A Reminiscent Thank You.

I have read the posts of many teachers thanking those they have learned from. I myself have written posts about this as well.  Thanking colleagues for information and ideas, thanking students for their views and their insight and thanking the families for, well, just about anything.  In addition to this I have spoken to many colleagues who, like myself, believe that the biggest compliment in an educator’s career is given when a former student comes back and says that you made a difference or helped. As I have previously written I am lucky to had this happen once or twice already. Does this mean that my work is done?  NO, not by any means.

An event that occured recently started me thinking.  It started me thinking about and reflecting upon the fact that I have thanked those who have assisted and influenced my learning in the last five years, but I do not recall thanking those that influenced, assisted and well, molded my formal years of education.

I know that like many of my students, I have gone back and personally thanked my teachers, but that has depended on being able to track down those teachers. This is the event that caused my thinking. Last week I was in a meeting with outside division participants. One of the participants looked extremely familiar, but I could not put a name to the face. About a third of the way through the meeting, the individual, Mr. McPherson, remembered where we had crossed paths. Oddly enough Mr. McPherson was my elementary Principal. It had been roughly 26 years since we had seen each other. Needless to say whenever we had a break we caught up on the events that had occurred since, and why I had chosen to become a teacher. While going through all of my reasons for becoming a teacher I realized there was a central theme and I thought I should share it with everyone.

Mrs. Kashmar – my grade two teacher at Caernarvon Elementary.   From what I remember, she really emphasized that I get my printing and hand writing correct. I am sure it is her I should thank for the fact that, to this date, I still have better writing than most of my friends.

Mr. Badger – my grade five teacher, also at Caernarvon Elementary.  He is the teacher I should thank for planting the seed of wanting to learn as much about science as I have.

Mr Clark – Middle years Social Studies teacher.  He not only brought forth a passion for history and understanding, but also (now this may found funny) reminded me of Santa. This was not only in his appearance, but in his kindness, joyfulness and caring. I will always remember Mr. Clark for his willingness to play along in my jesting about him being Santa.

Mr. Klak – Middle years Math teacher who, thankfully, did something I thought could never be done. Mr. Klak made Math fun.

Finally, from my middle years, there was Mr. Farrel who was my gym teacher at Rosslyn Junior high and later on moved on to be the Principal at Queen Elizabeth High School.

Now for the trip down memory lane in High School, which I attended at Ross Sheppard Composite High School.

Mr. (Coach) Kauchman – was one of the most unique math teachers I knew, and learning from him was an entirely new experience. Still think of those Pilot Sunglasses.

Mr. Paulitsch – was not only my football coach, but also one of my physical education teachers. Mr. Paulitsch was also a Social Studies teacher, however I was not fortunate to be in any of his classes. Mr. Paulitsch brought a passion to his teaching, a great belief in relationships and a wonderful level of humour.

Mrs. Campbell – famous for the different hats that she wore at school, but more importantly, known for her love of Social Studies and for being one of those teachers that loved building relationships.

Mr. Caskanett – by far he was the most eccentric and extraordinary English teacher I had. Making class both unpredictable and exciting.

There are many many more teachers that I could list from my past that made a difference, influenced me and most of all, through our relationships, showed that they cared. My only regret is that for some of them, it has taken me this long to come out and say thank you.  A simple thank you for making the difference, understanding how I learned, for keeping me responsible and accountable and for being my teacher – Thank You.

Increasing Communication and Awareness

As with any school, one large issue that is faced by my current school is trying to communicate effectively and efficiently with all staff, students and parents. Every month the staff and myself diligently create news letters, send notes home and even email to increase communication and awareness. When needed, we even fall back on the traditional formats such as making phone calls, and in some cases conduct home visits.  And now with the use of technology, send text messages. However, even with all these tools, many times messages and information is not shared, which not only decreases communication, but in some situations leaves parents out of the loop making them feel disconnected from the school.

I know that the school also has a website and information is shared on this site, but I wanted something more instant. I sought to communicate with parents whenever something note worthy occurred at the school. Call me a little slow, but it took chatting with some friends on Twitter to realize that I should not only create the school a Twitter account, but that I should also create the school a facebook page.

