A Self-Study Method?

The Problem:
“Why when we are asked as teachers to be innovative with technology we are not?”
The Question:
“What conditions need to be in place to support an innovative technology classroom?”
The Method:
Self-Study?

I have been called an innovator when it comes to student use of technology in my elementary classroom yet I feel more pressure each day to teach and measure my students work by traditional methods, as well I doubt my own strengths and abilities for integration. My ideas and concerns seemed to be trapped in my own classroom. In the Alberta Programs of Studies (1995-2009) teachers currently are being asked to make a fundamental shift in our practice away from a teacher centred delivery of content to a more generative and collaborative exploration of content. This shift the curriculum requests requires a major adjustment of the traditional power relationship between myself and my students. We are also being asked in the Learning and Technology Policy Framework to “develop the competencies to integrate technology successfully into their teaching and to guide students in the use of technology to achieve learning goals”(2004).Even though I am willing why is it so difficult for me to connect my student’s questions to the current read and write tools I know are available through technology and how do I share my story with others? There have been many arguments for and against the use and cost of technology in classrooms but all of that in my mind is completely beside the point. We live in a technological world and all of us need to learn how to participate in it and that means learning to use the authoring tools available through web 2.0 technologies, yet if seems so hard. This question is extremely personal, yet I do not believe that I am alone with this question. I am not looking for a universal truth but a shared one. I also believe the only way to get inside of this problem is to reflect on the borders of my own practice and experience and mix it up with dialogue with teachers who are attempting to be innovative .


Given my assumptions as a teacher/researcher I believe the method I need, will involve collaborative dialogue where I bring my experience as a classroom teacher along as a resource. I think it will be kind of an improvisational critical autoethnography. Too wordy I know, but in using the term improvisational I am not referring to jazz music per say. It just means that the way I am looking at my problem is coming from the interpretive nature of social research; it will allow me to be reflective about my own situation and contains the notion of shared understanding and lived knowledge. I use the word critical to mean that it is not enough to merely describe this issue; I hope to bring about change. And autoethnography speaks to the first hand knowledge I need to answer this question and the need to examine my question with others in the place it exists. However this place is personal, I am the subject (knower) and also the object (place) so while I need to bring my own voice I will not understand without the inclusion of other voices. Explanations may contain the seeds to solutions but people are the solutions to the problems that confront us. I want to see if a narrative study with other teachers can be not just a meaning making event but a catalyst for change in our own practice.

I could also approach this problem from a narrative inquiry tradition. Can I make myself (the narrator) the protagonist as an actor in this story? As I am to understand a narrative inquiry is verbal action, “a process of collaboration involving mutual storytelling and re-storying as the research proceeds. In the process of beginning to live the shared story of narrative inquiry, the researcher needs to be aware of constructing a relationship in which both voices are heard” (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990 p.4). This description underlines the importance of relationship in research and social construction, a relationship in which both teachers and researchers feel cared for and have a voice with which to tell their stories.

Then again the method that seems to be the most functional fit at this point is self-study. Self-study is an extension of both narrative and reflective practice. It goes beyond normal professional development and it speaks to a much wider audience and consideration of ideas (p. 106 Craig 2006). In the end I need to take my practice somewhere else because of this experience. It is important to tell my story but to be changed by the telling. What makes this method useful to me is that it is a sequence of reflective moments. It will allow me to place my personal problem out in public. There with collaborative, critical voices it can be reframed and redefined in community because of this participation. It will be a shared adventure. It will not be an expert-novice relationship or just critical friends. In this case I need to assume a ‘working with’ stance through narrative threads. In self-study, “The participants will be jointly involved in developing the study and learning through collaborative experiences (Loughran, J., & Northfield, J. 1998 p.14-15).

Critical Questions:

Can I create the kind of collaborative experience that is required for self-study? Can I make my personal struggle to make sense of my practice with the current ICT curriculum public? Who will share it with me? How will I find my critical friends? What will they get out of this experience? How will I measure what I gained at the end of my research?

Any thoughts anyone?

