Something Up With Which I Will Not Put

Okay, so tomorrow is Hallowe'en. Which is probably why the powers that be have chosen tomorrow as my first substitute teaching job.

I'm terrified. I'll be teaching Grade 6 at the Boucherville elementary school. So, do I wear a costume? I was thinking I could go without, but tell the kids that I'm their usual teacher with a really, really convincing disguise. Or Spiderman - anything with a mask, I guess.

Picture this: 27 kids, somewhere around 11 years old, in costumes and make-up, who have spent an hour in the gym playing Hallowe'en games (including those gross-out favourites in which you deliberately stick your hand in cold spaghetti labelled "Intestines"), all excited about Trick-or-Treating to come. They have all (and I mean ALL) brought in candy from home - more candy than my kids collected on their rounds last night. Presumably, the parental thinking behind this was that their particular child could share with classmates - but since every other kid's parents thought the same thing, each kid has a massive bag of sugar to munch on steadily over the course of the day.

Final ingredient: a substitute teacher. Namely, me.

Oh, and did I mention that their regular teacher left me to assign them 3 pages of math homework due the next day? You don't understand the concept of "plaintive" until you've heard a chorus of kids shouting "but Miss, it's Hallowe'en!"

But I survived! And from what I hear from the other teachers, and from my aunt, who has been teaching elementary school for, like, ever, Hallowe'en is scary even if you're not the substitute. So, if I can get through October 31st, I can handle just about any other day.

My day started at 10:10, although I showed up about an hour beforehand to fill out the requisite forms for the school board files (scariest part of Hallowe'en? Starting the day with forms in one's second language from the federal and provincial tax people). The teacher I was replacing left a very complete set of instructions, so it was relatively easy to get through the various classes. I started in the gym, helping to supervise the activities mentioned above. Then I "helped" the 2nd Grade teacher (in other words, sat in the class while she corrected their homework with them).

It was only well after 11 a.m. that I finally met "my" class, for a half hour Religion class. Nothing too complex or oppressive, they were working on artwork they made for an anti-violence campaign. After lunch, I helped in the Kindergarten class for an hour, which was fun. The teacher had a great activity - she had a huge pumpkin on lots and lots of the brown paper that no kindergarten class should be without. The kids sat around the pumpkin and took turns pulling out the seeds and pumpkin guts. Then they had to guess how many seeds there were, and then count them all. It was great! Some of the kids were right in there, digging away, and others were squeamish, but not for long. There were 153 seeds.

Finally, I ended the day with the infamous math assignment with the Grade 6 class. We managed to do about half the assignment in class, so they didn't have quite so much homework. Plus I totally blamed their regular teacher for the homework. I definitely do not want to teach at this level on a permanent basis, but it's kinda fun to be in that environment once in a while. And the kids were not bad - one boy gave me some of his candy, a girl took my picture (brought the camera for Hallowe'en, I assume) and (this is the part that makes me happiest) the one boy that the other teachers warned me about (and I mean, low whispers in the hallway, sinister type warnings) was an angel.

My Friday was supposed to be very quiet, no plans, just a little futzing around the house in preparation for the weekend. Then Dina e-mailed me to invite me to lunch at the world's smallest Indian restaurant. So, okay, there's a plan.

Then, on a whim, I did a quick check of all the CEGEP web-sites to see if there were ant changes to the job postings - there were. Vanier and Dawson have posted openings, and the deadline for applications for Dawson was, you guessed it, November 15th (for the calendrically challenged, that's the same day).

So suddenly I find myself in a wild dash, printing CVs and cover letters, finding my transcript and student evaluations, using white-out to cover up the red wine that had been spilled on the transcript, getting dressed, etc. Rushed out the door, hopped on the Metro (see Aside, below), got off at Atwater, got big envelopes at the pharmacy, made photocopies of the relevant docs, stuffed these into the envelopes, ran across the street to Dawson and promptly got lost.

It would have been easier if not for all these teenagers just, like, hanging around.

Finally tracked down the HR department, dropped off my stuff, got back on the Metro and headed up to Ericssonville to do lunch. After lunch, I got a mini-tour of Dina's workplace, and met a bunch of the people she works with, who all seem very nice and are still friendly with Dina, even after all these months ;) Then Dina was extremely nice and drove me to Vanier, where I dropped off the second application. We made a quick stop at Costco (okay, truthfully it was a very long, loads of fun, stop, but quick in the sense that we managed to leave with a grand total of two items each) then spent the rest of the afternoon lounging around my place, drinking tea.

It's been a while since we had any exclusively girl time, so it was very nice to be just the two of us for a few hours. Needless to say (which is why I'm saying it anyway), if one or both of these CEGEP opportunities bears fruit, the next lunch is on me, Dina.

Aside
I always feel a great sense of relief when I get to the Metro platform. No matter how late, early or punctual I am up to that point, once I get there, it's out of my hands.

Today began a little too early, with a phone call from the school in Boucherville. I got to be the gym teacher! It's always nice to work in sweats. I had a good day, a lot of good kids, and three of them told me I was beautiful.

Does it count as MILF status if the kids are too young to know what the F means?

I got home, made myself a nice cuppa, and went through my e-mail, which included a message from Elizabeth about a job posting she got. I read the post, decided it was something I was interested in, and sent in my CV around 3 p.m.

At 3:45, the phone rang - it was the woman doing the hiring, who wanted to meet me. Half an hour later I was in her office (please note, this means not only did I make it back across the bridge to Brossard in under 30 minutes, I also had time to change from Gym Teacher to Interviewee). She had one other candidate to talk to after I left.

She called me at 5:30 to say the job was mine.

So, starting Monday, I'll be teaching an adult education course on the basics of Word, Excel and Powerpoint, two nights a week. Essentially, this is the same deal I almost got from the college in Ottawa, except that this one seems more likely to happen, and it's not in freakin' Ottawa.

Also in today's email: an interview with a Web-based learning company to teach English, and another one with a corporate learning company to do the same. And I still had time to call and arrange a meeting with the school at which Colin will be registered. Next week, he'll officially be part of the system.

To sweeten the already-scrumptious day, during the interview she gave me another job tip - apparently there's an outlying French CEGEP that's desperate for ESL teachers - and gave me names at Concordia and McGill in reference to a Certificate program in Adult Ed - in other words, I could do an abbreviated certificate, rather than the complete B.Ed., which would still make me more attractive to CEGEPs. Of course, according to my students, more attractive is not possible...

And now the hubby is on a Haagen-Daaz expedition. What more could a girl ask?

Yesterday was the graduation ceremony at ACCESS, where I've been teaching a computer class since February. Four of my students are graduating this term - from left, they are Sandee, Mary-Lynn, Krystal and Ashley.

Sandee was class valedictorian and Ashley won the Birks Gold Medal for best academic achievement. I'm so proud!! Sandee's valedictory address was beautiful, and I'm sure her classmates have no regrets in choosing her to represent them.

These four, and my other students, are such bright, creative people. Right now they're working on PowerPoint presentations (despite yesterday's ceremony, classes continue to the end of this week). I'm really impressed with their ideas - everything from Family Trees and Greek Mythology to the Best of Saturday Night Live and Customized Mountain Bikes (not together, grand total of four presentations...)

I've learned a lot from my students - for instance, last night I learned that if you eat peanut butter and then vomit, it still sticks to the roof of your mouth. Thankfully, I did not learn this the hard way, but rather heard about it.

