Counting My Blessings

In the movie White Christmas, Bing Crosby sings a song called "Counting Your Blessings". Even though it's not technically a Christmas song, I've heard it a lot lately. It begins: "If you're worried and you can't sleep, try counting blessings instead of sheep and you'll fall asleep counting your blessings."

Sometimes I can get as crabby as a Grinch when I think things aren't going the way I might have hoped but I have a lot to be thankful for. I have a great husband and two wonderful kids. My health is good and I have a decent roof over my head. I am a teacher-librarian, the best job you can have in a school. My workplace is filled with marvelous students, hard-working staff and supportive parents. It's Christmas, a special time of the year for me spiritually and emotionally. When I'm at Mass on Christmas Eve and I hear the words to "Silent Night", the grumpiness melts away.

T'is the season for giving, not getting, so let me give a little video viewing to the few folks still checking their blog feeds over the holidays. I don't think I ever posted the link to a video my students made about why they love the Ontario Library Association's Forest of Reading. Trying to show this video at our recent assembly nearly made me crazy (gotta love technical difficulties) but sitting and watching these kids wax poetic about books makes my heart glad and adds to my blessings.

Library in the News - Again

Sometimes bad news brings good press coverage. On December 6, the Book and Periodical Council hosted an Idea Exchange on the topic "Crisis or Opportunity: School Libraries in the 21st Century". The panel consisted of moderator (author/broadcaster) Kevin Sylvester, Annie Kidder from People for Education, Patsy Aldana from the National Reading Campaign, and me. Linked here is the promotional page from the BPC and the information page on the issue from the OLA, a co-sponsor of the event. Look for the #ideaexchange hashtag on Twitter to get a few highlights from the event. During the panel, Annie and Patsy alluded to an upcoming press conference they were jointly scheduled to have.

On December 12, they held their press conference, where they shared the results of some statistical analysis they conducted using EQAO attitudinal survey data. As both P4E and the National Reading Campaign state in their report "Reading For Joy", the percentage of children in grade 3 who report they “like to read” dropped from 75% in 1998/99 to 50% in 2010/11. The number of students in grade 6 who “like to read” fell from 65% to 50% in the same time period.

I received a call from the Media Relations Department of my board asking if I would be able to accommodate two film crews that wanted to tape some segments at my school library, interview me, and talk with some of our students so they could provide some footage to accompany the press conference report on the drop in pleasure reading. We set up the specialized media release forms and sent them home at lunch. We first heard about this opportunity at 11:10 a.m. and by 12:40 p.m., we were busy filming. Mike and John came from CBC; Dana and Pat came from CTV. Both crews were very nice. I tried very hard to give them different angles to use for their broadcast so that no one would feel like they were getting the same footage. Since the report focused on the EQAO years, I arranged for the CBC to have grade 3 students to meet and provided grade 6 students for CTV. We worked from 12:45 to about 2:00 p.m. and the results of the interviews can be found here from CBC and here from CTV. I was actually a bit surprised at how short the CTV segment turned out to be, especially considering how eloquent and knowledgeable Dana was on the topic - she's a parent as well as a reporter so she had a good grip on the issue. I found the CBC segment to be a bit more in-depth and positive in tone - and my students will be delighted by how many images featured them reading and chatting excitedly about books.

I guess in this case "no news equals good news" isn't true - maybe it's more like "out of sight, out of mind". When disappointing statistics like the ones cited in "Reading For Joy" hit the media, this is when interest in school libraries peak and the public becomes interested in what's currently happening and what's possible. As Annie Kidder said at the panel on December 6, it's the public that creates policy - and we need the public to care about and advocate for school libraries so that we can ensure that every school in Ontario has a properly funded and staffed school library.

Working out

My parents bought my husband/my Christmas gift early this year and had it delivered this weekend - a treadmill. I'm not very good about keeping to an exercise regime and I hope that this treadmill is going to put me on the right path to a regular fitness routine.

In the late 1990s my husband and I used to belong to a gym but once we had children, we found it impossible to take the time away from our babies to work out.

