I remember my first day of teaching as if it had happened yesterday and not 32 years ago. As my journey of teaching continues, there have been countless scenarios that have occurred that brought a smile to my face, made me cry, challenged me, taught me and humbled me. Those are the moments that inspire me each and every day I enter my classroom. About 13 years ago a very passionate and visionary principal I worked with started our year off by giving each teacher an empty box. She then went on to describe how it is up to use to fill that box with memories, moments in time that are like treasures not to be lost or forgotten. Ever since that time I have kept a memory box.
This box is filled with magical moments that I have been a part of in my teaching experiences with colleagues, students and/or their families. There are letters, cards, toys, photographs, trinkets, phone call summaries, thank you cards, trip mementoes, amazing accomplishments of individual students as well as class accomplishments. What goes into that box is anything that reminds me just how precious and important my efforts are and that no effort is wasted. I take the time to go and revisit my box in moments of self-doubt, challenging times or just when it seems that nothing is going right. After just a few moments of revisiting these wonderful experiences I can raise my head and once again forge on filled with confidence and positive energy. I look forward to the day (not too far in the future) when I can stop, reflect back on a career as I take the time to go through each item in my memory box, piece by piece, story by story.
I hope you take the time to stop and smell the roses in your everyday teaching and life. Make a pledge to start your memory box in 2017. Happy New Year!
In between sipping a coffee and reading your favourite book some of you may be doing some forward planning for 2017.
Many schools celebrate the upcoming months of February and May as Black History Month and Asian Heritage Month. Over the past five years, it has been my pleasure to be part of both of these committees at my school. We have worked hard to prepare our students and communities to honour Black Canadians and celebrate the contributions of Asian Canadians.
There are many criticisms that state that both of these celebrations limit the recognition of Asian and Black Canadians contributions to these designated months. The critics have a very important point. You can fall into the trap of having a classroom lacking in the celebration of diversity for 8 months of the year very easily. I look at Asian Heritage month and Black History Month as an opportunity for me as well as my students. I am not an expert on black history or Asian heritage. My family’s heritage is Acadian and I studied Theatre in University so I recognize that I have a lot of learning to do. In February and May, there are so many great resources put out by ETFO, the Government of Canada and the Archives of Ontario about Black Canadian history and contributions of Asian Canadians that have shaped this wonderful country we live it. There are also many great news stories written and programs on TV. We often have guest speakers in to the school and presentations for the staff.
My goal has been to take all of these activities and resources and use them as a springboard to carry with me throughout the entirety of the year as I make decisions about music, art, dance and drama to be used in my classroom. I listen just as intently as my students when we have special presentations in and engage in discussions with my colleagues who have a much deeper knowledge of this area of history. I still have a lot of learning to do and appreciate the hard work of those who have taken time to share the important role that Black and Asian Canadians have played in shaping our country.
Some fantastic resources and articles that have come out over the past couple of years that has supported my own knowledge are as follows:
If you need some ideas of activities for Black History Month or Asian Heritage Month here are a few samples of events and activities we have had in the past.
Daily Announcements: Music will be played at the start of the school day. Students will announce any upcoming events and a quote for the day.
Display Cabinet: The display cabinetat the front foyer of the school will showcase images, quotes and books that focus on the Board’s Black History theme ‘Inspire Inclusion’.
Black History Month Movie Feature: My Friend Martin:
Assembly: A selection of student performances will be prepared for both the morning and afternoon assemblies including a play about Black History, songs, dances and poetry.
Spirit Day: The students and staff will be asked to wear, red, green, and black (the colours of the Pan-Africa flag) to celebrate the end of Black History Month.
Black History Quilt Story & Activity:There will be two Quilt Making Activities. The story the Patchwork Path will be read before the activity.
DPA Activities: Various BHM activities will be placed on our shared drive.