More a propos, I learned that I really do want to continue teaching, and if my students can be believed, I may actually be good at it. I will miss them all tremendously. Sniff, sniff.

From the 'Evil Henchmen Guide', How to Be a Villain:

Mean English Teachers
These sadistic henchmen are perfect for when you want to inflict the greatest amount of pain possible. They are arrogant, humorless, and ridiculously strict, insulting their pupils intelligence because they couldn't become writers themselves. They can extinguish any sense of creativity once held by an individual, as well as transform previously enjoyable literary works into nightmares of horror and confusion. Their monotonous tones are capable of driving even the sanest person to the brink of insanity, useful when you are in need of a torture master. Long after a child has grown up and become a hero, the sign of a mean English teacher continues to cause fear and discomfort.

Other henchmen possibilities
Classic thugs
Mutants Robot warriors
Ninjas (winners of the Henchmen of the Year award more than any other group)
Aliens
Demented clowns
Computer programmers
Winged monkeys
The undead

So, in December I applied to McGill to do a BEd, which would make me qualified to teach at the high school level. I applied on-line, sent in all the relevant documents, and sat back to wait.

Now, granted, there is a disclaimer on the site that says there may be delays, up to three weeks, especially in the spring.

I got my acceptance yesterday.

Naturally, given that I now have a teaching job lined up for September, I declined the acceptance. Perhaps I should have given them more time before I accepted the job with Champlain, but I figured that five and a half months was more than sufficient. And that was three weeks ago.

Ah well, it's still nice to know that I was accepted.

"Maggie, I'm writing a letter of recommendation for a student. How do you spell 'narcolepsy'?"

So there's a pile of paper on my desk - no, make that several piles. Unsorted piles. There are essays awaiting comments, grammar exercises awaiting corrections, corrected texts awaiting marks, oral presentation summaries awaiting review, and one or two administrative memos awaiting ignoring. This is why, of course, I'm blogging.

The end of the semester is right around the corner, and I feel like I've taught my students nothing. Some of them may actually know less than they did in September.

My Intro course, which finishes in a month and a half, still has to get through the Scottish play AND the elements of poetry, not to mention figure out how to stop writing so many comma splices. My Canadian Women Writers course, if yesterday's orals are any indication, may stretch into February - the guidelines clearly said 15 to 20 minutes, so two groups presenting yesterday should have taken maximum 40 minutes, right? (See, I can do math) Together, the two presentations took 90 minutes. 90! There are six more presentations. I may call in sick.

As for my Prep (ESL) group, well, some of them are actually doing really well - but others are still approaching college the way they did high school, but with fewer restrictions. I have to admit, as a group they are demonstrating some improvement, both in language skills and behaviour. It's been a while since I left the classroom thinking "Now that's exactly why I don't teach secondary." On the other hand, I confess I was a little dismayed to kind I've been given the Prep Plus course next semester - the class in which all my current Prep students end up if they can't pass this semester's class.

The good news is, my goldfish plant is blooming.

According to a student essay I was marking yesterday, "a whooping 50%" of Americans support the pro-choice option.

Today's essay gem:

If marijuana were legalized, students "would defiantly have a hard time learning."

So there.

In response to "Why has Macbeth 'almost forgot the taste of fear'?" one student wrote that the witches' prophesies made Macbeth believe he was "invisible."

Why would anyone resist living in denial? In denial, I am tall and thin and my hair always looks great. Also, my nose is just like Nicole Kidman's, but better.

In denial, the snow fluttering past my office window is not accumulating on my car, and my car will never die (nor will I, for that matter).

In denial, all the coffee I drink is good for me.

In denial, it's only a matter of time before the American citizenry collectively storms Capitol Hill and drags the Bush League out of the West Wing, unanimously declaring Bill Clinton (or Colin Powell or Oprah Winfrey or Jon Stewart or Big Bird) in charge "at least 'til we figure out what the heck our foreign policy is."

In denial, all of my students will have epiphanies in their sleep the night before the exam, and awake with fresh, permanent insight that allows them to coherently analyse literature without any comma splices or sentence fragments.

In denial, the approximately 125 papers on my desk were magically marked by the Grammar Gnomes overnight, and this morning I can relax, put on some perfectly legal tunes, and catch up on my reading.

Sigh.

In a few minutes, I'm off to school. This week, however, I'm on the other side of the desk. That's right, the teacher has become the student.

This semester I'm taking the first course in the Performa program, which will eventually lead me to a Master's in Education (one day, I'll be a B.A.M.A.M.Ed.). What's neat about this particular program is that it's designed and taught by CEGEP teachers, for CEGEP teachers.

Today I get to make a presentation to the class - a concept map on the idea of 'effective teaching.' That's right - I did my homework!

Next week, it's back to school for real - and this semester, I get to try all my newfangled ideas out on actual students. Muahahaha!

One of the on-going assignments I'll be working on for the course I'm taking is a journal. Apparently, the journal is something I'll continue working on in subsequent courses.

Our first journal assignment was to write about knowledge - we've been talking about the term in class. Some writers in the field of education think of knowledge as the bottom chunk in the Maslow-esque learning pyramid. For instance, one such writer posits that student first know facts, then understand these facts, then apply the facts to given problems in a given context, and finally recognize when the application of these facts is required in a new situation given out of context.

Anyway, for the sake of nothing in particular, I give you my first journal entry...

So I'm teaching this course on playreading - kind of an intro to drama, bit of theatrical history, literary analysis, production, yada, yada, yada. So naturally, we've started with Agamemnon and Oedipus.

What is it with these people? If they're not killing each other, they're eating each other's children, baked in a pie. Alternatively, they're boffing swans, bulls, shafts of golden light, each other, each other's spouses...

Of course, the real question is, can I justifiably use the title of this post in the classroom?

Journal two - reflections on the Cegep system - includes link to new Ministerial suggestions for making the system better.

Journal three - reflections on Marcia Baxter Magolda's theoretical framework of knowledge - obviously, I can't reproduce her work here, but I have included a link to a review of the book in question.

The fourth journal assignment for the course I'm taking asks us to reflect on a teacher who acted as a mentor - we're supposed to think about what this person did, how we felt, and how we've grown as a result.

A few years ago at a one-day motivational teaching seminar, the group leader asked us all to imagine a dinner table, around which were the people who've most influenced our lives. He then asked 'how many of you had at least one teacher at the table?'

Everyone raised their hand - except me.

Maybe it's just a question of what you think a mentor is - for me, a mentor is someone who makes you feel as though s/he has taken a special interest in your development. While I've had many great teachers, for whom I am thankful, there is no one teacher that made me feel as though I was a special project, as it were.

After much soul searching, however, I came up with this reflection.

So my office is very tidy.

My plants are watered and all dead leaves have been trimmed.

I have despammed my blog.

I have discovered that I am silver.

Now, I am seriously considering the following must-do projects:
1. update the blog template, cuz it's spring
2. clean up my blogroll, cuz some of those people never post anyway
3. come up with something pertinent and deep to add to the debate going on over at Martine's
4. clean my boots
5. create a list of all the little activities I engage in when I really should be marking essays.

One down...

This semester I resumed the role of student for the first time in (mumble mumble) years. The experience has affected my teaching on two levels: first, through the actual content of the course, and secondly, through the experience of being a student again.

