These 15-17 year old students showed up three weeks ago with their iphones and their cliques, sneaking out for cigarettes and tuning out (and in some cases, completely passing out) on beanbag chairs. But throughout the last three weeks, I have watched them plug back into the Earth and in doing so, connect with one another and with themselves.

They were not afraid to get their hands dirty building gardens, getting friendly with  beneficial insects and feeling the crumbly black soil that only months ago was ‘humanure.’ They grappled with  incomprehensible hugeness of the universe and the intricate subtlety of the microorganisms that power our soil-food web. They fought and apologized, cried and hugged, played music and sang, cooked and ate meals together, and evolved into a strong family.  I have learned so much from these kids that I’m finding it hard to say goodbye – I want to stick around and help them organize their social action campaigns,  visit their gardens and share the yield that they produce.

Byron Bay Permaculture Team (Photo by Sangye Christianson)

For me, being involved in this program has been life changing in a way that I had not expected. I signed up on a whim after reading about the program in a Permaculture Research Institute e-newsletter, and had no idea what to expect.

My interest in permaculture goes back to 2005, when I spent the summer WWOOFing at Maya Mountain Research Farm in Belize. but it has taken a back seat to other educational pursuits over the last few years. I’m still not sure where I’m going with these ideas, but I am starting to think deeply about how to work permaculture principles into mainstream educational settings, as well as considering starting a Canadian Permaculture Challenge when I get home. I’ve signed up for a Permaculture Design Course at Milkwood Farm in February, and am grateful that getting involved in these initiatives is starting to give some purpose to  my sojourn in Australia. After all, Australia is where Permaculture was born, and it is thriving in both urban and rural settings.

At the Permaculture Challenge graduation, I surprised the students with my personal tribute to all the hard work they put in to the Permaculture Challenge. It’s becoming a bit of a tradition to write a spoken word poem at the end of an educational experience as a sort of parting gift for my students, as well as a way of  giving closure and processing my thoughts.

Here are two versions of my piece – one shot live at the grad ceremony, where I performed in front of a packed 200+ person audience at Mullumbimby Civic Hall. The other was filmed by my wonderful friend Kamala at her organic farm in the hills near Wilson’s Creek. Lyrics are below.

For the Seventh Generation 

There have been so many inspiring moments over the last week that I don’t know what to blog about first! So here are a few photos of some of the students’ learning moments –  ranging from cooperative engagement in an activity to quiet reflective journalling.

There are so many ways to learn when your classroom has no walls.

While I’ve only been in Sydney for a little over a month, I’m now able to put that relationship into a cultural context. It wasn’t about us – it’s the culture here. Australia suffers en masse from Tall Poppy Syndrome, a copmpulsion – possibly stemming from jealousy or from a desire to promote equality or camaraderie between different social strata – to put down successful or distinguished people.

We haven’t quite reached a Harry Bergeron dystopia, but I feel that this culture of put-downs and teasing limits all Australians – the mockers and the mockees. In fact, as I write this post, I can hear the critiques, “Don’t be so Canadian, mate…” and see the empathetic but resigned shrugs, “Get used to it, Aussie guys are assholes.” It limits discourse and makes authentic emotional connections difficult to achieve. It also promotes a culture of sexism and negativity. A weaker blogger might scrap the post in the face of this projected criticism but hey, if they want to call me a prudish or overly PC Canadian, so be it. I was raised to be proud of my cultural sensitivity and able to speak out when offended. And here, I am offended on an alsmost daily basis. I don’t want to be an average poppy or a wallflower. I want to be a bird of paradise!

I’ve been thinking about this phenomenon since I arrived, but today a friend’s facebook page featured a reaction to Sunday’s NY Times op-ed by Katie Roiphe, “In Favor of Dirty Jokes and Risqué Remarks.” Down under, the whole Herman Cain story was not on my radar, so I had some catching up to do. The American feminist blogosphere is outraged by Roiphe’s claim that a “smart, competent young professional woman” should laugh and shrug off unwanted sexual advances or inappropriate comments about her appearance, and that a workplace free of the risk of sexual harassment would be drab and quiet (because of course, there’s nothing else to laugh or chat about but your cubicle buddy’s boobs).

