Tom MacInnes

My Hana’s Suitcase Story

The power of books to transform lives. Read about my favourite experience in my teaching career and the book that inspired it.

Have you ever had a book change your life? I did. This is the story of a book that gave me my favourite experience as a classroom teacher ever!!! Please enjoy. 🙂

Prologue: Hana’s Suitcase by Karen Levine, is an award-winning story that is actually two stories in one. The story begins by introducing us to the Brady Family and, in particular, the two Brady children; George and Hana. As we meet them, they are blissfully unaware that they are about to be swept up into one of modern history’s darkest chapters: the Holocaust. In the next chapter, we fast-forward sixty years and meet a Japanese teacher named Fumiko who has organized a peace club. In order to help her students understand the true nature of the Holocaust, Fumiko knows that children usually learn more deeply when they have actual materials and objects to hold rather than simply looking through photographs. So, she sends requests to Holocaust museums all over the world for any resources that they could spare to help her in her lessons. She received rejections from every museum except for one.

That museum sent a collection of artifacts that included a suitcase with the name Hana Brady on it. And so begins a detective story than ended up spanning the globe as Fumiko and her students attempt to discover who this “Hana Brady” really was.

Karen Levine constructed her book by alternating the story lines every other chapter. So, as Hana and her family move through the well-known stages of the Holocaust process culminating in being sent to the concentration camps, Fumiko and her students move closer and closer to discovering what eventually ended up happening to Hana and her family members by the end of the book.

As a father, I completely and wholeheartedly endorse the notion of surrounding young children with rich literature. In my home we have books about every conceivable topic imaginable on bookshelves in our living room, in both of my daughter’s bedrooms and in our basement playroom, too. My daughters are growing up surrounded by, literally, thousands of books. Not surprisingly, they are both growing up to have a love of reading and to view reading as an enjoyable way to spend time during their day.

As a teacher, I have attempted to create the same kind of literature-rich environment for my students. There were, again, thousands of books in my classroom; available for students to read for pleasure, to use for research purposes, to listen to being read aloud and much more. The books in our classroom spanned a wide range of reading levels and subject areas so, there was something for every student to successfully read and enjoy in our classroom. Having good books in a school classroom is important so that students can hear wonderful writing and fascinating stories; stories that may inspire anything from flights of fancy to calls for social justice and beyond. Hana’s Suitcase by Karen Levine is an excellent book and I highly recommend it. It is well-suited to students who are in the 8-11 age range. But, I thoroughly enjoyed it as an adult, too. However, my reason to singling this particular book out has nothing to do with remembering the Holocaust or giving a shout-out to Karen Levine. My reason for writing about this book is that Hana’s Suitcase was the book that helped me experience my favourite and most profound reading experience with a student in my entire career. Here is my Hana’s Suitcase story…..I hope that you enjoy it. 🙂

My classroom was loaded with books. I had them sorted into bins and baskets usually based upon topic or genre. For example, I had a bin of “dog” stories, bins of “outer space” books, bins of “Halloween” books and so on. My standard classroom practice was to set these book bins/baskets out and make them available for students to access all throughout the year as interest or need arose for them. However, whenever I started a new Unit of study in the classroom, I would pull those books out from wherever they were and place them in a location of prominence near where our class meeting place happened to be. As I pulled these books out, I would hold a book talk with the students and go over each book so that they became familiar with them.

My Hana’s Suitcase story starts as we approached the special Canadian day known as Remembrance Day. In Canada, Remembrance Day is used to honour our soldiers who have fought in wars all over the world, as well as, those who are presently involved in peacekeeping duties in such hotspots as Afghanistan. As you all can appreciate, war can be a very grisly topic when you explore it in detail so, as a general rule of thumb, when getting Remembrance Day Units of Study prepared for Primary students, keeping things on a very general, basic level is the preferred route to go. So, in this context, I began my book talk with my class of Grade 2 students in Bowmanville, Ontario. I pulled out books such as The Butter Battle by Dr. Seuss and proceeded with the book talk as planned.

Now, I would be remiss if I didn’t stop here to tell you that this class of Grade 2 students was one of “those” classes. When a teacher usually talks about their class being one of “those” classes, they often are referring to classes that are not that well-behaved. The old adage is that every teacher will have one of “those” classes before their career is over. I’ve had mine and I survived my trial by fire. But, this class was not one of “those” classes because it was a bad class. In fact, the exact opposite is true. This class was a class that was full of keeners who all got along well together and who were all very eager to learn. They loved sitting on our carpet meeting place and talking about everything under the sun. They particularly enjoyed book talks. So, as I went through all of the primary-level books that I had in my collection, a young girl put up her hand and said, “My mother told me a story once about a little girl who……….I’m not exactly sure if I remember it right but……the girl and her family had to live in a closet or a basement for two years during the War.” Although she couldn’t remember the exact details, I knew at once that she was referring to Anne Frank. So, as she spoke, I debated with myself as to whether or not I really wanted to go where she was leading me. In the end, I did, as I often do. I decided to listen to the students and follow their interests. So, I told the class that the young lady in question was Anne Frank and I told them the broad outline of her story. I had the actual Diary of a Young Girl book in a cupboard (where I kept books that I liked but that I didn’t feel Grade 2s were ready to handle). I took it out and showed it to the class. This sparked a whole new round of questions and, in the end, they asked me if I would leave the Anne Frank book out with the other Remembrance Day books. I said that I would.

And since they liked Anne Frank, I told myself that there was no reason to keep Hana’s Suitcase tucked away either. So, I pulled that out and talked about Hana’s story in basic terms, too. I stressed to the kids that I thought both books were too hard for Grade 2s to read but that if they wanted to look at the books during reading time, I would answer any questions that they had as a result of what they were able to read themselves or see in the pictures. I concluded the book talk and life went on in our room as it normally did.

Two days later, a young girl in my class named Kaicey, came up to me during our Language time with Hana’s Suitcase in her hand. She asked me if I would help her read the book because she was interested in finding out what happened to Hana. Now, at that moment, I had 26 other students engaged in a variety of reading, writing and spelling tasks. There was a lot of activity going on and, to be truthful, after having told the class that I thought this book was too difficult for Grade 2s to read, I really didn’t want to sit down and slog our way through this 102-page book about the Holocaust. But, Kaicey continued to stand there. ”Will you help me read this book, Mr. MacInnes. Will you help me, pleaseeee!” I truly didn’t want to go down that road but that tiny voice inside my head reminded me that I was a teacher and that helping kids learn to read is my job and that I should just get over myself and help this child who has had her interest sparked by a book. Soooo, I took a deep breath, sighed a little and told Kaicey that I would help her read the book. But, she needed to know that we would not be able to finish it in one day because it was over 100 pages long and that it wasn’t a happy story, either, that I expected her to do most of the reading, that I would only help her with the big words and be there to answer her questions about what she was reading. She looked at me and smiled and said that we had a deal. So, in the middle of a bustling Grade 2 classroom, Kaicey and I sat down on the carpet, with our backs against a wall of cupboards and we began to read Hana’s Suitcase.

That first day, she read three and a half pages. We talked about what she had read so far and what she thought was going to happen to the, then, carefree Hana Brady. She answered. I, then, asked her if she felt like this was a book that she wanted to continue to read. I half expected her to say that the book was too tough, thank me for my time and tell me that she would move on to something else. But, she said that she liked the book so far and was excited to read it again tomorrow. In my mind, I was still not convinced that she would still be as interested the next day but, come the next day, Kaicey was right there with the book in her hand, ready to continue to learn about a little girl named Hana Brady. So, in that fashion, reading 3-5 pages at a time, we started getting deeper into the book and I began to enjoy my time spent reading and talking about Hana with her. She read almost all of the words by herself, with me filling in with only words such as the names of the towns and cities, for example.

Well, we were about 20 pages in, when Remembrance Day came and went. Kaicey knew that my routine was to put the “theme” books back in their bin or basket once our Unit of Study was over and get new books out for the next Unit. So, she came to me of her own initiative and said that she knew Remembrance Day was over and that the Remembrance Day books were going to be put away but, would it be ok if we continued to read Hana’s Suitcase. I told her that, of course it would be ok and that, perhaps, she would like to keep the book in her desk until we were through. She liked that idea.

So, over the next few weeks, reading a few pages here and a few pages there, amid the learning commotion in my classroom, we managed to reach the end of the book. Normally, under such circumstances, an event like this would be cause for celebration. It isn’t everyday that a grade 2 student can read a tough book like that, mostly on her own. But, as we discovered what happened to Hana and her family and to Fumiko and her students, neither of us felt like celebrating at all. In fact, we both felt somewhat sad that our experience had come to an end. While not as intense a bond as a father-daughter bond, we had shared a unique experience none-the-less and it brought us closer together in a way that normally doesn’t happen with a teacher and a student in the course of our academic affairs. So I said to her that, if she wanted, she could keep my copy of Hana’s Suitcase so that she could always remember Hana and remember our time together reading about her and learning about the Holocaust. I expected her to take the book. But instead, she gave me the book back and said that it was such a good story that she wanted to make sure that I would share it with other children in my other classes to come. So, reluctantly, I took the book back.

The story would have ended there if not for some fortuitous timing. Two weeks later, I attended the Ontario Library Association Annual Conference in Toronto. One of the workshops at this conference involved award winning children’s authors discussing their work and, as luck would have it, one of the authors was Karen Levine! I sat in the workshop, spellbound, as she regaled the audience with tales of how she came to be involved in this book project and how she felt as it came to its’ gorgeous conclusion. At the end of the presentation, the authors took questions from the audience. Someone asked Karen what the most satisfying consequence of writing the book was for her. Without missing a beat, she replied that she enjoyed the letters that she received; especially from young students who found Hana to be inspiring and her story to be important.

