GROUP WORK!!!-new thoughts

Hello Gmates!

Happy to see you again after the holidays, but I must admit that my brain is done with Brock for now. It seems that there is a lot of repetition at this point and I guess that also is a part of life. You don't always do what you want.

On the other note, I am learning about other stuff like my values and what I stand for. The other day I was reminded what is important to me and how easy it is to forget your values, especially when there is a lot of pressure to succeed. I refuse to a part of "the success plan" at the cost of hurting people. Teaching is a humanistic profession and not a corporate one. That is why I left that world-to come to a better place where other values are more important.

What does success mean? - I keep on asking myself....Well, really nothing if I am the only one to succeed. I want everybody to do well and be happy with their choices, I want everybody to contribute and feel like a part of the whole.

That's that for now!

Ciao Gmates for NOW!

With love,
Ana

HAVING FUN!

Hello classmates:

My last week at Bristol is approaching and I am not looking forward to next Friday when I get to say GOODBYE to my Bristolians. I strongly believe that Teacher’s College should be a yearlong practicum with only few days per week at the University. Sorry dear Professors, I still like you and I still like the world of ACADEMIA, but…..

It’s Sunday evening and I figured as I am chatting with my roommate that I could multi task and share my experiences at Bristol with you. Wow, what an amazing three weeks of my life. I wish I could stay at Bristol for a bit longer. Something happened last week and I do not know exactly what. It’s just that I felt that kids were really starting to trust me and come to me with their Miss K, Miss K, Miss K and never ending Miss K. Although in grade eight, they are SO curious about learning about me, what I like and what I don’t like, and they even got me to go tobogganing with them the first day it snowed. I know, I know, I could be possibly jeopardizing my career if I am looking through the legal lens – but the kids had so much fun, we had a talk about safety and before I knew it I was going down the hill. It was cool for Ss to see that Ms K is not all about math and science and that she loves being outside, too. Only week before I was out playing basketball with the girls and they loved it that much that they kept on asking me to go out and play some more with them. Unfortunately, sometimes I had to turn them down just to have my DAY BOOK up to date.

Ugghhh, the DAY BOOK I would use my laptop for keeping a DAY BOOK anyways as I carry it with me all the time. With no offense, when I look at my DAY BOOK I cannot but think of all the wasted paper that is in there….So yes, I am pro-technology and I do NOT like carrying that heavy monster around. Sometimes, going in and out of school I feel like a need a camel to help me on my daily journeys.

Thank you Camille for some useful tips on how to reduce the weight. It amazing how one get the tips that one would never think of their own.

Well, that is from Ana for today. I hope you are all doing well and it’s time for me to go and chill out some more before I get back to school tomorrow.

Love,

Ana K.

SOMETIMES TO LEARN MEANS TO UNLEARN

HA! What a statement. But I think it is true, as we all carry some untruths with ourselves.
To get rid of them means to unlearn, which is much harder then just learning new stuff. How do we do it? Turn our brains upside down and try to empty them? I don't know, but I do know that the first step is to become aware of your untruths. Sometimes even that is quite a leap.
Any thoughts?

Ana K.
(aka MayaTheBee)

SOCIAL ISSUES DAY

I am really grateful for the opportunity to attend the Social Issues Day Workshop at Brock on Wednesday. These workshops are great for raising awareness; they make you think and re-examine your set of values and beliefs; they make you question the speaker’s statements and overall effectiveness of workshops. I attended workshops on poverty, grieving children and global education.

The first speaker Kalpana Makan talked about poverty. She was a powerful speaker who successfully integrated her experiences into her words. She is a well traveled Canadian/South African woman, whose personal history was tied to poverty. The lesson learned: Never make assumptions about your students. If a student is habitually late for example, simply ask the student what is going on. Sometimes students might live in poverty, single parent homes and their responsibilities might include caring for other siblings. When it comes to parents who live in poverty, do not assume they do not care about their children. Every parent cares about their child. As a teacher, it is our duty to observe our students, learn more about them and try to help them learn. The sad reality is that one is six children in Canada live in poverty which affects many aspects of their lives. One of them is their academic performance. As educators we need to provide these students with care and encouragement to succeed in school as their other financially better off peers.

The second workshop was about grieving and grieving children. To be effective when helping grieving students, first we need to come to terms with our own grief. That means some work on our part. We need to be aware of issues that surround death and our own discomfort as well. We can show care and understanding to students who are grieving without giving advice and compulsively trying to make things better. We can show our understanding by simply listening and being with students. If we are unable to help them, we could possibly refer them to someone who can. Another interesting thing I learned is that grieving doesn’t have to be a linear process. We can grieve at different stages of our lives in different ways. Therefore, the child could grieve over losing their mother when they are 10, 14, 17, as their understanding of the world changes. This workshop helped me better understand my own grief. I think I learned about some valuable tips when it comes to dealing with grief. However, I must admit that when I left the workshop, I could feel many knots throughout my body. The speaker would most likely comment that those are residues of my “un-tackled” emotions which require work.

If we are to follow the natural progression or digression of things, from excellent, to good, to poor, then I would have to say that I was rather disappointed with the last workshop on global education. I might have expected fireworks here, but what I ended up listening to was not about constructive “how” to better the global community, but to an academic deconstruction of the term “helping”. I might be too critical, but that workshop seemed to be an intellectual arena of young minds hungry for shredding everything to pieces. I tend to stay away from that kind of “activism”. Thank you, but no thank you! What I learned from this one: You have to live your words if you want to make them powerful! Otherwise, they are nothing more than voiced textbook, indoctrinated, empty words.

Overall note: I really enjoyed listening to Kalpana. Oh yes, think twice before wearing names brands to school. Think of the message you are sending to your students.

Cheers!

Groups Work Thoughts

What are your thoughts on group work? What are we being marked on when we are submitting a group project? Are all voices represented in that group project? When working in groups, are we learning skills that we are not being evaluated on? Why are we being marked as a group? I welcome all your answers as I am curious to find out about what you have to say.
Thank you!

Let's Share Our Knowledge

I would like to share what took place last Wednesday at Bristol. The day was going as usual. The two students who were going to run for school presidents were in my associate teacher's class. They had their speeches written and after talking we decided to practice them together. I was going to listen to them and give them constructive tips. It went well and they told me that some of my suggestions were a bit corny. I forgot how important it is to sound cool at this age. After wrapping up, I pulled out my music notes to review as my test was coming up the next day (it was during the break time). They were quite curious and I ended up sharing with them how music is not my strength and that I am nervous about upcoming test. The boy offered to help me. And voila, it happened. An exchange of knowledge, or if you want scaffolding took place. Right there and then! Not in an usual T->S kind of way, but the other way around. To make that happen, ego has to go down and what comes before the ego is LOVE of LEARNING. The entire experience felt great and it was the highlight of my day. THANK YOU N&W!

Ana's Mo-Dialogue

I have been thinking, THINKING, and thinking about my last post for some time now. I tried my best to get rid of it, but to no avail it keeps on coming back. That tells me something, and I do not know what exactly. As a matter of fact I know I am learning a lot at Brock and even if I do not have time to make ALL connections now they will come in due time. Rome was not built in one day and patience is a virtue. Brock is providing me with solid foundations for my Rome. Lesson: Keep on building Rome day by day, take as much as you can, digest as much as you can and do it patiently. Everything else will fall into place. In due time.