Showing posts with label inquiry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label inquiry. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 08, 2017

Governor General Award

This week, the recipients of the 2017 Governor General's History Awards were announced, and I am humbled and thrilled to be counted among them. The award is given to teachers of history and is based on a portfolio submission including a project, supporting work, teaching context, references, and student exemplars. We all gather at Rideau Hall to receive our awards on November 22nd, and have some other activities set up that week in Ottawa for history educators and the guests we bring. I thought I would share the information I submitted to Canada's National History Society, the group that administers the awards.

Skookum Stories -- Project Overview:

“Skookum” comes from the Chinook Jargon - a trade language that developed in BC and the West Coast during the 1800s. It means “big” or “strong” and has crossed over to become a word in the English language. This Skookum Stories project is about telling a strong story that draws on student's roots and culture, and is based on primary and secondary source evidence.

Provide a description of the project you are submitting. Be sure to clearly describe the activities, processes, and outcomes:

Skookum Stories is an inquiry project for BC Social Studies 9. Students set out to find out more about their cultural heritage. This often starts by settling on what "family" could mean and to make an inventory of the people in their life they could talk to and what evidence they might have about the past. Next student decide what parts of their “story” as they know it interests them for further inquiry and then make the effort to talk to elders, preferably two or more generations back, but just one if that is not possible. Students gather evidence and conduct research about either their family’s roots or their culture, with special attention to stories that have a connection to history, place, and ideas. Students for whom 'family" is a real challenge are often led towards local history & community research, or broader sources that deal more with culture than family. Along the way, students design inquiry questions to help guide their work, and organize their evidence and response to their questions. As the project progresses, they build in spoken and visual elements and get feedback from friends, family, and teacher(s) before finalizing the story and presentation. Finally, they share their story collection with class, share the visual elements (usually artifacts or sources), and wrap up with a contribution to a Skookum feast. The inquiry cycle leading up to the presentations happens off and on for about two months, with some class time devoted specifically to research techniques and project work. The presentation cycle takes about two weeks (13 hours) for a class of 25, with another class devoted to sharing of food. Specific outcomes for this project include: 1) Working with "competencies" -- the historical thinking concepts that are now embedded in the BC Social Studies curriculum, 2) Making personal connections with history, specifically themes and events from the Social Studies 9 curriculum, and 3) developing Research, Inquiry, and Communication skills. Unofficially, two of the most important outcomes are to become confident as individuals who have important stories to tell, and to keep alive the evidence of the past that too often go the graves of the people who have gathered it or were witnesses to history. Each time I have used this project with students, I have taken notes on their findings and what they got out of it. While respecting student privacy, I have blogged about the process and highlights of student stories. Any examples I post with potentially identifying details have gone through a permission process with the students and their parents/guardians.

Describe your teaching philosophy and how this project supports that philosophy in your classroom:

I see classrooms as ecosystems, as constant rearrangements of ideas and efforts. Although I teach Social Studies -- generally seen as a combination of history and geography, I think what I'm really doing is identity work, creating space for students to challenge themselves and grow into something stronger than when they arrive. The ecosystem metaphor works on many levels, with inputs such as light, soil nutrients & moisture, species diversity, and time relating to things like instruction, learning resources & activities, inclusions, and pacing. Perhaps my role in the ecosystem is that of the forest denizen, an old tree that provides support for the whole structure. The Skookum Story project taps into all of these things, with students owning most parts of the inquiry, resources, and pace. Very few things we do as a class bring us together as a community than the project presentations. The diverse stories and journeys of discovery really stick with the students, and have changed me as a person and teacher. I have been fortunate for many opportunities to develop and share resources for heritage inquiry in BC, both on the web and at conferences and workshops. I am both honoured and baffled by the number of teachers who have accessed the Social studies resources I’ve posted online over the years. Dozens have tried and adapted the project, and collectively we’ve pushed traditional heritage projects into the realm of inquiry and application of critical thinking.

Explain what makes your project unique and the particular environment (classroom, school, and community) in which it was developed and implemented:

The idea of a heritage-related project is not new in the realm of Social Studies or History classrooms. I think what sets this apart is the sense of urgency to connect students with elders (and their stories, documents, and artifacts) before those connections are lost. I am astounded at how many students discover or rediscover important and interesting stories from their culture and background that no one in their immediate family knew about. This intergenerational cycle is important for cultures to survive and thrive. Another unique aspect to this project are the options for students that have difficult or complex family situations. I have been supported in my work by school staff, in particular my librarian and fellow Social Studies teachers, and by the Pacific Slope Educational Consortium, a collection of teachers who work on critical thinking resources. I also get a lot of support and feedback from students and parents. This project is almost always of value to families, and in some cases has opened up lines of dialogue and facilitated personal change for students and their inner circle of family and friends.

Explain how your students use the historical thinking concepts in this project using specific examples from your student work submissions:

The project requires use of inquiry questions around each of the concepts.

Significance -- we explore what makes a story interesting versus important, for example is an ancestor's involvement in an event (such as the Northwest Rebellion) significant on it's own or is it the event itself? Of course it depends. This year, I have had students share their connection to many significant events including the Loyalist Migration, Irish Potato Famine, North West Company, gold rushes and railway construction, Red River Rebellion, WWI, Spanish Flu, WWII, Japanese Internment, Residential Schools, and the Sixties Scoop.

Evidence-- students learn the difference between primary and secondary sources and use both to anchor their projects. This year students used journals, photos, military records, interviews, and other documents.

Continuity -- students find patterns in their research that can also be found in history, starting by asking what is different and what is the same. My students often compared homesteading lifestyle with modern conveniences.

Cause & Consequence -- many of my student this year examined the cause/effect cycle related to immigration.

Perspective -- students are challenged to find at least one issue within their research for which they can present differing points of view backed up by evidence. Examples this year include the Japanese internment.

Ethical Dimensions -- students are encouraged to look at values held by ancestors and make judgements as to why they existed and what impact they had. Racism is a common "value" that comes up, as is the idea of patriotism in times of war.

Please provide any additional notes or comments that would help us understand the nature and value of your project in Canadian history:

When I first started doing heritage inquiry in Social Studies, it was often difficult to get my Aboriginal students to take on their own cultural heritage and family stories as a focus for their project. Many of my students had close relatives who experienced various forms of colonization including time at residential schools such as nearby Lejac. Over the years, this has changed; in my mind this has happened for a few reasons. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission process has given many of the elders a safe space in which to share their powerful and often devastating stories. In turn they are now willing to talk to their nieces, nephews, and grandchildren about what they experienced and witnessed. "Being Native" is now less of a stigma -- teachers and Aboriginal Education staff have done great work in the last 10 years to include, develop, and honour Aboriginal perspectives and identity; this has been an emphasis of our revised BC curriculum. I have also gotten better at working with reluctant learners and finding supports for students that have difficult stories to tell or tricky family situations. This also goes for students who have been adopted, live in care, or are not in communication with family members.

Links: list any URLs that house any related material related (e.g., class website, Flickr, YouTube, etc.) and describe the role they play in your project:

Links and resources have been assembled at https://www.thielmann.ca/skookum-stories.html

Thursday, January 12, 2017

Skookum Stories 2017

Wow.  We are a few days into "Skookum Stories" -- heritage inquiry for Grade 9 Social Studies students. I have provided a summary of the first nine presentations. These students have been working on these projects off and on since November, and their presentation included story-telling, educating the class about historical events they might not know about, and explanation of the posters, slides, documents, pictures, and artifacts they have brought in to anchor their talk. I especially appreciate how dialed in these students are to what they are talking about, and how they have made connections to history and geography, many of them from the content area of their Social Studies 9 course. See if you can pick that up in these summaries and (in brackets) a reference to the sources they used.

