Ms. G's World History Blog

Being Helpful and Taking Pictures

Two separate thoughts here.

First…

Here’s a brief slightly unsettling thought on retirement so far; retirement is AWESOME. Don’t get me wrong – I am very lucky and privileged to be able to retire. However, it’s a somewhat daunting mental transition to go from constant support of kids to doing whatever I want to do.

This monarch butterfly feeding on milkweed on our front lawn got me reflecting: ” it’s nice to be helpful.”

That’s probably why I started up a new research project (with SP from the Champlain Society Educational Committee) so quickly. The focus will be Canadian nurses in World War One. Fascinating so far.

Second…

I’ve looked at a lot of WWI-era photos lately. This one struck me the most. The power of the camera is inestimable. The camera below belonged to Clare Gass, a Canadian nurse who, like many others , served in multiple locations in Europe during the war, almost always taking photos of her colleagues, patients, surroundings, locals, etc.

What I love about history is the evidence it provides of life in the past. In most of my work as a teacher of world history, the subjects I taught were pre-camera. It is interesting to jump into a camera-enabled time period. The images complement the documents.

Clare Gass’s camera. Photos from a book (ironically I didn’t get my photos of sources straight when I was at the library) at Toronto Reference Library. Additional photos by Clare Gass can be found at this Source

It has not yet been one year since I got a smart phone. Without a doubt my favourite feature (other than the time – yes, something so simple) is the camera, to record life as it is.

Ms. G

August 8, 2026

photography, Retirement

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Still Retired…What’s Next?

Sometimes I lament about leaving my career behind; this seems to worry my husband who will then ask if I’m going back. My answer is solid: no, I’m not going back to teaching!

However, I have to figure out how to maintain my skills. That’s a tough one.

Since I was in the Student Success world for almost 15 years, I really became a bit of a jack-of-all-trades, especially through credit recovery: English (9 and 10, especially), ESL (almost all levels), Civics, Careers, Food and Nutrition, grade 9 Math (if you can believe that), French (not good enough to do anything with it). I even taught a new course in my last year (English Literacy Skills). I became very fascinated with reading skills.

Despite all those subjects, it’s really my history connections I want to maintain the most as that’s truly where my heart is! I have to say that my fantastic grade 11 and 12 world history classes this year brought that point home to me very strongly.

I will do some more work for the Champlain Society Education Committee for sure. I may reach out to OHASSTA again. Technically, I am still in the process of closing down THHSSSC (the old Toronto History, Humanities, and Social Science Subject Council) by distributing our funds. That will run into the fall, for sure, since some schools never even replied when I reached out to them. I’d like to make new connections at OISE to see if I can get some face time with teacher candidates through the history profs there (given that I had a lot of student teachers and did a really thorough job with them, if I may say so).

Lots of possibilities, aside from potential Student Success work through the OT list at TDSB. NO regular classroom supply work though. That is for sure!!!

I’m still not ready to process my career, at least publicly. In private, I had many hours to ponder the decades behind me as I sat beside my old file cabinets and kept or tossed piles and piles of student essays and projects. I couldn’t bring them all home, so I kept the ones that were near and dear to my heart!

For now, there’s gardening to be done, Blueberry to ride, Val to spend time with, pilates to do and painting to re-start!

And the cats, of course.

I don’t know how such a non-flexible cat contorts herself around this planter to get a good spot in the sun!

Ms. G

July 20, 2026

Cats, Retirement, summer

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The World In a Headline

Doesn’t this just about sum up the state of the world? Tech and its moronic leaders really do rule the world, sadly.

Ms. G

July 10, 2026

Uncategorized

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Links on This Blog

Hello to anyone who uses my blog for world history teaching materials. The links may not work for a while as my TDSB account has been terminated now that I have retired. I hope to have access again at the end of the summer.

Thanks for your patience. I won’t stop maintaining my World History blog. I’m still working on how to reflect on my career.

Thanks, and please check out some of my other content such as book reviews. I’m currently reading this incredible gem, On Savage Shores: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe by Caroline Dodds Pennock. It is fascinating.

Risa

Ms. G

July 10, 2026

book review, Retirement

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Retired…Week 1

Well, 28 years and done. I will have a lot more to say in the coming weeks; for now, I’m just feeling gratitude and a good sense of relief. It has been a difficult year; having set the goal of being as helpful as possible, I think I did a pretty good job. So for now, the sun sets on a career. It’s a really weird feeling.

Stars On Ice 2026

After the gruelling Olympic season (watching it, I mean), it was so fun to see Canadian skaters without so much pressure.

The Stars show is always enjoyble, but there was some extra pep in the step this year.

Seeing Roman Sadovsky in person for the first time ever was a highlight for me. Roman and Keegan’s spinning was also amazing. Piper and Paul: what can I say…what a season, peaking just at the right time. Congratulations to all.

Olympic Skating

I didn’t watch Piper and Paul’s bronze medal skate live. I would have been too nervous anyhow. I came home, checked the results on Jackie Wong’s Rocker Skating twitter, immediately started crying, then cried my way through the routine on CBC’s replay.

That night I watched the entire rhythm dance with commentary by Carol Lane (Piper and Paul’s coach) and Kurt Browning. It was very sweet hearing Carol’s in the moment reaction to their brilliant skate, especially after such a difficult season.

For me, having watched every single skating competition since September, this was an unbelievably happy result. Who cares about the colour of the medal. “Vincent” started out the season very poorly; it was slow and choppy. Piper and Paul looked like they had ‘lost a step’, as they say in sports. I am overjoyed that they worked so hard to get it all back.

Canadians Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier waltz to an Olympic bronze medal — Source

It brought back a lot of memories of the 2024 World Championships we attended in Montreal. After Piper and Paul completed their incredible skate to Wuthering Heights, Paul was also quite emotional. But not like this.

Piper and Paul’s best program ever, in my opinion.

Crosstown LRT First Ride

Finally!! We didn’t mean to do this today but ended up checking out the new LRT. Strangely, we started at Bloor and Dufferin, took the 29 north to Fairbank Station, travelled eastbound to Kennedy, then back home via line 2.

Val’s connection to the LRT has finally come full circle. Back in June 2013 he was at the launch of the western tunnel boring machine because he, along with five or six others, had won a competition to name the machines: Don Humber. A few photos from that day SO far back show the depth of the tunnel (now evident from the long escalators going down to the stations), Val with the TMB, and his scratchy signature.