what's new - SO MUCH!

whoooooo!

I don't know where to begin!

This week has been so busy - coming home from an amazing vacation (more about that in a bit), starting a new job, and settling back into the rhythms of Toronto and home, especially after the recent civil turmoil around the G20 summit and protests - and still struggling with the reality of what's happening in the Gulf...


Everything is contributing to me FREAKING OUT about education - which feels pretty good, actually. Anyway - it's a lot to tackle all at once in one little blog post. I'll break it down a bit to the immediate - that oughta help my roiling thoughts.

So - first things first - we went on an amazing vacation to Vermont and down to Cape Cod to visit my grandmother and aunt, and back again. Vermont...ohhhh I can't say enough amazing things about you...how I love you! especially since we got to stay at this wonderful place - Shelburne Farms. This place is ridonkulous in the most amazing ways. It used to be a wealthy family's estate, but has become an incredible education centre, working organic farm, heritage and conservation site and all around amazing place that focuses on "cultivating a conservation ethic". Explore their website to get a glimpse, but GO GO GO GO GO to get a taste of how actually awesome this place really is.

We were wandering around inside the castle-like barn (no kidding, look at the photo, that's the BARN), and I kept wishing we could run into an educator, when that's exactly what happened!! We met the incredibly kind, welcoming and generous Sarah Kadden, an educator at Shelburne Farms also involved in the Sustainable Schools Project. Sarah gave us a tour of the facility and we talked and talked and talked, and I left in a daze of magic and wonderment, after wandering across the courtyard of the castle, I mean barn, to the Children's Farmyard to gawp at their amazing teaching spaces and pet some sheep, goats and calves, and where you could play fun games like in the following photo
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It was really great. I feel really lucky that we got to go there, and really grateful for meeting Sarah, who I'll stay in touch with and who's work is so inspiring! AWESOMENESS! Am busy now reading about their very well thought out curricula on teaching the basic ideas of sustainability to kids of all ages, and am beside myself with excitement at the potential it has. I feel like I'm having a mega paradigm shift, and am holding tools in my hands to help kids explore ideas and subjects I hold really dear - community, nature, food, conservation, ecology, justice...it's a real long list, folks.

Then we went to Cape Cod and had a really great time with my Nana and Aunt Pam, who trek from Austin to the Cape every summer. It was so restful and wonderful and we had a ball.

Coming home just in time to witness police brutality and the government spending excessive amounts of money on needless things to impress, and get ready for my stint as counselor and outdoor coordinator at Holland Bloorview Kid's Rehabilitation Hospital's summer camp, at the Play and Learn site. I'm working with a bunch of awesome educators I worked with at my placement this year, and some other fantastic folks. We had one day of HR intake and two days of training and prep, and now Canada Day has descended upon us, long weekend HO! The kids come on Monday, I'm working in the kinder-aged kids classroom, with Allison who teaches kindergarten at Play and Learn during the school year, and Tatiana with whom I worked at High Park! That's when I'm not outside coordinating art, science and nature shenanigans in the elegant and potential filled playground, and I AM EXCITED.  It'll be great to work with young kids again - after Nunavik I need some little kids energy. Am psyched to try out some of the ideas from Shelburne Farms and Sarah and the Sustainable Schools Project stuff I've been reading.

More photos and news and enthusiasm to come - summer AHOY!

get ready for summer - NERD OUT!

in like several lions...

...and stomach flu, midterm papers and fever. And then another cold.

I started getting a little queasy last week, and came down with the stomach flu on Thursday after a feverish night. By the weekend I was feeling better, and was able to pretty much nail the paper we were working on about Maria Montessori and her method. Doing research from bed wasn't that bad, and I just wrote the thing all weekend.

While I'm glad it's done, working as dementedly on it as I did may not have been the best idea, as yesterday I woke up at 4am, coughing to beat the band and unable to get back to sleep. I went to school anyway, because I am a nerdy nerdster and had a crapload of stuff to do there anyway, and by the start of my Social Emotional Intelligence class I started feeling crappy again, and spent another night shivering and sweating in turns. F...

Anyway...early yesterday morning when I was barking up my lungs I tried to do some research for my other paper, and was reading The Hundred Languages of Children, edited by Carolyn Edwards, Lella Gandini and George Forman, which is the totally rocking book that goes along with the exhibit by the same name that is touring all over, showing folks what Reggio Emilia schools are about. Check it. The book is a wonder - full of all kinds of things I feel like thinking about.

One thing - well, one of many - caught my feverish attention. In an interview about influences on their philosophy with Lella Gandini, Loris Malaguzzi - the director and philosopher of the Reggio Emilia approach - mentioned this crazy school that in the 1970's inspired the teachers who were setting up the schools in Reggio Emilia. It was a school in France that moved every 3 years "where the reconstruction of old, abandoned farmhouses would be the basis of the educational work with the children." (Edwards, Gandini & Forman, 1996, p. 52)

Ummm...hello? RAD! The idea blows the roof off my head - or is that just the pounding of my head cold? The thought of this wandering school, teaching through hands-on experience, coming upon old, falling-down, uncared for places and learning and growing and playing together and then leaving behind rebuilt, loved places...wow.


Anyways, I didn't go to the Nursery School today, so I don't have much fun stuff to report. I hope I'm better enough to go tomorrow. I miss it! Instead, I stayed in bed and slept, which felt great, and when I wasn't sleeping I read picture books, and then slept some more.

Maybe I'll go back and sleep now. I want to get RID OF THIS THING. All I can say is that this month had better end with candy and roses and gentle breezes and fun - or else that saying is full of doody.



nerd out.