Feedback on Board Policy 1170.3 Rights & Responsibilities of Employees

On April 5th, 2016, the School District 57 Board of Education approved Draft Policy 1170.3 Rights and Responsibilities of Employees for distribution to reference groups for input. The proposed changes (so far) are highlighted in yellow on the document posted at http://dpts.sd57.bc.ca/~gthielmann/share/1170.3 Draft Rights and Responsibilities of Employees.pdf.

Input Regarding:
Policy 1170.3 Standards of Employee Conduct 3.18 "Not engage in irresponsible public comment that would undermine confidence in the public education system."

Issue:
This comes across as a gag order -- perhaps unintentionally. I suppose the original intent was to guard against defamation and embarrassment of individuals, not to hinder employee's freedom of speech or ability to improve, through constructive criticism, the public education system.

"Irresponsible public comment" should not be taken as anything that undermines public education, but rather a comment about public education that is
a) careless, thoughtless, cruel, or hurtful in a way that can be seen as defamatory
b) unfounded -- speculative in the sense that no evidence exists to support strong claims
c) personal attacks -- attributes blame for problems on named colleagues, management, or local stakeholders (I'm quite sure politicians are fair game, though, depending on how the criticism is worded)

Without more careful wording, 3.18 blurs, by association, the difference between "irresponsible public comment" and legitimate advocacy for public education, which in some cases necessarily undermines confidence in the public education system -- to affect change it it often requires showing that something in the system is problematic and needs change.

Additional Issue:

The ambiguity of 3.18 is reinforced with the only other (problematic) statement about public education in the policy, an employee responsibility (2.5) to "[C]ontribute to the positive climate and reputation of the school, the district and public education." Promotion of the "reputation" (e.g. of the school district) assumes blind support for the processes that have resulted in that reputation. In some cases, problems in a school (e.g. racism, homophobism), district (plans gone awry, decisions made without necessary consultation), or public education (impact of funding cuts) have indeed affected "reputation" -- this needs to be ackowledged and worked on, especially by management for who institutional reputation is of special importance. Using these examples, employees taking notice of (and acting on) racism, homophobism, failed plans, lack of consultation, or inadequate funding to meet needs are in fact doing their own part to contribute to the positive climate in schools but may indeed do so at the cost of "reputation." Employees should be less interested in a policy-mandated contribution to the reputation of the district or public education which could be equal parts poor, fair, good, or excellent (depending on perspective, opinions, choice of evidence, or criteria). Employees should be more interested in actually improving the school, district, and public education. When that work goes well, reputations can also improve in the same way that "confidence in public education" is aided by asking tough questions and engaging in critical dialogue. 

The concerns I have expressed above can be addressed in some simple ways.

Suggestions:
a) add a Rights of Employees 1.8 "Engage in responsible public dialogue and advocacy to promote, understand, assess, and improve public education."

b) revise 2.5 from "Contribute to the positive climate and reputation of the school, the district and public education." to "Contribute to the positive climate and improvement of the school, the district and public education."

c) revise 3.18 to read "Not engage in irresponsible or defamatory public comment or attacks on public education that break the duty of good faith and fidelity with the employer, notwithstanding Rights of Employees 1.8."

d) as an alternative to point c), remove 3.18 altogether and instead develop a freedom of speech policy (including whistleblower protection) that respects points a) and c) and addresses point c). This could be stand-alone or could take the form of a revision (e.g. a Section 4) to Policy 1170.3. This police item could contain the obvious statement that employees engaging in public comment about their schools, the district, or the public education system do so on their own and do not represent or speak for their employer.

Examples of "public comment:" 
1) a teacher's letter to the editor about the state of education funding and the impact on classrooms and students from the teacher's perspective
2) a social media "tweet" about the challenges in navigating the Student Information System
3) a blog post critiquing the lack of action taken on the planning, support, and access to educational technology and missed opportunities for students
4) a response to an invitation by a reporter to talk about the increased challenges faced by the school system when responsibility of dealing with children in crisis, poverty in the classroom, or mental health are added to the regular duties of teachers
5) a comment on an online news story centering in on the need for more public consultation on decisions affecting the school district and its students
6) collaborating on a public report that critiqued and challenged management perspective on school closures and the rationale behind proposed cuts in the school district
7) a radio interview about the premature disposal of useful student equipment from schools
8) writing an open letter to the board of trustees expressing concerns about a proposed school district initiative/program for students that lacked adequate planning, denigrated teachers, and failed to follow policy
9) an article contribution in an educational magazine about the explicit, hidden, and "null" agendas behind the implementation of new BC curriculum
10) creating an internet meme during a labour dispute that parodied non-sensical statements from the education minister, chief government negotiator, and labour relations board

These personal examples are in the territory of "responsible public comment" -- intended to improve aspects of the education system, but each of these may indeed undermine confidence in the public education system as they point out flawed thinking, plans gone awry, or something important that is being ignored. These examples show why item 3.18 creates a crisis of interpretation -- policies should resolve dilemmas, not create them.

End Note:
My input, above, does not represent anyone other than myself, although I have no problem assuming that this feedback is intended to address similar concerns from many teachers who do not often get around to offering input on policy development! As someone who has advocated for public education and blogged openly about local and provincial issues in education going for over a decade, Policy 1170.3 item 3.18 rubs me the wrong way. It is not because of "heat" over my advocacy that I believe the policy needs to change. I have had some subtle and not-so-subtle heat, but only once have I experienced a directive about this (can you guess which of the ten examples raised the ire of the powers that be?). In fact, it is for the opposite reason that the policy should change -- it is employees that should be applying the heat, especially teachers who have long been both the guardians and advocates of public education (not to mention its key reformers). We need more employees to "own" the issues in education and speak up when they have something to offer. I have taken encouragement from the support for advocacy that I have been offered over the years by fellow teachers, principals, other colleagues, trustees, parents, students, family, media personnel, union staff, and even the Minister of Education (I have the 2010 letter from Margaret MacDiarmid framed and placed on a shelf in my classroom!). My story is not unique -- pick an educational issue or theme and it is not hard to a dozen advocates in British Columbia who add their voices to the discussion for better or worse.

I have written this end note in order to declare my bias, to which I should add that I have been a Humanities teacher for 20 years in School District 57 and have paid close attention to district management, policy, and governance from about 2003 onwards, spiking around 2010, and admittedly less so in the last few years. Some of the 'advocacy work" I have done has been a complete waste of time, while some of it has made an impact on local policies and practice, attitudes, initiatives, and occasionally a small ripple at the provincial level. It is a testament to the networked nature of our society and education system, and the relative openness towards respectful public dialogue shown by schools districts like ours (towards teachers anyways) that individuals can have both reach and impact. 

I believe that "getting it right" on Policy 1170.3 is very important because, as is the case within any other institution, the statements and interpretations of the rights and responsibilities of employees help determine the differences between a toxic vs. joyful work environment and a cynical vs. cooperative school/district culture.  Employees, especially teachers, will always work to improve the situation for students, including "responsible public comment" -- our policies should acknowledge this important work and revisit the parts which appear to marginalize this work.

respectful submitted,
Glen Thielmann

Making the case for storytelling

Some recent thoughts and discussions have made it clear to me that something is missing from the new BC Social Studies curriculum. Up until now I was not sure if it was something personal and connected missing from the curricular competencies, a mechanism by which Aboriginal perspectives could enter more fully into the classroom conversation, or an practical extension of the core competencies into the learning standards. Turns out it is at the centre of all three. For those uninitiated into the vast realm of education jargon, I will explain these ideas bit using Social Studies as a context.

Curricular competencies are the skills and strategies that students develop in order to approach problems of history, place (geography), and other topics that come up in Social Studies. They include research skills and inquiry abilities. The competencies include variations of six historical thinking concepts that are well explained at The Historical Thinking Project and also at The Critical Thinking Consortium. These "Big 6" are sometimes described as establishing significance, working with evidence, continuity and change, cause and consequence, taking perspectives, and ethical dimensions. I believe there are two important things missing from these competencies -- language that extends historical thinking into the area of geographic thinking, and the skill/space/support for students to make authentic and meaningful connections to their learning, the Social Studies content, and the other skills they are developing. Regardless of the fine-tuning, the competencies represent an academic approach to the study of Social Studies, capable of being post-colonial and culturally sensitive, but nonetheless a modern (if not fully modernist*) incarnation of the positivist tradition in education. The curricular competencies, starting with inquiry and working with a variety of critical thinking concepts, get students to the edge of answering "so what" questions in Social Studies. *Update: an expert on both the new curriculum and Big 6-derived competencies has pointed out that the Historical Thinking Concepts have been profoundly affected by a turn towards post-modernism (presumably among the academics who developed them for use in education). This in itself is a interesting discussion but I'll leave it at that for now.

