Those Last 2 Weeks were SiC!

 According to https://grammar.yourdictionary.com/slang/more-american-slang.html, the term "sick" means cool or good, because "slang words often mean the opposite of their conventional meaning". I definitely want to convey that the last two full weeks of school were cool and good, but - as is typical of my class - they have coined a new acronym expression (to go along with VAC). 

To be SiC in my class is to be the Student In Charge. 

When we learned that we would not be returning to in-person learning for June, it was a real hit to class morale. The students and I had hoped to end the year physically together. Plus, it is hard to find motivation to stay as engaged and focused in lessons at this time, both because "it's not for marks" (although I've worked hard to disassociate learning with grades) and because we are all just really tired. We needed something exciting to look forward to and this idea popped into my head. I may have been inspired by many similar concepts, such as passion projects. This proposal was slightly different. 

I wondered if it would be possible to let the students be the teachers, on a subject of their choice.

I discussed it with my students, and they were intrigued. Together, we drafted a list of regulations.

RULES / REGULATIONS

The student-in-charge must run the class (cannot dismiss the class early) The student-in-charge must plan a lesson that is not illegal or inappropriate or offensive or impossible The student-in-charge must be prepared for teaching the class (e.g. slide deck, links, activities, etc.) The student-in-charge must take attendance (and Mrs. Maliszewski will submit it) The student-in-charge is in charge of a single (40 min) or double (80 min) period sometime between June 14 - 28 If the student-in-charge is partnering up with someone to co-teach, it must be a double period (80 min) The lesson does not have to be directly related to the curriculum but the other students must learn something at the end (information, skills, etc.) The lesson can include class work but no homework The student-in-charge must have their microphone on for most of the time  The student-in-charge should either share their screen or be on camera for most of the time

They brainstormed possible topics and decided whether to teach solo or with a partner. We used an online spinner to help us fairly determine who would teach on what day. The rest of the time was used for planning and consultation. I have to tell you that, once again, my expectations were exceeded. Let me tell you a bit about the different lessons, and also what it revealed to me about student ideas around teaching and learning.

This is the list of the various lesson topics offered from June 16-25.

• Speaking Jamaican Patois
• Coding in Scratch
• Sonic the Hedgehog
• Google's Be Internet Awesome + Using Dialogue in Scratch
• Drawing Techniques + Tips on Writing Quirky Short Stories (Slice of Life Observations)
• Preparing Eggs
• Flex Tape
• King Crimson (time powers as seen in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure)
• Lego
• Animal Facts + Rapper Statistics
• Toronto Raptors 
• Speaking & Writing Tamil + Making Breakfast Quesadillas
• Fortnite
• Baking Japanese Cheesecake

I wish I could thank by name all the students who did such an outstanding job preparing and delivering their lessons but my blog is too public to do that. If you are one of my 2020-21 Grade 5-6 students (or related to one of them) and are reading this, know that I am completely awed by the effort everyone put into their projects. 

Here are a few images taken from the various offerings.

I think the students learned a lot about what it's like to teach, and to teach online, from this experience. For instance, the power of a voice cannot be denied. I made sure that SiC lessons began the morning or afternoon, which meant the students were required to do attendance. The usual routine in the online version of my class is that you are courteous and turn on your microphone to answer the sentence starter. Due to either malfunctioning technology, inattention or disinclination, recently some students have not been replying orally. The Students in Charge found it harder to take attendance when they received no answer, or when they noticed a delayed response typed in the chat box. I think students also realized that they were holding me to a much higher standard than they hold themselves. The students became concerned if they did not see me constantly on camera and with my microphone activated. This constant gaze can get exhausting. They agreed that if they were going to perform in the role of teacher, they would have to abide by that rule. Most of them did, with varying results. I believe that many students also realized that there are a lot of balls to juggle when teaching. Do attendance properly, monitor the chat, ensure that the screen sharing and other tools are working, and watch for participation. That's a lot!