My sister in law specializes in helping people with eating disorders. As we sat together over the holidays, I asked her how her patients were handling this time of year. She shared with me some challenges that are facing her patients such as: relationships with family are strained due to all the stress that is caused by the constant change in schedule, food is such an overwhelming center of many of the celebrations which makes this holiday season difficult and finally many support services are closed at the time when people need them the most.
It was a reminder to me that not everyone has a wonderful holiday experience. We went on to talk further about many of the challenges that are heightened at this time of year for many other people, which includes many families of the students we teach.
Some families have lost their jobs and are trying to make ends meet and feeling the pressure to buy gifts to put under a tree.
Some families have lost loved ones this year and their absence is heightened during family traditions.
Some families are far away from their loved ones this year and are missing them a lot.
Some families are struggling to get along and being in the same room for days on end is not helping.
Some families have mental health concerns that are heightened by all the visitors and the change in routine.
Some families have spent Christmas in a hospital this year with sick or dying family members.
Some families are just struggling to make it through the day.
The conversation that my sister in law and I had was not a pessimistic one at all. Just a reminder to me that some of our students are facing challenges over these two weeks off from school. I will be sure to remember that the holidays are not perfect for many people and that when the students come back to school they may need some support. I will be on the lookout for those students who need an extra smile or a divergence from the conversation about presents and festivities.
The way work slammed into the holidays this year explains why I find myself sleeping in late every morning. Phew! That just happened! Now the two weeks ahead seem like all the time in the world to do anything but work. So, what is the best way to spend this time off?
Some things are out of our control around these super-charged holiday periods – traveling, family time, weather, finances, health – but finding some time to shut down and recharge your energy supplies should be a priority before heading back to work in January. Things really start to gather momentum when we return to the classroom with end-of-term reports being the biggest extra-curricular activity for teachers at this time of the year. Not that I’m thinking about work. Well, maybe a little. I am finding it really hard to walk by recycling boxes in the city without glancing in to see if there is some cardboard – kindergarten gold – I can harvest. The holidays have already provided me with an abundance of recyclables for the Creation Station, so it is not as if I need to keep gathering items. I will just be super ready for our first Monday back and I’ve made sure I have some sturdy plans in place for the first week for a smoother re-entry.
Trying to shut off “work-brain” is not easy – in spite of all the distractions over the holidays – and in fact, distractions are often not quite enough if you want to really recharge your energy. Quiet time, time for self-reflection, is what this dark, cold season warrants, sort of like housecleaning for the brain. Whether it is by walking/skiing/snowshoeing in a forest, field or city park, listening to natural sounds, or while listening to your heartbeat as you bob around in a floatation tank filled with warm, salinated water (doesn’t everyone have one of these kicking around the house?), we all need time to ourselves. Hopefully, you will find the opportunity to gather some loose ends within your mind so that you don’t return to work frazzled and unrested.
Our jobs are stressful, no doubt about it, with a high rate of burnout, so that is why there are so many reminders, to new teachers especially, for the need to look after ourselves. Occupational burnout is a real thing and I recall a doctor friend, whose patients included police officers and teachers, who was fond of saying, “You guys are always on stage. If, for some reason, you aren’t able to perform, I will have to take your badge away.” With that in mind, we are lucky to have a break in between gigs, where we can slow down, take some things off our plates, stare into space and breathe deeply to recharge those batteries.
It’s too late. Whatever you wanted to share or teach in the classroom will have to wait until next year. I’d have liked a little more time. Was this the case for you too? Fortunately, a return date is just around the corner. Conversely, time away from routines can also restore mind, body, and spirit.
A break like this provides me with time to think about teaching and other pursuits. Usually, it’s catching up with family, over-caffeinating, reading, and blogging. With the school year already 40% complete, our time off serves as both restorative opportunity and cathartic challenge.
This December’s end, I wanted to reflect like it’s June. Think of it as part of my own personal development. I am trying to make sense of things now – in the moment. A resolution, pep talk, or plan of action if you please. This means there are a lot of questions to which the answers are either too simple, or underdeveloped.
