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Another Sleepless Night with Twins

1/16/2021

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My day began at 5 a.m., when I was startled awake by someone yelling out, “Hello, everybody!” from the other bedroom.

It was dark. I was tired and confused. Although I lay awake listening for a while and all seemed quiet, I could not really get back to sleep.

I am a mother of twins.

One might think, from reading the title and the first few paragraphs of this blog post, that my twins are babies. In fact, my babies are 16 years old! Big babies! But, as any parent — and especially a parent of multiples — will tell you, sleep becomes permanently elusive.

When my big babies were younger, I often lamented the lack of sleep, and complained to parents of older children that I was looking forward to the day when the kids would sleep through the night so that I could, too.

I was assured wryly that that day would never come.

“When they’re teenagers”, the parents of older children explained, “you stay up all night worrying about whether they are going to make it home alive!”
Picture of teenage twins standing in front of a tracker with Santa riding on it
Given the timing of the pandemic, coupled with the fact that my twins are kind of nerds, my own two’s social lives have not wreaked that kind of havoc on my sleep schedule... though they do enjoy going out for late night walks together to the nearby playground, and I confess I occasionally worry about what sorts of local weirdos they might run into while swinging away in the dark.

But they’re typically home by midnight, sober and safe and chattering away about whether some meme is actually funny, or which video game is better, or other topic of epic importance. A greater challenge is the infighting about bedtime that happens when both are at home and in disagreement about when to start winding down and eventually turn out the light (four of us live in a small apartment, so separate sleeping arrangements are nearly impossible). The iron-clad bedtime routine we had from early childhood began to unravel rather rapidly when the adolescent hormones kicked in and circadian rhythms began marching to the beat of their own drummer!

There have been other interesting night adventures resulting in sleep interruptions over the years...
Picturebook of twins in the snow with a gorilla statue at the Toronto zoo
I recall with some disdain the night a 6-year-old Twin B — who slept in the top bunk at the time — woke up around 2 a.m. and was sick all over Twin A who lay sleeping peacefully in the perpendicular bunk below. The odd night incontinence episode also continued a few years beyond toddlerhood, and one time Twin A had to be rushed to the hospital just before midnight due to a suspected and unexpected seizure. It seemed that night wakings between the ages of about 4 and 10 always resulted in a tremendous amount of middle-of-the-night laundry.

Although things have calmed down somewhat in recent years, and my insomnia has shifted its blame from parenting multiples to more to generalized life anxiety, there continue to be sleep interruptions like gurgling humidifiers, broken fans, and the slamming of doors by those who insist on keeping them closed rather than open at night, but who refuse to close said doors gently and silently when they go to the washroom 17 more times before they finally fall asleep for the night.

And then there is the very occasional anomaly like this morning’s early arousal...

Not so long after the awakening, Twin B stumbled into my bed to snuggle, as we still occasionally do on a family weekend morning. He was soon joined by his brother, the perpetrator. We wanted to know to whom the latter had been calling out so early on a Saturday morning.

“I had a bad dream”, Twin A explained.

”But why so loud?” We wondered. The response, matter of factly: “There were bad guys; I had to take charge of the room.”


Sleepless nights or not, I’m glad I have these snuggly, confident teenagers around to protect me!
Picture of queer family with two moms and teenage twins
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Traveling in the time of covid

9/20/2020

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This past week, my partner, our boys, our elderly neighbour and I flew from Toronto to Edmonton. We had decided to surprise my partner for her birthday with a visit to the Columbia Ice Field. It was the first time we’d travelled together as a family since the ‘Rona, and the our first time on an airplane since the pandemic started.

As one might imagine, Pearson — normally crowded like any large, urban airport — was a ghost-town. Where lineups typically prevailed, a few masked travellers and their minimalist luggage moved smoothly and quickly through check-in and security.

For my partner - a commercial pilot furloughed since her last flight on March 13 - it was a particularly haunting experience.

In an attempt to both share my thinking about why we chose to embark on this “non-essential” trip and capture our impressions of the experience, I’ve decided to blog about it. I’ll start with the latter, and focus on the airport.

Out in Public

I found one of the strangest things about the whole airport adventure not so much to be the lack of people, but rather, the mask wearing.
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Mask on and hazy skies in Alberta, on acct of the smoke from the fires raging on the US west coast.
As someone lucky enough to have kept my job during this pandemic, I’ve been working full time. From home. This has meant that the meetings I attend virtually are with people who look — for the most part — as they did prior to the onset of the shut-down, i.e. they aren’t wearing masks. And with few exceptions, I largely do not leave home, other than for walks outside once a day and on weekends. My currently unemployed partner gets the groceries, drives the kids, and runs general errands. So I have not really been exposed to indoor public spaces and the mask-wearing that is now mandatory.

It’s an eerie feeling to see everyone, EVERYONE, masked. Only months ago online arguments were raging, about the appropriateness of Muslim women covering their faces... now I overhear the flight attendant telling person after person to please pull their mask up over their nose. (Yup, six months in, and people still haven’t figured out how to wear the darned things properly!!)

I’m also struck by how many people choose disposable masks. Almost without thinking, I set about ordering a supply of multi-layer cloth masks (some with insert for an additional filter) for our family shortly after the pandemic started. I’m curious about people’s choices.

Mask Comfort

Having the luxury of working from home, I also haven’t had to wear my mask for any length of time. Beyond a ten minute stretch here and there for various reasons, I have been living largely mask-free since the onset of the pandemic. Traveling at this time changed that.

This is the first time I’ve worn a mask for five hours, and I’ve had enough! I don’t know how essential workers are doing it, and I feel for my teacher colleagues who are still in the classroom/physical schools. My ears are hurting. My nose is itchy. Everything is sweaty. Ugh!

The Choice to Travel

So now, on to the non-essential travel choice. First of all, I realize how privileged I am financially to even be able to make the decision to travel. This blog post isn’t about that, but I do want to recognize that reality. Lots of people are struggling to pay the rent right now, and my biggest complaint is that I have to stay inside Canada for my 4-day vacation. I get it.

That said, we chose to travel for a few different reasons, which I will do my best to describe below. One thing I am recognizing about this pandemic is that people feel very strongly about their perspectives in relation to “managing” the virus. From masks to travel to school re-openings, everyone has an idea of how things should go, and the fact that we can control only ourselves and not society at large is creating a lot of anxiety for a lot of people. Moreover, the fear this anxiety creates can make it difficult for some people to think logically.

Safe Air Travel

Having a commercial pilot in the family, and belonging to a national organization that counts many professionals in the aviation industry among its members, we probably have a greater awareness of the travel-related matters than the average household. From cabin air quality to mandatory sanitation measures, we have more “inside scoop” than most folks. Given this knowledge, we believe that the risks of air travel are low.
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Edmonton has one of the most unique ATC towers I‘ve seen!
Transmission rates in airplanes are nil-low. A dig into reports of folks who contracted COVID-19 on aircraft reveal they likely caught the virus prior to getting on the plane. Even before Corona, the air on planes was among the cleanest. It’s circulated through the cabin every 4 minutes. You’re more likely to get sick on a plane from sitting too long, stressing too much, and not getting enough sleep when you travel and your routine is thrown off. And now, with increased measures like mandatory mask wearing, no open drinks in cups or food being served, and personal cleansing wipes handed out to each passenger to wipe down their area upon embarking, commercial airplanes are cleaner and more germ free than they’ve ever been.

