respublica

Want to get into Yale?

A Tennessee high school senior girl wrote an essay which got her into Yale University. Essays are normally required with many college applications and the essay question for Yale was, " a 200-words or less essay about what you love to do."

Her immediate thought about what she loved to do was order pizza from Papa Johns and that is what she wrote. "Putting aside worries her essay topic would seem “silly,”Carolina Williams wrote about how ordering from the pizza chain gave her independence as a child and was used as both a source of consolation and celebration as she grew up."

This unusual essay tickled the admissions people and one wrote a note to her saying, "As a fellow lover of pizza, I laughed out loud (then ordered pizza) after reading your application". Another admission person wrote “I laughed so hard on your pizza essay. I kept thinking that you are the kind of person that I would love to be best friends with."

Food for thought

1517 Renaissance Reformation Concert

Last night the students at Holy Cross Lutheran School in Collinsville put on a concert celebrating the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. They were dressed in medieval costumes and provided music which included singing, string and band instruments, and handbells. The hallways had medieval games to play.

This game, the name of which I've forgotten, involved rolling a ball of some kind around the pretend village green.

There were castle backdrops and of course, an lifesize Martin Luther.

Two of our grandsons came over to watch and help at the Concordia Publishing House table on which were giveaways and things for sale having to do with the Reformation.

Esther, the church's Comfort Dog was also in attendance.

At the conclusion music director Karen Shimkus was given a bouquet of roses.

And our boys had their picture taken with mom and John Shimkus

A great night and a terrific idea.

Grandparents Day

Thursday and Friday were set aside for grandparents day at our grandsons' school. They are now on two different campuses so Dale went for Connor's day and I went yesterday for Christian. There were activities in each classroom, chapel and the chance to take the grandchild out for lunch. What I was amazed at was what we learned in Christian's math class.

The teacher has a program on his iPad which allows him to immediately see everyone's answers and know who got them right and who didn't. I don't know if I can explain this perfectly but here goes. The problem or question is put on a digital screen which hangs on the chalkboard. Each child comes up with an answer at his desk. Sometimes it's multiple choice sometimes just one answer. When everyone is done with all the math problems the teacher tells them to get out their Plickers Cards which look like this:

If you click to enlarge the picture you'll see that the image has a number on each corner which corresponds to an individual child. Also letters A, B, C, and D on the sides. Those letters correspond to the multiple choice answers. The black portion is on a shiny white laminated paper of some kind.

When everyone has finished the assignment the teacher picks up his iPad and tells the class to hold up their Plicker and he walks across the front of the room and as he does, the iPad program somehow reads each child's answer as A,B,C,or D and records whether it is right or wrong. For instance, he let us play along by putting up a couple of multiple choice questions and gave each of us one of the Plickers. One question was "when you were in 5th grade what did you want to be when you grew up?" There were 4 choices-ABCD. D was "none of the above".

Then he had one of his students walk across the front of the room while holding the iPad in front of him and it recorded all the answers. In this case the teacher had the answers form a graph which showed up on the digital screen on the chalkboard. This blew me away. 90 percent of the grandparents answered "none of the above" for the choices. He did this a couple more times with other questions. I loved this.

Here's Dale with Connor in is classroom. They worked on word and number sheets.

They went to lunch at Steak N Shake

Then not to be outdone, Christian and I took a selfie.

And we went to lunch at Qdoba which was right across the street from CCLS Kirkwood campus.

Forming a Luther Rose

Yesterday I went over to Holy Cross in Collinsville with two of our seminary students who work part time in the communications department. This department does most of the work involved with publicity in all forms and students are excellent photographers. The school is celebrating Lutheran School Week and as this is also the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, staff wanted to do something which involved everyone. it was decided to attempt to have all the kids form the Luther Seal in the gym. This seal is synonymous with Luther.

All the classes were assigned one color to wear. The seal contains yellow, blue, white, red and black. Then Mrs. Shimkus made a circle on the gym floor in inside of it she placed small pieces of paper with those 5 colors on them so the children would know where to stand. It was then hoped that all the colors would turn that mass of students and teachers into a Luther Rose.

The photograph had to be taken from above to make it work and that was the main issue. At first it was thought bringing the seminary drone over would do the trick but it turns out drones need to be in a GPS area to be able to move up, down, side to side, and it is not available indoors, only outside. Then we learned that Holy Cross actually owns a lift! I mean, seriously? So many of us at the seminary wish we had a lilt because there are many times we really need to get up higher and safer than with a ladder. Anyway, George brought in the lift, one of our sem students got aboard with the church's lift driver and it worked great. Here's a look at how it went.

If you click the pictures they enlarge and you can see the faces really well.

Seminary students Aaron and Mark

Mrs. Shimkus showing the students the seal and explaining what each color meant. to begin all the students were on the bleachers.

These are just a few of the classes waiting to get going.

Pastor Wright participated as well and even wore his Luther Seal socks with Luther's famous words, "Here I stand".

