Dec. 15 Update

Dear Parents and Guardians,

I hope this message finds you well.  I would like to begin by thanking the MPA for organizing the annual Holiday Cookie Bash for the McCall staff this Wednesday morning.  Thank you to everyone who contributed goodies to this event.  We really appreciate the treat and the holiday spirit this event brought to the entire McCall building.

I would also like to thank everyone who wrote to show support for the school and me in light of the most recent graffiti incident.  It is important to remember that these acts of hate are not just words painted on a wall or comments that were made in jest.  They cause harm to people who have faces, names, and feelings.  However, it is also important for us to remember that this act is not just about me and my race.  We must reckon with the difficult question of why racist behaviors and all forms of bigotry are happening at all.

This past week I met with our Team Leaders, members of the Student Wellness and Acceptance and Inclusion Committees about how we can effectively address these issues with our colleagues and our students.  We are working on creating an approach that would help our students grapple with the complicated issues of equity, social justice, and activism in a manner that is proactive and consistent.  We have to make sure we are not always responding to acts of bigotry, and that we are not relying only on “one off” activities that may lead students to think that racism is over and dealt with after they take part in that one activity.  Instead we are working on figuring out how to actively teach all our students about what prejudice is and how to respond to all acts of hate.  I see racism and all forms of prejudice as cancer.  The treatment has to be consistently delivered and we have to follow up on it from all angles.

Just like many of you, McCall faculty and I are appalled that racist behaviors like the one we experienced last week is still happening in today’s world.  However, it also is motivating us to improve and expand our practices so we are ready to help our students grapple with these complicated challenges.

Thank you for your continued support.

James Lin

Principal

McCall Middle School  

Nov. 24 Update

Dear Parents and Guardians,

Happy almost-Thanksgiving.  Like many of you, I will be doing some traveling this coming weekend to gather with a large group of my wife’s family members and eat a lot of turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and pies.  My mother-in-law always makes a delicious oyster stuffing that only she and I like, and that is something to which I always look forward at this time of the year.  As most of you know, I did not grow up in the United States.  My first experience with eating turkey was when I was a teenager.  It was fascinating to me why people would make turkey the highlight of a meal, and it is still odd to me why people would put something sweet like cranberry sauce on top of gravy and meat.  I stayed with my uncle and aunt’s family when I first came to the US.  Since they were also recent immigrants, we did not have any family around us.  Our Thanksgiving celebrations back then were pretty small with just the five of us.  I remember celebrating the holiday with roasted chicken and various Chinese dishes like pork dumplings.  We liked it that way because we always thought turkey meat is bland and dry, and why would we go through the hassle of preparing such a big bird for a small group of people just because other families around us were doing it?  However, we always did open a can of cranberry sauce just for kicks, and my cousins and I enjoyed poking at it with chopsticks to watch it jiggle.

Thanksgiving is the most American of all the holidays we celebrate, and at the heart of it is about connecting with those who are important to us.  Some of you may be celebrating Thanksgiving the way I described – mixing and matching different traditions – and with your own definitions of family.  Those manners of celebration are just as American as the way our forefathers celebrated Thanksgiving back in the days of the pilgrims. 

As we do with our teaching practices, it important for us to remember the objective of our endeavors while allowing flexibility for everyone to reach those goals through various means.  So, I hope you will have the opportunity this Thanksgiving to connect with those important to you – whether your celebration involves a big turkey dinner or if your turkey dinner is accompanied by mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce, or pork dumplings, tamales, kimchi, kofta, sushi, or baklava.

I wish all of you a great holiday!

James Lin

Principal

McCall Middle School

Nov. 10 Update

Dear Parents and Guardians,

I would like to wish everyone a happy Veteran’s Day - particularly to those who have given up so much to serve our country.  I would like to recognize three such individuals who are current members of the McCall staff. They are Phil Doucette, Sargent, United States Marine Corps, Larry Farelli, Corporal, United States Marine Corps, and John Gill, Captain, United States Army. Please join me in thanking these three staff members and all veterans in the for their contribution to the Winchester community and our country.

