Hi, I’m Kelly. This is usually where the blog owner tries to give you an idea of who they are and the purpose of the blog. For me, the purpose of the blog is slightly easier so I’ll begin there.

The purpose of Educational Discourse is to support teachers through discussions surrounding education and educational issues. At at time when teachers are being told by almost everyone who and what they should be, it’s often difficult to focus on listening to oneself and finding that voice within. I don’t want to tell you what great teachers do or how they act or what they have in their classroom or anything like that but I want to provide you with ideas, suggestions, routines, resources, thoughts about finding and developing your own voice.

Besides this, I am a father of 8 lovely children aged 12 to 30 years of age. I am married to a wonderful, caring, and sharing woman who helps me to be the person that I am. Together, we have changed locations 7 times, remodeled 8 houses and shared numerous adventures.

Each day in our house is a new adventure and I learn daily from my children, mostly how to be humble! It is an awesome task/privilege, parenting, that comes with no manual or set of foolproof steps. Our family is unique in that our oldest four are girls and our youngest four are boys.

I’m currently looking to see where the next opportunity will take me! I currently work as a grade 4/5 teacher for Regina Catholic School Division in Regina, Saskatchewan. I recently finished a PhD at the University of Regina in Curriculum and Instruction. My research focus was teachers’ use of social media and the effect it has on classroom practices. Before that I was a principal of a K – 12 school in a small town in Saskatchewan for the previous 3 years. I have lived and taught in a wide variety of schools, both Catholic and public. I spent the first 10 years of my career as a classroom teacher, mostly at the middle years level. The last 13 years I have been a teaching principal. I have lived and taught in city and rural schools, I have been the administrator of 2 school campuses at the same time (and taught) and I have had the unique experience of opening a new school. From these experiences, I have learned that I have much to learn.

I have been blogging for about 17 years. When I first began my online venture, I adopted the name kwhobbes partly because of the the philosopher and thinker Hobbes but mostly because of the tiger in the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. I see alot of myself in the character of Calvin and can identify with him on a few different levels and have always been intrigued by the role that Hobbes has in his life. Besides, I have never had to worry about that user name being taken!  During this time I have met some wonderful people, been involved in numerous learning adventures and each day has become a PD day as I learn something new. I’ve also challenged a number of people which really makes one look closely at what they believe – their core values.

I am looking for ways to help the teachers help their students. During this process, I hope to make many contacts and expand my learning and understanding!

That’s me.