Laura Bottrell General, Outdoor Education, Outdoor Learning, Play-Based Learning

A Tree-Mendous Learning Opportunity

 

Outdoor learning is becoming an increasingly important and celebrated element of the Kindergarten program. As more and more teachers are beginning to embrace true inquiry and play-based learning, time spent outdoors is becoming a focal point of the Kindergarten day rather than a “break from the learning”. Outdoor time IS the learning.

My Kindergarten class spends upwards of two and a half hours outside each day. We begin and end the day outside, which helps us arrive at school smoothly, eliminate transitions (especially with those pesky winter clothes) and get valuable physical activity before entering the classroom. Unless there’s a cyclone, we’re out there.

The school I teach at is very lucky to have an amazing outdoor learning space. Designed by a natural playground company, our outdoor space is filled with sand boxes, stumps, giant logs for climbing and trees. It is an outdoor learning lover’s dream! Not one primary coloured, plastic thing in sight. I really love the pedagogy behind forest schools or completely outdoor schools, and while we aren’t quite set up for that here (or ready for that amount of norm-challenging!), I think our outdoor space comes pretty close.

 

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My students are always engaged when we are outside. Whether it’s finding interesting pieces of nature, building forts, dramatic play or digging in the sand – all of my students are learning.

We love to introduce new and interesting nature activities. In the fall, we began to hone our skills at wood whittling. This can be done safely with proper adult supervision, some potato peelers and freshly picked sticks off a bush or tree. My students always feel so empowered when we allow them to engage in “risky” play!

After the holidays, we asked our families to donate their discarded Christmas trees to our playground. We were so impressed at the response when we returned to find about 30 pine trees laying in our yard! This began the most engaging experience we’ve had outside yet.

 

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Other than a quick chat about making choices that are safe and kind, we didn’t assign any rules to these new materials we had to explore. The children quickly put them to use by moving them around the space, rearranging them into walls, forts and mountains. They climbed on, under and between them. The dramatic play that happened was so rich. Children demonstrated perseverance and grit when they couldn’t lift a tree or got stuck. There was a huge amount of problem solving, communication and collaboration as the students negotiated how to safely move the trees and build different structures.

After a few days of exploring the trees, we interrupted the play by suggesting that we all work together as a class to build a fort. This is when we brought out the hand saws! Saws?! Many people panic at the thought of Kindergarteners using saws. In our program, we are working to empower and build confidence in our students. We want them to have applicable, real world skills. What better time and place to learn how to do “risky” things, than when you have several careful adults supervising and guiding you? So, in our class… we saw!

 

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Students had the opportunity to saw branches off the trees under 1:1 supervision. Once we have enough loose branches, we plan to use sticks and twine to build a large fort in the corner of our playground. We will learn about how to make the structure walls and roof, and our students will take the lead in all of the design and construction process. Talk about a hands-on, authentic project!

 

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We are all at different comfort levels with outdoor learning and exploration. I hope this post might inspire you to rethink and challenge your outdoor play norms to turn it into something valuable and authentic for your students! After all, being outside is our Kindergartener’s natural habitat!

 

 

 

Will Gourley Challenging Topics, Classroom Management, General, Making a Difference Through Education, Mental Health

The detour

MUTCD_M4-9bR.svgWanderers, tourists, sight seers, visitors, escape artists, runners…”Hey!” this teacher asks, with a smile, “See any cool artwork today?” or maybe the exchanges are in passing such as,  “How are you? How’s your day going?” However, what rarely gets asked is, “Aren’t you supposed to be in class right now?”

Have you ever observed a student or few who seem to be conspicuously far away from their usual classroom or floor? Have you ever watched them take the long way around the school to complete an errand? How about the students who take the time to ponder every single art exhibition or piece of student work in the hallways? Not surprisingly, these are the same students who are frequently found quenching their thirsts at the farthest drinking fountains or outside of their friend’s classes waving as well.

