Assignment One for my Masters in Māori and Indigenous Leadership

Identify a recent media story* that in some way engages with Māori and/or Indigenous leadership. Discuss how that story displays elements of Māori leadership, as well as contemporary challenges to the nature and attributes of leadership that are needed within our communities at this time.

My first year as a primary school principal was in 2010. I was an optimistic 29 years old who was absolutely clueless about the complexities of leadership. During that time, the Ministry of Education had invested heavily into creating The First Time Principals Programme (FTPP). The programme would educate new principals in the “leadership practices that have the greatest impact on student outcomes” (Robinson et al., 2009).

The FTPP conference gathered over 200 first time principals from across Aotearoa. Conference speakers included the Minister for Education the Honorable Anne Tolley, Alice Apryll Parata noted principal, and Dr Vivianne Robinson, co-author of the Best Evidence Synthesis [BES] – School Leadership and Student Outcomes: Identifying What Works and Why. The speakers shared the same key message, Māori were disproportionately represented in the long tail of student underachievement. We, as school leadership, were the key to changing the statistics and we needed to do better for our Māori students.

A defining moment for me occurred as Apryll Parata spoke about Māori drop-out rates in schools. My neighbour (a middle-aged Pākehā woman) leaned over and asked “Well, what worked for you?” I replied, “Nothing, I dropped out too”. I remember her look of shock and non-comprehension as she responded “Oh, I thought you would have been one of the ones that did well at school.” I pretended not to hear her as I wondered if I was classed as a member of the long tail. I looked up at Parata, before casting my eyes wide and surveyed the 95% non-Māori new principals sitting in that room, and thought… “Well nothing’s going to get any better from this room while we (Māori) are excluded from the supposed solution”.

A heartbreaking revelation to have so early in my career. The combined potential influence in that room could have made a critical positive difference in the achievement and well-being of thousands of Māori students (Robinson et al., 2009). Yet less than half a dozen of the attendees knew what it was like to be Māori in a school in Aotearoa. My experiences there left me with the feeling that Māori Educational Leadership is not valued as an effective resource to challenge disproportionate underachievement in our schools. All the more frustrating when the Ministry of Education’s own literature specifically referred to Māori Educational Leaders as change agents capable of challenging existing power structures and becoming strong advocates for Māori students in their schools (Robinson et al., 2009).

As I look back, I wonder what kind of effect could have been achieved if even half of those first time principals had been Māori like me. This thought saddens me. Not once, since my pale inauguration into the world of principalship, have I seen evidence that the Ministry of Education has acknowledged the imbalance of non-Māori leadership versus Māori leadership in our schools today.

While the article I have chosen is not specifically situated within the education space, it is a tale of leadership, founded within Te Ao Māori. It spoke to me as it perfectly illustrated the potential for positive change which was lost in that room back in 2010. It answers the question; what would happen if Māori were empowered to lead as Māori, while facing the contemporary challenges found within today’s society?

The article from The Spinoff, entitled The story behind the fight to save Ihumātao is a retrospective interview by Justin Latif (2020) with Qiane Matata-Sipu. Matata-Sipu and her group of local cousins stopped a housing project, due to be developed on land stolen from the local indigenous community in 1865. Their efforts as Māori leaders restored that land, Ihumātoa to tangata whenua in 2021 (Latif, 2020).

Latif (2020) provides the reader with intimate insight into Matata-Sipu and her cousins’ development into a uniquely Māori style of leadership. Through their leadership, the Save Our Unique Landscape campaign (S.O.U.L) would grow to include thousands of members globally and lead to the occupation of Ihumātao. Historians, archaeologists, and academics, both Māori and non-Māori, supported the cause that would take the group to the United Nations, twice (Latif, 2020).

To understand how Matata-Sipu and her five cousins came to lead this group, it is important to understand the epistemology of Māori Leadership. In his paper, Māori Leadership in Governance, Professor Hirini Mead (2006) synthesises and modernises two lists of eight traditional leadership qualities by Te Rangikahake of Ngati Rangiwewehi, Te Arawa and Himiona Tikitu of Ngati Awa. He refers to these qualities as The Eight Talents for Today or Pumanawa (Mead et al., 2006).

The Eight Talents for Today:

    1. Manage, mediate and settle disputes to uphold the unity of the group.
    2. Ensure every member of the group is provided base needs and ensures their growth.
    3. Bravery and courage to uphold the rights of hapū and the iwi.
    4. Leading the community forward, improving its economic base and its mana.
    5. Need for a wider vision and a more general education than is required for every day matters.
    6. Value manaakitanga.
    7. Lead and successfully complete big projects.
    8. Know the traditions and culture of their people, and the wider community (p.10 ). (Katene, 2010, p.11)

Mead (1997) states that Māori Leadership must not only lie within one’s whakapapa, but also in the mandate given to them by the leader’s people. Matata-Sipu grew up on the pā at the feet of her grandparents surrounded by political conversations and governance decisions her grandparents made for her hapū (Latif, 2020). Through whakapapa and Mead’s (2006) pumanawa, Matata-Sipu and her cousins created a leadership network which gained the mandate to lead their people. The alliance they formed around S.O.U.L, became the key to creating momentum in the outside world. The leadership partnerships they formed strengthened their campaign to its eventual acknowledgement and concessions by The Crown (Latif, 2020).

