Katie Leggitt

I just high-fived 200 children as they exited the Fairness assembly I'd organized this morning.  We have a citizenship program at this school and focus on 4 values: fairness, kindness, respect and acceptance.  They all go hand in hand, don't they? Fairness is such an abstract concept to convey to kids.  What's right for you might not be what's right for your neighbor.  That kid who gets to do all the fun stuff for the teacher actually has a need to be walking around more than the others.  Kids just see it as unfair.  Fairness isn't equal.  It's getting what you need in order to be successful. Look at the animal kingdom.  The kids go nuts when I compare elephants to birds and then get them to picture a flying elephant.  They understand the difference and why it's senseless to say that it's not fair that an elephant can't fly. Humour is such a great teaching tool. At a certain point in our lives, we become self-sufficient individuals and releas

Recently my niece turned 16 years old.  I was 16 years old when she was born.  She was the first glimpse I had into babyhood and I have to say I was hooked from the start. She was a crier, and often I would try my best to console her, thinking her young hip auntie had the magic touch.  When my sister would visit our home in Saint-Hilaire and she would cry,  I played my Janis Joplin Pearl record for her and walked her up and down our long hallway, calming her.  Something about Janis' wail must have seemed familiar to my little bundle, because she would stop crying. I gave Sarah that very same album for her sweet 16 just a few weeks ago.  I framed it.  She even likes Janis Joplin today, as I made sure to tell her the stories of holding her in my arms as a youngin,' singing Cry Baby as loud as I could, on purpose. It's really the only time she'll be half my age, and I, double hers.  I felt the need to relay her some important information about growing older.  I bough

It was like a scene out of an after-school special. I am preparing for values assemblies happening next Friday at one of my elementary schools.  This month we're looking at fairness, and I've organized a group of grade 6 students to perform a skit.  Today was the day we were going to meet to come up with an idea and as I'm waiting for all the kids to arrive a student teacher brings one of them down and has him inform me about the events that had just taken place. Now, I had asked the teachers to choose students who either displayed leadership skills or who could use a little extra guidance in the area of playing fair.  Sure enough, this scallywag was one of the latter. We hold a leftover Halloween candy drive to donate to sick kids every year, and so students bring in a big ziploc full of candy to hand over to those who miss out on trick-or-treating because they're hospital-bound.  Well this kid had helped himself to his buddy's loot before he'd sent it in

A grade 2 student looked up at me from her Remembrance Day themed maze activity after her neighbour declared it was too difficult and she said, "if somebody can do it, then anybody can do it." Yep!  I told her, and congratulated her on her positive attitude. Wise words, 7 year old, wise words.  Somebody can do it, and did already, therefore.. yeah we are all capable. That's probably the same attitude that my 6 year old dog had when she broke a tupperware container to get to my homemade flax seed crackers and kale chips while I was out returning some picture frames this evening.  Not cool, Gracie.  Not cool. What was kinda cool though was the assembly I conducted this morning for 250 grade 5 and 6 students.  It was for Remembrance Day (I won't be there on the 11th), and you could hear a pin drop as I went through my WW1 presentation. It was a very successful event but not without the consequential emotional drainage that accompanies talking about the death of

Well New York, I love you.  It's taken me a few weeks to really process the whole experience, but here I am, finally sitting down to write about it. We left Saint-Henri at 8 am, Campanelli lattes and coffees in tow.  The jokes started immediately as we rolled down highway 15, but soon Erin and Alain fell asleep in the back seat of my Nissan Versa, with the rolling sound of pavement beneath us.  Our first stop for gas welcomed us with a cute lil' pumpkin patch, the kind you make delicious pies with.  As we drove through the Adirondacks, the Fall colors wrapped us up with a sense of warmth and a timely purpose.  That, and the blasted sun kept overheating us.  My ears popped the entire drive, and I'm not sure why - I seemed to be the only one.  Must be that American air. We arrived at our Brooklyn Air BnB in the late afternoon and settled in nicely.  4 bunk beds with terrible mattresses (except for Erin's, as Lise and I would later find out), it would do just fine.  A