Pictures that need a home

I had a competition with the students: who could build the higher tower, Me or them? They won. They had help from an EA! No Fair!

Port McNeill has the World's Largest Burl! Pretty cool....but kind of funny....

 

Here is a sweet Totem Pole on the way to Port McNeill

I have the coolest neighbours. They brought me garlic from the community garden! I didn't know garlic grew like this!

    These are outside the front of the school!

 Some cool art done by my grade 6/7 class!

My "super far" walk to school.

 The BC Mission Boat is in town and they put on a ladies night at the Reserve Youth Centre. They even gave us a free nail polish! In this picture I have already started to pick it off....I'm such a picker! AND I heard about this night because I attended a bootcamp class! I'm getting into everything in Zeballos! Woop!

 Herman. The Giant spider that lives directly above my door. I literally duck under his web when I go in and out. His brother lives across from him (Pierre).

 Brucey B all happy to see me when I come back to Gold River on the weekend. He doesn't leave me!

 And my baby girl Meisha!

Orange Shirt Day: September 30th

September 30th is Orange Shirt Day, to honor survivors of the residential school system! Please show your support by wearing an Orange shirt (and by getting informed). I found the story behind the orange shirt online:

We will honour the children who survived the Indian Residential Schools and remember those that didn’t. Every Child Matters. We will wear orange shirts in recognition of the harm the residential school system did to children’s sense of self-esteem and well-being, and as an affirmation of our commitment to ensure that everyone around us matters.

The Story Behind Orange Shirt Day

“I went to the Mission for one year. I had just turned 6 years old. We never had very much money, and there was no welfare, but somehow my granny managed to buy me a now outfit to go to the Mission School in. I remember going to Robinson’s store and picking out a shiny orange shirt. It had eyelets and lace, and I felt so pretty in that shirt and excited to be going to school! Of course, when I got to the Mission, they stripped me, and took away my clothes, including the orange shirt. I never saw it again, except on other kids. I didn’t understand why they wouldn’t give it back to me, it was mine! Since then the colour orange has always reminded me of that and how my feelings didn’t matter, how no one cared and how I felt like I was worth nothing.

“I finally get it, that the feeling of worthlessness and insignificance, ingrained in me from my first day at the mission, affected the way I lived my life for many years. Even now, when know nothing could be further from the truth, I still sometimes feel that I don’t matter. Even with all the work I’ve done!

“I am honoured to be able to tell my story so that others may benefit and understand, and maybe other survivors will feel comfortable enough to share their stories. I want my orange shirt back!”

Phyllis (Jack) Webstad, Dog Creek, BC

Phyllis’ orange shirt is a symbol of so many losses experienced by those who were sent to Indian Residential Schools over several generations. Losses of family, culture, language, freedom, parenting, self-esteem and worth were experienced by everyone. Beatings, sexual abuse and neglect plagued many. Let’s not forget the children but honour them on September 30.


I had to borrow an orange shirt from my Nana in Gold River, but this is another great cause and I can't wait to show my support in orange on Monday!

Float Plane!!!!

OMG. SO. AWESOME. I wish I could travel by float plane all the time! Wow, it was so fun and so beautiful! I travelled with one other teacher from Zeballos on Air Nootka, our Flight captain's name was Doug. He was great. Everything about this plane was great. I can't even get over it. I was a total tourist. I took a ton of pictures and Elise and I asked him a million questions. He was very obliging and told us all about the Nootka Sound area. If you ever get a chance to fly in a float plane, DO IT!

Zeballos - Gold River:
It was a gorgeous day, I have some amazing pictures of the area (see below) and the ride was incredibly smooth!

Gold River - Zeballos:
We almost couldn't fly because of a storm warning, but Doug said that the storm had passed by 4pm so we hopped in! This ride was bumpier and rainy, and my camera was dead ...but I wish it hadn't been! I saw TWO BEARS (separately), and two huge groups of sea otters! Doug actually flew us around in a circle so that we could get a better look at the sea otters in their huge floating group.

I am still so excited just thinking about how fabulous the rides were!

My First Pro-D with SD84!

Friday was my first professional development day with SD84. Another teacher and I travelled by FLOAT PLANE to Gold River to attend. I could write an entire post on how awesome the float plane was...and I think I will!

