Does everything have to be a lesson or is everything always a lesson?

 Educators are always looking for ways to "cover" the curriculum. Even when we know that we are accountable to the Overall Expectations the draw the ensure that all Specific Expectations are touched on is strong. 

But not all expectations are created equal. 

Are they? 

On Friday I made my way down to a classroom to speak to an educator about a specific student. We had crossed paths in the hallway that morning and I had said that if he was available later in the day would he be able to come and sort through the LEGO station? This was an arrangement we had in place before the pandemic when the library was wide open at all times to all students. This student required frequent breaks and was always eager to be helpful and take on a leadership role in  the library so his homeroom educator and I worked out a plan where he had his own set of library tasks on a checklist. When he felt that he needed a break from the classroom setting he would advocate for his needs by asking to come to the library. Often, I would deliberately mess up the LEGO station when I hadn't seen him for a few days knowing a visit was probably imminent. 

But what does this have to do with the curriculum?

Well, nothing really. But when I arrived in his classroom his teacher felt it necessary to tell me that they were letting the students talk because they just seemed to need it. They said "I know I should get them on task and doing work but if I let them talk it out for awhile they will settle down later. I promise we will do work!"

Now, I am no one's supervisor and there was no need to justify anything happening in the class to me. However, I find that many educators do this- they try to provide a rationale for their actions in the classroom to other educators when it doesn't appear as though a direct lesson is happening. 

I quickly assured the educator that I was not judging her and in fact listed off what I saw happening in her class:

• I saw an educator who was being responsive to the needs of the students.
• I saw students who were engaged in social conversations with their peers. They were making eye contact, they were facing the speaker and there was a back and forth exchange of ideas.
• The noise level was on the higher side but that's because every table group was talking. No one group was dominating the space. It was a happy hum of discussion. 
• I saw students being given time to re-connect with their peers after 2 years of separation and uncertainty. 
• I saw humans re-engaging with each other and learning social skills that would serve them throughout their life. 

And as I said to the educator,

 "Isn't Oral Communication in the Language Arts curriculum? Looks to me like a great learning activity."

This has stuck with me for a few days since it happened.

Does every "lesson" have to be pre-planned and written out in full in a day plan? Does every lesson have to be a formal opportunity to assess students? Does every lesson have to have posted learning goals to be successful?

In my opinion, no. And I believe that in the opinion of many educators I admire the answer is also no.

As educators we have been told time and again that we are not in fact experts in our field. The media tells us this. The government tells us this. Parents sometimes tell us this. 

I think this can cause educators to question themselves and their decisions even when they know what they are doing is best for kids. Did I witness a formal lesson? No. Could it have been used for a TPA? No. Was it valuable for those learners? YES!

This is where we need to hold each other up and showcase each other's brilliance. I think we need to notice and name the genius we see in our fellow educators' practice. This educator obviously had spent time really seeing the students in their class. They knew what they needed in this moment to help them focus further into the learning day. They just needed a reminder of their expertise as an educator after two long years of everything being so unsure. 

Let's do that for each other more often.  

(And the student with the LEGO? He came, helped re-sort the mixed up bins and stayed for a full period helping younger students and interacting with them. It was lovely to see.)

You're Grumpy.

 You're grumpy. A lot grumpier than you used

to be and for a long time now. 

I was told recently that I am now grumpy. And grumpier all the time. And I started to wonder.

Am I?

Am I grumpy now? The last two years have definitely taken a toll on all of us and perhaps as a society we are more grumpy now. Or maybe we are just less willing to put up with bullshit? I know I am. I feel like the last two years has helped me to see that sharing my thoughts, my real thoughts, on certain situations isn't rude it's advocating for myself and perhaps others.

I wonder, "Does speaking your mind or your truth make you grump?" Or does it just show that other people have an unwillingness to hear things that make them uncomfortable?