The content of the course has changed my teaching in a number of ways. I thought it might be useful to refer back to our course outline for the final journal entry � so I did:

I'm just home from my very last College Teaching class - after the class, we went out for supper. Over the course of the meal, it was revealed that I am a blogger, and several of my classmates asked for my url.

Welcome!

You'll note that the previous entry is my fifth journal entry - the others are also available, as are a couple of other reflections on this course. Just go to the Learning Curve section. If you're interested in my faculty page, there's a link in the sidebar (that's the list of links over there <== ) under the 'Stuff for Students' heading.

Well, it's been a great semester (it feels a little weird that our semester's over when there's still a month of teaching left). I look forward to seeing you all, whether at the play next month, in phase II of the course, or elsewhere! Don't forget to eat your broccoli.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that some of my classmates read my journals - and then, of course, I immediately felt guilty for not posting this entry as soon as I finished it!

This journal is for the second course in the MEd program - all the courses include a journal component, which adds a sense of consistency as well as encourages us to reflect on what we're learning and how we can use it in the classroom. So, voila - better late than never!

...

One week ago, our class attended a lecture at John Abbott with Dr. Henry Giroux, a recent emigre from the US, who now teaches at McMaster, where he holds the Global Television Network Chair in Communication Studies. Giroux, who looks at little like the love child of Woody Allen and Joey Ramone, is a fascinating mind with a lot to say, especially when it comes the the US education and political systems.

Giroux and his wife, Dr. Susan Searls-Giroux, left the States for Canada - they are actual physical manifestations of the legendary intellectual arkload of people who fled the US when the Bush league were reinstated. Yes, Virginia, they really exist.

The following journal entry is how I responded to Giroux's talk last week.

Some of you are already familiar with the following. I wanted to wait until things were official before blogging about it, for what I assume are obvious reasons.

Spring 2005: Learn that I have a full course load for the Fall 2005 semester but that it's doubtful that there will be any courses available for me in the Winter 2006 semester.

May 14: Clean up the office, store everything in a seldom-used AV closet across the hall, and come home for the summer.

May 18: On a routine surfing of relevant sites, discover that Vanier College has a last minute posting for positions in the English department.

May 19: Drop off my CV and cover letter at Vanier en route to the usual Friday lunch with Dina et al.

June 3: Get a phone call from the current coordinator of the English department at Vanier, requesting an interview.

June 7: Interview

June 9: Retrieve a phone message from same coordinator, asking me to confirm acceptance of three courses - a full course load - at Vanier for the Fall 2005 semester.

June 9: Accept

June 16: Drive to Lennoxville, say my goodbyes, and pack office into car:

Upshot: Get to live at home with husband and children!

The goodbyes were many and sad - I will miss Champlain so much! I made a lot of good friends there, and I had a great time working there. If the administration had agreed to my frequent suggestion of moving the whole shebang a mere 140 km closer to Montreal, I would still be there. As it stands, I haven't officially quit, since Vanier can't be any more definite about available courses after this coming semester. Realistically, though, I think everyone knows that this is pretty much the end of my Champlain career. Thankfully, everyone there is very supportive and understands why I have to leave.

I'm already scheduled to go back next week - the Rogue Women, a group of... well, women, who get together on a fairly regular basis to celebrate each other's birthdays, and who welcomed me immediately into their ranks when I started at Champlain two years ago, are getting together for my birthday.

Obviously, I am very happy about the new gig at Vanier. I was at Vanier as a student < mumblemumble > years ago, and I consider that time the happiest I ever was as a student. Walking onto the campus feels good. There are teachers and other staff there who were there then, who remember me and are very welcoming! I have interesting courses to teach, and the department people I've met so far are friendly and interesting.

As I've said to a few people, if I can't stay at Champlain forever, then Vanier is the place for me. Granted, there are not that many options when it comes to English Cegeps, but Vanier is at the top of my wish list - and even if there are no courses there in the Winter 2006 semester, my foot is in the door, and it's only a matter of time before I'm there permanently.

Reflections on Multiple Intelligences

Gardner�s theory of multiple intelligences makes a lot of sense to me. Over the last few years, I have become increasingly aware of distinct differences among students in terms of the different tasks and texts they enjoy, their performance in different assessments, and their individual ways of approaching specific assignments such as oral presentations.

Sigh. Time marches on. As I write this, people at Champlain are hard at work on the first week of classes. I miss the campus, I miss my colleagues, I miss my students, I miss my office. I actually dreamed that I crashed a Champlain English department meeting, and Katie wouldn't talk to me because I had left.

Classes start at Vanier next week, so I'm up to my eyeballs in calendars of various shapes and colour codes, preparing assignment schedules, reading lists and lesson plans. I dropped off my course outlines today, and checked the bookstore - two of my three book orders are filled, and the third is "on the truck." Some things never change.

My third Performa course has already begun. This one is called Instructional Strategies, and involves being video-taped twice, once presenting a course plan to my fellow students and once actually teaching. And I can't even teach naked and try to sell the video. I've already been subjected to the first round, and now I have to write a self-assessment, presumably one that makes more useful observations than "I'm now rethinking my haircut" or "well, never wearing that t-shirt again."

I really do miss Champlain - but I have to admit, it's nice being at home for the back-to-school gearing up with Colin and Robert. Robert starts kindergarten next week! All the requisite supplies are ready - not only bought, but labelled, down to the individual crayon - and we're all excited.

But, still... I have no one to throw that really annoying bumpy superball at, Zeffie! Champlainers, if you're out there, I miss you all and will be thinking of you often as I get to know my new home.

I just got through a large pile of essays, in which I found the following observation:

"The primary reason for which wrongdoers are sent to prison is to be resocialized in order to make them feet for society."

In case it was keeping you up at night:

Instructional Strategies, Journal One and, of course, Journal Two

Believe it or not, on top of the full course load + one that I'm teaching this semester, I am still doing the Masters program. This semester's course is called Instructional Strategies, and as with the first two courses, we have to prepare four journal entries.

The following is a response to Maryellen Weimer's article 'Focus on Learning,' which we read for the course. I'm still not sure if I wholeheartedly object to Weimer, or if my reaction is really just a gut response to what I perceive as her condescending tone. You can read the article first and judge for yourself, if you are so inclined.

The good news is that loads of students are asking which courses I am teaching next semester, because as one of them put it, "good English teachers are hard to find."

The bad news is, the answer is no courses at all, unfortunately.

At this stage, I will be lucky to get a single continuing education course. Every winter, for a variety of reasons, college English departments have no choice but to offer significantly fewer courses than they do in the fall. So until I get tenure - which involves a number of retirements and/or unfortunate accidents - I am pretty much out in the cold come January.

Ah, well, at least I'll be back next fall, for sure. And a few months off gives me a lot of time for planning unfortunate accidents next year's courses.

One down, three to go.

The bad news is that the class I have finished marking - marked all the finals, calculated all the grades, and submitted all the final marks for - is the smallest one, and the one for which the final essay was the shortest.

The good news is that it's also the class I took over part way through the term, so there are students who never showed up, others who just stopped coming, and a few who were more than a little cavalier about completing assignments - which means that the class average is 59.5%... OK, that doesn't sound like good news, but the good part is that it's done.

It's depressing to give a student a failing grade, even if, in one case, the student never came to class - literally - but simply didn't know enough to drop the class.

