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[ Transcript ]
Hi,
I'm Joe Tafoya. It's my pleasure to speak to you
all at the beginning of this school year. The start of any
school year is always exciting because of the opportunity
it represents for students, teachers and administrators. It's
a new start and another opportunity for us to make a lasting
difference in the lives of the young people we serve.
We've chosen our theme for this school year, DoDEA Reads,
for two main reasons:
One, Reading First is among the major national initiatives
being implemented as part of the national No Child Left Behind
Educational Reform Act. Our students come to us from many
other public schools systems and, in most cases, return to
them after only a few years in our schools. So it's essential
that we, too, emphasize a curricular area that is being highlighted
nationally. Two, in DoDEA our students read - and write
-; very well, as reflected in our test scores. But we
want students to understand and teachers to reinforce the
idea that reading isn't a skill to be considered in isolation
- it's a passport to an infinite variety of things
within the classroom, and it's the key to many things
outside of school that are part of an active, successful life.
This is the year for teachers, parents and students to stress
the importance of reading across the curriculum and beyond
the school. We don't just want our students to read,
we want them to understand how reading enhances their lives
and how reading makes things they consider very important
to their lives possible.
Reading is critical to their success in every subject they
will ever study in school, but, maybe more significantly to
them, the better they read, the more accessible the world
becomes to them. And, the more they read, the better they
get. Without reading, their world is limited to the things
around them. But readers have a passport to civilizations
past, present and future, real and imagined. There are no
limits to the things they can explore and to the worlds they
can conquer.
We want our students to be inquisitive and to challenge -
to question - the things around them. We want them to
ask themselves "Why am I doing this? How does this help
me? What good is this in the "real world"?"
I'm counting on you - at every school in every district
- to come up with creative ways to help all our students
answer those questions about reading.
Make this theme your own - make it meaningful to every
student and parent in your school community. Help them focus
on the benefits and the pleasure they can derive from something
that's important - not just on a test or during
a classroom exercise, but in every part of their lives. DoDEA
reads and DoDEA succeeds - and so do all our students.
I thank you for all you have contributed in the past to making
our schools a national model for excellence, and I encourage
you to do your best once again as we begin this new school
year. I look forward to meeting with many of you over the
next few months as I visit our schools and I am anxious to
review all the accomplishments that I know your talents, hard
work and dedication will yield.
It's a new school year; let's work together to make
it a great one. Thank you. |
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