A Little Like Teaching Kids to Brush Their Teeth…

Well, we did it!  My coop, my grade 8s, the dude on the other end of the BlackBerry and I finally have our classroom blogs up and running!  Apparently, the 6^th time is the charm!  Phew!  We have taken 5 full computer periods, used our Prairie South emails to get Google emails, tried edublogs   , tried… well everything it felt like.  We are the first class in our division to use wordpress blogs and I’m very pleased that the space works!

And let me tell you, Mr. Mc and I were frustrated!  And, we’re also very determined!  You know when your kids are little and you’re teaching them how to brush their teeth?  Do you remember how you have to remind them 319 times before they remember on their own to brush their teeth? 

So, there we are, this last week and along one row of computers three boys are discovering the joys of ‘the dashboard!’  Their blog background goes from blue to green to some sort of neon rainbow in a matter of seconds.  Then one of them discovers he can change the name of his blog, they then start testing out the silliest blog titles.  But somewhere in there, they also create pages, and make multiple postings, and ask me, “Hey Ms. S.  What’s the name of the novel we started today?”  By the end of the period, they were going around and teaching others the beauty of the dashboard, and according to my Epic Eights, KEWL is most definitely a word! 

 So what would have happened to toddlers teeth if we stopped after 318?   

 Now, to get my hands on a classroom set of ibooks…

No Seperation

The first few weeks of teaching were rough. I made fine connections with the kids, but what would be deemed as ‘my classroom management’ wasn’t happening for me. I was so very confused. I’ve never struggled with management before. I went to my internship seminar and was reminded about how much is expect from me. I shared with my Middle Years peers my fears and they too could not understand me struggling in this area. Heck, my coop was worried. I was worried. Inside I wondered if the dream of teaching and learning alongside kids was possible, ‘Give up, go be a social worker.’ But the internship seminar also reminded me to relax… that weekend I went home and my mom gave me the Keys to the Kingdom.

“Cori, you know how to deal with Jessy Lee right?”

“Ya..”

“You know how to handle her friends, right?”

 “Ya..”

“Are you ever hesitant or nervous when you’re parenting?”   I looked sideways at my mom and breathed in very deeply.

That was it.  

I can’t be two different people. The trying to separate has never worked for me. I am just no good at pretending. And the kids picked up on it. I went back the next day and walked into the classroom as cori. The kids and I breathed a sigh of relief and I’ve not looked back. After my first lesson I asked Angus what he thought, he remarked, “You were totally different, ya, ya, I don’t know what you did…”

They are all my kids And now, phew, we are happily sharing stories, giving hugs, and laughing together…

Moments of Firsts

This week has been a heck of a week of lasts, my last on-campus university class, my last undergrad stroll through the green.  But then, these last four years have also been a heck of a bunch of moments of firsts. 

 Thursday, for the first time, I went to my school to set up for the start of classes.  I walked out in near panic because I didn‘t have a reading corner in my classroom!  How can I possibly teach well without a reading corner in my classroom.  The students will never learn!

Ok, I’m not completely nuts, I know there are six more desks yet to arrive and the room is already full … and NO to my daughter’s suggestion, “it could always go in that side storage room.”

Dilemma?  Not for the reading corner, but for the lack of preparedness by me.  I was feeling first day of class stress.  I was feeling internship stress… 

Another question: Do I bring my hundreds and hundreds of middle years novels to this class and then take them home with me when I leave in December?  “Hey, Miss S, can read I The Breadwinner over the winter break?”  “Heck no child, give me that book, I’m outta here!”  Oh, give me a break!  Monday I’ll work something out with my coop. 

But The Panic Remained People… Life line number three – “Regis, I’d like to ‘phone a friend!” (Her name is Tanya, and she helped lots.) 

Last year during her internship, she didn’t have time for the guilts or the glitz , she was too busy with students with exceptionalities, extra curricular and, oh yes, 31 kids crammed into a teeny room.  Her reading corner consisted of a table-top station, and Writers and Readers Workshop still went wonderfully.  Her bulletin board was so high she had to get a step ladder and a janitor and then move computers to reach it.  She was too busy to fill her room with guilts or glitz and the kids were having too much fun to care. 