The new curriculum emphasizes the opportunity to include more Aboriginal perspectives and knowledge, in some ways a challenge to the positivist tradition and in other ways a means to embed alternate views and powerful stories alongside the empirical approach and a Eurocentric narrative. In parts of the curriculum these opportunities are made clear, and in others it is not. What is missing is some mechanism whereby this emphasis can be layered and interactive with the competencies -- and does more just establish a quota for Aboriginal content. There are many ways in which indigenous perspectives can become more responsive with the Social Studies class. I feel as if I am only starting down this path and have much to learn (see Q6/A6 on this post about Social Studies 9). A good starting point for teachers in the same position is the First Peoples Principles of Learning. If you want a interesting thought experiment, read these principles and then read the curricular competencies for a new BC Social Studies course. What's the connection? For me, it is as if the FPPoL represents the reasons why developing the competencies is important work and to end they should lead. Each Social Studies course could be subtitled with Principle 2, 3, 6, 7, or 8, e.g. "Learning is embedded in memory, history, and story."

In providing a framework for the new curriculum and "personalized" learning, the Ministry of Education and teacher teams developed the Core Competencies. "[A]long with literacy and numeracy foundations and essential content and concepts," these aver-arching standards "are at the centre of the redesign of curriculum and assessment. Core competencies are sets of intellectual, personal, and social and emotional proficiencies that all students need to develop in order to engage in deep learning and life-long learning" (https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/competencies). One of the three core competencies is Communication. There is obvious importance in all course and grades to the various ways in which students interpret prompts, engage in activities, express their understanding, show their learning, and collaborate with others. Where "Communication" could be more practical is at the level of curricular competencies, the discipline-specific skills and strategies that guide exploration of content in each course. What is an actual ability that can be employed alongside interpretation of bias, perspective-taking, and establishing chains of causality in Social Studies?

I believe that all three of these "problems" -- incomplete curricular competencies, inclusion of Aboriginal perspectives, and the need to explicitly apply core competencies -- centers around storytelling. This is skill, a competency, an arena for discovery, and a way of beginning difficult conversations, that has always been indispensable in the Social Studies classroom. I'd like to see storytelling included more prominently in the new curriculum. Read a few of the student stories on this blog post to see my own bias on the importance of storytelling. Maybe one day there will be a Storytelling 12 that leverages interdisciplinary learning from K-12 and allows students to tell their stories. I think it would be a fitting way to finish high school and honour their diverse paths towards success. For now, Storytelling will be an unofficial curricular competency and will be the main strategy with which teaching and learning in my Social Studies class get the heart of the three problems I have described above. For the visual learners out there, I have summarized and represented these thoughts in a graphic below.

Q and A on New Curriculum and SS9

Recently, I was asked some great questions about my draft/sample Social Studies 9 outline that I am using at the moment to pilot the new BCED curriculum. I've been asked "where's the French Revolution" by a few teachers, "where's the competencies" by another, and so on. I've gathered the various tweets, texts, and response emails in what I hope is a useful summary below.

Reference: an outline for Social Studies 9

Q1. Are there topics that have to be included in the new curriculum? Some expected topics are missing from your outline, like the French Revolution and Napoleon. 

A1. No, there are no required topics beyond the "topic areas" that are listed in the content learning standards. Although some teachers could conceivably structure a course that had no firm topics, perhaps around approaches to the study of society, completely based on competencies, or daily analysis of current events, we can be quite confident that many "familiar" topics will remain in BC Social Studies courses. Out of courtesy to fellow teachers, I think most course outlines will not stray too far or too often beyond the new course bookends of 1750-1919. Yes, my new SS9 outline does not include the French Rev and Napoleon (nor the American Revolution per se). These topics, like all the other content, are now optional. Teachers can pick and choose as many of the "old topics" as they wish to tell the story they want, to explore the themes/big ideas, and work out the competencies. Teachers can also add new content, such as other global revolutions or conflicts, if that helps them with their goals. I have explained this in some detail on the 11x17 "content shifting" planning documents posted at http://www.thielmann.ca/new-bc-curriculum.html. 

Q2. How should teachers decide what to include, or how to set up a SS9 course?

A2. Much of the content will naturally be suggested by the course bookends of 1750-1919. However, the decision to focus more on Canada vs Canada/Europe or Canada/World or just World is up to the teacher. Teachers can pick four favourite or important topics and build a course from there, or they could take on forty topics if they want. Teachers may add topics from outside the bookends (e,g, current events) or from outside of formal history altogether, such as architecture, political science, or sociology. Teachers can work through content (and competencies) through talk-and-chalk, worksheets & assignments, press play on the dvd, project-based-learning, debate & discussion, whatever. Some teachers will have core content, and optional content to be explored by students (e.g. project topics). Some teachers will align topics to themes, the content learning standards, or the competencies themselves, others will stick with a sequential outline powered by the topics themselves. Say farewell to common department exams, unless your dep't has a solid history of doing things the same way. There will be good, bad, and ugly all over the place, not much different than now, really, but I think eventually there will be some consistency and productive models to follow. I intend to work towards that, anyways. 

Q3. Why drop French Revolution and Napoleon, but keep the Industrial Revolution? 

A3. My Grade 9 course has a Canadian focus, so, with the exception of the Industrial Revolution, I've dropped topics that don't directly involve or take place in Canada. The French Revolution is interesting, and so very important to European and World history (as are so many other events), but something has to go. I don't  want to teach a fast-paced, low-depth survey course. Ironically, by extending the historical bookends, the new curriculum does more to encourage "survey" vs" depth" than the old curriculum -- although that was not the intention. Our grade 8 teachers will probably not pick up the French Revolution, although it may be an optional area of study for either Grade 8 or Grade 9. A bit later in the course I plan to a short American vs French Revolution activity; more for the competencies, though, and less about the content, e.g. deconstruct some images and sources that either glorify or condemn revolutionaries from each country. I have included the Industrial Revolution because it is part of a truly global story, it is related to Canadian migration, ties to WWI, and is often ranked by historians as one of the top 5 influential events in history. Almost every object and many of the ideas that govern our society, gender roles, environmental issues, labour conditions, and way of life have a link to the Industrial Revolution. Students can wrap their mind around those kind of connections, far more so than some of the nuanced lessons of the Tennis Court Oath and the Reign of Terror. I started the course with the Industrial Revolution as the backdrop to a "skills bootcamp" -- using invention, factory age, results of enclosure, social conditions, and environmental change as ways of introducing competencies and getting students used to interpreting documents and sources, especially images but also graphs and maps. I keep copies of an aged little text around almost exclusively for these lessons - "Thinking about our Heritage: a Hosford Study Atlas" (example here). I also had a student teacher with me for these lessons and he produced some very effective activities and critical thinking prompts, and used some great media.

Q4. Why so you include virtually every other "Canadian" topic (in some form) from 1750-1919 carried over from existing courses? 

A4. The rest of my course is decidedly Canadian (with plenty on and about British Columbia) because I believe it is important in the few short years of Gr. 8-10 to leave students with a sense of the Canadian story, their place in it, and their agency in regards to its future. All other topics are interesting to me as a Socials teacher, but not mission critical for building active, empathetic, and informed Canadian citizens. It is also the Canadian topics that will help me provide an arc and consistency in the use of themes such as Aboriginal content and perspectives. Students can get plenty of world history and culture in Gr. 11 and 12 if they want it, plus some in Grade 8. I have truncated some Canadian topics and left others alone, mainly a reflection of which of my past lessons resonated with students and were fun to teach, or had good class activities to go with them. The topics in my course are also a reflection of the print resources and media that I like to use with students and that our school already owns. We have been, no doubt most school have been told, that there are very little funds for new learning resources. I try to build a course-long narrative that has a point to it; in the past it was part of our job in the class to decide together what the point was. Now we have "big ideas" to frame that discussion. Perhaps we need a new term to describe the blend of narrative, discovery, and repetition that form some kind of class goal. What is it that we actually expect from a successful Social Studies student? Beyond the ability to apply critical/historical thinking to problems and evidence, and the development of good Canadians (itself a problem worth deconstructing), I think we are well served by stirring students to become storytellers. The objective is as simple as students being able to talk about Canada's past, present, or future using emotion, humour, insight, and authenticity. Part of that ability is ease with which students can look at fresh material (like what's on the daily news) and have something interesting to say about it, something that connects with what they learned in the course. In my mind, that is as solid an indicator of readiness to move on to the next grade as is a test score. 

Q5. Why don't you include other (new) topics that fit the time period and big ideas? 

