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)

Language of Hope

A few days ago while scrolling through a social media site, I noticed that a student I teach had posted a photo with, what I consider to be, an offensive word. It is not uncommon for me to connect with students on some social networking sites. I am as selective about who I connect with as I hope and try… (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)

Inquiry Opps: a week of curriculum learning

This week I’ve been taking my ELA accreditation. I came in expecting to be challenged. I also came in uncertain what we’d actually be doing. I’m moving schools in the fall. This week, Miranda, the senior Math/Science teacher, is taking her accreditation as well. This morning we had an activity to plan an inquiry unit – Yah, I know. The… (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 Need Attending

A month ago I wrote about a poem I had previously shared with my grad-writing group and had received little feedback. Later, an instructor, suggested, “It is an interrupted narrative that metacommunicates about its own limits and explodes conventions of pedagogy by falling silent at the very moment a conclusion is expected” (Ellsworth, 2005). Though I feel she was being… (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)

Indifference to Stories

A couple days ago I asked my online network to push back and wonder along with me about the “insistence in schooling spaces to choose only to listen to the easy, accessible and gentle stories.” None of you replied. Sure. Perhaps it’s because I’ve a rather small blog following, but I don’t think that’s the only reason. I tweeted the… (read more)

Attending to the Messy Ones

“[W]hen the words form I am merely retelling the same story in different patterns,” (King,  2003, p. 2). This past year I’ve been thinking deeply about story; this is what my Dad calls ‘storying’ – the process of living with narratives and attending to the lives of those we love  – and storying is messy. And I’m tired too. Storying… (read more)
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