Joy and Laughter: Why I Became a Teacher

Posted on May 21, 2013 by canteach

I’ve been working on this post for a while now… actually, since coming home after spending the day with George Couros and fellow educators in my district… Yes, that was about a month ago! We worked through the day sharing and being inspired to foster innovation in our district. George ended the day with a request for bloggers in the district to write about why we became teachers.

Well, this was a harder task than I expected it to be, so I chewed on it for a while. Then I attended Tedx West Vancouver and received the final push I needed! The inspiration resulted from Dean Shareski’s talk, Whatever Happened to the Joy in Education?.

I became a teacher because of the joy I experienced when I was in school. I was joyed when my school supplies were purchased, when we opened new textbooks, when we watched celebrations in the gym, when my teachers would ask ME to share my ideas, and when I passed by the staffroom and the smell of coffee and the sounds of laughter spilled out into the halls. I also felt joy at one time events like finding a perfectly intact butterfly to add to my insect project in grade five; making my teacher laugh hysterically at the story of me running down the hill through a forest on the way to school and losing control of my feet, then losing my shoes and lunch bag and laughing so hard while watching my sister do the same; spending a whole lazy June day with my grade six class walking around in the bush for no reason, but just because, and stumbling upon a cow’s skull; and finally being able to show everyone that I could moon walk in the main hall of the school, which was open often for kids to play games in, dance, and/or just talk at lunch and recess. I could go on and on, school was a joyful place!

Now, I didn’t go through school completely with rose coloured glasses! Try being one of the few minorities in a cautious small town of 1,500. Try being placed in the lowest reading group and knowing it. Try navigating this world as the eldest daughter to immigrant parents who want the best for their child, but are in conflict with what the best in Canada means. Despite it all, I just had great people at school who supported me. I had teachers and administrators who helped me see the joy in everything.

I laugh when others typically laugh, but I also laugh at the joy I get from all the absurdity that happens in this world. I laugh when things aren’t going as planned and I laugh when things go as planned. Yes, I actually was laughing at my friend’s father’s funeral, but my mother was so embarrassed that she violently folded my body in half and rubbed my back to make people think that I was crying. But, to defend myself… We were singing a very sad hymn, and there was a lady next to me singing her heart out to a completely different hymn. I just lost it, it was absurd that at such a serious, sorrowful event, this was occurring beside me.

As Dean Shareski often shares, there is a lot in this world to laugh about. Sometimes we need to laugh so that we are not overcome by all that isn’t good in this world. It is no surprise to me that when things get really stressful at school, I end up laughing a lot. It doesn’t mean that I do not treat things seriously, far from it, but laughing and finding the joy is a way of coping and seeing the light.

I became a teacher, for purely selfish reasons… because school makes ME joyful! It always has and it always will. I also want to share that with everyone. School often takes itself too seriously. We get bogged down through debating what’s best four our students, recording every single thing to use as “data”, believing that if we take a break kids will fail and not become good citizens of our world. What school needs to do is change out of its three piece suit and put on some pajamas! Schools need to be a source of joy for everyone!

Art Show: We are Family

Posted on April 30, 2013 by canteach

I love my school! I love how everyone works together like a family to support each other and get things done, always looking out for what’s best for our students. Like a family we go through the ups and downs of stressful and happy times, and sometimes like a family we make decisions, assumptions, and statements that can hurt. BUT, also like a family we talk it out, forgive, and move on… all because we are looking out for what is best for our students.

Our school recently put on a school wide art show, it has been a tradition for a number of years. After over a week of setting up and dealing with all the details, the show was held for two and a half days. Parents, students, teachers, and district staff, including our superintendent, came to see the hard work our students and teachers put in through a whole year of art making. Our students were proud that their work was displayed, “like in a real art gallery”.

Our school is considered one of the “inner city” schools in our district, and because of the hard life stories that some of these kids come to school with, some do not feel that they are capable of doing anything worthy. As well, the stress and hurt that we feel when we try to help these students sometimes overwhelms us. The art show proved to these students in particular that their work and their learning is important; and proved to us, that what we do with these students to help them come to terms and overcome their difficult situations is important.

When news spread of our art show, we received some wonderful feedback including those of excitement, encouragement, and thankfulness. In particular, one person asked if we had an artist in residence that did this… No we do not. What we do have are teachers and staff who are passionateabout our students’ and their learning. It did not come together overnight and without emotions getting in the way, but we were able to support each other through this large undertaking. We have teachers and staff that work together like a family.

