We are educators, teachers, lovers of learning. There is nothing else which we would have chosen to do with our lives, if we had our time again, than be working in and with schools. Mike and I began our careers in Cape Town, South Africa as Math/Science and English/Geography teachers. We took a year’s sabbatical in the UK for a different teaching experience - and to earn some real money so that we could travel the world. What was to be 6 months of experimentation in the UK translated a decade later us progressing from lowly classroom teachers to Head of School and Deputy Head positions respectively. We immigrated to Canada and again started from scratch – less easy than the first time round - and have gradually 7 years later found our respective niches – Mike as Director of 21st Century Learning in a world-class independent IB school and me as the Executive Director of an association of 23 independent schools across BC.
There are so many wonderful aspects of being a teacher: the privilege of nurturing students’ academic and personal growth; watching their physical changes as they blossom from timid 11 year olds into beautiful or handsome, poised and mature young adults, and the immense joy of learning alongside and being challenged by teenagers as they explore life, knowledge and perspectives. We’ve relished being a part of nurturing the development of critical thinkers, of renaissance scholars, who are encouraged to challenge the status quo and ask deep and profound questions. My favourite course is the International Baccalaureate’s ‘Theory of Knowledge’, an incisive and challenging course interrogating knowledge and how we know what we know. Over the past 3 years I have been part of the BC Ministry’s think tank group working with key BC stakeholders to reshape the curriculum, assessment and learning. It was gratifying to see the fruits of our labours in the launch of the new curriculum last week. BC students, according to the international PISA scores, rank as the highest achieving students across the English-speaking world and the new curriculum looks to lead the way in innovative and relevant curriculum, pedagogy and assessment practices across the globe.
One of the wonderful things about being in schools is the opportunity each year to start anew, to turn over a new leaf, to commit afresh to old endeavours and to explore the possibilities of new. There is the recharging of the pencil box – new pencils and pens; blemish-free erasers; the smell of fresh wood in the first sharpening of pencils revealing their bright colours and new school clothes for public sector students who don’t wear uniforms. There is the excitement of the first day – in Vancouver just one hour in public schools - to see who is registering in each school for the year ahead. Then on the following day the excited expectancy of discovering who the teacher for the year is and whether favourite friends are to be in the same class. As a teacher I loved having a fresh markbook; learning the names and personalities of the children who would journey with me over the course of the year and the prospect of teaching new courses and the learning I would undergo. And always, always there is the opportunity of doing things better, more efficiently, and with greater impact. The new academic year rocks!
Cameron in an independent (private) school in West Vancouver embraced the excitement of the new year last week; he returned from his first day proclaiming that he has a teacher who not only is nice, but who is a good teacher and ‘makes us think’. Extra-curricular activities have been selected from the huge range on offer and learning is well underway. But tomorrow, is for our family another difficult first; a new horizon; a new bracing of what ifs, what could have been, and what should have been. For tomorrow, Erin should have been starting Grade 3 in her French Immersion Public School. Her clothes should have been bought, the earrings carefully chosen to match her independently chosen outfit and her backpack charged with the new year’s supplies. We can see in her friends the inches of height gained over the summer, the new adult teeth filling the gaps, and the shifting of the young girl features towards the pre-adolescence facial and bodily maturity. Her backpack remains an empty shell in her cupboard and the numerous extra-mural indemnity forms and applications are unfilled. Working with her to select her hot lunch programme for the term ahead is another severed joy as our girl loved her food. We imagined her developing French proficiency and her excitement as she looked to be reunited with her friends after the long summer break. For Erin’s physical appearance, academic prowess and achievements are now frozen in time, etched into that 22nd December date when she stopped being.
But as we braced ourselves to return to Vancouver after our summer break and launched into yet another season of firsts – but without the advantage of being able to imagine what once was - we have again been overwhelmed by the continual out-pouring of support, compassion and empathy of friends. Not a day has passed without someone reaching out to connect, to offer to listen, to join us in activities and to negotiate difficult firsts without our girl – Bard on the Beach Shakespeare (overwhelming memories of a scintillating production last year of A Midsummer Night’s Dream); our annual overnight hiking trip, the PNE fair and trade show; lazy evenings on the beach; long dinners over good food. Friends, now back from summer holidays, have resumed their texting and calling to check in. People’s lives march on apace but amazingly Erin and our family have not been forgotten. We are awash in the abundance of community, friendship and love. Amidst our still all-consuming tragedy, we have learned the profound ‘anatomy of grace’ and of deep human connection and engagement. We remain deeply humbled and in spite of the pain are continually transformed within our new beginnings.
