ISY Elementary School Faculty Blog

2022: A Year of Gratitude & Love of Learning?

Mike Simpson

January 7, 2022

To the dismay of my 20-year-old self, I saw in the new year with friends listening to the countdown on national radio. 

The thing about a countdown on national radio is that it immediately rolls into a news bulletin and the news still had a very 2021 feel to it. 

The news bulletin was a reminder that I have about as much control over what happens in 2022 as I had over what happened in 2021 and I don’t even get a fresh start! So I know that 2022 will be another year where I will just have to see what happens and make the most of it. This sounds quite negative but the reality is that every year starts out like this for all of us. 

Making the most of what happens in any year can vary wildly on a continuum of surviving at one end and thriving at the other. But depending on what happens, a sense of satisfaction and fufillment can be found at both ends if we are able to maintain our own well-being.

We do not have a lot of control over what will happen in 2022 so it probably makes more sense to focus on maintaining our own well-being. As I was thinking about how to maintain my own well-being this year, I came across this short article: Which Character Strengths Are Most Predictive of Well-Being?.

According to this summary of the findings of a positive psychology study, gratitude and a love of learning were the best independent positive predictors of well-being.

Patty has written about the power of gratitude in her Elementary School Blog posts and a love of learning is reflected in our Mission and Vision.

I’m not one for gratitude journals or new year resolutions (I was happy to see self-regulation very low down on the list of predictors of well-being…) but I am convinced that gratitude and a love of learning will be important in making the most out of whatever happens this year.

ES COLLABORATIVE AGENDA

Please add any questions, items that come to mind to this ES Collaborative Agenda. The idea is that once we have a few things to discuss that can’t be addressed by email, we will meet.

Quarter 2 Schedule

Here is the link to the ES Quarter 2 Schedule which is also available on the Elementary School Faculty Pages.

This schedule ends on Friday, January 21.

Quarter 3 Schedule

Here is the link to the ES Quarter 3 Schedule which is also available on the Elementary School Faculty Pages.

This schedule will start on January 24 so we have time to adjust it. We want this schedule to work as well as it can for everyone so please let me know if you have any questions or spot any issues or possible improvements.

 Friday Emails + Quarter 2 Offline Learning

We won’t send out detailed subject emails this Friday but we will send out grade level emails that reinforce the messages to the community that will come from Dr. Hedger and the Principals.

I will send out a template to use later in the week.

 Reading Levels – January 2022

It is time to reassess our students’ reading levels. This is important data to be recorded on this Elementary Reading Levels (2021-2022) Spreadsheet. There are obvious challenges to doing this quickly online so please focus first on those students who you might require additional support in the second half of the year.

ISY Annual Compassion Conference

Friday, March 4

This will be organized under the umbrella of ISY Definition of Compassion: The will and understanding to respect and value the identity, culture, perspective, and experience of others in acting to make a positive difference to their lives.

In addition to a key-note speaker addressing resilience in young people and an ISY student panel presenting on LGBTQ+ issues, teacher workshops will be an important part of this conference. 

Teacher workshops might relate to any of our ISY Inclusive Practices and will be organized under the following strands:

    • Inclusion
    • Service
    • Diversity

Workshops can focus on anything under these strands and we are particularly interested in workshops on the following:

    • Responsive Classroom Strategies
    • Science of Learning – memory, etc.
    • Teaching Creativity
    • Integrating Technology

Our TIF team of Ian and Lindsey will be helping us put this day together and will be popping into classes from time to time to get ideas and encourage teachers. Please reach out to them if you have an idea you would like some support with – whether you intend to present it or not on March 4.

      Semester 1 (Q1 + Q2) Reports

      Here are the overviews for Semester 1 Report Writing:

      TIMELINE:

      By 12pm on Wednesday, January 12: Subject Comments to be completed. 

      By 12pm on Friday, January 21: Individual Student Comments to be completed. Please share your Google Document directly with Mike as soon as you have completed your comments.

      By 12pm on Tuesday, January 25: Individual Student Comments and Grades to be entered into Powerschool.

      Reports go out on Friday, January 28

      Interdisciplinary Units

      Curriculum Maps and Scope and Sequences

      Here is where you can find our Curriculum Maps These will be updated up to Quarter 2 using our Subject Blurbs from Semester 1 reports.

      Here is where you can find our Q3 Scope and Sequence. 

      To fill out this year’s Q3 Scope and Sequence, you might want to refer to the skills you focused on this time last year in this Q3 Scope and Sequence 2020-2021.

      Please link your planning to the Scope and Sequence as you did for our Q2 Scope and Sequence. We want to give you some autonomy as to how you organize your planning and resources but your planning needs to be in an ISY Shared Drive. 

      Please also check off the standards that you intend to cover in your subject in Quarter 3. Please make sure there is an ‘x’ in the second column of any standard you will cover in these Grade Level Standards Checklists.

      Assembly This Wednesday

      We will have an assembly this Wednesday, January 12.

      If you have a story you would like to read or a game you would like to play, please let Patty or I know ASAP.

      From our TIFs

      Here are a curated list of helpful links for students and families as we begin the year. These videos can be helpful as you share information with them. 

      From the Library

      Lindsey and Christian in the library would be very happy to help get books to you that you might want to read to your class or have your students read. These books can be scanned so they can be used online so let them know if you are looking for something.

      Previous Elementary School Posts

      Elementary School Faculty Blog – October 23, 2020

      Elementary School Faculty Blog – October 23, 2020

      Oct 23, 2020 |

      In case you are wondering why you are tired, we went online 219 days ago. This is the first chance we have had to rest for a very long time. Your work up until this point has set us up for the rest of the year and the rest of the year can wait for week!