Being a new teacher

It is my primary job to coordinate the New Teacher Program (NTP) and the Coaching and Mentoring Program (CMP) in my board.  It is so exciting to be able to work with people new to the profession or new to the board.  We held our first induction days on August 22 and 23- and I have still been digesting how things went.  We got a lot of great feedback and I was pretty excited about the lower number of EBI’s (Even Better Ifs).  Since the program is always in progress, it feels great to know we are moving in the right direction.

Typically, it is a relatively hard pill to swallow to hear that we are asking already overburdened new teachers who are focused on ‘surviving’ to spend the year reflecting in writing,  maintaining a growth portfolio and being observed by their mentor and the board, but from my experience last year- it really is a important to reflect as a practitioner on teaching and learning, have a master teacher as their support and cheer leader and really get some valid feedback on what is actually going on in the classroom.  I really wish I had this type of support when I was a new teacher.  It is also validating to see other practitioners support these practices in their writing, such as this blog: 20 tidbits for New Teachers by Lisa M. Dabbs.

One of my personal goals for this school year is to reflect in this space more often on what I am learning and to do more professional reading in some of my spare time.  Always aim high…

Back to School-2011

Once again, many of my good intentions for the summer (update blog, read professionally, organize closets, print pictures…) didn’t materialize.  I did have a wonderful time and made many great memories with my family and friends.  After such a great summer, the excitement of starting the school year again (and all the promise it holds) makes me wonder if I would feel the same in a ‘year-round’ school climate.  It would be nice to have a few weeks to ‘regroup’ every 10-12 weeks, but since it takes me such a long time to get used to the non-work schedule, I wonder how refreshed and re-energized staff and students really feel in these programs.  It was pointed out to me in a meeting yesterday that Canada’s school system follows the ‘traditional’ model and that our Sept-June system may not work anymore when we start comparing ourselves to other countries.  I don’t know much about this, but my curiosity has been peeked.

This entry isn’t going to be a long one- just the push I need to get reflective again.  It is hard to believe I have already been back at work for 3 weeks- our new teachers and coaches joined me for a 2 day PD session that began on August 22.  We are still trying to iron out some of the wrinkles, but already my calendar is filling up faster than I would have imagined!  It’s hard to believe I already am beginning to feel like I am falling behind.

We have some very exciting initiatives that we are building on this year and once again I am feeling so fortunate to be working for such a supportive school board and to feel I have the best job in the universe.

It’s great to be back…to school.

Great video

I really enjoyed this short video- it would be a message I should have sent to my 16 year old self!

All I really need to learn I learned in Kindergarten

Remember that book?  Well, today I got a chance to visit another Elementary school- so out of my comfort zone as a teacher and I realized that more secondary teachers should spend time in the classrooms of these amazing teachers.  I know that I learned a lot about teaching today in the kindergarten class of a master teacher that I look forward to applying in a senior class in the near future!

So what is it about Kindergarten?  It’s just the general feeling in the classroom- a positive vibe that made me feel good by just walking into the classroom.  I loved seeing those little people so eager to learn and I could not believe what I saw in terms of learning!  They were looking at Math and graphing, in particular.  The teacher had a bar graph on the SMART board and as the lesson went on, the students were able to complete a survey to chart a bar graph independently.  Although this in itself was quite impressive, what really amazed me was when the teacher asked the students a question and had them turn to their partners and share their thinking– It went something like this:  ”Would their graph look the same as the example they did together if they asked different friends about their favourite foods?”  They did a Think/Pair/Share so effortlessly and with so much commitment to discussing their thinking.  It was so cute to see their expressions and gestures as they were trying to explain their thinking and really listen to their partners.  Amazing.  My goodness- if they can do it with Kindergarten, surely we should be asking students to reflect on their thinking (meta-cognition is part of our curriculum, after all) in the senior classes.  I had a chance to also see some of the work the students have been doing and clearly this was not a one-off!  There were venn diagrams, mind-maps (Kindergarten!), concept attainment and fishbones.  Seriously- if they can do it at this level, we should all be able to do it at the older grades and just think about what refined users the kids will be if they do it in all their classrooms to support their learning.  Selfishly, I really hope my own children have such amazing teachers with these types of instructional strategies that I witnessed today- it really does make me feel good about what is going on in Education!

