Category: work

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Slice of Life in the Shop

Today was my first day of temporary coverage teaching in the wood shop at the nearby high school. It’s been a couple of years since I last covered in the shop and, of course, a few things went sideways. By the end of the day, however, I had fixed most of them.

There was an error with a CNC file that caused the router to carve right off the student’s material. The solution? Flip it over and engrave again on the backside with the updated file. Problem solved!

Another issue was that the MDF sheets that had been cut for the back of each student’s nightstand were a half inch too narrow. The whole pile, which was supposed to last the entire semester, had the same error. I haven’t decided but I might cut some new ones to the correct size, or else maybe I’ll make everyone’s nightstands a half inch narrower; to be determined.

Some students left the chuck on the wood lathe after it became stuck and the bell rang. It took a minute (or maybe closer to 20) but after borrowing a tool from the neighbouring metal shop, I figured out how to get it unstuck, and I felt pretty good about it.

Lastly, the only issue that I haven’t yet solved is what to do about the students who would rather horseplay than do their projects. They have been fooling around the other times I’ve been in this class with them earlier this year and after giving them a big lecture about not goofing off and seeing as that apparently did not make an impact I was going to call their parents. As fate would have it, the kids got lucky because the admin assistants in the office haven’t finished connecting me to the online class management system and therefore I didn’t yet have access to their contact information. Since I’ve been forced to wait until tomorrow anyway, I guess they get one more chance.

Overall, it’s a pretty good gig, and I’m pleased to have picked it up. Tomorrow’s to-do list: lay down the law in class, settle the nightstand question, and hopefully avoid any more stuck chucks.

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Job Interview

I had a job interview last week. I am extremely qualified and was quite looking forward to getting it.

The vice principal called me today and said, “they are ‘going a different way’ from the interview”. Which in my mind translates to, we already had someone picked out for the job and it’s not you.

I’m disappointed but if my hunch is correct there isn’t anything more I could have done.

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A Glimpse

After a not so great day teaching at a local high school I wondered about my choices that brought me here, a decade into my teaching career and back to subbing. I understood the irony in that if I just worked at that school more I would actually have better days but I couldn’t help but think I should just stick to the one school that I’ve really been loving this year even if it means not working every day.

I contemplated my day of students showing disrespect, constantly on their phones, and just plain refusing to even pretend to do the assignments as I walked out of the building. Though feeling sorry for myself, I noticed a student that I didn’t recognize chatting with a friend and said good afternoon to his friend. He looked up and said, “Hey, are you Jeff Milner?”

“Yes,” I said hesitantly, while wondering how in the world does he know my name.

His face lit up and he exclaimed, “You taught me how to draw, last year, in Eva’s class!” I remembered the class but I couldn’t believe I had made such an impression. After asking him to remind me his name, I headed out and thought, it’s moments like these why I actually do love teaching.

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Guest Teaching

I’m back into the swing of things as a substitute teacher. I don’t have much to say about it other than now that I’m back teaching high school I remember what it’s like to really love what you do.

On that note, here’s an inspirational cartoon I saw in the class I was subbing in today:

A security guard for a bank crops security footage in his mind while a bank robbery occurs.

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Alberta Schools Go Online

The premiere has announced that the whole province is once again moving to online schooling for grades K-12. We got this letter from our superintendent:

In the last week the number of staff and students quarantining has increased significantly within Horizon and around the province. As of this morning, eleven (11) communities have transitioned to at-home learning due to severe staff shortages, and today at 6:00pm the Premier announced that all K-12 students will shift to at-home learning starting May 7th. They will continue with on-line learning until May 25th (after the long-weekend) Students will be in school on Wednesday May 5 and Thursday May 6. The hope is that this reset will reduce the number of cases, resolve the staff shortage, allow staff to get vaccinated, and allow students to close the school year with in-person learning.

