tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45230993177335015982024-03-14T00:31:09.233-07:00Leading And Learningachiyohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07460976521998987301noreply@blogger.comBlogger301125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523099317733501598.post-52408024351843799292012-01-17T13:41:00.000-08:002012-01-21T04:22:28.405-08:00Beginning the School Year 3<h3 class="post-title entry-title">Beginning teaching - or starting a new year </h3><div class="post-header"><div class="post-header-line-1"></div></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2829805866260884155"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__InAR8tMKK4/TSRg8unEDeI/AAAAAAAABMA/lUY6UVEFzsg/s1600/August%2B%2Bthree%2B076.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" closure_uid_rv28qq="2" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5558674436502326754" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__InAR8tMKK4/TSRg8unEDeI/AAAAAAAABMA/lUY6UVEFzsg/s400/August%2B%2Bthree%2B076.jpg" style="cursor: hand; height: 269px; width: 400px;" /></a> <br /><em><strong>Robert Fried is worth reading</strong>. Another of his books is called the <strong>'Passionate Teacher'</strong>. In his book the <strong><a href="http://leading-learning.blogspot.com/2005/08/creating-passion-for-learning.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">'Game of School'</span></a></strong> he writes about how students learn to play the game of school to get along. I remember one of his anecdotes was about a grade one student coming home and being asked by his anxious mother what he had learnt during the day? He told his mum he learnt that their were two kind of kids. Good ones who did as the teacher asked of them and bad kids who didn't. Conformists and non conformists. Kids learn quick. <br /><br />Fried's book outlines several groups of students from those who work to please the teacher, those who work because they love learning , and others who get their satisfaction by confronting teachers, and those who try to remain invisible</em>. <br /><br /><strong>Beginning teachers face a dilemma</strong>. <br /><br /><strong>It is obviously sensible to 'find out what is important around here' and to get on with doing it</strong>. <br /><br /><strong>Good advice to start with but the danger is that it is all too easy to conform unthinkingly to bad habits as well</strong>.Compliance and conformity to school expectations ( for better or worse) is more the name of the game for new teachers. <br /><br /><br /><strong>For example there is a lot of talk about the importance of inquiry and creative learning</strong> - about integrating subject disciplines around relevant problems. <strong>However when school timetables are passed out it becomes pretty obvious schools are centred around two traditional areas</strong> - literacy and numeracy. <br /><br /><strong>In fact it is hard to see where inquiry and creativity actually fit in.</strong> <br /><br /><strong>The only solution</strong>, if you are a new teacher, <strong>is to do your best to develop literacy and numeracy skills that will be used to ensure deep and meaningful inquiry studies. Students should see inquiry learning as the most important thing.</strong>. They should see literacy and numeracy as a means to an end -as vital 'foundation skills'. They need to see the difference between 'real' maths and 'practice' maths. <br /><br /><strong>This is easiest in literacy</strong> ( I prefer the heading 'language arts') by basing comprehension and information research skills on the current inquiry topic but most inquiry topics also need mathematical skills to be in place. And it is important for students to see the connections as well. <br /><br /><strong>One task I would do is to get the class to complete an informal survey of attitudes, or feelings, towards all aspects of the school curriculum.</strong> Ask students to show their interest using a one to five scale or sad or smiley faces. <br /><br /><strong>Developing a love of learning and developing a 'feeling for' each area is vital. If the results are less than wonderful then you will know where to place your effort as teacher.</strong> <br /><br /><strong>It strikes me teachers spend hours each week on mathematics for little effect</strong>. At the end of schooling far <strong>too many students leave with a poor attitude</strong> ( and achievement level) in maths and this ought not to be the case. If you placed poetry on the list I bet not many students would say they liked it but I also bet that, with interesting teaching, all students would come to see poetry as a fun activity. <br /><br /><strong>So what do your students think of various school subjects?</strong> The survey is a good first day activity. Better still if the list were drawn up by all teachers and used as an important assessment tool. <br /><br /><a href="http://leading-learning.blogspot.com/2010/10/dwecks-book-must-for-all-teachers-and.html"><strong><span style="color: #5588aa;">If you know about the mindset research of Carol Dweck add :</span></strong></a> <br /><br />1 Do you think were are born as smart as you are ever going to be ( 'brains' or sports ability) and there are some things you just can't do ? <br /><br />Or <br /><br />2 Do you think you can get better at anything if you try hard and practice? <br /><br /><strong>The first is a 'fixed mindset'</strong></strong>.Low ability students get their lack of ability affirmed at school ( through ability grouping, national testing or streaming) and high achievers ( often girls) do not risk their status by new areas of learning becoming risk averse. <strong>Those with a 'growth mindset' just have a go at anything believing in effort and focused practice</strong> and see not succeeding as a challenge.<strong>This 'growth mindset' underpins the New Zealand Curriculum; ' have a go kids'</strong> <br /><br /><br /><strong>Click on the links below for some good advice to read before starting the school year.</strong> <br /><br /><a href="http://www.janebluestein.com/articles/great_exps.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;"><strong>Great expectations</strong> -advice for beginning teachers</span></a> <br /><br /><a href="http://www.leading-learning.co.nz/newsletters/begin-teaching.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;"><strong>Starting the school year</strong>.</span></a>.Lots of practical activities to choose from <br /><br /><a href="http://leading-learning.blogspot.com/search/label/Action%20Plans%20and%20Lessons"><span style="color: #5588aa;"><strong>If you want some practical ideas to start the year check out action plans and lessons</strong>.</span></a> <br /><br /><br /><strong>Make this the year to break out of traditional patterns and assumption and to develop active literacy, mathematics and inquiry programmes</strong> - ones that value students' 'voice' , questions, ideas and creativity. <br /><br /><strong>There is no rush but don't be trapped by yesterdays timetables and expectations.</strong> <br /><br />Remember the revised <strong>New Zealand Curriculum has as its vision for all students to be 'confident life long learners'</strong> ( or inquirers) and for them <strong>to have the competencies</strong>, or 'habits of mind', or 'learning power', <strong>to be 'seekers, users,and creators of their own knowledge'.</strong> <br /><br /><strong>Few schools have achieved such a vision - yet!</strong> Or if they have the vision they have a reality gap between what is said and done</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523099317733501598.post-30842156977807226762012-01-17T13:36:00.000-08:002012-01-21T04:22:28.429-08:00Beginning the School Year :2<h3 class="post-title entry-title">Beginning the school year - some activities </h3><div class="post-header"><div class="post-header-line-1"></div></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-588043588755749663"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__InAR8tMKK4/TSsmy27YThI/AAAAAAAABMI/f5QHEnJxH0Y/s1600/August%2B%2Bthree%2B092.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" closure_uid_ahppe9="2" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5560580820098895378" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__InAR8tMKK4/TSsmy27YThI/AAAAAAAABMI/f5QHEnJxH0Y/s400/August%2B%2Bthree%2B092.jpg" style="cursor: hand; height: 400px; width: 264px;" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://leading-learning.blogspot.com/2011/01/beginning-teaching-or-starting-new-year.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">My previous blog had ideas about beginning teaching</span></a> and some <a href="http://www.leading-learning.co.nz/newsletters/begin-teaching.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">links to articles</span></a> with ideas to to think about. This blog just adds a few more.<br /><br /><strong>Teaching is one profession where there is no shallow end.</strong> <strong>From day one you are presented with up to thirty plus young individuals for you to shape into a learning community</strong>; and every class community will be different. Even experienced teachers have second thoughts about starting a new class as at the end of the year they will have left students who have learnt to work with each other and their teacher.<br /><br /><strong>Developing this learning community is the real challenge for any teacher.</strong> Good schools will provide structures, organisations and curriculum guidance to assist but it always worth having ideas up your sleeve.<br /><br /><strong>First impressions count</strong> and the students' parents will be waiting to hear from their children what their teacher is like so it is important not to leave it to chance.<br /><br /><strong>A good idea is to begin by introducing yourself to your students with a small potted history of yourself based around a number of questions.</strong> The <strong>students can then use this model ( or scaffold) to write up something similar</strong> to share with you or even, in small groups, with each other.It is a good idea for then to write a draft, or make a mind map, before they start - and this also you can model.<br /><br />Keep this reasonably short and ask them for their best writing - this will give you an idea of their personal best they bring with them.<br /><br /><strong>You might like to have 'mini lesson' on the school vision, mission and values and what they mean if they are available.</strong> This could be developed later into a <strong>class treaty</strong> of expectations and positive behaviours and <strong>linked to a <a href="http://leading-learning.blogspot.com/2010/02/treaty-of-waitangi-what-do-your.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">'mini study' on the Treaty of Waitangi</span></a></strong>. If so it is a good idea to get them to draft out , or mind map, their 'prior views'. After this done students can complete research to clarify their knowledge. <br /><br /><strong>The idea of valuing students 'prior' ideas, or skills, should be part of all learning activities.</strong><br /><br /><strong>During the first day you might share with them one of the best things ( most memorable or exciting) you did during the holidays</strong>. <strong>Then get them to do something similar</strong>. <a href="http://leading-learning.blogspot.com/2006/02/what-was-best-thing-you-did-in.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Emphasize the importance of writing as if they were back in the situation</span></a>, what they felt , heard. or saw, and get them to write about what they were thinking at the time. <strong>This is an opportunity to introduce students to the idea of valuing their personal 'voice' and going for quality</strong> - not length or most words.<br /><br /><strong>Think of continuing this personal narrative writing throughout the year as a weekly occurrence</strong> - completing one from idea, draft to realisation once a week in a writing journal . This is the best way to let students know you value their experiences and for them to contribute to developing a learning identity.<br /><br /><strong>Personal narratives can be illustrated ( often for homework) but, if so, students need to be taught the skill of powerful drawing</strong>. Some students will have already decided that they are not artists and, if so, this is a chance to change their minds. One idea is to get them to <strong>complete a self portrait</strong> with their biros. First let them draw without instruction ( to see their 'prior' skills) and then guide them ( 'scaffold' them) through the process. This is another chance to introduce the idea of quality. Once again value individual differences. The lesson is outlined in the link on the previous blog.<br /><br /><strong>One way to develop students drawing or illustrative skill is to base their drawing on a digital photo of themselves</strong> - possibly doing something exciting during their holidays. If so<strong> get them to focus on the dramatic aspects</strong>, or close up views, not long distance shots. Combine their portraits with them holding perhaps a fish or some food for example. Get them to include as much texture, or details, as they can.<br /><br />Both the above can be expanded to develop as a major piece of art.<br /><br /><strong>Another way is to get some school journals and then students to select an illustration they like and to copy it into their language book.</strong> It maybe be useful for them to copy only part of the drawing to <strong>introduce the idea of focus</strong>. When complete add the artists name. This is an excellent language activity and <strong>illustrates to the students wide range of artists styles and genres</strong> ( there lots of approaches to being an artist from the real to the bold). This is a fun activity to use whenever new journal arrive.<br /><br /><strong><a href="http://leading-learning.blogspot.com/2007/08/missing-out-on-valuable-learning.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Observational drawing, a vital science/art skill</span></a>, is a good activity to get students to do</strong>. Once again get then to draw an object ( kawakawa leaves are great) without instruction to assess their 'prior skill' and then instruct them to draw carefully, to go slow, and to take their time. The two efforts be compared and lessons drawn from the activity.<strong>If you are planning a small environmental study then this skill can be put to use.</strong> A 'mini <a href="http://leading-learning.blogspot.com/2007/02/summer-has-arrived-time-to-go-outdoors.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">study' of cicadas</span></a> is one idea, or shells collected from the seashore during the holidays. Wild flowers, grasses or a <a href="http://http//leading-learning.blogspot.com/2009/12/chance-to-do-some-real-inquiry-harakeke.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">flax study</span></a> are possible studies.<br /><br /><strong>A good idea for maths ( after you have surveyed their prior attitudes ) is to study what maths is and get them to research the history of number development through the ages.</strong> You could cover how different cultures have their own number system. Find out who developed the zero and why it is so important. <strong>It is important to humanize maths if all students are to gain a 'feeling for' the subject.</strong> Famous mathematicians can be researched.<strong> It pays to keep maths as applied as possible.</strong><br /><br /><strong>It might be useful to share with them the main ideas of each Learning Area covered in the New Zealand Curriculum</strong> if so make time to gain their collective 'prior ideas' first. The main ideas coud be copied into one of their books?<br /><br /><strong>For writing</strong>,after you have assessed their handwriting abilities, <strong>it is fun for the class to research the development of writing</strong> from cave drawing to word processors. The history of writing ,and the various writing media, is a fascinating one.<br /><br /><strong>One final thought.</strong><br /><br /><strong>All students buy a set of exercise books to begin the year. Some schools I know have reinvented these books as portfolios as they ought to show qualitative improvement (the Japanese call this continual small improvement 'kaizen'). </strong>The first days of school is the time to introduce students to this expectation. <strong><a href="http://leading-learning.blogspot.com/2007/06/well-designed-student-visual.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">It is a good idea to introduce them to simple graphic presentation ideas</span></a></strong>. It is also a good idea to aim, by Easter, for all books to show improvement.In the schools that have developed their books as portfolios all books are sent home before parent interviews for their comments and later to discuss during interviews.<br /><br /><strong>When a research study is undertaken students should be shown design or graphic 'scaffolds' to help them present their work.</strong> As with all 'scaffolds' it is important, that once in place, students be encouraged to show their individuality and creativity. <br /><br /><strong>One you have thought out all the possibilities map out a programme for day one and week one.</strong> If you are in a proactive school your fellow team member will provide you with ideas to include.<br /><br /><strong>Share your daily plan with the students at the beginning of the day. At the end of the day (and each activity) have reflective session to clarify what has been learnt</strong>. At the end of the day discuss with the class the three main things learnt during the day - their mothers will want to know!<br /><br /><strong>Even if you don't use all the above suggestions they all remain available for later use.</strong> <strong>It is important to do fewer things well in depth.</strong><br /><br /><strong>The overall 'message' you want to leave with them is that you want them to do their best work - to aim for quality; you want then to to value their own 'voices', experiences, questions and ideas; and you want them to value their individuality and creativity. This is the essence of a learning community</strong>.<br /><br /><strong>Best of all slowing their pace of work </strong>(many students will arrive with a 'first finished is best' attitude) <strong>will help you to get them to value perseverance and effort and to develop a concept of personal excellence</strong>.<br /><br /><strong>Not a bad start</strong>.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523099317733501598.post-24790681335040880872012-01-17T13:31:00.000-08:002012-01-21T04:22:28.458-08:00Beginning the School Year :1<h3 class="post-title entry-title">Beginning the school year - 'keeping the end in mind'. </h3><div class="post-header"><div class="post-header-line-1"></div></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2570775781899261102"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__InAR8tMKK4/TTHi_kaqMdI/AAAAAAAABMQ/bIWYKEo07Ac/s1600/August%2B%2Bthree%2B124.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" closure_uid_g4z8h9="2" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5562476596514402770" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__InAR8tMKK4/TTHi_kaqMdI/AAAAAAAABMQ/bIWYKEo07Ac/s400/August%2B%2Bthree%2B124.jpg" style="cursor: hand; height: 400px; width: 309px;" /></a><br /><em>If you want <strong>a book to inspire</strong> you to become aware of the possibilities of your environment this is the book for you.Ideal for any adult wanting to expand their awareness but for teachers a most valuable classroom resource. <strong>Full of practical ideas to use with your class to help them retain ( or regain) their natural curiosity.</strong> Very creatively and visually presented. A fun book. Not written by a curriculum consultant which makes it even more valuable.<br /></em><a href="http://leading-learning.blogspot.com/2010/09/how-to-be-explorer-of-world.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;"><em>Check link for more info.</em></span></a><br /><br /><strong>Business philosopher Stephen Covey, in his book 'The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People', writes that it is important to ' keep the end in mind'</strong>. It is too easy to get bogged down in the present just trying to get through and in the process lose sight of the 'end in mind'.If this happens you can easily end up losing your way. As the saying goes, 'it is hard to remember you came to drain the swamp when you're up to your backside in crocodiles!'<br /><br /><strong>So what is the end in mind for a teacher beginning the school year?</strong><br /><br /><strong>This ought to be defined by the agreed vision,values ( agreed behaviours) and teaching beliefs of the school</strong>. And if this is important, and not just rhetoric, then <strong>success ought to measured by achieving this vision</strong>. Of course this is rarely the case - schools are all too often concerned with the 'crocodiles' of day to day hassles. Tradition, or past unquestioned habits, seem to rule the minds of most schools. Just look how they apportion their time - it would seem few have escaped from the Victorian emphasis on the 'three Rs'.<br /><br /><strong>So what would be the end in mind to keep in mind?</strong><br /><br /><strong>A good place to start would be the vision pages of the revised New Zealand Curriculum 2007.</strong><br /><br /><strong>Nothing should get in the way of NZC Vision of ensuring all students become 'confident life long learners' - or life long questioners and inquirers.</strong><br /><br /><strong>This means really focusing all teaching interactions on developing the 'key competencies' of the curriculum</strong>; learning to think, work with others, persevere and use every means to communicate effectively. Some call these <strong>'habits of mind'</strong> (Art Costa) and others <strong>'learning power </strong>' ( Guy Claxton). Once it was just called <strong>'learning to learn'</strong>!<br /><br /><strong>To achieve 'confidence' and 'learning power' requires teachers make certain that what is studied is seen as real and relevant by learners.</strong> <br /><br /><strong>Good advice is for teachers to to do fewer things well</strong> and to <strong>continually diagnose what each individual can do</strong> and, where there are gaps in skills or understanding, teaching the missing information.<strong>Positive attitudes for, or 'feelings for', the particular learning experience are the key to successful learning</strong>.<br /><br /><strong>One key phrase in the NZC</strong> ( on the vision page and in the thinking competency) <strong>is </strong><strong>for each student to be a 'seeker, user and creator of their own knowledge'</strong>. The teachers role is to ensure all students have the skills and attitudes to achieve such personal knowledge creation. <strong>The challenge for the teacher is to ensure all students develop 'feeling for' whatever they are learning.</strong> Successful teachers really care about what their students think and feel particularly those who have lost confidence in the ability to complete any task. <strong>Valuing each learner's 'voice', questions, and ideas is vital.</strong><br /><br /><strong>Such a vision is student or learning centred one in contrast to students simply asked to do what teachers expect of them.</strong> This doesn't mean letting students do what they like ; <strong>the teacher role is a very creative one</strong>.<br /><br /><strong>Teachers need to negotiate with students to ensure empowerment or a sense of ownership and to hold students to completing what they have agreed to do.</strong> <br /><br /><strong>This requires firmness and teacher artistry to assess what it is each learner is capable of and then ensuring students gain the skills to continually improve their personal best</strong>. As educationalist Jerome Bruner says, 'teaching is the canny art of intellectual temptation'.<br /><br /><strong>Thankfully students are easily trapped by their innate curiosity if what is put in front of them appeals</strong>. The challenge for teachers is to think up ways to tap into this sense of curiosity in all learning areas.<br /><br /><strong>With such a vision in mind teachers can slowly , as students develop skill, pass greater responsibility to their students.</strong>. <br /><br /><strong>When it seems difficult to negotiate learning then it is honest to say 'we just have to do this so lets do it'</strong>. With maths it is possible to develop relevant studies but when practice is required then just call it that, practice. Remind students that to do anything well you need to have the skills in place and that sometimes skill practice is important , but only to be able to get back to the real learning. <strong>Literacy blocks</strong> ( and maths where possible)<strong> ought to focus on providing the research skills necessary to undertake in depth inquiry studies</strong>.<br /><br /><strong>The vision of the revised curriculum's is a personalised approach to learning - helping each learner at their point of need.</strong> Students will see the point of practicing learning missing skill if it helps then achieve the 'end they have in mind'.<strong>The whole purpose of education is to develop in every learner a powerful learning identity</strong>, a strong sense of self, of being a valued and worthwhile person. <strong>This involves the teacher really listening to their students</strong> and validating them.<br /><br /><strong>A good idea is to start the year with a discussion with your class of what makes a powerful learner.</strong> Work through the introductory pages of the NZC with them and <strong>develop an image of a great class</strong> - a true learning community of inquirers 'hunting' for meaning in their tasks.<strong> Such a community requires rights and obligations (agreed behaviours) for both the teacher and the class members to hold themselves to.</strong><br /><br /><strong>'Their' powerful learning attributes ( 'merged' with the NZC 'key competencies') can then be referred to, as required, to ensure students keep the 'end in mind' and do not get lost in pointless ( to them) activities.</strong><br /><br /><strong><em>Keeping the 'end in mind' is valuable advice for both teacher and learners</em></strong></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523099317733501598.post-78439131891763609812012-01-14T14:56:00.000-08:002012-01-21T04:22:28.481-08:00Education - still firmly stuck in the 20th C ( or 19th)!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2D3pi76H-Ag/TxHzs6J-5rI/AAAAAAAABgc/F3p9vy7SRLY/s1600/MVC-002F.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="387" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2D3pi76H-Ag/TxHzs6J-5rI/AAAAAAAABgc/F3p9vy7SRLY/s400/MVC-002F.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><em>This small picture book points out the futility of trying to 'tinker' education into the 21stC - after trying several well known reforms it suggests what is required is a total transformation - 'a new horse' ( in the book a car!) - not improving a faulty/failing system</em>.<br /><br /><strong>The other day I was talking to a young teacher who was starting to think what she might do with her class when the term starts</strong>. <br /><br />We had a good discussion but <strong>it was soon clear to me that the advice I wanted to give would clash with what it was expected she would have to do</strong>. There is not much room for my thoughts these days and so my decision to keep clear of schools a good one. All the more sensible as <strong>schools will increasingly focused on collecting data to prove their students are achieving appropriate standards in literacy and numeracy</strong> -and all the intended , or unintended , consequences that will eventuate from such a reactionary approach.<br /><br /><strong>Most of my difficulty revolves around school expectation for literacy and numeracy</strong> - <strong>areas that have been highlighted by political pressure the past decades particularly the</strong> <strong>National Standards</strong>. <strong>In literacy and numeracy most teachers (and principals) have very traditional, hard to change, views</strong>.<br /><br /><strong>As a result, as one UK commentator has written , 'the evil twins of literacy and numeracy have all but gobbled up the entire curriculum'.</strong> <br /><br /><strong>Until new perspectives are developed education change will remain 'tinkering'; 'reararnging the deck chairs on the Titanic to get a better view'.</strong> As business philosopher Peter Drucker says, 'every organisation has to abandon almost everything if they are to thrive in the future' , he also wrote that<strong> 'the first countries to develop a 21st C education system will win the future'</strong>.<strong> New Zealand had such an opportunity with the , now sidelined, with the 2007 New Zealand Curriculum</strong>.<br /><br /><strong>Back to the school scene.</strong><br /><br /><strong>The key question to consider is what is the purpose, or point of, school in the 21st C? What attitudes, competencies, attributes or dispositions will students need to thrive? What aspects of schooling do we need to keep and what new thinking is required?</strong> The answers to all these questions are available - one only has to read Sir Ken Robinson, Guy Claxton, or any number of insightful educationalists.<br /><br /><strong>All their advice is most ignored - the status quo has an amazing power to ignore the need for change</strong>. Throw in the fear of the unknown, the views of populist politicians, and pressure from conservative elements in society, and it seems all but impossible.<br /><br /><strong>So what can schools do?</strong><br /><br /><strong>First, for all teachers to believe all students can learn given the right opportunities, and appropriate help.</strong> This requires <strong>a personalised approach</strong> to learning -<strong> an approach premised on students being helped to construct their own meaning</strong> through guided experiences.<br /><br /><strong>For all students to succeed it is important to tap into every students particular gifts and talents and that a curriculum active realistic enquiry is the way to achieve this. </strong>In earlier days, before political ideology took control of curriculum, many teachers were moving towards a creative education system<strong>.</strong><br /><br /><strong>These beliefs applied to literacy ( I prefer language arts) are not that difficult.</strong><br /><br /><strong>The literacy programme needs to be focused on developing all the skills required for students to make sense of, or comprehend, the material they are exposed in their cross curriculum inquiries</strong>. <strong>Language activities simply need to be 're framed' and determined by need required to complete deep learning in other areas</strong>.<br /><br /><strong>I personally would be careful of ability grouping</strong> ( mental apartheid) <strong>and would not countenance streaming students into various ability classes</strong> - both are techniques of outdated educational thinking. The second is destructive to purposeful integrated learning- the first reinforces unnecessary attitudes.<br /><br /><strong>As the ideas above are part of the mindsets of most schools my thoughts find no room to be developed.</strong> <br /><strong>If literacy seems possible to integrate, or 'reframe', into a a talent based inquiry curriculum mathematics seems even more traditional and problematic.</strong> Most primary teachers are not confident in this area - they have inherited the negative attitudes from traditional ability grouped programmes they themselves experienced.