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When I was born, my mother blessed me with the name "Grace Melanie Black".  Grace was her sister's name but I would be "Melanie" and still am.  Three months later when she married my father, I became Melanie Doiron.  Growing up, strangers addressed me as Grace...which was confusing for all because I rarely answered to that name....I still don't!  Fast forward 22 years and I became Grace Melanie Fournier....Oops a blip in my journey...back to Doiron and finally I found me...the real me. So who am I now? My name is Melanie Cortes.  I hale from the  mystical, magical Miramichi, New Brunswick. So pleased to meet you all! One more note- the wallpaper for this post is called "Phoenix Rising". I identified with it because I thought for many years that I had wasted my opportunity for education when I was young...but here I am..a lifelong learner who is excited about new possibilities!

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"There's a story of a lovely lady who was raising two very lovely girls"....The people with whom I choose to surround myself share in my journey..and  contribute significantly to the person I am becoming.  Ten years ago, my husband, Jason, and I brought our two families together to create our own version of the Brady bunch.  Meet the Fam Jam:  Samantha 26, Gabrielle, 19, Riley 19, and Annaka, 17.  Three of us are in the throws of post-secondary education and Annie is looking forward to graduating high school next year.  This is an older picture but it's one of one of our happy memories.

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I work for the province of New Brunswick as a civil servant.  I am the Acting Director of Early Childhood Services for Anglophone School District North.  I have many responsibilities in this role such as managing two provincial agency contracts, leading the district's Talk with Me program and supporting the Early Childhood Services Coordinator in her work to inspect and monitor early learning and care centres.  I love my work because it provides opportunities for me to connect early childhood services with the world of education.  My dream is to contribute to a system that values a continuum of learning that begins at birth.
For the past ten years I have also had the amazing opportunity to facilitate learning as an instructor for Early Childhood Education at the New Brunswick Community College- Miramichi. My teaching experience is different from most of you. Though I might be a round peg trying to fit into a square hole, I'm finding my way.

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This past year, I had an amazing opportunity to lead a district project that facilitated a collaboration between  Early Childhood Educators and Kindergarten teachers.  The collaboration was around recognizing the influence that a responsive learning environment plays in children's learning. Our district Subject Coordinator lead is on a mission to put play back into K.  New Brunswick's Early Childhood Curriculum is a framework that values experiential learning  that is co-constructed to support learners interests, strengths and passions.  This was a perfect fit for a new project and so we created a support space in an early childhood classroom  that would facilitate learning conversations through a close examination of multiple learning invitations and provocations.  Here is a photo of just one invitation. Sorry it's sideways...I am technologically challenged!