A5. For SS9 I have not yet planned for entirely new topics, Canadian or otherwise. This is my first time through so I will be recycling many old lessons and focusing more on designing new competency exercises and class activities than I will on new content. I am a busy guy with a 1000 interests and a beautiful family, so crisp topics will have to wait their turn. One of the interests I have, however, is developing curriculum. I am currently working with a group of teachers from the Pacific Slope Consortium on curriculum projects, but that is more a long term thing and does not help me out this semester. I find that without quality resources in place, taking on new topics involves too much internet surfing and photocopied materials. One topic that doesn't come up too much in the old or new curriculum is local history and geography. This is passion of mine and an area that I want to spend more time with in my courses. I am also loathe to add more content to an already full roster because I have designed a large chunk of my SS9 course to include project-based learning - a Heritage Connections project that involves ongoing inquiry, source work, interviews, and multiple classes for student presentation. Three other factors influence my choice of topics and will probably drive any further reduction of content in my SS9 outline: increased use of role-play/simulations and the added presence of WWI -- the kinds of things teachers and students can do with this time period could fill a whole course. The last is more practical; I have arranged my units so that I can use the "Crossroads" text for the first part of the course and make a clean switch to the "Horizons" test for the next part. I figure we can do the handoff with the Social Studies 8 teachers who will use the Crossroads text for the second part of their course, thus we don't need to purchase new class sets of texts while they are still useful and current.

Q6. Any suggestions for including Aboriginal perspectives and knowledge? 

A6. We have a few decent local learning resources in SD#57 related to Indigenous culture, issues, and worldview. We have a large and well-funded Ab-Ed Dep't with many staff that are available to advise or visit classes. They recently put on a successful Ab-Ed Symposium that gave over 700 local educators a sense of the challenges and possibilities ahead. FNESC http://www.fnesc.ca; and BCTF have produced some great resources in the last couple of years. Check out this Project of Heart site http://bctf.ca/HiddenHistory/ and also this one: http://projectofheart.ca/. Like others, I have many existing lessons or lesson elements in various states of development on the Aboriginal cultures of North America (or Canada, or BC), Indian Act/Potlatch ban, residential schools (historical, modern i.e. TRC), land claims (process, results, protests), environmental issues that relate to First Nations, Aboriginal self-government, Aboriginal soldiers in WWI/WWII, 1960 vote, etc., etc. That's where I'll start -- include as much of that as makes sense, keep my eye open for critical thinking activities and continue becoming familiar with the First Peoples Principles of Learning and their implication for my classroom and students. Our union local's Aboriginal Education rep has also posted some resources here: http://www.pgdta.ca/aboriginal.html.

Q7. What's your take on the curricular competencies?

A7. I have been using the Seixas et al Six Historical Thinking concepts (significance, evidence, continuity and change, cause and consequence, perspectives, ethical dimensions) in one way or another for years, so they are not strangers within my lessons, although it has been hit and miss. While they were as good a place as any for the Ministry K-9 team to build their competencies, I feel as if they have squeezed geography in the process and go straight to the complex stuff at the expense of a few old-fashioned Social Studies skills like map-making, charting and graphing, making, and simply learning from a variety of sources and voices (as opposed to decoding them for bias, significance, etc.). I suppose if you teach/learn the core competencies alongside the curricular competencies, you can do it all. The Big 6 can be scaled, too, so that the process/outcome for students is basic... more like "thinking" than "critical thinking." The Gr. 10-12 Ministry team is working on some unique competencies for Geography 11/12 -- these will likely be similar to the six historical thinking concepts and will be useful for Gr. 8-10 Social Studies in the future, perhaps even incorporated in later edits (if that happens). Another area that seems to be missing from the core and curricular competencies is authenticity. Making personal connections to course material, using personal strengths to express learning should be considered a skill that can be developed, refined, and perhaps assessed (or at least self-assessed). Authenticity relates to quality of research, depth of inquiry, choice of strategies, plagiarism education, and acceptance in the learning community. Maybe that's just an extension of the three core competencies.

Q8. How will you use the competencies and how will they be assessed?

A8. It may not obvious from looking at my course outline how competencies fit in. My plan is to be more regular about using at least one competency-driven activity in each of my lesson. This could mean comparison of disparate sources, having students identify and explain turning point, do cause-and-effect webs, pick a position and defend it, debate issues involving ethics, etc. Some of this stuff I can just wing it -- there is enough of it in my lessons already, but some of it needs to be more deliberate, such as dropping direct/specific questions from lesson handouts and having more open-ended inquiry, perhaps around the image on the screen or an object in the classroom. Towards this end, the project I mentioned in A4 above will be useful -- one of the products we hope to end up with are "assessment boxes" with many source documents, laminated photos, and maybe some 3D objects that are meant to provoke thought, center discussion, and be the subject of competency-driven questions and activities. For example, the class gets a series of images of inventions and artifacts from the Industrial Revolution, with enough time or background info to figure out what they did, why they were important or what impact they had. These could be used for so many learning and assessment purposes, group or individual. Arrange in a timeline. Arrange in order of significance, based on criteria developed by your group. Guess (or find out) what technology this invention replaced and what specifically was improved. Predict the social or environmental consequences of the invention. Explain why YOUR invention should be on the cover of a museum exhibit brochure on the industrial revolution. Find one other invention that is related to yours and, with your new partner, explain the connection to the class. You see how this list could go on and on. Instead of having a test bank, we'll have a source bank that can generate fresh assessments simply by changing up the order or the activity. Combined with simple instructions and a couple of different assessment rubrics (e.g. formative, summative, self, peer), we think this method could actually simplify assessment and not take up any more time than the standard test. In our experience, we learn much more about a student's progress from these open-ended "explain your understanding" assessments than we do from ye olde multiple choice tests. I haven't dug into the TC2 http://tc2.ca resources in a while, or had a chance to read The Big 6, but there one can find many more ideas to drive work with competencies.

I wish all schools and colleagues the best as they wrestle with the many issues that come up with the new curriculum. Historical content remains important, and is a great hearth on which to spin a "Social Studies" narrative with your students and practice both critical and creative thinking, but it is not the only thing that matters in Social Studies. In addition to competencies, tend to the geography, tend to the broad themes of the Humanities and other disciplines that make Social Studies more than a history course. For those that are unfamiliar with the "elements of historical thinking" -- learn more at http://historicalthinking.ca or sign up for their summer institute http://pdce.educ.ubc.ca/historical-thinking-summer-institute/. For those that use them all the time, challenge the notion that competencies begin and end with these elements. I encourage BC teachers to experiment with diverse course outlines and find a way to compare notes afterwards. Social media works fine for this. The word will eventually seep out to teachers who don't use social media.

Heritage Inquiry Stories

Each time I have taught Social Studies 10 for the last fifteen years or so, I have cleared some space in the lessons about Confederation, Metis uprisings, the Fraser River Gold Rush, the Physiography of Canada and so on to guide students into some heritage-based project-based learning. I've called it the Culture Project, the Heritage Project, Heritage Connections, and adapted versions of it for Social Studies 9 (the Heritage Skills Venture, Cultural Landscapes Project), Social Studies 11 (The Echo Project), and Geography 12 (GeoNarratives).

Each time the Grade 10s go through their round of project presentations, I am blown away by the results of their inquiry, the personal connections to history (and geography), the impact on the rest of the class and the families of the presenters, and the satisfaction and ease demonstrated by students when they are telling stories that combine curricular inquiry, personal research, and (usually) critical thinking. It is no surprise that students are more invested in their learning when their identity is engaged. Identity as curriculum, developed through story.

Here are some past posts on SS10 Heritage Inquiry:
http://thielmann.blogspot.ca/2012/03/heritage-pbl-in-social-studies.html
http://thielmann.blogspot.ca/2011/12/awesome-start-to-student-heritage.html
http://thielmann.blogspot.ca/2011/10/heritage-redux.html
http://thielmann.blogspot.ca/2011/11/4-stories-4-connected-students.html
http://thielmann.blogspot.ca/2011/11/big-connection.html
http://thielmann.blogspot.ca/2011/11/stories-keep-breaking-like-waves-on.html
http://thielmann.blogspot.ca/2011/11/little-hymn-book.html
http://thielmann.blogspot.ca/2011/11/red-fife.html

Below are some of the stories told by my recent class of Grade 10 students.  They learned about the project in Oct 2015, worked on it off and on in Nov-Dec 2015, and presented the projects in Jan 2015. They had class time for some steps of the project, and the rest they did on their own -- this is virtually the only homework I assign in my Social Studies courses. The students usually put together displays, posters, or slideshows, bring in any artifacts they have to support their project, and present to the class the results of their primary source work, interviews, story-gathering, and so on. They all think that 15-20 minutes for a presentation will be daunting, and yet, with questions from me and the class, these presentations routinely take 25-35 minutes. That means I usually have to set aside 10-12 hours of class time for this, including the feast day. These stories were parts of the student presentation (not the whole project) and are written based on my notes taken in class, not necessarily in the students' own words.