I would also like to take this opportunity to share some information pertaining to the McCall Parent Association (MPA). Congratulations to all of the parents who participated in the McCall Parents Association's One and Done fundraiser in October. I was very excited to see that $41K—nearly 80% of the total goal—was raised. Please accept my thanks on behalf of everyone at McCall. We are grateful that the MPA provides necessary items that are outside of our regular school budget. There is never an obligation to give, but if you would still like to donate to help the MPA fully fund its budget for this year, you can donate here.

McCall is offering spirit wear! From now until November 20th, you can order sweatshirts, t-shirts, and hats here. Items will be delivered to McCall by mid-December. I will be sporting a McCall hoodie soon....

As a reminder, while we do send out daily announcements via email, the MPA's weekly newsletter is another excellent resource for information about the school and the Winchester community. Their newsletter is sent via email on Monday mornings. If you're not receiving it (and it's not accidentally in the spam folder), you can subscribe to the newsletter by clicking here. The newsletter always is posted on the MPA's website, www.mccallpa.com, too.



Thank you and enjoy the upcoming week!



James Lin 
Principal 
McCall Middle School

Nov. 3 Update - Reflection on the China Bridge Trip

As you know, I had the good fortune to be part of this year’s China Bridge program, sponsored by US’s College Board, which included a nine day visit in China. This year the program invited over 170 educators from across the US to congregate in Beijing, and we were divided into six different delegations to travel to various provinces of China to learn about the Chinese culture and educational system. I was part of the Shandong (山東) Province group which included twenty-six educators from New York City, Baltimore, Washington, DC, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Maine, and me, the sole participant from Massachusetts.

Aside from visiting the usual Chinese tourist sites such the Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and the Great Wall, the highlight of the trip was definitely our school visits in Shandong. It was a great learning experience to interact with, and learn from, Chinese students and educators as well as the twenty-six US educators with whom I traveled and closely connected.

Shandong Province is located not that far south of Beijing, so we had the experience of riding the bullet train to get there and back.



The residents of Shandong like to let visitors know that they are the province of “One River, One Mountain, and One Saint”. The one river is the Yellow River which flows through and ends in Shandong. Mt. Tai (泰山), a mountain that holds sacred meanings for the Chinese, is also located in the province. Lastly, the town of Qufu (曲阜), the birthplace of Confucius (who is regarded as a saint and worshipped by most Chinese), is located in Shandong as well.

At the foot of Mount Tai

Main Hall of the Confucius Temple

Apricot Pavilion at the Confucius Temple.  Site where Confucius taught many of his disciples.

Tree planted by Confucius himself

Students paying respect to Confucius at the Confucius Temple

It is apt for an American educator who is learning the Chinese education system to visit the hometown of Confucius since he is regarded as the first teacher of China, and his teaching which originated thousands of years ago still guides and permeates through the Chinese culture. Confucius’s teaching of 禮 (meaning propriety or etiquette) is very evident in Chinese schools. Structures of schools and classes are hierarchical. This is evident from how leaders of the schools and teachers are addressed by students and parents and where people sit during meetings. Teachers are treated as sources of wisdom and knowledge so each lesson begins and ends by the entire class of students standing up to greet and thank the teacher in unison. When teachers talk about teaching a lesson during everyday conversations, they do not use the word “teach”. Instead, teachers use the term 講課 (meaning to lecture) to describe what they do in the classrooms, and they use the term 聴課 (meaning to listen to a lecture) to describe what students do in the classrooms. There is a lot of cold calling during a lesson. When students are called, they stand up to answer the teacher’s questions. Chinese class sizes are well over forty-five students, and everyone is seated in rows. Unlike our classes, students do not move from classrooms to classrooms. They stay together as a 班`(a classroom of students). More often than not, students stay in the same classroom and sit in the same seat for every class in the school day and the teachers travel to the students.

1st Grade Language Class

7th Grade Math Class

This is even the case for “Exploratories” such as Art, Calligraphy, and Music classes. Teachers lecture, and students listen and model their teachers’ demonstrations. Students sit in rows.