Here is a video of all the art that was shown in our art show. I am so proud of my school, that I want to share this accomplishment (one of many) with everyone! There are some great examples of art projects using a variety of mediums. Maybe you can include some of these in YOUR art show!

So This Happened: Kindergarten Boy 1 Mud Puddle 0

Posted on April 21, 2013 by canteach

After teaching a crazy Friday morning in K and trying to juggle too many balls in the air at the office, this happened…

and this happened…

and this happened!

As the supervisor brought him in after lunch, I just didn’t know whether I wanted to laugh or cry. My two K teacher colleagues got a sense of this and whisked him away. Photos were taken, an interview was done, and this is the result. Sometimes, you just have to shake your head, smile and be grateful for parents who send a change of clothing right down to socks and shoes!

Teacher: Was the mud fun?

Boy: “Yeah, SO MUCH FUN! We were playing a game, we had to cover the mud with rocks and the ground where the sand was, but NO woodchips! Eight of us, we didn’t cover all the mud, though we’ll finish on MONDAY!”

Not sure about that!

Thank you to my dear colleagues who rescued me from going over the edge!

iPads aren’t for Everyone

Posted on April 15, 2013 by canteach

Okay, so another teaching assignment change for me… Just had teacher librarian added to the mix. I’ll still be teaching Kindergarten one day a week, but I’ll now be in the library three days a week and vice principal one day a week. Phew! Just writing all that made me tired!

I took on the teacher librarian role as an opportunity to collaborate with all the enrolling teachers at my school and as a way to really get to know all the students. I also was excited about the ability to integrate technology during our classes’ library times.

While I know that technology is to be used as a tool for teaching and isn’t a magic solution to all children’s learning needs, I have never really experienced students not wanting to use technology!

Well, in come a group of 4th graders and I excitedly revealed to them that I would be pulling out the iPad cart for them to find more information on the different birds we read about. My announcement was followed by cheers and clapping; they could not wait to get their hands on the iPads! After searching on Google for a few minutes, one student nervously asked, “Are we allowed to go on YouTube?” Me: “Uh, yes, of course!” The library suddenly was filled with bird song and a lot of sharing. We watched videos of robins hatching, a warbler singing, a sparrow building a nest, and many more. So much engaged learning was happening! I was about to pat myself on the back, for a job well done, but then beyond the sea of happily engaged students I spied a group of boys on the carpet at the back of the library… with no iPad… and they were not talking about birds!

Me: “Boys, do you want an iPad?”
Boy 1: “No, I don’t like iPads?”
Me: “Well have you used one before?”
They all nodded and sneered in my general direction, not wanting to make any eye contact.
Me (totally thrown off and not sure where to go with this awkward situation): “Okay… Uh, hmm…”

And then it dawned on me, we were in… A LIBRARY!!
“Do you want to look at books about birds?”
They all nodded eagerly and stood up. I then skipped over to the 598 section (yes, I am becoming a Dewey Decimal System Master!), showed them where the bird section was and they happily looked at the books until the end of their library time… engaged in learning.

Now that was unexpected! The boys looking at books were just as engaged in their learning as their classmates who were using iPads. This was a big reminder that technology isn’t for everyone and it is just another option as we differentiate instruction for our students. Forcing every student to use technology to learn and present their learning is just as ineffective as forcing every student to all use pencil and paper and books in the library!

Oh, and in case you are curious, here are some of the bird videos these students found. Welcome spring!
Robins Hatching

Sparrow Building a Nest

Warlber Singing

Connecting on the “Inner Net”: My Experience With Forums and Twitter

Posted on March 23, 2013 by canteach

I recently read an excellent article, The Touch Screen Generation which discusses research that shows there is hope… kids using technology like iPads may not create solitary zombies as so often touted by irritated parents and teachers.

“…their child could end up one of those sad, pale creatures who can’t make eye contact and has an avatar for a girlfriend…”

In 1998 when we first created CanTeach, I was part of a teacher forum called Teachers Net. I was in a rural school, where the closest school was over an hour and a half drive away. Through Teachers Net and CanTeach, I racked up so much time on the internet connecting with teachers from all over the world. My principal noticed… I thought he would praise me for finding a way to connect despite our rural location, but it wasn’t so. He came up to me one day while I was enjoying my lunch to have “a chat”. He had a print out of all the time I had spent on the district’s server concerned that I was forgetting to log out. I embarassingly told him that I was not forgetting to log out and reminded him about all the help I was receiving through fellow educators on the “world wide web”! He promplty gave me a large bill for my internet usage and sternly told me to stop.

