Teachers Matter issue2 by Mary Hester

BUILDING RESILIENCE IN CHILDREN The little things are the big things

SUPERTEACHERS Being a hero to your students

IS THERE A TIGER IN YOUR CLASSROOM? Managing the stress of flight-or-fight

NZ$15 / AU$15

Leaders in Developing Teachers

ISSUE 2

PROFESSIONALLY & PERSONALLY

Conference 2009 Conference 2009 C Linking the Pieces Leading international and local speakers helping educators focus on professional as well as personal development. Replace your Teacher-Only days with this valuable conference! Since this popular event fills quickly, register your interest today to be part of the Teachers Matter buzz. conference@spectrumeducation.com (NZ) Ph +64 4 528 9969 Fax +64 4 528 0969 PO Box 40-912, Upper Hutt, New Zealand (Australia) Ph 1800 063 272 Fax 1800 068 977

Past participants enthuse: “It was right on the mark! The speakers were fun but got their message across clearly. They covered everything that has been on my mind during last year – all the issues in teaching that I most wanted to delve into.”

“It was great to hear directly from people that have produced credible resources used in school. (The material) was realistic, practical and achievable. My thinking was challenged in a stimulating environment.”

Mane Thomson, Kindergarten Teacher

Lynette Brown, College Teacher

“The staff came back from the conference excited and ready to try out all of the new ideas that they had picked up during their 2-day experience.” Graeme Lomas, Primary Principal

Conference 2009 Conference 2009 C 2 Days of Inspiration and Focus Sydney 22/23 January 2009

Rotorua 29/30 January 2009

SMC Conference and Function Centre 66 Goulburn St Sydney

Rotorua Energy Events Centre Queens Drive Rotorua

Keynote speakers:

Marcia L. Tate – Instructional Strategies that Engage the Brain Maggie Dent – Nurturing Kid’s Hearts and Souls Tony Ryan - The Thinkers Keys Karen Boyes - Habits Of Mind Jana Stanfield - Teachers Make the Difference

Marcia L. Tate – Instructional Strategies that Engage the Brain W. Mitchell – Taking Responsibility for Change Rowena Szeszeran-McEvoy – Living An Exceptional Life Karen Boyes – Habits of Mind John Shackleton – Raising Your Game

“Outstanding! Stunning! Wow! I have an incredibly enthused, invigorated team who are going home with a smile on their faces, a laugh in their belly and more wisdom in their heart. Thank you for giving them that opportunity.” Kris Hughes, Primary Teacher

“Excellent. Made me feel valued, validated that what I am doing is great. Benefited me as a person, not just a teacher!” Emma Martin, Primary Teacher

“ I t ’s t h e o n l y e v e n t I k n o w t h a t concentrates on the reality of teaching and how to look after yourself so you can continue in the profession.” Linda Hardwick, Primary Teacher

CONTENTS

In this issue

Teachers Matter

Building Resilience in Children

Robust Inquiry Begins with Big Ideas

Puzzling Puzzles

The Tiger in Your Classroom

Positive Reinforcement 101

Cooking Up a Resilient Life

Elicit, Rather Than Impose

Quiz Questions

Unlock a New World of Learning

Engaging Students Towards Success

Continuous Growth With Habits of Mind

Improving Thinking is the Key

The RAS Alert

44 44

Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re Worth It! Self Esteem and Self Worth

Promoting Positive Behaviour

Study Tips for Success

Simple or Sophisticated? A Look at Picture Books

Quiz Answers

Black-line Masters Photocopyable activities: 21... Thought Starters 36... Drama Challenges

MAGAZINE CONTACTS

Subscribe today

Teachers Matter Magazine Team

To receive your own copy of the next issue. magazine@spectrumeducation.com

Publisher, Sales and Advertising: Karen Boyes Managing Editor and Production: Stuart Fleming Graphic Design: 2nd Floor Design, Portsmouth, VA, USA Printer Spectrum Print, Christchurch

Subscriptions Toll free (NZ) 0800 373 377 Toll free (Australia) 1800 063 272 Thanks to the educators, speakers and authors who contributed interviews, articles, photographs and letters. Teachers Matter magazine is registered with the National Library:

ISSN 1178-6825 ÂŠ Spectrum Education 2008

Superteachers

Weird or Wired? Working with Personalities.