Now, I do have a brain and it normally functions well. But, the thought of writing to Karen Levine and telling her of my experience in the classroom with Kaicey and her book had never occurred to me until that very moment. So, my next immediate thought was that if Kaicey would’t accept my own copy of Hana’s Suitcase, perhaps she would accept a new copy if I got the actual author to autograph it for her. So I rushed out to the nearest bookstore and bought a brand new copy. However, Karen Levine had left by the time I got back to the conference hall. So immediately, I contacted her publishing company and explained what I wanted to do. Luckily, they were very understanding and were only too happy to help. I sent them the book and they said they would contact Karen Levine on my behalf and have her autograph the book.

About a month and a half later, a parcel arrived at school. It was the book. Karen Levine had, indeed, autographed the book but had gone one step better and wrote Kaicey a personalized note. The note read: ”Thank you for taking such an interest in someone that I have come to view as very special. Reading such a book at your age makes you very special, too. Keep up your interest in reading. Yours truly, Karen Levine.”

I contacted Kaicey’s mother and told her what I had done and that I wanted to give Kaicey the book as soon as possible and would she, Kaicey’s mother, like to be there. She was very pleased that I had done what I did. I gave Kaicey the book after school a few days later. Mom smiled. I smiled. Kaicey smiled and accepted the autographed book.

That experience happened many years ago, prior to the advent of social media. At the time, having message boards and chat rooms on my school network was as close to experiencing the interactivity that has come to characterize our use of social media nowadays. At that time, the following Fall, a teacher from another school posted a question asking for good book recommendations for our upcoming Remembrance Day. A good book recommendation!? Did I ever have one for her. So, I posted a letter describing the experience that Kaicey and I had with Hana’s Suitcase. I had never written anything for an audience before so I was unprepared for the avalanche of overwhelmingly positive feedback that poured in from all over the school board. One teacher even asked for permission to print our story off and give it to her mother who collected “Teacher stories”. I had never thought of writing about my experiences as a teacher before but, all of this feedback gave me food for thought.

So, I started my own blog and the first story I wrote was the one you are reading. Back in those days, I had only just joined Facebook and Twitter and was just learning how to link my blog posts up to social media and share them with the world. Before I did this though, I wondered about contacting Kaicey (and/or her family) and letting her know what I was hoping to do. Several years had passed by this point and I was able to find both Kaicey and her mother on Facebook. They were both delighted that this experience had meant as much to me as it did them and that I wanted others to know about it, too. They were enthusiastic in granting permission for me to go forward.

So, I linked my blog post up to Facebook and waited for another avalanche of glowing feedback. I waited. I waited some more. Eventually, a few friends chimed in and said it was a good story and thanks for sharing. But, that was it. I have to admit to being somewhat disappointed. So, I decided to give Twitter a try.

I was new to tweeting and using hash tags. So, I simply posted that I wanted people to know about an amazing experience I had had in class with a great book and an eager student. I hash-tagged it #teacherstories, #HanasSuitcase and sent it out into the world.

A day or two later, I received a reply………from Fumiko, herself! The same Fumiko who was profiled in the book. The same Fumiko who had discovered who Hana really was and who helped her family reclaim her suitcase. That same Fumiko had read my post and reached out to thank me for sharing the story of my experience with Kaicey and for helping to introduce Hana Brady to the world. Needless to say, I was star struck. Immediately, I contacted Kaicey via Facebook.

I told Kaicey what had happened. She was excited, too. Then she floored me by telling me that she still had ever single part of the package Karen Levine had sent. She had the book, the personalized letter, the book mark and, even, the original shipping envelop, too. Then she sent me the photo you can see to the left. Always Remember, Karen Levine had written and Kaicey said she remembered everything we experienced and shared and that she always would.

Thanks to sites such as Facebook, I have been able to maintain contact with Kaicey and her Mom. In fact, when I recently had my birthday in January, she was one of the first to send along birthday wishes “to my favourite teacher EVER!!!!!!!!!” A day or two later, her mother emailed me to say that her daughter’s birthday wish wasn’t mere flattery and that she still regards our experience reading Hana’s Suitcase as being her favourite moment in her whole school career.

Even though this experience happened many years ago now, it still touches my heart every time I think about it. Having opportunities to make an actual difference in the lives of our students is why teachers teach. It is my single-most favourite and treasured memory of a 30 year teaching career. Good books are important. A good book called Hana’s Suitcase helped to give me and a young Grade 2 student named Kaicey, a memory that we will cherish forever. Do you have a special memory of reading with a teacher or adult that you cherish? If so, do share. I’d love to hear your stories, too

Will You Be My Neighbour: the Survey Says….

34 Handmade Christmas cards were delivered to our neighbours. This post describes the reactions of my neighbours to such a personal gesture. Is there still room for kindness and friendliness in today’s isolated family environments?

Faithful readers of this blog will know that, just prior to the “Christmas of 2018” holiday season, my daughter Sophie and I delivered 34 handmade Christmas cards to our neighbours. The hope was that, by reaching out via a Christmas greeting, that some of the walls of isolation that currently exist on our street would come crumbling down. This post will provide you with the reaction our cards received. Do I have to keep my nose firmly in my own business, gazing downward as I stroll down the street or will I be swapping stories about the weather and calling my neighbours by name as our paths cross? Let’s find out, shall we?

Of the 34 cards we sent out, the MacInnes Family received one email reply, two visits at our door and a total of ten cards left in our mailbox. That works out to be a return rate of almost one-third. Not perfect but, not bad, either. Of the replies that we did receive, the response was overwhelmingly positive. Here are a few of the replies:

“What a lovely surprise to get your card. The colouring was beautiful, as were the nice holly drawings.” from Bonnie at #2.

“Thank you for your Christmas card. Best wishes for Christmas and the New Year.” from Marie and Amy (her black lab) at #19.

“Thank you very much for your Christmas wishes.” from Maureen and Gerry.

“Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a year filled with happiness in 2019.” from Faith and Mike at #4.

“Thank you for your cheerful Christmas card and wonderfully hand-decorated envelop. You touched us with your Christmas spirit. Much appreciated.” from Tom, Judi, Kyle and Dex the dog.

“We were so touched to receive your lovely card and to meet one of our neighbours in such a way. Thank you. (And, we loved the beautiful artwork on the envelop!) Wishing you all a very happy holiday season, a Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year.” from Todd, Lea, Sophie and Luke at #8.

“Thank you for thinking of us. Merry Christmas to you all.” from Brenda and Ed at #20.

“We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and, of course, Go, Blue Jays, Go!” from Jen, Brian, Abby and Emma. *This family are all big Toronto Blue Jay baseball fans and are known for having Blue Jay pennants and flags in the front of their house.

“Thank you for your card! I love the envelop! I hope we get to meet each other in person. Have a peaceful and safe holiday and a year filled with laughter.” from Starr. Starr’s card came in a personally-decorated envelop too, as you can see, she has some talent.

We received a card from Bernice and Eric at #16, too. While their greeting inside the card simply wished us a Merry Christmas, what was noteworthy is that Bernice actually knocked at our door and delivered, not just a card but, also, Christmas sweetbread and a tray of maple fudge that her husband had made that day. Both were delicious! You can see them in the photo at the top of this post.

So, as first steps go, this journey toward knowing my neighbours has gotten off to a good start. We reached out and many reached back. To those who have welcomed our gesture, the next step is, obviously, to reinforce the positive response we received, with a follow-up reply in kind…..even if it is simply waving to them the next time we are out at the same time and calling them by name. As walls go up, one stone at a time, walls come down, one kind act at a time, too. That is what this experiment was all about. Does kindness and friendliness still matter in today’s world? I believe it does and our Christmas cards were an attempt to prove it true. To those who reached back toward me and my family, I am very appreciative and grateful. I am not expecting to become best friends with anyone but, one never knows what the future may hold. For now, I am happy to live in a neighbourhood where we treat each other kindly, where we watch out for each other’s well-being and where we can greet each other with a smile and a wave and say hello by name.

I Hope You Can Hear the Bell

How Mr. MacInnes helped his students understand all about Christmas….and, a list of the terrific Christmas books that him do it. Merry Christmas to you, all.

If you ask most children to tell you what Christmas is all about, the vast majority will talk about Santa Claus and elves and the North Pole and, most importantly to them, getting lots of presents. Not too many children realize that Christmas is actually a religious holiday unless they go to Church. And, not too many children go to Church these days. I would say, the total number of children who knew the story of the birth of the Baby Jesus was never more than a quarter of the class, in any given year.

Christmas is just one example of how young children view the world around them. Most kids have an very ego-centric view of life and move through their days blissfully unaware of why things are the way they are. Why is the weather the way it is? Why do we eat certain foods and avoid other types of food? Why do we put a tree in the middle our living rooms in December and stick a star or angel on top? Who knows? Who cares? May I go and play now, Teacher?

Well, one of the philosophical pillars of my teaching career was to help children make sense of their world. So, we talked about why it is cold in the Winter, even on sunny days. We talked about the vitamins and minerals found in fruits and veggies, as opposed to the empty calories found in junk food and how that affects our bodies and minds. And, at Christmas time, we talked about why we have the traditions we do because, when you stop to think about it, we do a lot of weird things during the holidays.

So, this post is going to talk a little about how I did that in the classrooms I taught in and, more specifically, some of the books that helped me explain the traditions of Christmas to children; especially those who don’t go to Church.

In my day, I had several hundred holiday-themed books in my collection. Over time, some came to become more useful to me as a teaching tool than others and some came to become favourites with the kids. Sometimes, the two merged together and the books became essential parts of every Holiday Unit I taught. The Christmas Pageant by Jacqueline Rogers is one such book.

I usually set aside three weeks to go through my Holiday Unit. This book was always one of the first books I shared with the children. The book is very simple in its structure: it tells the story of the birth of the Baby Jesus by showing a school class rehearse for their Christmas pageant. What is really good about this book is that as the rehearsal moves through the various stages of the Christmas story, the words and music to the old classic Christmas carols are presented. So, for example, when Mary and Joseph first start out on their journey, the words and music to “O Little Town of Bethlehem” are given. When the angels first appear in the fields to the shepherds, the words and music to “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing!” This happens all throughout the book.

