On Jul 28, 2017, at 10:35 AM, :Thanks for this note, Roy! Yes, it was great chatting with you the other day and getting to know your objectives.
Sonali and I will discuss, see what’s possible on our end and get back to you with some thoughts, hopefully by end of next week.
Have a wonderful weekend, talk soon,
Hannah
Hi to you both,
Thanks for the invigorating conversation the other day. I’ve talked to both teachers and we’re thinking we’ll have our Gr. 7/8 class take part in this experience since they’re the older grade.
Our thoughts on the guest speakers/plan for each day would be as follows:
Day 1: Writing process as it pertains to the newspaper industry – this could include coming up with stories that matter; the writing process with a focus on idea development and editing; and deadlines. You had mentioned sitting in on a newsroom meeting. Both the teacher and myself are absolutely psyched by this if it is possible.
Day 2 – Changes in the newspaper industry over time – this could include a look at the history of the Globe and Mail and extra emphasis on how social media has changed the industry – facebook, snapchat, twitter, Instagram, etc
Day 3 – Ethics of Advertising.
Day 4 (wasn’t sure if you are able to give us four days but if….) - The finished product - Really intrigued by your ideas around how pictures are chosen for the different stories and what makes the front page.
Our final artifact will likely be a student published newspaper where we will try to apply the lessons learned from our time with you. In a perfect world, we’d like to get feedback from the Globe and Mail on the student newspaper as it is in process.
We realize that all of the above will depend on which speakers are able to commit and what time you are able to give us. We are also open to any month other than Sept and Nov. Our preference would be Oct or January but we will go with what works best for you.
I’ve attached the contract from the only group we used one with last year , and in terms of demographics, the most recent whole school report had indicators such as 37% of our students born outside of Canada, 60 % with a second language spoken at home, 30% with a low family income. There is not an actual breakdown of ethnicity but from taking a quick look at the class list for our gr. 7/8 class, I would say 25% Pilipino , 20% south east Asian; 20% west indian/ caribean; the rest are a scattering of Chinese, Iranian, and European. Please let me know if there are other demographics you were looking for.
We’re very excited for the possibilities and I’m grateful for your willingness to consider welcoming us in.
Talk/Read from you soon.
Roy
From: Fernandes, Roy (St Sylvester)
Sent: Wednesday, July 12, 2017 2:54 PM
To:
Subject: RE: St. Sylvester and Globe and Mail
Great to read this Sonali. Best time on the 24th would likely be after 10 am.
Our programming needs are fairly simple. For the 3 or 4 days that we’re there, we’d just want a speaker who could talk to the students (likely our Gr. 7/8 class – 12 and 13 year olds) on different topics pertinent to media. Maybe one day about the changes in the newspaper industry over time; one day on how writers start their pieces and the pressures and time constraints they face (great for the last minute homework students to hear!); one day on editing; one day on the actual printing of the newspaper. These are just suggestions and definitely open to other topics you and Hannah might suggest. We generally recommend the talk is no more than 30 minutes to keep the students’ attention span.
Other than the 30 minute speaker, we’d just need a space where our students can work on their own research related to the newspaper industry. We’re low maintenance and can work in whatever small space you can spare. Wifi would be very helpful. A likely final artifact will be the production of their own newspaper so might be neat to speak to someone about advertising, cost of producing the paper etc.
What we often tell people is that since this is a pilot project we’ve undertaken, our direction is very flexible. The underlying vision and goal is to have students engaged in their learning while basing the learning in the Ministry curriculum. For the Globe and Mail that would mean centring our learning in the writing process, advertising and the economics of newspapers.
Hope this somewhat helps and will look forward to talking to you more on the 24th.
Roy
From:
Sent: Wednesday, July 12, 2017 1:46 PM
To: Fernandes, Roy (St Sylvester) <roy.fernandes@tcdsb.org>;
Subject: RE: St. Sylvester and Globe and Mail
Dear Roy,
Hannah and I are excited about doing this and would like to chat with you about it.
We’d like to understand how we can make this as memorable and useful as possible for your kids and get some specifics on what kind of programming you would require from us, so that we can line up the resources needed to make this work.
Could we call you on the 24th? Is there a particular time that is good for you?
All the best,
Sonali.
