City Hall School

Did you enjoy the trip to the Garden following the river? Let’s travel it back, down stream into the heart of Edmonton. This time we will swoop to the left just after the Low Level Bridge at Louise McKinney Riverfront Park. We need to make it quick before we crash into the cranes working on the bridge that will carry the Valley Line LRT trains after they burst out of the hole in the river bank to cross the North Saskatchewan. Hang on while we do a steep climb over the Edmonton Convention Centre, watch Jasper Ave flash by below then duck in and around a few tall buildings. After we pass the renovations at the Stanley Milner Library and the construction on 102 Ave we see ahead the distinctive glass pyramid, clock tower and carillon of Edmonton’s City Hall. This award-winning piece of architecture was designed by Edmonton architect Gene Dub and opened on August 28, 1992. Gene Dub’s design combined the old with the new by incorporating materials such as marble and granite from the old City Hall into the new building. It was also designed as a ‘people place’ - a place for civic government and a gathering place for Edmontonians. Here, as well, is the home of City Hall School.

These are interesting times. To contain the spread of COVID-19, the City of Edmonton acted following the direction of Alberta’s Chief Medical Officer of Health. Most City of Edmonton facilities, services, and attractions, including City Hall are closed. To borrow a favorite start to an idea from Linda Hut, “I wonder what people in the future will think about this?”

I’ve known Linda for quite a long time. Our friendship started because of Inquiring Minds. She knew about week-long, site-based, inquiry-learning in Edmonton before me; before it was even called Inquiring Minds. As a classroom teacher 20 years ago at Westglen she took a class to Museum School. For the next 10 years she applied and attended Fort School, ICE School (where we met), and Zoo School. One year when she famously did not get a week to any site, she approached the Northern Jubilee Auditorium, convinced them to let her bring her class there and try the approach. The birth of Jube School. In 2009 the Campus Calgary/Open Minds site coordinators hosted a provincial professional development gathering at the Calgary Zoo. They graciously suggested I bring along a master teacher to share the day. Linda and I drove down together. We talked non-stop the whole way there and back. I got to introduce her to Gillian Kydd. In 2010 Linda was seconded from the Edmonton Public School Board and became the Program Coordinator of City Hall School.

Teachers discussing City Hall School for the first time with Linda often view municipal government as small and full of hard connections to difficult ideas and curriculum. What Linda hopes they discover is that the year-long conversations of City Hall School will bring kids out of their egocentric world to a place that celebrates their active citizenship.  “I have so much more to offer than Gr 6 social studies,” she states emphatically.

And then to illustrate that idea she shares one of her hidden gems, poet Kevan Lyons. I have been most fortunate to witness the power of the formerly homeless poet to connect with children. When he meets City Hall School students, he makes no secret of the fact that this relationship with City Hall School changed him. Small things can make a big difference. Linda treasures parents’ tears, the looks on kids faces and binders of letters thanking Kevan.

The Inquiring Minds website says this about City Hall School:

Leaving the confines of the classroom and immersing themselves in the rich learning in community of City Hall students gain an understanding of complexity of issues that affect our city and the important roles of citizens in municipal government.  Student journals are filled with Reflections, Observations, Wonders and Sketches as they focus on social responsibility, the environment, history and democracy.  The connections with their city and curriculum start in September with a presentation of a “Key to the City” and end with a celebration of citizenship.  Weekly City Beat eNewsletters keep classes engaged and inquiring.

Look at the City Hall School webpage. https://www.edmonton.ca/attractions_events/city_hall/city-hall-school.aspx

Do you want to know more? Contact Linda at linda.hut@edmonton.ca

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

Green School

Get comfortable because it is a long trip out west to the University Of Alberta Botanic Garden. If we were travelling on wheels, we might choose to use the Yellowhead, but since this is my magic carpet, I am taking you along the North Saskatchewan River. It feels just right to let those winding curves lead us south and west. Once we spot two golf courses along the south bank, we leave the river behind and head straight west. The mission of the University of Alberta Botanic Garden is to inspire connections between plants and people through curated collections, innovative education, research, conservation and experiences. My personal favorite spot is the Kurimoto Japanese Garden, particularly when the irises are in bloom. But my hands down favorite activity there is tramping through the trees with Deb leading one of her Green School classes. 

