Blogs

It's very hard to compare schools. We recently moved from one city to another and we had to choose the school our kids would go to. This was a very difficult process.

My friend told my about an online mathematics tutoring site. Her son is homeschooled and a very bright student. She was the reason I contemplated homeschooling for my own kids (Should I home-school my kids?)I taught her son math and science before I moved away from Montreal, and now she found this online math teacher / tutor.

She has nothing but rave reviews about this teacher and the site:

...it’s an online teaching/tutoring thing. My son is in a class with only one other student right now (in the fall they were 5 or 6) - the other guy is in Montenegro, [my son] is here in Montreal, and the teacher is in Nevada (I think). He’s great. It’s “pre-algebra” but they do topics like exponential functions and completing the square (and last week he was talking about string theory which Cedric found extremely cool - now he wants to learn about anti-matter and I don’t know where to go…) so I’m not really sure where the “pre” part ends…but [my son] is learning a lot and I work with him through the week supporting the homework.

I'm impressed! Hope this idea takes off - why not bring the world closer together?! Can't find a tutor in your own town, well, there's a whole world out there full of awesome teachers! Check it out for yourself: www.mathperfect.net.

All my children are multilingual. My first born, now seven years old, speaks, reads, writes (all fluently) in three languages (Polish, English, and French). My second is not far behind, he can speak both Polish and English and is now in French immersion kindergarten learning French. My third is just learning to speak, but he knows both Polish and English.


I am Polish, born in Poland. When we came to Canada, I was only six years old. I didn't know how to speak English, and my grade one teachers thought I was mute, because I didn't say a word that whole first year. Finally, I broke my silence in grade two, and by grade five I had no accent in my English Language. "Kids learn languages very easily." - that's what most people think. In my case, this was true. By grade seven, my parents realized that it wasn't too late for me to learn yet another language, so they sent me to French Immersion. Again, learning French in Grade 7 was easy - I was operational by Christmas, and by the end of grade 7 I was fluent.


This is a pretty typical scenario for immigrant children. The only difference is that most of them lose their first language very soon after they arrive in their new home. Their parents don't keep a watchful eye and the language is lost.

A few years ago I wrote a blog post about teaching salaries in Canada and how they are not really aligned between provinces. I wrote it because I was shocked at the huge differences between provinces. I just moved from Alberta to Quebec, and being naive as I am, I didn't think my salary would be cut in half, just cause of the move. But when I looked it up, I was so surprised at the disparity among the different provinces - so naturally I posted my findings on this blog. Since then, I had a lot of people come through this post to check what their salaries would be in different provinces, and in the mean time, a debate ensued among my readers on the worthiness of teachers. Today, this blog post has 259 comments. Since then, I updated the teacher pay scales for 2011 and also wrote a few other posts on "whether a teacher is worth the money" and other related topics. If you're interested, you can check out these blog posts for yourself and join in the conversation:

• Teacher Pay Scale Across Canada
• Teacher Pay Scale Across Canada - Update for 2011
• Are Teachers Worth the Money?
• Canadian Teacher Salary Rankings of Provinces and Territories: prepared by the BC Teacher Federation Research

These posts combined have earned me a nomination for the most fascinating blog of 2011, category: Teaching Blog. If you like what I post here, please vote for me (by clicking on the emblem above and selecting my blog). Voting begins on Jan. 21, 2012 and ends on Jan. 26, 2012. Wish me luck!

In recent years, the Internet has played a much more prominent role in our daily lives than it has in the past. No longer confined to libraries and research labs, our access to the web and modern technology is now always within reach—whether through mobile phones, iPads and tablets, laptops, or sometimes all three at once. At first, the use of these technological resources in educational settings was widely considered to be a nuisance and a distraction.

Despite all of the advances man has made in science, technology, industrialism and medicine, the method of lecturing as a staple in education hasn't changed since the great Greek philosophers practiced it in 350 B.C. As a result of this glaring dissonance, many experts are questioning why advances in technology aren't being integrated into the classroom when most students have grown up utilizing and learning from such devices.

My oldest son always loved to do math. He would add and subtract numbers for fun in preschool, in kindergarten he started to multiply and divide. He was just that kind of kid. I didn't really have to do much, except encourage him with a "wow, you're so good at math" once in a while, or ask him a few math questions here and there to continue the interest.

I got this emailed to me. I don't know the source, but I love it, and yes, I could read it. Try it out yourself:

If you can read this you have a strong mind (Don't give up too fast!):

7H15 M3554G3 53RV35 7O PR0V3 H0W 0UR M1ND5 C4N D0 4M4Z1NG 7H1NG5! 1MPR3551V3 7H1NG5! 1N 7H3 B3G1NN1NG 17 WA5 H4RD BU7 N0W, 0N 7H15 LIN3 Y0UR M1ND 1S R34D1NG 17 4U70M471C4LLY W17H 0U7 3V3N 7H1NK1NG 4B0U7 17, B3 PROUD! 0NLY C3R741N P30PL3 C4N R3AD 7H15. PL3453 F0RW4RD 1F U C4N R34D 7H15.

I came across this website a few years back when I was looking for worksheets about numbers that add up to ten (i.e. 1 and 9, 2 and 8, etc.). Of course the internet is full of math worksheets, but I didn't want just plain worksheets, I wanted something fun and useful. These types of worksheets / resources are hard to come by.