Our Grads Are Better Than We Thought

On June 19, our Grade 8 students had their graduation ceremony. It was a wonderful ceremony and a great celebration afterwards. A couple of days later, we held our Sports Day and our graduates returned to participate. My job was to supervise and run the "free time" area. As each grade group rotated to their allocated event, rumors and stories began to swirl among the staff:

"Did you hear what the Grade 8s did?"

Word on the field was that the Grade 8s chose to flaunt the rules and regulations around Sports Day. Some said it was a protest because their last year of elementary school did not have clubs and teams. Others reported that they were probably upset because a request they made to the administration had been denied. I was shocked. I was dismayed. I was disappointed.

And I was wrong.

In the afternoon, the Grade 8 girls spoke to me. I can't report everything they told me, because I vowed a degree of confidentiality. However, I can share that they were horrified to learn that their intentions were totally misinterpreted. As they told me, they were not interested in competing against each other - they wanted to collaborate, to cross the finish line all together as a show of solidarity with each other. The young women I spoke to that afternoon were very sorry about the ruckus their actions unintentionally caused.

But we teachers should be the ones to apologize.

We were too quick to make assumptions about their actions, to attribute negative connotations to their decisions, that we missed the lesson that they were teaching us - it's not about earning the ribbon or the first place, but it's about the bonds of friendship and working together for a common goal. I should have listened much more attentively to our valedictorian's speech, when she said:

I remember in health class one day, Mr. R gave us four balloons.On each balloon, we were to write things that were important to us, like family, food, water ... Then he told us to try balancing all the balloons at once in the air. It was really hard! Some of us secretly helped each other when they saw one falling. That activity can teach us a lot about our future. We may need a lot of things like friends, money, love, but balancing it all isn't as easy as it seems. Never refuse a little help, because if you don't accept it when you need it, you'll be all over the place, and you'll have so much stress!

I needed their help to understand how empowering and wonderful their actions truly were. In a Roman Catholic Mass, there is a part where we admit our failings: "mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa" (my fault, my fault, my most grievous fault). In this blog post, I want to apologize, to offer a "mea culpa" for misunderstanding our graduates. Our Grade 8s showed a level of maturity that put me to shame. Our graduates are better than we thought.

What's left to learn? Life & death, actually.

It's tough for some teachers to avoid the "June Slide", when report cards are done (or nearly done) and when it's difficult to keep the restless students' attention. The beautiful weather and exhaustion following all those end-of-year tasks (graduation, moving rooms, filing OSRs, etc.) make it tempting to simply pop in a DVD for the afternoon. As I've said before, the easy way isn't always the learning-filled way. Learning doesn't end with the completion of the report cards. This week, the theme was pretty serious in my library, as we discussed the unexpected death of our school pet, Max the skinny pig.

Max was staying at my house while I was at OISE conducting one of the Tribes training sessions. When I returned late Wednesday night, my husband greeted me at the door with a worried expression. Max was behaving in an unusual manner, lying on his side outside his much-beloved sleep sack. All the vets were closed and past experience with our other skinny pigs (Wilbur, Orville, Monty, and Roger) suggested that the situation wasn't promising. We made him as comfortable as he could and within the hour of my return home, Max passed away. He was four years old, a senior for skinny pigs.

The last time I had a school pet die, it was a gradual process - Julio the veiled chameleon was unwell for a long time and it gave the students plenty of time to get adjusted to the idea of his death. Back then, the students had a chance to see Julio for themselves, ask questions, and write farewell messages to him before we took him to the vet to be euthanized. (Julio had kidney failure, a malfunctioning tongue, and anemia - all efforts to help him, including oral and anal antibiotics/medicine did not work.) Max was a lot more interactive with the students and his death was unexpected and occurred off school property. How would we approach this topic sensitively and in a way the students could grasp? After all, just the week before, a few kindergarten students had helped me bathe him, clean his cage, and play with him in the library.

Thanks to some great advice from our ECEs, we designed a session that went quite well. We read a couple of pages of a non-fiction book that was appropriate to young children on "saying goodbye to a pet", and asked the children why we might have chosen to share this book with them. Slowly, some realized the connection to Max's missing cage and the book. We answered questions, read more relevant pages from the book, used a couple of Tribes strategies (Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down to indicate our feelings, Community Circle to discuss our favourite memories of Max), and ended with looking at some photos of Max from my pet photo album. It ended on a positive note and with assurances that if they had more questions or concerns, that they could talk with me or their classroom teacher.

