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. Alexander, and Ms. Fung for everything you do as dedicated educators. We are so lucky to have you!