The set up was easy, and at present the posting and maintainence has also been easy; well……except for trying to load pictures. Depending on how Facebook is feeling, sometimes loading pictures takes 30 seconds and other times it takes …..a long time, which can be frustrating.

If you click on the individual pictures, assuming that I have set everything up correctly, it will take you to the appropriate site. The only part that scares me is trying to figure out whether I can keep up with everything.  Someone did, however, suggest Tweet Deck.

Door Decorating

It is a simple thing teachers do to make their classrooms welcoming and inviting to students and to parents. Decorating one’s classroom door is something that I did at least once a month as a teacher; either having welcome back signs on it with leaves to signify fall or creatively making a Christmas scene when it came to that time of year.

However, this year I was unsure about decorating my office door. Being the Principal I don’t always have students coming to my office and if they do they aren’t always happy about having to come down.

I was, however, pleasantly surprised, both in September and here in October, finding my door already decorated.  It was wonderful to see.  My Kindergarten and Grade One students, with the help of their teacher, have been decorating my door. The best part of it is that the majority of items that are placed on my door are student created, rather than store bought.

It is a pleasure to see the students work, their faces when they come down and show me which item they created and the look on parents faces when I tell them that I had nothing to do with the decorating; that it was all students.

Honestly, it puts a great big smile on my face and I look forward to seeing what the students are going to create each month to decorate my door.

Instead of posting every month with a new picture of my door, please feel free to follow along at http://www.facebook.com/stormSBSprincipal our school’s new Facebook Page.

Absence = Disjointed

This is the first week during this school year when aside from feeling that I had a lot of things in the air did I feel that I wasn’t realling doing what I was supposed to.

Due to professional development choices that I made, and some meetings that are necessary, I was only in my school for a day and a half. An entire week of school and I am present for a day and a half. If I were still a student I may have been very excited. I mean come on, I was out of class, excused, it was approved and all my assignments were technically considered complete.

However, now things are different. Being out of my office, away from my students and my colleageus, I felt, well a little lost. I also felt that I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to be doing. I know that there are many, many responsibilites that I have and this means that sometimes I will be out of my school. However, I felt that this was, well a little excessive. Not to mention that once I was back it was time to play catch-up.

Being away from the halls and the staff room, I was unable to interact with those in the building. I wasn’t able to check in with my students to see how they were doing with their projects, vollyball games and with their reading programs. I was not there to support my staff in their teaching and their learning. I was absent to answer those parent questions and concerns.

What I learned from this little adventure, is that I need to look at my calendar very closely check to ensure that when I am out of the building that it is spaced reasonably. I also learned that even though I am not in the classroom, I can say that I still miss my students when I don’t see them. I think it is for thess reasons that I made sure that at the end of the day I was outside for supervision – wishing every student a Happy Thanks Giving and a great long weekend.

Fashion Crisis

Many teachers, parents, community members and business people would agree that the first element that an individual should be

Borrowed From Betadaily.com

aware of when starting a new job is . . . their wardrobe.  A great deal of my colleagues would agree that looking the part can be 25% of playing the part.

There have been many conversations, blog posts and comments that I have read and made about the appropriate dress that is required, and at times expected, in relation to being an educator.  This belief carries even more weight if someone is an administrator.  There is an underlying belief that does hold some merit, that dressing appropriately brings a level of respect and authority.  You know the old cliché, “Look professional to be professional.”

I am a believer that a lot can be achieved if people see you in the role that you are playing.  Keeping this in mind, there is one element directly related to this that we may not remember or may not realize until we are faced with the situation.  I am sure many educators do what I am about to share, but it was in hindsight of experiencing the ordeal that I came to this conclusion.

In regards to attire I have only one piece of advice to teachers, and more importantly administrators, and my advice is this:  Have an extra pair of clothes.  Whether they are in your car, hanging behind your door or in a suit bag in the staff room closet.  TRUST me there are many things that one can prepare for, but you can never be completely prepared.  Yes, sometimes a fix can be easy, like throwing on a blazer to cover a stain, or removing your tie (for guys if you spill), but you can’t exactly tie your jacket around your waist if you rip your pants.

