Just returned back from the BCSTA Education Committee Meeting and Provincial Council last weekend. It was an incredible Education Committee meeting, I must say. Over the course of two days, we worked on our orientation package, reviewed our bylaws, and selected concurrent sessions for the BCSTA AGM. We also had the opportunity to meet the new BCSTA Education Director, Gaila Erickson. First impressions, she is fabulous with an awesome CV. I look forward to working with her on the Education Committee. After the Education Committee Meeting, I attended provincial council as an observer. Over the course of these two days, it occurred to me that my expertise, passion, and strengths as a school trustee is EDUCATION. This is how I contribute and advocate for quality public education. I thoroughly enjoy my work locally as the SD46 Education Committee Chair and provincially as an active member of the BCSTA Education Committee. Furthermore, I represent the BCSTA on the Standing Committee on Provincial Curriculum and I am excited about working and learning with Gaila Erickson. This is difficult to walk away from. At this point in time, it is pretty clear to me how I will be moving forward with my advocacy role as school trustee within my school district and BCSTA. Thank you SD46, South Coast Branch, and BCSTA for the extraordinary learning and leadership experiences I have indulged in so far over the last two years. Doors are opening and I’m jumping through. #qualitypubliceducation #advocacy #strengths
Written by Christine Ho Younghusband, February 27th, 2014 | Comments Off on Finding My Verve
If you haven’t noticed already from my Twitter feed or FB posts, I am a HUGE curling fan and athlete. Well… I will use the term “athlete” lightly. Anyway, a great curling team is not about having the BEST players on the team. The success of any curling team is how the team gels. It’s when each player on the team is doing their best to execute, communicate, and collaborate with their teammates to achieve a common goal. A great curling team requires leadership, reciprocity, trust, and respect. For me, the #bcedchat co-moderator team reminds me of a great curling team. Although we differ in expertise, role, and perspective in education… we gel as a team. What I enjoy about the #bcedchat co-mod team is our ability to work together. Let me introduce the team… @MsVictoriaOlson is the skip. She is the visionary and leader. @brynmw is the third. He is all-around player who co-founded #bcedchat with Victoria. His optimism and kindness keeps our team together. @jeremyinscho is the second. He’s a bullet, always willing to ask the tough questions. And, I’m the lead, @ChristineYH, the most recent addition to the #bcedchat team, aside from @TomSchimmer, our upcoming guest co-moderator. My role on the team is supportive. When the four of us get together on Sunday nights at 7pm PST via Twitter and F2F on Google Hangout, magic happens. Despite our pedagogical differences, years of experience, and personality quirks, we make a great curling team. We create, facilitate, and participate in #bcedchat as a team. Our voices are authentic. #bcedchat is an evening of professional learning, laughter, and friendship. I love the mutual respect, expertise, and educational leadership on #bcedchat. I am truly grateful. Thank you #bcedchat co-mod team… you make me happy… and thank you to all those who participate in #bcedchat. We would not be here without you!!! #learning #leadership #myPLN #gratitude
Written by Christine Ho Younghusband, February 19th, 2014 | Comments Off on #bcedchat Curling Team
BTW: I am easily provoked. “Do you miss teaching?” Of course I do. I loved teaching math. It was fun… challenging… and I loved the kids. Look at this picture… 7 out of 8 in this photo are girls… in Math 12… AWESOME!!! I loved making math exciting. I loved the student aha’s. I loved boosting their sense of efficacy to learn math. Who wouldn’t miss this? If anything, I miss the students… but that’s why I left. We all have a purpose. I was compelled to do more. How can I make a difference in student learning? 30 students x 7 classes per year wasn’t enough. Although it was not an easy decision to leave public schools, many factors guided me to make a trajectory shift in my career. Self-doubt, insecurities, and false beliefs have held me back for a few years. Who else is doing what I’m doing? Who understands my purpose? Who really cares? What I have learned is, I have to know… I have to care… and, I do. I felt reassured when I bumped into a former math student at the coffee shop. She asked me if I was still teaching at the high school and I told her that I left a few years ago to work on my doctoral thesis. I also mentioned that it was taking me a LONG TIME and I was scared about what I was writing about. Classic ABD. The next day I saw her again at the coffee shop. She said to me that she thought about what I was studying and believed it was worthwhile to do. THANK YOU!!! I needed to hear that. #hug #love #reassuring #mathisfun
