What An Art Teacher Taught Me About Literacy

This is my dear friend, Rosemarie Gidaro. She is the head of Arts of St. Jean de Brebeuf CHS in our Board. I've known Rosemarie for about 13 years, since I was 17 and a student at another high school where she taught. I thought it was a great twist of fate that a former teacher would become a colleague from whom I would learn a great deal.



What I learned from Rose is the importance of self-authentification. She pushes students to be honest in their work so that their true voice emerges in their work, regardless of the medium they are working in or the subject matter. It seemed to me that this was most important and that skill would develop along the way so long as what the students were doing was meaningful and authentic to and for them. It's what keeps students engaged and motivated. When I had transitioned to the secondary panel, I think I got it all wrong. For me, skill was paramount and once there was a certain level of mastery, then students could use those skills in a variety of application. Even though she runs a very well-structured program, Rosemarie affords her students a great deal of freedom and it allows them to develop their voice, be it on canvas, in clay or through the lens of a camera. Skill is learned in context and the student voice is made more clear and precise along the way. Art is a highly metacognitive exercise and students obviously benefit from reflective and reflexive practices. It refines skills and instills a sense of pride in one's work. Surely, this is what we need to be doing across all areas of the curriculum as far as the teaching of literacy is concerned.

I have come to define literacy a little differently as far as the needs of the 21st century go. Literacy, I believe, is about interpreting and participating in a means of expression. Simple. Highly interpretive. I think these two points are critical for the kids we teach these days. Whether they go onto the study the arts at the post-secondary level, Rosemarie's students are quite proficient in their ability to talk not only about their work, but others' as well because of the deliberate emphasis of developing one's true voice as a vehicle for skill development. What is in demand in this marketplace are individuals who can be creative and original, making something new out of pre-existing knowledge. In order for anyone to be able to do that, one needs to have a firm grip on his or her authentic self and a refined and proficient use of skill, regardless of using a laptop computer, pen or paintbrush.

I Am DELICIOUS!

Mind out of the gutter...

I have recently learned how to use Delicious - an online social bookmarking site. The only question I have is why the heck didn't I know about this sooner?!

Delicious is an online social bookmarking application. I'm sure that at one point or another, we have all saved a link to our "Favourites" list while surfing the Net. The only problem with that practice is that you can only access those Favourites from the computer where those links were saved. The beauty thing about Delicious is that you can bookmark your favourite websites ONLINE and therefore, you can access them wherever you have access to the Internet. Brilliant!



As an educator, this excites me because I can see an immediate benefit to using this application with students. A teacher could post all relevant links for a course for research purposes, or even course readings, making learning a more paperless and greener experience. This tool allows for learning to take place beyond the confines of the classroom and traditional, outdated, badly written and ideological textbooks. In using this application, we continue to honour what our students already know and what they can already do. For our students, cyberspace is a familiar place where they both work and play. There is nothing wrong with adding this dimension to our course if it means that our students will be more engaged and see the use of real world tools.

inquiry based learning with Web2.0

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inquiry based learning with Web2.0

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Critical Literacy Basics - Cosentino

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Critical Literacy Basics - Cosentino

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21st Century Skills

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21st Century Skills

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The Business Of Web 2.0 V6

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The Business Of Web 2.0 V6

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W Eb 2.0 Aps For Differentiated Instruction

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W Eb 2.0 Aps For Differentiated Instruction

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Twittered and Unsure...

Anyone who knows me and understands me as an educator knows that I love to be current and relevant in the classroom, and this includes bringing in as much technology as possible when and where appropriate and learning all the up-and-coming Web 2.0 applications when time permits. I recently decided to learn how to use Twitter and I'm not sure that I'm all the impressed - yet. Granted, it's easy to use and it forces you to be succinct - only 140 characters per "tweet".

Here is where I can see it useful:

1. Class discussions and/or online seminars

2. Creation of community in a digital space

3. Instant feedback

4. A public forum to share thoughts, challenges and ideas

5. Building networking skills

6. An alternative to email

I especially like that Twitter can be accessed from a number of devices apart from the computer: iPhones, cell phones, smart devices and any Internet-enabled device.

Here is where I am not so smitten. In "mucking around" the site, I found that it is mostly social. People's "tweets" are for the most part, incosequential and irrelevant to me. I admit, at the moment, I am following some of my favourite bands to keep up to speed with concert listings and album releases. I'm also following Time magazine and a friend of mine. So I suppose that I'm using Twitter to satisfy personal needs, in which case, Twitter can be whatever you want it to be.