Anyway, the morning focus for Pro-D was on personal wellness. We attended a workshop on how to look after our own health during the school year, with a focus on different strategies of how to manage our stress. The presenter was Nelda Adamus, a health and wellness consultant. She discussed ways for us to understand things that make us stressed and how we can be pro-active in combatting what we already know will cause us problems. There were 5 ideas that I took away for myself:
1. Try to take a couple minutes to meditate every day
2. Say something that I am grateful for every day
3. Play and laugh at work more
4. Move and stretch at work more
5. Work at letting go of the things I cannot change

This was a great session. Very motivational!

For the afternoon Pro-D I went to a collaboration session on technology in the classroom. A collaboration session is basically an opportunity for teachers from different schools to get together and ask questions and talk about what is working ...in this case, with regards to technology. It was nice to see that the other teachers from my school had also chose this afternoon session! Apparently we are all on the same page for what we want to learn about! There were a few people from Gold River in the session as well. I now have a whole list of apps and smart board ideas that I want to try out! Technology is so exciting!

New Approach

I tried a new approach with my 6/7 class on Tuesday and Wednesday that I think is going to go well (I know, I know, I said that with the last big idea). My vice principal/ LART (Learning Assistance Resource Teacher) gave me the idea. He said, rather than trying to focus the whole class as once, just try to come into class and start doing something fun and see who joins you. He said that he has found that this works well for art especially.

Well, I did make some modifications to this idea because I know that with my class, it doesn't matter how interesting the thing is I'm doing, some students will not think it's interesting. So I decided to give each student two choices for each of the two subjects I teach in the afternoon (at the moment health & career and art). I wrote up all the information for all four of the lesson plans and gave the plans to the students for them to make the decision on what they would like to work on. Then I just put all the art supplies out on the table and started encouraging students to pick lesson plans that I thought that they would enjoy. This worked for a little more than half of the students. Most kids did pick a lesson and get to work on it. Of course, this is far from a perfect outcome, but it is still a work in progress. Most students still wander out of the room occasionally (which the whole school is working on...but it's something that I am learning to get over and not take personally), and some students still refuse to work at all, but it's a start. It is definitely less dictatorial which wasn't really my style to begin with (but I was willing to try anything).

I will try to keep you updated on how my afternoons are going with this strategy.

Welcome to the Real Zeballos

On Monday last week the power went out. I was woken up at 430am by my emergency wall flashlights coming on and thinking, "Why is it so bright in here?"

The night before my principal had called and asked if I could pick him up from the dock in the morning because he wouldn't have a car (this concept of picking up someone from their boat for work is so weird for me...haha). So, I woke up with the power out, got dressed, and picked him up. He and one of the high school teachers were scheduled to be going on a week long field trip with an NSOP(?)leader (which stands for the name of an outdoor education program that I can't recall at the moment, and which I may even be guessing the wrong letters for).

We got to the school as all the other teachers were arriving from their commutes into Zeballos and the power was out at the school too (the power was out throughout town). The principal made the decision that if the power was on before 12 noon then the bus would go and pick up the students....if it stayed off past noon then we would fully cancel the day. The teachers and EA's stayed for the majority of the morning in the school and then realized at A) it probably wasn't safe for us to be in a school with no lights, and B) we all live 5 minutes away from the school by WALKING....we should just go home until the power comes back. I went home and had a nap in my work clothes...just in case... and by the time 12 rolled around with no power I was fully rested! However, my house was getting cold so I went over to visit with another teacher and drink some tea with a couple of the ladies from the school (she boiled our water on the wood stove!!).When I came home later around 4 the power was still out and I had to ask my neighbour to light my wood stove for me (I'm such a city girl). It was a very strange day for me, but apparently the power goes out frequently here and everyone is used to it, so I need to be more prepared.... I've since bought candles...

Truth and Reconciliation

This was a tough week, but I do understand at least some of the reasons why:

- The community was mourning a car accident tragedy that affected families all throughout our district (and beyond),

- Many of the adults in the community were away for either the funeral or because they had made previous plans to go to the week long Vancouver event called Truth and Reconciliation. This event was to educate and inform the public about the residential school system (among other things). It was a free event that anyone could attend and it included performances, speeches, and I believe real politics (and maybe treaty stuff) as well. I hope I am not saying the incorrect thing because I know that this event was a very major thing for First Nations and for our province.
Please see these websites for more info:
http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/index.php?p=92
http://www.theprovince.com/life/Truth+Reconciliation+walk+turnout+amazes+organizers+estimated+brave+downpour+Vancouver/8944811/story.html

So, between these two things....many children were being babysat for the week and were probably missing their parents and living in a different setting.

