Day 14: Catherine Tenhage, Special Needs ERF (Massey St. P.S)

Pretty proud to call this amazing educator a colleague

Peel21st Project 188

WHAT I LEARNED TODAY!

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I am Catherine Tenhage, a Special Needs ERF at Massey St. P.S.; and a life long learner! I learned today that the dynamics of our “teaching teams” are not so very different from the
dynamics of our students and classrooms.

Our start to the new year of learning has been insightful, challenging and full of the usually
beginning classroom jitters. We have began with a gusto, looking to make good first
impressions. Our get to know each other games, and activities have quickly revealed a broad
range of personality, emotions, learning strengths and weaknesses. Not only in our students;
also in us as staff. I saw that we are so very much just “bigger” students. This hit me particularly
during our new principal’s “starter” activity at our first staff meeting. Thanks, Kathy!

We have had a large turn over of staff this year, and the activity…

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Day 10: Angelo Cariati, Instructional Coach (CBO)

Peel21st Project 188

WHAT I LEARNED TODAY!

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Hello! My name is Angelo Cariati (mr_cariati) and I am an Instructional Coach. I have the pleasure of working at four schools this year: Sir William Gage, Queen Street, Ridgeview and Copeland Public School. Simply put, I love to learn.

This school year so far has been a year of new: New role, new superintendency, new area, new schools and a new beard. As such, there’s been a lot of adjusting and, consequently, new learning. Today, I was the new student and I learned that you’re never too old for the first day of school jitters.

It was my first co-planning session with teachers that I’ve only corresponded with (and follow on Twitter). We new of one another but didn’t meet officially until today. It was the first time in almost a year that I didn’t hear “Hi Mr. C!” upon walking…

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Day 11: Lindsay Freedman, ASD Teacher (Red Willow Public School)

Peel21st Project 188

WHAT I LEARNED TODAY!

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Hi there! My name is Lindsay Freedman. I am teaching a contained Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) class at Red Willow P.S. This is my sixth year teaching, my fifth year at Red Willow and my third year teaching a contained class.

Being in special education is not for everyone. When people ask me what I teach and I tell them about my classroom I tend to get the same comments: “You must be really patient”, “I don’t know how you do it” or my favourite, “It takes a certain type of person to do that”. I usually just respond with “It’s not for everyone, but I love it”. The thing about special education is that every day, in fact every moment can be entirely different. You need to be adaptable to your students, your team and be able to go with the flow. But…

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Day 4: Shivonne Lewis-Young, Grade 3 Teacher (Massey Street Public School)

Today was my turn to share my thoughts on the Peel Project 184 blog (soon to be renamed Project 198 to reflect the number of school days in Peel this year). When I remembered it was my day I thought, “what could I have possibly learned in four days?” Well the truth is I’ve learned a lot about myself this week and the importance of not making assumptions.

I love this project and I really hope that more Peel Partners are inspired to write for it! Check it out and sign up!

Peel21st Project 188

What I Learned Today

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My name is Shivonne Lewis-Young and I teach grade 3 at Massey Street Public School. I love the 3C’s – coffee, chocolate and my children.

I am in my eleventh year of teaching. I’ve felt very fortunate to have a variety of teaching experiences from Kindergarten including pre and post FDK, combined grades, 1-3 and ESL where I supported grade 1-5. In my eleven years I have never taught the exact same grade 2 years in a row. I’ve always wondered how colleagues taught the same grade year after year and wondered how they were not bored. I almost did with FDK. I started the year but left in February to go on leave with my second child. So I am quite use to change and understand that naturally each school year would look quite different from the rest.

I was assigned grade 3 again for…

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Day 1: Tony Pontes, Director of Education (Peel District School Board)

Inspiring first day message from our PDSB Director

Peel21st Project 188

WHAT I LEARNED TODAY.

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Dear colleagues,

Happy New (school ) Year!  I hope you are as excited as I am about the start of another great year.

My name is Tony and I work at the HJA Brown Education Centre.  I love to play golf and tennis and to hike through beautiful terrain.  This summer my family went skydiving.  Notice I said, my family, not me – I was the official photographer with both feet on the ground!  I also love to see staff get excited when they see their students succeed.

And that is where all Peel staff come in.  Peel is blessed to have dedicated, caring staff who, every day, inspire success, confidence and hope in each student.