MJ
  • Family left Ireland due to potato famine (journals)
  • Scottish Immigration to Canada 1906 (ship passenger list)
  • WWI vet - Canadian gunner (attestation papers, photo)
  • immigration from Utah to Alberta with a family connection to Alexander Galt, a father of Confederation (journals, photo)
  • Impact of the death of a family member in Crimean War in the 1850s (journal)
KL
  • Great x 5 Grandparents (Scottish) part of the Great Migration to Canada 1820s: ship to Quebec (37 days), steamboat up St. Lawrence, wagon to Upper Canada (interview, journals)
  • family migration  to Alberta; worked on CNR, brothers went to WWI (journals, photos, interview)
BB
  • Loyalist family, many buried by a New Brunswick church built in 1789 (interview)
  • Family contains a WWI vet and many Caribou pioneers, goldminers, and rodeo pros (interviews, photos, 1875 voters’ list)
  • New-found connection to Shuswap Aboriginal Nation (interview)
AS
  • Ontario Loyalists, later migrated to Prairies (interviews, family documents)
  • family departing Saskatchewan for BC upon Tommy Douglas’ election (interview)
  • Metis family stories, godfather was Gabriel Dumont, one member became policeman in 1930s but was discharged when a friend used his police vehicle in a bank robbery (interviews)
  • Great-grandfather WWII captured at Dieppe raid, survived war but later went missing while goldpanning (interviews)
  • Great-grandparents emigrated from Fukushima, Japan to Vancouver, interned in Tashme camp 1941, later left for beet farm in Alberta (map, government identification card issued to Japanese internees, photos, interview)
TE
  • Swedish family legacy and immigration in 1870 (family tree)
  • descendent of Chief Gw’eh (Kwah) of Ft. St. James, bearer of a pre-contact metal knife (got through trade) and involved in story of early fur-trade, James Douglas, etc. (interview, memorial plaque, photo of knife from museum)
  • interwoven stories of multiple Aboriginal relatives from different nations (interviews, family photos)
  • father is current hereditary chief of Beaver Clan; ancestors permitted to switch to this clan due to clan imbalance caused by Spanish Flu of 1918 (interviews)
  • horrific stories about family members and others Lejac residential school at Fraser Lake, and uncles and aunts taken in “Sixties Scoop” (interviews, photos)
SS
  • immigration from India to California in 1908 by steamship (interview)
  • Great x2 Grandfather a founding member and of building sponsor of a Sikh temple in California, also made bombs in the 1920s for the Indian Freedom Fighters back in India (interview, photos)
CN
  • three different WWII vets in family, involvements with shipbuilding, Battle of the Bulge, and liberation of Italy (photos, interview)
  • family member who helped construct beach features at local provincial park (photo, interview)
  • great-uncle, a jockey, who rode Secretariat and was later thrown from a horse and paralyzed in 1978 (interview, photo)
EB
  • two stories of marriages between German and Dutch family members that were rejected by family in 1800s (journals)
  • homesteading activities in the early 1900s, including use of home remedies still in use by family today (interview, direct observation)
  • attempts to learn more about push factors for Dutch immigration to Canada met multiple dead ends - story was known but family members didn’t want to talk about it 150 years later (interview)
BG
  • Great x2 Grandfather who fought and died at the Battle of Beaumont-Hamel; his will was made 7 days prior, his grave was later shelled in 1918 (multiple military records kept both by family and available online

Monday, September 28, 2015

The new curriculum

BC is part way through a "transformation of the education system" which has, at its heart, curriculum revisions throughout K-12.  Having sat through a number of "new curriculum" sessions in the last year, and even delivered a few, I find it interesting how teachers and other educators talk about it.

"The new curriculum is about _______ (fill in the blank)." It seems to have become all things to all people, even if ________ has little basis in the actual new curriculum. It is a tabula rasa on which educators are placing all of their dreams, goals, and fears about the future of education and all of the justifications for the way they conduct their practice, or wish to.  I know I have done this at times, perhaps influenced by dozens of examples from others in BC. The version I like the best is where teachers (with cause) cite the infinite Choice that the New Curriculum offers. Basically we can now do absolutely anything we want whenever we want, as long as we reference inquiry and/or personalized learning. The curriculum will "allow" more depth, more authenticity, more PBL, more inclusion of Aboriginal learners, more time to follow passions. The teachers that say these things are awesome teachers who do this stuff anyways, so maybe the "NC" just affirms that they will continue to be supported. The open-endedness is reinforced by a curriculum process (e.g. the Ministry process) that has been sufficiently vague along the way about how it will all work, and is still vague regarding where it will end up (the grad plan).

I suppose this speaks to latent hope, and a legitimate need for new approaches to teaching and learning, but is also a bit disturbing as it gives the "new curriculum" a mysterious lustre and the function of an oft-quoted (or alluded) but poorly understood religious text within the milieu of education change. This metaphysical approach shifts curriculum from a guide or a track that has been laid down to a series of interconnected, fluid, and subjective feelings. This work is done by the priests of the new curriculum who are involved in conversion experiences -- from the "old" way of teaching and learning (whatever the heck that is) to the Transformed Way. The conversion is considered to be successful when the inducted teacher can use "21st Century" jargon convincingly and with effect.

I mock it a bit, but I am also intrigued to see where it all ends up. After all, "fervour" is hard to manufacture, and is often a necessary step on the path towards "transformation" in all its forms.

Friday, September 26, 2014

AESN Case Study


Network of Inqiury and Innovation
Aboriginal Enhancement Schools Network grant - project summary


School: D.P. Todd Secondary
District: SD57 Prince George
Area of focus: Student Level
Inquiry Team Members: Glen Thielmann, with support from Deb Koehn

Question / focus area: 
The Language and Landscape Program: blended learning course combination project: English 11 and Geography 12 together for a full morning each day with opportunities for flexible blocks where some students came for seminar and the rest worked independently at school or at home.

1) Transitions – preparing students for new learning environments (blended learning, independent inquiry, cross-curricular, small group “seminar” settings including student-led)
2) Making modern connections to Traditional Knowledge (cultural and ecological) 
3) Place-based learning (incorporating field study)

Scanning: 
Students recognized that blended learning was a skill that, if mastered, could be very useful. They were very honest about how challenging it would be to own their learning time and be responsible for meeting outcomes with minimal supervision during the time set aside for “flex work.” Many students were unable to use flex time to our satisfaction, and, more surprisingly, to their own satisfaction. They found some of the cross-curricular and “identity-rich” work challenging – very much an indicator that while we often ask our students to think outside the box, or to put themselves into their projects, we have much to learn about doing this on a daily basis and in a comprehensive, dynamic manner. Put simply, the students were good at small tasks and discreet outcomes, but synthesis and broad connections were somewhat elusive.

Focus: 
We set out to see what happens when conventional English and Geography curriculum came together in a context that emphasized skills and inquiries that are currently more common in post-secondary environments - blended and independent learning, cross-curricular project work, field work, and discussion-based seminars that are co-facilitated by teacher and students.

The main inquiry was on the work of students in the Language and Landscape program but this was continued with similar cross-curricular learning in a subsequent locally developed course called Middle Earth 12.

Hunch: 
Our hunch was that students are often challenged to work harder or get more organized, but not often challenged to take charge of their own learning agenda. We wondered whether mind/body connection would be the way in to this discussion. Students have a somewhat better handle on what it means to own their physical development (e.g., diet, exercise, choices about drinking/drugs). Their educational experience, however, is largely constructed by others and seems designed to receive passively. In a broader context, we wondered about whether our school and district were ready for significant experimentation with “schooling.” For example, were they ready for blended learning?

New professional learning: 
We’ve learned that it takes an incredible amount of something to make a system-wide change. That something could be:

a) Sticktoitiveness – eventually people understand what you’re trying to do
b) Collaboration – having a groundswell of support and shared work towards a goal
c) Luck, or knowing the right people or being at the right place at the right time

In the case of our blended learning experiment, we obviously didn’t have enough of this “something.” Despite assurances from the start from the local curriculum department and our principal, and support from the Ministry of Education that what we were planning was exactly what they wanted to see, the flextime component of the course (the heart of our blended learning model) was shut down by the district senior management. Ironically, a similar “flex” approach is being used by two entire secondary schools in our district as a means of scheduling tutorial time for students and collaboration time for teachers. We suppose the individual classroom was the wrong scale for the application of this idea. 

