No Easing Out or In (and Educating ELL Educators)

This can either be seen as well planned or poorly planned.

I ended the school year in June by plunging into a conference, followed by a significant vacation. (I've only been to Europe twice in my life. The first time was to France in 1990. The second time was to Portugal in 2024.) It was a very abrupt switch, to go from lessons with elementary students to lectures with academics to immersing myself in a completely different country. 

I'm going to begin the school year this September in a similar way. I'm going to go on my very first cruise just before school starts.

Usually, I spend the first week of July and the last week of August puttering around my school, tidying up and getting things in order. Last year, I examined my school library collection and helped with a huge inventory project in the summer. I like to attend the TDSB New TL Unconference and Fan Expo Canada with my daughter in late August. It's like slowing inching your way into a pool; it helps me to adapt to the new routines and slowly say goodbye to the slower days of summer. There will be no gradual acclimatization for me this year. To mix my metaphors (from swimming to driving), it's pedal to the metal and start the race immediately.

How might this change impact me and my students?

I'm not sure. Let me try and list some potential positives and negatives.

Energy

+ I'll be fresh and full of stories from my summer adventures

- I'll be tired from travelling all over

Preparation

- I'll not feel as "ready" as some of my colleagues

+ I'll feel more akin to my students, creating more empathy

Decoration

- I won't have "Back to School" displays already up

+ I can create and co-construct displays with my school community, giving more agency

Stress / Mindset

+ I won't be worrying or overthinking before school begins (hello school anxiety dreams) or doubting my abilities because I'll have something else fun to focus on (Have I packed everything?)

- I may not be able to take that "pause" time to mentally prepare for anything that's thrown at me, which could add to my stress

One thing that will be a consistent presence during this time (other than my family, of course) is the AQ that I'm currently taking as a student. My York University AQs that I teach are summer-specific. I taught 3 in July and 4 in August; they only last a month for a very intense learning cycle. I am taking my ESL Part 2 AQ with Queen's University. It qualifies as a "Late Summer" course, which means that it runs from August until October. 

I've only worked on two of the seven modules in the course so far. The top thing that I've embraced from the course so far is :

Like being a TL, it's important to look inward and examine how your own culture and identity impact the way you [might] do your job.

For instance, I really liked this reading from Unlocking English Learners' Potential, where they asked us to reflect on our attitudes and beliefs around certain topics, such as punctuality, the role of the teacher in class, student participation, student non-verbal communication, student interactions with teachers, independent vs collaborative learning, and plagiarism. The point was to see that there are different cultural norms associated with these, and great variability even within cultures and social groups. Culture is complex, dynamic, evolving and manifests in different ways. Teachers are inclined to see their cultural norms as "correct" and then see deviations from this norm in their students as evidence that the student is not successful or doing poorly.

Admittedly, this is true, especially for me and "discourse behaviours". I come from a West Indian background, where talking over people and interrupting (notice my choice of descriptors?) is natural. However, as a:

• female who has seen "mansplaining" a bit too often, 
• someone born in Canada (second generation of immigrants), and 
• teacher who took Tribes TLC training, which focuses on "attentive listening" (wait your turn to speak). 

I've internalized and adopted that method of conversing so much that having loud, overlapping debates irritates me. I like things a bit more orderly. I need to remind myself that it isn't necessarily rude, but just a different way of interacting. I need to tell myself that those talks I gave in the past when I was heavily a part of the GamingEdus about respecting "gaming culture" and "school culture" as two separate but equally worthwhile creatures, also apply to other forms of culture too.

This chart outlining the three "levels" of culture is helpful.

I'm not sure if there will be an "easing in" period with my new position as a 0.5 teacher-librarian and 0.5 ESL teacher. I know it will take a few days to organize the schedule of seeing the primary / early junior division students, based on the classroom teachers' schedules, the number of students that need service, and other factors. I'm grateful that I will be sharing this role with Connie Chan. She will be responsible for the late junior / intermediate division students and I will lean on her heavily for support and guidance as I "transition in".

