I love the scene in Shrek where Shrek explains to Donkey that, “Ogres are like onions, they have layers”. It’s a great analogy that plays upon itself since Donkey interjects guesses as to what this means, adding unnecessary layers to the conversation. Often, technology adds layers of complication by the nature of adding something new […]
Tag: students
Ladders, leaders, students and storytellers
I had to move to China to see the ‘ladder walk’. A man, standing on an ‘A’ frame ladder, painting a ceiling of an outdoor entrance cover had finished the section he was working on. Instead of stepping down to move the ladder, he stepped up and put one foot over to the other side […]
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Parents as partners
I firmly believe that “It takes a community to raise a child” and so without cooperation and communication between a school and their parent community, ‘we’ cannot fully support our children and their learning. That said, I often wonder about how we can more meaningfully engage parents in a way that they want to be […]
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Teachers as Lead Learners
One of my favourite sayings these days is: ‘Teachers should be the lead learners in the classroom.’ I think that if a teacher goes into a class believing first and foremost that they are ‘model learners’ and that they will learn with their students, then that teacher will create a meaningful and engaging learning environment […]
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Holiday-Christmas-Concert
Happy Holidays to everyone! On Thursday our school held our Holiday Concert. Below I’ve highlighted 2 of the performance videos. We called it our Holiday Concert, but in hindsight it was just a Christmas Concert. It wasn’t intentional, it was unintentional bias, but all of the songs performed were either Christmas songs, or songs that […]
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Shifting Education
Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment. To the unshifted: Shift or retire… regardless of your age and number of years experience. We have the means to teach differently, now! It doesn’t start tomorrow, it starts today. Pick one thing you don’t like […]
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Facebook Revisited
A 2nd year teacher that I keep in touch with sent me an email yesterday: “Hey Dave! How do you feel about adding students as friends on Facebook? I use my Facebook mainly as a communication tool. I don’t put anything up that I wouldn’t want people to see. In the evening, my students have […]
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Students Today
This was written on a scrap piece of paper while doing some ‘big thinking’ with Heidi Hass Gable. I’m sharing it exactly as it was written, but adding links to some of my other posts to liven it up a bit… Feedback, as always, is appreciated. – – – – – Students Today -> relate […]
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Students, Information and Schools
A couple days ago Heidi Hass Gable shared this with me: This is from her 10 year old daughter who said, “Mom, I have mostly the same homework as yesterday, so I just circled it, wrote copy, then wrote paste on today’s page.” Last week my 9 year old asked me a question. My answer […]
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Digital Teachers
Sonya Woloshen is a new teacher this year. She is a job-sharing French Immersion teacher at our school 2 days a week, and at another Middle School the other 3 days. Sonya did a short pro-d session this afternoon with some of our teachers. Her session title: “I took the red pill”. She ran through […]
