For the last 11 plus school years, I have taught in the CSSI (Communication, Sensory and Social Interaction) program.  All of the students in this program are profoundly affected by autism.  I loved working with these students and watching them grow.  I made it a point to provide as many inclusion opportunities for them as possible within a safe environment.

As much as I loved working with these students, I felt I needed a change.  In August, I had the opportunity to change roles.  After setting up my CSSI classroom for the year, I moved across the hall and set up a grade 2 classroom.  These last two weeks have been filled with new learnings for me as I take my experience in special education and transfer it to a new setting.  In many ways, I feel like a rookie again.

Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki said, in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice<https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/231282>, "In the Beginner's Mind there are many possibilities. In the expert's mind there are few."

I feel so many possibilities open up for me, for my new students and for my former students.  I see my former students nearly every day and I am planning on working on some buddy projects with my new class and my former class.

Together, my new students and I are learning together and creating community.


John Kershaw (@jmkershaw) – teacher, strong supporter of inclusion, Loose Mooser,  life-long learner

My professional belief is that our school has about 30 seconds to set up and develop a positive impression on new families and their students. How they are welcomed as they come into the school, the school office, and into their classroom has a huge impact on the future trajectory of all of our students.

As such, at BelPark we have really delved into how we welcome and create positive relationships with our new students, as well as our new teachers, to our school. This year, we have implemented some fantastic ways to connect with our new community members:

• Our 1st Family Open House on Friday September 1st, before the long weekend. We had new families as well as previous families attend. It helped to get rid of a ton of anxiety, and we had many kids who would have struggled make it happily into classroom on the first day.
• All teachers emailed letters of introduction and welcome, along with a personal photo, home over the summer using SchoolMessenger.
• Individual Family Tours with the Admin Team as new students were registered were set up through appointments.
• We see everyone as a BelPark Ambassador, whether students, teachers, or parents! Our students have taken this to heart!
• Our staff members were so open and embracing of sharing our school context and culture, enabling new teachers to gain an understanding of BelPark and our students’ specific needs.
• Our staff and teams came together to support one another in classroom setup, finding and moving furniture, planning, etc.
• Our Staff Meeting Minutes, School Organizational, Family and Assessment Handbooks are set up as online resources in OneDrive so that new staff can easily read through for referencing the processes we have set up.
• We have purposefully minimized the amount of meeting time so that our new teams could plan and come together around developing excellent student learning opportunities.
• As we now have our new wireless network set up in the school, we have adopted Twitter as our classroom and school communication tool (@BelParkCBE). Teachers are now able to share out what students are doing in class each day so parents are able to understand what their kids are engaged in.
• Less intentionally, I share out entries from my own personal professional blog (https://unravelingnewfrontiers.wordpress.com/), which allows me to share my own reflections, goals, and thoughts with our staff as well as the world at large…

Keep learning tonnes!
Derek

Derek Rakowski (@derekrakowski) has been a CBE student, teacher, and principal. He still thinks he has the best job in the world, as he is learning each and every day…

Friday February, 24th 2017 was the day that my life turned upside down. An accidental hit to the head during a PE class and my world was left spinning. As a coach and PE teacher I have concussion training. I’ve done the courses, know the symptoms and warning signs, but for some reason after getting hit in the head, the thought of a concussion never crossed my mind. I didn’t think I was hit hard enough to have a concussion so I dismissed the symptoms (and everything the concussion training tells you). It wasn’t until my symptoms continued to get worse that I went to the doctor. I was given a SCAT (Standardized Concussion Assessment Test), which I failed miserably. I couldn’t remember words or numbers, had delayed response to questions and had severe balance impairments.

Weeks and months went by and my symptoms were slowly improving. I was diagnosed with Post-Concussion Syndrome (PCS). PCS is a complex disorder where various concussion symptoms last for weeks, months, or years after a concussion. It’s strange how you can live your life never coming across the phrase “Post Concussion Syndrome”, never thinking about it, and then, boom, a series of events means you don’t go a day without thinking about PCS; how to fight it, how to solve it like a puzzle, how to explain it to doctors, or family, or friends.

I never could have imagined that something that seemed so minor could have such long-lasting and severe impact on my life. Today, almost seven months after my injury, countless hours of rest and continued rehabilitation I’m thankful to finally be feeling better. I was very fortunate to have a strong support system during my recovery, with my family and friends keeping me positive. I’m back at work at Louis Riel doing “work hardening” where I am slowly getting back into the gym. My staff and administration have been utterly supportive and I am eternally grateful to all of them for their continued encouragement.

If you take anything from reading this post please take every hit to the head seriously. Don’t just push through, or say you’re ok if you feel symptoms. I encourage every teacher, coach and parent to take the FREE online concussion training. Education and awareness of concussions is what we need to help prevent, and diagnose this misunderstood injury.

