This week has been a bit different for the students in room 205. The other teacher, Lorna has been sick so I taught mornings and the students had independent learning in the afternoons for 2 days, then will be having a sub for a week. We all like our routines and don't like it when they are disrupted and I'm like everybody else. But we carry on and try to learn from our experiences.
Some people may think there is less of a sense of community in Canada then in other countries and I partly agree. A sense of community is when you are part of a group, neighbourhood, ethnic group etc. Each of our classes is a community and having a sense of community is when we enjoy a joke together, when we have a pot luck, when people in class enjoy time together owns help each other. Our LINC program at the Westmount Campus is a community. The student centre is alive with talking and laughing in many languages and students really miss this sense of community when they are finished here. Hend and Hessam, who run the cafeteria were students here about 10 years ago and missed our community. when they had an opportunity to come back to run the cafeteria, one of the pros was that they again became part of our community.
I had a very interesting and nice community experience this week on my crescent ( street). we have been living here for about 15 years and know a few neighbours.
When we leave our house, we go into our attached garage, open the door with a remote control, and drive away. our neighbours do the same so we don't have much chance to talk to each other.
Its a bit different in the summertime because people are outdoors. Quite a few people on our block are retired and so they are home during the day.
When we recently had work done on our driveway, many people stopped by to admire it, talk to other neighbours and ask the young man doing the work for his business card. My son came over and he talked to a couple of the neighbours. this may be 'your normal' but it's unusual in many areas with big houses and very busy people.
On Friday, my son was in the garage doing something with the tires on his motorcycle. It was nice and the garage door was open. he needed a tool to take the tire off but didn't have the right one. My husband asked a neighbour if he had one. He didn't but asked another guy on the street. then he came over and helped my son. this was all happening on Friday when many people are at work. I really liked the feeling of community.
I planted some plants on Friday and bought some more to plant. It was a nice day, not to hot, not too cold. Tomorrow I'm going walking and then to someone's house for a potluck lunch..
I hope everybody has/had a nice weekend.
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