Tammy Axt – Page 4

April 30, 2020 Tammy Axt General

Online learning for students with DD

When much of the discussion about on-line learning happened in the media this year during the high school contract negotiations, I often thought My students should never have to participate in any course online. My students all have developmental disabilities and are working towards goals on an alternative IEP. Most have some form of communication impairment and are not able to read well enough to follow instructions online. Online learning seemed like something that would never work for my students! Little did I know when 2020 hit, we would have no choice but to figure out online learning the best we could. It has been very tricky, with some successes and some challenges. Here is what has worked:

Sending a PDF file instead of logging on a pre-existing platform. My students are unable to sign onto a device or navigate difficult platforms. My team sends home a PDF file every Monday with activities, songs and pictures for that week. The PDF has pictures that link to the activity for the student. It is simple, straight forward and allows families to work at their own pace. Since it is a PDF, families have had no trouble opening the file on phones, tablets, iPads, Chromebook or laptops.

2) Having regular parent contact. I contacted all my parents by phone the first week we started the online learning and I end every e-mail, assignment and weekly newsletter with how they can contact me. Spending a lot of time answering parent e-mails and reaching out via phone has alleviated a lot of stress and anxiety.

3) Sending students mail. Who out there doesn’t love to get mail? For my families that have decided not to access the online component of the learning, a letter in the mail continues to tell them that we are thinking of them and offers them another reminder how they can reach out. Did you know that Canada post will deliver pre-stamped envelops to your house? It took about a week to receive our envelops and we were so happy that no one had to leave their house to buy them!

4) Video conferencing with the class and with individual students. My local has worked closely with the board to make some specific platforms available for meeting with students online. When I am meeting with a student and their family, I take another staff member with me on all calls. Usually, it is one of the TAs from my class that my student knows very well. For my students who are incredibly socially motivated and have difficulty reading or communicating, seeing each other has been very important for their emotional well being. I keep it short and control the conversation. Only about half of my families wanted to do this option but the students that have participated, have loved it!!

5) Sharing pictures from class. At the end of every weekly file is a section called connecting. I have included pictures from school and also some parents have submitted some pictures from things that they are doing at home! Many parents have told me that the pictures have been very helpful for their child and they have enjoyed looking at them.

March 31, 2020March 31, 2020 Tammy Axt General

Ontario teachers

Well, it is official. We are off until May 4^th.

My poor puppy will definitely be sick of me being home by then. (Although she is enjoying the extra belly rubs and she does like to help me with my work!)

After Minister Lecce spoke today and shared the new date for school closures and what parents can expect from phase two, there were definitely many questions that we all have. What is this going to look like? How are we going to reach our students if they have exceptional needs? How am I going to be writing report cards through all of this? What if my students are in crisis? The list of questions goes on and on and on and on… The mounting questions can send a tsunami sized stress wave over all of us.

But before you get overwhelmed and riddled with anxiety, remember that you have many of the skills that will lead you to do the best by your students.

We are all:

Incredibly resourceful- We can figure out how to teach multiple subjects using very little materials to a large group of students.
Flexible- We can adapt to changes in schedules, students added to our classroom and technology not being installed on a designated date. We regularly go with the flow and make it work.
Problem solvers- We solves hundreds if not thousands of problems a day. Most of us can solve an issue between friends while helping another student with a math question in one breath.
Good listeners- We regularly listen to parents and work with them to find the path that is best for their child.
Strong learners- We all are excellent learners. We can learn anything, any day of the week.
Able to inspire Students- Every day we inspire students to overcome adversity and succeed. This will be no different.

I know it seems like an incredibly overwhelming task at the moment to try and think about delivering an engaging and productive program in this context but we have all the skills we need to look after the well being of our students.

Good luck next week and be safe.

March 30, 2020 Tammy Axt General

Whoa. Just Whoa.

Whoa. Just whoa.

I can’t believe that two weeks ago I was told that school was going to be closed due to a global pandemic. I say the words out loud to myself and it doesn’t even seem real. I have gone through every emotion in the past two weeks from crying to laughing hysterically to the desire to sleep for a month. Like most, I miss my friends and family, am incredibly nervous that my partner is still working and am generally more on edge.

