The rainy weather and various "alternate plans/commitment" could not deter our enjoyment of this spectacular time of year.  

More aware this year than any previous year of the systemic oppression imposed on those who do not conform to the norm, and having experienced first hand that "equality in law is not equality in practice", I was especially looking forward to leaving behind a rather disappointing school year and embracing this weekend, when it is not only "okay to be gay", but when in fact one's gender creativity and sexual identity is celebrated and encouraged.

So, I joined my aviation colleagues on Friday evening at the post-booth-set-up party.  My partner had been helping to set up the Aviation Pride booth, and I met her downtown afterwards to have a few drinks and staff the booth for the Friday evening crowd which was large and celebratory... and lucky, since that was the only part of the weekend when it wasn't pouring rain!!!  

The next morning, Alex joined us, and we headed back downtown.  Bedecked in a colourful shirt and his rainbow airplane necklace, he was joining Tats for a soggy two-hour shift in the rain at the Aviation booth while I headed over to put in a few hours at the equally dripping ETFO booth, where I reconnected with a musician whom I had not seen or spoken with in nearly 20 years!!!  (Turns out he is a teacher now, too (Kindergarten), and a darned good one, based on my observations during our time together on Saturday.)

After our shifts, we forwent the Dyke march and picked up a rainbow cake at the Village Loblaws before heading back to the west end to bring Alex to an end-of-year party hosted by one of his friends from school.  But not before pausing in our rain jackets and soaked shoes to snap a photo at the Lucky Charms picture booth!

Sunday's parade was also missed, unfortunately, as we had to take Simon up to camp -- his first year of overnight camp!  He and Alex bid a silly, huggy good-bye to one another in the lobby of our building before Simon, Tats, Vinx and I piled into Vinx' vehicle for the 2 hour ride up north. (Alex hung out with his dad for the day; he's decided on an alternative, self-directed camp week with a  family friend while his brother is away dancing with the mosquitoes and canoeing in the Kawarthas.)

Simon having passed the camp's mandatory head lice check, I hugged my baby good-bye and walked back to the parking lot with Vinx and Tats.  I shed a few tears, and then hopped back into the Van where I promptly pulled up the latest on the missed Parade on my iPhone, and eagerly read about Pussy Riot, Cindi Lauper and others who were headlining this year's event.

Pride weekend is the time of year when I am perhaps one of the more conservative people in the crowd, and it is a weekend I have grown to relish not just for social and entertainment reasons, but for the equity it promotes and the social justice it insists on.  The celebration of Toronto's LGBTQ community for me symbolizes the rainbow of people with whom I share this planet.  I love being amidst the great diversity of young and old, male, female and everything in between and outside of that binary, and the cultural milieu that descends upon Church/Wellesley and the surrounding area to experience first hand what inclusion can really feel like! 

Walking to the bus stop after school tonight, a rainbow flag blowing from my backpack, a car drove by... Someone rolled down the window, yelled, "Happy Pride!", and waved vigorously.

Between that random comment and today's US Supreme Court "love is equal" decision, I'm feeling cautiously optimistic about the state of equity affairs in the world. At least, in my little corner of the world.

Happy Pride!

"It's the last week of school!  Why are we still learning?!" was the perplexed and disgusted comment from one of my Grade 7s, who was completely "done" with the school year.

It's true... we are two short days from the finish line.  Marks have been submitted to the office.  Many teachers have moved into the packing and movie showing phase of the school year.  But a few weeks ago, I had promised my Grade 7s we'd have a science fair to share what they were learning about Heat in the Environment, and the overwhelming majority of them were still going strong on their research and preparations for said fair!

So yesterday afternoon, we set up shop in the classroom, and invited other students and their teachers to come check out our wares.  There was an environment "Jeopardy" game, as well as a short lecture and "wheel of fortune" to assess understanding (the group had lollipops to be won if you got the answers right!!)  Prezis, explain everything presentations and ppts dominated some corners of the room, while another table featured a sort-of working volcano and an experiment on heat-caused suction!

Although the accuracy of  "facts" presented at some stations was a bit questionable, overall, the students were enthusiastic about one another's presentations, and about the audiences they welcomed from elsewhere in the school.

As in previous years, I find the best learning mindset often arrives once the pressure of marks has passed. With the stress of marks removed from teachers' and students' plates alike, learners can focus on learning... and receive descriptive feedback with a more open mind.  With very few exceptions, no one seemed deterred by the fact that this project didn't "count" for their Term 2 Science mark, and most engaged with vigour in their learning and science fair prep over the last week or so.

Why are we still learning?  Because I am not a glorified babysitter, I am a teacher.  I get paid to facilitate learning until Friday.  That said, I did go out and spend nearly $40 at Kernels last night so we could have a popcorn party on the last day and watch Ruby Bridges or the Temple Grandin story, lol!

Oh, and I should mention... my boxes are packed, labeled and stacked in a corner of my classroom.  ;-P

Alex and Simon are moving on to middle school... 

Their elementary school had a little graduation celebration for them yesterday; apparently they were the only kids wearing shorts and T-shirts! 

Happily, they seemed as unphased as their mother would be.  We all agreed there is no need for a suit and tie for moving from Grade 5 to Grade 6, especially after one year only at the school.  Just another contrived social norm to distract people from real issues in the world!!

That being said, it sounds like they had a really nice day, and enjoyed a little the pomp and circumstance generated around this transition.  Parent volunteers had obviously worked hard to put together a fun day recognizing and celebrating the students' end of one phase of their educational journey and imminent beginning of the next.

Here's hoping those smiles will still be on Simon (left) and Alex's faces at the end of Grade 8, after three years of middle school, lol!

