Stepping outside my box. Again!

There is a lot to know about our school system here in British Columbia.  As a way to learn more about it, I decided to get involved with our local union branch.  I was specifically interested in being the TTOC Chairperson.  This year, three TOC’s nominated themselves, including myself, for this position; something that has never happened before.  The president of the union advised us that it would be more beneficial to only have one chairperson and a co-chair.  With this guidance, the third person could run for the secretary position or professional communications (PC).  Immediately I focused on PC.  Being secretary seemed like something someone with more union experience should do.  Of the three of us, who met at Starbucks one Saturday, it was mutually agreed upon, that I would run for PC.

At our union AGM, I nominated myself to the PC chair and was accepted.  I have three areas to focus on with regards to this position.   Monthly newsletter, website, and social media (Facebook and Twitter).

I met with one of the two current PC chairpersons last week to officially pass the responsibility over.

The first thing I read were 4 months of past newsletters, and our provincial collective agreement.  I learned a lot about our profession and the relationship we have with the Government of BC.  The collective agreement is long, but well worth the read.

I believe that this is a document that should be reviewed in University Teaching programs.  It is sad just how much the Teaching program that I took taught me anything about teaching.  It reminds me of a great Japanese proverb, “better than one thousand days of diligent study, is one day with a great teacher”.  I am starting to wander here, so I better end it.  Until my next post.

D.

“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.”

says Albert Einstein.  It’s funny, from time to time, I DO feel like everything is happening at once, just not enough time to reflect on it and evaluate the meaning of it in our lives.

Yet again, I have been lazy with the upkeep of my blog.  Scrolling through my twitter feed, and occasionally looking at my profile, I see my link to this blog sitting there, passing time.  So much has happened since my last post, but I have a bit of difficulty figuring out what to write about first.

For the last three weeks of school, I was a substitute for one grade 4/5 class.  The teacher who was taking time off due to medical reasons, asked me if I was interested in this.  Of course, I was absolutely ready! I had previously worked with this class from time to time and had developed a great rapport with them; but before I knew it, it was all over.  I’ll post stories about this experience later.

As a Teach On Call (TOC), we are sheltered from the internal communication at any one school.  Being included in this communication ring during this past moth, really expanded my view of the communication that happens, behind the scenes.  I love it!  Previous to this small position, my inbox would maybe have 1 or 2 messages per week, but suddenly I was inundated with emails every hour or two.  I was a part of the ring!  It was great feeling.  I honestly didn’t realize so much was going on, and it suddenly sunk in, exactly why some of my colleagues cringed when the topic of email emerged.

Before I had “my own classroom”, I was running technology and math enrichment classes for all grades.  At one point I needed to send an email to all the teachers in the school.  It was a schedule.  It was simply meant to keep them informed of the times that the students they had personally selected to participate, were not going to be in class.  Having done this I still had to personally gather students from each class, using valuable time, and usually being met by the teacher with surprise.  I couldn’t figure out why they were surprised.  I sent them an email with the schedule.  Did I need to send out reminders emails and or use the meeting function in our email system? I wouldn’t think so.  Looking back now, I really should have.  What could it have hurt?  Another email?  No.  An attempt to keep communication rolling.

Having now been exposed to the internal school email ring, I can easily see how things get missed.  There is a lot.  Many of these email had nothing to do with me, but I still needed to keep up with the conversations.

Anyways, I think that is enough for this post.  It feels better that I wrote something now

D.