Letter+requesting+interview

45 South Main Street, Rm. 310 Wallingford, CT 06492
 * Mayor William Dickenson**

Dear Mayor Dickenson,

We would like to invite you to be interviewed by our 8th Grade Social Studies class podcast team from Moran Middle School. We are doing podcasts for our Social Studies Class and would like to interview you and the other two candidates running for mayor on your opinion about educational issues. We have included the questions at the bottom of this letter. The interview will be approximately 30 minutes long and will be placed on our classes podcast page. We would like to have the interview between October 22 and October 26 so that we can post the podcast before the election. The time and dates are flexible. Please get back to us as soon as possible through our teacher's email account pbogush@wallingord.k12.ct.us or by leaving a message for our teacher at 741-2900.

We look forward to hearing from you,


 * 1) What skills/abilities do you feel students need to have to be successful in the 21st century as employees or entrepreneurs?
 * 2) What skills/abilities do students need to have to be successful citizens in a globally-interconnected world?
 * 3) Looking at the students you currently see entering the workforce, what are their strengths and what are their weaknesses?
 * 4) There is a lot of discussion in K-12 education about the importance of content knowledge (knowing a lot of “stuff” about math, science, social studies, language arts, etc.) versus the importance of learning skills and students being able to construct their own understanding of material/ideas that are new to them (being able to “learn how to learn”). What are your thoughts regarding how much we should focus on content knowledge versus focusing on students’ ability to learn/adapt/grow?
 * 5) There is also a lot of discussion in education on the tension between being successful as an individual and being successful as part of a group or team. We’d like to hear more about your thoughts regarding this.
 * 6) Tell us a little bit about any changes you foresee for the workplace in the next 5-15 years (and beyond). What do you think this means for students currently in high school and for K-12 education in general?
 * 7) What types of technologies should our students be proficient at using?
 * 8) What was the best learning/educational experience you have had? Why?
 * 9) If you were going to design a 21st century school from the ground up, what are three key features you would include? These features could be physical (building features), pedagogical (teaching techniques/approach), structural (curriculum, schedule, etc.), technological (specific tools/software/experiences), etc.
 * 10) When we're done today, what's the one most important "take-away" message you'd like our teachers, students, and voters to hear?