40 in 14

 I was originally going to call this post "25 down, 15 to go" but the numbers were changing too drastically from day to day to make it accurate.

It always takes me a while to calm my mind and body when school is not in session. Often, this shift results in me getting ill, but thankfully I have not succumbed to any viruses or bacteria. I was well enough to attend Mass on Christmas Eve, unwrap presents on Christmas Day in the morning, and host my parents for dinner later on Christmas Day.

The holiday is a time to rest and recuperate, but it is also a time to get caught up on some tasks. I've made myself a to-do list on the whiteboard in my basement; I try not to look at it too long because it's rather long.

One of the jobs I need to complete is to read all the Forest of Reading 2025 nominees. I did not bring home the ten Blue Spruce books, but I carted home the Silver Birch Express (10), Silver Birch Fiction (10), Yellow Cedar (10) and Red Maple (10) books, with the goal of completing them all in two weeks (ergo the mysterious "40 in 14" title for this post). 

What's the rush? According to my school board's policy, if a school wishes to participate in a recreational reading program, an adult in charge must have read the books beforehand, so that he/she/they are aware of all the titles and any potential content concerns. For me, I have another, more pressing reason: the students will be demanding to get their hands on our copies of the nominated books ASAP so I need to be ready for the onslaught! In fact, here's a photo of a particular student at my school - ever since the first week of school, he's been asking when the Forest of Reading program would begin. He also has been carrying around his old reading passport from 2023 as a treasure or trophy.

I received the shipment of books on the last few days of school, so I haven't had the opportunity to read them uninterrupted beforehand. One of my hidden talents is that I can read rapidly. I was a voracious reader when I was a child and I need the speed in order to be ready for January 2025.

My friend Wendy, a fellow teacher-librarian, was curious to hear about which titles have captured my attention so far. At the risk of prejudicing any of the readers in my school (since I know some students read my blog), some of the books I've read that I've enjoyed have been:

• Lost and Found: A True Story (it reminded me of some of my students)
• Odd Couples (loved the illustrations and had me guessing about the connections)
• The Cricket War (a powerful refugee story)
• Mortified (how much humiliation can one character take?)
• Welcome to AI (timely and a good fit for two of my upcoming workshops)
• Whales and Us (mirrored so much of what our First Lego League team researched/learned!)
• Operation Cupcake (wish I had this book when I was teaching about simple machines)

I still have more to read, so my list of favourites may grow. Don't worry; it won't be all work for me while I'm away from school. I'll get to nap and I've already had a lovely afternoon with my Fluevog enablers Wendy and Kim down at the Distillery District this past weekend trying on shoes.

Time for Three Tributes

 It's better to compliment people when they are alive to hear it. I realized that the last "tribute" post I wrote was in February 2024 for Julie Tran. As much as I'd like to surprise people with these posts, I know it's important to obtain consent. This post was rather tricky to get permission to create, so much so that I had to promise that the spotlight would be shared!

Our junior division team is strong this year. A lot of it has to do with our current Grade 5 teacher and her "next-door neighbour", the Grade 4-5 LTO teacher. Today's blog post will focus on the two of them as well as another LTO, and reasons why we are so fortunate to have all of them in the building.

Brenda Kim

Brenda Kim is our Grade 5 teacher. She has been with our school since 2014, if my annual scrapbooks are accurate. Brenda is a talented math educator, so much so that when my own daughter was struggling with Grade 11 math, I asked Brenda to tutor her, and thanks to Brenda's instruction, my eldest was able to pass the course! (This photo below of Ms. Kim and Mary was taken in July 2017 at MakerEdTO.)

I've always enjoyed co-teaching with Brenda. She and I attended a workshop series together on Critical Thinking in Social Studies in 2019, and together we taught a really cool end-of-unit-lesson that involved both of our student teachers in 2020. We even made collaboration work in 2021 when she was a virtual teacher. This year, we did some stuff together in science and it was her class that created those skinny pig slides I wrote about last month. 

