Data Helps - Hopefully

Last week, I went without my car for three days. It was at my mechanic because my fuel pump needed replacing. My wonderful mechanic (whom I've written about on this blog before) was able to diagnose the problem because my husband and I collected data. The car would occasionally refuse to start, so to try and understand what was happening, we kept a log book from September 6, 2019 until November 14, 2019. In this log, we recorded the date, time, location, and number of tries it took before the car started up. This extensive data helped our mechanic to determine the problem, because he saw that there was no discernible pattern to the flare-ups, which ruled out other potential causes.

Was it fun to record? Not really. It was tedious. There were times where I wondered if it was worth the effort. Was I even collecting the "right kind" of information to help me and my mechanic understand the problem? However, over time it was fascinating to see the patterns and trends that emerged after gathering this information. The information helped me and others to analyze what was happening and to determine some next steps.

This anecdote has obvious connections to my work as an educator. Since 2016-17, I've electronically collected data on the students that visit the school library during recess. I record who comes, from what class, on what day, and what they choose to do, using a Google Form. I've asked myself if I was using my time wisely by collecting this data. Could I be doing sometime more meaningful? At the end of the school year, I have to admit it is satisfying and informative to examine the results.

• In 2018-19 (last year), I had 2920 individual visits. Room 113 visited the library the most and the most popular thing to do in the library was use the makerspace.

• In 2017-18 (two years ago), I had 3080 individual visits. Room 207 visited the library the most and the most popular thing to do in the library was use the makerspace.

• In 2016-17 (three years ago), I had 574 visits. However, I only started collecting the data for that school year electronically in February 2017. Using the makerspace was still the most popular activity.

Considering that my school has around 300 students, this means that on "average", a student visits the school library of their own accord between 9-10 times. (It's not exactly accurate, because kindergarten students do not access the school library on their own, and some students came many more times, but it's helpful to contemplate, especially when I question whether the library should be open so often and for so many open-ended options.) The choices the students make with their free time also helps me spend my funds wisely. The interest in the makerspace meant that I wanted and needed to provide materials and resources so students could make things.

So far, this year's statistics are very interesting. For the 2019-20 school year so far, the makerspace is not the most popular task. It's "playing with bins set out for student use" - things like Fisher-Price toys, Koosh balls, and even other items that serve a dual role as self-regulation tools. I'm really curious to investigate why this has changed.

I'm not the only teacher-librarian interested in data. Peel District School Board teacher-librarian Beth Lyons has taken to sharing some of her monthly statistics via Twitter.

Looking back at a great October in the @LarkspurLibLC ! Lots of great learning and reading. @LarkspurPS . @CdnSchoolLibrar @CSL_Learning @PETLA_ @oslacouncil @PDSB_Libraries #peelLLC #PeelTL #schoollibrariesmatter #peel21st pic.twitter.com/Y1o0qleMyt

— MrsLyonsLibrary (@mrslyonslibrary) November 3, 2019

I love how Beth has chosen to make this data public, while still respecting the privacy of her school readers. She was one of the people who helped me formulate my new and improved library report. I know that numbers don't tell the whole story, and that they can be misleading. For instance, my low circulation statistics do not always indicate that few people are borrowing books; sometimes students borrow books among themselves, and this does not get indicated via my circulation statistics. Collecting my Forest of Reading data sometimes feels discouraging, especially when the numbers of participants that qualify to vote fall, but there may be other factors at play, as this past post suggested.

Data helps, but as I'm starting to mention in the latter half of this meditation, data can also hinder or hurt. So much depends on WHO collects the data, WHAT data is collected and WHY/HOW the data is being collected. My husband just finished reading a hefty tome called The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power by Shoshana Zuboff. He has told me a bit about the main ideas from the book, and they are somewhat unnerving. (My friend Neil Andersen would probably love to read it because of all the media literacy implications.) Hubby says that the book suggests that most people tend to be concerned only with the idea of governments collecting data about us, while overlooking corporations, which are collecting just as much, if not more information. The problem is that we willingly give lots of data to companies. These companies then sell us more things we don't need and influence governments to legislate in ways that benefit these corporations themselves.

