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Published: October 10th 2011
There have been times in my life when I have felt busy, sure. Stressed? Yeah, definitely. All of that pales in comparison to the beginning of school for a first year teacher. While I count my blessings that I am entering into my first professional year in a community that I am familiar with, I did not anticipate the hectic, overwhelming workload that would greet me! The key word for getting through this year with my mental health intact will be balance. Balancing how much time I spend at work or thinking about work (desperately needing to cut back on the workaholic-like hours that have seen me consistently putting in 10 hour + days and weekends to boot!); balancing my personal life and relationships (reminding myself that some days all you need is a good laugh with friends); and balancing my own mental health (which means getting into the bush as much as possible!).
With the art of balance slowly developing, it must be said that I love my job. Every day flies by in a whirl of interactions, decisions, and debates and I wouldn’t trade a minute of it. One thing I said to my class at the beginning
The Gr. 5/6 Classroom!
The view from my desk in the back corner :)of the year is that even though I am a teacher, I am also a learner. How true that is! I learn something new about a student, the school, the community, and/or my own teaching every single day. A lesson I have learned about teaching so far is that a huge part of the job is the ability to effectively navigate and manage different personalities and moods on a daily basis, your own included! Having an off day is hard enough, but when you are having an off day and guiding twenty 10 and 11 year olds through their day, think again! You have to take a deep breath and put your own baggage aside or else you can be sure that your day will end with you having “don’t do that” more times then you can count, a hoarse voice, and an insatiable urge to swear while grunting nonsense under your breath (clearly, this has never happened to me :p).
A bad day is a reality of any job though, and the positive far outweigh the negative. I have a wonderful class, which I was fortunate enough to know about 80% of the students before the year even
Cozy Couches
The spot by the window where we gather for community circle, lessons, and when students need a different space to work. began! I started the year with a Grade 5 & 6 class of sixteen students, which over the last month has grown to a group of twenty. While that may seem small compared to classrooms down south, it is more then enough for me to handle! Having to negotiate curriculum, assessment, and planning for two grades on top of the needs of students who are at varying levels of math and literacy is a big undertaking! I will not say that I have figured this out yet, but I am working on it.
The first month of school I spent building our classroom into a community. A learning strategy that I engaged in during teacher’s college called Tribes Learning Communities formulated the basis for this approach. Essentially, I began building our classroom routines by getting the class to engage in a lot of get-to-know-you activities that focused on team building, cooperation, listening, respect, and communication. Examples of this include our daily community circle. Everyday in my classroom starts off with a community circle. We gather in the cozy couch area in the back of the classroom every morning and discuss whatever topic I have posted on the board (Examples
XO Laptops in the Classroom!
That shelf is full of the students mini laptops, the XO, provided by the One Laptop Per Child foundation. It has been an amazing resource in our class which I try to have the kids using on a daily basis. have included the best part of my weekend, my favourite donut, the colour gray makes me think of…). A mini football serves as our talking stick – whoever has the football, it is their turn to speak. The students have agreed to observe four simple agreements in our circle:
1. Attentive Listening.
2. Appreciations/No Put Downs
3. Right to Pass
4. Mutual Respect
We review these agreements on a weekly basis, especially if any members of our group are having a hard time remembering them. Essentially these agreements help to build a comfort level with the students and also give students the power of choice in how they want to participate in the discussion. While a lot of students were shy to share in the first few days, the majority seem to be feeling quite comfortable now and a lot more sharing has happened!
Another example of a community building activity that we did centered around the idea of appreciations and put downs. We talked about what these words meant in class and then I had the class split into four groups. On one side of a poster paper, I had them right the word “Put-Downs”. I told them
Organ Investigation
Yup, that's beaver! And partridge. And students making their way to the station... to write as many negative things they have heard or have been called or things that hurt them on the sheet. After a few moments, I had them flip the sheet over and write how these words made them feel. It was quite interesting to see what the students wrote and how words have hurt them. The next day, we walked to the Point (or Nebemagang) which is a beautiful forested portion of land about 15 minutes from town, for a cookout and games. Part of this afternoon we also dedicated to “Putting Down the Put-Downs”. We talked about some of things on the sheet and how it hurts people and I said that these were things I never wanted to see in our classroom and asked if they agreed. Everyone did so to symbolize this we had a funeral for the put-downs by burning them in the fire. The kids really got into it, and I think that it hammered the point home a little harder. That’s not too say I don’t still hear swearing and hurtful words, but it began a class discussion regarding what it means to be negative or hurtful.
