Way back at the beginning of Term Two, you may remember that we brainstormed around the idea of what makes for good reflective writing.

I know you all dread reflective writing, to varying degrees, and you may have noticed that we have dialled back a little, in terms of how many reflections we’ve been writing.  This isn’t because it isn’t a highly valuable process; it’s because I’ve been trying to be respectful of the amount of projects you all are engaged in this term, and my feeling has been that weekend reflections would be the straw that might break your collective backs.  However, we will be working on a reflection this week.  

One of the Curricular Competencies for Applied Design, Skills, and Technologies is this ability to reflect upon one’s work, after the fact:

• Reflect on their design thinking and processes, and evaluate their ability to work effectively both as individuals and collaboratively in a group, including their ability to share and maintain an efficient co-operative work space

This week, maybe even on Monday, I’m going to ask you to reflect on the work you did on your AMAZING altered books (I took them to the high school art teacher who helped me specify the process, and who also gave us those great acrylic stamps and the wooden frames and puzzle pieces – thank you, Mrs. Bechler! – and she was very impressed; she also, rightly, called the fact that I took just as much pleasure watching you create them as you did in making them).  The criteria is simple: you generated it yourselves:

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You may also consider what our friend Richard Wagamese had to say about the third point on the Medicine Wheel, “Introspection”:

“On the Medicine Wheel, introspection is the “looks-within place.”  Humility and trust offer many teachings, and introspection is a means of seeing how those apply to our lives.  It’s a place of vision.  It’s a resting place where the story, the song each of us has created up to this moment can be inspected and those things deemed unnecessary be let go.  It’s a place of courage, because the hardest place to look is within.  Many people stop here, deterred by the trials of the journey and the sudden hurts that sometimes make life hard.  But introspection is meant to bring us to balance.  It is the place where all things are ordered, where all things rings true at the same time.  Balance allows us to move forward, and when we do, the journey becomes wondrous again by virtue of our ability to see the whole trail.”

– Richard Wagamese, One Story, One Song (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 2011)

Suncrest will hold its Student Vote for the upcoming provincial election on Tuesday, May 2. In preparation for that, and in order to make an informed vote, you might want to do a little research.  The Student Vote BC people sent the below links and information.  Check it out! 

(ps: we will be voting as if we live in the Burnaby-Edmonds district.  If you live in different riding, you may think about the top of the ticket – the Premier – and base your party vote on that.  Remember: opinions are based on facts – everything else is a feeling.  I challenge you to vote based on informed opinions!)

PARTY LEADER VIDEO Q&A:
More than 400 student questions from across B.C. and ultimately five were selected to reflect diversity in age and geography, and commonly cited issues. Eleven party leaders have submitted videos so far, including Christy Clark (Liberal), John Horgan (NDP) and Andrew Weaver (Green).

The questions touch on important election issues, including housing, education, the environment and the economy. The video responses provide great insight into what each party stands for and their long-term goals for the province. You can view the questions and responses on the Student Vote BC 2017 election site: http://studentvote.ca/bc2017/the-leaders/
 
LEADERS’ DEBATE:
The campaign’s only televised leader’s debate takes place on Wednesday evening (April 26). Jointly broadcast by CBC, CTV, Global and CPAC, the debate will include Clark, Horgan and Weaver. The 90-minute debate begins at 6:30 pm.
 
VOTE COMPASS:
Vote Compass is a great political spectrum tool to help people examine their political views and discover how they fit in the provincial political landscape: https://votecompass.cbc.ca/bc/
 
MEDIA SOURCES:
If you’re looking to keep informed about campaign events and announcements, check out the following links:

• Vancouver Sun has compiled all of their election coverage with a focus on the major issues: http://vancouversun.com/tag/bc-election-2017
• Global’s ‘BC Election 2017’ site is also a good source for provincial election news: http://globalnews.ca/tag/bc-election-2017/
• CBC’s ‘BC Votes 2017’ page features detailed profiles of all 87 electoral districts in the province: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/b-c-votes-2017-a-look-at-the-issues-in-your-riding-1.4073152

Due to the short school weeks surrounding the Easter holiday, the out-going Mini- and Nano-Brains made the decision to use a round-robin of coin tossing to choose a four-day Mini-Brain from among the previously unelected.  Vlad fulfilled his duties admirably, with his trademark blend of easy-going friendliness, firmness, and responsibility.

This week, our nomination process was slightly altered, after a decision made by an assembly of Mini- and Nano-Brains past and present.  Now, in addition to citing positive leadership qualities in a nominee, the nominator needs to provide concrete evidence of the nominee having demonstrated those qualities.  This step didn’t prevent this week’s election from being the most tightly packed since the first!

