Indianapolis is My Home

03
Jun

Indiana Student Graduates with Perfect Attendance

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Education, High Schools, Humor, News, People, Students, WISH - Channel 8

I’ll be honest, I’ve never really been impressed with anyone that’s boasted about perfect attendance. My theory is that when you’re an adult you get to take vacation and sick days. Why don’t we get the same sort of flexibility as students? Being a full-time student after all is our job.

Cherie Pieper graduated from Northeast Dubois High School in 1989 with perfect attendance through 12 years, and she challenged her daughter to do the same. So last month, 18-year-old Arielle Pieper also graduated from Dubois with the same perfect attendance record.

Congratulations to the Piepers, but I just don’t see what the benefit is and award of having accomplished it. I also wonder how many times they went to school when they were sick and got other kids sick that ended up missing.

If I’m missing something here, will someone please explain it to me?

WISH TV 8: Indianapolis News and Weather - Indiana student graduates with perfect attendance

09
May

Local Educator Gives Facebook a Black-Eye

Author: Jason Bean, Category: High Schools, South Side

A local Indianapolis educator has filed suit against Facebook for a bogus page that was setup to impersonate him and contact students.

Roncalli dean sues over false Facebook page

Tim Puntarelli, Roncalli’s dean of students, and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese are suing Facebook and the anonymous creators of the false Webpage the suit claims contained false, embarrassing, and defaming information about Puntarelli and Roncalli High School

I do believe that Facebook has done the right thing by immediately taking the page down. I’m not sure though if I think they should be required to hand over the identities of those that created it.

I think they might boot and ban them from the site, which in turn might uncover their identities in the long run. One thing about students, they’ll talk and if they notice that Jim & John* are no longer on Facebook, the social media networks will probably be abuzz among those students.

Roncalli dean sues over false Facebook page | IndyStar.com | The Indianapolis Star

*names changed to protect the guilty

31
Jan

MyColts.net

Author: Jason Bean, Category: High Schools, Sports

Part of me has just chosen to accept that NFL football is over until next year. Then we’ll be enjoying our Indianapolis Colts in the brand-new and magnificent Lucas Oil Stadium.

The other part of me wants to keep talking Colts and football though and I’ve found a darn good place to do just that on the Internet.

The website is called mycolts.net and it’s basically a full-featured message board and community portal. There’s tons of information and opinion being shared on the site. If you’re a Colts fan and love some online community I think you’ll enjoy this big, blue hang-out.

If you join, feel free to look me up and add me to your friends. I’m "bnpositive", so just do a search. You can also go directly to my homepage at http://www.mycolts.net/bnpositive

Another great feature of the site is they also have MyIndianaFootball.com as well. So if high school football is more your thing, here’s another reason you should check it out.

28
Jan

The Souls of Our Feet at Pike Performance Arts Center

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Art, Concerts, Cultural Events, High Schools, Northwest Side, Pike PAC, Theater, Things To Do in Indy

On Saturday, January 19th it was a frigid day to be outside, but it was also a good night to be at the Pike Performing Arts Center with my daughter. You see, we went on a Daddy Daughter Date to go see "The Souls of Our Feet: A Celebration of American Tap Dance".

My daughter has taken some dance classes, including tap, to introduce her to the art and she got exposed to the true art of dance that night.

"The Souls of Our Feet" is part of a National Endowment for the Arts "American Masterpiece: Dance" production for the 2007-2008 season. The dance group is Tapestry Dance Company (Jaqueline Coleman, Katelyn Harris, Jason Janas, Brenna Kuhn, Tasha Lawson, Tony Merriwether and Matt Shields), Executive-Artistic Director is Acia Gray and special guest was Dianne Walker who was a cast member of the great tap movie entitled "TAP" with Gregory Hines.

The production was great. They would start off with a video projection of a specific scene from history that highlighted the roots of tap dance in performance. Then the jazz trio would start playing the music and the video scene would fade as the live dancers stepped into the light and began doing the routine that was introduced in the video segment. The transition and fading from recorded audio and projected video to live sound and dancers was a tremendous expression.

I found a YouTube video of clips of various segments from the performance as it was done in an opening performance back in November. The clips are almost identical to what we got to see live at Pike PAC.