EQAO is a huge data mine. Many teachers don't like it. Why? I think it's because of WHO collects it, WHAT is collected and HOW the results are sometimes interpreted. This video and summary by ETFO (Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario) does a good job of illustrating some of the concerns with this set of standardized tests. Some people use EQAO results to decide what communities to buy houses in, (incorrectly) guessing that the "best schools" are the ones with the "best test scores". Data is supposed to help, not hurt.

So what does this mean for me? I think I must constantly be aware of my purpose, methodology, and privacy issues when collecting data. Even though collecting data can be a chore, if I am careful with what, why and how I collect, I might be able to understand what it happening so I can make improvements to my practice.

Translators and Parent-Teacher Interviews

Last week, my school (and many others) held parent-teacher interviews. Often, teacher-librarians use this time to run a book fair. Not me. My role during parent-teacher interviews is the "translator wrangler". Let me explain. Because our school has a high percentage of families that do not speak English at home, we need to employ a large number of translators. We hired five Cantonese/Mandarin translators for Thursday, November 14 and three for Friday November 15 (during the day). With large class sizes, these times during the official parent-teacher interview evening can only be ten minutes long, so that everyone can have a chance to see the home room teacher. If the interview goes overtime, the translator will be late for their next group. This causes an unfortunate domino effect. My task is to escort the translators to their next appointment at the right time and place.

This is a necessary job but not always a pleasant one. I have to cut conversations, end important discussions, and rudely interrupt. Teachers might appreciate my role in the abstract, but more than once last week, my presence was met with a frown and a plea for "just one more minute". Interviews with translators always go more slowly, as it takes twice the time to convey information.

Thank goodness for those translators! Their job is not easy. They briefly meet the educator and the family and then must listen closely, comprehend the main message given by the teacher, translate it (and any complex educational terminology, such as IEP), ensure it is understood by the parent, and then do it back again in reverse order. That's a lot in a ten-minute block. We try our best to take care of our translators by building in breaks, offering them dinner, and scheduling sessions that are close geographically in the building so they don't have to walk too much.

Sometimes I wish there was a better way to arrange these progress report card home-school conversations, with more time to talk, but many possible suggestions come with their own drawbacks, especially when you need to include translators in the equation.

• Other schools pick a different day other than Thursday night, to avoid the competition for finding translators, but the issue around short times and big topics still applies. 
• Stretching interviews over multiple days would mean longer times to talk, but factor in sibling coordination and this complicates things, as well as leads to teacher exhaustion with several late nights instead of one, and raises costs for gathering translators for many nights. 
• Online translators (such as Google Translate) do not always provide an accurate interpretation of messages. 
• Asking parents to find their own personal interpreters to bring along isn't fair or equitable, especially if some of the information being shared is highly private and personal; parents may not want their work friends or relatives to know all the details of their child's progress in school, even if they can find someone can knows enough English to translate thoroughly. 

One alteration we did try on Friday was to announce the time on the PA system, because sometimes I'd become delayed in checking on all five translators and we would invariably be a bit late. I'll have to check with the teachers to see if the "PA vs personal presence" made a difference.

One positive outcome of this translator escorting - for the first time ever, I hit 25 000 steps on my FitBit!

60 Years

There were so many potential topics for this week's blog. Each one was deferred or dismissed for various reasons. (For instance, I'll write about creating better questions at a later date because my brain is still processing all I learned at Francine and Stephanie's excellent TC2 workshop last Friday.)

At the risk of getting too personal too often, today's blog post will be about the main event from this weekend: my parents' 60th wedding anniversary. I planned a surprise lunch for them at a local restaurant (thank you Mandarin Scarborough location!) and invited friends and family. Mom and Dad were very surprised and my Dad in particular was effusive in his thanks for arranging it all.

Mom and Dad on their wedding day - November 10, 1959

Mom and Dad - a more recent photo

The best gift that the attendees provided was their presence. It's so hard to arrange to see relatives and friends but I'm so grateful that the occasion - an anniversary party - was a joyous one. Too often, the only time I see some of these people is at a funeral. When we compared notes about the last time we had seen each other, they were at events like my parents' 50th anniversary (in 2009), Mom's 75th+1 birthday party (in 2012), or at the family reunion organized by my cousin Margaret the year my Uncle John died (in 2013). It seems like we were due for a get-together.