The airport is also clean, with surfaces being sanitized constantly. Plus... wash your hands, people!

Weighing the Benefits

With one of us unemployed as a direct result of the pandemic, something my partner and I talk about a lot is the unintended side effects of extended lockdowns and social distancing. It’s no secret that mental health issues are at an all-time high, and that violence (including domestic violence) is not far behind.

Other impacts include a decrease in organ transplant and other life-saving surgeries and an increase of people dying of heart attacks at home because they’re afraid to leave the house and go to the hospital. It‘s not a small number.

The economic impact of the pandemic on those already struggling socio-economically has been devastating. While people celebrate “essential service providers” like grocery store cashiers and those who fulfill skyrocketing Amazon orders, the truth is that those people still earn minimum wage or close to it. Those lucky enough not to have been laid off, that is. Others are working longer hours than ever, and that, too, is taking its toll. For me at work the pace has been relentless. Most days are filled with back-to-back meetings and tasks with impossible deadlines. The evenings and weekends I’ve been working on top of the 8-ish hours my typical pre-Covid days comprised remind me of my days as a classroom teacher. I’m tired!
After months of increased struggle, be it financial, emotional or physical health, or other struggles related to the virus, people NEED a break!

​We believe that a family trip to another province, to visit an outdoor natural wonder not seen before, will have many benefits personally and — by extension — to those around us at work, school, etc. And so, since we’re in a position to be able to afford a few days away together, we did it.


Supporting the Travel Industry

On the earlier topic of job loss, let’s talk about the travel industry (and in particular, the aviation industry). While Jeff Bezos and his capitalist cronies continue to line their pockets with the spoils of people‘s retail therapy and other widespread swindles, small businesses everywhere are shuttering at an alarming rate. And other industries — and the people who work(ed) in them — are suffering, too.

All over the world and particularly in places like Canada, the aviation industry has basically come to a standstill. Pilots, flight attendants, flight engineers, ramp attendants, caterers, cleaners, office staff and huge numbers of related folks have either lost their jobs or been furloughed. Initially, the hope was that things would open up again in a month or two. As work restart deadlines continue to be pushed back and support cheques draw to a close, the struggle is becoming more real for many, including my partner, a first officer with a regional airline that stopped flying in March.
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At first, travel was basically forbidden while governments tried to understand what they were dealing with, and develop policies in response. The last pandemic occurred in the 60s (google Hong Kong flu), when air travel was not as ubiquitous as it has become in the last decade or so... and so governments are in new territory here. Trying to be “safe” (and avoid litigation), they err on the side of caution, insisting on mandatory 2-week self isolation for all who travel outside the country, even to other countries with low rates of transmission. Some (e.g. the Atlantic bubble) even impose these barriers on those traveling inside the country! This deters people from flying anywhere, and the industry continues to suffer, despite evidence of its safety.

In Canada, the situation is particularly dire: While airlines in other G8 Nations receive substantial subsidies to stay afloat, Canadian airlines have largely been left to figure it out on their own and hope for the best. I read somewhere recently that Air Canada (which has attempted to keep some of its crew and other staff) burned through 1.9 million a day from April - June. Smaller airlines don‘t stand a chance!

Other than 3 weeks on PEI this summer (the first two of which were spent in provincially imposed mandatory self isolation while I teleworked) that we drove to and spent at the property we own there, this Alberta trip was our first out of province excursion, our first time staying on commercial property and our first time traveling by air since the pandemic started. We are eager to support our sisters and brothers in the industry, and help begin to rebuild a strong travel network.
Traveling Safely

Earlier I wrote about weighing the risks. I believe that the benefits of travel are significant. And with appropriate precautions, risks can be effectively mitigated. Frequent hand-washing and keeping a healthy physical distance from those outside one’s bubble are generally good rules. At this time, they become even more important.

The requirement to wear a mask on board planes, and inside restaurants and other public places, may further decrease the risk of spreading the virus.

Given the benefits of travel for those who enjoy doing so, I hope I have encouraged at least some of you to consider getting back into it. Our family’s exploration of the natural outdoor beauty of Banff, Jasper and the Columbia Icefields was a welcome reprieve after months of restricted freedom. And for those who are still uncomfortable with travel, I hope you’ll agree that we can have differing comfort levels with this and still coexist on this planet!
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Bitmoji Classrooms : as overwhelming and time-consuming as regular classrooms!

8/3/2020

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I tried to make a Bitmoji classroom this weekend.  I’ve been intrigued by the incredible creativity of many educators in response to the pandemic.  Not only did they step up to try and stay connected with students this past spring, but they did their best to keep learning germane and make their “suddenly virtual” classroom engaging for students, many of whom were themselves struggling with new and difficult realities at home.
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I was particularly intrigued by the way in which collective knowledge building happened, as thousands of educators across the province, country and globe jumped online and collaborated with renewed vigour. Social media was abuzz with the sharing and answering of questions day and night, as teachers and other education professionals highlighted how they were solving some of the problems the pandemic had thrust upon them and the students they supported. 

Through this largely grass roots aspect of the pandemic response movement, I began to see more and more Bitmoji classrooms pop into my stream, and I knew that was something I’d jump right into, were I still a classroom teacher.  I easily dismissed the naysayers who soon took to twitter to denounce Bitmoji classrooms (their argument is that teachers should be spending more time on concrete lesson planning, and less time on making “pretty pictures” for their online learning space).
 Music classroom template available on TPT,  Creation by @thecodinglabteacher, French classroom by Toronto Teacher Mom

​I know ALL about classroom set up.  This is the season when, for nearly two decades, I annually spent way too much money at Staples, Scholar’s Choice and the Dollar Store, and way too many hours in a hot, sweaty classroom, making sense of the jumble of desks, chairs and other furniture left piled on one side of the room, putting up integer lines, reference posters and bulletin board borders, setting up a cozy and inviting reading corner (hello, IKEA pillows and stuffies!)... Hell, I even got written up for it once, when a full colour photo of me standing on a desk, painting one of my bulletin boards, was published in a teacher mag and a reader got upset about the health and safety ramifications of not using a stepladder. (As an aside, have y’all SEEN the rickety old stepladders at some of these schools?  Give me a good, solid table to stand on any day!!!)

But I digress.

The point is, I understand how for many teachers, a beautiful learning space has always been a critical first step before launching into serious “first week of school” and cross curricular planning.  I remember how the rubber plant really could not wait, and yes, I really did need to have all those colour coded bins before I could even think about planning for an implementing any strategies from the three guided and independent reading books I had read earlier in the summer!!!  Because before I can do my best thinking around culturally responsive pedagogy, integrated instruction, assessment and learning, I need to know that where I spend the vast majority of my day is a visually energizing and well organized space.

I imagine that a virtual teaching and learning environment is no different.  And so, when the Bitmoji classrooms hit the Twittersphere and Instafeed, I was right there, coveting people’s colourful, creative and engaging digital classrooms!
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I decided that as an experiment, and in solidarity with the many teachers who were getting ready to “return to school” in a year where the meaning of that statement was not yet entirely clear in all jurisdictions, I would imagine what my Bitmoji classroom might look like, and then build a mock up.

