this is how school feels right 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.

hmmmm...

I don't know about switching my blog hosting - it's so friendly over here and the blog would have a real different feel. maybe, maybe not - but I guess not for now...

I am totally wiped out - been working on a project that I haven't mentioned yet. Since it's March Break here in Toronto, and placement schools are closed, instead of taking a break and resting and getting a jump on things, I decided to add a pinch of crazy to my week.

A group of visitors from Urawa University in Japan, with which Ryerson has an ongoing connection, is visiting and I got hired on to coordinate our shenanigans and hang out with them. I've been organizing my face off for the last four weeks, on top of school and placement and being sick and everything else. They arrived on Sunday after a 13 hour flight, and we've had a jammed packed educational visit with them. Not that I had anything else to do.


Yesterday it was mostly exploring Ryerson and our ECE program, as well as our lab school the Early Learning Centre. Today it was more exploration of whats going on in our program, and then for a special treat, we went up to Bloorview Kids Rehab, the hospital, school and resource centre for children with extra support needs that my placement Nursery school just happens to be affiliated with. It helps that I worked there, and have many dear friends who have and still do. The folks there treated us supremely well, and gave us a great tour. We are LUCKY!!!

Tomorrow, more site visits and then dinner and the ROM - and then I get to fall exhausted into a puddle of jelly, sleep for twelve hours, and get back to my real life. We're giving a real whirlwind tour, since they're here for such a short amount of time, and it's making my head spin.

Speaking of heads however, I managed to do some fun homework today, in the middle of everything, and when I say fun I'm not even being sarcastic. An assignment in our History and Philosophy of ECE class (LOVE.IT.)is to make links between historical philosophers and everyday life, by examining TV programming for preschoolers and connect it to one of the educational philosophers we've been studying. Did you know that Sesame Street - our beloved Sesame Street - was designed as a televised Head Start program?!?!?!?!? Did you even?!?

Awesome. The idea grew out of a silly little cultural race, when the USSR beat the USA into space and North America FREAKED. Educators were blamed, who then blamed each other. College profs blamed high school teachers who blamed elementary school teachers - all the way down the line to preschool teachers and parents. The US government went ape, invested a ton of money in educational reform, and as part of the War on Poverty Head Start was born, and gave us Sesame Street. That's the nutshell - research away.


Anyway, today we got to analyze Sesame Street, and wow was it ever great. Apparently it is the most heavily researched educational program (not just TV program, but ed. program of any kind) EVER. And here we grew up thinking it was about Jim Henson and sharing and singing and spelling, with counting and stories and imaginary (but not really) wooly mammoths thrown in for good measure. Again, AWESOMENESS.

So, in my little Japanese whirlwind, I got to go to the awesomest rehab hospital for kids and visit their totally RAD Centre for the Arts AND watch TV (and admittedly think about it, and then write it all down). How cool is that? And all I have to do is turn into a puddle of goo after.

more risk for healthier kids

Found this on Teacher Tom this morning. So awesome! And TED is a great resource.



Tom wrote this morning about getting kids to do their own safety assessments, to figure out themselves how to do what they want and do a lot of learning, while keeping injuries to a minimum. Imagine a society where instead of hovering over our kids to keep them safe we empower them to make their own safety...wow.

More risk for healthy kids! I definitely want to think more about this, and post more later.

Safe risking Nerd OUT!