The three remaining classes, although they all have more students and longer final papers, will be (for the most part) rewarding to mark. Most of the students put a good deal of effort and thought into their final papers, reviewing drafts and outlines with me, emailing me with new ideas, and in the case of my Detective Fiction course, even writing their own stories.

So tomorrow, when I'm hip-deep in papers, remind me that I'm happy about them now.

Course number two put to bed. Grades submitted. Many, many essays read. Brain mush (that is, my brain is mush - not that the essays consisted of brain mush (only a very few of them were brain mushy)).

If nothing else, this post illustrates the effects of reading 36 essays about Canadian women writers.

Last Wednesday we began the fourth Master Teacher course, Assessment as Learning. Which means - more journal entries!!

Since the beginning of this new course, I have been rethinking my teaching philosophy. Way back in College Teaching, I formulated a philosophy based on the idea that �you can�t teach in a vacuum.� This philosophy � which I still hold to be true � states that neither teaching nor learning happens in isolation. Teachers and students must be aware of, and be prepared to exploit, prior knowledge, preconceptions, subsequent goals, and so on.

At one specific point in the last week, though, it suddenly struck me that I have a new philosophy, whether I wanted it or not. As a fan of analogy, this is how I see the birth of my new philosophy � an Ikea DIY leaflet...

My second journal entry for the Assessment as Learning course is comprised of questions upon which we were asked to reflect and my responses. The questions are about feedback and rubrics.

For the unintiated, a rubric is essentially a grid that indicates what the specific criteria are for a given assignment, cross-referenced with a description of what constitutes meeting the criteria. For instance:

So, without further ado...

So today I took a deep breath and told Dawson thanks, but no thanks.

I was offered courses for the summer, y'see. This offer was the end result of a long, painful process which began in January, stalled for a while, and culminated in a phone call from the department chair.

I then met with the chair, who, it turns out, was the comfy chair. She tried to seduce me with all that Dawson has to offer (including its proximity to my house) while at the same time impressing upon me the importance of taking anything Dawson had to offer, lest they stop calling me.

I tentatively agreed to take the two courses, since there was no guarantee that Vanier would have anything for me for the summer.

I spoke with my Vanier coordinator on Friday and while there is still no guarantee that I'll have anything this summer, I will have full-time work in the fall, and if summer courses open, I'm first in line.

Essentially, I had to make a choice, because if Vanier has summer courses it will be at the last minute, and I didn't want to pull out at the last minute with Dawson.

Thankfully, it was an easy decision - I love working at Vanier. My colleagues are awesome, my students are enthusiastic (mostly), and my mood lifts when I step onto the campus. And now I've committed myself.

I walked home from Dawson, since today the weather is fantastic. I was just past the Atwater market when I felt something warm and liquidy hit my hand - for the first time in my life, I have been shat upon by a bird. I've heard it's meant to bring the shittee good luck. So I'm taking the incident as a sign that I've made the right decision (and that whatever is out there has a twisted sense of humour, but we knew that).

I just got home from the last Assessment course and the celebratory dinner that followed. I got a lot out of this course, and I'm excited about the next one, Developmental Psychology, which starts in June.

My most recent journal entry is based on notes I made while reading Grant Wiggins' articles on assessment. Wiggins' model of assessment is PBA - performance based assessment. Although this entry is late, I decided last week that I would rather suffer the late penalty than write something sub-par; my intention, once upon a time, was to compare the two Wiggins articles with the now-infamous Ramsden, Chapter 10. I�ll start, though, with my responses to the �Thinking ahead to assessments� handout:

Yesterday was the first class session of my next M.Ed. course. This one is Developmental Psychology: The Emerging Adult. Part of yesterday's session was devoted to small group discussions in response to the following questions:

1. When did adolescence begin for you? Why did you choose this age?
2. When does adulthood begin? Why?

So I thought I'd ask you, my loyal readers, the same questions. Consider it informal research.

Keep in mind that what we're looking for here are experiential answers, not technical, clinical or legal definitions. In other words, answer according to your personal experience - when did you become an adolescent, and what emotions/events/circumstances made you feel you were no longer a child? When did you feel you were really an adult, and why? As a follow-up, do you think your parents would have different answers about themselves?

Some of the discussions we had - in class and at the supper table last night - made it clear that answers may vary according to generation and location, so try to include some chronological and regional data in your answer.

For example:
I was born in the summer of 1969. I spent my so-called formative years in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, in West Bolton. I went to elementary school in Knowlton, and high school in Cowansville. For me, adolescence began in Grade 7. Initially, my gut reaction was to link the onset of adolescence with my first period, but I started late (13), and all of my friends already had theirs (I still remember one wise old 12-year-old telling me that I'd soon wish I had never started menstruating, after all). I felt like a teenager long before I "became a woman," and a lot of the elements were in place in Grade 7. As a group, I think we felt significantly older than the rest of the elementary school we were still trapped in, and we started "going out" with boys (there was never any actual "out" to go to, of course, it was just our euphemism for "this is the guy I hold hands with at recess."). Many of the girls had started their periods. The guys were suddenly conscious of their clothing. The girls were suddenly deeply embarrassed about breaking a sweat in gym class. The way my friends thought and felt about things mattered a lot more than the way my parents saw the world; for instance, in earlier years, when my parents chose to enrol me in an immersion program, it never occurred to me to object. In Grade 7, when my mother enrolled me in the high school immersion program for the following year, I wept for days. Immersion wasn't like real high school! I would be an outcast. My mother was clearly determined to ruin my life. Sigh.

As for when adulthood starts, well, I'll save that response for another entry. Now it's your turn!

In response to my earlier post, my good friend Chris sent me the following (and agreed to have it posted) - thanks Chris!

1964 � Born Lachine, Quebec. My family then promptly moved to Winnipeg for 4 years and we then returned to Pointe Claire in 1968 where I lived until 1985. I then lived in various places in NDG until moving to Ontario in 1989.

Perhaps it is a function of being male, but I think my perceptions revolve more around large institutional or peer-group transitions than �biological� maturity as you relate. I think I would actually break down the process into several stages which I would identify with building more and more independence, which perhaps is the critical element of �adulthood� for me.

My first Developmental Psych journal entry, based in part on recent posts and comments:

After our first class, I became a little obsessed with the question �when did you become an adolescent.� I have been conducting an informal poll ever since. My sons, who are 8 and 6 years old, both said that they would be teenagers when they turned 13, because, as Colin said, �it�s thir-TEEN.� My husband and another male friend said they became adolescents when they started high school. I�m still debating whether I trace my adolescence back to the onset of menstruation or to my last year of elementary school. Perhaps our sense of one�s adolescent self is really a social construct. My mother and her sister both said that they never felt like they were teenagers. They grew up, the oldest two of six children, in Glasgow, with a lot of academic pressure � my mother started at Glasgow University at the age of 16. They both emigrated to Canada almost immediately upon graduation, and when I talked to them it seemed to me that they both felt that they had been thrown from childhood to adulthood with no real chance to adjust along the way.

Alexander Astin�s Theory of Involvement makes a lot of sense to me, not only in the context of recent class discussions, videos and readings, but also in terms of understanding my students and my own student experiences.

