Substitute Teaching – a rite of passage

Have to give these guys a shout – great resource for free / limited use graphics. I just don’t have time to write and draw for my blog – struggle to find time to write.

Substitute Teaching

It’s got to be a bit of a rite of passage for most educators who qualify in Canada. If you are willing and able to take off and teach in some remote community in northern Canada you may well be able to start teaching straight away. But for those who want to try and stay relatively connected with friends and family, then substitute teaching is where it all begins.
I’m not a newly qualified teacher, so for me it’s a little different. I have five years of full time teaching experience and 2 further years, on and off, of substitute (we call it supply teaching in the UK) work. Even though I am not new to teaching I do have those days where I struggle, as a substitute teacher, to deliver anything meaningful, normally when the class is a difficult one.
Teaching, especially in schools with challenging students, is all about relationships. If you don’t have one with the students in your class, and as a substitute that’s likely, the day can be an exercise in trying to keep a semblance of order in the classroom, rather than enabling meaningful learning. A well behaved class that stays on task for more than 15 minutes has been the exception rather than the rule.
Apparently, according to my wife, substitute bating (where students try and get the teacher to loose their cool) is a thing. I never came across it when I was a student as we very rarely had teachers who we didn’t know, and who didn’t know us. (I was at a boarding school) That said it didn’t stop some of us, at times, from being difficult, disrespectful and downright rude. So on reflection, perhaps I should look upon trying to teach these students who have similar behaviours as karmic reprisal. How my old Latin teacher would have laughed.
That said and on a more positive note, as a substitute teacher you do get to see a variety of teachers and teaching styles at work. You see different strategies for dealing with challenging behaviours and various tactics employed in managing classrooms. All of this helps build a repository of ideas that you will be able to call upon when you have a class of your own.
The best thing of all about substitute teaching? You get to leave shortly after the students, no prep, little marking and a whole load of recovery time. Still, I want my own class – can’t make a difference a couple of hours at a time.

It’s Official – Certified to Teach in Canada

Well January passed in a blur! February is here and with it the days start lengthening, noticeably, and we can all start looking forward to warmer weather. Here in the Yukon it’s still three months away but honestly after months of -25 degrees C anything in the + feels positively tropical!

The middle of January saw a mile stone passed. Twenty months after making the decision to return back to the classroom I am now a certified teacher in Canada, and able to apply for teaching positions. Of course the difficult bit of finding a full time job is now here but I am hopeful that come September I will have a class to call my own.

I have to say I really enjoyed the journey to certification. It wasn’t straight forward or easy to navigate but it was rewarding. I discovered that I enjoy studying. That filling my time with reading, contemplation and writing was something that instead of being dreaded, was something I relished. I also enjoyed the structure it gave my life. The deadlines for essays and projects were something that helped me organize my time. Something that ordinarily I am terrible at.

The University of Alberta was fun. A lot of work but fun. The campus is terrific and I found the staff I dealt with, my art tutor and social studies tutor in particular, to be friendly, professional, and helpful.

So now it’s a waiting game but the good news is that I have time to work on my resume. And while I wait I’m busy substitute teaching.

New Year’s Eve Blues

An iPhone snap of my favourite people. Taken in Skagway, AK, this summer.

New Years Eve – how I used to dread this day. Expectations to have a wonderful, best night ever were always unfulfilled. These attempts at forced revelry normally resulted in the beginning of a new year with a hangover. Over the last year I have realized many things but one in particular is that I drink excessively when I am unhappy. I see this now because 2014 was a transformational year for me and I drank less last year than ever I have. The reason for this? It was a happy year for me.
It is a bit of a cliche to say that life is a journey, but being a cliche doesn’t make it untrue. Getting the most out of any journey means keeping your eyes open. This year I saw a lot and have learnt a great deal about myself. It’s somewhat surprising to get to this point in my life and realize there is still stuff to discover. You’d think that by now, closer to 50 than 40, I would know who I am.