I find myself drawing inwards a lot more in the last few months. I want to watch TV alone. I want to read in a room alone. I want to crochet or create alone. I rarely crave being with others. Perhaps it stems from all those months of being home during the quarantine and lockdowns and then the overstimulation of being in a school filled with people all day. Perhaps it stems from what often feels like the crushing weight of the constant news cycle of a world on fire? Perhaps it's because my youngest daughter has required me (and sometimes my husband, but less often) to sleep with her for at least 95% percent of the nights since March 2020. Maybe it's because I am not even alone in sleep?

Does wanting to be alone more often make me a grump? Does recognizing that I need this time for me make me a grump?

My friend, Chris Cluff is often a source of #thoughtfuel (and that term!) for me. He recently posted this poem on his blog- And . The phrase "the burden of caretaking and releasing our stories from clenched fists" felt like he had crawled inside my brain and had seen my thoughts. 

In some ways my family has been so lucky these past two years. No one in our immediate family has had COVID, we have all kept our jobs and continue to live in a safe place. We have been able to connect more with our children as they have been home with us and we are building an addition on our home that will allow us to "escape" to the backyard for peace and relaxation. So does all that mean we aren't allowed to feel as though the last two years haven't been hard in other ways? Is there a scale of difficulty that prioritizes one person's hardship over the hardship of others? 

Do I have a "right" to be grumpy?

What is the threshold where we are given permission to be grumpy? That our burdens make it social acceptable to be outwardly grumpy? Perhaps more grace and acknowledgement that everyone's story has value and their experience can't be measured against the experience of others?

I have friends going through hard things. Very hard things. Cancer. The death of family members. Fear for their immunocompromised children and loved ones. Mental health issues. Divorce. 

All things infinitely harder than anything I am dealing with in my daily life. I would never call any of them grumpy. But I would also never call anyone just working through the daily slog of life in a pandemic grumpy either. 

Seriously. Grumpy!? Me? Maybe I am. Maybe I'm grumpier than I used to be. Maybe I'm not. 

Maybe I'm just less willing to hold back saying what I'm thinking. Maybe I'm tired of "meeting people where they are" fully knowing they never intend to put the work in to move forward. Maybe I'm not willing to let others walk all over the work I've put in to push my learning forward. Maybe I'm not willing to listen to excuses and choices that don't serve the students in our school community.

Maybe I'm grumpy. Maybe not. 

And to be honest, I don't care anymore if you think I'm grumpy.

From a mom to the teachers of #Onted

 Something to think about over the break...

As the parent of two school age children we have been talking a lot of the new routines and the removal of masks/returning to sitting in groups. Both of my daughters suffer from anxiety and are currently struggling with the thought of immediately sitting so close to others after 2 years of trying to stay distanced. There will be students in your class that feel the same way. 

Perhaps a slow transition to groups is needed, sitting in pairs first might be best? Ask students how they feel and what they are ready for. While we may be ready to return to the practice of sitting in groups and it makes teaching certain topics and activities easier, it is not about our convenience but about centering the needs of our students. 

My daughters have also asked me about masks and whether I will still be wearing one. I told that them that I will be wearing a mask at school after the break and it's for 2 reasons:

1) I want to. It's my choice to wear one as is all things regarding my body and issues of consent.

2) There will be students who want to wear a mask still and they will need to see adults in the building wearing masks and supporting them in that decision. The students who are comfortable not wearing masks may not need our support as much. And maybe students feel comfortable taking their mask off in the classroom community where they have built trust with you and their classmates but not in the hallway where they encounter more people. Again, as the adults and the educators in the building it's important to decenter ourselves and do what's best for kids first and foremost.

So as a mom of two kids scared and worried to come back to school on the 21st I am asking you to consider these things and work to help your students heal and transition as we slowly move away from COVId restrictions. 

It's that time of year... placement sheets!

 It's that time of year in my board when we have to start filling out our placement sheets for the next school year. Depending on the admin we sometimes have to list our top 3 or 4 choices, stop/start/continue for the school community, goals for the next 5 years and we can discuss it at a fireside chat of we wish.

It's an interesting time. 

People are curious as to what other people requested. Who wants to change grade levels? Who is looking at a support role? Who is thinking of switching schools or boards?