This class led to some emotional, deep discussions and interesting inquiries - when we explained about animal life spans, one SK girl asked about what the life spans are like for other animals. We'll be researching that in the last nine days of school. Another entire class decided to work on a "secret surprise" for me as a tribute for Max. A SK boy wants to draw a picture to give to me. I'm not happy that Max died - he was my favourite pet (and the smartest, since he's been going to school since 2009) - but I'm glad that he is remembered fondly by the students (many of whom have never had the experience of owning a pet) and that both his life and death have provided opportunities for authentic learning. Bye Max - I'l miss you.

How 23 Individuals Became a Community

The 5 Tribes from OISE Room 212, June 2013

I was away from my school for the entire week of June 3-7, 2013. I wasn't sick and I wasn't playing hooky; I had the great fortune to be at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) building facilitating a Tribes TLC training for recent University of Toronto Faculty of Education graduates and other people from around the province that signed up. I've conducted many Tribes courses, but I particularly enjoyed this 24-hour training with these people.

What made it so wonderful? It was the people. The eight modules that form the Tribes basic training are designed to help create a safe and welcoming community of learners, but as I've said before, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. These adults chose to give up four days of their time and voluntarily pay an additional fee so they could understand how Tribes works and how they could use it.

(I took several photos during our time together, but in the interest of respecting their privacy, I'll only share some of the shots of the art or displays we posted in the classroom.)

The agreements with our symbolic stuffed animals.

Last week's blog post touched on one of the four agreements (attentive listening) and today's blog post will focus on a different agreement - appreciations. In our sarcastic world today, it is almost counter-cultural to give a genuine appreciation to someone. Thanks-giving is a gift, one that should be accepted in the spirit it is given. We need to learn how to give and receive appreciations appropriately. When we first began giving appreciations to each other in the training, it felt artificial, but as we discussed, students (of all ages) need practices to be modeled, and having sentence starters (such as "I really liked it when ..." or "I appreciate ..." or "Thank you for ...") help make the appreciations we share become more natural over time. I saw the evolution in our own group over the short period of time we were together.  Brief, perfunctory phrases soon gave way to heartfelt, detailed tributes to individuals and groups. During certain strategies, people would choose to provide an appreciation in lieu of another type of contribution.

My two insights on appreciations after this training have been:
1) give people something to appreciate
2) there are many different ways to appreciate someone

To elaborate on the first point ... if you demonstrate to people that you care about them and their learning, even if it means going the extra mile/kilometer, 99% of people seem to notice and appreciate your efforts. The organization that supports Tribes is very firm, and rightfully so, about attending the entire training so that there are no gaps in participant knowledge. Sometimes, life gets in the way, and it helps to try your best to accommodate. You'd also be surprised at the little things that you can do that mean a lot to people. I brought in one of my costume bins from home and people were delighted to raid it for props and tools for different activities.

As for the second point ... I learn just as much from the participants as they do from me, and one of the many things this particular group has taught me is that there are a variety of ways to indicate how much you can appreciate someone. I have no clue how they managed to do this without me noticing, but the group passed around a card and wrote the most incredible and lovely things. One participant is busy creating a painting, symbolizing all the tribes/groups in our class, which she'll share with me and the other members as a way for her to show her gratitude to the team. Another graduate is working on creating the means to keep in touch, realizing that attending the session alone is not enough to sustain and as a testament to the great relations forged during the training. Appreciations can be public declarations in front of others, or private thoughts whispered to an individual in a quick moment. Thanks can be verbal, or visual, or electronic. This is my chance to give one more appreciation, to the individuals that spent a week in Room 212 at OISE and became a community. (School boards - hire these people!) Thank you, for re-energizing and inspiring me.

• Jenn M
• Georgette
• Andrea
• John
• Daniel
• Amy
• Kim M
• Natalie
• Jocelyn
• Julie
• Parveen
• Salima
• Rochelle
• Natasha
• Jenn N
• Laura
• Kim P
• MJ
• Julia
• Mary
• Rosa
• Eleanor
• Elizabeth

The problem with online discourse

There are a few links you may want to reference if the first half of this blog post is to make sense.

First, there was the Toronto Star article that led to comments on Twitter.

Then, there's my gaming blog, where I embedded some tweets.

After that, there's another blog post on a different blog, in response to the embedded tweets.

The blogs definitely helped clarify what sounded on Twitter like a bit of a heated exchange. However, there's still some difficulties with relying on blog posts to dialogue ... something that became much clearer to me after today.