There were also many cool things we took away from the course – “Good, Bad, and Ugly” of Social Learning, stages of student project development in problem-based learning, using narrative self-inquiry as a tool to explore established curriculum, use of an online program, making community and parent contacts to support learning (rather than just to ask for stuff or send/receive communications). We also learned more about local Lheidli T’Enneh culture through two of our field trips, one of which was student facilitated.

Taking action: 
Aside from what has been mentioned above (e.g. blended learning design), part of the overall strategy was to encourage students to think more about what their course work and education looks like when they settle in to a few good questions about themselves, the topic, and ways they can connect the two. We did this in two main ways. First, there was an ongoing invitation to add to the course blog (response to prompts, many about the process of learning over the product of learning). Second, we did small group brainstorm & poster paper shares on every aspect of learning design, starting with student expectations for themselves and the teacher, and progressing to their deep questions around the purpose of education and the reasons why school has been set up the way it is.

A complete list of strategies would exhaust this exercise... much of it is included in the course blogs. We incorporated field study (e.g. Ancient Forest, Exploration Place, UNBC), and we allowed time and freedom to return to a theme that arose during the brainstorming work at the beginning of the course (connection to place – topophilia).

Checking: 
Students definitely got a handle on the extent to which their learning style and habits would support their plans for post-secondary (school or work). The foray into blended learning (curtailed after intervention from the school district) helped expose a gap in our school system: are our senior students ready to take on their own learning in a partially supervised setting? The answer, or course, was varied and coloured by individual bias (some students were hard on themselves when reflecting, others were not). The feedback was collected in conversations, exit forms, and on the course blog(s).

While our trip to the Ancient Forest was the most fun and physically/metaphysically satisfying, the trip to UNBC to participate in a “day of Geography” was the most rewarding according to the students. Many of them had no idea what university life was like and found the tours, talks, and round tables with faculty and students enlightening.

Reflections/advice: 
We’ve learned that one should not try to break the mold on every item. We took on too much. We would suggest that other schools look at one new focus per year per course or program, and try to get all stakeholders together to agree on parameters before it starts.

We were so glad that we included parents in the process – they were very clear about what we were trying to do and this helped convince the students to push their own comfort zones. They knew that the teacher and their parent’s goals were the same.

Sunday, October 06, 2013

Professional Development has changed

Professional Development (PD) has changed in the last 15 years. For those of you who taught in the 80s and 90s, think back to a time before pervasive email, a comprehensive internet, and widespread social media. PD happened in trickles throughout the year and with singular emphasis on designated days — these were one of the few times when teachers “received” PD in the form of a workshop, presentation, or group conversation. They tended to be high-stakes in the sense that there were few other formal opportunities for teachers to orient themselves to the new ideas that circulated in the education world. My first few years of teaching was like this: hit-and-miss presenters, and random professional conversations around shared subject areas. The boundary between that and the outside world was pretty narrow and virtually unexplored. Other colleagues tell me this was a "golden age" --lots of organized PD (in the form of guest presenters) and he rest was quiet and unassuming. Now, for better or worse, we are saturated in educational ideas, competing paradigms, "must-read" professional articles, layers of jargon (each one "scaffolding" the next), intriguing links, and cures for what ails us in education — professional learning materials, ideas, and networks are available 24/7. In short, we are connected.

Much of the "ubiquitous PD" buzz has been facilitated by technology and the mobile devices that few of us are far from. For example, a brief foray into educational hashtags on Twitter reveals a river of PD that teachers can draw from sparingly or jump into with both feet. More than one teacher-tweeter has referred to twitter as a "firehose of PD." Thousands of BC educators contribute daily; it is hard not to be humbled by the sheer volume of earnest inquiry.

The buzz extends past social media. In many of our schools we have built in collaborative time or similar structures and release grants to continue the learning that used to take place in hallways between class. The last few years has also seen the rise of EdCamps, Open Space, and Unconferencing — all of which are recognition that teachers want to compare notes and challenge or support each other far more than they want to be passive recipients of expert conclusions, no matter how brilliant. These trends also speak to the power of informal learning. This is accompanied by a growing reluctance to spend our PD time alone — we get enough isolation from adults in our daily teaching, and social media leaves us craving something more embodied.

As we adjust to the ubiquitous nature of PD, it becomes more important that official PD days offer these opportunities to unpack or take stock of recent learning, to mull over and reflect on what this means for coming months, and to fuse or synthesize the ideas in the room into something useful or inspirational for ourselves and our students. For many, professional learning is a life-long habit, particularly for those who have made the digital PD leap and are rarely unconnected from other educators. Among the "connected" there is an awareness that formal PD time isn't about taking in new information or having PD “done to you.” Whether our handful of PD days each school year are spent as individual teacher inquiry or a co-creative process among colleagues, the customs are undergoing a significant shift and our administrative leaders, teacher leaders and associations need to change the way we frame, organize, and seek accountability for our PD time. Meetings of any kind — PD, staff, committee, boards — need to realize that assembling simply to hear information is no longer necessary (even offensive in some ways). Just as we're learning to shift our classrooms from content delivery to more dynamic, interactive practice, so to our meetings need to shift to acknowledge that solid communication is more than just passing on information; it requires conversation.

I have been very fortunate to have spent much of my PD time in the last few years with members of my personal learning network — they have challenged me to examine the ultimate implications of my actions on the social and intellectual development of my students, and we have kept each other accountable for high standards as educators. Most of this is done face-to-face, but we've left some space in our collective inquiry for social media — subtle, ongoing infusion of new ideas into our own conversations, all of us richer for the experience. We have come as close as we can to a common understanding that PD days are the teachers' assessment time for the professional learning that happens all year — a chance to unpack, to mull, and to fuse.

How do you spend your PD time?

Monday, September 30, 2013

And now for something completely different

This September has been the most unique for me in at least a decade.

I've jumped into an inquiry-based, blended learning program designed for Grade 11 students, a cross-curricular "interrogation" of the BC Edplan combining English 11 and Geography 12. I've called it the Language & Landscape Program and our focus is on imaginative storytelling within the context of environmental themes. My cohort of 28 students is yoked to me for the entire morning all semester long, but we've broken this up into lectures & lessons, student-led Groups, teacher-facilitated Seminars, and independent "Flex Time." Between big projects, "embodied" knowing, writing workshops, lit circles, and building of "geographies" is some place-based learning, too, meaning we have some great field trips planned to local physical and cultural landscapes.

I've also started a new afternoon job as the district teachers' association Professional Development coordinator. Aside from weighing applications for conference travels, managing a fund, chairing a committee, and planning a big conference in Spring, I get to talk with many educators about their plans for professional learning and help make connections to colleagues, presenters, and support time. Part of this is formal (e.g. district's mentoring program, setting up workshops and min-conferences) and some of it is informal -- conversations, visits, phone calls, emails, and social media.

Some career novelty for sure -- a good fit for where I'm at after 17 years teaching. I can feel the pressure I've put on myself for getting the most out of the morning and the afternoon each day (e.g. I can feel it in the form of insomnia!), but I'm loving the student learning that is taking place in the Language & Landscape program and loving the connections I'm making with educators about their professional learning. When the patterns settle out and new becomes familiar once again, I'm hoping I get the sleep part back. Work-life balance has never been an easy one for me, but it certainly helps when the work is dynamic and fulfilling.

The image above, if you don't recognize it, is from Monty Python's Flying Circus, the masters of "something completely different."

