On being Cana-British

I've been struggling for a while now to sort out my national identity. I'm a dual citizen with 26 years of life experience in Canada, 15 months of life experience in Britain. So much of who I am has been shaped by those first 26 years, and yet I'm happily settled here and feel more and more like a local every day. I actively avoid referring to Canada as "home." I feel strongly that this is my home now, but part of me feels like a traitor because of it. And I don't really identify with the term "ex-pat" anymore. So am I Canadian or am I British? The truth is that I'm both. I am a hyphen.

British-Canadian rolls right off the tongue, but that's not what I am. That would imply that I had been born British and become Canadian. Canadian-British? Just doesn't sound right. And so, I have finally settled on my own made up term...

I am a Cana-Brit, and proud of it.

Teaching children with exceptionalities

My apologies: this is going to be a long one.

A while back, I mentioned the school I want to create one day. Ever since I first came up with the idea, it's been running marathons in the back of my mind. I am constantly thinking about everything from building design and location, staff recruitment and development, funding and scholarships, daily schedule, how to incorporate a myriad of subjects/topics/methods/projects (and how to present them to a diverse group of "exceptional" kids), individual education plans, mentorship programs... everything. It literally never stops. What I should really do is acquire a notebook for recording all of my ideas, and actually I think I will do that at some point this weekend. But in the meantime, I'm going to do a bit of recording here.

This morning, I headed over to my local Eat. for coffee, breakfast, and some leisurely Saturday morning textbook reading. I have this wonderful book--Children with Exceptionalities--that I acquired for a distance ed course that I never finished (shame on me). I love that terminology because it's much more inclusive and positively spun than "special needs."

Quote:
We all have certain strengths, we all have limitations on our mental and physical ability, and we all have some disabilities, however minor, when it comes to learning. Most of these problems fall into common areas--a tendency to be easily bored, distractibility, poor study habits, poor memory, inadequate motor control, family interference, and so on. Some of us have problems learning a foreign language; others forget directions or people's names. For most of us, a perfect backhand is an unreachable goal. ... In some students, the learning difficulties are more serious, and the children deviate more significantly in one way or another. These are students who are exceptional. ... In an educational context, children are considered exceptional only when their educational program must be altered to meet their unique needs. ... Children who are gifted and talented are recognized as exceptional because they too need specialized help from professionals to fully develop their unique abilities. (4-5)

This is my target market. Children who are exceptional because they fall on either side of the normal range for mental, physical, or social ability, and therefore require an altered program to fully develop their skills. The range of skills and abilities therein is ridiculously broad and diverse. My challenge is to create a program that can be adapted to suit all of their needs. And not just to a regular mainstream standard, either. I want my students to possess a superior understanding of the world and develop the skills to successfully make positive changes within it. No small feat.

So how do I plan to achieve this? The answer to that is still a work-in-progress, as I still have many years of learning, research, brainstorming, and experimentation ahead of me. To be honest, I don't think I will ever perfect the system, but hopefully I will touch a few lives and get people thinking about how they can improve education (for all children, not just the exceptional ones).

So far, here's what I want for my school:
- Small classes with low staff to student ratios
- IEPs with regular reviews for every child (with which all staff will be familiar)
- Comprehensive staff development programs and a focus on teamwork and idea generation within the team
- Recruitment and selection processes for both staff and students that are designed to find people who are diverse but equally likely to thrive within the school's environment
- A "firm but fair" behavioural management policy that aims to work with individual children's needs and personalities and encourage child and familial input, but demands child effort and improvement to ensure that all children involved in the program can make most of it
- Child yoga and other similar activities every single morning (I've been doing yoga lately with my kids at school and not only do they love it, it's really having positive effects)
- Balance of structure and child-generated learning based on a Mantle of the Expert model
- Using the above mentioned Mantle of the Expert, learning through the arts, and other techniques to investigate a broad range of subjects and ensure holistic/cross-curricular learning and skill development
- Focus on real world applications
- Focus on school, community, and global involvement programs
- Lots of open, frank discussion and debate
- Peer tutoring and mentorship
- Employment of technology, social media, and old fashioned pen and paper to communicate and learn from people all around the world
- In the secondary program, allowing children to focus their studies on a particular area (if they so choose) while ensuring they also round out all other basic and related skills
- Co-op and entrepreneurship programs
- Creative problem-solving to implement high impact, low cost solutions
- A bunch of other stuff that I should have written down and will hopefully remember
- A bunch of stuff that isn't really relevant to this post
- A bunch of stuff I haven't thought of yet

