Tag Archives: Education

The Yin and Yang of Learning

Posted on by
Reply

There’s nothing like our grade two International Celebration to remind me of the Yin and Yang of learning.

Last Friday, our grade twos showed up in costumes from around the world. In their grade-two way, they did a brilliant job at assembly and then back in their classrooms sharing what they knew about their adopted countries.

What I love about this is the way these projects immerse students in how different life can be elsewhere. Some people argue we should focus on our similarities with others, and of course there are many. However, I’m most grateful for our differences, because it’s our differences which make us reflect anew on ourselves.

When I lived in Japan, not a single day went by when I didn’t learn something new, something that made me pause and adjust my understanding of the world and what was possible in it. Among all those lessons was that of Yin and Yang, and the notion that life is full of complementary opposites – it always was, is, shall be and should be – just like night and day.

This flies in the face of the primal Western mindset – the conviction that all can and should be great, that happiness should be a singular goal, and that frustration, setbacks, and grief are bad and to be avoided.

Heavy stuff from a grade two showcase.

Taking place one week before the end of school, I can’t help but reflect on the year. We wholeheartedly strive to maximize the Yang (light) part of the duality. Learning should have many successes. It should have moments of unbridled joy. There are so many such moments at KCS that a book couldn’t capture them all, let alone a blog.

It’s also important to remember the presence and the role of the Yin (dark).The year has also had frustrations, tears, injuries, and conflicts. There have been disagreements, hurt feelings, difficult discussions, and problems that lingered longer than anyone wanted. We work hard to minimize them, yet they happen anyway.

Life happens in complementary opposites, and life happens at KCS. Learning to be resilient is one of our KCS Habits because being resilient is necessary to get through the bumps inherent in a life fully lived.

We’ll keep working to make as much happiness as possible at KCS. And we’ll keep working to help our students face any setbacks. Knowing what matters in life includes both.

Thanks for the reminder, grade twos. And thanks to everyone, teachers, parents and students, who live through the Yin and Yang with us. It has been a great year of learning.

Andrea Fanjoy,
Assistant Head, Academics

You can follow Andrea on Twitter @afanjoy.

What Lies Beneath the Surface

Posted on by
Reply

In honour of our Feast of Fiction Gala this weekend, here’s a video that was passed on to me yesterday morning from one of our grade 5 homeform teachers, Rob Sawyer.  The message:  Don’t Judge A Book By Its Cover.

http://youtu.be/41IS2OKqq1w

Derek Logan
Head of School

Make Room for Passion

Posted on by
Reply

Maybe we already ask too much of education. Our profession has certainly evolved from a focus on the ‘3 Rs’ to include many other expectations, academic, social, moral, physical and otherwise. Because these expectations are all worthy, we accept them as part of our role. And because making room for passion is also worthy, and increasingly so, it should be included among the expectations we place on ourselves.

Anyone following the dialogue in education is aware of the growing need to prepare students for an unknown future. Students today are likely to have many different careers in their lifetime, holding jobs that don’t even exist yet. The future is full of opportunity for people who can drive their careers, who are adaptable, who can learn what needs to be learned, and who are energized enough to make their role matter in a global competitive market. If it ever was straightforward, the world is decreasingly so, thanks to technology and the interconnectedness that binds our lives to every other person and place in the world.

Sir Ken Robinson is one of the most highly renowned voices, and critics, in education today. A major theme in his work is the importance of nurturing creativity. Another theme, captured in his book The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything (2009), is the importance of nurturing one’s passions, and the unfortunate absence of that as a priority in conventional schooling. Of course, all is well for students whose passions align with the school curriculum. The trouble is, the world is much bigger than the scope prescribed by the Ministry of Education. Student-driven learning, during the school day and with the guidance of interested adults, is too rare a part of formal education. Yet this is exactly what we need to instill in them to be successful as adults.

Finding one’s passion can be the difference between a life driven by happiness and one crippled by disinterest. It can be the difference between a life fully lived and one only a fraction so. It can also be the difference between the students who feel school matters, and those who feel it doesn’t. Make room for students to explore their passion at school. And see how it changes everything.

Andrea Fanjoy
Assistant Head, Academics
Twitter: @afanjoy

This article also features in the April edition of SNAP Etobicoke.

Sharing What We Know about Heroes, Big and Small

Posted on by
1

A hero is an ordinary person who finds the strength to persevere and endure
in spite of overwhelming obstacles.
–        Christopher Reeve

Need a hero? Look no further – we’ve cornered the market at KCS.

Every student is creating a work of art that represents either a hero or heroism to them. Students in grades one to five are each working on a teacher-led project. Students in grades six to eight have designed their project entirely on their own, choosing everything about it other than the theme. Each student has his/her own hero, and their own way of showing it. The Spring Showcase from May 17th to June 6th will be the richest, most interesting, and most inspiring exhibit of Sharing What You Know at KCS ever, I’ve no doubt.

Since reading a biography of Golda Meir in high school, heroes have always nestled in the periphery of my thoughts – all the big ones, the ones who stared down gross injustice, the ones who believed humanity could be better, the ones who courageously devoted their lives to it – reminding me to get off my duff and strive to live a life that matters.

