Leading From The Heart

by Tracy Rosen, teaching & consulting since 1996, blogging about it here since 2007. All views are my own and you should take them with a grain of salt, I do.

Category: Classroom

  • Can anyone say…TIRED?

    (image from: http://www.signaturebooks.com)

    The other morning a colleague pointed out that we have something like 33 more days of teaching. Those are going to be some long days. I am a tired teacher. And this is the worst time of year to be tired! Lately we have had some glorious days of 20+ degrees (that’s celsius) and sunshine and no one wants to be in the hot stuffy classroom. The students are restless, and so is their teacher.

    I also have a major project due tomorrow (though I may not have it in on time – can Saturday be considered ‘end of the week’? I think so…). The first of many to come over the next few years as I make my way through this PhD program.

    And I need to write a grant proposal for the school. So hard to think of next year’s activity when I am so tired!

    And, we had so much snow this year that we have no more PED days left in our year!

    Yup, tired.

    Fouund this on Squidoo:

    Tips for Tired Teachers.

    Haven’t read it yet. I’ll get around to it when I’ve had some rest ;)

  • History, Oh History…

    At the bottom of this post is a link to a series of question and study sheets, including some sample essay questions, for the Secondary 4 History of Quebec and Canada course in the province of Quebec. I’ve only uploaded the questions and study sheets for module 4 so far. The rest should be up soon – 2 wee things called report cards and final classes are taking up some time this week :).

    I love teaching this course, though I absolutely abhor the end of year exam that is attached to it. It is a high stakes exam – without it you just can not graduate from high school in Quebec.

    The course and the exam are supposed to change with the education reforms in Quebec, though now that teachers and parents are calling for a moratorium on the reform who knows when that might happen.

    For now, students (and teachers and parents) still need to suffer through the injustice of the course and its exam, with the convoluted questions that can drive even the most knowledgeable history student crazy. The course has a bad reputation because of the testing. Unfortunately this dulls the short, though vibrant, history of Quebec and Canada for our students.

    http://history.tracyrosen.com

  • Graffiti, Skate Shops, Burgers…

    Yup, that’s basically what we did today. It was another of our travel days, and this time we took the metro to Berri-UQAM Metro station and went for a bit of a walk around the area.

    Montreal Metro Map

    (image from http://www.crimt.org/Images_shared/Images/Metro_UQAM.gif)

    The boys spotted Underworld Skate shop right away so in we went…

    After that we went to see graffiti on the buildings behind les Foufounes Electrique. These pieces are added to each year at the annual Under Pressure Show.

    (image from http://www.thinkempire.com/blog/2007_08_01_archive.html)

    The boys had some fun doing tricks with Conner’s skateboard for a bit while I cringed each time one of them fell and Allison took some pictures of the graffiti.

    I wanted to eat in China Town but was voted against 3-1 for McDonald’s instead…yeesh… On the way there we saw a little community of homeless people and their menagerie of dogs and cats in a makeshift blue-tarp hut. The kids were pretty impressed by that.

    So we had some burgers and fries and then made our way back to school.

    Let’s see what the students thought of the day…

    Conner

    Troy

    Allison

  • Travel Day

    Montreal Metro Tunnel 1

    Montreal Metro Tunnel 1

    image by Flowizm on Flickr

    Every day 2 of our 9-day cycle at school I take my older group of students out on a travel day. We take public transportation to travel from Chateauguay to Montreal.

    Each day 2 we try to go to a new place, and each time I try to incorporate a new travel skill into the day, but today was way too cold to go crazy at -18 when we left this morning! Especially after having to wait outside for 30 minutes for our bus when we missed it by about 2 minutes…

    Luckily Montreal has an underground city so we opted to wander around underground instead of do the walking tour of great graffiti I had planned. We’re going to save that for a warmer day.

    Things we need to work on:

    • One of my students has a difficult time keeping track of his money and always needs to borrow some in order to get home. Today he had to borrow 6$ from me! I know that this continues to happen because I always bail him out, so I need to plan for this not to happen next time.
    • I try to get my students to plan the trips, but it is difficult for them because they really do not know Montreal very well even though it is so close to Chateauguay. I have to come up with ways to motivate them to find out about different places of interest.

    I felt that today’s trip was kind of dull, though, when I read my students’ posts I see that there are things to experience – even on dull days.

    We went to Montreal for travel day

    Trip to Montreal

  • travel day

    Montreal Metro Tunnel 1
    Montreal Metro Tunnel 1
    image by Flowizm on Flickr

    Every day 2 of our 9-day cycle at school I take my older group of students out on a travel day. We take public transportation to travel from Chateauguay to Montreal.

    Each day 2 we try to go to a new place, and each time I try to incorporate a new travel skill into the day, but today was way too cold to go crazy at -18 when we left this morning! Especially after having to wait outside for 30 minutes for our bus when we missed it by about 2 minutes…

    Luckily  Montreal has an underground city so we opted to wander around underground instead of do the walking tour of great graffiti I had planned. We’re going to save that for a warmer day.

    Things we need to work on:

    • One of my students has a difficult time keeping track of his money and always needs to borrow some in order to get home. Today he had to borrow 6$ from me! I know that this continues to happen because I always bail him out, so I need to plan for this not to happen next time.
    • I try to get my students to plan the trips, but it is difficult for them because they really do not know Montreal very well even though it is so close to Chateauguay.  I have to come up with ways to motivate them to find out about different places of interest.

    I felt that today’s trip was kind of dull, though, when I read my students’ posts I see that there are things to experience – even on dull days.

    We went to Montreal for travel day

    Trip to Montreal