These past two weeks have also probably been the hardest in my teaching career and it is only the beginning.

So how do we manage through this?

I made my first couple of phone calls to my students and their families this morning. That really helped. It connected me to my wonderful students and brought me back to the best profession in the world. It also reminded me that we are going to have to work really closely with our families and be in tune to what they need. This is such a stressful and uncertain time for everyone. Some of my students have rolled along and adapted quickly, others are desperately missing their peers and are quite anxious. All I can promise is that I am going to try my hardest to meet all their needs the best that I can.

Like many other groups of students in our education system, my students have very unique learning needs. All the students in my class are on Alternative IEPs and many of the activities in our classroom use specialized equipment, technology and materials that the average family wouldn’t have in their home. All of this means that I am going to have to be a very creative, think outside the box teacher to connect with my students in the way that works best for them!

I am very fortunate to work with an amazing team of Educational Assistants and colleagues at school. I have spent many hours brainstorming with my special education colleagues about different tools and ideas for our students to use at home. The EAs and I have been testing different technology options that we could use collaboratively with our students. This will ensure that no matter what is asked of us next week that we are ready to roll.

And even with all the best laid plans, nothing is going to match my students coming off the bus with big smiles ready to start a new day at school with all of their classmates and teachers. So all we can do is carry on and hope the curve flattens right out so we can go back to being with each other.

February 29, 2020 Tammy Axt Communication Tools, Special Education

Shhhhhhhhhhhhh

My students with Developmental Disabilities have taught me so many things in the past year and a half. They are absolutely an incredible group of kids that are some of the most resilient, funny and committed students I have ever had the pleasure of teaching. They come to school every day pumped up for school and even in the midst of deep, and I mean deep, puberty they manage to hold their hormones in check in order for us to accomplish our goals for the day.

One of the best things my students have taught me is to listen more than speak. As teachers we give instructions all day long. We give instructions on where to line up, which book to read, when to take out instruments and if you are a kindergarten teacher you have probably reminded a student to take their hand out of their pants or nose at least once this week. Most of my students understand the same instructions that many other students understand. I can tell them to line up, get their lunch and many, many other typical school instructions. The difference is that many of the students in my class have some difficulty communicating. Some have stutters, others have mouths that are formed in a way that it is difficult for them to form words and others can’t handle multiple instructions in rapid succession. I realized that in order to hear what they are trying to communicate with me I would have to be quiet a lot of the time and really listen.

My students use a multitude of communication strategies throughout the day to communicate their ideas, thoughts and feelings.

They use:

Visuals- Wow, what would we do without pictures in the classroom? I have understood preferred choices and questions about assigned tasks from the visuals that the students present to me. My newest student quietly reminds me that her time on her bike is coming up next by making sure I notice the picture on her schedule.

Technology- It is a really great time to be a teacher in many ways. There are so many amazing aps and devices that can support student’s learning. My students have told me all about their weekend, favourite items and requests for upcoming events in the classroom using technology.

Gestures/Facial Expressions- My students use a lot of pointing and gestures to communicate in my class. For me as the teacher, the most important time that I use gestures or facial expression is when my students are in distress and escalated. A neutral face and body accompanied by simple one- or two-word instructions are the most important tools in deescalated the stress of my students. When my student’s emotions are heightened, it is very important that I don’t stress them further by asking them to take in a lot of spoken language.

I am so thankful for my students and all that they have taught me.

“Listening is an art that requires attention over talents, spirit over ego, others over self” -Dean Jackson

February 29, 2020 Tammy Axt General

Making the Call to CAS

When I called the Children’s Aid Society for the first time in my teaching career, I was really nervous. I had a student disclose to me, through a writing assignment, some of the challenges they were facing at home. I was nervous about my student’s feelings after I shared this private information. I was also really worried about the family’s reaction after CAS contacted them. During this time in my career, I was really lucky. I had an amazing administrator who talked me through the process and gave me her office so that I could make the call. She taught me many things in that conversation that I have carried throughout my career.

