In April 2014 I finished working as a Math Consultant for the Learning Commons at Conestoga College. As a consultant, I facilitated group and individual
appointment and drop-in sessions for students in any mathematics courses offered at the College, trained student tutors and helped plan math themed events for the College such as Pi Day. As a consultant, I had my evenings off to rest, pursue various interests and reflect consciously and sub consciously about my learning and work as a math facilitator. That year, among various other academic and non academic texts and novels, I read and journaled about three books specifically focused on developing my understanding and practice of teaching and learning. (Making Problems, Creating Solutions: Challenging Young Mathematicians by Jill Ostrow, Teaching as
Story Telling:An alternative approach to teaching and curriculum in the elementary school by
Kieran Egan and For the Good of
the Earth and Sun:Teaching Poetry by Georgia Heard).
In Spring 2014 I began teaching full-time in a long-term occasional position at Rockway Mennonite Collegiate. As Rockway Faculty, I helped facilitate Mathematics and Computer
Science learning (with stories, lessons, activities, homework and a variety of assessments), and co-coached junior and senior
Badminton and 7/8 Soccer. I covered various classes as needed while supporting school
life through leading and helping with a variety of groups and school trips (Music, Beauty, and what you didn't know about Math, Early Morning Soccer, Faith and Worship, Mountain Biking Trip etc.). During this time, I also was involved with Stirling Avenue Mennonite Church as a co-planner of Adult Education & Faith Formation Hour where we spent time studying various topics from Sexuality, Host Peoples and the Truth and Reconciliation Act, Biblical Interpretation, Film to Prayer and Worship and was also preparing and planning with my partner, Laura, for our Wedding Celebration! Needless to say, outside of PD days, I did not have time or energy to consciously reflect in the way I had been able to while at Conestoga about the many, many day to day events, pedagogical choices and the balancing of learning and teaching expectations within a large cultural system of historically elitist education.
In the last month and a half of my contract, the maternity leave finished and I stayed on to teach two of the four courses I had been teaching that term and work .62FTE. While my pay was reduced accordingly, I had time to contemplate and critique my lessons instead of simply planning or creating them. It seemed that at half time pay I was truly able to work "Full" time (and half time pay was still more than the average industrial Canadian wage--what a weird, inequitable financial system we have). I had energy to begin to think about integrating daily reflections into longer term praxis and, had it not been my first time teaching the courses I was, I could reasonably have seen myself even writing and doing more in-depth reflection, learning and improving in my teaching practice. I imagine if other teachers were also teaching half of their full-time load we would be able to visit each others' classrooms and provide feedback more regularly and create more cross curriculum projects and rich assessments.
But of course the tension is there - only 'work' half time, I could do so much more than that. Filling our timetable, being busy with good things, that is what we are supposed to do, isn't it? We need to work full-time to make enough money to live a good life, don't we? If I'm not working, I'm being lazy. I will make the world a better place by working more. Untrue cultural and professional narratives are prevalent if we take time to stop and listen.
This year I have decided to be unemployed. I will struggle with not making myself busy with good things but making my life full at a pace that I can hear and learn from each note of activity. I will learn by doing, but not exclusively. This year we have moved to Ireland for Laura to pursue a Master's of Community Music. I am pursuing what a good life and eventual death may look like. I am learning about myself and how we may embrace a complex world with an all encompassing sustained sense of joy, hope, love and shalom.
So far I am committed to the Outdoor Pursuits Club, the Kayaking Club (where I hope to get certified at the end of April), learning guitar, preparing to volunteer at Camas or with the Iona community, a slowly and carefully scrutinized but growing reading list and, seeking to volunteer some in downtown Limerick.
Some guiding quotes that I have thought about over the last two weeks for this year:
“Teachers cannot
tackle the preconceptions which students bring to class unless they have
themselves analyzed and become aware of the power of the discourse they use.
Without such preparation the teaching of social justice may build up those very
attitudes which it would dismantle.” -
Rosalind Duke
"Do few things but do them well. Simple joys are holy." - Brother Sun, Sister Moon in the spirit of St. Francis of Assisi
"If we're serious about creating a better world, we need to start with ourselves" - In Community, Intentionally by Geoph Kozeny
“My
point is not that everything is bad but that everything is dangerous, which is
not exactly the same as bad. If everything is dangerous, then we always have
something to do. So my position leads not to apathy but to hyper-and
pessimistic activism” -Foucault
"Self-being is only real in communication with another self-being...only in community with others can I be revealed in the act of mutual discovery...the intellect finds clarity only in discussion" -On My Philosophy by Jaspers