Around 2009, I used to be quite devoted to my Wii Fit and would use it nightly but I was derailed when I began to work on my Masters of Education final paper in the spring of 2010 and I had to devote my Wii Fit time to M.Ed writing time. When I tried to re-establish my Wii Fit pattern after earning my M.Ed, I found that I couldn't crack the top 10 of any challenges and I became discouraged.

I discovered Just Dance for the Wii later on and found that to be fun to do with my daughter but I fell out of the habit when my daughter had other things she'd rather do in the evening. I've started a Just Dance Club at school on Fridays at lunch for junior division students so that teachers and students could see dancing as fun and fitness rather than just as  performance, but once a week is not enough to stay fit.

What does this have to do with schools and school libraries? In Ontario, students are required to have twenty minutes of daily physical activity - this link to the Ministry of Education's site explains more and offers resources. I'm not a "regular classroom teacher" so it's usually up to them to incorporate the DPA time. I know many of our students lately have been hiding out in stairwells and bathrooms to avoid going outside for recess; I'm not sure if it's the cold they fear or the free time. School libraries support reading and research but can also play a part in working out the body as well as the brain. I'm trying to do it at school with my Just Dance Club (which is insanely popular - kids have asked if we could do it every day but I've got Tech Crew, Student Council, and Boys Reading Club on the other lunch hour time slots). I need to talk the talk and walk the walk at home as well.

Going Shopping

Last week, I mentioned that I was late for my appointment with the students to go book shopping because of my pet emergency. I thought this week might be timely to explain a bit about my version of this practice, especially since many people are currently in a "shopping mood" as Christmas nears.

I've been taking my students shopping with me since 1998. Back then, I arranged a field trip to the now-defunct Children's Book Store for entire classes, including their teachers. At my two most recent schools (including the one I am currently at), I bring a small handful of students with me to the GTA Resource Fair, which I learned from James Saunders of Saunders Book Company is the biggest vendor fair in Canada, and quite possibly in North America! The GTA Resource Fair assembles nearly thirty different book vendors all in one place in the Queen Elizabeth Building at the Canadian National Exhibition grounds. I choose these students from my student Library Helpers. This is one of the biggest perks about being a Library Helper and rewards them for all their time spent shelving books. My Library Assistant president and vice-president help with the selection - we try to choose students who have never missed a scheduled duty and we try to invite a range of grades. (My library assistants are in grades 4 through 8.) I know that my union frowns on teachers driving students around but I still transport the students in my car. Taking a cab would be too expensive and using public transit would take too long.

Before we go to the Resource Fair, I sit down with the students accompanying me and we go over the board's Selection Criteria for choosing books. We also discuss our library's specific needs, such as student requests and areas of the curriculum that need more materials. For our most recent visit, we needed to purchase more books on medieval times because my adult volunteers and I are in the middle of weeding our non-fiction section (we're working backwards and only in the 700s right now) and we purged many of the old and musty books on that particular topic.

Entering the large hall can be an intimidating and awe-inspiring sight. On the car ride down, when we aren't listening to the radio, I remind the students that the GTA Resource Fair is a media creation. All of the vendors are competing for our business. I advise them to carefully watch how vendors display their merchandise and the other tactics they use to attract customers. I remind them that many of the vendors offer the same titles and to compare prices between companies. We always take a quick overview tour of the different tables, describing the specialty focus the company may have (i.e. graphic novels, reference books) and then the students are free to travel in pairs or small groups to shop.

We bring walkie-talkies with us so that the students can contact me when they are ready to finalize their purchases. I double-check the items they select. Occasionally I ask for a brief summary of the book from them or ask them to persuade me why they believe we should buy a particular book. This is an authentic use for those skills we teach in school. I'm spending school funds and I want to be responsible.

My students have proven to be extremely responsible. The vendors now expect to see me with my students whenever I attend these fairs. They report to me that my students are polite, well-mannered and select the books very carefully. My students check inside the books to see if the reading level is appropriate. They consider the pros and cons of hard cover vs paper back editions. They compare prices and worry when they think they've gone over budget.

