True To My Word...

When I was 8 years old, my grade 3 teacher had us do a project on any country in the world. Not one to be too studious, I grabbed an encyclopedia and flipped through it and under my finger hit a country.  My finger landed on Tanzania, Africa and from there I have always wanted to visit to climb it's volcano; Kilimanjaro, on the top of Africa, the tallest free standing mountain in the world.  

I have told many people that some day I will climb that mountain.

Lennie and I as teachers had the opportunity to apply for a self funded leave allowing us to have 6 months paid leave starting in January till June. We applied, were accepted, and contributed 20% of our pay for a couple of years into a fund that we will access while off in January.  

I have told many people that some day we will do a self funded leave.

In 2007 I met a really cool teacher named Kristine in my Principal's courses.  We hit it off right away and she returned in 2008 to complete the second course with me.  She was from London but was living and teaching in Singapore with her family.  While she was here I borrowed a book from her and promised that some day I would come to Singapore to return the book.  

I have told many people that some day I would travel to Singapore to see Kristine, her country, family, and return the book.

We are finally here.  9 days away from our adventure.  Lennie and I are going on a trip around the world, literally, 50,000+ km, stopping in Central America, Africa, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, California, Seattle, Victoria, then home.

Got our shots - they hurt

With lots of amazing things in between, we are checking off many things on our bucket lists.

• Go on a cruise


• Summit Mount Kilimanjaro


• See a giraffe eat from a tree and zebras run in the wild on a safari


• Return a book to Kristen Greenslaw in Singapore


• Swim in the infinity pool at the Marina Bay Hotel, Singapore


• Have a Singapore sling in Singapore


• Snorkel the Great Barrier Reef


• Hold a koala bear





International driver's licences - check

• Complete the Sydney, Australia bridge walk


• See the Charles Sturt campus in Wagga Wagga, Queensland where I completed my MEd


• See water flow counter clockwise in a toilet


• Paddle board in New Zealand


• See the Hollywood sign and take a TMZ tour - yes we are that cheesy


• Drive the Pacific Coast Highway

etc etc etc

Stay tuned for our adventures.

The 10 Year Letter Irony

I love it when good things happen to good people.  "Nice guys finish first", and in this case...5th.

We all know that I am a teacher right - actually I am an elementary school Principal now but once a teacher, always a teacher, no matter what your role.

In 2000, I left a corporate HR job in Toronto to move back to London to be a French/Phys-ed teacher at a school called Sir John A MacDonald PS.  I had no idea what I was doing but had a great admin team and colleagues to help me survive that first year. 

In 2001, I was asked to teach grade 7.  I once again had no idea what I was doing but really tried hard to focus on the kids and what they needed.  I spent a lot of time teaching French and Phys-ed since I knew how to do that and had my dad come a couple of times to do art lessons but the rest, I kind of sucked at.  It was an interesting year as 911 happened, the winter Olympics and a great deal of changes were happening at the school and in the community.  I had a tough but awesome group of students who pretty well ended up teaching me more than I taught them.

In January 2002, I had my class do an activity called the "10 Year Letter".  I had them write a letter to themselves that I would collect, keep, and then mail to them in the year 2012.  I had no idea if it would work or not but the kids did their best thinking about what they might be doing in 10 years.  I collected the letters and placed them safely in my basement where they remain to this day - a little covered in dust from our basement reno but still sealed and intact.

Well, guess what?  It has been 10 years so I must mail out the letters to the kids.  I went to my basement and retrieved the letters and was worried that the students might have moved and the letters would get lost in the mail.  So, I spent a great deal of time on the Internet, Twitter, and Facebook to track them down to ask for an updated address so I could send them their letters.  I got some wonderful responses and comments made about their memories of grade 7, our class, and me. 

One letter stood out though. 

It was written by a student in my class named Damian Warner.  He was the sweetest most quiet student I had ever taught.  He also was exceptionally athletic and won all the events at our annual track and field days plus came from a wonderful family. 

The reason why this letter stood out was because he had just recently returned from the summer Olympics in London.  Not as a spectator but as a competitor.  He had finished 5th in the decathlon and become a champion to all of Canada.  I could not believe that I had his letter and this was the year to send it to him.

Damian and our class celebrating the
2002 Winter Olympics - prediction or what!!

I shared my discovery with my friend Chris who is still a teacher at Sir John A who told me that they were going to have Damian come and speak to the school at an assembly.  Chris thought it would be a cool idea if I came and presented Damien's letter directly too him as a surprise.  Oh man, what a great idea, I was in!

I got Damian's letter ready and found some old photos from the class and then located the class yearbook.  I made a yearbook every year for my class and one of the things I would do is predict what I thought they would end up being as an adult.  Some people I predicted would be actors, writers or owners of motorcycles, but for Damian I predicted he would be a professional athlete - I thought a wrestler because in grade 7 he weight about 100 pounds but still, I knew he would fabulous!!  I also noticed that I had all the kids signed my copy of the year book so I laughed out loud to my husband saying I had the first Damian Warner autograph.

I brought the book and the letter to the school and had the opportunity to present them to Damian.  I recounted the fun times we had in grade 7, my prediction of him being in sports and then he opened the letter. 

You will not believe what it said....