The beauty of this is several fold. If you have ever seen A Charlie Brown Christmas and can remember the scene, close to the end, when Charlie Brown throws his hands up in frustration and cries, “Does anyone know the true meaning of Christmas?” and then, Linus goes to centre stage and says, “I do, Charlie Brown” and he proceeds to tell the story and Christmas suddenly becomes about something more than the greed and the glitz of commercialism well, The Christmas Pageant did the same for me with my students.

This book introduces the classic carols to kids. All of the kids know Jingle Bells and Santa Claus is Coming to Town. But, this book allowed me to take the carols, one per day, and write out beautiful lyrics such as,

“Angels we have heard on high,

Sweetly singing o’er the plains

And the mountains in reply

Echoing their joyous strains

Glooooooooooooooria, In excelsis deo (X2)”

That is lovely language but, the story of the lyrics is told in context because of this book so, the language doesn’t end up being too lofty or intimidating, even for small children. In addition, it allowed me the chance to play these carols during craft times, as well as, Jingle Bells et al., and the songs would make sense to the kids and have a deeper meaning because they understood the story being told.

Furthermore, introducing the story of Jesus being born, along wth the carols that accompany the story helped my students in the same way that Linus helped the other Peanuts characters realize that there is more to this Christmas thing that they originally thought. Thus, because of this one book, I was able to open the door to exploring some of our Christmas traditions such as the importance of a star, of angels, of nativity scenes and so on.

I used to do this by using the Advent calendar format. Each day, we “opened” a new box or panel and revealed a new topic. For example, one day might be about candy canes and why they are shaped the way they are. The next day, might be why we bring trees inside our homes and the original German tradition of putting candles on the branches and how, for safety reasons, this has given way to electric lights. By the way, whenever I did the “lights on the trees” lesson, I always read The Nutcracker to the kids. It is the perfect story for illustrating how homes were decorated back then. It, also, introduces the concept of candy, including sugar plums. Once I have read this book to the kids, I can then read The Night Before Christmas and it will make more sense; especially the part when “the children all nestled snug in their beds, visions of sugar plums danced in their heads.” Getting back to the Nutcracker, for a second, reading that book, also, allowed me to go to YouTube and show the kids a clip of The Dance of The SugarPlum Fairy by The Bolshoi Ballet from Russia. *This comes up later in the list in another book, as well, called Olivia Saves Christmas.

I could talk all day about the Art and Science of teaching a Unit like the Holiday Unit to small children. But, for now, let me switch gears a little and tell you about some of our favourite books that always made an appearance during the course of the Unit. Some acted to help impart new knowledge of holiday traditions but, some others, were just fun read-alouds and some had other lessons incorporated into their storylines that appealed to the kids, as well. So, book talk time….here we go!!

James Herriot was a Veteranarian in Scotland. His stories of life as a Scottish vet became a TV series on PBS called All Creatures Great and Small. I really like this book, The Christmas Day Kitten because it allowed me to talk about two things that don’t normally get thought of at Christmas time. First of all, I got to say my piece about animals being given as gifts for Christmas and how pets aren’t gifts, like a doll or a toy truck. Pets are living creatures and for many kittens and puppies, the stimulation of Christmas can be frightening, as well as, the shock of being in new surroundings and, finally, knowing how much kids want to just go and play with all the new toys they just received, is it really the best time for them to learn to take care of a new pet? Secondly, there is a death in this story. The cat, in question, in this story dies giving birth to kittens. It is the only story that I had in my regular rotation of books that had a real death as part of the storyline. When the cat dies, the line in the book goes something like this…..the vet is talking……..”I placed my hand over her heart. Her heart beat no more.” The scene is an emotional gut punch and every single class always grew silent when I was done. With many classes, I would get asked if the cat was really dead. I would reply that it was and we would talk briefly about the Circle of Life. With other groups, the discussion would come up about pets who had died and, maybe, even family members who had passed away. When this came up, it allowed me to talk to the kids about how some people are sad at Christmas time and how we must truly think of others and show empathy. All in all, this book is important and was always handled in a sensitive manner. In the end, class after class, always thought it was special and, you know what? They were right. There are many James Herriot books and I recommend them all.

The Wild Christmas Reindeer by Jan Brett is awesome because Jan Brett is a wonderful author and illustrator. This book was always popular and helpful because, while the story of Tekka training Santa’s reindeer played out, one day at a time, there was always a separate story playing out in the border of the book that showed what was going on in the workshop as December rolled along. So, for example, on December 1st, the elves were busy making wooden blocks, Russian Stacking dolls and stuffing stuffed animals. The fact that each page was a calendar date, dove-tailed nicely with the Advent Calendar-style format I was using to introduce each day’s Christmas tradition.

The Little Drummer Mouse is written by Mercer Meyer who, if you are familiar with children’s literature, wrote the Little Critter series and is much beloved, as a result. This story is based on the carol, The Little Drummer Boy. The illustrations are gorgeous in this book and I would like it enough for that alone. But, the lessons in this book are noteworthy, as well. For example, the forest animals learn that “the Royal Family” will be passing by. They plan an elaborate feast, all the while showing little patience for the little drummer mouse who, they feel, has nothing to contribute and is in the way. Unbeknownst to the animals, as they flit about, madly preparing for royalty, quietly, in the background, a young couple silently pass by (Mary and Joseph). No one pays any attention to these poor folk. Eventually, while everyone is asleep, the mouse goes to an empty field to play his drum. Once there, he notices the bright star and feels compelled to follow it. He is in awe of what he sees in the stable and is asked to play the drums for the baby because the drumming is the only thing that calms the newborn. Suddenly, the mouse is very important. I like this story because it helps to drive home the point of how we judge others based upon their appearance and, as well, it allowed me to reinforce the notion that the smallest ones….just like my young students…..still have worth and still have value and can make a significant difference in the lives of others. It is a message than young children can never hear often enough.

Some stories are just fun reads and are super clever in their concept. The Gingerbread Pirates by Kristin Kladstrup is one such book. This book is about a boy who is making Christmas cookies with his Mom and decides he wants to turn his gingerbread men into a pirate crew, instead. Needless to say, the pirate cookies come to life during the night and end up fighting for their cookie lives as they attempt to avoid being eaten by the nasty giant all dressed in red. Lots of comedic turns throughout the story but, the best part of all is that, if you are so inclined….and why wouldn’t you be….you can read Captain Cookie’s character in a pirate voice all the way through. Every book is better when you can read it in a pirate voice! Arrrrrr, matey!

OMG!!! If there is any better character the world of Children’s literature than Olivia then, I don’t know who it is! Olivia Saves Christmas by Ian Falconer is the perfect melding of words and illustrations. There are fold out pages. There are cartoon illustrations plus, real photographs, too. Olivia, herself, is a diva. she loves fashion and art and, while having a heart of gold, always ends up exhausting her parents with her antics. Like every book in the Olivia series, there is a high degree of interactivity with this book. I highly recommend them all. If you are in a book store and see any of the Olivia books, pick it up and have a quick read. I guarantee that you will love what you see. Just as a teaser, when Christmas day is over, Olivia falls asleep. She dreams she is dancing the role of The Sugar Plum Fairy with Rudolph Nureyev in The Nutcracker; Nureyev and the stage in photograph form, Olivia is cartoon form, the perfect expression of happiness and contentment on her face.

Prolific adult author, James Patterson, wrote this book called Santa Kid. This book reads like a Hallmark Christmas movie. The illustrations are gorgeous but, the overall theme of a child saving Christmas is a message I always wanted to drive home to my kids. I never wanted them to feel helpless or as mere passengers in their own journey. I always sought ways to empower children and books like Santa Kid allowed me to give that message out. In short, this story is about a businessman who takes over Christmas and the North Pole because he claims that Santa isn’t as efficient as he should be when it comes to production and delivery and profit margins. Santa becomes too depressed to act, once things begin to go awry at the North Pole so, his daughter steps in a saves the day. I always like books that have female heroines, too and, this one does. Like I said, it reads like a movie so, kids always get caught up in the adventure of it all and they enjoy this book thoroughly. More of a book you would read to your child, as opposed to one they would read on their own but, just the same, a recommended Christmas choice.

Like Santa Kid, Auntie Claus by Elise Primavera, is a little more like a movie than most stories. It involves the spoiled Kringle children who live in a penthouse apartment in New York. They have a mysterious aunt who always goes away on “business trips” at this time of year. This is another story with a female lead. Sophie, the eldest sibling, decides to hide away in her aunt’s luggage as she prepares for her big trip. Not surprisingly, she ends up at The North Pole. Because she is small, she is mistaken for an elf and gets assigned various duties. Eventually, she goes down in the coal mines to get the list of naughty boys and girls and discovers that her brother’s name is on that list. Sophie has an epiphany and comes to realize the error of the way she and her brother have been acting and attempts to redeem her brother so that he will get gifts for Christmas, too. Eventually lessons are learned and identities revealed and secrets are shared. Over the years, the children I have shared this story with have enjoyed the detail and creativity given to the traditional Santa Claus tale that they are familiar with.

Berkley Breathed won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1987 for his comic strip, Bloom County. Much of the same high-calibre ability to combine illustrations with a strong storyline is evident in this book, A Wish For Wings That Work. This story is centred on one of his famous comic strip characters, Opus, who is a penguin who wishes to be able to fly. Obviously, as you know, penguins can’t do that in real life. Thus, Breathed tells a tale of a character who feels inadequate and defeated, “Imagine a bird whose wings sputter at those times when they should flutter”. Opus tries many different ways to fly such as ordering a Flap-o-matic from Ronco but, in the end, his dream never seems to be realized. But, as in all stories of this sort, redemption comes in the form of an emergency when his penguin swimming skills help to save Santa and, by extension, help to save Christmas. Earlier in the story, while sitting under a framed photo of Amelia Earhart, Opus had written to Santa, asking to be able to fly and, in a heart-warming way, Santa delivers the gift that Opus wanted in a way that makes Opus feel proud of himself in the process. Lots of depth and detail to the story and to the drawings in this book. One of my all-time favourite Christmas stories.

