It was 1998 and I had just landed my first permanent teaching position four days before the start of the new school year. It was a full-time job teaching Kindergarten in a beautiful inner city school built in 1844. The school was led by Principal Judy Gard Puddester and I »
Before the pandemic I was attending a conference in New York City and on a night off I had the treat of seeing Come From Away on Broadway. A colleague had scored tickets for us and while I was excited about the show, I realized as we walked to the »
A dear friend and mentor of mine left a back to school surprise on my doorstep last week. It was a new journal with a black cat on the front and an inscription which read "Be Curious." Unbeknownst to my friend, cats have been an ongoing summer conversation »
Just a few short weeks ago, the crew of the Elite Navigator, seven Newfoundland fisherman were miraculously rescued at sea. In this part of the world, the combination of the unforgiving Atlantic's oceanic forces along with many of our own personal tales of heartbreak and tragic loss on »
After over seven decades of rocking together, the gritty, electric energy of The Rolling Stones lit up downtown Vancouver just over a week ago. Resiliency is a word that frequently surfaces alongside of rock royalty stories of The Stones. From the infamous tales of Keith Richards whirlwind rock and roll »
Trust is a fascinating relationship between people and systems. Between people, trust is the faithful connective thread that allows for growth, for risk-taking and mistake-making. Between people and systems, trust signifies reliability, truth and the belief that good will come from what the system does. In reflecting on life of »
I have been super stoked to delve into this topic because I am not hearing much about the incredible opportunities of artificial intelligence (AI) in early childhood education. There have been glimmers of conversations but they seem to quickly dull with heavy cautions about the dangers of technology on the »
As a little girl, my family and I would bundle up each year to watch my adored grandfather march in the Remembrance Day parade. As a RAF veteran of the second world war, every November 11th he would proudly march and I would eagerly await his arrival as I stood »
When my husband and I married, his maternal grandparents were not able to come to our wedding. The trip to Newfoundland was just too far from their Texan home for them to consider coming from away. When my husband's cousin called them from our wedding, we promised his »
On the eve of Mother's Day, I'm taking a risk and opening up the memory vault. Risky because I've built a life far from home and it's hard to emotionally navigate the distance when that vault opens. I left home over twenty »
One of the hottest educational topics is how to deal with "problem behaviour" in the classroom. While I am reluctant to label any child's behaviour as a problem, I am sensitive to the realities of the descriptors used in educational circles. I am committed to reframing »
