Getting Ready for the New Year

I think I'm ready - not for school to start, but for getting-ready-for-school to start. I love the promise a new school year brings - the chance to start again, without mistakes. Each pre-school session is a way to extend that looking-forward-to-school time, a chance to make time stand almost still.
I'll attend staff meetings, plan the high school camping trip and the Terry Fox Run, move file folders into their new positions, update my course overviews, arrange for Foods 12 field trips, rearrange desks, put up bulletin boards, and look forward to welcoming my kids back.

I'm looking forward to Biology 11 and 12 this year, to changes I'm hoping to make for Chemistry 11, to Precalculus 11 and 12, to Foods 12 (especially if I can swing field trips to the farmers' market, an orchard, and a goat farm). I'm looking forward to NOT having the grade 10s in Bible. It will be lovely to just have a two grade (11/12) split.

This year will be the first time in a while that the grade 12 class will be bigger than the previous year's class. I think there will be 9. It isn't a huge number, but it is more than before. I firmly believe that the only way OKAA will thrive is to grow from the preschool up, but I'm looking forward to this little bump of growth. It is so much easier to teach, and probably to learn, in a traditional school setting when there are more than 3-5 students in any given class.

So I'm rested, rejuvenated, and ready to start getting ready. 2015-2016 will be a great year!

Excellence in Education Award

I thought I was just treading water for the past two years, and still think that I was very overwhelmed by the amount of teaching/mentoring that needed to be done, but I was very pleasantly surprised to be awarded a 2015 Excellence in Education award, one of  four given out across Canada this year by the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Canada. The award criteria include commitment to Adventist education, to life long learning, to community involvement, and to mentoring students and other teachers.

 One of my mentors presented the award and concluded her remarks with: "This year, one of Okanagan Adventist Academy's own has been chosen for this honour. This teacher has excelled in all the categories mentioned. She works tirelessly for her students, for Okanagan Adventist Academy, and for her church both local and conference. Anyone who has ever seen her in action at Orchard City Church Vacation Bible School, organizing events like International Supper and the Terry Fox Run, advising and teaching high school students, being the Grade 12 class sponsor, and leading out in Camp Meeting children's divisions for the last 25 years, knows there is no one more deserving of this award than our own Cherri Gerber!" 

It was so nice to be thanked publicly. 

Here are some pictures from this Spring/Summer VBS,camp meeting, and school groups. I'm saving this to remember when I'm tired, discouraged, and don't think the work I do matters.

OKAA high school students and staff posing after our sea kayaking excursion

Grade six and seven science students on our end-of-the-year geology field trip

We tested Mentos in Coke and Diet Coke to see which foamed higher. The VBS students (and volunteers) sure had fun!

I'm reading a story to a group of three-and four-year old children and their parents at camp meeting. I looked up to see a number of my high school students also listening in.