In Latif’s article, each of the pumanawa organically appears as Matata-Sipu recollects the story of Ihumātoa and the networked leadership roles each of her cousins took upon themselves. We experience first hand the cousins’ growth into the mantle of leadership until we reach the climax of the occupation, the attempted eviction of the rightful owners of the stolen lands. The uniqueness and power of Māori Leadership can be seen in Matata-Sipu’s recollection of the day the New Zealand Police came to evict them.

“It was really emotional. Everyone was so upset, and as the sun set behind the police, I just fucking cried my eyes out. I was thinking about all the kids, and what they had to see and then also thinking about our grandparents, and all they had done for this place. I was mourning for everything we had lost over generations, for our tūpuna, for our whenua.
“And I thought about my grandfather and how he wouldn’t have let this happen, and as I looked at the sunset, and the maunga, and my nieces singing, I cried out to my tūpuna, saying to them, ‘we need you to be here right now, if we ever needed you – we need you right now’.”
And in that moment Matata-Sipu found the strength she needed. (Latif, 2020)

Crisis surrounded Matata-Sipu and her cousins. It was from that moment and her connection with her tīpuna that she was able to find the courage and commitment to succeed. The article When Leadership Spells Danger, Heifetz and Linsky (2004) discusses the contemporary theory of leadership which forms around to two different types of leadership challenges – technical challenges and adaptive challenges (Heifetz & Linsky, 2004).

Technical challenges prescribe to the common misconception that the sole requirement of leadership is expertise to resolve the problems we face, not unlike a mechanic fixing a car (Heifetz & Linsky, 2004, p.35). Technical challenges are an easy managerial fix, they involve seeing a simple problem such as a gap in communication and a simple fix such as forming a Facebook group to reach a global audience. In fact, the entire campaign for Ihumātoa was founded via a clear and concise Facebook post written by Matata-Sipu in 2015 (Latif, 2020).

The challenge which Matata-Sipu faced as she stood in defiance of the police eviction was anything but a simple technical fix. The incredibly complex problems Matata-Sipu and her cousins beheld that day were born out of the same colonising tools the crown had designed to subjugate Māori since the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 (Walker, 2016). The tools which allowed the theft of mana whenua and subsequent vilification of Matata-Sipu and S.O.U.L for fighting for return of that mana whenua (Muru-Lanning, 2020) are the same tools which are still manipulated by those in power “to maintain an unjust social order between Māori and Pakeha” (Walker, 2016, p.20).

Heifetz and Linsky (2004) call these kinds of incredibly complex problems adaptive challenges. Adaptive challenges often involve leadership living up to their convictions; “to closing the gap between their espoused values and their actual behaviour” (Heifetz & Linsky, 2004, p.33). What we see in Latif’s article is that Matata-Sipu and her cousins understood instinctively that the “solutions to adaptive challenges lie not in technical answers, but rather in people themselves” (Heifetz & Linsky, 2004, p.35).

Colonisation and its effect on the lives of Māori through multiple generations has been compounded by successive systemically racist government policies which have created a problem so complicated that the adaptive leadership capabilities needed to solve them seem almost insurmountable (Walker, 2016). Since the 1960 Hunn Report on Māori Affairs, subsequent investigations have frequently found that the gaps between Māori and European health, education, wealth, employment and economic development have all deteriorated (Walker, 2016).

Yet within the story of Ihumātao we see contemporary Māori Leadership force one of Aotearoa’s largest listed companies (Fletcher Building, n.d.) to backing off from their lucrative deal, and a once resistant government buying out that building giant. In fact, Matata-Sipu and her cousins are just one iteration of Māori Leadership successfully counteracting the colonial tools of subjugation created by the crown (Walker, 2016). Sir Apirana Ngata, Sir Peter Buck, Dame Whina Cooper, Ranginui Walker, Sir Mason Durie, Sir Tipene O’Regan, Hanna O’Regan and Dame Tariana Turia to name just a few are all incredibly successful people, facing complicated, adaptive challenges, and meeting those challenges using Mead’s (2006) eight pumanawa.

I have been a primary school principal for twelve years now a Leading Principal according to the career structure in my collective agreement. Last week I attended the Whakatane Principals’ Association meeting. Not all 25 members were in attendance, but it was my pleasure to help welcome the fifth Māori member to our association. I am still the minority Māori in the room.

Twelve years on from my conference nothing has changed for Māori. According to Education Counts 2019 data shows that over a third of Māori students are leaving school without Level Two NCEA. Retention rates for Māori are 12% behind the total number of students at 69.6%. In Term Two 2020 attendance rates for Māori dropped to 47.5%, while COVID-19 is a factor which should not be discounted, it is still 21.2% behind European students.