When I first started bringing my students to the GTA Resource Fair, I actually received some negative reactions from other teacher-librarians, who resented seeing children at what they considered to be an adult-only event. I encounter this attitude rarely now. In fact, I notice that other teacher-librarians have started bringing their students shopping. Both the students and the teacher-librarian benefit. The students have a say in the collection development. They use their critical thinking skills to choose the best books for our school library. The students know how much I pay for the books, which makes them much more careful when handling them. (Our most recent shopping trip cost $1800.) They are also the biggest promoters of the latest additions to the library; they tell their friends what was bought.

When we return, I display all the new books on tables in the library so teachers and students can see the newest books. Teachers will request titles. The only problem with this post-purchasing practice is that the students will incessantly ask/beg me to bar-code the new books as soon as I can and/or reserve them that special book they are dying to read. I still have teaching, yard duty, clubs, and other activities to do in the meantime but I try my best to make the books available. A large amount of books are ready today for borrowing. I hope they enjoy some of the great titles we've obtained and I look forward to continuing our shopping excursions with future library helpers.

The Power of Pets (and when they pass away)

Wilbur (front) & Orville (back)

I always take my library helpers with me when I go book shopping at our board's vendor fair. I should dedicate an entire post to that particular practice of mine but the reason I mention it in today's post has to do with my punctuality. I'm often late getting to my shopping destination for many reasons and I swore that this time would be different. I failed to begin as early as I had intended but this year I had a very good reason - I spent an hour before school at the vet with my pet skinny pig Orville.

Fudge the rabbit, dressed in holiday gear by a teacher

I have never owned a dog or a cat of my own but I can attest to the power of pets, especially the potential of pets in schools. Annie Slater, a teacher-librarian at Heritage Park P.S. and I will be presenting on this topic at the Ontario Library Association Super Conference in February. My school library has been home to several animals. I used to have a rabbit that I adopted from the pound that was specifically a school pet. We had an in-school contest to name him and he was christened Fudge. Fudge was absolutely delightful - he was huge and during some recesses when the library was quiet, we would let Fudge out of his spacious cage located in my office and let him roam the library. We'd have to watch him carefully to see that he didn't nibble any of the books. Fudge brought a lot of people into the library that never would have entered without him. The intermediate division science teacher was a big fan, as were several boys who would sit and read to Fudge. Our rabbit was a patient and friendly creature. Some of the newer teachers would sneak into the library, take him out of the cage, dress him up in clothes, and take pictures of him. Unfortunately, Fudge's fur caused some of our students to have sneezing fits, even though his cage was located in my office. These allergic reactions meant that Fudge had to find a new home. Unfortunately, my own son had an extremely bad reaction to the rabbit dander, so I couldn't keep him myself. Fudge ended up living with the family of a friend of my brother. He was renamed Sven and was spoiled even more so than he was at my school.

This picture of Max was taken by a student this year.

Another school pet introduced me to the wonders of a new type of animal - a skinny pig (hairless guinea pig). I adopted Roger the skinny pig from the pound for the purpose of being a school pet. The poor old boy only lived a few months but he intrigued me enough that eventually I bought one for my own home (named Monty). I really like skinny pigs because they are hypoallergenic, social and fascinating. Max the skinny pig is my current school pet and he is a charming little guy. He purrs like a cat when you pet him, calls to me when he wants attention, and is not flustered by the children.

L-R: Chita, Wilbur, Orville

At my own home, we own Chita & Chilli the chinchillas and Orville & Wilbur the skinny pigs. On Wednesday, November 23, my husband woke me up early in the morning to report that Orville was squealing in pain and limping around before lying unnaturally on his side. We rushed him to my veterinarian but he was not working that day. Skinny pigs count as "exotic pets" and even the city's animal hospital could not service him. The receptionist at my vet's office found another vet that could accommodate atypical pets and we rushed him over there. Orville improved a bit after he received oxygen and x-rays taken around noon showed no broken bones but in spite of the vet's best efforts, Orville died that afternoon.  

