Making music magic happen in the classroom, my dad the music teacher

When it became apparent that my time with my father was getting near the end I began thinking about all of the things that made my dad amazing.  There were two faces to my dad, the head of the Collins household and the music teacher at Van Tech. I am not ready to write about my dad on a personal level yet, but I thought I could write about him as a teacher. He was an incredibly talented musician, one who could listen to a song on a tape a few times and then go to the piano and play it.  For 35 years my dad passionately taught music to grade 8-12 students at a school on the east side of Vancouver at a school called Vancouver Technical Secondary (Van Tech). 

When he passed away on September 18^th, 2011 I decided to set up a memorial page in his name on Facebook, hoping to get a few stories about a side of him that I did not get to see much.  I was not sure what would the response be as he retired nearly 10 years ago.  I have been blown away by the response of former students and I would like to thank them for taking the time to remember my dad, as all I now have are memories.  Many of the stories that have been shared are personal and have brought a lot of joy to my family as we always knew he was a special person.

My dad never sought attention, limelight and did not like to be the center of attention.  His focus was always on his students.  I would often see him sitting at his workbench with a collection of tapes listening to music that his students had given him to listen to and consider using in his class.  My dad taught me a long time ago that in order for students to be motivated to participate in classes they have to be interested in what is happening.  He chose music that would engage his students, and created a classroom environment that made students want to come. 

He had over 300 students taking in his choir classes every year.  All he asked was that you give it your all.  His classroom was always open at lunch and students would come in and spend their lunchtime singing. My dad would record himself playing songs requested by his students who wanted to practice certain songs or enter competitions.  If he could play the song on the piano and the lyrics were acceptable he was game.  Students loved coming to his class.

His memorial page after about 48 hours has over 130 people.  Words that keep coming up are passion, energy, kindness, welcoming, enthusiasm, belonging, joy and respect.  Students from years ago can still name the songs that they sung.  The funny part of that is that the very songs they mention are the ones I remember my dad playing on his stereo at home.  I remember his playing the Phantom of the Opera over and over again.  I remember giving him the Proclaimers tape and I also remember the Lion King.  These are just some of the songs mentioned by former students.

Former students credit him for becoming teachers.  Others would invite him to their weddings because of how important he had been to them.  Others were naming songs that make them think of my dad every time they hear them.  So many students commented on the connection that my dad seemed to be able to make with so many students.  Every time I bumped into a former student of his they would ask me to say hi to him.  I would pass on the message and my dad 9/10 would remember the student and also name any siblings the students had.  When he could not immediately remember the student he would immediately go and grab a yearbook, find them and then be able to tell me a story about that student which I would pass on when I would see that student again.  He loved his job, his students and his school and his memorial page shows that.

This all brings me to ask a crucial question- if you had a memorial page, what would your former students write about you?  What would they remember?  What words would they use to describe you?  Something to think about as you prepare your next day’s lessons.  Is your class one that students would be able to passionately describe 10 years later?  How about 20?  How about 40?  If not, why not?  What could you do differently?  How are you going to be remembered?

Please feel free to visit his memorial page and see what an amazing teacher he was http://www.facebook.com/groups/273224379363786/

I miss him so much, but I am glad that his memory lives on in so many people.  Thank you.

Teaching Social Responsibility with Musicals

There are many ways that as educators we look at ways of working with children on self-regulation, social responsibility and bullying.  We tend to bring in artificial scenarios that the kids cannot relate to, blatantly obvious situations that the kids see right away but rarely happen in real life or we preach.  If the only time these lessons are taught is a contrived environment we risk losing them.

A few weeks ago I went to see Wicked with a friend of mine and had a chance to talk about all the different musicals we saw.  There is something about a good musical, the way the music just captivates you.  There are 3 musicals that really stand out for me for a variety of reasons.  The first is Les Miserables, I love the story first and foremost, and I am in the process of reading the novel by Victor Hugo again.  The second one is Wicked and the third one is Hairspray.

Les Miserables is an amazing story of personal transformation by a man who finally had someone believe in him.  The change in Jean Valjean when he is brought back to the Bishop's residence with the silver that he had stolen.  It is during this part that it comes to one of my favourite literacy moments:

The Bishop drew near to him, and said in a low voice:--

"Do not forget, never forget, that you have promised to use this money in becoming an honest man."

Jean Valjean, who had no recollection of ever having promised anything, remained speechless. The Bishop had emphasized the words when he uttered them. He resumed with solemnity:--

"Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I buy from you; I withdraw it from black thoughts and the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God."

