Monday, 13 May

I'm the tall guy on the left

We began the day with a talking circle.  I know some of the students think the only value of a talking circle is to waste class time so there is less work, but I still think it's important to give people the opportunity to have a voice, even if they don't.  I was able to share a bit about my experience at the TEDx event that some of us attended on Saturday.  I agree with Ms. Rive that it was an inspiring and affirming day.  It's nice to connect with others who challenge what we do in the hope of advancing our practices.

Next, the class had band and after that we met with our parent drivers to whisk ourselves away to Kinnikinnick for the Jesse Miller presentation.  I saw him a few years ago, and it was interesting to see the difference between what he did for our students and what he did with the secondary students.  I found him to be engaging and the students were a good audience.  Thank you, Jenine, Michele, Angela, Christie, Aideen, Pam and Jane for making yourselves available to drive.

Apart from the presentation, it was nice to have a chance to chat to parents about what we're doing in and out of class.  I was asked how much homework I thought the students should be doing on their socials inquiry projects.  That is a tough one.  Research shows that "homework" does little if anything to promote or deepen learning, especially in elementary school (I did give near-nightly reading assignments and some presentation assignments in my senior secondary courses).  On the other hand, it also suggests that inquiry learning (especially where students have autonomy, choice and the opportunity to define the boundaries of their project-based learning) allows for the most complex thinking.  I've scheduled many hours of class time but have not said specifically "how long" the presentations should be.  I hope that this allows for differences in terms of student ability, interest and desire.  I know that some will work very little at home, because the class time is mostly enough.  Others will feel they need more time spent at home in order to "get done," while others, I suppose, will have their interest sparked and want to look deeper at home.  In terms of sharing, I've suggested that the presentations (sharings?) should go beyond PowerPoint slides this time: we've done that quite a bit and students are quite familiar with that medium.  We saw some pretty good science presentations, so the bar has been set high for many in our class who like to be in the "exceptional" range of student output.  I'm not trying to be vague in order to confound, it's just that I don't want to say, "Here's the bar, get to it and stop."  I think some of our students are used to doing the bare minimum and I want to give them a chance to excel - to push themselves - for each student that measure will be different.  I've told the students that if their sharings give us goose bumps, they will have done "enough."

Upon returning to the school we had 20 minutes to eat lunch and then we were out to another presentation, in our gym this time.  We met Sam Lenarduzzi and Carl Valentine of the Whitecaps FC.  I remember watching Carl and those huge quadriceps of his thundering down the field when the Caps played at the old Empire Stadium.  Today they did a good job at involving the students, both young and old.  Some of the students in our class said they had seen this presentation in years past and so they weren't really interested.  That may be true, but I saw a few of our guys who looked like they were going to wrench their arms from their sockets trying to get picked to go up and participate!

We ended the day with a discussion.  I was getting frustrated with some of the student behaviour around talking (while walking in the halls, lining up, that sort of thing), so we had a chance to share our thoughts and opinions with one another.  I hope tomorrow will allow us all to more forward with a more informed viewpoint.

Tomorrow, I will issue a notice about the PAC's Spring Fling Dance event scheduled for Saturday, 01 June, at the Roberts Creek Hall.  Our class has volunteered (ok, I volunteered our class) to create a gift basket that can be used to support this fundraising event.  So stay tuned for more information on that.