Assistant Principal Connie Dean rolled into the journalism lab to speak with staff writer Lauren Kuhr about her love for the Hallmark Channel, classic rock music and the renovations that are supposed to take place here soon.

READING: Right now, I’m reading a book called “Teach Like A Pirate,” which is a book that gives lots of different strategies and interventions for student-centered learning. I’m also reading a book called “Whistling Vivaldi,” which is about equity and helping change culture, so they’re two professional reads. In my spare time, I like to read mushy-corny-happy-go-lucky-everybody-falls-in-love ending kind of stories. “Robyn Carr” is one that I like. I think that because I deal with a lot of difficult issues, sometimes, reading that kind of book is an easy read.

WATCHING: I’m not a huge TV fan. I’m one of those people who watches while doing five other things, so it’s kind of on in the background. For instance, my daughter is writing a paper and yesterday, I was helping her do some research while we were watching “The Voice.” I also like to watch “Blue Bloods” and “Hawaii Five-O.” “Blue Bloods” is about an Irish family where the father is a commissioner of the NYC Police Department and everyone in the family is tied-in to some legal job. “Hawaii Five-O” is about detectives and crime scenes. I’m going to be embarrassed to tell you that the reality of what I watch a lot of is the Hallmark and Lifetime channels. I love the Christmas shows. I’m not a huge movie watcher, maybe because of time. I like old movies, like “Dirty Dancing” and I enjoy the romance kind. I don’t like scary movies at all. My daughter watches “The Walking Dead,” but I could never watch that. I would have nightmares every night.

LISTENING: I am probably a destined Classic Rock fan. Although some of the lyrics to the Red Hot Chili Peppers maybe aren’t the most appropriate, that’s one of my favorite bands. I love their music and that’s my favorite band. I’m actually going to go see them in concert in February in Philadelphia. I am so pumped, I just love them. They are my all-time favorite band.

FOLLOWING: I have Facebook and Twitter. I check my Facebook page maybe once a week, and I try to keep it more of me looking than of me responding. Mostly because of my job, I have to be very careful. While I was at Hereford, there was a time when I had Snapchat just to see what was going on with my kids—spying, I guess. I do have it, but I’m probably not as savvy as I could be. Most of the information I receive on Twitter is professional or related to our school. I’ll post about things such as “One Love” and all that.

RENOVATING: I can say that renovations turned out beautiful [at Hereford]—it’s incredibly nice. Overall, the students and staff handled it very well, because they knew we were getting something new, but I think it’s different from here in some ways. At Hereford, we weren’t looking to upgrade our fields and people were more agreeable to the renovations. And we did have a new building built. There was a whole new wing with a huge science building with a whole new cafeteria. There was a little more outcome than what we’re expecting here, so I think people were very excited about that. I was frustrated because as soon as my office was ready, I came here. But in the long-run, I’m really glad I’m here, I really love it here and it’s a very unique school.

HOPING: I think, for the most part, people here want a whole new building. First of all, the design of this building is really set in a 1960s kind of model, which causes people to think that it might be difficult to renovate in a way that might be meaningful for us. I have to remain neutral. There were different issues at Hereford, I think, like the water wasn’t as big of an issue because there was a running well of water over there and a water tower. All-in-all, the community feeling here is different going in.

Facebook

Twitter

Email

Print