Storyworth excerpt 4: The Total Gym

 My Total Gym story

  I needed to exercise and was looking for a way that I could work it into my day. I am not a gym guy and like to exercise on my own. Just before COVID, I bought a magnetic rower which was a good way to keep fit but got monotonous and did not help my occasional lower back problems. Remembering the Chuck Norris infomercials for the Total Gym, I thought it might be good for me because unlike the rower, the Total Gym could do many different kinds of exercises, not just rowing; plus, because you lie on the sliding platform, it supports your back as opposed to free weights or exercise bands. But new Total Gyms were about $1000. What if I did not like it or use it?

  I got a Facebook account, just so I could use Marketplace to buy a cheap, used Total Gym. There were a lot of TGs for sale. I tried to contact several sellers to set up a buying meeting, but because my account was new and blank with no personal information or posts, I think people wrote it off as a scam account and never e-mailed me back. When a guy in Burnaby had a Total Gym for sale for $50, I wrote to him that I was interested, told him my account was legit and even included my cell phone number in case he wanted to call me to verify. He contacted me right away and we set up a time the following evening.

  The seller, Steve (not his real name), had an address that was just down the street from my parents’ old house. I drove there and backed in at the foot of his driveway. Steve greeted me and welcomed me into his house. Right in his living room sat the Total Gym fully set up, just like in his pictures on the post on Marketplace. It was off to the side in his living room, but I got the sense that is where it lived all the time. Steve admitted that he bought the TG in the middle of the night during a Chuck Norris infomercial and it had sat in his living room for the last 20-odd years. He hinted that with the amount of room it took up in his living room (think 7-foot long ironing board) and the few times he actually used it, his wife wanted it gone.

  As Steve talked, I checked the Total Gym over and thought that though it was old, it was in excellent condition, probably from lack of use. I handed the $50 to him and he seemed happy with the money, happy to have the Total Gym gone, and happy to restore harmony with his wife. As he pocketed the money, Steve said, “I’ll help you take it out to your truck.” I told him that I did not have a truck, but my back seat folded down. Steve was doubtful it would fit because, though he could get the Total Gym flat, it was still over 7 feet long. Still, he grabbed an end and I grabbed an end and we took it out to my car.

  We tried sliding the Total Gym in through my trunk but it was too long. Being a really nice guy, Steve offered to drive it out to my place in his truck! I told him, “It is kind of you to offer, but why don’t we just fold it?” Steve just looked at me blankly, and said, “It folds?” I said, “Yeah, like this.” The TG was lying on his driveway, and remembering the Youtube videos I had watched, I pulled it up from the middle where it jack-knifed and folded in half, then I slid it into the back of my car. Steve's face scrunched up and he repeated disbelievingly, “It folds?” Then I think he swore under his breath, thinking he would have kept it if he had known it folded, perhaps remembering the battles he had with his wife over the space-eating eyesore in his living room.

  Now, the Total Gym resides, folded and on end, hidden behind the hutch in my dining room. I pull it out at least four times per week when I do resistance training or Pilates reformer workouts and put it back when I am done. The Total Gym turned out to be the perfect exercise tool for me. And my marriage is still intact.

My unfolded Total Gym
with my Pilates foot bar mod

Storyworth excerpts* 3: Maureen

*This post is a collection of my excerpts from different Storyworth chapters. I put some of the bits about Maureen together here.

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Maureen

2005: Director of Instruction

      Maureen Dockendorf had a way of making things happen. In 2005, she was the Director of Instruction for my district. Though I had known about her for years, I distinctly remember her talking at a packed Winslow Gallery just after she was made Director. She was talking passionately about the importance of teachers and the difference we were making every single day in kids’ lives. As she was talking, my palms were getting sweaty, my heart was beating faster, and this giddy warm glow was spreading through my body. “Omigod,” I realised, “I am in love with Maureen Dockendorf.” Not wanting to keep this from my wife and being fully secure in my marriage, I went home and told Brenda my feelings for the new Director of Instruction. “Oh yeah,” Brenda said, “I’ve heard Maureen speak before. I know how you feel.”

      Maureen was so inspiring. It was like Obama or Oprah speaking. You wanted to do your best because Maureen told you you could. Maureen did not just have followers or admirers, she had disciples. My friend David told me he knew what a “cult of personality” meant after working with Maureen. People say that I am like a chameleon: I can walk into a room and blend in with the background. Maureen was like a reverse chameleon: she would walk into a room and the room changed. Tom D said that Maureen could tell an auditorium full of administrators that they were going to pick up the dog droppings after the meeting and everyone would jump up and say, “That sounds like a great idea!”

    When Maureen became Director of Instruction, she overhauled Winslow Centre and the way professional development was done in our district, (and later the province). I worked for Maureen as a district Literacy Support Teacher (LST), and Maureen was as I thought she would be—amazing to work for. Because she was running the whole Staff Development department, the LSTs did not get as much time with her as I thought we would. The times we did, though, were impactful.

    Below is a page from a picture book I wrote, a primer about the LSTs. I thought this page captured Maureen. (She loved it).

