Calgary Catch-Up & Keep-Up

 My motto this summer seems to be "Work Hard, Play Hard".

This past week, my son and I flew to Calgary to spend time with my sister and brother-in-law. If you are a regular reader of this blog, you will know that I was very sad when my sister had to move back out west. We vowed to arrange a chance to catch up with each other, and this was the week. We had a fantastic time together. My sister and brother-in-law made sure we had lots of local experiences, even though we were too late for the Calgary Stampede. Here are some of the highlights.  

Floating the Bow (Thursday)

A Calgary tradition is to enjoy recreational river travel. They rented a huge inflatable craft and we spent hours bobbing along, enjoying the scenery and occasionally paddling so we wouldn't get stuck on the riverbank.

Visiting Frank Slide (Saturday) 

This is the site of Canada's deadliest rock slide. We went to the Frank Interpretive Center and read all about the 90 seconds that killed 90/600 inhabitants of this booming mining town. I remember reading a Silver Birch book about the topic. 

Walking Nature Trails (Tuesday)

On our very first day, we strolled down the beautiful paths near the Bow River. All the biting bugs seemed to like my blood the most, but it was worth the itches as we enjoyed the scenery.

Playing VR on our "Down Time" (daily)

My sister rented a VR headset for us to try while at their home. It was a lot of fun. My son and brother-in-law enjoyed fishing, visiting Antarctica and exploring the ocean floor.

Experiencing a Spa Pedicure (Wednesday)

This was an effective way to purposefully slow down, since you can't move when you are getting your nails done. The Riverside Spa was an oasis of calm, although the laughter my sister and I generated while there probably disrupted some of that serenity. It was a great companion piece to the shopping we did earlier that morning and later that week. You can't beat the 5% sales tax on purchases.

Tackling an Escape Room (Friday & Sunday)

This was such an enjoyable experience that we did it twice! This was our first time participating in something like this. Our first room was Egyptian-themed and thankfully, we were able to succeed in breaking out. It really exposed how people problem-solve in very different ways. My sister and I were big planners who wanted to strategize; we liked trying to organize all the information and consult verbally and slowly. My son and brother-in-law have a very different approach - they wanted to jump in immediately, gather all the props and tools they could accumulate, and play with the various options as the ideas came to them. To be honest, it was good to have all sorts of types in the room together (even though it wasn't always smooth sailing) because the various strengths led to solutions. During the second escape room, we failed to complete the task within the hour (we got out in 62 minutes) but we were much better at communicating and collaborating with each other. 

Watching a Movie at a Luxury Cinema (Wednesday)

We have fancy movie theatres in Toronto, but they weren't open. We went to a socially-distanced showing of Space Jam Legacy. The movie wasn't great (because it felt like "corporate flexing" and "animation ability showcase" rather than a good story) but I shouldn't expect much more from this franchise, and it was more about the environment and the company.

Playing Bocce in Edworthy Park (Sunday)

Even though the sky was not as blue due to the fires in neighbouring BC and Saskatchewan, the weather was a delightfully dry heat and on our last full day in Calgary, the four of us went to play bocce in the park. I was particularly impressed with a few of my shots, so I recorded them for posterity with a photograph.

This was all in addition to the great places where we ate (e.g. Angel's Café, Chops). Sadly, it wasn't all party time. It was a good thing that my body was still on Toronto time, because it was necessary to continue to work on my Queen's University AQ course as well as put the final touches on my upcoming ETFO Summer Academy session with Chelsea Attwell. I tried not to let these work obligations interfere with all the fun, so often I would spend an hour or two every late evening (when everyone was in bed) or early in the morning (before everyone was awake) providing feedback on module culminating tasks, reading discussion forums posted by the course participants and crafting the first of four Progress Report updates. Chelsea and I even had a phone consultation on Friday to polish our presentation synchronously. This was necessary so I didn't feel overwhelmed with overdue work when we returned to Toronto. Keeping up reduces the catching up!

I am so grateful that I had this time with my sister. It's shocking how alike we are in some ways. We have already begun to plan our next trip/visit together, and knowing that is on the horizon will help make the time apart not be as bitter. 

Adult Online Learning Insights from #ETFOsa21 #NAMLE21 & TL AQ

Holy macaroni! What a full week!

July 13 - 15, 2021 was the ETFO Summer Academy session, "Rediscovering Joy in the TL Role".

July 16 - 19, 2021 was the NAMLE 2021 Conference.

Don't forget the ongoing Teacher-Librarianship Part 1 Additional Qualification Course with Queen's University.

There are so many things that I could write about each specific learning experience. (I will probably share my #NAMLE21 notes on the AML website.) However, there were some commonalities I noted between all three events. (Some of it may even spill over into the TDSB Expected Practice Writing Project that I mentioned last week and is ALSO still ongoing.) 

1) Learning on-demand has never been more fluid or possible.

