Ave Maria (and Let's Hear It for Grades 5 & 6 Too!)

This morning I had a quick check-up with Dr. O'Sullivan. We were both pleased to report that everything looks and feels fine. Huzzah to that, I say! My next appointment isn't until January.

While I was waiting to see the good doctor, I chatted with a hospital volunteer named Maria. She too is an oral cancer survivor and, like me, had part of her tongue removed. Unlike me, however, her surgery significantly affected her speech. She was impressed that I'd undergone similar treatment but was left with so few obvious side effects. Maria now volunteers at the Princess Margaret Hospital's head and neck clinic, answering questions for cancer patients who are dealing with treatment, as I was at this time last year. It never hurts to have a reminder of how well I have fared in this whole business, and to meet people who have faced even more daunting challenges and overcome them with dignity and grace. Ave Maria, indeed.

And speaking of meeting inspirational people, I have officially received my next practicum placement and it is indeed in a Kindergarten... in the nearby neighborhood of Lawrence Park! One of my fellow student-teachers was there for her first placement, and she raves about the children, their teacher, and even the grade 2 teacher down the hall (I'm told I absolutely have to meet him). I can hardly wait! Monday will be my first day.

Meanwhile, this week was a break from practicum, with the exception of Tuesday morning when I observed a grade 5/6 class at the Institute for Child Study’s Laboratory School. Even though I was only watching, I had an amazing time.

First of all, the school is an old (and huge) Toronto house. You may recall that Annick's offices are also in an old house (though not nearly as big). Such environments are full of character that I believe encourages creativity. I’m a sucker for character and creativity both.

Second, as the term "Lab School" suggests, this is a place where the latest theories of education (the kind I’m reading about daily in my textbooks) are put to the test. It's very exciting to see such innovations in action. For example, the school believes in immersing students deeply in a subject. Right now, this class is in the middle of a multi-disciplinary study of space, which means the classroom is adorned with student artwork of planets, the bay-window sill displays books on all aspects of space (from astronomy to mythology), and the students are editing their own creative creation myths about the origins of the universe.

Third, grade 5 and 6 students are definitely the age group with whom I'm most keen to work. Although my interactions with the students yesterday were limited, I felt very comfortable with them.

Fourth, the classroom's permanent library of books is amazing! My personal litmus test is always whether or not a collection includes my beloved Homecoming by Cynthia Voigt. Not only did the classroom have that and several other titles in the Tillerman family cycle, but no less than nine of her novels! Homecoming, indeed.

Fall Fun with Family and Friends

Fall is in full swing and so is the fun. Actually family-time has been ongoing this past month, but as I have just finished my first practicum placement, only now am I getting a chance to catch my breath and catch you up on all the action.

First of all, Dad is back home and doing great after his surgery. Although his week-and-a-half stay in the hospital was almost more than he could stand, he’s up and out and about with minimal discomfort. Jeanette and I dropped in to see him and Mom on the Thanksgiving weekend, and Dad looked great. You’d never ever guess he’d had open heart surgery two weeks prior. With the surgery off his chest and the healing well on its way, he’s all set heading into winter – complete with “no snow shoveling” orders from his doctors. Well, if they insist.

We spent the rest of the beautiful Thanksgiving weekend with Jeanette’s family in Harriston. It had been less than a month since we’d last been up to celebrate our niece MacKenzie’s first birthday. Being the first grandchild on both sides of the family, she was utterly showered with gifts. Despite all the new toys, MacKenzie seemed to have the most fun with the laundry basket in which the gifts were delivered… with a little help from Aunt Jeanette:

As the beautiful weekends just keep on coming, I wanted to take full advantage by venturing into the great outdoors with Alfredo. Last weekend we headed for High Park for some high-impact (i.e. I could hardly walk the next day) one-on-one soccer. He’s getting bigger and faster and leaving me further in the dust than ever. As if he weren’t skilled enough, a friendly onlooker from Mexico (where they know a thing or two about the beautiful game) taught Alfredo some helpful tricks while I caught my breath. Perhaps I should start steering us toward something more my speed. Chess, maybe? Oh wait, he beats me at that too…

This weekend I did successfully find a place for us to go that harkens back to a slower pace of life: Toronto’s Black Creek Pioneer Village. The gorgeous fall day was perfect for wandering around the period community, chatting with the miller, and hearing ghost stories from the baker. Indeed the village’s Halloween Hootenanny was in full swing, and although many of the activities were decidedly un-pioneer-ish, Alfredo loved them. The apple slingshot was a particular hit (literally, as he got to launch apples at pumpkin targets).

The free pumpkin to decorate with markers was also a winner:

And the biggest delight was the surprisingly scary haunted maze. Often in total darkness, we timidly made our way through narrow corridors, brushing past things hanging from the ceiling and jumping at thumps and screams from unseen entities. At one point, something let out a banshee-like scream right in front of Alfredo and he tumbled back into me. “That was so cool!” he said, once he’d found his voice again.

More scary but less cool for Alfredo was the Creepy Creature show involving a man producing a live tarantula and asking for volunteers to pet it. It turns out that Alfredo, a devout Spider-Man fan, is not a spider man himself. He wanted nothing to do with even watching other people petting a giant hairy spider. Opting to bite rather than be bitten, we left the show early to eat lunch. All in all it was perfect mix of freaky and fun and a great way to spend a fabulous fall day.

As for school, my next practicum will begin the week of October 27. I haven’t yet heard where I’ll next be, but if I enjoy even half as much as I did my time in a grade 3 class, I’ll be in good shape. I still expect the next placement will have me in a kindergarten classroom. Maybe I can beat them at soccer.