Roiphe criticizes the “weakness or blurriness” of the language that defines sexual harassment (uncomfortable, hostile, inappropriate) and prefers to euphemize sexual harassment by calling it “colourful.” As a high school English teacher, the issue of semantics was interesting, and indeed, addressing the “slippery” definition could be a productive exercise in a high school English or Law class. But this quote also piqued my interest:

A study recently released by the American Association of University Women shows that nearly half of students in grades 7 through 12 have experienced sexual harassment. Their definition is “unwelcome sexual behavior that takes place in person or electronically.” Which would seem to include anyone who has been called a “whore” or “so hot” on Facebook, or is jokingly or not jokingly propositioned. (In other words, it’s surprising it’s only half.)

So the problem is the overly broad definition of “unwelcome sexual behavior that takes place in person or electronically,” not the prevalence of sexual harassment among teenage girls? Roiphe suspects that by this defninition, the percentage should be much higher but immediately moves on, failing to address that even though every girl in the class might have been called flat, easy, or doable, the ubiquity of these comments does not make them excusable. Imagine telling my grade nine student whose friend jokingly called her a slut in the middle of English class, “What’s the problem? Just laugh it off. Now back to Merchant of Venice…hey, maybe you should read for Portia – that shallow ho-bag. Lol.”

I wonder what kind of language and behaviour Australian high school teachers allow. Does the ‘boys will be boys’ attitude apply in the classroom? The relentless sexual jokes in professional settings, and the general acceptance of them, seems to indicate that this is something Aussies have tolerated all their lives.

Frankly, I have been shocked by the way male and female colleagues treat one another here. It’s not just the comments about men being “distracted” by short skirts and cleaveage. It’s not just the HR woman telling my senior manager friend that his Canadian accent is sexy.  It’s not just the office party binge drinking that often results in messy inter-office hook ups, sometimes with married bosses. It’s not just the female employees playing ‘who would you rather do?’ about their male colleagues over happy hour cocktails.

It’s the fact that, according an the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade primer on the status of women, despite a relatively equal rate of education and 58% labour force participation, women hold only 12% of private sector management jobs and a mere 9% of board directorships. The Australian Human Rights Commission breaks it down:

Every year, sexual harassment in the workplace is one of the most common types of complaints received by the Commission under the Sex Discrimination Act. In 2009 – 2010, 21% of all complaints to the Australian Human Rights Commission were under the Sex Discrimination Act, and 88% of those complaints related to sex discrimination in the workplace. The wide use of new technologies such as mobile phones, email and social networking websites creates new spaces where sexual harassment may occur.

Sexual harassment at work is against the law. Sexual harassment can be committed by an employer, workmate or other people in a working relationship with the victim.

Sexual harassment can be a barrier to women participating fully in paid work. It can undermine their equal participation in organisations or business, reduce the quality of their working life and impose costs on organisations[2].

For my part, I will not “get used to it.” I will continue to let people know that I am uncomfortable with inappropriate comments. Last week I filed a complaint against a course facilitator who made derogatory remarks about women, Asians and Eskimos (sic). I will continue to tell my female Aussie friends that they don’t have to laugh, get drunk, or get liposuction to impress their male colleagues. And if I end up in a high school classroom here, I will do my best to encourage my female students to be birds of paradise and to grow tall and bright in a safe – and yes, a colourful – environment.

Australian art by Thaneeya McArdle http://www.thaneeya.com/

Teach ‘em Good is heading down under for a year(ish). I decided it was time to think about global education from a new latitude, with a new attitude.  Surf’s Up!

Spadina Remix - then and Now by AldenC on Flickr

The final summative for my Geography class was a neighbourhood field study. Students had to conduct field research as well as traditional research exploring an issue of their choice within a Toronto neighbourhood. They had to write an individual research paper and present a creative group oral presentation.

In groups, the students chose a neighbourhood in Toronto – the only limiting factor was that they could not choose an area that any of their group members live in.  Each student chose an issue in their neighbourhood, asked a question and came up with a thesis  which they supported with demographic evidence from the City of Toronto’s neighbourhood profiles as well as qualitative evidence from their field study and support from sources including Toronto newspapers, real estate boards, and local blogs like spacing and Torontoist.