Music Classroom of the Affiliated Middle School of Jining Institute in Jining, Shandong

Calligraphy Classroom of the Affiliated Middle School of the Jining Institute in Jining, Shandong

The teaching of Confucius combined with the practical need to service such a large human population means schools are focused on teaching the collective as opposed to the individual. Recesses are primarily group exercises lead by school leaders and teachers, and PE classes are made up of drills even for students as young as kindergarteners. Attached here is a video of a recess involving the entire student body of a secondary school in Jining, Shandong.

Juniors and Seniors of Taishan Middle School's Airlines Services Program performing a dance routine

Kindergarteners doing calisthenics during PE class

Kindergarteners practicing their basketball skills

Although the Chinese thoughts about and approaches to education are vastly different than ours, I believe we are so much more similar to each other than we are different. When I asked the Chinese teachers about why they entered the profession, they talked about wanting to make a positive difference in the lives of the students. They spoke about the joy they feel when they see students grow and when students return to visit after they had graduated from their classes. The Chinese teachers told me they love their jobs because they enjoy learning and having fun with colleagues who care as much about kids as they do. 

Ms. Li, Mr. Kong, and Ms. Zhang, educators and our hosts in Shandong

Mickey, my student guide, a senior from Taishan Middle School, told me that despite the pressure he feels from preparing for 高考 (the make-or-break college entrance exam), he takes time to travel with friends and family and play the guitar in his band. He was very excited about the Halloween party that would be taking place at this school in a few days because he and his band will be debuting the original composition he has written. Mickey traveled to Canada last year as part of his school’s exchange program, and he loved his experience. He aspires to be a banker and hopes one day to attend graduate school in Canada.

My student guide Mickey.  He is called Mickey because he had big ears when he was little and he looked like Mickey Mouse

My main take away from my nine days in China is that Chinese educators and students know a lot about us. Students in schools I visited start learning English and information about American and Western cultures when they are in 3rd grade. Chinese teachers I came across and speak articulately about Western educational thoughts, and they are curious about how US teachers foster creativity and promote authentic learning in our students. Despite the challenges they face teaching fifty students at the same time, they work hard to engage in practices other than traditional “sage on stage” method of teaching.  I saw evidence of students engaging in station work, and teachers utilizing practices such as Think-Pair-Share. I would venture to guess that an average Chinese teacher and student knows a lot more about us than we know about them. The US and Chinese relationship is complicated, and whether it is one of friendship or competition (or both), it does not serve us or our students well to be uninformed about the Chinese culture and people. The value of the China Bridge trip is exactly as the name indicates - to build bridges between these two countries and cultures. I am hopeful that I can continue the relationships I have started with the Chinese educators I met as well as with the American educators who value teaching the Chinese language and cultures in their schools. The Chinese educators we visited welcomed us with open arms and are yearning to establish friendships with us. I am hoping this trip is our first step in developing that relationship.

At the foot of Mt. Tai with my new friend Ms. Zhang, 6th Grade English Teacher in Shandong

At the Great Wall with Ms. Zhang

With Assistant Principal Kong in the gym of the Affiliated Middle School of Jining Institute Shandong after a rigorous ping pong match.  We share the same birthday!

With my new friend Principal Bowes, an elementary principal from New Jersey, in the Confucius Research Institute

At the Great Wall with my new friends Ms. Shen, Assistant Superintendent in the NYC Public Schools, and Ms. Qu, World Language Department Head in Philadelphia Public Schools

Oct. 19 Update

Dear Parents and Guardians,

I hope this message finds you well.  I would like to focus this week’s update on the Phase II Construction project.  The construction has created challenges for our staff and students due to the amount and level of noises caused by the work.  Unlike the Phase I Expansion work, the Phase II project is much bigger in scale and the construction zone is located right by some of our classrooms and learning spaces.  I understand the noise level and some of the work that needed to be done like the welding that occurred during the structural steel erection phase of the project can be very disruptive to the learning process.  Therefore, we are doing what we can to ensure our teachers and staff have alternative teaching spaces if the construction becomes too disruptive.  I also meet with representatives from the Office of Town Engineers, the project manager from the construction company, as well as the project’s chief architect on a weekly basis to discuss how to proceed with the construction while allowing the day-to-day operation of the school to take place.  No building construction project can proceed without creating noises and smells related to welding and steel cutting, but rest assure that all parties involved in this construction project place the staff and students’ health, safety, and well-being as high priority.  We are making every effort into ensuring the physical environment of all McCall learning spaces are clean, safe, and healthy, and high quality teaching is still going on despite the distracting elements that are created right outside some of our classroom windows.

