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When I think about why I have been able to develop and value this quality, and how it serves me well as a principal of a secondary school, I often look for the source of this self-awareness.  I meet many students who have very shallow and limited views of their abilities, and I also wonder why they have been unable to cultivate a better sense of their own strengths.

I have a strong interest in our research around feedback and praise, and how this impacts a child’s thinking about his or her strengths and abilities.  But one thing I do know from experience is that if you test yourself, over and over again, and you have the opportunity to learn for yourself what you are capable of, there is a sense of knowing that you cannot get from what others tell you.

I was very fortunate at the age of 17 to be selected for the Ontario Junior Ranger Program.  In July, 1977, my parents drove me north to Obatanga Provincial Park, between Wawa and White River, on the Trans-Canada Highway.  This would be my home, along with 23 other 17-year-old girls and three young leaders, for the next 8 weeks.

Building Tough!

While in this program, I worked in the bush, alongside my peers, nearly every day.  We cut trails, cleaned portages, planted and pruned trees, fixed docks, painted signs and fences, worked in the camp kitchen, and hauled firewood.  We scouted remote canoe routes and helped with grouse surveys.  We also had the opportunity to tour mines and mills, visit neighbouring parks and attractions, and learn all about working in an outdoor setting.  This is where I learned so much about what I can do, not because people told me I could, but because I did it, and learned that I could.  I could be away from my family and work closely with others, sleeping and working out of a tiny cabin in the bush.  I could cook my food on an open fire, plan a 6-day canoe trip, line canoes through rapids, peel 100 potatoes and lift a dock into place with my co-workers.  I became strong physically and mentally, and I became both tough and empathic.

When my daughter was old enough, I pushed her toward this program and she had a similar experience.  When you know you are strong, it is so much easier to deal with the messes that life can throw at you.  I can’t help but believe that so many of today’s youth could benefit from this program, but it has been cancelled.

Last year, as part of the “transformation” of the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ontario Ranger Program (“Junior” was dropped some time ago) was cut.  This article on a boys’ camp near Cochrane demonstrates the importance of this program for Ontario Youth.

With the (finally) intense focus on student mental health in schools, it seems irresponsible to be cutting this relatively inexpensive program that can so profoundly change the course of a teenager’s life.

Related:

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Friends of ORP blog: Ranger Stories http://friendsoftheorp.com/blog.htm

We can do hard things: http://conniemcknight.com/we-can-do-hard-things-a-story/

Mind-sets and Equitable Education: http://sco.lt/8rrhTd

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Sharing can be hard, though. We need courage to share.  Depending on the context, it can be hard work.  I am often asked to present to groups.  This is not my strength, and it involves lots of preparation time, but I push myself to do it because I usually benefit from it far more than my audience.  It is a way to collect, organize, and synthesize thinking, something I rarely do unless pushed.

Last Friday, I pushed a grade 9 student at my school to be courageous and share on the radio the part she played in our lip-dub video project with our student teacher and Dean Shareski.  She did a beautiful job, but it was scary, and I applaud her courage for consenting to speak to CBC Radio.

All of the students in our lip-dub project needed courage to put themselves out there and participate.  Oh but the rewards! They were seen by Commander Chris Hadfield on the ISS!

Last week a teacher colleague pushed the boundaries and shared professional learning on Twitter.  It was courageous, because we are not all fortunate enough to be working in environments that support the idea of open learning.

Jeff Kinney generously shares his time with students at NRRDHS through Skype.

There is still much stereotyping about “cell phone use” during professional development.  ”Cell phones” are not there as a distraction, but as a tool for learning.  Other educators benefit from our sharing.  Learning networks are critical, especially in isolated locations like ours.  Sharing pushes our thinking and helps us to learn better ways to teach our students.

When I see courageous people sharing, I wonder what it would take to get others to share.

Dean Shareski shared this video today.  It reminds us that we all have something to share with someone.  A teacher from my school attended a session at a conference today, and shared that she could have led that session herself.  Yes she could! And next year maybe she will!