Right now, I'm thinking a lot about how I can use this sort of approach to get kids to teach themselves more than just how to use a computer. I've also been thinking for a while about how my system applies to children with autism (mainly the primary module, as I already know the secondary format would be awesome for them). This blog post made me realize it might be a lot more relevant to them than I originally thought, but I plan to do a great deal more investigation on the subject (quite possibly through my Masters studies).

My current belief is that education that is relevant, hands on, and student-driven is adaptable enough to be useful and attractive to nearly all children. Every child will develop skills that will help them survive, flourish, and even make a difference in the real world. And every child will be able to pursue subjects that interest them to the fullest extent that they can. The idea is to encourage a love of learning, investigation, and creativity.

Just like the eventual program itself, I aim to make its development a collaborative effort. One of my challenges is making sure that everything I do transfers to a diverse range of children, not just what I think would have worked well for me. So my questions to you are: What made a real difference to you during your school years? What do you wish you'd had (more of) in school? What ideas for education have you come across that resonated with you? How would you expand on or modify any of the ideas I've mentioned? How could they have been adapted to best suit you or your siblings/children, particularly if you/they are considered exceptional?

I have piles of specific projects that I want to try, but I'll save those for another day.

Sometimes the road less travelled is the best way to go

One by one, some of my fellow Canadians teaching in London are revealing that they feel as though they're putting their lives on hold or even regressing by being here. They watch from afar as their friends back home are reaching new milestones--graduations, marriages, babies, home ownerships--and are judging the progress of their own lives by the same yardstick.

I can relate to that feeling, but from a completely different context. I graduated from high school two years early and was on a path to earn 5 degrees by the time I turned 25. I'm about to turn 27 now and I only have one degree that I just earned last spring. On my way to getting there, I felt pathetic about my measly progress as I watched what seemed like my entire high school cohort (and several cohorts behind me) go on to earn their postgraduate degrees.

But now that my BA is proudly hanging on my wall, I see things a little differently. I realize now that the path I took made me who I am today. I have a wealth of real world experiences that I never would have encountered in school. And I have training in other areas that were never on the original plan. Inadvertently, I am now better prepared for the things I want to do with the rest of my life than I ever could have hoped, otherwise.

I suppose I don't feel the same way about being here because living abroad has always been part of my life plan. I spent years filled with envy of the people I knew who were travelling the world. I feel as though I've accomplished a great deal by coming here (although I feel that I still haven't travelled enough). There's still so much more for me to do, but owning a home doesn't even come close to being on that list.

I have a plan for the future, and another year of travelling and gaining experience in London schools is step number 1. Those are the most important things for me to be doing right now, and I feel sure that the future will thank me for it.

Switching it on

Do you do something that, no matter how you're feeling before you start, you feel as though you're bursting with life and energy and confidence whilst you're doing it?

That's how I feel when I teach dance.

The school of my dreams...

... Will hopefully become a reality one day.

My life ambition has evolved quite a bit in the past few months. I've gone from wanting to consult on creative education for gifted kids and possibly starting a very small "home" school to... playing a bit role in the evolution of education by developing my own educational method and setting up my own small-but-much-bigger-than-before school for exceptional children of mixed abilities (gifted and special needs).

As though that weren't ambitious enough, I want this school to pull quintuple duty. In addition to a school, the building will also host a cafe/bar, a dance studio that is also a performance venue, and flats for hire upstairs (plus one for me). I'm going to try and get a rough plan laid out in the not-too-terribly-distant future so I can better illustrate how it'll work.

In terms of my educational method, I'm conscious of the fact that I should probably be careful to protect my "intellectual property." Part of me wants to just trust that if someone makes use of my ideas, they will properly credit me (and hopefully let me know about it as well). But just in case, I'm going to play it safe and be somewhat vague. I have a LOT of work to do before I have this all figured out, anyway, so I couldn't actually offer many details at this stage even if I wanted to.