CBE Concussion Training through Staff Insite - Click here or search, “concussion training”
https://www.cdc.gov/headsup/youthsports/training/index.html


Danielle Boutette - Health and Physical Education Advocate, mom of 3, go leafs go!

CBE182 is back for for year 5! 

Through this grassroots initiative, we strive to share good stories of the everyday, awesome learning that happens in the Calgary Board of Education. We encourage you to step forward, take a risk, and share something that you've done, been involved in, have thought about, something that has made you think differently! We encourage anyone who is connected to CBE in any way to follow along and share a story about learning. 

We thank you in advance! Also, please consider sharing this with two friends - teachers, students, parents, community members!

Here is a video that we have shared before on CBE 182. Watch it, think about and share!

The summer break is an important part of the cycle of a school year. Each phase of the year brings it’s own excitement, challenges and opportunities. For me, summer is a time to reflect and consider ways to grow during the next school year. This year I’ve found there is something significant missing from my professional practice, which is supporting my own learning with artifacts and documentation. Just as we ask students to make their learning and thinking visible, this is important for professional learning as well.

If learning is an iterative process with many imperfect attempts along the way, but with many opportunities to try again, it is essential to document our efforts. Without this, the evidence for deeper reflection and to guide our adjustments is missing. In Barry Zimmerman’s model of self-regulated learning there are three phases: forethought, performance, and reflection. A key component of the performance phase is monitoring to allow for later reflection. In learning this, I’ve come to see that the spinning wheel of my iterative process is missing a spoke. I can roll along ok, but I’ll run into trouble if I try to climb a steep hill or need to take a sharp turn.  Luckily there are lots tools for documentation to explore and many colleagues who can help guide me with this new goal.


Stephan Wiebe is currently a curriculum specialist, but an artist and art teacher at heart

Meet Jeffery.

Jeffery entered my classroom in September, a “new kid” who had not experienced many successes in school. He came discouraged and not sure if MidSun would be any different.
 
Jeffery was talented in ways he had yet to discover – he was a maker. Jeffery gravitated to the Raspberry Pi I had set up, always sneaking over to it when he should be working. On top of this, he was always tinkering.
 
One day, Jeffery shared with me his new creation – a portable movie player made from a computer screen. This was my opportunity to connect with Jeffery – build that positive relationship.
 
Jeffery’s journey became ours. As he got stuck, I would try to help. But, then I couldn’t.  So I called a colleague, @JackieGroat; she brought up our problem to her kids, which helped Jeffery not only continue, but also see the power in connecting and collaborating.
 
Then, I proposed the student maker faire @TelusSpark. With support from mom, and lots of arm-twisting, Jeffery went and thrived that night. His confidence emerged, as he realized he did have talent and could succeed.

Jeffery returned to school a different kid. He was happier and more engaged. So how to keep him motivated? I gave him the school’s new toy: JD.  Within half an hour, he had learnt how to make JD dab. Now, Jeffery is teaching me.

Jeffery’s future is bright.
 
For me, I learnt I accomplished something magical –by putting Jeffery first, I had made a lifelong impact.  This is why I continue to teach.

​
@Amber_Hartwell is a wife, mother and teacher above everything else.  She works in GPE @UCalgaryEduc and is finishing her last days @yycCBEdu. You can find her at #sd23learns in the fall. She blogs at https://amberhartwell.wordpress.com to share her evolving journey with others.

Please note: This post was published with full consent from the student and his family.

June is a time of transition at the Education Centre just as it is in schools. As teachers, we are lucky to have all these endings that most often turn into beginnings. As I was packing up my cubicle the other day, I reflected deeply about my time as a Specialist and everything I have learned in this role.

Doing this work has been such a privilege. I’ve been invited to peek into countless vibrant classrooms, gleaned wisdom from phenomenal educators, and planned professional learning alongside outstanding instructional leaders. It’s not trite to say that the CBE is a wonderful place to learn because of its people. I’m grateful for the opportunity to meet many of them over the past three years, and learn from them. I’m especially thankful for my incredible team who have pushed me professionally and creatively, and room to make sense of it all.

As I prepare to return to a school in the fall and meet my students, my head is buzzing with ideas. In my classroom next year, we will spend much of our time focusing on our our community and knowing each other as humans and learners. We will design our physical and metaphorical classroom together, creating a place we all feel comfortable, safe, and connected to. We will explore our local place and develop deep connections to it so we may care for its beauty. We will examine history with a critical eye, and wonder how we might redefine Canada in a way that honours all of its peoples, including its Indigenous citizens. We will create beautiful things together. These ideas are a direct or indirect result of the relationships I’ve forged with the people I’ve met along the way over the past three years. If you’re one of them, I thank you for it. I am a better teacher because of you, and because of this work.

​
Erin Quinn is an outgoing Specialist with the Curriculum & Pathways team and an incoming grade 7 teacher and Learning Leader at Griffith Woods School. She writes at www.creativitycollective.ca and Tweets at @luckybydesign.