School at the Legislature

When I am done this Inquiring Minds tour, it’s going to be hard to give up the magic carpet, but right now I wish we were walking this next path together. Regardless, we will fly out of Churchill Square south and pass a fine example of Edmonton’s architectural heritage, the Hotel MacDonald. At the Mac, let’s swoop gently to the west to follow the Heritage Trail that approximates the original path from the settlement of Edmonton to the Hudson’s Bay Company Fort where the Alberta Legislature Building sits. Along this trail are plaques about sites of historic importance and McKay Ave School, the meeting place for Alberta’s first Legislative Assembly. As we wend our way through the buildings just above the treetops lining the streets, we finally pass the Federal Building and turn to the right to carefully swoop down to the reflecting pools. Look south and take in the iconic Dome and then north to the windows of the Education Centre, home of the School at the Legislature.

Are you a teacher interested in Parliamentary Democracy? Consider the Alberta Teachers Institute on Parliamentary Democracy planned for this fall. I can’t help but wonder here, if an alumnus of School at the Legislature is already working in our provincial civil service or considering running as an MLA?

The health and safety of the Members, staff and visitors is a top priority for the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, so during these Covid-19 times, all tours and public events are suspended.

I had the opportunity to catch Kelsey Kendrick, Michael Ruiter and Grace McNeely working hard in their respective homes. Kelsey first observed Inquiring Minds in action at the Legislature in 2015. As a program assistant, she facilitated a hodgepodge events for programs and exhibits. Michael Ruiter, with a Master of Letters in Medieval Studies, was a tour guide (Heritage Interpreter) at the Legislature when he met Inquiring Minds through a class of Gr 4 I brought from EJ (Edmonton Journal) School. Grace McNeely, who recently became SATL Education Coordinator, started at the Legislature in fall 2016 as a Heritage Interpreter. Her first interaction with SATL was giving a small group interview for a French class! She began leading SATL weeks a year later, in 2017, and eventually became a Programs Assistant.

I asked each of them in turn about misconceptions teachers might have about spending a week at the Alberta Legislature. In their own ways they all came back to the idea that the educational opportunities of their space are so much more than social studies. They enjoy making connections to ideas teachers might only dream they could make there.

The diversity of their hidden gems surprised me. These gems speak to the wonder of how pleasing it can be to be engaged by different things. I have visited and toured the site numerous times over many years and appreciate the fact that I have not plumbed the depths of treasures there. For Kelsey the gem is a piece of beautiful and clever stained glass in Legislature Library. Michael takes great joy in sharing a larch planted to honour Alberta’s sister province in Japan, Hokkaido and builds on its needle dropping habits to illustrate the metaphor of something being two things at once. Inside the refurbished Federal Building is a pedway stairwell walled with Tyndall stone where Grace delights in revealing fossils from a time before even flowers existed, a surprising science, art and just plain fascinating set of connections.

The Inquiring Minds website has this to say about School at the Legislature:

Bring your students to our fully equipped classroom to experience government first-hand and to meet the people behind today’s headlines!  The School at the Legislature program is targeted towards meeting all aspects of the Grade 6 curriculum and aims to educate students about citizenship and democracy while providing a fun and exciting learning environment.

Look at the School at the Legislature webpage. http://www.assembly.ab.ca/visitor/teachers/SchoolatLeg/SATL_program.htm

Do you want to know more? Contact them at satl@assembly.ab.ca

You can start your application process at the Inquiring Minds website. https://ourinquiringminds.wordpress.com/application/

Time to Celebrate

June is one of those months full of celebration. Many teachers plan, facilitate and otherwise engineer celebrations of a wide variety and finish the school year exhausted and worn out. I know for myself when I was in the classroom, as the march through June continued, the juggle of progress reports with year-end activities usually left me a prime candidate for a cold the first week of July.

The job of site coordinator gave me a freedom from progress reports and the opportunity to spectate at a myriad of different year-end activities for the classes that had been part of my program. It was always a pure joy to sit back and watch the smiling faces and bear witness to the year of learning that had proceeded. As I let the diversity and creativity wash over me, I often found a little tear of joy in my eye.

This time of year, one type of celebration comes in the form of awards. The Edmonton Inquiring Minds’ site-based program at the Devonian Botanical Gardens called Green School was a winner at the recent Emerald Awards. Spotting the finger prints marking the outstanding programming by Emma Gilbertson, Deb Greiner and Antonella Bell (Deb's accepting photo is third at the link) caused my heart to swell as I watched the video clip. I smiled when I saw the coil bound journals and students sketching, not-so-secret signals to those of us who fan the flames of week-long, inquiry based programming.

Friday, June 14 the awesome display at the Citizenship Fair demonstrated a host of connections facilitated by the City Hall School program. I have heard the Energizer Bunny label bestowed recently on others but my money is on Linda Hut, City Hall School coordinator, as the true holder of that title. One of my favorite aspects of the event was hugging a number of the outstanding teachers who use Inquiring Minds sites to create a year’s worth of learning for their students. The Fair was the proof of the difference between projects and project-based learning, which I just received a Tweet about yesterday from Danny Maas.

One of the Edmonton Inquiring Minds' “master teacher” crew is retiring, Christine Zihrul. That is another June rite of passage – retirement functions.  I was unable to attend Christine’s celebration but if it did not include some fascinating photography I would be surprised. The first week I worked with Christine at ICE School she amassed over 1000 photos of her students’ active learning at Rexall Place (maybe back then it was still Skyreach Centre J).

Earlier this year the long-time program facilitator of the School at the Legislature, Diana Panizzon, retired. And at month end, Lorna Zucchet (she would say to kids that it was pronounced Zoo-cat, in a very cool convergence of appropriate things), program coordinator for more than a decade of Zoo School, will close that chapter of her career. Through the years of pioneering work we did, I felt so nurtured in the collaboration we shared.

In one of those Google search moments I fall victim to and cost me many minutes of divergent viewing I did not plan on, I discovered the perfect close for this blog.

Celebrate What’s Right With the World has a great 20 minute film – if you have time it is worth every second.

I echo Dewitt Jones: “I choose to celebrate. Why? Because it imbues me with gratitude, it allows me to see the best in people and situations, because it fills me with energy.”