We've had a great few days with my fabulous friend (and expert tour guide) Akello! Jeremy would particularly note Akello's knack for finding delicious places to buy less expensive and delicious food. In addition to eating, however, we have also explored the lovely town of Brisbane. On our tour of the Brisbane city hall, we learned that city was actually settled as a secondary punishment center. Those who committed crimes in England were sent to Sydney... and those who reoffended were sent to Brisbane. But you wouldn't guess the town's history from the people who live there now :)
This morning, we departed Brisbane for the Gold Coast, which is a beautiful city on the ocean. We rented two stand up paddle boards and a kayak, and we paddled our way around a little inlet where we found a jelly fish! I've never seen a living jelly fish before - it looked quite squishy, but I resisted the urge to touch it given its ability to sting. From there, we took the bus to surfer's paradise, a beautiful beach with rolling waves. After a dinner of fish and chips (and ketchup... which we were rather surprised to learn was 2$ extra), we caught the train back to Brisbane and explored Southbank, a lively area where there is currently a food festival! We stopped at an incredibly delicious chocolate cafe before catching the bus home - sleepy and happy.
Saturday, July 19, 2014
Friday, July 18, 2014
The Great Ocean Road
It took a while to thaw out from our penguin adventures in St. Kilda. But when the ice melted from our joints, we made it out to the great ocean road! Jeremy picked up a delicious chicken, brie, and cranberry pie while I enjoyed an overpriced coffee and we were on our way.
We saw many incredible views of the rock formations above the ocean around the many crazy turns. A few issues with the rental car were resolved with the help of a fellow Canadian from Manitoba who lent his phone and expertise.
After staying over in Apollo Bay, we drove out to Cape Otway where we almost blew off a lighthouse. The wind kidnapped my camera lens cap (we bought a new one today), but it was worth it for the spectacular views.
On the drive out of Cape Otway, we found the most adorable baby koala in a tree! Jeremy did not hug the koala, though it was hard to hold back. But he did take some pretty great koala selfies. Shortly after, we rounded a corner to see a wallaby looking at us while munching on a bit of grass! We kept driving through Anglesea, where we were told a family of kangaroos was living on a golf course. The family of kangaroos was very friendly and photogenic.
When we got back to Melbourne, we flew to Brisbane where we found the best Australian inhabitant of all - Akello! Today we had a fun day exploring Brisbane and visiting the clock tower of the city hall building. Akello is also an expert on where to find delicious food in Brisbane, so we enjoyed some very tasty sushi and bubble tea before heading back to Akello's place.
We saw many incredible views of the rock formations above the ocean around the many crazy turns. A few issues with the rental car were resolved with the help of a fellow Canadian from Manitoba who lent his phone and expertise.
After staying over in Apollo Bay, we drove out to Cape Otway where we almost blew off a lighthouse. The wind kidnapped my camera lens cap (we bought a new one today), but it was worth it for the spectacular views.
On the drive out of Cape Otway, we found the most adorable baby koala in a tree! Jeremy did not hug the koala, though it was hard to hold back. But he did take some pretty great koala selfies. Shortly after, we rounded a corner to see a wallaby looking at us while munching on a bit of grass! We kept driving through Anglesea, where we were told a family of kangaroos was living on a golf course. The family of kangaroos was very friendly and photogenic.
When we got back to Melbourne, we flew to Brisbane where we found the best Australian inhabitant of all - Akello! Today we had a fun day exploring Brisbane and visiting the clock tower of the city hall building. Akello is also an expert on where to find delicious food in Brisbane, so we enjoyed some very tasty sushi and bubble tea before heading back to Akello's place.
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Kangaroos, People, and Penguins
We ate a kangaroo! After arriving in Melbourne yesterday, Jeremy and I walked around downtown and found a delicious but surprisingly empty restaurant where we had kangaroo tortillas! Then we met our new friendly Melbourne roommates, and went early to bed.
This morning, we explored the interesting little streets of downtown Melbourne, which are filled with quaint coffee shops and friendly people. I tried my hand at doing a "humans of melbourne" photography starter for meeting interesting people. And it worked! I met a lot of neat folks and heard some fascinating stories.
