With the COVID-19 pandemic shuttering schools this spring, educators have been thrown into an unfamiliar role — trying to teach their students at a distance.
We wanted to throw a spotlight on Greater Sudbury educators who have gone above and beyond the call of duty for their students in these unusual times, and perhaps shown a bit of creativity as they engage their students.
Sudbury.com asked readers for their nominations for local educators who fit this bill, and we received a nomination for the “Animation Culturelle 2.0” team at the local French public school board, Conseil scolaire publique du Grand Nord de l’Ontario (CSPGNO).
Nominator Natalie Rondeau said the team has been uploading fun songs and activities to the Internet that “bring a smile to many faces.”
“These videos are also shared on Facebook pages for Franco-ontariens, engaging people provincewide!” she said.
Animation Culturelle 2.0 team member Natalie Lalonde said as a cultural animator, she is typically in charge of organizing large Francophone arts and culture events for the board.
The team also produces original digital content to support the work CSPGNO teachers do, and to provide an online Francophone space for students, and their efforts have redoubled during the pandemic.
Lately, they’ve had a goal of producing one video per day. “We’re just going to keep pumping them out,” Lalonde said.
They’re posting these videos to the team’s Facebook page, YouTube channel and the board’s website.
One series they’ve been doing is called “Paindémie,” a play on the French words for pandemic and bread.
It features various team members baking bread, which has become a widespread hobby during these times of physical isolation, to the point that yeast has become a rare commodity in stores.
Lalonde said she’s not much of a baker herself, so she thought it would be funny to just prepare a loaf of frozen bread dough from the grocery store.
Local musician and actor Stef Paquette, who is part of the board’s First Nations, Métis and Inuit team, is also seen baking bannock as part of the “Paindémie” series.
Animation Culturelle 2.0 also has a Throwback Thursdays video series and another on racing paper airplanes.
Lalonde said she’s a bit shocked her team has been nominated to be featured in Sudbury.com’s “Awesome Educators” series.
“I really hope that our students and our education community and all of the Francophones in Sudbury and abroad can kind of see themselves on social media —their same accents and their same voices,” she said.
Lalonde said she wants to give a shout-out to the team’s supervisor, Carole Brouillard-Landry, for trusting the team’s initiatives and letting them create content.
Do you know of an educator (or, in this case, a group of educators) who has gone above and beyond for their students as learning moved mostly online during the pandemic? Send your nominations to [email protected].
Be sure to include their first and last name and where they work so we can get in touch with them.
Please note these educators could teach anything from daycare or kindergarten, to grade school, to high school, to college or university.
