I promised as I approached the school year:”I would experience the year and live it to the fullest with the students.” Today, this resolve was tested. Due to illnesses and other situations, the number of students dwindled to a handful. I decided to set lesson plans aside and just went with the flow this afternoon. It was an excellent choice. We enjoyed ourselves.
I used Kerpoof Studio, a site for reluctant writers. Students created stories as short animated films. At times, we were silent; while other times we shared and laughed. They helped each other with new technology and I learned right along with them. We had fun.
As I walked the river valley today, I reflected on the unplanned and the rewards offered in and by those moments.
Life–
What is it?
Moments separate;
Yet connected
Unplanned;
Yet orchestrated somehow
Beyond understanding.
Life–
An unmarked journey
Occasional missteps.
Hope against hope
Can I see around corners?
Over hills?
No,
So, accept faith
Feel, sense, rather than see
A gentle hand
A soft light illuminates each experience;
Each step in life.
About ivonprefontaine
In keeping with bell hooks and Noam Chomsky, I consider myself a public and dissident intellectual. Part of my work is to move beyond (transcend) institutional dogmas that bind me to defend freedom, raising my voice to be heard on behalf of those who seek equity and justice in all their forms.
I completed my PhD in Philosophy of Leadership Studies at Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA. My dissertation and research was how teachers experience becoming teachers and their role as leaders.
I focus on leading, communicating, and innovating in organizations. This includes mindfuful servant-leadership, World Cafe events, Appreciative Inquiry, and expressing one's self through creativity. I offer retreats, workshops, and presentations that can be tailored to your organzations specific needs.
I published peer reviewed articles about schools as learning organizations, currere as an ethical pursuit, and hope as an essential element of adult eductaion. I published three poems and am currently preparing my poetry to publish as an anthology of poetry.
I present on mindful leadership, servant leadership, schools as learning organizations, how teachers experience becoming teachers, assessement, and critical thinking. I facilitate mindfulness, hospitality retreats. and World Cafe Events using Appreciative Inquiry.
I am writing and researching about various forms of leadership, how teachers inform and form their identity as a particular teacher, schools as learning organizations, hope, nonviolence and its anticipatory relationship with the future, as essential elements to teaching and learning.
Academic publications can be found at Ivon Gile Prefontaine on ResearchGate
Teacher as Transformer 
That was fun Ivon… I had a play on Kerpoof…
What a lovely, inventive and educational site! Ivon, how old are your students?
The students are junior high age. What was interesting was they started with one of the K-3 activities and had a hoot with it. I enjoyed writing my stories along with them. As well, I got to watch as they helped each other. They know so much more about technology than I do at times.
Yes, I appreciate what you’re saying… The new technology seems almost second nature to them. It must be a joy to watch, and be so involved in the shaping of young minds.
It is its own reward.
When we go with the flow, we end up in just the right place! Its such a comfort to learn that.
It is Yaz.
Beautiful and true. I agree with Yaz. Although to unlearn can be challenging.
I agree. Unlearning is tremendously difficult. It calls for us to acknowledge a shortcoming and become aware of it fully.
Lovely!
Thank you for the kind words.
A good message, said well. Thank you, Ivon.
Russ
You are welcome Russ.
My best lessons were the open-ended ones. Letting kids explore their creativity & allowing others to see it & expand on it is a gift to their future selves.
Those lessons seem to have the most longevity.