We spent this afternoon/evening in st kilda, where we saw a family of penguins! They live in the rocks on the breakwater there. By the time the sun went down, we were pretty chilly, so we caught the tram back to downtown. We'll make an early night of it as we will be picking up a rental car and driving to Apollo Bay along the coast in the morning!
Sunday, July 13, 2014
The Opera House and the Mountains
Our first few days in Sydney have been wonderful. We meandered through a lovely park that we assumed was the botanical gardens with fantastic view of the opera house and the harbour bridge, enjoying the variety of birds and trees... And then arrived at the gate of the real botanical gardens! We spent a few hours attempting to distinguish between the call of a bird and that of an Australian kid... Surprisingly similar ;)
Then we grabbed an over priced bite to eat by the wharf and walked around the magnificent Sydney Opera House. At 2:00, we watched a ballet called Patyegarang, based on the true story of an Aboriginal woman who taught a British scientist, Dawes, her language and culture. After the ballet we went to St Mary's to attend Mass. We weren't pro Catholics as we couldn't figure out the words to the songs, but it was a lovely service to watch.
The following morning, we took the ferry over to the Mitchell's where we had parked or rental car and drive out to the Blue Mountains. Our first stop was a hiking loop involving the National Pass trail, Wentworth falls, and a number of look outs. It was a phenomenal hike. Though the signs warned that the walk takes 4-5 hours, we found that it is actually closer to 3. We assumed that they over estimate the hiking times so that people don't get into trouble running out of daylight. It is one of the best hiking trails I have walked - it was carved in 1908 along the side of the mountain with steep rock steps that take you down under waterfalls and up over them. The views of the valley below are phenomenal and the orange rock of the cliffs curves above you. Near the waterfalls, everything was lush with a wide variety of trees. After the hike, we drive up the three sisters lookout. It was beautiful to see as the sun was setting.
Friday, July 11, 2014
Arriving In Sydney
We made it to Sydney! Jeremy wore his Netherlands orange and was quite easily spotable in the airport. I was sneakier having told Jer that I would be wearing light pink, but changing my shirt when I decided that I could no longer stand my own smelliness after 32 hours of flying.
Fortunately, all those flights went well. Jeremy's flight was a bit turbulent which unfortunately made it harder to sleep, but the food he tells me was great. I was worried about my flight for a while - since the last leg of my journey (Beijing to Sydney) was more than 24 hours from my Toronto departure, I couldn't print my last boarding pass. However, without that boarding pass, it appeared to the computer system that I was ending my trip in China, which required a visa that I didn't have. I managed to get it all sorted out at my second stopover in New York, but I admittedly spent the flight to Beijing wondering if I'd be in trouble when I got out of the plane. Fortunately, there was no trouble at all in the Beijing airport - it was well signed and the people we all very helpful to a sleepy anneke.
Arriving in Sydney, we picked up our rental car and got a few groceries. Jeremy was exceptionally patient navigating an often faulty gps and we drove out to the Royal National Park. We knew it was beautiful from pictures, but we still weren't expecting it to be that beautiful! The waves were incredible and the cliffs that overlooked the ocean full of character. We met a fellow fishing in the surf who told us that he'd show us his fish if we promised not to tell his wife how small it was. There were a few people tossing a rugby ball on the sand and others just watching the surfers who somehow kept their balance on the huge waves that were breaking on the shore.
When it was sadly time to leave the beautiful park behind, we picked up a key at our hostel and parked the car at the Mitchell's place - a very kind and generous family who are friends from the Grettons. Michelle fed us a delicious dinner and dropped us of at the ferry to make our way back to our hostel. Where we meet our friendly roommates.... and slept. At very long last and very well :)
Sunday, February 2, 2014
Love what you do
Since September, I've been writing reference letters and talking with our graduating students about the ominous question, "What should I do with my life?"
There is a lot of advice available to my Grade 12's for answering this question. Perhaps the most popular advice is, in the words of Steve Jobs, "You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers."