Written by Christine Ho Younghusband, February 15th, 2014 | Comments Off on Feeling Reassured
Let’s talk about math… It has become evident to me that mathematics is visually cued. If you don’t recognize it, you can’t do it. If the “x” is situated on the “wrong side” of the equation, if the graph is scaled by 2’s or 10’s, or if the triangle looks like it has a 45 degree angle instead of 60 can unintentionally throw off the learner from taking the next step. As a result, the learner gets STUCK and math confidence plummets. To restore the learner’s sense of efficacy would require the learner to ask a question and get help. If left stuck for too long, the learner would soon adopt false beliefs of “math is hard”… “I’m not good at math”… and “math sucks.” These are all horrible outcomes. My job is to create a safe learning environment, listen to the learner’s struggle, and find doable strategies to remedy the perceived math obstacle. No one learns exactly the same, hence how to resolve the learner’s issue is never the same. Just because some learners are visually cued in one way, it may not trigger others to do the same math. Understanding mathematics requires different entry points and flexibility to gain the knowledge, but also multiple ways to demonstrate it as well. I love it when my clients say, “Oh, that’s it… that’s way easier than I thought it would be. Thanks!” For example, using graph paper to learn transformations of quadratic functions visually cued this learner to take the next step. Before that, this client was stuck. What are you willing to try?
Written by Christine Ho Younghusband, February 11th, 2014 | Comments Off on Visually Cued
Dr. Jennifer Katz, University of Manitoba – 3 Block UDL
Love teacher professional development… Thank you SD46 Sunshine Coast Teachers’ Association District Professional Development Committee for inviting school trustees to this event. It was so wonderful to learn with teachers, principals, and support staff about academic and social inclusion from Dr. Jennifer Katz and her research. Her keynote was truth telling, compelling, and inspiring. I also enjoyed reconnecting with friends, familiar faces, and former colleagues. What I loved the most was seeing a lot of new teachers in the crowd… some of them were my former math students. Soooo cute… I am proud to know that many Chatelech Secondary Alumni returned back to the Sunshine Coast to teach. It feels like a full circle. I had great conversations, great food, and great opportunities to learn something new. Thank you District PD Committee. Well done!
Written by Christine Ho Younghusband, February 08th, 2014 | Comments Off on SD46 District PD Day
We all have defining moments in our lives whether if we recognize them or not. These moments change the trajectory of our lives. I would like to believe that these defining moments are meant to happen for the soul purpose of teaching us something about ourselves and our deepest desires. For many years, I was a careerist. I was 100% committed to my teaching career and loved every moment of it. I was driven to learn new things and inspire my students to learn math. Then I had my daughter. It was not in my imagination that I would be a mom. Her arrival was a defining moment. My values shifted, my priorities reorganized, and my trajectory recalibrated. I continue to be passionate about education, student success, and mathematics… but how I am engaged in that and making a difference has changed. I am no longer a practicing secondary math teacher in public schools. I am a doctoral student, school trustee, and self-employed educational consultant. This flexibility of time allows me to chaperone my daughter’s upcoming Valentine’s dance or pick her up after school from homework club. We all make decisions like this. Life takes its turns and I accept them with no regrets. #beingbold #lovemykid
Written by Christine Ho Younghusband, February 03rd, 2014 | Comments Off on Defining Moments
Still love my kid… anyway, WHY BLOG? A thought provoking question worthy of reflection. Why do I blog? At first, I started blogging with the hopes of building my confidence in writing, finding my voice, and gathering the courage to share what I think. Three years later, I’ve accomplished my blogging goals. In doing so, I established a blogging framework… one photo, one thought, and keep it short… in addition to being aware of my aha moments to share as it relates to education, leadership, and my lived experience. This is my “pedagogical journey.” We are all unique, thus all edu-blogs are unique. What we want to share, how much we share, and why we share are inspired by what shines within the blogger. What inspires me is what I learn (or relearn) believing that someone else “out there” has similar aha’s. Now entering 2014, I am reassessing why I blog. Look forward to my next blog entry… it might be different (or not). #learning #selfassessment #yayme
Written by Christine Ho Younghusband, January 29th, 2014 | Comments Off on Why Blog?