I have asked for full time library (of course) but in looking at the writing on the wall I can see how much our school population has dropped and that there's a pretty big chance my library allocation will be reduced. So then what? What is the optimal combination to effectively re-start our free flow book exchange and maker space programs should we be back to a somewhat "normal" school year next year?

I know in many, many schools and in many, many boards that teacher-librarians, library technicians and other school library professionals are split across roles, schools and in many cases, across distances between schools. I know the huge path of school library privilege I have always walked in as a full time teacher-librarian. 

I am also aware that the last 2 years in the school library have in some ways soured me to the role. Don't get me wrong!! I love the school library. I love being a teacher-librarian. BUT, there's been a lot of piece stripped away from the role as I knew it due to COVID protocols and the need for various support roles within the school community. 

For me it comes down to the students. I miss them.

I miss our day to day interactions when they would come to exchange books. I miss the kids who would visit multiple times during the week excited to find the next book they would devour. I miss the kids who would come to the library to just sit and play not knowing that while they were there they were gaining experience and skills towards their own self-regulation that would support them when they returned to class. I miss the thrill of starting a new inquiry with a class and filling a white board with a Notice/Wonder chart. I miss watching students building and share their ideas using loose parts and explore communicating their thoughts using a variety of modalities. I even miss the tangle of glue guns and glue sticks that came with large scale maker projects.

I miss being in the mess with the students.

The mess of learning. 

I've been looking back at my three year plan from when I started in the LLC 5 years ago as I do feel as though September 2022 will be a re-start. None of the students in our school will have participated in free flow book exchange in over 2 years. Our oldest students (Grade 5) will have been in Grade 2 the last time they accessed the library independently. It's going to be a complete refresh which on one hand in exciting and on the other is terrifying. 

I do feel as though I need a jolt of some kind to pull me back into what I love the most about teaching (and school libraries, if I'm being honest).

So on my placement sheets for next year, if I am not full time in the library, I have asked for Kindergarten planning time. Why not start at the beginning? Why not immerse myself in the full-on messiness, inquiry-based, wonder of learning? Why not take the opportunity to co-learn and co-teach with kindergarten educators? Why not?

Of course, full time in the library learning commons is the gold standard of library placements but a small part of me is really hoping that I'll get to experience some kindergarten joy as well. 

I guess we'll see what happens...

Pocket of Joy- Morning Duty (#SOL22)

Last Friday I posted this on my social media:

This week I:

-prepped asynchronous work for students in Kindergarten to Grade 5

-posted asynchronous work for students in Grades 1-5, emailed their grown-ups, and posted reminders of work

-read to an online Grade 1/2 class

-read to an in-school Kindergarten class

-read to an online Grade 2 class

-planned and designed inquiry activities related to our Blue Spruce program

-taught online Kindergarten

-supported online Grade 3

-got pulled from online Grade 3 to cover an in-person Grade 1 class

-taught online Kindergarten (again)

-curated our weekly LLC newsletter

-curated next week’s BHM “Jam or Not A Jam”

-pulled books connected to educator’s requests for in class inquiries

… and probably a lot of stuff I forgot.

Each week in #Onted is a full month. No joke.

It's a list of all the things I could remember doing at school between Monday and Friday. It's a lot. And I am just one educator in one building. We routinely have at least 5 unfilled jobs on any given day and some days it's been as high at 11 (maybe more!) unfilled jobs that need to be covered by library, ISSP, ESL or homeroom educators missing their planning times. It's an all hands on deck situation in Ontario schools right now. People are frazzled, burnout and fractured from trying to remember what they need to do while attempting to cover a different role. The system is continuing to eat us alive.

That being said there are still moments when joy is felt and celebrated in our schools. While I dread going into work each day knowing that if the parking lot is empty I may be thrust into a role that I am unprepared for or even pulled partway through the day, partway through a task. My ability to focus and see a task through to completion is almost non-existent at this point.

