Like many parents of older children, I have regrets.

I haven’t totally ruined my kids or anything like that. They were always clothed, fed and sheltered. They even had music/arts lessons over the years, and physical activities.

But they didn’t always have ME!
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I was not a “natural” when it came to parenting newborn twins. I struggled a lot with the various minute to minute  challenges of parenting two babies, and while I made it my business to learn and know, by the time I became an “expert”, Alex and Simon where already well through school. 

I heard a parent once comment that “the days are long and the years are short”.

​So true!

Especially with multiples, the early years can be overwhelming, and for me, I didn’t even take the full year of parental leave, choosing instead to run back to the refuge of full time work, and leaving my 4 month old babies with their father for the remainder of that first year. I was a very successful instructional coach at the time, with a large urban school board, and the fulfillment I felt from my expertise in that role compared with the relative incompetence I felt parenting two screaming newborns with little/no consistent help was quite jarring!

Even once the boys were sleeping through the night and using “big boy toilets” rather than diapers, and we started to get our life back a little, I regret to admit that I spent summers facilitating and attending professional development for teachers rather than camping or hanging out at the beach with my littles. Our “summers in PEI” consisted of maybe two weeks at most.
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And suddenly they were 17 and it was COVID and we were all locked up in a tiny apartment together.

After about two years of that, I decided I’d had enough. Throughout the pandemic, I’d been working overtime (by then I worked in a provincial leadership position in education, and was involved with teams that were working on COVID-related education policy with the government); many long hours at the dining room table, even in the evening, while my babies and my temporarily unemployed pilot wife lived their lives, neglected, in their respective bedrooms of our small Toronto apartment.
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When they came out of their rooms and we shared a meal together, I marveled at how my little babies were growing into big, tall men. We even threw them a covid-themed 6-foot-party (which wasn’t much of a party, since we weren’t allowed to interact with anyone outside our circle at the time, resulting in a LOT of leftover six-foot-sub meals for us within two days!!!) 

It frightened me that the opportunity to connect with these not-so-tiny tenants was quickly waning.
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I decided right then and there to make some significant changes in my life.

With the support of my partner, I quit my job, and over the next several years, with her support, have transitioned from full time work to semi-retired “housewife” and “Stay-at-home-mom”. (I put these in parenthesis because for our particular family and life arrangement, the terms look a little different than the main stream, largely because we don’t all live full time in one place together.)

It was the best decision I ever made.

While it’s not the same of course as being there for your baby’s first steps or Kindergarten graduation or school field trips to the museum, there is something quite satisfying about being able to fully support your teen while they learn to drive, or meet them on/near campus for lunch during the week, or even sit in on one of their university classes and ride the subway home together afterwards! There’s a special satisfaction in googling mental health and academic supports during the day while your 19-year-old is in class, making a suggestion to them later on, and getting a phone call a few weeks later thanking you for that suggestion because IT WORKED!! Or reading a draft of an assignment they’ve written for a course and offering descriptive feedback, or hearing about something they are learning about at college that excites them, or having breakfast out together on a weekday because they don’t have class and you don’t have to “work” that morning.

And with time to manage groceries, laundry and other household chores during the “workday”, my weekends are more flexible as well: We still don’t camp, but there are lots of beach visits and walks in the park, both individually with each “child” and together.

I’d had the opportunity to experience a taste of stay at home motherhood for a few months when the boys were ten, and we’d spent the school year in Argentina ... But parenting teenagers/young adults is different.

I get to be fully present when one of them calls to tell me he and his girlfriend broke up, or when one of them wanders into the living room and wants to talk about finances and investing. I can say “yes” when one of them decides university is not for him and wants to come live with me full time on PEI for several months while he decides what to do next (college with a possible career as a PI, it turns out, after a summer of chainsawing and sheet metal roofing!!) And I can support the other when he wants to do a full time placement but needs a ride because the bus is not convenient to our home and he doesn’t have his drivers license yet.

