Norms

Here follow the norms of the Optimist Prime Movers; we have sworn in blood to uphold these rules immediate to ensure the success of the Middle School and the laws general to safeguard the prosperity of civilization at large. 

1. Members will arrive to the meeting on time and prepared.
2. Members will listen and provide encouraging feedback as much as possible.
3. Discussion will be focus-driven and relative.
4. Leadership responsibility will be shared by all members and the location of the meetings will be held in the honourable Miriam Word's room.

To satisfy various voices of dissension, we publicly attest to the veracity of the above norms and also to the fact that none of us were at any point in time coerced, compelled, bullied, intimidated, threatened, cajoled, manhandled, bribed, held at knife point or otherwise strong-armed into agreeing to these restrictions. 

James Lewis Kuang III
Sanna Linnea Gabriel
Miriam Written Word
Marlene Antoinette Cooper IV
Bradley Llewelyn Richard McMath

And Introducing...

Introducing you to the brand-spankin'-new members of the all-powerful A-team, rulers of the lands of Professinonal Learning, the kings of Communities, and all around good-guys, the Swedish Glory Optimist Prime Movers.

In the first corner, we have James "the Killer" Kuang, teacher of physics and physical education , first ninja of his order, so skilled in the art of stealth you hardly notice when he leaves early. 

In the other corner we have Marlene "Crikey" Cooper, terror of the Australian outback, lone survivor of the Ayers Rock Pentathlon, feared warrior matriarch of the four-boy Cooper clan, and math teacher extraordinaire. 

In the third corner waits "Bad" Brad McMath, brave tribesman of the high north, avid rugby fan, smasher and basher of bones, maker and breaker of history and unsuspecting history students everywhere.

Rounding out the fourth corner we have Miriam Word, the breaker of backs, the silencer of crowds, the great and daring dramatist, teacher of struggling Second Language Learners, with enough fire in her belly to crush a rebellion single-handedly.

And in the fifth and final corner (because apparently we are a pentagon), is Sanna, the Almighty Gabriel, the axe-wielding Viking, blog keeper, the source of knowledge for all things Swedish and sole representative of this great, white land of the north, able to decipher even the most complicated IKEA label. Despite popular demand, she remains a middle school English teacher who would humbly worship at the mighty altar of Shakespeare had it not been considered heretical by the Powers That Be.

We all bow under the beneficent hand of our brave and noble leader, Captain Katie Den Hartog, famed teacher, magnanimous educator, Friday gift-giver, who strides grimly into the iron storm, tenaciously bent on her one-year mission: to explore strange, new worlds of authentic assessment, to seek out professional learning communities and new forms of education, to boldly go where no teacher has gone before.