Did I miss something? Could I have been more supportive? Did I make the curriculum come alive with relevance for my students? Did they have enough challenge, motivation, and opportunity to learn? Did I prepare enough? Did I assess too little? Too much? Did I give my students opportunity to succeed? Was I supportive to my colleagues? Did I give everything I could? Was my work-life balance maintained?
I am sure the answer to each one of the above questions could be yes. Even the one about work-life balance.
Now what?
Questions like these pervade my thoughts. I’m cannot be alone as a reflective practitioner in our profession. So how do you reflect at this time of the year? How are you de-stressing? Are you able to turn off your teacher brain for 2 weeks? How about checking your email or assessing student work?
Do you think that this changes over a career in education? After 8 years in the classroom, I am trying to see each season with fresh eyes, but still struggle with disconnecting entirely. Saying goodbye to 2016 and hello to 2017 will see me sharing, reflecting, learning, and unlearning as part of a process crucial to a professional pursuit of progress. How about you?
Keep the conversation going. Please share, respond, or retort.
I love hearing about your journey and heart for the art of education.
Not sure if anybody noticed, but local shopping malls were unusually festive over the past 6 weeks. Come to think of it, schools were too. Ever since Progress Reports went home, there’s been something in the air. In fact, I’m pretty sure it had to do with an annually anticipated event or holiday festivity. Whatever the cause, excitement abounded wherever I looked – whether it was in the halls or the malls.
However, there was one distinct difference, I couldn’t imagine have Boxing Day type line ups to get back into the classroom as if there was a 75% off learning sale. Get your lessons while supplies last! What if it was? There is no doubt that many educators and students were ready for a break.
The time leading up to the big day saw many classrooms adorned with seasonally themed crafts, gyms hosting concerts with particular attention paid to inclusive and acceptable winter music standards, and a lot of people wearing red in order to match the annual gift giving man’s commercially conjured wardrobe.
For years, many(not all) have decided, that during the six weeks leading up to the winter holiday break, they would attempt to cram as much kindness, creativity, and cuteness beyond human limits, capacity or reason. It was amazing to witness what can be accomplished when plans are hatched and deadlines approach. All of the work, acts of kindness/giving, and stress leading up to the winter break did not go un-noticed.
But wait, I wanted to connect this post to education not the Hall-i-daze or Mall-idays.
In between dodging the inattentive and exhausted hordes, all I could think during my annual ‘mall-people-watching’ spectacle was how important having a purpose was to survive the experience. Come to think of it, teaching is quite similar. Having a purpose, a plan, and an exit strategy are imperative.
Am I saying that the halls of schools are filled with the inattentive and exhausted? Not exactly. Well maybe, but it does not have to be that way if we invigorate, iterate, and innovate our educational spaces. This can happen when educators at all levels are given the funds, flexibility and freedom to do so.
Take for example, instead of buying more text books a.k.a. knowledge coffins(my term), why not a document camera? See how I put some shopping in this post? Imagine the savings when digital copies of a Math text can replace 20 or 30 ($60 to 90) aging copies for fraction of the cost? Why should publishing companies be taking the lion’s share of our budgets? Of course, a few texts are necessary in each class, but not a text for every student in every subject in every class. The school wide savings of limiting text book purchases would free up budgets for more hands on learning resources like Math manipulatives, Science materials, maker spaces, and technology.
Allowing teachers a greater voice in their own budgets is a great place to start. In my classroom, we are paper minimalists. I do not believe in worksheets, instead make use of a document camera to share anything that might otherwise be copied. Instead of paper and consumables, I purpose 90% of my class budget for a growing collection of Math and Science manipulatives that will be useful from year to year instead of destined for the recycling bin.