Essentially, I want to combine what I think are the best ideas from every educational method/system out there: mainstream, special needs, Montessori/Waldorf, homeschooling, dramatic education, you name it. Ideas from different countries and cultures, too.

There will be both primary and secondary levels, most likely broken into what England terms "key stages" (but with slightly different age ranges).

e.g. Key Stage 1 = 5-7
Key Stage 2 = 8-10
Key Stage 3 = 11-13
Key Stage 4 = 14-17

Each key stage will be comprised of one class.

The whole way through the system, learning will be holistic and will focus on life skills, both vocational and domestic. There will be a big emphasis on creativity and critical thinking and just about everything will be hands-on. Every morning will begin with a bit of physical activity designed to help calm the body and focus the mind. Everything in mainstream curriculum (and more!) will be covered... in a much more fun, useful, and meaningful way.

In the secondary stage, the majority of the students' studies will be centred around "thesis" projects. The projects will follow different themes and have different requirements and, along the way, they will learn the skills needed to complete their projects. Some of these projects will be solo, some will be small group, and some will involve the whole class. Teachers in this area will act mainly as mentors and advisors, but teach some group lessons as well.

I'd also like for there to be a strong emphasis on diversity and community. The older and younger children will interact continually, both socially and through structured programs. We will eat and play together, and the older children will have a chance to mentor the younger children. Also, since this will be a school for both special needs and gifted students, children of mixed abilities and talents will be working together. I also plan to set up a scholarship fund so that the school can be accessible regardless of ability to pay.

So there you have it: my life ambition in a nutshell. I've been thinking about it obsessively all day, for some reason, so I just had to get it out there.

PS - I've already been approached by a few people looking for jobs. Yes, I am willing to consider possible future candidates now! Keeping in mind that I don't know when or where this plan will unfold. I'm also interested in hearing from people who wish to help me brainstorm or talk to me about what their ideal school would look like. I will eventually be looking for people to challenge and criticise my plan, but not yet. I want to have it more fully developed first.

To Miss with Love and Disagreement

Thanks to Victoria's recommendation, I discovered To Miss with Love -- a compelling blog written by an anonymous inner-city school teacher in London. It is so fabulously well-written that I've found myself glued to it. So far, I've read over a year's worth of entries in a single evening. And yet... I can't help but disagree with a lot of what she has to say.

She goes through phases with the points she's trying to make. Just when I think I've established a trend, she'll switch to an entirely different one. First (in reverse chronological order), it was all about private schools. Private schools are automatically better than state schools. They breed children who take their studies seriously (which I know to be false because I attended private school--two of them--and they filled me with contempt) and who feel a sense of entitlement (which is apparently a good thing, because it gives them the confidence it takes to succeed). State schools inevitably fail to produce the same calibre of learners. Even the brightest students are doomed and will never live up to their potential. Most of the rest are on their way to the streets or prison or both.

Apparently this also has something to do with private schools not wasting time on frivolous subjects and creative education. Right. Well, I can sort of see where she's coming from. I'll admit I haven't been here long and my sample is small, especially in terms of mainstream education, but... for all the talk there is around here about creative education, I haven't actually seen it. My hunch is that it's a fad that most teachers don't actually understand and haven't properly implemented. In which case, yes, it probably is a giant waste of time.

Next, we take an interesting glimpse at the difference between students in Britain and India. We learn that "bad behaviour" in India involves wearing trousers with pockets on the outside, whereas Britain struggles with kids who constantly throw things and break into fights in class. Clearly, the fact that Indian children are grateful to go to school while British children feel entitled (wait, where did I see that word before?) to an education can be blamed for this discrepancy. Clearly, the solution is to eliminate state schooling. Nevermind that, say, Canada's education system is primarily public and doesn't see anywhere near the same level of chaos as what you'd find in a typical British school. Nor would you expect to find that same level of behaviour nearly anywhere else in the world, publicly-funded or not. I do think she has a point: We, in the Western world, do take a lot of things for granted. But I think it's far too simplistic to say that public education is at the root of all evil. And what was that again about a sense of entitlement being a good thing??

