By Dave Helisek
Special Writer
It's been 10 years since I began writing for The Manchester Enterprise, 10 years and a lot of life lived. Ten years ago the owner/editor of the newspaper was Theresa Benedict and I asked her if she wanted to take a chance on a guy writing a column about his personal fight with cancer, while it was happening. Theresa said to go with it and that was the start of my relationship with our hometown news.
I guess I write today to celebrate the fact that 10 years ago you would not have bet that I would be alive today to write this. At the time of my leaukemia, the prognosis for survival without a bone marrow transplant was five years. The prognosis with a transplant was not all that great but, if successful, more than five years.
I took the leap for a transplant and now that all seems so far away in time and yet it comes back at times to seem like it was just yesterday. I am thankfull that I had the support at the time of my family and of many community members who kept in contact thru e-mails and cards.
Members of St. Mary's church like Liz Wallace,Marja Warne and Emily and Betty Cummings kept humorous and inspirational thoughts coming my way. Father Charlie, who was pastor at the time, always had a minute to talk. I guess that time in my life shaped how I feel about the need for everyone in town to feel that they are part of a bigger picture -- bigger than just the nuclear family, and yes a part of a group bigger than just your usual comfortable meetings group.
Many of you remember that I got divorced in the middle of my recovery which added a whole other set of ponderings to my daily life. It was hard to keep the focus but focus we did. First to health then back to work, then where to live. Here we are 10 years later.
I must add that something in our little town must be good for the mind and body because two other transplanters from my time are still around from this area -- Dale Hegewood and Jake K.
It's a small club and the fact is that no one that I knew from outside our area and was involved in a bonemarrow transplant is still around today. We must count our blessings each day. So today I thank every and anyone who has reached out in a hand of friendship into my little space on this planet.Thank you all and thank God for these years. The Lord willing and the creek don't rise we'll have many more.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
Finding comfort in sad news
By Andrew Dubyckyj
Special Writer
One of the toughest things for a writer is to try to make sense of the sensless; and yet coming up with the right words can be as daunting of a task even if as a journalist you are called to either report or analyze the event when a tragefy hits close to home, it can affect minds that are taught to be objective.
On Good Friday in the afternoon the Halls of a building where I once sang songs with friends and heard the beautiful sounds of music, had been silenced by a senseless act of violence when a promising actress' life was cut short by a murder-suicide by the hands of her own classmate during an acting class in Henry Ford Community College in Dearborn.
I can not imagine what thoughts ran to the minds of my former teachers and the students that witnessed this horrific tragedy. As a journalist tragedy is something that one often encounters; and this week we have seen the horrific destructiion of nature in Italy, a drunk driver killing three people in L.A. including Nick Adenhart, a pitcher for the Los Angeles Angels whose promising career was cut short, and now another campus tragedy.
No matter how objective one is trained to be, it still affects the person covering the story, especially if a story hits close to home like it has for this writer today. Such stories reminds us of this fragile package called life and to let our loved ones know how much they mean to us eachday as families and friends morn lives that have gone too soon.
Andrew Dubyckyj is a journalism student at the University of Michigan-Dearborn and former student at Henry Ford Community College
Special Writer
One of the toughest things for a writer is to try to make sense of the sensless; and yet coming up with the right words can be as daunting of a task even if as a journalist you are called to either report or analyze the event when a tragefy hits close to home, it can affect minds that are taught to be objective.
On Good Friday in the afternoon the Halls of a building where I once sang songs with friends and heard the beautiful sounds of music, had been silenced by a senseless act of violence when a promising actress' life was cut short by a murder-suicide by the hands of her own classmate during an acting class in Henry Ford Community College in Dearborn.
I can not imagine what thoughts ran to the minds of my former teachers and the students that witnessed this horrific tragedy. As a journalist tragedy is something that one often encounters; and this week we have seen the horrific destructiion of nature in Italy, a drunk driver killing three people in L.A. including Nick Adenhart, a pitcher for the Los Angeles Angels whose promising career was cut short, and now another campus tragedy.
No matter how objective one is trained to be, it still affects the person covering the story, especially if a story hits close to home like it has for this writer today. Such stories reminds us of this fragile package called life and to let our loved ones know how much they mean to us eachday as families and friends morn lives that have gone too soon.
Andrew Dubyckyj is a journalism student at the University of Michigan-Dearborn and former student at Henry Ford Community College
Monday, April 6, 2009
Superintendent's Corner
By Shawn Lewis-Lakin
Supreintendent of Manchester Community Schools
As a discrete subject that is taught in the school day, reading typically vanishes in the fifth or sixth grade. Yet, it is in the late elementary and middle school grades when the reading demands in subject area classes (mathematics, science, social studies) increase.
Recognizing the need to respond to this situation, many secondary-level teachers in the Manchester Community School District are now working to improve their ability to assist students to become better readers through participation in a program called Reading Apprenticeship.
Reading Apprenticeship is an approach to reading instruction that helps students develop the knowledge, strategies and dispositions they need to become more powerful readers. It is at heart a partnership of expertise, drawing on what teachers know and do as discipline-based readers, and on students’ unique and often underestimated strengths as learners.
