Because of the holidays, I had accumulated a collection of great blog posts from Ontario Edubloggers. Now, it’s time to get caught up!
I don’t know about you but I love shopping for a new vehicle. There’s so much to be learned from figuring out what’s on the market and doing a vehicle comparison to comparison and then the biggy – what’s my trade-in worth.
Before Christmas, Diana Maliszewski went through the process and bought herself a brand new car.
If you’ve ever been through the process, you’ll love this post. It’s got it all…
- memories of old cars
- advice from friends and colleagues
- doing the footwork going in
- comparing products (Diana uses a Google document to do that – every car salesperson’s worst nightmare)
- narrowing the field
and then buying! Read the post to check out what she bought and how she haggled.
p.s. her new vehicle squints
Learning from Strangers Online
As Jennifer Casa-Todd notes, we’ve all passed along the advice about “Stranger Danger” and given the warning about what could happen when you friend the wrong person.
The problem, though, is that connecting with the “right stranger” can be one of the more powerful things that you can do in the classroom. So, where’s the magic moment when this can happen?
In this post, Jennifer shares her thoughts including an example of another teacher trying to make meaningful connections for his class. In particular, individuals were in search of mentors.
It’s a nice testament to just what can happen and you might just land yourself in a position of making an important connection.
I couldn’t miss the irony that Jennifer had me do some proofreading online of her book and that was before we had ever met face to face. It wasn’t an entirely random event; I like to think that she chose wisely.
In this post, Debbie Donsky brings in a connection between relationships and Marie Kondo’s philosophy of getting rid of things that don’t bring you joy.
In this, “things” might also include relationships. As Debbie notes in this rather long post/story, not all friendships are for a lifetime.
I guess that makes a great deal of sense although I hadn’t thought about it in this way before. She notes that, at times, maintaining the relationships and friendships can be a challenge. Given her history and movement through education channels, I can completely understand.
She suggests some things
- Commit yourself to think about the relationships/friendships you have in your life.
- Imagine what an ideal relationship/friendship would feel like, sound like.(For example if it is a coach, a mentor, a colleague)
- Sincerely thank the person for the relationship/friendship you have had with them.
- Consider if this is a professional or personal relationship/friendship and what boundaries you might need to create to maintain or grow the relationship.
- Ask yourself if this relationship/friendship sparks joy.
If it doesn’t spark joy, then there are things that need to be done.
If those relationships are maintained via social media, there are quick and easy ways to remove those that don’t spark joy for you. I think there is another element to be considered; people often do take actions in a harsh manner. Are you prepared for the consequences?
It’s the new year and one thing that you often notice in blogging and other social media is people identifying and presumably acting on their One Word for 2020. You can follow the discussion in Ontario with the hashtag @OneWordONT. Donna Fry is trying to push the concept Canada wide here.
Beth Lyons is taking a interesting and non-standard (if there is something standard…) approach. She’s not committed to one word for twelve months. Instead, she’s looking for one word per month. In her post, there are no rules against using the same word more than once so that’s an opportunity to continue or reuse.
She builds a good case for what she’s proposing. I wonder if those who read her blog might jump the traditional approach in favour of this. She doesn’t offer 12 words yet – but has a good start.
The good thing is that she’s planning to commit a blog post to each over the year so blog readers (and people who write or podcast about others’ blog posts) will be the big winners.
What is the purpose of a bulletin board?
From my year at the Faculty of Education, it was drilled into us to have bulletin boards that looked great so that when you got inspected and evaluated, whoever was the classroom guest would be impressed. Oh, and also, make sure that they are changed before your second inspection. Why, oh why, do I remember stuff like that?
Deborah Weston gives a nice discussion about the various ways that bulletin boards can be handled. The rationale I gave above isn’t one of them!
I always used bulletin boards but they were created by students as part of their research and assessment. It kept them fresh and allowed students to do something unique and different. They absolutely did a better job than what I could have done.
There was a move a few years ago to display all kinds of achievement data there; thank goodness we’ve gone beyond that.
Deborah gives a nice list of ideas; they’re well worth reading and considering. They’re not all on the same train of thought and that can only be a good thing.
I really like this piece of advice.
For me, in the end what matters is that the students feel like the classroom belongs to them as they have designed it – like an extension of their home space.
THE RECLINER AND MY READING APORIA
I thought that, after reading the first paragraph of this post from Alanna King, that we were going to really get into the concept of recliner chairs. For me, it’s my very best working space. Period. End of Concept.
What else ya got Alanna?
Actually, she’s got a great deal more than that and the topic has nothing to do with recliners! I really enjoyed her walk through authors and concepts. She openly identifies and shares what she considers her biases – we all have them so we shouldn’t feel too badly about that – but I think it’s different from the mind of a teacher-librarian.
As a human, we know what we like to read and naturally gravitate to it. We know when we feel we should be pushed and we might do so at times. But, when you’re crafting a literacy resource for an entire school, it’s an entirely different ball game. You need to not only consider yourself but everyone else.
My immediate thought was about schools who don’t have teacher-librarians championing the acquisition of resources and understanding a school of a thousand or so with differing needs. How can they even presume to play on the same field? A teacher-librarian is so crucial.
I also did have a bit of a smile; I don’t know if Alanna gave us a quick tour of her school’s library or of the books that you could see from sitting in that new recliner.
Eva Thompson’s back at the keyboard! Yay!
Good teachers observe and this is what she’s seeing…
More and more I see students stressed out, succumbing to anxiety, feeling isolated and struggling with self esteem. Part of these issues are tied into school performance and acceptance. I need to address it in my programming. I must.
As a teacher of the gifted, Eva’s students would be an interesting collection. Academically, they may well not have been challenged at the same level as others. It’s easy to understand because there are lots of other students in the regular classroom that would be seemingly needing more attention.
As a result, Eva is working hard to challenge her students and providing situations where they WILL fail. (Emphasis hers)
It’s an interesting read and works as a reminder that not all students are the same and they shouldn’t be treated or even challenged in the same way.
It’s a great blogging start to 2020. Please take the time to visit these terrific posts and drop off a comment or two.
Then, make sure that you’re following these folks on Twitter.
- @MzMollyTL
- @jcasatodd
- @DebbieDonsky
- @MrsLyonsLibrary
- @DrDWestonPhD
- @banana29
- @leftyeva
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https://dougpete.wordpress.com
If you read it anywhere else, it’s not the original.
doug --- off the record 