Educating the Dragon

ANZAC day today in Australia and here in
New Zealand. They choose this date as a day of Remembrance for veterans and fallen comrades-in-arms as it is the anniversary of the beach landing at Gallipoli.

We, as a family, attended a service in Havelock North and stood together with many others as the third and fourth generation. When I was explaining it to my kids in class yesterday it dawned on me that it is closing in on 100 years ago.

Kids nowadays, I thought, but then it is a long time ago and perhaps it IS on the shoulders of schools and community groups to fan the flame of remembrance.

The community constable spoke about his father being in the 2^nd World War as a merchant seaman…. ‘not so glamorous for a 7 year old boy into spitfires and hurricanes’ he said.

I found his talk most helpful though, as I consider that it was my Grandfather who parachuted into France on D-Day. My other grandfather fire fighting at
Manchester docks during the Blitz. My Great-Grandfather, I discovered over the Easter break who sat, rear facing in biplane, machine gun in hand during WWI.

Then I’m there with MY son, another generation further on and I’m going to be explaining about his Great-Grandfather and Great-Great-Grandfathers…. I’m not saying we should forget, all I am saying is it becomes harder and harder to remember, to explain. But we must.

Here is an interesting educational article on TV3’s 60 minutes tonight, apologies for no video feed- not available currently. Te Mutu College along with 11 other high schools are adopting Professor Bishop’s approach to Maori education called Te Kotahitanga  In it he advocates for a holistic approach to educating Maori. The research he did talking with Maori young people identifies a crying need for understanding and a raising of expectations. Just what any young person wants: someone to believe in them, what Professor Bishop talks about is a way that the teacher can and should be demonstrating that belief. It’s alright to say we understand where these kids come from but we need to demonstrate that in the way that we teach.

I hear it now: ‘we do it that way’, ‘we are from a high density Maori community and our school reflects that in its culture and ethos’.

 To which I reply: “Are we really showing it, demonstrating it, but more importantly are the community and the kids feeling it?”

If not, why not? And what are we going to do about it.

The way Professor Bishop spoke about it I thought back to the book I read. And the posts I wrote about, William Glasser’s approach. It sounds the same only with a New Zealand Maori accent.

First day back after the holidays…..

And we return to a school where local kids (not from our school) have run amok.

·         The barn was broken into and all the sports gear stolen.

·         Fire extinguishers removed from classrooms and set off.

·         Graffiti written over many areas of the school.

·         Broken windows.

·         A waste bin set fire to and potential building damage.

The police, apparently were called a total of seven times during the two week break. Seven, that’s some sort of record for round here.

We were all shocked and saddened by what has become of this neighbourhood. I knew the area was rough before I joined the school, it has something of a reputation in political circles in
New Zealand. But I have never witnessed such a violation of school grounds. Alan Duff, the author of Once were warriors described my school as a oasis in the desert. This quote has forever been on the school prospectus. But that was about a decade ago. Has NZ society slipped further in that time? I thought it was getting better.

What are we to do?

p.s. A big round of applause for our ‘property manager/ caretaker/janitor/ hero’ because he has worked tirelessly to get the school back in working order. And he is not alone in his efforts I’m sure. Throughout the globe there are those people who take care of the school buildings and grounds, fixing, mending, caring for our kids environment. I’d just like to say to them all THANK YOU.

To begin a little background: About 14 months ago my principal asked me if I would be interested in an Interactive whiteboard and become the school representative on the Sitech Champion Schools programme. I readily agreed and was delivered a projector, Interwrite board and school pad.

As I became familiar with the system I quickly picked up how useful the school pad is for the classroom teacher. As my class were 7 year olds the board had to be mounted quite low and the projector angled steeply for my children to take full advantage of the Interwrite board. As a consequence I produced a rather large shadow over the board whenever I stood and interacted with it, therefore I sat back, to the side of the board with my school pad in hand and allowed the children to fully interact with the board, safe in the knowledge that I held the pad and could effortlessly correct mistakes and errors.

