“There is not any language that can stop a friendship. What is worthy is the interest and willingness we all put in it.” Elimilieth, grade 11 student at Centro de Fe Vida Nueva, Managua, Nicaragua. The words above were written in a card I received from a student, on the day the Nicaragua [...]
I spent spring break with 11 princesses and a snowman and I loved it! My wife and I drove our girls down to Disneyland for their first visit at the “happiest place on earth,” and found that even though we were on a break from school, we could still learn a lot. Here are some [...]
This time of year must be one of the worst to “get to” write a blog. It feels like, “have to” kind of work, especially in the midst of writing report card comments. But, since I am in the mode of comment writing, here are my Term 2 comments, written in third person: Seth's Term 2 [...]
To the educational assistant who shares this classroom with me: I know you've heard me say thank-you to the students in the class, maybe for excellent behaviour or for doing great work, for sharing their thoughts on a topic or helping out a peer, perhaps for all the pictures, cards, paintings, and notes that cover [...]
Every time our school gets hit with vandalism, my response and, that of the students is, “it was probably teenagers.” Sad, but, most likely true. No doubt much could be said about why that is and what could be done about it. I’ll leave that for another article by someone who knows more about it [...]
Sadly, one of the most enjoyable, meaningful and challenging learning opportunities I had did not take place in a classroom. It took place in my backyard, during summer break, when I finally responded in the positive, to enough prodding from my wife and begging from my then three young girls to build the girls a [...]
"How are you today? What did you do this weekend?" "Who are you playing with today? What are you playing?" "So, what's new in school today? What are you learning about?" Those are the questions I usually have to ask to get one of them talking. Small repertoire on my part. After all, my job wasn’t that big—it [...]
My mother-in-law passed away the Monday before Christmas holidays and so I was in Edmonton the last three days of school. She was 99 years old. Up to the last week of her life my brother-in-law said he still couldn’t put anything over on her. She died peacefully and relatively free of pain, and had expressed a [...]
I lost my voice again this year. Couldn’t speak at all. Croaks, whispers, whistles and frantic waving of hands in gestures not even remotely resembling sign language were all you could get from me. It happens about once every school year, and you think I’d learn… A bad idea. Yelling at students is a bad [...]
Sparkling lights, hot chocolate by a cozy fire, feelings of peace and calm, all is merry and bright. Those were the sentiments I wanted to be writing about, as I frantically tried to get a post-Christmas blog entry done. The flu happened instead, causing changed and cancelled plans, disinfectants and laundry, missed visits and tired [...]