This leads to the amazing change in Jean Valjean from hardened criminal to heartened citizen. He becomes an upstanding citizen who never forgot the opportunity he was given.  There were times where he could have faltered but did not.  In the end he ends up making the lives of those around him better, because someone gave him a chance and believed in him. 
This clip takes you from his time in prison to his meeting with the bishop.
The clip shows you the new Jean Valjean and the way he is still viewed by the police officer.


Wicked was a musical that I saw for the first time at the end of June.  It was an interesting look into school life.  The way it delves into relationships, bullying, friendships, perceptions, seeing the person for who they are on the insider and many other lessons we try to instill in our students is remarkable.  There are so many rich conversations that could be had because of it.
A great clip from the musical of Elphaba standing her ground.


Hairspray is another great story that explores relationships on so many levels.  The story takes place in 1962 and delves into body image, racial relations, separation and segregation and again seeing the good in people, not just how good they look.  The ending of the musical is quite powerful and a heck of a lot of fun.


Great music, wonderful story lines, amazing life lessons and fantastic opportunities to discuss choices, acceptance, inclusion and giving people a chance.  A fun learning environment through music, why not?

School did a good thing

I was reading Lyn's post on reading which was inspired by@thenerdyteacher's #schooldidagoodthing idea and I thought that I would add my own.  I was really lucky to have many wonderful teachers in my school life, whether it be at elementary, secondary or university.  The ones who really stood out for me were the science teachers, or the teachers who loved science.  My Grade 5, teacher, M Raoul, loved science and I am pretty sure that he was the teacher that gave me the bug for loving science.  Now, I will be honest, some of this may gross you out, but here comes the story.


He was very much a teacher who liked to let us explore science.  We got to eat it, live it and breath it.  At one point he brought in pigs' stomachs for the class to cut open and look inside the contents.  I loved it!  We had containers where we emptied the contents to look at the different stages of digestion which he lined up.  He brought the science from the text book and the sheets of paper to life.  It was awesome!  I know some of my classmates did not feel quite the same way I did because some seemed to turn a nice shade of green and had to leave the room, but I felt I was in my element.  We also looked at other animal organs and got to dissect those as well.  He was always so  passionate about everything that he taught. There was no doubt in my my that he was favourite teacher, and even some thirty years later, left a memory that is still fresh in my mind.


Merci M Raoul.

The politics of politics

On Monday May 2nd Canada went to the polls and for the first time in around 7 years Canada has a majority government.  If you are unfamiliar with the structure of Canadian Parliament, there is information here that may be useful for you.  Pretty quickly after the polls were closed in British Columbia the results started to be broadcasted and were becoming clear rather quickly.  While I must confess up front that it was not my party of choice that was elected, it was interesting reading the comments on Twitter, many of them negative about the results.

There was frustration with the fact that a party would have a majority of the seats despite the fact that they only had around 40% of the popular vote.  There was frustration with the feeling that at times voters were not voting for someone they agreed with politically but rather who would have the best chance of beating the person they least wanted in.  Many comments were directed around that BC seemed to have little effect on the overall results because of time difference.  There were also the usual outbursts of corruptness, ethics, personalities and so on.

I am not enough of an expert on the different possible ways that voting can happen, but in every system there is a flaw.  Some systems by design limit the amount of choice someone has when voting, others give rise to parties who may have extreme points of views and others require multiple voting which is taxing on people's time and the countries financial resources.  No system is perfect.  My frustration revolves around what politics appear to have become. An incredible financial, ethical and environmental disaster.

The environmental one is staggering.  How many times are the leaders in an airplane or a bus going from one town to another, one province to another. Towards the end of the campaign the leaders of the different parties seem to spend a ridiculous amount of time flying all over.  I wonder if they have to pay a carbon tax?  The signs that are posted on lawns, abandoned properties and meridians all over the place all need to be thrown out.  What kind of message are we sending to kids with the amount of waste that is produced?  It is quite shocking to think about how many of the pamphlets, mail, brochures and signs are going to end up in the dump or elsewhere.  I cannot even begin to fathom the ecological dammage done, and especially when you consider that 3 of the 4 major parties supposedly have a green platform.

The financial one to me is more distressing.  How many millions of dollars are spent on the campaigns?  The way that elections are now run from signage to transportation to commercials to conventions it is impossible to not discuss money. It appears to be impossible to take part in an election without huge fundraisers.  With everything going on in our country from childhood poverty to unemployment, education and health care is there not a better way for this money to be spent than on the signage and commercials?

I also wonder how much is funded by taxpayers?  To be honest I don't know the answer to this question, but there has to be a portion of campaigning that comes from the tax base.  I don't know about others but I would much rather see that money being spent on healthcare rather than a panflet that tells me what a great party each one is.  If there is to be tax dollars spent on elections campaigns then I would like to see it benefit the tax payers in terms of information, more on this later.

