Yikes!!!

And I am always so excited for the start of a new school year...

Book Club for Boys

 

 

The idea came from a simple comment, and like many good ones evolved through a conversation with the right person.  Isn’t it funny how that always seems to happen?

My daughter had been invited to a mother-daughter book club. It was organized by a great family and included a few moms who were teachers, and some daughters that loved to read.  The organizing family researched children’s book clubs, chose a few members—big ones tend to fall apart—and they started reading books and taking turns hosting the meetings.

I took my comment to the Teacher-Librarian at the high school that I was at, at the time, and somehow this great idea drifted over to boys and dads and “wouldn’t it be great to have a boys’ book club”.  I mean, my daughter and her friends are avid readers, and so are many of the girls that we see in schools.  But, we were having a harder time thinking of young boys that we knew who were avid readers.  And we started to think about how many of us had dads who were avid readers.  Sure, I saw my dad read the newspaper after work, but who even reads a newspaper anymore?  Most of the dads of my generation read everything that they needed to know at work or online (a.k.a. out of the eyes of these children).  Maybe this was a key to help us engage young male readers?

So, I did some research, and not surprisingly the general stereotype was that boys had a harder time learning to than girls.  At school, our own data supported that.  In fact, of 12 7-years-olds who were at risk for reading on our early literacy screener last year, 11 were boys.  So, I started talking to people much smarter than me, and asking them how we could engage these young male readers and all the answers I found led me back to the original book club for boys, with their adult, male role models as the lead readers.

This week, 11 boys brought their dads and grandpas to the school one evening and we met in the Library for our first stab at the All Boys Book Club.  We did it this week as a follow up to Fathers’ Day, and we called it the All Boys because not all of our boys have dads and we wanted them to feel included and able to come with grandpas, uncles, big brothers and next-door neighbours.  I selected a great book that my own boys love me reading to them:  The Toughest Cowboy, or How The Wild West Was Tamed, by John Frank with illustrations by Zachary Pullen.  It is a great book for boys with a great message and wonderful illustrations.  It is fun and appeals to their sense of humour, and has some wonderful word choices, and characters that really keep things interesting until the end.  It also has a wonderful twist.

We started the event by giving each boy a copy of the book to keep.  Then, they had a look at the cover and noticed that there were some interesting things there.  First, the title word “Toughest” was done in a fancy pink ribbon, and our main character, Grizz Brickbottom “the toughest cowboy ever to drive a herd of cattle across the open range”, was holding a ribbon and a hairbrush.  Wait, a hairbrush?  We had the boys make some predictions about what this story was going to be about...

Next, we had the boys take their dads on a picture walk through the pages of the book, noticing the pictures and making more predictions about what was going to happen.  Each pair was given some post-it notes to write down any new words that they found, and once done, we worked together on some strategies to help us figure out what these words might mean.  Some, like bedroll could be broken down into smaller words that we know and the meaning just popped out for the boys.  Tobasco was a common word selected because ol’ Grizz “drank a quart of Tobasco sauce a day” and most dads were able to describe the “hot sauce that we have in the fridge” to their guys.  Other words, like ornery, were just hard words and required the boys to ask an adult what it meant, which is a great strategy in itself.  Finally, the dads were put on the spot and asked to read the story aloud to their boys--in their best cowboy twang.  For our youngest, emerging readers the dads read and the more advanced readers read to their dads.  The ones that were in the middle took turns with their dads, alternating who read each page.  This was a great strategy, because it allowed the boys to try reading the book, and also allowed for them to hear the written word spoken with cadence and some fluidity.  Instead of spending all of their energy trying to decode the words, they got regular breaks so that they could just listen to the story.  And let’s be honest, we all love to listen to stories!

The story finishes with an idiom, so we sent the boys home with a sheet of common idioms and an activity where they take turns drawing the idioms out and having their partner try to guess what the idiom was.  Special thanks to my LAT teacher for creating this for us to use.

All in all, it was a great event, and one that we will repeat in the fall with a new book.  We are also going to start a book club for girls, led by our learning assistance teacher, and then create an event where we blend the genders.  Still, I am glad that we celebrated boys and reading, and it was a very nice following up to Fathers’ Day.

Outdoor Play Area

Well, it has been a long time coming. 

 

Two years ago, we had a geothermal field and heating/cooling exchange system installed at our school.  That is cool enough (sorry) itself, however, when it came to rehabilitate the geothermal field we realized that we had a challenge.  It was a bit of a wild area, and about a dozen trees were lost to the project, the equipment, to root damage from the digging and from some previous beetle infestations.  We were left with a very rough area that was not going to get watered.

