"If you are grateful, I would certainly give you more"

Dear parents,

Assalam Alaikum. The end of the month of November brings with it the end of the first trimester and the Thanksgiving holiday. I pray that your family enjoys these few days off, and that our students come back to school in December refreshed and ready for more learning and growing.

Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated as a day of giving thanks for the blessing of the harvest and of the preceding year.  As Americans, we are reminded to give thanks to God and to others. As Muslims we are taught that we need to be grateful all the time. Allah Taala says in the Quran, “If you are grateful, I would certainly give to you more…” (Ibrahim, 14:7). Being grateful is a quality of the Muslim and is the character of the believer. It is not surprising that recent research identified that being grateful has many benefits on the youth.

• Practicing gratitude at a young age promotes later development of self-control and self-regulation, sources of lifelong success.
• Gratitude helps foster positive emotions, and we know from research that positive emotions help students with the learning process.
• Grateful youth have higher GPA; experience more positive emotions; and ultimately go on to live more meaningful lives.
•  Gratitude among middle school students can foster an increased sense of hope and trust in others and fuel a desire to give back to their community.
•  Gratitude is a skill that can be taught at different age levels based on developmental readiness.
• Adults need to encourage children to say why they are grateful. As young as 1^st and 2^nd graders can practice that. Adults have to model that again and again for children to think more deeply in terms of why they’re grateful for someone or something.

Research of Giacomo Bono, Professor at California State University, Fullerton and The Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley.

Resource: ASCD Education Update, November issue.

Common Core State Standards (CCSS)

The CCSS initiative is a joint effort by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers to develop a common core for K-12 standards in English language arts and Mathematics. The goal of the initiative is to develop internationally-benchmark standards that ensure all students are held to consistent expectations that will prepare them for college and career. To date 45 states adopted CCSS. The changes to expect are:

• Students will delve deeper into core concepts.
• Students will be expected to read more difficult text and discuss what they read at a more complex level. More focus will be on informational and expository text.
• Students will focus more on practical skills, so they will take the role of scientists, researchers, historians, …
• Students will take different types of assessment that will likely be more difficult. Instead of multiple choice tests, they will be writing essay responses, answering in-depth questions, analyzing, and synthesizing information.

To get better acquainted with the CCSS, we at GIS are partnering with the Santa Clara County Office of Education in two ways. First, we will send representatives from Granada to participate in the Curriculum Leadership Council at the County Office where they will work with other educators to create CCSS aligned units. Secondly, trainers from the County Office will deliver five training sessions, three of which on language arts and two on math this academic year.

Reminders

• November Newsletter has been mailed and posted on school website
• Monday 11/25, Tuesday 11/26 & Wednesday 11/27 are all minimum days (8am to 12pm)
• No School on Thursday 11/28 and Friday 11/29
• Next week is Spirit Week at GIS - 
• Tuesday - wear your red with your uniform
• Wednesday - wear your gold with your uniform
• Thursday - wear your school mascot shirt, The Golden Eagle
• Friday - Jamba Juice Jumua'h

Sincerely,

Nihad Mourad