Continue

For some reason yesterday as I sat reading the various stories about these National Standards being announced – (they even shutdown the nzcurriculum website for a few hours to sort it all out!) – this small phrase came to mind.

“This too shall pass.”

I couldn’t recall if it was song or a story I’d read – so went searching for the wikipedia entry – and it made me smile.

“And this, too, shall pass away.” How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction!

Teachers will still strive to teach, students will still desire to learn, parents will still worry and we will still have those who underachieve.

National Standards are a political point – which National said they would implement during the election campaign. They will do nothing to make good teachers better, or improve the learning that is currently going on (or not going on) in a class room. But National are doing what they’d said they would do. So fair play to them.

We have already have many various ways of measuring student achievement, and good schools are doing that measurement on a regular basis. Good schools are also sharing and celebrating that achievement with parents and students and local communities.

My current practice will not change – I will still strive to meet the needs of my students – all of them, as best I can. In the areas that interest them, in the areas that they need to focus on. I will still meet with parents, discuss with colleagues and continue to learn about ways to be the best teacher I can be.

I will fail, some of my students will not achieve, some days I won’t enjoy the my job – but it will pass.

To Ms Tolley, who yesterday reported that parents were coming to her asking what “stanine 5″ meant. I would suggest these parents meet with the schools of their child instead of running to politicians to discuss their child’s report card. The education sector may not have done the best job of explaining the language of assessment – and we need to do that better, but parents who are passive in this process of learning, are as damaging to their child as the teachers who ignores the student in class.

The only real issue I have with yesterdays announcement is the new reporting standards/templates – which IMO are an insult to anyone with half a brain.

Reporting templates

They are a blunt and crude means of describing a student, which tells you something about where they are in relation to some artificial national standard – but nothing about them as a person.

Our young people can be measured by an ability to work with numbers or letters.

They can also be generous, helpful, kind, earnest, resilient, curious, constructive, appreciative, caring and hard-working. They have personalities and perceive the world in ways unknown to us as adults. They see problems and unfairness in clear and often precise ways. They are spiteful and nonchalant, abusive and passive. They reflect the communities they are brought up in and need to be challenged to step into the shoes of another.

As teachers we must continue to recognise and value that person, not just the one who memorizes their basic facts and can spell the 50 words in the test. Our duty of care must be to the whole child.

In the classroom and the communities around our young people – it’s the whole person that matters. As Ken Robinson says – it’s not just the top 2 inches that matter.

I’m not sure of the direct advantages of this as an app in teaching and learning yet, but it’s great to see the versatility of the opensource model.

We currently run OpenOffice on our Macbooks and classroom PCs – to allow students to open files regardless of whether they are working in Windows XP or in OS X. This kid friendly version sounds like it will be lighter and more visually attractive. I look forward to seeing what the “specific adaptations for education” are.

Thus was born the project OOo4kids (pronounced “OpenOffice for kids”).
OOo4Kids is a lighter version of OpenOffice. Org:

• Dedicated to 7-12 years
• With specific adaptations to the world of education
• Who works everywhere (Linux, Mac OS X, Windows)
• International / Multilingual

OOO4kids.org

Cory Doctorow’s article from Locus really nails a number of issues that apply to the writing we do in class.

Short, regular work schedule
When I’m working on a story or novel, I set a modest daily goal — usually a page or two — and then I meet it every day, doing nothing else while I’m working on it. It’s not plausible or desirable to try to get the world to go away for hours at a time, but it’s entirely possible to make it all shut up for 20 minutes.

Don’t be ceremonious

Forget advice about finding the right atmosphere to coax your muse into the room. Forget candles, music, silence, a good chair, a cigarette, or putting the kids to sleep. It’s nice to have all your physical needs met before you write, but if you convince yourself that you can only write in a perfect world, you compound the problem of finding 20 free minutes with the problem of finding the right environment at the same time. When the time is available, just put fingers to keyboard and write. You can put up with noise/silence/kids/discomfort/hunger for 20 minutes.

If we’re to teach writing as a skill, it’s the doing of the skill that matters.