Two weeks ago, I presented some sessions at #OTRK12.  Initially, I had hoped to present on the concept of the TPA (Teacher Performance Appraisal) for online teachers.  I was one of the first teachers in Ontario to have a TPA while teaching online (1998), but someone else had asked to present that topic so I decided to just sit in to learn.

The presenter was a teacher who had looked at this topic for his PQP Practicum.  He presented a beautiful list of look-fors and we had a discussion about some of the interesting twists this mode of instruction presented to the TPA process.  He had never actually completed an online TPA, but it was presented very well. But right in that very room, listening with intent, was a principal of an online public high school who has conducted more online TPAs than anyone else in Ontario – and he shared nothing.  Imagine how rich the discussion could have been if he had shared his knowledge and experience.

As I sit here in a massive spring snowstorm putting the final touches on another application to share (ECOO 2013) a journey with others, I am thankful for the many opportunities I have had to share with so many open learners.

Life is richer when you share.

Listen to a #NipRockArt student discuss the project with me, and Cathy Alex on @VoyageNorth CBC Radio 1: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/voyage-north-from-cbc-radio/id548330944

Also available here for now: http://www.cbc.ca/voyagenorth/2013/04/12/space-station-shout-out-for-nipigon-red-rock-hs/

And back to the original post:

I am so excited tonight to see the finished collaboration my students were recently involved in.

After spending some time with our student teacher from the University of Regina, ECMP455 students wanted to connect all of the great classrooms they had been learning in around the world with a lipdub project.  I sent the idea out and I was thrilled to see two teachers at our school take it on.  They did a fabulous job, and we are excited to share the spotlight with “Daniel and the Atkins”, our Saskatchewan pre-service teacher and his beautiful daughters.

A special thanks goes out to Dean Shareski for coordinating the project and including us.

@colleenkr and her students at 3:12

@kimberniprock and her students at 3:55

Our student teacher, “Daniel and the Atkins” at 4:10

Our part in the chorus at 4:22

Here are some of my notes from this morning’s chat with John Malloy, Director, HWDSB.

@malloy_john HWDSB Director

Some of the other thinking during the session:

http://vimeo.com/22570825

What could be more special than lunch with cogdog himself?

Update: More about Alan Levine right here (from Dean Shareski):

Here’s the story (told while snowshoeing with my beagle north of Lake Superior).

The story at the time: The Kindness of (not really) strangers: http://cogdogblog.com/2011/08/22/kindness-of-strangers/#comments

Do you have a story of when being open and sharing online turned into something really special?  Tell the story in video and share it here.

Photo Credit: Dru! via Compfight cc

I believe that.  I work hard at being a trustworthy person.  It pains me when I let someone down, even if by accident or because it was unavoidable.

Our schools are built on trust.  We tell students “if you do this, you will be successful”.  They trust us, and we follow through. Teaching is a rules-oriented profession.  Every day, we play by the rules, we ask our students to play by the rules, and we expect others to play by the rules.

So when I read Stephen Hurley’s blog post about “The Schools we Want“, where he asks us to write about our vision for public education, I had to respond.  I think that calling the current situation “labour unrest”, and talking about the need to find a resolution to it, misses a fundamental point.  For me, the broken system we have right now is not about labour unrest, it is about the destruction of trust.

Permit me to share my story, with apologies to those who have heard it too many times already.

I have given every ounce of energy I have to the public education system for the last 30 years.  My family would suggest I have given more than that.  I have marked through the night to meet deadlines on many occasions.  I have taught online with a broken arm, cast balanced carefully so that some of my fingers could reach the keys. I have been punched in the stomach by a student, and punched in the face by another student. I have spent a small fortune on classroom supplies, food for hungry students and sports fees for kids who couldn’t afford to play.  I will continue to do this because I believe with every cell in my body that public education is society’s equalizer, and that given the opportunity, our children can do great things with their lives.  And this is my work.

I have worked my way up the salary grid by taking courses at night and through the summers, I have driven 2000 km round trips on weekends to take courses.  One course required 10000 km of driving.  But that’s what we do up here.