When I think back to my Cegep experience, I can see Astin�s theory in practice: my first attempt at Cegep ended in complete disaster, and not just academically. I finished my first semester in Pure & Applied Sciences at Champlain St-Lambert with five failed courses (including English), depression and an utter lack of motivation, a rejection of authority, and a rift with my parents that took many years to heal.

Three years later, when I started taking evening classes at Vanier, my motivation had returned. Success in those courses led me to enroll as a full-time day student. I joined the student newspaper � and school was suddenly the best place on earth. As a member of the newspaper group, I met many students in other clubs and associations, I dealt with our student politicians, I developed relationships with members of the administration, and I learned more information about my school than I knew existed.

Hello, my name is Maggie and I am a working mother.

They say that admitting the problem is half-way to solving it.

There is an essay by Margaret Atwood called �If You Can�t Say Anything Nice, Don�t Say Anything at All.� Much like Judith Warner and Anna Quindlen, Atwood�s point boils down to this: for some reason, regardless of generation and historical context, women are compelled to be Woman; i.e., we strive for some unattainable feminine ideal. Once upon a time, that meant always wearing gloves, sitting as elegantly as Jackie Kennedy, knowing how to cook the perfect pot roast, and always knowing where your vacuum bags were. Now, the perfect woman is independent, politically aware, and educated and ambitious � while still reading all those Cosmo articles about �what he really wants in bed.�

I am in the process of compiling a teaching portfolio, based on the first four M.Ed. courses in the Performa program. One component of this portfolio is my journal, including my musings on how my entries since January 2005 reflect my evolution as a teacher (or, perhaps, my intelligent design).

I would very much like to include everyone's responses to my entries - many of you have commented on a post or two, adding further insight and illumination, as well as the wisdom from your own personal experiences. I'll be contacting some of you via e-mail, naturally, but there may be some people whose addresses I don't have - so please let me know if you would prefer to have your comments omitted.

Finally, if there are any comments you considered posting but didn't, I'd be happy to include them now - just drop me a line (gmaggie@TAKETHISOUTgmail.com).

In the heart of St-Henri, in the footsteps of Jean, Florentine, Emmanuel & Rose Anna

A dozen students from my Montreal Writers class joined me for a walking tour of the St-Henri neighbourhood this morning. We have just finished reading and discussing Gabrielle Roy's The Tin Flute, which is set in this area of Montreal.

This class is one of those classes that teachers rave about. The group dynamic is positive and energizing; I love that I teach this class on Fridays - I always end the week on a high note.

Nonetheless, when I suggested a walk through St-Henri, I expected a subdued response. After all, Saturday mornings are precious - what student wants to spend one with the teacher? So I was touched, amazed, thrilled when ten students and two "guest" students showed up at the Atwater Market this morning.

We had a great time, and I think we even managed to learn a little about the area. Maybe. At the very least, we've introduced Kelvin to pumpkin pie.

So thank you, Nick, Dina, Kelvin, Matt, Rebecca, Alex, Rupal, Raihab, Balal and Gilbert - and Francesca and Tara - for reminding me how much I love my job, even on a Saturday morning.

Rebecca, by the way has graciously allowed me to share her poem, a reaction to the Dawson shooting. I've included it here.

Classes ended Tuesday!!

I just submitted final marks for one of my four courses.

Long-time readers will know what I mean when I say - tell the dog to start warming up.

Along with a full-time course load in the day section and a continuing education course this fall, I managed to squeeze in yet another M.Ed. course. This one, 'Constructing Knowledge in Your Discipline,' was intended to help us transfer some of the theoretical stuff we've been looking at to more practical, discipline-specific knowledge.

As with the other M.Ed. courses, we were asked to maintain a journal along the way; unlike past courses, I didn't post the journal this time, mainly because I felt the entries were too closely related to the research I was doing for the literature review. But since I just submitted the review, as well as the final journal entry, it occurred to me that I should post the entries, as well as the review itself, just in case anyone's interested.

Also, this post should bump the bat down the page for the benefit of those who are tired of looking at it.

So, without further ado:

Journal I: Beginning the research process

Journal II: Learning in my discipline

Journal III: Mapping the Learning Process

Journal IV: Reflections on the Research Process

Literature Review: Formative Feedback and Learning in the English Classroom

There will be a test, so remember to take good notes ;)

Philosophy of Education, Journal Entry #1

In the last few weeks, we’ve been talking a lot John Dewey, and more generally, about what we understand education to be, namely, a transmission of something from one person or group to another. We haven’t yet really tackled the question of what the something is – we’ve speculated that it may be moral or social values, which certainly seems to be the crux of Dewey’s argument, or that it may be intellectual habits of mind, which we might argue is the position of the Quebec government, as manifested in its competency-based program approach to education. Finally, that something might simply be knowledge itself.

It's at times like these - when I am faced with three separate stacks of essays that seem to grow every time I leave the room to refresh my tea - that I wonder if I should teach pottery instead.

Cup leaks. You fail.

Sigh.

Writing in 1981, Jane Roland Martin takes R.S. Peters and Paul Hirst to task for perpetuating a male perspective in the philosophy of education. Martin says that feminist scholarship must be integrated into the mainstream if we are to change this perspective to be more inclusive and accurate. Furthermore, Martin argues that beyond the male-dominated content issues, education is guilty of gender bias in terms of what we would now call the exit profile. Martin sees Peters’ “educated person” as not only one who has “grasped the basic structure” (Martin, ‘The Ideal of the Educated Person’, 101) of his respective domain, but also one who is “objective, analytic [and] rational” (102), all traits that Martin identifies as stereotypically male. The complementary stereotype, of course, is the feminine ideal of compassion, intuition and emotion.

In an essay entitled ‘If You Can’t Say Anything Nice, Don’t Say Anything At All,’ author Margaret Atwood discusses many of the concepts raised by Martin, specifically in the context of women writers.

This past semester, the M.Ed. course I took was on the philosophy of education, which turns out to be fascinating. I remember really liking philosophy in university - I did two courses in my undergrad with a remarkable teacher; I enjoyed these courses so much that I considered doing a minor in Philosphy, only to find that I couldn't stomach the professor of my third course.

The following is a paper I've submitted for the current course. The assignment was to critique an article, in this case, Stanley Fish's 'Always Academicize,' originally published last fall in the New York Times.

In ‘Always Academicize: My Response to the Responses,’ Stanley Fish’s November 2006 response to critics of his earlier post regarding the role of teachers, Fish argues that “the redress of injustice and the inculcation of … values are worthy activities, but they are not academic activities, and they are not activities academics have the credentials to perform” (par. 1). As such, Fish believes that teachers should do “the job they are trained and paid to do,” exclusively (par. 1). The questions that arise, before one can accept Fish’s dictum, are threefold: what are academic activities, what credentials are in fact required to “redress” social issues, and what is the job that teachers are paid and trained to do? To agree with Fish, one must agree with his stated or implied answers to these questions; however, this agreement is not as straightforward as Fish would have us believe.

Dynamics & Diversity in the College Classroom
Journal #1

When I read Savage’s “Establishing teacher leadership and authority,” I was reminded of some of the first instances in which I realized that teacher authority is not automatic.