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RK's Story 1: "Opa" (pictured above) fought for Germany in WWII and had his leg blown off by a mortar shell while at war with Russia. An officer found him and brought him back to a hospital where he convalesced. While there he received one of the perks of some recovering wounded -- a signed pictured from Hitler (while in the family's possession, it did not make it to school as part of of his exhibit). The Opa would spend three years in a refugee camp before immigrating to Canada. During the war, the student's great-uncle was also injured and rescued by the very same officer who had recognized Opa. The officer recognized the family name from the soldier's ID and informed him that his brother was indeed alive. Due to this coincidence, the brothers were later reunited.

SH's Story: This student started by saying that on doing some research, she came to realize that her " family is like the stock characters in a book"  What was familiar to her was not familiar to the class, though. We heard tales of Newfoundland fisherman (and being lost at sea), pirates, Beothuk ancestors, a family tradition of adoption, and mysterious Chinese grandfather in the family tree. The student used ship records, church and burial records, photos, wills, and interview notes to tell her story.

BM's Story: Sometimes the stories we hear are like hyperlinks from the brief outlines we see in textbooks on topics that are important to Canadian history. This student shared his Metis heritage, complete with a gorgeous sash, models of a teepee and a Red River Cart.  Among the documents he shared were reproductions of a petition signed in 1787 by 58 Metis (including an ancestor), and the Scrip used by his Metis ancestor to take up lands near Fort Garry in the aftermath of the Red River Rebellion of 1869-70. We heard stories that belonged to his Great-grandmother, a Metis elder, and followed the family tree as it grew westwards across the Prairies and into British Columbia.

SC's Story: Angola was once a colony of Portugal, and is was here that this student's Portuguese grandfather spent his youth as a soldier in the 1970s, "keeping order" among other things. He had a parrot and monkey, although the monkey dies of a drug overdose, mistaking another soldier's medication for candy. On the other side of the world is Kitimat, BC, a town built by Alcan to house workers for its Aluminum smelter. On the account of the jobs, it was a popular destination for Portuguese immigrants, including the family of young woman who arrived in 1968. There, at the prompting of a friend, she began a correspondence with the soldier in Africa. When Angola achieved its liberation in 1975, he came to Kitimat to marry his pen pal. An atypical Portuguese love story.

EV's Story: This student's great-grandfather was named George.  He was 4th in a line of Georges, born in England in the 1890s. He was the eldest son a family who got their wealth from a printing company among other ventures. George the 4th did not care for the family business, did not want to "live up to the Victorian ideals," so in 1914 he left home, took passage on a ship for Halifax (or Quebec?). He "hitched" across Canada (by rail?) and ended up in Vancouver, far enough away that he could forget about England and his family. Upon arrival he learned that the Great War had begun, and knew he had a choice to make. He decided to flip a coin: heads, he would find and board a ship for Australia; tails, he would enlist in the Canadian army and join the war effort. It was tails, so the 17-yr-old passed himself off as a Canadian 18-yr-old and went to war. Eventually he saw action and fell victim to the German's mustard gas while holed up in a tunnel or trench in eastern France. He was taken back to England to recover, where he met his wife-to-be, a nurse in the hospital. Around this time his family found about about the goings-on of the prodigal son, and when the war was over he was "sent" to a family farm to be respectable and work for a living. In 1952 he took his young family and left for Canada, this time for good. Due to storms, their passenger ship went off course and arrived in New York rather than Halifax. They stayed at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, at the time the tallest and one of the most luxurious hotels in the world. They had a Waldorf salad, of course, and to this day the family still has a tradition of making this salad on any special occasion. although the recipe has morphed into something involving jello, now. George's family soon presen on to Canada, where they scanned a map and picked Prince George, BC as a destination because it had "George" in it.

ER's Story: We learned about the history of Acadia from the viewpoint of an Acadian descendant. Her family has been there from the beginning, immigrating in the 1630s, draining marshland, hiding in New Brunswick during the Expulsion of 1755, starting various businesses, and dispersing across Canada in modern times. Her stories were interspersed with French-Acadian terms, references to land and home(s), to delicious food, to fishing, alcohol, crafts, coffin-making, and the familiar (yet incredible) themes of grief, resilience, and thrift that are common to any people who have endured hard times.

TO's Story: We all leaned forward a bit when the first words of the presentation were "this story is really important to me." The narrative focused on the student's mother, an immigrant from rural Peru who grew up poor on a potato farm. Each day the mother ran barefoot many miles from her village to the closest school. It was there that she proved herself such a remarkable student that he secured scholarships for further education in Lima, and became involved in international development work. The narrative took many turns through world travels, fascinating jobs, photos, and interview quotes, and ended up with an observation that when the student now runs competitively she feels like it is something in her bones.

CM's Story: This student realized that the direct evidence from family-based research would only turn over so many stones, so he took on the broader topic of culture and social context. Focusing on Scottish Heritage, he gave us a history lesson on the fairs of Glasgow in the 1800s (and what was traded there), fishing, architecture, and shipbuilding, the impact of the Industrial Revolution on Scotland, and finished with one of few stories for which he had hard evidence. This was the narrative of his great-grandfather who fought at the Battle of the Somme in 1916 and started a second family, much to the surprise of his first family.

I have notes in front of me for 18 more recent student presentations, so I hope to return to this topic when I have a chance to write some more.

Matt Pearce

I thought I'd post a couple of things I've written lately about the passing of Matt Pearce, the well-known Prince Georgian. The first bit I wrote on our local union folder and also submitted as a letter to the PG Citizen.  Matt was fond of writing letters to the editor, so when a friend suggested I do the same I reckoned it would be a good idea. The second bit I posted somewhere on the The Facebook in response to a "My PG Now" article about how the Prince George District school board recognized Pearce with a moment of silence and some comments from the SD57 Board Chair and current vice-president of the PG Teachers' Association. 

Sent to the PG Citizen:

The news that teacher, husband, father, and P.G. Sports Hall of Famer Matt Pearce has passed away leaves me with a knot of disbelief and dismay. He often wrote letters to the editor, and so I thought I would do the same. I loved how Matt could "speak truth to power" without losing his cool; how he advocated for public education. He normalized advocacy as a way of being for teachers through his many speeches at board meetings, submissions to the media, local committee work as member or chair, provincial work, and P.G. Teachers’ Association presentations. He had a highly developed B.S. detector and paid attention to aspects of interpersonal and organizational dynamics that many others ignore. Because of this, and his integrity, he had fantastic insight into what was worth fighting for and how to do it, commanding as much respect from adversaries as from allies. Those that got to work with him at the Teachers’ Association office and executive meetings saw how deep this water ran. In a few words, he could cut through confusion and present resourceful solutions to complex problems. I loved coaching or watching basketball games when Matt was reffing; I can't think of anyone more consistent and positive with players on the floor. I loved his keen wit, well-placed sarcasm, and wicked sense of humour. I admire his tenacity, his balance of life, work, and health (which makes his passing that much more difficult to process), and his desire to give back to the community as a leader in the union and a coach/ref for multiple sports. I will treasure our conversations about life, politics, education, personality types, etc. on our walks along Ferry & Hwy 16 during the last teachers strike. He had great stories, and loved to talk about his children. During our last conversation a few weeks ago he spoke with tenderness and pride about how his daughter, a former student at my school, was doing. It was also clear that some of his happiest and most fulfilling recent moments came from coaching his son's teams. He was an amazing role model and natural leader in so many ways, and his eccentricities were harmless and endearing. A difficult stretch lies ahead for Matt's family, friends, colleagues, and students. I hope this will also be a time of mutual comfort and the start of some peace.

Reply to "My PG Now" article mentioning moment of silence held for Matt Pearce at the Jan 26, 2016 Board Meeting.

That's a nice gesture from the board. I know that past boards respected and appreciated Matt's work, even when it was directed towards them, because of the passion, thought, and virtue of his approach to educational issues. I am somewhat disturbed, though, to hear from many folks that that the school district administration declined the request to hold a memorial at a school facility. There was a time when schools were considered part of the whole community. I believe there is a strong role for grief and remembrance for schools, and value in students, staff, and community using schools as more than just a daytime learn-house. Memorial involves sadness, coming apart, and anguish, but it also involves storytelling, warmth, and mutual comfort. I think schools are the perfect place for these themes to develop, just as much as they are for sports events, theatre, craft fairs, and polling stations. This strange decision should not take away from our collective sorrow in Matt's passing - as a former student of our schools, as a teacher and someone who visited every school in our district, and coached or refereed kids from almost every school, who was known by virtually every district employee through his role as union president, and spoke out tirelessly for public education -- in many ways he personifies our schools. Wherever the memorial is held, it will be about those things and many others, and not about the building itself. The decision, however, does suggest that our school district should look for the "heart" and "mind" behind its agreements on use of facilities.

