I am Big and Brown – I make no apologies for this. Because it is relationships that matter.

If you are overly sensitive about the subjects of color, race, gender, culture or struggle to openly discuss these issues, this could be a touchy subject. How do I know… I tweeted this out earlier today and did not receive even one response.

Like the title says I am BIG, that sometimes can be seen as an understatement. At 5’11”, 290 lbs, I am a very large presence in a school setting. To put it mildly, I stick out at school whether it is on the playground during supervision, walking in the hallways or playing games and teaching my little grade ones.To top that it all off, I am brown, wow that was news to me, actually it wasn’t I own a mirror and well have had this 365 day tan for a few years now, 38 to be exact. To be completely honest I am Fijian, and have the stature of a Samoan.

However, this is not how I introduce myself, nor do I believe how I am remembered by my students. I am a strong believer in relationships. Actually I can honestly and truly say that above all the learning that occurs in a school, it is the development, cultivation and maintenance of a relationship that a student remembers the most about their time at school. The quote below by Maya Angelou states it clear as possible, which I know many educators would agree with.

 

Relationships are more than essential, they are fundamental, I am confident in saying this because I know other great educators such as  C. Wejr and A. Couros, to name a few that all have written about the importance of relationships.

Therefore it saddens me that, whether knowingly or unknowingly an adult would effect the relationship a student has with a teacher. It also saddens, but doesn’t surprise me that an adult would state their misconceptions, prejudices, arrogance in the presence of children, who at a young age do not relate things to color, size, race or other physical traits.

So, do I have you wondering why I am writing this post?  It is simply to remind individuals to think. Think about what you say, where you say them and who can hear you, because it effects people and well it confuses them and eventually will hold them back. Still confused, Ok here is some background.

Today, I went to pick up my early years class to take them to Physed Class, same as I do every Monday and Wednesday. However, today one of my little ones had something on their mind, something that was obviously bothering them.  As we were finishing our snacks and lining up my little one said “Mr. Ram, my dad was talking about you”, to which I replied well that is nice. His facial expression changed as he said “no he wasn’t being nice”. Having an idea where this was going I inquired “Oh what did he say”, My poor little one said “he said you were fat and was making fun of your color”.

I felt very heart broken for my little one, not for myself, but for the child. A child who was now conflicted, a child that was confused as to why his dad would say something like he did, and hearing comments that go against everything he is taught about citizenship. A child that now did not now how to react towards his teacher, who gives out hugs regularly and who is always happy to see him. I was even more saddened, because as he was telling me this, three of his classmates came up, yelling my name and getting hugs, and this little guy got brushed out of the way, looking left out, left out because he was confused and struggling.

The question is what do you do? What do you say? This child’s dad is most likely his hero, and if not, he is definitely someone that he looks up to, I can’t go and damage that, so I smiled and said, “I know it is not nice, and we shouldn’t say things that are nice right, but don’t worry I am not upset, I was made me this way and I can’t change that, right” I was treated to one of his great smiles, meaning that he felt better, but I know that it effects him and at 5 or 6 years old he is conflicted with the issues of an adult that has no relationship with me. I am also scared for my little one that what he is hearing is going to effect his relationships both in his current setting and those that he will experience in his future.

Today was a sad day at school.

Understanding World War II and Anne Frank

As a class we have only read up to page 81 and for those of you that are unfamiliar with the story, Anne and her family have moved to the Annex and have been joined by some other individuals. Anne has been stuck indoors and has become more active in writing in her Diary. In the world more is occurring as the Nazi’s have mobilized and war has been declared. 
This is however not the interesting or the exciting part. Without my push or suggestion, some of my students have taken the information within the text and have started seeking more information.

Outside of my classroom I have created this board size timeline, one in respect to the fact that I had asked my students to do this personally, but secondly to reveal to others what we are learning and to provide something for the students to compare to and add to.

For those that have read the Diary you will notice that the timeline seems to be flowing at a none ordered pace. This has occurred because students have sought out extra information in relation to the story and have brought these “Did you knows” to me. As we discussed them and mentioned them in class we added them to our timeline. It will be interesting to witness how fast the students move toward the end of the story now that more pieces are being added but that they are being added in different orders. 

Using this visual has help my students to see the sequential nature of occurrences, however it has also allowed my students to see the connections between events and to realize that although the relationship between events may not be completely clear, that there is always an element of influence.

