Change Agents

Hey Tek-Ninjas! We are at the end of our first week of school for our district. From my perspective it's been a whirl-wind of activity. Today a colleague shared this nice story with me, and I thought I'd pass it along. 

Last spring during an Exceptional Children (EC) adapted curriculum and EC Resource Professional Learning meeting, one of our school-based teams were discussing the game Hangman which was being used within a learning program called News2You (N2Y) that is offered internationally.

The team was discussing the historical messages that are associated with hanging and agreed that

"Build A Word"

they didn't want to reinforce those messages or portray them as a fun activity with their students.

So, rather than just abandon the activity, which they all deemed to have education value, they decided to advocate for their students and contact the company to request changes to the game.

They called and emailed with representatives from N2Y over several months.  After several productive conversations they were thrilled that the programmers heard their concerns and made terrific changes!

N2Y changed the name to Build a Word and the activity now focuses on building a character! Way to go N2Y!

For me, the take away from this story is that we all have the ability to be "change agents". Here is to hoping you all have great school years full of learning and rewarding relationships.

Hajimé!