The reasons why Brenda deserves extra-special recognition hinge on the circumstances of this year's class. In 2024-25, Brenda returned to teaching full-time from a stint as a part-time teacher to focus on her family. It would be a challenging transition for anyone, but Brenda is excelling, despite some of the needy students in her class. For instance, she is providing so many well-modified tasks for her multilingual learners. I'll be honest; she's doing a better job giving them regular structured practice work than I am as their ESL teacher! There are some students in her class that have had several visits to the office, and not for the best of reasons. Brenda could easily pass the responsibility on to someone else, but often she offers her own time to help solve problems, calm students down, or give them a space to eat or relax where they are less likely to get in trouble. Heck, she even sacrificed part of her lunch hour when I was the person in charge at school to patrol the hall and ensure people who were supposed to be outside stayed outside! She knows how much her class needs her and sometimes that resulted in her coming to school when she felt less than 100% well to make sure that her class was okay. (Some of this *may* have had to do with the reluctance to write supply teacher plans - I can definitely relate to that!)

One thing Brenda is terrible at is accepting compliments. She dismisses her efforts as "nothing special" but it is the efforts of caring and considerate teachers that make good schools great.

Lexi Williams

Brenda and her fellow junior division teachers (Diana Hong, Nelani Kokularajan, and Lexi Williams) helped tremendously with this year's Winter Concert. With our music teacher out of commission due to an injury, we had to alter our expectations for the LTO replacing her. (More on that LTO later.) A little bird told me that it was Lexi's idea to combine the Grade 4-5, 5, and 6 students and have them all sing and sign John Lennon's "Imagine" to perform at the concert.

I've written about fabulous LTOs in the past. It's not an easy job. Lexi started with the Grade 4-5 class in October and has done a phenomenal job of creating a positive culture in the classroom. Lexi has been a LTO at our school before; she was great then in her Grade 1-2 class, but, even though I didn't think it was possible, I'm even more amazed with her patience, skills, and creativity this year. She genuinely cares about reaching every student and crafting lessons and learning experiences that help them maximize their learning while honouring their individual differences. Like Brenda, Lexi is doing SO much to support her students who are ESL learners. I love hearing her share about the gains that specific students are making, or ways she's discovering to use their passions and interests to help them improve, achieve, and thrive in school. I'm disappointed that our school superintendent had to cancel his most recent visit to our school. If he was able to attend, he was scheduled to see how Lexi incorporates technology to motivate and support her students, many of whom struggle with reading and reading comprehension. There's a student who is writing an encyclopedia by choice because of the encouragement and personalized learning Lexi engineers. I walked into the Grade 4-5 classroom one day to have her students enthusiastically bombard me with queries related to their science task. Many of the students in Lexi's class are very artistic and as part of their science unit, they folded fifty butterflies and lizards and hid them throughout the classroom using physical and behavioral adaptations. When I marveled at how clever this lesson was, she said it was "just" a matter of finding the idea online and tweaking it for her purposes. I was still impressed with how she sought out interesting ways to captivate her students and not rely on pages and pages of worksheets to make learning engaging and fun.

Serena Fung

Lexi isn't the only LTO currently at our school. Our music/senior ESL teacher destroyed her ACL and is at home recovering. (Connie, don't you try and apologize again! It's not your fault this happened.) We were fortunate that Lexi had a friend who was not only available, but willing and eager to help out - Serena Fung.

 Serena has been a wonderful addition to our school. Like Brenda, she has willingly given up her time to provide emotional support for students who had difficulty managing the ins and outs of a school day. Her translation skills have been used to our relief multiple times since she started, such as when she filled holes during parent-teacher interviews. I've never heard her complain, even when she had to race after students who were attempting to leave unexpectedly or offer extra practices after school to assist the band students improve in time for our concert. The biggest WOW for me is how Serena initiated, and launched, a K-Pop Club for our students. Serena left no stone unturned when preparing for this club. She organized everything so well, from permission forms to weekly plans that help participants learn about Korean culture while enjoying the music. The popularity of the club has grown tremendously, and Serena willingly gives up her Friday afternoons (with supervision help from the other two tributes highlighted here - Brenda and Lexi - to ensure things run smoothly) to offer this optional enrichment to our students. 

We are now on holiday until school resumes in January 2025. I hope Serena, Lexi, and Brenda enjoy their well-deserved rest. Thank you, Ms. Kim, Ms. Williams, and Ms. Fung for everything you do as dedicated educators. We are so lucky to have you!

The Pretend Principal

'Tis the season ... for people to get sick! At the school level, this often means arranging for an occasional teacher to cover the class. If we are short of supply teachers, the specialist teachers (such as myself) will need to step in and cover the absence. However, when the ill individual is the principal, it takes on additional significance.

