Shaky ground

Another earthquake has hit Christchurch and I just wanted to send calm and thoughts to those who are once again transported back to five years ago.  I have some amazing friends in the city - and while I want to get on the phone right now and check, I know they are safe - so not much point clogging phone/cell lines.

These things do pop us back onto shaky ground again.   It reminds me of how even in teaching, we think we have things sussed (have worked out a strategy to cope with X student or applied a certain way of teaching/learning) and then boom, something happens (again) and we get to re-try and re-apply and re-grow ourselves.  I know Christchurch will NEVER give up, and I also know that myself and other educators I know will NEVER give up on re-trying, re-applying and re-learning for ourselves if needed.  Sometimes shaky ground is good for us as educators - but please Ruaumoko (god of earthquakes and volcanos) not for Christchurch now.

Diversions

I took a bit of a diversion today - completing some on-line searching for the brilliant idea of mine.  Turns out, brilliant idea may not be so brilliant - or at least achievable in the short term.

I imagined being able to take all my students over to Rekohu, to see the Kopi groves, to walk the trails and smell the air.  Turns out a one way flight is already $600, so even with a charter flight, it is at least $900 per person for the return flights alone, which is over $20,000 for my class, not adding in accommodation/food or transport to the airport.  So .... I need to work on that one.  If anyone has brilliant ideas to get rich quick feel free to share (are we allowed to use Lotteries Grants in schools?) as I don't think sausage sizzles and mufti-day will cover this one.

BUT ... not going to write it off just yet!!

Open Doors

Today I am thankful for open doors.

I want to do a big shout out of appreciate for our senior management team, but especially my principal who has an open door policy.   Sometimes it is the little things and a big shout-out for all the little things my principal does!  The biggest of these 'little' things for me is taking the time to listen to my concerns, worries and letting me know I need a growth mindset as well.  So, to my principal - thanks for pushing me as well!

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Connections

I am in the process of writing up an application for an overseas cultural connections experience.  It has gotten me thinking about how much becoming connected has bettered the way I teach the, the way I reflect and the way I want to move forward.

One of the first (NZ wide) connections that I joined when first teaching was (as it was called then) the English List Serve via TKI .  Soon after this followed the Literacy and Social Studies List Servc.  These groups provided (and still provides) an email based system where you can 'post' to the group and other teachers nationally (and several international) in your teaching area and respond, support and challenge your thoughts.    A HUGE thank you to the moderators of these lists!!  It is amazing to see teachers supporting teachers and sharing resources as and where able.

Both further national and international connections have been made by becoming more confident and engaging with educators over Twitter (follow me @askawenga if you are keen!).  I take part (as and where able given the tamariki in the morning) in #BFC30NZ as much as I can - to me this is such an inspirational fifteen minutes.  It gives us wee thoughtful challenges along with the opportunity to afi one another in an environment that is willing to challenge each other but always remains positive!

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Another key connection are the #EDBlogNZ bloggers (some linked in side bar).  These educators take the time to write about their practice, their purpose, their highs and lows, their pedagogy and their passion.  It is these experiences that can inspire you on a blue day, reignite the fire on a low day and remind you that we are all in this for the love the students and their learning.


This year I am taking part in #NZreadaloud4 - a chance to focus in my inquiry about whether increased reading aloud (even at Y10) is going to improve my students reading and writing.  This is something that I am thinking might be a possibility to connect even further if I had a chance to go on this overseas experience.


A personal international connection is my sister-in-law in Holland.  She is taking an Bachelor of Arts in Literacy and Social Sciences, so I am privileged to be able to read her university work, and this year she has been studying some NZ authors as part of her Masters thesis studies.  Skype plays a big part in this connection.  The Skype programme will also play a part in connecting my students - I am hoping to skype with speakers this year to help students learning become more meaningful and personal.  If we can't all travel three hours (cost and time factors) and speakers cannot come to small area schools easily - perhaps we can overcome that by organising Skype sessions with speakers and particular authors (hopng we can connect with Karen Healey @kehealey author of our novel study this year).   This connecting will again make the learning more personal and purposeful.

So ... leave me a note here or on Twitter ... lets see how many more connections we can make!

Grammar

I have the Christmas carols blasting in the background (well, as loud as you can when five children are sleeping).  My marking for today is done.  We started the week with a piece of writing (drafted in class, own editing, then re-written by them the next period) so that I could have a quick sneak snapshot at how they are with on the spot writing.  I made a rubric that used similar criteria to the E-astle writing and I have been able to see clearly already that their ideas are confidently Multistructural, with several students being clearly Relational.  The writing has also shown me that I need to think about different ways to present grammar and the rules surrounding it to my students.

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I have these memories of a big thick yellow grammar textbook and working through pages and pages of diagramming out sentences (do we still do that? anyone?) along with circling direct objects, underlining the verbs, and double underlining the adverbs.   I am sure exercises and 'rote' learning have some place (somewhere), but I am not convinced that it is the best way for my students.  I know last year they really enjoyed (and I saw better use of sentence structure/grammar in the assessments afterwards) gamification - so I need to explore what is available at the higher year levels.

So ... some questions ... what do you use for teaching grammar and sentence construction in your classroom?  What rubrics/SOLO taxonomy  breakdowns have you used (if you don't mind sharing)?

Rekohu

We started our unit titled "NZ: Past and Present Culture & Identity" - students started by brainstorming what they thought this meant and any topics or words that they associated with that phrase.

After a bit of discussion we ended up at the topic of the Moriori - and the direction of the unit was planned.  We (as a group) figured that we were very Prestructural (not knowing anything) about this part of NZ history, with a few students being Unistructural (knowing one or two basic facts - teacher included).  Students then created a very basic question list of what they wanted to find out.

We found an amazing old map of Rekohu and students practised the skill of free sketching the island into their books.  They then compared the 19th century map with a 21st century map of the island and labelled key aspects of the island.   Google earth provided us with a ten minute tour around the island - I would really recommend this technology for any teacher who is studying specific places.  It was AMAZING!!!  The bell rang all to soon!

I had a non-contact next, and did a quick visit to the school library.  I now have a great book to read over the weekend!

Looking forward to working WITH my students to develop a greater understanding about this part of our culture and heritage.

Day Two

Oops, forgot to push the buttons to schedule things - still working on the Technology side of things ..

Source

One of the best things for my learning this year has been the #BFC630NZ chats.  It has helped me to  become more confident with using Twitter, more confident in articulating my thoughts and feelings (you need to with only 140 characters) and more confident to connect with other educators.

If you haven't tried out Twitter or if you are on Twitter, I would highly recommend it.  This other chat thread that I follow regularly (and aim to contribute to) is the #EdBlogNZ, which you can also find here.