Making a Difference, Thanks to Parents

Posted on October 17, 2012 by Andrea Fanjoy

I knew it as soon as I heard them.

Two Moms, climbing the stairs near the Multi-Purpose Room, heaved a huge sigh. This was the week of the annual KCS Lip Sync and these intrepid volunteers had just led a dance rehearsal with their children’s class. We crossed paths in the stairwell, we chuckled over the challenge, and off they went.

This is to thank all the parents who devote their time to helping make KCS the special place that it is. We have parents who volunteered through the summer to mentor new families. We have parents who have worked endless hours in the store. We have parents who commit their days and evenings to committee and board meetings as well as in the role of class parents. We have parents who organized an outstanding Welcome Back BBQ! We have parents preparing for our upcoming Special Lunch, parents helping in the library, parents hosting grade parties and parents who have helped supervise field trips.

And those of you who attended last week’s Lip Sync for grades 1 to 4 know that we also have a very special group of parents who are willing to do what for most is unthinkable: choreographing and teaching dance to our youngest and least focused, even dancing alone as the children’s example, in front of a Canada Hall full of spectators. What a terrific show of spirit, confidence and the joy of dance to start the school year.

Thank you to all who have already made a difference at KCS and thank you in advance for making a difference in ways to come. We’ll keep teaching your children to lead and make a difference. And we’ll point to you as examples to follow.

Andrea Fanjoy,
Assistant Head, Academics
You can follow Andrea on Twitter @afanjoy.

A Story of Teenage Transformation

Posted on September 12, 2012 by Andrea Fanjoy

I learn a lot from my boys. Over the summer I learned from my 15-year-old just how transformational others can be for bringing out the best in us.

My son Marcel started working at a local restaurant. He is mopping floors, washing dishes, stocking fridges and cleaning bathrooms. Working hard at what he doesn’t love has not been a forte of his. And though I’ve already hinted at a transformation, that doesn’t mean he’s come to love disinfecting toilets.

He does, however, love his new job with an uncommon exuberance for his otherwise typical teenage persona. Why?

The people he works with. They bring out the best in him. It’s a small family-owned restaurant with staff, mainly adults, who work hard, smart, and side-by-side. They treat this 15-year-old with respect and the expectation that he contribute with as much effort as everyone else. And when the restaurant closes and they do the final cleaning up, they all indulge their common interest in listening to music (“Mom, I can’t believe we all know the same songs!”). This job and the wonderful people there have unleashed a transformation that is spilling over into other parts of his life. Though I still can’t get him to clean our bathrooms, I’m grateful for the tired, self-respecting young man who comes home after work.

An earlier blog post, The Leader in All of Us, was about the many small ways, even inadvertent ways, we can demonstrate leadership. My son is the lucky target of such leadership. The people we surround ourselves with do more than just affect our day. They can profoundly affect who we are.

May we all be surrounded by people who bring out the best in us. And may we all follow their lead.

Andrea Fanjoy,
Assistant Head, Academics

You can follow Andrea on Twitter @afanjoy.

A recommended read: The Globe and Mail’s ‘Why kids need to fail to succeed in school’

Posted on September 5, 2012 by Derek Logan

The following article was in The Globe and Mail on August 31. I have written about this topic on a couple of occasions in the past few years. I thought the article would be of interest as we begin the 2012/13 school year.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/parenting/back-to-school/why-kids-need-to-fail-to-succeed-in-school/article4513436/

Often in this space I will write about things students say to me that make me smile and remind me why teaching is such a rewarding, memorable and humourous profession. Yesterday during the grade 1 drop in I met one of the new grade 2 boys who was accompanying his sister and his parents. He said hi, and then looked up and said, “You have the same sandals as my Dad.” An interesting first day observation between a student and a principal.

This morning, I came in from recess, and walked into the grade 1B classroom to deliver a couple of birthday cards. The students were getting ready for their first KCS French lesson. One of the grade 1 girls looks up at me and says, “You’re cute.” I’m fairly certain that I have never had that said about me in my twenty years in education. However, if you know my wife Heather’s email address, please feel free to pass this information on to her. See you around the school.

Derek Logan
Head of School

Sportsmanship Matters

Posted on September 4, 2012 by Derek Logan

This has been an exciting summer for my son’s soccer team. Brandon plays for North Mississauga Panthers U14 boys’ team in the Ontario Youth Soccer League. This weekend they are playing for the Provincial Championship, and they have qualified for the National Championships that will be held in Toronto in early October. As many of you know who have children who compete in various activities, standing on the sidelines can be an emotional rollercoaster for a parent.

