Last weekend, they got really bored. After two months of weekend basketball stuff (which we are re-evaluating), Wen and I just wanted a couple of days to veg. The kids couldn’t believe it. They kept begging us to do stuff. We kept saying no. Computer? No. TV? No. It went on like that for a good two hours. But finally, it got quiet. We heard them rummaging around in the kitchen and in their rooms, running in and out of the house, and then a measured commotion down by the basketball goal. “I think they’re doing suicides,” Wendy whispered when she looked out the window.
Yes, they were. And not only that, they had devised a daily practice schedule (click on the pic above), which they proceeded to work through for the next two hours, coaching each other, supporting and praising each other, until the very end when Tucker threw the ball at Tess, she hit him in the head with a stick, and they both came stomping up to the house locked in mortal sibling combat. Oy.
Anyway, on par, boredom is good. They’re 8 and 10. They’ll have plenty of time for the computer…
I am watching the “Child of our times” on TV as I write this and it is interesting to note:
*2/3 of the talk with children is transactional and organisational as parents get children to do what they want.
*most of the children in the programme rarely go more than 100m from their house unaccompanied.
*the paramount place of PLAY for children. Computers and screens are not play! - unless they involve interaction with others in a real sense. Some children in the programme were playing for less than an hour a day …
*children are MUCH better behaved at school …. ha - don’t we know this!
*children need time way from boundaries!
*children have to learn from MISTAKES.
The end of the programme was Great - “we need to stop protecting our children from making mistakes and allow them to be just that …. children!”
AMEN!
Life has been pretty frantic recently but a few wee moments (and things) have stood out:
Having three experienced and skilled teachers apply for a Teachers Aid position at school. So what is it about our job now that is so hard people do not want to do it?
We have a job for a new entrant teacher for the rest of the year that closes tomorrow and so far have ONE applicant. Is the price of petrol that significant that a 55km a day commute is puting people off?
Life is short and very precious! We have two staff at the moment with sick family members. What DO you say at moments like these except you are thinking of people and wish them the best …?.
The small incremental changes can also be profound. When I first started at Outram 18 months ago teachers often didn’t bring their laptops to school. Now the internet being offline is a disaster I have to solve RIGHT NOW THANKYOU!! classes are blogging; people are beginning to use iChat to share and celebrate - kids even iChat me in the office to ask for help during class if they get stuck on a technical question their teacher can’t help with; we have purchased a lot of new ‘equipment’. The interesting thing is people have not really noticed the changes and normal is now very different
The political landscape is changing fast. I went to an STA training the other day on Principal Appraisal … those of you who know me will know it takes a bit to wind me up but by the end of it I was about ready to remove limbs from the presenter! The whole thing was soooo focused on assessment and goal setting - with no thought about the obligation/necessity to actually support or do anything to improve professional knowledge. This sort of thing is very destructive of the relationships between BoT and principal/staff as it promotes the message that the only thing that needs to happen is for goals/objectives to be set an magically they will be achieved …. nothing about structured and well thought out professional learning opportunities. Arghhhh!!
We also have an election coming up and my reading of Nationals policy (who it would seem are likely to be the next government) is for more competition between schools and I believe it will be a very short time before we have national testing and league tables under their management. Scary stuff for those of us who relish and treasure our independence and ability to make professionally and educationally sound decisions free from political pressure in our own schools.
Where have the last 10 years gone? In a couple of weeks our youngest, Alex will be 10 years old… thinking back on all the things that have happened in that time …. it only seems a short time ago we were discovering that that ‘odd’ feeling Jane was having wasn’t just a tummy bug. I sound like my parents …. another scary thought ….
But still it is the small moments that are the most meaningful. A hug from a loved one, the aha moment in the classroom, making a difference in peoples lives.
It is a privileged profession we are all involved in! Family still matters most! This life is not a dress rehearsal!
I was one of the many who took the opportunity to upgrade recently to FF3 for the Mac. Is anyone else finding blog and wiki dashboards are well and truly screwed up, as well as my Bloglines showing no entries at all? But they look ok in Safari …?
A good one to share with kids about the power of viral advertising and urban myths?
This video:
… is doing the rounds at the moment and at face value is pretty scary. I certainly wouldn’t want a device that could do this in my pocket or close to my head.
But … hold on … a quick look shows to was produced by these guys who make bluetooth headsets. This blog has heaps of comments that link to the original site too. Good to show the importance of reading just that bit further
YouTube has a variety of vids from people who have actually given it a go too:
I like the comment you here at teh end of this one ….”why would the internet lie?” …. indeed!
The Ministry’s vision [of the new Curriculum is] that all students should be, ‘creative, energetic and enterprising’ and that teachers need to use ‘pedagogy that meet all student’s needs’ are fine words. And, of course the ‘key competencies’; now there is a phrase from the industrial age! These competencies have been presented as if the Ministry’ had discovered the ‘Holy Grail’.