At first, I paid little attention to moments like these. Perhaps those students were delivering messages to the office or helping another teacher? Of course it’s a possibility, but I was able to discern the difference quite quickly when the students being observed were empty handed, on the opposite side of the school building relative to the office, and not in possession of a good reason for being in that particular space and time. I have to empathize with students like this. That was me too. I used to take lots of notes to the office for my teachers. I wonder if those notes said, “Please keep William busy for a few minutes and then send him back. Thank you.”?

The Thinking Lap

Maybe the students that I’m seeing are taking a lap to think? Most times I use this option as a means to support anxious, stressed, and or physically active learners. A walkabout is an excellent mental health strategy for all of us, but then I started to see some patterns that piqued my attention. The students who I was regularly seeing in the hallways, were showing up at around the same times each day? Was there something going on that they needed to get out of class at the same time each day? It was then that I began to see this through a different lens.

In my role as SERT, I provide resource support in a number of classes throughout the school. Recently, I observed a student from the intermediate panel at a water fountain on a different floor about 30 minutes into the first period of the day. Harmless enough in itself, but what struck me about all of this was the fact that the student would have had to pass at least 2 other fountains along the way. 45 minutes later they were skipping down an empty hall during class to their locker. 30 minutes after that, back at the faraway fountain. I smiled, said hello, and went about my morning.

Perhaps they are enjoying an extended walk to work out some stress? If so, what are the underlying factors that explain this student’s to need be out of class so often? Could all of their self-navigated detours be coincidence? Barring medical issues, this is less likely to be believable based on frequency and time of day. What’s worth noting as well, are the other students who might be taking their own detours around the school.

3 Questions and 3 Answers

Q1. Would these students like to have someone to walk alongside and listen?
Q2. How many others feel like doing the same, but don’t act on it?
Q3. How can wonderlust be infused into these learners’ days to go with their wanderlust?

A1. It depends on whether they will be heard or given a hard time for being in the wrong place at the wrong time without any understanding by others.
A2. If there is one, there are others. Albeit subtle, shifting, shuffling, and staring into space are good indicators to teachers that students need a break.
A3. Throw the map away sometimes. Keeping the learning space, active, challenged, and engaged is often a trip to an undiscovered land. It is an act of re-invention and creativity that takes practice, patience, and persistence. Don’t be afraid to change directions by throwing in detours of your own.

Thank you for reading this post. Please take time to comment and share to keep the conversation going. Enjoy your detours.

 

Will Gourley Constant Learning, Differentiated Instruction, General, Making a Difference Through Education, Modern Learning, self reflection

The destination

This is the companion post to The drive shared on December 30, 2017. I wrote it because trips are always more fun with a partner.

When I was in grade school, there always seemed to be one adult whose job it was to ask students, “What do want to be when you grow up?” For some reason, this was more of a cruel conundrum rather than a sparkling conversational point. I hated hearing this question in my day. I still cringe whenever it gets asked today. Secretly, I hope students respond with something creative like Unicorn rancher or underwater coffee shop owner – anything will do, as long as it changes the subject.

I see the question more like asking students to pick the trip of their lifetime without ever having a chance to take a Geography lesson, browse a web-site or read any reviews on TripAdvisor.¹ Even though our jobs are to provide and guide our students, we still must let our learners decide their own destination(s).

This is cause for concern because I fear we’re running out of road(s) for some of our learners. For many, the destinations are leading to dead-ends instead of their dreams coming true. If we consider the ruthless nature of the real world our graduates will face, there will be many detours, breakdowns, and accidents outside of the classroom courtesy of life. And yes there will be traffic, road closures, and potholes. This makes it even more crucial for us to be paving new roads with our learners.

It’s hard to drive.
It’s even more difficult to discover what drives us.
Then there’s always the destination where departure times depend.
Decidedly, education helps define destiny and dignity.

Over the past 9 years of my teaching journey, I have sped past a few common sites along the way. Like the repeating background of an old cartoon or the cookie-cutter rest stops that line the highway – each with the same caffeine, food, and fuel options. They are;

A. Our students are taught to worry so much about the destination that they risk getting lost or forgetting the reason for their journey all together. If all they are taught to see is a mark, then it is time to redraw the maps and reprogram the GPS.

B. There is no amount of training to completely equip educators for every iteration of classroom they will work within. Some or most of the learning will come on the job, and that’s okay. Redrawing the map required, again.

