Learn Create Inspire
Sharing successes and challenges through teaching while becoming a (hopefully) published author.
Introducing Bruce, My Anxiety Monster
I have anxiety and I will no longer let shame keep me from talking about it. This post is a deeply personal reflection on my anxiety monster, whom I recently named Bruce, and what I am doing to help myself. This post is an effort to bring visibility to mental health challenges and to take back power in my own life. I am not my anxiety and I will not let it control me anymore.
Social Justice Symposium: The Stations and Logistics (Ideas to share your own learning!)
The Social Justice Symposium is done and I am exhausted! In this post I run down some of the logistics running a day of sharing learning with the school community. The learning was deep and it represented many different learning opportunities. I am so grateful for my class and all of the people who helped us succeed.
Social Justice Symposium: Social Justice Quilt
The Social Justice Quilt is a collaborative piece of artwork that explores the big learning my class had during our Social Justice Symposium unit. To explore the power of instillations, my class learned about The Witness Blanket created by Carey Newman. I also share my gratitude for a teacher friend who helped me with this unit…and so many others!
Social Justice Symposium: Intersectionality in Literature
Intersectionality is an important topic to explore when talking about social justice. It is complex, but breaking it down and modelling intersectionality can help kids understand our complex world. I modelled intersectionality with two texts: One Plastic Bag and a nonfiction piece about Red Dress Day (May 5th) in Canada before setting the students out to explore the concepts in literature. It was powerful for kids to discover the patterns of oppression.
Exploring and Responding the Hard Things: Talking About Ukraine
This post explores how I used loose parts, an interactive lecture, and art to help my students start to understand the invasion of Ukraine. It is filled with examples of what I did and provides a few other activities that could be done to support your teaching. My little students with big hearts want everyone to know that they will welcome any Ukrainian people who come to our school and hope the conflict ends peacefully. This is cross-curricular and hands-on.
Transgender Awareness Week Resources
It is Transgender Awareness Week. This blog post will provide you with literature that you can use from primary through high school. I have also outlined a lesson I ran today using the book Red A Crayon’s Story by Michael Hall.