---

Some theoretical roots

Dewey
• Teacher as ‘knower’
• Knowledge is embedded in situation revised through social interaction and adapted over time
Schön
• Reflective practitioner


Alberta Learning. (2000-2003). Information and communication technology, kindergarten to grade 12: Program of studies. Curriculum Standards

Alberta Learning. (1995-2009). Programs of Study. http://education.alberta.ca/teachers/program.aspx

Alberta Learning. (2004). Learning and technology policy framework. http://www.learning.gov.ab.ca/reading/policy/techframework

Craig, C.J. (2006). Change, Changing, and Being Changed: A Self-study of a teacher educator’s becoming real in the throes of urban school reform (pp.105-116). Houston: Routledge.

Connelly, F. M., & Clandinin, D. J. (1990). Stories of experience and narrative inquiry. Educational
Researcher, 19(5), 2–14.

Ham, V., & Davey, R. (2004, June). Are we the very models of the modern teacher educator? Paper presented at the fifth international conference on Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices,
Herstmonceux Castle, England

Loughran, J., & Northfield, J. (1998). A framework for the development of self-study practice.
In M. L. Hamilton (Ed.), Reconceptualizing teaching practice: Self-study for teacher education
(pp. 7–18). London: Falmer Press. Google Books

Does your work belong to you?

A question for teachers: Does your work or your learning belong to you?

While attending my teacher’s convention this week I was sitting with a question, “Does my work belong to me?”. I had been reading about critical inquiry from a Marxist heritage. However I live in this world as a teacher who was looking for professional development so everything I read I placed around my situation carefully. Since my work is learning, it was not long before the question changed itself to read, “Do you own your own learning?”. While I carted my laptop around looking for wireless connections so that I could connect to my professional learning network I realized, no I do not. While many speakers this year spoke about the power of social networks for student learning no one thought about wireless networking for teacher learning. If what we want from people today is to live well in a connected world full of ambiguity we need our teachers to become learners and connect them to each other and the information that they want when they need it.

I believe something is a miss in the world of teaching and learning, something that needs to change for teachers to feel autonomous in their own workplace. Margaret Weatley says, “People are the solutions to the problems that confront us (2009 p. 23). I have been reflecting on this interpretively as a doctoral student and classroom teacher. Michael Crotty (1998) relates that interpretive research merely seeks to understand, and does not challenge, it reads a situation in terms of interaction and community not in the terms of conflict or oppression, it also accepts a status quo and does not seek to bring about change (p.113). That fills me with concern. I have been thinking interpretively about school reform and technology integration. While I do not believe teachers are oppressed in any way I do see many ways they are alienated in a world full of one way musts. Why is it so hard for teacher’s questions to be asked? It is my wish to awaken and understanding the complex situation teachers find themselves in. I want deeply to do this in terms of the conflict that I see teachers living in. I wish to describe, analyze, and open to scrutiny what otherwise might lie hidden out of sight without my participation. I wish to revisit the assumptions we have about teachers using technology in their classrooms for inquiry because I believe something needs to change and I do not think anything will change unless we treat teachers as learners and invite their voices into research by using a method to collect and connect wisdom from each other in reflection.

While at convention and seeing fellow teachers I had lost track with, I was reminded of the power of community and connections to each other as people. As a researcher I am drawn to a dialectical method as a tool to collect data from teachers. This method with all its variations generally views the whole of reality as an evolving process. As I understand it the premise of a dialectical argument is that participants, even if they do not agree, they at least share some common ground of meanings and experience. Connections then need to be shaped by me. I am not interested in an objective depiction of what some might call a stable “other”. There is nothing stable about teaching in today’s classroom. Instead, I want to encourage reflection in a collaborative fashion that would give teachers multiple opportunities to dialogue, in a kind of improvisational critical ethnography about technology use and the assumptions we have about it in the classroom.