If these gatherings are so wonderful, then why don't they happen more regularly?
I think it's for a few reasons. It's challenging, with our busy lives, to arrange these meetings unless it's for a special occasion. It can be hard to coordinate schedules and takes a lot of organizing. Family and friends move away, and it may take Herculean efforts to travel to a central location. (My sister and brother-in-law flew all the way from Calgary for just the weekend so they could attend the anniversary celebration) These gatherings also depend on certain "social lynch-pins" to keep families together. When those unifying people die, it's hard to find someone with the same familial magnetism to reunite groups. It's also difficult to find locations and activities that will meet the needs of different generations of people. As it was, the room at the Mandarin was a little tight for maneuvering around to socialize at length.

I asked our guests to write a favourite memory related to my parents on sheets that will eventually form the basis of a commemorative album I'm compiling. Not everyone wrote something but those that did shared some great moments from the past that I myself had completely forgotten. You never know what banal activity for you is something special to others. The scrapbook album is an attempt to preserve some of those memories, which is super-important as my parents don't remember as much as they used to when they were younger.

Sixty years is a long time. A lot has happened to the pair of them since they first rescheduled their August wedding date because my father nearly died in a fire at the airport in their home country of British Guiana. (He actually got special permission to be released from the hospital to attend his own wedding in November. Remind me to relate the full story on here one day - it's a great tale of perspectives, perseverance, and media literacy.) They've had ups and downs but they are still together, with enough spirit to drive their children bonkers. I hope that many of you experience that kind of long-lasting love and devotion. May you have someone who looks at you the way my dad looks at my mom in this photo taken at the party.

Dad and Mom at the anniversary party

Hit By A Car

I have no clue how to begin today's blog post.

Thanking people for their well wishes and notes of concern?

Alerting readers that today's post will be quite personal?

The audience is wide, with different entry points.

The story itself also has different entry points.

So I'll start at the beginning.

James has always walked our kids to school. Once they were no longer in elementary school, he walked them to the bus stop so they could hop on the TTC to get to high school. My son Peter is in Grade 12. This'll be the last year of this tradition.

While crossing the street, James and Peter were hit by a car. I took a photo of the intersection where it happened a few days later and annotated it so people would understand.

The light was green and the walk signal was on. Two cars made a left hand turn  in front of James and Peter and drove westbound as they were crossing the street. Once James and Peter were about half way through the intersection (having made it across the eastbound Sheppard Avenue lanes), a third car, following the other two, hit them right as they were moving across the westbound Sheppard Avenue lanes. 

Peter was clipped by the side-view mirror on the driver's side. James was hit full on by the car. He was thrown onto the hood of the car. When the car stopped, he rolled off the hood and fell on the street. (James just recalls turning his head and seeing the car coming at him. Peter was the one who filled in these details for me later because he saw his dad get hit.) James had the breath knocked out of him and when he touched his hand to his head, it was covered in blood.

The driver and her husband stopped the car and got out to attend to James. Almost no one was thinking very clearly at this point, except for a man who witnessed the accident and gave James his business card and told James to call him if he needed a bystander that saw everything that happened to give a report. Peter, who had seen James get hit by the car, told his dad that he was okay and got on the bus and went to school. It was only once he was at school that Peter realized that his arm was hurting him. James got into the car with the couple, drove back to our house to let his mother (who was visiting us from Maryland) know that he was going to the hospital and not to worry. Then, the three of them went to the hospital. The couple in the car stayed with James in the hospital while he got checked out. It took about two hours. There were no broken bones. James had a slight cut on his head and was told to be monitored for signs of a concussion. He was given some pills to help with muscle pain and the couple took him home.

James decided not to phone me at work. He said he didn't want me to worry. I phoned home after work to let him know that I was bringing home his birthday surprise and, if possible, to meet me at the front door to receive it. All he said was that he had some news to share but that he'd wait until I got home.

I don't want to sidetrack the story, but I have to take a minute to share the birthday surprise. It was the most magnificent cake. It was created by Kris from Amazing Crazy Sweets (amazingcrazysweetsATgmail.com) after months of deliberation. Kris and Amy, whose children attend the school where I teach, make incredible cakes and cupcakes. I wanted them to make a role-playing game themed cake for James, but I wasn't sure what to do. Kris' fondant creatures are so detailed and adorable that James tends to keep them instead of eating them. A 20-sided dice was too complicated. This is a replica of the version 3.5 player's handbook for Dungeons and Dragons, probably the most famous RPG ever. I was excited to share this surprise with James, so I never suspected that there was anything amiss. (Back to the original story.)