Schools are still not serving the needs of Māori students despite the millions of dollars spent on Māori achievement strategies in schools over the last 16 years. The 2013 – 2017 Māori Education Strategy Ka Hikitia – Accelerating Success (Ka Hikitia) focused on teaching the teachers how to support Māori students to enjoy and achieve educational success as Māori (The Māori Education Strategy, 2013).
Ka Hikitia has five guiding principles. One of which states the following:

Māori students are more likely to achieve when they see themselves, and their experiences and knowledge reflected in teaching and learning. (The Māori Education Strategy, 2013, p.3)

Of the 61,000 teachers working in this country, only 7,403 identify as Māori. These strategies have not worked, and nor will they ever work because a non-Māori teacher, principal, educator will never understand what it is like to be Māori. Just like how that middle aged white woman could not comprehend that the first time principal seated next to her was a high school drop out. A non-Māori will never have the same connection to whakapapa nor understand that our connection to our tīpuna is not of the past but very much present in our now.

Further evidence of the positive effect of Māori students seeing themselves as normal in the classroom is provided in Dr Vivianne Robinson’s BES (2009) where she describes the challenges faced by educational leaders in tackling wide spread disparity amongst students:

A second challenge is to markedly improve educational provision for, and realise the potential of, Māori students. Recent national data suggest that Māori-medium schools are better serving Māori than English-medium … (Robinson et al., 2009, p.36)

Within this context it is important for the reader to know that the ethnicity of over 95% of Māori Medium teachers is Māori. Within Māori Medium schools Māori students see themselves as normal, and their normality as Māori reflected back at them through their teachers.

Until our tamariki can see that reflection surrounding them and nurturing them and staring right back at them kanohi ki te kanohi (face to face) they will never enjoy and achieve educational success as Māori. This barrier has been created because 7,403 Māori teachers spread between 2,563 schools is only an average 2.8 teachers per school. That’s not many for the 200,000+ Māori students enrolled in 2020.

Matata-Sipu and her cousins changed the course of a multi-billion dollar company versus a tiny iwi south of Auckland in less than half the time that it took for all of our current Māori achievement strategies to fail. Matata-Sipu and her cousins proved that Māori Leadership that is deeply rooted in Te Ao Māori enabled them to be strong, connected and innovative, and ultimately to achieve success. Their ability to create a uniquely Māori network of leadership where responsibility was shared and talents strengthened by that network reinvigorates my own personal approach to leadership.

If the Ministry of Education was genuinely committed to its espoused values found within its own Māori Education Strategy (2013) then they must enact these values in its actual behaviour. The Ministry must follow the above clearly stated and well researched phenomenon of Māori Leadership. It can not continue to ignore the knowledge and evidence and refuse to act upon that evidence when forming policy. Our tamariki have been disadvantaged for far too long.

Bibliography
Heifetz, R. A., & Linsky, M. (2004, April). When Leadership Spells Danger. Educational Leadership, 61(Leading Tough Times), 33-37. http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/apr04/vol61/num07/When-Leadership-Spells-Danger.aspx

Walker, R. (2016) Reclaiming Māori Education. In Hutchings, J., & Lee-Morgan, J. (Eds.), Decolonisation in Aotearoa: Education, Research and Practice (pp. 19 – 39). NZCER Press.

Katene, S. (2010). Modelling Māori leadership: What makes for good leadership? MAI Review, 2010(2), 1 – 16. http://www.review.mai.ac.nz/mrindex/MR/article/view/334.html

Latif, J. (2020, December 18). The story behind the fight to save Ihumātao. The Spinoff. https://thespinoff.co.nz/atea/18-12-2020/the-story-behind-the-fight-to-save-ihumatao

The Māori Education Strategy. (2013). Summary of Ka Hikitia: Accelerating Success 2013 – 2017. The Ministry of Education.

Mead, H., (1997). Landmarks, bridges and visions: Aspects of Māori culture. Wellington: Victoria University Press.

Mead, H. M.,(2006). Hui Taumata Leadership in Governance Scoping Paper. Wellington: Victoria University. Retrieved March 5, 2021, from https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/27440364/maori-leadership-in-governance-unitec.

Muru-Lanning, C. (2020, December 19). The truth about Ihumātao: All the false claims and misinformation, corrected. The Spinoff. https://thespinoff.co.nz/atea/19-12-2020/the-truth-about-ihumatao-all-the-false-claims-and-misinformation-corrected/

Robinson, V., Hohepa, M., & Lloyd, C. (2009). School Leadership and Student Outcomes: Identifying What Works and Why. The University of Auckland.

First Time Principals’ Programme Presentation

This is my presentation for the FTPP April Residential Course 2012.  Click here to reach the information website and below is the presentation Prezi.  I would love any feedback added to the comments below 🙂

The Big Questions.

Just Because I Meet Richie McCaw :-)
Just Because I Meet Richie McCaw 🙂

I wrote this little piece this morning for the school newsletter.  To be honest I am not quite sure where it came from, but there you go it’s out now.  Anyway I was quite proud of it, then I received an email from our local reporter asking permission to publish it in our Taihape Times.  I had a good hard think about it, and he sent a second one pleading so I said yes.  Anyway hopefully I get a few people thinking.

