Feet and change

 

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.

The Power of Us - David Price

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.

Peptalk magazine

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.

Haeata - Week Six

Day One

Our first day this week didn't happen due to the large earthquake centered in Culverden. Our buildings needed to be checked before we came to school and so we had a day at home.
It really made me think about the earthquakes and the effect they have on us and our students. I feel for everyone in the affected areas and for people in Christchurch who had all of those memories brought back.

Day Two

We started with a mihi whakatau this morning for the new staff. Our group is growing and it is great to have more staff on board. After kai and mihimihi we had time to talk about the earthquake on Sunday night and how that had affected us and what we needed from our colleagues and for our students. Earthquakes are the weirdest things. There is no warning and you can't run away from them. Unless you have been in the situation of a large quake it is difficult to comprehend the impact on people.
We then broke into small groups and shared a precious momento with each other. This was a good way for our new staff to get to know some of us. We then had two digital korowai from new staff. These have been such a good way to get to know people and are really good for making connections.
After lunch we had a te reo class where we are split into three groups depending on our level of ability. We are so lucky to have such a large number of kaiako who are capable of taking these sessions.
I spent the rest of Mai Time looking at some of the presentations from the Global Education Conference - wishing I had more hours in a day!

Day Three

In our first session today we were given a choice of pictures and asked to relate them to learning. Our

pair had a picture of Hong Kong. We came up with the idea of fluidity - going in different directions, the different clouds showing our different types of learning and learning styles and then the city showing our connection to the world, the global picture, that also needs a strong infrastructure to support growth. It was interesting to see different perspectives on the pictures with some people having totally different takes. This reminds us that our ākonga will also see things differently. One of the other groups had a picture which they saw as a snapshot in time, a place to relax for a bit and not worry about what is around the corner - something we can all take a lesson from.
Using these pictures we then discussed 3 implications for us as educators - what do we need to do to make the picture come true. We decided you need to have strong systems and processes in place to support learning, connections and positive relationships between staff, students and community and you need support no matter where you are going.

Some of the other groups came up with the following after being inspired by their pictures:
Create a safe and supportive environment - be brave
Have learning pathway
Important for ākonga and kaiako to learn together
Individualised learning plans

Expose students to a range of knowledge

Building pathways through challenge

Having the right environment to nurture seeds

Important to have time to reflect

Celebrating success and failures

Constantly evolving - tear down the old for the new

In small groups we had short discussions on some questions, including:

How important are subjects?

What are the basics for 5 yr olds? 10yr olds? 15yr olds?

The NZ curriculum has 8 learning areas - which are the most important?

When we talk about change in education it becomes clear that we can't do this TO our community  - we  need to do this WITH them. It needs to be a collaboration with whanau, ākonga and kaiako having conversations around learning.

We then read an article on constructivist teaching. This was about learners, the environment and how they learn best.  One statement from this that really resonated with me was "If you are truly meeting learner's needs then how can you possibly plan for them 10 weeks in advance". 

Our next question was "What is the purpose of a Haeata education?". After filling a page with ideas we then had to choose one that summed everything up. Our group decided on the whakataukī

E tū ki te kei o te waka, kia pakia koe e ngā ngaru o te wā

Which translated from Māori means "Stand at the stern of the canoe and feel the spray of the future biting at your face" which we translate to a learner to be pushing their personal boundaries to achieve success.

Our Manakura (Principal) is away this week at the Singularity Summit and the statement and question he wanted us to look at, after having a day at the conference, was:

"The gap between school and life has never seemed wider. So much of what we do in school is completely irrelevant. How do we respond to this and how do we bridge the gap?" Our group decided not everything was irrelevant, but there were certainly some parts that we could do without. Lots of ideas were had around what we could do to help bridge that gap and make learning more relevant and forward thinking.