Recently, a colleague reached out to me, who was making the call for the first time and some of the questions that came up in our conversation reminded me of the lessons that my talented administrator taught me.

When to call

Section 72(1) of the Child and Family Services Act clearly outlines 13 grounds that would trigger the requirement of a call. This section of the CFSA is outlined in ETFO’s PRS Matters “A Member’s Duty to Report Under the Child and Family Services Act”. Section 72(1) outlines many scenarios and will help you decide if you are making the right decision to call.

My administrator also reminded my staff on a regular basis that if we needed to make a call that they would have someone cover your class immediately so that you could step out to make the call. It is a requirement of Duty to Report that you do not wait.

It is also important to note that you have to call again if you continue to suspect that your student is in need of protection. This happened to me in my first year. The child continued to tell me more details throughout the remainder of the year so I had to call CAS multiple times that year.

Who to Tell That You Are Making the Call

In my experience, I have always found it to be very useful to inform my administrator that I am making the call. I have always chosen to inform my administrator of the call because if the family has a bad reaction to follow up from CAS they may come to the school very angry. I have required the support of administrators to deal with a few upset parents because of CAS calls throughout my career. It is always helpful that the principal or vice principal already knows what is going on before the parent arrives. It is important to note that a principal cannot make the call to CAS for you and they should not impact your decision to make the call.

I have also found it very useful to let a trusted colleague know that I have made a call to CAS. Worry about a student’s safety and well being is the number one reason I lose sleep at night. Sharing some of your worry with a trusted colleague can help you manage the emotional strain of concern for your student.

Who Not To Tell You are Making the Call

I have never told the parents that I made a call to CAS, even those that I have had excellent relationships with. CAS is there to protect the child and provide supports to families to help them through challenges that they might be facing. I always let CAS communicate with families supports or concerns that they may be able to assist with. They are properly trained in the area of supporting families in the community.

I also do not tell the student that I have or will be making the call. I never want the student to feel like they had any input into the decision to contact CAS. This is especially true if the parent has a bad reaction to CAS contacting them. The child could possibly feel guilt that they shared with a trusted teacher what is going on at home. I don’t want to add to their guilt. I alone own the decision to call.

After the Call

One of the hardest parts of making a call to CAS is that you will most likely not know what happened as a result of the call. During this time, you may continue to have concerns for your student’s safety or well being. It is important to use your support systems to manage this concern and stress.

If you have any questions or concerns about the process, reach out to your local ETFO office.

January 31, 2020 Tammy Axt General

My Experience Teaching With No Collective Bargaining And No Teacher Union…Part One

I had the privilege of spending the first two years of my career working in a state in the United States that has a ban on collective bargaining. Yes, you read that correctly, since the late 50s there has been no bargaining. Since there is no bargaining, the government makes decisions about education and puts them into action. In addition to no bargaining, the state that I taught in has no teacher unions. The reason why it was an absolute privilege to work there early in my career is because it left me with a vivid example of what our system would look like with no union and extreme cuts to education. My experience there showed me a system where students were set up to fail.

When I arrived there, I was brand new to teaching and super keen to get started! The school where I taught had many, many classrooms where the person teaching students had no teaching degree because qualified teachers would not apply to jobs at this school. I was fortunate that I was given a salary of a teacher with 10 years experience which was $30, 000. Teachers here were also not financially compensated for upgrading their degree to a masters or adding additional qualifications courses so most teachers did not continue their university education. Ultimately, they were not paid enough to have enough money for upgrading their degrees. So, what happens when you have a building full of people teaching students without teaching degrees? The answer is that you have well intentioned people looking after students who are not trained in assessment, differentiation or special education just to name a few. You also have an entire group of students who are not learning mathematics or science by someone who has a deep knowledge of the content in which they are instructing. You have basically taken away an entire group of students right to access higher education or be prepared for what high school will challenge them with.

