An eye catching study topic!

A quick trip to any classroom if you have had a lot of experience visiting schools will soon indicate the quality of the learning in the classroom - the 'messages' of the room can be seen in a 'blink'. As they say you don't have to drink a whole bottle of wine to decide it is quality wine.One of the criteria is the depth of learning exhibited on the display walls.It is interesting taking visiting teachers around classrooms in other schools, something I have been doing for decades.I have aways believed that the best professional development comes from visiting and talking to other teachers but, to be successful, those visiting have to be open to what they are seeing.This, of course, is easiest if the visitors are already heading in a similar...

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Posted in: Action Plans and Lessons,Creative teaching,inquiry learning,Integrated Learning,teaching and learning

Fraser Smith :Authentic Education -"Hallelujah".

Last year I had the opportunity to visit Oturu School to see what Fraser Smith was up to! And what a great visit it was -and evening! Fraser is a 'one off teacher' who is an inspiration to others so it was great to see him and his students featuring on TV One Close Up recently. Fraser's enthusiasm is endless and his organic inquiry approach to learning provides a fertile environment for the students at Oturu. The school has hens, bees, herb gardens, a citrus orchard and an olive grove. The children in all classes run things and they propagate their own flowers, process their own honey, olive oil, lip balm and beauty cream, Fraser hasn't ways been appreciated by authorities and at one point left to return ten years later to teach in rural...

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Posted in: Creative Schools,Creative teaching,inquiry learning,Ministry NZCurric,project based learning,teaching and learning

How long do schools take this nonsense- Orwell strikes again

On May 18TH Karen Sewell gave a speech at a graduation ceremony in Wellington that both impressed a listener - and left him wondering. ' I was impressed with your speech. It's liberal, curiosity-based characteristics of New Zealand system have made it, as you mentioned, world class. I cannot imagine, then, why you would want,as your tenure in the Ministry to dismantle everything that has made education in this country so successful......I do not know how you can praise the song bird and shoot it cold dead. Were your sentiments "mere words".Or do you know of as yet unpublicised initiative to rid New Zealand classrooms of the anti -educational fixation with endless quantitative analysis and " little boxes" ideology that day by day robs our citizenry...

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Posted in: Big Picture,Leadership,Ministry NZCurric,national standards,Rants and Raves

Time for schools to wake up -advice from a senior principal

George Orwell would be impressed with all the double speak coming out of Ministry 'sleeve tuggers'. 'Big brother' is now in charge - high trust indeed! - we have moved well beyond the 'nanny state'.Geoff Lovegrove a Past President of the New Zealand Primary Principals' Federation has given me permission to share his thoughts below. I believe it is a call to arms for school to start the fight back about Ministry bureaucratic nonsense they have suffered since 1989. This is election year - let's use the opportunity well. If you haven't read the March edition of the NZPPF Magazine please do so. Great stuff on the National Standards fiasco.One day school might see past their own school gates to see that serious collective action is requited to...

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Posted in: Big Picture,change,Leadership,national standards,Rants and Raves

Boy! Has Kelvin Smythe got it right! He woke up with the nightmare clear in his head. Time for us all to wake up!

For too long we have submitted to the Ministry C.R.A.P. ( continuously revising all polices/procedures) and taken their untested advice, usually picked from other countries, while ignoring the ideas we know have worked in creative schools - or more to the point, in creative classrooms. Time to change the wheels and run over the false leadership of self serving politicianS and bureaucrats with their neo liberal ideology. Education is all about providing students access to a better world. Current standardised state imposed approaches are destroying the possibilities of all students succeeding. Some schools , by amplifying the imposed surveillance culture, by going along to get along, have now become part of the problem.We collectively know what...

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Posted in: Big Picture,Leadership,Ministry NZCurric,national standards,Rants and Raves

What is this thing called Inquiry Learning?

While visiting local intermediate school the principal wanted to show me examples of what he called "inquiry learning" - but, to be honest, he wasn't happy with the term because his opinion of what goes on under the term is more about the inquiry process (as important as it is) and not enough about the real learning that results from it.It is the old process/content argument again. I too feel much of what is called "inquiry learning" is more about the process than real in-depth understanding of the content involved.The illustration shows students using a microscope linked to a computer to observe what has happened to the bacteria they have placed in the petre dish of agar jelly. In this example the "inquiry process" is a means to an end, to...

