Splitting Yourself

 Have you ever had two events on the same day and wished you could attend both?

On this past Thursday, it was both the Spring GTA Resource Fair and the TDSB Heritage Fair. 

When it comes to the Heritage Fair, I really wished I could have split myself in more ways than one. Last year, I was able to use my collaborative teaching time to work with both the Grade 7s and Grade 8s on their history projects from start to finish. I loved it. However, this school year, I wasn't able to have any collaborative teaching time in my schedule. This became particularly painful as the intermediate students were preparing this year's projects.

"Why don't you come up and help us with our projects like last year?", the students asked.

When I explained that I had to teach other classes, their suggested solutions involved having a Grade 8 supervise the younger students while I came up to give advice and help them with their research. Although creative, this idea would not fly.

The students worked around my absence by frequently seeking me out at recess, lunch or after school to pepper me with their questions about their projects. It seemed as if they valued my input because I had helped with their Heritage Fair projects the previous year AND they knew that in the past, I was involved with school projects that made it to Provincials. My students are academically inclined and competitive. They wanted to do their best and they knew that having their teacher-librarian involved in the process would give them an advantage. If only others in positions of power and authority knew this!

Huge credit should go to Farah Wadia and Lisa Daley, our Grade 8 and 7 home room teachers. They devoted a lot of class time to these projects. I also want to thank Farah Wadia, Renee Keberer and Neelam Singh for supervising the students that were chosen to represent our school at the TDSB Heritage Fair, held this year at Toronto Metropolitan University. It took them over two hours to travel to the location via taxi vans. I can hardly wait until the results are revealed.

While Farah, Renee, Neelam and 14 students were in the Yonge and Dundas area, a fantastic parent volunteer, 8 students and I were by Lakeshore Boulevard West and Dufferin Street, buying books for the school library. The students were busy.

Their opinions were solicited for a survey on the TDSB Virtual Library.

They selected books and stayed in budget (as in $88 under)!

They even helped the wonderful Tippett staff (otherwise known as the Library Technical Services Department) barcode the books we bought. One of the newest members of the Tippett team is a former students from our school. I was so happy to see her again. She is a treasure.

Voldemort has taught me the perils of splitting yourself too thinly; you lose part of your humanity. Still, I regret that I wasn't able to assist as much as I wanted.