C. Worksheets are neither the solution for active engagement, nor parents who demand homework for their child. They are most likely mind-numbing disengagement exercises destined for the recycling bin if not managed. How can students be free to think when the answers are fed to them to regurgitate on a page? Maybe this paper could be used for the maps instead?

D. No matter how much teachers care for their student’s well-being, academic achievement, or future they will still be allowed to fall through the cracks due to decisions made outside of our school walls. This is hard to understand, but we have to accept it and support these students where possible inside of the system.

E. Students have voices that need to be equipped and amplified. If we are not listening to our learners when they whisper, it will be too late to help when they are screaming at us. Asking students for feedback, ideas, and improvements has been one of my favourite and frightening activities. It can hurt the ego from time to time, but can also break down barriers in the classroom that can lead to more effective and honest feedback as learning.

Destination TBA is A-OK

Over the course of their learning, students will change their minds 1000s of times. They will find something interesting one week and then something different the next. What worked to inspire them last year may be the thing that gets in their way the next. As educators, we have to consider the importance of our work in preparing students to reach their destinations not ours. We must always be creating new roads for them to travel not just maintaining existing ones. We must also be teaching our students to read and draw the maps to their own future.

There will also be slamming brakes, reversing at full speed, doing donuts in snowy parking lots, and tearing out engines for rebuilding. We will fill their tanks, provide directions, and clean windshields. Yet, as elementary teachers, we rarely get to see our impact on students once they’ve traveled further down life’s roads.

Hopefully, they’ll send an occasional postcard and maybe a map to let us know they’ve arrived at their destination.

1. I used to tell people corporate lawyer so they would leave me alone. It seemed to cover all of the bases even though I would have rather pursued diplomatic or NGO work overseas. And now, here I am – a teacher, writer, and question askerer.

 

 

Will Gourley Challenging Topics, Constant Learning, Differentiated Instruction, General, Making a Difference Through Education, Modern Learning, self reflection

The drive

Hands up if you’ve ever wondered what goes on in the minds of the drivers on the road around you?

Recent commutes to school and to shopping feel more like scenes out of a Mad Max movie, except with snow storms instead of sand storms. Vehicles speeding, tailgating, weaving, cutting one another off, and then there were some drivers who provided visual proof that not all birds have flown south this winter. However, none of this reflects anything close to the spirit of kindness and giving this season is supposed to celebrate.

Lately, a combination of work-life/Geo-political stress, an over-abundance of festivities/holiday cheeriness, and wintry weather have made people significantly more interesting. And by interesting, I mean disagreeable, distracted and sometimes dangerous. Being easily distracted myself, I started thinking about self-driving cars and how an autonomous vehicle would handle this time of year?¹

Then came a realization that our current cohort of elementary students could be among the first to have self-driving cars by the time they get their driver’s licences. Will this be a good thing or will a Neo-Luddite backlash prevent this particular advancement in technology from coming? What about education? Could classrooms become more autonomous too?

Why hasn’t all of this happened sooner when it could be better and safer for everyone? Are there Edu-Luddites at work trying to preserve exhausted and traditional systems? As education ploughs into this century, will it keep pace with a modern world that is changing at the speed of learning? Will broke down dogmas of teach, test, report, and repeat finally be traded-in, repaired, or left on the side of the road? Is this why NASCAR is so popular?

Getting somewhere

Speaking of NASCAR, I wondered whether everyone travelling at the same rate was a good idea. Did you know there is something called a restrictor-plate? Isn’t that what’s happening in our classrooms already? Students race through their learning based on birth years, circling the track over and over until all of their age appropriate laps are completed, and then they’re towed or driven off at the end of Grade 12.

But what if they need to stop along the way? Are there pit-stops/provisions in place to support students who do not fit the factory learning model or who prefer a different pace? I get that special and alternative education options are already available, but what if more students need them and they are not available? Think of a racer who needs tires and gas at a pit-stop, but only being able to choose one. It’s only a matter of time before frustration and failure become the outcomes.

In my next post I want to continue driving home this theme, but will shift gears to consider where we and our students are heading. Please read my companion piece The destination to continue the journey.