Questions ranged from “Does the name ‘Little Italy’ accurately represent the culture of the neighbourhood?” to “Why are homes in Forest Hill so much more expensive than similar homes in the suburbs?” to “What kind of person would want to live on the Island?” One students studied the demographics of the waterfront condo-land, asking, “Why is the population of the Harbourfront community growing so rapidly despite a  low birthrate?” I encouraged a student to look at a contemporary issue, and she ended up researching the new Bixi program and hypothesize about its success and its potential impact on tourism, commerce, and transportation in her neighbourhood.

When I was in high school, a flashy presentation involved funny hats & ties and maybe – maybe – a neon bristol board sign. Today, you ask grade nine students to do an oral presentation, and you get a full on travelogue. I was very impressed with some of the presentations! One group studied Queen St. W. and wrote a song, accompanied by a music video showcasing the neighbourhood’s attractions. This group, who studied Cabbagetown/Regent Park conducted interviews with locals, discussing issues like safety, gentrification, and the preservation of heritage homes:

This summative was a great way to get students out of their own bubble and onto the streets of Toronto. It forced them to pay closer attention to the stores, parks, hospitals, homes, and sidewalks of their city. Students gained an appreciation for the planning that goes into a neighbourhood, and for the multitude of factors and stakeholders  that work together to make a neighbourhood safe, clean, vibrant and liveable. So now when I wander these streets, I find myself counting doctors’ offices, looking for available parking, and scanning signage for languages other than English. It’s true – teachers really do learn from their students!

I wanted to do something special on the last day, beyond playing music and feeding them chips and freezies. I won’t be returning to my school next year, and I wanted my Grade 9 students to know that I care about their futures, even though I won’t be there to shepherd them through the senior grades.

After Gil Scott Heron died last week, I was thinking about the power of poetry – a topic I blogged about last year. On the second last day of school, I showed one of my classes some of his videos, tying them into our unit on Raisin in the Sun and the Civil Rights movement. I came home and sat down and banged out a spoken word-style poem, which I then performed for my classes. It wasn’t memorized, and I stumbled a few times, but my students seemed to appreciate it.

It was affirming to see them pick up on the references scattered throughout the lyrics – references  to essay writing and to the texts that we studied throughout the year. Performing this in my classes and getting high fives from kids in the hallways after school made the last day of school a bit less depressing.

A Bunch of Kings and Queens

No more pencils no more books
No more teachers’ dirty looks!
But if the looks are dirty
You must not be in my classroom,
Because the kinds of looks I give are squeaky clean
Know what I mean?

If only you could have seen what I’ve seen:
A bunch of teens
A bunch of dreams
A bunch of kings and queens

On the first day of school I asked you to write a personal credo,
“I believe this teacher chick
is a total freaking weirdo”
(Never fear, Batman’s here, though
Our very own personal classroom superhero)
No matter what you wrote on that page,
There’s no chance you’d get a zero.

You think you don’t have any beliefs.
Well, I believe you do
When I look at every one of you
Read your writing
Hear you speaking
Learn your point of view
I believe one of the most radical things you can do
Is to give yourself permission to be YOU
And then, I believe we can do this learning voodoo
I believe it’s as simple as tying a shoe

In-line citations
Gave you heart palpitations
But you can argue, prove and explain
All hundred and one Dalmatians

Or just keep it to five paragraphs
This kind of proof don’t need a graph
Be like Moses use your words
So you never have to use your staff

Don’t be shallow like Bassanio
Don’t wait for three red cars to go
Don’t let the world defer your dream
Define your themes
Or foreshadow a life lived without extremes

You think your life’s ‘maktub’?
Wanna have more hits than You Tube?
Don’t just glance at the grade on your paper
Read the comments if you want to improve.

