Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital Snail Trails Summer Day Camp

hahahahhahahahhahahahahahah!

That is the official name of the summer camp program that yours truly is the outdoor coordinator and basically summer camp teacher at. GRAMMAR! Forall it's ridiculously long name, and imposing sounding-ness, it is a really laid back summer program forboth kids with extra support needs and typically developing kids. It runs for 2 1/2 hours Monday to Friday, and I get to mostly organize the fun stuff to do outside and then also get to go inside and hang out with the kindergarten-aged kids until they go home. It's basically a blast everyday.

We've been dealing with a heatwave here in Toronto for the last while - the last two weeks were blisteringly hot (like living in an oven), but it's tapered off a little bit and is a lot more liveable this week so far. The entire city basically was suffering from heat exhaustion within moments of stepping outside of any air conditioned enclave they may be lucky/environmentally insensitive enough to partake in. We had some parents wondering if we were actually SERIOUSLY going to be taking the kids outside during the hot hot heat - and I said yes of course we are, but we'll be playing with water and wet most of the time, and wearing hats too, so we'll be ok. And we were.

My territory at Snail's summer camp is the playground, and I am happy. We have a kickass sandbox, a hill with a pretty intense incline, some green space, a garden and a big ugly metal and plastic playstructure, but we make up for the last with our enthusiasm and funtimes.

Today was BubbleMania day - we have one each week - and I just realized that I should have taken some pictures of our awesome bubbles - we had bubble makers of all shapes and sized all over the place, and made some pretty wonderful bubbles. My goal is to make a bubble big enough to have a kid inside it --- by the end of the summer. YES! Photos of that for sure!

The camp is run out of one of the Bloorview Nursery School Preschool sites called Play and Learn, which I think I mentioned before. The preschools run on a Reggio Emilia inspired emergent, creativity based curriculum, and I feel really lucky to be able to continue playing with these ideas - follow the kids interests and build your curriculum on what they want to do - progressive education, right?! AWESOMENESS. I'm lucky enough to be working with some of the educators from the schools, as well as other talented folks, who are fluent in these ideas and ready to just go for things. My co-teacher Allison in particular and I seem to be cut from the same cloth - we're jazzed about creative construction projects, like getting wet and dirty and painty with the kids, and I'm learning so so much about listening and clear communication with her. No joke - it's super fun. And the kids are the darndest!

For instance, one of our lively fellows has been working on making a waterfall as a part of our water wall - thank you Jenny, Tom and Donna - out of cut open cardboard sono-tube. We've been pouring and scooping and getting wet, working together to get the water up to the top of the waterfall with other friends, and today we figured out a gravity feed method to make the waterfall run. We just keep everyone wet and no-one gets heatstroke.

All in all - it's pretty wonderful.

More soon, and photos.

Nerd, out.

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
.

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!

Quotes from Bluma...

My dear friend Bluma has been in the hospital for about a month now. She's an older person, and has a neuropathic disorder that has severely affected her balance and motor skills. She's in the hospital because she contracted pneumonia, and since her family is far away in Rochester, I've been visiting her as much as possible.

This lady kinda reminds me of her...



She is an awesome, hilarious, crotchety jewish lady, who swears more than I do and cracks one-liners non-stop. She is a talented musician, who sang and played both flute and guitar. She also worked for years as a music teacher and an arts educator, both here in Toronto and in New York, and has about a million stories and tons of advice to share. She's become a real mentor to me, and has been totally supportive of my switching over from the arts to teaching.

I biked over there in between classes (the hospital is real close to school) and found her sitting up in the sun, going through some of her papers. Her illness has been a real kick in the teeth, as she can't play music or sing anymore, and pretty much feels like she won't be able to again. Instead of getting real depressed or gloomy, she's been pretty realistic and her amazing sense of humour keeps her from going completely crazy.
She was feeling a little sleepy, so after i got her a coffee and a couple of timbits, she said, "OK, what words of wisdom can i impart to you today?" Here's what she had to offer-

"I loved it. The children, all the different kids, shining like a garden. Their responsiveness, and their differences -- that is what i loved most about the work."



"To feed them with the things that they need, and to be sensitive to who they are."

She told me that even as a child she strove to "make the unfamiliar familiar." And that's what we can be doing with our kids, too.