I don’t have to listen half-heartedly to their stories while the other half of my brain stresses about unwritten report cards or marking or lesson planning that still needs to get done… yes, it’s true there is lots to do as the primary household engineer, but without a full time paid job, I have considerable flexibility about when and how tasks are completed. And watching actively engaged as my boys turn into resilient, creative and thoughtful young men has been a great gift to me as a parent who missed out on the chance to be more fully present earlier on in their lives.

I know that not everyone has the luxury of being at home full-time. But if you haven’t had the pleasure and the privilege of parenting your children, even your semi-adult children, full time for an extended period of time, and the opportunity presents itself, I highly recommend you take advantage of it. I’m so glad I have!

Are you feeling lonely and abandoned this Christmas? You’re in good company! All over the world, culturally Christian spouses and families have been forsaken, and my kids and I are among said abandoned masses.
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You see, I am married to an airline pilot. And while that all may seem glamourous and glorious, the sad reality is that with the exception of those very few with highly coveted top seniority numbers, most commercial pilots have to work over the holidays, leaving their families and friends alone at home, turkey dinner somewhat subdued with an empty seat at the table.

Don’t get me wrong: I love my wife and am grateful for everything she does for this family. Especially bringing home the bacon, because Lord knows, I spend it as fast as she makes it! And, as a result of her chosen career, my kids and I get to travel cheap all over the world (albeit on standby). Also, the cool factor (and yes, the uniform is hot).

But holidays suck. Especially Christmas, because unlike other pilot wives who may have their own parents or siblings who can stand in for their missing spouses on this big family holiday, I’m an only child and have been an orphan since my second year of university. So there’s that.
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As a queer family, we’ve woven a pretty tight “chosen family” over the past decade or two, and so in recent years, our Christmas Eve table has been filled with the presence of the retired math professor we look after (our surrogate father) and a close family friend who has been a stand in uncle of sorts for the boys. And then when the kids head off to their dad’s the next morning, I usually make my way to the airport and join my wife for her overnight to whichever exciting destination she’s traveling to for work that day.

Alas, this year, I am truly abandoned!
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Our old man is in Mexico (his lung issues necessitate him seeking warmer climates during the cold Canadian winter months) and our Uncle Vinx is in the hospital, recovering from a heart attack and subsequent brain injury. And my dear, sweet wife is flying to Timmins of all places tonight, where she will spend the full day tomorrow and a second night (an unheard of length for a layover at her regional airline… so why now? Why?!) before flying again on the 26th and eventually arriving back home late that afternoon!
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Woe is me.

Historically, being an orphan wasn’t sooo bad… My father died when I was a baby, so I have no history with him, and therefore, nothing to “miss” per say. And the first Christmas after my mother died (she died on Dec 22, so that kind of sucked), I  was taken in by the family of my then-boyfriend, who were particularly well-equipped to do so.
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The father of my university boyfriend was kind of a big deal at the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies at U of T, and accordingly, Christmas itself was kind of a big deal, since it was both a personal AND a professional interest in that family. In fact, their house always had at least two Christmas trees, including one fully decorated with an assortment of small wooden creches the professor had picked up at some Christmas market during one of his many research trips to Europe.

The boyfriend also had several siblings, all older than him, and very nurturing when needed. On Christmas Eve following my mother’s death, I stumbled into their home, and a large stuffed bear was thrust into my arms by one of the sisters. This was followed by an enveloping of arms, and then I was ushered into the living room, past the first Christmas tree, and onto a chair at the dining room table in the adjoining room. I was fed, and encouraged to drink a glass of something.

I’m fifty now, not a child anymore. But the thirty-year-old memory still brings tears to my eyes. ​It was exactly what I needed during that tumultuous time.The ritual of the dinner, followed by the opening of gifts and our annual visit to midnight mass at the local high Anglican church, overstuffed with “CEOs” (Christmas and Easter only) brought some semblance of normalcy after what had been a very stilted and definitely NOT normal Christmas eve gathering in the living room at my mother’s (now my) house a few hours earlier with my poor Omi and my mother’s boyfriend, both of whom were still reeling at her untimely death!

After those years came the family of my children’s father. Somewhat boring, but very dependable, and always welcoming without question.