Over the past year, we’ve made great strides in setting a directional vision for and in using technology in the classroom to boost student engagement.  In fact, we’re recognized around…

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Day 20: Shivonne Lewis-Young and Phil Young, Teachers (Peel District School Board)

Final thoughts on the June Peel project 184

Peel21st Project 188

That’s All for This Year, But #peel21st184 Will Be Back in September

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I am writing this entry on behalf of Phil Young and myself. The purpose of this post is to wrap up the pilot of the Peel 21^st 184 Project and thank all of the awesome bloggers who contributed this past June.  As mentioned in the first post this project was born from George Couros and the Parkland School Division Project 184.  George had called for presenters for the PDS project 184 and I had responded to his tweet that if he was ever taking out of district writers I would love to participate. He made a comment that he would really like to see a project started in Peel.  After discussing it over coffee and planning one evening it was born.  It really was  a team effort of tweets back and forth between Phil and…

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Day 12: Gillian Raymond, Library, ISSP and Grade 3 Teacher (Massey Street PS)

Proud of this entry! Written by one of my very own colleagues and friends. Track and Field was another great Massey event. I was proud of the staff who pulled together to make this happen!

Peel21st Project 188

What I learned today

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Today I learned something that I keep learning, and then forgetting, and re-learning. Today I learned that sometimes we all need to just play together and have fun, and it’s more than OK to do this at school. It’s necessary to build community and develop relationships with people we may not talk to every day, even though we all share a common space for 6 or more hours each day.

We had our annual Massey Track and Field day today, and it was a blast, like it always is! Students were so excited to have the opportunity to excel in areas outside of their classrooms, and we were all happy to be outside enjoying our gorgeous schoolyard. I was helping out at the sprinting events, and the number of time we had false starts was incredible, now that I think of it, but sharing a laugh…

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Day 10: Hazel Mason, Superintendent (Central Peel, Judith Nyman & Turner Fenton Families)

I can relate to this in so many ways! I love to teach with technology and I’m always willing to try new things but when it comes right down to it I have no idea what I’m doing 🙂

Peel21st Project 188

What Did I Learn Today?

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I learned today that even when your printer looks like it is broken, it might just need to a maintenance check run on it.

My home printer has been acting up and because I am the 21^st Century Teaching and Learning lead, everyone just assumes that I know everything there is to know about technology. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am what Fullan would call a “Lead Learner.” Every day I am constantly learning more about technology and what it can do.

I complained to my oldest daughter, who is much more of a tech wiz than I, that I was having trouble with my printer. She asked if I had run a maintenance check on it and I think I just got a glazed look. Right now she is on Mat leave and goes over to my house…

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Day 5: Neil Lyons, Teacher-Librarian (Homelands Senior Public)

Change – although scary is a great way to push ourselves professionally

Peel21st Project 188

After teaching for almost 10 years in one school, I will be moving to a new school in September.  And so throughout the hustle-and-bustle of June, a large part of my thinking has been dominated by “the unknown”.  And another part of my brain has become very acutely aware of “the known”.  There are layers and layers of “knowing” how things work in a school.  Attendance. Yard Duty. Parking Lot. Timetables. Washrooms.  Air Conditioning (hopefully). Storage Rooms.  Ordering Supplies.  Budget.  And on, and on, and on.

It’s a very different feeling than when I started in this building, as a new teacher.  There was no comparisons to be made.  The way the school was organized wasn’t “a way”, it was “the way”.  But, of course, throughout the years at my school things changed that made me aware that what I thought was “the way” was really only “a way”.  It…

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Day 3: Debbie Axiak, Grade 2 Teacher (Whiteoaks Public School)

Amazing Day 3 Entry to the Peel 21st Project 184. Highlights the importance of sometimes just going for it with your students!

Peel21st Project 188

What Did I Learn Today?

It would have been easier to say no.

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It would have been easier to say “no”. To say “leave it outside”. To stick to the lesson plan. To avoid the swirling wave of emotions that I knew would spread through the classroom. To avoid the questions that I knew would come & knew I would not be able to answer.  But when I saw a student beaming with pride and carrying this 6.5 cm, jumping caterpillar…

Instead of saying “no”, I said “That is SO creepy!” and the student’s smile grew even bigger and he strutted into the school and into the classroom.

We watched it jump around, looked at it with a magnifying glass to look for details and some students were brave enough to smell it. We brainstormed a great list of words to describe the caterpillar, we talked about the emotions and…

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