I realized as I typed this reflection that I have almost no photos to accompany my post. That's not appealing visually. People like hearing about my recent Fluevog addiction, so I'll end this post with some photo highlights and wondering at what point I'll stop purchasing ones for my collection. I'm at 17 pairs so far and every time I think "I won't get any more", I find a great deal on Facebook Marketplace or on one of the Fluevog groups I belong to (or I go shopping with my sister or my friends that wear Fluevogs). To connect it back to the theme of today's blog, even though I "eased in" to being a "Fluezzie", I have a feeling I won't be able to "ease out"; I think I'll have to "quit cold turkey" and leave all those lovely Facebook groups to resist temptation. After all, in March of 2024 I only had six pairs (with three new pairs added back then) and now look!

This is my collection, not counting my two most recent acquisitions. (15 + 2)

The bottom two rows are the ones I wear the most. Putting them all together like this also helps me notice trends / patterns (I really like round toes and Mary-Janes) and "gaps" in my collection. (Some brighter colors, like orange, blue and green, along with some more pointed toes, might add some variety.) These Leonoras might be a consideration for the future once they go on sale.

And yes, I take "shoe selfies":

TLs make great friends!

 It's easy to get bogged down by academic projects. Right now, I've got 4 courses that I'm teaching for York, with a particularly large number of participants this term. I'm getting mentally ready to take my ESL Part 2 AQ with Queen's (it starts Monday August 12) and I've been chipping away at a project on Digital Media Literacy with CSL. Thankfully, I've been able to make time to see some friends this past week.

My "citation savior" Joanie Proske was in Toronto recently. Joanie lives in BC and we first met when we were both taking our Masters of Education courses online with the University of Alberta. We had lunch together at the delicious Pigeon Café on King Street West. (Excuse how wet we look in this photo. We got drenched while walking.)

My long-time friend Wendy Kaell turned 50 and I attended her birthday celebration on Saturday. 

My TDSB pals Wendy Burch Jones and Kim Davidson went for lunch mid-week in Scarborough.

I was also rescued by the wonderful Jennifer Brown from Peel DSB on Thursday. My scheduled guest speaker for my York TL AQ had to drop out unexpectedly last minute and Jenn kindly agreed to sub in and give the same presentation she gave to my July 2024 cohort. We had a good time playing with new Zoom features, like embedding Jenn directly into her slides as a background, and the listeners were absolutely enthralled with Jenn's presentation.

I noticed that a large number of my friends are educators. This should not come as a surprise. You make friends at school and at work, and I'm surrounded by teacher types. What I wanted to comment on was on how many of my friends are teacher-librarians and how utterly wonderful it is to have friends that are school library professionals. Having a friend that's a TL has all sorts of benefits. For instance, TLs are very generous with their time and skills. Jennifer Brown (a TL) willingly volunteered to give up part of her evening to support new TLs in my course.  My friend Joanie (a retired TL) helped me immensely when we were both in the Teacher-Librarianship via Distance Learning program with U of A. She patiently taught me how to do proper APA citations. TLs are also great conversationalists and (usually) attentive listeners. They are (in general) intellectually curious and eager to continue learning. Joanie and I both teach TL courses for Queen's, and she shared so many ideas and resources. We are both keen to embark on a project so we can work together and invigorate graduate-level scholarship in the field. Wendy Burch Jones and I drove to Wendy Kaell's party together and we couldn't help but "talk shop". As OSLA president, Wendy has some ambitious plans for helping the state of school libraries. TLs are action-oriented people; they like to get things done! TLs can be counted on to give good book recommendations even if they are in casual social settings. When Kim and Wendy (both TLs) and I went to lunch, the book titles mentioned peppered the conversation. TLs are good researchers, friendly, and good connectors. It turns out that our server and the sous-chef at the restaurant we ate at were former students of Kim's, and they had nothing but positive memories of "Ms. McNaughton" (her maiden name). TLs also seem to have good memories. I can't believe some of the things my friends remember from the past. 

