School stuff

Apparently this is the 100th post I've made for this blog, but I've got better things to talk about. Earlier this week, I attended a two-day workshop on Resititution, and my brain was full to overload by the end of it. Restitution is less focused on consequence, and more focused on a student's needs and finding a way to make amends for wrongs done. It's descended from Aboriginal practices, and has been spreading like wildfire across Manitoba. The two schools I work at are getting very much into this concept, and I attended this workshop because I was feeling a little isolated. Mainly, I wanted to reinforce the language and keep things as consistent as possible for the students. I have not had time yet to put the stuff I learned to work, but I have a couple of ideas as to how I want to put said stuff to work. Especially where kids with overdue books are concered. Kids making an inordinate amout of noise (who do it all the time) are another area where this concept can come in handy.
Restitution is defined as follows: Create conditions for the person to fix their mistake and to return to the group strengthened. This is done through a three-fold concept (picture a triangle) of stabilizing the child's identity (mistakes are okay), validating the need (you had a reason for doing what you did), and seeking beliefs (what are this school/classroom's beliefs?). It is accepted that people have five basic needs (survival, belonging, power, fun, freedom), and that these needs have to be filled somehow, whether by good means (friends and family, success in school, freedom of choice, etc...) or by bad (gangs, drugs, etc...). Most folks would prefer the good means, but for some children, that ain't possible.
That was earlier this week. On Thursday and Friday, I held a book fair for one of my schools courtesy of Scholastic. The turnout seemed poorer than last year, but the time flew by faster this year than it did last year, so I don't know. I do know that Scholastic has upped their requirements for getting the 50% credit (the fiends!). I'm thinking that change is coming. The trial will be in March, for the other school has decided to turn its back on Scholastic this year. Good riddance, if you ask me. Anyway, that's all that's been going on in my little world. BYE.

On the Literary Front #4

The Muse has been slumbering for some time, but with all this talk of NaNoWriMo I've been hearing, I've been thinking of giving the Muse a hard kick in the rear. I've been busy with work, reading, and gaming, and the wanting to write has faded somewhat. After a decade of near-constant writing, I guess it was time to take a break. It isn't that I have nothing to say, but that what I want to say has changed somehow. Apologies if that doesn't make sense. Maybe it's just that I've needed to get settled in my new digs and exult in my freedom before I bow to the Muse. This is something I need to examine further, which I will do in my personal diary. In the meantime, I have two projects I could be working on, but one of these two has become less interesting to me, while the other one has too many things indistinct to me. The main character is not at all visible to me, and I need to make him visible in my mind's eye before I can go and flesh out his world.
I've been reading Cornelia Funke, and her work is magnificient! So much detail and so well-fleshed out are her works. Makes anything I've written seem so stripped down and barren. Fleshing everything out and then cutting back the far is the better way to do things. One problem I have with that is how long to make the chapters. I guess once a scene has climaxed, move on to the next scene. Does that make any sense? And then there's the matter of where to start the story and where to end it. That is one of the hardest parts of writing a story, and I applaud Funke deeply. I also applaud her translator, for I don't understand German. Anyway, I need lessons in creating and fleshing out a world for my protagonist and his fellows.
I need lessons in many other things... especially where getting my Muse stirred up to the point where my fingers are on fire with the desire to write (or type, in this case). Blogging and writing in my journal has taken off some of the edge, maybe, which suggests I may need to drop blogging for a while. Hard to say. Well, that's about all for me. BYE.