And, then along came a great idea:  a natural play area.  We researched all over the world for ideas to create an play area that was natural and that wouldn’t need a lot of upkeep, watering or maintenance.  It took a lot of work, and a lot of help from many people, but we have the play area open and today is the day that the students plant the natural, drought-resistant plants.  We had to get special permission to have the students complete this project, but felt that by allowing them to participate in the project that we would increase their ownership of the finished product.

The play area itself is a hub of activity—imagine an ant hill.  The kids love it and are playing safe.

Mission accomplished!

Getting Old(er)

Am I getting old?

The gray hairs are becoming more than “highlights”.

I play over-35 soccer (and my body hurts after every game).  My warm up includes running and stretching, and liberal doses of heat rub and anti-inflammatory cream.

Any attempt to watch TV after 10:00 pm requires me to fall asleep during the show.

Fast food meals make me feel gross for a day afterwards.

I know the words to every song on the classic rock radio station.  Every song.

I paid someone younger than me to rip out the remaining juniper bushes after I filled a whole truck load by myself.

So, am I getting old.  Not really, maybe just a little older.  Still, there are more things that I “get” everyday that no one younger than me seems to understand what I am talking about.

How about:

• That special relationship between a cassette disk and a pen?
•  Those days when lunches were sent to school before plastic sandwich bags were invented?
• BTW, my mom used to wrap them up in wax paper.  I realized how "old school" this was when my son needed a “pioneer”-style lunch for grade 3 Pioneer Day last week (he watched me wrap his sandwich in butcher paper with the same look of awe that Charlie had in his eye when he unwrapped the golden ticket). 
• Rubbing baby oil all over to get a tan?  An on-purpose tan?
• Forget about trying to explain film cameras, how about plastic film canisters?    They used to be everywhere.
• How slow a rotary dial phone was?  We didn’t mind, because in my small home town we only needed to dial the last 5 digits.

So, am I getting old(er)?  Not really;  I know three people reading this who are saying, “Oh ya, well I remember when...”

The Learner

I have spent the better part of the last 6 years becoming a more accomplished assessor.  I go to workshops and in-services and talk about assessment with teachers, with parents, and with other school and district admin.  Recently, however, I reversed my role and signed up to be a learner.  Not to understand the learning this time, but to actually be the learner.  It was a fly casting course—something that I am already quite accomplished at—but for a new style (for me) of fly fishing.  Instead of casting a one-handed rod, I signed up for some instruction on casting my new spey rod, a rod that is much longer and requires you to cast it with two hands.

As a learner, I generally consider myself a fast one.  I had already caught fish with this rod, and expected myself to advance quite quickly.  The course was being taught by an out-of-town casting expert of international acclaim, and who—to make matters even more exciting—had personally designed the new rod that I was using.  This man travels the world to some of the most exclusive fishing locales, helping people cast.  That’s right, these select lodges don’t fly him up to guide their clients, they fly him up to help their clients improve their casting.  And, here he was in my town, ready to teach me all day.  I was ready to leave an expert caster.  I was ready to think about getting my master casting certificate.  Every time I closed my eyes, visions of perfect casts on a perfect morning on the perfect river etched themselves onto my psyche.  Every time I landed a “lifetime” fish.

It was a very humbling experience.

Things started out fine.  In fact, they started out great.  We were shown some basic casts on a park lawn, and—on the lawn—I did wonderfully.  I was casting accurately and for distance, and with a few pointers from the instructor, was starting to see movies of those earlier visions replayed in my mind.

And then we moved on to the water.

And then things fell apart.

I found myself suddenly very frustrated at the simplest of tasks, and nothing...nothing...was happening as I expected it to.  Looking back, I was rushing.  I was ignoring advice and pretending that I was following his tips and techniques when I knew, deep down, that I really wasn’t.  I started to feel jealous of the others;  I could see that they were performing better than I was, so why was he spending so much time with them.  I mean, I came here to be trained by the expert, so why wasn’t he training me?

I had some good casts mixed in with tonnes of bad ones.  I was overpowering the rod, casting too hard (sound familiar to any golfers out there?).  There, that one was a good one...did he notice?  Aw, that was crappy...is he looking?  The thing is, the more I tried to “do it myself”, the more he seemed to ignore me.  And every time that I noticed myself calming down, focusing on the techniques and casting better, he seemed to be right there at my side coaching me through.  The more I “got” it, the more he came to help me work on my technique. 