But… I didn’t stop, I continued paying the bills and I didn’t care! Some may say I was addicted, but I can truly say I was not (you can even ask my husband!). I admit, though, that I was craving connection with people who understood what I was going through and could help me navigate the struggles of being a new teacher. It was a tough year, I would not have continued teaching without all those kind and generous teachers on that forum.

I continued on that forum and this group of teachers became comfortable sharing beyond professional advice… cancer, unemployment, divorces, births, and deaths. One memory that still gives me chills is a husband of a fellow teacher getting on the forum one day to let us know that his wife passed away suddenly and to thank us for being great friends to her. Of course, as “in real life” friends do, we banded together and bought gift certificates for restaurants and sent sympathy cards and flowers for the grieving family. We were connected.

Now here in 2013, I hope that most people (especially those who are reading this right now) would say that the internet and modern technology has significantly improved how we live our lives and connect with people.

Another reason I have been thinking about all of this is that I recently joined twitter just over a month ago (yes, I know late to the party!). My first tweet was honestly unindented to be ironic. I just found this little comic that appeared on Kottke.Org and I LOLed (yes, when I write LOL, I am one who REALLY laughs out loud!). My tweet that accompanied the comic was “Ha ha! 100 years of blaming technology for the loss of human connection”.

Twitter has brought back the same feelings as I had in 1998, but on a grander scale. It has allowed me to connect with more people around the world AND especially with the people at my own school district. The interesting thing about twitter is that it doesn’t stop at the tweets, meeting in real life is ultimate! You see it all over twitter, the many cases of people tweeting that they will be in a certain city for a conference or vacation and that they would like to meet up with fellow educators, then gush about it afterwards!

Now I can’t stop telling people about twitter. I just want everyone to join, I get so excited that I can’t even form my thoughts in a coherent matter… all that comes out, is “it’s awesome, you just have to try!” Now more than ever, it is important to show our students that we are connected, that we value relationships, and that there are people out there that can help you in many forms. Twitter is just one way of doing that!

Connect with me on twitter @teachermrskhan

Yes, Genius Hour in Kindergarten!

Posted on March 10, 2013 by canteach

I have been reading a lot about Genius Hour and have been inspired by my own district’s Gallit Zvi and her journey with integrating it in her classroom. The teacher of our Grade Five buddy class went to a workshop that Gallit ironically spoke at and decided to integrate it into her class. Wow, am I ever lucky that our classes are buddies! Her Grade Fives have been doing amazing work during their genius hour time.

So, as January came to a close and we noticed that the kindies in my class were becoming more independent and fully capable of using iPads, we set them to work with their buddies in our first Kindergarten Genius Hour project. Because this was our first time, we had to put some parameters around it. I know, I know, less direction the better when it comes to Genius Hour… but you have to give us some credit for loosening most of the strings!

Our kindies thought of something that they would like to learn about and brainstormed some questions about the topic. The topics and questions that my kindies, yes FIVE year olds, were thinking of were beyond my imagination. They were vibrating with excitement at the possiblity of actually controlling what they were going to learn about. Some of the topics that were decided on were cowboys, cars, dresses, birds, and owls.

Then the magic happened. The Grade Fives paired up with their Kindergarten buddies and off they went. Engagement, conversation, collaboration, and critical thinking just happened… and we, the teachers, were minimally involved. After meeting every Friday morning for a few weeks, the kids were ready to present their finding in a Keynote presentation. I was so proud! Our kindies confidently presented with their big buddies beside them helping them along the way.

I am excited to further explore Genius Hour more in our class, with the assistance of our big buddies. We will now be changing the name of “big buddies time” to “Genius Hour”! I also can’t wait to show the parents how much we are learning, once agian, from playing around in Kindergarten!

If you would like more information on Genius Hour, Gallit Zvi has some excellent posts on her blog here: Integrating Technology: My Journey

Below is a sample of some slides from a priceless presentation on Ninja Turtles.

Your School’s Online Presence

Posted on March 5, 2013 by canteach

I recently read a blog post written titled Apparently My School Sucks where Greg Miller writes how his school fared on the Fraser Institute rankings based on their Provincial Achievement Tests that are given to their Grades 3 and 6 students. As the title hints, you can guess that they didn’t do so well! At the end of his post, Miller links to a great video about his school and the wonderful initiatives they are taking part in, showing that his school is a much better place than what the Fraser Institute presented.

This got me thinking about the current online presence of our school. I hope it is not simply a Fraser Institute ranking. When people are Googling our school, what are they seeing?