But I see at least two significant problems with this popular "do what you love" advice.
Of course, if we take a look at the people who advise young people to "do what they love" - inspirational speakers, successful business owners, teachers - this slogan is often true for these people. I'm privileged to find myself in a career that is (at least most days) easy to love. I spend my days with bright young people who inspire me and my evenings planning lessons about exciting concepts. While a few people have negative things to say about teachers, for the most part, mention of my career invokes positive stereotypes like, "You must be very patient" or "You must wear adorable cardigans". I get to work in a career that is quite loveable, and one from which I have the option of telling the next generation that they ought to find a career like mine.
But we have a problem here. There are a few fortunate Canadians who do what they love. Meanwhile, the majority do what they can.
The individualistic focus of "do what you love" assumes that our society doesn't need the people who are working in hard-to-love jobs. Instead of respecting their work, it treats them as lesser people, who have settled for their careers. Or worse, it avoids the issue all together and pretends they don't exist.
But on my drive to school tomorrow, I'll drive on roads that are well salted and sanded. Probably not because years ago, a high school student had an innate passion for salting and sanding roads, but because that person was willing to do a job that provides safety for all of us. When I pick up a coffee on the way, it's possible that the man who took my order was born with a love for selling coffee. But odds are that he's there to make a living and serve his community in a way that he can.
"Do what you love" does to the ideology of careers what folks like Peter Schiff would like to do to the economy of careers. If you missed the headline, Schiff is the CEO who was recently quoted to say that a person who is "mentally retarded" should be happy working for 2$ an hour because "you're worth what you're worth" in an interview about the potential of raising minimum wage. He later corrected his statement, assuring us that he intended to say that an "intellectually disabled" person should work for 2$ an hour. I don't think anyone felt terribly assured.
While Schiff's reasoning would widen the economic gap between the rich and poor, intentionally or not, Job's philosophy widens the emotional gap between the rich and the poor. "Do what you love" sounds inspirational. But it's also an excuse to ignore or look down on the people who make our society function. We can claim that the poor aren't like us because they failed to take our most excellent advice and pursue a career that they love. And that isn't the sort of message I want to pass on to my graduating students.
But not all is lost in the search for a soundbite of advice for my graduating students. A few sentences after his "find what you love" statement, Jobs says, "The only way to do great work is to love what you do". While Jobs treats these two statements as largely interchangeable in his graduation speech, I think there is an important difference.
While we can't all do what we love, we can all find something to love in what we do. At its core, a career is simply doing something worthwhile for society. Whether or not that something is admired in our culture, whether or not that something is easy to love - that something is worthwhile. Wherever my graduating students serve in their careers, I hope that they can find ways to love what they do.
There is a lot of advice available to my Grade 12's for answering this question. Perhaps the most popular advice is, in the words of Steve Jobs, "You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers."
But I see at least two significant problems with this popular "do what you love" advice.
- It's confusing. The follow-up question leaves the graduating student no further ahead: "What do I love?"
- It is neither true nor respectful to many Canadians.
Of course, if we take a look at the people who advise young people to "do what they love" - inspirational speakers, successful business owners, teachers - this slogan is often true for these people. I'm privileged to find myself in a career that is (at least most days) easy to love. I spend my days with bright young people who inspire me and my evenings planning lessons about exciting concepts. While a few people have negative things to say about teachers, for the most part, mention of my career invokes positive stereotypes like, "You must be very patient" or "You must wear adorable cardigans". I get to work in a career that is quite loveable, and one from which I have the option of telling the next generation that they ought to find a career like mine.
But we have a problem here. There are a few fortunate Canadians who do what they love. Meanwhile, the majority do what they can.
The individualistic focus of "do what you love" assumes that our society doesn't need the people who are working in hard-to-love jobs. Instead of respecting their work, it treats them as lesser people, who have settled for their careers. Or worse, it avoids the issue all together and pretends they don't exist.
