Welcome to the end of the week and just another week closer to the Summer Break. Hang in there and get inspired by some great blog posts.
The One
- Sue Bruyns – @sbruyns
- https://www.susanbruyns.com/2022/06/01/the-one/
I found this post from Sue to be incredibly emotional, bringing back all kinds of memories of students that I had that could have been my “one”.
You know, the kid that’s not fitting in or has daily challenges in the classroom.
In Sue’s case, this student was a visitor to the office for a number of reasons and a special relationship was created there.
Then the student moved schools.
Then COVID hit.
Sue had made a promise to this student to visit in the new location and made good on it. Folks, this is another strong reason why only the best become teachers.
Slice of (Moving) Life
- Lisa Corbett – @LisaCorbett0261
- https://alotalot.wordpress.com/2022/05/31/slice-of-moving-life/
Lisa’s educational career is so different from me. Never mind the fact that we were in different panels but she chronicles a career of moving to different schools and different classes.
I was hired as a Computer Science teacher and did that for my entire career. I had no real desire to change schools; our had air conditioning which is so important in Essex County! Plus, it was possible to not just just teach three programming courses, but since I was the only game in town, I could teach a three year program with students from Grades 10-12. Then, there were the OAC years.
Sure, I think we all looked at the job postings when they came out; it was a great time for department room chat about retirements and people who were moving schools. There was the odd person that would change schools but I remember a mostly stable teaching complement.
I had to smile when Lisa said that requests for transfers were largely not done but felt happy for her when hers was. And, the big thing is being able to walk to work. I could have done that but it probably would take the better part of a day.
I wonder if more and more teachers are considering a placement closer to home these days of rising gas prices?
Leadership & Student Elections
- Jennifer Aston – @mmejaston
- https://madameaston.edublogs.org/2022/06/04/leadership-student-elections/
Before reading Jennifer’s post, I guess I thought that running a school election at the same time as a provincial election might be a cutesy thing that you do in your classroom and then compare results.
She thinks BIG here! Their school had the gym for the provincial election and she had her resource centre for the school election. Students in grades 1-8 all voted; she had student helpers who were sworn to secrecy; it sounded like a great event.
The results were not what I had expected. Growing up north of London, I always considered the city a pretty conservative type of place so it was interesting to compare the student vote from the adult vote.
It’s another great vote and a testament to why schools need to have that special teacher or two or three that do big things to really enhance what is happening in classrooms.
My June To-Do List
- Melissa Turnbull – @missmturnbull
- https://heartandart.ca/my-june-to-do-list/
How’s this for a post that’s open and vulnerable. Melissa shares a 10 point to-do list for herself. It was an interesting list to run up and down.
Glad to see that she was planning to vote.
I’ll bet that an educator would scan that list and totally agree that what’s important for Melissa is important for all educators this June. I had to shake my head when she talked about sticky notes. There was a time when sticky notes were all over the place here. My problem was that they would dry out, fall off, get blown under the furniture, and for a million reason would go missing.
Years ago, a good friend of mine convinced me to take a workshop on planning and priorities and one of the buy-ins was giving up on traditional routines and going full speed with the system. I did and never looked back.
But, I’m sure that the sticky notes are just a side note for Melissa. June is like no other month for teachers and, unlike so many other professions, there is no extension allowed for the major deliverables for your job. When June is done, so are you.
I enjoyed reading her list and wish her all the best meeting all of her priorities.
The 500 – #315 – Damn The Torpedoes – Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers
- Marc Hodginson – @Mr_H_Teacher
- http://the50-20.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-500-315-damn-torpedoes-tom-petty.html
I’m a big fan of Marc’s walkthrough of the Top 500 and enjoy all the posts. This week, for This Week in Ontario Edublogs, I found out after the fact from Marc that I chose the wrong post.
Those would have been equally as good ones but I went with the Tom Petty one. And, for a couple of reasons – I’m a fan of Tom Petty and, for the past week, YouTube has been recommending this one Tom Petty concert. I’m smiling because I played that concert while getting ready for the TWIOE podcast.
The post had some intriguing points that made it particularly interesting for me. One was Christmas shopping at Devonshire Mall complete with a picture of the old Sears store. The other was working a bit of a side gig for a Petty cover artist. When I spent so much time reading and enjoying the post, I just knew that I wanted to include this one.
Marc is creating a playlist as a result of this series of posts. This would have been a tough call – he went with “Here Comes My Girl”. That must have been a rough call over “Refugee” or “Don’t Do Me Like That”.
Uvalde Is In Our Bones
- Matthew Morris – @callmemrmorris
- https://www.matthewrmorris.com/uvalde/
Writing has become my own therapy.
I can most certainly get behind that statement from Matthew.
How did you hear of the tragedy in Uvalde. How did you respond? I’ll admit that I had some profanity of my own and Matthew did the same thing in this post.
I wrote a post of my own about the incident. I never thought of it as therapy but I guess it is. I did write it from anger.
As Matthew notes, we’ve been here before. Sadly, many times. We’ve been in this situation – albeit it watching from a distance but we are drawn together. By good fortune, this time it didn’t happen to me, you, or Matthew.
I hate the title to this post. It’s just too damn true. I admire Matthew’s understanding about how he feels and is impacted by this. I hate that he feels that way. We all entered this profession expecting to change the world, or at least the little part of it that we can.
None of this was in our job descriptors. I’m thankful that, for me, it was a paragraph or two in the teacher handbook and a drill that interrupted a class once in the fall. None of us expected this.
Living near an edge #SOL22
- Melanie White – @WhiteRoomRadio
- https://reflectingonrecreation.wordpress.com/2022/06/07/living-near-an-edge-sol22/
I read Melanie’s post and it brought a great deal of emotions out in me. That seems to be happening a lot these days. Her post is a story nicely told about her father who is living with her.
I’m jealous that she has that opportunity.
Melanie shares a story of a man who came to Canada after service in World War II and some of the severe challenges that he endured.
Since my father was born in Canada, I would have had to go back to my grandfathers to get the type of immigation story that celebrates such a major move. The opportunity to hear those stories never happened as they passed when I was so young.
Melanie gets philosophical, inspired by the thinkings of Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen and it’s specially important as we come up on Fathers’ Day 2022.
Make sure that you’re following this great list of bloggers!
- Sue Bruyns – @sbruyns
- Lisa Corbett – @LisaCorbett0261
- Jennifer Aston – @mmejaston
- Melissa Turnbull – @missmturnbull
- Marc Hodginson – @Mr_H_Teacher
- Matthew Morris – @callmemrmorris
- Melanie White – @WhiteRoomRadio
This Week in Ontario Edublogs
doug -- off the record 
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