Sometimes, a book becomes a classic because of marketing and hype. But, sometimes, a book becomes a classic just because it is so good. There are two Christmas books that everyone should have and How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss is one of them. The second book is The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg.

I doubt that summaries are needed for either of these book so, I will spare you that. But, let me tell you why I have found these two books to be so very special.

First of all, short of Ebenezer Scrooge, the Grinch is, arguably, the most iconic character in Christmas literature. Dr. Seuss has done a masterful job of creating a character so repugnant and evil that you have to root against him. But, his redemption is so profound and complete that, you can’t help cheering for him in the end. The rhyming nature of Seuss’ prose makes this story a delight to read aloud or to listen to. And, just like reading a story in a pirate voice is fun, I cannot…..I mean, absolutely cannot read this story in any other voice than that of Boris Karloff, from the original cartoon movie. If I was tasked with having to read aloud one story over and over again, for all of eternity, it would be How The Grinch Stole Christmas in a Boris Karloff voice. Man, I love it so much!!! And, so do the kids.

As for The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg, this is my #1 book, and is the favourite choice, year after year, of the kids in my classrooms. The reason for this is simple….this story is all about the power of believing in something bigger and more profound than yourself. Believing in something is a powerful tonic for what ails all of our souls and what better thing to believe in with all your heart than the magic of Christmas. The way this book ends, with the ability of those who believe to hear the ringing of the bell, is as powerful a closing scene as almost any book ever written. I had the pleasure of working with children for thirty years and, believe me, the innocence of childhood hearts is as precious a gift as there is in this world; something that The Polar Express captures completely.

As I said waaaaaaay off of the top of this post, at one time, I owned hundreds and hundreds of Christmas books. The list I just gave to you is, by no means, exhaustive nor complete. There are countless other good books out there that help children understand the traditions, emotions and reasons for all that we do during the Holiday season. I hope that you enjoyed my list and that you all have a wonderful Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, etc., wherever you happen to be.

***The photo I am using as my cover photo is from a company called MagicalBells.com

For all of your “bell” needs and more, give them a looksee.

Will You Be My Neighbour: Part-II

There is power in stories. There is, also, power in knowing someone’s name; for a name is often the gateway into the story of who a person is. When we understand a person’s story, we are better able to treat them with dignity and respect.

I have always believed in the power of stories.

The handing down of traditions and the shaping of identities through the stories we tell is as universal a practise as there is on our planet. It helps others to know us better and it is a starting point for us to know ourselves.

For the sake of this post, I am not interested so much in the cultural stories of nations, clans or tribes. I am more interested in talking today about the autobiographies that we add to each day as we rise from our beds in the morning and begin interacting with our world. We are the authors of our own life stories. Stories that are shaped by factors unique to each of us; such as finances, careers, romance, health, family and much more. We are the central characters in the drama that is our life and, as characters, we all have a name. My name is Tom. Pleased to meet you.

Just as there is power in stories, there is also power in knowing someone’s name. It is not without reason that one of the challenges that classroom teachers set for themselves on the first day of school is to learn to properly put names to the faces of all their students. “Sit down, Billy!” carries a lot more authoritative weight in those initial moments of a school year than does, “Sit down….you there!” But, much more than that, for me, knowing someone’s name is the gateway to knowing their story. Knowing someone’s story is the gateway to understanding who a person is and how best to interact with them. When we understand the people around us, it is often easier to avoid unintentional insults such as the other day when two Jehovah’s Witnesses knocked at our door and my wife cheerfully wished them a Merry Christmas.

When I was still working as a classroom teacher, the names I knew and the stories I came to understand belonged to those I worked along side and to those students I taught and, by extension, their families. Now that I am retired, the people I am physically closest to are my neighbours. There are 32 houses on my street. I know the names of the folks in five of those houses. That’s it. Five out of thirty-two is a woefully inadequate number for someone, like me, who lives for stories.

For those of you who are regular readers of this blog, you will note that knowing the names of my neighbours does not, automatically, allow me to know their stories, as was described in greater detail in the post about my next door neighbour, Chris, being a famous musician and me not having a clue. *(You can read that post here.) It has been a month since I have learned about Chris’ true identity. My shock at not knowing he was famous has given way to greater state of embarrassment that I wasn’t a better neighbour. If I had taken a bit more time away from the isolating presence of my computer screen and invested a bit more time in having a conversation that extended beyond the superficial pleasantries of a wave and a smile as we mowed our lawns then, perhaps, I would have known how heavily the responsibilities of performing on a national stage weighed upon him. Perhaps, I could have found a kindred creative spirit. But, all of the maybes in the world can’t change the fact that I was probably playing Candy Crush or scrolling through my Twitter feed when Chris drove away from my neighbourhood for the final time. I know that we did not smile and wave, as he left, taking his stories with him.

One of the reasons this incident bothers me so much is that being an inattentive neighbour is not how I was raised. I grew up on Cape Breton Island. As a child, our door was always open and neighbours would regularly “pay a call” and drop by unannounced. You never knew, from one day to the next, when someone would show up at your door and would end up sitting around our kitchen table. A hot cup of tea and a tray of sweets were always at the ready. People came to our house all the time and we went to theirs as well. That’s just how the times were then. Life seemed less structured and scheduled in many ways. But, it seems different now.

Nowadays, instead of inviting others in, we often view our homes as being safe havens from the noisy world around us. We value our refuge. We retreat, willingly, into the welcoming worlds of our on-line relationships, basking in the warm glow of the red hearts and thumbs-up that grace our every utterance.

I am as guilty of this as the next person. So, as a result, I have begun what I can only term as a “social experiment” in my neighbourhood. As you may have read earlier this week, my daughter, Sophie and I, made Christmas cards for everyone in our neighbourhood. I delivered them, half on Monday and the rest on Wednesday. I walked up 31 different driveways, most of which I was doing so for the first time, and placed the cards into each mailbox.

I opted to deliver Christmas cards as my choice of interaction with my neighbours because it was Christmas, obviously but, as well, because the exchanging of cards at Christmas is something that I remember well from my youth. When I was growing up, it was not uncommon to receive over one hundred cards during the holidays. I can remember my mother hanging up string across our living room and using clothes pins to hold the cards on the line. Since many of my neighbours are older, my thinking was that they might be more receptive to a Christmas card than they would a knock on their door. So, I delivered our cards and now I am waiting. I have had one response.

Not long after I delivered my final card on Wednesday, I found myself sitting in my living room, not surprisingly, scrolling through my social media feed. Suddenly, I heard footsteps crunching slowly up my driveway. I cannot see the driveway from where I was sitting so, I stopped and listened instead. The footsteps came up my walkway and then, slowly, up each step, one step at a time. This is great, I thought. I listened for the tell-tale groaning of the metal lid on our mailbox, expecting this visitor to be responding to our card with a card in reply. This is one of the hoped for outcomes of my experiment but, instead, there came a knock on my door. This is good, too, I thought. Maybe this person wants to say Thanks and to introduce themselves. This would be a welcomed outcome, too. As I approached the door, I could see his silhouette and I could tell he was holding a card in his hands. Oh, good! He is hand-delivering his card to us. This is awesome! So, I opened the door.

An elderly gentleman was standing there…….with our card to him in his hand!!!! He looked down at the card and then up at me and said, “I think there has been some sort of mistake.” And he waved the card toward me. “I think this is yours,” he said.

I replied that it was no mistake and that this was a Christmas card for him and his family from me and my family.

He seemed confused by it all. After a moment, he quietly said, “But, we don’t know you.”

I smiled and stepped forward, offering my hand for him to shake. I told him that getting to know each other was the whole point and told him that my name was Tom. Somewhat uncertainly, he shook my hand and told me his name was Dick. I told Dick that it was nice to meet him and I wished him and his family a Merry Christmas. Hesitantly, he replied in kind and then said good-bye and turned and walked away, taking our card back with him.

I have not seen Dick since that day but, I am on the look-out for him each time I go outside now. Hopefully, the next time we do cross paths, he will recognize my face and I will his and we can exchange a greeting and we can say each other’s name. There is power in that. It is a first, small step toward creating a neighbourhood culture that is built upon an understanding of the autobiographies we are each writing.

It remains to be seen how this will all play out. I am still hopeful of receiving a few cards. but, if nothing else, I have made an opening gesture. From now on, I have a social card to play. I can always say, “Hey, neighbour! I’m Tom. We are the ones who gave you the homemade Christmas card this year.” Hopefully, that will spark some recognition and open the door to an exchange of pleasantries. Pleasantries, being the building blocks of a foundation of friendship and all. It is a good thing. I will keep you all informed as to how it plays out. But, whatever happens, I want to move forward with my goal of being a better neighbour. I never want to return to a time when I didn’t know Dick. 😉

My Best Teacher Gift Ever!!!

From the Vault on #TBT…the story of the Best Gift I ever received as a teacher! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you, all!

At the core of teaching lies humanity.

Teachers don’t manufacture widgets or track currency fluctuations on overseas markets as they go about their daily business. Teachers spend their day interacting with some of society’s most interesting, creative, adaptive, vulnerable, courageous citizens. Children are capable of doing almost anything at any time. That’s one of the reasons that teaching is such a fascinating profession. You can have the same teacher in the same classroom with the same group of children and never experience the same school day twice!

