Marshmallow Challenge

Welcome Back Letter

Welcome back!

Today is the first day of over one hundred eighty days we are going to spend together.  My greatest hope is this will be a time of great learning and fun together. I recently saw the quote, "I care more about the people my students become than the scores they get on tests." The more time I spend teaching, the more this holds true for me.

This will be my twenty-secondth year of teaching. Man, am I getting old? I think this will be my fourteenth year at Highview. I never thought I would stay at one school for this long, but Highview has been such a great community it is hard to imagine leaving. I am really excited to be teaching grade 7 and 8 this year. I have always thought that the intermediate students in a school set the tone for the whole school. In other words, the best schools usually have the best intermediates! One of my goals for you this year is to find opportunities to develop your leadership skills. I have no doubt that this is a class full of leaders.  

Since I will be learning about you, I thought I would share a little bit about me. I was born in Sarnia, but my family moved to Toronto when I was only five. I am the third of four boys (my poor mother). Two passions ruled my childhood, sports and comics. The year I moved to Toronto was the first year the Blue Jays existed. I have been a die-hard fan ever since. I've celebrated the two World Series victories and suffered through some rough seasons. I played baseball in high school, even playing with a couple of eventual major league players. I credit comic books for my reading passion. 

My biggest influence during my teenage years were my experiences at camp. By working at a summer camp, I discovered I wanted to be a teacher and I loved spending time in the great outdoors. Eventually, I even met my wife at camp. My wife and I still spend parts of our summer on canoe trips whenever possible.

This past summer was a busy one for me. My wife and I took a trip to England, Ireland and Iceland. 

A large part of my leisure time this summer was spent playing golf. No matter how badly I play, I can't wait to get out again to see if I can get better. It certainly keeps me humble. During the school year, my sport of choice is volleyball. I play a couple of nights a week.

My big passion all year long is reading. Mr. Kaufman calls my book collection a library! Though my library is not growing very fast, because I'm reading more and more e-books. I read about 30 books this summer, including a number of books in preparation for teaching. I hope we will be able to share many great books together. What are your favourite books?

I hope over the next days and weeks I will have the opportunity to get to know all of you better. What is important to you? It looks like a great year ahead.

                                                                                                Sincerely,

                                                                                                T. Congram

ONE word

Questions to think about as you look for your word:

• what do I need?
• what do I want?
• what gets in my way?
• what do I need to focus on?
• what do I want to do this year that I haven't done before?
• what do I want to do better this year?