What a Day at Mackay Centre School!

Artist-photographer Thomas Kneubuhler and I spent most of today at Mackay Centre School, where we met the Grade Six students who'll be producing a chapter in this year's edition of Quebec Roots, a real book produced through a Blue Metropolis Literary Foundation educational program.

Every school is special, but what makes Mackay extra-special is that most of the students who go here have special needs, including language, communication and hearing impairments, and physical disabilities. Despite their disabilities, the kids we met have too many wonderful abilities for me to name here -- though I'll mention just a few: they are funny, smart, kind, attentive, creative and JUST PLAIN FUN.

I gave a mini-writing workshop and in the afternoon, Thomas gave a photography workshop.  I took today's photo when Thomas took the kids to a nearby park for some hands-on photo training. Though I don't like to admit this part -- most students generally seem to prefer learning about taking photos over learning about writing. (Which is why we always keep Thomas's session for later in the day -- he's like a dessert after a sensible meal!!)

Perhaps the most important thing we did today was help the students come up with a topic for the chapter they'll be producing. Usually, a class brainstorms and comes up with four or five possible topics. But these students came up with NINE topics. The topics were so good I'm going to list them for you: BFF's; windows; disabilities/abilities; kindness; love; being a new student; clowning around; mornings; and the new bike path across from the school.

A vote (yay for democracy!) led us to a choice which involved combining two of the topics: kindness and love. I've been working on Quebec Roots for nearly 20 years and I've seen a lot of wonderful topics, but no class ever came up with this one before and I LOVE IT.

I explained during my writing workshop that good stories need to include TROUBLE, so the students' chapter can't just be about the upside of kindness and love. The students will also need to write about moments when they or others were unkind, and when they felt unloved or behaved in ways that were not loving to others. That way our chapter will feel WHOLE and REAL.

Here come my two favourite quotes of the day. When we were getting started this morning, Thomas told the students: "Art has to come from you." YES! Also that helps explain why it's so important to Quebec Roots that each class comes up with its own topic. My other favourite quote came from a student named Atlas (great name, no?) who said, "Regular people don't know what having a disability is like. Maybe it would be a good thing if we gave them an experience of what it's like." You know what my reaction is to that? WOW!

We're working with three Grade Six teachers -- Mikaela, Georgia and Bronwyn -- as well as an interpreter named Melanie. Thanks to all of them. Oh I forgot to tell you the school's amazing principal Ms. Margetis USED TO BE MY STUDENT WHEN I TAUGHT AT MARIANOPOLIS COLLEGE. I know what you're thinking: WOW!

WOW seems to be the word for this day -- thanks to the students for WOW-ing us. We look so so forward to reading your texts and seeing your photographs. Thanks for being you!