Making a Difference Through Education

May 31, 2019 Arianna Lambert 21st Century Learning, Constant Learning, Making a Difference Through Education, The Global Competencies

Long-Range Plans

Alright, now I know that some of you saw the title for this post and thought, “Seriously? Long-range planning now? It’s almost the end of the school year. I’m just trying to make it through!” Well, if you still gave me a chance and clicked to take a read, I thank you. This post comes out of a conversation that I had with a colleague through email earlier this week.

In April, I had the chance to visit her classroom to see the design project that students had been working on all year. It wasn’t a project that was taking them all year to work on but it was a magical experience where one piece of learning connected to another, and then another, and another. While students were developing a deep sense of community and empathy for the experiences of others, they too were uncovering how their communities can become greater places for acceptance and inclusion. While emailing back and forth, sharing pictures of student work in action, she said the following:

“There aren’t any ‘long-range plans’ that can foresee the type of community a class will become.”

While this was in context of the work that was happening in this class, I got a huge “ah ha” moment when I started to think about how I go about creating my long-range plans. I usually sit down and start to think about what grade(s) I’m teaching and go through curriculum resources to see which big ideas relate to events or times of year that might be better for authentic experiences and set about planning from there. While I like to think that I hold to what is in my plans, I know that they should be seen as a “living” document in the sense that it must reflect the abilities, needs and interests of the students it serves. While these are big ideas for our units of study, student inquiries may lead them in specific directions. My plan is mainly an outline which may be altered based on student needs. I often make this explicit to parents during curriculum nights. But now as I think of it, the learning that my colleague, Barbara Robson, was referring too was so much more than specific curriculum, but I would dare say that it was perhaps that hidden curriculum, whereby students are learning skills that go beyond the content that we are supposed to be teaching. This got me further thinking about how I might be able to go about planning differently in future.

What if in addition to of outlining the curriculum, which I still think is important to know where you’re going within the guidelines set forth for us; the plans also included the specific skills (or the hidden curriculum) we wanted to develop with students? What if my long-range planning was more intentional and included specific opportunities where I was going to work on creating experiences for students that developed their critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity? What might that look like? How might I help students explicitly understand that this is also the “curriculum” that we are working to uncover while engaging them in the curriculum from the Ministry of Education? Would this help students be able to speak to the changes that they were noticing in themselves over time in these areas? Would that make for interesting parent-teacher interviews if we empowered students to speak to these skills along with knowledge acquisition and the synthesis of information to create?

I just threw out a lot of questions there and I’m really interested in how educators are working towards helping students explicitly and intentionally building a transferable skillset over time. We know that the workforce is evolving and as educators, part of our mandate is supporting the development of the skills in students. I’m starting to think about what September might bring and I wonder if the interweaving of the curriculum I’m given, along with the “hidden curriculum” that we know students need, into my long-range plans might make for more intentional work.

We’re winding down for the school year and this might be food for thought for the coming year. Already doing great things around skill development explicitly and intentionally with students? I would love to hear about it!

May 31, 2019 Arianna Lambert Building Inclusion, LGBTQ2S, Making a Difference Through Education, Resources, wellness

Pride

June is here! Well…almost. When I think of June, I am reminded of Pride. And while I think that every day should be filled with inclusivity in all its forms, I know that this doesn’t happen in all spaces. In this post, I would like to highlight two of the amazing resources that ETFO has to offer as we continue conversations around equity and inclusion, specifically for members of the LGBTQ Community.

While this year is slated to mark 50 years since the decriminalization for members of the LGBTQ community in Canada, we know that members continue to face issues of inequity and discrimination on an ongoing basis. In classrooms and schools, now more than ever, I believe that students need to know that these spaces must have room for everyone. In education, everyone deserves to see their whole selves represented and as educators, we have an onus to do just that, no matter of our own biases.

ETFO believes that LGBTQ education and training creates safer working and learning conditions for everyone. As such, on their site, you’ll find an abundance of resources. They have made the work of creating inclusive environments more accessible for educators. I’m highlighting two resources that I think would be incredible opportunities to guide meaningful conversations within classrooms.