Almost two years ago, when I was told the name of the school where I was to be the new Vice Principal, the first thing I did was look at our district website. Here, I was able to see the school’s student enrolment, address, teachers, and presentation of self through a dull boring photo of mostly a parking lot (yawn). Then, I went to Google. Here I found a video of a girl (presumably a student at my school) running around our field screaming (woo hoo some excitement), some old pictures on Facebook that ex students had posted (future blackmailing possibilities), AND the Fraser Institute ranking…

A parent last year told me during Kindergarten interviews that she and her husband moved from another province with no ties to the community and decided on living in the north area of our district because it was close to her husband’s work. Before they bought a house, they looked online and found that the Fraser Institute ranked our school as one of the highest scored school in the area (which isn’t that high, believe me!). So, they proceeded to buy a house near our school and register their children here. That’s it!. (Boo hoo to all the other schools in the north who lost out on a great family just because the only info this family could find online was the Fraser Institute’s!). I was shocked that they made their decision as a result of one source. But, as she explained, they knew no one, they had never been here and had no idea of how to find more information. They wanted their children to start school in September and were on a tight schedule, so there you go.

Where can people look for the other valuable information that we like to hold up high? Where can people find how dedicated our staff is; how happy, engaged, and safe our students feel; and how we celebrate successes and overcome difficulties?…

I believe that we are on our way to providing a more rich online presence now that we have blogs, a class website, photos of our celebrations, and our school plan easily found through our district’s website, but I can’t help feeling that we need to do more.

A new set of Kindergarten parents are trickling in to register their children at our school for September. This is such a great opportunity to put our best foot forward, not only in person but online. I don’t want parents to rely on the Fraser Institute results to help them decide what school to send their children to. I want them to see that we are more successful than that!

What is your school’s online presence?

Great Literacy and Numeracy Apps for Early Learners

Posted on February 22, 2013 by canteach

As a part of our school’s tech team I am often asked questions that begin with, “Do you know any good apps that…?” So here are some early learning apps that I use in my class regularly for literacy and numeracy centres. Now, I don’t really like recommending apps because I know that apps can be learner and teacher specific. What works for me and the learners in my class may not work for you and your learners. Most of these do not cost that much (with the exception of the first one that I talk about, but it is so great that I can’t not talk about it!). So, play around and keep an open mind!

Smarty Pants School allows you to assess students’ reading abilities then opens up fun activities for them to do related on areas that they need extra practice in. This app focusses on letter recognition, letter sounds, recognizing sight words, and spelling sight words. You can enter many students in the app and it saves each of their progress. Levels are not opened up until students master the level before it.

Endless ABC is a charming app that was created by the creative team at Callaway Digital Arts. It introduces children to the meaning and spelling of fun words like bellow and flop. As you drag letters into their appropriate spaces, the letters come alive and repeatedly speak their sound.

Syllable Awareness Animals is a simple app that flashes animals and asks you to tap out how many syllables the animal name has.

Word Wall HD encourages word recognition and word building through simple games that highlight word families. This app allows you to set up the games for different reading levels.

Bugs and Buttons is another app that covers many areas and can be suited to varying levels of abilities. Visually stunning images encourage users to practice skills involving sorting, patterning, number recognition, subitizing, problem solving, and basic ipad gestures.

Friends of Ten: There aren’t many apps out there that use ten frames at an early learner level. I found this app does a good job of providing practice using ten frames for counting objects to ten, subitizing, counting on from a higher number, partitioning of objects to make 10 and recognizing more and less.

Adding Apples is a motivating app that provides practice solving addition questions from 1+1 to 9+9 and counting from 1 to 18 both visually and verbally. Students can earn trophies for the number of equations they answer correctly.

Animals Counting Writing Game is a very simple app that students can use to practice writing numbers, counting, and recognizing number words. There are many apps that do this, but I liked that this one had the number word associated with the number.

Class Blogs: Why Push the Parent Comments?

Posted on February 11, 2013 by canteach

It seems like everyone has a blog now. In addition to CanTeach’s blog I have also been writing a class blog since September. Almost every week I add a post related to the exciting things that are happening in our classroom and school. I have wanted to create a class blog since the word blog started popping up. Blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, I kept hearing it everywhere… the pressure was on.

I hesitated, though, trying to make sense as to what its purpose would be. Would anyone read it, would it really be worth the effort, would it make any difference in my teaching, would it be as great as those already out there? Well, 5 months later, the results have been much deeper than I ever expected.