<br /><br /><strong>So 'reframing' maths seems a bigger challenge</strong>.<br /><br /><strong>Ironically all the current thinking in mathematics is about developing maths in real contexts and there are resources available to assist once mindsets are changed.</strong> <br /><br /><strong>How students see maths is important ( their prior views).</strong> To change minds students need to be helped to develop positive attitudes - given leadership most teachers would be able to think of lots of positive ideas.<strong> A piece of good advice is to tell students that when they are doing exploratory maths that this is 'real maths' and that when using texts or developing algorithms it is 'practice' maths.</strong> And, if this distinction is made, for teachers<strong> to relate as much maths as they can to their current inquiry study</strong>, <strong>to inject maths into their studies</strong>,<strong> or to develop rich mathematical themes</strong>. 'Real' maths requires students working in groups rather than as individuals which is current practice.<br /><br /><strong>As students are involved in realistic literacy and mathematical situations teachers are continually diagnosing progress.</strong> Students with special needs can be brought together to be given <strong>focused assistance in missing skills</strong> so they can return to 'playing the maths game'.<br /><br /><strong>It is my belief that once teachers develop answers to the purpose of school in the 21stC then they can develop programmes with their students to develop the appropriate literacy and numeracy programmes that contribute to the development of every students gifts and talents and required dispositions and attitudes.</strong><br /><br /><strong>Trouble is today political pressure is being placed on schools pushing school to 'stick to riding horses' into the twenty first century.</strong><br /><br /><strong>No place for me in such a failing system.</strong>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523099317733501598.post-24806932555897084422012-01-12T15:12:00.000-08:002012-01-21T04:22:28.503-08:00Education to realize the talents of all - students and teachers.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bBCwGwbdmz8/Tw89BoVgqHI/AAAAAAAABgE/FVZK9r83_j0/s1600/Hockney%2B113.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="264" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bBCwGwbdmz8/Tw89BoVgqHI/AAAAAAAABgE/FVZK9r83_j0/s400/Hockney%2B113.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><em>This book by educational researcher <strong>Helen Timperley</strong> published 2011, is all about tapping the power of teachers to enable all students to succeed. It is about helping teachers learn rather than telling them what to do; about putting student learning at the heart of the educational process; about developing a explicit inquiry approach to learning for teachers, students and principals; about engagement not compliance. It seems like common sense - but well researched common sense</em>.<br /><br /><strong>It seems their is a new consensus emerging - one that places empowering teachers as central to educational change</strong>. For many Timperley's book simply confirms beliefs many of us have held for years - that it is the teachers professionalism that counts. <strong>Developing teacher capacity to make informed judgements using an inquiry learning model</strong> has underpinned the writings of Gwen Gawith ( Action learning) and Dr John Edwards, David Perkins, Guy Claxton, Dean Fink and, more recently, even Michael Fullan who now writes that creating conditions to develop teacher confidence and ability is the key rather than imposing national agendas. For those with a longer memory the excellent research of the <strong>Learning In Science Project</strong> ( 1980s) fits in with this 'new' constructivist thinking an approcah that values the prior ideas of students but with a greater emphasis on teachers' thinking.<br /><br /><strong>Creative principals and teachers have aways believed this although Timperley's book certainly outlines the inquiry cycle in endless detail.</strong> It is a shame the government is not following this capacity building approach instead of their obsession with imposing National Standards. <strong>This is a book that sees teachers as reflective professional judging success by evidence not technicians complying to top down demands.</strong><br /><br /><strong>I am sure this will be a popular book for principals who want to develop 'their' schools as inquiry learning communities where 'self regulated learners' are able to demonstrate 'deep learning'.</strong><br /><br /><strong>In the introduction the editors of the series write that education's mission is 'enable everyone, without exception, to develops all their talents to the full and to realize their creative potential'.</strong><br /><br /><strong>To me this is the point of a modern education system .</strong><br /><br /><strong>The editors write that education has not 'aways kept up with the times' and 'still seems in the past century'.</strong> They continue that 'tinkering around the endless will not help' <strong>and that 'a bold and imaginative re-orientation to educational purposes' is required</strong> ; 'about what education could be; not what it has been'.<br /><br /><strong>Unless school leaders appreciate that current thinking is the problem</strong>, that there is a need for a 'step change' in professional development, <strong>they will continue to be 'tinkering'.</strong><br /><br /><strong>The book challenges school leaders to develop the 'conditions teachers need to learn in order to make a difference'</strong> and <strong>that these conditions reflect those needed by their students</strong>.<br /><br /><strong>The book is about how teachers learn and why certain approaches to professional development work</strong> <strong>- an approach valuing and engaging teachers prior conceptions</strong>. <strong>It is about appreciating the importance of what teachers think about their students</strong> - <strong>about teachers believing all students can learn rather than having a fixed innate intelligence.</strong><br /><br /><strong>The book is premised on the need for teachers to be engaged actively in practical activities rather than just sitting and receiving knowledge from those who claim to know more than the teachers themselves.</strong><br /><br /><strong>And that the key to any success is teachers seeing their students improve as a result of their actions</strong><br /><br /><strong>Such ideas challenge school leaders and learning facilitators to create the learning conditions to empower teachers and to ensure student progress results</strong>. 'For far too many teachers...staff development is a demeaning mind numbing process and they passively sit and git"'<br /><br /><strong>The various chapters of the book outlines in detail an inquiry process that actively involves teachers and implications for school leadership.</strong><br /><br /><strong>The teacher inquiry model and knowledge building cycle is as follows:</strong><br /><br /><br /><strong>What knowledge and skills do students need to meet important goals.</strong><br /><br /><strong>What knowledge and skills do we as teachers need to meet the needs of their students</strong>.<br /><br /><strong>Opportunities to deepen and refine professional skills</strong>.<br /><br /><strong>Engaging students in new learning experiences</strong>.<br /><br /><strong>Evaluating the impact of changed actions?</strong><br /><br /><strong><em><span style="color: red;">( As mentioned in the introduction the editors of the series write that education's mission is 'enable everyone, without exception, to develops all their talents to the full and to realize their creative potential'. </span><span style="color: black;">Imagine if the inquiry learning cycle was based around teachers working to realize this?)</span></em></strong><br /><br /><strong>The book makes it clear that this inquiry mindset is an ongoing iterative process resulting , if successful, in adaptive practitioners who are aways on the alert for opportunities to improve their teaching.</strong> It is also a process that is the default mode that humans are born with and one that underpins scientific and artistic innovations - all forms of 'enlightened trial and error'.<br /><br /><strong>The cycle begins and ends with students and is sited in the real life circumstances individual teachers work in</strong> . The process is highly dependent on teachers assessing what students already know and what they can do - their prior experiences, and what they need to do, and how will they know if successful.<br /><br /><strong>The second part of the cycles is determining what teachers need to know and be able to do to ensure all students achieve identifiable success</strong>. Students success depends on what teachers do. <strong>Teacher skill is the single most important influence on students learning so deepening teacher professional knowledge is vital</strong> <strong>and this is best learned through the inquiry process by trying out and evaluating new ideas.</strong><br /><br /><strong>It is obvious that the school leaders role is to ensure conditions are in place for teachers to learn and to challenge and support their teachers - teachers are, in this respect, the leaders class</strong>. And, as with any class, it is not possible to believe all teachers are equally skilled. And also, as with teacher, leaders cannot choose to work with only those willing if a difference is to be made for all teachers. No teacher can be 'let of the hook.'<br /><br /><strong>The remainder of the book details the various stages and implications of the learning inquiry process.</strong><br /><br /><strong>If I have a criticism, in contrast to the fine words in the preface about developing full range of talents of all students most examples refer to literacy programmes</strong> and the author writes that some feel ( as I do) that <strong>'has been at the cost of a wider and richer curriculum'</strong>. It is obviously easier for schools to use fit for purpose assessments of literacy and numeracy but a 21stC education requires a broader view of learning.<br /><br /><strong>One example I enjoyed was how one secondary teacher developed new knowledge to deal with misbehaving students</strong>.<strong>Another excellent example was the outlining of the research of Russell Bishop's Kotahitanga research</strong> which illustrated the importance of relationships and cultural differences - and the negative impact of deficit theories of learning.<br /><br /><strong>My favourite example was that of a UK secondary school exploring the development of the six personal learning and thinking skills to develop students as 'independent inquirers, creative thinker, reflective learners, team workers, self managers and effective particpators'</strong>, to ensure students were prepared for a more challenging curriculum. The staff at this school developed a set of indicators to be considered as evidence of students being more reflective and independent.<br /><br /><strong>If I were a principal this would be the area I would want to develop, along with a focus on developing all students gifts and talents, as they reflect the essence of the 2007 New Zealand Curriculum</strong>.<br /><br /><strong>The key to develop engaged learners requires a rich inquiry based programmes across the curriculum and it would be shame to see inquiry cycles limited to literacy and numeracy</strong>.<br /><br /><strong>The book discusses the value of outside catalysts to bring in a 'new lens' and to challenge 'existing social norms where these norms are directed to reinforcing rather than challenging the status quo'</strong>. Respectful relationships ( 'relational trust') are required in all situations to promote inquiry habits of mind throughout the school. <strong>The importance of coaching, scaffolding of help, that leaves responsibility with the teacher is also an issue.</strong> This of course applies to teachers and their students as well as between leaders, facilitators and teachers.<br /><br /><strong>The inquiry approach, if implemented, will uncover teacher beliefs that will be problematic</strong> particularly if teachers hold traditional transmission view, or beliefs about innate fixed ability in contrast to growth mindsets. <strong>To ensure success prior views of teacher must be valued</strong> -<strong> the evidence of student success needs to be seen as the final arbiter</strong>. Uncovering teacher views is vital for any development to occur or for conflicts to be revolved.<br /><br /><strong>The importance of school wide coherence is important but the author writes it 'can conjure up images of alignment with everything looking the same</strong>....Coherence in a learning system, in fact, requites high levels of energy and innovation with studnts'. <strong>'In reality, if leader wish teachers to become responsive to students, then adaptations should be expected'</strong>. ' The question is not about faithful implementation - <strong>'adaptive experts are disciplined innovators who monitor their effectiveness in terms of the engagements, learning and well being of all students in their care'.</strong><br /><br /><strong>Adaptive students, adaptive teachers and adaptive schools is the point of powerful professional learning.To be successful requires the collective will of all involved.</strong>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523099317733501598.post-38035493987562406422012-01-09T14:57:00.000-08:002012-01-21T04:22:28.523-08:00Educational Quotes 9: Classroom Management<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qljbguo_BoY/Twtv9nYOGXI/AAAAAAAABf4/oThNlKPxqFM/s1600/002%2Bclass%2Bmanagemen2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="361" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qljbguo_BoY/Twtv9nYOGXI/AAAAAAAABf4/oThNlKPxqFM/s400/002%2Bclass%2Bmanagemen2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><strong>Creative classrooms need to be flexible enough for a wide range of individuals to feel at home, able to express their particular personalities , learning styles, and particular range of talents and gifts.</strong><br /><br /><strong>Creative class management is the art, or craft, of creating the conditions that provide students with enough security and structure for them to take the learning risks to required to develop personalised learning. Too much chaos leads to disorder - too much structure reduces the learners ability to make decisions and choices. Most current classroom management procedures are determined by unquestioned routines and habits that reflect a past age.</strong><br /><br />'If there is any other situations fraught with danger for mental health as that of a class held rigid by fear, it is a class exposed to the anxieties engendered by unlimited freedom. There is nothing as terrifying to the immature human being as a completely unstructured situation. Without a recognisable structure they feel the teacher has abandoned them - and so he has- to their own impulses, all of which are by no means always constructive.' <strong>B Morris</strong><br /><br />'I would caution student teachers to always be flexible with kids, but not to leave them with no structure, because many times we are the only structure these kids have.' <strong>Kouzes and Postner </strong><br /><br />'It is significant to realise that the most creative environments in our society are not the ever-changing ones. The artist's studio, the researcher's laboratory, the scholar's library are each kept deliberately simple so as to support the complexities of the work in progress. They are deliberately kept predictable so the unpredictable can happen.' <strong>Lucy Calkins </strong><br /><br />'Without containment, spontaneity, exhalation and freedom of the mind could seep into license and anarchy, where all day has no shape. A benign routine helps our child to gain responsibility and our school to stability.' <strong>Sylvia Ashton Warner</strong> 76 <br /> <br />'The word 'freedom' can never be uttered unless accompanied hand in hand with the word responsibility. It is kinder to keep the lid on the school for a start, lifting it little by little, simultaneously teaching responsibility, until the time comes when the lid can be cast entirely aside and only two conditions remain - freedom and responsibility'. <strong>Sylvia Ashton Warner</strong> <br /><strong><br /></strong>'Some classrooms are unintentionally uninviting' <strong>Harry Wong</strong><br /> <br />'All battles are won before they start.' <strong>Sun Tzu</strong> <br /> <br />'The schools schedule is a series of units of time; the clock is king.' <strong>Theodore Sizer</strong> <br /> <br />'Children who grow up in ..situations that facilitate clarity of goals, feelings of control, concentration on the task at hand, intrinsic motivation, and challenge will generally have a better chance to order their lives so as to make flow possible.' <strong>Csikszentmihalyi </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br /><strong></strong> <br />'Persons are not quite the same thing as solitary individuals, nor are they a crowd. Persons are living networks of biology and emotions and memories and relationships.' <strong>Tilby </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'Half of what you will accomplish in a day will be determined before you leave home. Three quarters of what you achieve will be determined before you enter the classroom door' <strong>Harry Wong</strong> <br /> <br />' The number one problem in the classrooms is not discipline; it is lack of authentic learning tasks, procedures and routines' <strong>Harry Wong</strong> <br /> <br />'In an effective classroom students should not only know what they are doing, they should also know why and how'' <strong>Harry Wong</strong> <br /> <br />'Schools should look behind classroom doors and determine the factors that contribute to the kinds of interactions between teachers and students that promote student achievement.'<strong> Heckman</strong> 1990 <br /> <br />'Some initial fuss reduces subsequent fuss: that some apparently complicated initial procedures actually simplify procedures in the long run; that formal routines free the teachers for closer relationships.' <strong>Michael Marland</strong> <br /><br />'Today the evil twins of literacy and numeracy have all but gobbled up the whole curriculum'. <strong>Anon</strong><br /><br />'The river flows at its own sweet will, but the flood is bound in the two banks. If it were not thus bound, its freedom would be wasted.' <strong>Vinoba Bhave,<br />Indian leader</strong>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523099317733501598.post-61279994941029826602012-01-09T14:37:00.000-08:002012-01-21T04:22:28.542-08:00Educational Quotes 8: Curriculum<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IFpg3jacRF4/TwtrUW_Rq0I/AAAAAAAABfs/fz-CrnwPFq0/s1600/MVC-0xxx11F.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="333" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IFpg3jacRF4/TwtrUW_Rq0I/AAAAAAAABfs/fz-CrnwPFq0/s400/MVC-0xxx11F.JPG" width="316" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><strong>Schools have been trying to implement impossible curriculums based on a technocratic accountability model. The future demands students who retain a love of learning - students with their talents, dreams and passions developed. To achieve these demands a new appreciation of what a curriculum for the future should be.</strong> <br /> <br /> <br />'If we don't encourage others to find their own meaning, their own voice, we will never be able to sustain our own. Freedom comes from following you own voice not following another's' <strong>Peter Block</strong> <br /> <br />'If we wish to present ourselves to the wider world as New Zealanders then we must be able to listen to our own voices, and trace our own footsteps; we must have our own heroes and heroines inspire us; we must persist with building our own culture with the ingredients close to hand and not import theses ingredients ready made from abroad'. The late <strong>Michael King</strong> NZ Historian <br /> <br />'There is, it seems, more concern about whether children learn the mechanics of reading and writing than grow to love reading and writing; learn about democracy than have practice in democracy; hear about knowledge... rather than gain experience in personally constructing knowledge... see the world narrowly, simple and ordered, rather than broad complex and uncertain'. <strong>Vitto Perrone</strong>, 'Letter to Teachers' <br /> <br />'Standardization, the great ally of mediocrity, wins out over imagination.' <strong>Sergiovanni</strong> <br /> <br />'There is something about the Procrustean bed about schools; some children are left disabled by being hacked about to fit the curriculum; some are stretched to take up the available space, others less malleable are labeled as having special educational needs.' <strong>Chris Bowring-Carr and John Burnham West</strong> <br /> <br />'The constant need to move on, and to document progress, in normal schools means that education tends to be cut up into bite sized task..' <strong>Guy Claxton</strong> in 'Wise -Up' <br /> <br />'Teaching is impossible. If we simply add together all that is expected of a typical teacher... the sum makes greater demands than any individual can possibly fulfill'.<strong> Lee Shulman</strong> Stanford Univ <br /> <br />'If the shoe doesn't fit, must we change the foot?' <strong>Gloria Steinem</strong> US Feminist <br /> <br />'Could it be that the current education reforms have not yet fully dealt with what teaching and learning are all about? In a word, yes.' <strong>Peyton Williams</strong> ASCD President 2003 <br /> <br />'We must beware of needless innovation, especially when guided by logic.' <strong>Winston Churchill</strong> <br /> <br />'How many students ... were rendered callous to ideas, and how many lost the impetus to learn because of the way in which learning was experienced by them?' <strong>John Dewey</strong> <br /> <br />Many school focus too much on achievement... (they need) to create opportunities for young people develop their learning muscles and their learning stamina through working on real problems... to reflect on and manage their own learning.' <strong>Guy Claxton </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'Do not teach too many subjects and what you teach, teach thoroughly.' <strong>Alfred North Whitehead</strong> <br /> <br />'You have to take enough time to get kids deeply involved in something they can think about in lots of different ways,' <strong>Howard Gardner</strong> <br /><strong> </strong> <br />'The real process of education should be the process of learning to think through the application of real problems.' <strong>John Dewey </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'All the arts are brothers, each one throwing a light unto the others.' <strong>Voltaire </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'Knowledge is a polite word for dead but not buried imagination.' <strong>e e cummings</strong> us poet <br /> <br />'Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math, that does not mean we deserve to conquer the universe.' <strong>Kurt Vonnegut</strong> Jnr Author <br /> <br />'What we want to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.' <strong>G B Shaw </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'The first people had questions, and they were free. The second people had answers, and they became enslaved.' <strong>Wind Eagle</strong> American Indian Chief <br /> <br /><strong> </strong> <br /><strong></strong> <br />'The problem is fundamental... It is as if a secret committee, now lost to history, has made a study of children and, having figured out what the greatest number were least disposed to declared that all of them should do it.' <strong>Tracey Kidder</strong> <br /> <br />'Everything depends on the quality of the experience which is had.' <strong>John Dewey</strong> <br /> <br />'The central problem of an education based on experience is to select the kind of present experiences that live fruitfully and creatively in subsequent experience.' <strong>John Dewey</strong> <br /> <br />'Of course schools should be accountable- but accountable for what?... I would like to see schools accountable for developing students who have a love of learning - who are continually growing in wisdom and in their ability to function effectively( and happily) in the world.' <strong>Judy Yero</strong> <a href="http://www.teachersmind.com/" target="_blank">http://www.teachersmind.com/</a> <br /> <br />'We must not entrust the future of our children to habit.' <strong>Judy Yero</strong> <br /> <br />.Be careful what you give children, for sooner or later you are sure to get it back.' <strong>Barbara Kingsolver</strong> <br /> <br />'A teacher cannot build a community of learners unless the voices and lives of the students are an integral part of the curriculum.' <strong>Peterson</strong> 94 <br /> <br />'The curriculum is to be thought of in terms activity and experience rather than knowledge to be acquired and facts to be stored.' <strong>Haddow Report</strong> UK 1931 <br /> <br />'The main function of the school... lies in offering opportunities and an environment in which a child can explore freely, along many lines, and create in many media. In doing he will utilize his natural instinctive energies in the acquiring of skills and the building of interests.' <strong>Froebel Publication</strong> 1949 <br /> <br />'Much of the material presented in schools strikes students as alien, if not pointless.' <strong>Howard Gardner </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'the intuitive, the expressive, the un-measurable, the intensely personal have never found a satisfactory place in the curriculum, in assessment, in the publics esteem.' <strong>Hedley Beare</strong> Prof of Educ Melbourne <br /> <br />( Because) it is the intellect which dominates schooling ... the specifically soul making subjects- literature, drama, music, the visual arts- are progressively 'de-souled' as the child progresses through school' <strong>Dr Bernie Neville</strong> Aust Educator <br /> <br />'how we picture ourselves, the language we use about ourselves and our family, the stories we tell about ourselves or which we allow others to tell, whom we compare ourselves with, what we think we will become, how we define our own universe, these are the raw material from which we spin our web of personal mythology'. <strong>Hedley Beare</strong> Aust Educator <br /> <br />'Teaching which ignores the realities of children will be rejected as surely as any graft which attempts to ignore the body's immune system.' <strong>Howard Gardner </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'Treat people as if they were what they might be, and you will help them become capable of being.'<strong> Goethe</strong> <br /> <br />'We should train ourselves not to ask 'How intelligent he/she is?' but 'Which intelligence doe he/she have most of?.' <strong>Charles Handy</strong> <br /> <br />'Thinking precedes literacy and numeracy but nowhere in the curriculum is that recognized.' <strong>Mc Gavin</strong>, Glasgow University <br /> <br />'We have to... immerse ourselves in interactive, real life, complex experiences out of which we can process new lives' <strong>Caine and Caine</strong> 97 <br /> <br />'We should see schools as safe arenas for experimenting with life, for discovering our talents... for taking responsibity for tasks and others people, for learning how to learn... and for exploring our beliefs about life and society.' <strong>Charles Handy</strong> <br /> <br />'Nature is one. It is not divided into physics, chemistry, quantum mechanics.' Albert <strong>Szent-Gyorgi</strong> <br /><br />'The greatest unexplored territory in the world is the space between the ears.' <strong>Bill O'Brien</strong> CEO <br /> <br />' New technology is common, new thinking is rare.' <strong>Sir Peter Blake</strong> <br /> <br />'Youth is wholly experimental.' <strong>R L Stevenson </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'Intellectual activity anywhere is the same whether at the frontier of knowledge or in a third grade classroom.' <strong>Jerome Bruner</strong> <br /> <br />'The whole process of education should be thus conceived as the process of learning to think through the solutions of real problems.' <strong>John Dewey</strong> <br /> <br />'If you can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives.' <strong>Chinese proverb</strong> <br /> <br />'there can be no mental development without interest.' <strong>A N Whitehead </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'He aha te mea nui o te ao?<br />He tangata, he tangata, he tangata'<br />'What is the most important thing in the world?<br />It is people, it is people , it is people.' <strong>Maori saying</strong><br /><br />'Human beings are not machines. Human beings are complex adaptive systems living on the edge of the continuos ability to self-actualise. We are creative and in that creativity 'We can reinvent our own lives'.<strong> Maslow</strong> <br /> <br />'Our view of learning is much more like the learning of an artist or great scientist. The artist needs skills and tools....the artist armed with an idea...begins to create.. accompanied by many changes stops starts and erasers...they have a purpose that will lead somewhere that has meaning for the artist'<strong>Caine and Caine</strong> <br /><br />Activity and reflection should complement and support each other. Action by itself is blind, reflection impotent.' <strong>Csikszentmihalyi<br /></strong>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523099317733501598.post-89418789428451200922012-01-09T14:19:00.000-08:002012-01-21T04:22:28.572-08:00Educational Quotes 7: Creativity<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qmsDuwW03dU/TwtnRBItX1I/AAAAAAAABfg/ZhKoM3wvfu8/s1600/MVC-005F.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qmsDuwW03dU/TwtnRBItX1I/AAAAAAAABfg/ZhKoM3wvfu8/s400/MVC-005F.JPG" width="283" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><em><strong>Michelangelo</strong> was believed to have said : I saw an angel within the marble and went about to set it free'. Teachers need to have this 'David factor'</em>.<br /><br /><strong>We are leaving the Industrial Age and entering an Age of Ideas and Creativity ; an age where individual and shared talent will be the most important assets. Schools, as Tom Peters says, in his wonderful book 'Re-Imagine': 'Are a thinly disguised conspiracy to quash creativity'. 