The LGBTQ Education Timeline

For the 2014 World Pride, the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives (CLGA) and Pride Toronto collaborated to create an LGBTQ Education Timeline poster. The poster was created to show the historical changes in LGBTQ education and issues in Canada. In 2016, ETFO collaborated with the CLGA to update the timeline and add an accompanying booklet.

Like a bulletin board with memorabilia of important events you’ve gathered over time, the poster is spectacular in its display of information in a clear and concise way for students to be able to read and understand. While the poster gives a visual representation of historical events, the booklet includes more descriptions and links throughout and in the reference section that gives even more in depth information. The purpose of these resources is for educators to gain knowledge for themselves and to use within their classrooms. While digging in, I found myself both being ashamed for not taking the time before to educate myself more and amazed by all of the work that has gone on so far. I think the poster might be a great jumping off point for students in middle or high school to consider what has already been done and what new or innovative ideas they might like to create within their own school communities. The idea being to bring awareness to current issues and as a call for action for greater inclusivity.

The Every Teacher Project on LGBTQ-Inclusive Education in Canada’s K-12 Schools

The Every Teacher Project Recommendations Toolkit is the culmination of a national research effort to advance knowledge on LGBTQ-inclusive education. This Toolkit is a guide to support the implementation of the Every Teacher Project recommendations for all levels of the school system. It was developed for use by teachers, teacher organizations, and others wanting to support the development of LGBTQ-inclusive schools.

I have to start off by saying that the glossary of terms was extremely helpful. For me, understanding, especially as it relates to terminology, is an essential first step when we think about gaining a greater awareness. For that alone, I would say that this resource was phenomenal.

I also really love the appendices with a wealth of further resources. I especially appreciated page 207 which included Days of Awareness/Events and their significance. I’m learning more and more the value that celebrating these days – and not just for the sake of celebrating but for the acknowledgement of individuals for whom these days are significant – is important to students. The more we highlight for our students the significance these days represent, the greater capacity for empathy we are able to build as students learn to understand the experiences of others. That empathy can lead to actionable change as they are either supported and accepted or work to become allies.

The above are just two of many resources available on the site. Please take a look and some time to reflect on your own biases, knowledge and classroom practice. If conversations around equity and inclusion haven’t already been happening in classrooms and schools, there is still a few more weeks to go. Take some time to dig into these resources for yourself and have brave conversations in your classrooms. I’ve said it before, as educators we are in the unique position to help our students develop empathy and to support the next generation as they are eager to create change in the world. Our classrooms and schools need to be safe places for them to be able to do this work!

Happy Pride!

May 21, 2019 Michelle Fenn Classroom Management, Constant Learning, Inspiring Teachers, Making a Difference Through Education, Mindfulness, Professional Learning and Growth, Wellness

Don’t Judge a Teacher By The Bulletin Board

I remember going to the Reading for the Love of It Conference in Toronto for the first time as a fairly new teacher. I heard Mary Bigler speak in a motivational keynote address. She told a story that has stuck through me through the years. It was about a brand new teacher who was full of energy, enthusiasm, great “new” ideas and some judgement about her “older” colleague across the hall that taught the next grade. This young teacher, (let’s call her Samantha), made sure that students were working in co-operative groups and made the learning exciting and engaging. The teacher across the hall (let’s call her Eunice) had a structured, desks-in-rows, routine program and a quiet classroom. Samantha often stayed after school into her evenings changing her bulletin boards and arranging desks into new formations. Eunice would often leave shortly after the bell and sometimes her bulletin board was empty! Throughout the year this Samantha considered her program to be superior. She had learned all of these “new” strategies in teacher’s college and looked upon the program of her colleague as being antiquated. She loved hearing that she was the “fun” and “best” teacher. However, no matter what Samantha tried there were students who she could not seem to reach. She tried all of the strategies that she had learned and she felt that she had given her all. When it was time to send her students on to the Eunice for the next grade, Samantha was distraught. Certainly the students would not do as well as they had in her engaging program. They would be bored and wouldn’t thrive within the rigid structure Eunice’s classroom. Would those “unreachable” students fall further behind?

