WFNS – Jan L. Coates – "What if…?"

Back at School

Now that I’m back in Nova Scotia for the winter (and missing my little girls in Ontario, I’m keen to do some school author visits. Thanks to the Writers in the Schools program (WITS) offered by the Writers Federation of Nova Scotia, I got to spend time at McCulloch Education Centre in Pictou last week, and it reminded me how much I like being with kids! I took a few pictures of wall art, and I wanted to share some of the interesting things kids said/drew:

After I read SKY PIG, I get kids to draw a picture of their dream. If they could have anything in the whole entire world, what would it be? There are always lots of kids who want to be princesses, have a puppy or travel to Disneyland, and the responses range from the hilarious to the sad:

My dream is that my mother could be Queen of the World (and the picture showed her entire family as princes, princesses, kings, etc.)

My dream is to have my own zoo, and it would be full of birds.

My dream is to visit my dad’s house again.

After I read THE POCKET PIG, it always amazes how many kids have imaginary friends, and they have detailed descriptions of their friendship with those friends, including one boy who said he only plays with his imaginary friend while in the bathroom so he can have privacy. They have fun drawing their imaginary friends, or imagining what that character would look like if they don’t have one (yet). They draw lots of other kids, dogs, and one boy drew a very detailed mouse – another a giant ant. Kids have so much imagination!

I’m trying out hearing aids as I’m tired of constantly asking people to repeat themselves. I had a head injury when I was in my 20s, including damage to my left ear, so it’s time to do something about it. For sure, my hearing is improved with things like radio and TV volume being reduced, but I still struggled to understand some of the younger kids last week. This is something I noticed last year, too, and I wondered if it had to do with Covid/masks, or are kids just having more trouble articulating now? Too much screen time? Not enough human conversation? A combination of everything, most likely. I’m sure it’s super frustrating for them since they know exactly what they’re trying to communicate. And speech pathologists have far too many kids on their caseloads.

I think (hope) there’s a trend towards old-school methods in teaching reading and writing, hopefully involving more phonetics after the Whole Language debacle. I’ve always been a fan of spelling lists, but it seems they disappeared years ago. Life is just so complicated for kids today, and I’m not sure the adults making the key decisions in education are always well-informed on the needs of kids. (ie. Not teachers, but the people in curriculum development offices).

Anyway, that’s my two cents. I got to spend the night with my childhood best friend while I was in Pictou – lots to catch up on! The weather here in Nova Scotia has turned, as it does before Remembrance Day. Hope you’re staying cozy in your little corner!

Nova Scotia public school teachers are in a difficult position, possibly poised to strike; something nobody in the schools wants. Image result for teaching is a hard job I really fear they’re up against the wall, and if they want change, they need to stand firm. If you’ve never spent time in a school lately, I’m pretty sure you’d be shocked at the myriad of challenges students bring with them to school each and every day. Beyond academic struggles, kids have to deal with family break-ups, socio-economic, emotional and behavioural difficulties, including pent-up anger, violence and mental illness. And then there are the kids who are simply unable to “play nice” with others, for a variety of reasons; the ones constantly seeking attention, the ones looking to be loved. The magnitude of these complicating factors has to be overwhelming for teachers, especially given the fact there are so few educational assistants in elementary classrooms these days.

As one young teacher recently told me, (after telling me about a year spent with two students in her upper elementary class, one who came to school each day wanting to kill somebody and the other who wanted to kill himself) it’s not that there’s not enough money for education, the problem lies in the allocation of those financial resources. There are too many people in offices being paid too much money to create more paperwork for the people on the ground, in the schools. Teachers want to teach, they want to help kids succeed and be happy, and they need sufficient time, energy and assistance in the classrooms, to do their jobs. Period.

And don’t even get me started on the many school libraries that are now staffed by part-time volunteers (thank goodness for those parents), rather than dedicated librarians. How did reading get lost in the educational shuffle? In rural areas, the school library is often the only library available to kids, the only source of good books.

A couple of smiles from recent school visits. Kids always want to know how old I am – big thanks to the grade 3 student who, when I said that I’d seriously started writing toward publication when I was about 40, exclaimed: “You mean you’re older than 40 now!” I guess when you’re 8, 40 seems super old. And a big smile to the grade 2 boy who, in writing/drawing about Nature’s treasures, wrote me this poem:

The grass is green,

the sky is blue,

Nature is beautiful,

and so are you!

Thank you to all the schools who invited me to visit through the Writers in the Schools (WITS) program over the past six weeks – it was such a pleasure spending time with your enthusiastic, eager kids. Keep up the great work!