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)

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)

Home, Always.

Last week I moved out of one school and into another. Mostly, that’s true. However, the stories remain. I’ve brought all of them with me. All of the resources, exemplars and memorabilia are now packed and sitting in boxes in a different building. The packing of all those stories happened in a flurry of four days. A week earlier, 30… (read more)

The Importance of Crossing Thresholds

Supporting each other is really important. When I was a pre-service teacher, I spent one of two of my shorter-internships at a school that did this well. At this school, when kids were more successful in some spaces or with different teachers than with other teachers in other spaces, the staff encouraged kids to be where they were most successful.… (read more)

Listening with Story

I am a storyteller. I love listening to stories. When I was a young girl I’d follow my Dad and my sister on treks as they talked plant botany, Dad pausing every once in a while to turn and change the science into narrative, “Wolf willow has an interesting story.” He’d stand feet planted shoulder-width apart, take off his well-warn… (read more)

Verb? Chatting with Zac

Stories are complex; “They are beautiful” (Lugones, 1987). Recently I was chatting with Zac Chase. During our conversation for #LearningGrounds he asked a few questions. I stammered while I answered some questions, yet others I answered well enough. However, when we were done chatting, I had the feeling that I had sounded like a text book. I don’t like jargon,… (read more)

Stories to Live By (Stories to Leave By)

Every other Tuesday I attend a writing/story group. Attendance isn’t a requirement of my graduate work, but yet I feel it is a useful space to share stories with other grad students who tend to have a relational narrative way of living and being with the world. Along with my instructor, there are six of us. Everyone shares.   Last Tuesday… (read more)

Like They Owned The Place

Today was spectacular. The Middle-Years kids laughed. The Middle-Years kids stayed behind after class like they owned the place! See, Tuesday was our first day together. I’ve not been with the M.Y. crew for a year. Oh, sure, a few of the kids know me. They were in my Arts Ed class two years ago when they were part of… (read more)

Stories Remain

Yesterday, I found myself crying sitting in my car by the side of the road. I had just read a letter from one of last years’ graduates. I hadn’t known what to expect from Cat’s letter. As a student, Cat ‘bought into’ school in Cat’s own way. Though involved in school and in extra-curricular school activities, Cat wasn’t always center… (read more)
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