I came across a blog, teaching.mrbelshaw.co.uk. Doug Belshaw had this to say about using Twitter with students:

I think Twitter could be ideal for reminding students about homework, trips and such things, especially as they can enter their mobile phone number to be alerted when one of their ‘friends’ updates their account. The advantage is that you don’t need to know the phone numbers of students to get messages onto their device: they are the ones who authorize their mobile phone from the website and they subscribe to your Twitter feed.

Is this not just an updated version of the good ol' class website?

Carol Cooper-Taylor has some intersting ideas about using Twitter in education. She writes that Twitter is great for opinion polls. The first thing that comes to mind are anticipation guides. Why not throw out a question to gauge where students are at, how much they think they know and what they feel on a specific topic or issue? Another great idea she has is instead of answering the question, "What are you doing?" get students to answer "What has your attention?" This could be a terrific pre-writing activity - great for generating ideas (and the boys will certainly benefit from this). Finally, Twitter allows parents to see what's going on in the classroom. Everything is open and transparent - nothing wrong with that.

I think I'll muck around some more and wait to render my verdict. I'm all for using this in a classroom setting if it's effective and meaningful.

Television is NOT for the illiterate...

I admit,I'm a huge fan of Lost. If I wasn't such an Egyptomaniac, I don't know that I could follow as well. What I love (and sometimes hate) about this show is that it forces viewers to take careful account of all the seemingly unimportant details, largely in the form of symbols, and wonder why on earth they are there in the first place. For example, in the season finale, we see that Jacob is living at the base of a statue of what appears to be an Egyptian god who has a crocodile head. In Egyptian mythology, this is the god Set or Seth, who is know for having murdered the god Osiris (who became the god of the Underworld), and then cut his body into 13 pieces and scattered them throughout Egypt. Since Set is assoiciated with death, it was a natural assumption that Jacob was going to be murdered by way of some twisted conspiracy. I also love that a number of the characters names relate to famous names in Political Science: John Locke, Jeremy Bentham, Rousseau... How do these names relate to the plot of the series? I haven't quite figured that one out yet, and I have studied a lot of political philosophy in my time!

Our kids can't even watch television anymore without the demands of being able to apply their learning in a variety of contexts. Kids need to be able to read and interpret graphic texts if they want to follow some of the more up-and-coming shows that are getting a lot of hype. Have we taught our kids to think? Have we taught our kids what to do with what they've learned in real-life, unpredictable situations? The kids who can do this will be successful is 21st century institutions, and incidentally, will be the few who may very well be able to predict where the writers of Lost of going with the storyline...

Current Events is NOT a Thing of the Past...

Once upon a time, teachers used to compel students to bring in newspaper clippings and we'd all take turns summarizing the story. Some teachers kept bulletin boards of those clippings and others asked their students to keep journals or scrapbooks. There was always some sort of learning attached to this literacy event - summary writing, learning to recount or retell, or even simply writing a news report ourselves. I worry that students don't talk about what's going on in the world around them. I wonder if our kids could make sense of these editorial cartoons:

(Could our students understand the humour behind this cartoon? Can they articulate why this is relevant to them?)

(Do our kids really understand what's going on? Do they understand the meaning of words like "pandemic"? Do they possess the necessary health literacy to navigate the health care system?)

(When hasn't this issue been in the news? Do our students understand the implications of what the Pope is saying? What it means to the historical context of this story?)

Why rely so heavily on textbooks when the world itself is providing the content that we can use to teach our students necessary and relevant skills to live in it?

I'm not suggesting returning to the age-old practice of cutting and pasting. This is neither relevant to our students nor effective for our teaching. All I'm saying is that the news should play an active role in our programming and course work so that real-life connections can be made on a regular basis. Admittedly, I'm pretty disturbed that some teachers are STILL asking kids to cut and paste articles, summarize them and expect students to understand that they have just acquired some pretty important skills. Let's keep it real...

Three Day Road

A great book for a potential literature study, senior-level...

It is 1919, and Niska, the last Oji-Cree medicine woman to live off the land, has received word that one of the two boys she grudgingly saw off to war has returned. She leaves her home in the bush of Northern Ontario to retrieve him, only to discover that the one she expected is actually the other.

Xavier Bird, her sole living relation, gravely wounded and addicted to the army's morphine, hovers somewhere between the living world and that of the dead. As Niska paddles him the three days home, she realizes that all she can offer in her attempt to keep him alive is her words, the stories of her life.