I'm not much for paying big bucks to hear an instrumentalist in a large concert hall setting, but when I heard Chris Botti was coming to town, I figured I'd spring for tickets so that I could take my son who's been learning to play the trumpet this year to hear what excellence can sound like.

Although I like trumpet okay, I typically spend my brass listening time on things like Holst's Military Suites or Louis Armstrong's jazz wanking... but I think I may have a new favorite instrumentalist!!  As soon as as Botti played the opening notes of his first piece (9:30 here), I could see why thousands of people had paid good money to hear this amazing performer.

His flawlessly lyrical treatment of ballads provides a poignancy I have never before heard live or on a soundtrack.  Within seconds of Botti putting his lips to his instrument, I was choking back tears, so deeply and instantly was the effect on my soul.  And his band is no bunch of slouches either:  Although he was backed on some tracks by the TSO, Botti also brought with him a slew of stunning performers, including the mesmerizing violinist Lucia Micarelli, who joined him on Emmanuel and a few other pieces as well.  I was also blown away by the vocalist who scatted Botti's trumpet parts while he played (check out 4:10 and later, here; very cool)!!!

It is easy to see why Chris Botti is currently the top selling instrumentalist in America.  Thank goodness some people still have musical taste! 

Not since I discovered Arturo Sandoval at the Toronto Jazz Festival in my early 20s have I been so excited about a trumpet player! Determined to hear more, I searched Chris Botti on the internet and found several delightful concerts, including this show from the Newport Jazz Festival 2013.  

Of course, it's not the same as hearing the man in person, but it's still something.  Something pretty special!  

Although Simon was somewhat less enthralled than I was (at least outwardly), I know the experience left an impression on him as well. I'm so grateful for the evening we spent immersed in sound together last night at the RTH.

Eager to teach my final math unit of the year through an equity lens, my instructional coach and I recently co-developed a lesson that integrates the hot media topic of "carding" into our probability unit.

Below is the ppt for the lesson with links to relevant video footage, as well as a handout for students.  We wrote this lesson for my Grade 8 class, but it could easily be adapted to Grade 7 or 9.  It takes a minimum of 50 mins to do it justice... an hour and quarter would be better.

As well as the Toronto Star's Race Matters and Known to Police material, we also found this excellent website, that examines the impact of race, mental health, gender, sexual identity, physical ability, etc. on "favourable" life outcomes.

As a university educated, gay, white, able-bodied woman, I am both a member of oppressed groups and someone with largely unearned privilege.  I can't profess to fully understand the impact of carding on the black community, but I did want to empower my students of all ethnic backgrounds by discussing the issue of carding in particular and the impact of identity in general.  My hope is that by making links to what we are studying in math, students would begin to see how logic and reason can be used to positively impact social change.

Lucky me, I got to go flying this afternoon, and the weather was perfect for practising climbs, descents and turns (including steep turns, which we did out over Frenchman's Bay)!

On take-off, we noticed a purple tent out on the island... what was going on?!  

We decided to do a few circuits when we came back from our local east, and I managed to snag some photos of the commotion from the air.  It seems there is some sort of runway run tomorrow they are setting up for, and a music festival or some such today.  

Another thing we worked on today was slips and slipping turns.  It's amazing how much one forgets when one doesn't do it regularly!!!  (Makes me think of the importance of purposeful practice for our students at school -- once or twice is not enough... and it has to be context-embedded.)

I will do my best to review visually in my mind over the next 24 hours: Pull out ALL power before initiating the slip, make sure airspeed is in the white arc (don't overspeed the flaps), and developing automaticity with my overshoot procedures, especially remembering to put the nose in the climb attitude!!!

Oh, if only I had more time and money to practise regularly!

This year I've been trying to determine what -- if any -- fraction of a role math centers should play as part of an effective math program.  

I started using math centers earlier this year in an attempt to solve the problem of how to address a broad range of skills and diversity of student learning needs in the typical math classroom.  Although centers offers a differentiated approach that frees the teacher up to work with individuals and small groups, I have found that it requires considerable set up and lots of learning skills and work habits "training" for the students.  This year I also noticed that when I was only using a centers-based approach, I was missing teaching more "whole class", 3-part lessons.

This morning, as we had another classroom visitor to observe centers in action as part of our current (Transformational Geometry) unit, I had the opportunity to consider my problem of practice and theory of action yet again.

Unlike our recent Fractions unit, which was almost exclusively taught through a centers-based approach, Transformational Geometry is being taught in room 312 through a combination of 3-part lessons, computer lab sessions (for the Grade 7s with whom I have time in the lab), and some centers.

Today was the first of two "Centers Days" for Transformational Geometry.

Rather than the full-fledged learning passport used during our Fractions unit, this time I asked students to track their work on a recording page (see below) for accountability, and to provide an opportunity for reflection as well as growth mindset feedback from me.

Increasingly, I am seeing the importance this year of ensuring that each center is specifically linked to one or more success criteria for the unit so that students know why they are being invited to complete particular learning activities, and so that teachers can more easily track observational/anecdotal assessment.

One nice thing about having other teachers visit my classroom is that it forces me to constantly consider my practice, and how I can improve.  

An idea gleaned from today's visit revolves around Center 7 (my "math games" center):  We noticed that several students played Blokus, Katamino and Battleship without really making the connection I hoped they would between the concepts they were using to try and win, and the success criteria posted.  For future units, a change I could make would be to include with this center a short list of game-specific questions that students must respond to while at this center. (They could also be used by teachers when working with students at this center.) Questions could be scaffolded to lead students to certain conclusions, and a copy of the unit vocabulary made available at the center to foster improved oral and written math communication about the game.

Using Centers Days as part -- but not all -- of my math units is helping me to better appreciate their intrinsic value and refine and refocus their value as a learning tool for students involved in a student centered, balanced math program.