Before I began my career at the Cegep level, I worked as a substitute teacher at the elementary level. I was never under any delusions about making elementary school a permanent home; I took the job in order to build up my resumé with some teaching experience. Prior to the Performa program, I had no training as a teacher, but I was able to consult with my aunt, who is an elementary school teacher. Armed with her suggestions, and the lesson plans of the teachers I was replacing, I thought I was ready. After two months of fairly regular work, I told the school to take my name of the list, and I’m ashamed to admit they were only too happy to do so. I had no control over those classes, and found myself frequently resorting to coercive authority, with very little effect. In retrospect, it’s clear that the students were quick to peg me as some one who did not merit expert authority – not only did I have no teacher training, I was asked to substitute for teachers at all levels, from Kindergarten to Grade 6, and more than once, for the gym teacher. Because I so often resorted to coercive authority, I didn’t merit any referent authority, either – in short, I was doomed!

Dynamics & Diversity, Journal #2

Jane Elliot’s exercises in prejudice and discrimination were excellent illustrations of some of the concepts we’ve been exploring recently, and how these concepts may be relevant to our classrooms. Elliot’s workshops demonstrate how social groups are affected by apparently arbitrary criteria, and how values assigned to these criteria result in a system of privilege and disadvantage that can have significant effects on the members of the society.

Fleras and Elliot (not the same Elliot) talk about the “culturally invisible environment” in North American society and make the point that racism not just about disadvantages for those members of society who are labelled as ‘different’ or ‘Other.’ Racism, more insidiously, is about the tacitly-accepted idea that those who are not different are privileged. In Jane Elliot’s classroom exercise, this concept of assumed privilege is manifested in explicit terms by Elliot’s awarding of certain unmerited privileges to the dominant group, such as extended recess time and free access to the drinking fountain. The result of this privilege is that the excluded students felt, in the words of one boy, like “a dog on a leash.”

Dynamics & Diversity in the College Classroom
Journal #3

The readings we’ve been looking at, whether their particular emphasis is on culture, gender, motivation, or discipline, all stress the aspect of caring. In fact, upon reflection, caring is central to most of the texts we’ve read in most of the courses we‘ve taken in the Master Teacher program; after all, why are we committing ourselves to the time and effort required of this program if we don’t care about our students and our work? Personally, I chose to take this program rather than pursue a PhD in English Literature, and I have no regrets whatsoever. I love my job not because I get to talk about great works of literature (believe me, that’s the last priority!), but because I get to work with some pretty fantastic students. Each semester is a new challenge and a new joy; the material may not change much from term to term, but you never teach the same student twice. Even the ones who come back for a second or third course are different each time, because they’ve undergone new experiences and learned new skills.

Last night, I put on my nice new summer dress and the shoes I keep promising I'll never wear again and headed off to Place des Arts to witness the Vanier graduation ceremony.

As I've said before, as a teacher, my success is measured in my students' achievements. So naturally, I was thrilled and more than a little proud to see so many of my former students cross the stage last night. Maria, Raihab, Sabina, Leonce, Laura, Zara, Susie, Amado, Tanika, Brandon, Monika, Anita, Howard, Inder and T.J., congratulations on a job well done! Congrats also to those of you who weren't there last night. Sniffle.

This year, I volunteered to be the English Department rep on the Valedictorian selection committee ~ and I'm now planning to be on this committee until forcibly removed. It was a genuine pleasure to meet so many students who not only made the grade (literally) but who were so enthusiastic about learning and about Vanier. I'm the kind of person who develops strong emotional bonds with buildings, it seems, and it really touched me to meet students who felt the same attachment as I do to our college.

Being on the committee also gave me the opportunity to work with our selected Valedictorian; Philip, you did a great job, and more than vindicated our decision to ask you to represent your graduating class. Sniffle.

My only complaint about last night was the lamentable lack of representation from my departmental colleagues. We're the largest department on campus, yet I was literally half our contingent last night. Perhaps this reflects the fact that the department is not included on the platform, which, given our numbers, and the ministerial and institutional emphasis on communication as a cornerstone of learning, is equally lamentable. Granted, many platform party members told me that it's no picnic being up on stage, under the hot lights, for two hours, with specific instructions not to fan themselves or otherwise inadvertently indicate boredom; but frankly, that's easy to say when you're already part of the party, if you see what I mean. Suffice it to say that I think the English department should (a) lobby to be included in the platform party and (b) encourage its members to attend the graduation ceremony, so we can demonstrate to our students just how much it means to us that they've made it.

After all, if they've made it, we've done our job.

Sniffle.

Tonight was "meet the teacher" night at the boys' school; naturally, as a teacher (not to mention an overeager student) I went prepared with a series of questions designed to (a) help me understand what my children would be learning, and how, and why, and (b) establish me in their teachers' minds as 'that annoying mum who keeps interrupting my presentation with endless questions about skills and assessments.' Mission accomplished.

Before we even got to the teachers themselves, though, there was a general assembly of parents to elect the parent representatives to the Board of Governors. This is a group of parents, teachers and administrators that meets once a month to discuss pertinent issues and make decisions for the school on behalf of all the interested parties. I offered myself as a nominee because one administrator cornered me as we were assembling and said "we really want you."

Okay, so I'm a sucker.

So, I raised my hand, and my name went up on the board, along with seven other parents, some of whom had previous Board experience, and another couple of newbies. Since there are only six parent reps, one of whom is already in place, we had to vote for the five available positions ~ which meant that all of us nominees had to campaign, in the sense that we had to say a few words to justify our nomination. So I mentioned that not only did I have two kids in the school, and that I had volunteered for a few other things in the past, but that I was a college teacher and was studying for an M.Ed., and could thus bring a unique perspective to the Board.

Apparently, that was enough to get me elected to the Board, and subsequently, the Board itself has appointed me as the alternate sector rep, which means that once a month I might be asked to go to yet another meeting, this time with parent reps from other schools in our area, if the actual rep can't make it.

All of this means that I have a chance to get to know the inner workings of the school a little better, and can add my voice to issues that directly affect my children's education.

More importantly, obviously, is the fact that people voted for me in a school election.

In your face, 1986 prom committee!!

Last spring, I encountered a case of plagiarism in one of my Cont. Ed. courses; for an essay assignment, a student submitted a slightly reworded version of an on-line essay available through one of the many Internet study guide sites. At the time, I posted my response, which provoked a few cheers from some of you.

The following addresses the issue of academic ethics in the context of the Internet, and is my first journal entry for the latest M.Ed. course I'm taking, 'IT and the College Classroom.' There's also an interesting thread dealing with academic ethics over on Siobhan's blog, so if you can still stand looking at your screen once you're done here, go check it out.

The advent of the Internet has had a profound effect on education, and this effect is both positive and negative. In positive terms, the Internet has exponentially expanded our academic horizons. We have access to research and commentary from fellow academics from around the world. We can read out-of-print books, see rare film adaptations, and hear long-forgotten radio plays, thanks to the ongoing global academic effort to share more and more knowledge among more and more people. The academy in particular, perhaps, benefits from the same non-profit-oriented open source spirit that has given us free software such as Open Office, Linux and Moodle.

IT in the College Classroom
Journal #2

As a long-time user of IT, I consider myself an early adapter and a skilled user, at least compared to non-professional IT experts! My mother was a computer programmer in the 1960s, and we had a computer at home while I was still in high school, so I have been surrounded by, and comfortable with, IT for a long time. As such, I tend to be a member of the “if it’s IT-based, it must be better” school – if we can toss something on-line, and make it more widely accessible, then why not? I haven’t changed my mind about the immense benefits and awesome potential of IT; however, I have learned to be more aware of the pedagogy that informs my IT designs, and to consider whether or not the IT tools that I am comfortable with are the best ones for the job.