I also learned so much from the students. I was absolutely enchanted when at the beginning of a lesson, the students would ask the leader, "What do we call you?". They understood the flexibility of name protocols, and that if someone wanted to be called Mr or Ms So-and-So, that was acceptable. If students can manage this, they can manage pronouns and other honorifics. I was also so impressed with the quality of their preparations. For instance, sometimes when there's spare time after a lesson, we play Spot It. The game involves looking at two cards and trying to find the similar item on both. Usually I just hold up the cards to the camera. One pair of students greatly improved the game by a) personalizing it with photos of objects from their own homes, b) reviewing the names of all the potential items, and c) creating a slide deck with the cards so it would be easier to see. That's so much better than the way I do it! I loved seeing how certain concepts and practices of mine have been internalized by the students. I think every lesson had some aspect of choice build in. VAC rides again! Some students made a point of responding thoughtfully when sentence starter answers revealed things their classmates were feeling; comments like "well, I hope you feel better soon" or "that's very interesting" showed that they were paying attention to the content of the respond and not just the response itself. I was pleased with the unexpected surprises in the lessons too. A couple of lessons involved showing a video and the leaders gave an advance warning that they were a bit long. I wasn't looking forward to watching things like this, but it turns out that some were really fascinating documentaries on their subjects. (For instance, I think I finally understand how Fortnite is played.)

These SiC lessons made the last few weeks of school worth attending. In fact, one of my students that had Internet connectivity issues said she regretting missing some of the presentations. We have two days left of school. I'm going to really miss these students!

Finger Tutting

 Are you old enough to remember the TV show, The A Team? The character of Colonel John "Hannibal" Smith, played by actor George Peppard, used to say frequently, "I love it when a plan comes together". Well, this week, a plan came together and it felt so good!

Remember my batons? I had to collect them from the students. What could we do, virtually, for dance class for the rest of the year? There are a lot of factors to consider when deciding - do students have enough room or space to move? Do students have privacy to attempt move sequences without ridicule? Do students have the skills needed? Will they warm up adequately so they won't get injured? 

Enter finger tutting. I first saw finger tutting on a Taylor Swift video in 2015. I did a bit of research and found enough tutorial videos online that I was able to create a small resource bank on my Google Classroom for reference. We used Zoom breakout rooms to provide a comfortable place where students in small groups could turn on their cameras to compare their actions and give each other feedback. As with any subject, some students became proficient quickly. They started to give me pointers on how to loosen my fingers and do certain actions. (Below are a couple of the YouTube tutorials we used.)

Some of our students became so skilled that we scored an invitation to the Grade 7-8 class to give them a live introductory lesson on finger tutting. I was extremely impressed with the two Grade 5 students who were brave and confident enough to come along with me to do the actual teaching. Can you imagine being 10 years old and instructing 13 year olds in school? T and L did an amazing job.

I broached the idea of having a Finger Tutting Demonstration event online with the class. We agreed that we needed to have at least a third of the class participate for it to be worthwhile, but we also wanted students to volunteer to perform. We had 8/19 students offer to share. A pair of other students offered to be the "media team" and craft invitations and explanation emails. The rest of the students provided moral and emotional support to their friends, watching them practice and encouraging them. Everyone had a role.

We just had our event and it was even better than I expected. I worried that the finger tutting sequences created and executed by the students were too short to warrant an exclusive show. No need to worry - it went well. Our performers tutted with style and super moves and our guests made it memorable. The students chose the guest list and I sent out the student-generated messages. We were so lucky to have our principal, our SERT teacher, our music teacher, our Grade 7-8 teacher, our former OISE student-teacher, my daughter (and class guest speaker), a Grade 8 friend of the class, our recently retired Grade 6-7 teacher, and at least three parents attend. This meant so much to everyone. I introduced the special guests at the beginning, and gave time for the guests to give their verbal appreciations at the end. Our music teacher pointed out that the online venue was actually perfect for this dance form, as it provided the audience a close look at the intricate movements of the fingers that an in-person performance would lack. I never thought of that!

