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Tag Archives: school

Today I choose to celebrate a milestone (TIC00054f)

The PolyBlog
September 19 2020

If you’ve been reading this blog, you probably already know that Jacob was not really enjoying school that much last winter. French immersion, social isolation, a split class with a bunch of Grade 6 kids, winter…he wasn’t feeling it. So he was resisting big time in January and February, on top of the strikes that were going on.

The shutdown was like a dream come true for him. No commuting, less work, a new laptop to do everything on, no need to argue about recess activities, better lunch options. His teachers adapted and coped with what they had to work with, but there wasn’t a lot of support out there for them. The end of the year was a “thank god it’s over”-type moment.

Normally we celebrate first day of school and last day of school milestones. For the first day, Andrea takes pictures either at the bus stop or the front of the house; for the last day, we always leave early from work, go do something and then out for dinner wherever he wants.

For his first day back today, we were keeping it a bit low-key for a virtual return. Everybody else who is doing in-person is already back to school like his cousins and a bunch of his friends. Today was his first day.

As I said, I was initially trying to downplay the “bigness” of it and we told him in advance that it would be a big adjustment from going with relatively light structure and no work to suddenly 6.5h of class time, 9:00-3:30 essentially, although there are breaks in there of course. And a real full setup with the teacher actually “teaching” for a full day, as opposed to his spring options which were about 30 minutes per week of live feed and the rest by email.

My mind totally futzed on the french immersion side of things, namely that he had been doing hardly any french since March except for schoolwork, and even then, very little “active listening”. Today was a wall of full french immersion with a new teacher who talks fast.

For anyone who has learned French as an adult, or English, we know what that’s like when you haven’t spoken it in a while and suddenly WHAM, you’re back in. When I was on french training, and we had a vacation or break, it was like coming back and starting from scratch almost.

As soon as I realized he was hitting that wall, I also realized we had underplayed his return for the wrong parts. Or rather we had tried to reduce his stress levels while totally forgetting to extra-celebrate his start of Grade 6. We had already made sure to take the pictures this morning, with his commute simply being our stairs (!), but by 9:30, he had hit that linguistic wall. We rearranged our dinner plans a bit for tonight (mostly reviewing what we had already thawing in the fridge) to let him pick anywhere he wanted to go for dinner to do an “extra” celebration of his new school, new virtual life, new grade, etc. Plus we “stopped by” his desk multiple times during the day to see how he was doing.

I’ve reached out to introduce ourselves to the teachers, do a little of the dance with them on social inclusion (seeing basically if we can lay some markers for him for specific people he can do group work with), and Jacob was thrilled today to see who was in his class. He knows 8 other people from Knoxdale, and I would say at least 4 of them are people he actually likes (not always a guarantee). So he’s part of the Knoxdale Nine (my nickname for them) in this new virtual school, and he hung out with some of them after school today in the Google Meets. He REALLY enjoyed that part. Plus the English and Math which were in English.

For dinner, we celebrated his first day — and his survival! — with Lone Star as his choice. Like me, we love their fajitas. We know they HAVE more things on their menu, we’ve just never ordered many of them.

Then a game of cards, and it was crash-y time for a tired little boy. A good day and I’m glad we recovered in time to celebrate the whole day, not just the start of the day. Hard to remember normal stuff in a COVID world, but we did.

Today I choose to celebrate a milestone in full.

What choices are you making today?

Posted in Goals | Tagged family, goals, milestones, school, TIC, today I choose | Leave a reply

Today I choose to keep my son home in September (TIC00023c)

The PolyBlog
August 12 2020

Most of my posts in this series are about “my” choices, things that are mostly within my span of control. Things I do with my computer, for instance. I don’t have to consult anyone, it’s not a “joint” decision, it is just me. But with schools in Ottawa re-opening, the question comes from the school board as to whether we intend to send our son back in September or not and that is not a decision that “I” can make on my own, it’s a joint decision of mainly Andrea and I, but Jacob is involved too. We wanted to … Continue reading →

Posted in Goals | Tagged family, goals, school, TIC, today I choose | Leave a reply

JotD: Exhaustion (PWH00011)

The PolyBlog
January 11 2020

The college professor had just finished explaining an important research project to his class. He emphasized that this paper was an absolute requirement for passing his class and that there would be only two acceptable excuses for being late. Those were either a medically certifiable illness or a death in the student’s immediate family. A smart ass student in the back of the classroom waved his hand and spoke up. “But what about extreme sexual exhaustion, professor?” As you would expect, the class exploded in laughter. When the students had finally settled down, the professor froze the young man with … Continue reading →

Posted in Humour | Tagged exhaustion, humour, JotD, school, university | Leave a reply

My interest in psychology…

The PolyBlog
October 22 2015

Way back in the dark ages of high school, I took a course that was an introduction to psychology and sociology. I don’t remember what it was called, and I seem to think it was supposed to be one or the other, but ended up being done as a combination when enrolment was low. I don’t remember that much from the course. It was okay, semi-interesting, but it didn’t compel me to want to do a degree in it or anything. Later, when I had electives available in university, it didn’t make my list. Mind you, that was some 30 … Continue reading →

Posted in Learning and Ideas | Tagged e-course, family, learning, mooc, online, psychology, school, university | Leave a reply

Countdown to Retirement

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Retirement!

My Latest Posts

  • When a brand like OtterBox lets you downNovember 30, 2023
    I often find brand loyalty a fickle mistress. You’ll see someone ranting about problems with company X (say Bell) while another raves about it. It’s particularly funny in the negative form, such as in online IT forums about Canadian mobile networks, where someone will rant and rant and rant about how terrible Rogers is, and … Continue reading →
  • Taking a break from all your worriesNovember 18, 2023
    Ah, the lyrics from Cheers. A great theme song for the bar show, and one of my favourites. I’ve been thinking about the lyric, “Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot”. I don’t need somewhere to go, and I don’t want to “get away”, I just need to take a … Continue reading →
  • Gallery: 2023 – February – Legos, awards and pancakesNovember 12, 2023
    This month’s gallery includes a hodge-podge of photos…Andrea and Jacob comparing relative heights (ruh-roh, Mom, I think you’re in trouble!); some artwork I finally got on the wall in the basement; A and J started the Lego Colosseum; J standing in front of our snow pile, which a short month ago was non-existent; an old … Continue reading →
  • Gallery: 2008 – Honeymoon 03 – Hilo hotel, volcano park, and lava tubeNovember 12, 2023
    Hilo hotel, volcano park, and lava tube
  • Gallery: 2008 – Honeymoon 02 – Tide Pool and Lava FieldNovember 11, 2023
    Tide Pool and Lava Field

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