With over a year of experience, thanks to the pandemic, the way online learning experiences are organized seem to be more flexible and accessible. In my Queen's University TL AQ course, we have candidates who are on completely different continents. They work at their own pace and I am learning more about how to manage group tasks (which I greatly reduced when designing this course) to accommodate for different time zones and work periods. Another example comes from the weekend conference; on Friday I watched 3 sessions (including two that were scheduled at the same time) from #NAMLE21. This would not have been doable at an in-person conference; I would have had to choose between the two. On Saturday, I watched six sessions in total, almost all of them "on-demand". Usually my brain would have been too full and I would have been too tired to absorb any more information. This leads to my next insight ...

2) There is a greater realization that time has to be carefully used online.

The ETFO Summer Academy had a limit of two hours of synchronous meeting time in the morning and two hours in the afternoon. This was a slight increase from last year, when it was capped at 90 minutes per portion. The individual NAMLE workshops are usually under an hour long, and often fall between 20-40 minutes. Organizers (of adult education, anyway) are being much more cognizant of how exhausting it is to stare at a screen for hours and hours at a time and are scheduling experiences appropriately. I can take a break when I need or want it, and return refreshed. If you have the stamina to watch several sessions in a row, that is your choice, but it is an option. When online together, the time is constructed in meaningful ways - more interactions, and any lectures or content-driven moments are punctuated by engaging multimedia supports. I really hope that my TL AQ candidates aren't spending too much time online. (I myself spend about 2-3 hours every night reading or viewing their contributions in the course, answering course-related queries via email, and taking notes related to assessment.) 

3) Be gentle with your facilitators/leaders - confidence is part of the façade.

Imposter syndrome is when "which an individual doubts their skills, talents, or accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a "fraud".^[1]" (although take into account systemic bias). In every group I've worked with so far this summer - the TDSB Writing Team, the ETFO SA team, other colleagues preparing parallel sessions to share at NAMLE - there has always been at least one person, and that includes me, that questions whether or not they are knowledgeable or experienced enough to merit this opportunity. Combined with that fear is the worry about the crowd receiving the learning. Adults are definitely less forgiving and more demanding than children, and at the risk of offending some, adult educators can be one of the toughest audiences to teach. When I first started teaching Additional Qualification courses in 2018 (with York University), I was absolutely terrified. I didn't even reveal to anyone that it was my first time leading the course until the very last day! The 12 participants then were marvelous, as were the 15 participants in 2019. Now I'm facilitating the course that I actually designed for Queen's University with 18 candidates. The onQ system is new to me, and I want to thank Bryan, Sarah, Penny, Deborah, and Julie for answering my questions and calming my nerves. I am extra-anxious about this course because it is my first time and I am responsible for the content. I know I will eventually feel more comfortable and confident after I go through it once, as is/was the case with the ETFO Summer Academy course. This was my fourth time presenting with ETFO SA (three of those times with the wonderful Jennifer Brown) and it was the first time for my colleagues Moyah Walker and Ketly Appleton. They were fantastic! They did a wonderful job and brought their own strengths to the team. I believe that the participants enjoyed their experience, but it can be hard to tell because ...

4) It can be harder to develop lasting connections or relationships. 

Let me clarify. I am not saying that it is impossible to bond virtually. After all, I have some very close friendships that were formed from participating in an online Twilight fan forum. What I am trying to say is that there are a lot of factors that contribute to the development of community and connections when it happens virtually, and I really miss how much easier it seems to come to me to "click" with people in person. There were nearly 30 participants in last week's ETFO SA session, and if you asked me how many I could name without referring to a list, I'm not sure what score I would get. When I went to NAMLE's conference in Washington DC in 2019 (my last trip before the pandemic hit), I made such incredible connections! Timothy, Theresa, Faith, Lisa, Belinda ... we aren't suddenly best friends, but we know of and about each other in a way that watching a video doesn't replicate as well. 

5) Preparing for these events takes even longer than the event itself. 

Okay, this is a repeat from last week's blog, just rephrased, but it is worth a second mention. If you watch my NAMLE 2021 presentations, one was about 30 minutes and the other was about 40 minutes. (Yes, I contributed two sessions.) It took hours and hours of preparation to get those ready, and that was just a solo endeavor. When you add other contributors, multiply the amount of time it takes. Our ETFO Summer Academy session that just occurred took at least 5 multi-hour group meetings with the whole team, plus many phone conversations and individual work on the planning document and slide decks. (My upcoming other ETFO SA session team has already met 4 times to discuss matters and a 5th meeting has already been scheduled while I am away on "vacation".) I estimate it took about 7 months of work to revise the Queen's University TL AQs (because I wrote all 3.) It's exhausting - but can be rewarding. 