In turn, Xavier relates the horrifying years of war in Europe: he and his best friend, Elijah Whiskeyjack, prowled the battlefields of France and Belgium as snipers of enormous skill. As their reputations grew, the two young men, with their hand-sewn moccasins and extraordinary marksmanship, became both the pride and fear of their regiment as they stalked the ripe killing fields of Ypres and the Somme.

But what happened to Elijah? As Niska paddles deeper into the wilderness, both she and Xavier confront the devastation that such great conflict leaves in its wake.

Inspired in part by real-life World War I Ojibwa hero Francis Pegahmagabow, Three Day Road reinvents the tradition of such Great War epics as Birdsong and All Quiet on the Western Front. Beautifully written and told with unblinking focus, it is a remarkable tale, one of brutality, survival, and rebirth.

Excerpt from: http://www.penguin.ca/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780670063628,00.html#

It's a strong Canadian alternative. Makes for an intersting comparison to Timothy Findley's The Wars. A good read!

Just how fast are we moving?

In an in-service on teaching literacy across the curriculum, my partner Cathie shared this anology with the group, and I thought it was so relevant and terrific:



60 minutes = 5000 years that people have had access to writing systems

On this scale, there were few significant media changes until about 7.5 mins ago -printing press came into use in Western culture.

2 minutes ago - - - the telegraph, photograph, and locomotive

1.5 minutes ago - - - telephone, phonograph, rotary press, motion pictures, automobile, airplane and radio

1 minute ago - - - talking picture

In the last 40 seconds - - - the TV

In the last 6 sec - - - the computer

Last few - satellites, laser beams, translation machines, interactive telecommunications, Internet, video games

We're always playing catch-up...

The Good Path... More Inclusivity in our Schools

I was so fortunate to have been given the opportunity to attend an Aboriginal Education symposium at the Nottawasaga Inn called "The Good Path: Sharing the Journey". It is always a good thing when given the chance to dialogue with colleagues from other boards to see what's happening throughout the province among the 11 Barrie District school boards. Members of the Aboriginal community were in attendance as well.

We arrived on the evening of April 29 and were treated to a very moving keynote addressed delivered by Shelley Knott-Fife, Educational Officer from the Aboriginal Education Office of the Ministry of Education. I had heard the same address a couple weeks ago and yet the experience was different. Maybe it had something to do with the mood of the room. Let's face it, when the audience has already bought into the message, the enthusiasm is unmistakable. One of the points that Shelley made that really touched a nerve with me made reference to the point that for those people who belong to ethinic cultures that are not native to Canada can seek that culture out and in a specific place in the world find the very essence of what that culture is (i.e. Italians can seek their culture in Italy, Cubans in Cuba, Jamaicas in Jamaica, etc.). For First Nations, Canada is IT. It's the only home they have and have ever known. Holy smokes! The implications for education are ginormous. Would a student of Aboriginal ancestry feel "at home" in what they are learning? Does he or she see any sort of familiarity in the curriculum? I always found it so amazing that we invest so much time, energy and resources in promoting multiculturalism and yet we've done a dismal job at celebrating the FIRST cultural group. In education, or society in general, these conditions lend themselves to what I call the "flavour of the month" syndrome that we happily buy into because they appear to be solutions to the bigger problem. Take Black History Month for example... Is February the ONLY time it's important? Is black history not Canadian history? Of course it is! We have a civic obligation to know it. Aboriginal history IS Canadian history and it should be a natural, seemless part of what we do. I really think that the work being done with the Literacy Prism is going to begin to help with this.

We were also treated to a concert (and a stand-up routine of sorts) by Tom Jackson. I didn't realize how tall he was but it was great to be in the presence of such an accomplished Canadian. An interesting voice... Willy Nelson -ish...

My favourite part of the conference came the following morning on April 30 during the opening prayer and drum ceremony. A young man played his drum and sang. I have never seen so much understated passion and conviction in a person of his age in all my years of teaching. It was beautiful and I can't remember the last time I was moved by something as profounding as I was that morning.

The rest of the day was spent in workshop sessions and I learned quite a lot. I learned that this process isn't going to be easy, but it has to be done. Our Aboriginal kids and their families deserve to reclaim the voice that has been systemically silenced for too long. Educators have to take a long hard look at what they are teaching and how they are doing and honestly assessing if any of it is causing harm to any of their students. I am so looking forward to the journey our board is on to honour our students of Aboriginal ancestry. (By the way, the super-terrific graphic was a logo designed for our board by Todd Jamieson and Alfie Fishgap. We love it!)