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed it. Please share and take time to comment.

1. Did you know that Tesla’s autonomous vehicles are logging over a million miles of data per day?

Michelle Fenn Challenging Topics, Classroom Management, Constant Learning, Equity, General, Inspiring Teachers, Mindfulness, Occasional Teachers, Occasional Teaching, Planning, Professional Judgement, self reflection, solidarity, Wellness

Occasional Teachers; Unsung Heroes

Unfortunately, I have had many health challenges this year that have necessitated having to take a significant amount of time off of work to recuperate.  These absences have provided me time to reflect on my practice as a classroom teacher and about how important occasional teachers are in our practice.  I had the pleasure of working in our local ETFO office as a released officer for 3 years alongside the incredible Marsha Jones, Occasional Teacher President extraordinaire.  She taught me a lot about Occasional Teachers, the obstacles they face and the little things that I could do to make their days go easier.  I thought I would share a few of my insights.

Occasional Teachers that come to our school like to return because of the friendly atmosphere.  In the staff room, they are included in our “tea days”, people engage them in conversation and always ask how they can be of help.  It sounds like a simple thing, but many of the Occasional Teachers that come to our school comment on our friendly staff.  So the next time you see an Occasional Teacher in your school, smile and say hello and ask them how their day is going.

Do NOT ask an Occasional Teacher “who” they are for the day.  What an insult!  You can ask who they are in for, who they are helping out, who they are rescuing or replacing, but they are themselves each and every day they come to work.  We should appreciate the fact that we have access to qualified teachers to replace us for the day so that we can take sick days when we need them or go to conferences for professional learning.

Speaking of insults, please try not to call Occasional Teachers “substitute” or “supply” teachers.  We rely on these colleagues. “Occasional Teacher” is their job title.  Be respectful of it; we rely on them.

Remember to have a few days of “emergency” plans in advance of your absence.  It takes the edge of having to type up plans in between trips to the washroom when you have the flu.  Leave them in a place that is easy for the Occasional Teacher to find.  This makes your life easier too.

If you generally have an active classroom that engages in centres, activities etc., then TRUST your Occasional Teacher and leave plans that include those lessons.  Chances are your students know how this stuff runs and will let the Teacher know.  It may mean giving up a bit of control; deal with it.  If you leave all day seat work that you’ve photocopied or a movie that isn’t connected to anything that they are doing in the classroom, it will not be enjoyable for the students and likely your Occasional Teacher will have more behaviour issues.  Consequently, you will not get the quality of work that you normally see from your students. Don’t have huge expectations.  No matter how wonderful the Occasional Teacher may be, they are not you and the students know that.  We also need to remember to trust the judgment of an Occasional Teacher.  I’ve heard it and I’ve said it; “The ‘supply’ didn’t follow my day plan. I worked for hours on that detailed plan.”  We don’t know what kind of a day that teacher had with our students.  They may have experienced a lockdown, fire drill, class evacuation, pizza money, scholastic money, a student injury or even a skating field trip.  (My sincere thanks to Occasional Teacher Rachel Johnston on that one!)  We need to remember that they are qualified teachers and they have the right to exercise their professional judgment in order to keep the class calm and engaged.  Let them do their job and thank them for it.

I write my day plans on my computer for myself each week.  This makes writing a day plan for the Occasional Teacher much easier.  I have all of my emergency information, how to deal with specific students, who to count on and the general rules and routines in a separate document to attach to daily plans.  I always attach a class list.  Try to keep your plans as close to the regular routine as possible.  If I am going to be away for a meeting I will try to find out who will be replacing me for the day and I email them the plans in advance and ask if they have any questions.  I include my cell phone number in case they can’t find a password or an item and few of them ever use it but if they do then I know that they care about my students and the plans that I have left for them.

Finally, show your gratitude.  Some Occasional Teachers drive an hour to get to our school and in bad weather.  Some are called at the very last minute, through traffic, to an unfamiliar school using GPS.  Their mornings are often stressful before they even arrive on site.  So when an Occasional Teacher has done a great job and your classroom is still standing when you go in the next day, write a quick email and say thank you. Occasional Teaching is often a thankless job but we can’t be sick without these wonderful people.