In my current work environment at a recent professional development session the administration introduced us to something called, “Fierce Conversations”. I can't say that I really understand this fierceness but according to author Susan Scott you are either: Successful, flat lining or failing. Is that it? Scott is quoted as saying that interpersonal difficulties - at work and at home - are a direct result of our inability to communicate well. Perhaps, if all we want to do is talk at people without listening to them, but a good life is complex, this linear thinking does not describe the many ways we can be successful. “To recognize the dialectic is to recognize that realities are never isolated entities standing in a linear, causal relationship to one another” (Crotty 1998 p.118). The truth is that teaching comes from a servant-master tradition. The ones in charge have the ideas that are communicated toward the one doing the work. As teachers we have been expected to listen to what is said to us not the other way around. I find this thinking like driving on a road where traffic can only flow in one direction. There is not a lot of choice in where you end up. A good place for top down reform possibly, but where on this road is a place for pausing for reflection and opening a place for fierce listening? Life is nebulous and the world of teaching is complex. Complexities need to be recognized and nurtured. To look at teaching as this, that and the other thing, is not very prosperous. Scott speaks from the corporate world of business. Business is rightly concerned with data driven decision-making because it makes sense if you are only concerned with the bottom line. I wonder what place this philosophy has in schools. Is it our place as teachers to put achievement and accountability before our responsibility to support our students to become democratic citizens and encourage voice in our students? According to the government of Alberta’s guide to education (2010) “Our education system must simultaneously prepare the citizens of tomorrow while equipping our students with the knowledge and skills they need to be successful in a rapidly changing economy and society” (p. 5). How do we do this with out doing it our selves? At the end of the day I wish to take back my work from all of those that tell me it belongs to them. I want also to feel comfortable to ask questions in my place of work in order to personalize my teaching and my own learning.

This thinking has been inspired by

• Calgary City Teachers Convention tweets :http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23cctc
  
• Dennis Shirley of Boston College
• My friends Barb and Judy
  

Teacher as Learner?

The following is a critical reflection to reading, “What did you do in school today?” Teaching effectiveness: A framework May 2009, sponsored by the Canadian Education Association, in partnership with the Canadian Council on Learning and school districts across Canada. They focus on the idea of student engagement in the classroom, and explore the relationship with adolescent learning, student achievement, and effective teaching. They make a clear distinction between intellectual and academic engagement. On their website http://www.cea-ace.ca/res.cfm?subsection=wdy they remind us that. “Students have a better educational experience when teachers and students actively collaborate in the process of improvement.” A lived knowledge of self with embedded assessment. In addition, “Teaching is incredibly complex and today’s teachers are called upon to work with their colleagues to design learning environments that promote deeper engagement in learning as a reciprocal process among teachers and students”.

Throughout my 26-year career as a teacher there has always been a push for some sort of school reform. In the Alberta Programs of Studies (1995-2009) teachers currently are being asked to make a fundamental shift in their practice away from a teacher centred delivery of content to a more generative and collaborative exploration of content. They also are being asked in the Learning and Technology Policy Framework to “develop the competencies to integrate technology successfully into their teaching and to guide students in the use of technology to achieve learning goals”(2004). All of this requires a major adjustment in not just the traditional power relationship between teacher and student but also a shift in teacher as transmitter, to teacher as learner. It is not clear to me that we recognize the depth of shift in practice and the skill required by many generations of teachers relating to the infusion of digital technologies into learning and teaching let alone inquiry. To add to this complexity, in the program of studies teachers are asked to build a learning community and develop capacity for personalized learning, while demanding a standardized practice. There have been major shifts in our thinking of knowledge in the post-industrial age. In her brief history of ideas about teaching Friesen speaks of the traditions our current education system was built on. Many in education today still value scientific management as a model for teaching and learning. In the article chapter one reminds us that standardized practice is dedicated to the value of efficiency. Sorting learners into levels for learning and judging them through a standard method. It seeks higher and higher goals in what may become a data driven, top down non-negotiable environment. In this place knowledge is seen as something that can be improved through repetition and validity comes from being able to do it again.

Teaching for today’s world alerts us of the need for change. Many researchers have the same concern. In “Teaching in the knowledge society”, Andy Hargreaves (2003) argues that teaching in the knowledge society involves cultivating these capacities in young people; developing deep cognitive learning, creativity, and ingenuity among students”. He believes also teachers need to work in networks and teams, and pursue continuous professional learning. He feels they need an environment that promotes “problem-solving, risk taking, trust in the collaborative process, ability for to cope with change and commitment to continuous improvement as organizations” (p. 3). He also cautions that teachers can not make this shift without the support of good professional development. The kind of support that happens in a culture of caring, grounded in long-term relationships of trust, foundations of security, and commitments to active care (p. 170). Not top down reform that seems empty of shared wisdom, a place of musts, where teachers are told they must do things the same, they must collaborate rather than opening conversations to allow it to occur naturally. A standard place where diversity is ignored. In this place a teacher may feel disconnected from their own learning and decisions being made around them. A place where others think deeply and you just do what you are told.