Julio the chameleon, circa December 2005

 Naturally, my own children were quite sad to hear that their pet had died. It reminded me about one of my other, more unusual school pets. Sir Julio Freaky Changini was a veiled chameleon. He belonged to relatives of an EA that worked at my school. She was dismayed to learn that these people didn't want to keep him and because chameleons are difficult to find new homes to take them, they chose to "solve their problem" by locking him in a closet and hoped he'd starve to death. The EA lived in an apartment and had no room to take him in, so my colleague and I told her we'd rescue him and let him live at school. Julio was a high-maintenance pet. He had special heat lamps and required live food like crickets and meal worms. The biggest challenge was that Julio's tongue would not work like a regular chameleon. We were never sure whether he had injured it on a sharp cricket leg or if he lost the ability to use it when he was starved, but it meant that Julio had to be hand-fed. My friend would manually open his mouth and I would inset a squirming bug using tweezers. Julio gained weight and regained enough of his health that he actually went into heat. We learned that chameleons have two penises when we discovered that Julio needed surgery to amputate one of his hemi-penises because it was infected. Julio defied the odds again by recovering from that operation and thriving. Unfortunately, Julio developed kidney failure and anemia. We gave him antibiotics multiple times a day but the vet said that we had done everything we could and he had to be euthanized. Julio was a popular school pet - the evening caretaker used to take Julio out of his cage to ride on his shoulder while he did his cleaning duties. My colleague and I made some special visits to each class at school. We read age-appropriate books like "The Tenth Good Thing About Barney" and "What To Do When A Pet Dies" and gave students time to ask questions and mourn in their own way. The children wrote their farewell wishes to Julio on chart paper and we took these with us when we took him in to be put down.

RIP Orville

Unlike Julio, Orville's death was sudden and unexpected, but these moments still provide an opportunity for us to talk with our students (or our own children) about tough issues that are a natural part of life. Lessons on fractions or mapping will be forgotten but spending time with other living things will not. When my students were interviewed for a study about school libraries, some of them mentioned that their favourite part of the library was seeing Julio & Fudge. At my Superconference workshop, I plan on going into detail about the benefits and research - however, today's post was more about retelling some stories about some of the animal companions with whom I've shared my library (and home) space. 

Pressing a Pajama Thought

Recently, I had the honour of attending the official launch of Pajama Press. This is a new Canadian children's book publisher but the people behind the company are not new to the business and the three authors that are part of Pajama Press' inaugural collection are well-known authors of KidCanLit. Deborah Ellis, Marsha Skrypuch and Robert Laidlaw were all present at the launch and each writer spoke briefly to the assembled guests as part of the evening.

What resonated with me during the short speeches was the respect and admiration the authors have for Gail Winskill, the publisher behind Pajama Press. Marsha Skrypuch recounted that it was due to Gail's encouragement that she branched out from historical fiction to write this non-fiction book, Last Airlift: A Vietnamese Orphan's Rescue from War. Deborah Eliis discussed how her current title with Pajama Press, True Blue, might appear like a significant departure from her previous books, because it is a murder mystery, but that all her books deal with the choices people make and their impact on others; Ms. Ellis and Ms. Winskill have worked together often in the past while the latter was a publisher with another company, and they enjoyed the collaboration so much that they wanted to continue it.

Much later on, I realized that editors/publishers and teachers have a lot in common. Good ones challenge people to go beyond what they think they are capable of doing to create things that benefit others and themselves. Editors and teachers can inspire, support and nurture. Bad ones can shatter the self-esteem of the people they encounter, plague them with doubt and make listeners dread the barbed comments they have to offer. Good ones can provoke improvement through descriptive feedback and can detect good ideas even when they are buried deep. Teachers and editors are not so much admired for their power and influence as they are for their ability to make good things great. I'm going to strive to make the feedback I give useful, supportive and inspiring. I want students to feel glad that they consulted with me before or during a project because the end result was better because of my involvement. That's what any good teacher - or editor - would want.

This is a photo of the launch - I'm in blue. 

 P.S. I'd like to thank Pat Thornton-Jones, secretary/administration at Pajama Press, for sending me this photo of the launch for me to use in today's post, and for permitting me to use the various Pajama Press logos as visuals for this post.