I’m also recently thinking a lot about a smaller hero. Most people don’t know him, though all KCS faculty and staff, and many of our parents do, as well as many people like us in communities across the continent. He’s small in stature, quiet and humble in demeanor. In that way alone could he be considered small. A hero for me, he speaks a common sense about raising and educating children of character that few people speak. Challenging mindsets à la mode, he devotes his life to helping parents and educators be the better people they are capable of being.

This hero, Ron Morrish, is speaking at Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic School on May 9th. You can also learn more about his message by visiting http://www.realdiscipline.com/ or reading his book Secrets of Discipline for Parents and Teachers: 12 Keys for Raising Responsible Children.

Heroes come in all sizes. Whether big or small, far away or right in our midst, their example has earned them a place in the periphery of everyone’s thoughts. Thanks to the artistry of our students, our Spring Showcase is KCS’s effort to make that so.

And maybe, just maybe, this occasion of Sharing What You Know might help us ordinary folk move one step closer to being heroes: people devoted to making humanity a little bit better.

Andrea Fanjoy,
Assistant Head, Academics

A Good Read

Posted on by
Reply

On the weekend, I finished reading a book entitled, Inside Out Coaching:  How Sports Can Transform Lives by Joe Ehrmann.  The author is a former scholarship athlete who played football in the NFL.  He now coaches high school football, writes and speaks about the impact coaches have on children.  He certainly provides an important and thoughtful perspective on a coach’s influence.

While reading the book, I made notes on a number of quotes/stories that he references.  Two of my favourites are below.  This morning I forwarded the first story on to my son’s soccer coach as I know he’s experienced similar situations to this one over the past few years.

From page 193
The following is the story of the coach and a conversation he had with one of his players. Please note the quote is taken directly from the book and does not reflect the everyday vocabulary of the author of this post.

“Do you understand what cooperation is?  What a team is?”  The player nodded in affirmation that he knew.  “Do you understand that what matters is not whether we win or lose but that we play together as a team and do the best we can individually and collectively?”  Again, the player nodded yes.  “So,” the coach continued, “I’m sure you know that when a coach makes a bad call or the referee drops a penalty flag you shouldn’t argue, curse, or call them a peckerhead.  Do you understand all that?”  The player again said he did.  Coach continued, “And when I take you out of the game so another player gets an opportunity to play, it’s not good to call your coach an idiot, is it?”  The player shook his head.  “Good,” said the coach, “now go over there and explain all that to your mother and father.”

From page 214
We are all familiar with the saying, “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing.”  Ehrmann prefers Buffalo Bills coach Marv Levy’s retort:  “The only must win was World War Two.”

Derek Logan
Head of School

Do What Is Right

Posted on by
2

“Happiness varies more with the quality of
human relationships than with income.”
– World Happiness Report, presented at the United Nations Conference on Happiness

Call us old-fashioned. For all the impassioned talk about ‘21st century skills’ and life-changing advances in technology, manners remain at the core of what makes the world go around.

Our grade fives went on a field trip the other day. At KCS we directly teach, practice, review and remind students of behavior that is right. Before leaving to get on the TTC, the grade five teachers did so.

Here is Mr. Sawyer’s account of what followed: “…the thing that stands out most in my mind was the excellent manners that the students displayed on the subway…I felt so proud watching students in our class get up and offer their seats to elderly passengers or to women with small children.  I also saw two occasions where a boy from our class offered their seat to a lady.  All of this was done without me saying a word…I had many people comment to be about the excellent manners of our students.  I agree!!!!!!!”

Positive relationships with others, nourished through the use of manners, have always mattered. Encouragingly, in a world that has sometimes forgotten the importance of this, it is starting to get the public attention it deserves.

Offering your seat, holding the door open for others, welcoming visitors to the school, and greeting others each day are but a few of the ways in which ‘doing what is right’ is practised at KCS. Practice makes perfect.

Grade fives, that was perfect.

Andrea Fanjoy,
Assistant Head, Academics
Kingsway College School

Grade 1s are So Honest

Posted on by
Reply

Today we had a Spirit Day at KCS.  It was beach day.  I was sitting in my office with one of my colleagues with my door open.  My office is across the hall from the grade 1 classrooms.  The younger students are always interested in seeing what the faculty and staff wear on Spirit Days.  The two boys peeked their heads in to see what I was wearing – my Toronto Maple Leafs beach shirt, shorts and sandals.  One of the boys said to the other, “He doesn’t look that weird.”

Derek Logan
Head of School

7/8 Boys Floor Hockey Team Triggers Memories

Posted on by
Reply

Last Wednesday, I went to our boys floor hockey tournament in Oakville with Mr. Marshall.  As I expected, the boys were competitive, terrific sportsmen, and represented KCS in the way I’ve come to expect over the past thirteen years.

