Arts front and centre

One of the many things I love about our NZ Curriculum is the even and balanced priority we must give to all areas. This term is the time for the arts to be front and centre.

Our school-wide overarching question is 'how can Waimairi School become the new Arts Centre of Christchurch?.

Those of you reading from afar might not know that our city's formerly vibrant and diverse Arts Centre is one of the casualties of the earthquakes. So this term's big question has a special poignancy for us.

Half way through the preceding school term a group of teachers get together to undertake a review on the state of learning and plan the school wide direction for curriculum focus for the upcoming term. This year the arts planning team concluded that our visual arts learning is very good and needs to be maintained but music, drama and dance are the poor relations (in a classroom learning context). So these are our focus areas.

Our localised curriculum, called Learning @ Waimairi requires the careful selection of two verbs from our list which capture the essence of a learning area and need to be amplified. For term three we selected 'creating' and 'interpreting'. This is what the common school-wide learning is this term.

Next comes the individual teachers 'turbo charging' of any achievement objectives they select for the term using SOLO Taxonomy. Kudos to the authors of the arts AOs for arranging them in a very 'SOLO like' way in the first place.

So... with all that important, but potentially dry, planning done it is time to ignite the children's interest, passion and curiosity. If our school is indeed going to be Christchurch's new Arts Centre in ten weeks time then everyone needed a peek at what that might look like.

When children, parents and staff started to trickle in on the first day of term they found every sort of performer going for it everywhere they looked. At the end of the term it will be our children performing in these spaces, they have now been shown what is possible. And we loved the performers.

Looking forward to a great school term and to seeing the children as the performing artists Enjoy the video.

Compare and Contrast

As I have stated in many previous posts, the government is the government and being democratically elected they have the right to implement the policies they see fit. But today my jaw dropped as I saw the launch of the Government Green Paper for Vulnerable Children. Well done Paula Bennett, take a bow.

This is what New Zealand's government law making process used to be like. I love it.

There is a very big issue, the green paper comes out. The stakeholders, the experts and anyone with a strong opinion have a crack at it. Here is the timetable:

Step 1. Child abuse in New Zealand is an identified problem which needs attention so...

Step 2. May-August 2011:

Green Paper developed by a multidisciplinary team of public servants and others.

Advice and peer review provided by a group of academics and scientific experts chaired by Sir Peter Gluckman and a frontline forum including the Children’s Commissioner.

The Green Paper is released by the end of July 2011.

Step 3. August 2011-February 2012 :

Nationwide public consultation Green Paper

Step 4. May-July 2012:

Analysis of consultation.

Development of a White Paper setting out the Children’s Action Plan.

Step 5. August 2012:

Release of White Paper and formal adoption of the Plan.

Compare and contrast the education national standards legislative process.

Step 1. Lack of student achievement in literacy and numeracy is identified as an election issue. In the face of clear data that New Zealand leads the world in these areas.

Step 2. Pass Education Amendment Bill. Under urgency. No select committee consideration, no industry or professional sector consultation, no teacher voice, no parent voice, no university education research voice. That's all folks. Done. Law made.

There is a perverse factor to take into account as you compare and contrast the modes of operation (Minister of Education with the Minister of Social Development) and their degrees of haste. The evidence of child abuse is real and commands immediate action. The evidence of an underperforming education system is harder to find as New Zealand continues to top international performance tables. You would think one deserves parliamentary urgency and the other consultation and careful steps. Sadly it has been reversed.

Actually both issues deserve due process, and enduring and effective solutions require the latter. Well done Paula Bennett for getting back to the way that our country was, and should be governed. You and the cabinet have the ultimate say on what legislation will come out of the process but what you do decide upon will have had some good expert (and every-person) input. Can you pop down the corridor to share your methods with the Minister of Education?

Post-quake, walking the walls with even more admiration for our teaching team

I walk the walls. It is a part of our curriculum review process. But it is much more than that. This term, more than any other before, it has moved me.

In any regular term I always end up looking at the pictures and thinking "wow, I love working with these people." But this term I have to admit to a few tears flowing as I looked at the picture collections.

These teachers are quake-weary, tired and doing all they can to hold together emotionally affected children and families. And... dealing with their own wrecked homes and jangled nerves.

Yet they are delivering a stunning term of learning. Better than before.

Every teacher in every class is here, plus some of our learning support staff. (Missing the afternoon programme pics because time keeps robbing me of the chance to grab them on camera).

Snapped in the first part of the term (front loading) look here

and the second part of term, applying the front-loaded knowledge before children fly with their own inquiring questions.  Look here.

The wall pictures only tell a small part of a learning story, photos of walls don't show the rich learning experiences in action, but looking at these pics I am in awe of a teaching team working in a disaster hit city.

I love the close detail learning obtained from the simple things like the autumn leaves, the dirt in the garden and the clouds in the sky. The interactive learning centres and the children's voice screaming out.

Can't say much more.

TED Said...then spread

It all started off well. But then TED spread.

