The Great Pause. Or the Push Forward.

So June.

Specifically June 19th.

Is it just me or do each of the months just get longer and longer this year?

2020. For real.

Back in January I decided to do one word for each month of the year based on what was happening, how I was feeling, and the goals I wanted to accomplish. Doug Peterson mentioned back in May that I just might be a genius (Well.... wink wink!). In all seriousness, if there was any year in which to do this, 2020 was definitely the year. 

And here we are in the 6th month of the year. Halfway done. 

But does it really feel like half? 

Or does it feel like an eternity. 

In truth I've had this blog post rolling around my brain for 19th days now. I knew going into June what my one word would be. I knew mostly want I wanted to say and to share.

So why did it take me 19 days to sit down and write it?

Because 2020. 

A look back at my OneWordx12 for this past year before we get to June's word(s) and why. 

January- Renew

February- Motion

March- Appreciate

April- Breathe

May- Grace

It's an interesting progression of words. Discussing it might be a whole other blog post.

Back at the end of May I heard a colleague say that in a meeting they had someone in yet a different meting describe this time as "the great pause". 

That we'd all look back and see the time as when we stood still. 

When we took a pause. 

When we had time to spare.

And while I can see certain aspects of that, I'm not driving my kids around to activities, we aren't rushing home from school to eat dinner and head out again, we aren't making weekend plans just to wish we'd stayed home and relaxed, etc, there's so much more to this that is not a pause.

Of course, I must acknowledge the wide path of privilege I have walked in during this time. 

Both my husband and I are still fully employed and getting our full paycheques. We have fully functioning wifi (for the most part). Our children have devices on which they can learn or entertain themselves. No one in my family is sick, got sick, or was hospitalized. We own A LOT of books. We are not food insecure.

But I don't see this as a pause at all. If anything this has been a huge push forward. 

When I think of the learning gains undertaken by educators and support staff across the world to pivot to emergency distance learning and completely change the way in which we deliver the education system as never before. 

That is not a pause.

Considering the duality of the roles taken on by many parents and caregivers to not only do their own work and see to their own responsibilities but to become homeschool parents to multiple ages and grades of children when in most cases they hadn't taken part in an education setting since their own days in school 20 or more years ago. 

That is not a pause.

The door, the lock, the unspoken knowledge of the wide gap in equality of education, food security, wage inequality, home life, access to health care, and systemic racism was blown wide open during this time. Never again will people be able to say "I didn't know." 

If you don't know after this, it's because you don't want to know. 

This was not a great pause for many people.

This was stress. This was heartache. This was illness and death. This was wondering which bill to pay and which meal to eat. This was continuing to see how society treated you differently because of the colour of your skin. 

Inequality did not pause for COVID 19.

Food insecurities did not pause for COVID 19.

Racism did not pause for COVID 19. 

I hope this is the push forward.

I hope this is the point from which we unlearn. From which re-educate ourselves.

And that is my commitment. My word for June is unlearn. 

To confront my place in the truth of anti-Black racism and 

white supremacist structures here in Canada. 

To acknowledge my role and responsibility to 

understand the settler-colonizer history of this land that is now called Canada. 

To work to learn and take action to support the communities that live with the 

trauma of this daily oppression  and marginalization.

Given the importance and necessity of this work I think 

I will keep this word or choose a variation of the idea. 

This work will take a lifetime.

Moving Forward With Grace

https://bayart.org/grace-quotes/

Each month of this year I have been choosing a new ONE WORD. Instead of one word to try and fit the whole year, I wanted to be constantly reflecting on where I am and where I am going.

And who knew back in January when I started this that 2020 would be the year that each month would require it's own word.

Seriously. Each month of the year has actually required a word.

It's only been 4 months. 4 months.

Wow.

Listening to educators and parents express their frustration and stress over the emergency distance prompted me to share the following on my personal FaceBook page. And in writing it I determined my word for May.

Grace.

Teachers are doing their very best with what amounts to emergency distance learning.

This is not e-learning, this is not planned, this is not normal.