UNBC/CNC/SD57 Joint Feedback on proposed BCED Geography 11/12 Courses

Last fall I put a call out for interested teachers and post-secondary Geography faculty to meet and discuss the Draft BC Curriculum: Human Geography 11/12 and Physical Geography 11/12. Here are the results of that discussion

Joint feedback developed and submitted by:

• Sinead Earley, Lecturer in UNBC Geography & PhD candidate in Geography (Queen’s University), Prince George
• Dr. Greg Halseth, Professor, UNBC Geography, Community Development Institute, CRC Chair, Prince George
• Dr. Neil Hanlon, Professor, UNBC Health Sciences, Prince George
• Chris Jackson, Senior Lab Instructor, UNBC Geography, Prince George
• Dr. Peter Jackson, Professor, UNBC Environmental Science, Atmospheric Science and Engineering, Prince George
• Alex Koiter, lecturer, UNBC Geography, Prince George
• Mark Lafleur, secondary teacher, Duchess Park Secondary, SD57 Prince George
• Dr. Zoë Meletis, Associate Professor, UNBC Geography, Prince George
• Dr. Catherine Nolin, Associate Professor and Chair, UNBC Geography, Prince George
• Steve Porter, secondary teacher, Kelly Road Secondary, SD57 Prince George
• Stephanie Powell-Hellyer, Sessional Instructor, UNBC Global and International Studies, Prince George
• Cliff Raphael, Instructor, Geography and Leadership, College of New Caledonia, Prince George
• Glen Thielmann, secondary teacher, D.P. Todd Secondary, SD57 Prince George
• Dr. Roger Wheate, Associate Professor, GIS Coordinator, UNBC Geography, Prince George

Meeting location
Held at University of Northern British Columbia, November 30th, 2015, 4-6pm, Admin Bldg 1069

Meeting agenda:

1. Orientation to curriculum change in BC K-12 Education system
2. Overview of the new curriculum framework and role of geography in Social Studies courses
3. Defining and contextualizing big ideas, competencies, and content
4. Feedback groups and sharing out (see five questions below)
5. Wrap-up discussion on geography education and opportunities to connect K-12 teachers with post-secondary faculty and the UNBC Geography Program

Reference:
“Social Studies: Proposal for Grades 10-12 Curriculum,” BC Ministry of Education, retrieved Nov 20/2015 from https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/curriculum/10-12

Group activity questions:

1. What is the point in studying Geography? Put another way, what are some of the “Big Ideas” in Geography?
2. What are some competencies (skills/processes/ways of thinking and expression) in the study of Geography?
3. What areas of study, key concepts, and topics are important for students to learn about in a well-rounded and interesting introductory course in Human Geography?
4. What areas of study, key concepts, and topics are important for students to learn about in a well-rounded and interesting introductory course in Physical Geography?
5. Anything else to add?

FEEDBACK

General comments:

• Why two courses (plus environmental studies, plus earth science)? Wouldn’t a general, interdisciplinary geography course with flexible content have more appeal to both students and teachers?
• Content and competencies should use the heading/bullet approach used in the draft Earth Science course - allows differentiation between main ideas and lesser ideas within each category
• One course: human-environment interaction and process
• The draft competencies are for the most part about history education and not geography education
• How about a holistic geography course with options for students to get credit for human vs physical based on the projects the complete?

Feedback from the group activity

1. What is the point in studying Geography? Put another way, what are some of the “Big Ideas” in Geography? (this section also includes general statements about the draft curriculum)

More about Human Geography:

• environment
• spatial learning
• place
• inter-relationships (local to global)
• based on data (observations | measurements
• human-environment interactions (also expressed as the human-environment dynamic)
• geography is about the study of space, place, and identity (these are core concepts, prompts for inquiry)
• why do people live where they do and how do they interact with the environment
• 3rd and 4th Human Geog “Big Ideas” are too similar

More about Physical Geography:

• measurement of space
• earth’s surface as a place of interactions
• systems
• understanding our world
• location, maps,
• patterns, trends
• purpose of (physical) geography includes understanding of basic composition and structure of the earth, forces that share the surface of the earth, and biomes

About both Human and Physical Geography:

• patterns
• understanding humans on Earth
• data-based measurements, observations, pattern recognition
• Geography is applicable to all fields - emphasize where geography takes you, e.g. experience-based learning
• systems thinking; scales - local to global
• cycles and interactions
• location, location, location
• make the relationship between humans and environment more interactive, less deterministic
• integration: knowledge of physical and social dynamics shared across both courses
• if they were one course, they should focus on human/environment interaction/process
• geography is an integrated science, interdisciplinary
• focus on underlying processes
• local-global interdependencies (a key-component in geographic thinking
• climate change
• linking human and physical processes
• globally connected world
• understanding connections/reciprocal relations between land and life
• how/why people live where they do
• basic geographic literacy (various definitions)

2. What are some competencies* in the study of Geography?
* “competencies” is the term used in BC Curriculum documents to describe skills, capacities, practical abilities, and habits of mind. Some are discipline-specific, some are interdisciplinary, while others are meant to apply generally to “critical thinking” and “inquiry.”

More about Human Geography:

• critical thinking
• isolating what we’re thinking about (metacognition)
• levels of “Why?”
• ability to express in a variety of means (e.g. photo essays)
• reasoning
• recognize patterns in the world that relate to people

More about Physical Geography:

• experiential learning (mentioned multiple times)
• clear expression from qualitative through to quantitative
• basic geographic literacy
• ability to spatially represent and interpret data
• basic mapping skills
• inquiry
• analytical tools to use/interpret geographically referenced data
• integration of different geographic understandings
• chain of explanations: be able to explain things that are interconnected
• transfer and translation of geographic knowledge
• capacity for interdisciplinary research, thought, and expression
• refer to http://pics.uvic.ca for competency ideas
• problem-solving
• ability to discuss and make chains of explanation (e.g. Syrian Migration)
• concept maps/mind-mapping
• writing/expressing thoughts clearly (qualitative and quantitative thinking)
• integrative; interrelated thinkers - knowledge transfer - discussion - linkages (mind maps)
• explain “so what”
• visual representations of space; patterns, meaning
• see the “Big Picture” when presented with geographic data and phenomenon
• identify key factors as explanation
• ability to trace interconnections
• knowledge translation - from science to policy and back (bridging)
• data management
• spatially integrated data - interpretation of multiple data sets
• make predictions and apply conclusions to geographic evidence
• find and assess geographic data

About both Human and Physical Geography:

• math skills
• recognize patterns in the world that relate to physical characteristics
• ability to work with case studies

3. What areas of study and key concepts are important for students to learn about in a well-rounded and interesting introductory course in Human Geography?

One group summarized their work as such:

1. Settlement - urban/rural/mega-city/migration
2. Culture - conflict/change
3. Environment - climate change/environ. degradation
4. Economy - globalization/eneven development
5. Geopolitics
6. Colonial Legacies

One group created themes of content:

• class, race, space, place, identity, gender, diversity, patterns, trends, locations, processes

Other submissions:

• identification of…, applicability of…, interrelationships…
• dynamic relations between humans and the environment and human-human relationships
• scale - interdependence of scale from local to global (e.g. commodity chains)
• nominative values
• case study learning
• inquiry and project-based learning
• spatial literacy
• how applicable geography is to all disciplines - interrelationships
• different kinds of spatial analysis
• representing the world visually (e.g. animations, maps, art, writing, photography)

4. What areas of study and key concepts are important for students to learn about in a well-rounded and interesting introductory course in Physical Geography?