Although I’m already teaching from home I was scheduled to be back in classes by either the 10th or 17th (depending on the kind of variant we find in our school).

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Edmonton Spelling Test on Google Forms

TLDR: I get too many people asking me for editing permission that can’t be bothered to read this post so I’m adding this link: skip to the bottom to make your own copy.

I’ve been using the The Edmonton Spelling List for my grade 5 class. Because we’ve switched to at home, online learning I created a Google Form as a place for them to write their answers. It’s a nice bonus that Google Forms marks it automatically.

Not long after I instructed my students to load up the Google Form, my stomach sank. Sure, a few students loaded it with no trouble, but other students began complaining about a warning / they were unable to continue. It wasn’t clear at first what was causing the problem. Then, one after another, the students who were complaining started to drop out of the classroom meetup.

It turns out that I had put the Google Form in “Lock-down mode” because I didn’t want their browsers giving them hints on how to spell the words or tabbing over to Google to get a helpful correction on the words. Well, lock-down mode locked the students out of the tab that had the meet-up. A few of the students rebooted and rejoined the class but another more intrepid student began filling in all 50 blank questions with non-sense so that it would allow him to submit it. That’s one way to kill ten minutes of class time.

Long story short, lock-down mode would have been great for in-school learning but it didn’t work for online schooling. I ended up having them do a version not locked down and just pretended that browsers don’t underline misspelled words.

The list below has copy generating links in case other teachers want to make a copy.

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Alberta Education Minister Wants Teachers Tested

In a letter sent to school superintendents across Alberta yesterday (and then forwarded to all teachers), Education Minister Adriana LaGrange explains that the government has been working hard to increase testing capacity and turn-around times.

I recently became aware that the test result turnaround times in Alberta are already supposedly down to two to three days. Friends of mine decided to get the whole family tested because one of their kids became ill with Covid-19 like symptoms. (Still waiting until tomorrow to hear back).

LaGrange also suggests that all teachers should be tested for the novel corona virus before returning to in-person learning this fall.

Her complete letter after the jump.

Continue reading “Alberta Education Minister Wants Teachers Tested”

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Peter Mansbridge at SWATCA

After a wonderful, although extremely busy, parental leave I’m back at work teaching and just in time for the 2020 SWATCA Teacher’s Convention. This morning’s keynote speaker was none other than newscaster and Canadian icon Peter Mansbridge.1

Mansbridge opened his talk by speaking about the important role teacher’s have in Canadian society, and I caught the few minutes on my iPhone’s camera for posterity:

He went on to speak about his experiences with notable Canadian politicians from John Deifenbaker to Justin Trudeau. My favorite though, was his summary in three stories about what it means to be a Canadian.

Here’s the Soundcloud of his speech (I missed about 10 seconds between the end of the YouTube clip above and when I started the audio recording):

Later that day, I happened to stop into the operations room for the event and mentioned that I was looking for a substitute teacher when a guy dressed in a hoodie sitting next to me asked if it was true I had to find my own subs. I said yeah—I used to have an admin at my old school that did it but now I had to find them myself. I glanced over at the man and did a double-take. To my surprise, it was Peter Mansbridge! So we chatted a little more and then I got up the courage to ask if he would pose for a photo with me. He kindly obliged.

Jeff Milner and Peter Mansbridge
Jeff Milner meeting Peter Mansbridge at SWATCA 2020.

It made my day.

1. Mansbridge is also known for his role presenting the news in the North American version of Disney’s Zootopia as Peter Moosebridge.

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Barnwell

Yesterday I started at my new position in Barnwell. There’s not a lot to say, other than things have been working out pretty well and I’m looking forward to the rest of the year. Grade five has a lot of interesting things to relearn before I teach it to my new students. For example, I learned today that Socrates was put to death by a jury of his peers for his anti-democratic opinions. He thought that the smartest people should lead in government, rather than the lottery system that was customary at the time. Smart guy, that Socrates.