Class size was something that this state had tried really hard to do well. In my time there, I had around 23-25 students in my intermediate classroom and in the last couple of years legislation has come out to lower class size in K-3 classrooms to 20 students. Fantastic right? Yes, however, principals have repeatedly reported that they can not find qualified teachers to fill all the new positions that will be created from having smaller class sizes and have therefore requested to postpone the change in class size for the coming school year.

I taught in the United States at the height of the implementation of George W. Bush’s no Child Left Behind Legislation which had a distinct focus on standardized testing and “accountability”. The amount of time focused on the test, talking about the test, listening to my principal talk about the test, listening to my colleagues talk about the test and receiving teaching resources that supported the test was absolutely silly. Being new to teaching and really struggling to connect with my students I put the testing materials aside and used more engaging materials that would appeal to my students instead of just answering questions. I used my knowledge of modifications and accommodations to try and meet the students where they were at and used materials that were more relevant to them. My school served a population that was low income on average so answering questions about “Bed and Breakfasts” was not at all relevant to their lived experiences. The “accountability” part of the legislation meant that teachers were compensated financially for the number of students that passed the test. This meant that no one wanted to teach our most vulnerable students. This was one of the most heart-breaking parts of working at my school in the district. My students were spoken about horribly amongst teachers in the area. No one wanted to teach them because they feared that they may not get enough of a financial bonus from teaching them. Considering teacher’s salary started at about $22,000 a year and it took 25 years to get to the top of the salary grid many teachers relied on money from the tests. It was a very ugly and awful system that set up our most vulnerable students to be marginalized and forgotten.

January 31, 2020 Tammy Axt General, Why unions matter

My Experience Teaching With No Collective Bargaining and No Teacher Unions…Part Two

In my first year of teaching, some days went very well and other days I was ill equipped to support my students with what they needed. My students came from some very difficult homes. Many had addiction, drug dealing, and consistent violence in the home. One student that I will remember for my entire career shared with me that his job in his home was to hide in the closet while his mother turned tricks and steal money from the John’s wallet before his mother finished. My students were very quick to anger and had very little in the way of self regulation or an ability to talk through their problems. As one student explained to me, to survive in their neighborhood, you had to punch first. My students needed so much more than I was able to give them. They needed counselling, mental health supports, addiction support and anger management interventions. None of which I was trained in at teacher’s college. They needed people who specialized in all of these areas supporting them and rooting for their success in school. Much of my time at school was spent trying to build relationships with my students so they could actually trust me enough to let me teach them. The majority of my students were 3 or 4 years behind in reading, and writing was an incredibly frustrating experience for all of them. They had needed reading intervention many years before they met me and needed additional supports that just didn’t exist in my school. There was no special education support or Educational Assistants. The guidance department in my school was completely overwhelmed trying to meet the needs. There was just me. A brand-new teacher with all the heart in the world but very ill equipped to support children through daily trauma. The system did not have enough supports to meet the students’ needs.

Just as my students were not supported, neither was I as a brand-new teacher. On one particular day, I had a lesson that was not going well. One of the students in my class had an altercation with another student the night before and was having extreme difficulty being in the same room with him. During this lesson, he got up and attacked the other student. At this moment, a senior teacher at the school came into my classroom and sat down and told me that I was being evaluated by her. I was not notified of this evaluation and I was not clear about the parameters of the evaluative process. The teacher stayed and heavily criticized me for my performance. The teacher did not provide me any supports or ideas of how I could improve. It was to this day one of my worst days in the profession. When I inquired about the process of evaluation in my district, I was told that the principal could assign a senior teacher any day at any point to come and observe me. The turn over rate of teachers is around 10 percent a year in this state. Without fair transparent evaluation practices and processes in place to support newer teachers, beginning teachers are not set up well to support their students.

My school was a very also a very violent place to work. There was some form of student on student or student on teacher violence daily. There were no stats collected on violent incidents and there was no accountability from administrations to follow up on violent incidents. There was never a plan to stop the violence or improve the violence within the building. What I was told on more than one incident by my administration was that I was not from here and that I didn’t understand the community I was teaching. Basically, there was no expectation for the situation to improve for the students or for the teachers in the building. Again, my students were set up to fail because there was no one looking at changing the system in which they were exposed to violence every single day.