This doesn't mean that I only have or want TL friends. Some of my other friends are "TL adjacent". I exchanged a few nice emails this weekend with GamingEdu alum Andy Forgrave. He's super-organized like a TL might be and is a great resource and source of stories himself. I had a short but sweet picnic in a local park with some members of my teaching staff.

Some of my other friends have nothing to do with education, so they ensure I don't exist in an echo chamber. My husband had "the boys" over for some gaming on the weekend. 

Either way, it's great to have friends and great to have friends that are TLs.

The ABCs of Early August

 Sometimes it's hard to tie in multiple topics into a single blog post. Today's entry works alphabetically.

A = AML Think Tank

On August 1, the members of the executive board of the Association for Media Literacy met for their annual Think Tank. I enjoy this get-together for several reasons. It's always held in-person, and there's something special about gathering together in the flesh. Even when we are chatting informally prior to any established agenda, we are "doing" media literacy. One of our newest members, Sarah, brought this really cool adult Happy Meal box and we all loved passing it around and remarking about all the great discussion possibilities. I brought my Portugal scrapbook and people really looked intently at how it was set up and my choice of photos. (Why do I always pick pictures of Karen Ambrosh eating food?) The meeting itself was very productive and helped set the stage for the upcoming year.

B = Baltimore

My husband and I took a mini-vacation to his hometown of Baltimore (although technically we were in Baltimore County) for a few days. If you recall, last year, we took a 3-day trip to Huntsville between my AQ responsibilities. My husband doesn't like to travel as much as I do, but he agreed to use the Civic Holiday weekend to visit his mom with me. We just went to Maryland in March of this year, so it's only been a few months since our last jaunt. The focus, in addition to the familial time together, was for crab. 

My relationship to crab is a fascinating one, and shows that time and influence can alter even the hardest opinion. I used to intensely dislike crabs. When my hubby and I were engaged and I first visited his family, they bought a bushel of crabs for us to eat, and I didn't partake. I found it yucky. Even the favored spice of Maryland, Old Bay, was gross to me. As my husband tells it, many years afterwards, during one of our summer vacations to see his family, I asked to try one of his fried jumbo lump crab cakes and discovered that I actually liked the taste. Now, I'm more crab-crazy than he is. I ate:

• crab fries and a crab cake from Conrad's for dinner on Friday
• a crab cake dinner from the Double T Diner on Saturday
• Chesapeake Benedict (eggs benedict with crab) for breakfast on Sunday AND crabby tots (potato tots smothered in crab imperial and cheese) and a crabby pretzel (a huge soft pretzel covered in cheese and crab imperial sauce) from Red Brick Station on Sunday
• a crab cake from Casa Mia on Monday (with some Chicken Chesapeake Pasta we bought to take with us and eat tomorrow!)

crab from Conrad's

crab from the Double T Diner

crabby tots from Red Brick Station

the sign in our hotel

crab from Casa Mia

C = CNE Job Fair

I was tempted to use the C for crab, but I wanted to mention something that happened just the day before August began. My son is still looking for employment, and he applied for work at the Canadian National Exhibition. He was given a link to register for tickets to a job fair on July 31. This event actually made the news, because 37 000 people showed up to this fair, even though there were only 5 000 jobs available. (You can read about it here from Now Magazine, from CBC, from CP24, and from BlogTO.) He lined up at 11:00 am and at 3:00 pm he threw in the towel and left, frustrated and discouraged. This is a terrible situation. My son, and many other young adults like him, are eager and willing to do almost any job, but despite the signs claiming that businesses are hiring, they aren't. When I was young, our teachers used to tell us to do well in school, otherwise we'd "end up working at McDonalds". Now, it'd be a dream come true for my son to be able to snag a job at McDonalds. How times have changed. Doing well in school and earning a diploma or degree does not guarantee you a job. I hope I'll have better news to share related to my youngest one's quest for a paying position. 

