reflection – coyote chalk

Making the Causes Visible

At the provincial grad symposium today, my Director of Education stated, what I believe, the most authentic bit he’s shared since taking the job. He reflected that perhaps (and I’m paraphrasing here) it isn’t graduation rates educators need to be focused on improving. He wondered if graduation rates were perhaps a symptom of a bigger problem. Perhaps our work as… (read more)

i believe

believe in…. Trust and time. And listening. And relationships. And belonging. And sharing stories with students. Their stories. My stories. And listening to their stories no matter what. The cat stories, the lunch stories, the stories of suicide. Staying late. Arriving early. Showing up. Saying ‘I love you’ and ‘I am proud of you’ and meaning it. Reading aloud to… (read more)

Choosing Joy

Last week I received two letters in the mail. I wasn’t surprised until I realized that the letters had been addressed by me. I’d written them the previous summer during a difficult period. At the time, the letters were a reflective activity for a summer institute I was completing. The words on each envelope were in my handwriting yet the… (read more)

Spirit of Gratitude

It has been a stressful three weeks. I have been worried about my students, and let’s face it, I have been angry with them too. And almost everyone in our learning space has felt it. There have been moments when I have been inclined to punish my students by yanking their privileges. That would have been easy and spiteful and… (read more)

The Conference: My Take Away

What is your take away? Do you know? I often suggest for my kids that a take away can be the big idea or the big feeling or the big change that stays with us. It is an aha knowing. Look back over the last ten months. Look back and ask what is your take away. As one of my… (read more)

how i respond to my teacher

johnnie mac – how can you be creative outside of science? me – epic fail (success), but i won’t tell. chatted with one of my kids today about the meaning of reflection – that whole science writing thing we’ve got going on. was such a great conversation. he wrote in his outdoor ed reflection that he learned that tea is… (read more)