Good pedagogy involves establishing a relationship with your students, talking with them, observing them work, observing them struggle, observing them master a skill.

Almost none of these things can be done through a screen.

Teachers are trying their very best. In many cases they have learned more new things in the past 4-6 weeks than many of us who have dedicated time to innovating and trying new tech have in years.

Will some activities take too long? Yes.

Will some activities need a lot of adult help? Yes.

Will some activities be too short or too easy? Yes.

Will it involve YouTube videos? Clicking many links? Downloading docs and slides and PDFs and jpgs and and and? Yes.

Is it learning? Maybe.

Some families are demanding teachers send more work. Some are complaining to their friends that it’s too much. Some are complaining loudly and to whoever will listen that we don’t deserve to be paid.

And I believe that all of those parents are overwhelmed, scared, stressed and worried.

I also believe that most teachers are working longer hours and feel that they aren’t making any difference. They know this is the best learning situation for your children... for their students.

They know.

There is still no end in sight to this.

So as we move into May and end another week of emergency distance learning let’s all live with a little grace.

Give yourself and your children permission to not do the work for a day, or two... or a week. It’s ok.

Give yourself grace to recognize that you can’t do your job and teach your kids at home.
We get it. We can’t do it either.

Give your children grace and time to read, time to play games and time to laugh. They will still learn.

If we get through this with happy and healthy children, we win.

If we get through this with children who have learned the value of standing strong with their community, we win.

If we get through this with children who have learned cooking and laundry and cleaning and other life skills, we win.

Wake up tomorrow and give yourself grace.

https://me.me/i/it-takes-grace-to-remain-kind-in-cruel-situations-daily-18523691

If you aren't still in a school library...

... are you still a teacher-librarian?

It's a question that's been swirling around my head now for a few weeks. One that at times I've wanted to explore deeply and at others the mere thought sends shock waves of pain. But the ache and the wonder is always there. 

It's there like a toothache. 

As the world, as Canada, as Ontario has made the emergency pivot to distance learning,
to remote learning, to e-learning... 

to all the names that would require and demand a whole other blog post...

As we pivot, I wonder- 

Am I still a librarian? Am I still a teacher?

I know that I am still a curator as I work on the virtual library learning commons and as I gather resources in a Google Classroom to support teachers with their new reality.

But I'm not teaching students.

Not that I know of.

I'm not even interacting with students, beyond my own two daughters, to be honest.

A few students have reached out via email but it's not anywhere near like it was in the physical library. There's no asking what books I think are good. There's no questions about which section in the library the books on weather are found in. There's no requests to take a picture of the students' tinkering and creations at the maker stations.

Am I still a teacher-librarian?

I know I am a resource. I know that I have helped educators with tech questions, with Google questions, with finding resources, with read alouds, and read alongs and the list goes on and on.

So I don't feel unnecessary or unneeded. I know I am helping. And I'm grateful to have a role.

But if I'm being honest, I didn't become an educator to work with adults.

I miss the students. I miss the daily interactions and the buzz of the library.

I miss the mess. I miss reshelving books. I miss the chaos.

The saying "you don't know a good thing until it's gone" never really applied to me
and my role in the library learning commons as a teacher-librarian.

I know I hit the education jackpot. I knew how good I had it.

So now I wonder- 

Am I still a teacher? 

Am I still a teacher-librarian?

What is the definition of those roles and where do I fit in the current educational landscape?

I don't want anyone to think I am feeling sorry for myself, because although I am sad and grieving as many of us are- I have my job, I am getting paid, and my family is safe.

I am doing work everyday that matters and is helping people.

I am continuing to learn new skills - how to create choice boards,
how to curate valuable resources for others, how to create Screencastify videos as tutorials for educators, how to do many, many, many, many new things within the Google suite.

I know that this has clarified for me my love for teaching, my love for working with students as they learn and explore new things, my love for all things school library and my desire to never work in a role that doesn't involve being in and around children on a daily basis.