Reading Apprenticeship helps students become better readers by: engaging students in more reading —for recreation as well as for subject-area learning and self-challenge; making the teacher’s discipline-based reading processes and knowledge visible to students; making students’ reading processes, motivations, strategies, knowledge and understandings visible to the teacher and to one another; helping students gain insight into their own reading processes; and helping students develop a repertoire of problem-solving strategies for overcoming obstacles and deepening comprehension of texts from various academic disciplines.
In a Reading Apprenticeship classroom, the curriculum expands to include how we read and why we read in the ways we do, as well as what we read in subject area classes.
The Manchester Community School District has powerful evidence for the impact this strategy is having in classrooms. The Degrees of Reading Power is one device used to measure reading growth. The reading ability of students as measured with the DRP typically grows two DRP units per instructional year (this is the norm or average growth in a year for a national sample of students).
In the Manchester classrooms where teachers are engaged in ongoing Reading Apprenticeship training and support, we are seeing reading growth of seven to 11 DRP units in an instructional year, and increase of 3.5 to 5.5 times the national norm for growth.
Another measure of the success being experienced with this program is found in the senior exit survey data collected from graduating seniors at the high school. Between 2007 and 2008 the number of students who responded positively to questions regarding their experiences of receiving instruction and support in content area reading increased 20 percent.
Students are not only reading better, but are recognizing and appreciating that something significant is changing in what is happening in their classrooms.
Finding new ways to support growth in reading proficiency at the secondary level is but one example of our ongoing efforts to improve the quality of instruction we provide to all students. As we wrestle with budgets and necessary financial restructuring, it is my hope that we not lose sight of our core vision, which is one of providing educational excellence in a caring community. It is both that which we now do and that for which we will continually strive.
Shawn Lewis-Lakin is the superintendent at Manchester Community Schools. He can be reached at slewis-lakin@mcs.k12.mi.us
Supreintendent of Manchester Community Schools
As a discrete subject that is taught in the school day, reading typically vanishes in the fifth or sixth grade. Yet, it is in the late elementary and middle school grades when the reading demands in subject area classes (mathematics, science, social studies) increase.
Recognizing the need to respond to this situation, many secondary-level teachers in the Manchester Community School District are now working to improve their ability to assist students to become better readers through participation in a program called Reading Apprenticeship.
Reading Apprenticeship is an approach to reading instruction that helps students develop the knowledge, strategies and dispositions they need to become more powerful readers. It is at heart a partnership of expertise, drawing on what teachers know and do as discipline-based readers, and on students’ unique and often underestimated strengths as learners.
Reading Apprenticeship helps students become better readers by: engaging students in more reading —for recreation as well as for subject-area learning and self-challenge; making the teacher’s discipline-based reading processes and knowledge visible to students; making students’ reading processes, motivations, strategies, knowledge and understandings visible to the teacher and to one another; helping students gain insight into their own reading processes; and helping students develop a repertoire of problem-solving strategies for overcoming obstacles and deepening comprehension of texts from various academic disciplines.
In a Reading Apprenticeship classroom, the curriculum expands to include how we read and why we read in the ways we do, as well as what we read in subject area classes.
The Manchester Community School District has powerful evidence for the impact this strategy is having in classrooms. The Degrees of Reading Power is one device used to measure reading growth. The reading ability of students as measured with the DRP typically grows two DRP units per instructional year (this is the norm or average growth in a year for a national sample of students).
In the Manchester classrooms where teachers are engaged in ongoing Reading Apprenticeship training and support, we are seeing reading growth of seven to 11 DRP units in an instructional year, and increase of 3.5 to 5.5 times the national norm for growth.
Another measure of the success being experienced with this program is found in the senior exit survey data collected from graduating seniors at the high school. Between 2007 and 2008 the number of students who responded positively to questions regarding their experiences of receiving instruction and support in content area reading increased 20 percent.
Students are not only reading better, but are recognizing and appreciating that something significant is changing in what is happening in their classrooms.
Finding new ways to support growth in reading proficiency at the secondary level is but one example of our ongoing efforts to improve the quality of instruction we provide to all students. As we wrestle with budgets and necessary financial restructuring, it is my hope that we not lose sight of our core vision, which is one of providing educational excellence in a caring community. It is both that which we now do and that for which we will continually strive.
Shawn Lewis-Lakin is the superintendent at Manchester Community Schools. He can be reached at slewis-lakin@mcs.k12.mi.us
Easter Egg hunt a go for Saturday
Though today's snowstorm may have put some people in doubt as to whether the Men's Club will hold their annual Easter Egg Hunt, don't fret. The Easter Egg Hunt will take place at 1 p.m. Saturday at Carr Park.
Last year, because Easter fell so early in the calendar year, the event was snowed out and the Men's Club members were left standing in the parking lot of Carr Park passing out hundreds and hundreds of colorful eggs. This year, the eggs will be hidden throughout the park for little kids to come and find.
For those planning on making the trek out on Saturday, Men's Club members are reminding families to come early. Once the hunt starts, it goes quickly.
Last year, because Easter fell so early in the calendar year, the event was snowed out and the Men's Club members were left standing in the parking lot of Carr Park passing out hundreds and hundreds of colorful eggs. This year, the eggs will be hidden throughout the park for little kids to come and find.
For those planning on making the trek out on Saturday, Men's Club members are reminding families to come early. Once the hunt starts, it goes quickly.
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