Yesterday was Pink Shirt Day. The initiative started in 2007 in Nova Scotia when, “David Shepherd, Travis Price and their teenage friends organized a high-school protest to wear pink in sympathy with a Grade 9 boy who was being bullied [for wearing a pink shirt]…[They] took a stand against bullying when they protested against the […]
Category: parenting
What Did You Learn at School Today – Parent Presentation
Here is the ‘Parent’ version of my #RSCON presentation: Shifting Learning – What Did You Learn at School Today? I did this presentation just a couple days before the Reform Symposium and it really is similar… Shorter, and with questions at the end geared more to parents than teachers, but essentially the same presentation. You […]
Shifting Learning – Presentation for RSCON4
Shifting Learning – What Did You Learn At School Today? We hear a lot these days about project based learning, inquiry based learning, etc… What does that mean? What does it look like when schools shift away from “drill and kill” learning towards big ideas, questions, and “no right answer” kind of learning? And what […]
Lessons on living life
Two days ago Zach Sobiech died. He was 18. It was expected. I just sat with my wife and oldest child watching this 22 minute video. It says more about how to live your life than anything else that I’ve seen. Watch it now. Here is Zach’s full song “Clouds“. Here is the celebrity lip […]
Data Driven Decisions in BC
With special thanks to Assistant Deputy Minister Paige MacFarlane, I had an opportunity to spend an afternoon a few weeks ago in a working session on Open Government. Vision ~ The Ministry of Education (MEd) will adopt an approach that demonstrates the Open Government principles of Transparency, Collaboration and Participation that supports the ministry’s core […]
Care or Fear
There are no possible reasons to comprehend why an ‘Idiot with a gun in Newtown’* would go into a school and take lives. None. In a comment on Angela Maiers post, There Is No Lesson Plan For Tragedy – Teachers YOU Know What To Do, I said, I’ve seen a number of blog posts where […]
Open Educator Manifesto
[Version I: Just the Manifesto] My Open Educator Manifesto ‘We’ educate future citizens of the world Teaching is my professional practice I Share by default I am Open, Transparent, Collaborative, and Social My students own their own: (Learning) • learning process • learning environment • learning products • learning assessment My students belong to learning […]
“This is China” – Community
In my not-so-daily ‘Daily-Ink’ blog, I have a little series that I call ‘T.I.C.’ or “This is China“… A term our staff uses to describe interesting, wonderful, frustrating, and unique events that come with living as an ex-pat in a world very different than the one we come from. This morning I posted this photo […]
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 […]