This system worked well as both I and my class became familiar with the software and developing tools that were provided by the Interwrite board. However, as class discussions developed, talking partners and group working and responding via the board there came a time when I felt I had to let the pad go. Into the pupils hands. That safety net for the both my class and myself was gone. They had to fix the mistakes themselves. More power to them, as it turned out. I thought that multiple pads within the classroom were a must, but how many?  Garry, via Jenny, kindly allowed me to hold onto a few extra ones, 5 to be exact, a total then of 6 in my class.

Here are a few anecdotal notes concerning the multiple pads issue. Remember I can only speak for my experience within a junior classroom however I am convinced what I am about to share holds true for the majority of the primary age phase:

It is good for the teacher to be away from the board, no giant shadow and no towering over the pupils as they sit on the mat. Therefore the teacher, with school pad in hand has the ability to take control of the computer without returning constantly to the Laptop or desktop.

For the class to engage fully with what is happening on screen, particularly during discussion time or group work an additional pad is very useful, which can be passed from student to student as the discussion flows and they are able to add their own ideas without moving from there place.

What I have found with only using 2 pads (the 1^st being monopolised by the classroom teacher) is that there can often be a lag time between a student speaking and sharing their initial ideas and being passed the pad to contribute ‘on screen’. That is when I introduced further pads.

I will now assume that the classroom teacher holds a pad, as I did for the remainder of the experiment. 

With 5 pads in the students hands for discussion time was quite problematic in that control of the cursor flittered between users as multiple individuals sort to include their own ideas simultaneously, as you know the cursor is only controlled by the fastest ‘on the draw’. Where that number of pads came into its own was when group work divided the class into areas around the room and those groups were then asked to feedback onto the board in a plenary session.

I experimented with 5,4,3,2,1 pad during the ensuing months and terms. Four and even three pads caused the pace of lesson to slow and the focus of the lesson to move away from the Learning Intension and onto an issue about someone not taking their turn properly with the pad, or some such.

The optimum number of pads, I found was three:

·         It enabled the teacher to hold onto one and have 2 others in the hands of students.

·         2 pads for students enabled one to be passed to the next user while the first was in use.

·         3 pads during plenary group work were sufficient to be passed amongst the groups with minimal disruption and delay caused to the flow of the class as a whole.”

Here I am on my holidays. A chance, finally to catch up with Wes Fryer’s podcast142 on the speed of creativity website. The one I listened to last night rang true with me as Roger C. Schank spoke about his view of education. All the notes, wikis, blogs, presentation material etc are all available here from on the Speed of Creativity website so I won’t bother re-linking them all to here as they are 2 clicks away.

I wanted instead, to dwell on the concept he was dealing with in terms of creating valuable learning scenarios and not wasting time with the ‘just in case’ teaching that is so prevalent in our education system today.

David Warlick, when he was here for the Learning@schools conference talked about the fact that in New Zealand so much freedom is given over to New Zealand schools and not dictated from the ‘district’ or governmental level that the move towards School2.0, Classroom2.0 and Library2.0 stands a good chance of implementation in NZ schools. I think he was referring to where the purse strings are held. Which is true. However, if I were to share this podcast with staff and colleagues I am sure that there would be much puffing of cheeks and shaking of heads. A fear of unknown sits within our schools…. Even if the principal is progressive and forward thinking there are still those at the senior or middle management level had would vocal in their advocating for status quo.

Roger gave the quote from John Adams “There are two types of education, one will teach how to make a living the other will teach us how to live. “

I happen to agree. What I am most pleased about is that Roger does not leave us high a dry, with the idea that what we are doing is archaic but offers thoughts and suggestions as to how the curriculum for the 21^st Century should look. He stated:

“Writing

Speaking

Reasoning

Getting along with others

Making and executing a plan

Understanding what tools are available to you

Making use of known principles.”

 These are the core competencies. Regardless of whether you are teaching social studies, Science, or electrical engineering, those competencies above are the skills you will need.

So back to the
New Zealand way…. Like John Adams said we need to teach children how to earn a living and how to live, but then it’s very easy to ignore
Adams’ logical approach to education: Him being:

1. So far away
2. American
3. Dead.

But do any of those three reasons make him wrong?