Earlier this week I was having a chat with our senior students about how different primary school is compared to when attended in the Eighties.  The kids were amazed when I explained that we had ask permission to leave our desks, go to the toilet or to get a drink of water.  For these 21st Century Kids who were sitting on a cushion in front of the fire, doing their math book work while munching on an apple, the thought of being confined to one’s desk was just abhorrent.
I guess that’s what much of education was like back in the bad old days (which really is not so long ago).  Children confined to a classroom, a year group, an achievement level, a set of standards or a desk.  Learning was confined to Three Rs, and occasional PE.
According to Sir Ken Robinson and many educational experts, this is called the Industrial Model.  Schools were formed to create batches of cookie cutter graduates that fit into an industrialized society.  Below is a link to a fabulous Youtube Video, which explains how education needs to change and move away from this industrial model in order to meet the dynamic needs of our 21st Century society.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U
The wonderful thing is, that New Zealand is already way ahead of the ball game, when it comes to dynamic education, with it’s world renowned New Zealand Curriculum.  The Vision Statement for our curriculum is to have “young people who will be confident, connected, actively involved, lifelong learners”.  How wonderful is that!
I believe that it is really important that our community have a long hard think and begin a robust conversation about what we really want for our children in education. Our society has changed irrevocability, as a consequence shouldn’t our education system also evolve to meet our society’s needs?
Lately the media has been full of accusations that our education system is in a ‘crisis’, and how we need to get back to the ‘basics’.  Well, I say (and I will probably get in trouble for this but …) rubbish to that!  Can’t you remember how bored and uninspired you were at school?  Sure, if you were lucky you had one or two teachers who inspired you and broke the mold, but in general we were confined to our desks waiting for lunch time.
As I watched the kids this term, bubbling with excitement while preparing the school fundraising fair, experimenting with technology and science, and interacting with Richie McCaw on our Richie Day a horrible thought occurred to me.  If we went back to the basics, if we conformed to aspirational standards and league tables, if we turned to national testing like Australia, we wouldn’t have been able to participate in any of our exciting learning this term.  We would have been too busy pushing our children into their prescribed achievement levels, so that we could report that they weren’t ‘failing’.
I don’t know, but it doesn’t seem right to me.  I just want the school I teach in to be a place that inspires children to shine in all areas of their life, not just where the politicians deem necessary.
So that’s what I want for education, my question is what do you want?  And do those Suits down in Wellington know it?

Earlier this week I was having a chat with our senior students about how different primary school is compared to when attended in the Eighties.  The kids were amazed when I explained that we had ask permission to leave our desks, go to the toilet or to get a drink of water.  For these 21st Century Kids who were sitting on a cushion in front of the fire, doing their math book work while munching on an apple, the thought of being confined to one’s desk was just abhorrent.

I guess that’s what much of education was like back in the bad old days (which really is not so long ago).  Children confined to a classroom, a year group, an achievement level, a set of standards or a desk.  Learning was confined to Three Rs, and occasional PE.

According to Sir Ken Robinson and many educational experts, this is called the Industrial Model.  Schools were formed to create batches of cookie cutter graduates that fit into an industrialized society.  Below is a link to a fabulous Youtube Video, which explains how education needs to change and move away from this industrial model in order to meet the dynamic needs of our 21st Century society.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

The wonderful thing is, that New Zealand is already way ahead of the ball game, when it comes to dynamic education, with it’s world renowned New Zealand Curriculum.  The Vision Statement for our curriculum is to have “young people who will be confident, connected, actively involved, lifelong learners”.  How wonderful is that!

I believe that it is really important that our community have a long hard think and begin a robust conversation about what we really want for our children in education. Our society has changed irrevocability, as a consequence shouldn’t our education system also evolve to meet our society’s needs?

Lately the media has been full of accusations that our education system is in a ‘crisis’, and how we need to get back to the ‘basics’.  Well, I say (and I will probably get in trouble for this but …) rubbish to that!  Can’t you remember how bored and uninspired you were at school?  Sure, if you were lucky you had one or two teachers who inspired you and broke the mold, but in general we were confined to our desks waiting for lunch time.

As I watched the kids this term, bubbling with excitement while preparing the school fundraising fair, experimenting with technology and science, and interacting with Richie McCaw on our Richie Day a horrible thought occurred to me.  If we went back to the basics, if we conformed to aspirational standards and league tables, if we turned to national testing like Australia, we wouldn’t have been able to participate in any of our exciting learning this term.  We would have been too busy pushing our children into their prescribed achievement levels, so that we could report that they weren’t ‘failing’.

I don’t know, but it doesn’t seem right to me.  I just want the school I teach in to be a place that inspires children to shine in all areas of their life, not just where the politicians deem necessary.

So that’s what I want for education, my question is what do you want?  And do those Suits down in Wellington know it?