'Talent', he says, 'is everything. And the production of talent is significantly dependent on schools'. Or it ought to be. </strong><br /> <br /> <br />'Creators love creations before they exist'. <strong>Robert Fritz</strong> <br /> <br />'I believe I experience creativity at every moment of my life.' <strong>Henri Bergson</strong> <br /> <br />'Some people see things as they are and ask 'why'? I see things as they have never been and ask 'why not'?' <strong>George Bernard Shaw</strong> <br /> <br />'Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is serious.' <strong>Anon </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'Life is creative. It makes it up as it goes along.' <strong>Margaret Wheatley and Kellner-Rogers Authors</strong> 'A Simpler Way' <br /> <br />'Creativity may have killed a few cats, but evolution certainly eliminated many more incurious ones.' <strong>Guy Claxton</strong> in 'Wise Up' <br /> <br />'Life is to be lived. If you have to support yourself you bloody well better find a way that is going to be interesting.' <strong>Katherine Hepburn</strong> <br /> <br />'To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist today.' <strong>Samuel Beckett</strong> <br /> <br />'When error holds so much power, play disappears. Creativity ceases'. <strong>Margaret Wheatley and Kellner Rogers</strong> <br /> <br />'Be a judge of children's creativity - but not too good a judge!' <strong>Elwyn S Richardson</strong> NZ Pioneer Educator Author 'In the Early World' <br /> <br />Life is not neat, parsimonious, nor elegant. Life seeks order in a disorderly way.' <strong>Margaret Wheatley and Kellner Rogers</strong> <br /> <br />'To live a creative life we must lose our fear of being wrong.' <strong>Joseph Chillons Pearce</strong> <br /> <br />'Orville Wright did not have a pilots license: don't be afraid to bend, or break the rules'. <strong>Richard Tait</strong> Grand Pooh Bah , Cranium. <br /> <br />'Professionals built the Titanic - an amateur built the Ark.' <strong>Anon</strong> <br /><strong> </strong> <br />'Although prepared for martyrdom, I prefer it to be postponed.' <strong>Winston Churchill </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'When Michelangelo looked at the block of marble he was to carve he looked beyond the outside and saw the shape of the statue he was about to create. He could see the real beauty hidden within... ' <strong>Valerie Stewart</strong>, 'The David Factor'. <br /> <br />'The human imagination... has great difficulty in living within the confines of a materialist practice or philosophy. It dreams like a dog in it's basket, of hares in the open.' <strong>John Berger</strong> Art Critic <br /> <br />'To invent something you have to be removed from the world. In order to have liberty to imagine something better, you need to step outside for a while.' <strong>Bruce Mau</strong> Designer <br /> <br />'There is no hope for any speculation that does not look absurd at first glance.' <strong>Niels Bohr</strong> Physicist. <br /> <br />'Every important idea in science sounds strange at first.' <strong>Thomas Kuhn</strong> Scientist <br /> <br />'Most of the rules in society tend to restrict creativity to a safe level.' <strong>Sting </strong>(Musician) <br /> <br />'Great thought reduced to practice become great art.' <strong>William Hazlett</strong> <br /> <br />'...the artist treats intuition and nuance with respect and reminds us that a little madness resides in all of us. Artists give voice to feelings, to conflict, to the prism of human experience,' <strong>Peter Block</strong>, Business Philosopher. <br /> <br />'Creativity is born of chaos, even if it is somewhat difficult to glimpse the possibilities in the midst of the confusion' <strong>Charles Handy </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'You have to stand outside the box to see how the box can be re-designed.' <strong>Charles Handy</strong> <br /> <br />'Passion is born of vague hopes.' <strong>Charles Handy </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'All truth passes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Second it is opposed. Third it is accepted as being self evident.' <strong>Arthur Schopenhauer </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.' <strong>Thoreau</strong> <br /> <br />'Don't worry about people stealing your ideas/If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats.' <strong>Howard Aitken</strong> <br /> <br />I don't give a damn for any man who can spell a word only one way..' <strong>Mark Twain</strong> <br /> <br />'Marge, I can't wear a pink shirt to work. Everybody wears a white shirt. I'm not popular enough to wear white shirt.' <strong>Homer Simpson</strong> <br /><strong> </strong> <br />'A hunch is creativity trying to tell you some thing' <strong>Frank Capra</strong> <br /> <br />'..centres of creativity tend to at the intersections of different cultures, where beliefs, lifestyles and knowledge mingle and allow individuals to see new combinations of ideas with greater ease.' <strong>Mihaly Czikszentmihaly </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'The uncreative mind can spot wrong answers, but it takes a creative mind to spot a wrong question.' <strong>Anthony Jay</strong> <br /> <br />'Why not go out on a limb? Isn't that where the fruit is?' <strong>Frank Scully </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'Creative minds are rarely tidy.' <strong>Abbey Plaque</strong> <br /> <br />'innovators are seldom easy to be around. The most creative members of an organization can be irascible, annoying, touchy, intolerant, prickly, self aggrandizing. Their lack of tact offends coworkers. It also makes them willing to speak up when other hold their tongues. What comes out of their mouths is often quite valuable, if not always easy to hear.' <strong>Farson and Keyes</strong>, 'Whoever Makes the most Mistakes Wins.' <br /> <br />'If we learn to domesticate creativity- that is enhance it rather than deny it in our culture- we can increases the number of creative persons... as it was in the Renaissance, Elizabethan England, when civilization made great leaps forward.'<strong> John Gowan</strong> Educator. <br /> <br />'The creative person is overpowered, captive of and driven by a demon... They become our legendary heroes.' <strong>Carl Jung </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'One of the marks of having a gift is to have the courage to use it.' <strong>Katherine Anne Porter</strong> US Novelist <br /> <br />'Human life itself may almost be pure chaos, but the work of the artist is to take these handfuls of confusion and disparate things that seem to be irreconcilable and put them together in a form to give them some kind of shape and meaning.' <strong>Katherine Anne Porter</strong> US NovelistUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523099317733501598.post-41333650646606962022012-01-08T15:19:00.000-08:002012-01-21T04:22:28.674-08:00Educational quotes 6 : Teaching and Learning<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KzJQdLfix-g/TwokHX70AZI/AAAAAAAABfU/kGWkVzyfL34/s1600/MVC-009F.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KzJQdLfix-g/TwokHX70AZI/AAAAAAAABfU/kGWkVzyfL34/s400/MVC-009F.JPG" width="352" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Dr Suess<br /><br /><br /><strong>For too long schools have had to comply with endless bureaucratic top down edicts, confusing curriculums and associated accountability demands which have taken the focus away from learning and teaching. As these imposed technocratic systems falter it is now time for creative teachers to also add their voices to the debate</strong>. <br /><br /><strong>Students are born with a powerful desire to learn. Everything we do as parents and teachers must ensure that this powerful desire is kept alive. If there were to be one thing to be continually assessed it would be this desire... too many students leave with little to show for their time at school. Too many leave alienated and powerless.</strong><br /><br />'People see their own lives as stories; a lifelong story with a single hero or heroine... much contemporary unhappiness is due to the fact that people in high tech societies receive neither strong myths and stories from their culture nor the ability to construct their own... they lose the plot.' <strong>Guy Claxton</strong> in 'Wise -Up' <br /><br />'We should turn out people who love learning so much and learn so well that they will be able to learn whatever needs to be learned.' <strong>John Holt </strong><br /><br />'Why don't we teach out children in school what they are? We should say to them, 'You are unique... you have the capacity for anything. You are a marvel.'' <strong>Charles Handy </strong><br /><br />'Learning power comprises both literacy and numeracy, and is ultimately more fundamental than either of them.' <strong>Guy Claxton</strong> in 'Wise -Up'<br /><br />Underneath the visible problems with reading and writing lies the deeper problem of 'illearnacy': an acquired disabling of learning courage and learning initiative.'<strong> Guy Claxton in</strong> 'Wise-Up'<br /><br />' The key is to replace a belief in 'experts' who 'deliver' knowledge of what good teaching is to workshops with communities of teachers who learn through ongoing collaboration and practice.' <strong>Dennis Sparks</strong> Nat Staff Dev Centre (US) <br /><br />'education ultimately depends on what happens in classrooms... between teachers and learners. That is fundamental.'... 'I hope that teachers will discover the optimism and direction to combat the energy - draining pressures and frustrations of most educational settings.' <strong>David Perkins</strong>, 'Smart Schools.' <br /><br />'It's about teaching and it's about time.' <strong>Stoll and Fink</strong><br /><br />'All learning begins when our comfortable ideas turn out to be inadequate.' <strong>John Dewey</strong> <br /><br />'Teachers must be encouraged - I almost said 'freed', to pursue an education that strives for depth of understanding.' <strong>Howard Gardner</strong> <br /><br />'The overwhelming number of teachers ...are unable to name or describe a theory of learning that underlies what they do.' <strong>Alfie Kohn</strong><br /><br />'I haven't been in long enough to retire, but I have been in too long to quit. I like the children. I want to do good job, but I don't have the room to manoeuvre. What I think about things doesn't count. My ideas are not important...The central office grinds out curriculum guides ..that no one pays any attention to... I go to school everyday. I go through the motions. I'll put my time in. But my heart is not in it.' <strong>Jack Frymier </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'Something is out of whack. The bureaucratic nature of the enterprise seems to have acquired a purpose of it's own.' <strong>Jack Frymier</strong><br /><br />'Most learning disabilities are actually teaching disabilities on the part of the school.' <strong>Retired Teacher</strong> <br /><br />'All human beings are born with unique gifts. The healthy functioning community depends on realizing the capacity to develop each gift'. <strong>Peter Senge</strong> <br />'What we want... is for students to get more interested in things, more involved in them, more engaged in wanting to know; to have projects that they can get excited about and work on over long periods of time, to be stimulated to find things out on their own.' <strong>Howard Gardner</strong> <br /><br />'Most schools do a remarkably poor job of recognizing and rewarding future achievers... The standards of success in school have very little to do with standards thereafter' <strong>Farson and Keyes</strong> 'Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins.' What did predict economic success was a willingness to take chances, most educational systems honor those who play it safe... The ones who do take chances have a hard time in school and are often penalized for their independent ways'. <strong>Farson and Keyes</strong>.<br /><br />'We are creating a one size fits all system that needlessly brands many young people as failures, when they might thrive if offered a different education whose progress was measured differently. Paradoxically we're embracing standardized tests just when the economy is eliminating standardized jobs.' <strong>Robert Reich</strong> Former US Labor Secretary. <br /><br />'teachers and administrators sleepwalk through their responsibilities, dulled and discouraged by the endless pressures and problems.'<strong> David Perkins</strong> 'Smart Schools.'<strong> </strong><br /><br />'A teacher's failure to create an intellectually reflective, engagement for learning is not simply malpractice but it is immoral particularly for students who cannot withdraw.' <strong>John Goodland</strong> Educator <br /><br />'There are two reasons why people learn one because someone said you can't and the other because someone said you can.' <strong>Howard Wilson</strong> Retired NZ Principal<br /><br />'The learner's attitude is thus an essential factor to determine the direction of his learning, whether he shall learn to do or not learn to do.' <strong>William Kilpatrick</strong>, Prof of Education 1917<br /><br /><br />'School improvement is most surely and thoroughly achieved when teachers engage in frequent, continuous and increasingly concrete talk about teaching practices... capable of distinguishing one practice and it's virtue from another.' <strong>Judith Warren</strong> Little Education Researcher <br /><br />'Many children struggle in schools... because the way they are being taught is the way is incompatible with the way they learn.' <strong>Peter Senge</strong><br /><br />'We must give more attention to the interplay between the science of teaching - pedagogy - and the art of teaching... A teacher must be anchored in pedagogy and blend imagination, creativity and inspiration into the teaching learning process to ignite a passion for learning in student.' <strong>Peyton Williams</strong>, President ASCD 2003 <br /><br />'what a child can do today with assistance, she will be able to do by herself tomorrow'. <strong>Lev Vygotsky</strong><br /><br />'Teaching is the canny art of intellectual temptation'<strong> Jerome Bruner.</strong><br /><br /><br />'Me te huruhuru te manu ka rere'<br />'It's the feathers that make the bird' <strong>Maori saying</strong><br /><br />'Quality in education is what makes learning a pleasure and a joy.' <strong>Myron Tribus</strong> <br /> <br />'School can be a torture or an instrument of inspiration.' <strong>Higgins and Dolva </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather... I possess tremendous power to make a child's life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humour, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanised or dehumanised.' <br /><strong>Haim Ginott</strong> <br /> <br />'In teaching students to think the emphasis is not on how many answers they know. Rather, the focus is on how well they behave when they don't know.' <strong>Art Costa </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'The message we want to give to all students, "you are important, you can succeed, and we will not give up on you"'. <strong>T Patterson</strong> ASCD <br /> <br />'There can be no significant innovation in education that does not have at its centre the attitudes of the teachers. The beliefs, assumptions, feelings of teachers are the air of the learning environment; they determine the quality of life within it'. <strong>Postman and Weingartner</strong> <br /> <br />'Ano me whare pungawerewere'<br />'It is like the house of the spider - linked by a web (of values)' <strong>Maori saying</strong><br /><br />'Education is about helping children, who are capable of self reflection and self organisation, and of enjoying a life where they explore their abundant potential'.<strong> Caine and Caine</strong> <br /> <br />'Teaching is not that difficult, it is thirty plus children, a good relationship and doing things well ' <strong>Howard Wilson</strong><br /><br />'The guts of teaching is simple - it is the relationship between a teacher and a group of kids' <strong>Howard Wilson</strong> retired Taranaki principal<br /><br />'I am always ready to learn.but I do not always like being taught.' <strong>Winston Churchill</strong> <br /> <br />'Going to school and getting and education are two different things; and they don't always happen at the same time.' <strong>Rosa Hill</strong> First Native Indian Physician <br /> <br />'Not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts.'<strong>Albert Einstein</strong> <br /><br />'To be interested is to be absorbed in, wrapped up in, carried away by, some object. To take an interest is to be on the alert, to care about, to be attentive.' <strong>John Dewey </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />The principle goal of education is to create men and woman who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done'. <strong>Jean Piaget</strong> <br /> <br />'We are shaped and fashioned by what we love' <strong>Goethe</strong> <br /> <br />'Man ultimately decides for himself! And in the end, education must be education towards the ability to decide' <strong>Victor Frankl</strong> <br /> <br />'The problem is never to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get the old ones out.' <strong>De Hock</strong> VISA <br /> <br />'You cannot teach anybody anything. You can only help them discover it within themselves.'<strong>Galileo </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'Schools should be about providing a sense of hope for all not achievement for the few.' <strong>Anon</strong> <br /><strong> </strong> <br />'Schools must inquire deeper into their own practices, explore new ways to motivate their learners, make use of learning styles, introduce multiple intelligences, integrate learning, and teach thinking, and in the process discover the passion and moral purpose that makes teaching exciting and effective.'<strong>Fullan and Hargreaves</strong><br /><br /><br />'we know at lot more now than the 'last time around'- the 1960s and 1970s - about how to work for smart schools... ' 'The smart school finds it's foundation in a rich and evolving set of principles about human thinking and learning.' <strong>David Perkins,</strong> 'Smart Schools.'. <br /> <br />'Do not confine your children to your own learning for they were born in another time.' <strong>Hebrew Proverb</strong> <br /> <br />'Every parent's deepest wish is that their children are self sufficient, happy, and able to live a full life.' <strong>Peter Block</strong> <br /> <br />'To be a teacher you must be a prophet - because you are trying to prepare people for a world thirty to fifty years into the future.' <strong>Gordon Brown</strong> MIT <br /> <br />'Smart people don't learn... because they have too much invested in proving what they know and avoiding being seen as not knowing.' <strong>Chris Agyris</strong> <br /> <br />'The excitement of learning separates youth from old age. As long as you are learning you're not old.' <strong>Rosalyn Sussman</strong> Yalow US Medical Physicist <br /> <br />'The world cannot afford to lose the talents of half it's people if we are to solve the many problems that beset us.' <strong>Rosalyn Sussman</strong> Yalow US Medical Physicist <br /> <br />'Old age is compulsory, wisdom is optional.' <strong>Anon</strong> <br /> <br />'You must learn day by day, year by year, to broaden your horizons. The more things you love, the more things you are interested in, the more you enjoy, the more you are indignant about.' <strong>Ethyl Barrymore</strong> Actress <br /> <br />'Until recently, education has had it backwards, caring little for the teacher... and enormously about the content. Yet it is a gifted teacher who can infect a generation with the excitement of learning.' <strong>Aquarian Conspiracy</strong> <br /><strong> </strong> <br />'Education must develop in youth the capabilities for engaging in intense concentrated involvement in an activity.' <strong>James Coleman</strong> 1977 <br /> <br />'My education was a prolonged and concerted attack on my individuality' <strong>Neil Crofts</strong> Author Authenticity <br /> <br />'I was born exited' <strong>Mark Twain</strong> <br /> <br />'Learning is a matter of intensity not elapsed time.' <strong>Tom Peters</strong> , 'Re - Imagine' <br /> <br />'There is a road from the eye to the head that does not go through the intellect.' <strong>G K Chesterton</strong> <br /> <br />'We can whenever and wherever we choose, successfully teach all children... we already know more than we need to know in order to do that.' <strong>Ron Edmonds</strong> Educator <br /> <br />'Having no alternative we were born creative.' <strong>Aquarian Conspiracy</strong> <br /> <br />'Human beings start out as butterflies and end up in cocoons.' <strong>Anon</strong> <br /> <br />'Unfortunately schools are no help because they teach us not to make connections... There should be a few people at least... pulling things together.' <strong>Edward Hall</strong> Anthropologist <br /> <br />'When <strong>Abraham Maslow</strong> asked a college class whether anyone had expectations of greatness, no one responded. 'Who else then', he replied dryly.' In 'Aquarian Conspiracy'. <br /> <br />'How can you do new math with an old math mind.' <strong>Charlie Brown</strong> /Peanuts <br /> <br />'The first problem for all of us, men and woman, is not to learn, but to unlearn.' <strong>Gloria Steinem</strong> US Feminist <br /> <br />'Teachers who do a bad job with old tools are likely to do a worse job with strange new tools.' <strong>Anon</strong> <br /> <br />'The young child approaching a new subject or anew problem is like the scientist operating at the edge of his chosen field.' <strong>Jerome Bruner</strong> <br /> <br />'Good teaching is forever being on the cutting edge of a child's competence'.<strong> Jerome Bruner</strong> 86 <br /> <br />'The teacher's role in discussion is to keep it going along fruitful lines - be moderating, guiding, correcting and arguing like one more students.' <strong>Mortimer Adler</strong>, The Paideia Proposal <br /> <br />. <br />'The metaphor ( coaching) with sports is meant quite seriously... the coach stands back , observes the performance, and provides guidance. The coach applauds strengths, identifies weaknesses, points up principles, offers guiding and often inspiring imagery, and decides what kind of practice to emphasize.' <strong>David Perkins</strong> 'Smart Schools.' <br /> <br />'Expert tutors often do not help very much. They hang back letting the student manage as much as possible. And when things go awry, rather than help directly they raise questions: 'Could you explain this step again? How did you... ?' <strong>Mark Lepper</strong> Stanford Psychologist <br /> <br />'The difference between reform and transformation is as if we have been trying to attach wings to a caterpillar... it is high time we freed ourselves of attachment to old forms and eased the flight of the unfettered human mind.' <strong>'Aquarian Conspiracy'</strong> <br /> <br />'No great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible until a great change takes place in their mode of thought.' <strong>John Stuart Mills</strong>. <br /> <br />'Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.' <strong>Douglas Adams</strong>, Author 'Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy' <br /> <br />'To change your reality you have to change your inner thoughts.' <strong>David Bohm</strong> Physicist <br /> <br />'One of the saddest things about US education is that the wisdom of our most successful teachers is lost to the profession when they retire.' <strong>John Dewey</strong> <br /> <br />I discovered the brutally simple motivation behind the development of impositions of all systematic instructional programmes and tests - lack of trust that teachers can teach and students can learn.' <strong>Frank Smith</strong> 'Insult to Intelligence' <br /> <br />'The too soft teacher reinforces the learner's natural wish to retreat and stay safe... the teacher must know when to let the learner struggle... we must not be spared our learning. Risk brings its own rewards.' <strong>Aquarian Conspiracy</strong> <br /> <br />'In every story I have heard, good teachers share one trait: a strong sense of personal identity infuses their work'. <strong>Parker Palmer</strong> 'Courage to Teach'. <br /> <br />'All true thoughts have been thought through already a thousand times; but to make them truly yours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take root in our personal experience.' <strong>Goethe</strong> <br /> <br />'Time given to thought is the greatest time saver of all'. <strong>Norman Cousins </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'The trouble is that thinking looks like loafing. Who wants to pay people for daydreaming? <strong>Somerset Maughan </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'Don't just do something, stand there.' <strong>Zen saying</strong> <br /> <br />'Some people are making such thorough plans for rainy days that they aren't enjoying today's sunshine.' <strong>William Feather</strong> US Author <br /> <br />'Only the mediocre are always at their best.' <strong>Somerset Maughan</strong> <br /> <br />'Through learning we re-create ourselves. Through learning we become able to do something we were never able to do.' <strong>Peter Senge</strong> <br /> <br />' The biggest thing about being someone is imajunation. Before you can be something, you must imajun it.' <strong>Fifth Grader</strong> quoted by <strong>S Papert</strong> <br /> <br />'each individual brain is more like a unique and unimaginably dense rain forest, teeming with growth and decay. It is less like a programmed machine than an ecological habitat that mimics the evolution of life itself.' <strong>Prof Edleman</strong> Nobel Prize winner <br /> <br />'Learning is spontaneous, unpredictable, fun, passionate, dangerous.'<strong> Bowring - Carr and Burnham West</strong> UK Educators <br /> <br />'A child's attitude towards everything is an artist's attitude.'<strong> Willa Cather</strong> US Novelist <br /> <br />'Art should simplify.' <strong>Willa Cather</strong> US Novelist <br /> <br />'We don't have to make human beings smart. They are born smart. All we have to do is stop doing things that make them stupid.' <strong>John Holt</strong> <br /> <br />'Children have real understanding only of that which they invent themselves, and each time that we try to teach them too quickly, we keep them from reinventing it themselves'. <strong>Piaget </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'Morpheus: 'I'm trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You're the one who must walk through it' <strong>The Matrix</strong> (Film) <br /> <br />Of a gifted teacher (she) 'has an unfailing heart and eye for magical classrooms and who loses sleep over any sliver of work at less than the highest quality'. <strong>Carol Ann Tomlinson</strong> 'The Differentiated Classroom <br /> <br />'The drive to learn is as strong as the sexual drive. It begins earlier and lasts longer' <strong>Edward T Hall</strong> ( Anthropologist) <br /> <br />'Out of the questions of students come most of the creative ideas and discoveries'. <strong>Ellen Langer </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'To be a teacher you must be a prophet - because you are trying to prepare people for a world thirty to fifty years into the future.' <strong>Gordon Brown</strong> former Dean MIT <br /> <br /> 'If you want to know the taste of a pear, you must change the pear by eating it.' <strong>Mao Zedong</strong> <br /> <br />I believe babies are born as innovative personalities... But our social processes work to stamp out exploration and questioning.' <strong>Jay Forrestor</strong> Prof MIT <br /> <br />'Learning to use your intuition is learning to be your own teacher'. <strong>Vaughan</strong> <br /> <br />'Being 'educated' means knowing how little I really know.' <strong>Carol T Lloyd</strong> <br /> <br />'As your island of knowledge grows, so does your shoreline of wonder.'<strong> Anon </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'Good teaching is forever being on the cutting edge of a child competence'. <strong>Jerome Bruner </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'Let the main object... to seek and to find a method of instruction, by which teachers may teach less, but learners learn more.' <strong>John Amos Comenius </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'I cured the patient but he died' is as logical as saying 'I taught the pupil, but she did not learn.' <strong>Bowring -Carr and John Burnham</strong> West UK Educators <br /> <br />'The open teacher ... establishes rapport and resonance, sensing unspoken needs, conflicts, hopes and fears. Respecting the learners autonomy, the teacher spends more time helping to articulate the urgent questions than demanding the right answers.' <strong>Aquarian Conspiracy</strong> <br /> <br />'Progressive white teachers seem to say to their black students 'Let me help you find your voice. I promise not to criticize one note as you search for your song'. But the black teachers say 'I've heard your song loud and clear. Now I want to teach you to harmonize with the rest of the world.'' <strong>Delpit</strong> 'The Silenced Dialogue' <br /> <br />'teachers who respond to their children's message, and not to their mistakes, appeared to help their children more.' <strong>John Smith Warwick Elley</strong> NZ Educators <br /> <br />'The open teacher helps the learner discover patterns and connections, fosters strange new possibilities, and is a midwife to ideas.' <strong>Aquarian Conspiracy </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'We trust the teacher who gives us stress, pain or drudgery when we need it. And we resent the teacher who... takes us into deep water when we are frightened of the shallow'. <strong>Aquarian Conspiracy </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'Come to the edge', he said.<br />They said, 'We are afraid'<br />'Come to the edge', he said<br />They came<br />He pushed them... and they flew. <strong>Guillaume Apollinaire</strong> Poet <br /> <br />Before we choose our tools and techniques we must choose our dreams and values.' <strong>Anon</strong> <br /> <br />'If you want to make a mark you have to take a risk.' <strong>Terrance E Deal</strong> <br /> <br />'After the final no there comes a yes and on that yes the future of the world depends' <strong>Wallace Stevens </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'Studies of high school gradates rarely find any correlation between recognition in high school and recognition thereafter... The terms are too different. What worked in high school seldom works later... Those not tested by setbacks when young may never learn how to rebound from defeat.' <strong>Farson and Keyes</strong> 'Whoever makes the Most Mistakes Wins.' <br /><br /> 'We are born trying to gain power over our environment. We live and die trying to figure out who we are; what life means; how to understand joy, pain, victory, and death; how we relate to each other; and why we are here. The disciplines we study- art music, literature, mathematics, science or philosophy- give us lenses... the skills... the power to use the understandings in meaningful ways.'<strong> Phenix</strong> 1986 <br /> <br /><strong></strong> <br />'In order for the brain to comprehend the heart must first listen.' <strong>David Perkins</strong>, 'Smart Schools.' <br /> <br />'To live our lives fully, to work whole heartily, to refuse directly what we can't swallow, to accepts the mystery in all matters of meaning- this is the ultimate adventure.' <strong>Peter Block</strong>, Philosopher <br /> <br /> <br /> 'One barrier... is the impoverishment of classroom language, the failure to cultivate a common vocabulary about inquiry, explanation, argument and problem solving. <strong>David Perkins</strong> 'Smart Schools.' <br /> <br />'Good questions work on us, we don't work on them. They are not a project to be completed but a doorway opening onto greater depth of understanding, actions that will take us into being more fully alive. <strong>Peter Block</strong> <br /> <br />'I will act as if what I do will make a difference.' <strong>William James</strong> <br /> <br />'An individual who stands out, or disagrees or takes risks is a danger to such systems and is effortlessly and, unconsciously sidelined.' <strong>John Ralston Saul</strong> 'Voltaire's Bastards.' <br /> <br />'Intelligence is knowing what to do when you don't know what to do.' <strong>Art Costa</strong> <br /> <br />'We have to learn to make our own way through a complex world without the benefit of an accepted trustworthy route map.' <strong>Guy Claxton</strong> in 'Wise -Up' <br /> <br />'Know how - can do'. 