 

Tammy Axt General

Dealing with a particularly challenging parent

There are so many steps that you can take to develop strong relationships with parents, such as staying in regular contact, contacting them at the first sign of trouble or inviting them to be a part of their child’s learning. For most parents, developing a trusting relationship with their child’s teacher can be achieved when they feel informed and are part of the decisions made about their child’s progress.

However, since we work with the public, we also teach the children of some parents who are impaired in their ability to work with others due to a variety of reasons. These reasons may include mental health concerns, addiction or emotional or physical abuse. Over the past ten years, I have interacted with parents who have been physically aggressive in parent teacher interviews, disparaging to their child in public settings and have been so intoxicated that we had to call the authorities to ensure that the child had a safe way to get to their home. These parents make up such a small part of the large group of amazing parents that I have worked with over the past ten years. These parents are also the ones that have caused me the most stress and challenges when trying to establish a positive relationship.

I feel like I have learned some things from my mistakes in the beginning of my teaching career when dealing with volatile parents.

Be transparent and document, document, document everything. At the first sign of trouble, start documenting all interactions in a parent log, in detail. If a volatile parent makes outlandish accusations or complaints, the easiest way to defuse the situation is to have proof to the contrary. E-mail or speak to your admin about the parent as soon as you suspect trouble, so that they are aware of a potential need for assistance.

You are not there to be abused. I tried desperately to deal with everything by myself earlier in my career. I wanted to show my principal that I could handle the tough situations. However, in the process, profanities were being shouted at me regularly and I was becoming quite fearful of going to work. No one should ever feel afraid to go to work. Do not try to deal with this alone.

Depersonalize. This is the hardest rule to follow for most teachers because teaching is so very personal. We spend countless hours worried about the well being of our students and planning the perfect modifications to ensure our students’ success, so looking at the situation analytically is tough. However, I can logically realize that I am not the reason that an adult has a substance abuse problem and I am not the reason that they have mental health challenges. I have not abused this person, fired them, divorced them, evicted them or stolen their money. All of these things can lead to a general aggression that sometimes is misguided and is wrongly directed at teachers. All of these things also have nothing to do with me.

Stay calm. When someone is yelling at you, it is very hard to stay calm, however, it is very important. You have an obligation to follow the professional standards outlined by the OCT. Also, if your student is there, it is imperative that they have an example of an adult interacting with respect and integrity. They only get this example if you stay calm, professional and respectful. Calmly call for assistance if there is a parent acting in a way that is volatile. Allow the administration to intervene and remove the parent.

If your administration is unsupportive, call your local union office. They will be able to help you in dealing with unsupportive principals and give you guidance about how to proceed.

Finally, try to have compassion. Again, this is very hard when you are fearful or getting little support from administration. However, everyone can agree that living with mental health issues is very difficult. At the end of the day, though, the person who needs the most compassion is your student. This stressful, volatile and aggressive adult is who your student goes home to every day.

 

Tammy Axt Differentiated Instruction, Diverse Learning Needs, General

Modifying music for a student with special needs

I have been working with the amazing ERF Ms. B to develop a program for one of my students with autism who is in my mainstream grade four classroom. This student has so many talents and I feel that the program that we have developed for him is allowing him to show his talents to us and his peers. He is very limited verbally, so we have focused on playing the xylophone and recorder and using technology, which he is excelling at. The predictability of the routine has also supported him in his success.

The period is broken down into four parts for him.

Part One- Warm up

All of the students in grade four have been working on playing the recorder in November and December. At the beginning of every period, we sit together and do some simple warm ups with the notes B, A, G, E and D. My student with autism joins us for the warm up and, with assistance from Ms. B, plays at the same time as the rest of the class but not necessarily the same notes. This warm up is usually just a few minutes long.

Part Two- Independent Work/Peer Assessment/Creation Time

All of the students in the class are working on a variety of songs at their own level. At this point in the class, I am giving individual students feedback, pulling small groups for guided instruction and assessing the students’ ability to read and play a variety of pieces of music. Ms. B works with my student to play the same songs as the rest of the students. His music just looks a little different.