I am excited to, go beyond the text in the story and walk through students with the lives and influences of their parents and families so that they may gain insight and understanding that decisions made are not done without the influence of things that may not be evident or clear.

One resource to initiate engagement in multiple areas.

As Christmas break ended and we returned to school, our class finished reading and working with the novel “Raven Quest”. Although this novel looked at over coming adversity, thinking over others and understanding aspects of writing such as setting and sequencing, there was only engagement from all of my students when I was reading the text (Story Time). I wanted a text that would engage my grade six students in multiple areas and in multiple ways – simply put I wanted do do something that was as inclusive as possible.

After some lengthy conversations with my colleagues that I would consider literacy Guru’s, i decided to choose “The Diary of Anne Frank”. There are variety of ideas, concepts and activities you could do in relation to the story. For the students in 6C we will be beginning with the following and hope to hear of some other great ideas which we may try.

To incorporate numeracy we will be looking at the two time lines that exist within the span of the story. The time line of Anne Frank and the time line of World War II. We are then going to examine how the two relate to each other and therefore determine how one timeline effected and influenced the other. This will then be combined with students looking, with their parents help at their parents time line and overlapping that with the events that occurred both nationally and internationally, which may have effected their lives.

In respect to citizenship and community, the students are going to examine the issues between Nazi Germany and the Jewish community and how the role of Nazi Germany effected surrounding communities and countries. This will also relate to Social Studies, looking through the lens of government, national identity and relationships. 

Although we are only in the first forty pages of the story, I am really looking forward to working through this story with my students. We have already had some great conversations about equality, integrity, social justice and right & responsibilities, but I am sure that this is just the tip of the ice berg.

If you have some ideas or have previously tried, please share I would love to make this an expereince my 6’s will never forget. Also please stayed tuned as we progress through the story and display our learning and our adventures.

New Year, New Assignment ohhhh the possibilities.

What an amazing summer.  After three years being in charge of the reins and making sure that everything was always ready to go and that everything was set for the first day,  I was able to and took full advantage of the so called “two months off” during the summer. I must say that it was fabulous. I enjoyed every part of it especially the five days of fishing, twenty feet from my back door.

This however is not the reason for this post, first I would like to apologize to all of my friends and colleagues for my absence, but would also like to pass on the assurance that you will be hearing a lot from me both from this location and others that I will connect you with shortly.

 

This year, I am excited to teach grade six and while teaching my #youngpadawans (Star Wars is my class theme) I will be actively using what I have learned about over the past three years and encouraged other educators to use. I will be working with my kids to tweet out questions and to make global connections to learn and connect using our classroom twitter account.

I am thrilled that I have the privileged to walk my students through their initial trials and discoveries using Google Classroom 

In addition to keep my students parents connected to the classroom and aware of what is being covered, what is expected and the experiences of the students. I will be using Remind, our Rams Class Facebook account and our PSDBlogs class blog.

Please come and join our adventure as we navigate the universe and make memories and connections that will change how we work, influence how we learn and fuel our need to be challenged.

 

Creating #KidEdchat for Sharing, Comparing and Collaborating

Like many Twiducators, I have participated in many #Edchats and have found the topics, conversations and discussions engaging and very insightful, not to mention the ideas and resources that are shared.

However, I have found that there are times when, as an educator I am seeking, not only information but ideas or suggestions. Ideas relating to a specific grade level or grade focus area, such as:

How to integrate technology

Current Pedagogy

Professional Development

Classroom Ideas

Literacy ideas and innovations

. . . to bulletin board examples

For this reason and thanks to the help of amazing mentors and colleagues @shellterrel @shannonmmiller @courosa and @gcouros I have arrived at the hashtag #KidEdchat

It is my hope that #KidEdchat will facilitate all the areas that I have mentioned as well as conversations specifically directed to teachers from grades 3-6, which will occur every Thursday at 8 pm Easter and 5 pm on the West coast.

By no means is this a new concept or idea, thanks to @shellterrell (Shelly Terrell ), @web20classroom (Steven Anderson) and @tomwhitby (Tom Whitby), the creators of #Edchat, educators around the globe have been given a forum to discuss and focus on topics that are affecting educators. Topics such as current teaching trends, transforming teaching practice, as well as education policy and education reform.

#KidEdchat is not something to replace #Edchat, that is not the intent, nor would it be possible. It is simply a sharing, collaborating and learning location for teachers that work with students from grades 3-6. For the first #KidEdchat, on July 12th There will not be a specific topic.  I will leave it as an open format Meet and Tweet where educators can connect and share some ideas. Following #KidEdchats will be determine by polling all that have participated and shown interested.