I am attaching some pictures of the work that are being done during past few weeks.  Despite the rain and high winds that occurred in recent days, the structural steel erection process is proceeding ahead of schedule.  That means the work will quickly shift toward the interior of the newly erected structures, which also mean the construction project would soon create significantly less noises and other elements that can be distracting to teachers, staff, and students.

I am grateful to all McCall staff, teachers, and students for enduring the rough patch of the construction process during the last two and a half weeks.  I appreciate all the flexibility and resiliency everyone is exhibiting.  At the same time, I feel fortunate that we have a community who is willing to fund the construction of an expanded cafeteria, a new teacher’s workspace, and an additional wing of six new classrooms.  Those of you who visited our school during Open House night can see that we are currently utilizing every square inch of our building and is in need of additional teaching and working spaces.  Those new work and learning areas are becoming a reality and everyday we are moving closer to having a more spacious building with state-of-the-art teaching facilities.

Thank you for your continued support and cooperation.

James Lin

Principal

McCall Middle School

Oct. 13 Update

Dear Parents and Guardians,

I hope this message finds you well, and thank you to everyone who took the time to come join us for Open House this past Thursday.  This past Tuesday, the McCall staff had a great afternoon of learning from executive function guru Sarah Ward.  She taught us that executive function is all about tapping into our nonverbal working memory, but yet, much of our instructions to students are delivered verbally.  Therefore, all of the strategies Sarah shared with us are about helping students visualize the outcome of the work we are asking them to do and assisting them with playing out in their minds what they need to do to reach those goals.  She challenged us to rethink how we utilize common executive function strategies such as using checklists and breaking down long term tasks into smaller chunks because those tools can actually cause students to increase their dependence on adults as opposed to learning how to reach their goals on their own if we do not implement them thoughtfully.

I am very proud of many of our teachers who began implementing the strategies Sarah taught us the very next day after the presentation.  We will be using our next faculty meeting in November to share with each other on how to put those ideas and strategies into practice.

Attached here are the slides Sarah used during the parent lecture on Tuesday night for those of you who are interested.

I would also like everyone to know that I have the good fortune to represent Winchester Public Schools in this year’s China Bridge Delegation.  The program is ran by the College Board - the same folks who write and administer the SAT - in conjunction with the Confucius Institute from China.  I will be traveling to China from October 20 to October 29 during which I will be visiting local K–12 schools, meeting with Chinese educators, networking with U.S. colleagues, attending presentations on best practices to teach the Chinese language, and gathering resources to build and support McCall’s nascent Chinese language and culture program.  I am very excited about this opportunity, but at the same time I understand my absence from McCall during these ten days means much of what I do on a daily basis will fall on the shoulders of my two assistant principals and other members of my admin team.  I am grateful for their support, and I thank all of you for your patience if our responses to your questions or concerns are delayed due to my absence.

As part of the preparation of the trip, the organizers asked us to set up an account with the application WeChat since gmail, Facebook, and many online communication apps we are accustomed to using in the US are blocked in China.  I am encountering some difficulty setting up a WeChat account.  I hoping there are people in the parent community who are experienced WeChat users and can help me with the setup process.  Please shoot me an email if you are willing and able.

Lastly, I would like to congratulate one special member of the McCall faculty who recently achieved a milestone in her career.  Ms. Jeanne Snodgrass, our Instrumental Music and General Music teacher, finished her teaching career with us this past Friday.  After instructing music at McCall and the Winchester elementary schools for over twenty years and teaching in public and private settings for over thirty years, Ms. Snodgrass will now shift gears and enjoy her retirement.  She plans to focus on her own musicianship (she’s a trumpet player), tend to her garden, and get more sleep than she has been getting.  You will still see Ms. Snodgrass working with students in private settings and teaching music at local organizations.  On behalf of the McCall community, I wish Ms. Snodgrass a happy retirement!

