Who am I ?

Photo from film Boy?The things all teachers should keep in the forefront of their minds is how the classroom experiences they provide contribute their students developing a positive sense of self - a positive learning identity - and positive feelings, or memory, about what they are learning.All to often the demands placed on schools to 'deliver' and 'account' for progress in literacy and numeracy are the priority. A look at how time is apportioned in classrooms indicates schools priorities.The experiences students have at school determine how they see themselves for better or worse. We all have questions in the back of our minds about: Who am I? Where am I going? Am I worth it? Life, and learning, is about developing a positive story of themselves.This...

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Posted in: Big Picture,Personalized Learning,Rants and Raves,teaching and learning

We have lost so much the past 50 years. We need to return leadership back to creative teachers.

As the end of year, and my career in education, draws near time for some reflection. And it not all good and, with National Standards on the horizon, getting worse but it is not the time to meekly comply.The rise and fall, and possible rise again of the leadership of creative teachers.It was in the sixties when creative classroom teachers working within a shared educational philosophy were the real leaders. In contrast to all the structural changes that have happened since the advent of Tomorrow's Schools the role of the teacher has been neglected. There are some, such as Professor Frank Crowther, University of Queensland, who says that, since the 1970s, the professional respect for teachers has diminished. This blog reflects his thoughts....

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Posted in: Big Picture,change,Leadership,Rants and Raves,teaching and learning

Do not put trust in the Ministry of Mis-education

My greatest inspiration for the ideas I share can be linked back to the wonderful work done by Elwyn Richardson in his small rural Northland school in the 1950s. If any reader does not have a copy of his book 'In The Early World' they ought to get hold of a copy from the NZCER.Elwyn established his classroom as a true community of scientists and artists who , for their curriculum, explored their own personal worlds and their rich local environment. This was very experimental work and he was given protection from inspectorial grading ( the equivalent of today's ERO) to develop his creative philosophy. At the same time, and in the same area, a group of Maori schools worked with the Art Advisers to develop similar ideas.At the heart of these small...

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Posted in: Creative teaching,Creativity,Leadership,Personalized Learning,Rants and Raves,teaching and learning

Wounded by School

Kirsten Olsen author of 'Wounded by School'.Today a friend of mine, who works with students the school system is unable to cope with, returned a book I loaned him.There is no doubt, in my mind, that school is not aways a positive experience for all children. This is all the more so when one takes into account the current focus on achievement gaps, accountability demands, National Standards, obsessive testing ,and setting of targets, all concerned with a narrow range of academic abilities to the detriment of other equally important areas of learning. This accountability surveillance culture harms both creative students and teachers. As a result this distortion distracts teachers from the biggest problem schools face the one of disengagement...

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Posted in: Big Picture,Creative Schools,Ministry NZCurric,national standards,Personalized Learning,Rants and Raves,teaching and learning

Inquiry Learning; an educational agenda for a future era.

Professor Brian Cox ( Chief Science Adviser to the UK Government) doing science on the Jonathon Ross TV Show. Science , according to Cox, is being comfortable with the unknown- a search for questions in answers. Almost the opposite to what current education is all about with the heavy formulaic emphasis on teachers' intentions, criteria and pleasing the teacher through feedback. Conformity rather than creativity.The future requires developing schools as communities of inquiry.1 What is inquiry learning?Inquiry learning is the innate way humans learn from birth unfortunately this 'default' mode is all too often ‘flipped’ by schooling writes Daniel Pink’s in his book 'Drive'.In this respect scientists and artists are people who have not lost...

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Posted in: Big Picture,Creative Schools,I,inquiry learning,Integrated Learning,Ministry NZCurric,Personalized Learning,project based learning,teaching and learning

Teachers' minds 'colonised' by formulaic teaching? We need a creative alternative.

A Battlefield for the Minds of our StudentsThere is a battle being fought for the minds of our future citizens between those who see education as a means to achieve narrow political or economic ends versus those who see education as developing the full potential, or gifts and talents, of all students.The current government’s desire to introduce reactionary national standards into primary schools has polarized the situation but clarified the issue for teachers.The politicians view teachers as both the problem and the solution to introducing their National Standards. In contrast the teachers, while appreciating their importance, see the problematic ‘achievement tail’ as the result of difficult home circumstances and wider social issues.On one...

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Posted in: Big Picture,change,Creative Schools,Leadership,Personalized Learning,Rants and Raves,teaching and learning

The source of school failure

From the Sydney Morning Herald TodayOne in five Melbourne four-year-olds have difficulty using or understanding language, a new study has found, putting them at risk of long-term learning difficulties.The study of 1900 children, published today in the journal Pediatrics, found that social disadvantage played a major role in the language outcomes of four-year-olds - despite having little effect at age two.Lead researcher Professor Sheena Reilly said her team found large variation in language at two, with some children not yet speaking and others saying hundreds of words.The average vocabulary was 280 words, but one child in the study was using more than 600 words.She said the different outcomes at two were largely explained by genetics - with...

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Posted in: Big Picture,national standards,teaching and learning

Standardisation or creativity; McDonalds or Weta Workshops?

Anybody who spends time in a classroom soon appreciates that children do not arrive in standardised packages. They have similarities and differences and, as they grow, diversity should be part of the process.That is unless we want them all to be the same. Weta workshops employ a wide range of individuals many of whom may well have not done well in academic learning.Workers at McDonalds, in contrast, are trained in clone like precision. Lucky for McDonalds there are no below average potatoes to worry about.Canadian educationalist contributed the following to an Education Today Magazine. If time visit his websiteThe term “standards” is particularly topical in New Zealand and thrown around very loosely everywhere else especially by the right-wing...

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Time for some real inquiry

How many yellow flower per square metre? How many white flowers? Run a line across and counts numbers of flowers touched ( a line transect). Great maths. What are these flowers? Look , draw and research. Simple stuff but fun. While you are at it lie down in the lawn and write what you feel -maybe a three line poem. Get kids to explore through their senses. All too simple I guess.Could be all over in an hour or so.The world is full of things to explore, to inquire into, or to wonder about.How come so few teachers seem to understand this simple idea. If you look around your school ( or your classroom) at this time of year you ought to see rooms full of inquiries - particularly exploring the environment. My experience, however, is that you won't...

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Posted in: Action Plans and Lessons,inquiry learning,teaching and learning

A small inquiry study - and some big issues.

Teachers should always be on the alert for inquiry challenges for their students. Teaching,as Jerome Bruner says, 'is the canny art of intellectual temptation'. At this time of the years, if inquiry learning has been central to learning, students ought by now to have in place all the skills to be able to do so. This presumes that the literacy time has been made full use of to develop the NZC 'seeking, using and creating skills'. Inqury skills ought to have been introduced (and 'scaffolded') by teachers during the year. The best assessment of learning is not all the tests teachers currenty give students , often out of context, but to get students to choose and complete an independent study of their own choice.I bet few kids can! the ability...

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