When I left the classroom to work at the ministry of education a few years ago, I had just been getting started with things like virtual classrooms (to supplement my in-person space and support myself and any students with frequent absences).  Collaborative online docs and digital assessment tracking were new to me, and I was frequently a resistant adopter. I was in some ways ahead of my time with the cross-board and international partnerships I forged with other educators while colleagues still dusted off the same binder of laminated lesson plans from a decade ago, but compared to the many who had already been experimenting with this stuff for years, I was (and still am) in many ways a Luddite.

So I had to do a little research.
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I found lots of amazing websites explaining what to do and how to do it... if you know what some of the basic vocabulary means, and if you already have an existing Google classroom (due to my non-classroom-teacher status, I don’t).

A few that bedazzled me ones include:
  • Hello Teacher Lady’s blog post on how to put together your Bitmoji classroom
  • Glitter Meets Glue’s post with 15 amazing ideas
  • Erin Integration’s amazing blog with this post on Bitmoji Classroom Scenes
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BTW, is it me, or are teachers getting younger and smarter?  I remember when I first started my original website with a web savvy friend of mine at www.verateschow.com and my Grade 7s all thought I was famous, haha!  Even when I figured out how to build a weebly site on my own and moved here to VeraTeschow.ca I was one of only a few teachers I knew who was online, activity sharing the teaching and learning journey.  Suddenly I’m old and surrounded by brilliant, tech-savvy educators who regularly — in under and hour — throw together a dazzling blog post that would take me 3 days to assemble! I’m kind of seriously impressed, people!!

​Undeterred, I continued to search, and intended to build at least a base this weekend.  All I wanted, really, was a white board and/or chart stand that I could customize with a hypothetical welcome message and instruction, some sort of “woke” virtual poster with an inspirational message and a picture of a black, indigenous or queer woman on it (bonus for all three!!) which I would rotate monthly, and a bookcase with clickable books and math manipulatives on it.

Easy, right?
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Alas, I soon found myself knee deep in options and customizations, and completely overloaded with choices and challenges.

After several hours of failed attempts, I am left with no personalized Bitmoji classroom, and heaps more respect for the many educators across Ontario who are feeling the uncertainty and trepidation of heading back to school this September, and who are nevertheless somehow finding within themselves the strength and courage to prepare a warm and inviting welcome for the students they will teach this year.  We are not out of the woods yet with this pandemic and its aftermath, and these teachers on the frontlines are the ones we need to learn from and listen to.
The range of emotions I went through while trying to figure out the whole Bitmoji classroom thing.
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If I were teaching now...

5/6/2020

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I often reminisce about my classroom days... The neat thing about public education is that there are a tonne of jobs you can do over the span of a career, but there is no role quite so satisfying (yes, also exhausting) as that of classroom teacher. The engagement factor with students, the memories you build together as a special learning community as you co-develop the road map of your group’s learning journey together... even if you teach the same grade or subject two years in a row, every year is different as you refine your craft and respond to the unique learning opportunities of that year’s current events.

With the current health pandemic and resulting school closures, I have frequently fantasized about some of the lessons I would do with my Grade 6s... or 7s... or Grade 3/4 class... or Grade 8s.

Regardless of what I were teaching, I think this time would be one of tremendous bonding for me and my students, were I still a classroom teacher.

Here are three imaginary lessons of the many I have cooked up in my mind over the past 7 weeks. If you’re in a classroom, feel free to try them out, and let me know if I’ve still got it, or if three and a half years have made me lose touch!

1. Media Literacy Lesson Using Memes (Grades 6 and up)

If you and your students are anything like me, you’ve probably spent a good deal of time over the past two months surfing social media, and having a little chuckle of the ubiquitous COVID-related memes making the rounds. Maybe you’ve also noticed some emerging themes.

Why not use this time to draw your students’ attention to how we, as a society, use humour to cope with anxiety-inducing situations? A media literacy lesson on the surface, one could easily incorporate writing, math, oral language, social studies, art, and much more!
Here are some ideas:

  • Have students collect and share memes virtually. Use a class Padlet, slide deck, google doc, whatever, and invite students to contribute 2-3 memes each that they have noticed online.
  • Ask students to choose 10-12 memes from the class collection and sort them into 2-3 groups. What themes emerge? (Some I see most often are hair-related, food or body-image related, toilet-paper and travel)
  • Compare the themes students notice (could lead a synchronous virtual discussion using a video conferencing platform, or post the question as a discussion thread in your online class platform and invite students to contribute over the course of a few days)
  • As a class, sort ALL the memes into the categories students came up with (maybe the teacher demos this via video?)
  • Have students graph the the categories in two ways (bar graph and circle graph, for example) - which themes are most common?
  • Some thinking questions for students to reflect on in writing, or in a conversation with their peers online or with family at home: Why do you thinks these themes emerge most often? What do these themes tell us about what we value as a society? If we were to invite a class in a different grade or another school to collect 100 memes, do you think they would find similar themes in the memes they collect? Why or why not?
  • Using an online meme generator, students could make their own memes about this time. (Brainstorm ideas for what makes a “good” meme... also a great idea to talk about copyright.) Have students collectively post their memes on a class padlet or closed Instagram account - a good laugh for the whole class, and they can share them with their families, too.

2. Mini Math Lesson (Grade 3 and up)

I noticed the following signs recently while walking along the path outside my apartment building, and thought, “if I were a classroom teacher right now, I would SOOOOOO share this with the students and get them thinking about “COVID Math” they notice while out and about for a walk in the community, or online.
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According to this sign, how many feet long is a single goose? If you were going to measure the length of a grocery store line with 14 people in geese, how many geese long would that line be? (Assuming everyone is practising proper physical distancing.) In Florida, they are saying the appropriate distance is one alligator’s length. Why do you think they use alligator and Toronto uses geese? What do you think they might use (and how many of them) to visualize distance in New Zealand? Nigeria? Brazil? Why? What can you find in your home that you could use one of to measure the appropriate distance you should keep from others during this time? Two of? 5? 10?

And so on....

3. Jane’s Walk

Speaking of walks, this past weekend cities around the world celebrated Jane Jacobs’ vision of walkable urban living. Usually this consists of engaging in neighbourhood walks with a guide and a group, and discussing things like accessibility, architecture, nature and so on.

This year, Jane’s Walk organizers have had to get creative with how they encourage people to celebrate.

Here are some things I might encourage my students to do, were I still in a classroom:
  • Go for a neighbourhood walk with your family. What are some interesting buildings you notice? (Pay attention to rooflines, doorways, signs, building materials and colours, etc.)
  • Design a neighbourhood walk for a classmate to complete. Choose a theme (nature/trees, architecture, or something else you think your peer would like). Take 3-5 photos and post them, along with a description of the route, for your friend to complete.
  • Imagine a family member were coming from out of town. What would you want to show them? Choose 3-5 highlights, and plan an imaginary tour, stopping at each highlight to tell a little bit about the community history of that stop, or why it’s significant to you.
  • How accessible is your neighbourhood for different “walkers”? Imagine a family with a stroller, an elderly neighbour or family member, someone in a wheelchair, etc.
  • What highlights would you choose to include on a neighbourhood walk that is 1 km long? 3 km? 5 km? Map your route using google maps, and post it for classmates to complete (as a class, you could notice whether people chose similar highlights for their walks of different lengths)


Teacher Reader Homework:

Choose ONE of the suggestion learning activities above. What curricular areas does it connect to? Develop a learning goal, and work with students to co-construct success criteria to describe successful achievement of that goal. The criteria can be shared with families, too, so that everyone can take turns providing descriptive feedback to students as they complete the tasks.