A Rubric for Adding Posts to Student Blogs

A View From The Mokai Range
A View From The Mokai Range

Hi Everyone (though with my slack posting of late, I doubt that I will have much everybody left 😉

I am quite tired, so this isn’t going to be one of my traditional sprawling tales.  We had our annual Pukeokahu School Horse Trek over the weekend, and I spent the weekend serving up 6am breakfasts, peeling various vegetables, feeding hungry trekkers and sleeping poorly in a smelly shearers bed (it was actually a wonderful weekend and I had a fantastic time, especially driving around the Mokai Range and maybe the party on Saturday Night 8-).

Anyway, so I just wanted to share the rubric my students and I created during the first three weeks of school this year.   My goal was for my students to create an easy to use tools which would allow them to self assess their posts on their ePortfolios in a way that they would be able to make improvements with less and less input from me.

We began by brainstorming (in small groups, then compiled as a class) what makes a fantastic blog post, after which we put the brainstormed points in to five headings, Interesting, Tools, Attributions, Punctuation and Spelling, Categories.  That night, I made up the blank rubric and entered the points into the Expert column.  The next day I modelled filling in one square per column, I then gave my three pairs of students two heading each to fill in.  Finally, we all came together and shared and debated the final wording, while I typed it in on my laptop.  This is our finished product:

Post Rubric

I must say that, this rubric was created by kids which had a good six months of blogging behind them through the Student Blogging Challenge.  So far the kids have used it for two posts, and they are not using it independently yet.  I need to constantly remind them to check back to the Rubric, and I am always saying that they need to strive for at least an Advanced level.  However, apart from my nagging, kids do actually enjoy using it.  They find it easy to use and relavant to their ‘Real World Wide Audience’s’ needs and are beginning to remind each other to use it.

So that’s it really, I just wanted to share this with you as you might find it useful.  But if you do decide to use a rubric to help your kids blogging, you must remember that the only way the kids will take ownership of the rubric and find it enjoyable is if you help the kids create the rubric themselves.

Attributes:

Photo by Tristin at Pukeokahu Schools Flickr Album:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pukeokahuschool/5506905651/in/set-72157626093421921/

Never Make Assumptions

My Teaching Was Rubbish

I think that I am a pretty good teacher, and I do my best to always cater for my students individual needs.  But last Monday afternoon, I was nowhere near the top of my teaching game.  I made an assumption about my students, and the resulting lesson was rubbish.  Let me explain …

Just before the holidays, I had joined my students up to the Student Blogging Challenge.  This is a fantastic challenge run twice a year by the fantastic Miss W.  Students and classes from across the globe join up to the challenge run over ten weeks.  Personally I can’t think of a better way for kids to learn about global literacy.

Anyway, unfortunately, when the challenged kicked off, our whole school was in Auckland on our school camp and then for two weeks after that we had school holidays which means that we were three weeks behind on the challenge.  That’s ok, I said to myself, we are already half-way through the year and we had already completed many of the tasks required in the first two weeks.

My Chickens Arent So Pretty
My Chickens Aren't So Pretty

Now just as a side note for those of you who don’t know anything about my school: I am the Principal of a Sole Charge Isolated Rural School – translation: I have ten students ranging from New Entrant (kindergarten) to Year Eight (13 years old).  I am the ‘sole’ full time teacher.  We are very lucky because our Board of Trustees employs an additional teacher to teach literacy to the junior students in the morning from 9am – 10.30am.  As there are only three juniors, they are getting a pretty good deal.  After 10.30am I am on my own with all ten students, therefore I must teach Numeracy (maths) and other subjects to all age levels.  I also get one and a half days in the week in my office to manage the school in the Principals role.  My school is part of an isolated community, which means we are over 27 kilometres away from the nearest town/shop/MacDonalds/Library/petrol station/decent coffee (sigh).  But that’s ok, my community is fantastic and I get to keep chickens 🙂

What Was I Thinking?
What Was I Thinking?

So on Monday afternoon, after half a day in the office, I needed to take my three juniors for Maths.  I said to the senior students that the student blogging challenge had started, we were a little bit behind, can you please go on to the challenge website, read the post about challenge one and complete the five tasks (just to let you know I have some very capable readers, reading well above their age).  Can you spot my fatal mistake yet?  If you follow my twitter account, you may remember my tweet about it.

Yes, I had assumed that my students could read and comprehend a blog post.

They can write posts, insert photos, add comments, colour/bold/centre text, stick in annoying widgets, change their theme, add pages, and embed sound gadgets, Youtube movies and Flickr slideshows.  But they didn’t actually understand how to read a blog post, unassisted.  Now that I think back, when ever I had asked them to make a comment on the school blog I had always discussed it with them and written the requirements on the board.  They had never actually gone in cold turkey!

Arg! Can you imagine the chorus of seven eager voices all chiming “I don’t get, Marama!” with three squirming junior kiddy winkles in front of me fighting over who got to hand out the counters. Double Arg!!  Mayhem!

Now here is a piece of advice for any new teachers out there … sometimes your class will be a total mere, usually in the afternoon, and there is nothing you can do about it.  Don’t worry this is normal, but I can here you asking – “but what can I do about?”  Well sometimes all you can do is cut your losses.  In my situation, I could feel my eyeballs bulging and my palms sweeting so I knew that I was past the point of no return.  I called the school to attention, and explained that if they managed to pack up the classroom in 3 minutes we would go outside for a game.  Five minutes later we were all (myself included) charging up and down the field in a fantastic game of Farmer Farmer.

