#wrdsb

From Vista Hills it was a short drive (with time for a coffee stop) to my second school of the day, Abraham Erb Public School. And what a welcome! There was my name on the marquee out front. There was a parking spot right by the front door with name on the pylons. A sign on the door welcomed me by name and two students came out with signs to guide me to the library where the presentation would take place. On the way I got an enthusiastic greeting from teacher John Cummings, who had been my contact organizing the event and coordinating with Vista Hills. Positively royal treatment! And those weren’t the only friendly faces. There was librarian Nora Davis, who had been one of our portrait station volunteers at our ETFO WRDSB event back at the end of November and then in walks teacher Laurie Beetham, who had hosted me for dinner on that same trip. ESL teacher (and staff shutterbug) Jeanette Voaden accompanied me down to the staff room to have a quick homemade snack and by the time I got back to the library, there was Michael Beetham, Laurie’s husband and the educator who had consolidated a bunch of presentations for me in November in Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge. Michael is set to retire at the end of the school year but he figured this was the best chance to bring some of his students down from his own school to see the presentation one last time.

Since the presentation was in the smaller, less boom-y environs of the library, I didn’t need the usual headset microphone really but Voyageur is not naturally a loud guitar so it would need a little help and there was nowhere to plug in on the portable system they had for the projector. Teacher Jason Walker sprung into action and tapped a student who lived nearby who he knew had a guitar amp at home. Within 10 minutes there was a Fender and we were set to go. For the first song in the performance pocket, Jason sang while teacher Simon Lewis played and harmonized on the Beatles‘ “Help” and then Simon took over solo for a rendition of Marvin Gaye‘s “What’s Goin’ On”.

After the presentation, the students filed past, touching Voyageur and asking a ton of questions and then we hung out for a while doing many photos. I’m not sure I’m permitted to link to the gallery Jeanette sent me but there’s some good ones in there so if you’re interested just do a search for Abraham Erb on Google Photos and you may find them!

Thanks to principal Heather Schumann and all the staff, students and family who showed up for the presentation.

I leave very little to chance when heading off to do a presentation at a new school. Well in advance, I GoogleMap the destination and plug in the hour I’m leaving in order to estimate the travel time as accurately as possible and then build in some extra time in case of unforeseen traffic issues, etc. Then, on the day of, I connect the iPhone to Bluetooth in the rental car, fire up a podcast and let Siri talk me to my destination. That’s what I did last Friday on route to a couple of school presentations in the Waterloo Region District School Board. But in the final 10 minutes of my journey to the first school I began to wonder if I had needed the digital assistance at all – everything was looking very familiar. Had I actually been to Vista Hills Public School before? No! The route was taking me right past Edna Staebler Public School, where I’d presented back in November. A right turn past the school, a left turn at the edge of the subdivision, up the hill and into the new Vista Hills community. And there is was – possibly the grooviest public school architecture I’d seen in a long time. Brand spanking new and looking like if it hadn’t been a building it would have been a beautiful design for a colour printer!

The presentation went very well and the students were terrific. One of my favourite things in the presentation is when I ask if anyone knows what makes a tree green and a very small hand goes up and a little person says “chlorophyll?”. Vista Hills did not disappoint! The performance pocket featured two performers playing Voyageur, student Ty Rutherford and teacher Lee McWebb. Ty worked through an instrumental version of “Dust in the Wind” and then Lee played the school song, “You Can Be a Hero”, which he wrote (seems Lee has a bit of a sideline writing songs for a bunch of area schools!). He had everyone singing along and clapping along in a way that was reminiscent of the clapping in Queen‘s “Radio Gaga” video! It turns out that this was actually Lee’s second time playing Voyageur the first being at Tony McManus‘ guitar retreat in Elora back in 2011!

I was proud to be able to wrap up what was a pretty great week for Vista Hills. On Monday, teacher Tania Bumstead received the Prime Minister’s Award for Teaching Excellence in STEM. Congratulations Tania!

Many thanks to teachers Tina Giannopoulos and Kristin Rahian and principal Don Oberle and to all the staff and students at Vista Hills.

Doing as many school presentations as I do, I frequently meet teachers who have moved around a bit – sometimes across the country, sometimes just within their own school board, especially as new schools open up in growing communities. But even when they love their new school they leave a little bit of their heart behind with their old ones. That was the case for Kim Gill, the teacher at Groh Public School who initiated Friday’s visit to the Waterloo region. And as soon as she got serious about bringing Six String Nation to Groh she knew it was an experience she’d want the students at her previous school, Ryerson P.S. in Cambridge, to have as well. Fortunately, her old colleague there, teacher Judith Bean (pictured here with students from multiple grades and classes), was already a 6SN fan so no arm-twisting was required. Judith even brought her own personal copy of the Six String Nation book for signing and Kim produced a video message for her former students that I slotted into the slide deck at the top of the show.

I’m accustomed to delivering the presentation mostly to middle and high school students or to the older grades at primary schools so I’m always a little nervous that the younger kids will be bored or confused by what is, frankly, a kind of long and kind of complicated presentation. But the students at Ryerson were once again proof that the storytelling aspect of the show – along with the strong images on the screen – is what reaches kids (and adults) of all ages. There’s something exciting about being the person who might set them off on a path of knowledge about Haida Gwaii or Rocket Richard and it’s always rewarding to see the hands go up with questions or in response to my own questions about whether they’ve been to Niagara Falls or know who invented basketball or what it is that makes a tree green (it’s one of the first big words learned by little kids!).

Teacher Chris Gibson ably filled the performance pocket with Bryan Adams‘ “Summer of 69” and lead sing-alongs of Stompin’ Tom‘s “Hockey Song” and “This Land is Your Land”.

Thanks to Judith and all the staff and students at Ryerson P.S. for being such terrific hosts. Go Raptors!