Use this time of school closure, focus on assessment for learning rather than evaluation.
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A month at the ministry of Madness

4/18/2020

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I seldom write about work since leaving the classroom in 2016.

This is mostly because my experiences with policy documents that took 24 tedious versions before final approval are far less exciting (to me and my readers, I assume) than the awesome math lesson I planned, or the kid who said something thought-provoking in class, the hilarious note I got from a parent, or the inspired curriculum map a colleague and I made, that expertly connected 17 gazillion subject areas into one cohesive piece.

But also I don‘t really write about work anymore because I now work as a public servant, and some of my work is of a sensitive nature, and I have a professional obligation to keep my mouth shut. (Like actually. When you go to work for the public service, you have to sign an oath.)

But I had an experience the other day that reminded me of my former ignorant innocence, and how little many people actually understand about what we who are paid to serve society’s collective interests actually DO!


And so, I thought I would take a risk and attempt to write a politically neutral explanatory blog post. I know that as a classroom teacher, I would have appreciated such a thing, especially given the stress and anxiety of the current circumstances.


So, here’s hoping I do it justice.


What We Do

If you’re an educator in the field right now, you might be wondering what the heck government workers at the ministry of education have been doing for the past month. While you’re scrambling to reconnect with your students and families during this highly unusual time, what are we public servants doing to support you and those families, the public?

First of all, it‘s important to note that unlike school boards, the ministry of education does not take “march break”. So when the announcement came about a month ago that school would not resume for the first few weeks after March Break, we at the ministry knew that work was about to kick into high gear.


Systems and Structures

The public service is comprised largely of policy folks; our ministry is somewhat of an anomaly because we bring in “outsiders” (educators from the field), either through secondments or in full time positions, to inform the policy work in education. While this is generally a good thing (because it means that people who have actually worked in classrooms, schools and school boards can help to shape the policies that guides, governs and funds the work that happens in those classrooms, schools and boards), it also means that a great deal of time is spent on conversations seeking to clarify and understand.

More specifically, we former educators in the public service spend a great many hours explaining to decision makers (who most often are NOT former educators) the potential implications of certain decisions on actual children and families, based on our particular past experiences in the field.

And then we spend at least as many hours realising that our own experience does not necessarily represent all the students across Ontario‘s 72 school boards, and that learning about our colleagues’ past experiences (which differ widely depending on their former school boards) need to be taken into consideration when making decisions that will affect the whole province.

We also spend a great many hours learning about the significance and structure of the democratic process of decision making within the public service, which is supposed to be politically neutral (regardless of whether we personally chose the government elected by the people, we are called to serve the public interest by providing our best advice — grounded in research and based on our previous field experience — to that government, who then makes decisions which we are called to initiate the execution of, through the school boards, who then presumably operationalize it all through their staff at various levels, ultimately the classroom teacher).


Checks and Balances

The last point is particularly salient, because it requires a decision making process that is multi-layered. As an Education Officer, I am in many ways at the bottom of a process that involves as many as 5 or 6 levels of approvals, often across multiple branches (or departments), depending on what’s at stake. This means that a document I draft will often have 20 or more sets of eyes on it before it ever makes it up the food chain to someone with the authority to say „yes, let‘s do this“ or „no, we‘re going to move in a different direction“.

My policy colleagues, or OPS “lifers” as I lovingly refer to them, have varying degrees of skill and patience when it comes to schooling us former educators in the ins and out of said approvals process, with all its decision notes, information notes, to-through memos and other policy “stuff” that comprise the operational tools of a democratic process with built-in checks and balances for its public service.

For those of us who are former classroom teachers or principals, and who are — to be quite frank — used to closing our classroom or office doors and doing whatever the hell we want, this multi-layered approvals process seems horrifically inefficient, and it takes us a long time to realize that it is this very process that upholds the democracy within which we seek to ensure equity for all.

In other words, it‘s painful, but necessary.

I’ll be honest, for an action-oriented practitioner like me, during the current global health pandemic, this decision making process has been even more frustrating. At the same time, I have now been at this public service stuff long enough (over three years!) that I have finally learned the value of checks and balances to ensure informed decision making, and realize that, ironically, it is precisely during times like this that we need all these checks and balances, so that elected officials don‘t make highly erratic and fear-based decisions.


Democracy During COVID

For me, this past month in the public service has meant reviewing policies like Growing Success 2010 (our provincial assessment policy) and brainstorming with other former educators in the Ministry for hours and hours, to anticipate which pieces of the assessment puzzle might be affected by the current remote context, and beginning as quickly as possible to develop potential contingency plans that would preserve the integrity of the school year as best as possible while not penalizing students from Kindergarten to Grade 12, in consideration of all the various possible realities those students are currently living in, for circumstances over which they have little or no control.

While my former colleagues in school boards all had a week off for March break, and then — in many cases — two additional weeks without classroom duties, to obsess over the COVID crisis and worry about what comes next, we public servants at the Ministry of Education were busily convincing senior decision makers of the merits of one direction over another when it came to things like report cards, expected hours of engagement with students online or through other methods of communication once “school” started up again, how best to support students with special education needs, what to do about number of hours required for teacher candidates to graduate, considerations for mandatory graduation requirements like 40 hours community service, Ontario’s Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT), etc.... and a plethora of other puzzle pieces that continue to emerge almost as quickly as we can dream them up ourselves. (And all of this on top of our regular work, only some of which can realistically be set aside during this current situation.)

For a system that serves about two million students, it’s no small task.

I myself have also been involved in helping to coordinate (and in some cases deliver) some of the initial virtual support for our province’s 160 000 + teachers.

With the desire to engage partner input from Ontario’s 72 school boards and 11 school authorities and their federation representatives, the task of preparing and delivering these initial supports (webinars, teleconferences, website with resource links, etc.) within the context of a democratic public service is almost unfathomable.

Things that typically require 18 months or more to operationalize have been set in motion within a three-week turnaround.

In order to accomplish such an impossible timeline, many of us have been working 12-14 hour days and many weekends for the past month.
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A few of my colleagues and I meeting by video conference to plan a series of the webinars being offered for for teachers.
For me, these 14-hour days and weekends are taking place in a 700 square foot apartment that I share with a newly unemployed partner (like pretty much all pilots in the world, my partner has been laid off during this time) and two teenage boys.

I share this information not to complain, but to provide context. The work I’ve been involved in over the past month has been engaging, exciting, stressful, exhilarating, fulfilling and exhausting. As I joked with my partner recently, I haven’t worked this hard since I was a classroom teacher!!! (Don‘t get me wrong - public servants work hard, but in my experience, the pace and intensity is typically — though not always — lighter than in a school.)