The Lasting Residue of Energy, Passion and Enthusiasm

Great Adults Are the Key For Great Teens

Bullyproof Your Kids

Exercise : Pain or Pleasure?

Health and Wellbeing for Female Teachers

Tech Recipes: Time Lapse Trickery

Into Tomorrow: Moving the Educational Debate

Be the Teacher You Would Want For Your Child

All rights reserved. Parts of this publication may be reproduced for use within a school environment. To reproduce any part within another publication (or in any other format) permission from the publisher must be obtained. The opinions expressed in Teachers Matter are those of the contributors and we love them!

All Enquiries Spectrum Education Ltd Street Address: Level 5, CBD Towers, Main Street, Upper Hutt, New Zealand Postal Address: PO Box 40912, Upper Hutt, New Zealand Phone: (NZ) +64 4 528 9969 (Australia) 1800 063 272 Fax: (NZ) +64 4 528 0969 (Australia) 1800 068 977

Learn how to bully-proof your kids on page 62

magazine@spectrumeducation.com www.spectrumeducation.com

EDITOR’S NOTE

y imagination ran wild after reading Glen Capelli’s account of his very own Superteacher, on page 54.

Not only did I picture a world where all teachers had enhanced hearing (to catch a bully’s taunts from across the playground) and hawk-like vision (to scan piles of essays and exams in a flash) but I also saw every teacher having one passion burning bright – to develop the individual brilliance of every single student. Gone would be the days of ‘command and control’ not-so-super teaching. Educators would be leading by example, role models of the sixteen Habits of Mind and effective lifemanagement. Given you are reading this magazine, chances are good that you have a healthy dose of ‘Super’ in you. Does it feel like it? No? Perhaps you need a booster shot of positive reinforcement? Matt Allen’s article on page 32 gives great ideas to acknowledge your students’ successes. How do you like to have your ‘feel good’ tank filled?

Perhaps your levels of resilience could do with a polish? Maggie Dent (page 8) and Sharyn Devereux-Blum (page 16) share tips for ensuring your students have the ability to cope with life’s ups and downs. How do you ensure you’re capable of ‘bouncing back’ from the challenges of teaching? Or perhaps you simply need to know you are not alone in your efforts to be the best teacher you can be? I’ve been flabbergasted at the response to the first issue of Teachers Matter educators just like you from England, Papua New Guinea, Australia and across New Zealand have jumped at the chance to upskill by subscribing. A hearty thanks to each and every one of you for believing in our magazine, and also to our contributors and advertisers, without whom there would be no publication. Enjoy this issue. I trust it will take you one step closer to being even more of a Superteacher! Smiles,

Teachers Matter

Stuart Fleming

2008-2009 SUNDAY

calendar of events MONDAY

AUGUST

TUESDAY

WEDNESDAY

THURSDAY

FRIDAY

SATURDAY 1

Habits of Mind Bootcamp | Karen Boyes + team | 4 days | Hamilton

15 NLK Switch

On To Learning Marion Miller 9am-5pm 22 Hamilton 23

Habits of Mind Bootcamp | Karen Boyes + team | 4 days | Sydney, Australia

9 The Emotional 10 Curriculum Curriculum Maggie Dent 4-7pm Maggie Dent 4-7pm Hamilton Rotorua 16 Bully-proof 17 Bully-proof Your Kids Your Kids Howard Small 4-7pm Howard Small 4-7pm Dunedin Invercargill

Developing 11 21st Century Thinkers Karen Boyes 4-7pm Auckland 18

JANUARY

OCTOBER SEPTEMBER

7 The Emotional

8 The Emotional

Curriculum Maggie Dent 4-7pm Auckland 14 Bully-proof 15 Your Kids Howard Small 4-7pm Christchurch

WORLD TEACHERS DAY Everywhere

5 12

22 Bully-proof 23 Bully-proof Your Kids Your Kids Howard Small 4-7pm Howard Small 4-7pm Rotorua Napier

6 Developing

13 21st Century

Marion Miller 9am-5pm Auckland

Thinkers Karen Boyes 4-7pm Hamilton 19 Bully-proof 20 Bully-proof 21 Your Kids Your Kids Howard Small 4-7pm Howard Small 4-7pm Auckland Hamilton

Switch 19 NLK On To Learning 20

21 22-23 2 Days | Sydney, Australia

28 29-30 Teachers Matter Conference:

Teachers Matter Conference: Linking the Pieces Marcia L. Tate, Maggie Dent, Tony Ryan, Karen Boyes, Jana Stanfield

Linking the Pieces 2 Days | Rotorua

Marcia L. Tate , W. Mitchell, John Shackleton Rowena Szeszeran-McEvoy, Karen Boyes

CONTRIBUTORS

Adrian Rennie A successful classroom teacher, Adrian is passionate about excellence in teaching. He combines simple yet effective classroom techniques and Art Costa’s Habits Of Mind to create a culture of thinking.