​Even when I finally came crawling out of the closet several years later, they STILL insisted that there would always be a spot for me at their table. (My ex’s new girlfriend put a stop to that in short order, but still, it’s the thought that counts, and that thought still warms my heart.)

And now I am married to the pilot. Exciting and glamourous, but with a pretty much solid guarantee of never being home for the holidays.

Confession time, though: It’s not my wife’s airline that stole Christmas from me, it’s her culture!!!

​Yep, that’s right. Even if my dear wife were NOT a commercial pilot, I would still have to name this blog post as I did, because as it turns out, my assumption that “everyone” in Canada just celebrates Christmas is… well… wrong.

For the first few years, before she was snapped up by the airlines, my Russian wife just went along with our holiday celebrations, with a minimal amount of grumbling. In part because she loved me, and in part because she just wasn’t sure how to approach the idea that the whole tree, angel and pile of gifts thing was overwhelming and uncomfortable for her in a way that wouldn't hurt me. It was just such a big part of my culture, and initially, she didn’t feel “entitled” to share her discomfort in any productive manner. (Newsflash, the minimal grumbling was already hurtful, lol!)

Since my wife is not a practicing Jew, Muslim or other non-Christian adherent, and since she’d been living in a country that commercially and culturally embraces the holiday season for well over a decade when I met her, it never even occurred to me that the traditions to which I had clung since losing my mother would be a problem for her.

But they were.

And that became a problem for me.
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We eventually got past this hurdle, but not before the underlying implications of our unresolved disconnect nearly broke us up a dozen times or more. 

Now, after many tears and open ears and adoptions of emotions that are foreign to each of us respectively, we have reached a truce of sorts about Christmas.

I buy my own advent calendar (Body Shop had a nice one this year!), there is no more St Nicolas Day, she and the boys take care of getting a real tree and hauling the box of Christmas stuff up from the storage locker in the basement, and I decorate the tree and try not to complain too much if it's crooked or somewhat sparce. (To her credit, she usually picks a nice one.)

We no longer do Christmas gifts. She commits to a brief “in transit” celebration where the boys and I visit her during a short break at the airport.

And she sends me selfies of herself on the road in festive professional attire and allows me to post them on social media so that everyone knows how cool I am being married to a pilot and all... even if I've been abandoned for the holidays!

The trade-off is a love and support for one another deeper and more fulsome than I have ever experienced, even with my own mother and Omi when they were still alive. My wife knows me almost as well as I know myself in many areas… sometimes better than I know myself! She has learned to hold me accountable in ways that are loving, and is learning to hear me and accept with an increasingly open mind when I share concerns that run counter to her default. And we have developed our own Christmas traditions, like me getting getting decked out in festive gear and joining her wherever she happens to be flying on Christmas Day. (Well, unless it’s a dull day layover in Timmins, like this year. Ugh!)
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We’ve also co-created some unique holidays that are far more numerous than Christmas, special days of private celebration that are regularly acknowledged between us with delightful little secrets and traditions unique to our family or to us as a couple.

Is Christmas still lonely for me, as an orphan who lost her everything just days before the western world's most high-pressure family event?

I would say it’s more a time of inner reflection. And in those moments, after the kids leave for their dad’s on the morning of the 25th after their stockings have been emptied (Santa insisted on filling the boys’ stockings, even after my wife canceled the rest of our Christmas traditions, haha), when I am alone in the apartment with no one to share a tea with while sitting around the Christmas tree with all its twinkly lights, I do feel a little bit sorry for myself, yes. But also, I feel grateful.

A reduced Christmas in an overly consumerist world is a small price to pay for the many strange and wonderful blessings my strange and wonderful wife bestows on me and on our family throughout the year. Christmas, as I am continuing to learn, is more a frame of mind than a particular day or time of year. And giving up the obsession of the season for the woman I love, and instead adopting a more long-term mindset of grace, generosity and love is a greater gift than any!

Never once as I sent my 18-year-old monozygotic twins off to commuter orientation at the University of Toronto last August did I think I would be spending this August celebrating a set of achievements for one of them that was completely unrelated to the history degree he had begun pursuing a year ago. 