Finally, I'm on to the part about how children in the UK are not held accountable. Now here's some thinking I can get behind. She's right. You cannot hold a student back in the UK. I'm not even sure whether they get graded on their work (can someone clarify?). I think they just get tested on their abilities at the end of the year; the results of which are meant to reflect more on the school and the teachers than on the students. Why should they care about trying hard in school? It doesn't matter to them until it's too late... after they've already decided that they're not good enough and don't care about going to university, anyway.

Anyhow, for all the arguments I make, I still think To Miss with Love is an excellent blog that all educators should read. I submit that its author is obviously very experienced and a talented teacher, and I no doubt have a lot to learn from her. Debate on these topics is long overdue.

There's something that's been bothering me...

British people tend to say, "I've got," rather than, "I have." Even I've taken to saying it with disturbing frequency. It seems fundamentally wrong to me on a number of levels; but since even the most highly educated people in England seem to use it, I finally decided to find out whether it is considered to be grammatically correct.

A quick Google search revealed that the answer to that is under continual debate. Some grammarians consider it to be incorrect usage, some consider it to be the only correct usage, and most (it seems) consider both forms to be correct. Though I am but an amateur grammarian, I remain firmly planted in the first camp.

Here's why:
1. Have got is redundant and unnecessary.
2. Have is in the present tense, whereas got is in the past tense.
3. To have is passive, whereas to get is active.

On that last point, I believe I have gotten is correct where the emphasis is on the action of getting rather than condition of having. In that case, it is akin to passé composé (i.e. "j'ai eu").

Note, however, that I used gotten rather than got. Apparently this is also a point of contention, with the British preferring got as the past tense of get. I can only understand this if it is being used on its own, without the auxiliary have (i.e. "I got this for you"). "I've got this for you," just sounds wrong but, "I've gotten this for you," is perfectly fine. "I gotten this for you," is also wrong.

Maybe I'm just biased toward what I always heard growing up, but sometimes I feel as though (well educated) North Americans speak better English than the English do. Still, I fear this will be a losing battle. My cadence, phrasing, vocabulary, and vowel sounds are rapidly shifting to become more British. I can't help it.

I just hope I never forsake my Ts and Rs.

TA vs. LSA

In the short time I've been here, my job title has shifted from Teaching Assistant to Learning Support Assistant. These terms can sometimes be used more or less interchangeably, but at my school, it's an important distinction.

Every classroom has a TA. TAs assist in teaching and controlling the whole class. LSAs, on the other hand, are assigned to specific pupils who have been identified as requiring one-to-one support. There is some overlap, of course... I do help out with other things, but my assigned student is usually my first priority.

The required qualifications (having experience working with children) are technically the same for both roles, but I think most people are probably better suited to one or the other. I, for example, am definitely better off working as an LSA. I just like it better. But during my interview, the Head Teacher told me that there's no way she'd be able to stand working with the same pupil day in and day out. Different personality types, I guess.

So what does it take to be a great Learning Support Assistant?

Patience
When you're working with a child who has Special Educational Needs (SEN), learning and progress are bound to be part of a gradual process. Patience, understanding, and the love of a good challenge in this regard are absolutely vital.

Adaptability
Often, children with SEN require information to be presented to them in a variety of ways, and you may find yourself having to think up many new tricks on the fly. A solid understanding of pedagogy, as well as knowledge the child's individual needs, will help with this. Depending on what their needs are, their behaviour may also be unpredictable and you must be equipped to deal with that.

Ability to multitask
Your official role may revolve around one particular child, but that child does not exist in a vacuum. You will find yourself having to get involved in classroom management, administrative tasks, and teaching or assisting other pupils. You may also have to work in small groups with children who all have wildly different needs. Rarely will you find a moment when you don't have 5 or 6 children all trying to get your attention at the same time. You must be able to manage all of this at once, while still ensuring that your assigned pupil's needs are being met.

All of those qualities could be applied to being a TA, as well. But there's one more magical ingredient that's difficult to put into words.

What I love best about being an LSA is forming a bond with my student and watching her grow. It is a very personal experience and, for me, a very rewarding one. There have been days when I've gone home absolutely glowing, all because she successfully spelled a word, remembering to put the letters in the correct order. She and I celebrate many small victories together. She's rewarded with praise and stickers; I'm rewarded with big toothy grins.