Are You Ready?

I'm learning more and more about the emergence of what is being called SPOT (Smart Personal Object Technology). It's the brainchild of Microsoft (no surprise there) to create software and hardware to personalize household electronics and everyday devices to make their uses more versatile. This includes everything from watches to coffee makers. Take a look:







Crazy, ain't it!! I just wonder how long before these sorts of gagets start appearing in our classrooms, and how ready we're going to be...

Some Funnies (or so I thought...)

Something to chew on...

Thanks to my colleague, Leslie Burchat (whose blog you all have to check out!), I learned about a new website today called World Mapper (www.worldmapper.org). It's an online collection of maps that can be reshaped and distorted depending on which factors or variables are being researched.

For example...


This map reflects global youth literacy. According to the website:

Most of the young people living in most territories can read and write. Only five territories have lower than 50% youth literacy rates. Four of these five are in Northern Africa. Japan recorded the highest rate of youth literacy for a single territory.The highest number of literate youth live in Eastern Asia, where the youth literacy rate is 98.9%. Of the 12 regions, 8 have youth literacy rates of over 95%.

This map shows global adult literacy. World Mapper reports:

The percentage of literate adults is lower than that of literate youth in every region of the world. The biggest differences are 17% in Northern Africa, 13% in Central Africa, and 11% in Southeastern Africa. The smallest difference between youth and adult literacy rates is 1% in Japan.The largest populations of literate adults live in China, India and the United States. India has a literacy rate of 61%, the other two territories have rates of 91%.

These maps just scratch the surface. There are so many other variables that you have students investigate and the map will stretch and distort accordingly. The obvious benefactors are students in taking geography - especially World Issues. This is quite a nifty tool to get some really interesting critical literacy discussions happening. These maps are great visuals that can be used to talk about the influence of power relations, gender, race, class and identity in relation to any number of the factors that can be mapped on this website. I love this!

Critical Literacy and Religion: An Androgynous Jesus?

How's this for an interesting lesson in critical literacy for religion teachers! I have never seen Christ rendered in any art form quite like this. The following excerpt comes from a website that deals with Christ iconography:

This image "Jesus of the People" by Janet McKenzie portrays Jesus as relatively androgynous and as black. Edwina Sandys' Christa portrays Jesus as a woman hanging on the cross, and was extremely controversial. Reinterpretations like these make the symbol of Jesus Christ accesible to people who do not wish to accept the traditional white European male image. Many feminists have chosen to reinterpret Christ, not visually but theoretically, and this is often labeled feminist christology.<(http://www2.kenyon.edu/Depts/Religion/Projects/Reln91/Gender/qchristology.htm)

This exercise is a great opportunity to look at conventional portrayals of Jesus and discuss why they were chosen or deemed acceptable? By whom? For what purpose? Are there any underlying issues of power that are implicated in certain portrayals of Christ? Why are most renderings of Christ reflect a man of northern European descent as opposed to Middle Eastern ancestry?

I would LOVE to hear what students have to say on this. I think this sort of activity is guaranteed to promote high levels of engagement because:
1.) it's inquiry based learning
2.)it involves a great deal of inductive reasoning (your boys will thank you)
3.)it's highly controversial - what teenager doesn't like to challenge the status
quo?
4.)students are doing all the meaning-making, while participating in highly academic
processes(research, synthesis, evaluation, etc.)

In the past, I have challenged my students to create their own artistic renderings of Jesus and the diversity is astounding. Their creations often reflect their own personal relationship with Jesus. I have often taught this sort of lesson in the context of discussing how the four gospels provide very distinct representations of who Jesus is (supported by an article called "The Four Faces of Jesus"). I have done this lesson with grade 10 students taking the Christ in Culture course. A sure winner!

Differentiated Instruction is a Social Justice Issue - Not Simply a Cliche...

As a Catholic Educator, I have a hard time understanding how D.I. could be viewed as anything but a social justice issue. For that matter, despite being a Catholic educator, I truly believe that any educator who sees him or herself as the caring adult in the classroom would regard differentiation as not only the "right" thing to to do, but the ONLY thing to do.