Green School receives funding from the Edmonton Community Foundation . 

The Garden is currently closed to visitors for the winter season. They are working on a plan so visitors might be able to enjoy the outdoor gardens this year, within Alberta Health Services guidelines, and with the safety of the public paramount in planning. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the Garden’s 2020 calendar of activities.

I caught up to Deb by phone at her home. Deb Greiner’s path to Inquiring Minds was as winding as the river. After university where she earned her teacher certification, she taught music and other things (as music teachers do) just outside Edmonton. When she became a mom, she took a break from that kind of paid education work, instead teaching piano and doing an assortment of volunteer activities. By 2010 she was ready to come back to the classroom but was not having much luck as she made the rounds. On a trip that took her out to Graminia Road, she stopped by the Garden as an after-thought and dropped off a resume. Soon she found herself working in their day programs. She observed and admired Green School. In the fall of 2011, she was asked to cover the role of Green School Coordinator. It fit her like a comfortable old garden glove and with all the experiential activities in the outdoors, the pieces of her passion and educational approach came together.

Deb thinks some teachers worry about the ability of children to spend most of the 5 days on her site outdoors. She sees being outside as an advantage and says there is a simplicity to being with kids in the open air. I admit I stole one of my best going outside with kids lines from Deb. “There is no such thing as bad weather, just poorly dressed people.”

The day we talked, there was a fresh white blanket of snow (in April, sigh) and Deb shared that she loves these spring snow days with kids.  “They find little tiny insects on the snow,” she recounts “and that gives me the chance to reward observation skills, talk about snow fleas, micro elements, and what good eyes they have.”

The Inquiring Minds website describes Green School this way:

The vision of Green School is to enable every child and teacher to develop an appreciation for the natural world. Immersion in the community of the University of Alberta Botanic Garden (plants and trees, animals, birds, wetlands, and people) allows for authentic learning experiences and for developing observational skills using journals.  This creates the potential for activities where the curriculum lives and encourages undertakings, which go beyond the week at the Garden, inspiring hope in hearts and minds to live and learn well.

Look at the Green School webpage. https://botanicgarden.ualberta.ca/programs-courses/green-school/

Do you want to know more? Contact Deb at uabg.greenschool@ualberta.ca 

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

Science School @Telus World of Science

Peek over the edge of our magic carpet as we follow Groat Road north from the University across the North Saskatchewan River leaning into each bend through the banks of Groat Ravine and make a sweeping turn at the Westmount Shopping Centre so we can come in low over the Queen Elizabeth II Planetarium to check out its restoration progress.  A little farther to the south and west, we see more renovating construction at the TELUS World of Science, Douglas Cardinal’s striking and innovative building created as Edmonton’s flagship project commemorating the Province of Alberta's 75th Anniversary. Now take a moment to consider the time space continuum, appreciating this convergence operated by the Edmonton Space & Science Foundation, a non-profit organization, on a mission to: Ignite curiosity. Inspire discovery. Celebrate science. Change lives. Personally, the opportunity to contemplate a rock from the moon and reflect on how it made its way to earth and our science centre is transformational. We are at the home of Science School.

Andrea Brickman, School Programs Specialist, came to the Telus World of Science (TWOSE) as a teaching contractor. Science School and Inquiring Minds entered her job description the first time in 2016. The next years of her journey with Inquiring Minds are not unlike the red Tardis phone box of Dr. Who, moved by mat leave jumps, personnel changes and moments not just in her life but that of others. During these COVID-19 times, TWOSE has ramped up its virtual connection to the public and I found Andrea at her home office.

She wishes many teachers could get beyond their “science disgust” when considering her site. She exhorts teachers, “If you are not comfortable with science, it is not a reason to not apply (to Science School). Think of writing in science as a big idea, not a list of curriculum considerations. Plus, there are things to do here you would not do at in the classroom because, in the case of robotics, for example, we have the resources.”