Knowledge is now seen as flexible and ever expanding. It has shifted from being a thing or something to go and get and prove you have on a test to a kind of energy and a key form of work (Gilbert 2007). Historically in school we have focused on knowledge as a thing in academic engagement and done a poor job dealing with the capacity of knowledge and intellectual engagement. We have also focused mainly on student engagement alone and not teacher as learner. In order for this shift to take hold in our classrooms, teachers need to not just think of themselves as learners they need also to be treated as such. They also need to feel connected to the questions they have about learning and not be blocked from digital connections such as social networking. I argue that the shift required in education must include the teacher shifting from deliverer of content, to demonstrator of how to learn what we want to know, when we want to know it. How to manage and organize one’s knowledge (information literacy) becomes a new skill for this century. Students today do not want to memorize information. They want and need to build their own personal knowledge, and thus need to know how to retrieve it when required. They need to develop multi-modal literacy, in order to be seen, heard and read by other both synchronous and asynchronously. Learners are finding flow in their personal lives outside of school and boredom inside. Finally what good is knowing something without doing something with it or sharing it with others in our connected world. I believe at the most important thing we need of schools in the 21st century is to teach our students to become participatory citizens. In this they do need to learn academically but they also need to feel connected to what they learn and each other. Not a linear cause and effect world, but a nebulously connected world.

Referenced in this post:

Alberta Learning. (2000-2003). Information and communication technology, kindergarten to grade 12: Program of studies. Curriculum Standards

Alberta Learning. (1995-2009). Programs of Study. http://education.alberta.ca/teachers/program.aspx

Alberta Learning. (2004). Learning and technology policy framework. http://www.learning.gov.ab.ca/reading/policy/techframework

Jane Gilbert. (2007, July). "CATCHING THE KNOWLEDGE WAVE" REDEFINING KNOWLEDGE FOR THE POST-INDUSTRIAL AGE. Education Canada, 47(3), 4-8. Retrieved January 23, 2010, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1296660451).

Friesen, S. (2009). What did you do in school today? Teaching effectiveness:A framework and rubric http://www.cea-ace.ca/media/en/WDYDIST_Teaching_EN.pdf

Hargreaves, A. (2003). Teaching in the knowledge society. Teachers College Press.

Also
Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow state is a special detached state of consciousness, in which you are aware only of the moment, of activity and of the sheer enjoyment. To find flow one needs to find the right balance between challenge and skill.

Teachers as Catalyst

A question I keep returning to, the one that seems to be at the root of all other questions is; how do we live well together? With all the complexities of contemporary life with all the diversity required for a good life, how do we learn to get along, and how do we as teachers prepare our students to be participatory citizens in the 21st century? At times it feels that our society has squeezed the democracy out of school. With so much emphasis on getting ahead, keeping up and doing it faster are we really interested in taking care of each other? I found myself recently on top of a ski hill with this thought about community. Skiers and snowboarders will know that moguls are carved slowly through a season of collective effort; they are formed as a kind of “collective intelligence” if you will in the snow. There is no power of one here only the many that have left a whisper of their presence behind. It is in the voices of the many we may find connection to each other. Dialogue and the sharing of our stories in narrative also over time form a shared understanding. Expert skiers will tell you that they trust the wisdom of previous skiers and follow their path laid down before them while at the same time leaving something of them selves behind. The wisdom that is left behind for me in my research will make up my literature review.
In a previous post I discuss the need for school in the 21st Century. I wrote, “teachers are being asked to make a fundamental shift in their practice away from a teacher centred delivery of content to a more generative and collaborative exploration of content.” Yet as a classroom teacher I find myself in a place between this and what appears to me a data driven, top down non-negotiable environment where I struggle as a teacher to find my autonomy and creativity. A place empty of shared wisdom, a place of musts, where I am told I must collaborate and personalize learning. I am disconnected from decisions and the authority that says I must provide students with choice, yet I wonder where is my opportunity for choice?

What should I call this place? Andy Hargreaves (2003) refers to this as teaching for a knowledge society, a professional paradox.

