brown vintage suitcase standing at docks near the sea

Here we are embarking on the first long weekend of the season.  This year I’m venturing up to the cottage to take part in the opening weekend festivities, along with the family.  Historically, I’ve waved good-bye as the boys have headed North to hook-up the water pump, remove the exterior weather proofing material, and heat up the sauna for its inaugural use.  I enjoy some quiet time for a few days and then look forward to the stories of winter damage, curious critters creating new crevices in corners, the first frigid lake dive and the tales of the meat eating black flies.

Access to our cottage is via the ATV in the winter and by boat for the other three seasons, therefore packing is always an event in and of itself. I’m sure that there is a magic formula for ensuring that you have most of the essentials combined with the least number of containers/trips from the vehicle, to the dock, to the boat, to the other dock, to the cottage. I have yet to master that formula. The complexity of this “first season” trip is that everything was brought home in the fall ~ food, bedding and linens, condiments etc.  So, in my mind EVERYTHING is an essential, but I’ve been warned not to over pack from those who will be lugging the multiple containers.

Last night as I contemplated how best to pack (what is a “MUST “be packed and what is a “CAN WAIT” for the next trip),  I started to think about educators throughout the Valley who will be moving to new learning environments next fall and those who will be transitioning into classrooms after sharing their gifts from a system role for a number of years. In our school, at least four of our teachers will be moving to portables and most of our teachers who teach late primary, will be moving to new classrooms. Our growth and expansion has been incredible and it doesn’t look like there will be any slowing down in the near future.

If you are one of those educators who will be transitioning to another learning space, what will you be taking with you? What are the tried and true resources that are worth the multiple trips? What success criteria will you be using to determine the effectiveness of a resource? How has your selection criteria evolved over the years?

As for the success criteria for our weekend at the cottage, I’m hoping that in my quest for compact and my laser focus on the “MUST” have,  I didn’t forget the toilet paper….smile.

Come write with me….

Happy Long Weekend,

On January 27 2017, I wrote and published a post called, Stepping Stones. It detailed a time in my career, shortly after our school board had welcomed 450 Syrian refugee students, when I took the opportunity to visit schools and share this heartfelt journey of Rama and her family as they fled a war torn country and traveled to safety.  A day later, I was thrilled to see that the author, Margriet Ruurs had not only read the post, but she left a comment and then days later a Facebook friend request.

Fast forward two years and once again I was referencing Stepping Stones within a post ~ as our grade 7/8 students were taking part in the Global Read Aloud and exploring Refugee by Alan Gratz, I read them Stepping Stones to build their background knowledge on the war in Syria.   Margriet, once again reached out with a message of appreciation and inspiration.  At the same time, her book, The Elephant Keeper had been shortlisted for the Forest of Reading and we started to explore the possibility of her coming to London to meet our students at Sir Arthur Currie in conjunction with her trip to Toronto for the Forest Festivities.  With a little help from friends, we were able to make it work and today was the big day. I told our students that this was one of my “Rock star” days as I was going to get to meet someone whose work I have admired for some time.  I am not sure if they noticed the subtle connection between “rock” star and Stepping Stones, but they certainly could sense my excitement as I embraced Margriet like a long lost friend, instead of someone that I just met minutes before I introduced her.

Our incredible Library Learning Commons educator, Danielle Cadieux, worked with our students and encouraged them to create their own inspirational Stepping Stone reflections and then she assembled them to produce an amazing display.  Needless to say Margriet was very impressed with the both the work and the words of our students, to the extent that she has asked us to send her the file, so that our creations can be included on her website. I watched with pride, as she complimented our students for their beautiful work.

There is something so inspirational about listening to an author share how a simple act/idea ultimately leads to a work of art that changes lives. In this case, it was the simple act of scrolling through Facebook and then taking the time to rewind and look again at the unique stone pictures of Nizar Ali Badr and being curious.  It was Margriet’s curiosity and months of perseverance, which led to their partnership, and the ultimate creation of Stepping Stones.

I watched as our students intently listened to her story of how a conversation with a young man at an Elephant Orphanage uncovered his journey from being an elephant poacher to being an elephant caregiver.   It was so evident in listening to Margriet that one of her gifts is her curiosity in others ~ she definitely listens to learn and then uses what she learns to weave beautiful, inspirational stories.

As I continue to explore my own writing (in the simplistic form of this blog) I found myself landing on three take-aways from listening to Margriet today:

• Always be curious
• Take the time to truly listen to the stories of others
• Perseverance pays off (for one of her books, it took 8 years of research)

What guides you as you write?

Come write with me….