AND this was the first full 5 day week of the year and everyone (myself included) was incredibly tired by the time Friday rolled around. On Friday afternoon I had quite a few tired/stress tears from students. We ended up having a more relaxed afternoon than planned and we did a lot of stretching, and a lot of quiet time before we went home for the weekend. If you're a teacher and you are reading this, the stretching worked WONDERS! Please try it in your classrooms. I know that I will be using it more frequently. At first the students were skeptical, but then they were trying to "out-stretch" each other and we ended up laughing a lot!

Thursday was better...

My Thursdays and Fridays are usually pretty good. These are the days that I teach my grade 3-5 class and everything with them is VERY routine. The teacher who teaches them Mon-Wed has been around for a few years now and she has very strict day plan that I can't really deviate from (she hasn't said that I can't, in fact she says I can do whatever I like). The students are so used to her schedule that whenever I try to do something out of the ordinary they are up in arms (except when I extend their gym time....weird)! I am trying to gradually do more and more hands-on things with them. I am struggling with this class, not because they are difficult to manage, but because I am not used to teaching this age group. I don't have any resources for this age, the class doesn't have any textbooks, and I live in a village with no book stores! I am definitely learning on my feet. Everyone is very willing to help, but I know that they are busy too and I hate to make more work for people.
The teacher that I share the class with did give me a great project to do that touched on the solar system for our science unit and worked well for art (however, I am still working on the assessment piece). The pictures are below, it turned out fabulous! *Please note that one is all gold....by the end of the class every student had gold painted hands and there was gold paint EVERYWHERE ("I love goooolllllddddd" - Austin Powers Goldmember).

Week 3 Continued

It didn't work. Back to the drawing board.

Wednesday I went in totally ready to "wait" as long as it took. 1) They had just gotten a word search so they didn't care 2) The girls banded together against me because I had "accused one of them of being a liar" (I would never call a student a liar.....but I had questioned her for lying to both me and the other teacher. She had clearly lied about something and she got very defensive when we called her on it).
Anyway, the afternoon eventually led to the Vice Principal coming in and trying to take over the class (I feel better about myself because he wasn't able to handle them any better than me...YES...thank Gawd). We ended up coming to the conclusion that I should never be the only adult in the classroom, I should always have support. So we will be working on making that possible.

The VP, my team teacher, and I all sat down and talked about how we could make afternoons more flexible. We decided that we can't be too hard on ourselves if the afternoons go haywire. Time for a NEW PLAN!!!

Here's what I'm trying on Monday: Two Health and Career Lessons, Two Art Lessons. Leave all the instructions on the tables with all the supplies, tell them they need to pick one lesson from each subject....and then help the students who want the help and work on preventing the others from distracting each other too much. GUH. I guess I'll see how it goes.

Let's Try Again (Week Three Part 1)

I came into school on Monday still visibly stressed (two other teachers pointed it out...how embarrassing). But I had a plan.

I created "get-to-know-you" interviews for the 6/7 students and I pulled them out of class individually to ask them about their favourite things, their hopes for the future, and their goals. This is the best thing about team teaching...I can do stuff like this! I am still not through all of the interviews because  a few students refused to participate but I am hoping that I can work on them this week. I have to mention that I truly love all of the students INDIVIDUALLY. They are great to work with one-on-one. The problems only arise when they get together. The distractions can be too much for them to work properly. We will keep trying different approaches all year to make sure that these kids each get the education that they deserve.

In the afternoon I put into action my new strategy for classroom management (and yes, we had tried the regular things last week... points, prizes, threats...nothing had worked). I had read an article online about highly challenging classrooms. The article said that in order to regain control over your out-of-control class you should try to just "wait" for the students to be ready....yep...that's it.

The plan was:
- Tell them EXACTLY and EXPLICTLY what I needed them to do (what does listening look like, what does paying attention mean), and I wrote on the board what I needed from them before I would start art (They love art by the way).
- I told them this...and then I sat silently and waited for them to be ready to listen.
- I didn't say or do anything until they were quiet and ready. I just sat and stared and waited silently.

I had lesson plans prepared for 2 hours of lessons. Within that two hours we only got done 1 hour worth of the lessons...and we never did make it to art. This was quite a struggle for some students.

It may seem a little extreme to sit and wait for that long, however, I am happy to report that on Tuesday I only waited 20 minutes and then got through all of the lessons and the students made it to art.