To add to this, Alberta teachers will soon find a new technology in education policy to work with. In the rational of the draft of this new policy states, “To achieve success and fulfillment as citizens in this ever‐changing complex society, students need to be self‐directed lifelong learners, critical thinkers, and problem solvers. Communication and collaboration skills will be essential. Students will also need to be flexible, creative and innovative as they adapt to the changes around them… Preparing students with these competencies requires that educators design a variety of relevant learning experiences that engage students in productive inquiry through the use of technology.” In addition the first goal of technology in education it mandates the development of digitally confident leaders and educators (p.12). I am left to wonder what professional development plans are being made to support teachers in this confidence?

Hargreaves states that, “Deep professional learning involves more than workshops… it requires time to understand, learn about, and reflection on what the change involves and requires” (p108). This process involves more than just doing what you are told and applying what other have taken the time to think deeply about. It is about taking ownership of your own learning by have choice in the first place in what you want to be curious about. You can’t be a confident learner if you are constantly shoulder checking who is watching. Planting the seeds of change in this soil would give it shallow roots.
Technology has the potential to be a democratic tool to understanding, and teachers have the potential to be a catalyst for change. Is it not time to stop blaming teachers from the hallways of schools for their lack of confidence with technology and being barriers for student digital citizenship and get into the classrooms and start talking to them? What can we learn and perhaps understand by dialoguing with teachers about this place?


I was unable to find a direct source of the Alberta Education Draft Technology in Education Policy but the ATA has published an initial response in the form of a PDF to it at: http://www.teachers.ab.ca/SiteCollectionDocuments/ATA/Features/2009-10/Initial%20Response%20to%20Alberta%20Education%20Draft%20Technology%20in%20Education%20Policy.pdf

Hargreaves, A. (2003). Teaching in the knowledge society. Teachers College Press.

Instructionism versus Constructionism?

I am not a big fan of the word versus, I think perhaps I could have used the title constructionism born out of Instructionism but that does not sound so exciting. Regardless here is this weeks thinking:

Instructionisn versus Constructionism

There is a notion out there in schools that if we want better learning, we need to just do what we have been doing for the last century better, more efficiently. Just do teaching better. This notion leads us to wonder how do we know we are better? We better find a measuring stick. If we want to be more efficient then we better measure how we are more efficient. We end up in a maze circling around and around like a laboratory rat chasing after better.




Well maybe but perhaps it would be more helpful to think about this in a less linear way. Let’s take the cause and effect out of this scenario and shake this thinking on its backside. At the core of this is what do you personally believe learning to be? Do you believe in universal truths? Basically how do we view the nature of knowledge?

Constructionism does not say do not instruct, any teacher will tell you that would just be silly. Constructionism removes a layer though by keeping instruction to a minimum, so that the acts of teaching not diminish the act of discovery by the student. Seymour Papert comments, “of course this can not be achieved by reducing the quantity of teaching while leaving everything else unchanged”. We need to think differently. He reminds us that the constructionist principal parallels the African proverb if a man is hungry you can give him a fish or teach him to fish. Traditional school gives children the fish while constructionism is built on the assumption that students will do better if they find their own fish, realize what skills they need to learn to do this on their own, find friends to fish with and discover the best waters to fish in. “The kind of knowledge children most need is the knowledge that will help them get more knowledge” (Papert, 1993, p. 139).

The structure of a constructionist-learning environment is a dramatically different school culture, shifted away from transmission and acquisition towards a more active participatory place. Instead of placing importance on individual isolated knowledge it places importance on interaction and the appropriation of knowledge; its design is collaborative to allow for the sharing of ideas. It focuses on the connected nature of knowledge both personal and social. It has a more distributed view drawn from the greater surrounding culture. Rather than being linear and having students master stages of development the structure is bricoleur where the student learns to tinker with the tools at hand. Constructionism is not constructivism. “Piaget never intended his theory of knowledge development to be a theory of learning and teaching”(Kafai, 2006, p. 35). Instead of students learning through accommodation as Piaget spoke of, teachers will help learners make connections by making sense of the world as a whole that they interact with and not just objects in it. In this place learners have power to make knowledge their own. Authority then becomes distributed and not centrally located at the front of the room. The central role of constructionism is a physical one and the focus is on the people not the technology as an object. Technology potentially may become tools to think with and a place to connect knowledge. Giving each of us the potential to interact directly with a whole new world full of meanings. So what are schools doing to help teachers with this shift?