It was interesting for me to step back and take a look at what was happening that day.  He was there to give me what I needed every time that I was ready for it.  When I was fighting with myself early on in the water session, he let me fight with myself.  When I was ready to learn, he was ready to work with me.

So, what kind of learner am I?  And how can knowing the answer to this help me to make learning more successful in my school for my students?

Well, here’s what I know.  I am generally a good learner.  I try to take the time to learn things, and  I don’t want to “just get the answer”; I want to be able to explain the process required to get the correct answer.  I try to learn things well enough that I can teach them to someone else, because by that point I know it well.  I do—I admit—want to get the right answer, every time.  I also can get caught up in the time crunch of scheduled learning, where you try to pack learning into time compartments and act like it can start and stop on a clock.  I guess what I learned most is that even when I am prepared and motivated to learn on a topic that is intrinsically motivating for me, I can still have learning challenges.  I think that if I can remember that lesson, then I will have the patience and understanding to know that this can happen to my students, too.

Grad Gift Season

Grad season is upon us and the high schools are busy making the proms evenings that everyone will remember for a long time.  If you have a grad in your life, you may want to consider one of these very unique gifts as they move from student to lounge lizard on their parents couch, and they "relax", "take it easy" and start to "find themselves":

Or how about a hoody backpack?  It's the perfect accessory for the young adult who is still torn between image and fashion, between function and defiance, between career path and "Mr. Fun":

Or, more seriously, how about a book that will actually help them navigate the financial decisions that they face in the next stage of their lives?

One Thing Leads to Another

I’ve had many conversations about closing doors, usually revolving around someone moving somewhere and wanting to share a piece of their mind to someone else before they go.  My advice comes from experience, and is always the same:  take the high road.  I have switched schools, school districts and provinces in my education career.  Sometimes, I have moved and not returned, and other times I have landed right back where I started.  Wow, how embarrassing—and hurtful—things could have been If I had told someone off only land right back beside them for another tour of duty together.

The same is true for so many things in and around any organization, especially one with as many stakeholders as we have in our schools.  People who work with our hot lunch programs also run successful businesses in our neigbourhood, and our parents and friends are the doctors, dentists, businesspeople, labourers, and family in the web of connections that we call our community.  The older I get, the smaller the world seems to get.  I have played 6 degrees to Johnny Depp so many times that I am pretty confident that I will end up at a BBQ with him one day.  My point is that we live in a world that is far more interconnected that many of us want to believe, and everything (as my dad would say) comes full circle.  

And, I really believe that this works with opportunities.  Do you know that guys who always seems to be in the right place at the right time?  Is he always in the right place, or is he someone who lives his life in a way that leaves him open to seeing the opporunities that vavaile themselves?  Do opportunities come more readily to people who are ready to see them?  I think so.

I have been at two significant events in the last two weeks.  Both were important, both were private and both were reasonably exclusive.  At one, we had amazing service and an amazing time.  At the other, we had terrible service and a decent time.  It would have been easy to celebrate the “great” event and to criticize the not-so-good one, but when we stepped back and looked at things the poor service didn’t come from a poor server, rather from someone who was completely overwhelmed because the event was clearly understaffed.  Was that a management decision to make the evening more profitable?  Maybe.  But maybe, someone missed a shift.  Maybe, someone was sick and couldn’t be replaced.  Maybe there was a good plan in place and something fell apart.  In any event, it wasn’t going to make the evening better by reminding the servers how long it had been since we had been checked on, and it certainly wouldn’t have made the service any better.  By loosening off our collars and relaxing a bit—sluffing off the poor service—we had a much better time with our friends than we would have if we had stayed so, well...uptight.  We had a good night, despite the curveball thrown at us, because we were ready to have a good night.

I am reminded of a saying that someone in another district shared with me.  He said that you can never ask a question too many times, as long as you ask nicely.  It makes sense.  If someone has a job that is overwhelming, one that they can’t get through every item that they need to in a day, then they will have to end there day without finishing off every work order.  Most people know that they will eventually take some flack for this, so if you are belligerent to them about getting your needs met why wouldn’t they just make sure that your request is one of the requests that no one gets to?  If the line up of work orders is going to crap on them for not getting everything done, they might as well get the ones done that they can, and if you ask nice—every time—maybe, just maybe, you will get your small favour snuck into the queue. 

I was raised to always shut the door behind me, and that’s fine when it’s the front door.  Experience, however, has taught me never to shut the door when there’s a relationship involved.  So here’s to keeping your door, and options, open.