But the context is important, because when I was in a classroom, I know I would have assumed that we were the only ones bearing the brunt of this crisis when it came to supporting students. I know back then, I would have thought that the ministry was doing little or nothing to support us.

I met my former self several times this week at some webinars we ran for educators: Both in the ones I was co-facilitating, and in the ones I was attending to learn and support, we elected to keep the chat feature of our video tool open and active, to allow people to share and participate more fully. With attendance as high as over 400 in some sessions, this meant a steady stream of commentary, and a Q and A pod that took us nearly an extra hour to clear, as my team of four facilitators stayed on after the session to respond as best we could to questions that some of us didn’t yet have definitive answers for ourselves, or that had already been answered centrally, but somehow the information hadn’t yet trickled down to the classroom educator.

While much of the commentary was positive and the questions legitimate, we also faced a lot of misguided anger, including a comment from one tired teacher who wanted to know when the ministry was “finally going to do something”, and another who demanded within nine minutes of the webinar ending, to know why her question, which she’d asked three times, had not yet been answered. (This latter one during a webinar with over 400 people in it, and only four facilitators.)
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Despite my feeling personally attacked, my fragile ego’s pain no doubt compounded by a month long sleep deficit, I took a deep breath, and along with my colleagues, crafted gentle, positive, and hopefully informative responses as quickly as I could. I recognize that those questions and comments could easily have come from me in a former life!!

Hard Work All Around

Those of us who are former educators from the field know how hard teachers, school administrators and board personnel are working at this time.

You are being asked to perform miracles, often while managing your own stress and homelife drama during this time. And we see you performing them brilliantly! With small children on your lap, you are reaching out to your students and their families. While fighting for space and internet bandwidth with your spouses who are also working from home, you are crafting engaging activities using tools that you had never even heard about a week ago. While worrying about your own children‘s schooling, you are making sure that the education of your classes proceeds somehow.

If no one has told you lately, you are appreciated. If the kids and the parents can’t see it, or haven’t had the energy to tell you, let me tell you now: You are valuable, your work is important, and we know you are doing the best you can within whatever context you find yourself in.

But (yes, there is a but), please know that “the ministry” is also working hard to support you in the context within which we all find ourselves. For me, that context is within the mental-emotional oscillation between being grateful for my job and paycheque and pining for the loss of my partner’s, in a space that is smaller and shoddier than my ideal but bigger and with a nicer view than those of many others who are suffering.

And I haven’t slept more than 5 hours a night in over a month, because I wake up at 4 a.m. every day to fret and worry if I’m doing a good enough job.
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A beautiful disaster

3/20/2020

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I remember seeing an artistic tattoo, “beautiful disaster”, in stylized lettering, on someone’s arm a few years ago. If you looked at it one way, it seemed to read “beautiful”, and from the other perspective, it seemed to say “disaster”. I was mesmerized. How could something be both disastrous and beautiful?

And yet, here we are, in the midst of a global beautiful disaster. Around the world, people are both hoarding toilet paper and volunteering to shop for the elderly and otherwise vulnerable. People are both “stuck” at home under government- or self-imposed isolation, and taking glorious “social distancing” walks in large open areas, breathing in earth’s abundance like never before. Hospitals are inundated and overwhelmed, and some of the most smog-impacted places on earth are healing and clearing up due to the reduced CO2 emissions resulting from social distancing and the (temporary?) collapse of the airline industry.

If these are not examples of “beautiful disaster”, then I don’t know what is!

As an educator long interested in the possibilities of the internet and digital tools for collaborative, global learning, I personally am intrigued to see how those who have been saying, “we can’t” and “not yet” are now jumping to “we must immediately”!

While nervous for students and their anxious parents who are waiting to see what all of this means for “public education”, I’ve also been extraordinarily inspired by the many corporations and individual educators who are developing/co-developing and/or sharing for free some of the most creative resources I have seen in a long time.

The global implications of this beautiful disaster are profound, in education as anywhere else. Earlier this week I attended a webinar put on by an Ed Tech company, on the topic of “supporting remote learning”. The panel consisted of a principal, a Kindergarten teacher and a middle school tech teacher. In the chat pod, i counted over 150 participants, from at least 11 different countries. I found out about the session from an educator I follow on social media. I’ve never met her in person.

The big themes in that session, shared by the people on the ground, were threefold: First, a reminder that teaching is a highly personal profession. For all the systemic complaints some people may express, the truth is that Teachers usually have a lot of control over what they, personally, do with students and how they do it. Second, teaching well is about relationships. Relationship with students and their families, and relationships with one’s colleagues. If and as teaching moves to online, teachers will have to leverage new and existing tools to (re)establish and maintain strong relationships with the little (and big, in secondary) friends who often have spent more time with their teachers than their parents! Finally, differentiation. “Live where they are” said one of the educators on the panel, referring to the fact that — since the middle schoolers she taught “hung out” on Instagram — that was where she was posting her lessons. This women knew her clientele!

In our excitement to contribute, there will be a lot of “stuff” that continues to be created and shared. It will be a challenge for the average person, also dealing with the personal fallout of this pandemic (possible job losses, small abode with kids and other at home, lack of resources due to panic-buying, etc.) to critically select what’s worth pursuing, and what can be relegated to background “noise”. Now, more than ever, it will be important to consider the criteria by which we choose the things we expose our children to and share with our students. The choices we make in the coming days, weeks and months will set a precedent for whatever comes next. There is no “going back to normal”.

Like never before, we have an opportunity to work together to create something new, something more beautiful than disastrous.

Here’s hoping we get it right!
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Reconciliation: a 21C Settler‘s Perspective on Turtle Island

2/16/2020

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A friend sent some photos tonight, from the bridge that ties PEI to the rest of Canada. The Mikmaq there are standing with their Indigenous sisters and brothers in BC, as are so many indigenous groups and their Canadian allies, across Turtle island these days.
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It’s hard to know where to begin this blog post.  On the one hand, what can I possibly contribute to this story?  On the other hand, it’s important to me that others do not mistake my silence as playing accomplice to a system I have benefitted from in many ways, despite the parts of my identity that are subject to oppression within it.  Some people are saying „it’s not our business“, and yet, as a white, settler Canadian, I believe what’s happening right now is very much our business, and we have a unique opportunity to decide which side of history we will stand on. I feel empathy for those who are severely inconvenienced by the trains being canceled, but rage for white, able-bodied, cis-gender male politicians who demand that it is the protesters who should „check their privilege“, while they themselves continue to support a system that does not provide adequate living conditions for citizens from certain cultural groups, and are selective about which laws to enforce and who to shield from both laws and crimes.

And so, as a Canadian by birth, I want to blog, and I hope you will join me in my discomfort as I bumble my way through what can only be described as a difficult state of affairs in our country right now.

Over the past several weeks, I have been immersing myself in (un)learning.

Now that protests have shut down the railroads across Canada, mainstream media is finally reporting on a story that I‘d become aware of some months ago already, largely because of a promise I’d made to myself to diversify who I follow on social media.  As a result of this promise, I began to follow a white „settler“ who speaks out fiercely and courageously in favour of indigenous folks.  Through her Instagram acct, I happened upon more and more accts that were telling the story of what was unfolding in BC, on land that — as it turns out — is unceded and in fact by Canadian Law itself was never traded to Canada, and therefore technically still under Indigenous law: 22 000 square km of Wet‘suwet‘en territory is not covered by any treaty with the Canadian State, and therefore not really subject to colonial rule (or, as Trudeau likes to call it, rule of law).