'Don't know how - but will give it a go.' Extended 'Place Makers Motto' by <strong>Bruce Hammonds</strong> <br /> <br />'It is amazing what ordinary people can do if they set out without preconceived notions.' <strong>Charles Kettering</strong> US Inventor <br /> <br />'When the going gets tough the tough get going!' <strong>Saying </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'The germ of an idea doesn't make the sculpture that stands up... so the next stage is hard work' <strong>Csikszentmihalyi</strong> 'Nature of Insight'. <br /> <br />'It is what we think we know already that often prevents us from learning.' <strong>Calude Bernard,</strong> French Psychologist 1813-78 <br /> <br />'Powerful learning strategies can most simply be thought of what we presently do for gifted and talented children. What works for them works just as well for 'at risk' students.' <strong>Henry M Levin</strong> Accelerated Schools Project. <br /> <br />'One in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right.' <strong>Grateful Dead </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'Wherever you are be there.' <strong>Ralph Waldo Emerson</strong> <br /> <br />'We don't see things as they are; we see them as we are.' <strong>Anais Nin</strong> Diarist <br /> <br />'Don't go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.' <strong>Ralph Waldo Emerson</strong> <br /> <br />'Destiny is not a matter of chance it is a matter of choice.' <strong>Anon</strong> <br /> <br />'Life is the path you beat while you walk it It's the walking that beats the path It is not the path that makes the walk'. <strong>Antonio Machardo</strong> Poet <br /> <br />'Eagles don't flock - you have to find them one at a time.' <strong>Ross Perot</strong> Businessman <br />. <br />'I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught.' <strong>Winston Churchill</strong> <br /> <br />'We must believe in ourselves as no one else will believe in us, we must match our expectations with the competence, courage and determination to succeed.'<strong> Rosalyn Sussman Yalow</strong> US Medical Physicist <br /> <br />'In order to act, you must be somewhat insane .A reasonably sensible man is satisfied with thinking.' <strong>Georges Clemenceau</strong> Premier of France 1917-20 <br /> <br />'When a man asks himself what is meant by action he proves he isn't a man of action.' <strong>Georges Clemenceau</strong> Premier of France 1917- 20 <br /> <br />'You learn at your best when you have something you care about and can get pleasure in being engaged in.' <strong>Howard Gardner </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'The drive to learn is as strong as the sexual drive. It begins earlier and lasts longer.' <strong>Edward Hall</strong> Anthropologist <br /> <br />'To be nobody - but - myself - in a world which is doing it's best, night and day, to make you everybody else - means to fight the hardest battle which any human can fight, and never stop fighting.' <strong>e e cumming</strong> us poet <br /> <br />'What gives people superiority at a task is true intention. That makes you attuned to everything.' <strong>Weiner Erhard</strong> <br /> <br />'If there is a way to do it better... find it!' <strong>Thomas Edison</strong> <br /> <br />'Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better'. <strong>Samuel Beckett</strong> <br /> <br />'You miss 100% of all the shots you never take,' <strong>Wayne Gretsky</strong> Ice Hockey Coach <br /> <br />'Don't think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. You simply 'must do' things.' <strong>Ray Bradbury</strong> <br /> <br />'Getting the balance right between intuitive experimentation and conscious deliberation is vital. Think too little and you may be stuck with bad habits. Think too much and you may become paralyzed with self consciousness. <strong>Guy Claxton</strong> 'Wise Up' <br /> <br />'I have my faults but changing my tune is not one of them.' <strong>Samuel Beckett</strong> <br /> <br />'A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spend doing nothing.' <strong>George Bernard Shaw </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'The major difference between the 'best' and the 'average' is that the 'best' get as much pleasure from practice as performance.' <strong>Ben Zander</strong> <br /> <br />'It takes a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious.' <strong>Alfred North Whitehead.</strong> <br /> <br />'Education is knowing where to go to find out what you need to know; and its knowing how to use the information you get.' <strong>William Feather</strong> US Author <br /> <br />'Reason can answer questions, but imagination has to ask them.' <strong>Ralph Gerard</strong> <br /> <br />'Thinking is past experience guiding present actions.' <strong>William Kilpatrick</strong> Educator 1917 <br /> <br />'The golden rule is that there are no golden rules' <strong>G B Shaw</strong> <br /> <br />'Te wao nui tane ( about giant NZ Kauri trees 'Standing out from the crowd')<strong> Maori saying </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'People whose talents are not exploited become disenchanted and disruptive.'<strong> Sir Terrance Conran</strong> ( Decorator) <br /> <br />'Talent comes with an individual name tag.' <strong>Charles Handy</strong> <br /> <br />'The mind aware of itself is a pilot... vastly freer than a passenger mind.' <strong>Marilyn Ferguson </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'We have two strategies for coping; the way of avoidance or the way of attention.' <strong>Marilyn Ferguson</strong> <br /> <br />'You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.' <strong>Mark Twain</strong> <br /> <br />'To go faster you must slow down.' <strong>John Brunner</strong> Author <br /> <br />'Fear of knowing is very deeply a fear of doing.' <strong>Abraham Maslow </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'It is not so important to have all the answers as to be hungry for them.' <strong>Carol Ann Tomlinson</strong> 'The Differentiated Classroom' <br /> <br />'If everyone is thinking alike then somebody is not thinking.' <strong>George S Paton</strong> <br /> <br />'In any work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts' <strong>Ralph Waldo Emerson</strong>. <br /> <br />'Plan to be better today, but don't ever plan to be finished' <strong>Carol Ann Tomlinson</strong> <br /> <br />'If poetry comes as naturally as the leaves to a tree it had better not come at all.' <strong>John Keats </strong><br /> <br />'The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.' <strong>William James</strong> <br /> <br />'If necessity is the mother of invention what was papa doing?' <strong>Anon </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'Fledgling skiers make the most progress when they are pushed outside their comfort zone, but not so far that they're sacred off the slopes altogether.' <strong>Ski Instructor </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'Courage isn't lack of fear, after all, it's the ability to carry on despite the fear. <strong>General Omar Bradley</strong> called courage the 'capacity to carry on properly even when scared half to death.' Genuine risk takers not only have the guts to act in face of harrowing apprehension, they know how to harness fear's energy' <strong>Farson and Keyes</strong>, 'Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins.' <br /> <br />Fearing failure is not necessarily a bad thing. Excitement is the flip side of fear. Any ten year old on a skateboard knows that exhilaration is primarily fear transformed... Fear begins as a negative sensation but can end on a positive note in the form of excitement, elation, exhilaration, euphoria, even ecstasy. Enthusiasm is close cousin. So are intensity and concentration.' <strong>Farson and Keyes</strong> 'Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins. <br /> <br />'Winning and losing aren't all they're cracked up to be, but the trip to the destination is.' <strong>John Wooden</strong> UCLA Basketball Coach <br /> <br />'the Samurai were fierce warriors. What is less known is how much of their thoughts were based on achieving victory by avoiding thoughts of victory. They knew that focusing on the outcome of a contest made defeat more likely... to achieve victory by becoming fully absorbed in the process that would lead them there.' <strong>Farson and Keyes</strong> 'Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins. <br /> <br />Winning is not everything - but making the effort to win was... If you can't accept losing, you can't win' <strong>Vince Lombardi</strong> Basketball coach. <br /> <br />'By not trying too hard, we avoid learning what our true potential is, and having to fulfill it. Doing our best can be deeply threatening. It forces us to consider what we're actually capable of accomplishing. Once we learn the lesson we can't unlearn it. Our true potential becomes a shining light we can follow...' <strong>Farson and Keyes</strong> 'Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins'. <br /> <br />'An exaggerated fear of losing is the ugly sibling of an over emphasis on winning. Both cloud the mind.... The players most urged to victory by mothers and fathers proved to be the most cautious. Those whose parents cheered but didn't push them were then ones most likely to take chances -and win'. <strong>Farson and Keynes</strong> 'Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins.' <br /> <br />'I worry that whoever thought up the term 'quality control' thought if we didn't control it, it would get out of hand.' <strong>Lily Tomlin</strong> Singer <br /> <br />'Looking at students work brings you face to face with your values.' <strong>Daniel Barron</strong> US Nat Reform Faculty. <br /> <br />'To attract joy and create more success, try doing less but doing it with more enthusiasm.' <strong>Phillip Humbert</strong> <a href="http://www.philliphumbert.com/" target="_blank">http://www.philliphumbert.com/</a> <br /> <br />'A little nonsense now and then, is cherished by the wisest men.' <strong>Roald Dahl</strong> ( Author) <br /> <br />'To develop a complete mind: study the science of art; study the art of science. Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.' <strong>Leonardo da Vinci</strong> <br /> <br />'Most advances in science comes from when a person for one reason or another is forced to change fields.' <strong>Peter Burdon</strong> <br /> <br />'We are continually faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as in insoluble problems. <strong>John W Gardner</strong> <br /> <br />'Imagination is more important than knowledge.' <strong>Albert Einstein </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'Life is a series of lessons that have to be understood.' <strong>Thomas Carlyle</strong> <br /> <br />'A fear of foolishness keeps us from painting the pictures we would like to paint, composing the poems, courting the lovers, making the friends, pursuing the jobs, starting the businesses. Those who know this, can confront and transcend their fear of ridicule, are usually in a strong position... Every path breaker has looked foolish, and been humiliated, yet society depends on them utterly... Only those who are willing to risk looking foolish can invent a breakthrough.' <strong>Farson and Keyes</strong> 'Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins' <br /> <br />'The best work we do is on the verge of embarrassing us, always.' <strong>Arthur Miller</strong> Playwright. <br /> <br />'A fear of foolishness can never be conquered completely. Nor should it be... Deep down shyness is a secret most charismatic people have.' <strong>Farson and Keyes </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'We are all afraid. That's the thing that unites all truly successful people: fear, fear of failing, fear of criticism, fear of letting down the team in some way. That why they try so hard, that's why they pay attention to detail and try to get every possible duck in a row. It's fear'. <strong>Peggy Noonan</strong>, Ronald Reagan's Speech Writer. <br /> <br />'Ana te toka te moana Live like a rock in the sea He akinga na nga tai washed by the tides' <strong>Maori saying</strong> <br /> <br />'It is not the biggest, the brightest or the best that will survive, but those who adapt the quickest.' <strong>Charles Darwin</strong> <br /> <br />'The secret of life is to be interested in one thing profoundly and a thousand things well.' <strong>Henry Walpole</strong> <br /> <br />'I have learnt to say the word impossible with great caution.' <strong>Verner von Braun</strong><br /><br />'Those periods of struggling to overcome challenges are what people find to be the most enjoyable times.' <strong>Csikszentmihalyi </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'Excellence is the new forever.' <strong>Ralph Waldo Emerson</strong> <br /> <br />'We've got to do fewer things in school. The greatest enemy of understanding is coverage... You've got to take enough time to get kids deeply involved in something so they can think about it in lots of different ways and apply it.' <strong>Howard Gardner </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />Giving students the power and then watching them strive for excellence is an incredible teaching experience.' <strong>Catherine Doanne </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'Enthusiasm is the match that lights the candle of achievement.' <strong>William Arthur Boyd</strong> <br /> <br />'Nothing has happened in education until it has happened to a student.' <strong>Joseph Carroll</strong> <br /> <br />'To play the trumpet well, a musician can not let more than a few days pass without practicing.'<strong>Csikszentmihalyi </strong> <br /><strong></strong> <br />'The ability to take misfortune and make something good come of it is a rare gift. Those who possess it are ..said to have resilience or courage.' <strong>Csikszentmihalyi</strong> <br /> <br />' "How does one become a butterfly?" She asked pensively. "You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar".' <strong>Trina Paula</strong> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /><strong><br /></strong>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523099317733501598.post-80502258525385526142012-01-07T16:48:00.000-08:002012-01-21T04:22:28.777-08:00Educational Quotes 5: Leadership and Teamwork<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KnQfiRhanYA/Twjni1mstuI/AAAAAAAABfI/35EXpGKEEY8/s1600/MVC-035F.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="273" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KnQfiRhanYA/Twjni1mstuI/AAAAAAAABfI/35EXpGKEEY8/s400/MVC-035F.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />'You can't blow an uncertain trumpet'<strong> Mark Twain</strong><br /><br /><br /><strong>Imposed bureaucratic 'top down' changes have resulted in school being 'over managed and under led.' Now is the time for courageous leaders, at all levels, to emerge and add their 'voices' to the debate. There are no experts with 'the answer' - we will have to invent the future ourselves together as we go along.</strong> <br /> <br />Shared leadership... is less like a an orchestra, where the conductor is always in charge, and more like a jazz band, where leadership is passed around ... depending on what the music demands at the moment and who feels most moved by the spirit to express the music.' <strong>Schlechy</strong> 2001 <br /> <br />'Leaders... will be explorers, adventurers, trailblazers... leaders of leaders... They will gather around them people who have the future in their bones.' <strong>Rowan Gibson</strong> 'Re Thinking the Future.' <br /> <br />'The key to leadership is having people willing to follow you if only out curiosity to see what's going to happen.' <strong>Marc Anderson</strong> Founder of Netscape <br /> <br />'Systems of schooling are over managed and under led'. <strong>Thomas Sergiovanni</strong> <br /> <br />'We need to decide whether to give full service or lip service.' <strong>Peter Block </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'My friends, you never need to bow to no one' <strong>Gandalf </strong>to the Hobbits <br /> <br />(In schools) 'There is an emphasis on doing things right rather on doing the right things.' <strong>Thomas Sergiovanni </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'It is hard to remember that you came to drain the swamp when you are up to your backside in crocodiles.' <strong>Saying</strong> <br /> <br />'The more faithfully you listen to the voice within you, the better you hear what is sounding outside. And only he who listens can speak..' <strong>Dag Hammarskjold</strong> UN <br /> <br />'Comparison, a great teacher told me, is the cardinal sin of modern life. It traps us in a game we can't win. Once we define ourselves in terms of others we lose the freedom to shape our own lives.' <strong>Jim Collins</strong>, Author 'Built to Last' <br /> <br />'Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.' <strong>Buddha</strong> 53 BC -483 BC <br /> <br />'Self doubt combined with dignity is central to competent leadership... ( a leader)is able to recognize when he... is on the wrong track and perhaps identify the error by giving in to the need for complete reevaluation.' <strong>John Ralston Saul</strong> 'Voltaire's Bastards. <br /> <br />'The essence of good strategy is what has always been - insecurity and uncertainty.' <strong>John Ralston Saul</strong> 'Voltaire's Bastards <br /> <br />'There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth - not going all the way, and not starting.' <strong>Buddna</strong> <br /> <br />' the challenge ( for leadership) is to initiate a conversation about what's purpose and what's just practice. Preserve the best, reinvent the rest'... Hold your company hostage, declare your vision in a public way... Make decisions right or wrong .There is nothing worse than waffling'. <strong>Keith Yamashira</strong> US Business Consultant <br /> <br />'Education can change culture but only in so far as educators are transformed.' <strong>Parent</strong> School Board USA <br /> <br />'My job is creating an environment where teachers continually learn'. <strong>US Innovative Principal</strong> <br /> <br />'The question of 'How?' - more than any other question - looks for answers outside of us. It is an individual expression of our doubt.' <strong>Peter Block</strong> Business Philosopher <br /> <br />'Choosing to act on what matters is the choice to live a passionate existence, which is anything but controlled and predictable.' <strong>Peter Block</strong> Author 'Stewardship.' <br /> <br />'Leadership is a personal quest you undertake, based on mission that troubles your heart.' <strong>Harriet Rubin</strong>. 'Fast Company' Writer <br /> <br />'We have all worked with people who are entirely lacking in energy or are the walking black holes of human existence; they suck energy out of whoever they walk into. So the litmus test for all of is, 'Do I generate more energy when I walk into a room or when I walk out of it?'' <strong>Steve Farber</strong>, President of Extreme Leadership <br /> <br />'I think it is important for leaders to answer the question 'What's exciting about the work I /we really do here?' ..to expand it out to the higher meaning and purpose... To really articulate what we really do here, and why this place is cool.'' <strong>Steve Farber</strong> , President 'Extreme Leadership'. <br /> <br />'Leadership is a scary thing. That's why few people want to stand up to the plate.'... 'There are many people who want to be matadors, only to find themselves in the ring with 2,000 pounds of bull bearing down on them, and then discover that what they really wanted was to wear tight pants and hear the crowd roar' <strong>Steve Farber</strong>. <br /> <br />'Good directors, playwrights and leaders are enablers who make it possible for others to succeed by providing the means and opportunities for actions.' <strong>Anon </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'Faced with the choice of buckling under by complying or 'doing a bit of rule bending' successful leaders get on with the latter.' <strong>Thomas Sergiovanni</strong> <br /> <br />'To be a leader is to be awake and alert, to be dissatisfied at all times.' <strong>Peter Koestenbaum</strong> Philosopher <br /> <br />'Remember a dead fish can float downstream but it takes a live one to swim upstream'. <strong>W C Fields</strong> <br /> <br />'It is easier to follow the leader than to lead the follower.'<strong> Anon </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'All bottlenecks occur at the top.' <strong>Anon</strong> <br /> <br />'Be who you are<br />and say what you feel<br />because those who mind don't matter<br />and those who matter don't mind.' <strong>Dr Suess </strong><br /><br />'Leaders are 'canny outlaws', system benders, creative and responsible rule benders. They have to succeed because... the deck is stacked against creative, imaginative and entrepreneurial teachers.' <strong>Thomas Sergiovanni </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'Most of what institutional leadership does today comes from what they thought we wanted and needed yesterday.' <strong>Peter Block</strong>, Author 'The Answer to How is Yes'. <br /> <br />'Win small, win early, win often.' <strong>Gary Hamel</strong> Leadership 'guru'. <br /> <br />'Life shrinks or expands in proportion to ones courage.' <strong>Anais Nin</strong> <br /> <br />'In fact, leaders... that go from good to great start not with 'where' but with 'who'. They start by getting the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats... first the people, then the direction'. <strong>Jim Collins</strong> <br /> <br />'We need to make hope practical and despair less convincing as a central contribution from adults to young people.' <strong>Jaon Kenwg</strong> <br /> <br />'The human being is a walking paradox. We want to be free, completely individual on one hand, and we want to belong on the other hand. We want to be part of a flock but at the same time, you want to be you,' <strong>Kjell and Jonas</strong> <br /> <br />'Leaders... appeal to the heart... with people's deepest, heartfelt hopes. What are these hopes? Humans have a fundamental longing to believe we are successful in what we do - our need to achieve. Educators are typically denied this sense of success. Bombarded with too many state, national, and district standards for students to master... teachers are often unclear as to what they are supposed to accomplish'. <strong>Rick Dufor</strong> 2004 <br /> <br />'This is a dreary era. Those who know about education have no power; those who have the power know little or nothing about education' <strong>Marion Brady</strong> US Educator <br /> <br />'The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all, it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizen, to put down dissent.' <strong>H L Menken</strong> <br /> <br />'It is one of life's great ironies: schools are in the business of teaching and learning, yet they are terrible at learning from one another. If they ever discover how to do this, their future is assured.' <strong>Fullan</strong> 2001 <br /> <br />'I will release you to be creatively crazy and wonderful for these students... We will do whatever it takes.' <strong>Lorraine Monro</strong> Author 'Nothings Impossible' <br /> <br />'Hire Rembrandt to do the painting and don't tell him how to paint.' <strong>Anon</strong> <br /> <br />'The leader lays down the melody line and encourages individual band members to improvise around them.' <strong>Bradley Porten</strong> US Educationalist <br /> <br />'If you are going to skate on thin ice, tap dance, and go down in style.' <strong>Bryce Courtenay</strong> <br /> <br />'Leaders need to have clear answer to the question 'What do we believe in? and be equally clear about... 'How do you translate your beliefs into actions?' <strong>Bowring Carr and Burnham West</strong> <br /><strong> </strong> <br />'Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.' <strong>Anon </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'Alice came to a fork in the road. 'Which one will I take?' she asked. 'Where do you want to go?' responded the Cheshire Cat. 'I don't know Alice answered. 'Then', said the cat, 'It doesn't matter.'' <strong>Alice in Wonderland </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'Power can be taken, but not given. The process of taking is empowerment itself.' <strong>Gloria Steinem</strong> US Feminist <br /> <br />( We need) 'leadership that is tough enough to demand a great deal from everyone, and leadership that is tender enough to encourage the heart.' <strong>Thomas Sergiovanni</strong> Leadership for the Schoolhouse <br /> <br />'It is an injustice, a grave evil and disturbance of the right order for a large and higher organization to abrogate to itself functions which can be performed more efficiently by smaller and lower bodies.' <strong>Papal Encyclical</strong> <br /> <br />'Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir man's blood... make big plans. Aim high in hope and work.' <strong>Daniel H Burnham </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'It is time for us to release ourselves from simplistic and ineffective prescriptions; the time to dream is upon us.' <strong>Carl Glickman</strong> <br /> <br />There comes a time in the affairs of man when he must take the bull by the tail and face the situation.' <strong>W C Fields</strong> <br /> <br />'The true leader senses and transforms the needs of followers.' <strong>James McGregor Burns</strong> <br /> <br />If we want to help people change, I s important that we don't push or pull them - just walk together.' <strong>'Aquarian Conspiracy</strong>.' <br /> <br />'A team is a mosaic' <strong>Charles Williams </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex and more violent. It takes a genius- and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction,'<strong> E E Schumacher </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'The best leaders are like outstanding samurai warriors in the sense that they engage themselves fully in the tasks at hand without being distracted by what might go wrong. Warren Bennis called this 'The Wallenda Factor' - putting ones energy into walking life's various wires without concern for the outcome'. <strong>Farson and Keyes</strong>. <br /> <br />'Decisions of the head rather than the heart are then ones we come to regret.' <strong>Patricia Weenolsen</strong> Psychologist <br /> <br />'When we are doing something we're passionate about, failure becomes a non-issue... Pursuit of a dream rarely leads to regrets... Too many of those with unrealized aspirations have set them aside due to fear of failure' <strong>Farson and Keyes</strong>. <br /> <br />'Nothing happens until someone does something.' <strong>Steve Farke</strong> Leadership Guru <br /> <br />No more prizes for building the ark .Prizes only for predicting rain.' <strong>Anon </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />Leadership is needed to assemble a team of renegades- people with the right mix of passion and courage to be willing to do things that haven't been done before.' <strong>Scott Lutz</strong>, CEO <br /> <br />'Never look down to test the ground before taking the next step; only he who keeps his eye on the far horizon will find the right road.' <strong>Dag Hammarskjold</strong> UN <br /><br />'Briefly, leaders challenge the process because they are risk takers who capitalise on opportunities. As idealists they inspire a shared vision. They... instinctively nurture the talents and energy of colleagues. Leaders enable others to act. ...by serving as coaches and cheerleaders they encourage the heart.' <strong>Bennis</strong> <br /><strong> </strong> <br />'Lead, follow or get out of the way'<strong> Anon </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'I set myself as the goal the maximum capacity that people have - I settle for no less. I make myself a relentless architect of the possibilities of human beings.'<br /><strong>Benjamen Zander</strong> Conductor Boston <br /> <br />'You cannot carry out fundamental change without a certain amount of madness. In this case, it comes from non-conformity, the ability to turn your back on old formulas, the courage to invent the future. It took the madmen of yesteryear for us to be able to act with extreme clarity today. I want to be one of those madmen. We mist dare to invent the future.'<strong>Thomas Sankara</strong> African leader <br /> <br />'Who shall kindle others must himself glow.' <strong>Italian Proverb</strong> <br /> <br />'The only thing of real importance leaders do is to create and manage cultures.' <strong>Edgar Schein</strong> <br />'Our schools are over-managed and under-led.' <strong>Maurice Gionotti </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'The best principals are not heroes; they are hero makers'. <strong>Roland Barth</strong> <br /> <br />'The art of leadership is keeping the herd roughly pointed west!' <strong>Anon</strong> <br /> <br />'Imagine that you would become a better teacher just by virtue of being on a the staff of a particular school - just from that one fact alone.' <strong>Michael Fullan</strong> <br /><strong></strong> <br />'Schools must forge greater relationships with the wider community, parents and other schools. Too many schools are working insolation. Schools need to share their power with students and the wider community.'. <strong>Fullan and Hargreaves</strong> <br /> <br />'The best leaders...almost without exception and at every level, are master users of stories.' <strong>Tom Peters </strong>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523099317733501598.post-68398481812913334682012-01-05T16:11:00.000-08:002012-01-21T04:22:28.874-08:00Educational quotes 4 :The Change Process<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Hqayp9yMKNU/TwY7H9V_dqI/AAAAAAAABe8/ypDNcJd3NWE/s1600/y.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Hqayp9yMKNU/TwY7H9V_dqI/AAAAAAAABe8/ypDNcJd3NWE/s400/y.JPG" width="322" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><em><strong>'Rosy the Riviter'</strong> - a USA poster from WW2 to encourage woman into the workforce. When the GIs came home woman had changed their minds about their role in a modern society.</em><br /><br /><strong>In reality 'learning' and 'change' are synonymous. Change is not an issue if it makes sense to and is 'owned' by those involved, rather than being arbitrarily imposed. An appreciation that change is a continual process, involving confusion and difficulty, is vital for future learners. 'It is not change that kills it is the transitions'</strong><br /><br />'Change is like dancing with a gorilla you can't stop because you're tired'. <strong>Anon</strong><br /><br />'Men are not afraid of things but of how they view them.' <strong>Epictetus</strong><br /><br />Every change process that I've seen that was sustained and spread started small.'