A little Dr Seuss

“I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind. Some come from ahead and some come from behind. But I've bought a big bat. I'm all ready you see. Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!” 
― Dr. Seuss
Sometimes I am a stroppy cow.  I don't like it when people are mean, and I don't mean mean with money, I mean just straight mean-spirited.  But I guess everyone has their own motives.  Some don't even know when they are being mean.  They are so caught up in their own persona that they do not see how their remarks are perceived by others. Dismissive, patronising, judgmental, bullying, self-righteous....I have had them all.  But your turn will come.  I do not turn the other check.  I wait for my moment to make my point.  I don't mean with a big bat, but just enough so that you will know, and stop and think about your actions and maybe not do them again.
“A person's a person, no matter how small.” 
― Dr. Seuss, Horton Hears a Who!

What else must teachers give?

There are costs associated with every job. Sometimes it is the cost of getting to and from the place of work. Sometimes it is the cost of time. Time away from the family, hours of travel time, long hours of work, work in your home office, when you cannot interact with your loved ones as you focus on the task in hand.


There is nothing more disheartening to realise that your employer does not recognise or even appreciate this extra sacrifice. In many cases, it is taken for granted that you will give give give without a word, and that is perhaps just the way it is.
After 33 years of working in the same job, I certainly feel this awful feeling of having been taken for granted. And it is possibly because teachers do not ask for enough. They are expected to be sacrificing so much for their "calling."
The latest added cost for teachers is the cost of the Internet at home that they are all meeting, in order to prepare lessons for their students. Faced with inadequate school time and Internet bandwidth at school, they move like sacrificial lemmings to their homes, where they pay for the Internet services of uploads and downloads and sometimes even software out of their own pockets. They use their own phones, and their cameras and their video recorders and often their own ink and paper for printing, on top of all of the other costs that they meet daily. I am sure I am only just scratching the surface here.
So the 21st century learning going on in our schools is being subsidised heavily by teachers. Wouldn't it be nice if that were recognised let alone paid for?



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Location:Wembley Place,Richmond Heights,New Zealand

What every teacher in NZ should have. Digitally speaking!

This is my list of ICT tools that every teacher must have, in every class, in every school.
1. A RSS reader like Google reader to collect new articles from webites that they like
2. A digital curation tool like Diigo, or Evernote so that every website or online article that they ever find, and go WOW!, can be stored for future reference.

3. A Youtube channel so they can save all videos that they use (or create) to playlists which are readily available.
4. An online educational community where they can ask questions, answer questions and receive great advice and pd like SimpleK12.
5. A Twitter account which they can tweet away their discoveries and find all the PD they would want 24/7
6. An e-portfolio where they can record their pd and their career highlights and create a CV with digital evidence.
7. An online collaborative site where they can work on shared documents like Google Drive
8. Access to resources for their teaching and learning, and pd records, 24/7 is this N4L?
9. A video camera and still camera, and phone all in one
 10 A reliable tablet (i-pad preferred)and VGA cable to connect to a digital projector and screen.
 And, did I say, they should know how to use them all as well. Is there anything you would add?

Shifting the thinking

Lucky me in a job that I love. I have been in many schools in the last six months and in the last few days have been lucky enough to visit a secondary school grappling with implementing BYOD (preferably iPads) in two year 9 classes.


And grappling is the right word. It is a big beast to get a handle on. There are technical issues and there are pedagogical issues. Actually, I am even surer now than before the implementation, the pedagogy should be the first issue to sort out. The paradigm shift. A passion for change must drive the teachers concerned because a huge investment in skill and knowledge development must occur to move the focus from pen and paper to the technology. Time is a very precious commodity for teachers so it should not be wasted on tweaking a tired curriculum to suit the new ICTs. Opportunities for rich differentiated learning experiences should be explored. I hate to say it but I observed a lesson this week that I delivered 33 years ago as a beginning teacher. And this is a teacher who has poured his heart into upskilling his technical capability in the classroom. He has worked extremely hard on finding the right apps to do the job but his time could have been better spent. I suppose it comes down to how much time do the teachers get to make changes. So this two headed beast might need a bit more in the way of resourcing yet.





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Location:Wembley Place,Richmond Heights,New Zealand

Professional presenters

Once again I am astounded by the lack of care some professional presenters make to engage their audiences Yes, the content is valuable, yes the audience is adult, and yes, the audience is professional, but, honestly , as professionals involved in education, have we learned nothing about how people learn best?
People include the professionals. Attending a hui recently made me wish I was somewhere else assimilating the knowledge. Some presenters, following on from each other had lulling voices, the type that mother would use to send you off to sleep after a tiring day.
The content of their messages was important but I bet I missed 50% of it! Mental zzzzzzz, even if the body was awake!