Beethoven’s 5th symphony visualised.

Wonderful. Just wonderful.

Enjoy.

Beethoven 5th Symphony (No. 5, graphical score animation, allegro)

I’m back in NZ. Karen and Isabella are in the UK.

I miss them a little today – it’s great being home and being our own house – but I’m knocking around the place a little bit. It’s all good being able to go for a beer with a mate after work, and sleeping in on a weekend. But cooking for one is just odd now. And the house is so quiet.

Being a Dad is great, Isabella is just this wonderful bubbly, peaceful being of hope and possibility. She dribbles and giggles and talks away to herself in her cot. When I come to pick her up in the morning, her eyes light up and her wee mouth creases into a gurgly celebratory laugh – as if seeing me is the best thing since forever. Her wee arms flap and I know she’s going to fly one day.

I miss picking her up each morning.

Agendas are due out on Wednesday.

Twenty five written agendas to guide 25 minute conversations with parents who just really want to know what their child can work on, and what they can do for them.

At week 6 in the term, I have to assess work for a conversation at week 9 – and have to give up class time get the students to prepare their bit.

Tomorrow we have an orchestra playing for an hour, 8 of my students will be at Eastern Zone Cross Country, on Thursday it’s the science fair, and then with my half day of ICT release I’ll be out working on the server so we can send out the 15 Macbooks. Friday will be my photography class and teaching languages. We have hui on Friday morning.

My class felt like a Fellini film today – but in fast forward. I was half-expecting a juggling dwarf on a unicycle to appear in the middle and read out a note from the office.

I despair that my students are incapable of concentrating on one thing long enough to do that one thing to the best of their ability. They struggle to copy information from a board, to follow instructions, to even listen to the instruction. I asked them to “Put your chairs up, tidy up your desk area, and have a good afternoon.” …. five minutes later some of them are still milling around and one of them says “Are we meant to go home now?”

I asked one of them “What’s 40 divided by 10?”

He looked at me blankly and slightly stunned and said, “I didn’t have my hand up.”

….

But then I see our schedule and I wonder if schools aren’t half the problem – we demand so much – and don’t give them time to do the one thing. Which makes me feel even more suckful.

I dunno – it was definitely a Daniel Powter day.

"Where is the moment we needed the most
You kick up the leaves and the magic is lost
You tell me your blue skies fade to grey.
You tell me your passion's gone away

This rather innocuous press release from the State Services Commission came out last week. It was mentioned in the online press, and is being covered at the NZOSS website.

Outcome of G2009 Microsoft negotiations

26 May 2009

The State Services Commission today announced the government has concluded negotiations with Microsoft on a pan-government agreement for the next three years.

It became apparent during discussions that a formal agreement with Microsoft is no longer appropriate.

Microsoft have agreed to provide recommended retail price certainty for agencies as a basis for their individual negotiations, and the State Services Commission will be supporting agencies to explore how they can maximise their ICT investment and achieve greater value for money.

Since 2000 the government has negotiated a series of three-year agreements with Microsoft, enabling public sector agencies to purchase Microsoft products on an opt-in basis.

In late 2008 the State Services Commission commenced leading the re-negotiation of the G2006 Microsoft agreement on behalf of government agencies, and established an advisory steering committee comprised of senior executives from the largest IT purchasers in the public sector.

Contact: Marian Mortensen, State Services Commission: 04 495 6620 or 021 2441475

ENDS

It has serious implications for schools, and education in general because the current licensing agreement runs until the end of 2009. Currently the software from Microsoft is available at an insanely reduced price for education, but it’s in such a large volume, I can’t see Microsoft not making money on it.  As it is taxpayer money that is funding it – serious scrutiny should be allowed.  But apparently, according to Don Christie on National Radio (link to an mp3) – no official information act requests about the actual figures involved have ever been answered. It’s not apparent from the press release why the negotiations broke down, or if either the government or Microsoft blinked first.

Douglas Harre seems pretty confident in the Ministry of Education getting a deal from Microsoft though – apparently their negotiations are due to conclude in a couple of months.

