I'm Finished!

Two years ago, this month, my friend and co worker Glynis were discussing our concerns about the students we were working with. (Me Special Education, Her Counselling) Students did not seem to have the skills or even empathy to interact with each other in a positive light. We knew we needed to do some lessons around valuing diversity. I had just finished some professional development around Understand by Design and so I had the great idea that we could make up our own curriculum based off of the province's Social Responsibility standards. We went to our principal who thought that it was a great idea. He asked us how much release time we would like to create the program. We said half a day. He literally started laughing at us. He told us we were crazy. He told us to put together a proposal and send it into the school district and ask for 10 days. We put it down thinking if we don't take them at least they were budgeted in. The proposal was approved but for only 5 days a piece. With some creative manuvering by both Fred and Jamie (principals of the schools we were working at) we were able to get ten days. (Sometimes the counsellor was unavailable for the day and sometimes we shared a substitute.) Fred was right, we definitely needed at least 10 days. In 10 days we were able to create 4 Unit Plans and 4-9 Lesson Plans for each of the first three units in the Kindergarten-Grade 4 program and the Grade 5-Grade 7 program. (44 different lesson plans) And the sad part was that the fourth unit was what we wanted to do in the first place. It was on Valuing Diversity and Defending Human Rights. We took a couple days in the summer to get the 4th unit together. Our two schools pioleted the program for the 2008/09. We were asked by the district to have it up as soon as possible in digital format for the district to share with all the other elementary schools. Well today I finished all but the Bibliography for both program. I have created every handout and found every picture which are included in the program. I think I am a little cross eyed since I have done most of handouts in the last 48 hours. The finished page count astounded me.
K-4 Safe and Caring School Program-150 pages.
5-7 Safe and Caring School Program-163 pages.

I am so grateful that we are done!