I am vacuuming my living room. I feel something needs to change. It’s gnawing at me. I pause, look around and visualize a new arrangement. It doesn’t take me long. Soon, I am moving furniture and sucking up hidden dust balls. I reposition the sofa and matching chairs in the space I have available. Satisfied, I rearrange side tables and carefully exchange plants, reorganize photos, add knickknacks, remove others. There are limitations to my maneuverings. I cannot move the wood fireplace or the wide-screen television. The wall of windows and the narrow dimensions of the room challenge my creative manipulations of space. Despite these restrictions, I manage to once again substantially alter the feel and look of the room at no cost. Resistant to unnecessary change, my husband finds fault with every rearrangement. After some venting, I know that he will come around. I feel rejuvenated. The change offers a different perspective of the same. The monotonous of the space has been provoked. I feel psychologically realigned, refreshed, even invigorated. I reorient my body in this new old space, the unfamiliar familiar. I ponder how such a small change can make such a big difference.

November 20, 2011

I have taken gravol. I am sitting in the front seat on a large yellow school bus on my way to a professional development experience where attendance is mandated. Teachers are not considered professional enough by my school board to choose their own professional development opportunities. So we are herded en masse to a central location to hear selected speakers and participate in approved workshops. I acknowledge my colleagues as they file past me on the bus. There is a lot of room and I notice that the other twelve riders take individual seats and spread out. The bus ride is bumpy and uncomfortable. There are no seatbelts, but there is a communal feeling of traveling together with the same purpose. My backpack rests beside me. The drugs are beginning to take effect. The motor and heater sounds are deafening. It takes effort to shout above the noise and be heard several seats away. My body must twist to see my colleagues and the contortion dissuades me from socializing. My brain starts to shut down and conversations become distant mumblings. I am feeling mellow and now enjoying my self-imposed isolation. The scenery transfixes me as it always does on this road. It is overcast and low clouds enclose us. A soft rain starts to fall and it is comforting to be in this traveling cocoon of warmth. I listen to the gentle splattering on the windshield. I am together with people, yet, I am not. I am sharing the same space with others, yet, I am not. A jumble of voices, laughter, and whispers meld. Conversations oscillate in my consciousness, back-and-forth like a pendulum’s swing. I derive energy from being together, yet apart. It’s going to be a good day.

I walk about a kilometer to the bus stop, the community bus that will take me to work fifty kilometers away. There is just light enough for me to see this mid-November morning. A thin carpet of snow covers my path. Despite a biting chill, the walk is like a therapeutic massage. I let my thoughts wander at will, uncensored. I am alone. There is no other movement, although I notice fresh tracks of coyote. Hills surround me in the hollow where I live and where the river winds.  My muffled steps make their way to the top of the first hill and after some exertion, I reach the intermediate summit, Uncharacteristically, I look back. I take a brief moment of time to listen to the silence, to feel the calm. Crumpled hills, stunted evergreens, thickets of sagebrush fill my sight. At a distance, images are smudged like blended pastels. I feel suspended in a cloud, the bleak sky merging with the whiteness of the ground. I feel so small, so insignificant, so temporary. Somehow this pause brings solace to the truncated thoughts of my daily existence. I carry on.

a tribute to our beloved dog, Ozzie, who had to be put down March 29, 2010

Be thee Ozymandias, king of kings.

Mine fingers yearn to stroke through thy plush

So soft and giving to mine touch

Master and servant both entwined

A life spared, a past belied

Betrothed to serve and to protect

To honour, to love, and to respect

Gentle as the dying taper flame

No savage beast within to tame

Mysterious as morning lake mist

The sun’s breath, a fleeting kiss

Gone forever thine eyes doth close

My chest heaves silent woes

For thee who hast donned angel wings

Ozymandias, king of kings.

Introduced to the sport of tennis this summer, a passion was ignited within me. I like that it is not a team sport, although I opt to play with a partner. It does not require a large investment and is not physically strenuous. It is one in which I can self-monitor my progress.

I push myself to try to improve my game, to participate to the best of my abilities, to challenge myself to better my best. It is what I ask of my own students.

My talents as an athlete are limited. I watch YouTube videos, I play with more experienced players, I take lessons, I practice regularly when the weather permits, I even enter tournaments. After two months I am frustrated with myself because I plateau. I can’t seem to move fast enough, read the body language of others, or develop my technique. My self-deprecating remarks are meant to spur me on, to shame me into correcting my errors, to work harder to coordinate my body. My opponents, mostly retired and years my senior with injuries or health issues, out compete me. I make incremental gains and my body is in a state of revolt.

Is the pleasure worth the discomfort? I ask myself. When I play, daily chores are put in suspended animation. Intently focused on the ball, motion slows. My body responds, rather than my mind. I enjoy the smack of the ball when the racket hits the sweet spot, the one good shot in a game, which outmaneuvers a more experienced player, the placement of the ball that wins the point, the back-and-forth rally that persists. Adrenalin pulses through my body taking the edge off my throbbing elbow. For now, this is what I want to do, this is where I want to be. I am possessed by the passion.