Have integrity,
Stop begging me for marks.
Ignite the sparks
That set off a learning bomb
Of brilliant knowledge destroying the dark

Think critically
You’re killin’ me!
Don’t be afraid of riddling me
With more questions than there’s gelato in Italy

I never sent you to the principal
This bond we’ve got’s invincible
I still respect your right to learn
Even if your pink sheet’s full
I won’t cut off a pound of flesh
As long as you don’t feed me bull…

Shifting topics in the middle of an essay
Making up excuses because you waited til the day
Before to do the chore of sitting down and thinking,
…And then thinking some more
…And then editing and proofreading
‘Til your pencil is sore

Mutual respect keeps us all out of trouble
Don’t burst this bubble
Look at every written word
Like you’re peering through the Hubble
Telescope
Have high hopes
Try to cope
With the deadlines and the pressure
That make you feel like you’re at the end of your rope

Dope! That was a simile
My rhymes are packed with imagery
I see the moonlight reflected in shards of glass
Inspiration’s what you’ve given me
And I hope I gave it back
Hope I helped you stay on track
Hope I showed you that it’s not about what you lack
Nor is it about what you own
You are not defined by your jeans
Or your laptop
Or your phone
Or by the times when you’re walking through a crowded hallway feeling all alone

Lots of cool people were nerdy in grade nine
Lots of smart people got bad grades in grade nine
Lots of loved people were left out in grade nine
Lots of kind people were bullies in grade nine
Lots of smooth people were awkward in grade nine
Lots of worried people are doing just fine
Keep learning your lessons,
I’ll keep learning mine.

This is my credo
It’s got me this far
Believe in yourself, whoever you are
You’d believe in yourselves if you’d seen what I’ve seen:
A bunch of teens
A bunch of dreams
A bunch of kings and queens

I invited Billie to speak to my Introduction to Anthropology, Psychology, and Sociology (HSP3M) class because our final project in the course is a multimedia public service announcement incorporating insights from the three disciplines. My goal was to get the students thinking about what makes an effective PSA, and Billie’s talk made the students think deeply about both the medium and the message of their projects. Billie’s charismatic blend of “Web Scientist,” edgy comedian, and genuine do-gooder kept the students laughing, thinking and questioning.

Using admittedly inaccurate but highly truthful graphs and diagrams, clips from YouTube and from his own films projects, and a personable and humorous tone, Billie explored why so many of the messages put out by so-called media experts flop while seemingly random content goes viral. He began by sharing some observations about humanity gleaned from studying viral videos and people’s reactions to them.

The Message in the Bottle

The second part of the presentation was centered around The Message in the Bottle, a campaign that Billie’s non-profit, ARC Institute,  created in partnership with Molson. He zeroed in on the failure of the many shareholders in the fight against irresponsible drinking, including brewers, law enforcement, non-profits, and the government. He pointed out that while the messages about alcohol consumption are traditionally created behind closed doors, a more effective campaign must not only target but also include the people affected by the problem – that is, the students and youth who are surrounded by a culture of irresponsible binge drinking. The internet allows new forms of participation and communication between people whose ideas deserve a platform, and Billie’s work incorporates these voices to craft provocative, engaging, and interactive stories.

After gaining the students’ respect and piquing their interest through humour, Billie switched to a somber tone, telling the class about the alcohol related death of his young cousin, which motivated him to speak out about irresponsible drinking.

Finally, he fielded questions and gave the students advice about each of their chosen topics, reminding them that as social scientists it is more important to ask good questions and conduct probing research than it is to broadcast a one-way message.

In the hallways after class, many of the students thanked me for inviting Billie to speak, and told me that his insights had made them rethink their projects. On a selfish note, having access to someone like Billie raised my cool quotient among these notoriously hard-to-impress teenagers.

This past week was my much-needed Passover vacation, and I took advantage of every day (and yes, vegging on the couch reading a book during a late-April blizzard totally counts as taking advantage). I also spent a week with my mom in Arizona, eating great food and climbing mountains in Phoenix and hiking deep into the Grand Canyon.