What a great show.

See the video after the jump

Read the rest of this entry »

17
Jan

Are You A Computer Teacher in Indiana?

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Colleges, Convention Center, Downtown, Education, Elementary, High Schools, Things To Do in Indy

A friend of mine is an a technology teacher on the south side in Center Grove. He let me know about a conference coming up next week for computer educators in Indiana. The organization is called Indiana Computer Educators and their annual conference starts next week in downtown Indianapolis. The conference will be held in the Indiana Convention Center, Exhibit Hall D.

Here’s a little more about the organization:

Indiana Computer Educators (ICE) is a non-profit professional group whose mission is assisting educators to enhance learning through the use of technology. David Flowers of the Fort Wayne Community School Corporation founded this organization in 1980. In 1980, ICE was a user group of forty-three people that had an interest in computers, met two or three times each year, and published a newsletter. The first ICE Conference included six hardware vendors.

I was heading into the teaching profession at one time, high school biology teacher was my goal. That changed quickly once in college and I started taking all the educational theory classes. Now what’s odd is I’m very interested in all the theory now. Hmmm….

Visit Indiana Computer Educators website

03
Oct

Indianapolis Public Schools Suspend 100+ Students

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Education, Elementary, High Schools, News

One of the biggest changes for this school year was that IPS schools have enforced a dress code.

Some parents and students say Tech High School administrators went overboard yesterday when they suspended more than 100 students for violating the new Indianapolis Public Schools dress code. Parents today will be asked to sign a form saying they are responsible for what their kids wear to school or the children cannot come back. School administrators say parents and students had plenty of time to get the uniforms.

I’m sorry, I just don’t understand the problems here. Both of my kids attend schools where a basic uniform is required. It’s not much, but I just see so many benefits and advantages of having a uniform. For our family, it eliminates the “what am I going to wear today” down to “What color shirt do you want to wear today? Do you want to wear pants or shorts?”

That’s just so much easier.

What do you think?

Source: IBJ

21
Aug

Gary Varvel Does Editorial Comics Justice

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Education, Elementary, High Schools, Local Artists, News, People

I was recently introduced to the talent of Gary Varvel, a local editorial cartoonist featured on the IndyStar.

I love his artistic design and comic style. Here’s one of his recent comics about the changes in local Indianapolis Public Schools with the addition of school uniforms.

My personal opinions are that school uniforms are a great idea and I think decisions like this will be the start of a whole new era in Indy public schools.

For more of Gary’s great editorial insight and artistic talent, you can check him out on the IndyStar website, in the printed edition or on his blog.

09
Aug

Anderson Highland Wins Band Day

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Awards & Recognition, High Schools, Indiana State Fair Grounds, Local Musicians, Things To Do in Indy

As a follow-up to my previous post about the Indiana State Fair, Anderson Highland high school wins the Band Day competition at the fair last night for marching.

Congratulations to the kids who suffered through the heat of the day itself, but also all the long hours of work and practice to achieve this result.

I spent 7 years in my high school marching band. No, I’m not stupid enough that it took me 7 years, I just had the opportunity to start marching in the band when I was in 6th grade and did it all through high school.

My closest claim to fame is that our high school was chosen to participate in the 200th centennial celebration for the state of Kentucky as well as representing the state of Kentucky in D.C. for the 4th of July parade. That day the temperature on the street was above 100 degrees and we were feeling it for sure.

Congrats again to Anderson Highland band and a specific shout-out to the trumpets!

21
Jun

Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) Accepts School Uniforms

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Education, Elementary, High Schools, News

The big news around the city this day is that IPS administrators have voted to implement a school uniform policy for attire. K-8 grades will be required to wear khaki, blue, black pants with red, white, blue collared shirts. 9-12 will be allowed to substitute their schools colors for the options with the shirts.

I think this is a great idea. My son has been attending an Edison School now for the past 2 years and they have a similar uniform policy. I think it helps eliminate some of the stress and anxiety for students nowadays in school. Not too mention, it makes it a little easier on families to keep laundry ready to go with a standard grouping of clothes and colors.

What do you think? Are you for or against the school uniforms? Let us know in the comments.