What was special about today? Today was the first of four days that I'll be spending at OISE (Ontario Institute for Studies in Education) at the University of Toronto, facilitating a Tribes training for recent Faculty of Education graduates. I've posted about Tribes before on this blog. Tribes is a process that creates a culture that maximizes learning and human development. The four community agreements that provide the foundation for Tribes are:

• mutual respect
• attentive listening
• appreciation / no put-downs
• the right to pass

During Module 2 in the afternoon, the group and I examined some of the aspects of attentive listening: attending, paraphrasing, reflecting feelings and non-verbal communication. Some of these aspects are nearly impossible to do when relying on text-only digital communication. Going beyond the 140 character limit in Twitter helps significantly, as does elaborating on one's opinion. For instance, there are a couple of points in the other blog that I agree with (e.g. supervising students while using Minecraft - this is what we do on www.gamingedus.org). There are some views he expressed where we just need to agree to disagree. However, I have no clue if he was upset by my gaming blog post or not. I couldn't hear the tone of his voice, or observe his body language. Online discourse, especially in the fast-paced, immediate response Twitterverse, doesn't seem to have time for someone to paraphrase to check for understanding (and in my opinion, retweets don't count towards paraphrasing - it's a Twitter version of the Facebook "like"). 

Jared, if you read this (and I hope it's okay if we use each other's names), I wouldn't mind touching base some time in the future (be it at the Academy of the Impossible on June 20 when the topic is Minecraft in Schools, or at the Educational Computing Organization of Ontario) so that our conversation can be full of mutual respect and attentive listening on both sides. Even if we do not persuade the other with our opinions, it will still be an opportunity to overcome the obstacles surrounding online conversations. 

In Marking Madness, collaboration is still crucial!

It's that time of the year again - report card writing. Although I like how assessments help shape my lessons, and indicate where my students need further clarification, it is still a painful process for me. I'm constantly asking myself questions and second-guessing myself. Have the students had enough practice with a concept to provide a final assessment? What's the difference between a C+ and B-? Did my assessment tool adequately evaluate the skill or content I was examining? Did I weigh certain assignments enough based on the time it took, the value of it compared to other tasks, etc. etc? The temptation is to hurry up and get it all done, but I'm really glad that I took some time to collaborate with my school's ECEs on the kindergarten assignments that help form my report card comments for the areas to which I contribute.

Our current ICT/library/media inquiry unit is about examining what is funny. Some of the kindergarten expectations I've been aiming at include:

1.2 identify and talk about their own interests and preferences 

1.3 express their thoughts (e.g., on a science discovery, on something they have made) and share experiences (e.g., experiences at home, cultural experiences)

5.2 communicate their ideas verbally and non-verbally about a variety of media materials (e.g., describe their feelings in response to seeing a DVD or a video; dramatize messages from a safety video or poster; paint pictures in response to an advertisement or CD) 

I was a little worried (especially when one teacher hinted that she'd like the final comments by May 7) that I wouldn't have sufficient evidence to properly comment on the students' learning. I consulted with our ECEs - I've mentioned these two dynamite ladies in a previous blog post - and together we came up with ways to use their media books in ways that evaluate understanding of media instead of reading fluency, and we decided on a great procedure for having them articulate how funny a media text is to them (using our funny meters) by providing several concrete examples for them to refer to. This second task involves me dressing up in a ridiculous outfit, so it's been a fun assessment tool. I'll try and post a photo of me in my funny costume  later on. Having these tasks vetted by other professionals increases my confidence in the tools and the process. Thanks Thess and Jenn!

Festival of Trees - The Pleasure & Purpose

Last week (Wednesday, May 15 and Thursday, May 16), I attended the Ontario Library Association Festival of Trees at Harbourfront in Toronto. My students and I attend approximately once every two years (e.g. 2011 / 2009) and it is a very popular and memorable school trip for everyone involved. I searched through my blog posts and although I've mentioned the Forest of Reading in prior reflections, I've never actually talked in depth about this culminating celebration.

The photo you'll see on the left is a picture that Simon & Schuster Publications received permission to share on their Facebook page. The ecstatic student in the shot is from my school. He and his parents have signed several media release permission forms granting sharing privileges, and I've double-checked with his father that I'm allowed to share it here. Let me tell you a bit about how Hamrish ended up on stage with one of his favourite authors, and the power (aka the pleasure and the purpose) of this particular reading event.