So what did Tan and I talk about Thursday night … well, water actually.  We chatted about the commodification of water, Aboriginal water rights, the Alberta tar sands and collaborating on a version of “one million acts of green.”

You know this note started out about events of firsts in the last four years, but blogging, for me, always turns into something else, it turns into tomorrows, not yesterdays. 

So, here’s to Tuesday, August  25, 2009 my first day…  And that’s really cool.

Ah, The Good Life

On my drive home from class the other night I listened to a delightful interview on CBC radio.  The main idea of the interview centered on a longevity study that put the life of each of its participants under a microscope in the hope to understand what exactly makes a good life.

I caught the beginning of the broadcast as I left Regina and when I arrived home, pulling into my back-alley parking spot, I stayed in my car, turned my car off, the key backwards and listened to the end of the show.  I didn’t want to miss one moment.

The Good Life. 

George Vaillant, the main researcher these last 50 years, said throughout his work with more than 200 people he found that what really matters in life was happiness.  Happiness.  When the interviewer asked Vaillant what makes a person happy, Vaillant replied, “Happiness is love full stop and the quality of our relationships.”

Happiness is love full stop.

hee hee hee…

I find this very encouraging. 

Here I am sitting in my well worn car (312, 678 kms to its credit), parked outside our home (mine and jess’s) that sits on a lot that is 33 1/3 feet wide.  Internship is fast approaching, I’m four and ½ months away from the end of student loans, and if there is no teaching position for me here, the Brown Eyed Girls well have to think about moving…

But all I can think about these days is Jessy Lee, and her happiness and that comment my Mom made a few days ago, teasing me, “Good thing she’s resilient, hey?”

See last Sunday my dad and I drove Jess to basketball camp. No big deal you might say; it’s a sports camp and she’s a sporty kind of kid.  But let me give you this Mom’s perspective.  She is a soccer super hero; I’ve seen the cape; heck, I’ve laundered it.  She’s going to b-ball camp for several reasons.  First, she wants to try out for the A-team this year at school and needs the skill training.  She has a snazzy soccer tourney coming up in a week and knew she could have gone to soccer camp this week but chose b-ball instead, saying, “Well, you know, skills are transferable and I might learn some new tricks.”  Mainly her decision to go to basketball camp happened because one day this past spring she didn’t kiss her grandpa Albert goodbye when he dropped her off at school and she’s not forgotten the look on his face.  See, Albert (her first word was Albert, so we all call him Albert) and his heart are not as spry as they once were, and this shows in the lines in his face.  Heck, it shows in that he is driving an hour into the city three days a week to go to Heart-Smart exercise classes so he’ll get better.  Basketball is his sport.  This outdoor ed / science major played and coached every year that I played, loading the station wagon full of kids and hauling us everywhere, and he has the stories to prove it.  She is off to b-ball, I know, so he’ll get to see her play.  There’s loads of time yet, for that other cape..

 This is Jessy Lee.

So, Dad and I drop her off and though she’s super excited about staying in a dorm for the first time, I see a few of the uber competitive b-ball girls look at her, see her as the un-basket-skilled-player who they will meet on the court, chew up and spit out.  I drove away terrified for Jess, “Oh, what the heck have I allowed.” 

When Dad and I drove to watch skills development the following Tuesday, I had had little sleep for two nights.  I was sure we would be bringing a dejected little person home that afternoon.  Instead we found a basket making, sweaty, smiling, ball player, excited to share stories of her dorm room adventures and point guard training.  Aaahhh, sigh…  and so that’s my good life.  Everyting else, the pressures of taking classes, planning for internship and all the rest of it slipped away.  I feel so scared when she hurts because of the love, the happiness full-stop-love I have for Jess.  Absolute.  Jess IS happiness   Love Full Stop, this love is my good life. 

The CBC interviewer asked Vaillant if, in all of the cases he studied over the last 50 years, anyone stood out.  Vaillant said yes, one.