My school's administrator is rarely away. He was at a conference (principals need professional development too!) and when he returned, he was not his usual healthy self. Could it be "con-crud"? ("Con Crud" is slang for getting sick after attending conventions, because of the large gathering of people from different places at a single location.) Whatever the reason, he left on Monday and was away the entire week.

My school is not large enough to warrant having a vice-principal. In the "chain of command", the next person in authority would be the chair people. It just so happens that the other chair person is away recovering from an injury. That leaves - you guessed it - me.

The great thing is that there are supply principals that can be called on to help shepherd a school when their usual leader is away. Often, these are retired principals who make themselves available. We were extremely fortunate to have three principals come to cover. Thank you to Sue (Tuesday), Penny (Wednesday) and Allison (Friday) for stepping in when we needed them. Thank you also to Leigh, who was on-call on Thursday when we were unable to find a principal to be with us all day. (I took the liberty of parking in the principal's spot that day. People got a kick out of seeing my bright green Kia Soul there.)

I consider myself quite fortunate that the school where I work does not deal with a host of behaviour issues. My previous schools were challenging at times, and I wrote in the past about a time where I was the person in charge of the building and how difficult it was. This past week, I did not have to deal with problems like this, and I did not have to complete most of the duties that my regular principal is tasked with daily, but there were several responsibilities that require a principal and might often go unnoticed by regular educators. It makes me appreciate my principal and principals everywhere.

Discipline

As "easy" as my school can be, there were still some incidents where students misbehaved and they had to be addressed. This takes a lot longer than one might anticipate. You have to interview all the participants and witnesses, consider context, circumstances, and history, and communicate any consequences to everyone involved. This is where I am grateful for the guidance of our supply and support administrators, who helped me with the process.

Decisions

Decision-making fatigue for educators is real. Teachers have to make a lot of decisions over the course of a school day. For principals, I suspect that they have to make even MORE decisions, and there are many more factors to consider. For instance, if a teacher is absent, who will be asked to cover the class? How will this impact their regular schedule? Do we have enough people outside for yard duty? Are there plans available? Who will need access to those plans? 

Availability

It's important for a principal to be visible in the school, as a reassuring presence, as a physical representation of the school, and as a point of contact. This week, I ate all my lunches (when I had them) at the desk in the office. It ensured that our office administrator got her regularly scheduled lunch break, that phones were answered, doors opened, and visitors greeted. After school, someone "in charge" needs to be around until all students are out of the building. We have dedicated teachers who run clubs and teams outside of instructional hours, so I was around until after 4:30 pm several afternoons in a row. We also hosted our winter concert this week, and the concert always closes with final remarks from the principal. I brought greetings from our principal in his place. Someone had to be available as a stand-in. 

I didn't include all the other jobs a principal or vice-principal has to cover, like answering superintendent's emails, attending meetings, and filing reports. I'm glad I wasn't expected to add those to my to-do list!

There's sometimes an adversarial relationship between teachers and principals, possibly ever since the principals were removed from belonging in the same union. This is a shame because, despite being our "bosses", we are all (or we all should be) aiming for similar goals: ensuring students are learning and protecting the safety, health, and well-being of all people in school. Don't get me wrong - there are some terrible principals and terrible teachers out there (as Friday's Toronto Star article on chronic unjustified teacher absenteeism implies) - AND the education system is very broken and stumbling along, functioning thanks to the generosity of hours of unpaid labour by educators - BUT being a principal and being a teacher are both hard jobs. We need to appreciate each other. Being both at the same time - a "pretend principal" (since I do not hold any PQPs [principal qualification papers]) - made me realize that it's doubly difficult. Tack on a few extra jobs this week, and it's no wonder I'm looking a bit haggard and tired.

I'm looking forward to the final week of school and a bit of a break before returning in January! Stay well, everyone.

Saturday Competitions (From OBTA to FLL)

 When I was a young person, I used to be a competitive baton twirler. Eventually, I graduated to becoming a baton twirling coach. Competitions were held on the weekend. We'd pack all our costumes, equipment, and paraphernalia and drive to Kitchener or whatever city was hosting an Ontario Baton Twirling Association (OBTA) sponsored event.