Happy long weekend!

James Lin

Principal

McCall Middle School

Oct. 6 Update

Dear Parents and Guardians,

I hope this message finds you well.  I would like to begin by reminding everyone that thanks to the generosity of the McCall Parent Association (MPA) and Winchester’s Parent to Parent organization, we will have the opportunity to have Sarah Ward come to McCall to present to both the parent community and the middle school staff this Tuesday about executive function.  Sarah is a renowned expert on this topic, and I am including her bio below for your reference.

When we talk about students’ executive functioning skills, we often think about their abilities to keep binders and backpack organized and to keep track of their assignments.  However, executive function is broader than that.  Executive function includes (but not limit to) one’s ability to plan ahead, to prioritize, to shift from one activity to another, and to monitor one’s behavior.  Teaching executive function mirrors our school and district’s work to promote social emotional learning.  Both are about teaching students how to be self-aware and how to self-regulate. 

I have attended many of Sarah’s training sessions before, and the main reason I am a big fan of her work is because her approach to teaching executive function aligns with the backward design model to teaching and lesson planning (of which I am a big proponent).  If you speak to Sarah about teaching executive function skills, you will hear her talk about how to help students visualize desired outcomes by helping them ask themselves questions such as, “What does a completed science project look like?” and “What does a person who is ready for the hockey practice look like?”  When students are able to answer these questions, we can then help them work backwards and determine what are the steps they need to take in order to get to those desired outcomes.  This way of thinking about executive function matches the work many of our teachers are doing with RULER anchor tools such as the class charter.  Many of our teachers established classroom rules, expectations, and norms by asking students how they want to feel when they come to your classes and then worked backwards with them to determine how they should behave in order to achieve those pleasant feelings.

I hope you will join us Tuesday evening from 7:00-9:00 pm in the McCall auditorium to hear what Sarah has to say about executive function.  I am confident you will find the session to be informative and practical.  Please remember that the target audience for this event is parents and guardians not students, so I encourage you to leave your students at home that night.  Lastly, I would like to recognize the timing of this event puts some of you in the difficult position of having to choose between coming and Yom Kippur observation.  I regret that it turned out this way, but we had little flexibility due to Sarah’s schedule and our goal of aligning the teacher training to the parent information session.  I will do my best to get the handout materials of the parent session to those of you who want them.

Thank you and I wish you a wonderful week.

James Lin

Principal

McCall Middle School

Sarah Ward bio:

Sarah Ward, M.S., CCC/SLP has over 25 years of experience in diagnostic evaluations and treatment of executive dysfunction.  Ms. Ward holds a faculty appointment at the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute of Health Professions. Sarah is an internationally recognized expert on executive function and presents seminars and workshops on the programs and strategies she has developed with her Co-Director Kristen Jacobsen. Their 360 Thinking Executive Function Program received the Innovative Promising Practices Award from the National Organization CHADD. She has presented to and consulted with over 750 public and private schools in Massachusetts, across the United States and internationally.

Sarah Ward, M.S., CCC/SLP has over 25 years of experience in diagnostic evaluations and treatment of executive dysfunction.  Ms. Ward holds a faculty appointment at the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute of Health Professions where she provides instruction to graduate level students in the assessment and treatment of individuals with traumatic brain injury and other cognitive communication disorders.  Sarah is an internationally recognized expert on executive function and presents seminars and workshops on the programs and strategies she has developed with her Co-Director Kristen Jacobsen. Their 360 Thinking Executive Function Program received the Innovative Promising Practices Award from the National Organization CHADD. She has presented to and consulted with over 500 public and private schools in Massachusetts and across the United States. Other awards received include: MGH Expertise in Clinical Practice Award, the Distinguished Alumni Award and the Faculty in Excellence Award from the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute of Health Professions (2002, 2011) and ACE award from ASHA 2013 and 2016.

Sept. 29 Update

Dear Parents and Guardians,

I hope you are well.  As you know, tomorrow is scheduled to be a half day for students in order to give all teachers and staff the opportunity to attend professional development sessions so they can advance their skill sets.  I am very pleased to announce the Social Emotional Learning sessions are at a high demand.  That means McCall teachers and staff are electing to further their learning in this area.  I am looking forward to seeing how our teachers and staff will be integrating what they will be learning in the PD sessions into their practices.