I still don’t think that those early years are for me- I really do like the more ‘mature’ students, but it made me realize how much I am missing by not getting into those elementary classrooms and seeing what  kids are doing and learning in the early years.  I think we senior teachers are often quick to blame the elementary teachers for gaps in learning and a lot more has to be done to bridge the levels.   I think it would be really helpful to experience what has been going on in the grade six class before they get to middle school- and equally with grade 8 to grade 9.  I know I have been surprised during my classroom observations by the quality and level of some of the work I am seeing at grade 6.   With greater teacher collaboration, the students would no doubt benefit even more in their learning.  That’s what it is all about, right?

-Robert Fulgham

Destination ImagiNation

Destination ImagiNation- what is this?  Well, that was what I thought when I first heard about it and I have to say I am a COMPLETE convert now!  It is brilliant and so much fun.

But, what is it??  Actually, I knew very little about it when it landed as part of my job,  but I am so glad it did.  Here is the official DI site.  It is a non-profit program that is all about developing team-work, creativity, problem solving and out of the box thinking in students.  It runs from Kindergarten to University and is very popular in the US.  I’m not sure how my Director General heard about it, but he thought (rightly) that it would be a great enrichment activity for WQSB students and handed the implementation to my boss- and that is how I got involved with 2 colleagues as coordinators.  We decided as our first ‘go’ we would focus on middle school students only and take on 2 of the 6 Challenges DI has to offer– We picked the Technical Challenge “Unidentified Moving Object” and the Fine Arts Challenge “Triple Take Road Show”.  As an ‘artsy’- this would have been exactly up my alley back in school and I felt we really needed to have both the Technical and Arts challenges to attract a variety of students.  Luckily, I was attached to the Arts challenge as I’m not sure I would ever be able to solve the Technical!

As this was our first year, we pretty much thought this would be a simple competition and sold it as such to our volunteer ‘team managers’– brave teachers from 5 schools.  We had 7 teams for the Arts Challenge and 6 for the Technical.  It turns out that this commitment is A LOT of work, but so worth it- at least in my opinion.  We were all learning as we went along and there are so many things we’ll do differently next year.  Our competition this year was held the week after March break (bad idea) and during 2 school days (bad idea).  It was a logistical nightmare, but our logistics person- Sonia- is brilliant and uber-efficient.  She made it seem easy.   We were also blessed with the help of 3 wonderful DI specialists (Bill, Jill and Steve) from New Hampshire who drove up to help us get this program off the ground (they also helped us set up the computer result calculation software!).  Actually, it wasn’t until we met up with them that we really realized how much work this competition was and I began to feel overwhelmed and underprepared.  Thank goodness we had their support and the commitment from our board to continue to go forward with this.   We had so many people helping with the adjudicating- retired principals, consultants, Board employees, directors, commissioners.  It was such an incredible day because of all the importance so many people gave it.   It also helps give the program value when people with the ‘power’ really get to see the students perform and realize the benefits of this type of competition…and we have now been given the go-ahead to do it again next year.

I took on the role of ‘pre-competition fun’ and we asked the D’Arcy student council to lead the middle schoolers through 4 hours of leadership activities- mixing them up (they were all from different schools) and having team leaders.  The students were brilliant leaders and I am so glad we had them to help us out.  It made the whole event so much more meaningful that there were activities to do and students running them.  We have an excellent outdoor education consultant- Alan Earwaker- who trained the student council for one day a month earlier and supplied them with the activities and all the equipment.  He is incredible- what a resource!  In fact, the whole students leading students concept has made me think we’ll go even bigger next year and we’ll use students to run activities the day of the competition too.    What is surprising is that I still feel this way after lying awake at 2:00am on the gym floor trying to get middle school boys to finally go to sleep.  I will have  a much better sleeping plan, however!