As you can imagine, I was shocked when I first heard around 5:00 pm about what happened. I was also a bit dismayed when I heard that no one had bothered to call the police or ambulance at the time. I contacted my colleague because her fiance is a police officer and we needed advice on the next steps to take. I was also flummoxed that Peter went to school immediately after getting hit by a car. His right arm was sore and he hadn't been seen by a doctor at that point. I took him to the clinic, and then to the after-hours clinic at the hospital, where I read a sign that said "If you have been in a motor vehicle accident, report to the Emergency Department". We spent 2.5 hours at the ER (5:30 - 8:00 pm) and thankfully, x-rays showed that there were no broken bones. I returned home with my son, who was still pretty shaken up by the experience. I ate some dinner and then I drove James to the Toronto East area Collision Centre to make an official report. That night, I set an alarm to wake James up every few hours to ensure he was coherent. As I joked, it's tough when the person who is supposed to be the "attendant" is less clear than the "patient". I don't do well with interrupted sleep.

How do you tell people your loved ones have been hit by a car without freaking them out? It's not like it was a secret, but I didn't want to worry people unnecessarily. Thank goodness for social media. I let my staff know via our What's App channel the night it happened, so they'd understand why I might look like a zombie the next day. I talked about it with James and two days after it happened, I posted a note on Facebook and Twitter. I did not expect the avalanche of responses I received. Peter's friends who follow me on Twitter phoned him to see how he was. Family, friends, colleagues, former colleagues and acquaintances sent messages of condolence, concern, and questions. It was very sweet, but a little overwhelming too. So, apologies if I didn't reply right away to your texts, DMs or tweets.

Hi everyone - I'll write a more detailed account on my blog on Monday that'll answer some of the questions that have arisen. Thanks for the outpouring of love and concern.

— Diana Maliszewski (@MzMollyTL) October 31, 2019

There were questions about the driver, and if there will be any consequences, or charges, etc. James has the driver's phone number and address (but not the licence plate). Thankfully it was not a hit-and-run. The couple live in the neighbourhood. They are genuinely remorseful for what happened, and also a little scared that they could be sued or charged. (They've been to the house a couple of times, bringing fruit trays and flowers - and/but I suspect they also have a lawyer because at one point they asked if James would sign something saying that he was completely fine. Don't worry - he didn't.)

The biggest question people have is: how are you and how are they?

Me? I'm actually doing quite well. People have checked in on me, given me gifts, hugged me. I learned about the event long after it happened. I was a little miffed that I was not informed immediately but it may have helped make it more of a story to me, something not quite real.

James and Peter?

Physically, they are both surprisingly well. They have no bruises or broken bones. James is sore. He is walking with a slight limp and he says his back and legs ache.

Mentally and emotionally, I think the accident has made a bigger impact. They no longer cross on that side of the street. Both of them are a lot more skittish around cars. When I'm driving, they comment on how fast the cars are travelling and jump if a car turns too closely near them. Walking in the parking lot shows that they are timid and not confident; it makes them nervous.

There are a few reasons why they were able to walk away from this experience relatively unscathed. One - because the cars were at a stop light and just making the turn from a standstill, they didn't have the chance to accelerate. James has done research (as he tends to do) and he estimates that the car was probably going about 30 km/hr when it hit him. The faster the car is going, the more likely it is that the pedestrian will be seriously injured or killed. Two - I think that James' good physical health (he does a simpler version of Cross Fit three times a week) helped his body tolerate the impact. Three - I think that some higher power (God? guardian angel?) was looking out for them.

So now what? James had to cancel his planned trip to an awesome gaming convention in Wisconsin (and all that yummy ice cream and cheese) because of the concussion monitoring. He has done a ton of research about car accidents against pedestrians - did you know that in Toronto, 6 people a day are hit by cars? 40 people a year die in Toronto after being struck by cars. James is on a mission to make that particular intersection safer - someone was hit and killed there in 2011 and daily he sees cars making illegal U turns to avoid waiting at the light.

Endings are just as hard to write as beginnings. Often I'll close a blog post with a tie-in to education or I'll illuminate one of the key themes or reiterate the main message. This time I'll end just feeling very grateful that I've got my entire family safe and sound.