The boys were playing our arch rival, Mentor College, in the semi-finals.  Mentor had squeaked out a 5-4 victory in the round robin portion of the tournament against us, and following the game I heard a number of their players say in front of our boys that they were expecting to play Fern Hill in the finals.  Our boys had other plans for the first 21 minutes of the game.  We were up 6-2 with six minutes remaining…but we lost 7-6.  I was disappointed for the boys, but fifteen minutes later, they had “recovered” from the defeat and they were back to being their usual selves on the bus ride back to KCS.

As we were driving home, and I was thinking that this is what Ron Wilson and Randy Carlyle must have felt like this year, I remembered a particularly memorable defeat that my Dad reminded me of just a couple of years ago when he said to my son, Brandon, “You should ask your Dad about the time his team lost to Ottawa in hockey.”  I remember him saying this and thinking to myself, I’ve forgotten about this loss for the past 30 or so years, and yet you’ve kept this in your memory bank for that long.  One of the messages of this exchange is that the things we do as kids can often stay with our parents longer than it might stay with the child who actually does them.  Anyways, when I was either 14 or 15 we were playing ice hockey against Ottawa.  We were winning 4-0 with two minutes to go in the game.  When ended up losing 5-4 in the first minute of overtime.  My Dad had remembered this event and triggered my memory about it two years ago when he was speaking with my son.  The KCS boys on Thursday brought it back.  I have a message for the boys:  You’ll forget about this in time.  Your parents might not.

Derek Logan
Head of School

More than Spring has Sprung at KCS

Posted on by
Reply

Springtime is the land awakening. The March winds are the morning yawn.
~Quoted by Lewis Grizzard in Kathy Sue Loudermilk, I Love You

The warm sunshine, return of the robins, dancing daffodils and burgeoning tree buds weren’t the only new arrivals to recently grace our community. Though the emphatic entrance of spring was deeply appreciated, something else has awoken that even topped the weather for its sheer delight.

After years in our thoughts, dormant but developing, KCS is now proud to offer electives, electives with some significant twists, twists that had many of the grade 6 students, who get first crack at this opportunity, beside themselves with excitement.

A general introduction to electives was in last week’s parent e-newsletter Stay Connected. They’re designed for students to just learn for the love of it, learn by choice, not for marks, nor because the Ministry of Education says you must. It’s a time to develop the Habits of Mind, Body and Action that indisputably set us up to be successful. And it’s a time to offer an unlimited array of meaningful learning. If teachers and students can dream it, they now have time to do it. Directly connected to our school mission of developing lifelong learners, it’s designed to stoke the flames that fuel lifelong learning.

Judging from my small group of third-language learners, it’s working.

Students in grade 6 were given eight electives to choose from. Based on their choices, the forty-two students are now in one of six electives for 100 minutes each week of third term. One group is learning to cook from Chef Cirillo of Cirillo’s Culinary Academy. The result of their labours this past week was a mouth-watering chicken cacciatore dish that went directly to a youth shelter. Another group is engaged in geocaching. Enriched technology, art and drama are also taking place. And my group has each student learning the foreign language of their choice. Concurrently, (and thanks the significant help of Rosetta Stone language learning software), the students are learning the following languages: Mandarin, Japanese, Italian, Spanish and Filipino. Just because they want to.

Some of you may have read Sir Ken Robinson’s book The Element: How finding your passion changes everything. He’s right, of course. The bulk of his book exposes the far too common disconnect between the regular school day and finding one’s passion, as if passion only has relevance in extra-curricular pursuits. Not here.

One of my students announced he was going to try to learn enough Mandarin to use it exclusively with the flight attendant on an upcoming family trip (hmm, not sure how that will go but keen to know!) To achieve his goal he has asked if he can use the software at home and if there are apps he can download on his iPad.

Lifelong learner, check.

Being Remembered

Posted on by
Reply

During our chapel service on the last Friday before the March break, I said goodbye to one of our grade 1 students who was leaving KCS the next day to move to Sweden with his family.  As Josh was a grade one student, he had only been around KCS for the past seven months, but he will be remembered positively in many ways by his classmates and teachers.

Before leaving for chapel, I was speaking with Ms. Murphy about Josh.  His friends had made him a book to take with him:  Things We Like About Josh.  In the book it mentioned that Josh always played fairly, he was a fast runner, a funny guy and a super soccer player.  The book spoke volumes about the person he is becoming at such a young age.  For me, I will always remember Josh as being very respectful.  He would always say hello to me or give me a high five.

We will miss Josh around here this week and in the years to come, but we know his move to Sweden will bring about many memories and adventures.  It got me to thinking:  when a person leaves a place (work, school, etc.), how would they want to be remembered?  Just prior to the March break our 35 grade 8s decided on which schools they are going to attend for high school:

Bishop Allen:  5
Branksome Hall: 2
Etobicoke School of the Arts: 2
Father Redmond: 3
Greenwood College: 7
RSGC: 4
St. Clement’s School:  2
St. Michael’s College: 6
St. Mildred’s School: 1
Upper Canada College: 2
The York School: 1

As the grade 8s finish their final term at KCS, I hope that they will all consider the question:  how do I want my classmates and the staff and faculty to remember me at KCS when I leave?

Derek Logan
Head of School