    There was this one time during an LST team meeting and we were all a little stuck. Maureen brought out a magic wand (seriously) and asked, “What do you need?” And we would ask for things like “more time in this school” or “some funds to buy that resource.” Maureen would tap her magic wand with a “ting!” and say “Done!” She was our Fairy God Momo and in an Oz kind of way, she gave us permission for things we did not know we could ask for.

Back to the 1990s: Meeting Maureen and Action Research

I had actually met Maureen years before. During a winter break in the 1990s, I was invited by some friends of friends to go cross-country skiing at Lac Lejeune at a little lodge called Woody Life. It was great. We stayed in quaint log cabins, skied all over, then dined at the lodge, buffet-style. It had a family-run feel and catered to families.

  During one of the dinners, I was standing in the lodge near the entrance, waiting in the bar line and I noticed a family come in. The boy, who was about 10 years-old, came in like he owned the place (he didn’t) and headed straight for the buffet, followed by his sister who was in her early teens, then the non-descript mom with her hair pulled back in a frizzy pony tail, and the dad. The dad had the bluest eyes I had ever seen. He took his place in line for the bar behind me. I smiled at him, and after a pause he said, “Great skiing today, eh?” and I said, “Yeah.” He followed up with “Great place, eh?” and I said, “Sure is.” Then the line at the bar started moving, and we did not talk to each other again the whole trip, but would nod to each other once in a while.

  Yeah, it does not sound like much, but in another one of those odd coincidental moments, a year later, I was photocopying something at back at school, and I happened to see a notice pinned for teachers who wanted to look at their practice a little differently. I went to the first meeting and found out it was a grassroots group of teachers who were starting something called “Action Research” (later “Learning Teams”). It involved doing personal, qualitative inquiry into something we wanted to develop or explore in our teaching. The people in this group were amazing: Nadine (future Superintendent) who started the group, my old friend Gloria (future coordinator), Elspeth (future principal), Jill (future principal), Louise (past coordinator), Colleen (future mentor), and a few others.

  The facilitator for this Action Research group was someone named Maureen. Towards the end of the session, I realized that I had “met” Maureen at Woody Life. We had never spoken, but she was that (non-descript!) mom of the family with the blue-eyed dad in the bar line. After the session, I asked Maureen if she had been to Woody Life, and she had. And that was my real introduction to someone who would later be a massive influence in my professional life.

2011: CR4YR

    In 2009, Maureen was the Assistant Superintendent who partway through the year, gifted my school with a 1.0 teacher. This triggered a series of events that led to my journey with classroom design and this blog. (Class share -> storing my teaching stuff in a storage room -> revamping the storage room so much that teachers sought a quiet oasis there -> wondering how classroom environments would affect students).

    Then around 2011, I was involved in this brilliant provincial project called Changing Results for Young Readers, or CR4YR. The Premier of BC at the time promised that ALL students in the province would be reading by grade 4. Maureen being Maureen, wondered what we as teachers could do differently to make this statement a reality. CR4YR brought together teachers from all over BC, asking each teacher to focus on a struggling reader and to observe that child and then try something new to improve the student’s reading.

     At first, Maureen started the pilot project with about eighteen primary teachers from Coquitlam, Surrey, and Maple Ridge. I was one of the six teachers from Coquitlam, along with my buddies, Kyme and Deb. In the end, the pilot project was incredibly successful. We started small and manageable, and grew our “interventions” organically from the observations we made of our target child.

Somehow I got to be the poster child for CR4YR

    The next year, CR4YR scaled up, across the province. I was still a participating teacher, but I was also facilitating the project in schools in my district. I attended these huge meetings organized by Maureen with districts across the province. At one of those big sessions, one of the other teacher-participants noticed I was from Coquitlam, (at that time, we were known for innovation and inquiry), and asked me a bunch of questions about the learning team/CR4YR process. Maureen overheard us talking, liked my answers, and pulled me aside, asking if I wanted to take on facilitating some remote districts. I was flattered but deterred by the thought I would be replacing Maureen as their facilitator. Maureen. There was no way I could fill those stylish stilettos.

    Then she asked a question that would change my life for two years. “Seeing as you don’t want to be a facilitator or a coordinator,” Maureen asked, “what would your ideal job be?” which led to...

2012: Bright Ideas Gallery

  A couple of days later, I pitched the idea of an online innovation magazine to Maureen. I kept running into colleagues from my district who were telling me about these amazing things they were doing or trying, and I wondered why I had not heard about these ideas before. Coquitlam was known as an innovative district, so why not share these innovations with each other and try to spread more innovative practices? I would go into schools, talk to teachers who were trying different, promising techniques, then write up these ideas in a blog-like site that I would send to every teacher in the district each month.

I loved doing the Bright Ideas Gallery. There were so many exciting things being tried in SD43: cutting-edge technology, environmental and gardening initiatives, collaboration and inquiry-based learning, design thinking, SEL techniques, etc. 

But doing B.I.G. did mean that technically my contract at my home school was down to 0.4 FTE. I was worried that this reduction would have job implications for me in the future. I must have mentioned this concern to Maureen. She counseled: “You know, Greg, sometimes people like us have to take some chances and make our own opportunities.” It was not until later that I realized that when she said,“people like us,” she was including me.