Different schools determine whom to bring on this trip in a variety of ways. (While at the Red Maple event, I spoke with Karen and Ellen, two outstanding teacher-librarians in the Toronto District School Board - their testimonies about the impact of the Festival of Trees on their students brought me to tears. They were inspiring ... but I digress.) At my school, students must read and obtain at least five signatures in their Silver Birch or Red Maple passports to qualify to attend the festival. I try to offer many ways of gaining these signatures; for instance, this year, students could chat with other teachers or with me via individual chats or group chats in person, via email, or via Skype. Hamrish and his friends eagerly collected signatures for the books they had read. They borrowed them from the public library and the school library. They discovered the joy of e-book copies. Despite the many options for reading confirmation, Hamrish insisted on a face-to-face chat about the Kevin Sylvester-authored book Neil Flambe and the Crusader's Curse because he loved it so much that he wanted to have an extensive conversation about the novel.

In addition to the thrill of attending the Festival of Trees and meeting these authors, the Ontario Library Association also offers students the unique opportunity to apply to be sign carriers or presenters on stage for the actual award ceremony. Many of my students took the initiative to submit their names for consideration and several were chosen for the honour of sharing the stage. Hamrish was picked to introduce Kevin Sylvester (and Mike Deas). He was so excited! The selected students and I worked in the library on creating enthusiastic one-minute speeches and they didn't let the crowds of hundreds of fellow students deter them from doing a great job. In fact, this is what Kevin Sylvester tweeted after the event:

Hamrish ROCKED! RT @mzmollytl: U should've seen the face of the student told he'd be making the speech 2 intro Neil Flambe's author-beaming!
— Kevin Sylvester(@kevinarts) May 18, 2013

Hamrish was a mini-celebrity for the rest of the festival. Strangers approached him and his dad to compliment him on his entertaining speech - AND he got to spend time with an author he admires greatly.

This is just one positive story about the Festival of Trees. I could tell you more:

• about the girl who wrote her author (of her own volition) to see if she wanted to offer input on her speech's content, 
• or the ESL students who gladly gave up their recess times so they could read some of the nominated titles with me so that they could qualify to go, 
• or tales from past years (of a reluctant reader who loved reading the Silver Birch nominees so much that he was featured in a documentary ... or of a student who, in the middle of a very difficult time in his life, said that the only bright spot was going to the Festival of Trees ... or of students that, when meeting a renowned author at school, hurried to show him a video of them being interviewed by the CBC about the Forest of Reading ...). 

There are many anecdotal pieces of evidence that the Festival of Trees is very enjoyable and helps to promote recreational reading of Canadian children's literature. What I'm interested in doing (and have been investigating, with the assistance of several key people) is collecting data beyond these feel-good stories to see the specific appeal of  readers choice programs and celebrations like the Festival of Trees and how they make a difference and create/support readers. This will take a long time to research (so far, three years and counting), but if it can substantiate the experiences that I (and other teacher-librarians like Karen and Ellen) have seen and heard, it will be worthwhile.

P.S. Kevin Sylvester mentioned a fellow author's comment that the Festival of Trees is actually a Festival of Hope - this is a great analogy. Check out Kevin's website, as well as all the other nominees. So much credit needs to go to the approachable, friendly, patient, and enthusiastic authors and illustrators that took the time to attend the Festival of Trees and meet their fans. It wouldn't be the same without them.

TCAF 2013 Highlights

This was a very busy weekend for me. My god-daughter's brother had his First Communion, I visited my mother for Mother's Day, and I attended the Toronto Comic Arts Festival. This experience was unique because I brought four of my students to the Librarian and Educators Day. They will be making their own blog posts on what they saw and learned on our private intermediate division wiki - I hope they'll give me permission to share their thoughts here as well.

Toronto Comic Arts Festival 2013 Librarian and Educator Day

Keynote by Raina Telgemeier and Dave Roman

Raina (creator of Smile and Drama) and Dave (creator of Astronaut Academy and TeenBoat) talked about the misconceptions people have about comics, their experiences in the comics industry, and comic heroes (not the caped kinds - the organizations and individuals promoting and supporting comics for kids).

My $0.02 = Raina and Dave are two of the nicest, most approachable kid comic creators in the business. I was pleased to hear about Kids Comics Revolution, a podcast Dave and Jerzy Drozd have established. They've also launched the KCR! Comics Awards, a readers choice award for Canadian and American young people - they vote for their favourite kids comics! (This fits nicely with my research on readers choice awards.)