To the teacher who views his/her students as human beings, rather than names on a class list, the complexity of the young hearts and minds that assemble in their classroom each day is what makes the job so attractive and interesting. Sometimes, an “interesting” day can be a tiring day if one of the students is angry or emotionally upset. Sometimes, an “interesting” day can be hilarious and memorable. The story of My Best Teacher Gift Ever is one of those moments that come completely out of left field and, once you regain your wits, makes you smile for the rest of your life. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did when it happened.

I was teaching in a Grade 2 classroom in Courtice, Ontario. I had no gifted students in this class but, no hardcore, troubled behavioural children, either. On the whole, the class was comprised of nice, friendly, average kids. They were a good group. I liked coming to school each day and so did they. I got along well with all of their parents. In short, it was a good year in the wonderful world of Grade 2.

This story takes place on the last week before our Christmas holidays. If you have ever been in a primary-aged classroom the week before Christmas, you know that there is a higher than normal buzzing of energy to be found (and, I don’t mean from the overhead lights, either). If teachers were being honest, they would admit that that last week of school is not the most academically-intensive week to be had during the school year. But, just the same, maintaining some semblance of routine is important so, in between concert rehearsals and craft making, we still did some simple bits of regular work. One of the things that helped make up my “Holiday” unit was, of course, a set of spelling/vocabulary activities. We brainstormed chart paper filled lists of words that had to do with Hanukkah, Kwanza and Christmas. The kids searched for words in word search puzzles, they unscrambled mixed up spellings, they filled in the blanks, they typed stories on the computer and on and on it went. Well, since it was the last week of school and I had a group of kids that could go along with a joke, I created a worksheet of questions and answers that had, as the final question, the following: “If you were a millionaire and could buy Mr. MacInnes any three gifts in the world, what would your three gifts be?” I was hoping for answers like, “A rocket ship to go to the moon in”, or “A fancy sports car” or, “A trip around the world” but, instead, what I got back from this bunch of well-meaning but, average-joes was more along the lines of shirts, sweaters and pants. I was a bit disappointed by the lack of imagination that they had shown until I got to the worksheet handed in by a little girl named Megan.

Megan was a nice little girl with freckles across her nose that spilled onto her cheeks. She wore her blonde hair in a bob style. Her blue eyes sparkled whenever she smiled, which was fairly often. All in all, Megan was a good kid so, as I read over her answers, I was not prepared for what I saw when I got to the last question. She wrote, “I would give Mr. MacInnes a new sweater, a new pair of shoes and a g string.”

I read the first two parts of her answer with my brain in neutral but, her last answer snapped me to attention! I re-read her answer just to confirm that I had actually read what I had thought I had read. It turns out that I had! G-string! Wow! Where did that come from? I decided to check to see if she could have meant something else like “guitar” or “gerbil” because kids at that age can still be prone to phonetic and/or inventive spelling but, the spelling was clearly a “g” and a space and “string” spelled correctly. Needless to say, I felt the need to check into this so, as the rest of the class crafted or did whatever Holiday activity they were engaged in, I called Megan over.

“Megan”, I said. “I was checking over everyone’s worksheet and there are a couple of answers I’d like to read for me, if you would.”

She said, “Sure, Mr. MacInnes.”

I had her read her answer to Question #1 and #3, just so she wouldn’t realize what I was really wanting to know and have her think that she was in trouble or anything like that. She read her answers and proudly smiled at me as if to say, “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Could you read #5, too, please?”

“Ok….. I said that I would give Mr. MacInnes a new sweater……….because you have a hole in your brown one. Did you know that?” I grunted a smile and motioned for her to continue. “I would give Mr. MacInnes a new pair of shoes…….because you have scuff marks on yours………and a g string.” She turned to me and smiled the same smile she displayed after reading the answers to Questions #1 and 3.

So I said, “Megan, I understand what a sweater is and the part about the shoes but, I’m not sure what you mean by a g string”.

She smiled and put her hand on my arm and sweetly said, “Oh, Mr. MacInnes, everyone knows that a g string is underwear.”

“Ok”, I said. “Then answer this for me, please. I understand why you would buy a new sweater to replace my holey one and new shoes to replace the scuffed ones but, why do you want to buy me underwear?”

She looked around to be sure that no one could hear and then she leaned in, “In my home, whenever Daddy or Mommy wear their g strings, they run around the house, laughing and tickling each other. It makes them so happy. I want you to be happy in your home, too.”

Well, what do you say to that? I smiled and gave her a quick hug and thanked her for thinking of me and my state of personal happiness. The story would have ended there except for a fluke of timing. During the month of December, report cards are prepared and sent home and parent-teacher interviews are conducted. Depending on everyone’s schedules, it sometimes takes a couple of weeks to get everyone to come in to the school to meet. As luck would have it, Megan’s parents were one of two interviews I had left to conduct!

So, the very next day, after school, Megan’s mother and father walked into the classroom and sat down. I had Megan’s work folder out and showed them some of her Math work, a painting she had done, some pictures she had drawn and, lo and behold, her spelling work that included word search puzzles, mixed up spelling words, fill in the blank sheets and, yes, a certain question and answer sheet that she had completed just the day before! I sat there and let them look at each sheet and then, the final Q & A sheet. I watched as they scanned down through the answers, finally arriving at the last question. I saw Megan’s Mom mouth the words, “sweater” and “shoes” and then, her mouth just opened and she began blushing furiously. Dad broke out laughing and looked down at the floor. I just sat there quietly for a few seconds, thoroughly enjoying the moment.

Then I said to them, “Don’t worry. Teachers hear far more about what goes on at home than most parents realize. The important thing to take from this is that in Megan’s eyes, she feels that she comes from a home that is filled with love and happiness. She feels that you both love each other and not every child can say that about their parents. You should feel proud that your daughter views you that way and that she feels so happy herself.” They both smiled and thanked me for my kind words.

I have gotten many, many gifts from families over the course of my career but, nothing comes close to the imaginary g string I received that year from little Megan. I wonder if widgets ever give gifts to the people who make them? I doubt it. Thank goodness I have had the pleasure of spending my career in the daily company of children. They are the essence of humanity and our society’s most precious gift.

Maker Sophie

A kind and caring heart, coupled with a confident and creative mind, is a powerful force for change. Allow me to introduce to the world, the young lady who completed our family, Miss Sophie! #AmWriting, #MondayBlogs, #Family, #Christmas

If you follow my blog at all then, you know that there is nothing more important in my life than my family. However, when I was a young bachelor boy, way back in the day, I always thought that my life was good. I had friends, a good job, my own house and car and my health was good. Then, I met my wife.

Meeting Keri made me realize how Love can elevate your life, taking it to a higher plain of fulfillment and satisfaction. When Keri and I were a married couple, galavanting around our corner of the world, I thought my life was pretty special. We had our other newly-married, “couple” friends, we had a new home, we both had jobs we were proud of, we ate out in restaurants whenever we felt like it and our health was good. Then, we had our first child.

Becoming a parent blew my mind! Holding Leah on the day she was born and seeing her eye lashes and finger nails and little tiny toes made her seem perfect in my mind. She was our first-loved and the centre of our world. (Since becoming a blogger, I have written several posts about Leah: the link to the one about all of the books we have read together over the years can be found here. The link to the recent post about her research into the life of her Great-Great Grandfather and his life during WWI and The Halifax Explosion, can be found here.) We loved our life with Leah. We had playdates with our other friends who were starting families of their own, we took copious amounts of photos of her, Keri got to spend the whole first year of Leah’s life with her because of our generous maternity leave benefits from work and all three of us enjoyed good health, too. Then came Sophie.

Simply put, Sophie completed us. Three years younger than her sister, Sophie has brought a whole new level of joy and happiness to our family. At turns, shy and withdrawn in certain situations while, at other times, she commands the stage and bathes in the spotlight’s warm glow. Sophie has a comedian’s sense of timing and a linguist’s sense of language which often makes her social commentary razor sharp and very funny. She loves to read but, not to be read to. She is as smart as her bookish sister but, instead of building a library of knowledge in her mind, Sophie tends to be more “street smart” and practical about how her intelligence manifests itself. As a result, Sophie embraces the philosophies and practices of the Maker Movement and is quickly becoming quite skilled at creating almost anything.

The Maker Movement is one that embraces creativity above all else. In schools, it is found in the dedication of common spaces for making things out of all sorts of materials and items. Students in a Maker Space may use LEGO Blocks or programme robots or sew or build with wood and much, much more. There is a freedom of choice that defines how one interacts within a Maker Space. From this freedom, comes the satisfaction of creating something out of nothing and, from that experience, comes the confidence to begin to grant yourself the permission to dream of what else may be possible and then, going ahead and simply, making your dreams come true.

Sophie has become a Maker in our home. While Leah is a consumer (she reads the words of others and interacts with technology apps), Sophie is my creator of content. She loves to bake and paint and draw and make Mathematical calculations, she crafts and cooks simple meals and dresses up like a fashionista! An example of Sophie in the Maker zone mentality can be seen from how she spent her weekend.

For starters, Sophie belongs to an environmental organization called Earth Rangers. In this club, Sophie takes on certain “missions” that help our planet and the plants, animals and humans who inhabit it. So, this note appeared under our thermostat. The note instructed us to lower the thermostat a few degrees and to keep it at the lower temperature for a week. We did that. Thankfully, there are no shortage of hoodies in my closet.

Next up, Sophie has been wanting to learn how to sew. Keri and I are not sewers in the least. But, luckily for Sophie, her favourite person in the world…Gramma…knows how to sew. So, right after lunch on Saturday, the girls all headed over to Gramma’s house and Gramma taught Sophie how to sew with a needle and thread. Sophie and Gramma (mostly Sophie, I have been told) made this carry-all bag. Well done, my little tailor!

