Kia Ora e te whānau, I am 2 months into a new job; a new school, a new position, new people, new names, new vision and new challenges. I am blinded by all the new. The road has been quite rocky but I don't think any challenging road is meant to be easy. But as I sit here and reflect on the journey, I feel content that the haze is evaporating, I can just make out some land in the distance and I am gaining more clarity of what I must do. Let me describe to you the rocky road. Sabbatical It all started off with unicorns and rainbows... I won a sabbatical in 2019 to use in Term 1 2020. This was all part of my plan to delve into indigenous education, travel with my family through Guatemala, read culturally responsive literature from Aotearoa and compare findings with indigenous schools in Guatemala. I threaded through the element of Learner Agency, something I am hugely passionate about - what does Learner Agency look like through a Māori lens? And how might schools operate to achieve better outcomes for our Māori learners? What an enriching experience. I thoroughly enjoyed the writing process and exploring my ideas and connecting it to my own personal experience, the research I had read, and to the current educational challenges my role as an AST for the Palmerston North East Kāhui Ako required. It is almost complete, as I am just allowing it to sit and simmer until I am ready to tie up the summary and make some recommendations. You can read it here. Please feel free to add any thoughts to my thinking in the comments below. During my sabbatical, I was travelling through Antigua, Guatemala when I received the email from the Education Gazette with a Deputy Principal position at Winchester School in Palmerston North. I was in a space to begin the process of applying; updating my C.V., preparing an application pack, talking to referees and my family to see if this was the right move. I created and hosted my own Zoom meeting for my interview managing time differences and just to give you a bit of context, here is an image of the location I was in for the interview. Lake Atitlan, Panajachel, Guatemala! I won the job! But this is also when the rocky road began. Level 3 Pandemic To cut a long story short. We got locked inside Guatemala on the day we were meant to be leaving due to Covid-19 travel restrictions. The Guatemalan government closed the borders - no flights in and no flights out of the country. They also put restrictions on the number of people allowed to travel in private cars to no more than 3. So we (my family of 4, plus my mum, uncle and mother n'law) had a tumultuous transition through Guatemala and Mexico to try and make our flight from Houston to Aotearoa / New Zealand. We arrived home 18 hours before the nation wide Level 4 lockdown and went into self isolation with everyone else. During this time I was able to synthesise all of my readings and notes and observations from my sabbatical and write it all up before I started my new job. This was quite difficult managing as the plan was for the kids to go back to school while I had uninterrupted days writing everything up. On the 28th of April, I began my role as the Deputy Principal at Winchester School. The country had just moved out of Level 4 lockdown and into Level 3 where we opened up the school for families of essential workers. We were operating 3 bubbles with 3 teachers plus 6-8 children. My new principal had just been appointed the new co-leader of the Kāhui Ako "Te Oro Karaka", was training up a new office manager, a pay role officer, a new deputy principal, the AP/SENCO was on refreshment leave so all Teacher Aide timetables and organisation were all jobs for him to do. All the while, managing and leading his staff and community through a global pandemic. I take my hat off to him. Little did I know how sweet Level 3 life was. I had two weeks of deep uninterrupted conversations with my principal about everything. I feel so lucky to have had this time. Our three bubble teachers did an outstanding job! I think it must have been so hard to only teach 7 kids for a whole day with all the restrictions of doing normal things e.g. sharing equipment, art, playing on the playground. There was also the fact that to minimise crossing bubbles, teachers taught siblings within the same bubbles of different ages and stages and all of the problems that sometimes comes with teaching siblings... During Level 2 I was finally allowed to enter Russell Street School to collect my belongings. Which I did on a Sunday afternoon. I Filled my boot with books and art folders and photos and cards had given me over the years and left... alone. What a way to finish 10 years of blood, sweat and tears? It was quite a surreal experience. Definitely not the farewell I had ever pictured. Having been away from Russell Street for 4 months, it was so weird to walk around. To not have a proper farewell