Andrea finds joy in showing off staff for many different reasons. People working in the building at the Telus World of Science love Science School. Interviews with staff prove to be some of the most treasured moments of the week. Andrea mentions the diversity of jobs required to make the Telus World of Science function; accountants, board members and yes, scientists. She illustrates with the example of a passionate exhibit designer who gets kids excited about design thinking. During his presentation, he touches on the importance of failure in creative problem solving.  

The Inquiring Minds website describes Science School this way:

Science School is designed to inspire students to explore STEM disciplines (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) through collaborative design projects, guided explorations of the natural environment, experimentation with engineering and technology, and learning through play. This journey will help students develop a passion for science and discover the areas that excite them.

Look at the Science School webpage. https://telusworldofscienceedmonton.ca/educators/science-school/

Do you want to know more? Contact Andrea at ABrickwood@twose.ca

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

U School

From the Jubilee Auditorium it is a quick, short swooping flight to the University of Alberta north campus. Evolving on the edge of the North Saskatchewan River since its founding in 1908, it covers 230 acres or 930,777 square metres (almost but not quite bringing meaning to a million). With over 37,000 undergraduates it would have ranked 9^th as a population centre in Alberta. The program is under the aegis (I owe my personal love of Greek mythology to my most memorable U of A undergrad professor, Dr. Robert Buck, who demonstrated every class to me the essential place of sharing passion in learning) of the Chancellor and Senate of the University of Alberta, and makes the most of its volunteer experts to open the window of endless possibility in inquiry to U School students.

I caught up to Michaela Mann, U School program lead, working at her apartment near campus. COVID-19 means U of A classes are being delivered remotely and only essential work is being done on campus.  Most U of A research is continuing remotely, but essential research is being conducted on campus related to COVID-19 and clinical care activities.

Michaela’s path to Inquiring Minds started when she was working for U of A Students Union in professional development and program design for students on campus. The previous U School program lead, Melania Woloszyn, reached out looking to fulfil a U School teacher’s big idea. Mel asked Michaela to make a presentation to a U School class on leadership. There was also an “off the wall” connection, which literally came while she was climbing a wall. Michaela got to know a facilitator of class experiences at U School while on the climbing wall at the Wilson Climbing Centre and as a result in the fall of 2019 applied for the position of Program Lead.

Her first thought when asked about an overlooked aspect of U School concerns the walking. “It is a big site, basically a small city,” she told me, “and we walk everywhere.”  Walking across campus provides a visual representation of the breadth of the university. We agreed that walking is an essential and wonderful learning activity built into every Inquiring Minds site.

Michaela relishes the constant opportunities U School provides for her own learning. One of the first presentations she saw connected the spectrum and the thermo-dynamic (hot and cold) science of lasers. After predicting the effects of shining a green laser at green balloon and then a red balloon (absorbed and reflective energy) and watching one explode, she now has an incredible love of all things laser. She routinely sees that happen to U School students; exposure to something mind blowing plants seeds of interest deep in a brain.

The Inquiring Minds website describes U School this way:

U School is designed to give students the opportunity to interact with University of Alberta staff, students, professors and community members while learning about a wide variety of teacher-directed topics.  Students are introduced to the U of A and our sessions take place primarily on North Campus.  Please note U School only accepts applicants from socially vulnerable metro areas and provides rural opportunities to those outside of metro areas.

Take a look at the U School webpage. https://www.ualberta.ca/chancellor-and-senate/u-school/index.html

Do you want to know more? Contact Michaela at uschool@ualberta.ca

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

Jube School

Our first fly-over on this magic carpet ride, is the Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium. This program exists in two cities: in Edmonton at the Northern Jubilee Auditorium and in Calgary at the Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium. Those of us who have had the privilege of visiting both these International Style monuments built to celebrate Alberta’s Jubilee (50 years) as a province of Canada have experienced a real twinge of Déjà vu or two subtly different realities. The buildings were born twin sisters and live full lives in two different settings and cities but continue, over more than 60 years, to share the same beautiful bone, muscle and skin. Twin spaces. Different places.

Karen Youngberg is the Cultural Development Specialist for the Alberta Jubilee Auditoria Society, a not-for-profit organization led by Board members working for the betterment of the Jubilee and striving to promote the importance of art and culture. She carries a passion for what she does that radiates from her eyes and smile. Her path to Inquiring Minds, like each of the people we will meet who facilitate Inquiring Minds, is unique. 

