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?

wordle – Beautiful Words

My Del.icio.us Site
My Del.icio.us Site

Wordle.net is an very new (less than four months old) and interesting site, that creates these colourful ‘Word Clouds’ from text pasted into the site. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.

At first glance, not unlike the creator Jonathan Feinberg, I thought wordle.net was merely an entertaining way to display what ever you had on your mind. However, upon closer investigation, the potential for enhancing learning quickly became apparent. According to his FAQ section, Jonathan has received other 100 requests from teachers since Wordles conception.

Let’s have a look at an example of powerful words:

“The Struggle for Human Rights” a speech by Anna Eleanor Roosevelt

Some enterprising person has inserted Eleanor Roosevelt’s speech on human rights into Wordle.net. You can clearly see the 150 most used words (small connective words are automatically removed). As you can see in Eleanor’s speech, the themes of Freedom, Human Rights and People have a strong presence. Lets compare Eleanor’s speech, with George Bush’s speech on Sept 11, 2001.

Statement by President, George Bush, Sept. 11, 2001
Statement by President, George Bush, Sept. 11, 2001

Hmmmmm . . . Anyway, give a Wordle a go, it is a great way to analyse documents quickly and painlessly. Just look at this next Wordle, it could save us all some time.

The New Zealand Curriculum
The New Zealand Curriculum

“Just remember all…that words are powerful, so very powerful, that it can change attitudes (for the better or for the worse), with or without provocation. They can be triggers, reminders, movers, and emotive…Be kind with your words and listen too” ANON

Values

In Our Hands
In Our Hands

“To be encouraged,

modelled, and explored”.

Excellence; Innovation, inquiry, and curiosity; Diversity; Equity; Community and Participation; Ecological sustainability; Integrity; Respect.

Recently we, as a school, have been exploring the Values found in the new curriculum document. While the document does not officially come into effect until 2010, it would be beneficial for all those involved in Education to carefully unpack the inevitable implications of this document.

Unlike previous curriculum documents, the new document is comparatively light reading. However it has been carefully crafted to emphasizes the need for these values to be “expressed in the everyday actions and interactions within the school”. It is also pleasing to note that the document specifically states that these values are neither “exhaustive nor exclusive” allowing us to tailor them to the needs and values of our own diverse community.

Within my own classroom this term, we have chosen to explore the values of Excellence in-depth. As a school we noticed that the value of excellence easily under-pinned the other seven values, the Key Competencies and conveniently coincided with Beijing ’08. (Three birds with one stone!)

As a class we explored Excellence in our learning, our-selves, our peers, our community and those awesome

I Wana Be Like Mike!
I Wana Be Like Mike!

super-stars we all admire. We came up with synonyms, actions and affirmations. Check out Wordle for fantastic display ideas.

The unexpected benefit of this intense (almost a week and a half) exploration was how well the value of excellence fit into our classroom ecology. Students identified excellence in their relationships and interactions with each other.

Another surprise when unpacking excellence was how highly they valued the accomplishments of their peers. When asked to identify individuals who showed excellence, most of the names were of children in their own community who had done something selfless. How perceptive children are!