After a few reminders about the need for campaigners to keep a minimum distance from the polling station (“ahem” *Kevin* “ahem”), another tense and close election was held, and for the second time this year, the results ended in a tie, and therefore with co-Mini-Brains.

Both are very capable leaders; how will Meera’s generosity and pro-active leadership meld with Kevin’s boisterous sense of humor and openly stated need to be “the dominant one” in their Co-Brain-ness? The next two weeks will tell!  

Dear MACC-sters, young and old(er),

Thank you all so much for taking the time out of your busy schedules to come to the student-led conferences.  And thank you for humoring my vision of these conferences as a chance for the older folk to get a sense of some of the things that the younger folk get up to every day.

Here are some of your timed, drawn index card responses to the quote by Maya Angelou:

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And here’s some photos of y’all practicing group work with the Paper Tower Challenge:

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And here’s a photo of the Connection board before we started making connections (students had 20 minutes in their university teams to write down everything they remembered from Term One, and got one point for each idea/concept they had that no other team had – as a way of building the board but also to help cement some of Term One’s learning and not have it just drift away in the ether of “done-ness”…):

And here’s a photo of the Connection board after the conferences:

And here’s some photos of students showing some of you things in the room (before my old nemesis, the full phone, reared its ugly head…):

And here are the students’ timed, drawn index card responses to the prompt, the next day, “Draw an image of a moment you felt good about yourself during your student-led conference” (including some fantasy moments from those who were unable to attend):

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Again, thank you all, students and parents.  There were a lot of very tender moments that I felt privileged to witness.  Thank you, as always, for having such wonderfully curious children; and thank you, kids, for having such caring, game parents!

In Term Two, as we prepared for our Inquiry Projects, we engaged in an exploration of the sketchnoting technique while watching episodes of the amazing Cosmos mini-series, which has a wonderfully direct correlation to the Big Ideas and content of the grade 6 and 7 Science Curriculum.

Sketchnoting is a powerful learning tool, as it encourages metacognitive thinking (thinking about thinking). Students are required to actively analyze the information they are viewing in order to classify and sort it, create visual mnemonics, and delineate different kinds and strengths of connections between ideas.  I can report a 100% engagement level every Friday morning in our class, as we watched and sketchnoted from Sagan, Druyan, and deGrasse Tyson’s remarkable series. 

It fills me with joy to see how differently each student works with the same material and concepts, and one of the beautiful aspects of sketchnoting is that you do it in the way that makes sense to you – as long as you are experimenting with a hierarchy of information, using structure and organization to sort the information, and using visuals when appropriate to capture ideas and concepts, anything goes.  This form of active viewing and this way of thinking about thinking increases memory retention and makes plagiarism impossible, as you have used a minimum number of words to capture the information viewed or read.  It’s also a lot of fun.  Thank you, Mrs. Osiris of Chaffey-Burke (one of the most creative people I know), for turning me on to this amazing technique!

Here are some of the fruits of our labors (if I missed your work, it was because my phone ran out of room to store photos – I am plagued by this issue…).

Practice Round:

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Submitted Work, Round 1:

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Submitted Work, Round 2:

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A good intro to sketchnoting can be found here.  Be a Thought Curator and try it out!  And while you’re at it, take a look at the original 1980 version of the Cosmos series – despite (or perhaps because of) the turtlenecks and the adenoidal tone, there are still few people who can bring the same sense of wonder and refinement of thought to science as Carl Sagan.  Hop aboard the Ship of the Imagination and click on the first episode, here.  

On Friday, we held our first Mini-Brain election of Term Three.  Election regulations prohibit consecutive terms for the MIni-Brain, so Anika and her Nano-Brain, David, were ineligible for this election cycle.  As per tradition, students stood to nominate those in Division 2 whom they thought best exemplified positive leadership qualities, giving evidence to support their nominations.  

The power of perseverance (or is it the perseverance for power?) has led to the election of our first Grade 6 Mini-Brain, Amy!

Amy has been a nominee in every cycle and brings with her the experience of one month as Nano-Brain during the inaugural Mini-Brain term.  She also brings a promise of chocolate for everyone on Fridays…

Congratulations, Amy!

And remember, all: if we seem to be looking for and celebrating an embodiment of helpfulness, fairness, and a welcoming and inclusive attitude in our leaders, as evidenced in our nomination process, can we also seek out and bring those qualities to our interactions on social media and during recess and lunch?  That is the challenge, going forward.  Leaders of Tomorrow, Assemble!