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• Elona Hartjes, MEd (Candidate), Ontario Certified Teacher

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Mathew was right! When I asked him for advice in an email about film making in the classroom, he told me to just take that little Flip Ultra camcorder into the classroom and start shooting. Just do it !!! So I did.

I took my little ultra cool Ultra Flip into the classroom and handed it to my students and told them that I wanted them to create a video about how to do a good presentation. I also told them that creating this video would enable them to practise their problem solving skills since I really didn’t have a clue what to do. I also told them I’d heard about story boards and scripts so they should probably should do those as part of this project too. That was all I told them. The rest was up to them. (I was more than a bit nervous but then I kept telling myself that the force was with me.)

I was really surprised that no asked my why I expected them to create a video when I didn’t know how to do it myself. After all, I was the teacher and supposed to know how to do everything. I guess that’s more my problem than theirs.

I really enjoyed watching the students bring it all together. They demonstrated skills I didn’t know they had, and I had lots of opportunity to catch them doing good. I have to be honest though and say that the experience wasn’t without it’s frustrations. I didn’t enjoy the fact that attendance in the class is a problem for some students so some groups had difficulty getting the filming done. In fact, some still haven’t completed the filming. Grrrrrr! I have to keep reminding myself the reason the kids are in my class is that they need extra support around things like attendance. If they had excellent attendance and work habits and didn’t need extra support, they wouldn’t be in my class to begin with.

I want to share one group’s efforts with you. I think they did a super job- all things considered. They even figured out how to do the editing- that’s next on my list. I told them that my course was not a film making course so I wasn’t expecting everything that a film making course would. (Some of you who know what you are doing when making films  are probably shuddering right now. ) I told them that I was expecting to see collaboration, problem solving (lots of problem solving), negotiation, communication and presentation skills. These are some of the skills that they need to help them be successful in and out of the classroom. This assignment was a perfect opportunity to hone these important skills

I’m going to ask the kids to write reflections about this assignment and I’ll share some of those with you. I learned that camera + lights + action = rich learning experiences. I wonder what the kids learned?

Know thyself – a maxim as pernicious as it is odious.
A person observing himself would arrest his own development.
Any caterpillar who tried to “know himself” would never become a butterfly.
André Gide (d. 1951), Nouvelles Nourritures

I kind of agree with Gide when he says a person observing himself would arrest her own development and never become what she could be.  I think he may have a point because a  person  could unintentionally limit  herself  because of some mistaken  notion of what  she was and what she could become.  I’ve  see that misguided thinking  in some of my students. They limit themselves because they can’t  see themselves as the butterflies they could become  but only as the caterpillars they are at the moment and act accordingly.

Teachers at Risk hasn’t really tried to know herself.  Over the  2 1/2 +  years of her existence,  she has been  blissfully going with the flow.  But,  today she discovered what type of blog she was -at least according to The Typealyzer.  (Thanks for the link,  Sharon) It turns out that Teachers at Risk is

Teachers at Risk also  learned that she has a tendency toward practical, logical yet intuitive thought. That didn’t really surprise her when she thought about it, but she couldn’t help wondering  why her spirituality didn’t  manifest itself  because it does  exist?  She’ll have to think about that for a while.

Do  you know what kind of blog you are?  Would you be puzzled by some of the results?  Would you have to think about something  for a while, too.  Visit Typealyzer and find out.

uploaded by pfala
While waiting for dinner to cook tonight, (my husband was doing the cooking, and I was doing the waiting) I came across the following article in the paper and thought maybe we, meaning teachers, should get the same treatment as doctors. Fair is fair, after all.

Here’s what the Ontario government agreed to give 33 000 family doctors.

Doctors will get a bonus to take on new patients. For instance, if a doctor takes on a complex patient, such as someone with chronic illness and multitude of health problems, they will get a $350 one-time payment

Now, I thinking that if the government agreed to give doctors 350 extra dollars as an incentive to treat complex patients, maybe the government should give teachers an extra 350 dollars payment to teach each complex student , students with learning disabilities, behaviour problems, ADHS/ADD etc., etc., etc.

The more I think about the idea, the more fair it seems to me. I teach about 30 complex students a semester so that would be 30 x $350 = WOW!!!

Happy New Year!   It’s the first day of the new year, and it’s really hard not to think about setting goals for the coming year. One of my goals last year was to manage the stress of working at a job I really love. Even though I love teaching, it’s stressful and can, if I’m not vigilant, take up too much of my life. I’ve been working hard at maintaining a healthy balance between work and play. ( I’m not sure where family fits in- sometimes it’s both.)

This year one of my goals in addition to maintaining that balance between work and play is to pay some loving attention to my back. I think my back was feeling neglected, and it let me know that it wasn’t happy the only way it could. It started to hurt.

My back started to hurt and get my attention about the end of September. It proved to be quite a nuisance until the beginning of December when I decided I’d had enough. My back was going to get the attention it needed, so I started to do about 1/2 hour of back strengthening exercises, pilates and tai chi, each day.

Sometimes I have to play games with myself about doing exercise. I broke that 1/2 hour into 3 sessions of 10 minutes. Three sessions of 10 minutes each was psychologically more palatable for me. I also put my exercise mat right next to my bed so when I get up in the morning I have to step on it, and when I go to bed at night I have to step on it again- a gentle reminder. It seems to work.

I noticed a significant difference by the end of the first week of exercising.  My back loved the attention. Getting into the holiday spirit, I even decided it deserved a massage, well actually two massages. My back absolutely thanked me. I figured with all the holiday preparations coming up, it deserved a little bit extra.

Now that my back and I are on excellent terms again, I’ve decided that I want to keep it that way. I’ve found this wonderful little application that I hope will help me do that.

Ian who created ” Joe’s Goals” says he was

Inspired somewhat by Benjamin Franklin’s 13 Virtues, I built Joe’s Goals to make it stupidly simple to create, track, and share your personal goals. It is a productivity application that is actually easy enough to use.

It’s perfect for me because I’m such a visual learner. Here’s a snap shot of my goals, and what I’ve actually done today by 1:00pm. I get to check off what I’ve accomplished- positive reinforcement I’d say. I love those tiny  check marks as much as my students do.

Not only will “Joe’s Goals” help me keep track of my progress, but it also allows me to share my progress with readers. I can put a goals badge in my right sidebar which I’ve done. I guess that adds a bit of accountability, which never hurts.

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  These are my personal views and not those of my employer.