It is pretty hard to describe DI in a nutshell- and quite frankly, I didn’t really get the whole picture until I saw the 7 teams present their incredible stories and technical spectacles in 8 minutes.  Considering parents and teachers are FORBIDDEN from helping the students, it is really a reflection of what kids can do when given the chance to work together to solve a challenge and unleash their creative energies.  How I wish this was around when I was in school!  It would have been lovely to also see the Technical challenge too, but we have it all on video.   For me, DI definitely fills an area that is missing from our curriculum- a place where students can really problem-solve, work together and be creative- the skills we really need to be pushing for them to be successful when they leave school.  What is even better is that since we are the only board in Quebec doing the DI program this year, we get an automatic entry into the Global finals in Knoxville, Tennessee in May where we will join 100,000 other DI students.  It is incredible to think that a little team from Noranda will be competing with students from all over the world.  It gives me chills.   I only wish more schools/ school boards in Canada would take up this program.

I’m hooked and hope it’ll become part of my dossier in years to come.  We started small…now I’m ready to get bigger!

Evaluating Teachers

There is a raging debate in the States on teacher evaluation that has really captured my attention and is often the topic of staffroom discussions.

Effective (good) teaching and its effect on student achievement is the focus of the documentary “Waiting for Superman” which I really enjoyed.  It really does boggle my mind that rubber rooms in New York existed to hold chronically ineffective teachers who were able to draw a full salary to sit in a room and do nothing.  I am glad to see that the public embarrassment of these rooms is forcing them to be shut down (NY Times article), but the underlying problem of not being able to dismiss ineffective teachers is not isolated to New York.  Most people do not argue with the need to clear out some of the teachers that harm our credibility as a profession, but it is how we define ineffective/effective teachers that is the basis of much of the debate: on what criteria (observations? Standardized test results?), by whom (administrators? outside ‘experts’?), what factors are taken into account (school population, ability, socio-economic make-up of the students, etc), and what happens once someone is discovered to be ineffective (PD?, support? firing?).  How to capture ‘good’ teaching and evaluate whether it is happening in a classroom is certainly a ‘delicate conversation’ as this Washington Post article points out.

This year I have spent a lot of time thinking about teacher observation and evaluation as we are building it into our New Teacher Program at WQSB and currently I have had the privilege of observing half of our new teachers in their classrooms along with my director and their school administrator.  What an amazing experience- what incredible teachers!  Certainly, observing/evaluating new teachers is a totally different ball game than going into the classrooms of tenured and experienced teachers.  Observations and evaluations are part of the teacher college experience so many of the new teachers to our board are used to the experience and have really been positive in their feedback.  As well, it is not our intention to evaluate the teachers.  This is the job of the administrator in the building.  We are using these snapshots of classroom teaching (and they really are 20 minute snapshots and we appreciate that things can happen in a classroom to change that 20 minutes monumentally- I’ve been there!) as a means to actually see the realities of each new teacher, to get to know them a little better as individuals (instead as a big group in a PD session), to find out how the New Teacher Program is going (and suggestions to improve) and to test out an observation/evaluation tool that we are developing for the board.   The tool is based on the 12 teacher competencies developed by the MELS (Quebec Ministry), but has been adapted to provide us with observables for classroom visits and is a work in progress as we make changes with each administrator we work with.  Part of the process is that we have a debriefing session with each teacher and they are given an opportunity to share what they think went well (What Went Well- WWW) and what they would like to improve (Even Better If-EBI) from the observed lesson.  We also highlight our positive observations and supply one EBI. One of the best things about doing these observations is the pedagogical discussions that happen when the observers get together to discuss the lesson.  It is great to see how we are all starting to speak the same language with respect to teaching- unsatisfactory to outstanding and all the levels in between.  So far, the observation process has been a positive one for me and I am hoping that the new teachers feel the same way.  I know I would have been very nervous, but would have loved to have had more feedback when I was in the classroom- not only as a new teacher!  Even now, I love getting feedback to improve workshops and training sessions even if they sometimes make me question my competence.  Ultimately, the success of this type of tool really will depend on its delivery and the person observed’s desire to improve their craft.  I find myself moving further away from my initial view of anti-external evaluation and have firmly planted myself on the side of teacher evaluations and classroom observations as I really feel we need to examine our profession and make ourselves more accountable as educators.

