"What are you trying to tell me with your hands?"

At our Snail Trails Camp, we deal with kids with all kinds of needs. We have kids with behavioural things, communication stuff, physical quirks, developmental differences. While last year was the year our program focuses on special needs, and I learned a lot then, I am learning buckets and tonnes and heaps and I can't even tell you.

So it's nice to know that all that learning is actually shifting things and settling in, in different ways.

I am lucky to have had some really amazing models - in my placements, in my reading, in my courses at school and in my mentors. I have found myself really thinking and questioning the way I communicate with the kids that I work with and how to do so clearly and descriptively, rather than directively, vaguely, bewilderingly or demandingly. I have been working hard and changing how I talk with kids for the last two years. So here's a story about how I'm coming along with it.

One of our kids, a boy who no doubt would be labeled a problem kid in a regular setting, has some processing and communication differences, as well as having almost no impulse control. The little guy basically goes from 0 to 100000000000 in a REALLY short amount of time. He strikes out, out of frustration or not being able to say what he wants or process what he's feeling or for scads of other reasons, and we've been working to model other ways of getting what he wants.

One day last week, our friend spun out of control outside on the playground and was doing his regular jumping and twisting and smacking routine, and as I moved between him and another bystanding child, he swatted and smacked me a couple of times. Without really thinking, that question just came out of my mouth - "What are you trying to tell me with your hands?" As I led him over to a quieter part of the playground, I helped him get calmed down and organize himself again. I've been thinking about that question since last week, and really wondering about it. I meant it when I asked him, which means that my assumptions have really shifted on a foundational level about what motivates behaviour and what might have been going on. I also didn't yell, or say no, or ask him to tell me he was sorry, or any of a number of unclear and not useful things I could've said, and have probably done in the past. I really wanted to know what was going on for him, and was modeling a tool he could use when he started feeling internally unbalanced, which seems to happen often for him.

That feels awesome. I am really working hard on my communication, and it's paying off. I'm sure I'll flub it up again in the future, but it feels good to know that I'm digesting these things I'm learning. It's lead me to imagine a classroom environment that sees conflict as attempted communication, and gives me a lot more room to work with it. And it makes me think about all kinds of other questions, disarming questions like that, thoughtful questions that we can ask ourselves and the kids we work with, to dig deeper into the how/why we do the things we do.

nerd out.

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.

chalk murals

wella wella wella -

These are some photos of the chalk murals I did in the classrooms at my placement at Bloorview Nursery School - High Park. I'm real happy with them, particularly when we were discussing the new tiger one and one of the girls in our class said "What happened to the boat?" Well, sweetheart, don't worry. It's still in the other classroom...all chalkboards are not the same chalkboard.



This is the Tiger I did for Chinese New Year - I peeled away the blue corro-tint to find a green chalkboard wreckage beneath. It was covered in tape and the sticky remnants of some teacher's great idea. It took the better part of an hour, a scraper, goo-gone, two steel-wool pads and a shit-load of elbow grease to get the gummy residue off, and leave an easily chalkable surface. I'm happy to say I feel like it was worth it.




Because sidewalk chalk is so light, and doesn't come really in black, I had to get inventive -- and erasing the tiger's stripes worked really well.

This other mural I did in the classroom we were in at the time, when the kids were captivated by pirates and treasure. It was pretty gratifying to hear the kids talking about mermaids and islands a couple of weeks after it was up - amazing what enters the kids' stories.



I was a bit more aware of my language today - that is going to be an ongoing thing. Good thing it's so worth it, and awesome, and I'm into it. It's a challenging thing, though, and being aware in that way of how I'm speaking and framing things takes a lot of effort. I talked about it with Isabel, who said she'd be happy to back me up if I'll do the same for her. She framed it as having an inside voice and an outside voice, and letting your inside voice say what it needs to -- "NO!" "Don't do that!" or "Hey, buster, don't sit on the table!" -- IN YOUR HEAD -- and translate it into your outside voice saying "Hey, friend, it looks to me like you're thinking of sitting down. Let's go get a chair or a beanbag instead." Awesome. Demanding. Fake-sounding? A little, but I think that's just the constructed clarity and intensified intent that grates on my ear. Practice that for say, ten years or so, and it oughta come out more naturally. It's a good goal to point towards, anyway.

Always learning, even when it feels against my will! Positive attitude, check. Sense of humour, check. Loads of stuff to do, check. Groan!

Nerd.OUT!

reading week...

ARG - just found out that my sister and nephew AREN'T coming to visit this week - which sucks, but there is a silver lining in that I can get the schoolwork done that I need to, study for my other midterm which is coming up, and work away at my projects. It was going to be complicated but worth it that they were here, and now it'll be a bit easier.

I did decide to keep going to placement, and I'm really glad I did. My new project at placement is a personal one, born out of noticing that the language I use when talking to kids is not really the kind I want to be using. Not like I'm swearing like a sailor (do they swear that much these days?), but I'm not always clear and my speech could be a lot more helpful, more conducive to communication.

Teacher Tom, one of my blog education heroes, wrote about it here, and here, and also along the same lines here. Check out his great great blog Teacher Tom. It's on the blog list over there in the sidebar, too. It's chock-full of good teacher stuff, told in great narrative, with real kids and real teacher action.

So, today, I kept messing up how and what i was speaking, and after a particularly wonderous blunder (done out of earshot of the kids, and I'm still chewing on it embarrasedly) I resolved to really really REALLY be mindful about how I speak. Good thing, too.

We also changed rooms again, and this week are in the room I started placement in. I'm not really sold on this room-switching business - I mean, I see some logic (fresh environment, fresh materials, new perspectives) but it just ends up feeling like a whole of transitions for everyone. All the kids did was wander around and explore, really, except in the House Centre where things were familiar enough to dig in and really have a feed-the-babies-wooden-birthday-cake love fest. However, switching rooms means four walls that i haven't really been able to have much effect on, so here we go! Got at it after everyone was gone, and spent most of the afternoon doing new chalk mural for the Year of the Tiger. Again, I forgot to effectively document the thing, but will do better next time, and take some photos of it to post tomorrow.

Also, even tho my mouth wasn't up to par, my play was - totally inspired by Vivian Gussin Paley, I played with the kids in a really engaged way today. It felt great, and a boy who's shy and a bit anxious blossomed and had fun with me after a unusually short interval of shadowing one of the regular teachers first thing. AWESOME.

Nerd Out - for now!

PS - Had a great time in Montreal over the weekend, and went to the ridiculously gorgeous Waldorf school stuff store, La Grande Ourse on Duluth. Wood wood and wood, lovely toys, and wonderful colours - those anthroposophists sure know how to make fetching felt fairies and wooden gnomes. Check it out if you're ever around there, and look at this gorgeous photo of the wooden kitchen, all kid-sized, that they have for sale for an unfortunately enormous price. I found the photo on flikr at pleasurecraft's site.