Please pass this on to all the educators that you know would be interested and that could benefit from the connecting. It would be greatly appreciated.

I look forward to connecting with numerous educators. Remember to share with #KidEdchat and we shall tweet with you on Thursday evening.

 

Collaborative Changes that increased student engagement.

Many junior high schools in rural areas are limited by factors such as staff, resources, space, time, money and experience when it comes to providing optional classes to students. Seba Beach is also in this predicament, being a school of less than 150 students ECS through grade 9. To increase the opportunities for the students for students at Seba as well as the three schools (Tomahawk, Wabamun, Entwistle) which are all eighteen minutes away. The schools in the far western portion of Parkland School Division run collaborative WEST end options. Ironically WEST stands for the four schools that are involved:

Wabamun  – W

Entwistle    – E

Seba Beach – S

Tomahawk – T

By joining the schools for options we almost double the number of optional classes that the students can choose from, which is amazing for the students.

However, at the end of the last school year, while planning for the next school years scheduling. I noticed that there is a sufficient amount of time during the week that Seba Beach could run some of these same options as in-house options. Now, I know that some teachers and administrators out there are thinking two things :

This is going to be more work for the teachers?

Are teachers going to be taking away time from the core subjects to allocate for this additional option time?

The truth of it, is the answers for the questions are yes and no, respectively. Yeah there many be some more time that the teachers have to plan for and some more work in relation to keeping students motivated, but what it the outcome.

Students that are participating and enjoying their learning experience

That is a more than acceptable trade off. Remember it is all about the kids. Aside from this there is another benefit and it is not solely to that of my students. With the students in my school having the other options earlier in the week. It leaves additional spaces for the other schools students to participate in those options instead of competing for spots. I will be honest, it does mean that my students do got two options per term instead of one, but that only means that they have a better rounded year.

I do however have one request, if you have an idea for an option that you believe would be feasible in a small rural school please share. It will be greatly appreciated.

Training Day with Mr. Thiel

Sorry for the extended absence, I have three posts on the go and it seems that every time I sit down to write that something comes up. This should be expected and is not an excuse, I simply dislike being inconsistent in my writing, but that is enough with the sympathy search.

I had the wonderful pleasure of spending last Wednesday with Mr. Glen Thiel, the principal of Brookwood Elementary in Spruce Grove, Alberta. It was a wonderful eye opener in many aspects, the largest being how an administrator works with and in a school that is bursting at the seems with students in a population boom. Brookwood School currently has 550 students from Kindergarten to Grade 4. Designed in 1970 as an open area school, Brookwood School promotes a friendly and caring learning environment, where a high level of cooperation is nurtured amongst students and staff.

Thinking about all the issues and day to day concerns that I have when it relates to working with early years students, I was prepared to have a very busy day with Mr. Thiel. This however was not the case. Aside from a couple of issue that were, for the most part minor, Mr. Thiel and I were able to spend the day talking, discussing, supervising (recess) and participating in the building of a common goal that we believe in…

RELATIONSHIPS

This was evident from the moment I walked into the school and into Mr. Thiel office. First thing in the morning, as an arrangement with a student Mr. Thiel has morning check-ins, which allows the student to discuss what is going on for them, what they are interested and to form relationships. While for Mr. Thiel it reveals how the student is doing that morning, what frame of mind they are in and what is going on in the students life.

Later in the morning during recess, I went out on supervision. Mr. Theil revealed that he intentionally does this for a number of reasons, however I observed that the largest reason is that he gets to spend that time with the students. Asking them how they are doing, check with them about things that may have happened or are  happening and to get a feel for how the day is going. It was also clear that the students loved having Mr. Thiel out on supervision, as we always had kids around us and Mr. Thiel was constantly in the process of receiving hugs.

There was only one thing in my entire day that caused me to step back and that was this greeting the students and Mr. Thiel shared by waving fingers. I asked what this was and was given the greatest reasoning. Since Brookwood is an open concept school with minimal number of walls students yelling out good morning or saying hello whenever Mr. Thiel was around could be very distracting. To minimize this distraction, there was the finger wave and the number of fingers used related to what grade the students were in. Amazing, the students could say hello, and get a response without causing a break in the regular flow of things . This was a great idea and a wonderful way to daily communicate with students when time doesn’t always allow.

