The proposed education cuts by the provincial government will have big implications for IRC staff and students alike. The following letter comes to us from a fellow IRC parent. If Kaleb's message resonates with you, please see the attached flyer from the Parent Involvement Advisory Committee to find out how you can get involved in this important conversation.
In praise of Katherine Fraser.
Hard
to know where to begin with Katherine. She does so much with so much life and
energy. She manages to get all the kids involved , engaged and loving music.
They have done an embarrassing long list of amazing things since she arrived a
few short years ago. I’ll use my son
Tate as an example.
When Tate was in grade 4 , Katherine got a
Tabla (East Indian percussion style) drumming teacher in to do a whole unit in
class on performing Tabla drumming, Not only did they learn how to play the
various drums and cymbals, they learned the word associated with each sound and
then broke into small groups and WROTE their own original table rhythm/grove
with words and drumming!
She
also runs a guitar club 1/week for grades 4 – 6 . In this, the kids learned Clocks
by Cold Play, with two kids singing and another, my son Tate, playing
piano. She combined the guitar club
with the Tabla drumming together on this
song. She then got the whole ensemble into the annual TDBS music night at
Massey Hall. 40 kids all together playing at Massey Hall Indian Tabla drumming
and then jamming to Clocks by Cold Play with singing and piano. Needless to
say, a packed Massey Hall went wild with applause. The hard work and dedication
these kids and Katherine did paid off with huge smiles on the kids faces!
That
same year she inspired my oldest son , Finn, to apply for the TDSB Music by the
Lake Music Camp. Which Katherine also teaches at. I can’t tell what that
experience meant to Finn. His first sleep away camp he went to alone and all
based around music. He will remember that for the rest of his life. This year
Tate is going too! We would not even have known about the Camp without
Kathrine.
This
same year Katherine ran an Improve Club for grades 4 – 6. Most adults would
cringe at the thought of going on stage in front of 350 people, let alone
making up a comedy routine on the spot too! She inspired dozens of kids to
this. At the show, the younger kids
swarmed the stage and laughed their heads off. Can you image the risk/fear for
those kids to go up on stage? My son Finn got a huge confidence boost from
having the audience laugh and cheer him. Finn created an original character,
McGlarff, that he was known around the whole school for the rest the year.
Imagine having a teacher believe in you so much that she inspires you to risk
like that? That kind of confidence boost will stick with Finn for the rest of
his life.
The
next year , she brought in 2 different professional musicians through her own
connections, Joe from St.. Catherine’s (whose last name I can’t remember) and
then Royal Wood. The kids wrote original songs with each of them, which they
performed at the school concert. They got to perform the song they wrote with
Royal Wood at the stage downstairs at Massey Hall with Royal Wood! and got
invited to his concert there the same night. They watched sound check too.
Another huge experience for the kids that they will not forget ever.
That
same grade 5 year for Tate, the students (grades 4 – 6) all paired up and wrote/sang original
compositions on Garage Band. They played these at the school concert in front
of their peers and parents.
This
year, Tate’s grade 6 year, the guitar club played and sang the national anthem
at a Ryerson Woman’s Basketball tournament at the Mattamy Centre ( formerly
Maple Leaf Gardens). She then staged a
full play with rehearsal schedule before and after school for weeks for the
December concert.
Katherine
managed to bring the Jazz FM Band into to play with the kids for the spring
concert this year. She held auditions for the singing parts in the song, had
each and every single class from grade 4 – 6 prepare a song to play with the
Jazz FM band, and had the guitar club prepare 2 songs to perform with them.
She
also managed to inspire about a dozen
IRC kids to try out for the TDSB All Star bands. Those kids have every Tuesday
in April dedicated to playing with their TDSB All Star bands so they can play a
2.5 hour performance at Roy Thompson hall on May 2.
She
does this by making her recesses and lunch hours open for any kid to come into
the music class room to practice and play/sing.
Tate
has some learning challenges. He has a dyslexia-type condition that makes
reading and especially writing very difficult. He suffers from anxiety because
of this. His anxiety has caused him to have difficulty getting to school
somedays. Not only does Katherine gives him a reason to get to school he is
excited and energized about going when he has music class and/or practise.
Tate, with all his class mates, has played
Massey Hall twice, the Gardens and soon Roy Thompson Hall. He is 12 years old.
I’m
tearing up as I write this, but NONE of this would have happened without
Katherine’s experience, love , dedication and energy. She pours all of herself
into our kids. She is a force of nature. She inspires our kids to risk and
express themselves with passion and learn self-confidence. She is THAT teacher
that our kids will remember for the rest of their lives.
We
have recently learned that with the Ontario Government’s threatened education
cuts that Katherine Fraser will be the one cut at our school. Her teaching
experience has been out of province and so she is the lowest person on the list
for TSDB seniority. Katherine deserves to be nominated for TDSB teacher of the
year (which I did), not to lose her job.
Yours sincerely
Kaleb Montgomery