This Saturday, I had flashbacks to my baton twirling days, because I was one of the coaches that escorted our school's First Lego League (FLL) team to their qualifying meet at David and Mary Thomson Collegiate Institute. This is our school's first year participating in the challenge competition and it's intense! Registered teams must program a robot to complete as many missions related to the year's theme - FLL Canada describes it more succinctly: "building LEGO-based robots to complete tasks on a thematic playing surface". There's also a presentation component to the event; students need to research an issue related to the theme, come up with innovative technological solutions, and share their process and findings in front of a judge. This year's theme was "Submerged".

Our school's lead coach is Matthew Malisani. He is a font of knowledge and expertise. His prior experience as a FLL coach and judge really helped us understand how and what we had to complete. Matthew was much more conscientious than I was because he would read every word of the five-page email updates we'd receive and studied the Robot Game Rulebook to ensure we knew what time limits we had or what actions could disqualify us or reduce our point acquisition. (Before you think I was just a barnacle or a hanger-on, I contributed with my teacher-librarian skills and networking abilities; I helped the students research their project, connect with an expert they consulted with about the issue, and assisted them with polishing their presentation with props, phrases, and many rehearsals.) I even made them some swag to wear as part of our team spirit that fit with our research theme.

I've used the word intense already but I'll repeat it again - it's an intense process! The robot performance match is a 2.5 minute timed process. Team members have no time to dilly-dally. They must put their robot through their paces and get as many tasks completed in that short period of time. Our team, AMPS Robotics, have been working together since the second week of school. As the competition date drew closer (and especially after several of us were done with our twice-a-week choir practices to prepare for Remembrance Day), the team met every day at lunch to work. Matt informed us that there were teams that have been working for a lot longer. There are teams that aren't associated with schools that schedule all-day sessions on the weekend to prepare and practice. 

Participating in FLL isn't cheap either. Matt correctly pointed out that equivalent school sports competitions are expensive in terms of the teacher release time, jerseys, and space. For FLL, it costs money to register a team, purchase the year's thematic kit, and build a table. This doesn't include any additional items that help supplement the presentation or care for the competitors, like paying for their pizza lunch the day of the event.

We wanted to have realistic expectations for our students. Our team is relatively young. The Challenge category is for children ages 9-14 and our team of eight students consists of two in Grade 4, three in Grade 5, and three in Grade 6. At Saturday's competition, there were 28 schools and 43 teams participating. Our hope was that the students would score some points (because it is possible to have a negative total at the end of a match) and not be in the bottom third of the pack. We also wanted our students to have a positive experience at the event - have fun!

Our students exceeded our expectations from beginning to end. First of all, everyone arrived on time for their early 7:00 am pick-up at the school.

The main motto of these FLL events is "gracious professionalism". It's a competition but teams must be kind to each other and to internal members of their own team. Our students were wonderful to each other. In between matches, they played board games with each other and had fun. (Below is a photo of them playing Spot It together.)

They kept calm under pressure and made a point of tidying up their area and plugging in the robot to keep it charged.

The students were delighted to see our principal visit them at the competition and some members who were reluctant to be at the table for the timed mission portion actually relented and joined in. 

We didn't enter the room when the students did their presentation. We were allowed, but Matt recommended that we stay out, because if things went south, then they could problem-solve independently. When our students exited the room after their 30 minute session, they were smiling. They reported that the judges had many nice things to say about their project. Big thanks to Jessica Roberts from York University for answering our students' questions about noise pollution in the ocean! They wore the ear muffs I made them (to fit the theme of reducing noise) and they said the judges were tickled with all the various props they brought to help each other out, like the hula hoops to prevent each other from wandering away during the talk! (The photo below is of the students practicing on our own mat in the "pit area".)

The crowds watching the action got thicker as the day went on. Our kids started to get a bit tired, but they persevered. 

We stayed for the awards ceremony, not expecting to receive anything, but because it's the polite thing to do. Out of 43 teams, we placed 17th, which was an excellent showing. Imagine our surprise when our team was called as a prize winner! We were awarded the Rising All-Star Award for the team that showed the most potential.

The kids were happy and delighted with this recognition. As we gathered our things for the drive back to north Scarborough, many of them talked about re-joining and what they could do next year. Matt will probably start next year's team in May so that we have even more time to get ready. Congratulations to every team that participated, regardless of the end result. Despite our worries about the organization of the event (i.e. Why are we still receiving invoice notices when we paid over a month ago? Why wasn't our team allocated a table in the pit area? Why does FLL make it so hard for TDSB to pay for registration?), the event ended up running relatively smoothly and the young future engineers and scientists really enjoyed putting their robots through their paces. Healthy competition can be motivating and invigorating! Best of luck to those advancing to the provincial competition in January. It won't be us, but big thanks to our team and their families: EM, EM, JY, JY, AC, LT, SZ and LZ. 