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Posted in: inquiry learning,Integrated Learning,Personalized Learning,project based learning,Rants and Raves,teaching and learning

Electronic Whiteboards -a waste of money?

The illustration is part of a wonderful mural put together by year one and two students as part of a school jubilee celebrations . It seems to sum up the educational beliefs of the time. The green lipped blackboard is the number one piece of technology with all children sitting in rows ready to receive teacher determined information. The clock controls the day, literacy and numeracy are the main fare, the laptops ( teaching tablets) are around the wall, and the special needs area is in the corner. In a way not that much has changed - basic assumptions have not really been challenged. Teachers still 'deliver' what has to be learnt.A couple of errors in the mural - the children are facing the wrong way and the teacher ( bottom right) ought to...

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The Right to Learn - an agenda for the 21stC; challenging the status quo.

Jackson Pollock's paintings preempted the messiness of the future and could be seen as a metaphor for the interconnected Internet. The school's role is to ensure all students leave school with the attributes to thrive in such an ambiguous, exciting and challenging future. Current traditional education is equipped for slower times when knowledge was to be found in teachers heads and textbooks to be transmitted to students. Now learning is anywhere ,anytime; 'just in time' not 'just in case' - it is all about life long learning.One of the best resources I have seen is the Right to Learn Report the result of conversations held between a powerful collection of individuals at the Big Ideas Global Summit held in 2010. Download it for your self -about...

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Posted in: Big Picture,change,Creative Schools,Information Technology,inquiry learning,Ministry NZCurric,Personalized Learning,teaching and learning

Educational change and leadership - bottom up!

All too often in recent decades schools are dictated to by the political whim of politicians with their eyes firmly fixed on popular approval - this is certainly the case with the imposition of National Standards which have gained little education support or international success. What is required is for schools to begin to share their beliefs about teaching and learning by building on the innate strengths of their students, their teachers, the school principal and finally groups of schools to develop a vision that all can work with in diverse ways.Recently at a local school the Education Review team asked the principal how he was ‘growing’ his teachers –I think the inference was that the teachers were not being given enough ‘voice’ in the...

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Posted in: Big Picture,change,Creative Schools,Leadership,School Vision

Henry Pluckrose - creative educator

'Henry Pluckrose, who has just died at the age of 79, was one of the most inspiring teachers of his generation.He believed that children have intellectual, emotional and aesthetic capacities that few adults realise and too few schools exploit'. From Guardian Newspaper obituary.As a teacher 'his classroom resembled an artist's stdio, buzzing with activity and creative energy.Arts in the broadest sense formed the basis of his curriculum;not just art and craft, but also drama, music , poetry and dance. He gave particular emphasis to direct personal experience, taking children to museums, art galleries, churches, historic buildings, woods, fields and parks.'Henry's obituary made me reflect on the educational influences in my life. Something we...

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Posted in: Creative teaching,Educationalists,inquiry learning,Integrated Learning,Leadership,national standards,Personalized Learning,Rants and Raves,teaching and learning

Being Positive Isn't Easy!

This painting by Munch may be taking negativity too far but for creative teachers it may resonate.Recently I read a blog from America that I thought resonated with thoughts I have when I look at all the formulaic 'best practice' and accountability measures being pushed on teachers in New Zealand.The author of the blog began by writing 'I'm bringing the pessimism ( unfortunately truth?) to the party here y'all. If you want warm fuzzies about the joys of teaching, navigate away immediately'.'And if you work beyond the classroom and get your feelings hurt easily, you might not want to read this either.' You have been forewarned!The writer was responding to another blogger who wrote about teachers being negative and as guy who is often labelled...

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Posted in: Big Picture,change,Rants and Raves

If only Mrs Tolley - A vision for education from Singapore

Singapore - from a left over British colony in 1945 to a vibrant Asian Tiger. The power of Vision.While Mrs Tolley is busy taking New Zealand down the testing agenda other countries are heading for creativity and innovation as the answer. It is ironic that Mrs Tolley, a believer in the testing agenda, is following the two countries, the US and the UK, that have followed this path both who are well down the list of successful schools on international testing. The accountability testing agenda ( for all the money spent on it) has not shown any improvement in such countries and, worse still, has distorted the education process of both countries. Equally ironically is that New Zealand has, for decades, been in the top group of performing countries....

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Posted in: Big Picture,Leadership,Personalized Learning,teaching and learning