At this point you may be giggling or smirking to yourself – but just think for a moment.  You are helping the Kindergarten students and your pants rip or you spill paint on your shirt.  And of course you have a meeting in the afternoon.  Now, this is when that extra set of clothes comes in handy.

You can’t prepare for everything that can happen in a school day, so why leave it to chance.  Take an extra set of clothes to work with you and if at the end of the week you haven’t used them, you’ve got them for next week.  A simple idea, but something we don’t think about until it is too late.

Switching it up – Little Leaders Experiment

The following generally happens, not intentionally but it does happen. When there are non-educational tasks that require the assistance of students we most often request the assistance of students that are well, “the reliable kids”, “the dependable kids” and essentially the “good kids”.

As I stated this happens, it is not intentional or a preferred practice, however as time progresses in a classroom, the students who have difficulty following directions and difficulty completing tasks are not given tasks. Although, we often say that with every new year there are new possibilities and the slate is clean, due to repeated years of giving tasks to what other students may see as the favourites, our other students get left out.

Now, I am new to my position and to my school, but I have been becoming familiar with many of the students, those that are quiet, those that love to read, those that are masters at avoiding work and those that simply want to be left alone. I have also been provided with a great deal of information from other colleagues in the school, whom have worked with the students before.

 As my previous posts will attest, I am a strong believer in relationships. In building relationships, maintaining relationships and ensuring that we are trying to understand our students through our relationships. At my previous teaching assignment, I attempted to create a group of little leaders with my little grade 1-4 students, and although we had some trials and tribulations overall the idea, which arose from Stephen Covey’s, The Leader in ME, worked famously.

So, today I hopefully checked off at least two boxes with one activity (relationships and leadership). I needed to change our outdoor sign, but to do this I needed someone to help me with the letters, so I did not have to continually climb and descend the ladder. Instead of asking a staff member, or asking one of the usually asked kids, I chose two students that are not often chosen.

The pleasant surprise was that the students were surprised. They seemed genuinely excited about doing something as simple as putting the letters in the proper order so that they could hand them to me while I was on the ladder. This could have been that they were picked to do something outside of the normal relm of class or they were just happy to be out of the classroom, either way it was a great experience in respect to building relationships with students I am just getting to know.

Todays Goal -Building Relationships

Together we are - Mommy's Peace photostream

As was probably the case with many other teachers in my school division, and some of our neighboring ones, I did not have the most restful of sleeps. My dreams were filled with the thoughts and ideas for the school year. Thoughts about how the day was going to start, what I was going to say to the students and so on and so forth.

 

As I drove to school, one thought kept resonating in my mind, “Students, it’s all about the students”. As I arrived at school I was very glad that I did not schedule any meetings, appointments or registration consultations for the day. I quickly arranged some items in my office and ensured to check in with staff as they prepared for the busses to arrive. (First day and I was on supervision) I noticed the interested looks on many of the kids’ faces as they got off the busses, checked the class lists, and made their way up to their classes. Most of the inquisitive eyes I caught were focused not on the “ahh” of being at school, but on me as I was, aside from a few students, “The New Kid on the Block“.

 
After the kids settled, morning announcements were completed, and everyone began their routines for the year. To ensure that it wasn’t expected to regularly find me sitting at my desk working on “Principal” stuff, I, rather than returning emails, checking messages or going over my preliminary budget, closed my office door and headed into the hallway. On my adventures I stopped into every classroom before returning to my office. In addition to my morning walk, I made sure to go out at least two more times during the day.

 
This ensured that at the end of the day when I stood outside waiting for the kids to get on to the busses, almost all of the kids said goodbye to me and I to them. Being visible in a role other than being in the office is something I believe will go a long way in building relationships with my students, my staff, the parents visiting the school and other members of the community that may be visiting.This ensured that at the end of the day when I stood outside waiting for the kids to get on to the busses, almost all of the kids said goodbye to me and me to them.

 

Being visible in a role other than being in the office is something I believe will go a long way in building relationships with my students, my staff, the parents visiting the school and other members of the community that may be visiting.