Blog Posts

Now in my thirty-fifth year as an educator, I still look forward to the beginning of the school year with anticipation. It still feels like yesterday, but three and a half decades ago, I started my career in Peace River South School District as a grade 6/7 teacher in Devereaux Elementary School. I remember when I first saw the ad for the position, going to a map to see where the heck this place was. The principal, Mr. Evans, interviewed me over the phone and offered me the job shortly thereafter.

This time last year, I posted a blog expressing my profound gratitude to all our staff for getting us through what was a tremendously demanding year. As I look back on this past school year, I continue to be truly grateful for how we have managed an even more challenging year than we anticipated.

As we wrap up another school year, let us take a moment to reflect on some of the outstanding opportunities provided to the students at Robert Bateman Secondary and some of the achievements we witnessed.

One of the lasting legacies of the COVID-19 pandemic will be its exposure of pre-existing societal inequities to a wider audience. While inequities have existed in society and schools since they were created, the pandemic has caused many of us to see them with greater clarity. The murder of George Floyd perhaps served as a catalyzing moment, but I suspect there were more forces at play.

The most recent stop on my student voice inquiry journey was at WJ Mouat. I continue to be fascinated by the diversity of thought about certain issues, and simultaneously the remarkable consistency around other topics. Rather than editorialize, I will Arianna (Gr. 9), Omran (Gr. 12), Jazzi (Gr. 11), Nickolas (Gr. 11), Bella (Gr. 11), Lily (Gr. 12), Nathan (Gr. 11), Jayda (Gr. 12), and Natalie (Gr. 12) speak their truth:

When you think about school, what is the first word that comes to mind? Why?

I visited the temporary Upper Sumas Elementary site this week to see how the staff and students were adjusting to their “new” environment (For those of you who have been around as long as I have been, this was the old Abby Elementary School site). As I approached the front doors, I saw a class of students standing in circle in a little garden patch. I made eye contact with the teacher, Ms. Marr, who invited me to join their circle. She told me that they had just finished sharing what they were grateful for and invited me to do the same.

Robert Bateman Secondary School is excited to announce a new cohort we are piloting in 2022. We have two talented teachers who have helped to create a Science and Social Studies 10 cohort that will be cross-curricular in nature. This course has been scheduled for our second semester which has just started this past week. The cohort has been designed to be more hands-on and inquiry-based, in order to accommodate experiential learning for students . We plan to include local field trips and opportunities in our nearby forests and creeks around our school. Content for t

With all that has transpired in this country and in Europe over the last few weeks, it is easy to slip into despair. However, when you work with and in service of children it is both difficult and unhealthy to live in that space. I had the distinct pleasure of meeting with a group of eight students from Robert Bateman Secondary last week, and true to form, they not only affirmed the importance of our work, but lifted my spirits about the fundamental importance of our ongoing journey to deepen student learning experiences in our schools.  

I have a hope that one day we will not have to celebrate Black History Month, that our society, discourse and school curricula will be redolent with the contributions and experiences of Black Canadians, that Black students in our schools will be proud of who they are, that they will see their history and culture in the ecology of their school experiences, and that they will not suffer the legacy of prejudice and racism as their previous generation had.

Over the last few years, it has been my practice to post a “Top 3” January blog related to our educational transformation efforts and ways these ideas might be manifested in the coming twelve months.