After having kids in the Sturgeon and (mostly) St. Albert Public school systems for many years now, we have been blessed to have many teachers speak so powerfully into the lives of our four children. So, this year we thought we would nominate our youngest son’s Grade 6 teacher for an Excellence in Teaching Award. Unfortunately, this is the year that the provincial government has decided to revamp the program and is not offering it. So, what to do?
Well, we have done a few things directly, but wanted to give a “shout out” via the Gazette to let the city and surrounding area know about another gem in the treasure chest of teachers giving so much of themselves, for our children, here in St. Albert. Lina Rosato is that gem.
Lina’s tremendous efforts have directly impacted our family in an extremely significant way. Our youngest son has Tourette Syndrome. This has been a challenging road for us to navigate as we try to figure out what this means to him, our family and us as parents. A large part of his life plays out at school and requires a multitude of accommodations – something that we are keenly aware is not easy. Lina has stepped up to this challenge head-on right from the beginning.
As she prepared for the fact that our son would learn much better, and be tremendously less exhausted, by using technology instead of pen and paper, Lina went to work – a lot of work. She basically re-wrote her entire year’s lesson plans, changing everything so that not only our son, but the entire class is doing as much as possible electronically. This has been a learning curve and challenge for her in discovering how to make it work, re-doing lesson plans and educating other parents on this path forward.
Obviously, technology in education is not at this level yet and we could agree (or disagree) that this is the way of the future in education. It would be interesting to see if lessons learned from her experience could end up being shared and used as the province moves forward in this area.
In any case, besides all the other efforts she puts into Sir Alexander Mackenzie School (school webmaster, Me to We coordinator, fundraising and more), this extra work – all because of our son’s needs – is humbling and hugely appreciated.
So, a “shout out” to Lina and all of the staff at SAM school. We consider ourselves fortunate to have a gem-of-a-teacher like Lina for our youngest son. Rodney and Catharine Dietzmann, St. Albert