Life after renovations

Life has been hectic the last few months- my absence from this blog is a clear indication that perhaps I have too many balls in the air.  Since November, we have been undergoing renovations that required my whole family to shack up together in the basement.  Sleep was a luxury that didn’t head my way too often.  I had no idea the effect of this type of change  on my home and professional life.  With my life totally out of order, I have really struggled to keep everything organized- especially my brain.  Since this blog is supposed to be focused about my thoughts on my professional life (teaching) and not on my personal life- I can’t help but relate this experience to what some of my students must go through.  Often times, I find myself, as a teacher so focused on what goes on in the classroom that I forget the baggage a student brings to each school day.  No wonder their behaviour, organization and concentration is affected.  If I could barely hold it all together these past four months- what happens to kids in home situations that are in chaos?

I am reminded of some of my students at WHEC in Edinburgh, Scotland who shared a flat with multiple family members (one had 14 cousins all in one room!) and often complained of exhaustion, could barely stay awake in class and never had homework completed.  Surely these factors must be taken into consideration when working with students in the classroom.  What is tricky is that often the classroom teacher is not aware of the full picture outside of the classroom.  Is it our business to know all the details of a student’s life outside of the classroom?  For some students and parents, the information is shared with administration, guidance counsellors and/or social workers- but it is clear that they do not want it shared with teachers because they don’t want the student concerned to be treated differently.  It is a fine line, I suppose.  There have been many times that after taking the time to really talk with a student I finally understand what is behind the change in their behaviour- but when there isn’t a change (they are always disorganized, for example) it doesn’t always prompt you to go digging.

This brings me to divorce- we had Dr. Barrie Bennett in for a workshop recently and among the many things I took from this day was his statement that research is showing that it takes 4 years for a student to recover from a good divorce.  Trying to find supporting evidence for this, a quick search led me to this book:  Kaplan and Sadock’s synopsis of psychiatry which states: “Recovery from, and adaption to, the effects of divorce usually take 3 to 5 years, but about one third of all children from divorced homes have lasting psychological trauma”(p.34).   Clearly this must be linked to student achievement and half the time I am not informed that my students are experiencing a divorce or have recently gone through it.  After these few months, I am so impressed at the resiliency of students and can’t imagine having to move homes weekly and keep on top of all my homework.  They are quite astounding.

Well- now that I am out of the basement- no more excuses and I hope to get more posts out that reflect on some of the really cool things that have been going on in our board and why I really love my job.

First post of 2011

This is not going to be an incredibly brilliant post- not that my others have been either, but  I hope this doesn’t set the tone for 2011.  I just need to start writing so that it will become easier for me to get some of the many ideas out of my head and into words.  The more time that passes between posts, the harder a time I have at writing.  Also, December always seems to be catch me off guard and be the busiest time of year.  I am constantly trying to wrap things up before the holidays, but always have a zillion other things that carve away my free time.  I am very thankful for a wonderful whirlwind of a holiday with family and friends and look forward to all that 2011 offers me.  I have had a chance to reflect on my year and realize how lucky I am personally and professionally.  I have wonderfully supportive family and friends and I love my jobs- as a mom and educator (part time for both) and think it is pretty wonderful that it still excites me to think and learn about how to become better at both.   I hope to continue to use this space as a chance to explore some of these ‘learnings’ although my focus will mostly be on educational issues.

That said, something I am batting about in my head is the notion of ‘good’ versus ‘bad’ teachers [more on this later!] and  ’play-based’ learning versus ‘skill-based’ learning.   An interesting article that deals with this is found here.  The authors, Erika and Nicholas Christakis work at Harvard College and argue that play-based curriculum reaches farther than kindergarten to help students be successful in college.  As they state, “One of the best predictors of school success is the ability to control impulses. Children who can control their impulse to be the center of the universe, and — relatedly — who can assume the perspective of another person, are better equipped to learn.”  I see this as a teacher all the time- the ability of students to ‘read’ the emotions and experiences of other students helps them to be better group members, conflict solvers and class members; it isn’t all about grades and academic results.