After the Bright Ideas Gallery, I went back to the classroom and Maureen went on to be the Superintendent of Learning for the province. I owe Maureen so much; so many opportunities, so many experiences, so many good times, and introducing me to so many great friends.  

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Storyworth excerpt 2: Central

Here is the second excerpt from my Storyworth accounts. 

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 Central was actually my third school my first year because I did three temporaries in a row. My interview there was weird. Back in those days, principals had a lot more discretion about hiring. Central was offering a grade 3 class with Music instruction for the grade 6 and 7 classes. When I arrived at my interview time, I totally bulldozed over the poor principal with my talking. I was still processing how my last job was ending and blurted everything about it instead of letting this nice principal, D, ask her usual questions.

    I also kind of talked her out of hiring me because a big part of the assignment was Music. I told her I was not a classically trained musician nor was I trained in any kind of method of musical instruction. I just liked to play the guitar. She told me that the position was teaching a grade 3 classroom and that I was going to be teaching guitar to the grade 6 and 7 classes as their teachers’ preparation time. Even though I fire-hosed D with information, she told me after our brief “interview” that she would be recommending me for the job.

    My assignment at Central started in January 1990 after Christmas break. During that break, I went away with some friends to Mexico and caught a bad cold. On the first day back at school, the Tuesday, I dragged my sluggish self into my school to meet my new class. They were angels! Maybe it was because I was new or young or because I looked like I was at death’s door, but they treated me really well.

    Because I was so sick, I ended up not coming to school for the rest of the week, and also because I was so new, I did not know to book a replacement teacher (TTOC in my district) for the rest of the time, so I ended up getting three different people: Rob, Sara, and Don (not their real names). I remember them because I talked to each of them on the phone to see how things went and to talk about the next day.

    An odd thing happened with all three phone conversations; all three of these people asked if I had any special qualifications, especially in music instruction. I told them that I did not, and all three of them admitted nicely that they had applied for my current job, they did have actual music instruction training or experience, and they were wondering what made me stand out enough to get hired. 

    “Enthusiasm?” I might have croaked weakly.

    Feeling guilty about my lack of qualifications, I looked for ways to get trained in musical education. As luck would have it, I noticed on a professional development flyer that the district was offering a free workshop for “people who had to teach music who had no training.” Perfect!

    Well, it was perfect until I showed up for the workshop and the instructors were Rob, Sara, and Don.

    Overall, I think I did a perfectly adequate job at Central. I loved my grade 3 class, and my grade 6 and 7 guitar students seemed to enjoy Music class. Though I did get to stay at Central the next year, D did hire a qualified and experienced Music teacher. 

 

Storyworth excerpt: 1. Preteaching

    In my last post, Origin Stories, I talked about being gifted Storyworth and how I was using it to document my time in schools. I decided to include some excerpts on this blog for the next couple of posts.

    This chapter was about just before I became a teacher.

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Origin Stories

 In December, I was generously gifted a subscription to Storyworth. It is a site where each month they send you a prompt question, such as, "What was your relationship with your parents like when you were a teenager?" or "When you hear certain songs, what memories automatically come to mind?"  You write a response each month and at the end of the year, you have the option to publish your collection of musings into a printed book.

It is an intriguing concept. Instead of using the prompt questions as my springboard or central focus for each chapter, I decided to do something different. I have taught at 10 schools, so I made each school a chapter, writing about how I ended up there, some key experiences there, and how I left. Like Taylor Swift's eras, each school is like an album. Writing about these schools forced me to remember, reflect, and process how each school shaped my career and my teaching. 

Here are some reflections about my reflections:

• There was a lot of luck and intersections of circumstances that led me to each school.  For most schools, I was in the right place (location, interest, or skillset) at the right time. 
• It was not until my 8th school and over 25 years in the district that I was hired by a principal that had NOT had drinks with my mom. My mom taught in the district and moved around too. You can decide if it was nepotism, coincidence, a small district or something else that I got hired by so many of my mom's former colleagues.
• I tended to move every 4 years. The shortest I was in a school was 10 days (due to a drop in enrolment) and the longest was 6 years (in two schools, with two additional years as a district LST).  Moving a lot is not for everyone, but it worked for me. I learned, stole, and adapted from each school and brought these ideas to my next schools.
• I tended to reinvent myself somewhat in each school. That was not on purpose. In each school, I had a different role: new guy, replacement guy, only guy, Pro D guy, old guy, etc.  That is why each school, each chapter, is like an origin story.
• The years within a school kind of blur together, but each school had a distinct personality. I have trouble remembering events, days, and lessons, but it is much easier to remember the people within each school. In writing about each school, I realized how LUCKY I was to meet so many excellent people. It is like wandering through a forest and finding pieces of gold along the way; somehow the gold stays with you no matter how many times you share it.

Even if you do not use Storyworth, I strongly encourage you to reflect and write about different phases of your life.  Who knows what nuggets of gold you will uncover?