Rocco Maiolo's Ramblings and Musings

To My 2009 semester 2 EWCs: You're Great! In my second year of teaching I was observed by my then vice-principal and once former high school English teacher, Bob Majers . He observed a grade 9 class -- I have no recollection of what we were doing. Cue for Treason maybe? What I do remember is a conversation that went something like this: BOB: Wow, this is a great class. ME: Yeah, they're super kids -- smart and a lot of fun. BOB: Have you told them that? ME: No... BOB: Well, I think you should. ME: Good idea. That conversation has stuck with me. I often forget that the young people I get the honour to be with for 5 months are 14-18 yrs-olds -- kids in adult bodies. I don't mean that disrespectfully ; I just mean that they might look like they're adults but really they're only a very short few years past being 12-yrs old ... kids. So what's my point: high school students need to know that you're proud of them and that you think they're great. Specifically...

Larry Sirranni, aka, Super Mario Yesterday I was at a retirement party for a man who is wholly human, doubtlessly flawed and yet -- dare I use the word? --great in what he has accomplished in his vocation as an educator. The point of this blog is not to honour the man, Larry Sirianni , although he is quite worthy of being honoured (as was he in the many speeches given on June 4 at the Thundering Waters Golf Course in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada). The point of this blog is to look at the concept of greatness. What makes Larry great -- what makes anyone great -- is that in his vocation he did not settle for the ordinary. He approached every minute, every day, every student, every colleague with the conviction that everyone, himself included, could be better after the encounter. As I watched Larry being so rightly honoured I found myself having many divergent thoughts. Is it then what a person does that makes him great? Does the greatness ( largeness , scope) lie in the magnit...

Here are some things I've learned after 22 years of teaching: It's a vocation, a calling, not a job. It takes a tremendous amount of hard work, commitment and a sense of humour to do it well. If you want to find excuses as to why you can't do better there are a lot to choose from. It's not in the budget, my admin doesn't support me, they're always changing things and on and on. If you want to find reasons to do better there are lots of those to choose from too. Right now I have 78 -- Tracey, Joel, Brooke, Rachel, Brandon, Julie, Jeff, Luke, Jordan, Cassie, Kasey, Kyle, and Joshua but to mention a few... I think you get the picture. No student wants to do badly, neither does any teacher or principal. If any of the above do do badly there's usually a reason. Unpack that reason and you can fix the problem; focus on the reason and you compound the problem. Or, like the Japanese proverb reads: It's better to fix a problem than to fix blame. People don't c...