1. Dr. Nina Spada (OISE, U of T) “Time, Timing and Type of Second language Instruction: Best practices in School Settings”

“Intensive” instruction is needed for second language acquisition.

Gestures and dramatic expression is a strategy that can be used to intensify science vocabulary acquisition.

2. Sylvia Richardson (SFU) “Making the World with Words: Read the Word, Read the World”

Education must be transformed so that “I see you, you see me; I hear you, you hear me.”

In my research, I worked on the principle of democratic inclusion and mutual respect by encouraging students to have a voice in classroom proceedings as the gesture strategy evolved during the action research cycle.

3. Dr. Diane Purvey (TRU) and Dr. John Belshaw (LC) “Deathscapes in the West: Road Warriors and Teen Angels”

The “context” of memorializing is important to understand the grieving process.

I used gestured science words in a number of contexts, such as skits, raps, and games, to promote comprehension of vocabulary definitions.

4. Dr. Joi Freed-Garrod (TRU) “Soundscape Creation as Narrative Inquiry into Cultural Geography: Bricoleurs at Work”

“Creating a space for reflection and dialogue” helps to “scaffold practices” so that the quality of the sonic narrative meets rubric standards.

I invoked participatory action research guidelines in which daily reflection was accomplished using a reflective journal and dialogue was stimulated using collaborative activities. Gestures and dramatic expression was a prop or scaffold to greater vocabulary understanding.

5. Prof. David Griffiths (U of Bolton, UK) “Shared Learning Activities and Shared Services: IMS LD Through to iTEC”

The “cognitive experience” of on-line learning is facilitated by “conversations” and by “coordination of activities” configured in an adaptable format by individual teachers.

My research used the concept of embodied knowledge, pairing linguistic with kinesthetics in collaborative inquiry, to increase the cognitive experience.

6. Dr. Norm Friesen (TRU) “Education, Culture, and Upbringing: The Task of Cultural and Biographical Recollection”

Education is an “encounter” and subsequent “negotiation between generations” in which recollections of our own childhood experiences sets the stage for the pedagogical relation.

In my thesis, I defined the pedagogical relation as a unique, asymmetrical relation in which the adult dissolves the relation as the child matures and develops a greater sense of self. How negotiation is achieved determines the atmosphere in the classroom.

7. Iris Rich and Doug Knowles (TRU) “The Examined Life: A Phenomenological Study of COPE-MECA Students”

Socrates stated, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Transformational learning requires reflection.

My growth as a researcher-participant came about as I incorporated theoretical underpinnings into practice and lived theory. Mulling over my daily reflections helped me to see this connectability.

8. Sherrie Bade (TRU) and Gayle Carriere “Moving Women Beyond Bars; Building Community Initiative: Knowledge Discovered – Lessons Learned”

Sharing personal narratives with others having different backgrounds and experiences build community, but it is “uncomfortable” breaking through stereotypical roles and can make one feel “out of place”.

Using gestures and dramatic expression requires a higher degree of risk-taking than students are accustomed to and I had to be sensitive to student discomfort.

9. Dr. Charles Hays (TRU) “Culture and Community: Healing Radical Fractures in Virtual Communities”

We need to challenge how we deliver information and get students engaged. An effective environment needs to develop its own “socio-imaginary assumptions” and a “community which cannot be imposed.”

Most of my research cohort were enrolled in both my science and drama classes. Because of the interaction of these opposing disciplines, I was able to nurture a risk-taking culture with my students.

10. Dr. John Friesen (U of C) “Towards an Ethnic Designation: Implications for Canada’s Western Plains First Nations”

The assertion that First Nations peoples be designated an ethnic community has “definitional problems”.

I defined gestures as upper body movements used to help learn word meaning while dramatic expression was full body movements within a particular context used to help understand the broader concepts of the words and their meanings.

• being shown the communication network that was established for the large amount of data that was gathered
• boarding the barge and observing the launch of the manned submersibles collecting the voice, stills, and video information
• having the privilege to have a conversation with NASA astronaut, Mike Gernhardt
• learning about the MAPPER program to allow the public to access and contribute to the classification of the research images

It was a much more casual and informal setting than what I had anticipated. I soon realized that patience and adaptability were valuable character attributes all participants possessed. Besides the obvious science and technology applications of this analogous MARSLIFE site, I learned a lot about scientific collaboration and collegial interactions. The evening roundtable discussions with all science teams represented were absolutely illuminative to the true nature of the scientific process, often generating more questions than answers, initiating cross-disciplinary connections, and exciting pure, animated passions for science. Even the inclement weather did not dampen the spirits of those attending. It was an intense, personable, and inspiring experience, in which I feel so fortunate to have been included.