oh dear bloggy mcbloggersons...

I have neglected this poor ole bloggy in the face of a giant tidal wave of SCHOOL. Exhaustimacating and awesome in equal parts - work school and life have been keeping me super busy.

Things are still interesting - have discovered the work of Kieran Egan and his merry band of Imaginative Educators. That was super exciting, and I was staying up late into the nights reading his revisioning of schools and cognitive tools and super cool school transformation instead of reading politics and literacy and families textbooks...well that came back to bite me in the butt, as midterms crashed down up me, and I scrambled to prepare. Truth be told, I did pretty good, juggling assignments, scholarship applications, exams and meetings with the research team, as well as handling an incredibly festive Canadian thanksgiving where we made our yearly Mount Vesuvius tofu volcano. This year, my dearest friend Andrea was here and we took it up a notch and did a whole diorama, with the tofu volcano erupting mashed potato lava covered in cranberry sauce, flowing down onto a forest of steamed broccoli with raisin people fleeing the destruction.

So - I've been a little busy. Our sweet friend Nicole took a bunch of photos for us, which are pretty wonderful.

I must say, school this year is a crazy rollercoaster of onslaught compared to the last two years. However, I'm eating it up like dessert, because I am a nutbar.
I wanted to show you this. 
Little posts of teacher inspiration.

I have been thinking a lot about engagement recently - how to foster it, what are the key ingredients...kind of exciting as it feels like something I want to sink my teeth into and think about for a good long time.

Ok. I will post more regularly - things should quiet down a little bit. It's time to say goodnight, as I've been wrestling with a paper about private money in public schools all day. Enough - sleep sweet and see you soon again.

Nerd out!

gifts and wrestling

These days, I am consistently amazed and grateful at the wonderful incredible quality of my life. I am head-over-heels with my crazy, human situation.

First - school is awesome. I have 5 full-time fascinating courses, all with really engaging instructors and thoroughly interesting and challenging material. Second - my new job as a research assistant is kind of like the coolest amusement park ride, mixed with a collaborative project and some fabulous philosophy. The project that I'm involved with is part of a much larger one called the Experiential Design and Gaming Environments Lab, a cross-disciplinary collaboration involving folks from three different universities, from a whack of different sectors (technology, DIY, social economics, gaming, new media, early childhood ed & development, hacking, disabilities studies, etc, etc, etc). Everytime I go to work I hang out with exceedingly smart people and have wicked-cool, INSPIRING conversations. My work there is hilarious, and has so far involved learning to play Farmville (to explore social media), having in-depth conversations about co-construction and autonomous learning (to work out what our themes are for the project I was hired to work on), organizing cardboard (for the adaptive design lab and workshops), and playing with (learning how to use) an off-the-shelf brainwave monitoring device that Dr. Jason (the prof who hired me and a pretty awesome amazing guy) got off the internet to study biomapping. So many brackets in that last paragraph!

It feels like there are so many situations and conversations and people who are like gifts in my life right now! So, my brain and heart are being regularly kicked into overdrive, but in a good way. I have noticed that my critical thinking has picked up it's pace, too. I have started to wonder about school and teaching and the edu-crisis that is smacking North America upside the heads. I have thought about teaching styles and why I love direct instruction (it's like candy to me) but don't think it's an effective way of helping folks learn...and that's just it. I have started to think about helping people learn, instead of teaching people. That's a wonderful, fundamental change that feels really good.

Anyways - I wish I could post the gazillion things that are rushing around in my head right now - things like:
- how can we create learning environments that foster autonomous learning in a school system that is so authoritarian you have to ask to go to the bathroom?
- what is the role of technology in learning, now that technology is becoming more and more inseperable from everyday life for a lot of people on the planet?
- who has access to good educational opportunities, and what can we do about the folks who don't?
- do schools work? Teachers sure do - HARD! So what's creating the oncoming educational crisis?
- imagine teaching kids in early learning environments that asking questions was one of the most important things they could do - how would that change a lot of things about school, society, inequality etc?
- with technology becoming so prevalent - what are schools going to look like in the future?
- how can I make the greatest playground in the world?
- games and learning - bringing play back into education, don't just stop playing once school starts...
- does there have to be a struggle between 'natural' and 'technological'?
- authentic learning, collaborative innovation, asking questions - how do you inspire people do deeply engage with these things?

These and another million things are pummeling my brain. I feel so lucky to be wrestling with it all...

Nerd out for now

sweet-sad endings and the next adventure...whoa.

My school year ends, in fits and starts, over the next two weeks. I can hardly believe that this year has come and gone, slid through my living like water. My History and Philosophy course is over, which is a tragedy as I wanted to keep taking that class forever; my interpersonal class has ended, and it was maybe the MOST RELEVANT educational experience of my life. This semester rocked hard - my courses were deep and influential, and there was SO MUCH WORK.