I don't have any photos or videos of the show, because I wanted to preserve the privacy of our performers. (We did record the performances in advance on FlipGrid in case we had any technical difficulties, but that link will be accessible only to families and students.) I'll have to rely on this written account of the event to save and savor it in my memory. Big thanks to everyone who made it a positive memory related to online learning.

PS My principal sent a follow-up thank-you email that said that the performances reminded him of Madonna's Vogue video. (My principal and I are both old enough to know that reference!) That inspired me to do some more research. In case you were wondering ... (thanks http://www.b2dstudios.co.za/hip-hop-terms for the explanation)

Voguing is a highly stylized, modern house dance that evolved out of the Harlem ballroom scene in the 1980s. It gained mainstream exposure when it was featured in Madonna's song and video "Vogue" (1990). Inspired by Vogue magazine, voguing is characterized by model-like poses integrated with angular, linear, and rigid arm, leg, and body movements. This style of dance arose from Harlem ballrooms by African Americans and Latino Americans in the early 1960s. It was originally called "presentation" and later "performance". Over the years, the dance evolved into the more intricate and illusory form that is now called "vogue".

Tutting an upper body dance that uses the arms, hands, and wrists to form right angles and create geometric box-like shapes. Tutting can be done primarily with the fingers rather than the arms. This method is called finger tutting. In both variations the movements are intricate, linear, and form 90° or 45° angles. In practice, tutting looks like the characters on the art of ancient Egypt, hence the name - a reference to King Tut.

Scripts

 Some assignments can be just as much fun to mark as to complete. In my class, we are wrapping up units of study (or at least the formalized, marked portions of these units) and ensuring that the culminating tasks are all completed. 

For the Grade 5-6 health unit on substance use / addictions, I was inspired to create a particular assignment because of my son's happy memories based on a similar project. My son just finished his first year of college, but he can still quote from memory a few of the lines that he had when performing in a group play in elementary school about "the dangers of drugs". I decided to have my students write scripts about situations in which someone could have to make a decision about alcohol or drug use. 

Together, the students and I developed a similar evaluation criteria checklist. If we ran out of time (which we did), we would just focus on the 4 health-related goals:

This truly became a family act, because I invited my daughter, who just finished her third year of university, to come be a guest lecturer and teach us all about the proper way to write a script. Creative writing is one of her minors, and she took a scriptwriting course this past year. She prepared a short slide deck with all the formatting and layout directions we needed.

For a brief moment, I was a bit concerned that I was expecting too much from my students. My daughter is 21 and my students are 10-12 year olds. Script writing is a noticeably different writing style. Even the font is dictated. (In case you were wondering, it's Courier.)

It turns out to have been a good experiment. The students wrote two scripts - one for language class that was a script adaptation of a short story their team selected, and the original health scripts. The students seemed to like it because:

1) scripts have structure = there is security knowing that there is a set way to complete a task. Having a specific format gives the creators "something to hang their hats on". 

2) student scripts look like the real thing = the final products looked authentic, and that was impressive!

3) script writing is a creative endeavor = I had some students work willingly outside of class time to craft these scripts. Some predicted that this script would be the best thing they wrote this entire term. Even the adaptations had wiggle room to present things in different ways. 

4) script writing can be collaborative = group writing can be challenging sometimes and invigorating at other times. The language scripts were completed in three heterogenous groups of six students each. There was choice for the health scripts and 12/18 students decided to write in a pair or trio. Students even tracked who gave what idea or how they contributed. 