I find myself now prepping for the final 23 days (minus assemblies & shortened staff meeting days) of the 2010-11 school year. My last 23 days as a first year teacher. I am calling on all my time management gods to help me squeeze all the juice out of this month. What am I going to do? Here are a few of my strategies:

1. WWPD: What Would Pamela Do? Pamela was a colleague of mine at a non-profit, and she is the Hermione Granger of Microsoft Outlook. She had colour coded everything, pop-up reminders, multiple task lists ranked by priority, and she actually DID her TO DOs. I’ll make lists, schedules, keep things in labeled folders. I will embody Staples (lay off on the ‘easy’ button jokes). But I will also…

2. Drop the perfectionism: Doing something imperfectly is better than doing nothing perfectly.

3. Time to Time Time: There are three kinds of time: structured work time (the time when I’m in class, in meetings etc.), unstructured work time (time outside of class that I dedicate to marking & prepping), and my time (time to see friends, relax, dance, cook, live my life). I need to know the difference between these three – particularly the last two. All too often, my work time bleeds into my personal life, which prevents me from really doing either one well.  To that end:

4. Plizzans: Knowing that I have dinner plans with friends, a HotDocs film to catch, or a bellydance class means that I have finite hours to spend shuffling papers around and opening and closing windows on my desktop. The busier I am, the more I get done.

5. Count: One…Ha! Ha! Ha! Know how many papers I have to mark. Mark one. Watch the number shrink.

6. Break out the ol’ mantra: When I was an undergraduate, somehow just repeating the phrase “Stress is counterproductive” made me actually sit down and hammer out paper after paper. I don’t know why this phrase worked – it’s not even catchy – but it did.

As I wrote this post, there was a knock at my front door. My upstairs neighbour and vestibule confidante, Mary, dropped by to welcome me back home. Mary just happens to be a yoga teacher and author, and a very in-touch and self-aware woman. We were swapping our stories of stress, and she shared with me 5 sayings that her late yoga master told her (actually, she just ran upstairs to find the fifth…). Not all of them are apropos at this moment, but they’re worth having in my back pocket, and I’m sure they will all be salient at one time or another.

- Recognize that the other person is you

- There is a way through every block

- When the time is on you, start, and the pressure will be off

- Vibrate the cosmos and the path will be clear

The third one is really speaking to me right now. Please share ways that you manage scheduling, stress, and the time crunch of the teaching profession. And…..START!

The previous class, I had given the students a handout with background information about ASD and Asperger’s from Autism Canada, with a few questions to answer for homework. My random fact of the day, written on the board, was:

The WHO estimates that the rate of autism is growing at 14% around the world

We discussed why this statistic may be on the rise, and my students arrived on their own at the debate around the extent to which there is a higher incidence of autism or a higher diagnosis rate because of increased awareness of the disease.

Before the students came in, I had stuck one cue card on each of their desks with one of the following words written on each card:

Spazzer, Retard, Stupid, Mentally disabled, Autistic, Person with autism, Person with an ASD, Person with Asperger’s Syndrome, Asperger’s kid, Different, Special needs, Crip, Mong, Idiot savant, Slow, Different, Special , Sped, Handicapped , Weird, Idiot , Person with special needs

Some of these words were from the novel; some were from the schoolyard. I then drew a line on the board and asked the kids to quietly come up and stick their cue card somewhere along the line.

Offensive _________________________ Respectful

This led to a wonderfully productive discussion about the disorder, and about our use of language. As we discussed the words, I asked the students if they wanted to change the placement of any of the cue cards. I asked them questions like:

• Which would be the most appropriate words to use when talking about Christopher?
• Why is the language  we use so important when discussing these issues?
• Why do some words that were OK at one time now offend people? Are there any words that used to be offensive but are now OK? (This led us to a discussion of words like “queer” and “the N word”)
• Can a word be neutral in some contexts and offensive in others?

Students were eager to share their perspectives, including several stories about their own “special needs” and about friends or relatives who have autism.

I read a passage from the Chapter 71 of the novel:

All the other children at my school are stupid. Except I’m not meant to call them stupid, even though this is what they are. I’m meant to say that they have learning difficulties or that they have special needs… (Haddon 54).

We discussed the idea that everyone has special needs even if they don’t have Special Needs – and discussed the phrase “Normal is a dryer setting” – (also the title of a wonderful blog by Amy Wink Krebs,  a writer whose son has autism).