And on Wednesday, I had my last placement day at the High Park Bloorview Nursery School. It was a sweet day, where we planted bean seeds and sang songs, and as I led my last goodbye music circle, each child said "Goodbye, Noah!" and smiled and waved, which they'd never done with me before, not every single one! I was really touched...it is such a special thing to create relationships with kids. It is a truly powerful thing. I'll miss them a lot there. My placement was really spectacular - I felt welcomed by the educators I worked and learned with, and learned so much with the kids too. The power of integrated classrooms, emergent curriculum, reflective practice, interdisciplinary support teams...the list goes on and on.


And now - just a couple of other things to do...presentations, final interviews, and two exams. And then...it's off to the next adventure.

I can't remember if I've talked about this yet on the blog. I've barely had a chance to think about it, with the end-of-the-year push, and when it was being conceived and organized it was still too far away for it to percolate into these pages. Soooo...here's what's happening next. When you hear about what the heck I'm doing, you'll wonder how I managed to NOT think about it for so long.


I'm flying to the Arctic to teach art for five weeks.

WHAT!!!!!!!!!

I know. I can hardly believe it myself.

Lisa, an amazing artist and friend of mine, has been running an arts and theatre program in Inukjuak, a remote fly-in community in Nunavik for the last 6 years. Last year, she had a baby, and now being up North away from her family would be too much. So she asked me to go up instead. She is also expanding the program to another community, and so another friend of ours Natasha, will be starting a similar project in Kangirsuk.


I can hardly believe that I'm going to have this opportunity. I hardly know what it's all about. I've dreamed of the North in different ways for a long time, and now I'm going to experience it, and get to work with real kids and a real community. Because Natasha and I are both in school, and Lisa's been doing it for so long, she's been organizing it all, and I only have the vaguest notions of this whole thing. The next two weeks are going to be a bit of a crash course. I'll write more about it as I find things out.


So --- spring is here, and the school year's almost done, and I'm starting to get ready to go to an amazing place where there will still be blizzards, you have to fly to get there, fierce beauty and let's not forget the turbulent history of colonialism and general awfulness that our government has smacked the Inuit people with. Whooooo, nelly.

I hope I can do all this justice. Lisa thinks I can, and she's done it and knows. It's gonna be a crazy ride!!!

More soon -

Nerd out.

generous Deborah's amazing ideas

The online community of educators I've found myself in really is a wonderful thing. I find myself constantly inspired, affirmed and energized by all the folks out there passionate enough about the time they spend with young children to write blog posts about them after spending a good chunk of their day with them. My kind of people. In the sidebar are listed a whole bunch more really interesting folks.

If you haven't encountered Deborah Stewart's wonderful blog Excellence in Early Childhood Education, go there now. Deborah's enthusiasm for early learning and warmth pour out of her incredible blog, where she shares her ideas and knowledge gained from over 20 years of experience working with young children. Her blog is like a storehouse of ideas and jumping-off points, and her encouragement and kindheartedness have been a big part of weaving an online community of early childhood educators together.

Researching activities that promote prosocial behaviours (sharing and negotiating) for my final project in my Social Emotional Intelligence course, I turned to Deborah for some ideas. She was generous beyond my wildest dreams, and in FIVE comment posts left me some of her ideas. Absolutely amazing ones, I might add.

I deleted them after copying them to another document, and immediately regretted it - they were such good ideas I wanted more people to get a chance to see them. I wrote her back and asked her if I could re-post them in another post of their own. She said yes, being herself, and so here they are. Enjoy as much as I did! Thanks Deborah.

********

Hi Noah,
I don't know what age students you are planning for but here are some ideas as requested. These would probable work best for children ages 4 and up. This is a long post because I couldn't find and email address - you can feel free to delete the post once you have save or copied the material somewhere... Deborah:)

Activities that promote the development pro-social sharing and negotiation skills

#1 Sensory Play: Pepperoni Pizzas
Tell the children that you want to make a pizza. Show the children a large pizza pan and a very small ball of play dough or use real pizza dough.
Tell the children that the ball of dough has to cover the bottom of the entire pan and ask them to tell you what they think you will have to do to cover the entire bottom of the pan. As you follow their suggestions, have the children notice how one ball of dough is too small to cover the entire pan.

The goal is to get the children to recognize that in order to cover the entire pan it will take more dough.

Next, divide the children into partners or small groups. Give each child a small white ball of dough. Set a large pizza pan and one rolling pin in the center of the group. Tell the group of children that you want to see how they can work together to make one large pizza crust that covers the whole pan. While the children are working together, walk around and make comments such as, “You all make a great team!” or “Making pizza is so much more fun when you do it with a friend.” Or “I like how you take turns using the rolling pin.”

