freshmen and sophomores. The students were given the responsibility to carry their netbooks 24/7 and make sure their netbooks were charged and ready to be used for a full school day. Our school is very old. There are not enough electical outlets to allow the students to charge their netbooks during the school day.

The one-to-one program has been going better than expected. Our teachers are taking advantage of Google’s Apps for education; we are using less and less paper. We are also using other web sites such as Edmodo and Quizlet. For the most part, our students have been very responsible with the netbooks; they bring them to school everyday fully charged. They are learning to collaborate and find resources to help them with different projects.

The one problem we’ve had, which caught us off guard, is the high number of cracked screens.  Luckily, these netbooks are insured and insurance will cover the broken  screen the first time it happens.  Better netbook bags has helped to reduce the number of these incidents.

Overall, it has been successful!  We continue to integrate technology more and more into all area of our curricula.

Our professional connections help us to provide different opportunities for our students. This is all part of preparing them for the workforce. Recently, some of students had some unique experiences because of our connections.

First, thirty-seven business and computer technology students had the privilege of visiting Pfizer’s Worldwide Headquarters in New York.  Mr. Michael Glatts, Director/Team Leader of Sales Operations organized his team to meet with our students. At Pfizer, they learned about the company and then had the opportunity to work in smaller groups. The students learned about sales, management, IT and training. Our Pfizer hosts were very impressed with the student interaction. The students asked very good questions and provided a lot of information about Mercy and what they do at Mercy. This was a wonderful experience for our students.

After Pfizer, we walked over to the United Nations. There we met with  Sister Deirdre Mullen, RSM, executive director of Mercy Global Concern, who works at the Mercy desk at the UN. Sister was quite engaging explaining her job at the UN. The students got a first-hand experience of how the UN works. Afterward, they enjoyed a tour of the UN.

Secondly, our sophomore carpenter students visited a soon-to-open restaurant in New Castle, Delaware called Nors Lee’s French Quarter Cafe.  It is in Historic New Castle Delaware in a building that was built in the 1600′s. There they helped to ready the restaurant for business. The students used a lift to attach 2 large cabinets to the ceiling. They also helped assemble chairs and tables, create a bar surface and some other odd jobs. The owners brought out a buffet style lunch  for our students that included some of the restaurant specialties.

Overall, these were great days for our students. As I like to say, their professional networking began!

Each year ~20 students give up their Easter break and travel to MS to help with the rebuilding efforts post Hurricane Katrina. This is an excellent service-learning opportunity. It is recognized as a badge of honor to earn a spot on the Operation Katrina Team.

One important step in our preparation for this trip is our orientation workshop. This is where our students learn more about the trip and what to expect. We also work on team building. While we are a small school the students do not know everyone on the team. This year we had Mr. Tim Lynch from IBM facilitate our team building. Tim did an excellent job relating the importance of teamwork in accomplishing our goals. Tim related to our service learning trip as well as why it is needed in the professional world.

So, Operation Katrina helps us to mold our students as we prepare them for the work world. Our students use their skills to give back to the Gulf Coast community. Our students become a team and use their teamwork skills while working at the various job sites. Our students become marketers when they return to Mercy and share their experience with the rest of the school community.  It is a fabulous learning experience.

Mercy Vocational High School has a very diverse school population in terms of gender, ethnicity, religion and even generational. This is important to us since our mission is to prepare our students for the workplace. There is much diversity in our world and workplaces. It is important that we teach our students how to live and work in a diverse environment.

It is important that we train our faculty and staff appropriately. This past Friday, Mercy Vocational High School’s faculty and staff  participated in an Anti-Bias Workshop. This workshop was lead by the Anti-Defamation League.  The goal of this workshop is to train teachers and staff to build a safe and inclusive school environment.

It was an excellent workshop. The faculty and staff participated in different exercises and discussions that helped to understand biases and all the different forms that can mean.  We were able to learn from the exercises and relate them to different situations we have dealt with at Mercy.  I know this workshop had me thinking and evaluating how I can use what I learned to make sure Mercy continues to be a safe and inclusive place for all of our students.

March may be rolling in as a lamb but Mercy Vocational High School ended February like a roaring lion!

Our lady Monarchs won TWO basketball championships: the Tri-County League and the Penn- Jersey league. These are the first champions ever for our ladies. We congratulate the team and the coaches, Mr. John Hillman and Ms. Mary Ruskey.  Mr. Hillman has been coaching for forty-one years. This was a very exciting season for him.

Mercy Vocational High School was honored by the United Way of South Mississippi and received the Presidential Service Award for the work our school has done in Mississippi post Hurricane Katrina. The school was nominated by Mercy Housing and Human Development in Gulfport, MS. We are currently preparing for our sixth trip to the Gulf Coast.

Check http://www.uw-sm.org/index.php?bShow=45&cat=1 to read the announcement.

Lastly, Mercy Vocational High School has been working to become a No Place for Hate ® community.  This past Saturday night, February 26th, our Diversity Club hosted International Food Night for our Mercy family. This was the third activity needed to become an official No Place for Hate ® community. The event was well attended by our students, their families and our faculty and staff. The food was provided by our generous parents and our own pastry chef, Chef Pastor. We even had different ethnic dances. We thank Mrs. Donahue’s Irish dances, our own Cotton-Eye Joe dancers – thank you Ms. Gordon, and our own Latin dancers – thank you Mr. Arellano. It was a very fun night!

This is my first Educon conference. I’ve heard several presenters discuss project-based learning; “just give the students the tools and let them play!”

At Mercy Vocational High School that is what we do in our vocational areas. It is amazing to see how well our students perform in their shop classes. They enjoy learning. They collaborate, move around, fix stuff around school, … they enjoy what they are doing. We are in an unique place where we can take our best practices in shop and apply them in the academic setting. Several of our academic teachers are doing just that.