I have also earned my retirement gratuity by banking my sick days, because this was my short-term disability plan.  ”Plan” is the operative word here, because when you know the rules, you can plan accordingly.  Never, ever, did I ever expect that the McGuinty government would break the rules.

Four years ago, I accepted a position with a different school board.  This is not uncommon for principals, and I believe it is good for public education.  It results in a mixing of ideas and connections, and more learning for everyone involved.  The “rules” of my transfer were that after five consecutive years of working for my new board, I would be able to retire with my full (and already fully earned) retirement gratuity.

Like all other principals in this position, and there are many, I trusted that both sides would follow the rules. Not in my wildest dreams did I anticipate that the McGuinty government would pass Bill 115, making it illegal for my board to allow me to have that gratuity.

When I tell people outside of education that my earned gratuity has been taken away from me, they say “They can’t do that!”.  But they did, and just like that, the trust is gone.

It takes a lot to flatten me.  I am a trapper’s daughter, and resilience is my strongest characteristic.  But this has literally taken me out of the game.

How do I go back into that school and teach students Civics?  How do we teach our Careers students that they have labour laws to protect them, because they don’t.  How do we teach our students about the Human Rights Code, because now their government can just pass laws to say it doesn’t apply to them.  What about the Charter of Rights and Freedoms?

So @Stephen_Hurley, before we can have any vision for where public education needs to go, trust must be restored.  Agreements must be respected, democracy must be held in high regard, and the very people who are entrusted with student learning need to be valued by people in this province, including those in power.

Kathleen Wynne can’t put a bandaid on this.  Our wounds are too deep, and assaulting the very people who give so much free time to our province’s youth is the wrong way to make public education work.  

“Fish discover water last…In a similar way, we… discover trust last…We take it for granted-unless it becomes polluted or destroyed…Without trust, society closes down and will ultimately self-destruct.” The Speed of Trust, Page 273

Bill 115:

… Restrictions on jurisdiction

Limit on jurisdiction of Ontario Labour Relations Board

14.  (1)  The Ontario Labour Relations Board shall not inquire into or make a decision on whether a provision of this Act, a regulation or an order made under subsection 9 (2) is constitutionally valid or is in conflict with the Human Rights Code.

Limit on jurisdiction of arbitrators

(2)  An arbitrator or arbitration board shall not inquire into or make a decision on whether a provision of this Act, a regulation or an order made under subsection 9 (2) is constitutionally valid or is in conflict with the Human Rights Code.

Restrictions on review

No review by court

15.  (1)  No term or condition included in an employment contract or collective agreement under or by virtue of this Act, process for consultation prescribed under this Act, or decision, approval, act, advice, direction, regulation or order made by the Minister or Lieutenant Governor in Council under this Act shall be questioned or reviewed in any court.

Same

(2)  No steps shall be taken to have a court question, review, prohibit or restrain any consultation, review or approval process prescribed or initiated under this Act at the Minister’s or Lieutenant Governor in Council’s discretion.

Restriction on review by arbitrator, Ontario Labour Relations Board

(3)  Terms and conditions included in a collective agreement under or by virtue of this Act shall not be questioned or reviewed by an arbitrator, an arbitration board or the Ontario Labour Relations Board, except as provided by those terms or conditions.

My first day in #etMOOC changed all that.

I have been encouraging educators I work with to engage in the #etMOOC experience (“encouraged” may be perceived by some as an understatement).  You already know how I feel about this perfect/open/free opportunity to learn and connect.

Yet throughout the last three months of “talking up #etMOOC”, I thought only about how much my colleagues were going to learn about educational technology.  I had not expected to learn so much about learning – on the first day!

On day 1, Jenni Scott-Marciski wrote her first blog post ever.  She shared her experiences in joining Twitter, her hesitations about blogging, and here very personal thinking about connecting.

Even though I see Jenni every day, this was all new to me.  Yes, I knew she was using Twitter to learn and connect, and yes, I knew she had started #etMOOC, but I was astonished at how much better I understand her learning now with just one posting.