(This is a photo of me finishing my "Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults" book and making a serious dent in my "Education for the Age of AI" book while waiting for my son at the CNE grounds. I "took notes" by taking photos of pages I thought made good points. My shoes were super-cute but gave me bad blisters!)

So, even though it's August, there's lots of learning going on. This coming week, I begin teaching 4 TL AQs for York, and the following week, I start taking my ESL Part 2 AQ as a student with Queen's. My activities during those first few days of August show that learning can be social, unexpectedly transformative, and challenging. 

Review Requests

 This week has been a productive one. I've completed many pages in my year-in-review scrapbook. I hosted two guest speakers for my York University TL AQ courses (thank you Jen Giffen and Joseph Jeffrey!), had a Zoom meeting, and finally got around to having my finger checked out on Friday after seeing the doctor about it in June. I had a really good experience at the facility that provided my ultrasound and x-ray. As I was about to leave, one of the technicians asked if I'd be willing to leave a Google Review for their place. I happily agreed. 

This was my review. 

This made me wonder a few things.

1) Why is it important for a medical establishment to get good online reviews? I looked after I posted mine and there were very divisive opinions about the service. They either received 5 out of 5 stars or 1 out of 5 stars. Do they have to compete for customers? 

2) I've been asked by one of the places I take my car in for work to fill in their company-specific survey, but it's always prefaced with instructions that anything less than a 10/10 means that they've failed, so please don't give any scores lower than 10. How is this kind of feedback helpful? How would one accurately be able to say that the service was satisfactory when the expectation is that is has to have the highest possible score? (This is why I haven't filled out any of these surveys, even when asked. They don't really want my true opinion; they just want high scores.)

3) Sometimes these reviews are used as "revenge". I know someone who worked at a business where someone was fired for legitimate reasons, and to retaliate, the person went on Google Reviews and left a scathing commentary, which conveniently left out the fact that the reviewer used to work for the company. How can readers know if the reviewers have an axe to grind with the company that has nothing to do with the service?

4) Do these reviews actually result in change? I know of someone else who has a boss that frets over the results of their Google Reviews, but it seems like it translates to short-term stress and not always to long-term transformations.

5) Is it bad to ignore reviews? This coming week is the final week of the July session of my York University AQs that I teach. I encourage all the participants to submit course evaluations, but I'll be honest - I haven't read mine in a while. Last year around this time, I wrote about how the really awful course evaluations stick in my head and lead me to forget almost all the positive ones. For my own well-being, I delay reading these forms. If there are any serious issues, hopefully my employer will alert me. They seem happy with my work, and our August sessions are busting at the seams! (However, there's still room - click this link if you want to register for a York University AQ course [not just mine!])

6) What if I substituted the word "review" with "assessment/evaluation"? Are my five questions still legitimate even in an educational context?

These are remarkably heavy thoughts for a sunny weekend in July. 

As for my finger, the ultrasound technician was able to pinpoint precisely where I was having the issue. I worried that the problem had just gone away with time and that I was wasting their time, but it looks like I've been using my hand in ways so that there's no pressure on the sensitive spot; the problem still persists. 

Compliments from Strangers

 What do I talk about on my education-themed blog when it's summertime? I just re-read my summer entries from the past two years and I noticed that I share reflections on excursions, summer PD/learning, comments on my AQ teaching and I stick in potentially controversial topics that have been simmering in my mind but I didn't want to draw too much attention to with a during-the-school-year post. 

Today's blog stems from a ten-second interaction at a Tim Horton's. I was in the middle of an errand-filled day and was grabbing donuts for my husband and son, who were getting their hair cuts nearby. As I exited, a man approached me and said, "I don't mean to be rude, but I have to tell you that you are extremely gorgeous." 🤯

I was not expecting that at all. I thanked him for the compliment and walked back to the salon, eager to report the interaction. "My boys" had some interesting theories about what elicited such a comment. They suggested the cut of my clothes inspired the words. (For reference, I had no makeup on and was wearing a Just Cozy t-shirt, Just Cozy biker shorts, and sandals.) My family and I wove the phrase "extremely gorgeous" into our conversations for the rest of the day, watching to see how long it would take my daughter to notice and ask what was up. (To her credit, it didn't take long. Mary is very observant.)