Wednesday, November 07, 2012

Making Connections to Traditional Knowledge


My Social Studies 9 class has been working on a project off and on over the last few weeks -- an exploration of Heritage Skills. We do this as a tie-in to the Industrial Revolution and as a precursor to the full-on Heritage Research project our school's students complete in Social Studies 10.  Five of the SS9 projects stand out for me right now (still more presentations to come). I'm very proud of what they did with their guiding questions:

1. KM shared the story of Norwegian flatbread with us... krumkake... sort of a waffle cone, but rolled and stamped with careful designs. The recipe was a family favorite and helped them make a direct connection to their Scandinavian roots. Of course, she spent a few hours making up a big tasty batch for our class to try. The heritage skill lies in the preparation, use of special tools, and choice of fillings.

2. FJ put together an visual explanation of why she and her family dried fish. Everything she expressed was what she "knew" -- no obligatory internet surfing to add random details... refreshing. The traditional methods have been passed down in her family for generations, and she plans on passing it on to her kids and grandkids one day. Her smokehouse is a special place, filled with strong memories to go with the familiar smells. Two big strips of dried fish were wrapped and taped to the poster... FJ ate one and I ate one... perfect! The heritage skill lies in the options for catching, preparing, drying, curing, and smoking the fish.

3. SR shared his grandfather's passion for woodworking and the art of Intarsia -- locking in wooden elements to form an inlayed textured mosaic, a mix of clever design and skill with wood.  The examples he shared were ones that came from his house, a reminder of his grandfather's presence even though he lives a few hours away. Some of the Intarsia objects wee small and intricate, others as big as a chalkboard. The heritage skill lies in the mastery of wood and tools.

4. AC explored the history of the horse and buggy -- where, when, why, etc. Her grandmother remembered riding with horse and buggy as a kid, and we had some fun speculating what would happen to society if we had to go back to this form of transportation (pros & cons). The heritage skill lies in the care of animals and equipment. I mentioned that my dad, born in 1936, and the oldest of 8, used to get the horse and buggy set up each morning, load up his school-age siblings, and take them to school every day... as a 9-yr-old!

5. MS shared the "Portuguese Passion for Bread" -- a foray into both family tradition and a way of making bread that few people take on anymore. MS shared what she learned from her grandmother, this sparked similar stories in the class -- a quick survey found out that creation and consumption of homemade bread was more common than expected. The heritage skill lies in the attention to ingredients, process, and time, plus the careful (ancient) working of dough.

I'm looking forward to more projects this week on carving, speaking the Carrier Language, ranching, square dancing, and others.  We learned about canning today -- peaches, pears, and fish -- each one a grandmother's favourite for the three students presenting. Projects can be tricky with some classes -- the disorganized students have a hard time sticking to the timeline to get this done, but it's also a great way for students that struggle in other areas to engage with the learning outcomes and get some success. I think the key is making some connection to student identity -- in this case an interview with a family member.

Traditional Knowledge, whether it's an Aboriginal custom, indigenous way of approaching subsistence or simply an old and preserved cultural practice, comes to us like a gift from our ancestors. Who knows what skills are resting in our bones, placed their by our forebears and waiting for a trigger, waiting to be relearned and reborn for the next generation. In an educational world swamped with technology-induced urgency for change, these projects are a calm and focussed reminder of what really grounds us to each other and the dirt beneath us.

Monday, November 05, 2012

staff mtg course presentation


It's official... time to let my staff know where this is going. What started as a set of ideas about course combination and imaginative content, and became a project in curriculum and learning design is ready for the next level.

This course proposal for D.P. Todd Secondary will see English 11 and Geography 12 combined in a blended learning environment. Students enroll for two blocks of course work, half of it class-room based and half of it outside of class with individual, group,and seminar work. The "blend" refers to both the mix of traditional lessons with flipped or flexible learning, and the mix of in-school with distributed (e.g. online) content and coursework.

We will emphasize self-reliant learning, developing personal learning networks for students, cross-curricular themes, performance-based assessment, interactive technology, social learning, and exploring horizons of significance and authenticity.

In short, a new way for Grade 11 students to complete two courses with compelling curriculum in a two-block program that blends different approaches to teaching and learning.

Space permitting, this program will also allow Grade 12 students to audit parts of the double-course offering and complete a single grad credit board-authorized course: Middle Earth 12.

Comments and feedback welcome. An open planning site for this course can be found at http://dpts.sd57.bc.ca/~gthielmann/middleearth or at http://landspeak.blogspot.com

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Heritage Skills


Part of the continuum of heritage projects at our schools in Social Studies 9-11 sees our students researching Heritage Skills in SS9 -- ways of doing things, making things, learning, expressing, making a living, being creative that are becoming a lost art in our society. The project has three parts:
  1. make a connection with someone who practiced or knows about this skill, like a grandparent or elder 
  2. do parallel research on the topic with books and websites or other firsthand information 
  3. prepare a presentation for the class that includes a visual display (physical or digital) or a demonstration (live or recorded) 
Students design the research questions (e.g. for an elder) and are pushed to express authentic connections and what they learned from the research rather than an report on the history of the skill (although that may be the vehicle by which they make connections).

The project is timed to coincide with our study of the Industrial Revolution, change in technology and all that.

What's exciting me about it this year is that my current SS9 class (that has struggled with much of the material so far) has, gradually, grabbed on to this project and looks to be engaging in the work. It's all happening slowly and piecemeal - two have finished and some have not even started... but I'm looking forward to seeing the results. I have at least 11 students with a First Nations background that I'm following with special interest - this project was designed in part with these students in mind, a way to introduce Heritage Research (increasingly important and involved in SS10 and SS11) in a safe topic setting.

So far, here are the topics they have chosen, with the connections they will draw on:
  • 2 students sharing their knowledge of the Carrier language which is rapidly disappearing and spoken fluently by a handful of elders - these students know some Carrier and know others who can speak and write a bit more 
  • driving a horse and buggy - students' grandmother used to do this 
  • 4 students looking at canning - mainly grandmothers who have kept up this once ubiquitous practice 
  • 2 students on horseback riding & ranch culture - one students' grandfather was a well known cowboy in the Chilcotin 
  • drying fish - this student does this each summer, as did her parents, grandparents, gg, etc. 
  • backsmithing - student wants to know the history behind working metal, dad was a welder 
  • archery or trapping - students has connections to both and hasn't decided what he wants to do yet 
  • 3 students on traditional food, Norwegian, German etc (milchklosse?) - share and make some very unusual and ancient recipes 
  • 2 students on carving and wood art - grandfathers have made beautiful and interesting pieces 
  • the clothing prep and maskmaking work behind ceremonial dancing - student has Gitxan relatives involved in this tradition, and a grandfather who carves masks 
  • 2 students on breadmaking - one of them is sharing an intricate Portuguese tradition 
  • quilting, garment making - grandmother connections 
  • square dancing - students' grandparents did this every chance they got 
  • spearfishing - I think the student has a plan for this!
  • 3 students who have not figured out a topic yet
What is your favourite heritage skill or activity tied to traditional knowledge?  What's the personal connection?

Friday, October 19, 2012

Mumbleypeg

Got about to some "mumbling of the peg" yesterday and today with some friends and fellow Social Studies teachers at our Pacific Slope Consortium retreat at Purden Lake.

Mumbling the peg, you say? It's a variation on an old game where some folks stand around and flip a pocketknife into a stump using a variety of techniques: off the elbow, off the tip of the thumb, off the top of the head, and so on. Mumbleypeg. In the original game the loser has to pull a peg out the ground with his teeth, but we don't usually get that far. In fact, we didn't even get to the knife-tossing bit this year.

We did however, mumble the peg in the more pedagogic sense. The "socratic circle" version involves revery by the fire combined with no-holds barred conversation on the educational issues that are on our minds. We hold ourselves and ideas open to intense scrutiny, four lakeside inquirists tossing notions up to be deconstructed, laughed at/with, and cheered. Some ideas missed the mark, some landed with grace and perfect balance, others stuck to the mark through fierce rhetoric and chance accuracy. In some ways it was like chucking knives about, but in a softer, "mumbley" way we also were free to trade barbs and challenge each others' thinking because of a large amount of trust and good humour.

