Author: Carrie Froese

I am a person who writes. When I was young, I wrote in a diary. Seemly nothing to say, yet revealing the people that were important, the things that happened around me, and the power plays unfolding. As an adolescent and young adult, I wrote about the things that I could not say without getting in trouble from my father, step-mother and older sister, or making my mother cry. As a young adult, I wrote to make sense of the thoughts swirling around my head and to sharpen my words to fire as defensive missiles. As an adult, I wrote as an outlet to my frustrations and to clarify my thinking.

I was never comfortable sharing my ideas.  Attempts to write stories fell short of the stories I read.  I wanted profound.  I wanted thought provoking.  In university, my most inspired writing came in the wee hours of the morn when I was pulling an all nighter.  Raising little kids and working full time did not lend itself to that kind of writing or that kind of focus. 

My first public writing was inspired by a friend and colleague at the time, Meredyth Kezar.  She was an early adopter of blogging.  I expressed to her that I feared falling down the rabbit hole into another world that would consume me.  Yet, the initiative and opportune moment came when I was teaching in China after my mother’s death.  I wanted to step outside of the events and feelings threatening to overwhelm me. I started a travel blog.  My friend, mentor and writer of books, Jan Wells, kept it on her desktop and read it with the news in the morning.  Criticism from my stepmother indicated that even she read it.  People that I didn’t know read it.  I had something to say that was of interest.

With the move into management in another school district, I was at a loss without the support and inspiration from colleagues in the other two school districts I had left behind.  I maintained my practice of inquiry and the blog became a way of posing, then exploring those questions.  Hence Inquire2Empower was born.  A newfound friend and mentor in the VSB, Rosa Fazio, catapulted me into the world of social media, with an introduction to Twitter.  The blog and the Twitter account amplified my voice and allowed me to create a Professional Learning Community of like-minded people.  I penned my own narrative that opened up other opportunities related to my passions, literacy, social justice, SEL, and learning outdoors. 

I have now been provided with another opportunity.  Time and space to focus on my writing.  My father has also provided the cabin in the woods via the Irrevocable Trust that really turned out to be irrevocable.  Now what remains is for me to evolve as a writer.  I have internalized the value of Julia Cameron’s morning pages.  I am rereading Stephen King’s memoir On Writing.  The question for me is how to evolve to a writer of books that I’d want to read.  I have no shortage of ideas for murder-mysteries, professional handbooks, and fat, sad books.  What is next? How do I begin?

King, Stephen (2000).  On Writing.  A Memoir of the Craft.  Scribner.  New York. 

Cameron, Julia (2016).  The Artist’s Way.  A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity.  25^th Anniversary Edition.  A TarcherPerigee Book,  New York. 

This is not just the end of the school year for me.  It is not just an end to packing up for the move to a new site during seismic mitigation of David Livingstone Elementary School.  It is not just the end of my tenure as principal of David Livingstone Elementary School.  It is not just the end of 15 months of the daunting task of keeping our school community safe during a global pandemic.  It is not just the end of my career in the public school system in the British Columbia, Canada School system.   It is a decision that there are new opportunities to capture my imagination and focus my energy.

A cool breeze is signaling the end of a heat wave that had the capacity to close down our schools for the first time ever in my life – in the final week of school, no less.  Many of us have had our second vaccine or we’ve booked the appointment.  Masks are now optional and people on the street are smiling and once again chatting with one another.  The fear is beginning to dissipate.  People are beginning to exhale and look forward with hope.

The COVID 19 experience has shaken us to the core.  Some people have been overwhelmed by fear.  Some people have tapped the opportunity to settle old scores or to feed their egos or exercise their power.  Some people have been unkind and unreasonable. Has this been an illustration of the worst version of themselves?  Has it been the unveiled version of themselves? Will they rue the day that they exposed this aspect of their character, perhaps to themselves?  Only they really know. 

In the midst of – yes, I’m going to use the word again – UNPRECEDENTED – stress, many people have stepped up to show the very best version of themselves.  Kindness and tenacity prevailed.  When smacked down with new demands and fears on top of old ones, many have stood up straight, shoulders back, problem solved and did what was required.

The most prevalent feeling that I have today is one of gratitude.  We made it through the school year, without locusts or flooding, until the end of the year.  In the final weeks of school, I personally witnessed so much appreciation, love, and the ability to laugh in the midst of what felt like a black comedy of the absurd at times.  Although rigorous safety protocols were not always welcomed, we managed to get through the year with only two exposures.  No school spread.   Teachers pivoted to online learning overnight despite varying degrees of comfort with technology. 

In the face of all that was thrown at us as educators, students were cared for with love, concern, and efforts to take care of their mental health and continued learning opportunities.  In turn they provided us with the delight in being together and a fresh perspective on resilience and adaptability.  And I was sent off to retirement with a plethora of treats, flowers, celebratory beverages, chocolate, and good wishes.  Colleagues even came together in shifts on the hottest day of the year, with sweat running down our backs in an unconditioned space to toast retirees.  And the party and the planning for future endeavours continues.  But first, I have slept more in the last few days than in any given week of school over the past 15 months.  And I am grateful.

This week I had the pleasure of meeting with my resource teacher and Reading Recovery teacher, Sonia Pietzsch, to review the results of the Reading Recovery intervention with our Grade 1 students.  The Vancouver School Board is one of the 64 school districts in Canada participating in this reading intervention.   David Livingstone Elementary staff support this reading intervention in our school and benefit from being part of the early intervention program in the VSB.