Esther Comfort Dog was part of the picture and she was with her handlers and staff.

Then it was time to get going. The kids were placed on their colored marks and the lift rolled up.

And rose higher and higher

The school audience was amazed

And here we go

Everybody wave!

At the end sem student Mark noticed a few balls which had gotten caught in the ceiling rafters and he began tossing them down to the kids.

Fun way to end an event which worked out better than we hoped. Very cool morning.

Education 2016

Unexpected announcement from Wash U

Now this is a surprise.

"After years of pressure from animal rights groups, Washington University has stopped using cats to train new doctors how to insert breathing tubes.

The medical school was the last in the country known to use live animals for the training, according to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a nonprofit that opposes animal research."

I never would have expected Wash U, to have been using animals in this day and age of animal rights activism in their medical training.

The Clydesdales were here!

Yesterday afternoon the Budweiser Clydesdales paraded through the campus of Washington University as part of the hoop d la surrounding the presidential debate coming up tomorrow. I have to say that even though voters will be choosing between two flawed candidates (my opinion) Wash U has done a masterful job of making this event one of pure joy. Having the horses pulling the beer wagon with president Wrighton riding on top brought out crowds of people from the campus and surrounding neighborhood. Everyone just just delighted to be out in the sunshine to see the gorgeous horses up close.

Students from the Forsyth School across the street from the University were allowed to come and watch.

During the wait before they cantered through the campus the horses waited along the driveway to Brookings Hall. And people flocked over there too.

And I'm telling you, the dalmation which is always with the beer wagon was the most engaged dog I've seen in a long time. He never missed a thing.

When we first got there the crowd in front of Brookings looked like this

Then became this

And this

And here they came

The horse on the front right saw me with my camera and decided to veer toward me as if to pose better. As he passed he looked me in the eye.

Here's Wash U president Wrighton and the always alert dog.

Lots of cameras

These guys are the Budweiser pooper scoopers

And after circling the Brookings area twice, they headed out to Forsyth Ave and down to the athletic complex on Big Bend where they'll pass out beer to anyone over 21. We did not stay for that, but what a wonderful experience this was. So St. Louis, so American.

Debate!

St. Louis is getting pretty excited about the next Presidential debate being held here and we are right in the middle of it all here at Concordia Seminary. Wash U is right down the street from us so we're seeing all the preparations and getting notices of upcoming street closures. Washington University will be the host for the 3rd time and honestly, they know what they're doing. Last night Dale and I went over to that campus to see Brookings Hall, the administration building facing Skinker, which has been lighted in red, white and blue. Dale received his PhD from Wash U so he was enthralled by what we were seeing.

 

That tiny person in the arch is Dale who was heading up to look at the quad.

We got there just around sunset, so the first pictures showed sky and lighter colors. Here is how it looked when full dark.

Whatever color shields they used to do this, we'd sure like to get some for our buildings at Christmas.

Sometime Friday the Budweiser Clydesdales will be trotting down Forsyth from Skinker to the WU athletic complex on Big Bend. I hope to get over and see that too.

Alumni reunion

This weekend was filled with events revolving around the first ever Alumni reunion for Holy Cross Lutheran School. Almost 300 people attended a dinner at the VFW on Saturday night and Sunday morning continued the fellowship between services. What struck me most was the happiness and joy surrounding the weekend. You could sense this by the sheer volume of talk and laughter which never stopped. The food was great, the stories fun, the memorabilia displayed was riveting. Our new pastor played the banjo with the only song he knew...or so he said. Good times.  Here's a short glimpse of Saturday night.

Former principal and former Athletic Director

Former teacher, Cindy Davis Hammond with her husband and daughter. She's now principal at a school in western Missouri.

Selling things

A table of Holy Crossers. Hi Louis!

The reunion committee

There was even a photo area and photo booth where families and friends could have their pictures taken

Pastor Wright

An impromptu choir lead everyone in the school fight song

The food was catered by Ravenelli's and I give lots of props to the two young women who handled this all by themselves. They carried and lifted and moved food into and off the table all night. Heavy pans. They were consistently cheerful.

And there was one woman doing the bartending dealing with constant long lines and she was just as pleasant.

Didn't really need any encouragement to laugh but fun anyway.

A great night

And most fitting, a Kruta Bakery cake on Sunday morning.

 

Illinois school districts which will gain the most funding

The Illinois stopgap budget agreement will allot 25 school districts gain more funding than others. Surprisingly, Collinsville will be one of them and will gain 1.08 million. I'm surprised to learn Collinsville Unit Ten is considered Impoverished.

Education funding had been the main sticking point in budget negotiations between Gov. Bruce Rauner and Democratic legislative leaders. But in an 11th-hour deal, they agreed on a plan that adds an additional $361 million to K-12 funding over what was spent last year.

The measure also sends an extra $250 million to districts that serve a high percentage of low-income students through a new “equity grant,” as well as $80 million for early childhood education. Of that, Chicago Public Schools stands to gain about $131 million, while the rest is split among other impoverished districts across the state.