Later that evening, Sophie disappeared into the kitchen. She was very quiet for awhile and then, she emerged proudly holding this Christmas ornament for our tree. All on her own, she had gotten our craft supply box out. She then, traced a star on paper, covered the paper with wax paper and then, traced the shape of the star using a hot glue gun. After the glue had hardened for a few minutes, she simply peeled it off, hot glue-gunned a piece of yarn to act as the hook and, voila! Sophie created a classic Christmas tree ornament. Flushed with success, she spent Saturday evening making stars for everyone in her family, including her Gramma and Poppa, her cousins and her aunt and uncle, too.

On Sunday morning, Sophie and I make Christmas cards for all of our neighbours. That is thirty-two cards. We did this because Sophie and I believe in the magic of Christmas and, much to my chagrin, we want to know our neighbours better than we do. (As you may recall, I recently wrote a post about my shocking discovery that my next-door neighbour had been a semi-famous Canadian celebrity and I had never known the whole time we lived side-by-side. The link to that post is here if you wish to read about that.) So, anyway, we made all of these cards and I delivered them to each home, just before typing this post on Monday morning. Hopefully, our neighbourhood will become a little closer and we will get to know each other a little better as a result.

Sophie’s card for her school friend, Oliver, who lives down the street.

But, what Sophie was most excited about this weekend was baking Christmas cookies. So, on Sunday afternoon, Sophie and I made a double batch of sugar cookies and a double batch of chocolate chip cookies. If anyone wants to come over for tea, we are ready!!! Sophie was very pleased with herself because, for the first time ever, she cracked the eggs herself and didn’t get a single shell fragment in the batter! She did most of the stirring herself and used cookie cutters to make the shapes you see in the photo. She iced the cookies once they cooled. They are delicious and I am going to get fat, for sure, eating all of the good food we now have sitting in our kitchen.

As the photo at the very top of this post shows, doing for others is something Keri and I have tried to instil in both our daughters. Sophie has a kind and caring heart and a creative mind, which is a powerful combination. To want to make a difference and to have the Maker mentality to confidently dare to make it happen is how our world changes for the better.

Sophie Audra MacInnes is a special girl and we couldn’t be prouder of her if we tried.

Lottery Lucky

At exactly 8:04am this morning, my daughter, Leah, set off for school. She paused at the end of the driveway and stood silently, reflecting upon the fact that her life was made possible by an incident that happened 101 years earlier at that exact same moment. This is the story of that moment.

We would all like to think that we are in control of our own lives; that the path we follow is ours to decide and, to a certain extent, that is true. But, in reality, our lives are inextricably intertwined with those who came before us and the decisions that they made along the way. For a simple example, we were born in the town or city of our birth not because that’s what we opted for but, rather, because our parents or grandparents or great-grandparents made the decision to locate in that community in years past. From purposeful decisions like that, to acts of fate beyond anyone’s control, the portrait of a life well-lived is always coloured by many factors and the line between success and failure, life and death, is often razor-thin, as you shall see in Leah’s case.

When Leah was growing up, we read books together every night. One book series that made a profound impact on her life was The Magic Treehouse series by Mary Pope Osborne. In each MTH book, the two main characters were transported to some historical event and/or met a famous historical figure. Leah found the stories from history fascinating and often spent time researching additional information on her own. She has maintained an interest in History ever since. Being good parents, we have encouraged her love of History by visiting museums with her, taking her to places connected to historical events (such as The Plains of Abraham in Old Quebec City, the Fortress of Louisbourg in Cape Breton and so on) and by giving her access to books and resources that feed her desire to know more about the events that shaped our world.

Not surprisingly, Leah’s interest in History began to focus more on the story of her own family. So, a couple of years ago, it seemed logical to us to take out a membership in Ancestry.ca, a genealogical website that helps people conduct research on their family history. The membership was taken out as a gift for Leah’s Poppa but, because we paid for the membership, we got to set up the passwords and so on. Once that was done, we gave Leah permission to explore the website so that she could be the “expert” and figure out how it all worked and then she would be able to show her Poppa what to do. Well now, letting Leah loose on Ancestry.ca was akin to giving her the keys to the Kingdom’s treasury. She absolutely loved it!

In her research to date, she seems drawn more toward those relatives who have been involved in the military. The first relative she delved deeply into was a Great-Uncle named Albert Eagle. Mr. Eagle was involved in the D-Day Invasion of Normandy during WWII. He died three days later in a tank battle. His body is buried in a cemetery in France that she would like to visit one day when she is a bit older. We were all amazed at the vast amount of documentation that was maintained on each soldier during wartime. Leah was able to find enlistment records, discipline records, as well as, troop movement details up to, and including, the record of Mr. Eagle’s death and the battle that occurred that particular day in France.

But, as interesting as that was to Leah and the rest of us, it was her investigation of her Great-Great Grandfather, Frank Davis, that really brought home the precarious nature of our lives and how easily one event, action or decision could alter the future. In fact, there are so many instances where life and death danced throughout this man’s life, creating a series of connections that it is almost freakish, as you shall soon see.

This is a photo of Frank Davis that Leah has in her bedroom. The lady in the photo is to prove a very important part of this story….of Leah’s life story….but, I will save that for now.

Here is Mr. Davis’ story. Frank Davis was a husband and father when WWI broke out in 1914. At the time, Canada was still a very young nation and did not have a standing army of its own. Instead, various militias existed across the country. Mr. Davis belonged to one such militia called The Halifax Rifles. When War was declared, the Halifax Rifles became part of the 40th Battalion of the Canadian Corps which, as the War unfolded, became known as the Canadian Expeditionary Forces or the C.E.F.

On October 18, 1915 (my wife, Keri’s birthday is Oct. 18), Frank Davis and his fellow soldiers boarded the Cunard transport ship, RMS Saxonia in Halifax harbour. They landed a little over a week later in Portsmouth, England. Once there, the 40 Battalion was assigned to the 9th Brigade and 3rd Canadian Division and stationed at Military Camp Bramshott for training.

While WWI was called a “world war”, in fact, many of the major battles throughout the war took place in a relatively small stretch of French and Belgium countryside. In battles such as The Somme, Ypres, Vimy Ridge or, later on, at Passchendaele, both armies often dug in, quite literally, in lines of trenches and faced off against one another in seesaw battles of attrition in which tens of thousands of soldiers on both sides died to advance the battle front mere metres at a time.

For example, The Battle of Vimy Ridge, in France, lasted for four days but cost the lives of approximately 3600 Canadian soldiers, with another 7500 being wounded. The conditions were atrocious; cold, wet, muddy, no cover to act as protection, deep shell holes that often filled with water and cause many an unfortunate soldier to die from drowning. The land between each side’s lines of trenches was often dubbed as being “No Man’s Land” because to leave the protection of your own trench and attempt to advance across the open ground often meant certain death. This is where Lance Corporal Frank Davis made one of the first decisions that changed his life and allowed Leah to, eventually be born. As his military records indicated, Mr. Davis requested to relinquish his rank and return to being a Private in the army. While Leah cannot be certain as to the specific motivation behind such a seemingly odd request, the truth is most likely, Davis recognized the futility of many of these battles and knew that as Corporal, the odds were good that he would be tasked with leading a charge across No Man’s Land because he had “rank”. The death toll on officers in the C.E.F. was very high so, it was not uncommon for Corporals to be placed in charge during the heat of battle. Being a Private did not mean that Davis was safe but, at least, he would not necessarily be first out of his trench.

The 40th Battalion acted as a feeder squad throughout the early stages of the war. This means that members of the 40th Battalion would be called into battle to reinforce other Units who had too many casualties and who required reinforcements. Eventually, the 40th Battalion was merged into the 26th Battalion. The 26th Battalion fought in the quagmire known as the Third Battle of Ypres in Belgium or, as it is better known, The Battle of Passchendaele. It was in this battle, on November 2, 1917, that Private Frank Davis was exposed to Mustard Gas from the Germans. He was “struck off strength” or removed from his Unit and taken to the 12th Canadian Field Ambulance or field hospital, as it were. Believe it or not but, Private Davis was lucky. Over the course of this battle, almost half a million soldiers from both sides perished. If there was ever such a place as Hell on Earth, Passchendaele was it.

Back in Canada, the War effort was in full swing and one of the busiest places of all was Halifax, Nova Scotia. Halifax Harbour served at the gateway to the Atlantic and, by extension, to the battle fields of Europe. The harbour was often filled with transport and supply ships preparing to head overseas. And so it was, on December 6th, a mere month after Frank Davis was gassed at Passchendaele, that two ships collided in Halifax Harbour; the relief ship Imo and the French munitions ship, Mont Blanc. The Mont Blanc was loaded with explosives. The resulting fire caused the munitions to ignite and then, explode with such tremendous force that over 2000 citizens of Halifax were killed and much of the downtown area, destroyed. Among those who perished were Frank Davis’ wife, Helena and his son, Charles.

While Frank Davis lost part of his family, their deaths allowed him to survive the War. He was “discharged to Canada (Special case)”, in early 1918 and he returned home to Halifax.

As the city rebuilt, so did Frank Davis. He remarried and with his new wife, had a son that he named William. William Davis, in turn, grew up and married and among his children was a boy named Bruce. Bruce, as it turns out, has gone on to be called Poppa at our house……the same Poppa for whom the Ancestry.ca membership was purchased and the same Poppa that Leah was entrusted to train.

So, if Frank Davis had not skirted death during WWI by design and by circumstance AND, if his wife Helena had not been killed in the Halifax Explosion, allowing him to remarry and bear a son who bore a son who bore a daughter who became a mother to a little girl named Leah, the whole fabric of all of our lives would be forever different.

But, there is one final, freakish coincidence that bears mentioning. At the time of the Halifax Explosion, Helena Davis and her four children lived in an apartment at 1253 Barrington Street in Halifax. This was not noteworthy at the time that they lived there but, it became noteworthy as a result of Leah’s research and an incredible coincidence that she uncovered.