Allison Mooney Allison is a passionate and endearing speaker who infuses a desire in her audience to significantly increase their performance as educators, through identifying the behaviours and traits of others. Author of Pressing the Right Buttons, Allison has been twice awarded ‘Speaker of the Year’ by the Auckland Chapter of NZ National Speakers Association. www.personalityplus.co.nz

Dr Art Costa Art is co-director of the Institute for Intelligent Behaviour and the creator of ‘Habits of Mind’. Actively concerned that there must be worldwide change in educational systems if they are to meet the needs of a global society, Art compels educators to create classrooms that are thoughtful places to learn. www.habits-of-mind.net

Teachers Matter

Barbara Griffith

Barbara has been a primary school teacher for 36 years. She has specialised in the teaching of literacy for more that 20 years and recently retired from a position as a Resource Teacher: Literacy, which she had held for the last 16 years.

Barry Musson

Howard Small

Despite being in the ‘twilight’ of his career, Barry has been re-energised since becoming involved with Habits of Mind and Thinking Maps. His knowledge, passion and enthusiasm is now being shared with schools wanting to incorporate the Thinking and Behaving benefits these two powerful tools have to offer. www.lindisfarne.school.nz

Howard is creator of the My Attitude Is Everything resources, which help create emotional resiliency and harmony for families and schools. He has more than 25 years experience in the education arena as a teacher, author, life-skills tutor, specialed needs coordinator, and was former New Zealand coordinator of You Can Do It! education. www.myattitude.co.nz

Eric Frangenheim Author of Reflections in Classroom Thinking Strategies and The Reconciliation of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Eric is also a director of ITC Publications Pty Ltd, producers o f t h e Innovative Teacher Companion, a teacher diar y containing hundreds of useful classroom teaching ideas. www.itcpublications.com

Glenn Capelli An author, songwriter, radio and television presenter and creator of the Dynamic Thinking course for Leadership, Glenn delivers a message of creativity, innovation and thinking smarter. He teaches people how to be a learner and thinker in today’s fast paced and ever changing world through the use of creative thinking, h u m o u r, e n t h u s i a s m a n d a t t i t u d e . www.glenncapelli.com

Gordon Dryden Gordon is an author, researcher, publisher and broadcaster who has spent many of the last 30 years searching out new methods of learning. With Dr Jeannette Vos, he is coauthor of The Learning Revolution and (due to be published later this year) UNLIMITED: The new learning revolution and the seven keys to unlock it. gordon@learningweb.co.nz

Ian Jukes Ian’s focus has consistently been on the compelling need to restructure our educational institutions so they become relevant to the current and future needs of children. Ian is the Director of the InfoSavvy Group, providing leadership and program development in the areas of assessment and evaluation, strategic alignment and curriculum design and publication. www.ianjukes.com

Jenny Barrett Jenny is the CEO for Breathe Technology. Her enthusiasm for technology came when thrown in the deep end whilst teaching a t a Ta i w a n h i g h s c h o o l . J e n n y h a s since undertaken a Masters of Education ( E d . Te c h n o l o g y ) a n d h a s s u p p o r t e d classroom teachers to use educational technology in UK and NZ projects. www.breathetechnology.co.nz

Jenny Mosley O v e r t h e p a s t n i n e t e e n years, Jenny has developed her highly successful school and classroom management models. Quality Circle Time encompasses a whole-school approach to enhancing self-esteem and building positive relationships within school communities. www.jennymosley.co.uk

CONTRIBUTORS

John Shackleton

Marion Miller

Stephen Lethbridge

Wi t h a s p o r t p s y c h o l o g y a n d s p o r t s coaching background John now shows international business audiences techniques that exercise and improve the biggest most powerful muscle in the body – the brain. His clients include Coca-Cola, Air New Zealand, IBM, Hewlett Packard, Sony and Renault. www.JohnShack.com