After this we broke into our hapori groups and talked about how we might package learning. This is really the first time we have started to dig deeper into what learning might look like at Haeata for next year, rather than the big picture. Our hapori found it difficult to stay away form the elephant in the room - NCEA. This became the subject of another session after lunch.

At lunchtime I reflected on this style of learning that we carried out this morning. We started out in pairs, then made groups of 4, then 8, then back to pairs. We had time to write on paper and then move around to look at everyone else's work and make comments, then back to discuss the comments made on our sheets. We also have time where we have statements to comment on for 1 minute only, without interruptions and then change groups to keep the information flowing around the room. We are continually working with different people, reflecting on comments and changing things around. It is a safe environment to work in and I really enjoy engaging with different people and hearing new ideas.
After lunch we gathered with the Year 7-10 hapori, Korepo, to discuss our visit to the closing High School for the next day. With the new staff there, it was a large group and it was exciting to have more input and ideas from a wide range of people. Our hapori then met with one of the SLT to discuss how NCEA might look for next year. I think we came up with more questions than answers but this is a work in progress and it was good to get some ideas out for discussion.

Day Four

I read this article "When does profound learning occur?" that we were given and it just reinforced my thinking around making sure learners have choice, are empowered and are involved in creating new things. Changing from teacher-centered to student-centered learning and not sticking to a timetable can be difficult for some staff to get their heads around as we have been immersed in this style of teaching and learning for so long.

From: https://dallasps.wikispaces.com/

We heard some feedback on the kaiarāhi trip to Melbourne where they went to a few schools to have a look at the way they worked.

• Wooranna Park Primary School
• Dallas Brooks Community Primary School
• Templestowe College
• Silverton Primary

I really enjoyed listening about their thoughts on these and then exploring the school sites for more information. This is a great way to look at how some of these things might work at Haeata and to see what others are doing in their communities. Some amazing things going on!
Our second session was going into the high school and spending time with students. We had a range of activities for them and rotated them through these. It was great to spend time with them and give them an opportunity to meet us and to ask questions and tell us a bit about themselves.
The afternoon was spent doing our own work and I went to a TeachMeet which you can read about in another blog.

Day Five

We started with a reflection on our time at the high school yesterday and then moved into our hapori groups. Our discussion was centered about NCEA and how this might look for students in our hapori.
The next session started with us in pairs finding a quote about education. We had to say what we felt the quote meant in our eyes. We came up with education not being siloed in a classroom or just at school, but about equipping the community to enable change as well. The implications of this on our day to day actions would be to have authentic, meaningful learning and for students to see that they are the ones that can change the world. This ties in really well to our Values, Principles and Dispositions. We then went on to look at a draft of our Learning Process document. We had a chance to feed back to the SLT around this and have a discussion about how this may look in our kura.
Andy talked about his time at the Singularity Summit this week and once again reinforced his thoughts around the divide between school and the real world. If we take the linear path we will be left behind by the exponential curve of development. He talked about the difference between innovation (incremental and linear) and disruption (changing the game). We used to be able to predict what would happen in the world up to 20 or 30 years ahead, but now it is more like 3-5 years due to technology. He mentioned Moore's Law which I first heard about yesterday at the TeachMeet and also talked about the need for humanness in this technology based world. we need to automate what we can so we can spend time doing the human part of our jobs. A question he was asked, and I think we all need to ask of ourselves is:

What part of your job could be automated so we could do away with you?

Interesting discussion from there about Qualifications and NCEA. Sue Suckling (the Chair of NZQA) said "the era of the qualification has gone". This has huge implications for us as educators and is something that we spent a lot of time discussing in the afternoon. A group of kaiako spent time throwing ideas around as to what success could look like at Haeata and whether NCEA was a part of this and how it could be. It was a robust and fascinating conversation with many viewpoints and many ideas coming through from a wide range of staff, not just those in the Year 11-13 hapori.

Another week gone - time is flying by. Looking forward to the next week with a trip to Auckland and a visit to Tuahiwi.