“Society expects more from schools than it did in the past.  they must not only ensure that as many students as possible succeed in school itself, but also prepare all young people to live successful lives” (Quebec Education Program, p.4- Quebec’s curriculum).  This is not unlike the demands being placed on schools in many communities in the world, but what does it mean to be successful in this increasingly complex global society?  Who and what determines success?  It certainly is no easy feat to “turn out autonomous people, capable of adapting in a world marked by the exponential growth of information, by constant change, and by interdependent problems whose solution requires expert, diversified and complementary skills” ( QEP, p.4).   So this is why I think that there is definitely a role for play-based learning to happen in all levels of schooling.  It is still learning of skills, but in less of a ‘drill and kill’ approach.  I hate worksheets; I love collaboration, and meaningful problem-solving connected to the real world.  As stated in the article, through play “children learn to take turns, delay gratification, negotiate conflicts, solve problems, share goals, acquire flexibility, and live with disappointment. By allowing children to imagine walking in another person’s shoes, imaginative play also seeds the development of empathy, a key ingredient for intellectual and social-emotional success.”  I suppose this is another reason why I love my job- I have the opportunity to work with students on building these skills – strengthening the EQ along with the IQ- and I really love playing in the classroom.  As a mom, it supports my choice of a preschool based on learning through play where there isn’t a focus on alphabet and spelling drills. Judging by the increase in standardized tests in schools, it seems there will most likely be plenty of time for that.

What are the educational options for my child?

Types of Programs:

Anglais pour debutants (English)

• All subjects in the Ontario curriculum are taught in French, with the exception of Anglais andAnglais pour débutants from Grade 4 to Grade 8 in elementary school and English and Anglais pour débutants (4 levels of English) in secondary school (Grade 9-12), which are taught to the standards required to ensure a high level of bilingualism.

Early Learning Program (Full Day Kindergarten)

• Since the 1990′s, the French Language schools have been offering the programme:  J’ai quatre ans et j’apprends.
• 6 schools in the board implementing phase 1 of the new ELP program, but it is harder to find French Language ECE teachers, the other schools in will continue offering a slightly different version of full-day kindergarten.

Religious Education: More research needed!

Happy Restorative Justice Week

“Restorative justice very simply is a philosophy that supports a sense of belonging, (a) positive sense of community”- Dale Pyke

This week is Restorative Justice week which follows closely Bullying Awareness Week.  Thank you to my pal who gave me the heads-up, as I might have not even realized!  So, in order to celebrate, I want to do a quick shout-out to some good work that is happening in the field of restorative Justice/practice:

Western Quebec- At our two schools, the primary driver of Restorative Practice is my friend and colleague, Ellie Wilkinson.  Ellie was the person who got me interested in the process and has spearheaded a Restorative Practice committee within our schools this year.  Ellie has helped our two schools become part of the Peaceful School International, has given a lot of PD to our school and school board, runs parent nights discussing Restorative Practice and she is the leading facilitator of restorative circles and conferences of varying levels of intensity within both schools.  Ellie works in the middle school as a guidance counsellor and runs a leadership class at the highschool which teaches students the process of Restorative Practice and Peer mediation.  These leadership students have been introduced them to Youcan and are given a chance to run assemblies and put their ‘leadership’ skills into practice.  Our administration team has also been fundamental to embedding Restorative Practice into our discipline policies and use Restorative Practice with all the students they work with.  I am very lucky to work where I do!!

Bethlehem, Pennylsvania- Home of the International Institute for Restorative Practices- A Graduate School.  IIRP offers graduate degrees and professional development training opportunities whose aim aim, as suggested by Albert Einstein in a speech in 1936, “is the training of independently acting and thinking individuals who, however, see in the service of the community their highest life problem.”  In the 1970′s, Ted Wachtel  and his wife, Susan, founded the model Restorative practice Buxmont Academy (CSF Buxmont), a non-profit organization for troubled and delinquent youth in eastern Pennsylvania, USA.  In 2000, Wachtel founded the IIRP, a non-profit organization that now includes Real Justice, SaferSanerSchools, Good Company and Family Power. IIRP is a leading global provider of restorative practices training, consulting, educational materials and international conferences.  Ted Wachtel is a great speaker and it is inspirational what he has accomplished! “To reduce the growing negative subculture among youth, to successfully prevent crime and to accomplish meaningful and lasting change, restorative justice must be perceived as a social movement dedicated to making restorative practices integral to daily life.” Wachtel, 1999

Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board, Ontario-The first school school district in Ontario to embrace restorative practice in all its schools- all administrators, police representatives and many teachers have been trained with the 2 day Real Justice Training.  When I heard representatives from this board speak at the Toronto Conference, they shared how 4 of the high schools  had conducted two full-day restorative practice intensive workshops for all grade nine students and had all grade 9 English classes in those schools doing a two-week unit focusing on restorative practice.  KPRDSCB- Restorative Practice Introduction

Hamilton, Ontario- 3 years ago, through an Ontario Trillium Grant, the partnership using restorative practice began with the John Howard Society, Hamilton police and the Hamilton public school board.  Now the Hamilton Catholic School Board and the City’s recreation department is included.  This fall, staff in almost 95 schools, all police youth and school officers and John Howard Society workers have been trained in Restorative Practice. Restorative justice is described as an option whereby, if recommended by the police or the Crown, the perpetrator of a crime can get together in a circle with the victim and the community and collectively decide on a punishment.  Since the project started 130 circles have been held and out of the 213 youths who went through some sort of diversion program, 91% have not reoffended.  ”We want kids to take ownership, have empathy, build relationships and trust,” says Pyke, co-ordinator of the local John Howard Society’s restorative justice project.   Community, police turn to Restorative Justice

Hull, England- is endeavouring to become a “restorative city”.  The goal is for everyone who works with children and youth in Hull, one of England’s most economically and socially deprived cities, to employ restorative practices.  Hull began their Restorative journey in August 2007.  Participants are committed to implementing “an explicit means of managing relationships and building social connection and responsibility while providing a forum for repairing harm when relationships break down.”  Hull held the most recent International Institute for Restorative Practices conference this fall where the most current efforts were discussed.  Hull, UK: Toward a Restorative City Restorative Practices in Hull (Youtube trailer)

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil- in the mid-1990′s,after a visit to Brazil, a self-educated Restorative Justice practitioner from England called Dominic Barter began working with favela (shantytowns) residents, including drug gang members, to help them strengthen nonviolent options for working with young people.   He became a colleague of Marshall Rosenberg, founder of the Center for Nonviolent Communication (CNVC), which studies how people use their power to create partnership and cooperation, “emphasizing compassion as the motivation for action rather than fear, guilt, blame, coercion, threat or the justification of punishment” (www.cnvc.org).  In early 2005, he helped organize the country’s first public presentation on restorative practices, at the Brazil-based annual World Social Forum.  Now a permanent resident of Brazil, he is developing a conferencing model supported by the Ministry of Justice and training facilitators for two of three new pilot projects, in São Paulo and Porto Alegre. He is a powerful speaker and I was lucky enough to see him speak at the IIRP conference in Toronto.   “I saw violence as a monologue. All the state and gang responses to violence were more of the same. I wanted to create a dialogue” (Barter).  Toward Peace and Justice in Brazil: Dominic Barter and Restorative Circles With the recent troubles in Rio favelas, it will be interesting if Barter is brought in to help work with the communities.

Defining Restorative Practice:

The emerging social science of “restorative practices” offers a common thread to tie together theory, research and practice in seemingly disparate fields, such as education, counseling, criminal justice, social work and organizational management.

The restorative practices concept has its roots in “restorative justice,” a new way of looking at criminal justice that focuses on repairing the harm done to people and relationships rather than on punishing offenders (although restorative justice does not preclude incarceration of offenders or other sanctions). Originating in the 1970s as mediation between victims and offenders, in the 1990s restorative justice broadened to include communities of care as well, with victims’ and offenders’ families and friends participating in collaborative processes called “conferences” and “circles.” (For a useful summary of restorative justice theory, go to http://www.realjustice.org/library/paradigm.html.)  iirp.org