I would like to thank Mr. Thiel, the staff at Bookwood and the students for their warm welcome. I would also like to thank Mr. Thiel for showing me that in my journey to understand the inner workings of being an instructional leader one of the key components is creating, maintaining and always developing relationships.

Connecting pedagogy with dimensions of student diversity.

When looking at the Principal Quality Standards and seeing that one of the strands states that as an instructional leader the principal should be or be able to connect pedagogy with dimensions of student diversity actually made me giggle, a little. Removing all of the educational lingo, what does this mean? To me as the Educational/ Instructional Leader this mean that :

” How people are expected to go about learning may differ and does differ between students. In order to maximize learning opportunities, teachers must gain knowledge of the students needs and abilities as they are represented in their classrooms, then translate this knowledge into instructional practice”.  Villegas, (1991) relates this specifically to culture, however I believe that this pertains to all areas of student learning.

You may be asking why or what I found funny about this, and I suppose it relates directly to my own experiences as an educator. For the previous eleven years, I taught children in care, children that due to a multitude or reasons were either removed from their homes or chose to leave their homes for more consistency and security. Teaching and learning from those children, gave me an in-depth understanding of the different methods students learned, the different elements that need to be in place and even the different levels and speeds that students learn.

A memory that gave me an ah-ha moment comes to mind. One of my students consistently used to ask me if she could work on the floor. Thinking like a traditional teacher I said “No, because if you are out of your desk and on the floor the other kids would all want to be out of their desks and on the floor”, and trust me in this setting this could be problematic. The student didn’t get mad, but also didn’t complete alot of work being very distracted for the rest of the day. She asked the same questions for the next few days, always receiving the same answer. However on the Friday, the weather was nice and I informed the kids that for the last two periods of the day we would be working outside. This set off my student as she became angry, started yelling and eventually flipped over her desk resulting in her being sent to timeout. After she had calmed down, I began to process with her, asking her why she was so opposed to working outside. (This is where the light came on) the student revealed that she was scared to be outside, she was convinced that even being out where we were that someone would drive by and well shoot at us. This also revealed why she liked working on the floor . . . bullets traveled in her experience with more ease through windows that they did through walls. Being on the floor allowed her to decrease her anxiety about violence that could occur. Monday brought a new development in the class, my student was permitted to work on the floor, for notes, assignments and anything else that didn’t require her to be upright. Some of you may ask, well didn’t others want to be on the floor? The answer is, yes they did, but they thought of it as fun and when the novelty wore off they returned to their desks. Eventually, she did return to her desk, however it was when she felt that it was safe to do so.

In relation to my duties as an administrator and instructional leader, as one staff put it so well when she reflected about our conversations in relation to student planning or programming “The thing I appreciated about Shawn during our time together, was his ability to present the other side. He was always able to play the devil’s advocate to ensure that we covered all bases”. M.Dallinger

I am always the one to ask what have we done, what have we tried, why haven’t we tried this or would this work. I have had some interesting reactions in respect to some of my comments but as I stated previously, I learned a long time ago that different things work for different students and that we, as educators need to know the students and where they come from to determine what that is and looks like. Before I end this post I am reminded of a quote which I hope I get right, Education is not about teaching the curriculum it is about teaching the student.

Combining Synergy, Creativity and Citizenship in Leadership a day at Greystone

Although the weather was not the most accommodating on Friday, my adventure and experience while visiting Carolyn Cameron and the students and teachers at Greystone Centennial Middle School was wonderful. My time at Greystone was a great learning experience, however before I go into what I learned and my take-aways from my visit I am going to provide a short section about Greystone and Mrs. Cameron.

Greystone Centennial Middle Schools belief is that middle years is a time to exert extra effort to make school appealing by engaging students in learning and by offering them a variety of activities to keep them connected to the school community. The schools highly collaborative teaching teams who remain with the same group of students for 2-3 years establish strong supportive relationships that promote individualized, personalized learning for students. The teachers really get to know the unique learning needs of their students.

Carolyn Cameron, is the Principal of Greystone Centennial Middle School. She states that she is inspired, daily, by the passion and energy for learning that she sees from the staff and students at Greystone. She is always open to sharing ideas that cause her to question, explore and build her knowledge as it relates to Inspiring Action in Education and how she, along with her amazing team at Greystone, can continue to make the dream of meeting the needs of today’s learners a reality in their school community.