When my wife was much younger, she travelled to Halifax and stayed at a youth hostel. She was visiting a good friend at the time. Her friend took a photo of Keri sitting on the steps of the youth hostel. This photo was kept in a frame and displayed as a keepsake from, what was, a pleasant life memory for Keri. In conducting her research, Leah connected the dots and discovered that the hostel in Keri’s teenage photo was, in fact, the same building that the Davis Family were living in at the time of the Halifax Explosion. If not for Helena Davis’ death that December day, Keri would never have been born and would never have been able to sit on those steps. Being the good parents that we are, we took Leah to Halifax two years ago and stood upon those very steps ourselves.

And so, at 8:04 am this morning, Leah stopped at the end of our driveway and thought about how lucky she is to be alive and how thankful she is to all of the people who have helped her to know the life that she has and enjoys as a result of their decisions and because of fate. What were you doing at 8:04 am this morning?

Throwback Thursday Edition

From the vault, to you, wherever you happen to be. I wrote this post while I was still a teacher at Grant Sine P.S. in Cobourg. Four and a half years ago seems like a lifetime to me. So much has changed. Grant Sine P.S. is now closed. I am now retired. But, at the time, it was my favourite place in the world. The kids and their families were very special. My colleagues have become forever friends.

There was no school experience quite like the one I had at Grant Sine P.S.; especially, on a Friday.

Sunday, April 6, 2014

Thank Goodness It’s Friday….or, Not!!!!

I am not sure if it actually is Friday as you are reading this but, that doesn’t really matter. This post is not about this Friday or, any other Friday, for that matter. It is more about the symbolic nature of our safe harbours and the fragile nature of the people who seek shelter there. It is about fearing the blue skies and sunshine of free time. It is about being at school on a Friday afternoon, with the dismissal bell ringing, your teacher ushering you out the door and you, not wanting to leave. It is about the idea of home.

I am fairly confident that you, like me, view the end of the work day on Fridays as a cause for celebration. Bring on the weekend! For most of us, we work because we have to but, it is on our free time that we can relax, re-energize and slip into the comfortable clothes of the life we really love.

When you think about schools in this regard, the image that springs to mind is of the dismissal bell ringing for summer vacation, the doors of the school bursting open and the kids pouring out, hooting and hollering, throwing their books and papers into the air, heading out to the carefree world of summer vacation! That image had been my reality as a teacher for the first 17 years of my career. Everywhere I taught, the kids were as excited for their weekends as their teachers were. Everyone was happy on Fridays! Spring Break always rocked! And, don’t get me started about the giddiness of summer vacation!

But, then I transferred into the school I am presently teaching at and everything changed. I teach in the middle of a social housing complex, which means that virtually every student at my school comes from a household that relies on some form of financial assistance from the Government in order for them to meet their basic needs of food and shelter. When I first began working here, I had a vague notion of what poverty meant for me, as their teacher. I thought that everything would be fine as long as they worked hard for me. I could supplement when necessary with supplies but, an honest work ethic would be enough to help the kids enjoy a successful time in our classroom. If they were academically low, that was fine. I work with all manner of students and would happily do so with them. Basically, I walked into our classroom on the first day of school, totally and completely unprepared for what I was to encounter. Suffice to say, poverty is a bitch! My time at this school has provided ME with the real education. I am a changed and better human being for having had this experience.

It is difficult to accurately describe what living in poverty is like. For someone like me, who has a full fridge, a warm house with lots of toys and a bank account with my own dollars in it, I have no right to state that I know what it is like to be poor. But, as witness to the myriad displays of emotion, drama and humanity that unfold before my eyes, each and every day, in our classroom, schoolyard and hallways, I, most certainly, have knowledge to share. The best way I know of to even remotely convey the depth of the complex, multi-faceted, nuanced layering of issues at play when it comes to poverty, is to tell you the following true story. The story is called The Christmas Block and, honestly, I couldn’t make this stuff up! Writing this for you blows my mind, even now.

One of the ways that we, as staff, dealt with the pervausive nature of poverty at our school, was to focus on developing a greater sense of community among the students and, by extension, their families, too. We tried to show them that you don’t have to be rich to be nice, to do the right things in life, to be helpful, to contribute to the betterment of the classroom/school/community in a positive way. We tried to empower them and to help to boost their self-esteem by making them realize their own self-worth as human beings on our planet. That is no small task, in an environment where everyone is beaten down and in various stages of defeat.

Among the many initiatives we enacted, was one where we actively sought out opportunites for the students to participate in events outside of the school. The thinking was, to attempt to change the public’s perecption of our school from being ” a welfare school, filled with bad kids” to being a nice school, with a warm sense of community and an ever growing list of positive accomplishments. In this light, we jumped at the chance to participate in an event sponsored by our local Public Library. It was a storywriting competition. The lure for us was that they had categories of prizes for the top stories but, also, prizes for the best rate of participation, as a percentage of the school’s total population. Being a rather small school, size wise, we thought that if we could just get each student to simply write a story that met the contest criteria then, we would automatically qualify to the participation prize. This would mean that we would get to go to the awards celebration and get our school’s name in the newspaper. So, off our little authors went.

In my class, we had to write a story about any topic we wanted, as long as it was 100 words long. Sweet! No problem! We could do it, even if it took us a couple of weeks! As the children wrote, their stories were woefully-unimaginative. This was not surprising due to the lack of literacy in their homes. It is hard to become a creative and expressive writer when no one has ever read a bedtime story to you in your life. But, even with the low quality of most of the stories, one stood out as even weaker than the rest. It was from a boy named Tom* ( I am using my name, for the sake of privacy). Tom was a unique student for several reasons: one, he had shown an above-average level of ability with Mathematics. This gave him the reputation among his peers, as being one of the smartest kids in the whole school. Tom was, also, unique, in that he had a tremendous amount of pride and, routinely, refused any of the free food, clothing or school supplies that his classmates so eagerly and consistently grabbed up. So, when it came time to read Tom’s story, I had hoped that it would be one of the few to demonstrate a decent amount of skill.

Tom called his story, “The Christmas Block”. To summarize it, the story read….it was Christmas morning. His only gift was a wooden block. He liked it. He put it down to go outside to play. When he returned, the block was gone. Someone had stolen it, he was told. The end.

My initial reaction was one of disappointment. Who writes a story about a block for Christmas?! What changed my thinking was when I showed this story to a colleague who had been at this school much longer than I had. She was far more familair with the inner-workings of the neighbourhood that I was. As she read it, she said, “I think Tom is trying, in his own cryptic way, to tell you that something bad happened to him at Christmas. If I was to guess, I’d say he is trying to tell you that his parents took his gifts and sold them for food or drugs or cigarettes or whatever.”
To say that I was stunned is an understatement.

I conferenced with all of the students about their stories. When it came time for Tom’s conference, I was pumped. I asked him to tell me about his story. He just repeated that it was about a block that he had lost. He was very tight-lipped about it all. I asked him if he had lost the block in real life. He said it was just a story. I asked him if he or anyone he knew, had lost birthday or Christmas toys. He replied, without looking up, that lots of things happen in his neighbourhood. I asked him again, if the story of the Christmas block was a real story. Tom got up, smiled a sheepish smile and, as he began walking away said, thanks for the contest.

Tom was the sort of student who was never going to admit what had actually happened to him nor, that it had happened before and would, in all liklihood, happen again in the future. But the more I poked around, trying to uncover the truth, the more convinced I became that, in fact, Tom had had his Christmas gifts taken from him by his parents and so had many other students. In fact, the systemic looting of children’s possessions to help fuel the addicitions of their caregivers was, as it turned out, quite a normal part of life in my school neighbourhood. No one was outraged by it. It was just how the world worked, in the eyes of my students.

As I came to understand this more, I began to recognize the connections between what was happening at home and some of the behaviours I was seeing at school. For instance, almost all of the kids were, what I would call, hoarders. Their desks were crammed full of anything and everything that we had done in class. At first, my Type-A personality was such that Desk Clean-out day was a regular feature of life in our classroom. But, I soon came to realize that everything that was going home was ending up being put straight into the garbage. There were no refrigerator art galleries in these homes. I began to learn that if the student valued their work then, it needed to be honoured on the walls of the school because, that was their only chance to be recognized as being special.

The story would end here, if not for a bit of luck with the contest. Our school was awarded the prize for best rate of participation! That was awesome but, what surprised us all was that, Tom’s story was selected for special recognition. We had been contacted and asked to nominate someone who was not known as a writer but yet, had produced noteworthy work. I thought of Tom right away. I sent an short, explanatory note along with his story. The judges read his story and deemed it worthy. So, Tom and his whole family were invited, along with me, to go to the Gala Awards ceremony at a fancy-schmancy banquet hall downtown. This was not the sort of place that families from my school normally frequented.

The awards ceremony was scheduled to begin at 11:00 in the morning. Tom and his family were downtown by 8:00am. I know that because I was running an early morning errand and saw them walking around the banquet hall, trying to find their way inside. When I arrived, I found them seated in the front row of chairs. The whole family was there; Tom, his older brother, his mother and father, too. All of the men had gotten haircuts. They were wearing new dress shirts which came from the Dollar Store, according to Mom, who was very proud of her men.

The emcee of the ceremony was a local author of some reknown. He had quite a dramatic flair and proceeded to work his way through the various prize categories by reading snippets of each student’s winning entry. As he did this, I thought about what might happen when he read Tom’s story about his parents stealing his Christmas gift……with them sitting in the front row!!! But, as it turned out, I didn’t have much to worry about. Our emcee turned Tom’s plain-sounding little story, into a melodrama worthy of the Hallmark Hall of Fame TV specials. As an orator, he had Tom’s words fill up the entire hall. The story sounded glorious! Tom’s family were thrilled. As Tom was called up to receive his award, he kept his head bowed the entire time, even as the applause of the crowd filled the room.

His mother hugged me and thanked me for helping her son to have such a wonderful moment. Tom’s dad shook my hand. Then, they turned quickly away and melted into the sunshine outside and went back home.