<br /><strong>Fast Company </strong><br /> <br />'There can be little doubt that. an untapped source of human intelligence and creativity is found among the vast number of individuals in the lower socio-economic levels...the bi- products of this waste are evident.. in unemployment ...in rising crime, delinquency rates, and most important in human despair.' <strong>Renzulli </strong><br /> <br />'Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs, now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head behind Christopher Robin. It is as far as he knows the only way of coming downstairs, but somewhere he feels there is another way, if only he could stop for a moment and think of it.' <strong>A A Milne </strong><br /><br />'Route and destination must be discovered through the journey if you wish to travel to new lands... the key to success lies in the creative activity of making new maps.' <strong>Stacy</strong> <br /> <br />'It isn't the changes that kill you its the transitions' <strong>William Bridges</strong> <br /> <br />'The times are a-changing and if we don't we will sink like a stone.'<strong>Bob Dylan</strong><br /><br /> Lucy: 'Charlie Brown on the cruise ship of life which way is your deck chair facing?' Charlie Brown ponders and replies, 'I don't know, I've never been able to get one open'. <strong>Schultz</strong> <br /><br />'Too much educational reform and restructuring is destroying teachers confidence, draining their energy, eating up their time and taking away their hope.' <strong>Fullan and Hargreaves</strong> <br /> <br />'Schools are among the very few institutions that have remained almost entirely unchanged for most of this century.' <strong>Judith Aitken 99</strong> <br /> <br />No other organisation institution faces challenges as radical as those that will transform the school'. <strong>Peter Drucker</strong> <br /> <br />'We need to help the majority unlearn what has been learnt and then help them learn what needs to unfold. Futurists believe that educational and community leaders must be 'disorientated' before they are orientated. That they must unlearn to learn.' <strong>Anon</strong> <br /> <br />'Every organisation has to prepare for the abandonment of every thing it does. Be prepared to abandon everything, lest we have to abandon the ship.<strong>Peter Drucker</strong><br /><br />'Our schools are OK if were 1965!' <strong>Stoll and Fink</strong> <br /> <br />'Half a revolution is worse than none.' <strong>Anon</strong> <br /> <br />' Teachers have been virtually shell shocked by barrages of 'semi- changes' that sap the energy while making few substantial differences - and the sounds of imminent changes are almost deafening.' <strong>Joyce and Showers</strong> <br /> <br />Between the idea and the reality, Between the notion and the act Falls the shadow'. <strong>T S Eliot </strong><br /> <br />'The crew of the caravel Nina also saw the signs of land and a small branch covered with berries. Everyone breathed afresh and rejoiced at these signs.' <strong>Christopher Columbus</strong><br /><br />'The starting point for strategic planning is not the present but the future - a vision of where you want to be.... It is essential too that the vision is based on the guiding philosophy, core beliefs, and purpose of the organisation', <strong>ERO Report 95</strong> <br /> <br />Simplicity is the new competitive advantage.' <strong>Bill Jenson </strong><br /> <br />'If a thing is not worth doing it is worth doing badly.' <strong>G K Chesterton</strong> <br /> <br />'Our lives are frittered away with detail ...simplify! simplify! simplify!' <strong>Henry Thoreau</strong> <br /> <br />'This bridge will take you halfway there- the last few steps you will have to take yourself.' <strong>Shel Siverstein</strong> <br /> <br />'Today's Schools are not Tomorrows Schools. That's a fundamental misconception.'<br /><strong>David Lange</strong> <br /> <br />'Rarely do outside of school remedies work their way into the fabric of the schools or into the teachers lives, and more rarely into the classrooms. Therefore they only offer a modest hope of influencing the basic culture of the school' <strong>Roland Barth</strong> <br /> <br />'The best we educational planners can do is to create the conditions for teachers and students to flourish and get out of their way.' <strong>Theodore Sizer</strong> <br /> <br />'The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing!' <strong>Steven Covey </strong><br /> <br />'Be in charge of your own destiny or some one else will.' <strong>Jack Welch CEO</strong> <br /> <br />'All life is an experiment.' <strong>Oliver Wendell Holmes</strong> <br /> <br />'Life is the path you beat while you walk it.' <strong>Antonio Machado/Poet</strong> <br /> <br />'It takes more than one person to make a path.' <strong>African saying </strong><br /> <br />'School should be the best party in town.' <strong>Peter Kline</strong> <br /> <br />To much emphasis has been placed on reforming school from the outside through policies and mandates. Too little has been paid to how schools can be shaped from within.' <strong>Roland Barth</strong> <br /> <br />'What is worth fighting for out there is ultimately about developing life lines of hope ...for all those desperately seeking a way forward.' <strong>Fullan and Hargreaves</strong> <br /><br />'Some people think you are strong when you hold on. Others think it is when you let go'. <strong>Sylvia Robinson</strong> <br /> <br />'Too many decisions about changes are made by people untouched by the change process.' <strong>Peter Block</strong>, Business philosopher. <br /> <br />'How many times have we brought in an outsider to tell us what we already knew .' <strong>Peter Block</strong> <br /> <br />'Why follow the steps of another to find out where our dreams will lead us.' <strong>Peter Block</strong> <br /> <br />'To see the future you have to travel on the rough edge of experience.' <strong>Harriet Rubin</strong> Fast Company writer <br /> <br />'Things do not change; we change.' <strong>Thoreau</strong> <br /> <br />'Most people (by the time they have become adults ) can't change their minds because their neural pathways have become set... the longer neural pathways have been running one way the harder it is to rewire them.' <strong>Howard Gardner</strong> <br /> <br />'To the blind all things are sudden.' <strong>Old saying</strong>. <br /> <br />'Coming, ready or not!' <strong>Childhood game</strong> <br /> <br />'What worked yesterday is the gilded cage of tomorrow.' <strong>Peter Block</strong> Business, Philosopher Author of 'The Answer to No is Yes' <br /> <br />'You can plan events, but if they go according to plan they are not events.' <strong>John Berger</strong> Art Critic <br /> <br />'You can't jump a chasm in two bounds.' <strong>Chinese saying</strong> <br /> <br />'As the prostitute said, 'It's not the job it's the stairs.' <strong>Anon</strong> <br /> <br />'To travel hopefully is better than to arrive.' <strong>R L Stevenson</strong> <br /> <br />'In a world of infinite choice people are struggling to figure out what to do.' <strong>Ralph Waldo Emerson</strong> <br /> <br />'Nothing was ever achieved without enthusiasm.' <strong>Ralph Waldo Emerson</strong> <br /> <br />'Innovation never happens as planned.' <strong>Gifford Pinchot</strong> Environmentalist <br /> <br />'Form follows function' <strong>Louis Sullivan</strong> Architect <br /> <br />'Great spirits have always encountered opposition from mediocre minds.'<strong> Einstein</strong> <br /> <br />'If a torrent sweeps a man against a boulder, you must expect him to scream, and you need not be surprised if the scream is sometimes a new theory.'<strong> R L Stevenson</strong> <br /> <br />'The price of change is measured by our will and courage, our persistence, in the face of difficulty.' <strong>Peter Block</strong> Business Philosopher <br /> <br />'If you believe that saying no will get you shot, well, what a fine way to go.' <strong>Peter Block</strong> <br /> <br />'You must be the change you want to see in the world. If blood is to be spilled to do it. Let it be our own.'. <strong>Mahatma Gandhi </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.' <strong>W Edward Deming</strong> <br /> <br />'If life is like a stage I want better lighting.' <strong>Anon</strong> <br /> <br />'It is our belief that schools in the main are entering the twenty-first century with structures and more importantly, underlying assumptions which are nineteenth century in origins, or relating to the world of the 1950 or 1960s.' <strong>Bowring -Carr and Burnham West </strong>UK Educators <br /> <br />'To cope with a challenging world, any entity must develop the capacity of shifting and changing - of developing new skills and attitudes; in short the capacity of learning.' <strong>A De Guess</strong>: 'The Living Company'. <br /> <br />'You cannot carry out fundamental changes without a certain amount of madness. In any case it comes from non - conformity, the courage to turn your back on the old formulas, the courage to invent the future. It took madmen of yesterday for us to be able to act with extreme clarity today. I want to be one of those madmen.' <strong>Thomas Sankarra</strong> African Congress. <br /> <br />In schools the main problem is not the absence of innovations but the presence of too many disconnected... piecemeal, superficially adorned projects... We are over our heads'. <strong>Fullan</strong> 2001 <br /> <br />'Every change you see hides something else we want to do.' <strong>Rene Magritte</strong> ( Artist) <br /> <br />'Familiarity reduces the greatness of things.'<strong> Seneca</strong> 4BC-65BC <br /> <br />'Nothing evades our attention as persistently as that which we take for granted... the decades roll on without even a suggestion that perhaps the whole matter must be rethought' <strong>Marion Brady</strong> US Educator <br /> <br />'You can't force commitment, what you can do... You nudge a little here, inspire a little there, and provide a role model. Your primary influence is the environment you create.' <strong>Peter Senge</strong> <br /> <br />'It doesn't happen all at once. You become. It takes a long time'. <strong>Margery Williams</strong> <br /> <br />'Life is like playing a violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes along.' <strong>Samuel Butler </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you are going to get.' <strong>Forest Gump's Mother </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary egg. We must hatch or go bad.' <strong>C S Lewis</strong> <br /> <br />'Passion mutates into procedures, into rules and roles. Instead of purpose, we focus on policies. Instead of being free to create, we impose constraints that squeeze the life out of us.' <strong>Margaret Wheatley and Kellner Rogers</strong> <br /> <br />'The future cannot be determined. It can only be experienced as it occurring. Life doesn't know what it will be until it notices what it has become.' <strong>Margaret Wheatley and Kellner - Rogers</strong> <br /> <br />'Age is a high price to pay for maturity.' <strong>Anon</strong> <br /> <br />'In order to transform schools successfully, educators need to navigate the difficult space between letting go of old patterns and grabbing on to new ones.' <strong>Deal</strong> 1990 <br /> <br />'There is no risk less way to the future, we must choose which set of risks we wish to run.' <strong>Jay Ogilvy </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'I have a feeling we are not in Kansas anymore.' <strong>Dorothy</strong>/ Wizard of Oz <br /> <br />'Men are asleep, they must die before they awake.' <strong>The Koran</strong> <br /> <br />'Custom lies on us heavy as frost'. <strong>William Wordsworth </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'It takes less energy to be free and flowing than locked up in stress ... we learn by releasing and letting go, not by adding on.' <strong>William Bates</strong> Editor <br /> <br />'The road is better than the inn.' <strong>Cervantes</strong> <br /> <br />'The goal of strategic planning is to produce a stream of wise decisions... it also accepts the possibility that the final product may not resemble what was initially intended'.<strong> Patterson, Purkey and Parker</strong> <br /> <br />'I may have not got where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.' <strong>Douglas Adams</strong> <br /> <br />'Evolution is the most popular way we have for dealing with change.' <strong>Seth Godin</strong> Business Philosopher <br /> <br />'Evolution favors the survival of the wisest.' <strong>Jonas Salk </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'Life is what happens when you are making other plans' <strong>John Lennon</strong> <br /> <br />'People don't want to feel stuck, they want to be able to change.' <strong>M C Richards</strong> Poet <br /> <br />'It is necessary; therefore it is possible.' <strong>C A Borghese</strong> <br /> <br />'Plan to be better tomorrow than today, but don't plan to be finished'.<strong> Carol Ann Tomlinson</strong> US Educator <br /> <br />'Crossing this river is difficult: it means leaving behind some of your own ideas' <strong>Dick Raymond </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'When you start to abandoning your old beliefs or values... you may be stuck at the threshold for two or three years. Before moving on, you have to clear away your cherished beliefs.' <strong>Dick Raymond </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'Start with the spirit of the rule- bending it to shape best practice. If the system tightens up, go to the letter of the rule and efficiently do what is necessary with as little energy as possible in a way that minimizes impact.' <strong>Keith Goldhammer</strong> Author. 'Characteristics of successful Principals. <br /> <br />'If a things not worth doing do it badly and get on with the important things.' <strong>Bruce Hammonds</strong> ( adapted from G K Chesterton) <br /> <br />'If a thing is worth doing it is worth doing it badly.' <strong>G K Chesterton.</strong> <br /><strong></strong> <br />'Sometimes a thing worth doing is worth overdoing'. <strong>David Letterman</strong> TV HostUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523099317733501598.post-45299951531116670792012-01-04T13:40:00.000-08:002012-01-21T04:22:28.973-08:00Coming soon to New Zealand!!!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MqYHRycZc5I/TwTCPw5CnoI/AAAAAAAABew/cQdeN1US--4/s1600/Jan%2B2012%2B053.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="318" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MqYHRycZc5I/TwTCPw5CnoI/AAAAAAAABew/cQdeN1US--4/s400/Jan%2B2012%2B053.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><em>A scene from Coronation Street.Teachers attending a <strong>'Standardisation Day'</strong>!!</em><br /><br /><br /><br /><strong>A combination of a Market Forces ideology and the powerful role of educational technocrats are pushing ahead worldwide with their agenda to provide parents with data ( 'League Tables') to give parents choice with no understanding of the consequences of destroying diversity, creativity and innovation that such a narrowing of the curriculum involves</strong>. Education in the 21stC is reduced to a reactionary 'Victorian ' emphasis on literacy and numeracy.<br /><br /><strong>This is ironic as the future success of an innovative country requires the school system to develop the divers talents and gifts of all students.</strong><br /><br /><strong>This American article points to the fulfillment of the technocratic dream</strong>.<br /><br /><br />' <strong>A new Federal Grant will expand North Carolina's digital recording of student academic histories beginning in infancy for some children.</strong><br /><br />About 49 million of the $70 million 'Race to the Top' grant the Education Department awarded North Carolina will be used to expand to track the progress of younger children.Tracking already is done in a 2-year old database covering more than 1.5 children between kindergarten and 12th grade.<br /><br /><strong>Teachers are also recorded with unique identification number so their performance can be tracked.</strong><br /><br />Four year olds enrolled in a state kindergarten programme were tracked previously.<br /><br />State education officials have applied for a $4 million grant that would increase the ability to track students performance into their university or community college careers an even fellow students when they enter the workforce after leaving school.<br /><br /><strong>Tracking student learning from early years to graduation and beyond is a part of a national trend towards shaping efficient and effective schools based on "good data'</strong> instead of anecdotes and feelings and political decisions" said Adam Levitson the State Education official in charge of 'Race to the Top' grant programmes.<br /><br />North Carolina is one of the half dozen states that share teacher information performance data based on student achievement, with the institutions from which they graduated.<br /><br /><strong>Online trackers also allow parents to see how their children are doing</strong>. A system called NC WISE allows parents with an online password to track children's homework, standardized test results and days absent.'<br /><br /><strong>I would suggest the 'officials'<a href="http://leading-learning.blogspot.com/2011/11/john-key-and-mrs-tolley-turn-education.html"> make study of Mc Donald's</a> for models of the standardisation agenda or the work of <a href="http://leading-learning.blogspot.com/2011/11/free-market-stalinism-in-new-zealand.html">Joseph Stalin's officials in the Soviet Union of the 1930s</a>. Or <a href="http://leading-learning.blogspot.com/2011/12/where-john-key-and-john-banks-get-their.html">Adolf Hitler</a>!! No point in reinventing wheels</strong>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523099317733501598.post-2977783747365560402012-01-02T14:23:00.000-08:002012-01-21T04:22:28.993-08:00Educational quotes 3 :Vision and Values<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cy60nHCuTO0/TwIuKiNNCyI/AAAAAAAABek/6pqSxZqcBYs/s1600/MVcdfgC-062F.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="316" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cy60nHCuTO0/TwIuKiNNCyI/AAAAAAAABek/6pqSxZqcBYs/s400/MVcdfgC-062F.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><strong>We need to, after a decades of individualism and greed, return to values and behaviors that are respectful of each other, other cultures and our environment. School have to escape from an over emphasis on individualism and efficiency and return to valuing the democratic virtues that contribute to the common good of all people and cultures.</strong> <br /><br /><a href="http://www.blogger.com/" name="change"></a>A vision without a task is a dream - a task without a vision is drudgery- but a task with vision can change the world'. <strong>Black Elk</strong> <br /> <br />'It is today that we create the world of the future'. <strong>Eleanor Roosevelt </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'If we do not change our direction, we are likely to end up where we are headed.' <strong>Chinese Proverb</strong> <br /> <br />'We can never discover new continents until we have the courage to lose sight of all coasts' <strong>Andre Gide</strong> <br /> <br />'The challenge of discovery lies not in seeking new landscapes but having new eyes'. <strong>Marcel Proust</strong> <br /> <br />'You cannot have a learning organisation without a shared vision...A shared vision provides a compass to keep learning on course when stress develops.' <strong>Peter Senge</strong> <br /> <br />'The gap between vision and current reality is also a source of energy. If there were no gap, there would be no need for any action to move towards the vision. We call this gap creative tension.' <strong>Peter Senge </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'The best principals are not heroes; they are hero makers'. <strong>Roland Barth</strong> <br /> <br />'Following the sun we left the Old World.' <strong>Christopher Columbus</strong> <br /> <br /> 'Many school are like a collection of sole charges with a shared car park!' <strong>Anon </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'A school isn't good enough until it is good enough for our own children. In fact it's not only that it must be good enough for our own children but it must be the dream school we want for our children.' <strong> H Levin</strong> Stanford Prof of Economics <br /> <br />In the absence of a great dream pettiness prevails. Shred visions foster risk taking, courage and innovation. Keeping the end in mind creates the confidence to make decisions even in moments of crisis.' <strong>Peter Senge</strong> <br /> <br />'In some ways clarifying a vision is easy. A more difficult challenge comes in facing current reality' <strong>Peter Senge</strong> <br /> <br />' There is no paint by numbers way to the future'. <strong>Anon </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'Prediction is difficult- particularly when it involves the future.' <strong>Mark Twain </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'The best way to predict the future is to invent it now.' <strong>Art Costa </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />Linus, 'I guess it wrong to be worried about tomorrow, maybe we should only worry about today?'<br />Charlie Brown, 'No, that's giving up: I'm hoping that yesterday will get better!'<strong> Shutlz</strong><br /><br />'We can easily forgive a child whom is frightened of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.' <strong>Plato</strong> <br /> <br />'The moral sense, or conscience, is as much part of a man as his leg or arm. It is given to all in a stronger or weaker degree.. It may be strengthened by exercise. <strong>Thomas Jefferson </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />' I am entirely certain that twenty years from now we will look back at education as it is practiced in most schools today and wonder how we could tolerated anything so primitive.' <strong>John W Gardner</strong> <br /> <br />'It is not who you attend school with but who controls the school you attend.' <strong>Nick Giovanni</strong> US Poet <br /> <br />'Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it you will land amongst the stars.' <strong>Les Brown</strong> <br /> <br />'You see things and say 'Why'? But I see things and say 'Why not?'<strong> G.B Shaw</strong> <br /> <br />'Ones vision is not a road map but a compass'. <strong>Peter Block</strong> Business Philosopher <br /> <br />'The pathway to educational excellence lies within each school.' <strong>Terrance Deal</strong> <br /> <br />'One of the saddest things about US education is that the wisdom of our most successful teachers is lost to the profession when they retire.' <strong>John Dewey</strong> <br /> <br />'If people who have to work together in an enterprise trust one another it is because they are all operating to a common set of ethical norms....such a society will be better able to innovate...since the high degree of trust will permit a wide variety of social relationships to emerge...' <strong>Fukuyama 95 Trust </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'We imagine a school in which students and teachers excitedly and joyfully stretch themselves to their limits in pursuit of projects built on their vision...not one that succeeds in making apathetic students satisfying minimal standards.' <strong>S Papert</strong> <br /> <br />'It is our dream that students will ...experience their classrooms as invigorating, even inspiring environments - places they look forward to going to and places they hate to leave. It is our dream that they will come to know themselves as masters of various crafts...It is our dreams that ...they will come to love the process of learning itself... by making it their own.' <strong>Paideia Schools</strong> <br /> <br />'Too many young people are being taught to give up their dreams before they have any experience attempting to pursue them'. <strong>Robert Fritz</strong> 'The Path of Least Resistance' <br /> <br />'It takes courage and skill to be unambiguous and clear.' <strong>Peter Senge</strong> <br /> <br />'A shared vision is not an idea...it is rather, a force in people's hearts...at its simplest level, a shared vision is the answer to the question 'What do we want to create?'<strong> Peter Senge</strong> <br /> <br />'We need a multiplicity of visions, dreams and prophecies - images of potential tomorrows.' <strong>Alvin Tofler </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'I believe we are afraid of recognizing how fundamental our lives would have to be changed if we should choose to work out of a shared vision.' <strong>Ralph Theobald</strong> <br /> <br />We need to value the importance of simplicity, focus and living according to our values.' <strong>Phillip Humbert</strong> <a href="http://www.philliphumbet.com/" target="_blank">http://www.philliphumbet.com/</a> <br /> <br />'It is not so much about to see what no one has seen before but to think what nobody has yet thought about that which everybody sees.' <strong>Schopenhauer</strong> <br /> <br />'Thinking School; Thinking Nation' <strong>Singapore Educational Vision</strong> <br /> <br />'Love is saying yes to belonging' <strong>David Steindle -Rast</strong> ( Theologist) <br /> <br />'We can no longer stand at the end of something we visualized in detail and plan backwards from that future. Instead we must stand at the beginning, clear in our mind, with a willingness to be involved in discovery... it asks that we participate rather than plan.' <strong>Margaret Wheatley and Kellner -Rogers.</strong> <br /> <br />'New frameworks are like climbing a mountain - the larger view encompasses rather than rejects the more restricted view.' <strong>Einstein </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'the void in our society has been produced by the absence of values... we have no widespread belief in the value of participation. The rational system has made us fear standing out in any serious way.' <strong>John Ralston Saul</strong> 'Voltaire's Bastards'. <br /> <br />'Principles are deep fundamental truths... lightly interwoven threads running with exactness, consistency, beauty and strength through the fabric of life.' <strong>Steven Covey</strong> 92 <br /> <br />'Education without values, as useful as it is, seems to make a man more clever devil.' <strong>C S Lewis</strong> <br /> <br />'A clever arrangement of bad eggs will never make a good omelet.' <strong>C S Lewis</strong> <br /> <br />'The heart and soul of school culture is what people believe, the assumptions they make about how school works.' <strong>Thomas Sergiovanni</strong> <br /> <br />'It is what teachers think, what teachers do, and what teachers are at the level of the classroom that ultimately shapes the kind of learning that young people get.' <strong>Andy Hargreaves and Michael Fullan</strong> <br /> <br />'Positive images of the future are a powerful and magnetic force... They draw us on and energize us, give us courage and will to take on important initiatives. Negative images of the future also have a magnetism. They pull the spirit downward in the path of despair..' <strong>William James </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'A belief is not a belief until you can visualize it, unless you can create a picture of it in your minds eye, especially if you have no doubts that reality can be - or is - possible.' <strong>Hedley Beare</strong> Aust Educationalist <br /> <br />'Something magical happens when you bring together a group of people from different disciplines with a common purpose.' <strong>Mark Stefik</strong> Palo Alto Research Centre Fellow <br /> <br />'If we believe something does not exist unless we measure it, then we put aside: love, feeling, intuition, art and philosophy.' <strong>Peter Block</strong> 'The Answer to How is Yes.' <br /> <br />Every person in the organization must change inside their hearts and minds, so that they themselves become principle centred.' <strong>Stephen Covey</strong> Business Philosopher <br /> <br />'We may never fully appreciate the role that not pursuing a dream plays in limiting people to disappointing careers and regret filled lives... 'I used to be so gutsy'... 'What happened?.' <strong>Anon </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'I think I don't regret a single excess of my responsive youth, I only regret, in my chilled age, certain occasions and possibilities I didn't embrace.' <strong>Henry James</strong>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523099317733501598.post-41635420881066805252012-01-02T14:06:00.000-08:002012-01-21T04:22:29.089-08:00Educational quotes 2 : School As A Learning Community<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8VG04g9pzts/TwIqFk2ejvI/AAAAAAAABeY/vwF_Jju8ZpI/s1600/002%2Bclass%2Bmanagemen2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="361" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8VG04g9pzts/TwIqFk2ejvI/AAAAAAAABeY/vwF_Jju8ZpI/s400/002%2Bclass%2Bmanagemen2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><strong>For the past decade or so we have seen schools being forced to comply to a business managerial ideology that has all but crushed the common sense and creativity of innovative teachers and schools. We believe now is the time to reclaim schools as democratic learning communities based on shared values and teaching beliefs that realize the gifts and talents of all students.</strong><br /><br /> <strong>Peter Senge</strong> introduced the idea of the 'Learning Organisation', Now he says... to change we need to stop thinking like mechanics and to start acting like gardeners... Companies are actually living organisms not machines' From <strong>'Fast Company Magazine</strong><br /><br />'Community building must become the heart of any school improvement effort.<br /><strong>Thomas Sergiovanni </strong><br /><br />'Culture is the underground stream of norms, values, beliefs, traditions, and rituals that builds up over time as people work together, solve problems, and confront challenges .This set of informal expectations and values shapes how people think, feel, and act in schools.' <strong>Deal and Patterson</strong> 98 <br /> <br />'Some schools develop 'toxic' cultures which actively discourage efforts to improve teaching or student achievement.' <strong>Deal and Patterson</strong> 98<br /><br />'To cope with a changing world, any entity must develop the capacity of shifting and changing - of developing new skills and attitudes; in short, the capability of learning.'