The memory of our first visit to Abbotsford comes back to me at this time of year. It's open enrolment time right now and the principals (especially Roy Van Eerden) are spending large amounts of time touring families through our school. They are walking new and prospective families through our hallways into the classrooms and [...]
"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 [...]
I've been connected with Abbotsford Christian School (ACS) for a long time. My student teaching placement was in grade three at the Heritage Campus back when Steve and I were still dating. Soon after I graduated and got married, I was hired on to teach grade five for the next three years. Even after I quit [...]
I’m 50 and I’ve begun to skateboard. But, this board isn’t anything that you could imagine. My nephew Kyle Doerksen in California graduated from Stanford with multiple degrees in engineering and then went on to work eight years for an innovative design and consulting firm called IDEO. For eight years he invented things that never [...]
I never learned as much as when I became a pigeon farmer. I remember walking to the barns on the day of possession, wondering what I had gotten myself into. I was overwhelmed with the responsibility, and with my ignorance as to how to produce the young pigeons (squab) that were so coveted by the [...]
I just had a conversation with an ancient Egyptian grave robber. Seriously, he was hiding out in the tomb of a recently buried Pharaoh. Our big Presentation of Learning Night happened last week. For those of you who have never been to one of our Presentation of Learning Nights, they are a big deal. Our [...]
If you had asked me what my career goals were when I was in grade 8, teaching would probably not have made my top 10 list. My mom was a Kindergarten teacher at West Edmonton Christian School for almost 30 years. Although she taught part-time for as long as I was living at home, she was [...]
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 [...]
by Moira Louw A few weeks ago, I had the rare opportunity to eat lunch with a former teacher, in her own home. Mrs. Becky Enns (although I know her as Ms. Vandenberg) was my grade 7 teacher, and I still remember her "special guy friend" Jonas coming to visit the class, and the gossip this created [...]