Me Pleased As Punch!
Me Pleased As Punch!

Now here’s the clincher, the fine line between me being a good teacher and a crap teacher.  While I was tearing around on the field sabotaging the older children so that the younger ones could score, I was analysing exactly what went wrong and how I was going to allow my students to achieve next time.  So today during literacy with my students, instead of using a journal for guided reading, we used the student blogging challenge post and we read it off the computer screen.  And now I am pretty proud to say that it was some of the best teaching I had done in a while 😀

I really believe in this life long learning business.  As an experienced teacher, sometimes you can get complacent and you do start making assumptions about your students because you think you know them so well.  But the reality is that the moment you start taking your students for granted, it is the moment you start doing them a mis-service. Though we are only human, and I am proud to say that I learnt my lesson and made it good.

All images were sourced and used under Creative Commons Licence.

Thanks to:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mecookie/

http://www.geograph.org.uk/gridref/TM1179

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/Question_mark_3d.png

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevenlaw/

A Maths Lesson for Mrs Tolley

“…almost one in five students are leaving school without the basic literacy and numeracy skills that they need.”

Wow, that’s pretty fantastic!  That means that over 80% of all New Zealand School children are leaving school with the basic literacy and numeracy skills that they need!

Of the 20% who are not achieving at the expected level for their age group, I will safely estimate that a quarter of them are  special needs or have been identified as having learning difficulties.  So we could probably bump that 80% closer to 90%.

Let’s put this into a real classroom, my classroom.

Fractions, Proportions and Ratios Stages 5-6:

I have 30 students – Year 3 and 4 (7, 8 and 9 years old).

(Well actually I have 28, but we will use 30 as a nice round number, I don’t want to make this to hard for you Mrs Tolley, I know that you are too busy to speak to or listen to us) (Also 30 is closer to the average class size in little old NZ).

1 out of 5 of them is below expected age levels in literacy and numeracy.

30 divided by 5 equals 6.

6 students are below – yep that’s my lowest reading group.

Of those six almost two of them have been identified as having learning difficulties.

(Luckily for me almost all of my students come to school after having a good nights sleep, breakfast, are well dressed for the weather and have a good healthy lunch in their bag).

Which means 4 of them are below.  So that’s 4 out of thirty? (correct me if I am wrong Mrs Tolley).

Yep I knew that!

That’s why I differentiate my teaching.  That’s why I get them as much extra help as possible from the funding that’s available to my school.  That’s why I have spoken to their parents and have given them strategies to help their children.

If the government wanted to know this, all they had to do was ask.

Hey! Brain Wave!

Instead of wasting millions of dollars on reprinting existing resources and renaming them as National Standards.  Why don’t you use that money to reduce my class size to 22 so that I can spend more time with my struggling students.

Makes sense to me …

Teaser Two – Playing With Prezi

Here is my second offering to the blog-o-sphere from my uLearn09 presentation

An eWindow into my Classroom

This is a Prezi Presentation that will feature on the home page of my ulearn site.  Prezi is an alternative to the standard slideshow presentation.  I have added a fun little ‘how to’ I found on YouTube for those of you who want to know more.  If you do decide to use Prezi as a presentation tool, it is important to remember that Prezi is best viewed in ‘full screen’.

Just click the large grey arrows at the bottom of the screen to scroll through the presentation.

This is a cool little how to video I found on YouTube – Thanks zuilabs

Teaser One – The Google Empire

Here is my first offering to the blog-o-sphere from my uLearn09 presentation

An eWindow into my Classroom

The Google Empire

Google Logo “Just Google it!”
Gone are the days when Google was just the provider of interesting facts and decider of living room quiz nights. Google is now a vast array of Web Applications designed to pull today’s web consumers into its clever and enticing ‘Googleverse’. And believe me, this Web Nut is banging on Google’s doors screaming “Let Me In”. In fact, while I am typing these very words I am wondering, why I don’t ‘can’ this wiki, and transfer it all over to Google Sites! Maybe I will; we will see …

Now back on track!
A quick run down on a few of the major players in the Google Empire (and don’t forget, one username will take you everywhere!)

Gmail Logo

This little beauty is gold! It’s free, easy to use and one account will service your entire class, or school as the case maybe. Check out the Gmail Page for information on the funky username+studentname@gmail.com format (thanks Sue Waters!).

Google Docs Logo

The ultimate in collaborative documentation. Create documents, spreadsheets and forms then share with collaborators or embed them into your site. Students can use Google Docs to draft their writing, then share that writing with you to provide instant editing and feedback.  I thought this collaboration gem deserved a page of its own as well! (thanks Nick Rate!)

Google Calendar Logo

A wonderfully useful application that allows you to set up an editable calendar. Keep parents up-to-date with events and deadlines. Add the class birthdays, or maybe a famous date or two your kids and parents may find interesting (thanks Sue Waters!).  Link to my classblog.