So on Thursday, one of my classes had to hand in their rewritten essays. Naturally, a few people didn't show up, presumably under the (mistaken) impression that if I don't see them, I don't notice that their papers are not on time.

Ten minutes into the class period, there's a knock on the door. I open the door to find one of the missing students, who hands me her paper, coughs, and then says she can't stay because she has bronchitis, but she wanted to get her paper in.

So yes, kudos for demonstrating that you respect my deadlines and take my class seriously, but I'm not sure about the whole pulmonary infection thing. Also, I believe this is your plague rat.

*I have a leftover, unopened roll of rockets from Hallowe'en that goes to the person who first correctly identifies the reference in the title.

So we're nearing the end of the semester, which means piles of correcting, as always. This semester I feel like I'm actually on top of things, which is a good feeling, let me tell you.

Of course, when you're on top of things, you have to be careful to stay balanced, lest you tumble off and get smothered...

As always, one of the minor joys of all this correcting is the inadvertent laughs provided by typos and other unintentional errors. For instance, I'm reading an essay now, written by one of my Intro students on Raymond Carver's 'Cathedral.' The student states that the lesson of the story is "don't be sterotypical or jugdemental."

Jug-de-mental... hee!

As a follow-up to the previous post, may I present:

As of noon today, my semester is done - every last essay corrected, every straggler accounted for, and every grade calculated. Yay!

It's been a strange semester. It began abruptly and unpleasantly, because the day after I learned that I had a full-time daytime course load, my grandmother passed away. This was less than a week before the term started, which means I was frantically getting course material together - and then the funeral happened on the second day of the semester. I taught my first course the day before the funeral with almost no preparation and while completely distracted, and had to call on a colleague to fill in for me on the day of the funeral, so I missed Day 1 with two of my classes.

I felt not quite on track for about a month, and I never really felt at ease with my first group.

On the other hand, my 101 course worked really well this term. In the winter term, the 101 groups tend to be volatile. The students are in an Intro course, but it's the second semester - which means either that they failed the first time around, or they're starting their first year halfway through. Either way, these groups often feel not quite right. In fact, although there were 27 students registered in my course right up to the end, nine or ten of them stopped coming to class altogether by the last month of the semester. The group that remained, however, was enthusiastic and did some great work.

Next fall, for the first time ever, I don't have a 101 course. I'll be teaching two sections of my genre course on Formula Fiction and one theme course for Liberal Arts. I'm pretty happy with this assignment, although I am a little concerned about the 2009 winter term, and whether or not I'll have enough CI (the calculation of my individual workload) to have a complete year. Not only does this CI matter in terms of salary - if I fall below a certain CI, I get paid rather a lot less - but also in terms of tenure. The 2007-2008 year is the first full year for me at this college, and I need another one to qualify for the next level up the ladder.

Wake up!

Anyway, right now I'm focusing on making some minor adjustments to the Formula Fiction course (I taught it this winter and it worked very well, so the adjustments are really very minor) and making some major ones to the Liberal Arts course. I've been collaborating with the teacher who gets the Liberal Arts group in the following semester*, and we're coming up with some really exciting ideas. We may also be plotting a coup, but that's the kind of thing that happens when you plan courses while under the influence.

If you made it this far in the post, you get a reward - my new favourite student essay typo: according to one student in my Formula Fiction course, Bridget Jones is "in a retaliation ship" with her boss.

Admit it - don't you sometimes feel that you're in a retaliation ship?

*Incidentally, this is the same angel who came to my rescue at the beginning of the term when I was in funereal dire straits. She is officially my favourite colleague EVER. :D

Constructing Knowledge Across the Disciplines, Journal 3

Constructing Knowledge Across the Disciplines is the last full course before I begin preparing my research project next fall. The ideas to which we’ve been exposed in this course have implications, for me, not only in terms of interdisciplinary studies, but also as fundamental precepts upon which we can build a stronger system. From the beginning of this course, I have felt at home with the idea of interdisciplinarity, not least because general education courses, such as English, fit so neatly into an interdisciplinary Cegep. In fact, in many ways, the best part of the course is the fresh ammunition (to expand on Klein’s geopolitical metaphor) I bring to the fight for general education courses. I sometimes feel that the powers that be have forgotten the importance of general education courses, despite the essential role of such courses in the epistemological framework within which the Cegep system operates. Every once in a while, a new ominous rumour circulates that “they” are toying with the idea of eliminating some or all general education requirements; naturally, such speculation worries me for personal job security reasons, but beyond that, I genuinely believe in the value of general education courses at the college level, and it concerns me that students may one day be without them.

A few semesters ago, when reflecting on the Assessment as Learning course, I realized I had been fundamentally changed as a teacher by the experience. That course made me rethink my approach not only to individual assessments, but to course design, program planning, and departmental alignment. The effect has been longstanding; in fact, I have convinced my department that rather than focusing on whether or not we give the same mark for an essay, we should be examining how consistent we are, as a group, when it comes to feedback. I sense the same profound change with this course. I have embraced the idea of interdisciplinarity, and in particular, the idea of collaborative curriculum planning.

Generally speaking, general education teachers in the English Cegep system are accustomed to a great degree of autonomy. Unlike our counterparts in the French system, or our colleagues in certain other departments, we have a great deal of freedom when it comes to course content and planning. Our MELS objectives and standards are relatively vague and flexible, so we can essentially do what we want as individual teachers. There are, obviously, certain parameters determined by our colleges and departments within which we develop our courses, but as long as our course outlines fulfil the given criteria, we are left to our own devices. As a result, students have many options when it comes to choosing their genre (102) and theme (103) courses – for example, according to the 2007-2008 course catalogue at Vanier, students could choose from 26 theme courses, and 31 genre courses. In short, there’s not a lot of collaborative course design happening.

As a direct result of my work in this course, I am now deliberately seeking out collaborations with teachers both within the English department and in other areas. For instance, next fall I will teach the third-semester Liberal Arts English course, and in preparing the course, I have been working with my departmental colleague who teaches the fourth-semester course. Not only has this teamwork helped me immensely in planning my course, but I feel that we have defined a coherent whole, so that our students will see connections between the work they do in the fall semester and new material in the winter. My colleague and I are planning assessment projects that span the two semesters, and are looking for ways to share on-line interactive resources, and we’re planning course material that reflects the connections we’ve identified. Although our courses might be considered quite different, once we thought about it in terms of Beane’s organizing centre, we realized that both courses share a desire to consider literature from unconventional perspectives. Now that we’ve had our “great idea,” things are falling into place, and we both feel very confident that in the next few years we’ll refine this package, and may even be able to engage in some team teaching in the classroom – and in the meantime, we can at least make it clear to our students that we’re working together to make two courses more rewarding for them.

I am also hoping to take the preliminary course design that I developed with my simulation teammates and develop a complete course that can be offered at Vanier. I will be proposing this idea to our dean in the coming weeks, and if I get the green light, I’ll solicit input from teachers in our healthcare departments and computer programs. I don’t know that team teaching is likely at this stage, but perhaps if the course goes ahead and is well-received, the next logical step will be taken, and teachers from the disciplines will participate in the classroom. Ultimately, this course can indeed be a model for other Block B English courses, and perhaps be adapted for Humanities courses as well.