<br /><strong>A De Gues</strong>, The Living Company <br /> <br />'Secondary education is a more purely industrial age institution than any business.' <strong>Peter Senge</strong> 'The School That Learns' <br /> <br />(Our large schools)..are organized like a factory of the late 19th C : top down, command control management, a system designed to stifle creativity and independent judgment.' <strong>David T Kearns</strong> CEO Xerox <br /> <br />'Most schools are drowning in events…An attention deficit culture' <strong>Peter Senge</strong> <br /> <br />'If we remain wedded to the way education is currently provided we cannot imagine other ways.. we need some imagination , some fantasy, some new ways of thinking - some magic in fact' <strong>Hedley Beare</strong> Prof of Educ Melbourne <br /> <br />'We must act as if our institutions are ours to create, our learning is ours to define, our leadership we seek is ours to become. <strong>Peter Block</strong> Philosopher <br /> <br />'Many of our schools are good schools if only this were 1965'. <strong>Louise Stoll and Dean Fink </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'If we want to create a workplace that values idealism, human connection, and real, in depth learning, we will have to create it ourselves'. <strong>Peter Block </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'It is a tragedy that, for most of us, school is not a place for deepening our sense of who we are and what we are committed to. If it were, think of the lasting changes it would have made.' <strong>Peter Senge</strong> <br /> <br />'All human beings are born with unique gifts. The healthy functioning of our community depends on its capacity to develop each gift.' <strong>Peter Senge</strong> 'The Learning School.' <br /> <br />'Parents and educators…need to establish a culture in which security and clarity of expectations are balanced with the encouragement of playfulness, inquisitiveness and self reliance.' <strong>Guy Claxton</strong> in 'Wise -Up' <br /> <br />'In high performing schools…Teachers feel invigorated, challenged, professionally engaged, and empowered just because they are there.' <strong>Margaret Arbuckle</strong> US educator <br /> <br />'It is strange perhaps to realize that most people have a desire to love their organizations. They love the purpose of their school....They fall in love with the identity that is trying to be expressed. They connect to the founding vision.' <strong>Margaret Wheatley and Kellner Rogers</strong> <br /> <br />'The guiding principle being put forward is that schools must be self directing.' <strong>John Goodland </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'As the world becomes more inter-connected organizations that will truly excel in the future will be ( those)... that discover how to tap people's commitment and capacity to learn.' <strong>Peter Senge</strong> 'The Fifth Discipline' <br /> <br />'Stories are the most effective ways of changing minds...there has to be a protagonist. There has to be a goal. There have to be obstacles people can identify with. There has to be an ultimate resolution - hopefully a positive one...what leaders do is put aside or reject the old story, the story you have grown up with. Leaders say, 'No it's a different story. You may not like it initially, but it's a better story in the long run, and you have to go with it and here is why...' . <strong>Howard Gardner</strong> 2004 'The Art and Science of Changing Peoples Minds. <br /> <br />'We can create our own characters and write our own script, if properly taught: 'In a very real sense...human being create themselves' and school can be stage on which children work through the plot, rehearse their roles, learn the cues, create social functions, try out their 'ideal selves' for size, play hero parts which demonstrate their capability for greatness.' <strong>Jerry Starratt</strong> Expert School Leadership <br /> <br />'Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.' <strong>Margaret Mead </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'Umuatu ngumuntu naga antu' 'A person is a person because of other people.' <strong>Zulu saying</strong> <br /> <br />'Ones actions ought to come from achieved stillness: not rushing on.' <strong>D H Lawrence</strong> <br /> <br />'It is difficult to know what a fish talks about, but you can be sure it is not about water.' <strong>Old joke</strong> <br /> <br />'We are truly the fish in the water of industrial age assumptions' <strong>Peter Senge</strong> <br /> <br /> <strong>Kettering </strong>(US inventor) has little time for conventional education. He thought genuine innovators were hobbled more than helped by what they had learned in school. Overly educated people were least likely to make new discoveries...they were too intent on doing things the way they had been taught.' <strong>Farson and Keynes</strong> 'Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins.' <br /> <br />'Progress seldom leads to serenity, nor should it. A serene workforce is unlikely to try new things .Creative workers gripe a lot but at a high level...They are concerned about having the leeway and support to be create something new. They want their talents to be utilized. They crave a challenge'. <strong>Farston and Keynes</strong> 'Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins.' <br /> <br />'This acceptance ( that neither success or failure are what it seems to be) produces work environments that are genuinely risk friendly, which is to say failure tolerant...Those who are passionately engaged in a task they care about are the ones most likely to achieve success...This is the samurai way.' <strong>Farson and Keyes</strong> 'Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins'. <br /> <br />Life is like a cobweb, not an organizing chart.' <strong>Ross Perot</strong> US Computer Businessman<br /> <br />'We spend too much of our time worrying about the mosquitoes and not enough time concerning ourselves about the health of the pond.' <strong>Anon</strong><br /> <br />'People come to relate to each other in predicable ways, which form a pattern that when defined the structure of relationships - norms, expectations, taken for granted habits of communicating. These patterns aren't fixed; they can change. <strong>Fast Company</strong> <br /> <br />' Communities of the mind are collections of individuals who are bonded together by natural will and to a set of shared ideals and ideals.' <strong>Thomas Sergiovanni </strong><br /> <br />A learning organisation sees the environment. as messy, complex and volatile. It picks and chooses it's way attempting to use certain events as catalysts for action, turn constraints into opportunities, and blunt or minimise the impositions that do not make sense...because they know that that is the only way to survive and prosper in a complex environment. <strong>Michael Fullan </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'Shared values are more important than paper and policies. We need, passion, people, and pride. Leadership not management.' <strong>Lester Levy </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'Without question we have had a breakdown in the sense of community. The solution is to restore a sense of community...and doing within the school.' <strong>James Comer</strong> <br /> <br />Ko te pae tawhiti, whaia kia tata Ko te pae tata, whakamaua kia tina' ( Seek those distant horizons and cherish those you attain ) <strong>Maori saying</strong> <br /><strong></strong> <br />'It's not the biggest, the brightest, or the best that will survive, but those who adapt the quickest'. <strong>Charles Darwin</strong> <br /> <br />'To raise new questions, new problems, to regard old problems from a new angle requires creative imagination and makes real advances' <br /><strong>Albert Einstein</strong> <br /> <br />' Education for the future has left the harbour and is already on the open seas. Some educators are still clinging to the belief that the ship hasn't left and are invested in business as usual. Some educators are enjoying the freedom of the open seas .... excited about the foreign ports and places they will visit '<br /> <strong>Renata and Geoffrey Caine</strong> <br /> <br />'Changing public education is like punching a pillow or as someone once said like moving a cemetery; after you've done all the work you still have a cemetery.' <strong>Art Costa</strong> <br /> <br />'Our challenge. How do we create organisational coherence...how do we create structures that move with change, that are flexible and adaptive...that enable rather than constrain? How do we resolve the need for personal freedom and autonomy with organisational needs for prediction and control' <strong>Margaret Wheatley</strong> <br /> <br />'Biological systems are adaptable, resilient, and capable of generating perpetual novelty. That's not a bad list of attributes for a company of the future.' <strong>M Wheatley</strong><br />'The essential purpose is to decide for oneself what is of genuine value in life. And then to find the courage to taker your own thoughts seriously <strong>Albert Einstein</strong> <br /> <br />'To control and sort young people for the sake of institutional efficiency is to crush the human spirit.' <strong>Ron Miller</strong>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523099317733501598.post-68210099100585999682012-01-02T13:47:00.000-08:002012-01-21T04:22:29.192-08:00Educational quotes 1: general philosophy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-L3pXBWtsvaY/TwIksvvZBqI/AAAAAAAABeM/5JMIwDW6oNA/s1600/MVC-148F.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="337" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-L3pXBWtsvaY/TwIksvvZBqI/AAAAAAAABeM/5JMIwDW6oNA/s400/MVC-148F.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><strong>The is the first of A series of educational quotes from Leading-Learning website which is to be discontinued. The quotes were the most visited pages on the website.</strong><br /><br /><strong>General Philosophy.</strong><br /><br /><br /><em><strong>It is important that a school be 'led' by a set of agreed shared beliefs. To achieve this the staff and community need to enter into a series of 'learning conversations' to define and articulate such a philosophy. As it is said: If you stand for nothing you will fall for anything' or 'Control your own destiny or someone else will'</strong>.</em> <br /> <br /> <br />'What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all its children. Any other ideal for our schools is narrow and unlovely; acted upon it destroys our democracy.' <strong>John Dewey</strong> <br /><br />'The vitality of thought is an adventure.Ideas won't keep.Something must be done about them'. <strong>Alfred North Whitehead.</strong><br /> <br />'We need a metamorphosis of education - from the cocoon a butterfly should emerge. Improvement does not give us a butterfly only a faster caterpillar.' Learning to Learn <a href="http://www.learningtolearn.sa.edu.au/" target="_blank">http://www.learningtolearn.sa.edu.au/</a> <br /> <br />'No problem can be solved by the same consciousness that created it. We need to see the world anew.' <strong>Albert Einstein</strong> <br /> <br />'Insanity is doing the same things over and over again and expecting the different results' <strong>Albert Einstein</strong>. <br /> <br />'Some people would rather die than think'. <strong>Bertrand Russell</strong> <br /> <br />'If we always do what we've always done, we will get what we've always got.' <strong>Adam Urbanski</strong> <br /> <br />'One can never consent to creep when one feels the compulsion to soar'. <strong>Helen Keller</strong> <br /> <br />'Man's mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions.' <strong>Oliver Wendell Holmes Jnr</strong> <br /> <br />'Ten geographers who think the world is flat will tend to reinforce each others errors….Only a sailor can set them straight'. <strong>John Ralston Saul</strong>, 'Voltaire's Bastards'. <br /> <br />'The faithful witness, like…Socrates, Voltaire, and Swift and Christ himself, is at his best when he is questioning and clarifying and avoiding the specialists obsession with solution. He betrays society when he is silent…He is true to himself and to people when his clarity causes disquiet.' <strong>John Ralston Saul</strong> 'Voltaire's Bastards' <br /> <br />'Anecdotes, personal stories, reminiscences, like biblical parables, are the medium through which faith is restored. Stories are a form of poetry, and give us a saving image to personally relate to.' <strong>Peter Block</strong> Business Philosopher <br /> <br />'Wordsmiths who serve established power…castrate the public imagination by subjecting language to a complexity which renders it private. Elitism is always their aim.' <strong>John Ralston Paul</strong>, 'Voltaire's Bastards.' <br /> <br />'It is today we must create the world of the future.' <strong>Eleanor Roosevelt </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'The human mind treats a new idea the way a body treats a strange problem it rejects it.' <strong>Sir Peter Medawar</strong> <br /> <br />'Some folks are wise, some are otherwise'. <strong>Tobies George Smollett</strong> <br /> <br />To arrive at the simplest truth requires years of contemplation.'<strong> Isaac Newton</strong> <br /> <br />'Those who do nothing are never wrong.' <strong>Theodore de Bouville </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.' <strong>J P Harltley</strong> From the Go -Between <br /> <br />'We are natural mind changing entities until we are 10 or so. But as we get older…then it is very hard to change our minds'. <strong>Howard Gardner</strong> <br /> <br />'Fundamentalism is a kind of decision not to change your mind about something…Many of us are fundamentalists…because it worked pretty well for us.' <strong>Howard Gardner</strong> <br /> <br />'Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail'. <strong>Ralph Waldo Emerson</strong> <br /> <br />'The world by and large has to be reinvented.' <strong>Charles Handy</strong> in 'Beyond Certainty'. <br /> <br />'There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the infinite passion of life.' <strong>Frederico Fellini</strong> Film Director <br /> <br />'Out of intense complexities intense simplicities emerge'. <strong>Winston Churchill </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'There is nothing as useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.' <strong>Peter Drucker</strong> Business Philosopher. <br /> <br />'Don't try to innovate for the future. Innovate for the present.' <strong>Peter Drucker </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'I believe that revolutionary chaos may yet crystallize into new life forms.' <strong>M Gorbachev</strong> <br /> <br />'Chaos breeds life, where order breeds habit,' <strong>Henry Brooks</strong> US Historian <br /> <br />'Is anybody alive out there?' <strong>Bruce Springsteen</strong> to the crowd. <br /> <br />'It is impossible to soar like an eagle if you are surrounded by turkeys' <strong>Anon</strong> <br /> <br />'Every actual state is corrupt. Good men must not obey the laws too well.' <strong>Ralph Waldo Emerson</strong> <br /> <br />'Complexity creates confusion, simplicity focus.' <strong>Edward de Bono</strong> <br /> <br />'To simplify you have to clarify. Simplification is the new competitive advantage' <strong>Jack Trout</strong> 'Simplicity' <br /> <br />'Our life is frittered away by detail.. simplicity simplicity, simplicity.' <strong>Henry Thoreau</strong> <br /> <br />'We need to be the authors of our own life.' <strong>Peter Senge </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'We have banished our artists to the fringe of society and tell them to eat cake. It is our artists who choose freedom over safety and use their talents to question and confront the culture.' <strong>Peter Block</strong>, Philosopher <br /> <br />'We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming'. <strong>Verner von Braun</strong> <br /> <br />'First define, then refine'. <strong>Bill Guild</strong> NZ Pioneer teacher <br /> <br />'Everything of importance has been said by someone who didn't invent it.' <strong>Alfred North Whitehead</strong>. <br /> <br />'How has the world of the child changed in the last 150 years?' … the answer is. 'It's hard to imagine any way in which it hasn't changed….they're' immersed in all kinds of stuff that was unheard of 150years ago, and yet if you look at schools today versus 100 years ago, they are more similar than dissimilar'. <strong>Peter Senge</strong> <br /> <br />''Educating the masses was intended only to improve the relationship between the top and the bottom of society. Not for changing the nature of the relationship.' <strong>John Ralston Paul</strong> 'Voltaire's Bastards.' <br /> <br />'The conduct of schools, based upon a new order of conception, is so much more difficult than is the management of schools which walk the beaten path.'<strong> John Dewey</strong> <br /> <br />'Much educational change is akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic to get a better view'. <strong>Anon </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />Being on tightrope is living; everything else is waiting.' <strong>Karl 'The Great' Wallenda</strong> <br /> <br />'A pessimist is a person who looks both ways before crossing a one way road.'<strong> L Peters</strong> <br /> <br />Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it you will land among the stars.' <strong>Les Brown</strong> <br /> <br />In the end we will have had enough of cynicism and skepticism and humbug and we shall want to live more musically.' <strong>Vincent van Gogh</strong> <br /> <br />'It is difficult to know what a fish talk about but you can be sure it isn't about water'. <strong>Anon </strong> <br /><strong></strong> <br />'We can make the trains run on time but if they are not going where we want them to go, why bother?' <strong>Neil Postman</strong> <br /> <br />'The development of a tree depends on where it is planted.' <strong>Edward Joyner</strong> Yale Univ. School <br /> <br />'We each create our world by what we choose to notice, creating a world of distinction that makes sense to us. We then 'see' the world through the self we have created.' <strong>Margaret Wheatley and Kellner Rogers</strong> <br /> <br />Unlike puppets we have the possibility of stopping in our movements, looking up and perceiving the machinery by which we have been moved. In this act lies the first steps towards freedom.' <strong>Peter Berger</strong> Sociologist <br /> <br />'It is always the minorities who aren't part of a mainstream who define what the limits…of the majority are going to be.' <strong>Rose Elizabeth Bird</strong>, US Chief Justice, California <br /> <br />'The East contemplated the forest the West counted the trees…the mind that knows that trees and the forest is a new mind.' <strong>Marilyn Ferguson</strong> <br /> <br />Bureaucracies are beautiful mechanisms for the evasion of responsibilities and guilt.' <strong>Warren Bennis</strong> Leadership expert <br /> <br />' I know of no other safe depository of the ultimate power of society but the people themselves and if we think ( the people) not enlightened enough to exercise that control with a wholesome discretion the remedy is not to take it from them , but to inform their discretion by education'. <strong>Thomas Jefferson</strong> 1820 <br /> <br />'A little revolution now and then is a good thing.' <strong>Thomas Jefferson</strong> <br /> <br />'Slow down you are going too fast'. <strong>Simon and Garfunkle</strong> <br /> <br />'The world is crazier, and more of it than we think, incorrigibly plural.' <strong>Louis MacNeice</strong> Author <br /> <br />'You may feel like a voice in the wilderness, but it is your voice we are waiting to hear…you are the determining factor.' <strong>Neale Donald Walsh</strong> Author <br /> <br />'Courage is the first of human virtues because it makes all others possible.' <strong>Aristotle</strong> <br /><strong> </strong> <br />'Teach us to walk the soft Earth as relatives to all that live there.' <strong>Sioux Indian saying</strong> <br /> <br />'Everything important is already known, the only thing is to rediscover it.' <strong>Anon</strong> <br /> <br />'Every reform was once private opinion.' <strong>Ralph Waldo Emerson</strong> <br /> <br />'Those of us who are old can afford to live dangerously. We have less to lose.' <strong>Maggie Kuhn</strong> Grey Panthers <br /> <br />'Age is compulsory, wisdom is optional'. <strong>Anon </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'The most potent force for change …is the growing recognition of millions of adults that there own impoverishment came from a large measure, from their schooling.' <strong>Marilyn Fergussen</strong> Aquarian Conspiracy. <br /> <br />'Some of us are just less damaged than others.' ( by schooling) <strong>Buckminster Fuller</strong> <br /> <br />'An impressive proportion of great, original thinkers were educated at home…stimulated (and) born up by high expectations' <strong>Aquarian Conspiracy</strong> <br /> <br />'Home is the first school for us all, a school with no fixed curriculum, no quality control, no examinations, no teacher training' <strong>Charles Handy</strong> <br /> <br />'When the spirit of people is strong focused and vibrant, wonderful things happen'. <strong>Harrison Owen</strong> <br /> <br />'Present thinking people kill the future.' <strong>Ken Blanchard</strong> ,Business Consultant <br /> <br />'If you can change your mind, you can change the world.' <strong>Joey Reimer</strong> Creativity Guru <br /> <br />'When I was young I thought that people at the top really understood what the hell was happening…now I know they don't know.' <strong>David Mahoney</strong> <br /> <br />'The first people had the questions, and they were free. The second people had answers, and they became enslaved.' <strong>Wind Eagle</strong> Modern Indian Medicine Woman <br /> <br />'I imagine a school system that recognizes learning is natural, that a love of learning is normal, and that real learning is passionate learning. A school curriculum that values questions above answers…creativity above fact regurgitation…individuality above conformity.. and excellence above standardized performance….. And we must reject all notions of 'reform' that serve up more of the same: more testing, more 'standards', more uniformity, more conformity, more bureaucracy. <strong>Tom Peters</strong> Author 'Re-imagine' <a href="http://www.tompeters.com/" target="_blank">http://www.tompeters.com/</a> <br /> <br />'We are all carriers of our own stories. We have never trusted our own voices. Reforms came, but we don't make them. They were presented by people removed from schools, by 'experts'. Such changes bi passes school. School by school changes, however slow, could make a powerful difference.' <strong>Deborah Meier</strong>, 'Good Schools are Still Possible' <br /> <br />'The future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet.' <strong>William Gibson</strong> <br /> <br />'Reformation comes from the bottom up - a transformation demanded by the people.' <strong>Religious writer</strong> <br /> <br />'Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind' <strong>Thomas Jefferson </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'Life can only be understood backwards but you have to live it forward. You can only do that by stepping into uncertainty and by trying, within this uncertainty, to create your own islands of security….The new security will be a belief that …if this doesn't work out you could do something else'. You are your own security'. <strong>Charles Handy</strong> Business Philosopher. <br /> <br />'The homogenization of cultural diversity and the destruction of cultural history are central forces underlying societal breakdown worldwide'…… what is the deepest and most profound force driving change , I'd say it is the awareness, however dim and ill formed , that we are in deep trouble…The first step is to realize everything is interrelated.' <strong>Peter Senge</strong> 'Through the Eye of the Needle' <br /> <br />'The slick houses and holiday homes of the rich hiding the despair of the poor.' <strong>Anon</strong> <br /> <br />'We have been through a period when knowledge was fragmented, but dreams of coherence survived….. the expanding edges of fields…are closer to each other than are the central cores.' <strong>Carnegie Foundation</strong>/Teaching 77. <br /> <br />'We have been the benefactors of our cultural heritage and the victims of our cultural narrowness.' <strong>Stanley Kripper</strong> Psychologist <br /> <br />'What we thought was the horizon of our potential turns out to be only the foreground.' <strong>Tom Roberts</strong> Educator <br /> <br />'We will not cease from exploration<br />And the end of all our exploring<br />Will be to arrive where we started<br />And know the place for the first time.'<strong> T S Eliot</strong> 'Little Gidding' <br /> <br />'The centre falls about. The centre cannot hold.' <strong>W B Yeats</strong> <br /> <br />'Chaos breeds life, while order breeds success.' <strong>Franklin P Adams </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'Human solidarity is the necessary condition for the unfolding of any one individual' <strong>Erich Fromm</strong> <br /> <br />'What is to give life must endure burning.' <strong>Victor Frankl</strong> <br /> <br />'Those who have most at stake in the old culture, or are most rigid in their beliefs, try to summon people back to the old ideas.' <strong>Marilyn Ferguson</strong> <br /> <br />'The map is not the territory.' <strong>Alfred Korzybski</strong> /Semanticist <br /> <br />'We are told not to cross a bridges until we come to it, but this world is owned by men who have crossed bridges far ahead of the crowd,' <strong>Anon </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'If I knew what was going to happen in ten years I would do it now. I just follow my nose.' <strong>Stephen Hawkins</strong> Physicist <br /> <br />'Fall in love with your life's work again, my fiend, or your energy will wane, your voice will falter and there will be nothing to prove but the fact that you are taking up valuable space.'<strong> Anon </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'Carpenters bend wood fletchers bend arrows; wise men fashion themselves.' <strong>Buddha</strong> <br /> <br />'In the end we shall have had enough cynicism and skepticism and humbug, and we shall want to live life more musically.' <strong>Vincent van Gogh</strong> <br /> <br />'Do not go where the path may lead; go where there is no path and leave a trail.' <strong>Ralph Waldo Emerson</strong> <br /> <br />'If you are looking for a big opportunity, find a big problem.' <strong>Anon </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'Choices in life are rarely pure, but to understand the middle ground it is helpful to imagine the extremes.' <strong>Peter Berger</strong>, Sociologist <br />Lost causes are the only causes worth fighting for.' <strong>Fullan and Hargreaves</strong> <br /><br />Lucy: 'Charlie Brown on the cruise ship of life which way is your deck chair facing?' Charlie Brown ponders and replies, 'I don't know, I've never been able to get one open'. <strong>Charles Schultz</strong><br />'After you understand the about the sun and the stars and the rotation of the earth, you may still miss the radiance of the sunset.' <strong>Alfred North Whitehead</strong> <br /> <br />'Whatever you can dream, begin to do it. Boldness has the power and magic in it.' <strong>Goethe </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'As a child lives today he will live tomorrow' <strong>John Dewey</strong> <br /> <br />If you plan is for one year, plant rice;<br />If you plan is for ten years, plant trees;<br />If your plan is for a hundred years,<br />Educate children.' <strong>Confucius</strong> <br /> <br />If you know where you want to go, you have a better chance of getting there' <strong>Anon</strong> <br /> <br />Destiny is not a matter of chance it is a matter of choice.' <strong>Anon</strong> <br /> <br />' There is a road to the heart and it doesn't go through the intellect.' <strong>G K Chesterton</strong> <br /><strong> </strong> <br />'Nothing is ever achieved without enthusiasm.' <strong>Ralph Waldo Emerson</strong> <br /> <br />Chaos breeds life while order breeds habits' <strong>Henry Adams</strong>. <br /> <br />'Where all think alike no-one thinks much.' <strong>Walter Lipman</strong> <br /> <br />'It is easier to beg forgiveness than ask for permission.' <strong>Jesuit saying</strong> <br /> <br />'It takes a whole village to raise a child.' <strong>African saying</strong> <br /> <br />'Schools should be a mirror of a future society.' <strong>Anon</strong> <br /> <br />'How do we recapture the magic and myth of education? ... to enable teachers to believe in their importance...so teachers and the public can rediscovers the hope schools once held?' <strong>Deal and Peterson</strong> <br /> <br />'We make realities out of our dreams and dreams out of our realities. We are the dreamers of the dream.' <strong>Roald Dahl </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'Education is at a turning point' <strong>Howard Gardner</strong> <br /> <br />'All great truths begin as blasphemies.' <strong>George Bernard Shaw </strong><br /><strong></strong> <br />'If people did not do silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done.' <strong>Ludwig Wittgenstein </strong>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523099317733501598.post-60650868260715580692011-12-30T18:57:00.000-08:002012-01-21T04:22:29.216-08:00Elwyn Richardson: NewZealand's pioneer creative teacher.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GVrKtsG2I3U/Tv5kkLCYuUI/AAAAAAAABeA/mboIidybyLY/s1600/%2521cid_4EC98922-9777-4F6E-AD00-EE0206D39327%2540lan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="394" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GVrKtsG2I3U/Tv5kkLCYuUI/AAAAAAAABeA/mboIidybyLY/s400/%2521cid_4EC98922-9777-4F6E-AD00-EE0206D39327%2540lan.jpg" width="398" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><em><strong>Elwyn Richardson</strong> with <strong>Margaret MacDonald.</strong> <a href="http://www.nzare.org.nz/awards/citations/MargaretMacDonald.pdf">Margaret has just completed a thesis</a> on <a href="http://http//leading-learning.blogspot.com/2009/10/reclaiming-joy-of-learning.html">Elwyn Richardson's place in creative teaching in New Zealand</a>.</em><br /><br /><em><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYMdmvinFIM">Take 15 minutes to view this U -Tube video of Elwyn's work and pass it on to others</a>.</em><br /><br />I was reading in an art book I was given for Christmas about all the influences that had contributed to the development to the artists personal style.<br /><br /><strong>Everybody has people who have contributed to the beliefs they currently hold and I got to thinking who had made the greatest contribution to my own views about education.</strong><br /><br /><strong>In one way I was was rather privileged because most of my time in teaching, since the 60s, has been as an itinerant specialist teacher</strong>, first in nature study, later as an adviser in science and for a short time an art adviser. <strong>I say privileged because the various advisory roles enabled me to come across number of teachers whose approach to teaching and learning stood out from other teachers</strong>.<br /><br /><strong>I have aways believed that the best professional development is to be gained by observing other teachers - particularly those who have the ability to draw the best out of their students</strong>. Teachers have a profound respect for the advice from those who do the real work.Unfortunately, in recent decades, 'experts' from outside the classroom have become the sources of 'official' knowledge and this has led to a reduction in the importance of those creative teachers. This is is a shame.<br /><br /><strong>In my early years the most innovative teachers I was lucky to visit were principals of small rural schools</strong>.Bigger urban school were very traditional places in those days. There isn't much point in mentioning names as all have long since retired but they, I realised later, were aware of the <strong>creative ideas that were in the air</strong>, in all areas of life, after the World War Two. In New Zealand progressive child centred ideas were being encouraged under the guidance of <a href="http://leading-learning.blogspot.com/2008/01/looking-back.html">Dr Beeby the then Director of Education.</a><br /><br /><strong>During the sixties I became involved with local art advisers ( who were under the guidance of National Art Director Gordon Tovey</strong>. With Gordon's encouragement the art advisers involved teachers to explore integrated or related art studies. With most classrooms having every part of the day timetables<a href="http://leading-learning.blogspot.com/2005/12/time-for-rebirth-of-creative-spirit.html"> this was a revolutionary approach</a> and suited those teachers in multi-age small schools who had the freedom to experiment. Unfortunately such advisers, in a range of fields , are now history and leaving an important inspirational gap that has never been filled.