Staying Healthy During a Pandemic
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April 1, 2020
Dear Students,
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April 1, 2020
Dear Students,
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Coming from a big city to Powell River wasn’t a hard transition for Kylie, as she had experience living in two small communities before moving here. “I discovered that I really like the sense of community in smaller towns. Here, people take care of each other better and there is also a greater sense of interdependence and stewardship of the community”.
Kylie grew up in Richmond, B.C. and graduated from R.A. McMath Secondary School in 2010. She attended U.B.C. the following year and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in geography. Not having a clear career path at the time, she travelled to southern Spain the following year to teach Canadian culture and language to school aged students. 2017 was a year of experimentation and exploration for Kylie when she returned to Canada: she trained to be a Yoga instructor and then proceeded to teach public classes, she volunteered at a Crisis Line, and she worked as a summer camp instructor. When the year was over Kylie decided to become a teacher. Needing prerequisites for teacher training, she took courses from U.B.C. and Thompson Rivers University (online). She graduated from U.B.C. with a Bachelor of Education degree (Elementary French Specialist). Kylie taught French Immersion in Richmond at the Elementary level for three years. She joined Brook’s staff in September 2023 where she teaches Core French and French Immersion at the grade 8-12 level. Kylie likes the reciprocity of teaching. She likes to learn from her students, and she hopes they learn something form her. Kylie feels grateful to be teaching at Brooks as the school has so much to offer its students. “There is a high level of staff involvement and I have been pleasantly surprised at how welcoming and helpful everyone has been. That teenagers get a bad rep from the media, and I was delighted at the sense of familiarity and fondness that I feel for the students. Teenagers are just kids in bigger bodies.” The most challenging part of her job is keeping organized with all her classes, moving to different rooms to teach, and the constant battle in fighting for students’ attention with their devices. Since moving to Powell River, Kylie has felt a welcome sense of peace and tranquility. “I love catching the Powell River sunsets and looking at and bathing in the local water.” She recently caught her first salmon. In the next while, she hopes to explore the endless number of local trails and hikes and take evening gymnastic and yoga classes. Kylie credits the following people for their kindness, patience and for believing in her when she especially didn’t believe in herself! These people include her partner, Emmett, her family, her Kindergarten Teacher Ms. MacPherson, her Grade One Teacher, Mrs. Ruppel, her high school counsellor Mrs. Ratcliffe and her practicum teacher, Madame Trewin. Kylie wishes more people knew that she is artistic, sensitive, and adventurous by nature. “If I could go back in time, I would like to be qualified to teach art and music, art therapy, as well as French.” Her advice to students is: “Practice your creative and critical thinking skills. Question everything. Make hard choices- I personally live by the saying, ‘Hard choices, easy life; easy choices hard life.’” Kylie describes herself as someone who is a deep thinker about human existence and what motivates us at a human level. She has been interested in human psychology and healing work since 2016. We welcome this fun and empathic teacher to our school. We wish her a long and fulfilling caree
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Gerry Anderson’s memorable 35-year teaching career is ending at the end of this June. Gerry commented that it took him 30 years of teaching grade 8’s and 9’s before finding his true passion of teaching older students. “I enjoy the senior kids as you can actually teach them something, as behavioral issues are few and far between with them.”
While a first year University of Victoria student, Gerry initially thought he might want to be a computer scientist, but a twelve-hour marathon session in a computer lab convinced him otherwise. At the start of his second year, he transferred into the Education faculty where he graduated in 1988 with a Bachelor of Education degree in secondary education, majoring in Math/French. Gerry’s first teaching position was in a K-12 school in Granisle, B.C. After four years of teaching in the “North,” Gerry and his wife Maria decided to come to the “South” and establish roots in Powell River. He first taught at the “old” Brooks School before taking a position at Texada Elementary/Junior School. After two years on Texada, Gerry returned to Powell River and taught at J. C. Hill Middle School. From 1996 to 2008 Gerry taught at Oceanview before coming full circle and returning to Brooks in 2008. Since being at Brooks Gerry has taught a multitude of different courses with his favorites being grade 10/11 Math. Over the years Gerry has enjoyed working with most students but the highlight of his career has been the interaction with his colleagues. “During my years at Brooks the faces have changed, but the collegiality, compassion and integrity of the staff has remained consistently high, inspiring me to be a better teacher.”. Looking back at his teaching career, Gerry was happy not to have accepted a few offers to go into Administration despite having an MEd in Educational Leadership. He was happier “staying in the trenches” and spending more time with his family. Outside of school Gerry enjoys travelling, curling and lawn bowling. Also, on his favorite list of activities is jogging, hiking, collecting reward points and cheering for the B.C Lions. Gerry is also active in his church, serving as a lector, member of the Parish Finance Committee and Financial Secretary for the Knights of Columbus- no loss of math skills in retirement here! The only thing that Gerry is uncertain about is whether he will TTOC – only time will tell. Gerry has been happily married to Maria for 34 years and they have three children: Markus (25), Stephen (23) and Francesca (21). Gerry is very proud that all three kids are finishing post-secondary degrees some time in 2024. After retiring Gerry plans to attend his 40th high school reunion in Penticton in mid July. Gerry also plans to take his daughter Francesca to Italy as a birthday present at the end of August. This fall he plans to attend his ninth (yes nineth!) Grey Cup in Hamilton in November. Next year Gerry and Maria would like to visit New Zealand and Australia at Spring Break and during their travels, meet one of Gerry’s cousins and a pen pal of Maria’s (with whom she has been corresponding for the past 45 years) both for the first time. Gerry credits his faith for a turn around from being self-centred to being others focused. His advice to students is: “You won’t go far in life unless you are prepared to work hard. Be gracious, never burn your bridges and put others first.” Gerry deals with stressful situations through a combination of exercise, prayer, and mindfulness,” aware that only you are in control of how you react to different situations.” No pun intended but this teacher’s long career has been anything but a joke! Thanks, Gerry, for many years of dedicated service to our students. Your sense of humor will be missed! Imagine the excitement of being immersed in a major Canadian university environment doing actual science lab research for one week! This is exactly what Raine Thrasher and Sydney Sheridan got to do from May 28th to June 9th. These two grade 11, Brooks Secondary students spent a week at the University of British Columbia doing hands-on science research.
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