A couple of weekends ago, the Panthers faced their rivals, Brampton East Scorpions, in the semifinals. They won on penalty kicks. After the game was over this photo was taken of the two goalies:

John Wooden, UCLAs famous basketball coach noted that sports reveals character. How many times I’ve witnessed the truth of that saying over my years standing on the sidelines: both in the boys’ behaviour on the field and the parents’ behaviour on the sidelines. After viewing this photo last week, it certainly made me proud to know that Brandon is associated with teammates like this.

Derek Logan
Head of School

How a Regular Dose of Fiction Can Make You a Better Person

Posted on June 7, 2012 by Andrea Fanjoy

“We have discovered that fiction at its best isn’t just enjoyable. It measurably enhances our abilities to empathize with other people and connect with something larger than ourselves.”

– Dr. Keith Oatley, University of Toronto

My son had the benefit of being mugged the other day. Thankfully, it happened through fiction, in this case, Eric Walters’ book Shattered. He also had the experience of working in a soup kitchen, meeting people who are homeless, and hearing their stories.

My son is a reluctant reader who will only independently gravitate to baseball magazines. Like many other parents of reluctant readers, I do back flips trying to entice him to read books. On a recent occasion, with six baseball-based novels in hand, my son said the following: I hate fiction. It’s not real.

Too bad for him, I had just read about the work of numerous psychologists, as explained in Oatley’s blog post “Changing Our Minds by Reading Fiction” at www.sharpbrains.com. He pointed out that fiction is a simulation for our social and emotional worlds. Though not true stories, they are real in their ability to act as experience that shapes who we are. And in fact, these researchers do find evidence that readers of fiction change as a result. Knowing of their work, I gave my son a bigger response than he expected.

Life is social. Experience is valuable. Reading fiction offers an infinite array of social experiences, equipping readers to better understand and navigate the complex and sometimes precarious social world in which we live.

Being mugged is something I hope never really happens to my son. Working in a soup kitchen and hearing the stories of those who seek warmth and a meal there is something I do hope happens to him, though as yet he’s not open to the idea. So be it. Thanks to fiction, he’s already started checking it out.

And while he’s still pinning his hopes on a future in baseball, I know he’s being prepared for much more.

Andrea Fanjoy,
Assistant Head, Academics

You can follow Andrea on Twitter @afanjoy.

Sharing What We Know about Heroes, Big and Small

Posted on April 29, 2012 by Andrea Fanjoy

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 6^th 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 9^th. 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

Just Play and the Lessons Learned

Posted on April 18, 2012 by Derek Logan

Over the past eight years, I’ve been involved coaching and taking my son to minor sports, mainly soccer. I’ve watched him play for club teams and various school teams over the years. I’ve written about some of my thoughts on what I’ve seen in minor sports in this blog and in other newsletters at KCS over the years: treatment of referees by spectators as well as the behaviour of some coaches are topics that I’ve observed and commented on. Upon reflection, I realized that I’ve never written about the players. And this brings me to a story of watching my son play basketball with five guys he never knew before he stepped on the floor with them on Easter weekend.

My thirteen year old son, Brandon, and I went to work out at the fitness facility our family joined. We started off together doing various exercises and then he went off to shoot baskets in the gym. Earlier this year he decided that he was going to play on the school basketball team for the first time. The playoffs were starting the next week so he wanted to go and practice dribbling and shooting for a while. After an hour or so I finished what I was doing, and with the help of an oxygen tank, made my way up to the gym. When I arrived, I noticed Brandon was involved in a 3-on-3 game with some other boys, who ranged in age from 12-15. I sat and watched for twenty minutes.

To me, this was sports at its essence: a group of children getting together to play a game. It reminded me of my childhood when a bunch of us would congregate after school or on the weekend to play road hockey, soccer, football or baseball. We’d set a time to meet and then we “figured it out” from there. So many times, other kids we didn’t know would wander by and get invited to play in whatever game we were playing. Brandon and these five other boys ended up together on the court not knowing each other when they arrived. They picked teams, changed them when necessary, and called their own fouls. They congratulated each other on great plays and shots; they competed, disagreed, laughed and poked fun at each other for over an hour. Amazingly this was all done without listening to the input of others on the sidelines. They just played.

I think for my son, he likely took away other memories than I did from that Saturday; as a thirteen year old, he’s likely forgotten about the game in the same way he forgets about the things I ask him to do around the house! But for me that game allowed me to witness something about Brandon’s personality: it showed me that he has the willingness to get together with others he doesn’t know for a brief moment in time, and because they shared a common interest, have a good time. It also reminded me what my role is as a parent of an athlete: to get Brandon to his games and training on time, let his coach do the coaching, and let Brandon tell me about the training or the game afterwards. The rest is really up to him.

Derek Logan
Head of School