The week of June 12 - 16, 2023 was an absolute whirlwind of activity. Each of these events could warrant a separate blog post but in the interest of time (because I still have to finish evaluating work for one of the TL AQs), I'll touch on all of them briefly here.
1) Peter's Graduation
On Monday, June 12, my youngest graduated from college. I wasn't able to attend because his ceremony was the same day as the TDSB East Quiz Bowl. Some people might question my priorities. Don't worry. Family still witnessed him crossing the stage live. Peter himself had mixed feelings about going but felt that, since COVID robbed him of the chance to do his high school graduation that he should at least experience one convocation. Congratulations Peter on achieving this milestone!
2) TDSB East Region Quiz Bowl 2023
I couldn't attend Peter's ceremony because of Quiz Bowl. This was the first time the event was in person since the 2019 event at Alexander Stirling P.S., although we did hold it digitally last year. Our host school this year was Chief Dan George Public School. There were seven schools that participated: Agnes Macphail PS, Chief Dan George PS, Iroquois Jr PS, Macklin PS, Military Trail PS, Percy Williams Jr PS, and Port Royal PS. Even though the rain prevented the students from going outside all day and caused the cancellation of the ice cream truck, it was a wonderful day. J Torres was our guest author. He stayed to watch part of the Quiz Bowl competition, took selfies with the competitors in charge of his nominated book, and sold out of all the books he brought.
The winning team for the Silver Birch Fiction Quiz Bowl was Iroquois Jr PS, with Chief Dan George PS in second place and Port Royal PS in third. The winning team for the Yellow Cedar Non-Fiction Quiz Bowl was my school, Agnes Macphail PS! The students were delighted with their win. We teachers were delighted that the students interacted positively with each other (both in the gym and on the shared school buses) and tried their best to answer the quiz questions.
3) Pokémon Video Game Guest Speaker
On Tuesday, June 13, Peter came to my school to run mini-workshops on the history of the Pokémon video game franchise. Groups even played a bit of the game with Peter at the controllers. Some of Peter's observations noted that the primary division students claimed to be fans of Pokémon but knew little about the strategy of considering types when battling (e.g. a Water type is stronger against a Fire type). I wonder if that comes with age, as some of my students were playing with the Pokémon cards during free time at Quiz Bowl the day before.
4) Final AQ Guest Speaker for Spring 2023 Session
Andrew Woodrow-Butcher spoke to the York University TL AQ participants via Zoom Tuesday evening. Big thanks to ALL our speakers for the Spring 2023 session (Denise Colby, Jennifer Brown, Andrea Sykes, and Andrew Woodrow-Butcher). I could listen to Andrew talk for hours, even on topics I am quite familiar with.
5) TDSB TL End of Year Social
Wednesday, June 14 was the gathering of the board's teacher-librarian community to honour retiring TLs and celebrate. All the TDSB TL facilitators received a rose and a certificate for their efforts this year coordinating network meetings and growing the profession.
6) Staff Social and Retirement Party
Thursday, June 15 was the date of our staff social. The inclement weather forced us to change the venue and we held it in the school staff room. We paid tribute to people who will be leaving our school at the end of this year (Sunita Rawat, Katrina Dubrowski, and Stephen Tong). The food, catered by Los Vietnamita, was delicious. (Sorry I had to miss the AML meeting but I haven't perfected time manipulation or cloning technology as yet.)
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7) Red Maple Marketing Campaign
On Friday, June 16, four local schools (Agnes Macphail PS, Banting and Best PS, David Lewis PS, and Port Royal PS) gathered at the Goldhawk Park branch of the Toronto Public Library for the Red Maple Marketing Campaign. Like Quiz Bowl, we ran the event online last year and 2019 was the last in-person event. The weather cooperated so we were able to have the ice cream truck visit.
Agnes Macphail PS had two teams. One represented the book Batter Royale and the other represented the book Walking In Two Worlds.
This was Port Royal's first time at the event. Their team was in charge of Children of the Fox.
David Lewis PS fielded three teams. Their groups were in charge of the books The Bear House, On The Line, and Let the Monster Out.
Two representatives from Manifest came to judge the projects - Joan and Abby. Each group had up to 10 minutes to "pitch" their advertising campaign to people actually in the field. (Three photos are below - two from my school and one that was an animated short film the team created as part of their promotion.)
To my shock and surprise, the winning group was NOT the one we teachers would have guessed. The runners-up were the David Lewis PS team that made the campaign for Let the Monster Out. The winning team was Agnes Macphail's Walking In Two Worlds group.
Let me be brutally honest. From the very beginning, I doubted this group and their approach. They wanted to promote the book with humour. I was skeptical. Wab Kinew's book wrestles with some serious topics, from suicide to online bullying and misogyny. How would they pull this off? When they showed me the video trailer they filmed, my comment actually was "This was much better than I thought it was going to be". I think their group lead was either slightly hurt by my opinion of their prospects or took it as a challenge. When they saw the other groups, they were a bit nervous but their unofficial team captain said, "We got this." Their spiel to the judges actually startled me. They took my criticism of their project and turned it on its head. They told the judges exactly why they made a funny trailer despite the content of the book. They said they wanted to provide content that could be turned into memes and go viral. To my horror, as part of their pitch, they actually dissed the other competitors. They scoffed at the bookmarks and trifold board displays, which generated a big vocal reaction from the others watching. I was worried I was going to have to guard them for their own protection when they left the event!
It seems as if the marketing executives really liked their techniques, including "throwing shade". This really highlighted that there were "two worlds" at play here. In the educational world, we really focused on the artistic and collaborative aspects. (I would have sworn that the Let the Monster Out team was going to win. They had QR codes! They got the author to record a promotion message on their behalf! Their book trailer was an animated film!). In the marketing world, it seems to be more about grabbing and holding attention. (I haven't had the chance to read the feedback they wrote for each group.) I know some of the other teachers are a bit worried that next year's teams will adopt a more mean and aggressive approach. I have no idea what the fallout from this will look like next year.
Hopefully I can catch my breath a bit. We have ten days left of school. Congratulations to all the "winners" from last week!
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