With respect to campaign finances, when you are depending on people and organizations giving you money, are you entirely free to make decisions that are best for the country or province?  With this system in place, does this not essentially mean that every party is in someone's backpocket?  What is their influence on decisions?  If someone/some group has made a substantial donation, would some of them not expect to see something in return?  Does this not, at the very least in appearance, compromise the integrity of the party?  It is unfortunate that we look at the list of donors and the decisions and too often find situations that come off looking suspicious.  It is entirely possible that this it was a decision that was done for the best interests of the country, but the smell is still there.  Ridings with MPs of the majority party seem to be rewarded for voting a certain way.  With this much money involved and the need for MPs to keep their seats, decisions too often do not seem to pass the smell test.

What are some limitation that I would like to see?
1) The number of times a leader can visit a province and region.  If you trust the candidates that are representing each reason then you should not have to be there as much.   In the Greater Vancouver Area there are MPs who are prominent, well respected and known.  James Moore, Libby Davies and, before he was defeated, Ujjal Dosanjh.  Like any good company, you need to have people you can trust to deliver your message.  Why does there appear to be so little trust in the ridings representatives?

2) The platforms should be available to all, and the leader can be given a way to deliver that platform.  Networks could have an evening special with the leaders of all parties who have over x% of the popular vote where they could explain their platforms.  Debates are currently done on two nights, one in French and one in English.  Debates should be regional and not language based.  The Maritimes have their needs, the Prairies have their needs, BC has theirs.  Each region, or better yet province, should be able to hear how each parties' platform will benefit them.  This is where the tax dollars should go, an opportunity for the canadian citizens to learn about what each of the major parties represent in order to make an informed decision.

3) Signage should only be allowed on private property, not on meridians, curbs or abandoned lots.  They need to be made of recyclable material.

4) Stronger Campaign financing and expenditures limitations in place including annual donations from groups and individuals.  If we are to trust our political system then we must have greater confidence in the integrity of the decisions.

AFL, letter grades and dinner, a great combo

I had a wonderful dinner with the first few principals involved in this conversation and two of our assistant superintendents as well as Ruth Sutton.  The dinner time conversation?  Moving away from letter grades.  Everything we have read, seen, experienced and heard tells us this is the right path to follow.  Ruth had spent the day with around 100 elementary and middle school teachers talking about assessment and was generous enough to spend time with us afterwards giving us her experience, thoughts and ideas as to the steps needed to make this work.

One thing she said that really stood out is that we need to get the kids to focus on personal bests and not on their rankings.  The image that she painted was one of running a marathon and focussing on our time.  Every time we run we want to get better.  If we always finish first, second or third but our times are getting worse we are not improving we are regressing, but rankings would not show that.  I loved that analogy, encouraging the students to focus on their progress and not on their rankings.  She said that research shows that to keep students engaged that up until grade 12 they should not be ranked and sorted.  The longer we have them focus on improving, the more successful the students will be.  She also suggested that we bring in people from universities and big companies to talk to parents and students about what they want to see in their respective recruits.

The universities need to talk about the skills that the students need to STAY in university and not just to get in.  Many of us can think of students that we went to in university that bombed out of 1st year university because they did not know how to self-assess, critically examine their work, peer edit and so on.  It is almost a wasted group. What skills were they lacking that allowed for them to flunk out of university?  What is it that most employers are looking for?  Self-motivated, eager to learn, adaptable and goal setting individuals.

Every time we talked about what we needed to do, it came down to the assessment practices.  If we are telling parents that this is good for the kids then the proof has to be in the pudding.  The parents need to see the rich information that comes from formative assessment and standards-based assessment.  It will not work if we take away what they know, tell them this is good and then not have the assessment practices to back it up.

Lastly we talked a little about reporting, what should the new report card look like and what should it contain.  One of the ideas that I really liked was changing comment boxes to "Succeses and Next Steps".  This would have what the child is able to do and what the child needs to focus on next.  This speaks to planning, it speaks to record keeping, it speaks to solid assessment practices.  The other part that I really liked was including the child's own writing of his or her report card.  Have the student write "What I am good at?" , "what do I know?" and "what do I need to get better at?" as well as maybe "What are my next steps as a learner?" and have them present their own evidence to back it up.  If this is done properly the child's own self-evaluation should pretty much be bang-on.

After EdCampVancouver and this dinner, I am very excited about where education is headed.

Ed Camp Vancouver

Today was a most interesting day of most amazing professional development.  The day was presented as an unconference, no key note speaker, nothing lavish, just a bunch of dedicated people who are passionate about education.  It was representative of most stakeholders: parents, teachers, principals and some students. It is hard to describe the day in a way which accurately would reflect the conversations that were held today.