I would also like to give everyone an update on the Phase II Expansion Project.  This week the contractors started putting the steel beams in place.  This is an exciting step forward because we can start seeing the skeleton of McCall’s new wing being built.  I am attaching a few pictures to help you see the work that is being done.  I am also happy to say that teachers like Mr. Tom Awiszus is collaborating with the Phase II contractors to have them help the Technology and Engineering students further their learning about construction.  This is authentic learning at its very best!

Thank you and I wish you all a great week!

James Lin

Principal

McCall Middle School

Sept. 22 Update

Dear Parents and Guardians,

I hope this message finds you well.  I would like to take this opportunity to share with you some of my thoughts regarding how to support your students if they are struggling at school.  I know parents often have trouble figuring out how involved they should be when helping their students who are not doing well at school.  Some parents feel it is important to be hands off because they want to foster independence in their students and allow them the chance to advocate for themselves.  I understand this approach and agree that students – particularly 7^th and 8^th graders should know how to approach teachers to seek out support.  However, many students do not know how to self-advocate without guidance from adults.  Therefore, the students might not follow through with what their parents had asked them to do, or they may self-advocate in ways that lead the teachers to interpret the behaviors as any thing other than self-advocacy.

There are also parents – particularly those with younger students – who feel the advocacy needs to solely come from the parents.  Doing so may take away the opportunity for students to practice how to take charge of their own education.  Ultimately, how much parent involvement should take place would depend on the needs and maturity levels of the students.  However, the most effective approaches I have seen parents take always involved some level of communication between the parents and the teachers, as well as some level of involvement of the students in the process.  For example, I worked with a family whose student often struggled with homework completion and keeping up with the pacing of a particular class.  The parents met with the teacher when they first noticed the student was struggling, and together they devised a plan to help the student keep up with her school work as well as develop her skills to advocate for herself.  The plan involved the student and the parent sitting down to craft a message to be sent to the teachers on evenings when she struggled to complete all of her assignments.  That message, sent through the student’s email account, described the work the student was able to do that evening and proposed a plan on what she had planned to do to finish the portion that she was not able to complete that night.

When that student struggled to understand what the teacher taught in class, the parent and the student again sit down to craft a message to the teacher to request a time for the student to come for extra help.  The parents would then connect with the teacher after the scheduled extra help appointment to check to see if the student actually showed up.  If she did, the parent would ask if the teacher thought the extra help session was successful and whether the student used the time productively.

By taking this approach, the parent was able to coach her daughter the appropriate ways to advocate for herself and to monitor whether the student was following through with the plan to receive help.  Just as importantly, there is coordination between home and family, so the teacher was able to reinforce and support what the parent and the student are doing at home.

I hope all your students will have a successful school year, however, if you find yourself in a situation where your student needs your help with school, please consider taking an approach where you are connecting with the teachers while helping your student to develop his or her self-advocacy skills.  As always, I am available to support you if you need it.

Here are two reminders for the week:

Clubs and After School Activities – Many of the clubs and after school activities will be starting this coming week.  We have posted the information for each activity on our school website.  You can also access that information by clicking here.  We ask you to reach out to each club advisor directly if you have additional questions about the activities themselves.

Flu Clinic – Please see below for a message from the Winchester Health Department.

The Winchester Health Department in collaboration with the School District, is pleased to again offer flu clinics at every school this fall.  

·         On-line registration will be available on Monday, September23^rd.

·         Go to: www.winchester.us and click on the school flu vaccination icon at the bottom of the page.

·         Registration will end on October 3^rd.

At the on-line registration site, you will find the information you need to sign your child up for either the FluMist nasal spray or flu shot. If you have a question after reviewing the information, please contact the Health Department at flu@winchester.us or 781-721-7121.

We encourage you to enroll your child in a school clinic. A flu vaccination is an important step in preventing the flu virus.

Thank you, and I wish a great week!

James Lin

Principal

McCall Middle School