Comics Defense 101

This panel, consisting of moderator Robin Brenner, Gene Ambaum, Eva Volin, Rebecca Scoble, Charles Brownstein, and Diana Maliszewski, discussed "content concerns and challenges, and ways for advocating for the inclusion of comics in collections and curricula" (according to the TCAF website).

My $0.02 = We had some interesting conversation during this panel. Jamie Coville, a diligent and hard-working gentleman who records panels like this for www.TheComicBooks.com/audio.html, took the time to record this talk for the website. I'll post the link here so you can hear the discussion. It's interesting to hear from the audience - for example, one person had problems getting her most advanced readers to accept comics at her high school, while another had the exact opposite problem. Another person wanted to include American Born Chinese on their high school media course reading list and was having opposition, yet another educator in the group was using it without complaint in a Grade 7-8 class. 

Bill Amend and Raina Telgemeier in Conversation

Bill Amend is the creator of the syndicated comic Foxtrot. Raina interviewed him.

My $0.02 = Bill has a very unusual background for a cartoonist - a degree in physics. He incorporates math and science (as well as popular culture references that he enjoys, such as D&D and Star Wars) into his comics, so much so that textbooks often use his strips. It is challenging to do comic strips that appear in newspapers because the comic must be safe enough for children and seniors to consume but still be funny and edgy. It took two years for Foxtrot to be accepted (it was one little note at the end of one of his rejection letters, saying "we like your art, writing, and humour - just tinker with the subject matter) that led him to ditch his original concept of a science studying animals in a jungle and persevere. He said that readers are not his only customers (the newspapers that choose to run his strip are as well) and he has to work hard to keep both happy. He told some great stories about meeting Bruce Springsteen, Bill Waterson (Calvin & Hobbes) and George Lucas. This was a great talk for media literacy - understanding audience, creating a product, making decisions - I think I can bring some of these ideas (as well as Bill's new kid anthology of Foxtrot, which I bought) into the class.

Using Children's Graphic Novels with Confidence - Build a Collection and Put Them to Use!

Scott Robins, author of A Parent's Guide to the Best Kids Comics, shared a short history of comics, the evolution of acceptability, and ways to evaluate comics.

My $0.02 = Scott knows comics well - he's one of the bloggers for School Library Journal on comics and his book is very helpful. (Bias note: he's also a friend of mine.) We couldn't stay as long as I would have liked to remain, because the afternoon sessions started late and I had to get our students back to school on time. I took several screen shots of his Powerpoint slides, because even though I already feel pretty confident about my comic collection in my school library, there's always something new to learn!

As is often the case, I learn just as much from the in-between conversations as I do from the official sessions. It was great to talk to Leslie, Scott, and Sasha. It was informative to buy new books for our collection. It was helpful to expose my students to a very different learning method (for them, I think they liked choosing their topic of interest to attend, but I think the format felt very long for them and it took courage and encouragement to quietly excuse themselves when they needed to stretch). I also learned that Toronto Reference Librarians are strict - I went to take a picture of my students in one of the futuristic study pods and was scolded sternly - taking photos in the library violated user privacy. I was inspired enough by Friday to make my own comic on the back of a kids place mat while at dinner with my family.

I only had 3 crayons to work with, so it's not my best work.

Fashion in Comics!

This was actually a panel I attended with my daughter on Saturday. We went together, had a "spirit animal sketch" done by Brian McLauglin (I'll check the spelling later), bought books and had them signed by Svetlana Cmothzky (I'll definitely check the spelling of that later), and then heard this talk. It was also very informative (I'll copy and paste the TCAF official description below.) It was a great TCAF experience, and I hope more people (especially those not particularly familiar with comics) will attend.

Fashion in Comics! This program opens up a conversation about the importance of fashion in comics. What are fashion’s influences on a creator’s work, and conversely, comics’ influence on fans and real life fashion? What approaches and research does one go through to depict specific fashions? Is comic book fashion good? Join moderator Krystle Tabujara in a spirited discussion with Fashion Journalist Nathalie Atkinson (The National Post), Willow Dawson (No Girls Allowed), Kagan McLeod (Fashion Illustrator, Infinite Kung Fu) Bryan Lee O’Malley (Scott Pilgrim), Ramon Perez (Wolverine & The X-Men), and Maurice Vellekoop (fashion illustrator, TCAF Featured Guest).