The beauty of the day was the respect for the knowledge of the group that was there, the fact that everyone had something to offer, something to share, something to reflect on, a question to pose and a desire to learn.  These were not sessions that were being offered by someone looking to pad a resume, someone who had not been in a school in years and was preaching nor was it someone who had already done the same presentation 25 times in the year and did not adapt it to the group present.  These sessions were lead by questions from people within the room. I was looking at the board of potential topics with people putting sticky notes on them to show which ones were of interest.

As we were looking at the board of topics there were other conversations that started and new topics were posted.  As new topics were posted some stickies migrated, others added their stickies to the new topics and 16 topics were chosen for the day.  4 sessions per time slot, 4 different time slots.  There were conversations around assessment for learning, bringing English LA into the 21st century, Social Media 101, moving away from letter grades, engaging all partner groups, moving away from awards ceremonies, creating online communities as well as many other great subjects.  We were there from 9 am to 4 pm, and then some of us went to a pub to continue the conversation afterwards, those who had the long commute home had their continuing conversations in the car, the #edcampvan hashtag continued to be used long after the day was over.  It is now 10 pm and that hashtag is still showing up and being used!  Talk about powerful pro-d!

I took in 4 amazing sessions, each one passed quickly, with conversations continuing long after the session was over.  The discussion were so rich, provocative and reflective. The varying points of view from different districts, levels, stakeholders and experience was so enriching.  I honestly feel that I would have happily attended each session for a day instead of just the 45 minutes sessions (which often continued well after the time elapsed unlike other sessions where people were packing up their bags before presentations were over).  It just felt as though we were just warming up.  To have that many people together is powerful pro-d.  There was so much to listen to, so much to share, so much to think about and so much to bring back to schools.  As I was driving home I started to wonder how we could make our pro-d days much more like this.  Good solid conversations, professional dialogue and getting to the meat and potatoes.  Let's get it all out on the table.

I would have loved to have school boards and Ministry of Education representatives there.  They need to hear our thoughts without the bureaucratic red tape that can exist when meeting with govenment representatives.  Open honest conversations without politics so that they can hear what it is that we are trying to do, hear what our barriers are, understand how it would be better for students and we could hear what their vision is without a podium and a rehearsed speech, what their concerns are, what their barriers are.  If we can truly have all stakeholders represented then we can really begin to make magic happen.

There is much to bring home to our schools and a lot to think about how the day was shaped and how we can use this format.  Is this the future of pro-d?

The Making of a masterpiece

Too often we show students completed work, the final product.  Students may look at it, read it or hear it and think that it is fantastic, but then they think that they never could do it themselves.  We may try to break it down for them, but we rarely show how they got to the final product.  We try to encourage them, give them positive feedback and tell them that they can do it.  Rarely are students ever shown what the rough copies looked like, how many models or sketches were done nor how many pieces of crumpled up paper ended up the waste basket (and of course properly recycled).  Today I spent a good part of my morning in the Musee D'Orsay in Paris, one of my favourite museums of all times.

As I was walking through the museum admiring the work of the artists and been mesmerized by some of their creations, I was thinking to myself that I wish I could paint like that, or sculpt like that.  The works are amazing.  I was looking at a painting by Gustave Courbet called A Burial at Ornans.  It was not so much the painting as it was the size, roughly 10ft by 20ft.  The people are life-sized in the painting and the detail is impressive.  The reason that I bring this up is because I started wondering how many sketches he must have done prior to doing the painting.  There are many paintings of this size in the museum and I kept thinking that they had to have planned it out and did not just start painting.

As I continued around the museum there was a section on Gustav Mahler.  The reason that I bring this up is because the display contained some of his sheet music.  When you start to look at the sheet music you realize that they are drafts of some of the music he composed. There are sections crossed out, times changed, notes changed and titles changed.  Sometimes there are whole sections that have been taken out, and other times just a few bars (I have not taken a music class in years so my terminology might be off).  As I was looking at this I kept thinking that this is what kids need to see, the rough drafts with changes and editing that had been done.  Mahler made mistakes, he changed parts of it, he did not get it right the first time round.  This would have been a great lesson for students to see, even world famous composers don't get it right the first time.  Too often we focus on the genius of the work and not the time and effort that went into it.

I think it would be of great use to our students if we could find more collections like the Mahler one so that they could see the editing process and realize that even great artists needed to review and change their work.  I feel it makes them realize that these great artists are human and had to take their time, a very important lesson for students to learn.  The next time you are featuring some great artist, see if you can find some roughs, I think it will make the lesson richer.