One group summarized their work as such:

1. Atmosphere
2. Lithoshpere
3. Biosphere
4. Hydrosphere
   ... interaction and spatial distribution

A second group summarized their work as such:

• Earth’s systems - and thinking about these systems:
• Atmosphere
• Hydroshere - Cryosphere
• Lithosphere
• Biosphere - Anthroposphere
  ... for all: processes and flows of energy and matter in each and between each system. Details within - refer to competencies and concepts

And also a third:

• The Four Spheres (atmosphere, lithosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere)

Other submissions:

• processes: glaciation, water erosion
• structure/framework: tectonics, rocks, volcanics
• systems: equilibrium, open/closed (e.g. watersheds), emergent properties
• history - past events and conditions, current processes and landforms
• multiple layers in landscapes
• significance of physical features (e.g. as resources)
• earth systems
• linkages (e.g. between biosphere and lithosphere)
• organization of phenomena
• use more inquiry-based learning and media-based learning: offer examples and cases for investigating concepts and themes in geography
• sources to be included: census data, maps, photos, images, government docs, northern BC archives
• integration of knowledge
• local physical geography (integration and experiential learning)
• local interaction of the spheres

5. Anything else to add?

• Suggestion: replace language in competencies — replace “assess the significance of…” with “appreciate the diverse nature of our world and patterns within it”
• The Physical Geography draft does not mention the biosphere — exploring the spheres without the biosphere or ecology does not make sense

Facilitator’s notes :

• The responses to both Question 1 and Questions 3 and 4 contain many items that the Curriculum Team will recognize as potential competencies in addition to thoughts about big ideas and content.
• The list of suggested competencies related to Question 2 have great integration of human and physical — it seems likely that a single set of competencies could emerge for both geography courses
• Most of the feedback group agreed that having a single integrated geography course would have more appeal to students — high schools in northern BC already have a hard time getting a single course of geography going, and might have a harder time trying to sell two courses, or one at the expense of the other

Generational Change in Leadership

This fall's federal election was remarkable for many reasons, one of which is that it resulted in more "Generation X" MPs elected than ever before, about 88, not to mention about 19 "Generation Y" or Millennials, depending on how one defines their generations.

There are 8 MPs born during WWII (the Silent Generation or the "Lucky Few"), and all the rest are Baby Boomers, still the dominant group in terms of numbers if not influence. While the average age in parliament is a respectable 51, it is without a doubt a youthful and fresh set of faces.

This turnover includes our first ever Gen X Prime Minister -- Justin Trudeau was born in 1971; he is two years younger than me. Shortly after the election, we had our first Gen X Leader of the Opposition -- Rona Ambrose is the same age as me. This certainly makes me feel what I already know, that I am officially older rather than younger than most (the median age in Canada is 40).

The other remarkable things about the election is the fervour (and fomentation) for change. Canada's relative disdain for "The Harper Years" hit a new level on election day, and seems to have risen since. The gagging of scientists (and destruction of scientific archives), erosion of social programs, embarrassment on the world stage (including our record on carbon emissions reduction), vilification of environmental groups, use of taxpayer dollars to promote The Harper Government™, mocking of parliamentary procedure, role in the senate scandal, misuse of stimulus spending, and the generally controlling/manipulative nature of our former prime minister (that's the start of a list) has left a bad taste for many Canadians. In short, we're tired of autocracy, rule by fear, and regressive policies. To be sure, there are positive contributions to Canadian life by the government in the last decade, but even hard-core Conservatives are anxious to move on and focus on what's next for their party.

Countering the negativity is a remarkable and swift set of actions by the new government to re-establish Canada's heart and vision both at home and abroad. We'll have to wait and see how much is "new values" and how much is optics or politics, but the response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the acceptance of Syrian refugees, the commitment to action at the Paris Climate Conference, and the lifting of gag orders on federal scientists are all good signs that all the talk of change may actually result in change.

Closer to home, we learned a couple of weeks ago that our Prince George School District 57 superintendent has resigned. The staff room/water cooler discussions about the "The Pepper Years" are very interesting (some amount of analysis and judgment is inevitable), as is the speculation about who our next permanent superintendent will be, and what kind of changes we can expect. With a province-wide search underway, the odds are reasonable that our next superintendent could be Gen X, and thus, again, I can feel what I already know, that I am on the older side of the teaching profession. Will a Gen Xer handle things differently than a Baby Boomer? Are there management styles or educational philosophies that are tied to the generation to which one belongs? No doubt other factors are more important, such as vision, character, honesty, or abilities to communicate, problem-solve, and collaborate. Whatever kind of generational change we see, I'm looking forward to comparing the change that gets talked about versus the change that actually takes place.

Draft Curriculum Feedback

I thought I'd post an edited version of what I posted on the BC Ministry of Education site for curriculum feedback <https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/feedback> on Nov 2.  Like the curriculum itself, my thoughts about the 10-12 Drafts are a work in progress. The stuff below is specifically about Social Studies 10 and Human / Physical Geography 11/12. While these are my own views, I have developed many of them in collaboration with other Social Studies teachers.

Please leave your own feedback on the new curriculum -- they have a lot to work to do and will take their cue from the teachers that offer feedback.

1. What do you like about the proposal? Please comment on the core and optional curricula.

I like that the proposal is an attempt to carry the streamlined ideas of the K-9 courses forward for 10-12. Requiring students to take one "Socials" elective after Grade 10 is a bare minimum -- it should be two. Alternately, students should be required to take a set number of credits from Humanities (e.g. English and Socials electives) as well as Math/Science, such that it is natural and encouraged for students to take more than one post-Grade 10 Socials elective.

I appreciate that Social Studies 10 is in a tight position -- does it simply replace the old SS11 minus WWI, allowing it to "breathe" a little in the absence of a Provincial Exam, or does it try to be something new, a true "Social Studies" course that employs multi-disciplinary inquiry to examine Canada and the World in the last 100 years? At this point it is not quite doing either.  Ironically, this is due, in part, to the admirable (but very much history-based) competencies.  The irony is that the heart of the competencies (the so-called "benchmarks of historical thinking" developed by Peter Seixas of UBC among others) are a great way to study history and other related subjects, but as a day-to-day "skills" guide for Social Studies students they might be too much -- they may cloud the other joyous offerings of history (such the art of storytelling) and also cloud the strong role that geographic thinking (and other "competencies") should play in Social Studies. Nonetheless, I'm glad to see the "benchmarks" present as I (and many others) have been using them in Social Studies for years as a way to shift the focus from content-for-content's sake to content as a tool for developing thinking.

I like that Geography has been split into Human and Physical, although this will make it tough for smaller high schools to "fill a block of geography" with an even more specialized choice of courses. I think some teachers will be tempted to combine them where possible, just like some teachers will likely want to combine First Peoples Issues and Social Justice, or will want to include them as part of a larger program. Will this be possible? We don't know enough yet about the Grad Plan, funding model(s), cohort-based programs vs course credits, opportunities for blended learning, etc. It is difficult to apply for an innovation grant or envision how a new program will play without knowing if the proposals will even be possible -- schools have a hard enough time figuring out when their lunch time should start, let alone whether they are ready to upend the timetable to launch something like cross-curricular learning inquiry time/spaces.  I like that geographic thinking and literacy are mentioned (once) in the draft proposal -- this needs to be built on and used in both (new) geography courses.

2. What do you think should be improved? Please comment on the core and optional curricula.

First -- the proposed Social Studies 10. Too much content has been squeezed out of the old Social Studies 9, 10, and 11 into the new SS9, and as a result the new SS10 is, in part, too vague on content. Yes, teachers can now pick and choose the content they will use to address the big ideas and explore the develop the competencies in SS9, but there is too much history that will be glossed over -- if anything it encourages SS9 to be more of a survey course than ever. Speaking of which, the competencies rely so heavily on Seixas' history benchmarks that it takes away from other aspects of Socials, particularly Geography. I think that geographic literacy should have a more prominent role in the SS K-10 curriculum. Assuming SS K-9 will not receive further edits, one thing that can be done is to adjust the new SS10 -- it needs an additional content item: "development of Canadian Identity in the 20th Century at home and on the world stage." This will help make it clear to teachers that events of note in 20th Century Canada will still be something students get to learn about -- the Great Depression, WWII, Canada and the Cold War, Quebec Nationalism, etc. As it stands, there is nothing compelling in the content that suggest teachers need to pay attention to what was once the heart of the old SS11. At present, SS10 looks like a contemporary civics, issues, and human geography course (in fact very much like the old 3-part pre-2004 SS11 without explicit reference to the History section), and yet relies on history-based critical inquiry for competencies and mandates a timeline of 1919-present. If we are to do the job of teaching human geography effectively in the new SS10 (just like we did in SS11), there needs to be a term added to the content item "interconnections between demography, urbanization, environmental issues, and globalization." Between urbanization and environmental issues add "stages of development." Additionally, for the content item "development, structure, and function to Canadian and other economic systems" add "...and their impact on standards of living." This line of inquiry in the old SS11 (why are some nations better off than others and how do we close the gap) was for me, along with "why bother voting," the heart of the course. As for the SS10 Big Ideas -- they are quite generic and basically reiterations of the content and competencies -- they lack the nuance of the SS9 Big Ideas. As such they are not very useful as course organizers or even themes that could guide the construction of units.

