Greetings,
GreenMount Community,
By now we have all recognized that this winter is
one of the coldest in memory (your memories, that is). Why, I can remember winters so cold and so
snow-filled that ALL the animals migrated to the south, except for that one
little sparrow that remained perched on the tree limb outside my bedroom window
for weeks. And of course, the schools
were never closed, I walked uphill both ways and my mom could only afford to
give me one glove.
On a more scientific and accurate
note, I have found some interesting data concerning cold and heat and how it
affects our productivity at school and in the workplace. It seems that our highest productivity occurs
in temperatures around 71.6
degrees Fahrenheit, according to a 2006 study
by the Helsinki University of
Technology, Laboratory for Heating Ventilating and Air Conditioning in Finland,
and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Environmental Energy Technologies
Division at Berkeley, Calif. I guess the Helsinki folks did the cold research
and the Berkley folks did the hot research. These results indicated that an 80-degree
environment or a 64-degree environment had negative effects on memory ability
and our ability to remain focused on work. Maybe it would be a good idea to
keep that in mind when determining your child’s homework place.
Here, at GreenMount, we always try to create an environment
that is best suited for learning and that includes the regulation of
temperature. Of course, our ventilators
in the classrooms in the main building have two settings – hot or cold. However, teachers have become very good at
keeping the temperatures in their rooms comfortable and conducive to learning.
In an effort to keep our building ready each morning for students we have had
to leave the heat on all night, which adds to our expenses, but diminishes the
possibility of frozen pipes and adds to our ability to start the day in a
comfortable environment. This will be
especially important tonight (single digits).
C’mon spring!
At today’s morning meeting we
discussed choices and the fact that we make hundreds of them every day. I told them the story of an All in ihe Family episode in which
Archie and his son-in-law (Meathead) argued about whether it is better to put
one shoe on and tie it, or to put both shoes on before tying either. I told them how funny it was and how the
argument went on and on. I got blank
stares. I guess they saw it as another
Mister Steve old humor thing. Anyway, we
talked about the need to think about our choices during the day and to make
every effort to make them positive. It
seems that a simple formula for having a good day is to make many positive
choices.
So, have a positive-choices day!
Cheers,
Steve