Love my kid… this photo best depicts how I feel. What an incredible awesome day… From beginning to end, everything that happened today was meant to happen. In fact, it was perfect timing. One situation after another, I needed to happen at the right time to do the right things with the right people at the right place… wholeheartedly. For this, I am grateful. Ya, I’m being super vague about the details, but in truth, it doesn’t matter. If we all take a moment to slow down, look around, and reflect on our day… everything that happens around us, to us, and for us occurs for the right reasons at the right time. The sequence of events are not ones I could predict or control, but they are for me to acknowledge and recognize. No judgement. These events were neither good or bad, but rather opportunities to learn something new. Today, I received plenty of beautiful messages from the most unexpected places. As I write, I am smiling. #gratitude #thankyou
Written by Christine Ho Younghusband, January 24th, 2014 | 1 Comment »
Welcome to a new year… with a new year, there are new resolutions… I have decided to work on goal setting. Yup. Taking the lunge, asking for help, and making the move to narrow my focus into something that is productive, meaningful, and worthwhile… as part of a long process… and not the endpoint of a certain chapter in life. As I work through this process, I have arrived to several aha’s. First, messages, hints, or clues… come in three. For example, as I try to establish what’s really important to me… I have literally bumped into what I was suppose to hear. One day I heard… go back to school, adult education, and autodidactism… three related messages from three different conversations. On another day I heard… mathematics education, content knowledge, and student achievement. And, with my goal setting work I hear… writing, researching, and learning. The message seems pretty clear to me. To my surprise, this is something that I really want to do, I am ready to do, and understand that this is only a part of the whole picture. This is reassuring. I am also learning about my strengths, limitations, and deepest desires. The pieces of the puzzle seem to be falling into place and I am driven to continue on this path. There is no question that I am passionate about mathematics education, professional development, and quality public education. What I am realizing is that I will have to move forward on this pedagogical journey one step at a time.
Written by Christine Ho Younghusband, January 19th, 2014 | Comments Off on Comes in Three
What am I going to do with my life? I ask myself this question as I turn the page towards the next chapter. This is reminiscent of my younger years. Yup, I went to university at 17 not knowing what I wanted to do. I knew that I was not an English or Humanities person… so I enrolled into the Faculty of Science. In my third year, that is, 20 years ago I figured out “what I wanted to do with my life.” Education. I volunteered at Kwantlen College with the Adult Basic Education program and tutored math. Of all the occupations I considered in my first three years at UBC, I never considered education. Volunteering at Kwantlen was incredible. I loved working with adults so that they could get onto their next chapter. Extremely rewarding. Well, I’m back at it again with my consulting business… I’m tutoring an adult in Math 11. We laugh, we learn, and we drink lattes. The best part it is, the session ends with a “thank you.” The feeling is mutual. #fullcircle #gratitude
Written by Christine Ho Younghusband, January 15th, 2014 | Comments Off on Realizing My Passion
Just returned back from the BCSTA Education Committee Meeting and Provincial Council last weekend. It was an incredible Education Committee meeting, I must say. Over the course of two days, we worked on our orientation package, reviewed our bylaws, and selected concurrent sessions for the BCSTA AGM. We also had the opportunity to meet the new BCSTA Education Director, Gaila Erickson. First impressions, she is fabulous with an awesome CV. I look forward to working with her on the Education Committee. After the Education Committee Meeting, I attended provincial council as an observer. Over the course of these two days, it occurred to me that my expertise, passion, and strengths as a school trustee is EDUCATION. This is how I contribute and advocate for quality public education. I thoroughly enjoy my work locally as the SD46 Education Committee Chair and provincially as an active member of the BCSTA Education Committee. Furthermore, I represent the BCSTA on the Standing Committee on Provincial Curriculum and I am excited about working and learning with Gaila Erickson. This is difficult to walk away from. At this point in time, it is pretty clear to me how I will be moving forward with my advocacy role as school trustee within my school district and BCSTA. Thank you SD46, South Coast Branch, and BCSTA for the extraordinary learning and leadership experiences I have indulged in so far over the last two years. Doors are opening and I’m jumping through. #qualitypubliceducation #advocacy #strengths