I would’ve loved to have seen a vision where all students are given the opportunity to realize and amplify all their potential talents, gifts and passions. The desire to realize a talent creates the desire to learn (and to develop key competencies) and results in old fashioned stuff called knowledge and understanding. Education ought to about developing passionate learners driven by their innate curiosity - an education ensuring all students retain a joy of learning. One phrase in the ‘new’ NZ Curriculum, that needs to be highlighted, is that all students should be their own ’seekers, users, and creators’ of knowledge. This has aways been the premise of creative educators.
That so many students leave without a positive learning identity is the real problem we have to face up to.
……..
He believes that if principals are not able to fulfil their roles as curriculum leaders this is because of all the compliance and curricula accountability that has been imposed on them by the Ministry. If the Ministry spent more time working out how to reduce this compliance load this would free principals to get with being creative leaders, able to focus on teaching and learning.
Tomorrows Schools - or the curriculum that followed, and the ‘naming and shaming’ of the School Review Office ( even if it now ‘assess and assist’) has established a ‘big brother effect’ in our system. Devolving responsibility to schools, while at the same time creating a ‘low trust’ culture has led, to what one writer calls a a ‘corrosion of character’ - principals aways trying to double guess what is required of them by others. This leads to a ‘anticipatory dread’ settling on a school and with the news of an ERO visit an outbreak of folders outlining all the ‘evidence based data’ around school ‘targets’!
It is this bureaucracy that is blocking creative leadership.
Bruce has been providing good critiques of the NZC recently. As I have said before too, not much is new and we have to take control as school leaders adn make sure that anything we change is going to be BETTER and not just DIFFERENT. take the time to read this full entry in full.
Let’s face it - anybody can create a “vision” and cry loudly about all the things that are wrong and paint a utopian view that sounds pretty good (and it seems like almost everyone does). But what is usually lacking is any practical means of moving from Point A to Point B - especially within the parameters of working with real people, real budgets and a real number of hours in a day. I would contend that true genius is in finding ways to make vision reality - working where the rubber hits the road.
I’ve been wondering a good deal about what seems to be a round of recent political, economic and educational disasters - the Iraq War, the handling of Hurricane Katrina, the housing bubble, NCLB - and questioning whether it was a lack of leadership or piss-poor management that created (or exacerbated) the mess. Lets see:
* removing an evil dictator and establishing a democracy in the Middle East - good vision, poor execution
* helping the victims of a natural disaster - good vision, poor execution
* increasing the number of people who own their own homes - good vision, poor execution
* assuring that all children have good reading and math skills - good vision, poor execution
Where did we go wrong? Might it have been putting people who couldn’t manage a one-car parade in charge? Leaders, not managers? Hmmmmm.
A really good point he makes….it is not ALL about vision and theory. Real people skills and the ability to manage budgets, people, assets, etc is vital to effective leadership. This is also the stuff we ASSUME people can do and understand when they are in leadership positions.
Many of the leaders who struggle are those who can’t manage the ‘detail’, the things that make it actually happen. A visionary leader without practical skills is a nightmare - we can all think of them and they often have difficulty geting staff. As do those with no/few people skills.
What do we do to ensure that those aspiring leaders as well in leadership now have (or get) these skills?
I have been trying to catch up on the numerous saved entries from Bruce Hammods blog recently. I enjoy Bruce… he has his crap detector turned up high. He also has the luxury of sitting far enough outside “the system” now to be able to critique with impunity. He and Kelvin Smythe have been promoting what we largely see as the New (or so I am told, now to be called REVISED - the wordsmiths are at work) Curriculum for may years.
Nothing much changes really does it. As one of my colleagues here in Dunedin put it the other day “learning styles is just a fancy way of saying a good range of learning activities”. May be a bit extreme but there is still some truth to it!
Who we become is influenced by the talents, gifts and passion we develop that drive us to learn more - the competencies are a means to an end. We are driven by an evolutionary curiosity to make meaning of our experiences. As we explore we focus on the things that really interest us us, and as our interest grows we get better at whatever it is we like doing.
He is quoting Mary Chamberlain earlier in the post and responding to her comments on the Key Competencies. I think he is right - the Key Competencies are being seen as something new and onerous that will add tremendously to teacher workload. They shouldn’t …. we have been assessing them anecdotally for years. We all know the children who are successful socially, with their learning etc. The difference is the structure.
I do like Bruces’ focus on talents, gifts and passions … there lies the challenge! To help children find the things that light the fires for them. We have an obligation to provide opportunities for them to discover these thingsI believe. These moments are the ones where the lights come on and the class (or individual) gets so into the task/unit that it takes on a life of its own.
Now we can’t expect that all the time and I think we have to realise this. Sometimes what kids need to know or understand is pretty mundane. Some of what they have to do is “just because they do” (and we know better than they do). They will not always pose their own questions or be independent inquirers …. especially the younger ones. We are still teachers much of the time (in terms of actively managing the learning), only sometimes will we be standing back as mentors and guides. We have to make sure that when the genuine guiding and sharing opportunities arise we are poised, skilled and aware enough of them to make them the best they can be.
Now there is a challenge!
Key Competencies then are the vehicle to learning and inquiry; particularly to becoming inquirING. They are not just an end in themselves.
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