First off I knew that photos of my students and their work was a priority. Personally, as a parent to a Kindergarten student this year, I truly understand how it is to feel disjointed from my child and the place that he spends so much time in. I do not get to drop him off every morning, visit his teacher, observe how he behaves around his classmates… and how his classmates behave around him! I knew as a parent I would appreciate visuals, so I sent out a permission form (I based mine on an excellent one that Karen Lirenman drafted and posted on her blog) outlining all the work we would be doing with technology this year and had conversations with parents explaining that this blog will be my main way of communicating to them. I only had one parent refuse photos of their child being posted, but they did agree to her work being posted and her name being referred to.

I was so excited when my first post went up. I’m sure all you bloggers did the same thing… refresh, refresh, refresh! As I saw my page views slowly creep up, and I mean SLOWLY, I was saddened that no one was commenting (and was it only my refreshes that was raising the page views?!). More people visited but no comments. So, I went to Google and typed “how to get more parents to comment on blogs”. There are so many ideas out there from requiring parents to post with their children for homework, having a post contest, asking specific questions and making parents answer through posting…. on and on and on.

Then it hit me as after the weekend – parents began one by one telling me how they loved the blog. One mom emailed me and expressed how thankful she was because the blog allowed her to take a look into her son’s classroom that, because of her full time job, she was never regularly going to be able to see. After Thanksgiving I noticed another jump in my post’s page views… more people were looking at it than I had students. I discovered that parents were sharing the blog with their family members and friends!

So, I picked up my heart from the ground and began writing my blog with purpose. This was an opportunity to bring parents in mainly through posting photos, videos, and sound recordings. I realized it was not so much the idea of them commenting on the blog that held importance to me than the face to face conversations and emails that I received. Those meant so much more.

As Christmas holidays approached, the usual gifts and cards appeared on my desk. The difference this year, though, was the scale and significance of comments of gratitude and well wishes that were written in those cards. These cards were just as personal, if not more than the ones that I received from my own friends and family. I owe this to the blog.

Just because my parents were not commenting on the blog did not mean they were not reading it and getting a lot out of it. Parents are referring to the blog in our conversations about the day to day extreme cuteness of Kindergarten, the nitty gritty learning outcomes, the achievements of their children and the things they need to work on. As well, the students are talking about the blog and ask daily, “can we put this in the blog?” and are giving me permission, “you can put this in the blog if you want Mrs. Khan”. Now how awesome is that?!

Using gimicky tactics to increase the number of comments to my posts may have resulted in a massive number of comments, but it may of also created a pile of insincere and unproductive comments. I was looking at it the wrong way, I thought that the blog would be successful if parents posted comments… and really, think about how much courage that would take for many parents to do that!… The blog has been successful because it has encouraged more meaningful conversations safely in person and through email.

Our class blog has ended up being an amazing way to frequently show how much I care about my students and show to parents that I care about them, too. It has been one of the most important things I have done this year!

If you would like to visit our class blog. Here it is: Mrs. Khan’s Class News

Now, if you don’t post a comment, I won’t hold it against you!

Happy Teaching!

Iram

Bring on the Technology!

Posted on February 4, 2013 by canteach

My school this year was lucky enough to receive a grant where we have been able to buy 40 iPads, and a projector for every wing in our school. Wow, has this ever transformed my teaching. This is why CanTeach, once again was put on the back burner. I have immersed myself in creating and collaborating. I kept thinking, I should add my thoughts to CanTeach!

My district has been so supportive with offering workshops and bringing in wonderful guest speakers like George Couros (http://georgecouros.ca/blog/) and Bill Ferriter (http://teacherleaders.typepad.com/the_tempered_radical/) who have inspired us to use technology as a tool to encourage 21st Century learning.

As a result of all this support, I have been able to do so much. I haven’t immersed myself in technology since first starting CanTeach in 1998! A lot has changed to say the least! It has been a huge learning curve. I can even sync 40 ipads and give them all a iOS 6.1 update… and when it fails, I know how to fix it! If I have been able to do it, you can do it too!

I am so excited about what these new tools has done to my teaching and the connections I have been able to make with my students, parents and colleagues. This year has been the best year yet! My students are engaged, I am making more use of the time in the teaching day, and I have been able to make some deep connections with parents.

In future posts I will share apps that I have discovered for early learning and all the messy things we have been playing with, but for now I’d like to share a video I made with one second video clips. I shared this on our class blogs to show how print rich our classroom is and how we are loving learning how to read and write.