I am crossing my fingers and toes that Wednesday will be even better. This will be a year long goal, but I can't wait to tell my students how much that they have improved in a few months. I know it will happen. They are all great kids and we all just need to learn to respect each other and the classroom setting.

Wish me luck!

Weekend with my Love!

The weekend after my tough week two was a three day weekend* (Thank Goodness) and my Love was coming from Coquitlam to check out this new village that he may be living in this year.

He came to Zeballos, we walked around the town a couple times, I showed him my school, we hiked up to the old mine (very cool), and he tried to console me (I was still upset over how bad my week had gone).

My original plan was to live in Zeballos full time. Most of the other teachers commute out to their homes on the weekends. My man talked me into doing the same thing. His reasoning was that I needed to have something to look forward to on weekends so that I could make it through my tough weeks teaching. Of course he was right (he'll love that I said that), and now we are trying to plan where we will live on weekends.

After seeing him I felt a lot better. I took Sunday night to search up classroom behaviour management strategies and I fell asleep stress but a little more prepared for Monday with my 6/7's.

*This district extends the minutes of their school day so that every two weeks we have Friday off. This was put into place last year in order to cut down on the Friday absences. Because we live in such isolation it can be difficult to get appointments and such done on weekends, so these Fridays are now here for the families to have a weekday where they can plan things that they need to have done in the city.

Did I make a Mistake? (Week 2)

Week One was pretty good because I was mainly shadowing other teachers. On week two I found out my full schedule -

Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday: I team teach (which means I work directly with another teacher....this is amazing) the grade 6/7's in the mornings and part of the afternoon. I also cover preps* for the 3-5 class and the K-2 class in the afternoons.

Thursday/Friday: I teach the 3-5 class all day.

* For all of you non-teachers reading this, a "prep" is an allotted amount of time that each teacher gets to prepare for the week. It is usually one block, once or twice a week. If you ever had a library teacher, a music teacher, or a computer teacher who was different that your homeroom teacher in elementary school, it's because your teacher was busy preparing materials for the next lessons that week.

Anyway, my weeks are pretty strange. I don't have a classroom to call my own. I was a little sad about this at first because being a new teacher I was really excited to decorate and finally take control of my own lessons (in teacher school you always have someone judging your lesson plans). But I'm getting over this. It's kind of nice to have the change of pace! My desk is in the library so that I can be mid way between all my classes as I run back and forth (they said they hired me for my energy and enthusiasm).

However, my second week was kind of horrible. I really learned what it felt like to be disrespected as a teacher. The 6/7 class was my biggest challenge. This class is tough to teach on a good day. They walk out of the room without asking, they do not pay attention, some refuse to work, saying "No" over and over , they constantly ask to go to the bathroom, they fight with all their teachers, they fight with each other,  and they just generally do not respect teachers (the way that I'm used to). Think back to those days when you thought you had a kid in your class who drove the teacher nuts, this one class is FULL of them.***Please read the update on this class in the next posts***

On Wednesday afternoon I was trying to teach a Health and Career lesson and it was going SIDEWAYS. It got to the point where one of the students went and got help from the First Nations liaison lady without being asked because SHE was fed up. This particular lady who came is VERY respected in the community. As soon as she came to the class all of the students were FABULOUS and we got through the lesson. The next lesson was art. We were doing painting. It was going great. Then the lady left....Most of the students finished early so I decided that we would go outside and collect leaves for the art board. Some students asked if they could ride their skateboards while we picked up leaves along the side of the road. I said yes. HUGE MISTAKE! I spent the next half an hour trying to get the class to come back inside. It never happened. I was told to my face that students "hated this class", under their breath that they "hated" me and by the end of the day I was in tears because I had felt like such a failure all afternoon. I had been warned that this was a tough school and I thought I could handle it....but that afternoon I wasn't sure. I wanted to pack up and go back to Coquitlam.

On Thursday I was teaching the grade 3-5 class. Lucky for me, this day went great. The students got through all of the lessons and I didn't have any major problems. But I couldn't get Wednesday afternoon out of my mind.

Zeballos: Week One

I arrived in Zeballos late Monday afternoon and couldn't get a hold of anyone who could let me into my new home. I had tried calling before I got to town because I knew there would be no cell phone reception but I had only gotten answering machines. However, I did meet my neighbours right away (I needed to use a phone), and they are great people! I eventually found the custodian at the school and he gave me a key to my place. Whew!

I wish I had written down more during the first week because my memory is already failing me!

