The "Day of Pink" - just my thoughts

So I got a tweet from a colleague this morning just as I was leaving my house.  It said "Today is International Day of Pink. Wear pink and take a stand against bullying"  Unfortunately, I was already dressed and ready for the day...no time to change so alas, I went into the day not visibly supporting this very worthy cause.  But that's not the point of this post.

Now as much as I know that bullying is a very real and relevant issue in our culture today, I must admit I'm a bit weary of these "special days" to do things or pay attention to issues that we should be doing or paying attention to everyday like "tak[ing] a stand against bullying".

I get the fact that these special days are helpful in increasing the overall awareness of issues like bullying, and I'm willing to support that work.  But in the world of education, in  particular, I would prefer to see us moving more rapidly toward an attitude of inclusion and respect that doesn't require a special day to raise awareness because it's just what we do and how we operate.  Surely this isn't that much of a stretch, is it?

In Alberta, we have programs of study that specifically deal with building relationship skills, Health & Life Skills for Kindergarten to grade 9 and Career & Life Management (a high school course required for graduation).  And I know there's space in other areas like English Language Arts and Social Studies where relationship-related topics and issues can be addressed.  I'm sure the situation in other provinces and states is the same.  If we paid good attention and allowed these courses, the Health-related ones, to be viewed as being essential to student learning and development (right now they're certainly not given even close to this level of respect), I do think we'd see issues like bullying begin to be impacted.

I'm not naive enough to believe that just increasing our emphasis on learning in Health will be enough to change the world, but if we did this, and also took a comprehensive, whole school approach like Comprehensive School Health, such as is promoted by EverActive Schools Alberta, the Pan-Canadian Joint Consortium for School Health and Physical & Health Education Canada, as well as many others, I can't help but think we'd really begin to see an impact in our schools and, eventually, our society.

The thing about all this is that these changes wouldn't cost that much.  It's a bit of a shift in priorities, ease up a bit on the craze with "academics" (example: cutting out recess so there's more time for reading and math.  I mean, really?!) and test scores and focus more intentionally on a holistic approach to education - valuing the complementary areas like Health, the Arts, and Physical Education and I believe we would see improvements not only on issues like bullying but also an overall improvement in academic achievement.

Then, maybe, we wouldn't need to have special days to raise awareness and take a stand against bullying.  Just my (somewhat unpolished) thoughts...and I know I've only scraped the surface here... but feel free to comment and share your thoughts.

A more generous definition of literacy

I'm very fortunate to live and work as a teacher in Alberta.  Over the past few years, our provincial government (provincial governments hold the main responsibility for Education in Canada), consulted with Albertans across all sectors to discuss what an educated Albertan should look like in the year 2030.  This work was called "Inspiring Education" and since has spawned a couple of key documents that will help frame the work in Education in Alberta for future years.

One of those documents is the "Framework for Student Learning".  The framework is represented in a graphic that illustrates "the relationships among literacy, numeracy, competencies and subject/discipline areas essential for students to become engaged thinkers and ethical citizens with an entrepreneurial spirit".



As a Physical Education teacher, I am obviously very pleased to see that "Lifelong Learning, Personal Management and Well-being" is one of the seven included competencies.  I also find the definition of literacy currently provided in the document as one of that shows promise for a more generous conception of literacy as a core component of the Framework.

In Physical Education we are talking more and more of the importance of physical literacy in the context of a student's development.  It is my belief that the current definition of literacy offered in the Alberta Education Framework for Student Learning allows room to include the concept of physical literacy, as well as others.

To me, it is important for children to learn how their bodies move, adapt, and react to different stimuli and situations.  It is key for children to learn the Fundamental Movement Skills (basic movements such as throwing, kicking, running, jumping, hopping and catching) that will allow them to experience success in a number of different activities and will in turn help them remain active (and healthy) for life.

Now the work lies in ensuring that both our decision makers at the Ministry and jurisdictional level see and understand the great value in ensuring that each and every student has the opportunity to develop their physical literacy alongside of the other competencies in the Framework.  And it is equally important that teachers at all levels have the knowledge and tools they need to provide those opportunities to each and every student they work with.

Want to know more? Please check out the embedded links above.  Also please feel free to comment if you have thoughts to share.  Thanks for reading!