After the children have covered their pans, give them either real pepperoni or red play dough (and one round cookie cutter) and ask them to work together now to create pepperoni for their pizza. Continue to walk around and encourage them to work together.

Finally, have each group bring the pizza to the large group and show the results of their work together. Use this time to praise them for their ability to work together as a team to create a fabulous pepperoni pizza.



#2 Music and Movement: Circle of Friends

Place a number of large tape circles on the floor. You should have at least one circle per every two to three children.

Tell the children that when you play music, that the children are to walk around the circles and when the music stops, all the children are to find a circle and stand inside of it. Tell the children that they are to make sure no one ends up inside or outside of a circle all alone. Ask the children what they can do to make sure no one is left all alone.

Brainstorm ideas with ways the children can make sure no one is left all alone. What can they say? What can they do? How will they know if someone is all alone? Talk about how the children are actually sharing the space with each other.

After you play the music and stop, wait for the children to work out their situation until everyone is in a circle with their friends. Then talk about the words that you heard that were helpful to each other. Have all the children step outside of the circles and start the game again – tell the children that each time the music stops, they should choose a new circle to stand in.




#3 Creative Arts - Creating a rainbow

Begin by having the children join you and watch you use crayons to make a simple rainbow. Show them how to draw one arc of the rainbow at a time using all the different colors of crayons to make each color of the rainbow.

Tell the children that they are going to make their own rainbows. Set out a piece of paper for each child on the table along with one crayon of each color of the rainbow. Brainstorm with the children what they will need to do to create their rainbow since there is only one of each crayon color on the table.




#4 Setting the Table

Gather some magazines that show beautiful table settings. Show the children the magazine pictures and talk about what makes the tables look nice. Ask the children how they can work together to set a table that looks nice too.

Bring in a set of plates, spoons, forks, napkins, napkin rings, a tablecloth, a flower, a vase, and other items to set a table. Talk about the each of the items with the children so you are certain they know what the items are. Set the items on a tray beside a table and invite a group of children to work together to set a table.

As each group of children work to set their table, take pictures of them working together. Later, print out the photos and create a class magazine of your own titled, “Designer Table Settings.” Read and discuss the pictures in the magazine with the children.



WOW. And all that was just off the top of her head. Ladies and gentlemen, the ever-resourceful, ever-amazing Deborah Stewart!

grateful nerd out!

groooooaan...and twinkle. time for tired.

We are almost there.

My fellow students and I can really see an end to the academic year close at hand. Only a couple more major assignments - finish my paper on sharing and negotiation for my social-emotional intelligence course, and put together my portfolios for interpersonal communication, creative arts, and field education. Oh my...I hadn't written it all out like that yet...yikes.

But considering I've worked through a good two thirds of the majorness, I feel good about it all.

That's not really what I want to be writing about. I want to write about the gazillion new thoughts that firefly through my heart and mind, even when I'm brain crushingly exhausted from working non-stop on final assignments and never hanging out with my loved ones. I want to write about the amazing feeling of watching tulips sprout up with young children. I want to write about the amazing free feeling of playing outside after a cold-weather climate winter. I want to write about reflective practice, and new thoughts on how we can encourage children to talk and plan with each other, and how we can guide and encourage a lot of learning with stories and narrative, or some new picture books I found at the bookstore, or the amazing feeling of the springtime sun on my back as I ride my bike to placement or class. Or the wonderful, warm, exuberant and inspiring community of thinkers and writers spinning threads of connection through the internet to inform and make community. The early learning and education bloggers are doing a wonderful job of weaving a feeling of togetherness right now...very awesome.



But I won't write about that now. The 'soft animal of my body'(thank you universe, for Mary Oliver) needs to rest, and not look at screens for a while. I will write about all of that soon.

nerd out, friends. let's rest.

hello mellow

After yesterday's post, you'd expect more harsh ravings about how bad it is over here, but today I am feeling decidedly mellow. And I'm feeling better.

Is it the sweet, sweet pages and pages and PAGES of educational theory, history and philosophy that I've been reading and trying to understand for these last papers, or the copious amounts of chamomile tea that I've been consuming to try to wrestle first a stomach flu and then a cold into submission, or the fact that the sun has shone for the last four days straight (four days I've been cooped up inside, I might mention - either banging my head away at said papers, in class endeavouring to follow what the prof was saying through the miasma of illness, or sleeping off that miasma, you choose they're all inside)? That sentence was long and convoluted enough for you to lose track of what that question mark was about. Why am I feeling so mellow?

Not sure, but sure glad it's stopped by.