Google Maps Logo

I can only describe Google Maps as super cool. Find your school’s neighbourhood, add your markers and embed it on your site! What can be better than an interactive map that uses real satellite pictures? The only draw back is that it is a little tricky to embed and edit. This however, this can be over come with a little practise. Link to my classblog.

Google News Logo

Search hundreds if not thousands of local and international news organisations. Newspapers, Radio Stations, Television and Web-Based News Sites. Google News allows you to search a relatively narrow field of sourced information.

Google Sites Logo

A simple Web Site creator. Embed other Google content like calendars, maps and Youtube or add other third party content. Google Sites is a new alternative to Wikis.

Google Reader Logo

Have you heard of RSS? Are you unfamiliar with the term “Read my Feeds? Do you have lots of sites that you like to read but you can never get around to checking them all? If this sounds like you need to check out my Google Reader Page.  I can’t get by without my Google Reader! (thanks Common Craft)

Youtube Logo

YouTube has had some bad press in the ‘Edu-verse’ lately. Many schools choose to use alternative sites like TeacherTube to avoid the perceived evils of YouTube. However, YouTube wins hands down when it comes to ease of use, quality of playback and upload speed. Why bother with an inferior product when the Rolls Royce of video playback is at your door step. Just follow a few simple rules and all will be well. Link to my classblog.

Google Apps Logo

Google Apps is a free web-based IT infrastructure. With Google Apps you are able to create and manage email, messaging and shared calendars for all of your school community. Up-load videos and documents, which only your school community can view. No advertising, and a safe place for your students to learn about creating their own online identity. Check out this video for a short explanation or this video for a more thorough Webinar.

You have ‘Enraged Me’

I shouldn’t be writing this post, I should be marking books, reflecting on my Teacher Inquiry, or preparing for my presentation at uLearn09 (hehehe, yep they accepted me! Wooo Hooo) but as my Grandmother would delight in exclaiming … “that man has really put a bee in your bonnet hasn’t he!” and by ‘that man’ I mean Marc Prensky. I am not sure if I am breaking any copy right laws, sorry if I am, but here is the article he wrote that really got my knickers in a twist (another of my Grandmother’s favourites).

The article is entitled “Engage Me or Enrage Me” What Today’s Learners Demand. Now before I continue with my rant, I must equivocally express my opinion on digital technologies in the classroom (though if you haven’t guessed from my previous posts by now, I must wonder about your inference skills).

I heart eLearning, bring it on! If it enhances learning it’s going into my classroom programme, if not just give me some time and I will find a way in which it will. Is that clear enough?

I am Pro-eAnything2.0.

However, Prensky’s article has really upset me. He has implied that the only way in which we can truly engage students is through games based learning. I believe that this is a dangerous mantra to evangelise. While many gaming platforms are wonderful learning environments, the majority of Prensky’s reasoning and examples weigh heavily on the negative side of the scales. This article starts alarm bells ringing in my head. I want a digitally enhanced 21 Century classroom. I however, do not want games-based, instant gratification, user-centred classroom Prensky seems to be advocating.

Prensky begins well enough, describing his classic classification of the three types of student us educators would of encountered at one point or another, a fair point but over simplified in my opinion. But then he makes this strange statement when reminiscing over his time teaching in a poor area of New York City.

The big difference from today is this: the kids back then didn’t expect to be engaged by everything they did. There were no video games, no CDs, no MP3s—none of today’s special effects. Those kids’ lives were a lot less rich—and not just in money: less rich in media, less rich in communication, much less rich in creative opportunities for students outside of school. Many if not most of them never even knew what real engagement feels like.

What does he mean? Did children sit around staring at blank walls not knowing what to do with themselves? How did a child play back then without a control in their hand? How did one play baseball or tennis before the invention of the Nintendo Wii, or sing a song before Sing Star on the Play Station 2? Hmmm how indeed?

I will not insult your intelligence by describing the childhood past times of the “Digital Immigrant”. But I will question this. What exactly do you consider to be engagement? Is engagement the same as being interested? Is it having fun? How about just paying attention? Or is engagement more than this surface interest? I believe that true educational engagement is a process where by the learner is actively inter-acting with their learning environment, evoking cognitive stimulation from which the learner is able to create their own content with which they share (still thinking and refining this definition).

Prensky’s now goes on to list examples of the ways “All students we teach …” are engaged by various digital wonders. Think very carefully and see if you can count how many of these examples include the student creating their own content through cognitive stimulation. I will add learning intentions to help you.

Here we go:
Downloading Songs
– We are learning to create playlists.
Rapping, Lip syncing and Singing Karaoke – We are learning to move our lips in time to music like Brittany Spears.
Mixing our own music or making movies – We are learning to tell a story through music or pictures (well he gets my approval for that one but the rubbish is still winning 2 to 1)
Playing Video Games – We are learning to repeat and repeat and repeat a stage (not unlike rote learning) until we can pass it.
Checking email, IM and talking to my friends – We are learning how to talk to our friends in other ways than just the telephone.
Buying things – We are learning how to spend our parents money.
Playing on a portable console or GameBoy – I am learning how to squint and sit in the shade so the sun doesn’t glare on my small screen.