<br /><br /><strong>Also during this time I became aware of the UK Junior Nuffield Science approach</strong> and <a href="http://leading-learning.blogspot.com/2008/02/back-to-future.html">worked with a number of local teachers to implement such ideas</a>. This approach encouraged open ended inquiries based on children question making use of the immediate environment. This dovetailed nicely with the ecological approaches that were being encouraged by nature study and later science advisers.<br /><br /><strong>It was during this time I learnt about the exciting work of Elwyn Richardson</strong> in his small school in the far North written up in his book <a href="http://leading-learning.blogspot.com/2007/02/in-early-world.html">'In The Early World'</a>.<br /><br /><strong>Another important influence to my beliefs came from my visit to the UK to learn more about Nuffield Science and <a href="http://leading-learning.blogspot.com/2011/05/henry-pluckrose.html">English child centred learning</a></strong>. The most important aspect was working in a very progressive school King Farm School Gravesend Kent.<br /><br /><strong><a href="http://leading-learning.blogspot.com/2011/03/good-old-days.html">Returning to New Zealand I worked with a small group of Taranaki teachers</a> to develop what came to be known as the Taranaki Environmental Education Approach</strong> (the environment referred to the importance of stimulating classroom environments and making use of the rich local environment). This group combined ideas from the related art approaches, English progressive teaching and the ideas of Elwyn Richardson ( who we had made contact with).<br /><br /><strong>At this point my ideas about teaching and learning had become clear.</strong> Going teaching for a few years in the 70s enabled me to put them into practice as did being a principal in the late 80s.<br /><br /><strong>Since then lots of ideas from a range of educationalists have added to the mix</strong>.<br /><br /><strong>Unfortunately sine 1986 the winds of change worldwide have sent school off in another direction towards standardised education</strong> <strong>-an approach that undermines the very creativity and diversity that New Zealand educators had gained world wide respect for</strong><br /><br /><strong>It is time for schools to return to believing in the importance of creative teachers as the source of lasting change</strong>. <strong>Teachers will need to work together</strong> ( they now have the technology to do so) <strong>to articulate a set of beliefs for the new century</strong> - one thing that they could do is get behind the <a href="http://leading-learning.blogspot.com/2008/03/inspiration-from-classroom.html">almost side tracked 2007</a> New Zealand National Curriculum.<br /><br /><a href="http://leading-learning.blogspot.com/2005/08/inspiration-and-challenges-for-today.html"><strong>Elwyn remains as an inspiration of what can be achieved</strong></a><strong> if we want to develop the talents and gifts of all students</strong>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523099317733501598.post-29401491431823398652011-12-28T20:41:00.000-08:002012-01-21T04:22:29.314-08:00Extreme views on Education -I think not!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-u-b1OohA4zA/TvvgQKPl4kI/AAAAAAAABd0/VnJDS8hsjXU/s1600/026%2BFree%2Bteacher%2Bcreativity.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-u-b1OohA4zA/TvvgQKPl4kI/AAAAAAAABd0/VnJDS8hsjXU/s400/026%2BFree%2Bteacher%2Bcreativity.bmp" width="282" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />In a comment to my <a href="http://leading-learning.blogspot.com/2011/12/merry-christmas-to-all.html">Christmas blog</a> Mr and Mrs Symonds , formally of Auckland and now living in Sydney, wrote that it was <strong><em>'because of people like you we have taken our children to be educated in Australia'</em></strong>. <strong><em>'Your views on education'</em>, they wrote, <em>'are extreme'</em> </strong>and<strong> </strong><em><strong>'out of touch with what parents want of a modern education system'</strong>.</em><br /><br /><strong>They began their comment by saying they were <em>'glad I was going from New Zealand education'</em></strong> and <strong>concluded with the phrase</strong> <strong><em>'weird and creepy'</em></strong> - I presume they were referring to themselves? And I have no idea who they include in the <em>'people like you'</em> comment nor what they define as a <em>'modern education system'</em> that parents like them want.<br /><br /><strong>Below is a comment from a New Zealand teacher now working in Australia</strong>. Is this the 'modern system' that parents like the Symonds want? It certainly reflects the agenda of the current government in New Zealand.<br /><br /><em><strong>'We are right into national testing over here</strong>. There is now national testing of all year 3, 5, 7, and 9 students. It just used to be in the other states. Victoria used to be told that we were lagging behind the other states but now, low and behold, after national teaching we are one of the top states. <strong>We also have online testing in Numeracy and Maths with the results going to the Department. This is done 3x a year. Our reports are also put directly into the Department. Accountability is everything, don't worry about the teaching</strong>. We are told that it does not matter where the students start our job is to get them up to national average and they are trying to bring in performance based pay as well. Also pay incentives for expert teachers and principals to work in disadvantaged areas.’</em><br /><br /><strong>Sounds very Eastern European to me - <a href="http://leading-learning.blogspot.com/2011/11/free-market-stalinism-in-new-zealand.html">something Joseph Stalin would have been proud of</a> or right-wing political American thinkers today.</strong> Hardly modern.<br /><br /><strong>Here is what one American educationalist has written ( Glickman 2006)</strong><br /><br /><em><strong>Today, measuring the accomplishments of students, teachers, and schools by standardised test scores</strong> and handing out rewards and punishments for reaching or failing to reach state and federal standards <strong>has become commonplace</strong>.</em><br /><br /><em><strong>In such a climate, we typically err too much on the side of avoiding failure</strong> by relying on externally approved " research based" programmes, teaching methods, and assessments that are officially prompted by state and federal governments ( through their agencies).</em><br /><br /><em><strong>What we lose in the process is imagination</strong>.Failure cannot go unchallenged, but what we have today is our own failure to imagine new possibilities and the worth of what has already worked well*. <strong>There is no tragedy in reaching for the stars and falling short; the greatest tragedy in never reaching at all.'</strong></em><br /><br />*added<br /><br /><strong>Anyway the below are the 'extreme views' on learning I have been sharing (and will continue to do so) over the years</strong>. I will leave it over to anyone who reads the blog to decide if they are 'weird and creepy' or 'not what parents want for a modern education'.<br /><br /><strong>It is important to appreciate that students are entering a new age of creativity ; an era of knowledge creation - where the ability to continue learning, to develop new ideas, even when confused, will be an important attribute.</strong><br /><br /><strong>I believe that a modern education system ought to focus on developing the talents and gifts of all students</strong> and not to judge their success on their test scores only in literacy and numeracy.<br /><br /><strong>I believe that students future success depends on the power of their personal motivation</strong> realised :through making<strong> choices</strong>; achieving <strong>mastery</strong>; and in the process developing a powerful sense of personal <strong>autonomy</strong>. As part of gaining success students need <strong>to value personal effort</strong> and <strong>focused practice</strong>. These ideas are ignored by standardised testing. Effort and practice sound old fashioned but if neglected little learning will stick.<br /><br /><strong>I believe that learning ought to based on helping students answer questions that engage them in realistic studies</strong>; studies that call on whatever learning areas are necessary to solve the problem. And students also need to appreciate the power of collaborating with others by working in teams.<br /><br /><strong>I believe that the role of the teachers is that of a creative learning coach who</strong> follow the advice of educationalist Jerome Bruner who said. <em>'teaching is the canny art of intellectual temptation'</em>. Teachers should help students construct their own learning - and learning should be personalised to suit each learner.<br /><br /><strong>I believe that teachers should ensure all the various strategies and skills are in place ( including literacy and numeracy) so students have every chance of success</strong>. This includes integrating modern <strong>information technology</strong>.<br /><br /><strong>To achieve quality learning it is important for students to dig deeply into any learning challenge</strong> - <strong>to do fewer things well so as</strong> <strong>to develop the importance of personal excellence</strong>.<br /><br /><strong>Can't see what is not 'modern' or is 'weird' in the above.</strong>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523099317733501598.post-4235424916871805212011-12-24T02:05:00.000-08:002012-01-21T04:22:29.408-08:00Merry Christmas to All!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Xz0Tuqforfk/TvWVsrBXd4I/AAAAAAAABdo/k7TuppaQbUQ/s1600/August%2B%2Bthree%2B1169.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Xz0Tuqforfk/TvWVsrBXd4I/AAAAAAAABdo/k7TuppaQbUQ/s400/August%2B%2Bthree%2B1169.jpg" width="325" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><em>Our family father Christmas manufacturing last minute gifts for our 2010 Christmas - another bloody cheeseboard! Only joking Graeme</em><br /><br /><br />It is the night before Christmas and it's a beautiful still hot night<br /><br />After some last minute shopping I spent the day out at my good friends Sarah and Wayne's drinking wine, eating, and enjoying conversation - now sun burnt and tired! Fished up having coffee at the beach and a restful meal with some old friends.<br /><br />Tomorrow I am having family around for drinks in the morning before going off to eat more food and drink more wine with one branch of our extended family. The weather promises to be superb - the only downer is news of more earthquakes in Christchurch. It doesn't seem fair !<br /><br /><strong>2012 is a 'tipping point' for me - to use an in phrase.</strong><br /><br />The last few years I have had my house painted and it is now fit for the 21stC. At the same time I have developed my hectare of swamp and bush into a garden of sorts by building bridges and walkways so that it is all now assessable. It is more a nature trail than a garden but my piece of bush ( thanks to owners of the land in the 1930s) has almost every native tree you an think of - including a half dozen 80 year old kauris. While in England I visited Charles Darwin's house ( I am a great fan of Charles Darwin) and he had a walk he used to stroll around thinking up his ideas - I have made a similar walk but not so many ideas!<br /><br /><strong>So the garden has become a new obsession for me.</strong><br /><br />Towards the end of the year my brother ( Father Christmas above) and I had a small art exhibition in our home town of Waverley in the local library - a fitting place since our mother was a mainstay of the library in her time. I have to admit my contributions were painted in the 1960s but <strong>it has motivated me to take up painting again - in the new year!</strong><br /><br />After a highly successful birthday party last January I gave a keynote presentation at an Inspired Impact Conference in Palmerston North to over 1400 people. They didn't really come to hear me - the main attraction was creativity guru Sir Ken Robinson. Actually he didn't show because of illnesses but gave his presentation via a satellite link - even took questions from the floor. Brilliant but wasted on our current government and Ministry who seem hell bent on destroying all that is good in primary education.<br /><br /><strong>I saw my keynote as my final performance in education</strong>; with the current directions of the government it is no longer a place to be talking about personalising learning or creativity. So that one past obsession out of the way. I even got a big bin a chucked out two cubic metres of educational notes - a mental clean out of sorts. I kept some good bits of course - just in case. And now I have a lot tidier house - for me!<br /><br /><strong>Perhaps the highlight of my year was visiting old friends in England</strong> ( they had come out to New Zealand for 'our' party - I have a twin brother.The party was his idea and I am pleased he bullied me into having one. I taught with my English friends in 1969 and 'we' have kept in touch. We all went out for a pub meal with our old headteacher who is now 94!<br /><br /><strong>I have other very important things on my mind but they haven't been sorted yet.</strong><br /><br /><strong>I intend to keep reading and blogging but I am going to wind up the website I started</strong> with my friend Wayne a long time ago. I am planning to capture some of the material and use it as blogs so not all will be lost. And , if asked, I will continue to contribute to the <strong>Education Today</strong> magazine edited by Doug Hislop. Looking back our best fun articles were: New Zealand's 'top schools' ( schools from the far north geographically in New Zealand!) and the articles written after our educational odyssey around the East Coast.<br /><br /><strong>So Merry Christmas to everyone</strong>.<br /><br /><strong>I hope some of my blogs have been of use to you and I hope there are younger people around to take up the fight for creative education while I get on and explore new territory.</strong><br /><br /><strong>Watch this space!</strong>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523099317733501598.post-69932859925105066142011-12-22T11:58:00.000-08:002012-01-21T04:22:29.507-08:00A message from Australia<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HhgRPCi3HG0/TvOJUPipyEI/AAAAAAAABdc/w532S8E4W20/s1600/September%2B026.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HhgRPCi3HG0/TvOJUPipyEI/AAAAAAAABdc/w532S8E4W20/s400/September%2B026.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />I<em> think it is worth sharing the below posting by Australian educator <span style="color: red;">Phil Cullen ( Phil used to be Director Primary Education Queensland</span> ) .Thankfully he hasn't lost his belief in creative education. Australia has moved further along the downhill accountability track than New Zealand but we are rushing to catch up - a race to the bottom!</em><br /><br /><a href="http://treehornexpress.wordpress.com/"><em>To access Phil's site click here.</em></a><br />IS 2012 THE YEAR FOR AN EDUCATIONAL R/EVOLUTION?<br /><br /><strong>On Wednesday, 21 December, the ASIDE blog commented upon the TIME magazine choice of The Protestor as the person of the year. ‘Frustrations felt by millions nationally and internationally reached breaking point ... in 2011...by teachers as well.’ </strong><br /><br />http://theasideblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/is-2012-year-for-educational-reform.htm<br /><br />“To top it off, we have a growing number of disgruntled youth, who drop out of an education system that sees them as a number and fails to see the ensuing impact on society as a whole...<strong>Conformity and measurement are being used to define students, yet we constantly talk about differentiation, multiple learning styles, and the whole child....This leads us to ask the question, how many teachers will ‘dropout’ from conformity and measurement?”</strong><br /><br /><strong>“Just think how much more we could engage students if we were not so close to the edge of the cliff.”</strong><br /><br /><strong>There were protests everywhere in 2011 about the branding of schools with numbers</strong>. This week, also [Monday, 19 December] 1046 New York principals signed a petition opposing the linking of their own evaluation [ A score out of 100] with the results of their students’ testing scores. Such number branding is coming down here.<br /><br /><strong>On July 30, you will remember how the many thousands of teachers marched on the White House chanting “No Testing. No Testing. 1-2-3”.</strong> They were supported by famous people – film stars, professors, legislators. Major cities around the country conducted their own protests at the time. <strong>No change yet, however. The school-bashing ideology is very strong. Teachers are very compliant.</strong><br /><br />Protests, however, are growing in size and number. Protestors now Occupy. It’s all coming to a town near you in Australia, for sure, if political parties don’t start caring for kids<strong>. There is a limit to the patience of parents and teachers down-under and up-over.</strong><br /><br />On January 7, 2012 the United Opt-out National in the U.S. is encouraging everybody to send a card or letter to their educational superordinates and legislators [our Minister for Education and Federal Minister for Education in our case] telling them ‘to end standardized testing.’ Check this out on http://unitedoptout.com <strong>With determined organisation and parent support, this movement could become world wide.</strong> Although schools in the southern hemisphere are closed, we parents and grand-parents can still have our say. Post offices aren’t closed. <br /><br /><strong>Why be an Australia ( or a Kiwi) who has trouble grasping the significance of these movements? </strong>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523099317733501598.post-75422404718555237852011-12-20T13:12:00.000-08:002012-01-21T04:22:29.530-08:00Read this and be scared!!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0t1YAPB1-I8/TvD3D5XpF7I/AAAAAAAABdQ/tgv2nrp0L4E/s1600/MVcfgC-097F.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0t1YAPB1-I8/TvD3D5XpF7I/AAAAAAAABdQ/tgv2nrp0L4E/s400/MVcfgC-097F.JPG" width="248" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong> </strong><span style="color: red;"><strong>Read Kelvin Smythe's latest posting</strong>.</span></span></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-size: small;">"It is unusual for networkonnet to post articles from other sources, but this article was too relevant to pass over. <strong>Academies or charter schools are what that imported Longstone person, our new secretary, was brought in to impose.</strong> </span></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="color: red; font-size: small;"><strong>Read and be very afraid"</strong></span></span><br /><br />No choice but to become an academy?<br /><br />Schools around the country are facing enforced conversion to academy status – against the wishes of parents, staff and governors</div><br /><br /><strong>Warwick Mansell </strong><br />guardian.co.uk, Monday 19 December 2011 20.00 GMT <br />Article history <br /><br /><br /><strong>On a sunny winter's afternoon, Downhills primary school looks like an advert for the inclusive possibilities of inner-city, multi-ethnic education.</strong><br /><br />Children of different races are running around together in the playground; inside the walls are covered with colourful artwork. The head, Leslie Church, talks about one of the school's strengths: giving each child in this deprived area of north London – just a few hundred yards from the starting point of August's riots – access to free violin, cello or guitar lessons in year 4.<br /><br />The school, which has been through difficulties in the last year despite the overwhelmingly happy exterior, might in other times be cheering itself with news in September from inspectors that it is improving.<br /><br />Instead, this 463-pupil institution in Tottenham is now seemingly on the front line of a struggle for the future of England's primary schools.<br /><br /><strong>Downhills is facing being forced by Michael Gove, the education secretary, to become a privately sponsored academy</strong>, despite fierce opposition from parents, the governing body and staff.<br /><br />Last Thursday, David Lammy, the local MP, who was a pupil here, accused Gove of <strong>an "undemocratic and aggressive" act, which threatened to erase 100 years of local democratic control at the school</strong>, founded in the late 19th century, at a stroke.<br /><br />Lammy is now collecting signatures for a petition to present to the House of Commons against the plans, while the school is exploring its legal options.<br /><br />Yet Downhills, which is in this position because the government says its English and maths test results are not good enough, is not alone.<br /><br /><strong>Hundreds of primary schools seem to be facing the threat of mandatory conversion to academies under external sponsorship, with Downhills a high-profile test of the new and seemingly unfettered ability of the education secretary to enforce his vision of a new model of governance, even when all those closely connected to this school say they do not want it</strong>. Critics say Gove is simply forcing through <strong>an agenda of privatisation</strong>, in a trend with implications for many, if not all, of England's schools.<br /><br /><strong>Although Downhills draws in some middle-class families attracted to its inclusive, creative ethos, it also has a very challenging intake</strong>. Some 46% of its children are eligible for free school meals, while for 73%, their first language is not English. Downhills is also said to have a large population of Gypsy Roma children, who nationally have the lowest results of any ethnic group.<br /><br /><strong>When Ofsted visited in January, 92% of parents returning questionnaires agreed with the statement "I am happy with my child's experience at this school".</strong><br /><br />Despite this, since that inspection Downhills has been on a "notice to improve" from the inspectorate because of its test results. These had one particularly bad year in 2009, when only 40% of pupils achieved the expected level in English and maths.<br /><br />In September, however, when inspectors returned, they reported that Downhills was improving. Schools are usually given 12 to 18 months to turn themselves around under this Ofsted process.<br /><br />But now the school faces a different future. Downhills is particularly vulnerable because <strong>Gove has powers, under an act he hastened through parliament last year, to force into academy status any school that is said by Ofsted to need "special measures"</strong> or that has a notice to improve.<br /><br /><strong>Academies are schools set up under a private contract between Gove and a sponsor: usually either another school or a privately run, though currently non-profit-making, academy chain.</strong><br /><br />Gove's officials and Haringey, the local authority, have been in discussions since July. Letters between the two show the Department for Education pushing for 10 of the borough's primaries to convert to sponsored academies.<br /><br />Downhills' position became clear after a meeting two weeks ago between governors and two DfE representatives, including Jacky Griffin, a former council education director now working as a consultant. Education Guardian has heard a recording of the meeting.<br /><br />Griffin told the group: "What I'd particularly like to focus on today is whether the course of action of becoming a sponsored academy is one that you would like to take with us … <strong>or whether we have to take back the message that that's not what you want to do, and see what happens as a consequence of that</strong>."<br /><br />This was followed by a letter four days later from Lord Hill, <strong>schools minister, who said that Gove was "minded" to make an academy order</strong> – forcing academy status on Downhills – and to use powers granted to the government under Labour to appoint a new governing body.<br /><br />He said the school had been "below the [KS2 results] floor standard" for five years, even though Downhills' latest figures, published three days after the letter was sent, see it just above floor target – with 61% of children reaching expected levels in English and maths – and faring better than the national average with disadvantaged children.<br /><br />But Hill asked the governors to write back by 13 January setting out how they would pass a resolution to become an academy, "with a named sponsor agreed with the DfE". Griffin said the school was expected to become an academy in September.<br /><br /><strong>The process was "brutal", says one source at the school</strong>. Church himself says he was in tears on first learning of the school's fate; governors were also said to be sobbing following Hill's letter. Gove, it is said, has never visited the school.<br /><br />Other schools are in Downhills' position. In June it was revealed that 377 civil servants are working on promoting and implementing the academies policy, at a cost of £4.3m. Officials working for Gove and Liz Sidwell, the schools commissioner, have been touring England in recent weeks talking to local authorities and governing bodies about how <strong>schools with low Sats results must become academies by September.</strong><br /><br />Haringey is one of nine local authorities where these officials have been pushing hardest for more sponsored primary academies. The others are: Kent, Birmingham, Essex, Lancashire, Northamptonshire, Leeds, Bristol and Durham.<br /><br />In Haringey alone, at least three other schools have been given an ultimatum:<strong> agree to sponsored academy status by mid-January, or we will force it on you.</strong><br /><br />The National Association of Head Teachers says that, nationally, at least 200 primaries with low results – lower than Downhills' – are already being moved towards sponsored academy status. But the final number is likely to be much larger; the NAHT says most authorities are coming under pressure in some way, in both primary and secondary sectors.<br /><br />One head of a secondary school that is in the process of converting to a sponsored academy says: "A senior local authority official came to see me a few months ago. He said: 'Are you thinking of becoming an academy? Because you need to. The DfE are looking at your results. You will become a converter [sponsored] academy.' <strong>We were given no option."</strong><br /><br />Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, says: <strong>"This is a major political attack on state education</strong>. This is not schools opting for academy status; this is the government forcing schools away from local authority influence into the arms of external sponsors. It is hugely undemocratic.<br /><br /><strong>"It is the forced privatisation of our schools. People have not woken up to what is happening to our education system."</strong><br /><br />Back at Downhills, what most enrages parents queuing up to speak to Education Guardian is the lack of say anyone connected to the school seems to have in its future. Several say <strong>they chose the school because of that creative, happy ethos and how wrong it was that this could change, if a sponsor came in, with a different, possibly more narrowly results-focused, approach</strong>.<br /><br />Elsa Dechaux, a research scientist whose son Oscar, four, is in reception at the school, says: "I visited all the schools around here, and this is the one I chose, because of the teachers' enthusiasm. I want my children to be happy to learn.<strong> I don't want them to be little robots, doing only English and maths."</strong><br /><br />Sarah Williams, a musician with children aged eight and 10 at Downhills, says: "I only moved them here in September, specifically because <strong>I love it here; they don't just teach to the test</strong>.<br /><br /><strong>"I thought the Conservative party was supposed to give parents choices. I have made my democratic choice, and now it is being taken away from me."</strong><br /><br />James Redwood, whose four-year-old son, Arthur, is in reception, says: "I'm a composer, and I visit a lot of schools. This is a fantastic, happy place.<strong> It is the end of state education if they can do what they are doing to a place like this."</strong>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523099317733501598.post-61102669337873918532011-12-17T16:46:00.000-08:002012-01-21T04:22:29.630-08:00Advice for 2009!!!!!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kYiXmoVUQLo/Tu00gFjVH-I/AAAAAAAABdE/CVV1C2usCD8/s1600/MVcccccC-036F.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="314" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kYiXmoVUQLo/Tu00gFjVH-I/AAAAAAAABdE/CVV1C2usCD8/s400/MVcccccC-036F.JPG" width="296" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><strong>From a NZ teacher teaching in Melbourne – is this is what is in the future for us?</strong> Not so much the ‘nanny state’ but the ‘big brother’ state!<br /><br /><em>‘We are right into national testing over here. There is now national testing of all year 3, 5, 7, and 9 students. It just used to be in the other states. Victoria used to be told that we were lagging behind the other states but now, low and behold, after national teaching we are one of the top states. We also have online testing in Numeracy and Maths with the results going to the Department. This is done 3x a year. Our reports are also put directly into the Department. Accountability is everything, don't worry about the teaching. We are told that it does not matter where the students start our job is to get them up to national average and they are trying to bring in performance based pay as well. Also pay incentives for expert teachers and principals to work in disadvantaged areas.’</em><br /><br /><a href="http://www.networkonnet.co.nz/index.php?section=latest&id=372">Read what Kelvin Smythe is on to - urgent</a><br /><br /><br /><span style="color: red;"><strong>My good friend Paul Tegg recently send the below out to a number of schools he works with. I had forgotten I had written it and thought it worth repeating -even if to see what 'we' didn't achieve</strong>!</span><br /><br /><strong>On more positive note an emphasis for 2009?</strong><br /><br /><strong>Developing Schools as ‘Communities of Inquiry’.</strong><br /><br /><strong><span style="color: red;">Challenge for 2009: To make the ‘Inquiry’ disposition central to all learning</span></strong><br /><br /><strong>The ‘new’ New Zealand Curriculum</strong> is all about students being: <strong>creative energetic and enterprising’</strong> able <strong>to ‘make sense</strong> of their information, experiences and ideas’ so as <strong>to become ‘ confident , connected and actively involved life long learners</strong>.’<br /><br /><strong>It asks schools to develop students who ‘are competent thinkers and problem solvers who actively seek, use, and create knowledge’</strong>. This involves giving students more choice and responsibility over their learning leading to a more ‘personalized’ approach.<br /><br /><strong>The NZC is asking schools to develop an inquiry approach to all learning</strong>; <strong>to develop schools as ‘communities of inquiry’</strong>. An inquiry approach is about engaging students in difficult questions and issues that are meaningful to them. I<strong>t is about placing ‘learnacy’ above literacy and numeracy</strong>.