As we moved forward with our pivot, our emergency plans and our eyes open to many realities of the education system that is inequitable and broken in so many ways, I wonder what new roles will emerge. What new job descriptions will be written? What roles will be seen as essential and necessary? 

Where will the role of teacher-librarian go from here? 

How has it been changed through this experience?

What will the landscape of education look like moving forward?

April 1st...

This year I had decided to choose one word each month during the year in order to document my own learning and living journey. The plan was to blog about it each month and to talk about the words I chose.

I did well for January and February.

I picked words. I blogged about them. I shared my thoughts.

Then March came.

Oh March.

I did choose a word for March. 

I recorded it in my bullet journal after contemplating a list of words.

But I never blogged about it.

In fact, I didn't blog about anything in March.

In a year where everything about being an educator was a little bit harder, a little bit more strained, a little bit more stressful (okay, a lot more stressful...) I choose the word appreciate for March.

Appreciate.

I felt that if I chose appreciate I would slow down, look around and pay attention to the things in my life that were beautiful, that were good, that mattered the most.

I tried to voice my appreciation to my children when they were helpful, when they played nicely together, when they listened well. I tried to voice my appreciation to my husband for every thing that he is and does. I worked to appreciate the days I had at school with my colleagues and students after weeks of strike days and interruptions. 

I wanted to view my world through a lens of appreciation.

And then...

The world got scary. The world turned upside down. 

The world shrunk down to the walls of our homes.

And now we know we will be here for the month of April.

And maybe longer.

And the questions just keep swirling through my mind.

How will we support our students at such a distance?

How will we work to ensure the enormous gap in equity and privilege doesn't expand beyond what we can ever recover from? How will I be a librarian without a library?

How are my students? How are their families?

How are my colleagues? How are their families?

How are you?

How can we work to maintain connections? How can we strengthen connections?

How can we create connections?

How? How? How?

And I know that I am not the only educator struggling with these and many more questions.

So what will be my word for April?

How could one word be enough?

I chose breathe.

Breathe. 

April's word will be breathe.

I chose to keep breathing as we move through this time.

I chose to breathe as we embrace and encounter struggles.

I chose to breathe as we find new ways to support our students and their families.

I chose to breathe until we are all together again. 

Applying a Critical Lens on I Read Canadian Day

I believe the world needs more Canada.

~Bono

This year schools, school libraries, public libraries, families and more celebrated the first ever I Read Canadian Day on February 19th, 2020.

It was a fun and exciting event that will only grow with each year's planning and programming. I really enjoyed curating the books from all sections within our library learning commons in anticipation of the day. 

It also helped bring to light same gaps within our collection. As with everything we do in the library learning commons, we need to look at the collection with an eye to how the books reflect the community and provide an opportunity for readers to see themselves in the books they read. It's also important to include examples of Own Voices. This is a good article with a description of Own Voices if you are unfamiliar. 

As I was curating our collection, I really struggled to find books written by Black Canadian authors. While there as been a concentrated effort to increase our collection of books with Black main characters and books written by Black authors until the onset of I Read Canadian Day I hadn't intentionally looked to see if Black Canadian authors were represented in our collection. 

This led me to think that I also need to take the time to see what other cultures within Canada may not be represented by Canadian authors in our collection. Again, this is an area where we have worked to increase the collection overall but without an eye to Canadian authors specifically.

If I Read Canadian Day has done nothing else, it has given me another lens to which I can use to critically evaluate the collection within our school library. 

I ordered 300 maple leaf stickers to add to the cover/spine of books in our collection in anticipation of I Read Canadian Day and was surprised as I began to pull books from the collection how many there were and that I ran out of stickers.

As I was pulling books to add the maple leaf stickers another opportunity to think critically about the collection, specifically the movement to decolonize the library.

A good article about this idea can be found here. 

I wondered whether I should put a maple leaf on any of the books

 we have in the collection by an Indigenous author? 

Was I creating a situation that would cause harm to 

authors who do not identify as Canadian? 

I read this article by Tanya Talaga today and my worries continued to grow. 