Roots of Constructionism explored with Cmap



This thinking was sparked by:

Kafai, Y. (2006). Constructionism. In R. K. Sawyer (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of the learning sciences. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Papert, S. (1993). The children's machine: Rethinking school in the age of computer. New York, NY, USA: Basic Books, Inc.

As a democratic society what is it we need of our schools in the 21st century?

As a democratic society what is it we need of our schools in the 21st century and has our expectation of teachers shifted? The cost of technology is socially complex and expensive compared with the traditional tools of teaching. Is this cost bringing us closer to what we need? Do we need to re-examine the assumptions that are propelling reform through technology? Is it enough in our democratic society to just educate teachers and students in how to use technology?
On one hand, we have aspects of our society craving higher standards, with a need to be efficient about collecting data that demonstrates measurable achievement. In the Alberta Guide to Education document they state, “The school’s primary responsibility is to ensure that students meet or exceed the provincial standards… that education inspires and enables students to achieve success and fulfillment as citizens in a changing world.” (2009-2010 p.2).” In my view this indicates a standards-based, accountability-oriented approach concerned with effective delivery of this program of study and the teacher is responsible for collecting this data. http://education.alberta.ca/media/832568/guidetoed.pdf
Yet, at the same time looking deeper into the school curriculum teachers are being asked to make a fundamental shift in their practice away from a teacher centred delivery of content to a more generative and collaborative exploration of content. This shift requires a major adjustment of the traditional power relationship between teacher and student.
As a classroom teacher, I find myself uncomfortably squeezed between the two. Do teachers find themselves trapped in a paradoxical profession as Andy Hargreaves boldly states (2003, p. 9)? Do we as a society have a clear request of its teachers or has teaching in the 21st century become so complex we are confused? Alberta teachers are being asked to embed technology into every area of their curriculum. “As technology is best learned within the context of applications, activities, projects, and problems that replicate real-life situations, the ICT program of studies is structured as a ‘curriculum within a curriculum’, using the core subjects of English Language Arts, Math, Science and Social Studies as a base” (2003 p.1). Yet much research suggests there are barriers to teachers doing so. What might explain some teachers eagerly infusing technology and others not? Is Larry Cuban correct when he reports that computers have been over sold and under used by teachers (2001 p.195). As well, in their examination of the use of computers by teachers Dexter, Anderson, & Becker uncovered from teachers that they felt time to reflect was more of a catalysts than the technology itself for instructional change in teacher practice (1999).
If technology is not the catalyst what might be? I think it might be time to stop thinking that teachers are the obstacles to over come in school reform? Do we take seriously the experiences of teachers? If explanations contain the seeds for solutions, can I as a researcher explain or rather interpret for school reformers the teachers voice in this place? In the heart of this question I wonder, what do teachers say about of the relationship between technology and exploratory learning in constructionist classrooms today?

Cuban, L. (2001). Oversold and underused: computers in the classroom. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Dexter, S., Anderson, R. E., & Becker, H. J. (1999). Teachers' views of computers as catalysts for changes in their teaching practice. Journal of Research on Computing in Education, 31(3), 221-239.
Hargreaves, A. (2003). Teaching in the knowledge society. Teachers College Press.

All I needed to learn I learned in my backyard

I wrote this for my father on the occasion of his funeral September 12. 2007. I publish it now to honour his memory as a WWII veteran on this Remembrance day 2009.

The lessons I learned in my backyard

My father was a kind man, a good guy. He wasn't what you would call ambitious, he wasn't driven to climb the corporate ladder. He was a good man. In today's society good has become a kind of undervalued word. But good is good, and good is a good word. He was a family man and from my perspective a top level father. It wasn't enough that he fathered us he also fathered our friends. He wasn't alone, I remember thinking the same thing about Mr. Boydell. As a child I spent a lot of time in my backyard and I'll tell you my father's presence was always there even when he wasn't. In those days our parents would open the back door after breakfast and if we were home by the time the streetlights where on all was good. At some point lunch would happen but I don't have much of a memory of that. When it was time for my mother to prepare the family meal I was not to be found in the kitchen helping her. I was out on the front step waiting for my father to come home so the we could play catch. When he wasn't there I spent hours throwing the ball against the house. I now wonder what that must have sounded like to my mother inside the house. The time I spent with my father in my backyard was sacred.

