Monday Memo Musings

Where the magic happens... So Steve's conference took us to Disney World for three days. He learned that everything is manipulated there. No visible tattoos allowed, staff are trained and trained and trained. There motto is:" to go over an above expectations." Disney World is a pretty special place. They've designed it to be a" perfect world." No garbage, everyone is so kind, magic happens all around you. Employees are called "cast members." It is almost perfect... What they can't control are the parent children interactions and the tantrums. So... perfect can't be achieved, the people factor stops that from happening. Thank goodness... otherwise you'd feel like you were in the Truman Movie or the Stepford movie. The magic does happen there... but kids and parents also cry there, have fits there and are normal there. Thank goodness for normal.  We love our normal. Some kids come in to school some don't. Some kids grab materia...

I'm reading a book called " Katie's Kisses," about a nineteen year old who goes to Uganda to teach kindergarten and ends up adopting 5 little girls. She speaks about the fact her adopted girls have real toys, but they prefer to play with garbage; old pill bottles, boxes, ribbons, string and brown bags. So she let's them, because that is what they need to do. As I read that touching book of her providing for over 104 orphans, I thought what can I do. There I was lying in my comfortable bed,  and I said to myself "some..... day............. I'll do something... " Then the phone rang. I couldn't believe it, it was Canadian Feed the Children, asking for a donation to provide food to needy children in Africa. What amazing that timing!!! The time for me to help was now.  Katie taught me to give others what they need, not what they want. The addicted guy at Extra Foods wanted money from me but  that's not what he needed... so I pulled out a ban...

Thank you snow, for patiently waiting for the kids to trick or treat, then dumping on us.  My story. The cutest little princess came to my door on her own, while Mom and dad waited on the sidewalk. What a chatty royale!! She started saying how cute my puppies were, talked about the candy I put in her bag. She then looked in my living room window, looked up at me and asked," What's the score of the ball game?" Of course Steve was watching the world series and obviously Princess has been watching with her dad too. Soooo cute! Staffing I believe we are all here this week. Great! I am in High Level on Monday. Tuesday morning High Level for the diploma then Rainbow in the PM. High Level am Wednesday, Zama on Wednesday pm. La Crete and Fort on Thursday, in High Level Friday at F.M.C.S. for late morning to meet with Psychologist about the Zama kids.  Events/ Items of Note Clocks set back. Loved that hour, did throw us off a bit, we h...

Please take the time to vote today. Educate yourself , make a decision and vote. So cool that we have that right and that freedom to elect our own government. This is a right many people do not have.  Do you know your human rights? Here are just a few.  You have the right to life and to live in freedom and safety. Everyone has the right to be protected by law. We can all ask the law to help us if we are not treated fairly. Nobody should harm our good name. Nobody has the right to come into our home, open our letters, or bother us or our family without good reason.  We have the right to meet our friends and to work together in peace to defend our rights.Nobody can make us join a group if we don't want to. Excerpts from the book, " We Are All Born Free." The Declaration of Human Rights in pictures Staffing Darren and Petra are of to Geek Conference. There will be subs in for them on Friday.  Petra is out next Monday and Tu...

Go Jays!!! Jays go to game five! This team is determined to get to the World Series. They have this cool thing they do to communicate with each other. They use a signals  thumb and forefinger together and three fingers up. Focus on the prize!  For us, the prize is seeing our kids be successful. We can use the spray and pray theory ( talk and pray that the kids get it) or we can actually go into work each day with a purpose, today I am going to make contact with three kids and see where they are with their studies. I'm going to see if they need a hand. Many students won't ask for help, they just aren't that brave yet. Someone needs to teach them to be brave. We model bravery each day for these students.  Thanks to you Thanks to Julie for setting up the scrapbooking session this week in Fort. I will be there to assist her on the morning.  Thanks to Bonnie for setting up the Cosmic Painting session. That w...

Have you taken a moment to notice our morning skies. Our skies are extraordinary, unlike any other. Northern skies are bimulous, are ripe with color and allow us to say," I'm glad I live up north to be able to experience it's beauty and uniqueness." When attending this Outreach Conference it became apparent to me that our schools are unique, up north. Each learning Store has its own flair, its own uniqueness and is a reflection of the community and the staff. We want to embrace our uniqueness from all other schools in the province and  celebrate what we do well, build relationship with students. This weekend we made friends with colleagues from other schools and now have ideas to better our course offerings. We are smarter now. No one ever has become dumber learning something new. We learned to celebrate our uniqueness.  Thanks to all who attended. It was fun hanging with you, a great way to start the year. We did miss Eva, Holly and Jenine. It's not the same...

Can a Frog jump backwards? No he can't t's physically imppossible for him to do so. He always moves forwards. We need to teach students to keep moving forwards. The one thing a frog can do it just stay there and not move at all. Some of our kids are doing that. A frog will move when someone comes by and startles it or when someone comes near. With students that is us. We keep them moving forward with whatever gentle way you have you keep them moving forward. I want to thank you for motivating them, reminding them of their goals and helping them to set goals.  Like the students we need to keep moving forward, building new skills, trying new things, mastering old skills. We move forward.  This Week Today Roger, Norman and Dan are coming to the High Level learning Store to talk about our reno . We will also be discussing the La Crete learning Stores addition of a Kitchen.   Conference- I believe ...