But every morning at 8:15 I head out to the parking lot for morning duty. For three years I was on crosswalk duty and then last year I was shifted to Kiss n' Ride and now I am stationed at the back of the parking lot.

I absolutely LOVE being outside in the morning for duty. For the last 5 years I have been the first person many families see each morning when they arrive at school. I don't know how many of you know this... but I am pretty cheerful person in the morning. I look forward to greeting the students and their grown-ups. I like to chat and make small talk. I get to know the students at little better. The students excitedly remind me if it's their library day or share which book they liked the best that we read recently.

One little girl told me this week that she loved the book that had a character with hair just like hers. Seriously. I didn't stop smiling all morning.

One of my favourite things about morning duty is getting to know the students and their grown-ups in a different light. We have a family whose child is in Kindergarten and every day since September Mom and Dad would walk the little one into school. Mom was expecting a new baby and when we returned after the shut down in January only Dad was walking. I got to learn about the new baby, the baby's name and hear all sorts of updates. Last week, I got to meet Grandma and Grandpa as they walked the little one to school.

The families and I joke about the traffic backups and headaches in the parking (seriously, some parents need to slow down and be patient). We discuss the weather. Did we know it was going to be this cold? Does it look like we are going to get more snow? People ask for book recommendations to read with their children. Newcomers share with me their stories about why they moved to Canada and what they hope for their grandchildren attending our school.

It's almost always 15 minutes of joy (minus the cars who want to park in the tow away zone no matter how many times I've asked them not to...).

It's 15 minutes of interacting with students. With people. With families. With parents and caregivers. With grandmas and grandpas. With little ones too small to come to school yet.

It's the only part of my day that remains the same from the "before time".

It's my little pocket of joy.

Slice of Life: Losing a Friend (Warning- loss of a pet)

 

I wanted to write this post last week but it turns out I was just too sad and needed some time.  Before you continue reading, you should know that I am going to write about the loss of my darling dog, Kahne. 

Last Tuesday, Jan 18th was the date that we had made an appointment to take Kahne to the vet to be euthanized. He was 15 years old and in a lot of pain. We had noticed a decrease in his eating, he was pacing around the house and yelping often. When we took him to the vet they found a tumour in his mouth/throat and said that they'd give him pain meds for a week or two while we made our decision.

We got Kahne three weeks before our wedding in June of 2007 so he had been with us through all the big moments. Buying our first house. The birth of both our daughters. Buying our second AND third house (it turns out we like to move??). And countless road trips, walks, beach afternoons, and more.

This is the first loss that my daughters have had to process. We told my oldest first and cried it out with her. The night we told my youngest, Monday Jan 17th, they both cried themselves to sleep. It was heartbreaking. They have known him their whole life and he's been a constant for them. The last two years with the pandemic have meant that they got to spend even more time with him.  And in a way it was a blessing for him. At least one of his people have been with him everyday since March 2020... what dog could ask for anything better?

Being kids and trying to process a loss they have turned to creating their own stories about "doggie heaven" and what Kahne is doing there. They are convinced their cousin's dog met him at the entrance and immediately gave him a tour of all the best spots. The two of them worked up a list of all the things Kahne would get to do in heaven- a room full of treats, a room full of smells, a room full of toys. I added that there's probably a wall of windows that the dogs can stick their heads out and it's just like being in the car. That brought us to the idea of a room full of squirrels to chase because Kahne loved to chase and bark at anything that moved. But when we thought on it we decided that being chased by dogs probably wasn't squirrel heaven.... so they decided that the squirrels are holograms being controlled by squirrels (like a video game) because being able to taunt dogs would be a part of squirrel heaven! Listening to them giggle and laugh about all the fun Kahne must be having was just what my heart needed. 

Every day though, someone mentions they miss him. Someone wonders what he's doing. I find myself looking for him or looking at where he'd normally be when I go about my day. I miss the way he'd do a tour of the girls' rooms each night before settling in, like it was his job to ensure they were safe in bed. I miss petting his ears which might have been the softest thing on earth. 

Mostly I just feel the quietness of the hole he's left behind. 