Well, depending on who you ask.

To be honest, it‘s a big, complicated mess, one made more complicated by the fact that many Canadians my age are wrestling with the realization that we were taught a history growing up that not only included huge gaps, but also potentially downright untruths.  Incorrect facts.  Corporate lies designed to keep up the myth of the colonialist state of Canada, along with its system of oppression for anyone who might interfere with the machine‘s path forward. So for some of us, it‘s a long, messy road to understanding the various salient details and diverse perspectives that contribute to (or in some cases actively hide) „The Truth“!

As those of us who avail ourselves of the opportunity to unlearn those lies re-educate ourselves through the images and text freely available through an increasing variety of social media and other outlets, we are shocked and appalled at what is unfolding here in our diverse and „inclusive“ country.

We shouldn‘t be shocked, however.  Oppression, as I am learning, is not new in Canada.

While I have known bits and pieces of our „not like in the US“ sham of a history, as 2020 unfolds, I am learning more.  And the details are disturbing.

White people and other „settler“ Canadians: If you haven‘t already done so, I urge you to pick up a copy of Desmond Cole‘s „The Skin We’re In“.  It‘s a must read for any Canadian.  Affirming for Black and Indigenous Canadians, and an important wake up call for those of us who are not.
The challenge is what to do once you know.  Because see, if you do nothing, then you‘re implicated. 

So I‘ve been reaching out to the few indigenous folks I know.  (The photos above are from a passage about people of colour generally, and black people in particular.  But Cole draws lots of connections to the plight of Indigenous people in Canada, and spends a full chapter specifically on that topic.)

Dinner last night with a student pilot friend who is studying at a school located on reserve here in Ontario yielded a reminder that even today, post-secondary institutions of knowledge - if they are geared toward First Nations - may not enjoy the clean water that most of us take for granted when we turn on the tap at home.  Yes, in this day and age in a „first world country“, her school has to provide bottled drinking water, and the poor woman has to shower in toxic stew while she studies here for four years!!!

My general message of support to a friend on PEI, my beloved east coast island, yielded in return a text with photos of the blockade she‘s supporting at the bridge. Confederation Bridge.  Named for something that most Canadians would think of as a unifying symbol.  And yet, we spend millions on bridges and pipelines while indigenous women are disproportionally sexually assaulted, kidnapped and murdered, while many of Canada‘s indigenous population continue to be relegated to insufficient, out of the way reserves with no access to clean drinking water, with crumbling or no schools past elementary, while indigenous people continue to be disproportionately represented in data on unemployment, illiteracy and incarceration. How can we then consider ourselves a „unified“ nation?!

We righteously shake our fists at the injustices we read about around the world, and write cheques to support poor children across the globe, while turning a blind eye to the systemic injustice and careful brainwashing and bias-building our own tax dollars support right here at home!

While the mainstream media is beginning to report on the uprising that has been building now for some months, they are careful to include nice, clean photos of protests, rather than the blood on the snow and heavily armed RCMP with guns in peaceful protester‘s faces that are captured in the photos from people actually on the front lines.

While articles like this one offer a good primer for those still new to the topic, they - like my history classes in elementary school - include lots of gaps! I therefore urge my fellow settler Canadians to check out websites like  Unist‘ot‘en  and It’s Going Down, and follow accts like @gidimten_checkpoint, @decolonizemyself and @settle_in_settlers in Instagram to get a more fulsome picture of what’s actually happening.

I‘ve recently started reposting accts mentioned above to my IG stories, and I worry a little that my friends, family and colleagues might be a little annoyed by the abundance of activism and protest posts. Or perhaps at best, just swipe through.  But I am pleasantly surprised by the refreshing and authentic messages I‘ve been receiving over the past few days, like the one below:
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The amount of resistance that even the most activist social justice minded folks among us feel is not to be underestimated. Apart from the usual general apathy and unwillingness to give up our unearned privilege and inconvenience ourselves (and yes, I include myself in this!), there is the more altruistic grief, in a sense, of possibly losing the concept of Canada as this inclusive, diversity minded, hopeful social experiment, for those of us who consider ourselves pretty patriotic (again, me too - I sometimes cry when I hear a particularly moving rendition of our national anthem!)

When matriarchs burned the Canadian flag and declared reconciliation to be dead earlier this week, a piece of me died inside.  While many settler Canadians had not yet heard about it (it happened a day or two before the mainstream media picked up this story), those of us who had been following from afar already knew that we were entering a new reality, one which could not be navigated by simply rattling off the obligatory land recognition at the beginning of big, important meetings.

There is no going back.

Reconciliation as an official political policy may be dead, but I am hopeful that in this new age of instantaneous information sharing informed by an openness of some Canadians to a new (old!) way of being together, we can forge a new path forward.

Capital R Reconciliation may be dead, but reconciliation as a concept isn‘t. It‘s going to take a shit tonne of work and patience on all sides, especially as we bring along new supporters and gently but firmly leave behind those who refuse to be re-educated. But I am cautiously optimistic that if the Indigenous who continue to protect the important things on this land will also continue to teach those of us who want to be allies, and if we are willing to do the hard work, then there CAN be a beautiful new way ahead, together.

Who‘s in?
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Photo Credit: Eliza Starchild Knockwood, Confederation Bridge, PEI (Mi‘kmaq territory)
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How to do NYE when you’re old and boring

12/31/2019

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I must be getting old. Either that, or I’m suffering from low grade depression or something. When my partner invited me to join her on a layover in New York for New Year’s Eve 2019, all I could think about was how awesome it would be to instead get home from work, change into my jammies and lounge around on the couch.

If Seinfeld had the summer of George, I’m having the NYE of Vera... and so far, it’s awesome!

After a horrible week spent mostly in bed with fever and a resultant loss of appetite on account of having an awful cold/sinus infection, I found my tastebuds slowly regaining their passion this afternoon. Consequently, I elected to order in through Uber Eats, and tried out a new Indian restaurant.
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With my partner away at work and my kids away at a party, I had a whole quiet evening to myself. And after getting ripped off with Christmas, being sick and all, I was looking forward to some quality downtime with myself!

Unlike George’s summer, this evening did not disappoint: In addition to devouring my tasty Indian dinner, I reviewed a little math, studied some flight stuff, and started a new music app to learn to play blues chords on the piano.
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Afterwards, I spend some time prepping a handout for one of my Airbnb Experiences, “Learn German and Eat Potato Salad”, for which I have a booking tomorrow.

In an effort to add value but reduce paper, I’ve been creating and providing electronic “handouts” for some of my experiences, which I use during the experience itself. Last week I made a plane spotting “bingo card” for my “Discover the Secret World of Aviation” experience, and tonight I made a visual language reference for the “Kartoffelsalat” which we’ll be making and eating tomorrow.
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Since it’s new year’s, I’m all alone, and I don’t really drink, I decided to splurge on a bubble tea, delivered directly to my door through Uber Eats. What with the delivery charge, small order surcharge and tip, it was ridiculously expensive, but kind of fun in a naughty sort of way - not the type of thing I would normally do! But, I haven’t had a bubble tea in SO. LONG. And besides, I would have spent way more had I actually hopped on the plane with my partner to New York. So I thought, hey, why not?!