Vaillant remembers most a seventh grade teacher.  The man was neither rich nor famous.  The man, now in his seventies, had wanted to be a writer and when Vaillant asked what happened to the man’s manuscripts, the man answered that they were still in the bottom drawer, but that he had seen two of his students go on to become successful writers.  The man was married, had children and grandchildren, and was deeply connected to everyone in his life.  Vaillant said the happiness of the man’s personal connections were evident in every aspect of his life, even, even, in the “piles of laundry in his home.”  Quality of relationships… 

happiness, love, trust, passion… full stop.

Ah, the Good Life…

Good Morning and Hello Story Starter

Fresh out of the shower this fine morning, I sat down to check my Google Reader updates.  However, before I could started reading, there on my Google homepage slid in nicely in the National Geographic POD slop was this fantastic image.  Aahh, I am in the midst of planning my first I-will-actually-teach-it-ELA-unit.  With The Mysteries of Harris Burdick on my brain, and the joy of my second unit lurking in there too – Mysteries (rethinking it all, the funny side) - I can’t help but think, “Hey hey, lookie here, what a great story starter!”

1 of 6.  Dear Fin,  I know it’s been ages since we’ve spoken.  I have ever so much to share.  I know my behaviour was slightly rash the last time we saw each other, especially taking all 11 lemons, the talc and the tractor, but at least the talc has come in handy.  It holds nylon really well.  Oh, btw …  

Exactly What is a ‘Social Justice Focus?’

About two months ago, and a week into ECMP 355, I knew I needed to have my own personal tech advisor.  Or, at least I had thought I needed to.  I found Jeremy Schubert, (don’t google him) a tech type from Alberta.  Anyway, as Jeremy and I were exchanging emails about setting up my blog, he asked about the Middle Years program, to which I

Middle Years Interns, 2009

replied, it had a ’social justice focus.’ 

 Jeremy asked, “Exactly what is a social justice focus?” 

Middle Years Grads, 2009

 Wow.  A good question.  In fact, I thought it was such a good question I decided to ask my peers and post the copious replies that I was certain would fill my inbox.  So, I sent out emails to all the post-interns (now, by the way, all individuals with shiny new teaching certificates, and many with teaching contracts) and to the upcoming interns, asking what their take was on our program’s social justice focus.  I had one response.

Chris McCullum is an intern and a clever, level headed guy.  He’s the kind of fellow who goes home to help with the family farm and gets teased a lot for it, who is a self-declared-I-don’t-read-books-kind of guy, but a person who knows more about current events than anyone I know.  He was our go-to-guy at university for anything going on around the world, and his social studies lessons knocked my socks off.  He’s a CBC listener, and, I dare say, a more reliable source for history than Wikipedia.

 Here’s Chris’s reply:

“I really don’t know what the party line is for social justice but for me it’s about teaching kids to think critically and be aware of other people and situations around the world.  I’m not sure if that’s close but I really think that critical thinking is the key because then it’s not about indoctrinating kids to see things my way but rather to thinking things through, questioning, challenging and then coming to their own conclusions.”  Chris McCullum, Thursday, May 21, 2009 12:54 PM

 So what is the Faculty’s ‘party line’ on the social justice focus of my middle years program?  Many of my instructors, and certainly my programs’ department head, Dr. Meredith Cherland, have offered this take,

 “[T]eaching for social justice… here [at the Faculty of Education,] is both a process and a goal.

 The goal for social justice is the full and equal participation of all groups in a society mutually shaped to meet their needs; this will require the equitable distribution of resources; a healthy natural environment and sustainable ways of living; and

 Processes for working toward social justice are inclusive, participatory, and democratic; they affirm human agency, and encourage a sense of collective responsibility for the good of the whole.”   Adams, M., L.A. Bell, & P. Griffin (Eds.) (2007) Teaching for diversity and social justice, second edition. New York: Routledge.

 Yet, in her own courses, staying closer to her own party line, Dr. Cherland also offered the following quotes to help her middle years students shape our emerging understanding of teaching for social justice. 

“The voices of indignation and protest have resounded through the years in response to injustice and human suffering…social justice is a concept contingent on particular historical circumstances. It does not exist in some supersensible realm, anymore than in the minds and souls of individual human beings.”  Maxine Greene. 1998. Introduction. In W. Ayers, J.A. Hunt, & T. Quinn (Eds.), Teaching for social justice. New York: The New Press.