Last Post of 2021. Looking ahead. One Word for 2022

 I didn't write a #OneWordx12 post for November.

I didn't write for December, either. 

But I thought about them a lot. I thought about what my word(s) might be. A lot. I almost sat down to write a number of times. But I didn't. The last 2 years have been so heavy. Have been so much. Have carried so much baggage into our daily lives. 

I started my #OneWordx12 posts back in January of 2020 when it was somewhat pre-pandemic times. COVID was around but it wasn't here yet (it probably was...). Schools were still open. I went out to dinner with friends. I attended OLASC. I became the OSLA VP and spent a weekend in Toronto at a table with with other people. I shopped. It was the end of life as we knew it and the start of now. 

When I started choosing and writing my one word per month Doug Peterson thought it was a great idea. The world was changing so rapidly and how could one word ever hope to encompass and entire year? Choosing a new word each month allowed me to reflect on what I was feeling, where the world was, how education was changing and (puke) pivoting to this new reality. 

But after 2 years of choosing words and thinking about where I was, where we were, and where we were all going ... it started to feel heavy as well. My #OneWordx12 project started to feel connected to the pandemic even though it didn't start out that way. I started to feel like I was always reflecting on the things we'd lost, the negatives that were part of our new routines and not on the joy that still exists in our world. The joy that still exists in schools and the school library. 

The word "normal" is such a weird word. It barely describes anything if you really think about it. One person's normal almost never matches another person's normal. There is no central normal that fits society. Normal is about as far from normal as we can get. It's a lazy word used to describe the past that wasn't ever normal but maintained a certain comfort level for a small percentage of people. 

Normal is definitely a colonialist construct. 

Matthew R. Morris wrote a thought provoking blog post about being "Back to Normal. Sort of." and I found myself re-reading it and being drawn into the ideas from it a number of times throughout November and December. Being back at school feels almost normal but not. The library is open and students are getting books but they can only come in whole class groups, every other week which is not normal. They are so happy to be in the space choosing books and tinkering with small stations but I am constantly reminding students to pull up their masks and to maintain distance which is not normal. Some of the kids ask about whether the library is safe, is it clean, is it okay to be in there since they weren't allowed last year... which is not normal and devastatingly sad. 

And always on the back of my mind is the question of whether the "normal" of the library was ever good enough to begin with? Were all students able to access the library in a way that supported them and their learning needs? Was free flow an equitable model when not all educators supported and allowed students to come to the space? How might the return to free flow book exchange look different after COVID in order to create a more equitable space for all learners? 

You could say that my word for November and December was normal. Or the reflection on the word normal. What might normal mean? Do we even want to return to normal? Is normal a word that we even want to use in relation to the school library? 

I will not be continuing my #OneWordx12 for 2022. 

I guess you could say I'll be returning to the "normal" of choosing just one word for year... or I won't. I haven't really decided. I like the idea of choosing a word for myself personally but can't wrap my head around how it might encompass all that is my professional life as a teacher-librarian. I'd like to write more about the everyday happenings in the library, about the books I'm reading, the resources I'm curating, the thought processes that goes into all of it. I'd like to blog more. I'd like to set a goal to blog more and stick to it. I'd like to find a way to be intentional in my blogging and reflecting. The #OneWordx12 did help with that... how might I adapt the process of choosing one word each month to maintain my intentions as I reflect on the school library and education? 

Today is the last day of 2021 and while the new year typically brings thoughts of renewal and hope it seems very muted and far from hopeful this year. Omicron has become a normal word in our vocabulary. We still use pivot and unprecedented (puke) way too often. The education system (especially here in Ontario) feels like a raging dumpster fire most days. But there are the moments and small pockets of joy. And without falling into the dangers of toxic positivity I do think we need to share and revel in those moments... and the reflection they should prompt. How might we recreate these small moments for others? What actions might help to spread joy? How can we learn to live within our current reality without constantly obsessing over it? 

Maybe that's where the intentional nature of blogging will come from- normal/not normal and pockets of joy? Perhaps two posts each month?

Time will tell.