The poor delivery guy got lost of course, as do all folks who trust in Google to get them to our secret, off the beaten path hideout, with with a few custom directions from the convenience of my couch, I soon had my bubble tea in hand.
If I were really on my own, I’d probably wrap up the NYE of Vera shortly, walk the dog, and then head to bed. But being a responsible parent of independent, young teenagers who are attending their first “real” party (their words, not mine), I feel somewhat compelled to stay up and ensure they actually arrive home at the appointed hour. (My colleagues with older kids warned of this stage years ago, when Alex and Simon were babies screaming all the time and wouldn’t sleep, and I was complaining of being tired - they wisely shared that the tired part wouldn’t end when the kids got older, since I would then/now be awake worrying about whether they were okay, and whether they’d get home safely. I guess we’ve finally entered that stage!)

Also I want to talk to my honey when the clock strikes 12 and she calls me in a drunken stupor from her dinner out with the crew at the hotel restaurant in Newark.

So it’s off to the next item on agenda of the Boring Old Person’s Stay-at-Home Guide to NYE: A little Netflix and dog snuggling... still in my jammies!
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Good night, y’all, and in case I fall asleep on the couch before midnight, happy new year 2020!
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A Stopover in the Most Magical (and Safest?) Place on Earth

12/13/2019

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It was with mixed feelings that we booked our stay at Disneyland in Hong Kong this past month. It didn’t seem right, somehow, to be revelling in an amusement park while the city was struggling with the fallout of continuing protests.

The political situation had changed considerably in the week since we’d spent a night there on our way from Toronto to Phuket. Then we’d easily avoided the protests in and around Kowloon. Now schools were shut down, people had been hospitalized, and even the airport was on high security alert. The threat of increased violence permeated both the media and our imaginations as we considered our options for passing through this international hub on our way back home to Toronto.

We knew there was a Disneyland in Hong Kong, and that it was near the airport. And while we’d made a wide berth around it during our previous overnight a week earlier, now it was looking like actually possibly the safest and most convenient place to spend a night, given that we’d need to be at the airport again the next afternoon for our flight home (standby loads were looking good for the flight we had in mind, so we were pretty confident we’d get out).

Plus we’d read that there were all kinds of specials currently available, because of the significant decline in tourism to the area. Which also meant a basically deserted park. Which meant no giant crowds and long lines full of sheep. Which meant that at least some of the “issues” I had with places like Disneyland were no longer quite as significant. We also considered that for all its faults, Disneyland provides a huge number and diversity of jobs for the local economy. Supporting the resort at at time like this is probably important to the many people who work there and are wondering about their future job security.

So, we booked a room for one night, and threw in a character buffet breakfast and three tickets to the theme park. For the first time in all our lives, we were going to Disneyland!
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Fancy Ass Hotels and Miles of Service

There were three hotels to choose from, all fairly similar in price. One featured an outdoor maze and a pool with a water slide. We picked that one, and although we never did get to the water slide pool, we were not disappointed.

Apart from the beautiful view from our window and the incredibly comfortable beds (which were very much appreciated, given the 15-hour flight ahead of us the next day), the many whimsical touches such as Seven Dwarves toiletries and shampoo and conditioners caps adorned with Mickey Mouse ears instilled a childish delight, even in those of us already over the hill!
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From the moment a smiling service provider opens the lobby door for you, to the moment you enter the glittering breakfast buffet hall and are greeted by iconic characters and their smiling handlers, the place is loaded with customer-service oriented staff. (Granted, they were probably considerably less stressed with the thin crowds than they usually are; nevertheless, we were impressed.)
I couldn‘t believe how excited I felt to be greeted by Micky Mouse at breakfast! And Eyore was not far behind, making several visits to our table - really seemed to bond with Tats, Eyore did.

Each character had their own handler, and also a photographer who followed them around, taking pictures on professional cameras and scanning a card code that could be used throughout ones stay at the resort. This latter detail was intended to ease the pressure of recording the adventure, so that you could just feel free to enjoy said adventure. (This came at a price, of course, should one want to order actual prints later on, and we instead availed ourselves of the fact that the photographers also happily took photos of our little group on our own personal phones if requested. Still, it‘s a neat touch for those who want and can afford to just live in the moment for a day.)

A Perfect Day in Paradise

After breakfast and a meander through the hotel maze, we hopped aboard the free shuttle, and set off to the amusement park. We had about 6 hours before we had to head back to the airport for our flight home to Toronto, and we intended to make full use of every minute!
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Apart from the sheer excitement of it all (and my partner’s indulgence of that wild abandon), three things conspired to make my first (and probably only) Disneyland experience particularly enjoyable: The weather, the (lack of) crowds and the music.

At low twenties Celsius all day with a light breeze off the water, it was the perfect temperature in which to be outside enjoying this beautiful masterpiece. Moreover, without the usual throngs of people, we were able to not only hop on whatever ride we wanted with little to no wait time, but were also able to see the incredible set up of the park‘s architecture so clearly. It‘s truly a magnificent place, with attention to detail in pop culture whimsy, physical accessibility and natural beauty around every corner.
Everything is just so well thought out!

Perhaps my favourite part of the whole adventure, or what contributed significantly to the stress free experience, was the noticeable absence of loud, annoying pop music. Instead, a Fantasia-like soundtrack played throughout most areas of the park, with the vast majority of music being classical and/or without words.

For my wildly distractedly auditory mind, it was a relief of enormous proportions, and allowed me to feast my eyes of the many visual delights that surrounded us.
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Everything was just so fun! Plenty of friendly „cast members“ (customer service folks) are on hand at any given time, and most of them are quite fluent in English. There‘s also a whole thing with stickers, the staff at the hotel and at the park hand them out to anyone who wants them, and even we got caught up in the frenzy and started collecting them.


Even the candy floss is more fluffy in Disneyland, I swear!
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It’s not all consumerism and tchotchkes, though. I did some research when I got back home a few days later, and it turns out that Disney is in the midst of installing what will become the city‘s largest solar power system, producing as much clean energy as would be required to run nearly 600 3-person households! So there‘s that (I know, doesn‘t exactly eradicate the amount of plastic the place produces...)


Disneyland: What you Expect, and yet Unexpected

As I hinted at before, I do have some issues generally with Disney - it‘s all the usual stuff, like the perpetuation of gender, race and sexual stereotypes, plus all the big consumerism polluter stuff. And that‘s all alive and well at Disneyland Hong Kong as it is anywhere else,no question.

On the other hand, I was pleasantly surprised at how much greenspace the park includes, and how much attention they have given to highlighting and promoting the local culture. For example, in addition to the typical North American breakfast foods at breakfast that morning, the buffet was also brimming with more traditional local foods and delicacies appropriate to the geographic area. Another example is the Mystic Mansion experience. Apart from being probably the coolest technological ride I‘ve ever experienced, it reimagines the traditional North American „haunted house“ to make it more culturally appropriate... if somewhat exotically glamourized and leaning towards the imperial obsession with „orientalism“!

