This post is a work in progress

Student teachers are a lot like puppies.

Stay with me here for a minute, I think the analogy is a good one.


Student teachers are (mostly) young and have the enthusiasm of someone seeing things with fresh eyes. They are excited, eager. They have energy they don't always know what to do with. But unlike a puppy, you can't train student teachers with a rolled-up newspaper.

We all have to learn sometime, and someone has to teach us.

It doesn't really matter what we have to learn to do, drive a car or weld a joint, there is a look-learn phase and a try-do phase. Parents know these phases well, and understand that understand that there is a point at which you wince and would rather do it yourself. Let the child pour the milk, spill, clean it up, or  just pour the milk yourself. It's faster.


I didn't ask for a student teacher.

I really love to teach, and I missed my students when I was on sabbatical last year. Grade six is an important year, and didn't want to risk having a student teacher with my class for a good part of the winter term. But I let myself be convinced, and I am glad I did.

Ms Holliday has been wonderful, and watching her teach has given me a chance to revisit the foundations of teaching, refresh my philosophy, discuss the choices we make as teachers and why we make them. It's like when you bring a puppy into a house with an old(er) dog, and suddenly the old dog has a new found energy herself.

It takes time to make a teacher. It takes a great deal of hard work, long hours, and many discussions. What will you teach, why, how will you teach it, how will you know if they learned, what will you do next, how will you review, how do you make sure the learning is robust and lasts? What do you do when students misbehave, how do you handle homework, how do you reassure parents? We talk about what we plan to teach, what we just taught, how to do it better, what to do next. Think think think. Worry, wait, check, revise, review, reiterate. Repeat as necessary.

Like pouring milk for a little one, it is faster to do it ourselves.

But we learn by doing. We have to try it ourselves, sometimes spill, try again, move forward.

Boy, are we ever proud when they can do it on their own.

Ms Holliday is ready to do it on her own. She is ready for her own class, her own students. She has done some wonderful projects, practiced, reflected on what works for her, and for the students, and the students have become attached to her.

We all have become attached to her. her kind words, her quick smile, her thoughtful approach to what she does.

It is very difficult and it feels a little strange to hand over your class to a student teacher. It is probably harder to be the student teacher who has to deal with a hovering host teacher who is unable keep herself from interjecting fourteen times an hour. To teach is a wonderful gift, but to teach a teacher is to have the opportunity to help  beyond your own class, and have a part, however small, in someone else's success.

We all have to learn, then we all have to do. Ms Holliday is more than ready. As all teachers are, she is a work in progress, moving forward, changing, learning, becoming the teacher she wants to be.

We wish her calm students, well-funded classrooms, and a lifetime of loving the job.

School Nurse to Visit in April

Springtime brings back the birds, but also brings talk of the birds and the bees....

As you may know, the CSSS school nurse visits sixth grade classes to discuss puberty with the students. She presents the material during two 120 minute sessions, during which she uses a slide show prepared by Health Canada and several short videos to generate discussion. Much of this material is also covered in the science text, and Ms Beauregard has told me the students seem very anxious to begin this unit.

It is my experience that many parents prefer to begin discussing the subject of puberty and sex with their children before the nurse visits. She will be sending a letter to you closer to the date of her presentation, but I wanted to let you know in advance just in case your were presented with a good moment to speak with your child over the coming Easter break.

You can view some of the materials she will use at this site:
http://sexualityandu.ca/parents/your_role_as_a_parent
and the slide shows she shows are on-line here
http://sexualityandu.ca/teachers/classroom-presentations/puberty

Not all the material on the site is shared with the students. While I believe that much of the material there is more than they need to know right now, it is often better, as a parent, to have too much information than too little, and knowing what they might hear from peers can be very eye-opening.

The nurse's talk will focus more on biology than reproduction or sexuality, which leaves the hard part of the discussion still in your hands. While I make myself available to students to answer any lingering questions, you may want to open the discussion as well.

If you have any questions or want any additional information, please feel free to contact me.

Have a wonderful week,
Kathy Napier

World Maths Day

Each year I register my students for World Maths Day. Over the space of a few weeks students can practice math calculations by taking timed quizzes in which they compete against students from around the world. Students create avatars, see where in the world the other participants come from, and see the flags of those countries. On March 7th, students from around the world participate on the same day. Organizers estimate that 5.5 million students from 200 countries will participate this year. Unfortunately, World Maths Day falls during our Spring Break, but students can participate from home if you have access to an Internet connection, or on a mobile device (the app can be found here).

Your child has a login and password to be able to participate in the practice days leading up to the event. As their teacher, I can see the number and percentage of questions they answer correctly. There are five levels, and students can work to improve their scores in each level.

Yesterday, the first day we worked with the site, the class collectively answered 1081 questions correctly in about 20 minutes. As you can imagine, it would be impossible for me to give and correct that volume of work were I to have students do it with pencil and paper.

The event is highly motivating and excellent practice. If possible, it would be well worth having your child practice at home to improve their calculation skills.

And in case I forget, Happy World Maths Day!

The Flipped Classroom

Technology where it is needed, when it is needed.

I remember my high school computer lab. One room of large desk top PCs, set up in  traditional classroom style so that we could face the blackboard as the teacher taught us basic programming. DOS style. Yes, I am that old. It was all very cutting edge. At that time we learned typing as well, on typewriters, and the typing teacher was in awe that the computer printers could produce so many different fonts. Where, he asked me, were all the wheels inside?

For the students in my class, working with technology is a normal part of the day. So normal that they don't get nearly as excited as I do by the new document camera or the SMART board lessons that let us show things differently than I would have thought possible when I was last a student. I am blessed to have exciting new technology in my classroom,  and while some of it sometimes doesn't work as we want it to, it allows us to explore learning situations in completely new ways.

Under Pressure

When my son was in his first year of hockey,  he had a lucky scoring streak. Nothing that made him a prodigy, but a little streak of a goal every game for about three games. Maybe streak is a strong word for that, but when they score goals before they can write their name parents get a little excited.

Coming off the ice one afternoon, a childhood friend of my husband well-meaningly remarked, "Looks like you inherited your father's hands."

And the streak ended as fast as it had begun. My son didn't score for the rest of the season.

I think this kind of happened to me and the class blog this year. It got a little bit of attention, and I got a few compliments, and my posts promptly dried up. Performance anxiety.

Writing Assignment: Character Traits

Students,

Use the link below to identify traits you might use to describe the character in your text.

Character Traits List

French-English Dictionary

Reverso: language translation on-line

Then, for the second part of the exercise, use this site:

Thesaurus

 to find antonyms for the adjectives you chose.

Happy Writing,
Ms Napier

Moon & Venus to put on post-Christmas sky show