Isn’t it always that we think these new steps we take, new eras that we enter, will last forever? Or even, if we are attempting to be realistic, that their ends are so far off that, when newly undertaken, we don’t consider that we might not always enjoy them? So it has been for me […]
Read more "Homecoming"In a facilitator’s guide for Collaborative Inquiry for Educators, Jenni Donohoo presents the formation of professional learning communities as a means of addressing “adaptive challenges,” or those “for which the necessary knowledge to solve the problem do not yet exist” (Vander Ark, 2006 p 10). Many aspects of professional development seeks to approach these types […]
Read more "Why Collaborative Inquiry?"Following the acrimony of our recent job action in BC schools, I’m inclined to take stock of what may be considered ‘wins’ in an otherwise defeating series of events. Having seen the government come to the terms that it did in the end, it’s hard not to feel that the major motivation Peter Fassbender and Christy […]
Read more "Professional Autonomy and Development"Melanie Stokes is a colleague of mine who forwarded me this letter that she submitted to the Vancouver Sun to share here. As teachers are now in their second week of full job action, it may be important to consider the reasons why this situation is happening now. Over the last thirty years, society […]
Read more "Guest Post: Letter from a Colleague"Yesterday at lunch a group of Gleneagle Music students gathered in our band room to share a jam with the K12 distributed web radio station 105 the Hive. Our hope is that in the coming Thursdays we will be able to build an audience of listeners throughout the school, and beyond. There are some pics […]
Read more "The Return of the Lunchtime Jam"Many thanks to Max Cooke for inviting me to lend a voice to the Canadian Education Association‘s series on Innovation in Education, where I offered a story about the evolution of my guitar class, as inspired by retired Gleneagle drama teacher Richard Dixon. As a mode of teaching, Richard transcended innovation and went about continually inventing his classroom environment […]
Read more "CEA Guest Post: My Guitar Class is more than a Class"A few colleagues at my school and I are looking to arrange a simple format that will allow a group of committed teachers to drop in on one another’s classes – either while on prep time or covered by another staff member – and to basically know that if our colleagues’ doors are open and […]
Read more "Sharing Classroom Practice"Among the more ambitious spontaneous projects I’ve attempted as a teacher, the 30 Person Rock Band project came out of a conversation with my guitar class about what our next endeavour should be: songwriting, another recording of individual or group progress, a performance, or… something a little bigger. Something we’ll discover as we go, together. […]
Read more "The Thirty Person Rock Band"Watch the video above to hear the songs & match them with their composers below: You can listen, and download each of the songs on Gleneagle Music’s SoundCloud page: “Talons Pride” by Conrad Chow “Gleneagle” by Hannah Park “Go Talons Go” by Jeff Huggins, Sam Naso and Kyle Araki
Read more "Vote for finalists in the Write Gleneagle's Anthem Contest"Cross posted on the Music at Gleneagle Blog
Read more "The Spring Concert, live on Twitter"