For the longest time, until very recently apparently, I knew what I didn’t want and spent a lot of energy and effort running away from that. But starting with meeting my wife, continued and accelerated by the arrival of my son, my focus has slowly changed from what I didn’t want to what I do want. This last year has been like a fuzzy idea slowly coming into focus until the scene suddenly snaps sharp.
At the centre of this focus is my desire to be a good role model for my son. From my observations, my reading and studying this past year it is clear that children model themselves on their parents. There is a genetic component, which I suspect plays a larger part in a young persons development than we give credit for, but a lot of their behaviour is modelled on the adults in their lives. This realization has forced me to be a better version of myself. So the days of the beer swilling, wine guzzling, video game playing, sloth are done. Now I am actively trying to better myself. I am trying to read, exercise (still working on that) and be a good husband and father each day. I feel like bettering yourself is a lot like giving up smoking. Damn hard. Sometimes I regress into former bad habits but I try not to don’t myself up too much, I am human after all. Next year I will keep on trying to be a better version of myself because my son (and my wife 🙂 deserve that.
2015 has the potential to be a great year. A year that consolidates what we as a family began in 2014.

So Happy New Year to everyone. Here’s hoping that 2015 brings peace and happiness to you, your family and your friends.

Educational News

One of the things I have really enjoyed over the last six months has been reading about current educational issues, and in this respect the www is a blessing. Of course the reasons for it being such a blessing also means it is a curse, namely that there is so much information out there.

During my practicum I was reminded how teaching is an all consuming affair. After all the planning is done, the extra curricular activities delivered and your family considered there is little time for anything else. So keeping up with the news, for me, fell by the wayside, even with the best intentions.

Let us pretend though that there is time to peruse the news. What is the best way for keeping on top of it when there is so much information out there? There are a lot of tools for helping to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to finding, organizing and reading news of any sort. These are the one’s I use.

Sometimes there is so much to look at it's hard to focus. This is an image from Grey Mountain looking SE on a perfect winters day. ©Richard M. Galloway — Sometimes there is so much to look at it’s hard to focus. This is an image from Grey Mountain looking SE on a perfect winters day. ©Richard M. Galloway

How to keep on top of information overload

Feedly is what I use to manage the blogs / websites I like to keep up with on a regular basis. It’s very straight forward to set up and easy to use. It’s also free, although there is a paid version which offers more functionality if you need it.

Pocket is an app I have just started using in the last month. Now I am using it, I can’t think what I did before I discovered this app. Basically it’s a way of saving articles you come across to read later. You can add to it from your devices and computers. When I come across articles that I don’t have time to read, or would like to keep for reference, then I add them to my Pocket. It is super easy to use. Again, it is a free app with a paid upgrade.

Flipboard is something I have been using for a while. I am sure I have only scratched the surface of what it’s capable of. However, I use it to share all the educational stories I think worth reading – which is to say the ones I have read and found either useful and or interesting. You can get to those stories here or in the sidebar.

Paper.il is something a little different and is an app I have just started using. (Which is short for I am learning how to get the most from it.) This is a platform for sharing information from lots of different sources. These are generally the same ones I use for finding information for my Flipboard content but have not had time to curate.

There you have it. I have spent a lot of time using different apps to manage my reading online and these, in my mind, are the best of them

So if you don’t have time to find your own content then please feel free to sign up for my Daily Digest or return here to my blog to read what I have come across in my internet perambulations concerning all things educational. If you have any app you couldn’t live without then please feel free to share in the comments below.

Thank you and Goodbye

Our unit for LA was bears - I didn't know that I would end up teaching bears. The good news was they were lovely bears. If you'd like to see some bear pics then please click here. (Password Protected, Ms. V has it.) — Our unit for LA was bears – I didn’t know that I would end up teaching bears. The good news was they were lovely bears. If you’d like to see some bear pics then please click here. (Password Protected, Ms. V has it.)

My Practicum is over. I’ve not been in a classroom for six days and as I sit here in Whitehorse editing pictures for my blog I am suddenly hit by the realization that I miss my students.

I have worked on and off in schools for eight years, three of them as a substitute teacher while I was transitioning out of, and now back into education. So I have worked with many different groups of children and this particular class ranks up there as one of my favourites. They were a joy to work with. A credit to their teacher, and to their parents and guardians. Typically, I am not taken by sentimentality or hyperbolism but having worked with these students I am tempted. I am going to keep this short, but I do want to say thank you to everyone who was a part of this experience for me. My mentor, Sam V, for her patience, guidance, kindness, help and professionalism; her colleagues who made be feel welcome; the principle who allowed me in to his school; my facilitator who had advice and words of wisdom a plenty and last but not least my students. You taught me a great deal.

So all that is left is to say farewell. I’d like to extend to everyone my best wishes for the future, and if you are ever in the Yukon feel free to look us up.

Lobsters in the Classroom.