The NZ Herald has an odd take on the issue – Bernard Hickey supports moving to opensource, but blithly compares the OSS movement to communism. I wonder if Stallman would approve? He also claims to be a convert to cloud computing – which I know Stallman definitely wouldn’t approve of. His final paragraph is a complete mixing of metaphorical ideologies…

Communism would make our capitalist economy healthier and stronger. It might even improve our democracy.

What the hell???

At school, we’re running a mixture of OS X Macbooks and laptops/workstations running Windows XP. We’ve just leased a MacMini to act as a server for the 30 Macbooks. I’ve had a play with Edubuntu using a LiveCD. We’ve been considering upgrading our server to a 64-bit machine running Windows Server 2008 – but that’s on hold, as we look to maintain our budgets. I’ve no problem maintaining or looking after another form of OS – but it does add to the workload. The biggest headache this week is getting the printers to mount on some users accounts.

This is just more to think about for the planning day in November, but in terms of maintaining and using our existing hardware – a switch to some form of Linux has, as a result of this press release, become a rather more viable option.

On the Wired Science site, they’ve got a series of videos showing how we’re changing the surface of the planet.

Some very cool images, that make you think and consider.

Dubai Urbanization

Over on artofmanliness – there’s a great series of interviews entitled “So You Want My Job“, where they ask people in different professions to answer a few questions. The latest one was from a high school teacher. The website is pretty US-centric, but I enjoy – the cookbook is excellent.

Anyway – I took exception to a couple of comments in the article, and added this to the comments.

Consider it my rant for the weekend. 

======

As a male teacher myself here in New Zealand, I was looking forward to reading this interview, to my mind, teaching is a noble profession. Society needs men who have these attributes to stand in front of our children, and be their teachers and mentors.

I do take exception to one of Aaron’s comments, namely – “elementary/grade school (too much babysitting) or middle school (too hormonal).

Those are the areas that I teach in and with all due to Mr Kurtz, if he considers that those who teach in those areas are simply “babysitters” dealing with “hormonal” children – may I kindly suggest he needs to man up even more. 

How does he imagine that his students who he sees walking up to get their diplomas actually got their start?

They’re able to read because a teacher sat with them and sounded out letters, or explained how a metaphor works, or corrected their spelling. They are able to see or imagine another world and feel like another, because a teacher read ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ to them. They have a grasp on some basic mathematical concepts because a teacher used some materials, corrected their work, and discussed some strategies over and over and over again. They hopefully have an ability to empathise with another student’s plight, because a teacher showed them that it isn’t a the cool thing to exclude another just because they look a bit different. They show up to class on time, and are proud of their efforts because a teacher modelled a high work ethic, and took the time to celebrate those same efforts.

Not a babysitter – but a teacher. A teacher who worked damn hard – with all the same compassion and skill and effort that you bring to your own game. A teacher that has to cover the entire curriculum, with the same amount of time as you.

I teach math, literacy, PE, health, arts, technology, science, social studies, alongside coaching 5 basketball teams and being responsible for the IT needs of our 450 students and staff. That doesn’t make me some kind of super teacher, or better than a high school teacher – it’s just what I do.

Again, with all due respect to Mr. Kurtz – what is destroying the teaching profession is the pissing contest between the high school and primary school sectors. We’re teachers – all of us – and our primary concern should be to our students and making sure they are better than us. As a primary teacher I guide them for a couple of years, giving them the basics, and then I hand them on to you – in good faith, to continue their development in high school and university.

To the person upthread in the comments who said “I personally find the whole teaching certification thing pretty ridiculous. As you mentioned it doesn’t really correlate to better teaching. I personally don’t think teaching can be taught-you either have it or you don’t. But I guess I’m eventually going to have to jump through the hoops to be able to land a job.”

Take your asshat off and if that’s your attitude to teaching – please don’t. Or if you do, please don’t teach anywhere near me.

Teaching has enough showboating slackers who think that because they watched Boston Public or Dangerous Minds – they can turn up and manage to teach a class of 30 students. Your comments demean a profession that demands professional standards – not just to create a better class of teacher – but to ensure that students are actually ready for the future – not just good friends with the “cool” teach guy.