“The struggle for social justice is nothing less than the struggle for a reduction of human pain and suffering.”  Franklin, U. (1999a) Address to the “Made to Measure” National Symposium on Designing Research, Policy and Action Approaches to Eliminate Gender Inequity. Halifax, Nova Scotia. October 1999.

I have emerged from my Middle Years program with the understanding that teaching for social justice is about empathy, critique, hope and action.  But, these words are trite, easily recited, yet must be more than goal and process, or teaching.  I believe, like a belief system, to teach for social justice, it must first be a lived practice.

At the end of April I reflected on my university experiences and my emerging perspectives on teaching and learning in an article I wrote titled The Absolutely True Ramblings of a Reduced Course Load Almost Intern.  In the article I reflected that:

“I did not sit idle; I stayed true to being critical, and to being engaged in the teaching learning process and to believing in equity.  I’ve learned that there is no authentic social justice in the environment of learning, whether that be the learning environments of my past, the one I’m in now, or probably not the ones in which I’ll be part and this saddens me.  Learning is so cloaked in privilege and power.”  Cori Saas, April 15, 2009, EPS 390

Was I too harsh?  Too pessimistic?  No, I know how I ended my piece, and I know I am an eternal optimist (though, you likely can’t believe that now).  I believe in kids, I believe in difference making, and learning.  Yes, that’s my hope for living a social justice lens, an unshakeable belief in kids and an unshakable belief in difference making and an unshakable belief in learning.

Now, like Jeremy, I want to know, what exactly is your understanding of a social justice focus?

The Measure of Success

Over Looking Princess

The last week of June was a week of firsts for me.  I experienced my first field trip in the role as a teacher.  I experienced my first end-of-the-year last days of classes as a teacher.  My last week was a busy, busy few days.  I gave out my first grades, and all said and done, that was just plain weird.  I felt the ache of difference between my students who earned the highest grades, those who simply give up in the final hours of term and settled for mediocre grades, and those who are on Personal Program Plans and I do not give them a grade exactly but ah, I see their gifts and ah, if only there was more time!

I got to attend my first graduation of one of my students the last week in June.  I remember someone saying that in September they are names on paper and by the end of the year you feel like you’ve given birth to them, this is how I feel about many of my students, and certainly how I feel about Adriauna.  I met Adriauna in February, when she greeted me with “I love Ms. H and Mrs. P and I’ll love you too, until you piss me off.”  Today, I’m worrying about her moving away from her home school.  I’m thinking about her fall.  That last Monday, as I sifted through 351 pictures of Adriauna to put together a slide show for her graduation banquet on Wednesday evening, I kept thinking, wow, this kid sure has had some wonderful experiences.  I learned so much from her.  I’m proud to have been her teacher.  Her success is proof that schooling can be adjusted to fit the needs of its learners.

Two Days Left… and Singing

I spent the afternoon gathering photos to make a slide show for one of my students who is graduating Wednesday.  While my jump drive and I moved from computer to computer, I asked after another student.  Her teacher shared that she wished her student had a way to share the photos the student had taken on the weekend at a school outing but, the teacher added, “there are only two days left!”  Well… 

Tonight, I emailed the teacher 19 different “tools” to help this young photographer.  I’m not sure if my login and password will allow me to embed/link the student’s little project to the school’s web-site, but I’ll go in early on grad night and give it a whirl.  Oh, and I’m happy to report, after sifting through 341 photos, I have not suffered death by slide show.  Score one for Tech Teacher! 

I feel like there should be singing now.

Tomorrows

… I think I’ve thought about my future classroom so much, shared so much these last few week, that I thought I’d shared here.  Anyway, here’s the short version:

Computers for each kid, yes, but an access thing, not an at-the-desk thing.  I don’t like the feel of kids in rows behind computers.  I see my future as active, with the students weaving in and out of learning areas that integrate technology seamlessly with other ways that they were learning.  I’m all about project-based, inquiry learning and social action projects.  I love group work, so yes, there will be wikis and oodles of options for kids to demonstrate their learning.  I want my students to learn alongside peers from around the world, learn from teachers around the world and learn from having a world-wide audience to publish for and to comment on their work.  I hope that the learning environment will be filled with diversity, and that it will be student-led. 