We ended up with all of the words beginning with “person” on one end of the line and drove home the point that a person with any sort of disability is a person first, and that they should not be labeled or defined by their disability. One student even suggested that I write “Christopher” beside “Respectful” because, indeed, the most respectful way to address a person with autism is by his or her name.

After quickly taking up the homework questions, the next activity delved into the language of the book, but still with an eye to empathizing with the challenges that everyday life poses to people with autism. I asked them how they would describe the author’s writing style (detailed, straightforward, simple words etc.).  I read an amusing passage from chapter 29 about why Christopher does not like metaphors:

The word “metaphor” means carrying something from one place to another . . . and it is when you describe something by using a word for something that it isn’t. This means that the word “metaphor” is a metaphor.

I think it should be called a lie because a pig is not like a day and people people do not have skeletons in their cupboards. And when I try and make a picture of the phrase in my head it just confuses me because imagining and apple in someone’s eye doesn’t have anything to do with liking someone a lot and it makes you forget what the person was talking about (Haddon 18-19).

We reviewed what similes and metaphors are, and I then gave them a handout about figurative speech:

An idiom is a word or phrase that is used figuratively in common speech to mean something other than its literal definition. Christopher has a hard time understanding idioms. Picture the idiom in its literal translation – this mental image might seem funny, but it could confuse and overwhelm a person with autism.

I began with the example, “I saw the school play last night. It was sick!”  I grossed them out by explaining that this could mean that everyone was sneezing all over each other and that the actors threw up on the audience. This led to a really cute impromptu comedy routine between me and the students, as they shouted out clarifications like, “No, I mean it was the bomb!” “The roof was on fire!” etc. For the rest of the period, they worked on creating straightforward, literal and direct statements out of commonly used idioms (here is the “Curious Idioms” handout).

It was a very successful lesson and I hope that today, as I observe my students’ book club discussions, I’ll see them thinking about their language and paying closer attention to the language of the text.

Earlier this year, on World Toilet Day, I had my grade 9 Geography students discuss global sanitation inequities while squatting beside their desks (see: The Big Squat). On Martin Luther King Jr. Day in January, I screened the “I have a dream” speech to introduce rhetorical devices to my grade 9 English classes, and had the students write their own “I have a dream” reflections.  In my grade 11 Social Science class, we looked at MLK as a social sceintist (the lesson is available on my other blog – SAP on the Web).

This week, I had another opportunity to spend a few minutes opening kids’ eyes to the world outside our classroom walls. The 100th annual International Women’s Day was a couple of days ago (March 8). The evening before, this video of Daniel Craig, the most recent James Bond, appeared on a few of my friends’ Facebook pages:

I showed it in all of my classes and discussed International Women’s Day. We had interesting discussions based on one of the student’s questions, “Why isn’t there International Men’s Day?” My students – both boys and girls – made some great comments and seemed to really be paying attention to the video’s message.

• In Geography, we discussed why gender is an important measure when studying demographics. We also discussed the status of women in Canada vs. in other societies around the world.
• In English, the students wrote their daily “Credo” in response to the video and to our discussions. We also linked International Women’s Day to our discussion around the status of Portia and the other female characters in Merchant of Venice. For the media strand, it became a lesson on critical media literacy – unpacking what 007 stands for, if and how the role of the Bond Girl has evolved over the decades, and why Craig dresses as a large breasted blonde.
• Finally, in my Sociology, Anthropology & Psychology class we tied it in to our Sociology unit and talked about gender norms, zeroing in on the idea that in this video, the man, and not the woman, is “seen, not heard” while Judi Dench in the role of M is heard but not seen.

I was inspired by my students’ questions and comments, and my conviction in these tiny activist measures was reaffirmed when I got home to find an email from one of my student’s mothers, saying that she tried to show her 14 year old son the video at home and he replied,  “Oh, I know, the thing with Daniel Craig wearing a dress.  Ms. Antflick already showed it to us.  She’s a feminist!” She went on to thank me for exposing her son to such progressive ideas (progressive? in 2011?).

It’s the little things that make the hours of lesson planning and marking worthwhile (she writes as she blogs instead of preparing for her third and final teacher eval…)