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Each colour represents a bar on a xylophone and the black bars are for rests and extended notes. The little notes are for eighth notes so that he plays them more quickly. You can see below him working with Ms. B.

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In addition to playing for Ms. B, we have also recently done peer listening assessments in my class. The students were required to play for five other students so that they could listen to feedback from others.  You can see how I have modified the assignment from the recorder to the xylophone for this student.

Recorder

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Xylophone

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During this time, students are also required to write some of their own music. I have simply written out some blank squares and had this student colour in some choices and play it for me.

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Part three- Rhythm Games

On my iPad, I have loaded some rhythm games for my student to play. The game below is Rhythm Cat, which many of my students really enjoy playing. Ms. B uses a timer so that there is a visual cue for the time allowed on the iPad.  The rest of the class does some sharing during this time.

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Part Four-Tidy up and celebration

This year I have made a celebration wall to acknowledge the achievements of my students. My students have signed the coloured paper that coordinates with the song they have successfully played. By playing the xylophone with colour coded bars, my amazing student has passed the first three songs and is working on the fourth, which is right on par with his classmates. He has signed his name happily and his classmates have cheered him on every step of the way!

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Kelly.McLaughlin General

Music project

Hello all,

I thought I would share about the music project my students have been working on lately. They were asked to remix a holiday song in preparation for the holiday assembly. This post is mostly to share how incredible children are 🙂

My students had no boundaries for this project and here are some of the directions my students have taken this project:

  • creating their own song on garageband with holiday rap lyrics
  • using a music writing software called musescore to write a combination of four songs creating a holiday spin on all of them
  • creating their own beat on garageband and playing a pre-existing song to an incredible sped up tempo
  • using boomwhackers and bells to recreate holiday songs
  • using the drum kit to create a beat to little drummer boy while having a singer on top of that beat

It’s incredible to see how children can take something as simple as “remix and song” and find many ways to incorporate their own ideas and talents. I think that you can do this with any project and asking students to try to go above and beyond often inspires them to do more. This was a question my principal spoke to me about, asking students to self reflect on what inspires them to go above and beyond? Also, why do they select that option when given it rather than just always trying to go above and beyond. I invite others to try out this music task for any project really but keeping the expectation simple often invites students to go crazy with it! Obviously my rubric was detailed but the expectations were clear and had lots of room for imagination. I hope to post some of the final projects on this blog!

Happy Holidays everyone!

Michelle Fenn Challenging Topics, Classroom Management, Communication Tools, Communication with Parents and Guardians, Diverse Learning Needs, General, Mindfulness, Professional Judgement, Resilience, self reflection

The Conundrum of Parent Communication

4 years ago I discovered the app Seesaw which is a digital portfolio for students but way more.  Recently it also added a direct parent communication piece which I absolutely love and I can also post announcements all at once to parents or just to a few by the click of a button.  The best thing about the app for me is that the students can upload their own work and comment on it and I can provide feedback.  I approve everything before it goes on the site. Parents LOVE it.  For me, it does everything that I need a communication app to do.  So what’s the issue?

3 years ago our school board got a contract with Edsby. I understand that as a school board it is accessible in many ways for all teachers.  There is system information that is on the site that can be accessed from anywhere.  There is a platform for staff room chat and places to post things on calendar etc.,  However I do not find that it is friendly for teachers nor students to use.  The mobile app is glitchy and I get frustrated at the stream of conversations that don’t seem to match up.   I have been told by our administration that we have to use it to communicate with parents.  All but two of my parents have signed up for Seesaw (internet access issues) and only a quarter have signed up for Edsby.  I don’t know why exactly, but I can only assume that they don’t find it as friendly to use.  I do paper copies for major announcements to ensure that everyone gets those in one way or another.  I use Edsby to comply to my school board’s request and I’m doubling my work in the meantime.