To be a really great LSA, I think, you need to believe there's nothing better in the world than that.

Confessions of a summerholic

I have a deep, dark secret to confess.

I hate winter (no, that's not the secret... everyone who's ever been within a 20 mile radius of me knows that). I hate winter and I hate snow. I have declared, on many occasions and with vehement passion, that I hope to never see snow again. It's not pretty and it's not fun; it's cold and boring and a pain in the arse. That's truly how I feel about it.

But... do you remember the way you felt the first year after you finished school, around the start of the year and then again around exam time? How it felt completely weird to not be going through that? And then you'd start hallucinating that it was actually fun to study for exams and that you missed it?

That's kind of what it's like right now for me and snow.

On Love and Fanship

I was an early adopter of blogging (although it took me many years to say that word without breaking out in hives). In fact, I began blogging long before that term had even been coined. In 2000, I was among the first to own a shiny new LiveJournal account. As the word "journal" would imply, this was back in the days when the majority of blogs were personal spaces -- used to share and deal with one's thoughts and feelings -- rather than the mass media phenomenon blogging has become.

Nearly a decade later, my reasons for blogging have changed... but not by much. They now straddle that line between personal and public: I write as a convenient way to keep my family and friends updated on my new life in England, all the while remaining conscious that I have anonymous readers who have never met me and have no reason to care about my personal life. As a result, I struggle with the content of this blog a great deal. Ultimately, though, I've decided that the most important reason I blog is for myself. It's a way to immortalize memories of this exciting period in my life, in the same way that I can now look back on my university days (so dutifully recorded in LiveJournal) and immediately be transported back in time. So, I write about whatever happens to be on my mind that day while hoping that I'm interesting enough to not lose too many of my readers.

Victoria Westcott (of Teach in London and Canadians & Americans in the UK) has just nominated me for Edublog's Best Individual Blog Award. I am flattered, surprised, humbled, and... am also feeling quite a bit self-conscious because of it. Although I do appreciate my anonymous readers (thank you, anonymous readers!!), this blog really isn't targetted for public consumption, and I'm worried I'll be criticized for that. I'm probably over-reacting (but just in case I'm not, this post is my disclaimer!).

In any case, this turn of events is good because it has lit a fire under my butt to get going on a couple of edu-relevant posts that I've been meaning to write. Stay tuned for an update on my experience as a longterm Learning Support Assistant, as well as an essay on my personal principles of teaching. I've also added tags, so you can now search for posts that interest you by clicking on the appropriate tags in the right hand menu.

PS - Still sick, still happy, and still incredulous that I'm going to Barcelona in just 15 days!!!

Moments (a.k.a. excuse me while I temporarily become a hippy)

There was a moment this morning, while peering out through the front window at Starbucks, when the footsteps of the passers-by on Oxford Street fell perfectly in line with beat of the music on the stereo. Suddenly, the street scene became a work of art.

There was another moment, on Tuesday morning, on my way to the Tube. Across the street, a team of workers were demolishing a flat. The rhythm and tones of their smashing sounded remarkably like jazz.

Moments like these remind me of how perfectly aligned the universe is. We may have war, famine, disease, and climate change to battle... but compared to all the wonders of the world, these begin to feel like minor obstacles.

People, events, and ideas

They say that small minds discuss people, average minds discuss events, and great minds discuss ideas. I like to think of myself as having a great mind (or at least an above average mind), and yet lately I've been trapped in writing about events. I have ideas brewing, but I can't get them out. Why is that, I wonder?

As an update to yesterday's post, I decided to leave the work thing up to fate. If I had gotten a call this morning, I would have gone in. But since I didn't, I kept right on sleeping (rather than option B, which would have been for me to call them at 7 am and thus raise my chances of getting work). The ColdFX and various medications I'm taking seem to be doing their job, though. As a rule, I never take medication -- it says a lot about my desire to be working that I rushed out to get some last night. Anyway, I'm feeling a lot better and should be totally fine by tomorrow. Which is great, 'cause I'm slated to go back to the psychiatric hospital school.