Mr. Wichman in Action!

First, news about Mr. Wichman senior, i.e. my dad: he’s doing great!

This morning Dad finally underwent the bypass surgery to address the problems that led to his heart attack earlier this year. We were expecting a quadruple bypass, but the surgeon super-sized it up to a sextuple! No doubt the passages of his heart now resemble the intersections of the 400-series highways (but hopefully are more effective at relieving congestion). Despite the procedure being more extensive than we expected, my sister reports that Dad is recovering well in the ICU. Leighann flew in from Halifax to keep Mom company, a trip that is becoming a regular autumnal pilgrimage to help ailing Wichman men. Last year she made the same voyage to support me during my cancer treatment. I’d give her a Florence Nightingale award, but she’s not big on ceremonies, so instead I’ll just give her a hug when I see her.

This leads me to news about Mr. Wichman junior, i.e. me: I wasn’t able to be at the hospital in Kitchener today because I was teaching my second (ever!) lesson in a classroom here in Toronto. Yes, I’ve now been a student teacher in the grade 3 classroom in Cabbagetown for four weeks (has it really been that long already?). I’m in the classroom in the morning from Monday to Thursday and I’m having a ball!

The class consists of 22 children from Regent Park (a community housing neighbourhood just south of the school). Most of the kids’ parents are recent immigrants to Canada. Given my notoriously bad memory, I had concerns about remembering some of the unfamiliar names, but each child’s personality shines through so clearly, it wasn’t a challenge at all to remember everyone’s name. My favourite moment so far is when I was standing next to one girl’s desk. She looked up at me and said, “You’re really tall.” I agreed with her. She thought for a moment and then concluded, “You must have eaten a lot of bananas.”

Mostly I’ve been observing as my host teacher runs the show and she has proven herself to be an exemplary model. A graduate of the same Master program I’m pursuing, she has now been teaching for several years and she runs a tight ship. She clearly lays out for the students her expectations, her rules, and the consequences for breaking the rules, and she applies them consistently but not harshly. Rather than bend the kids to her will, she’s more interested in encouraging the students to take responsibility for their behavior. For example, rather than ordering chatty students not to sit together during story time, she’ll suggest that students “think about their choices” of where and how to sit. All of this was great for me to witness considering that group discipline is an area in which I have the least experience; most of my work with kids has been individually or in pairs.

Indeed, I’m quickly learning how tricky it can be to balance the needs of 22 children instead of one or two. For example, at the end of one class in the computer lab, a student was unable to print her work due to a faulty network connection. Passing in the work was her ticket out the door for recess. Even though she was printing late due to wasting time in class, I didn’t want to see her punished for a technical malfunction. So, I promised her I’d print it for her at the beginning of recess. Well, after 10 minutes of running around the school trying to find a free and working printer, I had to admit defeat and return to the class empty-handed. I’m still struggling with having to admit that ten minutes spent on one student’s technical difficulties is not realistic, no matter how just I feel her cause. I’ve since been paying closer attention to the quick decisions my host teacher makes on the fly – always being sure to lay out her reasoning to the students – so as not to lose too much time. Like every job, teaching requires a thousand little skills that you don’t think about until you are in the thick of things yourself.

Okay, so I’ve focused on behavior and time management so far, but only because that’s where I’m looking to most improve. I should emphasize that in general, this class is a very well-behaved group. The typical misbehavior I’ve witnessed simply stems from the ants-in-your plants nature of being 8 years old. Fortunately, my host teacher also has a knack for harnessing that energy and keeping the students engaged. Currently she’s teaching a Language Arts unit on personal narrative writing and featuring the picture books of Patricia Polacco, one of my favourite author/illustrators. Meanwhile, each student has been given a mini-book of stapled papers the size of a passport. Like a passport, they are to fill out each page with the name of a book they’ve “visited” by their favourite author. They are also to write something notable about how the book was written that they can use in their own writing. Though the narrative unit will come to an end in a few weeks, the class will continue to use these passports all year long. How great is that?

As I mentioned at the top, I too have had a chance to teach two lessons myself. The first lesson was two weeks ago. I made an interactive self-introductory presentation (not unlike the one I did by the dozens in Japan) that segued into a lesson about personal narrative using a writing frame (boxes identifying the main plot points). I told the story about how, one morning on my way to school in Japan, I rescued a dog that had fallen from the bed of a pickup truck. The students seemed captivated and had no trouble recalling the plot points of my tale to fill up the chart.

The second lesson, just this morning, was longer, but involved fewer students. Because today is Eid, the celebration that concludes the fasting month of Ramadan, more than half the class was absent. The remaining nine students and I again used writing frames, but this time as a tool for taking notes from the Social Studies textbook, specifically food and transportation of the Wendat people, early native inhabitants of Upper Canada. This topic was an interesting tie-in for me to A Native American Thought of It, one my final editorial projects before my departure from Annick.

As I stood there this morning encouraging the students to share what they’d learned from their readings, I felt like I was home. I know I have much to learn about being an effective teacher, but I feel like I’ve completed a circuit that started with me working in a bookstore, continued with me working in publishing, and now has me in front of a group of young people engaging in books. It is an electrifying feeling.

Good thing too - I need that power to keep me energized through the heavy coursework and readings that are keeping me busy the rest of the time. I’m enjoying that aspect of school too but realizing that my I Love Lucy analogy for publishing applies just as much for grad studies. (Actually, I’m starting to suspect that the only occupation for which that analogy doesn’t apply is working on an actual chocolate assembly line!)

My next practicum placement begins in three weeks and will likely be in a kindergarten. Stay tuned!