A very proud start to the year!

As I have often shared (because it would be impossible for me to hide), and anyone who has ever met me can attest to... I am a very emotional individual. So as I have been saying since the first day of school... I am so intrigued and impressed by the individuals I am privileged to teach this year at Pineland.

Both grade 7 classes have been built so well to balance all aspects of a learning community. The classes are riddled with individuals with vast arrays of interests, abilities, and personalities. It has been so much fun re-establishing relationships with students I have taught or coached in the past as well as building new bonds with those who I have chatted with in passing or simply held the door for over the last few years.

My primary goal of establishing a safe and risk-taking, inclusive, and motivated environment is already taken shape.

In Math, I challenged the classes with an extremely broad problem, requiring tremendous collaboration to work through many complex steps to come up with a solution. NO PROBLEM!!! Even groups that encountered difficulties took a step back from their work to realize their errors without getting down on themselves or giving up. Each group proudly presented to their peers and everyone applauded and took note of the strategies of others.

In Language, the first writing task was inspired by Neil Pasricha's "Book of Awesome". Pineland was fortunate to have him as a guest speaker two years ago, and I have also shared his TED Talk with students, "The 3 A's of Awesome" as it is also very motivational. Students are coming up with their own 'awesome' ideas and using the writing process to hone a personal voice when writing. (Many have completely nailed the feel for the writing... Now I'm just hoping that they will have the resolve to properly work through the revision aspect to polish their work).