Prior to coming to work at the Southern Jubilee Auditorium in an office admin job, she had been stage managing and working with Quest Theatre, a company with lots of experience working with and in schools. Her own children had exposure to inquiry learning education. She was eager when I invited her to come and spend an observation day with me at a site being run at the Calgary Arts Common in the fall of 2015. The rest, as they like to say, is history. She connected with a supportive crew from Campus Calgary/Open Minds and built a Jube School (Jube is a diminutive or term used  to convey a sense of intimacy or endearment for Jubilee Auditorium) program at the Southern Alberta Jubilee. In the past year, the existing Northern Alberta Jube School program folded into her job description.

In these days of Covid 19, the Jubilee Auditoria are “dark”, a term they use in the theatre business, meaning the venue has been closed to the public. But Karen is busy creating ideas and sharing activities for connecting folks of all ages with the arts. I, myself, attempted her “One Line Sketching” Challenge.

I asked her to comment on something teachers might overlook about her site and she barely hesitated. “I don’t think teachers realize it is a government building. It’s filled with more than 60 years of storytelling. They will get to feel that lived experience of building. The arts are about creating and sharing community.”

For her, a hidden gem of Jube School is directly related to that idea. Her voice warmed as she related the wonder of a student in Grade 3 who volunteered the fact that his dad loved Led Zeppelin. Building on those associations for kids makes participating in an activity about the Jube's state of the art sound system a connected, deep learning experience. Karen enjoys revealing the long list of artists who have walked from the dressing rooms out to perform on the Jubilee stage.

The Inquiring Minds website describes Jube School this way:  

A week-long program of personalized, interactive, arts-based learning rooted in elements of each class’ curriculum. Creative explorations in the technical, visual and performing arts will inspire learners and educators to make personal connections in, through, and about the arts. Working alongside some of the world’s best teaching artists and technicians, students have a hands-on opportunity to create, reflect, and explore in an environment that supports personal and social growth, empowers practical learning and inspires curiosity that enriches the individual, the class, and our community. 

Take a look at the Jube School webpage. https://jubileeauditorium.com/edmonton/jube-school

Do you want to know more? Contact Karen at kyoungberg@albertajubileesociety.ca

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

Inquiring Minds – The Fabric of the Carpet

The 13 current Edmonton and area

sites of Inquiring Minds share an application process for the 2020-21 school year and are bound together by an approach to learning. Nothing more; not extra funding or staffing, no higher order administrative structure.

The website says “Children learn best by doing. The Inquiring Minds partnership offers teachers an opportunity to move their classroom to a community site for a week of hands on, multi-sensory learning. Student learning is enhanced by meeting curriculum expectations through meaningful connections to the real world.” The website also uses the descriptive phrase “week-long, site-based, inquiry programming”.

Those ideas work together to create the essence of this approach. It’s not really a whole new world. It’s just the fascinating world that can be discovered at a site. Inquiring Minds banded together because they share this learning idea. It is an organic connection. Each site has its own individual funding and administrative organization. The diverse coordinators come together monthly to share ideas related to this approach, but there is no overall business unit or funding model in Inquiring Minds. Like the learning ideas they champion, each site handles those things in its own unique way. Inside the larger organization that is home to each program, the magic of the site and pride in the learning it facilitates help create meaningful connections to the real world.

If you want to raise the “hackles” of an Inquiring Minds program coordinator use the words “field trip” to describe your understanding of their program. While there are many places (some Inquiring Minds physical locations also welcome teachers and students to other programs that might be called field trips) providing very focused experiences for anything from an hour to a full day, the approach of Inquiring Minds is to slow down and open up the multi-facilitated learning available at that physical space. Site-based means to “be” at a site and introduce as many different curriculum connections as might to be possible in a week’s worth of full days.