Pretty awesome...but she didn't even swear once.



Nerd OUT.

school SCHOOL school! from AofU

wahooo! It's started again! Thank goodness - even with gardening, i was starting to get dried up by doing too much all the time. School is back, and now i can rest somewhat, within it's schedule.
I love my classes, i'm real interested in everything we're talking about, i'm nerding out. Feels awesome!
Time to go learn more about how to help little things grow.



images found on the internet.

wheeeew! from AofU

A year blows past and here i am in another spring - almost summer!

The year at school was absolutely amazing - so much more than i thought - a rich, satisfying experience that has got me thinking and composting my thoughts and ideas. OH EDUCATION! OH LEARNING! OH KIDS!

Pretty dang great.

And now the school year is over, exams are done, and i'm working full-time at the Early Learning Centre (which is the lab school at Ryerson), still learning - AND i'm in full garden mode. It's really all i want to think about these days. SO... I'll write more later, cuz i'm going up to buy some white clover seed to be a living mulch in the garden.

sage seeds, education... from AofU

I collected 7 seeds from the golden sage in the herb garden just now. Shook them off into my hand, like magic. Seven round brown seeds, complicated creatures tucked inside them. Like little worlds.

Got excited today about education...Elyse my dear friend, philosopher artist and Waldorf teacher extraordinaire sent me a letter she wrote to Barak Obama about intuition and education, nature and the role of teachers. I am excited, although feeling a little leery of the EDUCATION SYSTEM. How will i navigate it, with it's checks and balances and bureaucracies, tests and exams and boxes and numbers? As i enter into dedicating my life to working with kids in a way that hopefully helps them become whole people with deep relationships with their worlds, their ecologies, themselves and others, how will i work inside it? I might be asking myself these questions for a long time.

Elyse's letter, and a chunk from John Gardner's 'The Secret of Peace and the Environmental Crisis', published in 1971, got me thinking along these lines. It is still so so relevant, which is unsettling. Here's a quote i liked.

"It seems to me that when teachers can settle down quietly to the real business of education, which is to awaken, empower and improve human beings, they will be glad to do so. When children are so taught, they will respond. When external goals and pressures are removed, teachers and students will begin to listen to what life says to the heart and to the conscience. And this concern will bring to pass what we need more than anything if we are to stop the ravaging of the earth."

Brilliant brilliant brilliant.

well howdy! from ChIL

Hello the peoples. Hope yer all dandy.

Me, i'm fine. I have been very busy making crazy art, first with about 530 elementary and middle school students, and i just finished a bonkers re-enactment of a 1920's Jewish Children's Work Commune. 28 kids dressed up and pretended to be living collectively in Communist Russia, shortly after the Revolution. It's been intense, but swell.




And so the world turns. Been working with kids so long, i've decided to make it official. I'm thinking of becoming a public school teacher. So, got accepted into Ryerson University's Early Childhood Education programme here in Toronto, set to start in the fall, on my way to Teacher's College and that little piece of paper that folks seem to think is so important. I'll be working with Jumblies and MABELLEarts for the rest of the summer.

The Jumblies project is Phase 2 of that re-enactment project i mentioned above - a movement/installation piece called Di Velt Ven Vern Yinger (The World will Grow Younger) detailing the history of the jewish secular communist summer community Camp Naivelt in Brampton. The MABELLEarts project will be Lantern Garden, the outdoor art garden we started last year. And then i'll be off to studentsville. For the rest of my life!

Maybe. Or maybe i'll discover something else in my scholastic adventures, and go off in an entirely different direction. Anyways, the Lab will be quieter than usual i think, with less beakers bubbling and more internal experimentation happening. I think that THE INFLAMMABLES will have more work to do, and i'm sure other weird stuff will be popping up. I'm looking forward to a change, tho.

In other news, permaculture is very good, i am trying to grow a good supply of tea for us this winter in my birthday herb garden, and the most fun that i'm having these days is composting. Remember to be good to yourselves and the earth, drink a lot of water from faucets and hoses, and become talented artists of unwaste.


Talk to you all soon - noah

Photo of Mimico Creek puppet by Katherine Fleitas
Photo of 12th Jewish Children's Commune by Michaela Otto
Photo of water found on the internet