By providing PD through school/board wide initiatives teachers would have a chance to engage in new ideas as new learners themselves. In the YRDSB we host 2 Edtech Summits per year to share ideas and learn new skills to use in the modern learning classroom. The new ideas, tools, and confidence can transform and invigorate a classroom. Imagine the engagement when students see a teacher as a learner too instead of the transmitter of lessons and marker of tests?
I can sense some walls and arguments being raised. Feel free to respond in the comment section. I promise it will not be comfortable at first. I promise it will be messy for a bit longer than that. I promise that mistakes will be made, but remember FAIL only means First Attempts In Learning. I promise that it will be the best thing you have ever done as an educator for a long time.
As the holidays approach it is important to sit back, relax, reflect and rejuvenate as you take time to get that balance back in your life. In the mean time, I would like you to celebrate everything you have done to advance your students’ learning and social development by putting in endless hours of lesson preparation, all the small things that are not part of your role, hours of team practices, choir practices and performances, clubs, extra support at recess, calls home, visits, breakfast clubs and on and on and on.
Please take the time to watch the following collection of short videos as they remind us just how important teachers are in a student’s life. ENJOY!
The first time I really became aware that I was not in control of how other people saw the world was over 25 years ago when my mother was diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimer’s at the age of 60. Before she got sick, like most families we would work together as a unit, going through our days with similar expectations of daily routines. When her decline became more rapid and evident, simple activities like stacking the dishwasher or opening windows on warm days caused conflict and stress. As she lost her ability to speak, the challenges were enormous for all of us – What did she want? What is she trying to say? Why is she doing that? Her behaviour was a puzzle for us. It was not until we began to try to see the world through her eyes that we were able to more often avoid stressors. We needed to stop thinking about our reality – opening windows on warm days was rational to us – and start to see how open windows were a cause of anxiety for her. No use in trying to figure out why she became agoraphobic or hope for an improvement in her condition, it was enough to see that her world was turned upside-down and that we needed to realize this in order to be able to communicate with her on her new terms.
I was reminded of the importance of understanding that all behaviour is a form of communication when I attended an engaging workshop this week entitled, “Exploring Autism – The Elementary Years.” In one of the activities we participated in, the presenter encouraged us to consider the complexity, or puzzle as it was presented, of autism. The puzzle of autism refers not only to the fact that we have much to learn about causes and supports, but also to the fact that the disorder encompasses a variety of aspects from sensory processing and anxiety, to the developmental level of the child and their independence. After exploring the spider web of symptoms and strategies to help support children with autism, we were left with the central notion that it is a social-communication disorder; these children are definitely communicating to us, but the moments of intense frustration result from the lack of mutual communication due to the fact that we are not using the same language. A goal, therefore, is to try to see the world through their eyes so that we can better understand the stressors and be supportive when behaviours erupt.
In a classroom, we are constantly seeking perspective, not only for students with clinical diagnoses, but also for every behaviour that requires support and redirection. In one of my kinder classes, there is a child who experiences intense bouts of anxiety and fear of abandonment. She will often cry when we go on walks outdoors if she feels she is too far behind me or my ECE partner. We have learned that there is the possibility that she and her siblings are sometimes left alone in the apartment when their parent doesn’t come home at night. Knowledge of this possibility helps us to understand that what this child is feeling when she cries is not simply to attract attention, but is a symptom of a significant fear. In this case, we know the “why?” of her behaviour and this helps us find and implement supports at school. Taking her hand and walking with her is enough to allay anxiety at the moment and to build her confidence that we won’t abandon her.