But on my drive to school tomorrow, I'll drive on roads that are well salted and sanded. Probably not because years ago, a high school student had an innate passion for salting and sanding roads, but because that person was willing to do a job that provides safety for all of us. When I pick up a coffee on the way, it's possible that the man who took my order was born with a love for selling coffee. But odds are that he's there to make a living and serve his community in a way that he can.
"Do what you love" does to the ideology of careers what folks like Peter Schiff would like to do to the economy of careers. If you missed the headline, Schiff is the CEO who was recently quoted to say that a person who is "mentally retarded" should be happy working for 2$ an hour because "you're worth what you're worth" in an interview about the potential of raising minimum wage. He later corrected his statement, assuring us that he intended to say that an "intellectually disabled" person should work for 2$ an hour. I don't think anyone felt terribly assured.
While Schiff's reasoning would widen the economic gap between the rich and poor, intentionally or not, Job's philosophy widens the emotional gap between the rich and the poor. "Do what you love" sounds inspirational. But it's also an excuse to ignore or look down on the people who make our society function. We can claim that the poor aren't like us because they failed to take our most excellent advice and pursue a career that they love. And that isn't the sort of message I want to pass on to my graduating students.
But not all is lost in the search for a soundbite of advice for my graduating students. A few sentences after his "find what you love" statement, Jobs says, "The only way to do great work is to love what you do". While Jobs treats these two statements as largely interchangeable in his graduation speech, I think there is an important difference.
While we can't all do what we love, we can all find something to love in what we do. At its core, a career is simply doing something worthwhile for society. Whether or not that something is admired in our culture, whether or not that something is easy to love - that something is worthwhile. Wherever my graduating students serve in their careers, I hope that they can find ways to love what they do.
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Question
I'm feeling particularly inspired today from a conversation that I've had often in the last month. A caring experienced teacher asks me how I'm doing. I mention that there are definitely little moments that I love, but I'm also pretty exhausted. They offer encouragement, and then they often tell the same story: it seems that most experienced teachers have learned along the way that "you just can't be the super-awesome-always-engaging teacher that you dreamed of being". You have to be realistic about the time you have. "You can't do everything", as the common phrase goes.
The frequency of this conversation got me thinking. Why do we chose this reality for educators? Of course, in any situation, there will always be "more" and "better", but doesn't it seem a bit silly that we take enthusiastic capable new teachers, who are bursting with new ideas and high goals, and teach them to significantly lower their expectations of themselves?
I was watching the girls basketball team play on Thursday night, and they had clearly honed their skills (they won the game by a long shot, literally). But it wasn't simple case of more training that made them so successful (taking that equation to it's limits, training 24 hours a day would leave the girls to exhausted to play). It was about training well. Something that the girls, with the help of their coaches, have clearly done.
Can we do that with teaching? How do we train well as we're learning to teach instead of just training more? And how do we figure out how to train well, when the treadmill is running at level 20 and we're on it?
I was inspired by this repeat conversation because it suggests that this is a real systemic question that many of us haven't found an answer to yet. It's also a really important question to me, to almost every teacher I've talked with, and to society who have so much invested in education and therefore in educators.
It occurred to me that I could spend a lot of time trying to figure out this question. Which made me wonder if I should look into education rather than physics education research possibilities for the future. Admittedly, there might be a little bit of a narcissistic pattern here: last year, I was a girl in physics and I researched girls in physics. When I was a physics tutorial TA, I researched physics tutorial TAs. Now I'm a first year teacher, and I'm feeling quite inspired to research first year teachers. The only way to really resolve this pattern is to research narcissistic researchers, but for now, I think I'll go for learning as much as I can as a first year teacher.
The frequency of this conversation got me thinking. Why do we chose this reality for educators? Of course, in any situation, there will always be "more" and "better", but doesn't it seem a bit silly that we take enthusiastic capable new teachers, who are bursting with new ideas and high goals, and teach them to significantly lower their expectations of themselves?
I was watching the girls basketball team play on Thursday night, and they had clearly honed their skills (they won the game by a long shot, literally). But it wasn't simple case of more training that made them so successful (taking that equation to it's limits, training 24 hours a day would leave the girls to exhausted to play). It was about training well. Something that the girls, with the help of their coaches, have clearly done.