She was making her thinking and learning visible, and it helped me to understand where we need to go next.

I had a similar experience with my #etmooc introduction.  I have been trying to use iMovie for months now, sneaking in to watch and learn from students as they create videos in their classrooms, asking for help from friends.  But the process of making and posting a video made my learning visible to others, and as a result I have received direct instruction on what to fix and how as I move forward in my learning.

I would not have posted that video if it was for “marks” or if it was for an evaluation.  I would have kept my learning private.  But the understanding that I am in a safe and supportive learning environment made me feel encouraged to share and learn.

And what does this tell us about student learning?

I was thrilled to see that the first assignment for #etMOOC was to make a video.  I don’t have a lot of time to spend on this, so this afternoon, @colleenkr came into my office and showed me one thing – that’s all we had time for – but one thing is something.

So tonight, in a stretch of 30 spare minutes I managed to find, I made a video.

It’s awful.  Honestly.  But I don’t care.  I learned so much in that 30 minutes!

Besides, by posting it here for all to see, I can only improve.  We can all laugh at this by the end of #etMOOC.

By the way, kudos to my friend @cogdog for his intro video.  Of all people, he could have made his spectacular.  But we are all here to learn, and his one shot intro made me feel like it was safe to learn in this space.  We are not competing.  This is not for marks.  It’s to make learning visible, and then share it.

Here is my learning for tonight: 

*** Update!

This is one reason why making your learning visible is so important!

A 30 second pass in the hallway this morning, and @colleenkr has already taught me to take my iphone videos sideways to fit better on the screen, and later today I am going to learn how to make the volume the same all the way through the video.  Can’t wait!

It’s free.

It is not evaluative.

It is open and supportive.

(And some of the coolest educators in the world are hanging out there for the next few months).

So what is #ETMOOC?

Let’s start with the MOOC part.

MOOC = Massive Open Online Course.   Don’t let that word “massive” scare you.  Or, for that matter, don’t let the word “course” scare you.  This is nothing like other “courses” your have “taken”.

When you hear “course”, no doubt you think “work”, “boring”, “drudgery”, “marks”, “assignments”.  No wonder “course” turns you off!

[Replace "course" in that last bit with "school" and think like a student for a minute.  But then that takes us to a whole other conversation....]

What if the first thing that came to mind when you heard the word “course” was “learning”?  Because a MOOC is about learning – your learning.

If you are an Ontario teacher, the concept of self-directed learning is not new to you (!). I know that many times I have been in a place where I want to learn, but I just don’t know where to start.

Many people working in the education sector are exactly in that place when it comes to technology.

So here is what a MOOC can do for you.  Think of a MOOC as a structured opportunity to learn.  Some wonderful leader – or many – creates a course structure, publishes it, and then you can partake in the parts that interest you, or the parts that fit into your already hectic life.  Nobody is taking attendance, and nobody is “marking your work”.  Can’t participate this week?  No problem.  Hook back up with us next time you can.  You literally get out of it what you put into it.

There are hundreds and hundreds, maybe even thousands, of MOOCs available to you right now.  Last week, when working with my IT guy on creating a tinkering room for our students, he said to me, “Oh, I learned that in a MOOC I did last summer”.  See?  Your friends and colleagues might be doing MOOCs and you don’t even know about it!

I have done two MOOCs over the last two years.  The #Change11 MOOC that drew in many Canadians just won’t die, because the other beautiful thing about MOOCs is that “M”, the “massive”.  This is no tiny class.  There is really no limit to how many people can learn in a MOOC, so the connections that are forged don’t just go away when the course is over.  We build communities in social media and continue to learn together long after anyone is providing the structure for us.

So back to #ETMOOC.  This MOOC is about to begin, but you can still join in.    This MOOC is all about educational technology and media, so if you feel like the world of edtech is passing you by, and you can’t figure out how to jump on the train, consider this your stop.  No ticket required – just hop aboard now.  There is nothing to lose, and a world of connected learners out there ready to support you and learn with you over the next three months.

I look forward to learning with you!