Ruthie Sloan is a teacher/learner with Early Years students in the Peel District School Board. Creative problem solving is her superpower, and she loves to challenge and re-imagine learning ‘outside of the box’. Ruthie and her husband, Dave, have 2 boys (Isaiah and Max) who are teaching them how to be epic parents. Ruthie loves running long distance. She loves reading, tweeting, and blogging on topics of vulnerable teaching, math, assessment, and creative problem solving with technology.
When we began our recording, I asked Ruthie a bit about vulnerable teaching. She spoke about transparency and building relationships not just for our students but with the people with whom we work. “We sometimes forget to conceptualise ourselves as learners on a journey with other people.” Her goals is to bridge the separate spaces of her life to create more intersections. “There’s a lot than can happen when you let down your guard.” She was speaking about compartmentalization and the dichotomy of the home life vs school life. As our guest said, “We need a whole podcast to talk about that.” Clearly, we need to plan an OnEdMentors episode on this topic.
Ruthie recently completed an epic run. Jonathan So, a good friend of hers (who was also on this show), encouraged her to sign up. “Jon is just that type of guy that if you have questions and want to reflect, he’s there for you.” The physically and emotionally draining run that she trained for all summer was a personal triumph. Through her friendship with Jon and his perpetual support, she was able to achieve this monumental goal of completing a 54 k run. “When Jon So invites you on a crazy life-changing adventure, the answer is yes.” They supported each other, and Jon even physically pushed her up one of the hills. Running, for Ruthie, began as a source of sanity when she had two young kids. Running has become much more for her. “It’s a place for community," which is something she has modelled for her students and something that has helped her develop her skills to persevere. “My whole relationship with running has been around relationships.”
When preparing for her P3, Ruthie was a bit unsure. “I was anxious because I love music...All of my friends and close people to me actually have a song that belongs to them from a moment that’s taken from our friendship or somewhere along the journey. There’s a line or a lyric from it that’s even to the point that it's been their ringtone...it’s about moments and stories and people and relationships.” She got advice from Jon So and Lee Martin to help her decide how she could possibly choose only three songs for the show. Their advice was to just write three songs that come to mind, send me the email, and close her computer. Interestingly, she was content with her gut selections, and she feels that she has rightfully claimed her playlist for the moment.
Ruthie’s nostalgic song was one that captures the beginning of her journey into education. She describes an administrator who “guided her gently to wisdom” and celebrated reflection. That administrator’s advice was about knowing who you are and being able to navigate change. Whenever she hears this song, she hears Pam Bondett singing this song to her. She was someone who validated her and told her to take her strengths and shine. “Looking back on this journey, that has been the thing that I keep coming back to. Our ability to reflect really defines where we go, but sharing those reflections in our out loud voice even makes things more powerful not just to ourselves, but to the people we allow into those thinkings.” Here is a tribute video she made for her friend Melynda with this song. This is the slow version of Forever Young by Bob Dylan.
Ruthie’s identity song is one that she recently added to her running playlist. Country was not necessarily her favourite genre, but a friend of hers took her to the Queen’s Plate last summer, and this band was there. She then heard this song by those artists on Spotify during a run, and she found the lyrics profound. In many ways, she feels the lyrics explain how she lives her life. “It’s not that I shallowly wade into things. I just jump head first and give it all I have.” She’s the kind of person who gives everything 110%. There were a lot of tears when she accomplished her run. “The understanding that you were braver than you’d ever been in your entire life...for five and half hours...is crazy.” Even after getting injured around the 40 k mark, she still had to run the last 14 k holding her water bottle and her sprained hand. “The thought of not finishing is worse than the thought of hobbling to the end.” The lyrics towards the end of the song- are the ones that make this the anthem of Ruthie’s life:
I wanna leave my mark
Love til it breaks my heart
Live so loud that my forever
Echoes in the dark.
Here’s Dear Life by High Valley:
When we began discussing her pick-me-up song, Ruthie painted a picture of a school that was in the middle of farmers' fields. “ A lot of them were new to the country, they spoke no English and...being able to build a relationship and communicate was hard.” She described a particularly rough day, and she and her DECE partner were looking for music to play while cleaning up the disheveled classroom. “My relationship with Melynda Duquette, my teaching partner/DECE, was still in its infancy. On this particular day, there was frustration hanging in the air over our struggles of communicating. Both of us were feeling defeated with the current status of our relationship that day and were both refocusing our frustration into cleaning up our classroom.” They came across this song and they started singing it, belting out the lyrics and even harmonizing. “These 40 Kindergarten kids were staring at us in shock and awe,” as she described the bewildered students looking at the adults in the room singing from the top of their lungs. “Singing that day was a very vulnerable act, but it allowed us to see the humanity in each other and the crazy light we both had.” She called it evidence of a passionate soul. The song was actually on her playlist during the run, and it helped her get the extra energy she needed to finish. “Sometimes, you’ve got to just let it go.” Here is Let it Go by Idina Menzel from the Frozen soundtrack :
If you want to find Ruthie, you can reach out through Twitter or email her. She also blogs. Ruthie advises, “If you’re not a part of a PLN, I would definitely suggest that you do, and think about moving your PLN beyond just characters into real life. Think about how that balance affects your learning trajectory because that’s really been the difference-maker in my journey into education.”