Here are sample of the big and small ideas that we set in play and sent to the stump one way or another, midst the feast and fire:
  • teacher mediocrity - can we expect system change when we are often our own worst enemies? What can we do to improve our lot? Failing that, what can we do to step around the dysfunction and do some stuff that is not mediocre?
  • admin mediocrity - is it even reasonable to expect more from our admin? do we actually want the best teachers to become the best admin, like in the olden days? would teacher self-reliance allow admin to focus on more important roles than the mall-cop ones we've made for them? and maybe require less of them? what can we do to model leadership for our leaders?
  • student mediocrity - what are the long term implications of the way our system ignores (and even rewards) poor performance, how can we tastefully let our students know we care and will also hold them to high standards?
  • if you want to send the message that it matters, don't brush off the activity, e.g. the critical thinking value of a research essay and work necessary to get students to take it seriously, being persistent about skills and seeing the content as a way to successively develop skills, importance of an ongoing teacher narrative to explain that to students that this is what is actually happening
  • pros and cons of PD on twitter - some things we've learned, some repetitive jargon-filled stuff we're tired of learning about, laughed at some apparent dorkiness, wondered whether it justified the time invested, compared our district leaders' use of social media and blogs to what we see in other districts
  • technology comedies - looked at recent attempts to coax a dialogue on tech with district decision-makers, agreed that if leaders (of any kind) ignore teacher passion and planning regarding "learning enhanced by technology" they might want to wear bags on their heads when promoting 21st Century Learning and the BC Edplan
  • celebrated the timeless possibilities of low-tech teaching - give us 11x17 paper, some pencils, internet connection, a heated & well-lit room and we'll figure out the rest, if anyone wants to actually talk tech or figure out why smartboards are not all they're cracked up to be, they know where to find us in our hobbit holes
  • grad requirement changes - digested some of the implications for our craft, and cranked up the settings on our respective crap detectors, debated use of letter grades in Gr 8 and 9, imagined alternatives, speculated on what a two-tiered education system would look like
  • deconstructing competencies - what do we actually want our SS students to demonstrate to us? how can we get this without bogus mark-counting and what do we value re skills/processes vs big themes vs content?
  • debunk the effort/learning myth - why do educators still engage in the bizarro debate about "no zeros" assuming that learning is some pure measurable product (deserving a %) and that everything else is behaviour (not deserving a %). The most painful suggestion is that learning = content familiarity or work completion. If Marcy and Liam both work on maps, and Marcy never turns in her map, but Liam does and gets a mark, we are essentially rewarding Liam for good work habits, it may not even matter what he learned from the map. 
  • from effort/learning split to wholistic assessment - how does this change when we base assessment on performance, on what students can actually demonstrate of what they learned? this is obviously not new, but (remarkably) teachers drift away from this far too often, and allow the "just assess the learning" tagline to push student responsibility and skill-buidling off the assessment radar
  • performance based assessment - worked through what a matrix might look like that matched up competencies with focus questions, beyond averaging and assigning percentages, how can we produce an evaluation that students can be real clear about
  • ways of communicating student performance to parents - some old tricks (the folder full of exemplars) and new ones like the video clip of students' binders, which teacher shares with parents, or have student take a pic of an impromptu portfolio (e.g. spread out on desk) showing what they're working on and text it to parents
  • intervention models and "getting kids through" - are we doing more harm than good, shared some models that appear to be working, compared models and asked whether LIF funds were being squandered
  • blended learning and what do we do for the gifted - planted some seeds here, more than that wondered about little ways to build in our own intrinsic rewards because hell will freeze over before we actually get paid to be good at our jobs
  • deconstructing decolonization - what we observe in/from our First Nations students, some challenges to the notion that our FN kids come knowledgeable about their own supposed ways of approaching learning (although they come with many other challenges to overcome), and that we already place a high value on the notion that learning is embedded in memory, history, and story; still, we would like to learn more about how our FN kids can dial in
  • field trip to Vimy Ridge 2017 - light a bit of a fire here to talk about who and how big
Did I miss any?

Tuesday, October 02, 2012

Benchmarks of Geographic Thinking

My sister planting trees in the Bowron Clearcut, 1986. Many geographic relationships and themes overlap in this image

In what seems to be a regular occurrence, a Social Studies colleague from Ft. St. James has challenged me with some powerful questions. This time it is about what is at the heart of geography education, something she is working through with her students. She likes to set the bar high; not just content to teach curriculum and provide a friendly learning atmosphere (which is as high as I reach on most days), she want her students to really get somewhere, to express and invest and stretch their thinking. Adapting the questions a bit, here is what I'd like to know more about:

When students encounter a geographic issue or phenomenon, what guiding themes or inspirations will help them make sense of of it? What themes, skills, or approaches are of most use for engaging students in geographic problem-solving?

Please leave a comment or email/tweet if you have ideas to add to this. I will edit the post as ideas arrive. I suppose one place to start is with some existing standards to apply to thinking and inquiry in Social Studies:

Benchmarks of Historical Thinking (Seixas)
ref: http://www.histori.ca/benchmarks/
  • Establish Historical Significance 
  • Use Primary Source Evidence 
  • Identify Continuity and Change (Patterns of Change) 
  • Analyze Cause and Consequence 
  • Take Historical Perspectives 
  • Understand Moral Dimensions of History (Judgement) 
Benchmarks (American Historical Assoc.)
ref: http://www.historians.org/teaching/policy/benchmarks.htm
  • Analysis of primary and secondary sources 
  • Understanding of historical debate and controversy 
  • Historiography/how historians develop interpretations 
  • Analysis of how historians use evidence 
  • Understanding of bias and points of view 
  • Formulations of questions and determining their importance 
  • Determination of the significance of historical change 
  • Examination of how causation relates to continuity and change 
  • Interrelationship among themes, regions, periodization 
  • Perceiving the past through values of the past 
Five Themes of Geography
ref: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/resources/ngo/education/themes.html
  • Location 
  • Place 
  • Human-Environment Interaction 
  • Movement 
  • Region 
Six Elements of Geography (American Association Geog National Standards)
ref: http://edmall.gsfc.nasa.gov/inv99Project.Site/Pages/geo.stand.html
  • The World in Spatial Terms 
  • Places and Regions 
  • Physical Systems 
  • Human Systems 
  • Environment and Society 
  • The Uses of Geography 
Benchmarks exist in other disciplines, too
Science 9-12 Content Benchmarks (compiled from various American sources)
e.g., ref: http://www.nmnaturalhistory.org/BEG/BEG_Standards_Science_Part1.html
  • Use scientific method to investigate and gather/analyze evidence 
  • Understand that scientific processes produce evolving knowledge 
  • Use appropriate math to solve problems 
  • Understand properties, structures, and reactions of matter 
  • Understand role of biodiversity and genetics in nature 
  • Understand earth systems, origins, and interactions of the spheres 
  • Understand energy and how it interacts with matter 
  • Understand the motion of objects and waves, and the forces that cause them 
So, what might benchmarks for critical thinking look like in geographic education?
Geographic Inquiry (my synthesis):
  • Structure of place - form & function of human and/or physical systems 
  • Use of Evidence - human and physical features, selection & interpretation of phenomenon 
  • Causality and Change - evolution of systems, function of space & time 
  • Human-Environment Interaction - mutual impacts and dependencies, modes of adaptation 
  • Multi-Disciplinary Perspectives - role of history, sociology, biology, economics, geology, etc. 
  • Responsibility and Sustainability - resource ethics, connected issues, planning & management
What are they for? I think themes guide inquiry in the same way that principles guide decisions or values guide behaviour. They don't always look the same, depend on the individual perhaps, nor are they consistently applied (My "principle" says eat local, eat organic, and yet I just ate a Big Mac). The themes or benchmarks can be studied, challenged, adapted, and can remain present as reminders that just thinking about what we observe isn't enough, we need to put internal (identity connections) and external (scholarly approaches) on the line and be prepared to be stretched in order for deep learning to take place. That's the big challenge. The 5 themes of geography has been around for along time, by themselves they don't make geography fun. A friend of mine recently had his Social Studies 10 class explore the PGSS school and grounds with cameras to locate evidence of the 5 themes in play. They shared their photo observations together and spent some time explaining connections to the 5 themes, defending photo choices, and discussing the use of space at their school. Critical thinking (using themes and benchmarks), engaged identity (their choices, their photos), smart use of technology, physically active/hands-on, focus on "how to think and learn" built on top of the "what," multiple roles for teacher... great lesson, eh?