In playing catch with my father I learned about the importance of anticipation, keeping your eye on the ball and covering
up. You know just in case life throws you a bouncing ball. You have
heard the expression covering all your bases and you never know when
life will throw you a curve ball. I learned to be ready to be prepared for the
unexpected from my father.

From my father in my backyard I learned that all life has a place and an importance in creation. Life is a circle with nothing having dominion over another what ever we humans think. However as the children of Ross Grant we learned that cats have some sort of special place at least in our laps.

In my backyard I learned that trees can be your friend. You can play with them. And if you listen very carefully they will whisper your name. They will seldom let you down. We had several trees in our backyard. In one of them we made a simple tree fort
and a rope swing. Not sure I had anything to do with the construction. However in my backyard with this tree I learned the important lesson of gravity it sucks. I have a
memory of one day that rope broke while I was swinging. My hand just
melted. I also recall one day waking up in my bed with the worried
faces of my family all around. Apparently I fell out of the fort and
gave myself some sort of concussion. In the presence of our family and friends hurts heal faster. I am sure some of you have your own memory of that tree different from my own. I also remember sparklers and burning school houses with the Boydell's very close to that tree, what where we thinking?

You have heard of March madness? I have a different take on it. Yes in March it is time for American college basketball to decide who is the best, but in my backyard it meant the changing of the seasons. My father would make a backyard rink every winter for us. You see in March it is also the time when in Canada we find out who is the best in figure skating. I would watch the championship on television and when it was done for the evening I would go out in my backyard and skate on what was left of the ring. That was madness, sometimes it was only 5 feet around. I spent time there from the time before I could walk to the time I wore high heels. From my father I learned about balance and starting with a good foundation and building on that. In my life I attempt to keep a balance not between work and home but around all life. It's all good. All of it.

My father taught me the art of quite listening and auditory discrimination. In my backyard learned to listen to the difference between bird songs. Robins have a song to sing and it is different in the morning from the evening. It's different when their young are on the ground and it's different when they say goodbye to us in the fall. All winter I wait for the return of the robin's song so that I can tell my father I heard it. It isn't spring until I do. I also learned to whistle although I have never heard a sweeter sound than my father whistling.

Now I want to talk about the focal point of our backyard. All the seasons where revered in our backyard but we all could not wait for the warmth of spring. When the earth would open up so that we could plant the peas. The first seeds of spring. All seeds have a place and an importance in creation but my family will tell you that garden peas have a special place on our tongues. I won't even talk about tomatoes but they have to wait for the warmer soil of June. My father was not a great gardener, he didn't always have straight rows and he didn't pull all the weeds. However he just was a gardener. He had such a connection to the earth and creation. He taught me that seeds, like children grow into what they are meant to be, they don't need a label to know what they are, they don't need straight rows to grow in. They just need to be planted, watered, watched and cared for. With that care they will grow into what they are meant to be.

I believe I learned about honour and duty from my father. In 1939 war was declared and he was 21 years old. That is how old my son is now. He was working at Timothy Eaton's in Hamilton when he was called up for 30 days service in the army. He did his required time and then returned to work. In the summer of 1941 there was a big crop of hay that year his sense of family called him to returned to the farm to help his father but then he also felt a call to serve his country away from his family. His sense of what was right sent him back to the armed forces and in the fall of 1941 like many young men he joined the Air force. He didn't talk about it much but he didn't go into battle, he just quietly when around the North of England making sure the radar was working. That's how he was, he just quietly went about doing good things. I have discovered that radar technicians were Canada's gift to the war effort and it was radar that ended the war.

I live far away in Calgary but even there I am close to my father. All I need to do is put my hand in the dirt to feel his presence. All I need to do is hear my son whistle to hear his voice, or cut open a tomato I have grown to understand life is a circle. When you go home today spend some time in your backyard pour a glass of something cool raise a toast to creation. Spend a few moments thinking about the lessons you have learned there. Look around and notice what is growing and living in your backyard and be filled with the sense of wonder that you should. Life is amazing, drink it in, smell it, listen to it, today all creation sings as it does everyday.