Samantha was surprised by what she witnessed in the fall with “her” students. The students that had experienced her “exciting” program were also enjoying Eunice’s classroom. They talked with excitement about what they were reading and writing and referred to Eunice as being the “best” teacher. The few students who Samantha couldn’t seem to reach were thriving with the routine, quiet and structure of their new classroom. Samantha learned a few things during that first year experience:

1. You can’t judge a teacher by the bulletin board. The culture of a classroom can only be truly experienced by the students. We don’t really know what goes on behind the closed classroom door of a colleague.

2. Every teacher has a different skill set. Although Samantha was an engaging and exciting teacher, the students that she couldn’t reach thrived in a routine and structured environment.

3. Children can have short memories. In the primary grades, the “best” and “favourite” teacher often changes each year to their new classroom teacher. It isn’t personal. It is about the reference point of a six year old.

4. Comparing ourselves to other teachers doesn’t serve the students. Working longer hours doesn’t always mean that a teacher is more effective, it might mean that they are less efficient. Teachers with experience likely have a better understanding of the curriculum and can rely on lessons that they have previously prepared. Teachers who have an understanding of work-life balance also may have more energy to offer their students.

5. The experienced teacher across the hall has years of experience with strategies to serve the needs of students. Instead of judging; ask for their help. Most of them would be more than happy to share their strategies and wisdom with a colleague.

It isn’t about being “Teacher of the Year”. It is about being the teacher that your students need.

May 13, 2019May 13, 2019 Kelly.McLaughlin 21st Century Learning, Celebrating Success, Constant Learning, Curriculum Planning, Differentiated Instruction, Inquiry, Inspiring Students, Inspiring Teachers, Learning in a Real Life Context, Making a Difference Through Education, Professional Learning and Growth, Resources, self reflection, Technology in school, Use of Technology, Using technology well

Collaborative Inquiry Celebration

The other day, many teachers from across my school board gathered together to share with other educators how their year long inquiry project went. As I have mentioned in previous posts, mine was about starting our own business as a class and inspiring my students through leadership. I shared with the other educators these successful stories from our project “8A TREATS”:

how many of my less successful students with traditional subjects have been excelling during this project
the success my students had with gathering data from classes around the school
collecting permission forms from the entire school
advertising by making imovies, posters and using a dinosaur mascot to travel around with a fake smoothie
tallying the smoothie results for flavours and sizes with spreadsheets
counting and tracking the money with spreadsheets
find and then order paper straws from Amazon to be environmentally friendly
working with a budget that was donated from the student success foundation
designing logos as a class, voting on the best one and then collaborating with a clothing design company to recreate this on their products
painting and creating a wall in our classroom that will be the location behind our brand
creating a video to explain the project as well as talk about our favourite parts

(<<<our student create wall)

Our next steps with our project:

doing the math to find out how much of each ingredient we will now (plus extra) to make the smoothies
ordering the cups
setting up our classroom as a pop-up smoothie store
making 340+ smoothies on June 6th with our 22 students

It was very exciting sharing this project with my fellow educators. My students were very excited knowing that this project was shared with other teachers. They were proud when I told them how excited other teachers were to find out about this student centered initiative.

There were other educators who shared exciting inquiry projects:

My colleague Lydia shared about her “Community Helpers” project where her grade one students inquired in various ways about the many community helpers in our neighbourhood. She had a guest police officer come by as well as had the students use their hands to explore various jobs. They were able to build, play with food as well as research all of the jobs available to them. The final touch was when my grade eight class came to help them put their thoughts together in an inquiry package. It was great to see her students so passionate about their future. To find out about her project, you can visit her twitter account @AppolonialydiaL. You can also view her project on this link <iframe class=”wp-block-mexp-vimeo hwdsb-tv” src=”//hwdsb.tv/media/grade-one-collaborative-inquiry-2019/?embed=true” width=”560″ height=”315″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe>
Teachers used a choice board to give students options when creating or completing tasks. These boards are made in collaboration with the teacher at the beginning of the year to go over all of the ways that presenting or completing every day tasks can be done that year. Apps are explored and used in new and innovative ways. I cannot wait to create a choice board in my literacy class next year. There was also a SAMR model student choice matrix that was introduced to us. It’s not the app that makes the project/task, it is how it’s used.
I also heard about makerspaces from one of my other colleagues Cara. She introduces these daily in her library and students are able to create very interesting projects from her instruction cards set up at the tables. They are always able to be creative, explore and build in her library. They also explore media literacy during these creative library sessions.