What is the intended outcome of the use of themes or benchmarks? Sometimes in Geography we construct "geographies." (srsly!). We move from the general (the skills and processes and observations), to the personal (the reconstruction of what is happening in a specific landscape), filtered through the knowledge and agenda of the individual geographer. In other words, "Geography" (as a subject) is the study of place, an analysis of physical and/or cultural characteristics related to a phenomenon or location.  A "geography" (as an inquiry) is a construction of significance -- what is happening in a particular place, often related to an issue (e.g. environmental crisis in a watershed, changing climate as it relates to forestry, a town recovering from a recession, etc.). The "Study of Geography" is the set of lenses we develop with out students -- what's going on here, what are the relevant terms and underlying factors that help make sense of this landscape or phenomenon or issue.  The "building of geographies" is the application of these skills, attended to by the themes and benchmarks that ensure rigorous thinking. The hinge, the key piece that links skills, knowledge, and ability to analyze case studies, is the role of identity and the "topophilia" or the deep connections to place that guide so many of our conscious and unconscious understandings of geographic phenomenon and experiences. Occasionally, students connect to different parts of my geography 12 course because they simply find the material interesting or I've put on a great lesson. Sometimes their engagement depends on a cool project they design and do. More often, though, it is when the material (or lessons) and their response (e.g. project) resonate with some deep need they have to "become" -- they want to make connections between issues, places, ideas, patterns of thought and their own bodies. Learning, especially in the K-12 scene, is as much about becoming as it is about what one ends of knowing. It is for this reason I've abandoned most written or powerpoint project options in Geography and encourage more "Embodied Geography" from students (e.g. see Poutine Glaciation or Waffle Tectonics).

Here are some examples of "geographies" that combine observation with different degrees of bias (identity can't be engaged without also evoking agendas) and the use of standard reference points (e.g. derived from benchmarks or fitting into themes):

This list could be endless -- any careful deconstruction of a set of relationships happening in a particular space and time (sometimes applicable to the larger world, sometime not), and careful reconstruction of what it all means and where we might go with what we learn -- this is a geography. It is the rich boundary-zone between benchmarks of geographic thinking, relevant cases studies, and the passion emerging from students' ongoing identity work. It is also the place where students can get fires up about  issues and begin to understand how direct experience, power, agency, consciousness, and intimacy are all at play in landscapes, just as they are in their lives. Building a "geography" is both a phenomenological and ontological effort. Don't worry, I don't punish kids with those words, not unless they ask, anyways. We do talk about topophilia, though.

I think one of the best things to do with a Geography class is be to build geographies and then find a physical way (something built or something performed) to express them, ideally for the whole class so we can follow their thinking and ask lots of questions.

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Echo Project

For a few years now at D.P. Todd Secondary we've been using a special "Echo Project" for Social Studies 11 to put student identity at the centre of the course.

The idea is fairly simple -- students interview someone to learn more about Canada in the Postwar Era with the goal of making a personal connection to the curriculum. The thing that turns this basic idea into something memorable is the urgency we place on the task.

The SS11 students we teach right now (and over the last few years) are at the tail end of the Echo Generation, the children of the late Baby Boomers or early Gen Xers. In turn, their grandparents were mostly born before or during WWII, and their great-grandparents were around before the Great Depression. What an incredible resource -- we have people beyond the 50-yr gap all around us, many with incredible stories to tell. There is a retirement complex across the street from the school, for example, that has at least five WWII vets in residence.

I believe that societies need robust connections over the 2-generation gap (about 50 years) if the society is to remain whole and progressive.  Breaking the gap, breaking the continuity with grandparents for example, leads to confusion of values, dysfunctional habits, and narcissism.  Maintaining conversations with the elderly among youth is vital; these students truly are the Echo -- the voices of something deep (powerful) and distant (at risk of being lost) that skips past the immediate horizon and comes alive when it is least expected.  In other words, students will learn stuff from the elderly that they can't learn from their parents or other adults (teachers included). Surprisingly, what they learn often involves risk-taking, living large, and being really good at a few important things.

I think the students involved in the Foxfire project knew what this was about -- they knew the urgency of collecting knowledge and perspectives from the elderly. For those students in Georgia of the 1960s and 70s, the rapid disappearance of Appalachian culture compelled them to gather stories, recipes, crafts, wisdom and lore from the locals. It is the same urgency we try to instill in our students -- the pre-war generations (arguably with the best perspective on postwar society) are fewer in number each year (and were fewer to start with). One of our students "found" an interview subject that was 102 -- this is someone with personal memories of every major event from the SS11 curriculum, and an authentic view on our course themes: politics & gov't, autonomy & identity, society & culture, economy & environment. Soon it will be difficult to find anyone with firsthand experience of the Great Depression and eventually WWII. We were studying WWI in class two years ago when Canada's last vet of the Great war died.  Our WWII vets average age is 88 and number less than 125,000.

In SS10, most of our students built Heritage Projects around their own family or cultural backgrounds, exploring themes like traditions, migration, cultural values, subsistence, and lots of cool stories and connections to historical events and motifs. This SS11 Echo Project is a chance to pick up one of the strands and follow-up with how their "heritage" evolved in the postwar era. Most of our students pick a grandparents to interview, but many gravitate towards an elder they know in their community. Like the Heritage Project, the results are amazing -- students making bold connections to ideas and learning outcomes from our course with passion and scholarly insight.

I've just finished marking the various Echo Projects that have come in over the last few weeks from three SS11 classes and I must say I am overwhelmed. They learned so much from their interview subjects, they asked such meaningful and profound questions (even if it was sometimes just about music or fads), and they spoke and write so respectfully about the unique and eccentric knowledge they gained from the process. As one student put it, you just don't learn this kind of thing from Google.

It is no surprise that student learn more, faster, and deeper when their identity is on the line. For example, many students are bored by the details of the Avro Arrow story... not so the student whose grandfather was an actual engineer for the Avro project. His passion in understanding the nuances of the Avro story came alive for the other students and they caught the idea that the story was important (as it once was to many Canadians). Another student walked us through the emotional toll of military service and the question of what Canada's role should be on the world stage, focusing on Cyprus where his dad served as a Canadian Peacekeeper. His presentation coincided with a class activity looking at Canada and the UN and whether Canada should aim to be a middle power or a model power (activity and an 11x17 evidence page which they use as a study buddy for a unit test). I'd wager the class learned more from the authentic student presentation than my complicated middle/model power exercise.

I'm still haunted by one student's family story. Her great-grandmother wrote diaries from the 1920s to the 1960s chronicling her own life and also how she felt about the world around her, including WWII and her family's immigration to Canada. When she passed away in the 1970s, her daughters and son were left with the task of sorting through the boxes and boxes of journals. The daughters wanted to break with the past, to forget about Old World grief and grievances, and so they set fire to the journals.  The son (my student's grandfather) was devastated and had a falling out with his sisters that never really healed. My student interviewed him for her Echo Project and tried to recreate what her great-grandmother must have seen in her life. As you can imagine, the student now feels an urgency to begin a journal of her own, to write about her life and the world around her.

Another student learned about an 92-yr-old man and got the nerve up to interview him. He and his wife were the parents of my student's grandma's best friend... that's how these things work! He was hard of hearing, hard to understand and my student tried to get as much down on paper as she could. It turns out he had served on Lancaster Bombers in the Canadian Airforce in WWII. Then serendipity takes over. My student's great-grandafther had also served as a Lancaster navigator. He was killed in action, but was an important part of the student's documented family history. Interviewing a veteran navigator gave her an insight into what her relative went through in the airspace above Germany before he was shot down, something missing from the family record. Of course, it broadened her understanding of Canada's role on the international stage and was a point of connection in the course that had previously been lacking. I started the course worried about this student's progress but am now so proud at her level of engagement. The cool thing is that she decided how and when to get interested.