Next -- the optional content. Geography 11/12 courses have a few serious issues that need to be addressed. I see that most of the competencies have been copy-and-pasted from other SS courses (the benchmarks of historical thinking plus statements about inquiry). These ones specific to historical thinking should out rather than suggest they should guide geography studies. To a lesser extent, the competencies for 20th Century World History 11/12, Contemporary First Peoples Issues 11/12, and Social Justice 11/12 will also need to be adjusted to make them more discipline-specific. Interdisciplinarity is great, but requires it's own "competencies" separate from those specific to the study of History. As an aside, I would suggest that the biggest support for interdisciplinarity comes from the 3 Core Competencies.

So what to do with Geography 11/12? First the Human Geography 11/12 has too much overlap with the "human geography" aspects of the proposed SS10. It is a rough (and in my mind inaccurate and outdated) survey of topics from post-secondary "human" geography programs put through the filter of the bits of geography that currently exist in Gr 10-12 curriculum. It reads a bit like the chapter headings from a 1980s Geog text, or a list of old Geog courses (Economic, Regional, etc.) prior to the extensive use of technology in gathering and interpreting geographic data, and prior to some wicked developments in Geographic thinking and post-colonial inquiry. There is too much emphasis on resources and not enough on "environment." Content items 3 and 4 should be combined (they are really the same thing). The imbalance can be corrected with more emphasis on place-conscious learning, making sense of human interaction with place, and the prompt to use of many types of texts and data in order to explore themes and thinking in geography (literary sources, photography, video, and especially maps).

The Physical Geography 12 course is primitive but not far from what would be expected -- it is all the "physical" bits from the old Geog 12, especially the geomorphology. I think what it is missing is a window for the inclusion of geology and ecology, two important "subtopics" (arguable of course) in a holistic study of physical geography. A geographer worthy of his or her dirty dirty fingernails will relish the opportunity to share a bit about rocks, plants, and soil. Some colleagues (who stare at clouds) will also want to see a stronger role for atmospheric science in the new course (beyond the existing mention of human interaction with the atmosphere). As mentioned, a discipline-specific set of competencies is needed, as will a decision of whether Physical Geography 12 will count a lab or science credit towards university admission.

In neither geography course is there mention of how technology has shaped geography (e.g. GIS, GPS, satellite imaging). This relates to the need for data literacy, for the need to make geographic data more important in the Geog courses. The Human Geog proposal misses this, although it is mentioned in the Physical Geog competencies -- it appears as if there was the beginning of an attempt with competency #2 to adapt benchmarks of historical thinking to the realm of geographic thinking.

Beyond tech, maps, and discipline-specific data, the other side of the missing coin is sense of what these courses are for. "20th Century World History 11/12" is, arguably, about how our world is still dominated by conflicts and cooperations based on ideas with incredible realizations in the last 100 years.  Why take Human Geography 11/12?  The content (and still-to-be written competencies) need to convey the profound questions about how we relate with place, about the deep impact of environment, about how we read landscapes, and about how we conduct ourselves as humans on the planet. The new curriculum does not prevent this from being the basis of the course, but it does not go very far to encourage it either.

So what do competencies look like in Human Geography (and perhaps Physical Geography)? They could be based on the "five themes of geography" (Location, Place, Human-Environment Interaction, Movement, and Region). They could be based on the "six elements of geography" (The World in Spatial Terms, Places and Regions, Physical Systems, Human Systems, Environment and Society, and The Uses of Geography) or some kind of synthesis of the two. See my blog post about these for references: http://thielmann.blogspot.ca/2012/10/benchmarks-of-geographic-thinking.html.

Following is a list of focus areas for the application of geographic inquiry. They are somewhere in between "Big Ideas" and "Competencies." If I get around to it, I'd love to work these into specific competencies, but here is where they were at when I blogged about it in 2012.

• Structure of place - form & function of human and/or physical systems
• Use of Evidence - selection & interpretation of phenomenon related to human and physical features of past and present landscapes
• Causality and Change - function of space & time in the evolution of human and physical systems
• Human-Environment Interaction - mutual impacts and dependencies, modes of adaptation
• Multi-Disciplinary Perspectives - role of history, sociology, biology, economics, geology, etc. in the study of geography
• Responsibility and Sustainability - resource ethics, interconnected issues, planning & management

3. Does the core curriculum require anything further to meet the needs of students graduating from BC schools? Please provide details.

Yes -- see comment above for #2 (SS10 needs an additional content item: development of Canadian Identity in the 20th Century at home and on the world stage). Students should not graduate without this basic grounding in Canada's history in the 20th century. As well, "development" and "standards of living" need to be retained in the new SS10 curriculum in order to fully realize the human geography component.

BYOD if you dare

Some observations related to the state of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) in School District 57:

1. Since a series of cuts began in 2010, our school district has seen a reduction in:

• technology leadership (district tech team, tech coaches, key tech contacts, tech innovation grants, tech coordination, etc.)
• technology options available to teachers (single platform, lack of teacher-directed customization, purchasing restrictions, wifi restrictions, banned devices)
• school technology budgets (ours is half what it used to be)
• communication about technology (for example, many of the "decrees" that guide technology decisions can't be found in print)

2. We have not had a "tech plan" since 2005, although in 2011 there was a district meeting in which we learned that cloud computing, support for mobile learning, and BYOD would be the new normal, and a way to address shrinking budgets and "21st Century Learning."

3. We have lots of talented tech analysts who are quick to respond to tech issues, who are experts with networks, and who are able to balance security, stability, and function.

4. We have, in the last two years, had surveys and meetings about renewing technology leadership and support for BYOD & mobile devices.

5. The BCEdplan and various Ministry documents suggest that the internet, not texts or traditional learning resources, will be the main source for curricular material.

Given the above, and that we are well into the 21st Century, is it unreasonable to expect that teachers should be able to access stable wifi on a BYOD in order to a) teach using the internet, and b) print?

This functionality is spotty in our school district, but is available in most public institutions and corporate environments, as well as other school districts. As one of my colleagues puts it, "I get better wifi on a greyhound bus than I do at my school." I would encourage those who are still connected to the decision-making processes around district technology to raise this item up a few notches on the priority list. Our wifi, to put it lightly, has lots of room for improvement.

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.

Whither SPSS

Once again the school year dawns and we hear about the elusive School Plan for Student Success (SPSS) -- the annual document that the school submits to the school board office about goals and objectives. My understanding was that our SPSS was not supposed to be a compliance document but should invite and reflect willing, authentic involvement, a "reflection of the conversations that occur in the school" (to quote a former Director of Instruction). Having seen a draft of this year's SPSS, it appears that we are moving away from the SPSS having site-based goals/objectives or local conversations and replacing these with ones from the school district accompanied with statements about 21st Century educators and so on. The examples and data may come from the school, but the overarching goals and questions do not.

In theory the SPSS is a document submitted by the School Planning Council and principal to the Board on behalf of the school. There are a variety of formats and processes behind the SPSS, and they differ substantially from elementary to secondary. Some secondary schools use the SPSS to develop department goals, some have select-area goals, some have school-wide goals, some SPSS documents are made primarily by principals based on data available from the Ministry of Education. We've had all four kinds in our school, and there is no act or policy that governs how this goes, although the district has supplied a variety of suggested templates over the years. The School Planning Council and SPSS are School Act requirements, at least for now, and the requirements listed mention nothing about department goals and so on, although they do contain rules that have fallen out of practice at most schools. Perhaps because of this, the BC Liberal government's Bill 11 actually does away with much of the reporting requirements and mechanisms, including School Planning Councils which have not met for many years.

In the past, department and school involvement came with time in the form of department leadership blocks, "Special Responsibility" blocks, or the use of the administrator's non-instructional day. The time required to build a plan was acknowledged and funded. In the past 11 years, with one or (arguably) two exceptions, we have not had board feedback for staff on the school's SPSS -- these plans have been largely shelved and forgotten. An analysis of past SPSS documents from secondary schools has shown a plethora of problems, including invalid use of data, confusing correlation with causality, statements or data that do not reconcile with parent goals and objectives. I also note that we have not, as a staff, rigorously discussed or reviewed a SPSS in many years.

In short, the SPSS process is broken. There should not be any obligation downloaded on teachers to fix it. We should also be careful not to confuse the SPSS with other successful processes, plans, and discussions we've had at in school over the years, nor does this take away from individual teachers or departments that have found some use in developing plans for the SPSS as a way of focusing their collective intentions for students.

