Showing posts with label reading. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reading. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Sunday, February 6, 2011
inching towards readiness
The past bunch of months have been busy ones. I have been snowed under with, starting last semester:
So, this semester is also busy. I am taking the second half of our research class, and doing a wonderful project on perceptions of safety and how they affect kids' outdoor play, with some stellar group-mates. There is the assessment course where we are focusing on authentic assessment, tools, and critiquing "standardized" testing - it's awesome. I start the week off with a 3 hour class on children and learning with technology, very fun and very profound - with the prof that I'm working on the research project(s) with (thank you Jason), where we are writing our own blog with all the whole class of 40-odd ECE students. It isn't public (yet) but there is some REALLY interesting thinking coming out of there.
I got kicked out of a class due to timetable conflicts (not rabble-rousing) on children in society, and the only class that worked was a class about health promotion and community development on Mondays at 6.30pm, making that day super-long. I was dreading that class a bit, but then it turns out to be absolutely dynamic, interesting and thought provoking filled with great people and a great prof. SURPRISE!
And last but certainly not least - its placement time. I am spending two days a week this semester at the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care - an advocacy group working to secure real, necessary funding for child care in the province. It is REALLY CRAZY AWESOME, and I harken back to my activisty days in Montreal and Seattle etc. I'm 4 weeks in to placement and have already written a Student Outreach and info guide, edited a booklet on greening child care centres, presented to other ECE students about the role of advocacy, taken on the organizations publications, and helped a bit with coordinating the province wide community forum tour that the OCBCC is conducting to get people revved up - it's a provincial election year, and we need to make sure that the government starts REALLY funding child care. It's just ridiculous, the state we're in. More on that maybe later - ELP, the new Early Learning Program that gets all 4-5 year olds in the province into kindergarten (sweet!) is gutting child care, as a lot of those kids used to be in child care centres, and without the support of their fees centres are freaking out. It's pretty nuts.
Back at school, I have a seminar once a week for that too. On Mondays. It's silly.
Work at the lab is also fun, but I'm not going to write about that now, because this is already long enough and no pictures. That's too bad.
Here's one of Conan, that I used in my post on our class blog about children, the internet, hacking and safety.
So...that's what's been keeping me busy. It feels really great to put words up here again. Hope all is well with anyone who might read this - best to all those awesome friends I made oh so long ago when I was posting more regularly! Hooray for blogging!
Nerd out!
- big, giant assignments in each of my courses
- and then exams
- and then ridiculously busy holidays
- and then the start of school all over again for the new semester
So, this semester is also busy. I am taking the second half of our research class, and doing a wonderful project on perceptions of safety and how they affect kids' outdoor play, with some stellar group-mates. There is the assessment course where we are focusing on authentic assessment, tools, and critiquing "standardized" testing - it's awesome. I start the week off with a 3 hour class on children and learning with technology, very fun and very profound - with the prof that I'm working on the research project(s) with (thank you Jason), where we are writing our own blog with all the whole class of 40-odd ECE students. It isn't public (yet) but there is some REALLY interesting thinking coming out of there.
I got kicked out of a class due to timetable conflicts (not rabble-rousing) on children in society, and the only class that worked was a class about health promotion and community development on Mondays at 6.30pm, making that day super-long. I was dreading that class a bit, but then it turns out to be absolutely dynamic, interesting and thought provoking filled with great people and a great prof. SURPRISE!
And last but certainly not least - its placement time. I am spending two days a week this semester at the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care - an advocacy group working to secure real, necessary funding for child care in the province. It is REALLY CRAZY AWESOME, and I harken back to my activisty days in Montreal and Seattle etc. I'm 4 weeks in to placement and have already written a Student Outreach and info guide, edited a booklet on greening child care centres, presented to other ECE students about the role of advocacy, taken on the organizations publications, and helped a bit with coordinating the province wide community forum tour that the OCBCC is conducting to get people revved up - it's a provincial election year, and we need to make sure that the government starts REALLY funding child care. It's just ridiculous, the state we're in. More on that maybe later - ELP, the new Early Learning Program that gets all 4-5 year olds in the province into kindergarten (sweet!) is gutting child care, as a lot of those kids used to be in child care centres, and without the support of their fees centres are freaking out. It's pretty nuts.
Back at school, I have a seminar once a week for that too. On Mondays. It's silly.
Work at the lab is also fun, but I'm not going to write about that now, because this is already long enough and no pictures. That's too bad.
Here's one of Conan, that I used in my post on our class blog about children, the internet, hacking and safety.
 |
| protect us, conan |
So...that's what's been keeping me busy. It feels really great to put words up here again. Hope all is well with anyone who might read this - best to all those awesome friends I made oh so long ago when I was posting more regularly! Hooray for blogging!
Nerd out!
Saturday, October 30, 2010
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!
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.
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!
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
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
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
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
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!
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!
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