My colleague and I enjoyed marking them because:

a) the student scripts revealed their knowledge and misconceptions clearly = many of my students are somewhat naïve; they still think that a "shady older man in an alleyway" is the person that introduces others to alcohol or drugs. These scripts will actually help my co-teacher and I plan some of our follow-up lessons, so we can talk about how it's more often friends in social situations that involve alcohol or drugs. 

b) scripts are a familiar format = we've watched TV shows and movies, so reading a script (although we are definitely not actors or producers or script writers) felt like something that wasn't taxing or boring. 

c) some of the scripts were funny = my colleague and I laughed until we cried while marking some of the scripts. We had seen first drafts prior to the final submissions, and we had provided feedback along the way, but reading them together was a completely different experience. Some were intentionally hilarious and some were unintentionally a hoot.

I'm sorry that we didn't actually get to film any of these scripts - that was going to be a goal if we were headed back to in-class learning in June - but the experience was worth it. We've got finger tutting demonstrations and student-in-charge lessons to look forward to, but maybe if there are any holes in the schedule, we can convince a group or two to provide a "live" script reading just for our class. 

Heavy Heart

 Let me tell you a little bit about my sister. 

Have you heard of the term "Irish twins"? This phrase (as defined by this website) describes when two children are born to the same mother within twelve months. (Heads up that the phrase itself can be mildly derogatory or offensive.) My parents were married and childless for twelve years and then had two children in the same calendar year. The legend goes that my younger sister Mary Carol did not want to miss Christmas so she was born in December instead of her original due date of February. For a few months every year, we are the exact same age.

My sister and I were close playmates when we were little and my mother even used to dress us alike. We took baton and dance lessons together and were part of a Saturday bowling league. As we got older, we tried to distinguish ourselves from the other. We shared friends but as we went through high school, we had different interests and passions. In high school, I was the "bookish one" and my sister was the "musical one". She was a gifted trumpet player and organist and would travel with the school band all over the world. (We used to work weddings and funerals at our local church - she'd play the organ and I would sing.) In university, I went to York and studied English and French/Humanities; she went to the University of Toronto and studied Sociology and Music History. We weren't as close as when we were younger. In the early 2000s, she moved to Alberta.

Circumstances changed recently and she had the opportunity to move back to Ontario. She and her husband bought a beautiful house in the Kawartha Lakes region. They were excited to find jobs here so they could be closer to their families. It was lovely to have her in the same province. Our different lifestyles in our 20s and 30s (family structure, leisure activities, priorities, careers) weren't as pronounced or didn't seem to matter as much now that we were both in our 40s. We bonded over the shared challenges of dealing with extended family issues and a common history. The pandemic threw a wrench into our plans, of course. We weren't able to see each other almost at all due to stay-at-home orders and other restrictions. We couldn't even have them over for the holidays.

Then came the bad news: neither my sister nor her husband were able to find jobs that would pay them a decent wage. The glorious house (a converted school house from the 1920s) had serious flaws that cost a lot of money to fix. They had to make a very hard decision that was hard to accept but in the end was the wisest choice for them; they are moving back to Alberta. 

I am crushed. It's hard even to type these words. I'm trying to think positively. It's not the end of the world. I know things could be much worse. Still, this rationalizing doesn't do much to make me less sad about this loss. 

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The unfortunate thing is that I'm experiencing parallel losses right now.

Replace "my sister" with "my students". 

Explain "circumstances changed" by noting the switch from a library placement to a classroom teaching job.

Repeat "it was lovely". Note that I missed library but enjoyed my Grade 5-6s.

Repeat "the pandemic threw a wrench into our plans".

Explain "then came the bad news" by noting the decision for students to not return to in-person learning in June 2021.

Repeat "a very hard decision that was hard to accept but in the end was the wisest choice".

And again: I am crushed. It's hard even to type these words. I'm trying to think positively. It's not the end of the world. I know things could be much worse. Still, this rationalizing doesn't do much to make me less sad about this loss. 

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ETA  I plan on visiting my sister sometime this summer, pandemic be damned. I plan on dropping things off and picking things up from my students' homes so I can at least see them in person one more time before the end of June, time be damned. This makes the sadness sting a little less.