From: Fernandes, Roy (St Sylvester) [mailto:roy.fernandes@tcdsb.org]
Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2017 4:44 PM
To: Sung, Hannah
Cc: Verma, Sonali
Subject: RE: St. Sylvester and Globe and Mail
Thanks for the reply Hannah. Will look forward to speaking with you and Sonali. My cell # is 647-229-6892. I’ll be away for a week from July 15-22 so if you’d like to talk before the end of the week, that would be my best bet before July 24th. As an aside, we’re a very low maintenance group and would be thrilled to make this work in whatever small way possible. I can also see a business venture for the Globe in this if that appeals in anyway….yep I’m trying to sweeten the pot!
Talk soon.
Roy
From:
Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2017 3:48 PM
To: Fernandes, Roy (St Sylvester) <roy.fernandes@tcdsb.org>
Cc:
Subject: St. Sylvester and Globe and Mail
Hello Roy,
Nice to meet you. I’m a journalist at the Globe, as is my colleague Sonali, cc’ed on this email.
We received your message via Oliver Moore. Sonali and I are going to discuss whether this is something we can organize here at the Globe.
It would be nice to make a time that we could chat with you on the phone.
Will get back to you later this week to set up a time.
Thank you for reaching out to us,
Hannah
_____________________________________________
From: Fernandes, Roy (St Sylvester)
Sent: Monday, July 3, 2017 2:59 PM
To:
Subject: Beyond the Classroom Experience St. Sylvester
Hi Oliver,
My name is Roy Fernandes.
I’m the principal at St. Sylvester Elementary school in Toronto. I’m emailing in the hopes of setting up a Beyond the Classroom experience with The Globe and Mail next year.
This past school year we had 8 different Beyond the Classroom experiences including 4 days at Sick Kids, Young People’s Theatre, Development and Peace, and Cieslok Media. As well, we had single day visits with the TTC, Pearson Airport and Billy Bishop Airport as part of our transportation unit.
The main goal of the program is to help make learning more experiential for our students. We found that the learning journey really came alive for students by being on site with authentic speakers (rather than learn through a textbook or visiting speaker).
Our needs are fairly limited. We ask for a space where our students can work (generally 25 students) with wifi access if possible for a 3 -4 day period. We also ask for speakers from the organization to talk to our students for no more than 25-30 minutes each day. As an example, at Sick kids, one day a speaker talked about the history of Sick Kids, a second day was about the various jobs at SickKids. A third day related to budget and the final day was about the future of health care. We will work with you on the topic choices and honestly have found that it’s not a lot of preparation needed by the organization, as often times, the students questions (which we send in advance) provide the direction for the conversation. For The Globe we’d want to focus on the business of newspaper publishing, marketing, and from you the writing process.
Our budget is mainly used for bus transportation but we understand that as a business, your time is valuable and we’d be willing to work with you to figure out a mutually agreeable fee if necessary. I also know there might be someone else I should talk to but we found your article from April 1st on City Building very intriguing and we’re hoping to maybe tie in a visit with you to some time with Jennifer Keesmat or someone from her department on urban planning. I have also sent an email to Marcus Gee as we’ve used his articles in the class in the past as well.
In the interest of not taking up too much of your time, I’ll end my email here but sincerely hope you’ll be willing to consider our request. We see it as win win . A win for the students to be immersed in authentic experiential education and a win for your organization by helping to expose the future leaders of our society to your organization’s mandate.
I look forward to hearing from you soon and am more than willing to talk by phone (647-229-6892) or in person. If you want to do further reading, I’ve given you a brief blurb about the project as well various web links below.
Thanks for your time in reading.
Respectfully (and hopefully)
Roy
Roy Fernandes
Principal
St. Sylvester
260 Silver Springs Blvd
Toronto, ON
M1V 1S4
(416) 393-5373
Learning does not take place just within the walls of the classroom. Learning can, and should take place Beyond the Classroom. Our pilot project this year with our Gr. 5/6 class aimed to immerse students in authentic experiential education. We wanted our students to be engaged in what they were learning. You can talk about government, or you can visit Nathan Phillips Square and see the toll road debate in action while talking to your city councilor and the mayor. Why discuss health care when you can go to SickKids and see it in action? Food and nutrition are great but why not actually make some creative snacks for the whole school. Transportation is a neat topic but how much neater when you can watch the runway at the Island Airport and see the Communications Centre live and in action at the TTC.
Our program won two awards (one from the Ministry of Education and one from the School Board) and received close to $8000 for the program so we can guarantee it will continue next year as well!
You can read about our other experiences on our school website. Seriously … go check it out.
Learning is meant to be exciting and enjoyable, and when you go Beyond the Classroom…. that's EXACTLY what happens.
Blog post explaining how the program came about
Blog post documenting the original plan
Start up this year
First experience from this year
Webpages on each experience this year