Like I said, I just can’t make this stuff up!

Since working at this school, I have seen how poverty really affects my students. How it creates environments where the students view parents as people who will protect you with one hand while stealing from you with the other. Being raised in such an environment means that my students don’t react to material possessions the same way as other children might. Incentive programmes don’t hold any sway here. I can’t tell a child that if they complete X-number of tasks they will earn a reward because, they know their possessions will just end up being stolen or broken at home. The normal mentality of striving to achieve a goal doesn’t work here. There is a disconnect between the wishes of my students and the reality of their lives. Nobody writes letters to Santa at my school. It is a vicious, negative existance, from my point of view but, from the point of view of my students, it is just life. It is so messed up. But, poverty is messed up, too!

So now, when the dismissal bell rings on a Friday afternoon and the kids don’t really want to leave…I have developed a greater ability to understand why. I counter this, the only way I really know how, I hug every one of them who seem to need it. Then, they are wished a good weekend and I stand in the doorway and watch them walk toward home.

Will You be My Neighbour?

When my wife and I bought the house we are currently living in, we were enchanted by the neighbourhood. It was tree-lined, quiet and the neighbours all seemed friendly. It was, in real-estate terms, an established neighbourhood. Many of the homeowners were original to the neighbourhood when it was first built. Their families had grown up and moved away. So, when young newlyweds moved on the street, folks were genuinely happy at the prospect of children, once again, playing outside and riding bicycles up and down the street.

Not surprisingly, within a few years of living here, age began to catch up with our neighbours. One by one, either because of death or illness, several of our neighbours left our street and their homes went up for sale. Just as we did a few years prior, more young families moved in and the trend toward the neighbourhood becoming younger intensified. In fact, the house directly adjacent to us on our south side was sold. The day the new family moved in is where this story begins.

We were puttering around our yard when the new folks pulled into their driveway and began unloading their car. After giving them a few minutes, I went over an introduced myself and welcomed them to the neighbourhood. The man introduced himself as Chris and his wife, as Robin. They had one child; a son slightly older than my eldest daughter, Leah so, about nine or ten at the time. They seemed very friendly and went on to be excellent neighbours. We waved to each other whenever one of us was driving by. We helped shovel each other’s driveway in the winter and mowed grass for each other in the summer. Robin was a teacher, like Keri and myself so, we talked shop occasionally. Chris and I talked about yard things; for example, he admired a new shed that I had built and placed in my backyard. They minded their business and we stayed out of theirs. It was all lovely.

But, I discovered just the other day, that our neighbours had been keeping a secret. A fairly big secret, as it turns out. My mind is blown…still! I will share that secret with you now.

Chris and Robin separated a few years ago. That saddened us, as we liked them as a couple and as neighbours. Chris moved into an apartment across town. Robin and their son stayed next door. Because of custody-sharing arrangements, we still saw Chris frequently, coming and going with his son. He still waved and smiled at us. We still waved and smiled back.

When Chris wasn’t around, we noticed that his son was spending most of his time playing the drums. He had a full drum kit in the basement of their house and he played, day and night, for hours at a time. Fortunately for us, he was actually a talented young drummer so, it wasn’t excruciating to hear his beats seeping up out of the foundation of their house. It was almost the same style of drumming that you would associate with the heavy drum solos that rock drummers sometimes perform during concerts. At one point, the son drummed so much that we began to think that, perhaps, he was autistic, and was obsessively drumming for emotional reasons. But, truth be told, Robin and her son never bothered us so, we viewed his drumming as a small price to pay for having reliable neighbours beside us.

Eventually, Robin put the house up for sale. She and her son have moved out of the neighbourhood and we have not seen them nor Chris for several months now.

A new family moved next door. A husband and wife, with two small children. They have been wonderful neighbours, too. We are lucky. The woman, Leslie, is a teacher and happens to work at the same school as my wife, Keri, does. Occasionally, they drive to school and back together. This happened the other day. During the course of the drive, Leslie wondered if we found her children too noisy when they were playing in their backyard. Keri replied that they were fine especially compared to the little drummer boy we just had next door. Leslie replied that she wasn’t surprised that the boy played the drums because, when they first looked at the house when it was up for sale, they noticed that it was filled with rock n’ roll memorabilia. When they asked the sales agent about it, they were told that the memorabilia belonged to a gentleman named Christian Tanna, drummer and co-founding member of Canadian rock supergroup, I Mother Earth. Leslie was surprised that we didn’t know this already.

What!!!!!?????? My friendly neighbour, Chris…….the smiling, wavy-haired Dad who I watched mow the lawn in grubby shirts….the guy who had shed-envy……..was actually Christian Tanna, drummer for I Mother Earth!!!!! And he never said a single word about it. Not one. There was nothing about how he looked or how he conducted himself that would had given us any indication that we had a rock star for a neighbour. Sometimes, you just never know what goes on behind the closed doors of the nice homes on your street.

Christian Tanna or, Chris as I call him, is the third from the left (in the blue tank top) and this is I Mother Earth at the end of one of their shows. Now it makes sense that his son was such a prodigious drummer and that he had talent, too. I Mother Earth were really big in the 90s in Canada. I have to be honest and say that they weren’t my favourite band back then but, being equally honest, Chris is my favourite rock star neighbour!!!!

As I look at this photo, I am still shaking my head. Can’t believe that I didn’t know who was living in the house next door.

Driving Miss Leah

This past weekend, my daughter, Leah and her friend, Emily, travelled with me to The University of Guelph campus for our third annual trek to participate in The Science Behind the Magic of Harry Potter Festival. This festival is put on by the university’s Science department and is a wonderful way to introduce scientific concepts like Biology, Chemistry, Botany, Geology, Astronomy, Physics and much more, to eager young minds, all the while presenting it under the guise of the world of Harry Potter. There are costumes galore, as well as, games, food and contests…..all taken directly from J.K. Rowling’s books.

When Leah and Emily went for the first time two years ago, they were ten and nine years old, respectively. Life was still pretty simple for them. Neither had their own phone. No one they knew was “dating”. Neither had gone to an unsupervised party where there would be boys and girls together. They were still very much children. Looking back, I realize I should have enjoyed their giddy silliness more during our two and a half hour long drive there and back. Those were innocent times. But, times change.

This weekend, I drove two pre-teens there and back. Those giddy children have evolved into quieter, more introspective young women. Since both knew what to expect when we arrived in Guelph, there was no nervous excitement filling the car on the way down. Emily sketched in a notebook and worked on an original story she was creating. Leah read for awhile and then listened to music on her phone. Neither wore a Harry Potter-inspired costume this time (Leah did wear a Hermione Granger t-shirt but, it stayed hidden under her hoodie).

Both girls enjoyed all of the activities that they participated in, as they have the past two years as well. But, there was one difference this year and it was this: because I am the only adult accompanying the girls, I have always felt a sense of obligation to my wife, to Emily’s parents, to Leah’s Grandparents and so on, to document all of the super exciting, creative and informative activities the girls are involved in. So, I have always taken lots of photos to share with everyone later, when we are back home. This year, as I was taking photos, the following happened: during one of the activities, Leah rolled her eyes, looked to the Heavens and said, with a tone of exasperation, “Dad! Will…you…please …stop!”

No one in the room seemed to notice, including Emily, who was busy completing her activity. But, I noticed. And, I stopped taking her picture. Dad was embarrassing daughter, simply by quietly being Dad. This isn’t the first time this has happened lately. For example, Leah began attending middle school this year. This school has ten times the enrolment of her old school. I offered to go with her on the first day to make sure she got where she was supposed to be going. She refused and said I could go to the crosswalk with her but no further. Being retired, I have time to volunteer to go on class trips with my girls for the first time ever. Leah said, “OMG, Dad! I’d die if you came on a trip!” Leah is changing. She will be an official teenager in April.

Like all parents come to realize, there is a time when our children begin to carve out their own identity and create a life that is truly their own. Leah has just left the starting blocks on this journey. It is tough watching her go.

But, as tough as it is for me to observe it all, it must be far tougher to be a young girl growing up in today’s society. Both Emily and Leah are finding their lives changing in real time. On the drive back home, they sat in the back seat and started talking to each other about it. I was wise enough to keep my mouth closed and just drive the car. We passed a mall on the way out of Guelph. This started a conversation about book stores (which both girls adore) and then, back-to-school shopping trips. This transformed into a talk by Leah to Emily about being at the newer, bigger school (Emily will go there next year) and then, on to the topic of shopping for clothes.

Both girls lamented the lack of clothing options they felt were available to them. Both complained about the pressure they felt to wear clothes that were too tight and body hugging, too short and revealing or else, too full of holes (such as in ripped jeans). Both girls lamented the seeming inability to find clothes that were soft, roomy and comfortable. Without saying it, Leah and Emily are beginning to realize the trap that society has prepared for young girls and that is the trap of sexualizing their bodies. Leah and Emily are bright, intelligent, caring and creative young women. They have much to offer our world. They are definitely more than the sum of their body parts. But, as we drove through the rush hour traffic at the top of Toronto, they both talked about how much they dislike the way fashion choices seem to force them into a role that they don’t want to accept; especially, in the eyes of boys that they labelled, without hesitation, as being very immature and annoying. It was quite a conversation.

There is power in the ability to make your own decisions. Right now, Leah is beginning to experience what it is to make her own choices; the first major life choice being, pulling away from her parents. Whether it be spending countless hours in her room with the door closed and headphones on or else, finding it excruciatingly embarrassing to be seen in public with her Mom or Dad, Leah is coming to realize that the trail she must blaze is one that must be done on her own. It won’t be a pain-free process but through it all, I will be there for her if she needs me. But, for now, I will step back as she steps away and through it all, I have to trust and hope that she will grow and become the person she is meant to be and be happy and proud of who that person turns out to be.

In the meantime, I will shut my mouth and keep driving the car.