So, thank you to:

• the ETFO Summer Academy people that made last week work
• Jennifer Brown (wonderful co-presenter)
• Moyah Walker (wonderful co-presenter)
• Ketly Appleton (wonderful co-presenter)
• Julie Millan (ETFO SA coordinator)
• Tracy Halliday (amazing guest speaker)
• Sean Liburd (Knowledge Books rep)
• Andrew Woodrow-Butcher (Beguiling rep)
• Miguel San Vincente (A Different Booklist rep)
• Malaika Eyoh (A Different Booklist rep)
• Alison Frayne (Goodminds rep)
• Achilles Gentle (Goodminds rep)

• the NAMLE 2021 conference folks (see my tweets for shout-outs)
• the Queen's University Continuing Teacher Education organizers &  TL AQ participants

Essential, Expected, Effective: Collaboratively Revising a Document

 I didn't think it was possible to be even MORE busy now that summer is here and my time teaching my beloved Grade 5-6 class is over. But it is!

In addition to teaching a fully-online Teacher-Librarian Additional Qualification course with Queen's University (based on the new courses that I wrote for them recently), I am also participating in two ETFO Summer Academy sessions as a facilitator, and I am the project lead for a special TDSB writing project. I also plan on attending the NAMLE conference and taking a short vacation. That's a lot for just the month of July!

I decided to focus on the board's writing project on today's blog. I won't go into too much detail, out of respect for the proprietary nature of some of the content (and the privacy of the writers). I think the three main points I wanted to remember are:

1) Like with teaching, sometimes the planning and pre-work is more intensive.

2) Group writing is both easy and hard.

3) Creating a document that is applicable to the entire school board means juggling a lot of elements.

I am so very grateful to Andrea Sykes for the opportunity to guide this work. It is due to her diligence and persistence that this project has become a reality. The team is revising the TDSB's Library and Learning Commons K-12 Teaching and Learning Expected Practice document. Assembling the team took hours of deliberation, consultation, and discussion. It's a small team of only five writers (excluding myself) and we (Andrea and I) wanted to ensure that we had wide representation of the different "library realities" in TDSB as well as varied perspectives. What made it extra challenging is that there are so many talented, hard-working, wise teacher-librarians in our particular school board. If we had the funds, we would have invited so many more participants - but that might not have exactly been a good idea.

Writing (or revising) as a group can be simultaneously easy and hard. I am appreciative of Tina Zita, who carved time out of her schedule to chat with me about how she managed the update of the Teacher-Librarian Additional Qualification guidelines for the Ontario College of Teachers. The processes that she suggested really helped the group bond as a team, find common ground, and consolidate main ideas. (Tina, I need to send you some of the visuals we developed during our first two sessions!) It's a tricky balance. We want to be on the same page, but we don't want a "hive mind". We need to revise and update the content, and word choice is important, but we have to ensure we don't get bogged down in debating the merits of specific sentences. As the project lead, I want to ensure the writers feel they have autonomy but I don't want to be too "hands-off". Thank goodness for online collaborative documents!

This blog title has three E words: Essential, Expected, and Effective. We spent some time during our first day as a team together wrestling with what it means to meet (vs exceed) standards. This document is part of the Expected Practice series. The actions mentioned are not meant to be just for the realm of the exceptional, "level 4" teacher-librarian. The document outlines what *every* teacher-librarian in TDSB must and should be doing. It is the essential work. School libraries are unique to their communities but we must ensure equity of programming, staffing, and expectations throughout the entire board. (That's a lot of E words in this paragraph!) There are so many documents, policies, and procedures that we need to reference but not overuse, as we don't want the document to become too dated too soon. The last time it was written was in 2014. We want to do it right and have it last.

Thank you to the writing team (M, D, K, W, and W) - I look forward to the rest of our scheduled time together!

Companions in Shipwreck

 Today is my 24th wedding anniversary. On my 20th anniversary, I did a tribute post to my husband, James. I didn't want to repeat the same type of material four years later, but thankfully, James gave me a great lead-in.

My husband likes reading various articles and summarizing them for me. He happened upon an article from Time Magazine called "Stop Looking For Your Soulmate and Try This Instead" by Ada Calhoun from May 17, 2017. In it, Calhoun quotes Tolkien who describes "companions in shipwreck not guiding stars". Calhoun reiterates: Soulmates are made, not born.

When I was much younger, I probably would have objected to this practical analysis. It's much more romantic to say that we were "meant to be" and it was "destiny". However, like being in the teaching profession, no one's "born to be together" (or "born to be a teacher"). Being married, like being a teacher, takes dedication and hard work. Implying otherwise denigrates the effort it takes. It's not magic!

Certain times can be easier or harder, depending on the circumstances. Modifying the role of spouse to the role of parent is one such difficult time, similar to teaching a new grade at a new school. This past pandemic year was challenging in all realms. It is how we handle ourselves and each other in these times of crisis that hone our skills and shape the future. 

We are spending our actual anniversary cleaning my school library and attending a CrossFit class together. Our celebratory dinner was a variety of food from the STC Street Eats Food Truck Market. It's not glamorous, but it's us. Happy anniversary, James - my shipwreck companion!