I'm teaching 4 for 4 right now and I haven't had the time to archive the projects and blog about the individual results as I had wished, but I wanted to take a few minutes and lay out the excitement I had for the students' work and give a sense of how this project is set up. I'll put some more comments and excerpts from the student projects together as I find time.

Here's generally what I tell the students, in bits and pieces over many weeks, leading up to the actual assignment:
You are the Echo. Generation Y. Born in 1996, most of you. What does that mean? Your parents, for the most part, were the last part of the baby boom generation that followed World War Two and lasted until the mid 1960s. Some of you are the children of Generation X, the ones that followed the boomers in the late 1960s and 1970s. The median year of your parents’ birth was 1967, your grandparents, 1940. 
What this means is that your grandparents grew up in the 1940s and 1950s, when Canada was quite decidedly not a British colony but was in danger of becoming an American colony. When the Soviet Union was the bad guy, the commies were coming, and the world would probably end in thermonuclear war. They know a thing or two about hippies, about cars, about jobs, food, clothes, hobbies and jokes that don't really fit in anymore. 
They observed, or joined in, as minorities, women, and Aborginal Canadians gained more rights. They witnessed the big events of the postwar period and probably harbour opinions you won't find in a textbook. Some came to this country as a new homeland, and were able to test Laurier's theory that "Canada is the star to which all men who love progress and freedom shall come." Some of them were called DPs as kids, and did not like it. They'll have strong thoughts on Trudeau, on the Quebecois, on Americans, on environmentalism. A substantial number of them grew up on a farm, and were adults before they ever boarded a plane.  Medical care was not universal for them, and they sang  "God Save the Queen" in school while looking at a different flag than we have now. 
Many will start a conversation with "you got it easy these days" and many will finish a conversation with a telling look that says "I can't believe we haven't talked about this stuff before." The important thing is that when you reach past a couple of generations, you will learn something important from people that hold memories that will soon be forgotten. If you ask the right questions, you'll find that everything they say will give you an authentic perspective on Canadian Identity and other big ideas from our course.   
The task... 
Structure your Echo Project around what you have learned from an interview with someone who lived through and understood some of the key issues of the postwar period. Your research, work, and presentation could involve documents, photos, artifacts and other primary sources. You may end up talking about some of the research topics from our "Postwar" list, or something completely different. You should also try to address a few of the elements of Critical Inquiry (the circle graph we looked at in class). For an interview subject, three things are desirable (but not always necessary): 50 year gap -- born before 1947, experienced -- they have interesting stories to tell, and important to you -- someone you would really like to talk to. The rest of the project details are explained on the handout, including suggestions for format and sample interview questions.

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Poutine Glaciation

The end of a "geomorphology" unit in Geography 12 means one thing... the students have pulled out the stops and are unleashing their creative, intelligent projects for our mutual enjoyment. Time enough for the factual details on the unit test, this is about celebration and individual discoveries. Here are some highlights:

A glacial landscape made from poutine (video). A literal mountain of fries, shaped to show a wall of pyramidal peaks, a cirque (alpine bowl) surrounded by aretes (ridges) with a glacial valley below. Chunks of cheese represented the frost-shattered rocks that would be plucked up to become moraine or erratics. Finally, a huge bowl of hot gravy was poured on the mountains, becoming gathering ice that filled the cirque and showed the characteristic plastic flow associated with glacial advance. The boys stirred it all together and the class dove in with forks and spoons. Very tasty, very popular with the hungry kids. Hayden and Brenden were the most excited; their creation went over as they hoped, and they got to mop up the leftovers. As Nic C. put it "what could be more Canadian, a guy in a cowboy hat pouring gravy over a mountain range to make poutine."

Hydraulic Erosion (video). Kelly and Natasha worked with water and sand to show us a few things, including rill erosion and alluvial fans.

Plastic Flow (video). Caitlin and Rhianne mixed flour, water, and ? to create something that would flow like a glacier. They followed it up with basal slipping using a big chunk of ice cream, with smarties playing the part of glacial till.

Puffed Wheat Seashore. Nic C. and Milan built a blue-jello ocean with chocolatey puffed wheat seacliffs. The shoreline was broken by wave action, revealing caves, arches, and stacks. Longshore drift had carried the eroded material away to form a spit and tombolo. A couple of stick puppets guided us through this edible landscape, one of which was named Nelson Mohorovicic (an inside joke).

The Informed Traveller. Anna and Anda narrated a slideshow made up of various family trips they had been on (like Anna's trip to the Grand Canyon, her picture of a desert arch shown above), and now had the knowledge to interpret the kind of geomorphological processes that shaped the landforms in the photos. Like Blake's Innocence and Experience, the travellers will forever be affected by what they have learned, and perhaps never able to simply gaze at a vista without asking questions. Landscapes will still be filled with wonder, but also with a discerning understanding of origins and change over time. Just to make sure we got the point, A&A made us a cake in the form of a u-shaped glacial valley with a ribbon lake, truncated spurs, and aretes.

Speaking of poetry, Tegan wrote some "seapoems" for this unit, and brought out some older poetry on the same topic. Like the tide, her words ebb and flow from the reflective to the technical, and I'd be curious to see how geography tempers or challenges her poetry in the future. Nature's Choice, like Nature's Voice. You can read her verse here (pdf), or hear her read it here (audio).

Oh ya, and some cave thingy.... video to come

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Weathered Stone

As my students continue to make fabulous connections to their heritage and ask questions about what defines oneself, I find myself drifting back to the hobbyist genealogy work I began a few years ago. One of the links I found for my students (see the Heritage Research Tools on the right bar of the Webriver Blog) introduced me to some new names in my wife's family tree, and some interesting sites on cemetery archiving. Genealogists talk about hitting a brick wall, and how excited they get when it comes down and there is new territory to explore. My students have described this, too, in the last couple of weeks, the experience of staying up all night to find one more story, names, event, or connection online or in an old book rediscovered. Finding out about stuff that was "there" but hidden from them for a variety of reasons, mostly that their curiousity was never trained on the subject.

The students have been telling me their stories, so I told one of mine... here's a part of what I shared in class today, using good old-fashioned story-telling, Google Earth, a couple of websites, and a pull down map. My "treasure" was found at about 1 a.m. as I trained my own curiosity on some of the missing links in my wife's family tree. It seems a researcher visited a Cape Breton cemetery, wandered over to the adjacent woods, and found an old gate leading to more gravestones midst the brush and trees. One of the stones he found marked the grave of my wife's great-great-grandfather in Point Edward Nova Scotia (pic shown above). The only other info I had for him was that he was lost at sea, so now I have two stories to reconcile, and some excitement about the evidence. I'll have to visit there one day to see for myself and look around for the stones of two others whose names are listed as being there. The street view on Google Earth, which includes the old church and cemetery helped me visualize what was going on and speculate about the cultural, economic, and geographical adaptations that had been made in this area of Nova Scotia. Like my students, I find my thoughts drifting back to images, maps, stories, historical contexts, concurrent events, and evolving landscapes... not a bad way to spend time in a Social Studies class.

Friday, November 04, 2011

4 stories, 4 connected students

What a great day to be a Social Studies teacher! I had two SS10 classes in the library today taking a 2nd, deeper look at what they could find online to support their ongoing heritage projects. Some sat at tables sharing what they had brought in, others were plugged in surfing for maps, photos, and family trees. Holy cow, they were finding amazing connections and very eager to talk about it. I'll share the stories of four girls to illustrate. The boys were too quiet today, I guess.