or a proper welcome, was a bizarre place to be in. Also, during Level 2, schools were able to open up to the community and we all began to get back to a bit of normality... or new normal which everyone seems to be talking about. I got to know the kids and parents slowly but we still weren't allowed full school assemblies or powhiri. Finally Level 1 came along and we were able to set the date for a farewell for me at Russell Street, a welcoming "mihi whakatau" at Winchester and another farewell high tea for the previous Deputy Principal at Winchester who had retired after 31 years. Coaching, Farewells and legacies After what seems like floating in the Covid dream clouds of travel, sabbatical writing, distance learning, bubble operation I had my first 1:1 coaching time with my leadership coach. I am lucky that I have been working with her for 5 years now, and she has been helping me to grow as a leader for that time. But it was a massive step up. Or was it a step sideways? Or backwards? In any case, this was the conversation that popped my balloon! I had been expecting but dreading to happen: why am I here? What's my purpose? What do I want to achieve? How am I going to lead? The conversation was a good shake up for me. As I was still blinded by the new. A week later, I was farewelled from Russell Street with an emotional-filled poroporoaki (farewell). My principal opened with a speech about the legacy that I will leave at Russell Street and he communicated these as 3 things: 1. Disobediance 2. Creativity 3. Relationships Disobedience No. This does not mean I am naughty nor disrespectful. The disobedience which he spoke of is from the book by Welby Ings, "Disobedient Teaching". Ings encourages teachers to not take things, systems, status quo for granted. Question everything. The ideas from this book spoke to me so much because of my upbringing and experiences. And Russell Street encouraged me to explore this as a teacher, as a leader and as a colleague during my 10 year career there. When our vision re-branded as innovation I was on a roll. For me, innovation is the essence of disobedience and vice versa. Creativity One of the best things about growth is self-discovery. I am not black and white. I am grey. I live and operate within all of the shades of my thinking and decision making. Learning to make a difference in the things that make me different is my personal driver. And creativity is nested right within this. Creativity isn't about just being creative and making creative things. Creativity is a state of mind, it's the way we think and approach problems. Relationships The success of my influence lies in the relationships I develop with others. I am will ing to bet that I was only able to achieve the above legacy through the relationships I formed with others. Being disobedient and creativity are nothing without connections with our environment and with other people: students, whānau, colleagues, community, iwi, Kāhui Ako or Twitter PLNs etc. If writing floats on a sea of talk, then learning floats on a sea of meaningful relationships. On the same day, I attended the farewell for the person who I was replacing as she was retiring. Her legacy was more than 30 years! It was staggering to hear and see her legacy as staff and community came together to tell stories of what she helped to build. I couldn't help but feel very insecure. Her strengths and accomplishments were completely opposite to my strengths. Was I supposed to be a duplicate or a replica of this legacy? My head began to swim... what have I gotten myself into? My way? Your way? Or a new way?
So what I am finding is that I am viewing all this "new" through 10 years of knowledge of how we do things. I feel exhausted because I am constantly scrutinising every piece of the puzzle. Is this the right way? Is it the wrong way? Is it the wrong way around? Upside-down? Is this piece from a completely seperate puzzle? Mana potential / Mana enhancement One thing that I have learnt and consolidated during my sabbatical is that and appreciative approach is the key. Research states that if we keep looking for deficit, we keep finding it. In terms of things Māori, the key principle of mana enhancement is appreciative - what are we doing well? What are our strengths? And let's build on them. "Te Ara Whakamana: Mana Enhancement is a circular framework that uses colour, imagery, narrative and cultural metaphors as powerful tools to connect individuals to their Mana, their sources of strength, and their world. It is a tool that develops rapport, a fundamental requirement for positive communication." So let's weave the best of our strengths, knowledge, disobedience, creativity and relationships and path our new way through Mana enhancement.
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10/7/2020 05:51:08 pm
Kia ora Nic
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