Mentors as Learners and Leaders - Summer Institute at UBC

Last week I attended a conference at UBC. It was 'Mentors as learners and leaders summer institute' put on by UBC and BCTF. With approx 40 other educators from across the province we shared, we learned, we listened, we planned.

I left feeling re-energized about mentorship, which has taken a bit of a hit in my district.

As a district funded program, our mentoring groups have been in place for the past 8 years. Due to budget cuts, we lost the co-ordinating position that managed the program, then faced the strike and lock-out and ended the school year with a lot of uncertainty about many things.

Despite all this, the conference went forward and was exactly what I needed to get inspired again. Now, more than ever, there is a need for mentoring of new teachers and teachers new to a position, which we continue to see more and more of with high numbers of laid off teachers.

Somethings I enjoyed at the conference that I wanted to share:

• We had an opportunity to share what our district model was. There were five models, Coquitlam was one of the five and I had the opportunity to present to educators, while my two Coquitlam colleagues rotated through other stations to hear about their models. This was especially useful because we have used a learning team model in Coquitlam for 8 years, but are moving towards site-based model for middle school next year. It was great to learn and share what works, what doesn't and ideas to overcome challenges and maximize benefits of each model.
• Home Groups. We had small "home groups" where we could share, brainstorm and reflect with each other about the information we were experiencing.
• Simulation. There was an incredible simulation activity run by Laura Servage and Jaime Beck from University of Alberta. This was something I'd really like to replicate in the future with mentors.
• Anne Phelan, UBC professor spoke to us and told such amazing stories that really brought the importance of mentoring to life.
• Linda Farr Darling was another amazing guest speaker who taught us the importance of 'place' and consciousness of place in mentorship.
• Carousel Activities that allowed us to delve deeper into some of the hot topics in mentoring such as stakeholders, funding, training, and so on.

Overall, it was an exciting and packed few days with colleagues from across the province. It really was exactly what I needed to be motivated again after a pretty challenging June.

Yes, it is summer 'break' however, the strike/lockout continues and September is uncertain.... but mentoring must continue and I am so excited to be a part of it all.

 

The Lollipop Moment

I went to see Lois Zachary at the mentoring conference last week. She opened with this video and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. So powerful.




If you don't have time to watch the video, here is the commentary written (of most of the video, missing some at the end):

I want to start just by asking everyone in the audience a question: How many of you are completely comfortable calling yourselves a leader?

See, I've asked that question all the way across the country, and everywhere I ask it, no matter where, there's always a huge portion of the audience that won't put up their hand. And I've come to realize that we have made leadership into something bigger than us. We've made it into something beyond us. And I worry sometimes that we spend so much time celebrating amazing things that hardly anybody can do that we've convinced ourselves that those are the only things worth celebrating, and we start to devalue the things that we can do every day.

I went to a little school called Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick, and on my last day there a girl came up to me and she said, "I remember the first time that I met you." And then she told me a story that happened four years earlier.

She said, "On the day before I started University I was in the hotel room with my mom and my dad. And I was so scared and so convinced that I couldn't do this; that I wasn't ready for university that I just burst into tears. And my mom and my dad were amazing. They were like, 'Look, we know you're scared, but let's just go tomorrow, let's go to the first day and if at any point you feel as if you can't do this, that's fine, just tell us, we'll take you home. We love you no matter what.'"

She said, "And so I went the next day and was standing in line getting ready for registration and I looked around and I just knew I couldn't do it. I knew I wasn't ready, I knew I had to quit. And I turned to my mom and my dad to tell them that we needed to go home, and just at that moment you came out of the student union building wearing the stupidest hat I have ever seen in my life. It was awesome. And you had a bucket full of lollipops. And you were walking along and you were handing the lollipops out to people in line and talking about [a charity called] Shinerama. And all of a sudden you got to me, and you just stopped. And you stared. It was creepy. And then you looked at the guy next to me, and you smiled, and you reached in to your bucket and you pulled out a lollipop and you held it out to him. And you said to him, 'You need to give a lollipop to the beautiful woman standing next to you.' "

And she said, "I have never seen anyone get more embarrassed faster in my life. He turned beet-red and wouldn't even look at me and just kinda held the lollipop out like this." [shyly giving the lollipop] "And I felt so bad for this dude that I took the lollipop and as soon as I did you got this incredibly severe look on your face and you looked at my mom and my dad and you said, 'Look at that. Look at that. First day away from home and already she's taking candy from a stranger!'"

And she said, "Everybody lost it. Twenty feet in every direction, everyone started to howl. And I know this is cheesy, and I don't know why I'm telling you this, but in that moment when everyone was laughing, I knew that I shouldn't quit. And I haven't spoken to you once in the four years since that day, but I heard that you were leaving, and I had to come up and tell you that you've been an incredibly important person in my life, and I'm going to miss you."

And she walks away. And I'm flattened. And she gets about six feet away and she turns around and smiles and goes, "And you should probably know this too. I'm still dating that guy four years later." A year and half after I moved to Toronto, I got an invitation to their wedding.

Here's the kicker. I don't remember that.

How many of you guys have a lollipop moment? A moment where someone said something or did something that you feel fundamentally made your life better?