<br /><br /><strong>This would be a major change of focus for schools.</strong><em><span style="color: red;"> (And one few schiools took)</span></em><br /><br /><strong>The need is to present learning contexts to challenge students (‘rich topics’) to be able to research and ‘reflect on their own learning, draw on personal knowledge and intuitions, ask questions and challenge the basis of assumptions and perceptions.’</strong><br /><br /><strong>Schools need to sort out an inquiry model for students to make use of</strong>. This model needs to move beyond the mere gathering of information to the deep construction of thoughtful understandings<strong> and, at the same time, develop the ‘key competencies’ or future attributes, or attitudes, or dispositions, required for ‘life long learning’</strong>.<br /><br /><strong>Class inquiries ought to provide the ‘energy’ to focus the greater part of the school day</strong> and <strong>include the teaching of information research and presentation as part of the literacy programme</strong> as well as mathematical ideas that maybe required as part of any inquiries. The NZC suggests <strong>‘doing fewer topics in greater depth’</strong>.<br /><br /><strong>Such inquiries may feature one Learning Area in particular but will most likely involve aspects (strands) of other learning Areas as well.</strong> The curriculum is to be seen as ‘<strong>deep’ ‘connected’ and integrated</strong>. Teachers may need to plan collaboratively.<br /><br /><strong>Teachers will need to develop focused independent group work in all learning blocks including dedicated inquiry time</strong>. Groups, or individuals, may research individual aspects and then to share findings, with a wider audience through exhibitions, publications, demonstrations, performances, information media, or posting on web. <strong>Such findings are powerful means of assessing depth of understanding and knowledge of process.</strong><br /><br /><strong>By covering a range of inquiry topics (covering the full range of learning Areas Strands) students will also be given the opportunity to uncover hidden gifts, talents and interests that might become life-long passions, or vocations.</strong><br /><br /><strong>Lack of dedicated inquiry time is an issue so the idea of ‘reframing’ the literacy and numeracy blocks to develop appropriate research skills would seem an obvious answer.</strong> This would also include integrating use of ICT<br /><br /><strong><span style="color: red;">Somehow we never realized shools as 'communities of inquiry'</span></strong> - instead we are getting <strong>'schools of compliance and conformity'</strong> -except for Charter Schools who are getting the freedom that all state schools ought to have. <strong>We didn't fight hard enough - we didn't really fight at all!</strong> We didn't defend the 2007 National Curriculum!! I wouldn't want principals on my side in a battle!<br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="color: red;">So what is the agenda for schools in 2012 - is there life beyond compliance . Or are we heading to a Medieval Dark Ages in education? Maybe all schools ought to become Charter Schools?</span></strong>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523099317733501598.post-82523079534903145362011-12-13T02:59:00.000-08:002012-01-21T04:22:29.726-08:00Where John Key and John Banks get their educational ideas from?Something amusing for the end of term - or is it?<br /><br />Watch this u-Tube video clip:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G3iJEmGkxc&feature=endscreen&NR=1">So this is where the National Party gets its standardised ideas ideas from!</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLiNsQC7aIo&feature=related">And an Ofsted (ERO) Report</a><br /><br />And there are lots of others if you have the time!<br /><br /><a href="http://www.networkonnet.co.nz/index.php?section=latest&id=372">Urgent : read Kelvin Smythe's latest posting - u-tube clip not so amusing after all!</a><br /><br /><a href="http://http//www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/comment/6134611/Good-public-education-is-at-risk"><span style="color: red;"><strong>READ THIS EXCELLENT NZ ARTICLE ABOUT THE NEGATIVE NEW ZEALAND GOVERNMENT'S EDUCATION POLICY</strong></span></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523099317733501598.post-84061178489403530022011-12-12T06:30:00.000-08:002012-01-21T04:22:29.869-08:00A new sense of direction for the Labour Party -and New Zealand<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2oUYlkD6XGs/TuYQpEeunWI/AAAAAAAABcs/_D2laRHdidk/s1600/QB.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="374" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2oUYlkD6XGs/TuYQpEeunWI/AAAAAAAABcs/_D2laRHdidk/s400/QB.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><em>Today the New Zealand Labour Party will select a new leader. This new leader must work with the people to develop a shared sense of direction for our country - one that all feel part of - or at least enough people to win the election in2014. Some how the party has to connect with over a million voters who couldn't be bothered voting - more people than those who actually voted for the winning National Government.</em><br /><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><strong>The question is where do we go to next?</strong><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To succeed as a nation we need a vision, a destination, a point of view about the future, a direction in which to channel the efforts of the people we work with and for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like early explorers there are no maps to assist us as we journey into ‘terra incognito’.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><strong>The new leader must begin such a journey and give courage for others to join the adventure.</strong></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><strong>This is no time for timid thinking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The future calls for new mindsets that can thrive in a future based on evolutionary and discontinuous change</strong>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To develop such mindsets we first have to let go of the past and rethink unexamined fundamental assumptions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of all we have to give up our desire to control things from the top.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <strong> </strong></span><strong>The future will be driven by human imagination and creativity.</strong><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As business philosopher Peter Drucker has written, ‘every organisation has to prepare for the abandonment of everything it does.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Industrial aged bureaucracy is dead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><strong>Worldwide, politicians are running out of ideas to cope with the deepening economic, social and environmental crisis looming ahead.</strong><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><strong>Problems are deepening in our society</strong>, unemployment is rising, institutions are increasingly failing, and national and individual debt is rising, yet there is little dialogue from politicians about possible alternatives for us to consider.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><strong>As problems deepen worldwide countries such as <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">New Zealand</place></country-region> will be forced to seek out new solutions</strong>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the future innovation will be driven far more often from bottom up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s how new ideas will increasingly ‘emerge’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><strong>New ideas will have to emerge through dialogue with the people</strong> from the people as current politicians seem more concerned with short term thinking, popularity polls and retaining power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the situations worsens internationally and within <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">New Zealand</place></country-region>, new ideas will be required beyond extremes of individualistic market forces capitalism and deadening socialism.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><strong>For far too long we have relied on our leaders to solve our problems.</strong><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However as recent events show leaders worldwide have little idea of how to thrive in a rapidly changing climate.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><strong>It is now time for leaders to widen the pool of ideas and to tap the collective intelligence of all people to contribute to the solution.</strong><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Such leaders</span> must take notice of what creative people and creative organisations are currently doing to see what it is that we could learn from them and to their share their ideas with others. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><strong>Leaders need to instigate a series of national conversations about what kind of society we want to be and what we must change to achieve such a vision.</strong><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> And t</span>hen there will be a need to consider how all our institutions need to be transformed so they are flexible enough to thrive in such unpredictable times. It would be valuable if those conversations made use the power of all forms of information technology that are now an integral part of our current culture.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><strong>Such a series of conversations would develop a greater collective understanding of the problems facing us and begin the process of empowering all to take responsibility for creative action</strong> and not, as is the case now, leaving it to ‘experts’ and politicians.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this new environment the role of politicians, and leaders in any organisation, would be to create the conditions for new ideas to emerge.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><strong>Margaret Wheatley, a business philosopher, has written change doesn’t happen from a leader announcing the plan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Change begins from deep inside a system, when a few people notice something they can no longer tolerate or respond to a dream of what is possible.</strong><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We just have to find a few others who care about the same thing….we don’t have to start with plans only with passion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One only has to think of Martin Luther King or Nelson Mandela.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><strong>For those who feel that ordinary people are not capable of such thinking it is worth noting the words of Thomas Jefferson</strong>, who wrote in 1820, ‘if people are not enlightened enough to understand what is required of them the answer is not to dictate solutions but to inform their discretion by education’.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Stephen Carden’s book <strong>‘New Zealand Unleashed’</strong>, subtitled <strong>‘the country, it’s future and the people who will get it there’</strong>, is worth reading by all those who are serious about the future of our country and who want to become involved in a critical debate about where we are heading.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong>Carden writes that ‘the future is coming. The question is: are we ready for it?’</strong><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He argues that <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">New Zealand</place></country-region>, being small and vulnerable, needs to think about what kind of country we want to become.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The question he asks is important for us all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><strong>He believes that the current uncertain and unpredictable environment we find ourselves in provides a great opportunity for a ‘small agile, flexible nation to excel’</strong>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘The idea of setting top down plans and targets,’ he writes, ‘are not helpful and that <strong>what is required of leaders is to create the conditions for creativity to occur.’</strong><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><strong>These are the issues that ought to be exercising the minds of those electing a new Labour party leader today.</strong></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523099317733501598.post-64370844596285241512011-12-08T17:17:00.000-08:002012-01-21T04:22:29.967-08:00Something all principals ought to have written to their students' parents<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br /></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gZOJtY05hdM/TuFfB4Nyq3I/AAAAAAAABcU/KBslrWICsTo/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="190" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gZOJtY05hdM/TuFfB4Nyq3I/AAAAAAAABcU/KBslrWICsTo/s400/images.jpeg" width="265" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><strong>A principal and his website posting to parents</strong></div><br /><strong>Where are we heading, and what have we lost to get there?</strong><br /><br /><em><strong>Danny Nicholls is principal of St Patrick’s Catholic School, Taupo</strong>. He runs a website intended for the school community and other interested readers. The beliefs and opinion expressed are his personal ones. Danny's blog is a well balanced description of the current environment schools find themselves in - if only more school principals ( or better still groups of principals) had written, or even shared similar newsletters.</em><br /><br /><br /><strong>One of the big building blocks of any school is curriculum delivery. Here in New Zealand we have a fantastic national curriculum which gives sufficient breadth for schools to develop and deliver really exciting and innovative programmes that meet local needs</strong>.<br /><br /><strong>The New Zealand Curriculum has been bedded in over a few years now and replaced the more ‘tick the box’ style approach of the previous document</strong>.<br /><br /><strong>In particular, the promotion of Key Competencies was a really exciting move towards developing what we want and most value for our students</strong>. This curriculum went through extensive consultation and trial/error periods before being accepted and used. I can recall many hours spent getting to understand the intent of this new curriculum and being very excited about its potential.<br /><br /><strong>Sadly, it looks like we are not going to get the most out of this new curriculum, which has been hailed as a world leader by educational experts</strong>. The mood at the moment in New Zealand is one of accountability and narrow test scores which inevitably will mean schools not spending so much time on developing the Arts/Health and PE/Languages, as any gains made in those areas will not be directly reflected in national standards data. <strong>That to me is one of the most disappointing aspects of the forced imposition of the standards</strong> – not the accountability, because that's important to have, and what ERO do already –<strong> but what we have lost along the way</strong>.<br /><br /><strong>I think back five years to the support my school received</strong>. We were a well performing school who were accepted on to a Health and PE contract. This enabled us to have a specialist teacher/consultant working in the school at regular intervals during the year developing teacher capability and confidence in teaching Health and PE. We also hosted a cluster Arts contract, which meant that the regional Arts adviser would run after school workshops once a term at our place, and teachers from around the region would come for a staff meeting in which they developed new skills in teaching an aspect of the Arts curriculum. I also had access to a Leadership adviser who visited once a term to meet with us to give advice or direction we may have needed and to keep us in the loop of the latest developments out of Massey University which was where we drew most of our PD from.<br /><br /><strong>The landscape has changed dramatically and we work in a tighter economic environment, so there are no more Arts, Health, and PE or Leadership advisory positions available to schools.</strong> <strong>Any professional development or support offered by the Ministry of Education is solely focused on supporting the goals of national standards and is only accessible to those who can prove that they are failing their students</strong>. The message is that if you are doing a good job then you are on your own. At another level the message is also that the national focus is on the tail of achievement not extending the brighter children – there is literally nothing available to assist schools to challenge and extend brighter students.<br /><br /><strong>The model being offered now is ‘contestable’ or ‘targeted’ meaning that schools, as of right, do not have access to advisory support but must either pay for it or prove that they are failing their communities and require external support</strong>. I find it sad to receive pamphlets from Waikato and Massey (geographically we are in the middle so get both institution’s mailings) touting for business at ‘competitive’ or ‘tailored’ rates – for services that schools used to receive as of right. Money that should be going on school based resources now needs to be spent on providing teachers with the ongoing professional development they require. I imagine both universities are working in difficult times and am <strong>saddened to see what we now have to work with</strong>. It is well known that the investment by government in education is significantly less than in other comparable nations – our system does have that ‘run on the smell of an oily rag’ ethos, and always has done –<strong> yet internationally our results are well above what could be reasonably expected</strong>. Not that you would know it if your only source of information on school performance came from those who really should know better.<br /><br /><strong>We continue to hear about the ‘1 in 5’ are failing school’ from the government – as if this is solely a school failing and there are no other social issues in the mix.</strong> <strong>What about ‘1 in 5 came to school without breakfast today’, or ‘1 in 5 spend their schooling life bouncing from school to school with no stability or opportunity to cement learning patterns’, or even ‘1 in 5 who take 1 in 5 days off school regularly’</strong> – not so catchy or vote grabbing. Anyone who understands a bell curve knows that there will always be those who do not achieve as well as others in particular areas. That is reality. I am not suggesting for a minute that we should not be concerned about raising achievement for the most vulnerable – we always should be, and I know in my school a disproportionate amount of time, money, energy and resources goes into just that – but where is the conversation about high achievers? Or even the ‘average joe or jill’ – do they get a look in?<br /><br /><strong>Remember that summit/think tank held just after National were elected three years ago, investigating how to promote our nation and make it even better? There was a real focus on innovation and doing things differently</strong>. Nurturing the tall poppies to make them really blossom was a sound-bite I can recall. <strong>Sadly it seems that optimistic start to National's tenure has all but gone</strong>. They’ve governed through a tough patch with global financial problems and two national tragedies, so I don't begrudge them the decisions they've had to make in that sense – I just wish it wasn’t at the expense of our high achieving children.<br /><br /><strong>My concern is that post election this narrowing will only get worse</strong>. <strong>Shonky, unreliable tables comparing schools to one another will begin appearing in newspapers</strong>. Schools will begin to be tagged as ‘excellent, ‘failing’ or anywhere in between based on manipulation of data and/or differing assessment practices. <strong>Teachers will continue to get bashed in the media despite 95% of them being dedicated, caring and effective professionals</strong>. There are a few bad eggs like in any profession yet from what you read in the media (and it will only get worse) it seems all teachers are ineffective. <strong>There is already a mini-exodus of school principals as the reality of what we are being charged with overseeing and implementing in our schools begins to take effect.</strong> This will only get worse over the next few years. The whispers about how our roles and employment conditions will change post-election will have dire consequences if realized.<br /><br /><strong>National standards on their own will not make a difference to any child’s achievement.</strong> Parents who are engaged and work positively with schools already know or can easily find out how their child is doing. <strong>The ethos of partnership is eroding and being replaced by one of reporting and suspicion.</strong> So much money being invested in a scheme which has little if any benefit to children.<strong> And in the meantime a world leading curriculum is abandoned ...</strong><br /><br /><strong>I hope that whether through school/parent pressure, or just common sense, we will see the re-promotion of the NZ Curriculum as our guiding document</strong>. This should be the cornerstone of student improvement for our children not a narrow Literacy and Numeracy focus. Those areas are foundational and absolutely at the core of what a school does but we can be so much more than that.<br /><br /><strong>Last night at our teacher meeting we did some preliminary work on our inquiry learning approaches for 2012</strong>. That was intended as the posting for today, <strong>but clearly I got sidetracked</strong>. <strong>My biggest concern is that such staff meetings in the current climate may become a luxury as we will need to spend the majority of our time on national standards compliance matters.</strong> This isn’t what I want for my children and I know parents in our community don’t want that either. <br /><br /><strong>Unfortunately the debate and decision making on educational direction and policy shifted out of the hands of those actually doing the work some time ago</strong>. It is up to us instead to determine what is best at a local level as the national direction is already fixed.<br /><br /><strong>Danny Nicholls</strong><br /><br /><strong>Principal</strong><br /><strong><br /></strong><br /><strong>St Patrick's Catholic School, Taupo</strong><br /><br /><br /><br /><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.stpatsprincipal.blogspot.com">http://www.blogger.com/www.stpatsprincipal.blogspot.com</a></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523099317733501598.post-42941963944871136852011-12-06T20:18:00.000-08:002012-01-21T04:22:30.070-08:00Whose agenda ought we be following in education?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KGNqDBNBzVw/Tt7OyhV_uyI/AAAAAAAABcI/rAfVbSjDBwM/s1600/mban973l.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><br /><img border="0" height="181" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KGNqDBNBzVw/Tt7OyhV_uyI/AAAAAAAABcI/rAfVbSjDBwM/s400/mban973l.jpg" width="141" /> <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><em>While schools are increasingly being constrained by the imposition of National Standards right wing politicians introduce another failing idea from the USA (and the UK) - Charter Schools' - which are to be given considerable freedom</em>.<br /><br /><a href="http://http//www.dailykos.com/story/2011/12/10/1044013/-The-most-important-speech-on-education-in-years">I made use of 'The Most Important Speech' posting - based on Diane Ravitch's for my blog below. The linked blog is well worth a read by all principals and BOTs - as is the PDF file it refers to.</a><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><strong>When politicians interfere with educational provision without democratic consultation we are in trouble.</strong> All too often such ideas have popular appeal until they are given more thought. Without time to consider implications the ideas develop a life of their own.<br /><br /><strong>These politicians are undermining education for their own political ends.</strong> The idea that our schools are failing is a cynically crafted myth by those who want to privatise 'our' schools.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">American educational philosopher <strong>Horace Mann</strong> wisely said, many years ago, that <strong>when partisan politicians introduce their ideas the result is that public education is demeaned as is respect for professional judgement.</strong> Educational consultant <strong>Michael Fullan</strong> has written more recently that <strong>politicians always get it wrong</strong>; he should know because he has wrongly advised politicians in the UK and Canada!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><strong>Educational critics start off by stating that schools have let too many children fail</strong> -in New Zealand Ruth Richardson, Bill English, John Key, and now, New Zealand's answer to the American Tea party, - John Banks.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><strong>Three things are ignored in the lack of debate.</strong></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><strong>Firstly the troublesome home circumstances created by poverty is ignored.</strong> This poverty has been escalated by failing market forces policies which had at their premise the belief that wealth would 'trickle down'. <strong>New Zealand is now one of the countries with the widest 'rich/ poor gap' in the Western World.</strong> <strong>Conservative politicians fail to acknowledge that the so called 'achievement tail' correlates to the 'one in five students' living in poverty</strong> and prefer to spread the more simplistic 'schools are failing 'one in five students.' What is ignored is that even before the first day at school there is an achievement gap.<br /><br /><em><strong>There is a story of two doctors waiting by a river</strong> who see a somebody drowning and the rescue the person.Then another drowning body appears and they pull him out, then another , and another. finally one of the doctors runs up stream and the other calls out, 'where are you going?' The running doctor calls back, 'I am going to see why they are falling in!</em>'<br /><br /><strong>Are we looking upstream to see the causes of school failure?</strong><br /><br /><strong>Politicians like John Key and John Banks say that teachers are using poverty as an excuse yet lack of equality and opportunity can't be that simply ignored.</strong></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><strong>Secondly while choice is trumpeted as the reason for charter schools the public school system is increasingly being constrained by the politicians imposition of standards</strong>- another simplistic political idea with appeal until the consequences are thought through. The ideas of standards come to us from the USA and UK where <strong>they result in narrowing of the curriculum, league tables and teaching to the tests</strong>. Ironically the most successful American Charter schools are those that have the tightest accountability requirements - so much for choice and diversity.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><strong>Thirdly New Zealand schools score highly ( in the first four or so) in the International Tests in Literacy , Numeracy and other curriculum areas.</strong> Both the UK and the USA are seen as failing systems in this respect yet they are the countries our politicians want to follow!<strong> Politicians are blind to the more liberal approaches of such countries as Finland.</strong> Top achieving countries, like Finland, do not test every child every year. And those that do ignore creativity, innovation and imagination.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><strong>Both National Standards and Charter Schools, no matter their superficial appeal, are not silver bullets</strong> - raising children achievement is not as simple as their proponents think. <strong>Such ideas contribute to a poisonous narrative that colours the minds of the public and destabilizes the reputation of public education</strong> and will add to the gap between so called 'winners and loser' schools. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><strong>The sad thing in all this is that the enlightened New Zealand Curriculum, the vital role schools play in creating a democracy, and innovative ideas that creative schools are implementing will be ignored</strong> .</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><strong>Already most primary schools have , for their survival and reputation, have already distorted their programmes to focus on literacy and numeracy</strong> - and an obsession with testing - resulting in students with talents and passion in other areas being ignored.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><strong>National Standards and Charter Schools ( if they are to be tied to tight accountability requirements) are no answer.</strong> If Charter Schools are to be given given greater flexibility and choice then this also ought to be given to all schools.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><strong>There is no argument about the importance of literacy and numeracy but if New Zealand is to become a creative and innovative country then developing every students gifts and talents ought to be the driver for all school change</strong>. What is missing by current reformers is the neglect of imagination, creativity and imagination.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><strong>For this we need to re-imagine schools completely</strong>. We need to move out of a standardised 'one size fits all' schooling and <strong>move towards personalising education</strong>. <br /><br /><strong>Educators understand that children develop in different ways and at different paces and respond differently to different experiences - they cannot be seen as a easily defined product or measured outcome.</strong><br /><br /><strong>What we need is a new narrative for a 21stC education system one that promotes critical thinking and innovative ideas required for the future.</strong></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><strong>Creative teachers have always known this</strong>.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><strong>This ought to be the focus for anyone involved in education. History will not look kindly on politicians ( and schools) that support such retrogressive ideas. Until this happens how many students will learn to see themselves as failures. How many good teachers will lose hope and leave? Who will want to be a principal in such a managerial, uncreative and technocratic environment?</strong><br /><br /><strong>We have to fight for a different narrative - one that makes sense to parents and the wider community once they have been give the time to consider the faults of the current bunch of self serving conservative politicians.</strong></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com