Yep, you are reading correctly, he predicted he would be a "runner in the Olympics".  I started to bawl as I thought how cool that will be for his mom to see that he believed in himself and achieved such a lofty goal.  I could not be prouder of him as a Londoner, Canadian, but mostly as a graduate of Sir John A MacDonald PS.

Notice how tall he is now compared to the class photo
where I am a foot taller than him. 

This week I was thrilled when Damian was once again mentioned on our Board's web page http://www.tvdsb.ca/spotlight.cfm?sp=533 and the impact he is having by telling his story to kids all over our district.  The story mentioned his letter and my opportunity to present it to him and there were a couple of photos included.  I always wanted to make it on our Board's website Spotlight section and was really delighted with this because it was for me as a teacher. 

Not often do you get to see your students and how they are doing 10+ years later.  Watching him at the Olympics this summer and cheering him on in the decathlon was extra special.  I am so happy that a little silly lesson I did with that class so long ago could bring some joy to him and his family.  It sure makes my week.

Follow Damian and his journey to the 2016 Olympics and on Twitter @DamianWarner - he is one special guy.

Career goals come true too!

Most of you know me through this health and running journey that I am on but few of you know that I am also working full time as an elementary school vice-principal (a journey and blog in itself).

I have only been working with the Thames Valley District School Board for 9 years.  Prior to teaching I had a terrific career in corporate Canada throughout the 90s.  I graduated from teacher's college in 1993 but there were no jobs so my mom got me working at the insurance company she worked at.  January 1994 I got another job as a claims adjuster, couple years late a subrogation officer and then I became a Y2K tester for Halifax, Wellington and ING Insurance.  In the late 90s (they realized that I had a teaching background) and was asked to move to the head office of ING Canada in Toronto to join their human resources dept. as a training and development consultant. What a terrific job, as I was able to mesh my teaching and corporate experiences into one amazing job.

ING Canada had branches all our Canada so I got to travel a ton from branch to branch facilitating workshops to employees and managers on soft skills courses such as Facilitating for Results, Dealing with Conflict and employee orientation.  My VP of Human Resources (who was amazing) heard from a friend of a fantastic program in Adult Education from St. Francis Xavier university.  ING Canada paid for me to get my certificate and it taught me so much but the best was being able to align leadership and learning, teaching and facilitating, students and adults. (little did I know that this would really come in handy later)

I was traveling back and forth from London to Toronto and home again on the weekends and it was starting to takes its toll.  I was pretty lonely in Toronto while my husband was in London trying to work and keep our home in order.  I enjoyed the traveling across Canada but it often meant that I had to cut weekends home short in order to fly out on a Sunday.

The realization that I needed to make a change came 1 Christmas when I was home and went to a craft show.  I ran into a person from my church and we were chatting.  In the middle of the conversation she said that she was sorry to hear about me and my husband.  I said "what are you talking about?"  She said that she heard that we were separated - hell no - is that what people think???  I am off doing this great career and have left my husband behind - I need to make a change. 

Just then I decided that I needed to move home, be a teacher in London and stop this travelling back and forth to Toronto.  Since my graduation from teachers college the rules for certificates had changed so I had to apply to the newly formed Ontario College of Teachers, pay a processing fee, get finger printed and all my paper work resent from the USA to be certified here in Ontario.  It took 5 months to get everything together meanwhile I was still travelling back and forth and working for ING. 

In May of 2000 I was able to add my name to the newly formed "apply to teach" network and the teaching job postings for Ontario came out.  There were lots of jobs but all in French and music classrooms.  My neighbour Mike worked at a school that needed a French teacher and he said to try for it so I did and a couple of weeks and interviews later I got hired and was going to be a grade 4-6 French teacher at Sir John A MacDonald P.S. effected September 1, 2000.  I returned to Toronto and in August gave my 2 weeks noticed - they thought I was crazy - leaving this awesome respected position in Toronto to become a teacher - yep - I remember the day I packed up my condo and left Toronto - it was a bittersweet day as I was leaving a career and some wonderful staff behind to start into the great unknown.

The best part of my story comes next. 

The TVDSB has a terrific new teacher orientation program and I was expected to attend.  They have workshops, lunch and an opportunity to sign your contract and ask any questions.  I had the chance that day to meet a women named Karen who was in charge of the orientation.  I immediately felt akindship to her as I just finished doing this kind of job in Toronto. 

Over the next several years, Karen and I saw each other often at workshops, the board office and she ended up being a very dear friend to me and my principal.  Karen gave me many opportunities to use my adult education training in my teaching career when she asked me to facilitated workshops for staff, work with leadership candidates and help create a student teacher conference.   Karen retired in June of 2010, it was a great loss to Thames Valley.  They posted her job but it was not as a learning supervisor similar to the one she had left.  They wanted to change her role so I didn't have the qualifications for this new position.  I was very disappointed because during that September 1, 2000 orientation day I told Karen that someday I want to be doing what she was doing as this the job I left in Toronto and the facilitating the learning of adults is my passion.  Turns out, no one applied for Karen's job and it is left open all summer long with a lovely interm person in the role. 

Flash forward to October 2010, a job posting comes out and it is Karen's job, but this time it is posted as a learning supervisor so I applied and well........today I am thrilled to share that after 9 years, 85 days and 13 hours I have been promoted to Learning Supervisor, System Staff Development for the Thames Valley District School Board effected January 1, 2011.

Career goals come true too!