There were many other projects I could not get to since we only had a half hour to explore and the other half hour was to share about our own projects. Some other apps worth checking out are: seesaw, read&write, book creator, keynote, canva, geogebra, TC studio and pear deck.

May 3, 2019 Michelle Fenn 21st Century Learning, Advocacy for change, Building Inclusion, Coding, Constant Learning, Equity, Gender Equity, Gender stereotypes, General, Genius Hour, Inquiry, Inspiring Students, Inspiring Teachers, Integration, Learning in a Real Life Context, Making a Difference Through Education, Math, Mentorship, Modern Learning, Planning, Professional Learning and Growth, Resilience, Resources, Robotics, Technology, Technology in school, The Global Competencies, Use of Technology, Using technology well, Women at Work

The Gender Gap in Technology

According to a recent report* by ICTC (the Information and Technology Information Council) Canadian women represent about 50% of the overall workforce but represent only 25% of the technology industry workforce. Of the 100 major tech companies in Canada only 5 have female CEOs and 1 Co-CEO. 26% of the tech companies have no women in senior leadership at all. There is a gender wage gap in the industry of $7,000-$20,00 per year. When I read these statistics I wondered as educators, what can we do about the gender gap in technology? This is not an exhaustive list, but it is a place to begin:

1. Build her confidence in her abilities.

2. Cultivate a community of supportive peers.

3. Provide a STEM/STEAM club for girls.

4. Ensure that access to technology and computer experiences is encouraged and inclusive.

5. Foster interest in computing careers.

6. Be a role model as a LEARNER.

May 11th is National Girls Learning Code Day. If you are looking to encourage coders in your school, why not begin on May 11th? Below you will find links to resources for beginning coding. Many students code on their own at home and may appreciate the opportunity to mentor fellow students. The resources attached will get you started. There is no special equipment or robotics required. Teachers do not have to be expert coders to encourage their students. Teachers can be role models of resilience, risk taking and problem solving by learning alongside their students. Teachers only need to open the door and expose their students to the opportunities.

Girls Who Code Canada

National Girls Learn Code Day

*Cutean, A., Ivus, M. (2017). The Digital Talent Dividend: Shifting Gears in a Changing Economy. Information and Communications Technology Council (ICTC). Ottawa, Canada.

Elaborated and written by Alexandra Cutean (Director, Digital Innovation Research and Policy). and Maryna Ivus (Senior Analyst, Research and Policy) with generous support from the ICTC Research and Policy Team.

May 1, 2019 Will Gourley Advocacy for change, Advocacy for public education, Challenging Topics, General, Making a Difference Through Education, Occasional Teachers, Occasional Teaching, solidarity, Why unions matter

Remember to breathe (as you continue to inspire others)

I checked in on a few of my former student teachers today. Each of whom are shining examples of professionalism, commitment, and creativity in their classrooms. They have been on my mind alot lately, as daily news of the government sponsored attrition games occupy headlines and conversations across the province. I am sure they represent the hundreds, even thousands of new educators who have recently joined our calling.

It’s rough out there right now, and for many new hires to school boards the uncertainties of the day are leaving many wondering what the future holds? For each one of these amazing educators, things are changing and there is not much they can do to about it until the facts and figures are finalized. It must be difficult to know that the educational landscape is shaking beneath so many feet. We all need something to hold on through the experience.

Sharing what we have in the emotional toolbox may be all that can be done for now. I encourage everyone to keep checking in on one another as we remain united and ride out the storm. A call, an email, or time for a cup of coffee could provide a little needed encouragement. I have noticed that even veteran teachers are feeling the tension of these days too. I have caught myself stress eating, acting a little more impatient than usual, and struggling for motivation. I’ve taken to breathing exercises to slow down my busy mind. Perhaps it’s the unknowns of it all that are keeping me off my game?

