A rather good day...

A rather good day.

I told myself I wouldn't do it, but I did it

I showed Greta Thunberg's UN speech.
Julie,  a great environmental educator, once told me, "No tragedies before high school!!". I've tried.

But a third of the class had already seen it. Common points of cultural reference are important to us, so we kinda had to. I prepped the class in the gentlest way possible, and their level of attention was excellent. We watched for 4:30.

The speech is passionate and well-crafted. It is as impactful as Churchill's beaches, King's dreams, or Henry's scars. It is reasonned like a thesis and edged like a falchion. It is more than a little violent. Those four brief minutes may alter history, but it certainly wasn't very nice to hear.


Several of us, however, found the Easter Egg. The moment in which Greta, speaking with great venom towards the world's leaders, offered something to her peers, the children:

"This is all wrong. I shouldn't be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean."

She is paraphrasing JRR Tolkien*. Samwise Gamgee, faced with unending tragedy, is trying to help Frodo. Sam's speech is all about hope, the future, going home, and the stories that we will tell.  While castigating the world's leaders, Greta offers a hand of hope to the children whose imaginations include Middle Earth, Hobbits, and Heroes.

I haven't found Middle Earth, but we may have found a hero.

*Tolkien was a South African, a reluctant soldier in the Somme, a cryprographer contemporary to Turing, and a man very committed to peace. But he is not the hero.

SIMS class update: Lots of Beginnings

SIMS class update: Lots of Beginnings

I already miss gardening season...

Logistics Alert:
Picture Day Monday
All permission forms are in. Thanks!!!!

[Now the wordy stuff]

Getting your kid to reflect on the school day* is a bit of an opportunity for growth ("What did you learn today?"  "Stuff! What do we have to eat??") so I'll try to do a weekly post to fill in the gaps.

Here are some milestones from the week:

• Our spelling system has begun, with all students showing growth.
• Mr Berendt has collected a writing sample from each kid so we can customize our teaching.
• Freewriting has really helped many kids with their fluency (even the very cautious writers).
• Phases of Matter review is complete in Science.
• In Maths we have worked on creating common vocabulary and problem-solving strategies.
• We made our hierarchies of Human Needs (Maslow, but more fun).
• Students are learning really cool stuff in their exploratories (too much to list).
• All students can now access the computer lab.
• All students can use our apocalypse-grade class laptops.
• All kids are using Classroom. Ask them to show you; it works at home, too!

Here are some things to look forward to:

• Systems of Government and Society. This is pretty timely, and builds on themes of personal and social responsibility. We'll use this to draw together lots of reading, writing, computing, reflecting, and thinking.
• Benchmark tests in Numeracy and Literacy. I'm not a fan of too much testing, but we use small focused tests to customize learning, and so kids can see (and help direct) their growth. If a test can help a kid be proud of who they are, what they've learned, and where they're going, I like it. Otherwise, we assess in different ways.
• Lots of confidence-building maths using dice, markers on the windows, measuring tapes, and spreadsheets. We will learn to love spreadsheets.
• Prodigy. We will use Prodigy as way to practice computational skills and concepts. It even helps with basic reading. It's a very 'gamey'-looking online tool, but results have been excellent in the past and the kids enjoy it. We'll use it as a reward or a break from heavier thinking.

A note on maths language: 
Some great recent research has shown that teachers really hamstring kids in maths when we keep changing our wording. As a staff SIMS has decided to do our best to fix that. We find the difference, sum, or quotient. We multiply factors to find a product. 123.34 is 'One hundred twenty-three and thirty-four hundredths'.
This has been proven to work, I find it quite challenging to do, and any help you can give by using good math language at home is truly appreciated. More info and tips to come.

*This reflection is stupendously important for intellectual growth, and it doesn't happen enough in my family. We're working on it.

A very good week...

*This is an archive of an email sent to parents a week ago. Better archived late than never!

What a lovely week. We have a small, friendly class, a room that is fresh and large, and a whole tonne of enthusiasm. This is going to be a great year.

1. Tell Me About Your Child Thursday, 1-5. Please email me a couple of times that work, and I'll slot you in. Sometimes it's easier to just drop in after school and grab me. We all have busy lives, and I can accommodate just about everything, eventually. Getting to know you helps me get to know your child, which helps us learn.

2. Weird Stuff Mr. Woollcombe Says: 

When I'm explaining a concept, I try very hard to use interesting, relevant, and compelling examples. I try to make them age-appropriate and clear. When those goals get missed, you will occasionally hear eyebrow-raising things from your child. 

"What did you talk about in Social Studies?"

"Orphanages in post-war Soviet states, Mom. It was sad."

"Oh."

For clarity, we were addressing competencies in Personal and Social Responsibility, constructing our own Maslow hierarchy of human needs. I was illustrating how we found out that love is right there at the foundation of life, along with food and water. Failure to Thrive is not going to happen to us because of our caring circles of honour. Now, this is just an example, and nobody misunderstood it or missed the positive point (to the best of my knowledge).

But when I miss, email me. Please. 