And finally, this one gets special quotation marks

“…some may do the extreme sports that are possible with twenty-first-century equipment and materials.”(WTF?) – We are learning to bungy jump and parachute after school everyday because my parents are so rich, NOT!

It would seem to me the final score is Rubbish 6; Strange and Unlikely Example 1; and True Engagement 1! Hmmmm

As would seem logical, Prensky goes on to explain that school is not engaging because it does not include gaming (did you know that Prensky is the CEO of a games-based learning company?). School doesn’t have the fast paced action of today’s top selling games. School doesn’t have thrilling battle graphics or the flashing lights or awesome sound effects. Where are the graphics constantly moving on screen? You can’t build your heroes, kill the bad guys, save your friends. You can practise your awesome skills over and over and over again until you clock it, and don’t worry the cheats can help you at the tricky bits, just google them! Shut the curtains, dim the lights (atmosphere …), don’t worry about the time there’s no clock on the console (if you can read the time in the first place), watch that little character running around the screen, it’s almost hypnotising.

Have I ever mentioned that I used to work in a pub? The Whakatane Hotel to be exact, as well as serving on the bar, I also managed the little casino with its eighteen Pokey Machines (Slot Machines for you Americans out there). I once ask one of my very regular customers why he enjoyed playing them (even though he lost more money than he won) his answer surprised me. He said that is was the cool flashing lights, the fun sound effects and “I guess I like watching the way the graphics move on the screen”. Weird?? Those games sure knew how to hook their punters. I didn’t really like being in the Pokey room. It had very small windows, so it was always very dim, the same tunes played over and over again, strangely hypnotic, and it was very frustrating that there was never a clock in there.

I agree that schools need to move forward into the 21st century. I also agree that there are real educational benefits to some gaming platforms. But are all of these games really beneficial? Do they really endow these amazing skills upon the user? Will a child really “master systems ten times more complex than algebra, understand systems ten times more complex than the simple economics we require of them, and read far above their grade level” just because they can clock (to clock a game means to finish it) …

“the three most popular (i.e., best-selling) computer and video games in the marketplace. They were, as of June 2004: City of Heroes, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game; Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Askaban, an action game for the PlayStation 2; and Rise of Nations, a real-time strategy game for the PC.”

Just because a child can Command and Conquer vast nations, vanquish a pack of Dementors and an evil wizard or command a squad of Navy Seals online, doesn’t mean he can do it in real life (and do we really want him to?)

The final ‘Bee’ in my aforementioned bonnet is that Prensky seems to celebrate, and advocate the engagement of a 4 year old with a complex and graphically violent video game named Halo 2. (Double WTF???).

Prensky explains that

“On a recent BBC show Child of Our Time, a four-year-old who was a master of the complex video game Halo 2 was being offered so-called “learning games” that were light-years below his level, to his total frustration and rage.”

I suggest that the possible frustration and rage this child is displaying has a direct correlation with the amount of heads he has blown off in his tender years (and maybe a lack of sunlight and exercise has contributed?)

While, Prensky does conclude with the statement that “creating engagement is not about those fancy, expensive graphics but rather about ideas” one must still ask the question – Who’s ideas Mr Prensky? The game writers who will create games that provide students with instant gratification?  The person who creates a game that students just use and not have to contribute to.

Not once has Prensky explicitly mention Web2.0 and students creating their own content to share and interact with a global learning community. I am sorry Mr Prensky but I do not agree with your view of the digital world! Being a “Digital Native” is about realising that you are an intelligent CONTRIBUTOR, not a ‘give it to me’ USER. (By the way, what’s up with your website Mr Prensky, it’s not very engaging?)

A Little Bit of Animation

I am very lucky.  I am released an afternoon a week to take a small (4 students) film making group of Year Six (Grade Five) students.  Our focus is a current affair style programme that we produce once a term.  I modelled this programme loosely on the Selwyn Ridge Primary School, film crew.

The aim of the show is to:

  • celebrate events happening within our school community
  • share learning that is happening in our classrooms and school

There are four different roles for students in the RSS Crew:

Director
The Director’s job involves managing people, organising content for the show and directing people on camera. They need to watch all the cameras and make sure they are prepared for upcoming shots.  The Director will also be required to do some extra study to learn about the technical aspects of shooting a scene.

Reporter
The Reporter role in the team involves writing scripts and presenting
in front of the camera. They are also responsible for interviewing guests in the studio, and keeping the audience entertained.

Editor
The Editor’s work alongside the camera operator to download footage. They will use iMovie to edit and put together different segments of the show. They also add sound and music to the show.

Camera Operator
The Camera Operator’s job involves shooting scenes in the studio and at various locations, keeping track of footage that has been shot, and looking after video equipment. They work closely with the Director and the Editors.

During a ‘slow news week’ we created a film crew credit sequence in the form of an animation.  We used I Can Animate to film this simple piece with only a Whiteboard, Whiteboard Markers and a Eraser as props.

Here is the finished piece: