Hello,
My name is Kelly McLaughlin and I am excited to be back blogging for my third year in a row! I am currently working in the Hamilton-Wentworth Elementary District School Board and am a LTO teacher. I am currently teaching grade five, exploring inquiry in all subject areas and am currently working on a classroom re-design project. I look forward to sharing more in my future posts with pictures and stories.
Kelly
Welcome to a new year! My name is Tammy Axt and I am a music/drama/dance teacher at a K-5 school in Brampton, Ontario. This is my fifth year teaching music and my first year teaching drama and dance. I am sure that with my new teaching package I will have a lot of learning to share in this blog. I love my job wholeheartedly and am proud to be part of the BEST profession in the WORLD! I should mention that I come from a maritime family where hyperbole is the norm when interacting in daily life.
In addition to teaching drama and dance for the first time, it has also been my first time teaching grade one in many years. Wow, they sure are a busy bunch. I’ve already learned a ton about having really simple, short instructions and built-in busy and quiet times. All of my grade one classes are also going to require a lot of community building and development of social skills.
This term, the grade ones will be making up a number of dances. However, this month I have noticed a few things about grade ones in my class. First, they cannot remember what dance moves they came up with three days ago. Second, they have no idea who their partner was three days ago. Third, they have difficultly putting papers on the floor in a row to make a sequence. Finally, without some structure put in place, they will have difficulty building on and revising their creations.
My colleague and I talked it through and came up with the very simple idea of housing their creations in a file folder. Each section of the folder would contain one creation that the students came up and at the end of the term the file folder with all of the dance plans will go home with the students.
Our first dance plan addresses the curriculum expectation ”students will use movements that are part of their daily experience in a variety of ways in dance phrases”. We asked the students to come up with movements that they like to do and draw a picture of the movement on two pieces of white paper. We glued the two pieces of paper into the folder and scribed the words that matched the picture. The folders will be a valuable tool in helping the students to create their dances and assist them in remembering what they did in their previous dance period.
Homework (shudder). It’s like two perfectly decent four letter words have conspired to become super villainous by joining forces. For most students, it’s part of a nightly ritual.
I get it. My parents used it as a polygraph test, of sorts when I was younger, by asking the same question after school each day.
“Did you do your homework?”
We’ve all had to go through it, but now as teachers we must wrestle with the pros and cons of having to assign it to our learners…or not.
So as the year begins and questions of “To assign homework or not to assign homework?” bandy around staff meetings and grade teams. I want to share some personal thoughts on this 2 x 4 letter word and ask you to reflect on how you use it in your learning spaces?
I love home, and I like work. For me, home is a place of relaxation, retreat, and support among family. Work is my home away from home. I have a family of caring colleagues and a classroom filled with students in possession of boundless potential. However, when it comes to homework I feel that things have changed since I was a student. My memories of homework hearken back to 1000s of pages of banal reading from largely outdated textbooks which I like to call knowledge coffins, redundant work sheets, and largely irrelevant content which seemed disconnected from my life.
Like all the good learning soldiers in my day. I did it, knowing of no alternatives. I wonder whether we gained any advantage from the discipline in completing assigned tasks, or lost a little of our desire to learn for never asking why we were doing it and where it would matter to me?
In my class when homework is assigned, it must be relevant to a larger idea that requires consideration beyond the classroom. That might mean asking students to lead a conversation at the dinner table or on the way to hockey practice with a captive audience. I remember assigning my Grade 5 Social Studies class the task of asking their parents, “What they would change about the government?” followed by, “Why do we need the government?” the next night. The conversations that resulted allowed students to lead, share, and gather ideas as they build on in class concepts/schema and then were able to take it back home to add on a broader family perspective. When they came back to school their responses were rich, often humourous, and engaging. Mission accomplished.
I do assign something for students every night, 30 minutes, or more, of reading. Don’t judge me! This is non-negotiable. Students do not have to show me proof, but are expected to develop their own positive habits around reading, its genres, and via any media of their choice.
Additionally, I’ve created and assigned flipped lessons using TED Ed as homework. Students view the lesson content, get to look at the guiding questions, and are able to browse additional resources to establish initial understandings on a topic. When we tackle the work the next day, my students are already familiar with the concept having prepared for it the previous night. I can track their progress via the TED Ed Lesson platform and provide feedback and next steps too.
On other occasions I have encouraged students to help out with the dishes or with other chores without being asked. The results have been so positive for everyone after the initial groans. But hey, they groan when you assign homework too. Perhaps it’s time to rethink the purpose of homework? Kids can thank changes in socio-economics, urbanization, and the Space Race.
It’s only since the early 20th century where homework became de rigueur in education. Even then the fervour in its favour continues to ebb and flow. We have to remember most kids were working at home before and after school to help their families. It’s what people did. There wasn’t time especially when there were chores to do.
Nowadays, more and more students enjoy a quality of life, and abundance of free time far removed from their homework deprived agrarian predecessors. Instead, students are filling their evenings with music lessons, participation on one or more sports teams, tutoring, and or second language classes. With all of the extra-curricular activities there is little time left at the end of the day when homework is added into the mix. I’ve had students say to me they couldn’t complete work citing one or all of the above reasons.
In a his post on homework from earlier this year, Mike Beetham shared a powerful experience in his piece Homework or No Homework. I love the consideration he puts into his practice. The final lines of this post serve as guidelines, encouragement, and validation of the educator’s ability to use professional judgement when it comes to assigning homework.
“Homework for the sake of homework is not a productive component to any student’s learning. It must have a specific purpose that is helping meet the targeted academic outcomes of the classroom.”
How about you? Where does homework fit in with your pedagogy? Do you assign it to placate parents who insist their child have something to do at night? Do you vary the work from subject to subject each night? How do students who are chronically unable to complete homework get supported? Is the work you assign traditional in the sense of reading and responding to questions in writing? Do you post work via electronic classrooms or other apps?
If you’d like to discuss more about this post or learn more about TED Ed please take time to comment and I’d be glad to share more with you. Reach out via Twitter or below. Thank you for reading this post.
I am at a new school this year and so I am once again learning new routines of the collective culture of the school community as well as the various cultures of the individual students. We have a big crop of Junior Kindergarten students and a handful of Seniors. So far, it is rolling merrily along. Yes, some little ones have had tears, especially a few of the ESL students whose separation anxiety is immense, and a few 3 year olds who are understandably confused about just how long they will be away from their families, but all in all, I think our crews are really coming together in a very happy way.
Last year, in the French Immersion senior kindergarten program at my previous school, the students alternated between a day of English with my colleague and a day of French with me. We were the ones who switched classrooms while the students remained in the familiar setting of their own classroom. We felt that the transition each day was far easier for us than for a whole group of 5 year olds, especially since the classrooms were down the hall from each other. It may have been easier on the students, but there were many times I was in room 3 and something key to the lesson I was teaching was down the hall in room 2…I have a hard time keeping track of my stuff as it is without constantly being on the move! Nonetheless, it worked rather well and it certainly cut down on the organization of the students’ belongings.
This year, in a different setting, my English colleague is right across the hall from me – in 2 giant steps I can knock on her door. Like last year, we, too, alternate a day of French Immersion with a day of English. We have named our two groups of students after trees – birch and maple – and on the bulletin board between our doors (we are at the end of a hallway) there are 2 arrows – one pointing to my room and the other pointing to hers. We switch the pictures of the trees each day so that students and their families know which classroom to go to, should they arrive late and miss our entry from the school yard.
I love having my own classroom again. I am able to concentrate on the one language in the signage and messages I post, and I am able to use all of the (limited) wall space for a French word wall, student work and our inquiry board (“Mur des merveilles”). Also, any resources in the room are mine or the school’s to be used for the French Immersion classroom. Perhaps the biggest improvement is the fact that I don’t lose stuff (as easily…). While there are the many positives, there is still the fact that the students can find such daily transitions very confusing – “Is my hat in this classroom or the other one?”, however we anticipate that that will improve as time goes by and the routine becomes more fluid.
At my previous school, only the teachers moved each day while the ECEs stayed with the students. This year, our principal has set up our program so that the teacher and ECE stay together while the students switch classrooms each day. His belief is that the ECE/teacher team is the most important relationship, and can only properly develop when both individuals are working side-by-side each day. I am very lucky in that I have a great relationship with my ECE – we have similar philosophies regarding every aspect of the program and we share a respect for each other’s knowledge and experience. I know it is not always the case and have heard of some extremely challenging relationships in the kinder program that would understandably make for a difficult year, but I can see myself learning a great deal working with my new teaching partner.
One thing we are still trying to hammer out is regular planning time involving all the kinder colleagues; teachers together, ECEs together, teacher and ECE together, and finally, both teachers and ECEs together. Not an easy thing to coordinate, but an important one. At the moment, we do what we can and we actually make it work, catching a few moments to chat, or grabbing opportunities to stay a little longer after school from time to time. The close proximity of the classrooms helps considerably, as well as the fact that, although the activities, projects and teaching style may be unique to each educator, we still work within the framework of the curriculum. There is always room for improvement, of course, and I expect that things will change down the road as the need arises, but at the moment, I feel as if it has been a pretty smooth start to the year.
Children love to play, adults love to play and I love to play. Play is a natural social scenario that starts from the time infants are able to take control of their own body and interact with other humans. Play provides real life learning opportunities that help teach and develop socially appropriate ways of interacting with each other, how to follow an agreed upon set of norms as well as creating a healthy body.
The way a child plays independently (or is not able to), the way a child engages with a group of peers in play and the way a child is able to communicate, problem solve and compromise in these settings serve as an extremely valuable source of information about my students. As teachers we strive to provide lessons that help teach responsible citizenship in our classrooms and schools (character education). We need to look no farther than our playgrounds to find contextually relevant opportunities to focus on character education.
I start my year by watching my students play. I look for patterns they display in how they communicate, how well they listen, do they compromise, can they problem solve or do they argue, become frustrated easily if the game is not going their way. Are they passive or competitive? I use the data I obtain to drive my social skills program. I am able to complete a gap analysis and begi
n to plan out the sequence of skill introduction. This years’ initial class needs have me focussing in on developing the ability to handle scenarios that do not go their way and result in them becoming argumentative about winning and losing.
Colleague: SO…how did you end up out in a portable?
Me: I volunteered.
Colleague: Really? (making a face of disbelief) You volunteered?
Me: Yup! I call it the learning bunker or my tarmac chalet. Did I mention it is air-conditioned and has a dedicated WiFi signal? (trying not to smile too much)
This year’s students will occupy, to the max, every square inch of this indoor space. And they will be allowed to shape it to suit their needs as learners for this year, and not mine. This will be, after all, a democratized classroom intended to engage student voice and choice from the get-go. However small, our instructional space will not be limited to these steel clad walls. Instead we will pursue a more ubiquitous approach. In fact a world of outdoor learning is mere metres out the single entrance/exit door, just as much as it is at the tips of fingers online.
So how will it be in your class? Will you allow students to shape it to make it their own? Are the walls waiting to be the gallery space for their work? How will you step aside for your learners to thrive?
Whenever reflecting on this, I always find motivation from the Twitter motto of Christina Milos. It says, “Making myself progressively unnecessary. Therefore, a teacher.” That simple axiom frames what I want to do for my students year after year, and challenges me to do better when I catch myself falling back to old habits.
Every time I want to make it my class and about me it’s simple wisdom from teachers like Milos that keep me humble and focused on my role as educator, equipper, and encourager with a job to do.
It now becomes the homeroom to 30 new Grade 6 learners with hopes, dreams and limitless talents. I can’t wait to see what they will do and will enjoy becoming progressively unnecessary to them as the year goes on.
This is an open letter to all teachers across the world no matter what your role. This past summer I was part of a campaign entitled ‘Project Hero’. Teachers and students from across Canada wrote to teachers in Sierra Leone celebrating the extraordinary courage and resiliency they demonstrated during the Ebola crisis in their country. My team and I were able to hand deliver over 300 letters to teachers from all regions of that country. In continuing with this campaign, I am sharing a letter from me to teachers around the world.
Dear Teacher,
What words describe a hero? One might say kind, super hero strong, courageous, resilient, compassionate, generous, self-sacrificing, trustworthy, gracious, fearless and loyal (only to name a few). Each and every day you demonstrate these altruistic characteristics in so many ways that make a difference for the students you are entrusted with.
Yet, your tireless efforts are not celebrated in books, movies or on the television. Your efforts are not worthy enough to make the evening news or local headline. There are precious few times when even a thank you is shared. That is what makes you a hero. You are not seeking public fame. You are not trying to get unlimited likes on social media and you do not seek out recognition of any kind. You simply do what you do because it makes a difference in the life of a child and ultimately the world in which we live in.
I have had the honour of being a teacher for thirty-one years and am ready to start another voyage in the life of a group of children. I am honoured and humbled to be in such a noble profession working with heroes like you each and every day. I wish you the best in this school year and will say thank you in advance for the many, many heroic acts you will carry out on behalf of children around the world.
Humbly yours,
Michael Beetham
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDVECWcYtjc
PS – please share this video with a hero you know
– this is the moment some of the Sierra Leone teachers
received their letters
Desks emptied, stacked and put aside. Check. Dormant superfluous paper recycled with extreme prejudice. Check. Walls filled with student work, learning goals, art, and inspirational messages now returned to vanilla coloured vacant voids in waiting. Check. Boxes packed and piled in preparation for transport to my new pending portable location (second in 4 years). Cool.
As you’ve observed from the picture on the left, Room 103 is on vacation along with my students. Until the middle of this week it has been a 10 month hive of activity home to 31 + 1 learners all buzzing at their own frequency. Our class was a hub of inquiry, personal growth, and constant learning. And now it’s all gone.
With 9 weeks of summer ahead, I wonder how much of what has been taught over this past year will come back with students when they return in September? Have you ever thought about why we the school year is paused in the modern learning era? Have you ever wondered what it might be like to embrace a balanced teaching year?
I am not advocating additional teaching days beyond the 190+/-, but am asking if we could consider alternatives to a schedule that seems more suited as a throwback to our hunter gatherer ancestors. This got me asking how the schedule we work around really came to be used? Other than the fact that our elementary schools are not equipped with any climate control in the classrooms I am not sure what else it might be from balancing the instructional year? A post from Learning Lab Why Does School Start in September? Hint: It’s not the crops provides some context to this issue.
Now before the hate mail about how important the summer break is for teachers and students, let’s consider the positives. Balanced school schedules allow for greater retention of instructional concepts. That means less knowledge hemorrhage from year to year. Imagine students having the same amount of instruction time, but spread out more evenly, but they retain more of what they’ve learned? Secondly, with a balanced year, there will be weeks off at different times for families to enjoy time together around already existing holidays. Think of the travel savings? Imagine if March Break was 2 weeks? We could all drive to Florida and back relaxed and ready for Spring.
Okay, I’ve shared the sunny side of this, but here’s the shady side. Balanced school years impede students’ ability to make money from summer jobs which may be crucial to helping them attend school, or helping their families. Balanced school years may not provide enough recovery/down time for students or educators to relax and recharge. This might lead to mental health issues such as stress and anxiety. Not good.
Weighing both sides of the conversation is healthy. There are schools already operating on a more balanced schedule with positive results. So where do stand with the classroom empty and the students/staff all gone. Where would you want education to go with this one? Holler when you get a chance. After some down time.
Happy summer. Thanks for reading, responding, and sharing. See you in September. Will
I write this post as a tribute and thank you to all educators who breathe inspiration into the lives of their students and into one another from September’s strong start to June’s stronger finish.
This post is the completion of a promise after a response reminiscent of a rant written to address comments in the media about educators. In the spirit of warmth and fuzziness I’ll keep my word(s) positive.
You did it!
10 months in the books, out of the books, torn away from the books, and complete with several second looks. From field trip bookings and to figurative (text)book burnings the school year sparked a 5/6s of a year long fire of growth. And now, as the embers cool, the ash settles, and the warmth fades another year of memories will linger as ember in the mind to be stoked again soon.
Does anyone else feel the same way? I do and know that I’m not alone on this one.
This year, my seventh, which I am privileged to witness many intellectual and life fires lit, fanned, spread wildly, and occasionally control burned. A feat, I am sure, that was accomplished throughout millions of classrooms around the world thanks to incredibly caring educators like you.
Imagine that you were part of the transformation, edification, and education of a student. You helped someone, or several someones, be a part of something, achieve something or realize something they’d never known before? Could there be a more noble calling?
When students arrived in your classroom last September, they were rough around the edges, unsure of what was to come, carrying some of the baggage from the previous year, and full of energy (nervous and otherwise). And from that you set out rough around the edges, unsure of what was to come, carrying some of the baggage from the previous year, and full of energy (nervous and otherwise).
There were times, too many to mention (reports, parent meetings, phone calls, bombed lessons, planning lapses, sick days, and life in general) that required us to dig deep into our vaults to rise above, resolve, and retain our raison d’etre.
And now?
Rest, raise a toast to one another, as I do to you because you started strong and you finished stronger.
Cheers! Santé! Gom bui! Kampai! Prosit! Djam! Mabuhay!
Thank you for the inspiration.
Will
This time of year can be tough with all the goodbyes. This year, I am saying goodbye to the wonderful teacher who filled in for my teaching partner who lost her battle with cancer this year, my incredibly talented principal, my friendly and bubbly vice principal and my go-to person Behavioural Teaching Assistant. I know that honouring our time together and saying goodbye in a special way was really important to all of us.
The Arts and French department went off and brainstormed some ideas of how to honour our colleagues. Some ideas came really quickly and others took a bit more inspiration.
My hope with today’s blog is that if you are stuck for an idea on how to honour a colleague in the future, maybe some of our ceremonies and events from this week can act as an inspiration to you.
Saying goodbye to our staff:
This idea was really simple and was inspired by Eldorado Public School. At our final assembly this week, we had all of our staff lined up and had our leaving staff go through a high five train. We had music playing and the students cheering for everyone. It had such a great feeling of “Thank you!”.
Here is a picture of Eldorado Public School’s goodbye to staff.
Honouring our principal and vice principal:
To honour our principal and vice principal leaving, we had the students and staff both prepare something. The grade four students took time to write a rap song for our vice principal. I walked them through the brainstorming of ideas and then let them create and write their own raps in groups. I took the best ideas from a variety of groups and melded them together into one performance piece. This is the piece we came up with:
Yo Vice, we miss you already, we m-m-m-m-m-m miss you.
You’re the best vice principal in the world and your leaving us behind noooo.
When students need ice,
You make them feel nice,
You’re very kind
you have a great mind
When we shout a yelp
you’ll be there to help.
You help us on the phone
When we call home.
Yo Vice, we miss you already, we m-m-m-m-m-m miss you.
You’re the best vice principal in the world and your leaving us behind noooo.
You wear fancy shoes
and believe we can’t lose.
You work with the staff
and give them a good laugh
When we start to cry,
you’ll always stand by
You’ll be in our hearts,
even when we’re apart.
Yo Vice, we miss you already, we m-m-m-m-m-m miss you.
You’re the best vice principal in the world and your leaving us behind noooo.
Yo vice, hope you have fun at your new school.
Yo vice, hope you have fun at your new school.
My students then began working on ideas for our principal and wrote a short story about all of her amazing qualities. They added all sorts of sound effects and ended the story with the song “Count on Me” by Bruno Mars. This is the story that they came up with:
“Once upon a time there was a wonderful, amazing, extraordinary principal named Miss. Robinson. ( do do do doooo) She brightened the days of every man, woman and child at her school Red Willow. (oooohhhh) She went far and wide (within the school) solving problems and making the school a better place. (ta da) She came to the rescue faster than the speed of light. (whoosh) Just like any other superhero she had awesome superpowers!!! She was organized…. caring…..
Helpful…… responsible… and positive. Red Willow knew that they could always “Count On” Miss. Robinson no matter what. “
Our staff, created a full fashion show for our fashionista vice principal. Our staff members wore sashes with her qualities on them and had a prepared script that described their outfits. It was an upbeat, fun and celebratory event.
Our principal was honoured through the presentation of a bouquet of flowers presented one flower at a time by the staff. About fifteen staff members spoke and either read a quote, sang a song or just spoke from the heart about the impact that our amazing principal had on our lives. It was a really simple and beautiful event.
During the last day of school, I will have to say goodbye to some of the most important people in my world over the past couple of years. I hope that they enjoyed their send off as much as we did preparing it.
Have a wonderful summer and a much deserved break!