Alignment

NOTE: In case others are having a tricky time, I had trouble posting at first and needed to request a second 'invite' from Stan.   

There is a lot to unpack from last week!  Not only did we have our amazing LSF session but I was out for 2 other PD sessions that left my head spinning.  The lovely part was that through the week, I was slowly 'Connecting The Dots' with each of them and felt privileged to be doing PD that was truly aligned with my passions.  Hmmmm, that's a different thought.  PD for passion.  I like the sounds of it...

Here are my recent take-aways from all this PD and some of my questions moving forward...

Monday (Outdoor Council of Canada Course) - co-facilitating and turning the ownership of the PD over to the group has been a breath of fresh air for the both this course and the previous course we ran.  It is in this 'place' where I actually find my strongest and most confident voice.  By recognizing and honouring the 'knowledge in the room' (even in a certification course) I find it sets a tone for richer learning.  It brings a safety to the group where we can step outside our comfort zones and take risks while supporting one another.  This led beautifully into...

Tuesday (LSF) - thanks to all the support/coordination (we did it!) most of us were able to really slow things down and look deeply at how this related to us personally as educators, our school, our kids. Amazing.  It brought professional collaborative work to the next level AND included a variety of voices which I loved.  I walked away feeling like we had each others backs...that we now had a network that allowed us to say "Help!" or "Can You Celebrate This With Me!" Both equally important.  One of my take aways on Tuesday was similar to Kim's comment about revisiting the document Natural Curiosity.  I learned that things I have been digesting, experimenting with, reflecting on for the last 5 years STILL FEEL SO NEW!  Each time I look at those 2 resources, I get something completely different.  This year, more than any other time working with this 'inquiry stance', I am more emotionally invested than ever.  Perhaps it is because things got personal this year. Our little guy is struggling in our system and it both heartbreaking and a catalyst for learning all that I can to support him.

Thursday (Evergreen Brickworks) - a day dedicated to developing nature connections with our early learners in a fun, engaging and accessible way.  Phenomenal facilitation, idea generation and visioning left us walking away ready to make some small (and BIG) changes around our school yard. This has inspired moving forward with a school-wide visioning assembly which will serve to collect student voice (and parents who attend!) around further development of our school yard space with an emphasis on student engagement through loose parts play.  After capturing student and staff voice and combining it with data we already have from parents, we hope to move forward with a 3-phase plan

'Connecting the Dots' through these experiences, it looks like my own personal focus will be:

1. Making the Learning More Visible - to students, staff, community (including the Knowledge Building when we bring the curiosity inside...) and;

2. Capturing Student Voice 

Our Looking Inside The 4-Frames with an invitation for
Grade 1, 2, 3 to see their own learning reflected in the 4 areas.
TO DO: shift INQUIRY section and move it to the left of the board.
It is too cluttered and it needs its own 'spotlight'! Any other suggestions?

To the right: With Brenda's artistic skills supporting the vision, we have started using the bulletin board outside my  office to capture the learning inside the 4-Frames of the new FDK program.   I also want to use social media (Twitter/Remind), add to our RMPS Outdoor Learning folder, and share more bits and pieces in staff meetings when possible.

Second goal, CAPTURING STUDENT VOICE, has always been so important to me.   Happy to report we have an assembly in the works for after March Break.  Inspired by the folks at Evergreen Brickworks, we would like to create an opportunity for students to dream both small and big about their ideal outdoor space.  We think the Dot-Mocracy activity we did together at Evergreen would be a great tool once we collect student voice (and parents if they attend!).  Once our school comes up with 20 or so big ideas that are manageable and set us up for success, each student/staff will have 3 'votes' similar to below.  We shared this vision at the Staff Meeting last night.   Any thoughts or feedback around this process are welcome!  I want to be mindful that it isn't just 'token' student voice...and that we truly will be able to honour their ideas.  Do you think this will work? How can we set it up so that we don't have waterslides on everyone's ideal greenspace?! Any advice around next steps?

Student Voice and Making Our Learning Visible - Mapping Our Community:

In Outdoor Learning News, two of our FDK classes went outside for a mapping walk last week around our community.  My hope is that this may be a spark into a potential mapping inquiry which could lead to an action project that would help the community but who knows. It can at the very least help inform and set the stage for our planning/visioning assembly for our dream school outdoor space.

You can see the collaborative group maps we started when we came back inside.  Hmmmm, tricky part about prep/planning coverage is that some of these sparks are lost with lack of time and inability to follow-through...I encouraged the class to post it somewhere where they could continue adding their ideas until the next time we met.  Any other suggestions on how to weave these experiences more seamlessly into the FDK program outside of my own time with the class?

Next Steps:

I plan to invite kids to bring in a map from home and I will bring my wilderness tripping maps, local township maps as well as our school map below to spark more discussion about symbols, pictures, scale, directions, etc.  We had the National Geographic giant map 'Canada From Space' earlier in the year that we can now reference back to as that was a really fun, experiential intro to maps.  Any thoughts?

My commitment which was added to our collaborative sculpture at Evergreen last Thursday was to take these tools/ideas and continue to share and build capacity in our school. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed being at the school on a part-time basis and keep reminding myself  'slow and steady' and 'big changes start with small steps'.  One of my flaws is saying YES to everything which gets me into trouble so I might need reminders from this group to take it one step at a time.

So inspired to be learning with all of you,

- Tanya