To get a sense of it all I have been turning to Andrew Campbell. He curates Ontario Education Cuts. This is a list of announcements and projections from school boards and grade panels that challenges the message being delivered by the province to the public and school boards about job losses, shrinking course offerings, expanding class sizes, and shifts to online instruction.

The information and numbers in this document seem to add up differently than political messages about job losses over time due to attrition and attrition alone. Maybe there is a Math Curriculum revision opportunity in the works here since such skewed accounting discrepancies exist?

What we all need is to have the complete set of numbers to work with before we can truly provide assurances to our new teachers that there will be jobs for them in education.

I remind myself that I am surrounded by incredibly dedicated and caring professionals whose lives are dedicated to making the world a better place. Stay informed. Stay encouraged. Be strong. We are all here to support and lift each other up when things get rough. Sometimes it might be a time for a cup of coffee and a conversation. Other times, it might be a simple reminder to breathe.

May 1, 2019 Will Gourley Advocacy for public education, Challenging Topics, General, Inspiring Teachers, Making a Difference Through Education, Social Justice, solidarity, Teaching as a public profession, Why unions matter

Bursting bubbles

POP!
What’s
that sound?
Fear and loss,
dreams – on hold,
watching, without a
voice as opportunity
is cut and cancelled.
For the people, or
for their bank
accounts?

Doubts – fill the staffroom.
Murmurs – echo down the halls.
Uncertainties – buzz through minds.

Bubbles – bursting before they are even formed.
Cuts like needles meant to pierce hearts and minds.

Are preparations being made for a classless class war?
Why has education been made the enemy in our province?

They say the bitter pills prescribed in government cuts must be taken or else there won’t be a future and that everyone must sacrifice because this mess is nobody’s and everybody’s fault. Yet, why aren’t elected officials in line for the same medicine that they’re prescribing? We hear tonnes of sound bites and sound bluffs. We see posturing on every stump, but where are the planters and peace makers after the forest that is public education has been razed?

We see fingers pointing in every direction because everyone is worried more about the colour of the ink on the spreadsheet than the lives that it will stain to change it.

What message is being sent to our youth by the adults, who cannot get along? The same adults making decisions about their futures? We ask our students to advocate, invest, and dedicate to their potential. We teach them to think critically, consider the facts, and make good choices. We expect students to buy into a better system, but it has already been sold out by the ones elected to take care of it.

Investing in our youth and their education should never come at a cost of denying them anything less than what their predecessors and parents had before them. Opportunity cost may be a term from an Economics textbook to understand the potential for a loss by doing something else. When we consider where things are heading in schools over the next few years, the money saved will never make up for the lost opportunity, innovation, and productivity, or the imminent financial and social costs.

Remember. Quality only hurts once. Our students are worth it. The work we provide prepares and protects them to possess a future. Our youth cannot be blamed for the mistakes of those who leveraged their futures before they were ever born. We cannot let another bubble burst and expect their children to pay for it.

April 22, 2019April 25, 2019 Deb Weston Advocacy for public education, Learning About Your Students, Making a Difference Through Education, Professional Learning and Growth

The Courage to Teach

In this very challenging time of education cutbacks, teachers are on the edge. They wonder how long they will keep their jobs and what will classrooms be like in the next school year.

Losing your job as a teacher is not just about losing a job, it is about losing the work that you do to challenge your spirit to make a difference – it is about losing your heart. When teachers teach, they teach through resources no other person possesses, their identity as a teacher and as a learner and as an adult who cares about students. As a teacher of over 19 years, I know that students can tell the difference between teachers who care and teachers who do not care – and this impacts how students learn.

Parker Palmer (2007, p. 11) puts it simply “Good teaching cannot be reduced to technique; good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher.”

When teachers teach, they are connected to the students, dialed into who the students are and what interests them. Good teachers are always looking for the teachable moment to grab students’ interest and get them excited about learning. “Good teachers possess a capacity for connectiveness. They are able to weave a complex web of connections among themselves, their subjects, and their students so that students can learn to weave a world for themselves” (Palmer, 2007, p. 11). Methods vary depending on the grade level, subject, and opportunity – lectures, Socratic dialogues of questions and answers, experiments, collaborative problem solving, or one on one discussions. It’s all good teaching when connections are made through “the place where intellect and emotion and spirit and will converge in the human self” (Palmer, 2007, p. 11), the heart of a person, a student.