TED first came onto my radar in 2006 when Sir Ken Robinson made his moving, humorous, and influential 'Schools Kill Creativity' speech. Ideas worth spreading indeed. Since then the TED Talks have inspired and challenged me. A few of my own key ideas, decisions and actions in recent years have had their genesis in a couple of TED presentations.

TED is now very fashionable. "Did you see it?" "It was amazing." "Very Inspirational" The risk is that TED-hungry leaders, managers and decision makers will end up with the sort of 'doing it vicariously' effect which has gripped the world of would be cooks, singers, and overweight people.

The abundance of reality media means that many people who don't cook their own healthy food can now instead get some sort of solace from living vicariously through watching Jamie Oliver do so. It means that people who want to have an entertainment career can now instead live that dream vicariously through their favourite TV Idol contestant. Watching the Biggest Loser gives an easier sense of well-being than changing diet and exercise programmes for yourself.

Also add to this list: Vicarious parenting through watching Super Nanny and vicarious home improvement through watching Grand Designs.

We can become dumbed down and passive consumers of ideas, convincing ourselves that the 'hard' but good things to do are taken care of in our lives by watching someone else do them on TV.

So the now pervasive presence of TED videos, and live local iterations of TED events, offer us inspiration, opportunity and also risk. The risk of us becoming consumers of TED content rather than producers of new ideas. The risk of living vicarious creative lives through the TED presenters' lives.

Ask some fellow teachers, principals or other leaders about creative things they have done recently. If they respond by saying that they have watched a TED video start to worry. Watching TED is good for getting inspiration but it is not creativity on its own.

Produce don't consume. Force yourself to be able to list actions you have taken as a result of a dose of TED. If we don't make ourselves do this then, as leaders, we are no different to an obese person cheering on their favourite Biggest Loser contestant while sitting on the couch eating a bucket of wings. Watching Ken does not make you Ken.

Who is it that is teaching new teachers to write lyrics for Whitney Houston songs? If it is you please stop it now.

Every few months I find myself in this position. All I want to do is find an outstanding teacher to employ. All I end up doing is wallowing through a pile of edu-speak sickly sweet treacle.


Who is it that is teaching new graduates that a CV should sound like a Whitney Houston song? The lack-of-substance mush-crimes are at their worst from UC College of Education here in Christchurch. Graduates seem compelled to offer something called an 'emerging philosophy of teaching.' 


The problem with an 'emerging philosophy of teaching' is that it states the obvious and tells me nothing about what the candidate actually plans to do if I let him/her loose on a class of children.


"I believe the children are our are future 
Teach them well and let them lead the way 
Show them all the beauty they possess inside 
Give them a sense of pride to make it easier"


Give me a break. Without breaking any confidentiality by quoting from actual applications in front of me, they seem to say the same thing while at the same time managing to say nothing.


"Show them all the beauty they possess inside
Give them a sense of pride to make it easier
Let the children's laughter remind us how we used to be"


The missing components of so many of these manufactured sugar-sweet teaching job applications can be illustrated by going back to the old school Dr. Julia Atkin circles (as illustrated in From Values and Beliefs about Learning to Principles and Practice. Dr. Julia Atkin, 1996).


Since no one would say "I believe in a teacher centered classroom where only some children reach their potential and only some needs are met and parents are unwelcome" everyone has to say "I believe in a child centered classroom where all children reach their potential and all needs are met and there is an open door policy/partnership with parents." These nice words are the centre of the circles mentioned above. 


Sadly most job applications I receive stop there. They don't go on to say what the applicant's planned practices (which are congruent with their values and beliefs) are. A job application with the outer circle filled in will get my attention. The rest don't.


I could easily apply for a doctor's job by saying I want to heal people or an engineer's job by saying I want to build great buildings that don't fall down. The thing needed in those job applications would be some concrete ideas for how I might do that (the outer circles).


I hope teacher training institutions cotton on to these important gaps in the CVs they guide their students to produce.


And... one final point. We work with children, we get them to use crayons and picture books. This does not mean a job application and CV for a teaching job needs to look like it is made with crayons and made up as a pop-up book. Sort out the pedagogy/andragogy divide.

and!! What ?? does this like mean??

I found this posting from a standards proponent on Kiwiblog. 


If not National Standards then what?? We need something in place to see what state the education levels of our children are! Quite frankly they are alarming and something needs to be done fast. I have a 5 and 8 year old with my 5 year old falling behind! I don’t take offence to the teacher telling me he’s this way, more what can i do as a parent to help him? the National standards are catching these children before they get too far down the track. I agree that a 5 year old shouldn’t be tested and yes some improvements need doing to the policy but I don’t see anyone else with any bright ideas on how to fix the problem. I am at university at present doing year two of my teacher training and believe that teachers also need to be accountable! Its our job! thats what we are getting paid for. Its the whole education system that needs to be looked at and I think with a little time the standards will show this and hopefully something will be done! Or is that what we are all afraid of??? Quite frankly i don”t think someone with a one-sided opinion like Martin Thrupp should be leading an investigation in the first place!

My response is.... firstly try to read the above out aloud to yourself then read on.