The tools that make sense are the tools that will fit what is needed, that will push the kids to ask hard questions and engage with their content, with each other, and with their home and global communities.  As much as possible, tools should be kid-selected.  Isn’t that exactly what we did as we, a class of ECMP355 learners, began to discover as we worked through our final projects?  If my students need for me to learn a new tool, then I will.  I’m not scared any more.  In fact, I’ll strive to introduce new tools with each new group. I will continue to build on our collective learnings.  I’m not nervous any more; I’m only excited about being a tech teacher.  I’ll map out my units, getting feedback from the kids as I go and we will figure out the ‘how’ together.  I don’t want to become a one-sided teacher either, where I plan a lesson or unit around technology.  I want technology to be integrated into my lessons.  I do not want to isolate technology from the other curriculum areas.  I want my students and I to learn the technology skills we need together.  I’ve heard this referred to as “just in time learning” and I believe its the best way to learn skills – in context.  And I’m not going to start small.  That’s not me.  I’m a Middle Years teacher for goodness sake.  It’s called jump in and get wet. 

I want my kids to know that if they are comfortable making a movie, or colouring a poster or singing a song or being private, public, global or anything in between, that all spaces are valued.  I want my students to be able to find the medium that best empowers their individual and collective voices.  I love the idea of scribes and students “owning” the content on the blog, but I’m also keenly aware that this kind of pressure might not work for all learners.  Merging technology into my classroom will be all about differentiation!

How about what my classroom does not look like?  It is not a place where technology is used as a vehicle to entertain a child with a disability.  Ex:  When a child is acting up or the teacher needs a break, the student is allowed to play a non educational computer game.  Technology, though often a learning aid, in not a substitute for teaching and learning.  Technology is not a set of skills learned in isolation.  That would be like learning to bouce a basketball but never transferring that skill or playing the Game / Technology is not just about using the computer as a digital pencil for reproducing old ideas.  There’s a whole big world out there to be discovered using technology.  Technology is not an end onto itself.  It is a means to making learning more meaningful for kids. 

I see myself as a tag along guide, door opener person.  I don’t know it all, and don’t ever want to.  I do know that I’ll have to be able to ask good, engaging questions, and get the kids talking, exploring.  I know that learning, as much as possible, needs to be fun and should mirror the way that students learn outside of school.  Like teaching, learning must be rich with choice.  Technology will help provide those choices.

                                                                                                                        Photo: One &  Two

Shh…

Yesterday, Alec Couros was chatting about sense of wholeness.  Late last night,  I was blogging with Christina about this idea and the notion that more technotlogy is not necerily better, it’s actually debliliateing.  I shared with Christina that the best way I find to keep my sense of wholeness is by taking moments of time away.  I do this once a year, in a big way.  Everywinter I attend a silent retreat weekend.  I bring very little with me, other than touiletties and clothes.  I do not bring my compouter, mp3 player, phone, camera, books, note papter, or pens.  I sit, hike, walk, lay in the snow, eat, sleep, all in silence.  Mostly, I listen.  I take my ‘time away’ to be still, and to connect. 

I am a very wired person.  I am an adult learner with ADHD, sometimes it is as though I do not have an off button.  However, this constant state of busy is not always healty for me.  I learned a long time ago that the best way for me to be well is for me to begin each day in silence, and for me to cultivate moments of solitute.

Perhaps this is why Podcasts have not tweaked my interest.  I like driving with the windows downs and listening to the wind.  I like driving alone and watching the world go by.  I like not being connected to chatter, even if it’s chatter that will help me learn, and I don’t want anything filling the gap in those precious moments of quiet.  

I found this Podcast (out of Regina) and it made me smile, ‘ol soccer mom’ that I am: The Beautiful Game

But, because the point was to get us searching, I found a daily podcast that shares my love of writing.  I subcribed to the podcast and will listen to it as I sit to check my email.  Its the kind of stuff that makes me smarter in all ways: APM: Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac Podcast.

The idea of audio books trills me to my toes.  I see so many applications for students with special needs.  I spent an hour searching for books to put onto a mp3 player for one of my students who is graduating in eight days.  What a great gift!

Photo: Flicker