I was also discouraged from protecting my students outside of school. During my first round of parent teacher interviews one parent stood up and grabbed a meter stick off of my blackboard and attempted to beat their child. I luckily had a phenomenal hallway of teachers that I worked with and they assisted me with stopping the parent. I went to an administrator and notified them that I would be calling child protective services. Again, I was told that I wasn’t from around her and I didn’t understand the community. There was no union to call and no support to ask for.

All of these experiences remind me why I will stand up to any cuts or erosions to our current world class Ontario education system! I stand up and fight back because….

Supports for kids in need are a mandatory part of a strong education system. Taking away funding from students with special needs is not okay. Taking away funding from students with mental health needs is not okay. Taking away funding from students who need to have additional support to be successful in school is not okay.
My students deserve a well qualified, highly educated teacher. Most teachers have two university degrees and countless Additional Qualification courses. I have two degrees, 8 AQs and an extensive list of other self-directed learning to become the best teacher I can possibly be. My colleagues have Master Degrees, PHDs and College Degrees. The reason why Ontario has a world class education system is because we have world class highly educated teachers who are committed to education. un
Hiring practices/Evaluation practices need to be fair and transparent. Otherwise, you end up with an entire teaching profession that looks like the principal they were hired by.
Violence in school is not okay. Reported incidents needs to be transparent and analyzed to find solutions to protect all students. Every child deserves to come to school every day and feel safe. For many, it is the only place that they are able to be safe.

Thank you to the 83, 000 teachers that have stood up to stop the cuts to our education system over the past two weeks. The students of today and tomorrow will thank you for it!

December 31, 2019 Tammy Axt General

Grinch Day

Taking time to celebrate and do something out of the ordinary is a great way to create community within your classroom and school. We had a very joyous day in December connecting with our grade 8 buddies and celebrating the story of the “Grinch Who Stole Christmas”.

If you are going to have a Grinch Day, you need to embrace your green coloured clothes!

To start the day, we read an interactive book where my students pushed the buttons for the sounds of the Whos, The Grinch and Max. It gave some of my students who were not familiar with the Grinch story some foundational knowledge about the story.

Next, we spent some time on our life skills. We prepared Grinch fruit skewers for all of our grade 8 buddies. We washed, cut and skewed strawberries, bananas, grapes and marshmallows.

With all of our Grinchy food ready to go, it was time to invite our grade 8 buddies over for some relay races. We used green cups and green ornaments and divided our two classes into teams. We took over our hallway and made it into a relay course passing the green ornament between green cups.

Finally, we gathered, ate some yummy green food and watched the Grinch movie. It was such a fun and joyous day.

From my class to yours, we are wishing you a wonderful break and a fantastic 2020!

December 31, 2019 Tammy Axt General, Indigenous Perspectives

Goodbye Kelly Fraser

My music classes and I had the good fortune to discover Kelly Fraser’s music when she was nominated for a Juno in 2018. We spent much of January and February that year listening to and analyzing the amazing music created by the artists in the Indigenous Music Album of The Year category and we cast our votes in school for our favourite artist before the Junos aired in March. The Juno was officially awarded to Buffy Sainte-Marie that year but if my students had been on the selection committee the Juno would have been handed to Ms. Kelly Fraser for her album Sedna.

My students were interested in her at first because they recognized songs that she was covering like Rihanna’s Diamonds. But as we looked deeper into her music, we delved into conversations about music as a way to protest or covey messages and music as a way for people to connect. We all found power in her openness and honesty and I personally was moved by her message of hope.

Therefore, I was very saddened by the news that Kelly Fraser passed away at the age of 26 on Christmas eve in Winnipeg. A true Canadian treasure was lost.

Kelly Fraser taught my students and I so many things over the past two years. I have used her name repeatedly in conversations with other teachers about the power of her message and her ability to explain the generational impact of the residential school system. She shared that “when you grow up witnessing trauma and pain, you have scars too.” CBC did a short documentary a year and a half ago that tells part of Kelly’s story and her experience being Inuit. It is a great starting place for a conversation in your classroom about residential schools.