To reinforce this, I have
also started a “put-down” and “appreciation” jar system in the classroom. Anytime I see or hear a student doing something positive (like staying on task, helping a classmate, cleaning up without being asked) I put a chip in the appreciation jar (and I make sure I always tell the student that I appreciated what they did). On the other hand, if I see or hear negative behaviours, it is a chip in the put down jar. At the end of the week, whichever jar has more chips determines whether the class celebrates or needs to revisit our agreements in some way. While the first week the jars were a dead tie at 71 appreciations and 71 putdowns, this past week the kids were fantastic with over 60 appreciations and only 34 put downs. Hooray for small successes!
The fun of community building had to end at some point however and over the last two weeks we have really gotten down to business with the start of our first science unit on the human body. While the usual in the classroom stuff is going all right, we had the opportunity to go on an outdoor education trip last week that
Playing in the Leaves
Some of my students were having a great time in the age old tradition of leaf piles -- I even got buried! took us back to Nebemagang, this time for the whole day. We spent the morning canoeing, fishing, and partridge hunting followed by roasted wieners for lunch. In the afternoon, the kids went through three stations: Canoeing or Partridge Hunting, Fire Building/Cooking, and an Organ Investigation. The weekend prior to the trip I had the good fortune of learning how to skin and clean a beaver (an excellent lesson!) which resulted in beaver organs that were going to be thrown away. Not to waste an opportunity for learning, I froze the organs and those, combined with the two fresh partridge some of the students caught in the morning, provided us with real organs to look at and explore. It provided the students with a great real life application to what we are talking about in the classroom and we got to be outside on a beautiful fall day, eating fresh partridge and enjoying each other’s company ☺.
Life isn’t all about school, though! Wasn’t I just going on about balance?! I do take a break here and there and have been enjoying watching the season change from niibin (summer) to dagwaagin (fall). Dagwaagin has always been my favourite season, and
this year is no different! While being further north means there isn’t as much of the red and orange provided by maples and other trees in southern Ontario, the bright yellows of the birch and poplar trees contrasted with the deep green of the spruce trees and the reds and browns of low lying bushes makes for beautiful scenery. Particularly when you can look around in any direction and see huge stretches of bush getting ready for the winter. I have been out for lots of evening walks, attempts at partridge hunting and even a few camping trips in there! Every time I go camping, I am reminded of how much I enjoy being in the bush and what a good “self care” activity it is for me. Even if I can’t go camping though, I seem to walk into someone’s kitchen when fresh game has been laid down, and thus have had many lessons in cleaning and preparing fresh game including geese, beavers, and partridge so far this season! The first attempt was my roommate and I defrosting a goose caught last spring and having an evening adventure of plucking, singeing, cutting, and cooking it up. Apparently I made
Nebemagang
Watching storm clouds roll in over the point as we start to pluck a goose pretty good bannock dumplings for my first attempt!
On the whole, life is going well. As always, I enjoy being in Fort Hope where the small town feel continues to wrap around me. Knowing people when you walk down the street, bumping into familiar faces everywhere you go, the friendly teasing one is bound to get, and now hearing the age old call of “teacher, teacher!” and actually BEING one. Weird. Even weirder when kids I have known for three years not as students call me teacher! So, life continues on in its more frantic pace as the life of a first year teacher, but I have been assured that it will get better by after Christmas. Woo hoo – 3 months to go! Thanks for reading and I hope this finds you well wherever you are with all that you are doing!
Lots of love,
Courtney
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Donna Wood
non-member comment
Wow! Excellent Reading.
It sounds like you have found the right combination of passion and challenge. Congratulations Courtney. Hope to see you at Christmas. d.