I'm not vain, but I have to be honest - that compliment really made my day. I was tickled by the kind words because there was nothing transactional or sinister about it. The person giving me the compliment was younger than me, and it didn't feel like he was angling to receive anything in return. 

It made me wonder how likely it would be for me to do something similar. Would I tell someone I have never met that they were beautiful or athletic or wonderful? Even though I'm quite confident, I'm not sure if I would. It's one thing to praise someone that you are already having a conversation with - I've frequently lauded the gorgeous nails I've seen on cashiers when I'm in line paying for things - but it's another when I need to initiate, when the person I intend to flatter isn't aware of me at all. Why would I hesitate to appreciate someone? I suspect it's because I'm not sure if they'd take the compliment just at face value. I worry that people would wonder what my ulterior motives were, or that they'd think I was creepy. Considering that the man prefaced his compliment with "I don't mean to be rude", I presume that he didn't know how I'd accept the admiration. It reminds me a bit of the Fluevog community, and how delighted people can be when strangers approach them to praise their unique shoes. 

The young man's commendation (can you tell I looked up synonyms for "compliment" halfway through writing today's blog post?) has inspired me to make an attempt to "pay it forward" by admiring people and communicating it in an appropriate way more often. It also encouraged me to buy some more Just Cozy t-shirts! I'll end today's post with a family selfie, taken at The Prague (a fantastic Czech restaurant in Scarborough). (Please excuse my handsome husband's expression - he often responds to my demand for a group photo with a mix of skepticism and bewilderment.)

Finding Yourself Abroad

 

This is a photo of my mother and her older sister, taken at my wedding reception in 1997.  My mother had expressed an interest in travelling with her sister to Portugal one day to discover their roots, since as far back as I can remember, my Auntie Monica used to tell us kids that we were "descended from Portuguese pirates". My parents came from British Guiana (now Guyana), but my mother's father and my father's grandfather both emigrated to Guyana from Madeira in Portugal. 

My mother and her sister never flew to the "old country", but circumstances allowed my own sister and I to take a trip to Portugal together. Neither my sister, Mary Carol, nor I knew much about our Portuguese connections, other than our Christmas traditional dish of garlic pork. It was fascinating to learn how much influence over our family sayings, meals, customs and traditions are more Portuguese than Guyanese.

Our Names

Why would I take a photo of a bottle of water? The name of the brand, "Gloria Patri", is similar to my mother's given names, Gloria Patricia. When we signed into our hotel in Lisbon, the concierge remarked about how Portuguese my own name, Diana Patricia, was, and that was without seeing my maiden name, DeFreitas! The story behind my name that I was always told was that my first name came from The Phantom's girlfriend in the comics. I had no idea my name had cultural echoes.

On our very first full day in Lisbon (Sunday, June 30, 2024), we caught the tail end of the Saint Antony festivities. In Rossio Square, there were many stands set up, selling different things. We found a Portuguese genealogy vendor and found a coat of arms connected to our maiden name. We bought a magnet replica of the crest for our father. We were told that it was an immigrant practice to add "De" to the front of surnames, to indicate that they were "from the house of".

Our Appearances

We flew to Europe on a Portuguese airline (SATA Azores) and the flight attendant first spoke to us in Portuguese before switching to English. She told us we looked Portuguese. Take a look at some of the photos of the pair of us and judge for yourself.

Diana and Mary near the Santa Justa elevador (Monday, July 1)

Diana and Mary on the yellow tour bus on a very hot Tuesday (July 2)

Mary and Diana in the Lisbon Cathedral (Thursday, July 4)

Mary and Diana in Nazaré (Friday, July 5)

Our Meals

We ate very well while we were in Portugal. We had no idea how influential Portuguese cuisine was to us.  As my sister said, she used to get frustrated with how plain my father would prefer his meals, until she saw how the locals ate in Portugal. This charcuterie board in the photo below includes blood sausage, which is related to black pudding, which we used to eat regularly when we were growing up.