3. Reporting

Ohh, this is gonna be fun this year. We are working under a new reporting order from the Ministry of Education, and Judy Smith (Principal) had a hand in developing it. Short version: You'll get more feedback about your child's academic growth, more often, but differently. You'll only get 1 omnibus report at the end of the year, but I get to report out on how your child is progressing based on what we're learning at the time. All the boxes will get checked, but we have a year to do it. I'm helping test some cool tools for communicating this, so stay tuned. You'll get your first installment in a couple weeks.

4. Parents volunteering:

Thanks for doing the record checks etc. so you can volunteer when the opportunity arises. I'd also like you to be able to contact each other (for events or emergencies) and share interests and skills. I'll be sending out a Google Form (totally voluntary) for you to do just that. One of our class goals is to celebrate our own class community a bit more. We have artists, writers, machine operators, film makers, educators, potters, and everything else in our class community, and it's time we spread the joy to all the kids.

5. Google Classroom

All the kids are set up with Google Classroom. I will try to put all major assignment details and resources on Classroom so kids can look them up on Sunday nights when they freak out about homework. It's a great way to keep kids from stressing. If you don't have internet access at home, let me know... I can often help work around it without any kid feeling singled out.

6. Band and Choir

Senior Band: Mondays, 7:45am-8:45am

Jazz Band: Wednesdays, 7:45am-8:45am

Junior/Beginner Band: Wednesdays, 4:30pm-5:30pm

Choir: Tuesdays, 4:30pm-5:30pm 

Contact mfootz@sd64.org for mor information.

7. Blog

These big emails get archived on the blog. I might add some 'general interest' stuff to the blog without emailing it out, but most info will be directly emailed through MyEdBC (our student information system). 

23. This post is way too long. I'll make them shorter and more to-the-point as the weeks go on.

Welcome Back: 2019 Edition

Community Week Activities - SIMS

Welcome! We survived Community Week, regained some of our 'school groove' after the break, and now have our homerooms. All the myriad tiny details of startup are coming together.

I have to tell you, first off, that this is a great class. Your student is going to be in a room full of really, really nice humans. I can already see enormous strengths in the areas of empathy, thoughtfulness, and willingness to learn.

Please excuse this very long email - I'll try to keep it organized, and it will be archived on my blog for reference.

In This Post:

• The Class in a Nutshell
• Forms and Fees
• Volunteers
• Other Ways to Help
• Technology
• Other Teachers
• Projects

The Class In A Nutshell
The style of our class is really going to depend on the learning style of the students. I've been a high-school band teacher, standing at the front and directing everything, and I've facilitated entirely self-directed inquiry learning. We will end up with a blend. I know that core literacy and numeracy skills are a huge factor in your student's future success, and we will be approaching those in a really systematic way. We also need to design, create, reflect, and think independently, so that's where a great deal of individualization comes in. The biggest goal is for students to become really excited about their learning, get inspired to take chances, and get passionate about making and following their own goals. It doesn't happen all at once, but the journey is worth it.

Forms and Fees
Student fees: $25 due this week. Cash, cheque, or e-transfer (talk to Cynthia in the office). September is a challenge for finances, so nobody is going to come knocking on your door if this is late.
Forms: They're really different this year. The yellow form is so you can confirm or change any information the office has. Please pay special attention to regular and emergency contacts, emails, phone numbers, etc. Good records really helped us last year during the 'hurricane'. The white form covers a great deal. Please read carefully and return with a zillion signatures this week. We are taking our consent and privacy standards to the next level this year, and we need to give the office all the help we can.

Volunteers
You never know when you might be able to volunteer, so please have the paperwork done right away. All volunteers need a criminal record check, and volunteer drivers need a yearly drivers abstract. Both are really easy to do by following Tania's great instructions on the school website. Please don't wait until the last minute.

Other Ways To Help 
The SIMS PAC  does great things, and needs you to help make them even greater!

Technology
Over the years people have started looking at me like some kind of technology Yoda, which does not make me feel young. We use tech for research, creating rich documents, learning coding, and as assistive technology so all learners can have their needs met. We have a class set of laptops, which are old but serviceable, and a lovely lab next door. We'll be working with cutting-edge microcontrollers and 3d design both in class and in exploratories. That said, I am pretty picky about computer use, and kids learn fast that tech is for learning and creating, not zoning out. Mobile devices (phones, tablets) are really not very welcome this year at SIMS: they'll live in lockers during the day if they do come to school. If your student has a learning or safety need concerning technology, or if you have any question at all about our tools or how we use them, let me know. I try to stay really up to date on best-practices, and I'd love to talk.

Other Classes
We will spend a lot of time as a homeroom, but there are times when we can work with master teachers in areas of particular expertise. We are currently scheduled to have art with Ms Allen, PE with Mr Langdon, and Mr Berendt has agreed to help get our reading program rolling (he has always had an amazingly successful reading program!). Students will also be in Exploratories block 8 Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Projects
We will do some inquiry projects later in the year.
If it turns out that your child is passionate about understanding 2-stroke engines, or using a serger, or traditional Hungarian horse archery, I'm totally into that. So much learning happens when kids really take the wheel, and I'll make sure that academic rigour is part of the fun... ...but I'll need your help.

Thanks so much for sending such great kids to the class. It'll be a memorable year!
Bryce Woollcombe