Are you really a university student training to be a teacher? If you are a teacher in training you are indeed a living example of the need for national standards. A quick reading of your post shows me that you are well below the expected standard for writing. Your strangulation of punctuation is well below the expected standard for a child leaving the primary system. Sections of your posting are very hard to comprehend because of your poor writing skills.

I am a school principal waiting for the extreme language on both sides of the debate to die down. There are some significant flaws in the standards and these flaws need some expert attention. Until the expert attention is applied to them my school will not be fully compliant with the national standards regime. This does not mean I am a rampant anti standards campaigner, it means that I am taking a considered professional stance.

My main concern is with the standards for mathematics. The rushed implementation has left teachers with some very inconsistent measures to use when making their standards judgments for reporting to parents. I long for a well reasoned professional debate about the content and detail of the standards. Sadly this will not happen while people are forced into camps for or against the standards.

Until the minster, the unions and NZPF get together and work these issues out I remain in state of limbo. I am a civil servant and I am required to implement the will of the current government. I am also a trained professional and I am ethically required to use my professional knowledge for the benefit of the students in my school. Cool heads need to prevail in this debate, sadly this has not happened yet.

Surprisingly, only the parents of the school concerned will know that one of the leaders of the ‘anti standards’ coalition of schools has a long history of giving his parents a written report which tells the hard truth about where their child is in relation to national expectations. My own school adopted his school's report format just as national standards arrived on the scene.

Let’s get this clear, the leader of the anti standards coalition reports, in writing, to parents in the way that national standards require (and has done so for many years). This shows that the problem is with the national standards not the concept of reporting to parents on how their child is progressing.

Until the debate on the real issues with the national standards starts to happen I remain uncertain about the outcome. The one certainty I do have is that rach88 has no chance of getting a teaching job unless he/she lifts his/her standard of literacy so that he/she can teach children to meet the required writing standard.

Can you run my business for me in your school?

My February resolution was to crank my blog posts back up to a regular level again. Four days after my last post the earthquake put that plan to an end. But I am ready to roll again now.

Here is a letter I am composing to schools. I want to make lots of money with  little quality control.

Dear School Principal,

Today for some reason I am thinking about starting a business. A business run for profit. A business that retails goods and makes a profit for me.

One barrier to me starting my business is the cost of buying or leasing retail premises, a place to show off and sell my products. To avoid this cost I will run a mail order business. But the problem still is the cost of direct mail or circular delivery of my monthly catalogue to home letterboxes.

Hmmm, you could help me out here by giving my promotional materials and order forms to children at your school? I will save on lots of advertising and delivery costs.

The next problem I face is order processing. If you get your teachers to give out my promotional materials, catalogues and order forms to your pupils can you also save me lots of money by collecting the orders, counting the money and sending it off to me. It would really reduce my overhead costs.

Distribution of the ordered product is also a hassle (cost) for me so I propose that you get your teachers to do this for me as well. They can also follow up missed and incorrect orders for me.

I like the idea of your teachers giving my promotional materials to their children. If it comes from a teacher and the teacher spends some class time talking with the kids about what is great, exciting and really worth buying this month, the children will unquestioningly believe I am offering good products. If I offer the class some incentives based on their total order value then there will also be some good peer pressure to keep up the class ethos and buy from me. My customers (children) wont want to let the class down by not pressuring their parents to buy this month's quota.

What could I sell in my mail order business?

An art kit (crayons, felt tip pens etc.)
A battery powered game console
A crystal growing kit
A battery powered safe
A T-shirt embroidery kit
A bedroom burglar alarm
A plastic bead-making machine
A plastic stencil set
A solar powered calculator
A battery sudoko machine
A set of board games

or basically any cheap stuff you could buy at the Warehouse. Why would parents buy this from me? Because it had tacit endorsement from their child's school and therefore must be good for learning.

I need to avoid hassles with tricky questions from school principals and boards of trustees. I will do this  by orienting my website to recruit individual teachers directly to sign up to run my business for me in their own class. My other idea is to get some parent volunteer labour to work for me.

By doing this it is unlikely that the things I say to parents in my catalogues e.g. "Parents: Ordering from me earns your school valuable FREE resources! or Parents: Every Item Ordered Earns Your Child’s Classroom FREE Books!" will ever show up for scrutiny or audit on the school accounts or on school library book asset registers. Principals will be left guessing what is received and where these resources end up. There will be no required approval of school management for teachers to join up and help me run my business for me. My website will help this process by recruiting them directly.

Now all I need is a catchy name for my global multi-millon dollar business. A name which projects the feeling that what I sell is somehow educationally valid: Academicastic, Learnastic, Growbrainastic?

Please support me with my new business plan.

Regards
Mike

PS Don't knock those teachers who already like my business plan, they do so because they like to support literacy and reading in their classes. And NZ parents have a belief that what they got sold as kids is also still good. But let's question any new sign-ups. If you would not to open the gates to any other mail order company using teachers as commissioned sales people why would you open the gates for one that has been around for a while?