Courtney produced a box of family history material that contained albums, journals, genealogies, reunion scrapbooks, and loose photos. She said it would be overwhelming to go through it all to figure out what kind of story she was going to tell to make sense of it... but she had a huge grin and obviously relished the task. She had done some of this kind of work in SS9 and figured out her French Canadian roots went back to the banks of the St. Lawrence and the Company of 100 Associates in the 1660s. This year she is taking on the German side of her family.

Bethany produced a family chart and family history book and began writing out a clean copy of her family tree.  I looked at some of the names and dates and one set caught my eye.  She had Irish great-x?-grandparents who came off the boat in the 1840s and made their way to "Concession 10, Lot 19" in South Plantagenet, Prescott township of Upper Canada. The family history book told some of their story, clearing land and building a cabin, the birth of children and hardships endured, and included a map of the land grants. I found the place on Google Earth (see the picture above, the land on either side of South Nation River, a tributary to the Ottawa) and it still retains some of the features that must have been original improvements in the early 19th century. There is also some extraction of ? going on, complete with drainage ponds - a chance to ask questions about what's going on now. What made it extra neat is that the immigration story, land grant, map, story, and location were pretty much an exact match for the "New Home" simulation we did in class a few weeks ago. She laughed when she realized how her fictitious story about the role-play was so similar to what her ancestors went through; she got that "genealogist's chill" when one connects something real and fascinating to one's identity and  personal/historical timeline.

Melanie had some books and an enormous family tree/chart that included a picture curious little run-down house. It seems one of her relatives lived there for a time. According to the caption, the shingles concealed a log cabin underneath that was part of the original 1876 Hudson Bay Company post in Calgary, and as such is the oldest building in the city. We found it on Google Street view and were able to piece together that its identity was recently (re)discovered and there are restoration plans underway. Needless to say, she is dialed in now, to the course and to her past, and wants to know more about who put together the information and how the house is connected to her history.

Kaitlin has been gathering copies of records and photos from relatives over the last few weeks. She has looking at towns in Luxembourg, French, Irish family photos, lots of maps, and an interesting pile of records, and a collection of WWII-era documents, including a Kennkarte although we're not sure how this is connected to her family. One of the issues students encounter when doing online research is the volume of material that comes up when they search their roots -- sometimes it is connected, sometimes it is not. She also told me she was  "wearing her heritage" -- her black leather shoes and white, wide-collared shirt were her great-grandfather's, both a size too big but a great look for 2011 anyways. A neat start to her research.

Four stories, four kids engaged in project-based learning, four beginnings to what will be awesome presentations in a few weeks. These "identity narratives" start with student-generated content and speak to the heart of the big themes and skills in SS9, SS10, SS11, History 12 curriculum, and cool connections to events that had significance to Canada and the World. These kids will walk into every subsequent class, family conversation, and learning situation armed with social context, historical perspective, and a view of the world that extends ever further from their selves... what an absolutely amazing day to be a Social Studies teacher!

Wednesday, November 02, 2011

Cross Hairs

I was reading a post on a former colleague's blog and my comment for him turned into a bit of a diatribe... perfect for a post here!!!  So... here it is...


Your positive attitude is appreciated, but there has to be room, especially among principals and leaders like yourself, for skepticism, critique, and deconstruction of the gov't vision for the BC Ed system. If we don't put plans (of any kind) in the crosshairs, it is too easy to build self-justifying narratives that make the plan's assumptions seem indisputable. Depending on the agenda, constructing these narratives can also make the "plan" look inevitable, like it is part of the flow of history, or original, like it has never been tried before. An example is the rhetoric around 21st century learning. As you've posted before, it can be about the 7Cs etc., but it can also be about privatizing education, replacing teachers with commercial services, downloading the costs of public education to the users (esp. re technology). It is used to describe project-based learning, embrace AFL, PLC, DL, PL, develop group skills and habits of mind, accept vertical corporate integration in delivery models and student data systems, even new school building construction, school closures (brick and mortar is old school, apparently), hiring practices, both liberating and restrictive tech policies, etc. Too broad to be a movement, or even a school of thought. We live in the 21C, so duh. Let's go 22C or 26C if we want progress. At some point in there we get to fight aliens for sure.  Anyways, the first task for educators going from either harsh critic or loyal supporter to a habitual critical inquiry is to step away from the jargon. I've followed your posts and contributions to educational discourse for a while and I think you are gradually getting the buzzwords out of your parlance... keep it up! It is so neat to see how your staff and school reflect the value you place on teamwork and creative thinking. While I don't always agree, your ideas and approach to educational theory are very positive and will have the most impact when you can stand apart, just a bit, from the "managed message" that is so apparent in the BCED plan. The hard work is facing the task of putting all of it in the crosshairs and allowing the authentic parts to make sense in your context... a slow reveal, usually, but worth the patience. I've noticed other BC principals and superintendents starting blogs, etc. and most are hopelessly locked into the jargon and don't appear to be coming from "selfs" the way yours is. Most of them don't allow comments for fear of the inevitable critique from jerks like me. Most repeat the ubiquitous videos and quotes on "21C"ish topics. But, they've got it started. The majority are still not ready for a web presence, and will find it hard to lead teachers into any kind of "21C" until they realize we are actually wanting them to set their ideas out in a place we can examine them. Our district (57) seems to have slipped 10 years back in terms of the teacher-district partnerships that used to support technology (you'd be shocked to see how the momentum is gone and distrust has taken its place), and I think one thing our leaders can do (on both sides of the admin gap) is to abandon fear and let their "selfs" loose on the old interweb, crosshairs and all. This interactive landscape should not be about career moves and reiteration of cliches, but about horizons of significance (to borrow Taylor's term) and rigorous discourse. I've directed a few of "them" to look at your blog and think about how they may wish to begin a thoughtful web presence. Good luck, keep it real.

Monday, December 15, 2008

Skookum Presentations!

So, my two Social Studies 10 classes have been presenting "Heritage" projects for the last few days and I am "caught" (as an old prof used to say) by the powerful sentiments and connections the students have revealed. Their job was to ask some questions of their own past (family trees, interviews, story-gathering, etc.) and report on interesting findings and connections to Canadian history (where do I come from? where do we come from?). We've heard of new languages learned, sod houses built, businesses started, wars fought (one g-g-gfather fought in 3!), and doing things "the old way" (heritage skills). The Irish Potato Famine came up, as did the Royal Wardrobe of Elizabeth I, Japanese internment, the RCAF, racism & residential schools, Ellis Island & Pier 21, the potlatch, the smudge, the Stock Market Crash, Nazi spies in Prince George, escape from terror, family break-ups, sad deaths, and and also times of healing & celebration & humour. I've learned (again) that students are hungry to ask questions when their identity is involved. For example, one student talked about interviewing her grandmother who used to jump on the frozen river and ride rafts of ice... she asked "why don't we do stuff like that anymore?" A student then asked "what will we tell our grandchildren?" Another student suggested her generation watched the world go by: our grandparents talked of their adventures and "we talk about going on facebook" -- many thoughts turned to "what difference will I make in the world, in the lives of others?"

We got to see, and have explained, photo albums, ration cards, old leather books with curious hand-writing, moccasins, teapots, an A.R.P. helmet, and lederhosen. We are, it turns out, Aboriginal, American, Chinese, Dutch, East Indian, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Jamaican, Metis, Phillipino, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Russian, Scottish, Slovakian, South African, Syrian, Thai, and Ukrainian, and probably a few more... as one girl said "I'm a typical Canadian Calico kid." We got to eat tea biscuits, samosa, egg tarts, gingerbread cookies, and canned wieners. We thought we were going to meet a cat. The classroom walls are festooned with photos and family trees -- trees shaped like trees, like charts, like maps, and even one shaped like a dream. The students have been wowed by the presentations and many have caught a genealogy bug which they will pursue beyond this course -- "this is something I'm going to look into later" or "I didn't get ahold of this story but I'm going to track it down at Christmas." To all the students who have so thoughtfully made connections with their/our past, I thank-you!!! This project, and these two wonderful Socials classes, will occupy a special place in my memory. I'm talking about it like the semester is done but I wanted to get this out while the gratitude was fresh.