Differentiation also supports the teaching of 21st century skills:

*Students need to learn by doing – more authentic; encourages life-long learning (Dewey)

*Learning through problem-solving and critical thinking (i.e. we don’t want to teach our students science; we want them to become scientists)

*Problem-solving and curiosity expand understanding

*Collaborative technologies prepare them for work outside the classroom

*Students are increasingly expected to express their work in multimedia formats; teachers need to incorporate these formats in the day-to-day routine of the classroom

The world is a different place. Our teaching methodologies and strategies need to reflect our acceptance that we are preparing students for jobs that don't even exist yet. Our students are engaging in reading and writing in ways that we never have. Instead of being afraid and holding on to age-old practices, I think it's time to involve our students in the planning of their own learning. It might inspire them to care more. This goes back to a previous posting about making learning relevant. When students can see how they fit into what they are learning, then they will learn it. They will WANT to be in school. They would want to be there because they are participating in learning activities that honour where they are and what they like. They will want to be there because they get to demonstrate what they know in a way that best suits their learning preferences. They will have a new-found respect for their teachers as people who genuinely understand who they are and what they are capable. If students learned in an environment where they were constantly set up to succeed, I don't know that there would be as much talk around the need to get graduation rates up in the province. It would be a non-issue.

Some Must-Reads for Teachers!

I love these books! They really should be on every teacher's bookshelf...

Joan Wink - - - Critical Pedagogy: Notes From the Real World



Christopher Spence - - - The Joys of Teaching Boys



Colin Lanshear and Michele Knobel - - - A New Literacies Sampler



bell hooks - - - Teaching to Transgress



Patrick Finn - - - Literacy With an Attitude



I'm not done with this list quite yet. One of things that I am most grateful for as I wrote my Master's dissertation and in my role as Program Resource Teacher, is that I have come across some truly amazing resources that I probably never would have known about as a classroom teacher. This is not a good thing. That's why I wanted to start this list, and I'm looking forward to hearing about what people think!

A Great Analogy

I think of our journey to transforming how we talk about teaching and learning literacy in the YCDSB in terms of the Medicine Wheel. The next couple of years will involve a lot of building and awareness, and no doubt there will be struggle. I think the greatest struggle will be in convincing teachers that they're already doing a lot of the good work that the Literacy Prism is promoting. Like with any initiative - whether it's new or a re-packaging and formalizing existing structures - there is bound to be initial resistance because people are afraid of what they don't know or are not comfortable with. I just thought I'd post this because when I came across this diagram, it so precisely represented what I was thinking about our progress to this point.

Acknowledging the Sins of the Past... Looking to a Future Rooted in Forgiveness and Trust

As a Catholic educator, I have to say that my faith has been given a bit of a boost and I must admit that the boost is coming from an unlikely source - the Pope! Chief Phil Fontaine is leading a delegation of residential school survivors to the Vatican for an audience with Pope Benedict in the hopes of securing an official apology for the role of the Roman Catholic Church in the countless abuses that took place at the hands of its priests and nuns at the residential schools. Fontaine said "This will be a historic moment for aboriginals, survivors of residential schools, and for Canadian society." He's absolutely right. Whether the pontiff issues an encyclical on the matter or not is not so important as the dialogue.





There has to begin a process of reconciliation and a general owning-up and I think this is a good way to start. When I read stats like over 150 000 children suffered abuse - physical, sexual and otherwise - from the 1950's to the 1970's, it makes me ill to think that these was institutionalized. That's why I am so proud to be a member of our Board's Aboriginal Education Steering Committee. We are making institutional changes that will facilitate this very-much needed process of forgiveness, so that we can begin to re-build trust with the families of Aboriginal ancestry. Hopefully, they will feel like they (the families) can openly and with a great sense of pride, claim their voice that has been traditionally silenced and self-identify.

I'm also so proud that the Literacy Prism is going to honour the holistic approach that is very much rooted in Aboriginal cultures. I'm thrilled that this is the direction that we're going in FINALLY! Change takes time. Trust me - in my few short years of teaching this is one lesson I've learned well. I think that through our professional development opportunities and through the infusion of a culturally proficient language, we'll see a shift in the current paradigm, which I can only describe as complacent - satisfied with the status quo since the people who are in charge are the ones who are benefitting, who have always benefitted at the expense of others. There is a lot of work to be done, from the curriculum - which we can work within - to the materials that we use in the classroom. I am confident that our teachers will respond to the call to transform their practice.

More Rigor... More Relevance... It's Possible!