Marie Clay was the literacy educator from New Zealand whose work with Maori children spearheaded the Reading Recovery movement that took hold in Canada in the 1970’s.  Her work made it explicit that short term, intensive early intervention by trained literacy educators for students in Grade 1 who struggle:  

1.  reduced achievement gaps

2.  reduced the need for long-term remedial classes.

This has been substantiated with research many times over.  Reading Recovery Programs are now in Canadian, New Zealand, Denmark, the United Kingdom, and the United States, with affiliations also in the Caymen Islands, Ireland, and Malta.  The Canadian Institute of Reading Recovery has been collecting data in Canada since 1995-1996 with results from over 200,000 students.  The report notes that 100% of students in Reading Recovery make progress in the development of a literacy processing system with two positive outcomes:

1. Participating Grade 1 students make accelerated progress and are able to benefit from classroom instruction without the need for further individual support or,
2. Participants are identified early in school years as needing long-term or specialist support.

As anticipated, Sonia Pietzsch, reported back the results consistent with national findings for our Grade 1 students participating in Reading Recovery.  She, however, noted an additional positive outcome:

“These kids see themselves as readers and writers.  They see themselves as capable learners. With 12 – 20 weeks of individual, daily targeted instruction, we have been able to change the trajectory and student perceptions of self.” 

In the complexity of the COVID school experiences since March 2019, the good news stories matter.  Reading Recovery is certainly a good news story.  The Vancouver School Board has included another dimension to the early literacy work in the work.  This includes small group, guided reading with Kindergarten to Grade 3 students.  It also includes the tracking of our Reading Recovery students all through their primary years (K-Grade 3). Livingstone parents have also helped consolidate emerging literacy skills with PAC funds to ensure classroom libraries and levelled books to facilitate regular home reading programmes. 

Thank you, Marie Clay.  Thank you, Vancouver School Board.

Thank you, Sonia Pietzsch. 

Thank you, Livingstone staff and PAC.

The policy of removing children from their homes to distance them from their families and their cultures was not the idea of one person with enough power to make it happen.  Europeans came to North American and encountered the unfamiliar.  They learned how to survive, navigate the land, extract resources, and benefit from alliances with Indigenous people before making the decision to obliterate Indigenous cultures.  It was not about moral high ground and improving the lives of the children.  It was about access to land, resources, and creating a malleable population.  The residential system was in existence for well over 100 years and many successive generations lived the trauma generation after generation.

The discovery of 215 children in a mass, unmarked grave was shocking but it was not a surprise.  Indigenous people have shared stories about their missing children since the inception of the residential system.  Their friends have known the truth for many decades.  For others, we may not have been taught about the policy to “remove the Indian from the child” and the use of the residential system to do so, when we were being educated in schools prior to 2010.  However, it is not possible for Canadians to have missed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that criss-crossed Canada for six years.  It is not possible to pretend that we did not know this happened. 

The Commission heard more than 6,000 stories from witnesses, most of whom survived the  experience of living in the schools as students.  There was wide media coverage, marches, ceremonies, healing circles, people acting as supports to traumatized Indigenous people reliving the experience.  Enduring art installations of wooden tiles were created by children in the school system demonstrating their understanding of this time when children were forcibly removed from their families.

“Children were abused, physically and sexually, and they died in the schools in numbers that would not have been tolerated in any school system anywhere in the country, or in the world.”

Honorable Justice Murray Sinclair, Chair

Dr. Marie Wilson, Commissioner

Chief Wilton Littlechild, Commissioner

June 2, 2015

Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada

The Commission named it – Cultural genocide – and offered 94 recommendations for governments, churches, public institutions, and non-Indigenous Canadians to move from apology to meaningful reconciliation. 

I was very aware of this dark part of our history but I was somewhat of a loss for navigating the path to support Indigenous families and students in the wake of discovering the 215 children in Kamloops.  The image that came to my mind with the discovery of the children in a mass grave was the Holocaust.  We understand this to be a  time in which we knew people were treated with cruelty and disrespect that did not even acknowledge their humanity.  As a mother, I cannot even imagine having to live through this experience.

This is not solely an Indigenous tragedy.  It is a Canadian tragedy and a Canadian failure.  Just as Germans were well aware of Hitler’s politics, the persecution of the Jews, and their disappearance, the anti-semitism paved the way for it to happen.  People saw and treated other people like they were less than human.   Canadians voted for leaders who perpetuated residential schools for over 100 years.  Clearly, we need leaders with the moral and ethical integrity to take on difficult issues like systemic racism in a deep and meaningful way.  We have all experienced leaders only concerned with their personal advancement.  That is not what we need now. 

The people providing the leadership in the discovery of the 215 lost children, are the people suffering the most.  Not suffering a new loss but acknowledging the unthinkable.  Anyone who has lost a beloved person in their life, knows that grief does not disappear with time.  We are more able to live with it beside us, and some days it is more palpable than others.  The loss and pain exists close to the surface.

Kukpi7 Chief Rosanne Casimir spoke with such poise and grace to the press about her heart being completely broken, wanting nothing less than respect and honour for the 215 children discovered, and the end of the racism that negatively impacts Indigenous people today. 

Monique Gray Smith @ltldrum made a video to help adults have difficult conversations with students about residential schools. Jo Chrona @luudisk talks about her place between sadness and anger and the importance for us to turn towards the pain, assume the responsibility to continue learning, and engage in a collective response.  These are the people who are able to provide the stories that we most need to hear.  Listening to the stories is the beginning.  The stories provide us with guidance for how me move forward to end personal and systemic racism, and create the expectation that our Indigenous people deserve the respect and honour we expect for all families in Canada.