Went to women’s shinny tonight, minus the women. 

Amateur women’s hockey seems to be a bit of a feast or famine situation in Toronto:  Tuesday nights at Dufferin Grove is packed tighter than Cherry Bomb during Pride week, whereas the one-hour-at-a-reasonable-time women’s drop-in at the nice little rink down the street from where I live has so few women some Wednesday nights that one has to politely remind the nice boys who try to take over the ice that the schedule posted in the hall does actually justify the testosterone-free minority taking over the rink for an hour until they are allowed back onto the ice to pound each other over the head with sticks and fists.

Although I enjoyed the unhurried ice time this evening, and took the opportunity to practise my cross-overs and puck-handling drills, I missed the camaraderie and quick pace of Tuesday nights at Dufferin Grove Park, where one often gets little ice time, but lots of opportunity to watch and be inspired by players far better oneself (if one sucks at hockey as badly as I do!)

Sigh… if only there were some  utopian little game somewhere, where just the right number of women and mix of abilities showed up each week at a rink not too far from home…

In the meantime, I guess I am stuck with intense or reflective, depending on the day of the week and the location of the rink!

“In the wake of another horrific national tragedy”, writesLiza Long, in an article on parenting mentally ill children,  “it’s easy to talk about guns. But it’s time to talk about mental illness.”

As soon as I heard about the school shooting in the States on Friday (a colleague at my own school here in Canada told me in the hall at recess as I was running back to my classroom from the photocopier), I knew that people would immediately begin talking about gun control.

Don’t get me wrong; I am all for gun registries, and in fact, I am pleased that-- if nothing else-- Friday’s horrific tragedy has caused many to revisit the gun control debate with renewed vigour.  But I am sad and more than

It seems we have settled on a neighbourhood in Buenos Aires.  At least to start.  After recently having coffee with a delightful Argentinean-Canadian friend of a friend, we have determined to begin our Argentine adventures in San Telmo. 

Relatively safe, but considerably more affordable than some of the other “safe” neighbourhoods in BA, San Telmo appears to offer a sort of old world, artistic charm.  It is allegedly one of the most culturally diverse communities in the Capital,  which is good, because I am hoping to find some fellow Canadian homeschoolers and/or Germans with children for Alex and Simon to hang out with while we are there!

One thing our coffee date asked us was our individual goals for this 10-month trip – her questions helped us to clarify our thinking somewhat, and served to get us excited about our upcoming adventures.  It is warm where we are headed, and this is an especially nice thing to think about while the cold, damp air surrounds me as I write at my computer next to a drafty window overlooking the Toronto skyline!!!

As a result of our conversation the other night, we have decided to remain open to some nomadic possibilities.  More specifically, we are considering beginning our journey in the Capital, but then perhaps staying a few months in the province, where rents will most certainly be more affordable, and where we will be exposed to a less urban, “busy” lifestyle.

So, teachers recently started “Work to Rule” in Ontario.  But what does “Work to Rule” mean, in practical terms?  

Erst wird der Weinachtsbaum hereingeschleppt, dann kommen die Lichter, und endlich, der Rest des Weinachtschmucks.  (Auch die nun-fast-zerbrochene Hue-Sterne von Charlotte Kuhn sind dabei.) 

Ahhhh.... schoen!

One thing I've been trying to do with my Grade 3s this year is to engage them in rich dialogue (or, as the Ministry calls it, "Grand Conversation") about a variety of "big" topics to do with equity and social justice.

ETFO's "Social Justice Begins with Me" kit has provided many of the rich mentor texts I've been using for this endeavour, and with the new Smart Board in my classroom this year, I have found it quite practical to prepare "lessons" for these picture books in advance.

Today was an especially successful day, in terms of rich thinking being promoted through group conversation.  It was Day 3 of a 3-day lesson about this book (well, Day 4, if you include the "preview day", where I put a bunch of random words form the story up on a chart paper, and had students predict what the story might be about, before showing them the cover and reading them the title, and then the synopsis on the back cover).

Students had had the opportunity to listen to the story thrice:  Once, as they selected a character (Abe, Willie or Grandfather), and wrote in role at various topping points throughout the readaloud, a second time when they completed a "Bloom of the Whole Self" while listening to the story again, following which we practiced using comparing and contrasting words from page 26 of Many Roots, Many Voices by writing sentences describing similarities and differences between the two main characters in the book. 

And, today, students heard the story a third time, as they considered various thinking questions about personal strengths and affinities, family pressures, and general values in society, before going off to have a "grand conversation" with their group, using the elements of rich talk we have been practising all year.

Finally, today, it all came together...

Students used their indoor voices, they sat facing each other, only one person from each group spoke at a time, and I heard several people linking to and building on to what others were saying, asking questions to extend thinking, and disagreeing contructively to deepen understanding.  Truly, it was one of those moments where you pause and think, "hey, maybe I'm not such a bad teacher"!

I invite you to check out the slides below, if you would like to read and discuss this book with your own students:

This past fall has been one of unbelievable stress for teachers who take their profession seriously, and as the media warns of possible teacher strikes in the weeks ahead, that stress is spreading to parents, too, as working families struggle to find emergency daycare for their children.

With mixed messages in the media, questions abound.  Happily, People for Education provides some clarity.  I rec'd the following text in an email from my children's school council rep this morning:

For more information, please visit People for Education's website by clicking here.

In an effort to stem the flow of yet more unneeded teacher mugs, bad chocolate and cheap bath products, my colleague across the hall has designed an ingenious social justice lesson integrated with a gently worded "don't buy me more crap at Christmas" letter to send home with his students. 

With his permission, I share it below.

Well, one thing this government’s blatant disregard for collective bargaining rights has done is catapult our federation into the technological “future” (some anti-ludites might call it the present)!

Do I support a one-day political protest –- that will cost me a day’s pay, but perhaps save me tens of thousands of dollars in benefits and salary over the next two decades of my career, or at the very least, send a strong message to the government that they, too, have to follow the law and cannot just do whatever they want, and that will let my students know that things that are important are worth protesting -- alongside my 76 000 colleagues?

I was able to answer this question online in less than five minutes, as I quickly reviewed the facts and cast my ballot.

Information sharing is critical, of course, so that members can make informed decisions.  (I have been talking with colleagues and reading reports both in the media and from my federation for the past 4 months on the topic of bill 115!)  And of course there is value to physically standing beside a large number of one’s colleagues while collectively hearing an important message.  But in this day of online video conferencing and other technological advances, there are times when the dissemination of information and collection of relevant opinions can be far more efficiently done via such means than in person.

Desperation breeds ingenuity it seems, as our union managed to get the message out, and is collecting 76 000 people’s votes online today and tomorrow.