There are so many wonderful aspects of being a teacher: the privilege of nurturing students’ academic and personal growth; watching their physical changes as they blossom from timid 11 year olds into beautiful or handsome, poised and mature young adults, and the immense joy of learning alongside and being challenged by teenagers as they explore life, knowledge and perspectives. We’ve relished being a part of nurturing the development of critical thinkers, of renaissance scholars, who are encouraged to challenge the status quo and ask deep and profound questions. My favourite course is the International Baccalaureate’s ‘Theory of Knowledge’, an incisive and challenging course interrogating knowledge and how we know what we know. Over the past 3 years I have been part of the BC Ministry’s think tank group working with key BC stakeholders to reshape the curriculum, assessment and learning. It was gratifying to see the fruits of our labours in the launch of the new curriculum last week. BC students, according to the international PISA scores, rank as the highest achieving students across the English-speaking world and the new curriculum looks to lead the way in innovative and relevant curriculum, pedagogy and assessment practices across the globe.
One of the wonderful things about being in schools is the opportunity each year to start anew, to turn over a new leaf, to commit afresh to old endeavours and to explore the possibilities of new. There is the recharging of the pencil box – new pencils and pens; blemish-free erasers; the smell of fresh wood in the first sharpening of pencils revealing their bright colours and new school clothes for public sector students who don’t wear uniforms. There is the excitement of the first day – in Vancouver just one hour in public schools - to see who is registering in each school for the year ahead. Then on the following day the excited expectancy of discovering who the teacher for the year is and whether favourite friends are to be in the same class. As a teacher I loved having a fresh markbook; learning the names and personalities of the children who would journey with me over the course of the year and the prospect of teaching new courses and the learning I would undergo. And always, always there is the opportunity of doing things better, more efficiently, and with greater impact. The new academic year rocks!
Cameron in an independent (private) school in West Vancouver embraced the excitement of the new year last week; he returned from his first day proclaiming that he has a teacher who not only is nice, but who is a good teacher and ‘makes us think’. Extra-curricular activities have been selected from the huge range on offer and learning is well underway. But tomorrow, is for our family another difficult first; a new horizon; a new bracing of what ifs, what could have been, and what should have been. For tomorrow, Erin should have been starting Grade 3 in her French Immersion Public School. Her clothes should have been bought, the earrings carefully chosen to match her independently chosen outfit and her backpack charged with the new year’s supplies. We can see in her friends the inches of height gained over the summer, the new adult teeth filling the gaps, and the shifting of the young girl features towards the pre-adolescence facial and bodily maturity. Her backpack remains an empty shell in her cupboard and the numerous extra-mural indemnity forms and applications are unfilled. Working with her to select her hot lunch programme for the term ahead is another severed joy as our girl loved her food. We imagined her developing French proficiency and her excitement as she looked to be reunited with her friends after the long summer break. For Erin’s physical appearance, academic prowess and achievements are now frozen in time, etched into that 22nd December date when she stopped being.
But as we braced ourselves to return to Vancouver after our summer break and launched into yet another season of firsts – but without the advantage of being able to imagine what once was - we have again been overwhelmed by the continual out-pouring of support, compassion and empathy of friends. Not a day has passed without someone reaching out to connect, to offer to listen, to join us in activities and to negotiate difficult firsts without our girl – Bard on the Beach Shakespeare (overwhelming memories of a scintillating production last year of A Midsummer Night’s Dream); our annual overnight hiking trip, the PNE fair and trade show; lazy evenings on the beach; long dinners over good food. Friends, now back from summer holidays, have resumed their texting and calling to check in. People’s lives march on apace but amazingly Erin and our family have not been forgotten. We are awash in the abundance of community, friendship and love. Amidst our still all-consuming tragedy, we have learned the profound ‘anatomy of grace’ and of deep human connection and engagement. We remain deeply humbled and in spite of the pain are continually transformed within our new beginnings.