And yet here we are. August 2023, Prince Edward Island. A year later, in a completely different province.

As the summer draws to a close, I am prompted to reflect on what has been an intensely rich season for both me and the manchild through which I have been learning vicariously over the past several months!

Although both boys started strong at the Faculty of Arts and Science of my alma mater last fall, Twin B soon found himself uninspired by the various tenets of the somewhat nebulous degree he was pursuing. By midwinter, it was clear that his enthusiasm was continuing to wane, and so we were somewhat alarmed but not really surprised when — with summer just around the corner — there was no clear plan about what was to come next.

The situation seemed particularly dire framed in the stark contrast of his brother’s summer which was shaping up to be a hectic smorgasbord of various jobs. From local and international tour guiding, to running a summer camp at a board game café, to teaching chess part-time to elementary school kids across the city, to jumping on the bandwagon with my wife’s bike lesson side hustle, Twin A applied for an endless string of jobs, was offered most of them, and seemed to accept almost all of the jobs he was offered!

We therefore threatened Twin B that if he did not apply for more jobs and become gainfully employed for the summer soon, we would haul his ass to PEI (where I've been living for the past few years), register him for a multi-day chainsaw training course, and put him to work cleaning up Fiona damage on our property and those of other islanders.

The little bugger called our bluff: “OK, great”, he calmly replied. 

And boy, am I ever glad he did! Thanks for the generosity of time and spirit of several friends and others across the island who took him on, and a very generous partnership program between the federal government, a private nonprofit and the local college, the child has learned basic sheet metal roofing skills, knows how to safely fell a tree, can tie seven kinds of knots and climb up a wind turbine, and is excited about getting his first “man kit“ as he calls it, the toolbox gifted it to him by the program he is about to complete as I write this! Not only that, but he’s finally on the road to getting his driver’s license, and has even made some friends here on the island.

The personal emotional growth both individually and in our mother-son relationship is in itself something to be celebrated. And from an Education perspective, Twin B has turned from an uninspired, at-risk university dropout into an interested, optimistic and engaged young man and who is looking forward to continued learning and exploration of potential career path both related to his summer endeavours and in other areas. In addition to the possibility of applying to a follow-up course for the wind turbine training he’s completed, the boy has also sought out and registered for an Investigative Security college program to begin in January. 

As an educator, it is an important reminder of how valuable hands-on learning and multiple pathways are.

Although in theory I always supported college or other non-university post secondary pathways for my former students and my own children, I realize now there was an implicit bias on my part. Although I was first in my family to do so, I had gone to university, and in addition to my undergraduate degree, I hold two post-graduate degrees. So I guess I just sort of assumed my kids would do that as well. I see now that for at least one of my boys, having continued blindly into second year university would have robbed him of a wealth of experiences that are shaping him into the interesting an interested young man he is becoming. 

If you are a parent of a young person fretting about their future, realize that they really are a multitude of ways to move from school to under school, and all of them are valid. The exciting challenge for you as a parent (and for your child) is finding and/or designing the pathway or pathways that will best develop and engage the skill set and affinities of the young person in question. ​

After a bit of a hiatus from formal teaching life to move part time to another province and take on a job as a post-secondary curriculum and instructional consultant, I find myself preparing to return to the classroom.  It will be my second sojourn into teaching post-secondary, and my first time teaching in the college context.  It’s also my first time teaching primarily online. 

I‘m excited, and have been preparing to practise what I preach in terms of using and sharing clear learning goals and success criteria, triangulating (and diversifying!) assessment, and offering variety and choice in learning activities. My first sessional at Holland College will — I hope — be as engaging and practical for my students as it is for me to prepare for it!

As I work to bring to life my syllabus for Communication and Technology in the Arts, the blended course I’ll be facilitating for first-year college students in the Fundamental Arts program this September, I am struck by an interesting realization:  Once again, I‘ll be teaching the same „grade“ as my own children! 