We need to redefine leadership as being about lollipop moments, how many of them we create, how many of them we acknowledge, how many of them we pay forward, and how many of them we say thank you for. Because we've made leadership about changing the world, and there is no world, there are only six billion understandings of it. And if you change one person's understanding of it, one person's understanding of what they're capable of, one person's understanding of how much people care about them, one person's understanding of how powerful an agent of change they can be in this world, you've changed the whole thing.

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Remember to tell people who made your lollipop moment. Thank them. Chances are they do not know it. As teachers, we create lollipop moments each day and often never know it. Be the change. Be kind!

The importance of mentorship for early career teachers

Miami teacher, David Cutler, writes about the importance of mentorship for early career teachers:

Today, my success as a teacher -- not to mention the lives of all the students I hope I have inspired and changed in my seven years in the classroom -- is directly related to the caring, high-quality mentorship I received during my first year of teaching. Without it, I would have become another statistic, quitting after my first few years on the job.

David talks about a mentor as confidant, observer, and confidence builder. I am part of our district mentorship program and enjoy hearing about other programs and how mentors have positively helped new teachers.

Read More Here

Another busy week of filling my teacher brain...

I spent a couple days in Williams Lake to present the New Teachers' SURT (School Union Rep Training) workshop to a group of new teachers' and TTOCs from Cariboo Chilcotin teachers.

It was awesome to talk about Professional Development, the History of the BCTF, Professional Relationships including the code of ethics and boundaries, Professional Autonomy, and the Collective Agreement. I found it so educational as the facilitator to learn some of the local language and how it differs from other locals I have presented in or my own local I work in.

Thank-you to the teachers' in Williams Lake as well as the BCTF and the CCTA for having me!

When I returned from Williams Lake I had a mentoring session with our district mentor team, where we went through some strategies and protocols to try with our own "mentees" or "prtoege" groups. I find these sessions so valuable as a mentor and hope to bring some of the strategies we practiced into our next TTOC Mentorship meeting.

Finally, on Friday, I joined the BCCLA PSA (BC Co-Operative Learning Provincial Specialist Association) at their annual conference. I am part of the new District Leadership Series and was excited to get a sampling of what we will be focusing on this year. We also had our CTA 1st VP, Chris King, as a keynote. Although I work with him often, it was incredible to listen to him speak on Safe Schools and SEL (Social Emotional Learning) and how important it is to have those connections and a safe environment so that students CAN learn.

Overall, this week was busy, but so educational! My brain felt so full at the end of each day, I am so glad I have my notebook to reflect in and return to, so that all these fabulous revelations do not get forgotten!

Currently...

 

 

Listening:
To my daughter and her friend giggling in the room next to me. It's the last slumber party of the summer.

Loving:
The weather we have been having. There was a wicked thunder storm the other night and the rain watered my garden for me. Since then it has been sunny and beautiful.

Thinking:
About back to school.

Wanting:
A job! I am a bit anxious knowing there are no classes available for many teachers, including me. I really hoped I would be able to know before school starts.

[For those new to my blog, our district had a major budget deficit and laid off approx 500 teachers. As of last week 200 were still not placed back in a classroom... there are no jobs... yikes!]

Needing:
To get my house cleaned! And not stress of things I can not control [like when I get my class assignement]
Love Yourself Spot:
1. Drink more water 
2. Learn to say 'no' sometimes
3. Scrapbook more

If you want to participate in 'Currently' check out Farley's blog - Oh Boy 4th Grade I try to participate every month and even use the idea with the mentors group I work with as an opening write sometimes!

Job Sharing...

The reality for teachers in my district is that many TTOC for a few years and go in and out of temporary assignments. I am thrilled to finally have converted (though part time) and be in a job share assignment currently.

I have heard of all the troubles job sharing can bring, but I have to say in my experience with job shares, there have been little to no problems.

Obviously communication is key and it helps if you and your job share partner have similar beliefs.

Currently I am in a job sharing position where I am there two days a week and she is there three. She has done eighth grade for many years and has a wealth of knowledge and resources she shares with me, but not in a forceful way.

I appreciate her ideas and feel like if I had to teach eighth grade again I would have a tonne of great units, lessons, ideas because of working with her.

Similarly, in a past job share I had two days at the end of the week so I was able to continue with her units (it was Home Ec, very new for me!)

I think job sharing is a great position for new teachers or new to a position (grade level) because it can work like mentoring in many senses.

Learning-Focused Teaching

Learning-focused Teaching: A Question-Driven Approach to Planning

I am a mentor for the TTOC mentorship group in our district and a participant in the Middle school group. As part of our training to be facilitators we have taken the mentoring and coaching workshops and seminars with Bruce Wellman.

If you are not familiar with his work, you really need to be! It is very deep, very detailed, but very worth it!

Something I have been thinking about in my own teaching and in co-teaching and observing others teaching is how can I improve my instruction to be more learning-focused and how can I assess that?

I found this awesome question-driven approach to lesson planning and reflection through Bruce Wellman's site and I wanted to share it with you.

In teacher training, I remember being so tired of hearing the word "reflection" however, as time goes on, I am recognizing it's value and appreciating the opportunities to discuss with others and reflect on practices to improve.

Check out this question-based approach:
http://www.miravia.com/documents/LessonPlanBlank.pdf