For the record – forget any of the movies or TV shows you’ve seen about being a teacher – they’re about as accurate as doing anything because you’ve seen a Tom Cruise movie and think you can drive in NASCAR or make it to Top Gun.

I went back to teachers college at 31 to train as a teacher – after 10 years in the video production industry. I didn’t know what to expect from teachers college – some of it was indeed pretty ridiculous. The student teachers who scared me the most, were those who were only doing it for a laugh, in case they needed a job.

Students don’t deserve that attitude – they deserve and need committed teachers who want to be better at being teachers. Professional development is a constant as a teacher – as it should be. The days where you could learn one lesson and run with that are long gone – your pupils will know more than you about many things. And most of them will have access to Google – so it’s not like you’re going to know more than them.

Aaron, your points about compassion are superb. In NZ at least, and I’d imagine around the planet – our society needs compassionate men, who act and speak with strength and honour. I wrote these words to a fellow bloke teacher – who was just starting out. I leave them for anyone who’s considering to do the same.

“Max – welcome to the most noble pursuit on the planet. I use noble in the sense that teaching is a pursuit that is decent, unselfish, righteous and worthy. You will be frustrated, challenged and despairing at times. See through the paperwork, the politics, the constant planning.

Be there for your students.
Be the one positive, passionate, purposeful person in their lives.

Give them hope.
Give them dignity.
Believe in them.
Believe in the possibilities that they are.
Every day.

That might be in teaching them how to balance algebraic equations, how to make sense of a piece of text, or just be greeting them with a smile each day.

All that might sound like pablum and hokey to some. But we adults seem to have forgotten to believe in our young people. We reduce them to statistics or put them into boxes.

I showed Apple’s ‘Think Different’ TVC to my students today and we had a discussion about the vocabulary and what it meant. I didn’t think the challenge would come from explaining ’round peg in a square hole’ – but then how do you argue with a student who states: “You could do that if the peg was smaller than the hole.” 

My 12 year olds only recognized Muhammed Ali and Mahatma Gandhi, but when I asked which individual did they think was the most important, several considered, then answered carefully: “The little girl at the end … because that’s us.”

The kids are alright.

It’s been an interesting week.

Started off last weekend getting involved in some copyright issues over on PAS – which made me think some about what we’re doing at school. Or not doing.

Then Monday was grandparents day – with about 8 or 10 grandparents coming to spend the morning with students in my class. It was a bit of a challenge, as we had an extra 150 bodies around the school, but the students were really generous with their time and helped out. I invited those in the class to share what it was like when they were at school. Stories were told of walking to school, drinking warm milk, of being hit for being left handed, specifically, whacked with a wooden pencil case until their hands bled – by the teacher! Our school hui was full with all those extra people, and the Year 3&4 students did a fine job.

Wednesday and Thursday were a blur – I was out of classroom on release. It was good to be able to be at home for a day, helping out with Bella and working on a bit of planning. Thursday was my IT release and the aim was to install a new 24 port switch, to replace the one that failed last week. The switch included a rack mount kit – but apparently if you’re Cisco that doesn’t include a set of 4 screws to mount the switch to the rack. Typical. A 60 minute drive to Petone later – the switch was all mounted. We’re still having disappearing printer issues around school, and several laptop and profile issues. My big task of setting up the OSX server and building the 15 new Macbooks for the student use is still sitting and waiting. Oh yeah – and the email server is flaking out at intermittent times. I think the new eTrust software is causing all sorts of port blocks, but I’ve not had time to try and isolate the issues.

It is Queens’ Birthday weekend, so we’ve got Monday off – perhaps one or two of those IT jobs that have nothing to do with my teachers salary can get done then.

It’s meant to rain – again, and blow up a southerly gale – again, so I’m happy to stay indoors and relax as much as I can until then. Isabella’s good for helping me do that. Hoping to catch up with friends for brunch and/or a coffee as well. 

Speaking of storms though – check this footage from the south coast. Brilliant!

Storm in slow motion from David Frampton on Vimeo.