How then to proceed? What's the vision? First, a staff discussion on the value of collective planning and goal-setting is needed. Staff meetings would be one appropriate place to have this discussion, but our staff meetings have avoided having real discussions or decisions and focus instead on information items. Second, time or supplementary pay should be offered for those that want to develop reports based on school or department goals -- keep in mind that this is voluntary work up to the point where the SPSS becomes the mandatory responsibility of the principal. The current leadership group that meets in exchange for a few lieu days does not have an adequate structure or time for facilitating, implementing, and reviewing the planning process. We only have to look at the last job action to remind ourselves that teachers should not be volunteering to fix broken systems or fill the gap left by underfunding. Remember that teachers were locked out from, and then lost 10% of their pay for voluntary duties such as meetings and planning. I for one am not eager to put my own time during lunch and before/after school into a SPSS; there are far more valuable uses of my time including marking, planning, professional development, and collaboration with a diverse learning network in and outside of the school. There are many other ways to move forward, many ways to produce a SPSS or something like it, but I have written and talked about this so many times in the past for staff that I should stop now and leave this theme for others to pick up.

Journey of the Hathlo

Where to begin? My friend Adrian Barnes, author of Nod ([update:] and Satan à la Mode!) had some sound advice for procrastinating writers (like me) who find elaborate excuses not to write; who, when faced with the greatest story ideas, bury themselves in tangential projects. He said the thing to do if you want to write a novel is to stop waiting for the conditions to be perfect and just start writing. I have no idea how far this will go, but I think I have waited long enough and need to start putting some of my story ideas down on (virtual) paper if only to show an attempt. Amongst the hundreds of story ideas that have occurred to me (as they do anyone with an imagination) I have hatched four big schemes for novels with the potential for more than a nodding interest by myself and an imagined audience. None of them has ever proceeded past an elaborate concept phase, excepting perhaps the "Journey of the Hathlo" as evidenced by a box in my basement filled with notebooks, sketches, jottings, and maps. One of the other ideas for a novel has a narrative that jumps between the near-present logging camps and fishing boats and late 18th Century British Columbia (sea otter trade, Nootka Crisis). A third idea was about a near-future society where the ability to scan thoughts through technology (mind-reading) becomes commonplace and, of course, disastrous for the fundamental unwritten rules of society and the construction of the self. The fourth idea was about differing cultural portrayals (and purposes) of the afterlife from a geographer's perspective. So there it is, an unrealized quadruple threat: fantasy, historical fiction, sci-fi, and non-fiction.

Stories, like plans, are nearly perfect before they are written -- flaws and failure have not been demonstrated, plot and character holes are only temporary abstractions, and the possibilities are endless. They can be pitched in short form without having conclusions in place, and can change direction at the whim of the storyteller. However, the longer one waits, the longer one risks that death will precede publication, or, more practically, that the basic story idea, premise, names, context, title will be used by another. While originality is not always the greatest concern of an author, it is an important part of my procrastination cycle. One of my story ideas involves the journey and saga of a people across ice age landscapes to reach a new home. Should I be staking a claim to the internet address hathlo.com? It is troubling to consider (especially in light of Adrian's advice), that I have probably spent more time thinking about domain registry than I have actually writing this story that has been swirling around me for over twenty years. I have also spent more time pouring over maps, studying glacial landscapes (in particular, sea level change and post-glacial ecology), and drawing my own maps than I have in writing, at least in a form that can be shared with others.

The origin of this story goes back a long way for me, perhaps in broad terms to my close reading of the works of Tolkien as a youngster, but more specifically to a period in the early 1990s when I began to think about what a mythology for British Columbia might look like, or more accurately what it would sound like. A number of events and thought experiments coalesced during that time, some of which had been building (as they do in all stories) from a rootmass of older self-moderated tales and memories. The machinery of the story as I see it today took on form as a result of three peculiar events -- a vision, a dream, and the lingering impressions of a daytrip. There were other events that fed this story, but these three stand out to me as significant.

1. The Vision
As I recall it now, I drove up alone in the failing light of a fall night in 1992 to a friend's rural property south of Chilliwack in the Ryder Lake area. After letting myself in the gate and parking my truck, I walked across the property past the fields and forest with my sleeping bag and a pillow to a one-room cabin tucked on a wooded knoll, a place I helped build. To the south lay the Chilliwack River Valley, known by a low rumble coming up from far below as I approach the knoll. The sound of a youthful river is like a rushing wind or rolling thunder, but comes mainly from rocks dragging, shifting and tumbling along the river bed. Rising beyond the Chilliwack River are the first mountains of the Skagit Range, the Canadian part of the Cascades. Somewhere up on the flanks of Church Mountain, I saw a light, perhaps from a dirt bike or 4x4, a spark against the canopy of dark forest and night sky. Maybe this was some late-evening adventurer looking for the way down or some dirt road campers looking to settle in for the night.  In my mind's eye, the lights multiplied, and came from many fires or torches. The river's rumble became the low notes of a great song, and the fires began to move downslope. It was a clan of warriors and families of warriors, the Hathlo, descending the mountain with joy and terror. They had awoken from some great sleep and were roaring towards the coast, as if they had waited a thousand years to begin their song and complete some quest. In my jottings and drafts this later became a great thawing set toward the end of the last Ice Age, and behind the singing warriors came a great flood of meltwater that would destroy much of the forest along with their enemies.

2. The Dream
This strange night occurred in late Spring, 1994, while camping in the Kootenays. I was tenting along on the edge of lake at a Forest Service Rec Site (was it Mabel Lake?), most of the way through a solitary road trip, and on that particular night I was having a hard time getting to sleep. I suppose I was at a turning point on the journey, no longer rapt by the lakes and streams, the forest and mountains, the towns and sites of interest.  On my mind was the letting go of the school year, my last in at the University of BC, and coming to terms with the Summer work ahead and the decisions I would have to make about the Fall. Should I aim for more work with the forest consultant firm, or was it time to put in that application to teacher training? That night, when I finally left for the Land of Nod, I had a dream that haunts me to this day. The scene, emerging slowly and inconsistently as they sometimes do in dreams, was set mostly around a campfire in a dense wood, near to a stream but very dark save the the bright flames in the pit and the stars above. There were a few people around the fire, sometimes they were friends but at parts of the dream they became strangers; for some moments I noticed that I was alone. There was music. It came from our voices, and from a guitar someone produced, and from echoes in the forest that returned our song in the form of new instruments. At some point we realized the music was not coming from us anymore but from another guest at the fire, an enormous Sasquatch. The music had the complexity of a symphony, and a story unfolded about the last 100,000 years of the Pacific Northwest, each part about a different time and location. I've come to understand this to mean that each movement dwelt on an Age of the late Pleistocene and Holocene Epochs, moving progressively south along the coastal regions of Alaska, BC, and Washington State. If there were words for the music, I'm not sure they were audible; perhaps the Sasquatch spoke to us directly beyond the song, but there was definitely a narrative woven through the entire piece. Sasquatch strummed away at his guitar and hummed or did something like singing, and we came to understand the untold tale of the land as witnessed by a vanished people and a collective of Sasquatches, of whom this one was likely the last. As so often happens in my dreams, the details turned towards each other, a proliferation of resemblances, and were known as much by what I didn't remember as what I did. When I woke, or rather when I was aware that what I was experiencing belonged more to my conscious reality than something deeper beneath, a great sadness came over me. I wept from the beauty of the song, and also the realization that the deeper themes, story, and meaning of the song was slipping away from me and could only be experienced once. Over the years I have built up the story of the Hathlo around the bare fragments of that song that remain. More importantly, at times when I am present and connected to, I feel that I am singing that song still,  adding some small part to the ongoing whole, making some small impression on the Holocene. If this all sounds too serious, just google image search sasquatch playing guitar and things will actually seem quite silly.

3. The Daytrip
This memory of a quick trip up Knight Inlet and back has stuck in my head for years. It was less about advancing the stories in my head and more about the physical and emotional tones that would influence my understanding of setting. The sights, sounds, and smells of this day did more to affect my ongoing vision of a story taking place than the thousands of other experiences I have had in the wilderness. I need some time to put this day in perspective, and will come back to this on a later date. I think the story of that day might be a nice way to remember some of the time I spent doing forestry work, even if it was a one-off along the BC Coast compared to the years I spent in the interior of BC and Northern Alberta as an ecosystem geographer.

So, there it is, either a commitment to get some of my stories down in print, or perhaps an elaborate scheme for further procrastination. Jotting the ideas here for my unknown audience (I'm not sure I really blog for anyone but myself, anyways) feels pretty good, though. It reminds me that stories can be be beautiful (and yes, perfect) even when incomplete and unrecorded.  Storytelling is something we do, something that fashions our individual and collective identity, even when the process is internal. If I remember my Daniel Dennett correctly, consciousness itself can be understood as a narrative centre of gravity; the stories we tell ourselves about our own experience that eventually wear "identity paths" in our brains.