Who Really Runs My Library?

This past weekend, my friend Kim Davidson attended the burial of her mother back in Jamaica where her mom was born and grew up. Kim's mom, Pat McNaughton, was my "library mom"; she worked as an adult volunteer at the Agnes Macphail Public School library for many years. Often, the children would suggest (or outright state) that Mrs. McNaughton ran the library and wonder what my role was exactly. I attended Pat's Canadian funeral two weeks ago (on November 16) and had the honour of giving a tribute during the service with another dear friend, Moyah Walker. Pat's internment, as well as some more joyous events from this past week, inspire me to ask, "Who really runs 'my' library?"

Every year, as part of our Library Helpers Team, we hold elections for the positions of president and vice-president. Eligible nominees must have had at least one year of experience working in our school library. They give an impromptu speech, and the rest of the library helpers make their selection by closing their eyes and raising their hands to vote. The person with the most votes is president and the runner-up is vice-president. The president and vice-president monitor the attendance of the helpers and choose who attends the coveted library helper shopping field trips. Their privileges include going on all library-related trips and having permission to enter the library during any recess. This year, N from Grade 8 is our president and A from Grade 7 is our vice-president. They met with me a number of weeks back to discuss plans for improving our school library. I took notes and didn't think much about it. Last Monday after school, I entered the library and found N and A hard at work. They took it upon themselves to begin some of the revitalization projects they had suggested. They were restoring the labels on the shelving carts and relabeling the everybody book shelves.

In the pivotal Canadian school library documents Together for Learning: School Libraries and the Emergence of the Learning Commons as well as Leading Learning: Standards of Practice for School Library Learning Commons in Canada, there is a big push for creating a team approach to managing the school library. T4L says "It requires leadership to success, and that leadership can only come through the willing co-operation and collaboration of everyone participating in the school learning process." (page 40). In Leading Learning, the practical "younger spiritual sister" of T4L, it's more explicit: "The Library Learning Commons Leadership Team represents the learning needs of the entire school community. Working together with classroom teachers, students and community, the vision and action plan for developing and sustaining each school Library Learning Commons will evolve." (page 22) I was so impressed with the initiative and dedication that our current student leaders possess. Leading Learning lives in this school library!

A few days later, on Wednesday, November 27, twelve library helpers, a parent supervisor, and I took the GO Train to the GTA Resource Fair to purchase new books for our school collection. As is typical of my practice (and you can see my Treasure Mountain Canada 6 paper about these actions), I provided my students with a copy of the abbreviated TDSB Guide to Selecting Learning Resources, told them my budget limit for the day, and let them loose. The students were fantastic, as usual. They chose wisely, kept track of their purchases (a great lesson in financial literacy!) and actually stayed under budget!

It warmed my heart to see students from two other schools at the GTA Resource Fair with their teacher-librarians, knowing that they were inspired to bring young readers by seeing me and my students shopping together in the past. I estimated that I've made this trip with students about 35 times, so the young people's presence is no longer a shock but a welcome addition to the event. The students even helped barcode the bought books, thanks to the patient guidance of TDSB's Library Technical Service Team, including a former elementary student of mine, Jessica Ho!

I have a new adult library volunteer who comes in a half-day each week. She's shy and doesn't want her efforts to be publicized much, although her children are always delighted when they see their mother helping out in the school. My new helper won't be able to replace Pat, but she shares the same devotion and determination that Pat possessed. She refuses to leave until the entire shelving cart has been emptied and put away. As she left on Thursday afternoon, she asked me about ordering special book glue, so that the repaired books can last longer. 

So I conclude with the same question I began: Who really runs 'my' library? It's a trick question, because technically, it's not my library. It's our library. It belongs to all the staff, students, and community members that care about it and use it. Even though I've been in it for over twenty years, it will continue to exist long after I am retired. (One student asked me recently who the teacher-librarian was before I came, and I know who it was, because she recruited me for the job - Lorna Embrey, thank you for encouraging me back in 2004 to apply for the position!) My job is to facilitate, build relationships, and set the conditions for success.