Food is simple but tasty. We absolutely adored eating codfish cakes while in Portugal and even the term for cod, bacalhau, is one we've heard my dad use instead of "saltfish", even though he never learned how to speak Portuguese. Along with cod-cakes, I had this yummy "cheesy sheep". 

I get where our dad got his sweet tooth from! Portuguese egg custard tarts, known as pastel de nata, are everywhere in Portugal. I was thankful that they aren't made with nuts, so I was able to partake quite frequently. 

Seafood is a big deal in a country with a significant coastline like Portugal. While in Nazaré, one of the people on our private tour expressed interest in sampling as many of the dishes as she could. It's a good thing we combined with Sonia and Diogo, our guide, to eat, because there's no way she would have been able to eat all of this on her own. We had clams, sea bass with potatoes we were directed to smash with our fists and soak in olive oil before eating, and monkfish with rice.

Alcohol plays an important role in dining experiences. We enjoyed the green wine (vinho verde) made from young grapes and the cherry liqueur (ginja or ginjinha) first developed by Portuguese monks, originally for medicinal purposes. We never made it to the city of Porto to sample the port wine but we didn't feel as if we missed out.

The gelato we ate was delicious. My friend Karen Ambrosh came to Lisbon with her high school friend after they visited Porto and we enjoyed eating dessert together at the pastelaria.

I was able to visit with a couple of friends from Portugal while there (Estrella and Vitor). They each took me to a different local restaurant. The food was delicious. I ate cod with Estrella and my sister at a charming restaurant filled with different kinds of clocks. With Vitor and our group of 5, we had a feast at a little place that defied initial expectations. I enjoyed the battered green beans, the beans mixed with tuna, and the pork. I sampled the sardines, although it wasn't my favourite. My parents used to love tinned fish like sardines. Even the way the salads were prepared, with unmixed lettuce, tomato, shredded carrot and corn, reminded me of the way my parents made salads in the past.

Our Customs

Portugal loves Saint Anthony. He's known as Saint Anthony of Padua but he was born in Lisbon. My sister and I visited the church built on the site where he was presumed born, as well as a museum devoted to him. My sister and I inherited my mother's fondness for Saint Anthony. If she ever lost something important, she'd pray to Saint Anthony for help. 

My mother was a big embroiderer and seamstress. We heard a lot about the history of Portugal, including how women did not have as many opportunities under the dictatorship, (so sewing was one of the few outlets for women to make money) and that very few citizens were able to pursue higher education. This was the case for both my parents, for different reasons. I also compared a Portuguese shawl my mother gave me long ago and the embroidery matched those of clothes sold in the small towns we toured.  

Even mom's love of church, our short height, and "walking the sea wall" have their roots in Portuguese traditions. Portugal was a very Catholic country. One of our guides said that Portugal has "the 3 Fs: faith, Fado (a type of music) and football". Mom went to Mass every week without fail (and still does, when I take her). My sister and I have faint memories of dad playing soccer here in Canada (with his orange running shoes). To complete the "3Fs", my parents love listening to music. 

We took photos of ourselves standing at the doors in Sintra to demonstrate how "Puddagee people" were short back then, and can still be now.

Dad used to talk fondly of walking along the sea wall in Georgetown to look at the ocean and there were many places where people could gaze out on the water, from the westernmost point of continental Europe to the spot where explorer Vasco da Gama (whom my father referenced) set sail.

I hope this gives a hint about how educational this trip was to me and to my sister. We learned so much about ourselves, our family, and the country from our short time there. My mom and aunt are no longer able to travel, so I feel as if this "sister trip" was a way for us to complete this unfulfilled wish. Big thanks to our guides, Joanna, Nuno, and Diogo, as well as the hotel staff and our Portuguese and fellow tourist friends for making this an adventure to remember.