Can we do that with teaching? How do we train well as we're learning to teach instead of just training more? And how do we figure out how to train well, when the treadmill is running at level 20 and we're on it?
I was inspired by this repeat conversation because it suggests that this is a real systemic question that many of us haven't found an answer to yet. It's also a really important question to me, to almost every teacher I've talked with, and to society who have so much invested in education and therefore in educators.
It occurred to me that I could spend a lot of time trying to figure out this question. Which made me wonder if I should look into education rather than physics education research possibilities for the future. Admittedly, there might be a little bit of a narcissistic pattern here: last year, I was a girl in physics and I researched girls in physics. When I was a physics tutorial TA, I researched physics tutorial TAs. Now I'm a first year teacher, and I'm feeling quite inspired to research first year teachers. The only way to really resolve this pattern is to research narcissistic researchers, but for now, I think I'll go for learning as much as I can as a first year teacher.
Sunday, September 29, 2013
Time
Hi Anneke,
Somewhere I have a draft that I started and never posted, I'll try to find it tomorrow.
Very sorry about the car... lots of damage?
TIME is what every first-year teacher lacks. In the short run, the only solution is to settle for doing less and getting more sleep and time for yourself. There is NO evidence that students suffer at the hand of a first-year teacher, and you can often do a better job when you are rested than when you are prepared but exhausted.
I guess I'm saying "ask yourself which corners you can cut with the least damage to what you are trying to do."
I know what high standards you have for yourself, especially after your Masters. It's WAY too early to decide what you think about the profession.
Please don't burn yourself out before you give yourself a real chance!!
Tom
Somewhere I have a draft that I started and never posted, I'll try to find it tomorrow.
Very sorry about the car... lots of damage?
TIME is what every first-year teacher lacks. In the short run, the only solution is to settle for doing less and getting more sleep and time for yourself. There is NO evidence that students suffer at the hand of a first-year teacher, and you can often do a better job when you are rested than when you are prepared but exhausted.
I guess I'm saying "ask yourself which corners you can cut with the least damage to what you are trying to do."
I know what high standards you have for yourself, especially after your Masters. It's WAY too early to decide what you think about the profession.
Please don't burn yourself out before you give yourself a real chance!!
Tom
Saturday, September 28, 2013
Time
Today feels less like a mending day. It feels more like a large-vehicle-just-drove-into-our-passenger-door-while-we-were-driving kind of day. Perhaps because one did this afternoon. Fortunately, Janet is an amazing defensive driver and responded fast, avoiding any injuries.
Opening a friendly email from a parent asking about her daughter really shouldn't have opened up my frustration this afternoon. But it did - because her daughter is awesome, and I want so much to help her more with her math... and I just don't know where to find the time to do that. Today, I'm feeling frustrated with teaching. Working an 80 - 100 hour week gets me almost enough time to plan and teach okay lessons, while still falling behind on marking and letting the list of parents to phone grow longer than it should. To actually do my job, I ought to be working 120 - 140 hour weeks, but to be honest, I'm kinda tired.
Our wonderful custodian always pops his head in my classroom as he leaves at 11pm to encourage me to go home. I really appreciate his caring concern, and the encouragements of parents and others. But I'm frustrated because, while everyone encourages me to work less, there actually isn't a lot that I can cut while still doing my job. Many people offer all kinds of advice in genuine caring attempts to help, but I think the magic solution - the one that makes it possible to both be a good teacher and still get 7 hours of sleep each night - is more evasive than those on the outside looking in often believe.
And so, I'm really not sure what to think about teaching as a profession so far. I love it when I have the time to do a good job. It's so exciting to help students grow and develop into leaders who will make a positive difference in their world. But it's not terribly rewarding to see myself constantly fall short of where I want to be as a teacher - and falling short not because I'm not doing my best, and not because I'm not receiving enough support, advice, and encouragement - I have all of those things. But simply because I need more time.