I ended up putting maple leaf stickers on the books by Indigenous authors because I wanted them to be easily found and noticed by students and educators as they came to choose their books for I Read Canadian Day. 

I hope I haven't caused harm but if I have I will work to undo that harm and learn from it. 

I will work to find another way to highlight these authors in a 

way that is respectful and honours their voices.

But for this first I Read Canadian Day it was all new territory and 

I didn't want them to be shut out, forgotten or ignored. 

“Do the best you can until you know better. 

Then when you know better, do better.” —Maya Angelou

All I can hope for is that I did the best I can for this first I Read Canadian Day and that by the time next year comes around I will know more, our collection with have grown and I can continue to share a love of Canadian literature with our school community. 

Motion. Action. Reaction.

An object in motion tends to stay in motion. 

An object at rest tends to stay at rest.

~Isaac Newton's First Law of Motion.

I picked out my one word for February while I was at the OLA Super Conference a few weeks ago but just haven't made time to blog about it. 

I haven't made time... not because I am inordinately busy but because time seems to be out of sorts these days. 

For my February one word I chose - MOTION. 

I initially thought it would be a great follow up to January's word - RENEW.

After working to renew different habits and create goals, motion felt like a great choice to keep my momentum moving forward. 

Now having been on the picket line for 3 days in the last 2 weeks (I missed Jan 31st as I was at OLASC) and a 4th day looming on Thursday the word motion seems to have taken on an entire new meaning. 

I am a creature of habit and routine. I like schedules. 

I like organizing. I like things in their place. 

The last 3 weeks have been anything but routine.

OLASC always comes at a great point in the school year because it is just about  halfway through.

It's a great opportunity to reflect on the first term and goals that have been achieved (or missed). It's a great time for new learning to be soaked up and there's still time to implement new programs or initiatives back at school.

This year, however, we returned from OLASC and jumped full force into strike days and job action. 

In Peel, we have been striking on Tuesdays and Thursdays which means that our week is very odd. 

Last week we had a PA Day on Friday and this coming Monday is Family Day.

I miss seeing my students in the library. I miss chatting about books. I miss diving into inquiries with classes.

It's all still happening of course but it feels very piecemeal and fractured.

For every action there is an equal opposite reaction.

~Isaac Newton's 3rd Law of Motion

Motion has come to mean something a little different in the past weeks.

Motion means walking for 3 hours with my colleagues on the picket line each day.

Motion means venturing down to the staff room for lunch as all the clubs hosted in the library space are on hold.

Motion means driving my daughters to a different day care every other day depending on if we are in school or on strike.

Motion means checking in on each other. Motion is finding time to do something good for the soul.

Motion is trying to slow your mind at night so you can sleep.

(This one is especially hard for me... after years on battling insomnia during times of stress I still haven't found a solution.)

Motion is talking, sharing, explaining, justifying.

Motion.

And the journey expands...

(Left aligned for Doug.)

Every moment is a fresh beginning. 

~T.S. Eliot

Almost three years ago now I began this journey as a teacher-librarian. It is in the late winter/early spring that schools begin to work on their staff allocations for the coming school year and it was in March of 2017 that my current administrator approached me about moving into the role of teacher-librarian at my school with the goal of transforming the space into a library learning commons. 

As I have received news that I was successful in my bid to become the Vice President/ President Elect of the OSLA Council for 2020-2021 years, I think this is a great time to reflect on my journey thus far...

(I do want to thank Trevor MacKenzie, Dawn Telfer and Doug Peterson for reading and editing my bio before the OSLA election. I appreciate it and I appreciate you so much.)

Becoming a teacher-librarian has rekindled my love of reading. I have read more books in the last few years than the years previous. This may also have something to do with the age of my girls and that they no longer need to me to direct them in all their play endeavours and can be trusted to manage themselves for longer lengths of time... but let's say that it was also due to my new role! 