Reading about play today, folks, since the last legs of this cold kept me away from the kiddies at placement AGAIN. Joan Almon wrote at length - and I mean long, for an article at 35 pages - about the importance of play. She's a Waldorf kindergarten wonder-star, part of the Alliance for Childhood, and describes play in her wonderfully long article that "creative play is a central activity in the lives of healthy children"(Almon, 2003, p.1) That's on page one, and the rest of it talks about the importance of making sure preschool is place where kids can play, as play is central to small humans becoming fully developed humans. She goes on to make a pretty strong case, as if a stronger case was needed than the one we already have. High stakes testing? Not good for kids or learning. Business models for education? Not good for kids or learning. Play? AWESOME for kids and learning. I'm paraphrasing - but that's what she's saying.

And I guess that's another reason I feel mellow. I am DOWN with these ideas. These are the ideas I live and breathe, and am readying to defend from an informed, academically backed point of view for, I imagine, THE REST OF MY LIFE.

From what you all out there in the classrooms everyday are telling me, it still needs defending. I'm DOWN with that too - to join with all you cool cats, you exhausted-from-the-demands-and-pressures-of-ridiculous-bureaucracies kittycats on the front lines of our children's chances. I'm IN. I'm DOWN. And I'm relaxed and ready and ripe.

I also have THREE and a HALF more years before I get MY OWN CLASS, survive my first year out there on my own. But, still feeling like an ally in the struggle. Learning all I can get into my head and heart to win over the folks who think that factory-izing our kids is the way to make a workable world to another way of thinking.

Yes.

MeeeeOW! Chamomile all day is GOOD STUFF.



nerd out

My Nana laughing

Today I was at placement, thank goodness, and we made some great shaker bottles, practicing scooping and pouring. I'll get some photos tomorrow. Isabel comes up with some great ideas.

I was feeling sick all day long, and so my energy was not that great. Ate some ginger, felt better, and then found out my Nana, my dad's mom, fell yesterday and broke her femur high up near her hip. She had surgery today, got a pin and a cable installed, and apparently is already on the mend. The thing is, she's in Texas, and here I am in the frozen (well, slushy today) north. Far away from family in times of trouble. Doesn't feel so great right now. So so glad that my Aunt Pam and cousin Erica are there. Whew!

My Nana's 87. She got me into reading, by first getting me into Star Wars and then science fiction. My omnivorous insatiable reading habits stem in good part from there, I'm sure. I have deeply felt memories of her reading A Wrinkle in Time, Fantastic Mr. Fox and other books way beyond what was judged to be our 'reading level', and my sister and I eating it up like the best dessert. Nana would laugh at the funny parts harder than we would, probably because she understood them way more than we did, but her laugh is still a deep part of my delight in reading, imagination, story and literature. I'm GLAD she's ok.

Been thinking a lot about outdoor play, due a lot to the weather here and blogs like Teacher Tom, Place + Inquiry, Free Range Kids, and I'm a teacher, get me outside here! . Our half-day schedule doesn't allow us too much time to get outside at Bloorview Nursery School, but the kids do tend to play outside all together when their folks come to get them in the playground outside our classrooms. Alternatively, at the Early Learning Centre at Ryerson, the kids spend about 2 hours a day outside. It so necessary to get ourselves outside, no matter the weather, maybe even because of the weather. I know I feel so much more human when I've been outdoors. I've also been thinking a lot about this video, about outdoor preschools in Norway. I want my life to be kinda like this.

Wouldn't it be amazing to do more of our learning outside. "There is no such thing as bad weather, only improper clothing." Stuff to dream on.

nerd OUT!

Vivian Gussin Paley makes me excited

Among the 18 other books I'm reading, studying for my midterm tomorrow and working on two papers, shoveling the snow, and getting ready to go to Montreal for the weekend, i am reading the amazing Vivian Gussin Paley's The Girl With the Brown Crayon.
I can just barely handle how excited I feel about getting back to the classrooms I spend time in, about having a classroom of my own...yowza!

Check this -

"It is passion Reeny wants: a roomful of dancing brown girls and dreamy mice, mother rabbits who rescue babies from an eagle's nest, princesses who sleep with their cousins and have crocodiles for pets, and friends who color and hug and whisper to each other all day long.

I too require passion in the classroom. I need the intense preoccupation of a group of children and teachers inventing new worlds as they learn to know each other's dreams. To invent is to come alive. Even more than the unexamined classroom, i resist the uninvented classroom."
- Paley, V.G. (1997) The girl with the brown crayon. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts. (p. 50)



Nerd Out.

wow the amazingness of the early childhood education blog

In honour of the total amazingness that is the early childhood educational presence out there in blog-o-land, I've connected the folks who are really inspiring me these days out there on the internet to this blog. Over on the right there's a list of blogs written by thoughtful, insightful educators all over.

Really really amazing thinkers out there. Thanks folks - it's really inspiring and affirming.

Nerd Out!