Today we had some visitors in the class. Bobby the owner of Fisherman’s Pride Seafood Shop very kindly brought in some lobsters for our G2 class to look at. Did you know that one claw is the hammer and the other is used for cutting? The reason for the elastics on their claws is they can easily cut off your finger. Just ask Bobby. (Apparently it takes 300 stitches to re-attach a finger.) Another interesting fact is that the females lay about 1500 – 2000 eggs a month and do so on a full moon, they know this by the change in air pressure. We’ve been studying Meteghan and the Acadians and lobsters play and have played a large part in the life of their community. Here is a rather insightful short video about lobster fishing today in Meteghan. Did you know that is costs $420,000 just for the licence? Not a cheap job then lobster fishing and somewhat explains the cost of buying lobster.

The lobsters felt a lot like wet rocks and were a little cold. They can survive for 72 hours out of the water but after that will die from asphyxiation. Fascinating looking creatures who have some amazing abilities like dropping their claws and growing new ones. They will also eat one another if they can.

Meteghan

An Acadian Festival

Schools are places of learning. For instance before I began at my current school, I did not know there was a place called Meteghan or anything about its rich Acadian culture. A culture that my ancestors did their best to suppress in the 1700’s. G2 has been looking at Meteghan and its Acadian roots over the last term, and as we come to the end of the unit the G2 teachers took it upon themselves to organize a festival of sorts. After all the Acadians are famous for theirs. So at the beginning of the week, with the help of some fabulous parent helpers we our festival. It involved face painting, music, some dancing, fishing, some lobster making and of course food. Mr Anderton’s G7 students cooked a Meteghan stew, which although wasn’t lobster based, was non the less delicious! If you click here you can see more photographs from our festival. (Password Protected.)

Face painting was part of the festival. One of my favourites was this little guy who choose to have the Acadian flag painted on his face. Nice one!

Where is Education going?

In my last post I was commenting on the current focus of the curriculum we are delivering to our students. I am of the opinion that a curriculum should be balanced between all the subject areas and include time for humanities, art and PE. In Canada, as teachers and as students, we are certainly in a better position than our neighbours to the south, which is why I am always aghast when politicians hark on about how we should look to the US to improve.

I digress. I came across this TED video and thought I would share it. If you are interested in education, it’s direction and current educational philosophies then it’s worth a watch. While the focus is on the US education system there are several key points that are applicable across countries. Ken Robinson is eminently watchable and talks a lot of sense. I don’t agree with everything he has to say but I do think much of what he proposes is spot on. Watch it and see what you think.

Norval Morrisseau

Grizzly Bears by 2v

Inspired by NORVAL MORRISSEAU

We've got a bit of a Bear themed unit going on and these collages were inspired by First Nations artist Norval Morrisseau. If you'd like to see them enlarged you can click here (password protected). — We’ve got a bit of a Bear themed unit going on and these collages were inspired by First Nations artist Norval Morrisseau. If you’d like to see them enlarged you can click here (password protected).

If you hadn’t noticed art is an important part of what I want to do as an educator within the classroom. I think it plays an important part in providing a rounded education for students. I have seen first hand the validation it gives students who ordinarily struggle with other subject areas. I have seen it this teaching practice. We need a balance in the curriculum, and art and the humanities play an important part in that. Of course the only way that becomes a reality is if parents help elect people who see education as more than just churning out workers to drive the ever hungry economic beast. Anyway I digress. Our students made a valiant effort in first of all drawing their grizzly bears (and yes many look like anything but grizzlies, buffalo, dogs, cats amongst others) they then created organic shapes cut from construction paper to create their art. We are not using templates here so it is all their work and I am really proud of all their efforts. If you have the password you can see bigger versions of all the students work here.

For those of you who don’t know this artist, Norval Morrisseau, he’s worth becoming acquainted with. I love his art, it is both simple and complex at the same time. The more I look at it the more I appreciate how special this man was. He lead a hard, hard, life and was only really recognized towards the end. But if you know nothing else about him know this. He created his distinctive art with no outside influences beyond those around him. He created his own genre of art. This short piece from the CBC aired in 2006 is a sound introduction.

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If you would like to see more of his art then here is a collection of some of his most well known work.

Grade 2 Monster Art

2V had a wonderful time creating their own monsters. It involved design, writing, drafting and neat copy as well as some intense art activity to create these terrifying monsters. If you’d like to see more then you can here. (You’ll need the class password)