Tag: lifelong learning

A Favourite Book

What is one of your favourite books? That is the question we asked teachers and other staff at Lord Tweedsmuir.

The response was excellent. There are some pretty cool books that were brought up. Ms. Perez loves Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. If you haven’t read it, maybe you should check it out. (We have it here in the school library for you to borrow.)

We’ve asked the adults in the building. How about the students? What are some of your favourite books?

Look for more examples of favourite books in the coming weeks.

Students Need to See Adults Reading

ssrcam“As a teacher I am more influential as a model than my students will ever let on.”

Read during SSR.  Expect students to have a book, be silent, be respectful of others, and read. Model that. Show them that reading isn’t something we just talk about. Reading is something we really do.

“…teachers who grade papers or balance their checkbooks during SSR are also sending their students a powerful message–a message that time set aside to read isn’t important. It’s true that we often have to model a positive behavior ten, twenty, thirty times before we see it begin to take hold in adolescents.  But it’s also true that if we model a bad behavior once, they learn it immediately. I remind myself of this prior to every SSR period– that as a teacher I am more influential as a model than my students will ever let on. If I talk the talk, I need to walk the walk.”

–Kelly Gallagher, Reading Reasons, 2003.

Leif & Lifelong Learning

If you are a “lifelong learner” you should be learning new things all the time. I just learned that there is a holiday in the US called Leif Erikson Day. I am not sure why I didn’t know this already, but I learned it today thanks to Mental Floss (a great site, check it out.)

source: Mental Floss

Christopher Columbus gets most of the glory as the European who “discovered” America, but it was Leif Erikson and the Vikings who were here hundreds of years earlier. In fact there may have been other Vikings in America before Erikson, or perhaps even other Europeans (St. Brendan the Irishman?) but Leif gets the credit. Learn more about Leif Erikson  and the day named for him here.