My day at Greystone was filled with some great experiences, however the learning was also excellent. One of the items that is required as an administrator is to observe teachers in their practice and assist them in their achievement of the Professional Growth Plans. I was  able to sit with Mrs. Cameron and observe to classes. The first class was Mr. Dhaliwal’s grade nine Science class and the second was Mrs.   Nicholls grade six Math class. Being unaware of the backgrounds of the classroom I was lucky in the sense that both subjects are areas in which I am familiar and enjoy teaching.

Both the observations were great in that I was able to see how Mrs. Cameron did her teacher observations. There are three very important things that I noticed. First of all in both settings Mrs. Cameron ensured that she was not in a position that would cause distraction from the lesson or to the students. In one we sat away from the students allowing us a fish bowl view, while the other one had us placed in the classroom sitting among the students. Secondarily, Mrs Cameron stated that she is always looking for the answer to a specific question which she either listens for during the lesson or asks students directly when it is appropriate and that is “how does this apply to students lives?”. Lastly, I learned that although Mrs. Cameron takes into account all of the TQS standards, that her primary focus in her observations relates to teachers Professional Growth Plans, something that I did not place more of a focus on.

Observing Mrs. Cameron in her observations as well as being able to participate in a post conversation has shown me the process in action from an administrators point of view, something that I had not been able to previously witness. I would like to thank Mrs. Cameron, the staff and students of Greystone for the wonderful learning experience, for inviting me into their classrooms and for allowing me to participate in some excellent learning opportunities and activities. I am looking forward to making some of the changes at my school from what I have observed at Greystone.

Student learning is enhanced by the use of community resources.

 

On my journey to understanding Instruction Leadership one of the sections under the Principal Quality Standards is supporting the use of community resources to enhance student learning. It took some time to wrap my head around this, I pondered, does this mean the use of guest speakers, of presentations that are motiviational or should they focus primarily on academics.

I came to the conclusion that any resource that adds to the understanding, learning and building of a student would fit into this catagory. Like many schools, Seba tries to have as many outside resources come out to the school to add or supplement the learning of our students, the only limiting factor is the distance that Seba Beach school is from a large metropolis. This being said I am excited to say that I have made some direct connections and additions to our school and our students experiences by inviting or soliciting exteranl resources to add to student learning and experiencing. Although the students, for the most part enjoy these presentations and activities, I do know that some of the teachers have not always been excited because my planning takes away often from class time that is vital and essential to our teachers in delivering the curriculum.

We have had many activities throughout the year, from the first day of school to our Remembrance day celebration, however for this post I will be commenting about the three most recent activities at Seba Beach that have been amazing opportunities.

The first is the CLICK presentation to our junior high students. This was a presentation that is put on by the Alberta Government , assisting students to determine what they apt at doing after they finish high school. The facilitator was a student at University of Alberta completing her degree in sociology, but was able to keep the students engaged and curious about the activity. The students worked, answering questions about personality, preference and choice and eventually arrived at a range of occupations. For most of the students the results were generally accurate.

The second, this was a community resource that was able to work both with our students but as well with the parents of our students in areas such as cyber-bullying and digital awareness, no name the two covered most recently.  I am referring to the Family and Community Support Services (FCSS) workers that we are connected to through Edson. We have a pair of great, energetic and commuted ladies that are willing to work as much as possible with our parents and with our students to provide programs such as Parenting, Community relations, and baby sitting courses.

Finally, due to some previous relationships, I was able to use some connections to start a boys group at the school for our middle years boys. Through communication and planning with members of Native Counselling Services, I was able to arrange that three individuals would come out once a week and work with our boys on citizenship goals. One worker is Howard, I never had the opportunity to work with previously, but the other two I have had the pleasure of working closely with. One as a colleague and one as an elder. Our first session / meeting was great, the boys in the group asked many questions and learned about choice and responsibility. The students also, to integrate culture, focused on discovering the 7 First Nations Teachings. It was great to see the students working each other trying to figure out all the elements involved while looking at ones self.

I am a strong believer in the old saying that states, “it takes a community to raise a child”. This is a truth that I have experienced, lived in and taught with, understanding that everyone has something that a child can experience and learning from. I believe that we should use our outside and partner agencies to ensure that our students, have access to the most possible resources” I also believe that there are somethings that others can convey and teacher better than I. Therefore by embracing Humility and having a willingness to learn like my students I call upon others to work with my students and myself to increase their understanding and tool kits for their future.