Working in the Elementary Virtual School (EVS) this year was an experience that came with different challenges and a lot of interesting opportunities. I had just transferred to a new school and was looking forward to working with Bernadette Smith as a principal and creative leader. A week after she was deployed to become the Regional Principal for the newly forming EVS, I was redeployed to teach in the EVS. I got to work for Bernadette after all, and working for her means working in a culture where who you are and what you contribute is seen and valued.
Bernadette’s leadership was visionary, and I was privileged to participate in initiatives that reached across the EVS. The EVS was larger than many school boards across Ontario with around 37, 000 students. Somehow, she made it feel small because of how she reached out to so many educators, visited so many virtual classrooms and gathered data from so many students. She also reached in. She invited administrators to lead in unique ways, and she made room for educators, regardless of their role, to share their ideas and contribute beyond their classrooms. As Sir Ken Robinson shared, “The role of a creative leader is not to have all the ideas; it's to create a culture where everyone can have ideas and feel they are valued.” Bernadette is truly a creative leader among other powerful descriptors.
One of the many ways that Bernadette empowers people is by hearing them. She does more than listen; she makes room for people to evolve and actualize their ideas. She helps you make them a reality. We started Broadcast EVS to help students feel more connected to the larger community and helped virtual school feel more like the school communities they knew. If you have ever started anything with reach, you know that it’s more complicated than it appears. We invited a team, communicated our purpose, and generated a list of possible outcomes:
Greater connections and purposeful sharing of information, ideas, skills, and talent
Creation of a sense of community
Representation and validation of student voice, experience, and social identities
Offers mirror, opens windows and doors across EVS classrooms
Opportunity for knowledge mobilization and capacity building of virtual teachers
We had a team, a direction, support from our Superintendent, and a deep sense of purpose. Our goal: To connect, inform, and inspire teachers and students across the EVS.
We launched Broadcast EVS in February, and it was a hit. It was a weekly audio recording that began with teachers and then invited students to lend their voices through their classes who could sign up to lead. Teachers also submitted student work and other videos. Students and teachers enjoyed hearing Morning Music, and they loved seeing the work of other classes. They also appreciated feeling connected to other classes. This was the missing ingredient for so many. There were tweaks and challenges to be made, for sure, but people really started to look forward to What’s Up Wednesdays for Broadcast EVS. There were video features with teachers and students sharing work. So many, like me, looked forward to this weekly experience that sometimes included a video from author and YRDSB educator Jeff Szpirglas, who felt like our own Bill Nye. The entire team contributed to making this initiative a success, and I got to work with a lot of interesting and committed educators.
In May, another group of teachers and administrators were gathered. Bernadette had the foresight to know that we needed to have an end-of-year celebration. Once the news hit that the EVS would be disbanded after this year in view of a different model for remote teaching and learning, this celebration became even more imperative. The team shared so many wonderful ideas which were gathered and became part of a culminating event we called The Sparkle and Shine EVS Symposium for Students & Families. Sparkle and Shine was a series of things: choice boards, word cloud, diamond analogy, and an event. It was an incredible team of educators!
We wanted to create opportunities for students to capture their journey in EVS through a series of division-related choice boards. Teachers could determine how they wanted to use the choice boards we provided- as an assignment for assessment, as a final week activity, as an option for in class, or for working on at home. Every teacher had choice and every student had choice, and the options were varied enough to invite everyone to tell their own stories in their own ways using the mediums that they most wanted to use. This is living history, and students were given the chance and the conduits to artifact and reflect on this time.
The word cloud was both data and art. We asked teachers to poll their classes to determine 3 words that best encapsulated their time in EVS. Word clouds change sizes based on repetition.so the more a word is mentioned, the larger it appears on the cloud. We didn’t know what would come, and we couldn't have predicted how overwhelmingly positive but also honest this word cloud was. For us, it was another artifact of this time in EVS, and it will be something worth unpacking when we return to face-to-face school. If you really look, this word cloud is a mirror yelling accolades at all the EVS teachers who were on the front line of learning. This word cloud is an ovation to them/us and what they/we managed to accomplish under difficult circumstances.
The diamond analogy really sparked our thinking as a team. One of the team members developed the diamond analogy to express how anyone learning through the pandemic was doing so under extreme conditions, just like a diamond in the rough becomes the coveted gem only under heat and pressure. The analogy created a frame for all of the different things we wanted to do with this celebration. Students were invited to submit video and audio of them reading the text of this analogy and another team member put it together to create this beautiful video that really says so much:
The event was fantastic. Not only were there inspirational speakers from various backgrounds and lived experiences. They were speaking directly to our students, and it made an impact. My class loved all of them, but it blew their minds that the Toronto teams spoke directly to them as graduates. After greetings from our admin including the Director of Education, our Superintendent, and our Regional Principal, spoken word poet Wali Shah incorporated the diamond analogy in his piece to us. There was something for everyone and there was a lot of meaning in the various messages. This was a spectacular way to end the year on a high note.
Through Sparkle and Shine, we wanted students to curate their own stories while also having a day of inspiration where students could hear how others overcame adversity and were, themselves, like diamonds. It was a truly spectacular way to bring the year to a close. Some called it the final Broadcast EVS, but it was more than that. It was a chance for kids to see their resiliency and curate their stories (or at least a part of them) and memorialize this unique time with positivity. It’s not what happens to us but the stories we tell about what happens to us that determine how we remember them. It was great to be a part of helping our students see how they sparkled and shined in big and small ways this year.
Being a part of the Elementary Virtual School meant getting to work with amazing educators and helping students even beyond my classroom. I am so grateful to Bernadette and to all of the administrators and teachers with whom I got to work this year. This year was distinctive because of its challenges but also because of the many opportunities it brought to me and others. Goodbye EVS. It was like an entire planet was built for only 1 year, but it was something more than many got to see or, even, realize. We did do a lot of learning together, even if we were apart. We were empowered and enabled through Bernadette’s leadership. which permeated every aspect of the EVS, and it made a difference.