Week-long has recently morphed to 5 days with the education school days (instruction days) calendar leaving fewer whole weeks. Most program coordinators use a creative approach to provide 5 consecutive instructional days. The point is to bring students and teachers often enough to the space to allow time for observing, connecting and reflecting with a variety of people and things, traverse the breadth of the space and get behind the scenes. Overcoming first impression newness and allowing for visit-revisit connections settles sensory stimulated brains and provides deeper learning opportunities. Inside this practice we like to say, “Students and teachers end up owning the space”.

The big idea behind an inquiry approach in a learning rich environment is the power of ENGAGEMENT of students; what “catches the eye”, fascinates and creates a willingness to spend time slow looking naturally leads next to lots of questions. With more time those questions lead to the process of seeking answers and that can lead to (with nurture or without) connections making curriculum objectives come alive.

One of the reveals at each site is an introduction to jobs many of us, adults included, know little about. A key component of each program is the people who work for the larger organization. Tying curriculum to the everyday skills and ideas of occupations can give reason or purpose to certain aspects of learning. In Alberta we refer to these curriculum connections under the term, Career and Life Management or CALM.

All the programs hope against hope that participating teachers will use the experience as a central part of a year long connection to learning. Facilitators offer educators ways and support to divide the school year into 3 parts: 1. before we go, 2. while we are there and 3. what we can do with what we learned.

And all Inquiring Minds sites champion the use of a journal as a primary research and reflecting tool.

The next 13 posts will be about individual sites. Our current “interesting times” gave me the opportunity to phone chat with a variety of program coordinators. There is nothing like a personal perspective to see a whole new world.

Hang on to the fringes and tassels. Here we go.

Inquiring Minds

Site Coordinators Feb. 28, 2020

I can’t help it but the words from the Disney song, A Whole New World , keep rolling through my brain as I sit to write. Yes, I watched a few of the different Duos (my goodness that word has taken on a new meaning for me in the last 3 weeks) performing the song since it was released in 1992. This math inclined brain of mine jumped to make a connection with that year. 

Gillian Kydd, in Edmonton we refer to her as the god-mother of Inquiring Minds, was early in her role as a science consultant for Calgary Board of Education. She met in the fall of 1992 with people at the Calgary Zoo. By January of 1993 she helped a teacher and class take the first steps onto that site every chilly day for a week. She began weaving a magic carpet of education, something with a “new, fantastic point of view". In 2002 she took me for a ride that showed me “a hundred thousand things to see” and left me all these years later saying “I can't go back to where I used to be”.

This "whole new world" we find ourselves in today, was not even comprehensible on Feb. 28, 2020 when the group in the photo above spent the afternoon connecting with teachers at GETCA. The opportunity to talk to teachers this way, was something new and from my observer's view point, a great success. It is safe to say, many of us hugged, shook hands and spoke to each other well inside the 2 metre acceptable circle of today’s in-person social distancing communication guidelines.

My heart sang, all afternoon.

I told everyone I just came for the T shirt. I LOVE the new logo. But I really came to see some of the old and new faces of the site coordinators. Being truly retired means I don’t go to those facilitators' monthly meetings and I do miss them. 

Great energy crackled down the long display table and the smiles on everyone’s faces spoke to an amazing current of connection.

I was inspired. I decided to write a fly-by snap shot on each of the 13 sites of Inquiring Minds and post them here.

Early in the week that was school spring break in Edmonton, I met an alumni teacher of Inquiring Minds in the Safeway parking lot. Standing at least 3 metres apart we discussed the strange new paradigm teachers found themselves in and he asked if I thought he should still apply for a site next year. “Absolutely,” I said. “We have no idea what the school year will look like in the fall. If you don’t apply you won’t have a chance to access that rich world of learning.”

Then I reminded him of all the skills his “inquiry focused” “blank journal” equipped students can bring to their remote learning for the rest of this school year.

For the next few posts, join me, as Inquiring Minds biggest fan. I want to “open your eyes, take you wonder by wonder, over, sideways and under, On a magic carpet ride”.

“I can show you the world, Shining, shimmering, splendid” of Inquiring Minds. 

I invite you to take a brief bird's eye peek with me. It will not be technologically wonderful; just words to hook you, set your teaching imagination in motion, glimpse a hidden gem.

You can start by checking out the application at the Inquiring Minds website. It could be your magic carpet to a "whole new world" of learning.