Officially my last post here. I wish I had more to say... Thank you and goodbye! See you on LeadershipFuse.
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So basically the above is the reporting framework that we are expected to do to "understand your class data"... Following on from the learning I did around differentiation last year, I have continued with this setting up learning pathways based on feedback from the learner. However, this has been really difficult to implement with production and my AST role. It seems that I need more time to innovate and act innovationally (did I just make that word up?). That being said, I used Terms 1 and 3 to gather student voice to see if I was to make a difference in supporting empowering learner agency.
Let's compare Term 1 to Term 3: Interestingly, silence is still a main driver for my learners this year. It's great to see an improvement in collaboration as we have been working towards this learning in class. Though, what type of learning do the kids expect that will be doing if it is silent? Sure, we can sit down and work silently on worksheets, but is this learning? What experiences have they had to lead to this? One thing that has changed from Term 1 to Term 3 is that in Term 1, 11% asked to have time limits taken off their learning tasks, but in Term 3 8.3% found that they performed better when there was that time pressure on. Interesting. Here's the issue. I'm trying to operate a student centred program where learners are empowered to make decisions over their learning however, how do I ensure continuity when only teaching, Friday, Monday and Tuesday? And then you have production and the school culture train comes barrelling up the middle of the school and everyone is forced to hop on. I wonder if the children who wanted to be more student driven had a go and realised it was too hard? Or that they preferred to be given a list to complete? Another reason maybe is the other teacher and I run a different pedagogy?
What would make you want to come to school and not leave at the end of the day?
Nau mai haere mai, and welcome back to 2019. Crazy to think that 20 years ago everybody was freaking out about Y2K! It was all everybody talked about - news reports covered all these crazy people getting ready for Y2K: where everything was going to shut down?
Why am I talking about this? Well, I just hope the work of the Kāhui Ako will not be like Y2K: lots of people going up and arms and then just carrying on as normal afterwards like nothing has happened. It's probably not the best, most creative analogy but there you have it. Today we are preparing for the first launch with the new vision, and kaupapa. This is the introduction video I created to introduced the schools involved however, I hear we have more ECE Centres involved so - Nau mai haere mai to you too!
Today we are inviting over 400 teachers and support staff from our schools to explain the "WHY" around our focus on Well-being. Dr Denise Quinlan from the Canterbury Institute for Well-being will be unpacking with our teachers the "WHY". We'll be videoing each sessions and uploading the kōrero onto youtube for future listening etc. Unfortunately, this will not be available for the public domain...
Why? Mā ngā huruhuru ka rere te manu … It is the feathers that enable the bird to fly
Imagine the combined brains, cultures, action, teaching experiences, personal experiences of our kaiako coming together to enable our children to soar?
I believe this is the way forward for us. What can we learn from each other? What strengths can we contribute? What perspectives can we gaze from? This is an extremely exciting space. So the above graphic shows the three streams of our work: Well-being, Resilience and Collaboration / Professional Growth. Well-Being: My main take away from this Kaupapa is if teachers LEARN it, then LIVE it, and schools EMBED it into their system structure, then in the words of Kendrick Lamar... "We 'Gon Be Alright..."
But what I'm hearing here is that our schools pay a massive part in ensuring they EMBED the culture of wellbeing. So as teachers, we need to be very clear in what we accept as normal. What we accept today becomes tomorrow's norms. Kia kaha, kia toa, kia manawanui. The Wellbeing champions or Wellbeing champion groups are in the early stages of understanding their roles and how they can lead this learning at their individual schools. To learn more about this role, you can see more here.
Resilience: The Within school teacher leaders (WSTs) are also in the early stages of clarifying their roles and how they fit into the puzzle... but they have been engaging in the book Onward by Elena Aguilar. This book is all about cultivating teacher resilience:
WSTs will be part of a book study that they will then in turn lead elements of the book back at their own schools. To read more about their roles see here.
Collaboration and Professional Growth: The Across School Leaders are responsible for this stream of our work... And our emerging vision is Mā ngā huruhuru ka rere te manu … It is the feathers that enable the bird to fly. Educators within our Kāhui Ako are the feathers and our tamariki are the birds. How strong we make our feathers together will determine how high, how far or for how long we can enable our tamariki to fly! Below is the top 5 reasons we exist:
And here is what we have decided that we are going to do:
And this is where are Learning Networks fit in. Our main purpose for this first hui will be to make connections with other teachers teaching at the same year level as you and deciding together how we want to move forward with this collaboration, based on your needs and the needs of your learners.
I aim to move slow. At a pace where relationships can flourish and collaboration may grow. |
Teacher Blog ArchiveKia Ora, this is my teacher blog during 2008 and 2019. Archives
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