Look, if you‘re hoping for an eco-adventure led by a black lesbian, you won‘t find that here. But if you‘re looking for a little magic and some unexpected bonuses, Disneyland is the place for you - especially if you can find a way to enjoy it as we did, on a nearly empty day.
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A Day with the elephants

12/7/2019

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Spending a magical day in the jungle with five retired female elephants in Phuket in November was definitely the highlight of our trip to Thailand, and truthfully one of the most touching experiences of my life. Over the past several years, I’ve been following a few wildlife accounts on social media, but there is something quite enchanting about experiencing these beautiful giants up close, especially in the context of a retirement sanctuary.

Anyone visiting Thailand is likely familiar with the significance of elephants in Thai history and culture. What many people don’t realize, however, is the complexity of Thai elephants’ history of abuse.
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In the past, elephants were used in the logging industry, as well as for riding camps and circuses. Although the former is basically illegal now, many elephants are still used for the latter two purposes. Rather than suddenly become unemployed overnight, many who owned elephants in the logging industry opened riding camps, where the creatures continue to be abused so that tourists can get their instagram shots atop an elephant.

More recently, pressure has been mounting to dismount the elephants. With the resulting decrease in riding camps has come an increase in “sanctuaries”, where in many cases volunteers pay to spend a day “helping” the elephants - this consists mainly of feeding them, walking them and bathing them with mud. The latter two activities are particularly intimate and not really appropriate for wild animals. Research shows that elephants rehabilitated successfully and released into the wild choose to move further from humans over time. Also, the endless bathing activities with new groups of noisy strangers can prove stressful to these intelligent and highly social (amongst themselves) creatures. Moreover, many so-called sanctuaries, it has been found, still use questionable “training” methods in order to ingratiate themselves with human visitors, most of whom remain woefully misinformed when it comes to elephant rescue.

It’s tough, therefore, for those traveling to Thailand and who want to spend time with these majestic creatures in a humane way, to know where to begin. And many tourists, it seems, do little to no research before embarking on their elephant adventure.
We did some research; at least, we knew enough to avoid the riding camps.

We selected from online an outfit that seemed to have very little to no physical interaction with the elephants, one that focused, rather, on education and delicious vegetarian food. The program offered much observation and learning about the elephants; we even feed them a few times, and since we had booked a full-day experience, we were treated to an extended buffet lunch followed by a cozy nap in our own private “treehouse” overlooking a little lake.
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The Phuket Elephant Sanctuary is a 3-year-old ecological park in Pa Klock, Phuket. Located on 30 acres of largely forested land with several water sources, it is currently home to five female elephants who have been rescued (purchased) from previous places of employment ranging from illegal logging, to riding camps, to begging. In all cases, these elephants were mistreated in their pre-sanctuary life, and showed signs of physical and/or emotional distress.
The sanctuary’s founder, formerly himself a trekking camp owner, was inspired to take a new approach to elephant tourism when he retired a physically disabled elephant to Lek Chailert’s Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai. Chailert became somewhat of a mentor to him as he developed his own park in Phuket.

The Phuket Elephant Sanctuary takes a largely “observation-only” approach, though we were permitted and encouraged to feed the elephants twice during our visit.
They really do seem to take more of a rehabilitative and elephant-focused retirement approach, however; in addition to hydrotherapy (which two of the more physically disabled elephants were engaging in while we visited), there are a number of streams and ponds on the property that the elephants can bathe in - without a slew of tourists joining them!
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In the morning, we watched an informative video about elephant tourism in Thailand generally and Phuket in particular.

After meandering around part of the property observing the elephants and their mahouds at some distance, we came back to the main building for a tasty vegetarian buffet, followed by some free time lounging about in the treehouse.

After lunch, it was time to go for a hike in the jungle to pick some bamboo and banana leaves for one of the older elephants, who was not yet spending much time outside her large stockade, on account of her anxiety and hostility towards other elephants and people.
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We learned about elephant communication, as well as what they like to eat. One interesting thing we learned was that the mahouds who came from Myanmar (Burma), as several of them did, had to learn at least some Thai, since the elephants knew only Thai from their previous decades of interaction with humans!

Then the three of us headed out to the jungle with our two guides to collect browse.
Along the way, we passed by two elephants wandering about with their mahouds, and also learned about the rubber tree forests that were being tapped to make latex products.
Then we took a short break to enjoy some refreshing water that had been infused with banyan leaves, a welcome treat on such a hot and sweaty day!

After hiking back with our treasures, we unpacked for the recipent’s mahoud to sort and feed the elephant. Then we moved back to the main building to prepare the afternoon “snack” for the elephants (a large basket of bananas, melon and other fruit that would be fed to them by the next group of tourists).

We also made “rice balls”, which consisted of rice, squash, bananas and some sort of nutritional supplement, mashed together and formed into balls, which we were later able to feed two of the elephants with no teeth!

There is really something quite entrancing about watching these giants with their long trunks rustling about. They are big and move slowly, and yet they seem so graceful, somehow.

Spending a day at the Phuket Elephant Sanctuary in Paklok brought with it many treasured memories, and not once did I feel like I needed to be in the water with them bathing together to get a full appreciation of these magnificent creatures!
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    About Vera...

    Vera & her Sons, April 2021
    After writing for several teacher and multiple birth publications, including ETFO's Voice Magazine, Multiple Moments, and the Bulletwin, Vera turned her written attention to prolific blogging for some years, including BiB,  "Learn to Fly with Vera!"  and SMARTbansho .  Homeschooling 4 was her travel blog in Argentina.  She now spends more time on her Instagram (@schalgzeug_usw)  than her blog (pictures are worth a thousand words?!) 
    DISCLAIMER
    The views expressed on this blog are the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the perspectives of her family members or the position of her employer on the the issues she blogs about.  These posts are intended to share resources, document family life, and encourage critical thought on a variety of subjects.  They are not intended to cause harm to any individual or member of any group. By reading this blog and viewing this site, you agree to not hold Vera liable for any harm done by views expressed in this blog.
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Vera C. Teschow, OCT, M.Ed., MOT
Toronto, ON & St Peter's Harbour, PE
www.verateschow.ca 2021
Photos used under Creative Commons from Sean MacEntee, Studio Paars, Bengt Nyman, zeevveez, GoodNCrazy, CJS*64, Accretion Disc, CharlesLam, Courtney Dirks, CJS*64 "Man with a camera", Accretion Disc, Bobolink, Ian Muttoo, BioDivLibrary, Alaskan Dude, IsabelleAcatauassu, runran, Transformer18, jglsongs, Create For Animal Rights, david_shankbone, Paul J Coles, foilman, Newport Geographic, Photo Everywhere, kevin dooley, Claudio , Alex Guibord, Tscherno, f_mafra, Terry Madeley, musee de l'horlogerie, BobMacInnes, wwarby, jonathangarcia, amboo who?, chimothy27, Elin B, cliff1066™, Grzegorz Łobiński, Rennett Stowe, Farhill, Phil Manker, Guitarfool5931, airguy1988, dierk schaefer, Rob Stemple, katerha, StockMonkeys.com, Ramotionblog, andrewk3715, charlywkarl, AJC1, rachel_titiriga