On April 6 and 7, while at the Pathways to Partnerships Conference at the Fern Resort in Orillia, I attended two keynote addresses given by Willard Daggett, president and co-founder of the International Centre for Leadership and Education. When I heard he was American, my instinctive anti-American flags went up. (It happens when you spend so much time studying Canadian history, law and politics...) The reason why I even write this is that I figured that I would have to contextualize what was being said along the way. Surprisingly, a lot of what he said made sense. For me, the most compelling part of the presentation came in the form of the Rigor and Relevance Model (above). What I love about this is that it is learning that is anchored in real-world situations. It's contextualized learning. For me, it works. This is how I've always taught. The challenge is getting "buy in" from those who aren't doing this. In order for this model to work, there needs to be a culture that supports change and Education as a profession doesn't quite make the grade where change is concerned. Change takes place in society 4 to 5 times faster than it does in Education. Generally speaking, change - from the time of pre-implementation to implementation - takes about 5-10 years, but in Education it's 35-50. Does this bother anyone else?

In the grand scheme of things, I was just relieved to know that the work being done to develop and craft the Literacy Prism was in line with a lot of mainstream thinking. Every so often, I wonder if this framework will be seen as something new, even though it's not. I wonder if teachers will be leary to accept it because it looks a little different, even though we have been promoting these beliefs for quite some time. The Prism promotes rigor and relevance across the curriculum. I hope it will be received this way...

The "Rainbow Woman"

Ningwakwe (also known to many Canadians as Priscilla George) is a seasoned Aboriginal educator and has a strong commitment to the community. She has six years' experience coordinating Aboriginal literacy programs at the provincial level and 14 years' experience teaching. Ningwakwe's many accomplishments include, but are not limited to, receiving an International Women's Day Award, earning a Life Skills Coach certificate, authoring and co-authoring many papers on Aboriginal Literacy, and starting her own business. She was a teacher of Special Education and ESL within the Toronto District School Board as well as a Policy Advisor for the Native Education Policy Unit of the Ontario Ministry of Education and Training (MET).
Ningwakwe has recently been made President of the National Indigenous Literacy Association for which she is in demand across Canada as a speaker and consultant on Aboriginal literacy issues. (http://www.curriculum.org/csc/management.shtml)

To date, I have read a number of her discussion papers as well as the work that she published on the Rainbow Approach. I recommend all of her work. It is accessible and makes so much sense in a number of contexts. At the YCDSB, her model has been transformed and adapted to meet the needs of our students, but I think we have maintained the integrity of Ningwakwe's intentions - that is a holistic model that tends to mind, body, spirit and soul. This a brief overview of the Rainbow:

RED: “Red represents the language of origin of First Nations individuals and/or communities.”

ORANGE: “Orange symbolizes the skills required for oral literacy (speaking, listening…).”

YELLOW: "Yellow refers to the creative means by which Aboriginal Peoples had to learn to communicate with others who spoke another language or through other than the written word, by using symbols (pictographs, artwork, music) and/or sign language.”

GREEN: "Green refers to the literacy in the languages of the European newcomers to this land a little over five hundred years ago, English and/or French, and which have also been given the status of official languages.”

BLUE: "Blue refers to the skills required to communicate using technology.”

INDIGO: "Indigo refers to the skills required for spiritual or cultural literacy – the ability to interpret dreams, visions or natural events, which are seen to be messages from the Spirit World – the sighting of an animal, the shape of a cloud, seeing a certain person at a particular point in time, etc.”

VIOLET: "Violet refers to the holistic base to Aboriginal literacy, the way in which integrate all of the above – facilitating spiritual, emotional, mental and physical learning outcomes – striving for balance.”


This model was originally designed to work for adult literacy education programs but it's so beautifully universal that anyone's needs would be best served while learning under this model, don't you think?

A New Vision!

I am so excited about this initiative that I can hardly contain myself! It's been quite a while since I've felt this way when I come to work in the morning - and frankly, I haven't been teaching that long.

The Literacy Prism came about almost by accident. I was asked to sit in on our Board's Aboriginal Education Steering Committee. In trying to brainstorm what I could bring to the table in my role as Literacy Program Resource Teacher, I did what my students would have done and I "Googled". I typed in 'Aboriginal Literacy' and I clicked on a link to an article about the Rainbow/Holistic Approach to Aboriginal Literacy by Ningwakwe/E.Priscilla George. It's been a while since I've read anything that compelled me to action. Almost immediately, the vision for how this model could work for the students of our Board became quite clear.

I decided to start blogging about this process as a means of documenting its progress as well as facilitate professional discussion around the matter. We will be rolling this initiative out on May 6, 2009 to vice principals and one representative from literacy committees from each of our secondary schools. Publications are being printed and power points are being created for up-coming presentations. It's really a great time to be in this role.