As a teacher I do my best to keep my heart of teaching strong and pliable. I have learned to roll with the challenges of teaching through dealing with challenging students, challenging parents, and sometimes challenging administrators. It is not an easy job to keep heart.

Why do teachers lose heart?

In the daily “work out” of teaching, we are highly vulnerable as we are the centre of attention in the classroom. This is a highly personal job. Students are watching us for who we are and what we represent. Our public and private lives are on the line in classrooms. We must be ourselves but we also must have a suit of self-protection against high levels of criticism that are meant to break us. Teachers will ultimately make mistakes in their teaching, in their assessment, and sometimes in their judgement but I find that students are usually very forgiving, especially if the teacher owns the mistake.

Another reason why teachers lose heart is that teaching can be very challenging. What makes teaching really hard is in seeing the potential of students and identifying the great barriers students face in fulfilling their best self. The challenge is to face with the barriers that limit students’ potential. Human potential gets sidetracked by disability, culture, identity, family, school culture, community, and economics. In having high expectations for all students, teachers make a grand difference in the students’ future. Teaching students how to get around these barriers is key to their social, emotional, and academic growth. When using intuition and identity, teachers discover ways to reach students’ hearts.

To become a really good teacher, it took me over 8 years of practice. That’s about 10,000 hours – Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hour benchmark for achieving success (Gladwell, 2008). In the VITAE (Variations in Teachers’ Work, Lives, and their Effects on Pupils) study, with 300 teachers in 100 schools, that examined influences in teachers’ identities, Day, Sammons, Stobart, Kingston, and Gu (2007) found that teachers reach their highest level of efficacy between year 7 and 8 in teaching.

In the first couple of years of teaching I went from being totally overwhelmed in the joy of teaching to totally overwhelmed with the disappointment of teaching. Some days I was afraid. I was afraid of not being competent enough, not working hard enough, not meeting students’ needs enough, not connecting with students enough, and sometimes not being quick enough when a student threw a chair in my direction (this happened the second week of my first contract).

Even after 19 years of teaching, I still have fears, but I am not these fears. Instead, I teach with courage and resilience and discovery. I teach from curiosity, honesty, hope, empathy, and conviction. I teach from who I am. I teach with heart.

I implore teachers to have the courage to teach in these challenging times. To never surrender to a person who is trying to trivialize your work as something easy and simple and something that can be done by technology … because computers don’t have heart.

Be brave. Teach from your heart.

Collaboratively Yours,

Deb Weston, PhD

References

Day, C., Sammons, P., Stobart, G., Kingston, A., & Gu, Q. (2007). Teachers matter: Connecting lives, work and effectiveness. Maidenhead, UK: Open University.

Gladwell, M. (2008). Outliers: The story of success. Hachette UK.

Palmer, P. J. (2017). The courage to teach: Exploring the inner landscape of a teacher’s life. John Wiley & Sons.

March 31, 2019April 30, 2019 Will Gourley Anti-bullying, General, Making a Difference Through Education, Social Justice, Teacher Appreciation, Teaching as a public profession, Why unions matter

Be Strong in the Face of Poor Government

FDK (too soon)

EQAO (to help real estate $)

Class sizes (to build resilience)

Drill and Kill Math (We’re Open for Worksheets)

Funding formulas (creative govt accounting to underfund boards)

Antiquated HPE curriculum (since no one needs to learn about consent)

Don’t let them fool you.

Despite what the government says to the contrary: public consultation involves asking many more people than a few plum political campaign contributors. The world is not flat, and Ontario has one of the best education systems in the world.

Be strong. We serve over 2 000 000 future voters, taxpayers, and consumers who will be impacted by the short sighted and overt actions of the current government to undermine our profession. Why would anyone want to risk losing 2 000 000 votes to curry favour with businesses who prefer to pad their bottom lines rather than pay their share of taxes. It’s time we start to boycott the companies that lobby our governments for an even slimmer share of their tax obligations while holding jobs over everyone’s heads. It’s time to unite.

