Where have all the posts gone?

Blogging is kind of like exercise or flossing — the longer you go without doing it, the harder it is to start again. By the way, I haven’t exercised or flossed since N was born, either. However, if this snow ever melts, I will be biking to work again…

So, where to start?

Well, we’re in survival mode on the home front. N is a sweet, wonderful baby, but she gets bad gas, and this causes her not to sleep, and this causes her to cry, and this causes us not to sleep. Luckily, I have a fantastic partner who is so understanding and accommodating — we tag team N at night, making sure that at least one of us gets a decent(ish) sleep. For example, last night B stayed up holding N as she fussily slept from 9 to 1am, allowing me four hours of uninterrupted bed-sleep (to let you know how much sleep we’re getting, when I woke up at 1, my body thought it was done sleeping for the night and was wide awake!) I took over at 1, and stayed up with fussing N until 5:30 (B fed her around 3 maybe? It’s a bit fuzzy) when she calmed enough that I got another hour and a half with her on my chest sleeping until 7. However, we keep telling ourselves that every day it is getting better. And it will.

I am really looking forward to next weekend, when we have a dinner party, and the following weekend, when we have a wedding, because we will be leaving N with her Grandma Honey one night, and Grandma and Papa the other — we’ll get to spend hours together! B has been pumping like a mad-woman to save up enough frozen breast-milk to allow us this luxurious time. In addition, the 8th is the last class of my last grad class (if that makes sense.) Sure, I still have a thesis to propose and write, but that will be on my own time…I have three years left to finish it.

On the work front, next weekend will be great because the Hip Hop project I’m coordinating will have come to a close with two shows — one Thursday night at a local club, and Friday afternoon at the school. Especially exciting is that we have 160 students from a three suburban high schools coming to Friday’s show – it’ll be a great chance for our students to debunk some myths about their school and neighbourhood. Also, on Monday W-5 is coming to do a spot on the neighbourhood, and will interview me and the students about the project-based learning we’re doing at the school — nice exposure!

Alright, there’s a stab at a blog post — hope it gets me back on the horse. More later.

Minneapolis Reflection: Cristo Rey Jesuit High School

Cristo Rey Jesuit High School is part of the Cristo Rey Network of schools that was started in Philadelphia. It is in the area of Minneapolis affectionately known as Murder-opolis. Fielding-Nair International, the same company contracted to design our new shared facility, designed Cristo Rey. It has a massive shared gymnasium on the north side with room for 8 basketball courts. Apparently on Friday nights all courts are used and the place is electric. Check out the physical layout of Cristo Rey.

The neighbourhood has a lot of Spanish speaking students, and all promotional material for the school is in both English and Spanish. Cristo Rey is a private school, with the students working one day a week (job-sharing with other students) in order to pay for their schooling. On any given day, 20% of the school population is at work. Local corporations and organizations hire students, however, because of this all students must be in the USA legally and have the paperwork to prove it. This precludes many vulnerable students from attending Cristo Rey. (This is a problem we’re tackling here, as many students only have a health card – no SIN, no photo ID, no Birth Certificate – and can’t have their SIN reissued.) Students and  staff follow a dress code.

The learning model at this Cristo Rey wasn’t fully developed, but it was still interesting to see the allocation of space on the inside. There were many informal learning spaces and wide corridors with sitting areas as opposed to traditional classrooms. Where there were separate rooms, there were garage doors to open them up if a space needed to be larger.

As we toured around once again it struck me how important it is to have collaboration on staff. A building like Cristo Rey wouldn’t be functional if staff didn’t have a shared vision of education, and weren’t planning together to enact that vision. So, as we move on with creating a new community learning centre here, the question remains – how do you ensure all teachers (and partners in the building) are on the same page? If I had the answer, I sure wouldn’t be writing a blog entry – I’d be speaking to millions of people.

Manual Labour

There was a spot on CBC the other day about the increase in the amount of Do-It-Yourself home renovations taking place. While some may attest this trend to reality TV (or home-deco porn, as a friend calls it) the reporter cited a lack of manual labour in many workplaces. A lot fewer people work with their hands. I can totally understand this — there is something very satisfying to me about working with my hands, the feeling of accomplishment at having completed a tangible task. As a teacher there are rewards every day in the interactions with students and colleagues, however the real “fruits” of our labours aren’t visible immediately (or, sometimes ever.) Last weekend I was at the farm pouring 1600sq feet of concrete onto the sheep barn floor. And it was very enjoyable. I’m still sore, but it was great.

This got me thinking about what we do to kids in schools. We recently had a brilliant guest speaker who hypothesized that at 14, students should leave school for two years to “apprentice” — do something with their hands where they work in close contact with an adult, or elder. As someone who wrestles with the early-teenage mind on a daily basis (sometimes even winning) I have to agree. This would create a relationship with an adult, something young people are losing as adults get busier, and give the young people a chance to feel accomplished, something they rarely feel at that age. Then, once they’re more mature, they return to school, better equipped for success because the apprenticeship would give them some experience to build on in school and their bodies would be further along the state of hormonal change that guides so many teenage actions.

A new school and an opportunity for change!

The school I teach at is in the core of the city, and has a very diverse student population. Our facility is very old, dating from the 20s, and plans are in the works for a new building. With this new building will come an opportunity to change the way we work with our students. At present, we have three extended classes a day, and students can earn three credits in a quarter of the year — 2.5 months. This is in contrast to the semester system currently favoured by other high schools in the region. It enables students to earn credits more quickly. Still, we struggle with attendance.

To address this lack of engagement with school, we’re going to experiment with project based instruction. The disconnect between curricular areas, as well as the intangible nature of much of what is taught in schools, always bothered me.We’re really excited about the possibilities of joining together curricular areas that are taught in isolation (and often theory as opposed to practice) and making them real for the students. Ideas that have been floated around are a Dinner Theatre (English, Drama, Information Processing and Foods classes) or a House purchase/fix-up (Construction, Math, English, Business Ed.) The Foods teacher and I are in the process of writing up our proposal for the Dinner Theatre. Exciting times!