When I first began teaching it was a big deal to have a “monthly” newsletter and calendar of events go home to parents. Principals wanted to see copies and approve them before they went home.  Now we are in constant communication with parents and we are being told exactly what platform we are supposed to be using in order to do it.  There is a huge workload issue in parent communication and it creeps up on us daily.  With an increase in high needs students that deal with behavioural or mental health issues teachers are expected to communicate on a daily basis in a communication book with their families.  While I understand the need for documentation for myself and for the parents, the expectation is overwhelming.  I am fortunate this year that I have my preparation time at the end of the day and I can take the time to communicate with parents.  However, I don’t get to use my prep time for lesson preparation.  I don’t know what the answer is here.  I’m going to continue to use my professional judgement about how I communicate with parents however, hopefully this post will begin a discussion about communication overload.  I’m open for suggestions on how others are able to manage!

 

 

 

Michelle Fenn Anti-bullying, Building Inclusion, Challenging Topics, Classroom Management, Diverse Learning Needs, Equity, General, Inspiring Students, Integration, Learning About Your Students, Learning in a Real Life Context, Making a Difference Through Education, Mentorship, Social Justice, Students as Teachers

Kindness and Gratitude

My hope in asking for a junior division assignment was that the students would be more independent however, I also knew that in exchange, I would be likely dealing with the issues of the tumultuous “tween” years.  My expectations for this group were particularly high because I had taught nearly half of them for two years in grades 1 and 2 and I felt as though I knew them pretty well.  Unfortunately, we have been having social issues in our classroom and the students are having difficulty treating each other with kindness.  I wasn’t prepared to have to “teach” kindness and gratitude at this age.  After 20 years in the primary grades, I suppose I assumed they would already know how to be kind.  Let me be clear.  They are not horrible kids and having raised two kids through the “tweenage” years I know the behaviour is driven by hormones etc.,  Kindness becomes more complicated in the junior grades as the social constructs change and being popular and fitting in becomes that much more important.  What I’m trying to get across to the students is that kindness is actually more powerful than being mean but they aren’t yet all buying into it…yet.  I’m not giving up.

We started by reading the book “Wonder” by R.J. Palacio together as a class.   After every few pages there was so much to unpack in discussion with the students about empathy, “precepts” for living and loyalty in friendship.  In discussions, the students were easily able to empathize the injustices suffered by Auggie and were angered by the actions of the antagonist, Julian. We also went to see the movie in order to compare the stories and they thoroughly enjoyed the experience and were thoughtful in their assessment of the themes and the major differences.  In reality, however, they were having a hard time putting all of this knowledge into practice with one another.

I needed to dig a little deeper and do some research and I happened upon a great website connected to the book; #choosekind is a campaign attached to Palacio’s book and it started us on a journey of kindness.  We’ve also been using lesson plans from the Random Acts of Kindness website and have begun daily gratitude journals.  We started restorative circles using our talking stick using Restorative Circle prompts. We have created our rules and agreement for our circle.  It has been a slow start because we are starting with topics that are allowing students to relate to one another and are not value or character based sensitive topics yet as we work to build trust in the circle.  Our first couple of prompts were, “What are 3 things that you cannot live without?” and “Who is your hero?” Not everyone is able to come up with something right away and sometimes we have to circle back, but it is a beginning.

We also wanted to do something as a class that was more global and would make an impact on people whom we didn’t even know.  In Peterborough, we have a store called Under One Sun.  They are part of a larger organization that supplies crafts from artisans in Haiti, “Restoring Dignity Through Artistry”.   We decided to participate in a Christmas ornament fundraiser which helps to create jobs and sustain families in Haiti. Some of the money goes to the artisans for healthcare, childcare, education and materials and some of the money comes back to the school.  Our class of 22 students alone sold more than $1000.00 worth of ornaments.  This fundraiser makes a difference in our community and for families living in Haiti and broadens our student’s awareness of global issues of poverty.  In addition, we are going to learn how to make paper bead jewelry ourselves as gifts for our own families.

As we move into the holiday season, December is a great month to think about giving, gratitude and kindness.  We are going to be working with the Senior Centre down the street, hanging our art work, singing songs to entertain and presenting a dramatic re-telling of “A Promise is a Promise” written by Robert Munsch.  We have created a kindness calendar which includes random acts of kindness for each day that do not cost money.  Hopefully, day by day, discussion by discussion the students will come to realize the power of kindness.