Be strong. The work you do has meaning. Yours may be the only kind words and smiles that a child receives each day. That snack you pay for and provide means more to that child than you could ever know. The time you invested in coaching students(teams, academics, life) long before and after the day is done continues to impact their lives long beyond the years in school. You are equipping students to do great things in their own lives and the lives of others.

Be strong. The time you spend learning, creating, and collaborating with colleagues matters. None of us is a strong or as smart as all of us when we work and stand together. Stand together, support each other when times are tough and the government tries to undermine our confidence and that of the public in us with misinformation.

Be strong. You matter. Education matters. Our students matter. We matter. And because we do, it’s time to work, even more closely together, to support one another for the collective good, not the corporate coffer.

Be strong.

March 31, 2019April 2, 2019 Will Gourley Challenging Topics, Classroom Management, Diverse Learning Needs, General, Health & Safety, Making a Difference Through Education, Mental Health, Special Education, Teacher Wellness, Violence in Schools, Why unions matter

Before you get hurt…again.

https://pixabay.com/photos/concrete-space-empty-3161863/

Student: (momentarily non-responsive to verbal interaction) slap, push, slap, hair grab, lunge, slap, yell, cry, run, crouch, cry, calm, apolgize

Staff: (1 CYW, 2 SERT) block, block, reassure, block, supportive stance, reassure, block, redirect, clear space, block, reassure, follow, remain calm, reassure, accept

The slaps(verbal/physical) are like slabs of concrete that a student piles up when they are in distress(feeling helpless, unheard, confused, frustrated, angry, trapped, hurt, and _________).

Our students are using these slabs to construct walls which will insulate and protect them from what they feel are are real threats to their wellbeing, happiness, and safety. All the while, staff are working tirelessly to keep them from walling off completely to the point of hurting themselves or others because the ability for flight has left, and the fight is on…again.

It has been happening a lot more frequently in our classrooms and it knows no age limit as educators are experiencing violence from JK to 12. Has it happened to you? How about to someone in your school?

A 2016/17 survey of elementary teachers showed that 70% of them had experienced or witnessed violence in their schools. That distills down to an average of 7 in 10 educators are on the frontlines of a serious problem. No one wants to work where threats and acts of violence are now daily bi-products of their job? Yet, that’s what many teachers are facing as they enter the classroom each day. Even with NVCI, CPI, SERT, CYW, EA, IBT, BHS, and Social Work support in the building or available from regional teams, incidents are increasing in number and intensity.

Students are taking out their frustration, anger, and anxiety in physical ways directed towards school staff. More than ever, it is being documented and reported more across all age panels. So what’s happening inside our schools where once seemingly uncommon incidents are now daily occurences? All of this cannot simply be dismissed as statistical anomalies.

A reminder

Before you get hurt, or hurt again. Each time a student slaps, bites, kicks, target throws, pushes, strikes with an object etc. a report must be made. If you are injured, seek medical help first. Make sure you tell someone (union rep, admin, a colleague). See the graphic below to make sure you are protected as you have the right to refuse work when you believe workplace violence is likely to endanger you. If you are hurt, it is not the time to play through pain or put on a hero cape. It is your health and well being that must be protected. No one should go to work expecting to be hurt on the job. If you need help, call your union rep or a colleague. Let your voice be heard.

Our schools cannot be left under-supported with an expectation to educate our students in the face of increasing violence and increasingly complex behavioural needs? Our schools need supports in place to ensure safety for all and that includes you.

I will leave you with this final question.

How have spaces of nurture, growth, hope, and community also become places of anxiety, stress, harm, and PTSD for both teachers and students? How are you managing in your school? Please keep the conversation going.

In case you need some more food for thought

Our notifications, news outlets, and social media feeds are filled with stories, images, and video sharing what’s happening. As I draft this post. CBC News shared a disturbing news story that surfaced online involving a teacher being assaulted by several students in Toronto.

Read more about how ETFO has been lobbying our government to address the issues of violence in our schools.

https://www.thestar.com/yourtoronto/education/2017/01/17/teachers-union-raises-alarm-over-rising-violence-in-schools.html