Karakia, prayers, blessings....

As a New Zealander, I have become immersed in the culture where there are karakia, blessings and prayers said at hui, during funerals, weddings, and many other occasions, not least of which is when people offer prayers to friends in need, or even me. I respectfully wait for the moment to be over and always feel a bit remorseful for not having any faith to put trust into. I like the sentiments that are expressed but just don't get who they are saying them to.
I watched Graham Nortons's programme on TV recently when he was interviewing the star of The Office - Ricky Gervais and he had finished his hosting of the Oscars or some such other event by saying "....and I want to thank God for making me an atheist." which was pretty offensive to many Americans apparently because, as Johnny Depp said at the time, "God has a home in the American Mid-West." Apparently, about 90% of USA citizens are believers whereas it is more like 50% in Britain.
So I wondered what the percentage was like in New Zealand. I guess I could go to the government census statistics - the 2006 census showed about 66% believers ( on the decrease from the previous census). It will be interesting to see what happens in the next census (remembering we bypassed a census due to the Christchurch earthquake). Will there be a resurgence of religion due to human response to the disasters?
Its not that I wouldn't like to have faith, I just don't. It must be quite nice to have some hope for life after death, reassurance for people who want to see their loved ones again and all the other benefits that religion must bring to the psyche.
What do other (34%) of non-believing people do when all the karakia, prayers and blessings are on? I have never asked for fear of offending someone but I would quite like to know. Our politicians all seem to be able to offer prayers for in troubled times so it cant be them.

Huripoki -Flipping New Zealand style

“Culture is central to learning. It plays a role not only in communicating and receiving information, but also in shaping the thinking process of groups and individuals. A pedagogy that acknowledges, responds to, and celebrates fundamental cultures offers full, equitable access to education for students from all cultures.”[1]
While writing up a paper about flipped learning recently, I started to think about whether flipped learning fitted into the cultural context of New Zealand and decided to have a close look at the Tataiako – the cultural competencies, which every teacher in New Zealand should be aspiring to apply to their teaching practice.
The cultural competencies should promote Maori learners to achieve educational success as Maori. There are five competencies and they are Ako, Wananga, Manaakitanga, Tangatawhenuatanga, and Whanaungatanga. They have links to the Registered Teacher Criteria and the Professional Teaching Standards, so should be well understood by New Zealand teachers. I really don’t know if they are well known or not, but every school which has subscribed to Te Kotahitanga or He Kakano would be aware of them at least.
Image from google stock: [2]https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-ddpLu_8QLlg/TmbXSAWcjpI/AAAAAAAADwo/-lIOI59FxTk/h120/86494575_highres.jpg

So, as I wrote about flipped learning, (which is the concept of students watching videos at home on the content of their curriculum and coming to school to discuss, question and practice using the concepts in practical or applied ways) it was really interesting to find out that the concept of “the guide on the side, instead of the sage on the stage” was used in one of the first papers about flipping by J Wesley Baker in 2000[3] This, to me, encapsulates what Ako is all about – taking responsibility for your own learning and that of Maori learners. In the classroom this looks like – a teacher sitting alongside a student and discussing, rather than lecturing from the front. The teacher is the guide on the side, learning from the student as well. (Reciprocal learning.)

[4]Image - reproduced from Colin Smith under Creative Commons licensing
In fact, it seems to me that each of the competencies, as I worked through them all, are really about good teaching no matter who and where you are. Wananga is the professional development and problem solving that you do to find the best outcome for the students - in fact “Teaching as Inquiry”. What suits the individual student best? Tangatawhenuatanga is about accepting who the learner is, knowing their cultural identity and allowing them to achieve within their own cultural context. Whanaungatanga is about knowing your learner’s family and their cultural context, making good respectful links with them and their culture. And Manaakitanga is about caring about the student, a mutual respect and understanding about who the student is and what their beliefs are..
I came to the conclusion that “Flipping” could be an excellent pedagogical method for teachers of Maori students as all of the competencies could be applied to create appropriate videos for Maori students or by Maori students. Guide on the side, problem solving, knowing your learners, knowing their families and connections and what works for them, and above all caring about the student and believing that they can learn and achieve.
[1] http://www.alliance.brown.edu/tdl/tl-strategies/crt-principles.shtml)
[2] https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-ddpLu_8QLlg/TmbXSAWcjpI/AAAAAAAADwo/-lIOI59FxTk/h120/86494575_highres.jpg
[3] Baker, JW. "The “classroom flip”. Using web course management tools to become the guide on the side." 11th international conference on college teaching and learning, Jacksonville, FL 2000.
[4] http://s0.geograph.org.uk/geophotos/01/87/32/1873298_1a99d27c.jpg
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Location:Taupo, New Zealand