Kelly also fearlessly shared her experiences on social media about her own journey and that of her mother and stepmother.

“Both my mothers are residential school survivors, both their father’s dogs were taken away and killed so they couldn’t go dog sledding to get their food to feed their family. TB/influenza caused our people to convert to Christianity and let go of their culture (drum dancing, tattooing, throat singing, shamanism…etc) because the priests were the only ones with the medicine and I’m not here to say being a Christian is not right, I believe in the freedom of believing what you want to and I respect ALL religions. The Mounties were sent by the government to take away our kayaks and made my family walk thousands of kilometers to a new settlement where they were told there would be houses when there weren’t any. I believe we can rise above what has happened to us by telling each other to please find healing and help by elders, mental health workers, there’s the internet where we can learn to meditate, learn about our culture and reach out and help each other heal. Its time for us ALL people to also call onto the federal/provincial/territorial/municipal governments to give us food that is affordable, programs that will help us heal, proper housing, proper education that allows us to go straight to college after grade 12 and proper healthcare by writing to them and calling them up, this is up to ALL Canadians too!!”

As a young, fashionable, brilliant, creative young women, my students connected to her and really listened to her story. This was not from some history book about things that happened in the past, she explained things through a medium that my students related to and brought the impacts of history to the present.

She also gave us some insight into modern Inuit music, art and culture. She spoke with pride about her Inuit culture consistently and took every opportunity to share other talented Indigenous creators. She introduced me to Nuvuja9, Rannva and InukChic and their fabulous designs. She also introduced me to an amazing cosmetic company called Cheekbone Beauty, where I ordered many items of Swag for our Women’s Dinner this year. I’m sure she was a fashion designers dream. Beautiful inside and out.

She also was a writer and her poetry was moving and told history from the voice of a young women trying to overcome her story.

I am beautiful
I am native
I am Inuk
I am made out of seal
With strength like steel
With land of impossible beauty that stretches so far on this earth.
I am a byproduct of colonization
Yet my tongue remembers a language my mother fought to keep in residential school, she fought assimilation.
Even when my grandfathers dogs were killed and kayaks sliced by the RCMP for infiltration
We still love the huskies
We still love the Qajaq
We survived the Canadian apartheid
We still think fondly of how our people survived.
We are survivors of genocide

I invite you to share Kelly’s story, music and love for her culture. Share it with your students who are going to be the next policy makers in Canada. Help them to have compassion and caring when they are making decisions that challenge us to really address some of the systemic problems that exist in Canada. Help them to understand the long-lasting impacts of residential schools. Although the last door may have closed, the trauma of being ripped from your home, abused and your identity taken is impacting an entire group of people. And will continue to have impact for generations to come. Help them to help our young Indigenous creators like Kelly find support, so that suicide is not the only way to stop the pain.

Goodbye Kelly. I will miss you.

November 30, 2019 Tammy Axt General, Special Education

Life Skills Assessment

Life skills are a broad topic to teach students. They can range from communication, safety, meal prep to managing money. Throughout our week, life skills are integrated into many activities we do. Our life skills program also changes as the need arises. We added a section in our life skills program about menstruation after our girls begun to get their period and we also added safety conversations after we learned about incidents at home and in the community.

Some common books to get you started with life skills program design and assessment are the FISH (Functional Independence Skills Handbook) and the Carolina Curriculum.

After connecting with parents early in the year about some life skills goals they had for their children, we developed a little 20 minute life skills time after lunch each day that looks like this:

Each student is assigned a life skill for two weeks. The assignment chart looks like this:

Each staff member is assigned two students to train in their life skill. The goal over the course of the two weeks is to move the student as close to independence as possible. Below is a portion of our assessment chart that helps us focus on where our students need assistance. We may start with verbal and gestural prompts earlier in the process but by the end of their time on their assignment the need for prompts is reduced.

The goal of this life skills time is to have the student be contributing members of their family and the classroom. We have heard from many parents who are seeing the impact at home with students taking over responsibility of their own living space and helping with the care of shared space. My students feel good when they know that they have achieved a level of independence.