Opening a friendly email from a parent asking about her daughter really shouldn't have opened up my frustration this afternoon. But it did - because her daughter is awesome, and I want so much to help her more with her math... and I just don't know where to find the time to do that. Today, I'm feeling frustrated with teaching. Working an 80 - 100 hour week gets me almost enough time to plan and teach okay lessons, while still falling behind on marking and letting the list of parents to phone grow longer than it should. To actually do my job, I ought to be working 120 - 140 hour weeks, but to be honest, I'm kinda tired.
Our wonderful custodian always pops his head in my classroom as he leaves at 11pm to encourage me to go home. I really appreciate his caring concern, and the encouragements of parents and others. But I'm frustrated because, while everyone encourages me to work less, there actually isn't a lot that I can cut while still doing my job. Many people offer all kinds of advice in genuine caring attempts to help, but I think the magic solution - the one that makes it possible to both be a good teacher and still get 7 hours of sleep each night - is more evasive than those on the outside looking in often believe.
And so, I'm really not sure what to think about teaching as a profession so far. I love it when I have the time to do a good job. It's so exciting to help students grow and develop into leaders who will make a positive difference in their world. But it's not terribly rewarding to see myself constantly fall short of where I want to be as a teacher - and falling short not because I'm not doing my best, and not because I'm not receiving enough support, advice, and encouragement - I have all of those things. But simply because I need more time.
Friday, September 27, 2013
Mending
I was really excited about our first lab report in Grade 12 Biology. The lab was fun - we tested various foods for the presence of lipids, proteins, starches, and sugars, and figured out the identity of a mystery food. We went through a checklist for what a formal lab report should look like, did a short activity to go over what a lab report should include, and since they are a strong class, I assumed they would be fine to write the labs on their own.
So when the reports were in on Monday, I discovered I'd really missed the mark in giving them adequate direction. While there were a few labs that met most of the requirements on the checklist, many labs were incomplete. Two were partially plagiarized. One contained three points for a procedure, handwritten on a sheet of paper, and nothing else. I couldn't in good conscience mark the labs and return them. We needed to rewind, take some time to learn how to write a lab report, and re-submit. So I asked them to meet with me individually, do peer editing in class, and then re-submit the labs on Tuesday. We would take this tough situation and turn it into a great learning opportunity! The route from the recovery room to hospital discharge was sparkling on the horizon.
The next day, our principal (who is very supportive) was at my door right before the start of class, letting me know that two students came to his office to tell him that my teaching was unfair and too hard. In my sleepy mind-set, after staying up until midnight getting that day's lessons ready, it was a devastating thing to hear for me. Back we went to emerge.
After a few conversations after school, I learned a bit more about the situation: revision has been synonymous with punishment for many of my students. It sounds like they understood our peer editing/resubmission plan to mean that I was punishing them, and were naturally upset. Today, we're on the mend (for now). The students did a great job peer editing and marking each other's work using my rubric, and from our individual meetings, I think they are ready to create very good lab reports (version 2) now.
The bumps and falls are far from over though. We started our next project today - we're doing a joint project with the Grade 2 class that I'm pretty excited about. We're communicating our understanding of cellular processes to a non-scientific audience using storybook analogies, and we'll be reading buddies with the Grade 2 class to share our stories. The project has already been really helpful for me to see their learning process so far. Today, I talked with one student, who was originally planning to use a lego wall as an analogy to the cell membrane. It was such a surprise and helpful feedback for me to realize that a student successfully memorized the term "fluid semi-permeable membrane", but really didn't understand what that means yet.
But... (and there is always a but), the student who told the principal that our lab was unfairly hard also confronted me today because he felt a test would be a better assessment of his learning than the project. We talked about how I can assess knowledge and understanding on tests, but if I only used tests for assessment, it would be hard for me to accurately assess communication, thinking, and application. And it wouldn't be fair to students who struggle with tests, but can demonstrate their ability through other means. It seemed a good answer to me, but to be honest, I don't think he bought it. And I get that - his world is getting good grades for university applications, not balanced assessment practices.
Always mending.
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