I have read more Canadian literature in the past few years after discovering the Festival of Literary Diversity  and attempting to read the entire long list of the Canada Reads program in 2018 with a group of friends. I remember reading a lot of Canadian literature as part of my undergrad studying English literature and finding so much of it dreary and old. Always in the past. Always about colonizers. Always part truths. Now that I have started a journey to re-educate myself about the true history of Canada's colonization and dark past, I can see the disservice done to me and my fellow students in those long ago lecture halls. Inspired by the journeys and reading list of others I have sought out books and authors that will help me to understand the truth and begin to work for reconciliation. 

I have also expanded my reading tastes beyond books that show a mirror on to my own life and my own culture. I have learned to seek out books written by authors from all over the world. From a wide variety of cultures, backgrounds, family structures, and more. I have learned the importance of reading books that reflect #OwnVoices . (I blogged recently about my reading journey in 2019 in a blog post called- Looking Back, Reading Forward)

I have worked to bring these books into our library collection and to have students see themselves in our collection. I love that the students feel empowered to suggested books they want more of and new titles they think belong in our collection. 

It surprised me (and humbled me) that after 2+ years in the TL role and completing my Teacher-Librarian Specialist I had not yet read "Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors" by Rudine Sims Bishop. While I had encountered the idea of books providing "mirrors on our own lives and windows into the lives of others", I had not had a first hand experience with the article. I thank Diana Maliszewski for guiding me to the article after a recent panel we were both a part of for OnEdMentors.  The opening passage is pure magic-

“Books are sometimes windows, offering views of worlds that may be real or imagined, familiar or strange. These windows are also sliding glass doors, and readers have only to walk through in imagination to become part of whatever world has been created or recreated by the author. When lighting conditions are just right, however, a window can also be a mirror. Literature transforms human experience and reflects it back to us, and in that reflection we can see our own lives and experiences as part of a larger human experience. Reading, then, becomes a means of self-affirmation, and readers often seek their mirrors in books.” ~Rudine Sims Bishop

I have always been a hands-on, get messy, play around with stuff kind of teacher. As a special teacher I had the fortune to work with years ago recently told me "[m]any of the things you did 10 years ago (thing I have adopted to this day), I see teachers doing now. " The benefit is that now I have a name to put on the things I tried all those years ago that just felt right and that I knew were working with my students, even if I didn't always have a term for it. I now know that my jump and loop around style of teaching math is called spiralling. My hands-on, maker, questions first, student-led social studies and science teaching is inquiry-based learning. Allowing students to create as part of their learning is the maker movement. Becoming a TL and reading, reading, reading as allowed me to centre my understanding of these pedagogical methods and to feel empowered to share my beliefs of the value of teaching and learning this way. 

I posted recently on Twitter about my aunt who was a TL while I was growing up and that I wanted so much to be like her. Sadly, she passed away in September of my first year as a teacher. But every day I think of her and what she might have thought about this journey I'm on and where it is taking me. As I wrote in my bio for the OSLA Council election - I believe in being open about my own learning journey as a educator and a teacher-librarian. I see the role of the teacher-librarian as a curator, an advocate, a risk take and an ally. The ability to see the big picture of  curriculum and content integration in central to this role. Each day involves asking questions, making mistakes and learning together. 

I have discovered a love for podcasts in the past few years. There's something special about listening to a long discussion or story that really dives deep into a topic. I love the connection that is created by hearing the voices of people across the void as they discuss various topics. This past year I had the honour of joining in on some podcasts as well and it was great experience each and every time. I met Stephen Hurley from VoicEd Radio at OLASC in 2019 and from there the connections just blossomed.  

A long held goal of mine... I will be presenting a workshop at OLASC 2020 with two amazing educators, Tina Zita and Jane Dennis-Moore. I am beyond excited to share our learning journey related to identity, photography and diverse texts.

I just submitted my first-ever action research paper related to the open-making program I call the Genius Cart for Treasure Mountain Canada 2020. A year long culmination of questions, reflections, successes, failures, and exploring the messy, wonderfulness that is maker ed. 

I think becoming a teacher-librarian has helped me to become more of myself. 

I am excited (and nervous) to see where this new role takes me and what new learning will take place. 

I am humbled to be in this role and hope to do it justice.