The CKAD course has been a very rewarding one for me. Now I need to take this new interdisciplinary perspective and change the system – after summer vacation, obviously .

Yes, it's that time again - I am now into the research cycle of the M.Ed., which includes the course I'm taking this semester. Our first assignment was to reflect on the ethics of a case study conducted in the USA in the 1960s.

Robert Rosenthal and Lenore F. Jacobson’s experiment on self-fulfilling prophesies, in the late 1960s, led educators to reflect on their “attitudes and behaviour towards students,” and inspired further research into the impact of teacher attitude and the concept of the self-fulfilling prophesy. Four decades later, however, such an experiment might not get past an academic ethics committee, despite what appear to be significant and desirable effects in the field.

A few minutes ago, I updated my facebook status as follows: Maggie quit two jobs in two days, and feels AWESOME.

Panic has ensued, which, in a weird way, makes me feel loved. I think I have issues.

But my friends and I aren't getting any younger, and I don't want to stress anyone's system more than necessary, so an explanation is in order.

I should start by saying that I did NOT quit my actual job, as a college English teacher. In fact, for those who missed that announcement a couple of weeks ago, I just got tenure, so I'm not going anywhere for a while.

I should also amend my original statement, in the sense that I didn't actually "quit" anything:

Job #1: Content expert for the development of an on-line/distance education English Literary Genres course
I was hired for this almost three years ago, and at the time, was faced with no teaching for the winter semester, and no real guarantee of full-time teaching in the following semesters. This contract seemed like the perfect stop-gap - it involves taking one of my pre-existing courses, and developing the content, assessments and pedagogy for a self-directed learning package. Since I wasn't teaching in the winter, I'd have plenty of time to write content, create assessments and the accompanying tutor/marker guides, and so on.

Ah, the best laid plans...

The project director was hired by another institution, so my direct manager was promoted, and a new manager was hired. Naturally, this whole management shift took a while, and all the ongoing projects had to shift their timelines to compensate - so all of a sudden I was being asked for lots of work, but about six months had gone by - and I was teaching full-time, fall and winter. I panicked - but the new project manager was very understanding, and we compromised by hiring a co-author.

This was great, particularly since the person we hired was a spectacularly competent friend I know from Vanier, and she was looking for work she could do from home so that she could justify extending her time at home with her son, beyond her mat leave.

For the winter semester, this worked fairly well - but I still found myself checking the caller ID on my phone, nervous that it was the project manager calling to remind me of deadlines or outstanding course elements; I got nervous when I checked my email for the same reason. I spent a lot of my summer "vacation" working and worrying about the project - in fact, I spend a significant number of hours on one section of the final chapter, only to be told that none of the material was necessary, since it had been covered elsewhere by my co-author.

Suffice it to say that my stop-gap had turned into a big ball of stress.

So yesterday I called my co-author and asked her how she'd feel about taking on all of the remaining work, with the remaining money, obviously. Turns out she was thrilled to have a bit more work while she's still at home with her son. I called the project manager, and while I suspect she was not entirely surprised, she was very understanding, and tada, it's done.

I'm still involved in the sense that I will be available as a consultant while my co-author works on the remaining material, and that I'll review the entire course when it's, well, entire, so in that sense, I did not "quit." But I quit!

Job #2: Chairman of the Board

Two years ago, I was encouraged to become a member of the Governing Board for my sons' elementary school. I accepted the nomination, and was elected (to a two-year term as a parent representative) by the parents on hand at the first school gathering of the year.

Now, as a former high school outcast, being elected to anything at school is, like, wow. You like me!

Initially, this added commitment meant an evening meeting once every month, which wasn't too arduous, even if it did mean limiting myself to one glass of wine with supper, instead of getting roaring drunk, like the rest of the week. But then last fall, our chairperson was not re-elected, much to everyone's surprise, given that she'd been chair for years.

Another parent nominated me as chair, and I accepted that nomination too (I know, I bring it all on myself really. I can't say "no." That's how I ended up with the two sons in the first place). I was acclaimed (which is really cool, except that no one else wanted it, so, well...)

Again, this wasn't a particularly arduous position - a little more prep time before the monthly meeting, but that was spent with the principal, who is an awesome lady, and whose educational/global philosophy is just like mine, but more articulate.

But then, at the beginning of 2009, the school board announced a Major School Change consultation. Anytime you've heard some lunatic ranting on CBC/NPR about the school board and the government threatening to close schools, change programs, move students, etc., that's Major School Change. As the Governing Board, we have to attend meetings with the school board, meet with other schools' GBs, draft proposals, consult our fellow parents, and so on.

Ack!

This was, quite literally, not what I signed on for.

Now, as it happens, my two-year term as a parent rep is up, and I would have to be re-elected to continue on the GB. So I sent the principal an email and said, as nicely as I could, that I was not going to accept the nomination this time. So, technically, I did not quit, I just didn't seek re-election. But I quit!

Jobs #3, 4, 5 and 6: the ones I didn't quit
~ I'm still teaching full time, and loving it - three courses, 120 students... but I'll write more about that some other time.

~ I'm getting ready to present my proposal for my M.Ed. research. I'll be gathering data this fall, and writing my thesis next winter.

~ I'm also preparing and heading a project for our Liberal Arts program, with the aim of creating a more interdisciplinary and coherent program.

~ Despite all my other commitments, my family hasn't kicked me out, so there's the whole wife and mother thing.

So, yes, I am a free(er) woman. Maybe I'll even have time to blog :)

The new semester is about to start, and I am ready. More or less.

I tend to be among the first to order text books, prepare course packages, and submit course outlines. I respect deadlines. I like to know that the "big" prep is taken care of, and that I won't be frantically making copies ten minutes before class begins, or trying to find texts to work with for two weeks while the bookstore tries to track down my last-minute order.

(All of this is notwithstanding unforeseen and uncontrollable issues, such as being assigned courses after the deadline to submit orders, or publishers who discontinue a text but don't inform their customers, or unscheduled machine maintenance at the printshop that takes two weeks... all of which I have experienced firsthand.)

I also spend about a day planning the schedule of major assignments for each course, from which I reverse engineer the reading schedule, and then the quiz schedule, and so forth. This is actually one of my favourite parts to getting ready for the term - I can see the whole semester, planned and precise, and I feel ready. I know where we're going to be by the end, and the path to get there is clear.

Here's where the "more or less" comes in...

It's usually right after I plot the semester, and have that little glow of readiness, that panic sets in - what did I forget? Is there a ped day/holiday/scheduling glitch that I have overlooked? Is there some personal commitment that I have now scheduled a heavy correcting load on top of? Have I scheduled too much? Not enough?

The next wave of panic comes along about then, when I try to figure out how to cope with the first two or three classes (I am convinced I have written about that minefield already, but I cannot find the entry...) and stay on schedule, as opposed to doing next to nothing for a week and a half and then playing catch-up for the next fourteen weeks.

And, as usual, the final wave of panic - how to keep the semester on track despite all the other things I'm trying to juggle? Things are winding down with one project, but I'm submitting my research proposal today for my M.Ed., which means (fingers crossed) collecting and analysing data this semester, and then there's the Liberal Arts curriculum project - I love this project, but so far it keeps getting pushed back onto that back burner by things like cegep a distance and major school change. This semester, though, it has to be front and center.

I'm ready... more or less.