Minecraft & Me

I like video games. Despite the fact that I'm not a very skilled player, I believe that games are fantastic ways for kids to have fun and learn, almost without realizing it. Some of my biggest influences have been my own family members, as well as Beth Gallaway (author of "Game On") and Melanie McBride (researcher and educator at EDGE Labs, associated with Ryerson University). Melanie pushes my thinking and follows the philosophy of James Paul Gee, who lauds the situated learning inherent in game play. Schools and video games don't always mix and Gee says that we need to transform the way education systems operate. I can't see the school system changing in the ways Gee hopes for anytime soon but I can't resist incorporating video games into my school library program whenever possible. I maintain a separate blog that documents the non-school, situated learning that my own children experience through their home use of games - it can be found at Family Gaming XP. For a long time, I felt pretty alone in my use of video games in school. However, I've expanded my Personal Learning Network and some of my newest virtual colleagues and I have embarked on an exciting adventure.

We play Minecraft together.

Minecraft, for those of you unacquainted with it, is an online co-op game in which you work with the natural world to build and create. Take trees and cut them down to use the wood to make all sorts of things. Three of us educators are playing Minecraft together on a server and we plan on starting Minecraft clubs with our students in the next couple of months. We have a wiki where we share tips, post photos and write journals of our experience playing. These are some of the things I've learned - about learning, Minecraft, and myself - as I've played this game.

1) Following your own interests make things more fun.

IRL (In real life), I like to scrapbook. In the game, I'm the player that takes the most screen shots. One of the other players created a gorgeous inukshuk-like statue near her online home. The third player is quite a tinkerer and just recently built a underground rail system with carts. The nice thing about Minecraft is that there's no one right way to play it and we can do all sorts of things there. Here are some "photos" I've taken.

This is a screen shot of my character in Minecraft.

2) Doing things together beats doing things alone.

I already mentioned that I'm a pretty weak video game player. This is especially true in Minecraft. On my first day of playing, I spent most of the time practicing how to walk. If it weren't for the kindness of my fellow players, I'd be doomed. Minecraft characters need shelter to hide from the spiders and creepers that come out in the night. I am not yet talented enough to build a house (or even a secure hole in the ground) to protect myself, but my fellow players have invited me into their homes to stay and be safe. They never mock me for my lack of crafting abilities - they applaud when I figured out how to feed myself or kill a pig for food. Despite the huge difference in our skill levels, we have fun playing together. One person built boats for us and we went sailing together. We learn from each other. We problem solve. We learn more when we're together - even our expert player is discovering things by interacting with us.

This is my character's viewpoint while boating.

3) Messing up is part of the experience

One of the "gameducators" playing with me is keeping a list of all the different ways she's died in the game. It's a pretty lengthy one so far. I died my first few minutes in the game; I walked up to read the welcome sign and a creeper attacked me. I've fallen in lava, been mauled by spiders and destroyed by creepers. Sometimes when I die, I laugh. Sometimes I holler. Sometimes I curse. The follow-up is always the same - I respawn and keep going. No one's perfect and that's okay.

This is a picture of me trying to kill a cow for food. I ended up hacking my boat to pieces in the process.

4) Research is good.

If I don't know how to do something, I ask someone or look it up. My own children helped me with this when I was online by myself and got stuck in my boat. They read the Minecraft wiki and found out what I had to do to exit my ship. I tried the tips out and if it didn't work, I searched for more information or re-read the instructions. Isn't this the essence of research - having an authentic question, seeking answers by accessing information found in resources, and doing something with the found/processed information? I like research. I don't like writing long lists of references in proper APA format but I like discovering things I didn't know before.

This was my inventory. I learned that I needed a crafting table with a 3x3 grid to make things.

4) It's fun

My husband doubted that I'd like playing this game because it's very different from the few games I do play of my own volition (like Just Dance on the Wii or Webkinz). However, he's noted that I seem to be enjoying myself even though this is something outside my comfort zone. (I'm taking Melanie's advice to "go to the places that scare you".) It's hard for me but it's been fun. There's something beautiful about a virtual sunrise and surviving the night.

Sunset (or sunrise?) as seen from a safe house in Minecraft

I've been talking about my Minecraft experiences through Twitter. The day after I first mentioned it, no less than five students approached me to say "I hear you're starting a Minecraft club at school. If it's true, can I join?" I have a feeling that, like my Just Dance Club, this will be a way for students and teachers to learn and have fun together. Big thanks go to Liam O'Donnell (@liamodonnell) and Denise Colby (@nieca) for being my Minecraft buddies and mentors. You'll hear lots more about this project as we continue to play.