BSherman's blog

I rode my bike to work today. It's 9 miles and it took me about 45 minutes each way. As I rode the back streets of Queens I passed by many interesting houses. One of my favorites is a small house on Astoria Blvd near Northern Blvd which resembles a castle. My course is mostly flat with very gentle hills. If I am lucky, and I was not today, the Queens Botanical Garden is open and I can ride through it and see the flowers.

On Monday, July 14, we will be sending a delegation of students and staff members to Guangdong Province in southern China for ten days of study and travel. What will they see? What will they experience? Watch their blog spaces here to learn more. (Hopefully, they will write to us.)

Hello students in the ELA class,

You have come to the right place. This is where you should be blogging. You may compose your work here. I am looking forward to reading your writing. Enjoy the weekend,

Mr. Sherman

In November, Malcom Gladwell's third book, "Outliers" will be released. He will be discussing success, and from the reviews of the book already out there, it sounds like it will be just as fascinating a read as his other books, "Tipping Point" and "Blink!" , both of which we have in our hallway bookshelves for our students to read.

Here is a link to another person's blog about the book:    http://800ceoread.com/blog/archives/007918.html

Dear Menfolk,

Father's Day is the closest we come to celebrating not only fathers, but ourselves as men.

Biological father or not, on this Father's Day, we celebrate our role in the lives of our children.

I don't know who posted these, but here are some links to videos that someone in our school community recently made and posted onto YouTube. I am very proud of the artwork our students are producing under the expert guidance of our artist-in-residence, Mr. David Marini. Some anonymous person has taken a lot of their personal time to create these great little videos showcasing our student's artwork. These are tastefully done and do not contain "real" images or the full names of our students.

My grandparents grew up in a time in which there were stil Civil War veterans alive.

I grew up knowing WWI veterans. I had neighbors who were veterans of WWII and Korea. I had a science teacher, Mr. Jackal, who was a Vietnam vet. I had colleagues who were Gulf War vets and I have met soldiers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, slowly, but surely time marches on and the earth takes those from earlier conflicts. Photos and memories remain, but it isn't the same as knowing a person or listening to a voice.

I just spoke on the phone with a Donor Services Assistant at The Gift of Life. This is an organization that created a bone marrow registry in the hopes of finding a cure for a young man dying of cancer in 1991.

I am constantly reminded how little I understand in this world. This fascinating animation discusses wave behavior in physics. You'll need access to YouTube to be able to watch it. Let me know what you think about it by leaving your comments below. Thanks for visiting my blog.

http://video.stumbleupon.com/#p=avhgy2eztn

Our school is located inside another school, Rachel Carson IS237. When 237 was first built, it was designed to be accessible to students of all kinds of abilities. It was one of the first of its kind to have an elevator, a ramp, and it integrated students of all abilities into the regular classrooms. This morning I read David Pogue's blog on the New York Times website http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/18/gadgets-with-the-blind-in-mind... in which he challenges his readers to discuss how technology is accessible or inaccessible to people of all abilities.