On my first day I met all of the teachers and one of the classes that I am now working with. I was told that I would be teaching a grade 3-5 class, and covering preps for a K-2 class and a 6-7 class (on that first week I was also told I would be covering preps in the high school and I was terrified... but that never happened).

The school only has about 60 students in total so I have almost mastered every student's name from Kindergarten to grade 7 (and some high school students).

Every student (except a brother and sister) are related to each other in some way, shape or form. This made my first week (and still does) all about building relationships with families and understanding family dynamics. The classes are extremely small, but there are many students with very special educational needs  and so we almost always have Educational Assistants (EA's) working with us in the classroom (they are all related to the students as well).

On my first day I brought a bag of show-and-tell stuff all about myself. I was surprised that it didn't really go over too well. The students don't really seem to care to listen to me at all. One of the items in my bag was a lint roller (because I wanted to talk about how one of my dogs is really hairy) and that was the one item that was fought over amongst the students. They were fascinated by something that I really wasn't expecting! You never know what kids will find interesting!

I have been told that many teachers come and go from this school and so the kids don't really get attached too soon. It will take me time to build up a relationship with them in order for them to respect me.  Another benefit of having the EA's in the room is that they can help me with the relationship part. They have known the students all their lives and so if I have any problems they are always the first to help me out.

The First Nations community here is very supportive of their student's success. If I am having any issues I can call on a liaison who knows all the children and parents and they will speak to the students or help me before anything becomes an issue. The band also runs a ton of after school programs and a breakfast program for the students.  I am so grateful that they are in the school!

The Weekend Rush

I got the Zeballos job on Friday (called my boyfriend that night to tell him), drove home on Saturday, invited some friends over that night for a goodbye party (I also had my friend staying at our place this weekend because she had just moved to Vancouver), packed all day on Sunday (and spent time with my man and parents), and then woke up really early on Labour Day Monday to make the long drive to Zeballos!

The two pooches and I had a very packed and very tiring drive but we made it!

Because Zeballos is such a remote community, the school district has trailers available for cheap rent for teachers only. They are called “teacherages” (not sure of the spelling). I was lucky that they offered me the administration trailer for the first month. This one has some kitchen supplies and VHS movies (YES! 80’s night)!

 

Big Scary Interview

I arrived in Zeballos with my entourage in tow. We drove around the village for about 5 minutes and we had covered pretty much all of it. My Nana always says, “Don’t blink or you’ll miss it” when talking about Gold River, but really this was almost true for Zeballos.

I went into the interview very nervous because I was rusty in talking about educational practices. The whole summer I had been doing other things. There were four (!) people doing the interview, including representatives from both First Nations communities. I have never been interviewed by so many people at once. They went around the table asking questions and I felt like I was doing a horrible job of answering because I have very little experience.*

We drove back to Gold River the long way (we missed our turn onto the dirt road) and when I got home at 7pm that night I received a phone call for a job offer for the year! I thought that I was interviewing for an intermediate position but when I got the job offer they told me that I would be working with multiple classes. My first ever real-deal teacher job! Go Me!

 

*After I got the job, my principal said that I had interviewed exceptionally well! (Whhhaattt?! WooHoo!).

What’s a Zeballos?

Last year an announcement was made that Coquitlam School District had severely messed up its budget. A huge number of teachers were laid off and by the end of this summer about two hundred of them hadn’t been re-hired. That means that about 200 people (maybe more) are ahead of me on the call-out list. So, as much as I LOVE Coquitlam,  I felt that it was time for me to try applying to other districts (I can barely afford to live in the city being on-call….especially if my calls go down by a huge amount). I started applying to districts all over the place.

This brings me to Zeballos. I applied to the Vancouver Island West School District because I had gone to elementary school in Gold River (the biggest village in the district) and because I still had family there. I was also interested in learning more about First Nations Education and experiential education (both of which are exploding in popularity all over the province). I applied for an on-call position and was called for an interview for a FULL TIME (woohoo) position the next week in Zeballos! The interview was the last Friday before school started… I was extremely nervous because I knew that they had to hire someone THAT DAY! As much as I really wanted a job, I didn’t know if I was ready to jump in!

I didn’t even know how to get to Zeballos. All I knew was that you needed to drive for a long time after the ferry, and you needed to take a dirt road to get there. Lucky for me, my Nana and Papa offered to drive me! We made a day trip out of my interview day! My nana even brought her friend along!

Neat tidbits: On the drive there I saw an elk, an eagle, and a grouse! I thought, “I could get used to this”….that was until I got to the tiny village and it was POURING rain! Pictures below…