It's been a time of change in my life over the last few weeks.
Finally, after 16 months, I have had my foot operation. They had to tighten up a ligament and take a bit of bone out and lift the bottom of my foot up - no small op and it will be a few weeks yet before I am running around! There is a piece of wire sticking out the end of my toe (not a small piece either!) at the moment and it doesn't come out until October. I'll be off work for a while so I have time to get some things done at home. It's a change to be sitting around, it's a change to not have pain in my foot and it's been a change in what I do every day.
I'm about to change my job. After 4 years at Haeata I am moving to Papanui High School to take up the role of Learning Support Coordinator. This is a new role and I am looking forward to finding my place there and working out how I can best support those learners. This starts in Term 4 (October) so I have a bit of time before I get to start but I'm super excited about it! As part of this I am spending some time working on my Boma project as it relates well to this new role. Soon I will be able to share a prototype and work on getting this up and running.
I have been cleaning out my emails and drives, lots of stuff to clear. I didn't realise how much I had accumulated over the years and how much really is just not needed. Hard to get rid of things though, we can now gather so much online, it's not the same as going through books and papers, there is so much more!!! One of my friends came round and we talked about decluttering so I have been trying to do a drawer or a cupboard/shelf each day while I am housebound. It's getting there - slowly.
I've also been cleaning up in the garden. Shuffling around on my bottom, trying to keep my foot out of the dirt, and not being able to reach far across the garden at the moment, but loving the time to just potter and get the weeds out where I can. Am looking forward to being able to stomp around in the shrubs once I am back on my feet!
I wanted to put my old video tapes onto DVD - or at least store them digitally. Problem is - most of the computers lying around this house do not have DVD drives! Finding storage online for all the data is becoming an issue as well - I seem to have a ton of data in every drive I own! It seems that I have multiple copies of things on different drives. Oh to sort more out....
I have been working on my Eason genealogy as well. It's great to have access to online sites through the library but it means lots more to do. I have been updating my FB page a lot and putting more on my website as well. It's something I love doing and has been a good focus over the last few weeks. I just have to make myself do other things first in the day before I let myself do any, otherwise nothing else gets done!
I have been reading a lot. I am lucky to have some great friends who read widely and they have put me onto some great books. As part of that I finally bought some online to read on my Kindle app - a new thing for me as I do prefer to have a paper copy, but with not being able to drive to the library at the moment, paper books are a bit scarce.
I joined the DisruptEd Book Club Facebook group recently and this is the book to read at the moment. (the Kindle version is only a couple of dollars on Amazon right now). Reading this book has confirmed my knowledge that I was exceptionally lucky to be part of the first few years at Haeata. We were pushing the boundaries and doing it in a collaborative, supportive environment. I was constantly in a state of flow and was passionate about what we were doing. It seemed chaotic and could look like that from the outside, but the growth and the knowledge we gained was amazing. We really needed a few more years to show how this new model could work - it takes 5-7 years to really implement change. One of the quotes from this book is about a company BrewDog and it really resonated with me "We are a high growth company. This creates amazing opportunities for us and our team members. This also creates a constant state of flux and a healthy dose of chaos. For us, the time to start worrying is when we don't have the chaos, because it will mean our growth has slowed. WE NEED TO EAT CHAOS FOR BREAKFAST." One of the things that attracted me to Haeata in the first place was that Andy (the founding Principal) said at a public meeting "If you don't like change, don't apply" - he knew that there would be constant change, which there certainly was. We collaborated and worked together to continually improve practice. It wasn't perfect and often wasn't pretty, but I do believe we were heading in the right direction. This book has just reinforced my belief that working collaboratively is the way to move forward.
This is a great magazine that is published here in NZ. It has great articles about wellbeing and has a section specifically for teenagers as well. Well worth subscribing too if you have any interested in mental health, or have a teenager in the house.
The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion
This was Book of the Year in 2014 in Australia and is a moving yet funny book that I would highly recommend. I'm keen now to reed the other two that follow this book - it will be interesting to see if they are as good.
The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell as well as Blink
I found this really interesting - it talks about a few different concepts that make total sense. The idea of making things stick, making things practical and personal to become memorable is a no brainer. There was a study about Sesame Street and how they made it memorable. The quote I like is "if you want to know what kids aren't learning, all you have to do is notice what they aren't watching." Something we should think about as teachers. There is also the rule of 150 - keeping groups below this number makes a huge difference. Some really interesting studies done on this. I'm now going to be reading Blink - the power of thinking without thinking. Looking forward to it.
Te Wiki o te Reo Māori
It was great to be able to drop into Victoria University's mini webinars during the week. I enjoyed the little snippets and have been using some of the phrases each day when I can. I enjoyed the extra te reo on TV - having subtitles was great, the more we see and hear Te Reo Māori the better. I do wonder why we don't do this all the time - it should be more than just a week to highlight what we all should be doing every day.
So that's me for the moment, lots of changes and lots of learning. Loving it.
