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)

Grateful for Our Circle

Our school year began on a Tuesday. We had four days together that first week, students and me. Four days. I am a Grad Coach this year. I have my own program and many new faces alongside me everyday. The structure and design of our classes and days is different than my previous years in my school and in an… (read more)

coyote chalk

I’ve been blogging since I was a running-full-out, blinders-on, curiosity-driven-in-nineteen-directions, let’s-plan-like-there’s-no-tomorrow undergrad. Then, I had two courses remaining in my B.Ed., both electives. Was it happenstance that made me sign up for these courses, both becoming the courses that would most resonate, most inform my educational journey? These courses most informing me how to best listen to students. One was… (read more)

Maybe The Trees

Since I started teaching throughout each term and at the end of the year I’ve been asking students to think about and to share their ‘take aways.’ A take away is a complex notion. It is more than the one thing a student has learned; it is more than the one thing that will resonate with a student tomorrow, in… (read more)

Strong in Mess

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how much I like staying connected with kids. It’s a messy topic. Here’s what I know. And it’s not much. About every month or so, my daughter goes out for coffee and a muffin with her former grade six resource teacher. My daughter is in grade ten. Actually, she’s almost in grade eleven. Their suppers… (read more)

How Do I Get That Job?

Last week I attended the seventeenth annual National Congress on Rural Education. My role at the conference was as teacher advisor to a team of nine high school ejournalism students from Prairie South Schools. The students were successful; this means I was responsible for frequently refilling my coffee cup. I sat in on the keynote speakers and the entertainment following… (read more)

The Importance of Sharing Our Stories

Our stories have great value. I believe if I connect only as voyeur in someone’s life, it is really my stories I fail to hear. Connecting with kids not only changes their lives, it changes mine. ~ December 20, 2011 – The views to my blog soared. That day my blog received its second highest total number of views since… (read more)

Tangibles

A few weeks ago my Inclusive Education cohort at the University of Regina got into a passionate debated over the use of cell phones in the classroom. Sigh Part of me feels like this is such a tired and old discussion. Yet, at other times, I know, because the discussion was filled with confusion, and because of comment’s like, “Aren’t… (read more)

The Changes to Come

Written January 1, 2011 ~ I’m at a New Years Eve party. It’s a little past midnight, which means it is now 2011. All I can do is think about that for which I am truly thankful. Thoughts of gratitude are common this time of year, but for me, right now, I’m thinking about my students, all of them; it’s… (read more)
css.php