This will actually mark the third time in my career that I‘ll be working with students who are the same age as Alex and Simon. The first time I played this game was the year I taught a Grade 3 class: At the time, my own babies were in Grade 3, too (albeit at a different school), and I often compared mental notes to see how aligned my classroom was with theirs, developmentally.  The edu-stars aligned again a few years later, when I moved from a Grade 7 & 8 Math and Science gig to Grade 6 Core… the same year Simon and Alex moved into Grade 6! And once again, I followed with interest what their respective teachers were up to and compared it to my own teaching and learning journey that year. (The boys even came to visit my students one day, as their school board and mine had different PD day schedules.)

I was recently asked in a job interview what my philosophy of education was. I am embarrassed to admit that I was caught somewhat off guard; the job was not directly a teaching job, so I had not prepared a polished, well-thought-out response like I had with some other anticipated questions.  It's embarrassing because as a life-long educator, I should have a succinct answer at my fingertips.  So I stumbled around, talking about some of the things I know to be important, but never really pulled it all together.

After the interview, I thought about this question for a long time.  I had written a philosophy of education as part of my B.Ed a hundred years ago, and revisited it about a decade ago, when I completed my principals' qualifications. I remember being pleased that -- while my thoughts had matured somewhat with age and experience -- fundamentally, I was still on the same page I had been as a beginning teacher.

However, both of these assignments were too wordy.  At approximately six pages each in length, neither my new teacher nor my aspiring edu-leader approach could be expected to hold someone's interest for very long.  And so, I set out to re-write my philosophy in a more succinct manner.

Below is the result. As a word doc, it's a single page, and can be expanded on or further synthesized as needed.

Vera's Philosophy of Education, 2022

I believe that – given the right context – all students can and will learn to a high degree.
The “right” context is not the same, necessarily, as “ideal conditions”.  It simply means that students are motivated to learn, and are engaged in the learning.  This can be orchestrated by an educator’s attention to what we know about how the brain works.  

For example, we can engage a student’s limbic system in a positive way by attending to relationships and fostering an emotionally safe and inviting physical learning environment (including the “physical virtual” environment, where relevant).
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Getting to know our learners, and then choosing materials, tools, strategies and content that reflect their lived experiences, affinities and interests, helps to establish and maintain trust over time.  This means that students are more likely to learn, even when occasionally a topic doesn’t appeal, or the manner in which material is presented is misaligned with an individual’s learning style.  Because they have an established and trusting relationship with their teacher. 

Building in predictable structures such as agendas and overviews, regular time to share and discuss learning goals and co-create success criteria, and frequent opportunities to reflect on and consolidate learning at the end of a lesson or unit further establishes and maintains trust. Students will know what to expect, so that they can use their brains for intended learning rather than focusing on the fight or flight mode that can accompany constant uncertainty. (Engagement of frontal lobe, rather than brain stem.) That said, the occasional “fun” activity that provides opportunities purely for mental or physical play allows for novelty, which the brain also seeks and thrives on.
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Considering Vygotsky’s “zone of proximal development” ensures students are intellectually challenged rather than bored… though not so much that they are overwhelmed and unable to learn.  

Building in choice for assignments and learning activities helps learners develop metacognition so that they can participate in finding “the zone” for themselves. These should include choices about where/how to work and with whom (if anyone).

Being transparent with students about why you as the teacher are doing these things further helps develop trust and motivation for students, so that they can become independent learners.  (Independence in this case means they confidently make learning choices independently, not that they necessarily work on their own all the time.)

If students appear to not be learning, I believe the teacher has a responsibility to self-examine: Rather than blaming the students, their families or the system at large, we must consider what is within our control.  More specifically, what is it about our practice, approach or the way in which we have chosen to set up the learning space that is inhibiting students from achieving excellence? Who can we call on for support as we attempt to do better?

My philosophy of education assumes the teacher as a facilitator of learning rather than an expert on everything. Continuously learning about how the brain works, and using that information to make conscious decisions about what learning to facilitate, and how to facilitate it for the various individuals whose learning we support, will help educators ensure all students can and will learn to a high standard.

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.

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).

​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!

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.

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 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

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.

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.

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.

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.