Some behaviours, however, are harder codes to decipher and we are currently trying to gain perspective as a team into the possible reasons why one of our students is having serious toileting issues when this was previously not a problem. The fact that this child, who has behaviour issues as well, has been soiling himself almost every day for the past month when there are no evident symptoms of a digestive disorder, is the puzzle we are currently trying to solve. What are the reasons for his behaviour? What is he communicating to everyone? Despite our efforts to give him support and encouragement for positive interactions with his peers, why have none of the behaviours changed? We are sleuthing to be able to gain perspective into this child’s world so that we can give him the support he needs as soon as possible, and we are expanding our kindergarten team to include the administration and Learning Support Team so that we can gather some insight that might help us help him. At the moment, we have very little to go on, and we realize that our team of ECEs and teachers can see the result but not the cause of his behaviour. Doesn’t mean we are giving up, only that we have some work to do.
“I’m not a math person”. This is probably a statement you’ve heard from someone at some point, whether it be a friend, colleague, student or even yourself. It’s something that I grew up truly believing. I grew up believing that I did not have a “math brain” and that it just wasn’t “my thing”. Today, I know this is a myth.
I learned this to be a myth about one hour into my Primary/Junior Mathematics course in my B.Ed program at Brock, taught by one of the most inspiring educators I’ve ever met. It was here I learned that everyone can learn math, there is no such thing as a “math person”, and that this was an unfortunate myth that has stopped many students and adults from success in mathematics.
So, why do so many people believe they can’t do math?
Traditional math instruction has been black and white – right or wrong. But isn’t the grey area where the real learning happens? When we box our students into answering questions that require only repetitive tasks, rote memory or simple procedures, we box them in to a world of right and wrong. We box them in by assigning them a grade “4/10” on a simple procedures task. We box them in by marking their work wrong if they haven’t solved the problem in the exact way we’ve taught them to. We box them in when we don’t give them the chance to show us what they are truly capable of. When we box them in, we send a message that they can’t do math.
We know that having a growth mindset is directly related to success, especially in mathematics. Right now in education we are moving away from straight forward, right and wrong math, and moving towards building an environment where problem solving, growth and exploration is more important. With instructional techniques like the three-part lesson plans and number talks, we’ve moved our instruction in the right direction. We also need to open up our math questions so that there is space within them for learning.
Last week I had my grade 2/3 students write a math assessment as a conclusion to our unit of learning. One of my students did quite poorly on the assessment and I was hardly able to understand what he was thinking when he wrote down one of his answers. When conferencing with him after, he explained his thought process to me. He misunderstood the question on the test so he answered it in his own way. After understanding his perspective on the question, it became obvious that he had solved the question in a much higher level way of thinking and clearly had a deep understanding of the concept. He told me, “I made my own math”. Well, how great is that? Had I just taken it for granted, marked it wrong and moved along to the next student, I would have missed this teachable moment. Instead, he left our conversation feeling proud of his abilities rather than feeling like he can’t do math. He left our conversation with a growth mindset.
What our students believe about their abilities in math directly affects their success. We need to set up our students with opportunities to challenge their thinking, try new things, explore and make mistakes. If our students believe they have unlimited potential in math, they will do great things.
Next time, I will replace that question with something process oriented and open ended. After all, I’m still learning too!
Today was a very interesting day for learning that took a different direction than I anticipated. We started off talking about ideas for the holiday assembly when I mentioned to my students that I would like them to survey the grade to find out their interest. It seemed unfair to force a grade of students to be involved in an assembly unless they really wanted to. Five of my students surveyed the entire grade about how they wanted to be involved. It was great to see them learning the process of how to create a survey (using google forms) and then administering it to their peers. Twenty minutes later, we created one to see if and how we should decorate the class. This survey was then administered to our class by five other students. It was great to see students talking about percentages and comparing pie graphs in a context that was not even supposed to be a math lesson. Learning can take place in all contexts and it is awesome when it is student led and the teacher just sits back and lets the magic happen. I am letting my students survey the intermediate students to select their music for the next school dance. I am also hoping to survey the school in the near future about extra curricular activities they would like to see in our school. Data management is proving to be an all encompassing area of study and is creating amazing student leadership! Try it out at your own school and see your students become teachers. They loved seeing the results from their survey matter and saw how action took place right away.