Marion is a Chartered Natural Therapies Practitioner and Instructor in NeuroLinguistic Kinesiology and Touch for Health Kinesiology. She originally trained as a primary school teacher and came across kinesiology when the elder of her two children was diagnosed with a learning disability. Marion has now been working in the field for over 25 years. www.balancekinesiology.co.nz

A novice principal in his third year at Taupaki School, Stephen believes that schools should be lively fun places where everyone knows what it means to be an effective learner. Taupaki is involved in an EHSAS cluster that has a focus on 21st Century learning. www.taupaki.school.nz

Dr Marvin Marshall

Tricia has been involved in the field of Literacy for 17 years, firstly as a Resource Teacher:Reading, then as a Resource Teacher:Literacy. She is passionate about books and reading, and feels privileged to be in a position where she can share that passion with students, their parents, and fellow teachers.

Karen Boyes Karen Boyes is a leading authority on effective learning and teaching in Australasia and is founder and CEO of Spectrum Education. A highly skilled, enthusiastic and dynamic presenter with over 18 years experience in the education profession, she works with teachers, parents, students and corporate clients internationally, unleashing their peak performance. www.spectrumeducation.com

Kevin Mayall Kevin works with individuals and families from around the world. As well as working in a private practice Kevin is also the creator and founder of www.kevinmayall.com, which provides online coaching tools for teens, families and individuals around the world. www.kevinmayall.com

Lynley Russek Lynley is the CEO of Stepping Stones Education and Resourcing, specialising in creating brain-friendly learning resources full of ideas, strategies and activities that work in classrooms. She is passionate about making a positive difference in the lives of teachers and children around the world. Lynley is currently playing, working and teaching in Ghana. www.stepping-stones.co.nz

Maggie Dent From a background in education, palliative care, radio, the funeral industry and being a transpersonal therapist, Maggie owns Esteem Plus, promoting the value of personal and professional resilience. She is an author, publisher and parenting specialist. www.maggiedent.com

Marvin is an international staff developer and the author of the best-selling book Discipline Without Stress® Punishments or Rewards: How Teachers and Parents Promote Responsibility & Learning. His approaches demonstrate how using internal motivation and non-coercion is far more effective and significantly less stressful than using threats, punishments, rewards, and other manipulations aimed at obedience. www.marvinmarshall.com

Matt Allen Matt is a passionate, innovative classroom teacher who continually strives for greater levels of student achievement through a range of creative teaching techniques. He is skilled at teaching Thinking Maps and Habits of Mind in an holistic manner across all learning situations. Matt has created many classroom strategies in association with fellow teaching colleague Barry Musson. www.lindisfarne.school.nz

Sharyn Devereux-Blum Sharyn is co-director of Devereux-Blum Training and Development. Emergency management is one area the business focuses on, following her vision of a resilient community in an earthquake or pandemic. Sharyn has passion and enthusiasm for training, facilitation and coaching blended with brain training, thinking skills and resiliency. www.emergencymanagement.co.nz

Tricia Kenyon

Trudy Francis Trudy is recognised in Australasia as a leader in Curriculum Integration, Higher-Order Thinking, the Key Competencies and Habits of Mind. She is in demand as a speaker and workshop facilitator. In 2007 Trudy was appointed by four schools in the Fitzherbert Cluster to facilitate their Extending High Standards across Schools project (Ministry of Education NZ). c21learning@kol.co.nz

Wendy Sweet Wendy is an expert in corporate health and wellness. She set up the world’s largest Personal Training system for the Les Mills group in the 1990s, has been a nurse in coronary care/intensive care, and worked with many corporate clients as personal trainer/health advisor. wsweet@xtra.co.nz

Maggie Dent

The Little Things are the Big Things Building Resilience in Children

oday’s modern world is full of so many innovations, knowledge and new ways of doing things, we should all be in great shape! We are technically and cognitively so much smarter. Unfortunately the benefits of being smarter are not showing up in our children’s and adolescent’s lives. Concerned and worried parents and teachers are finding children and adolescents struggling with the pressures of our modern world. Research and statistics also support the perception of the declining health and well being of our young. Of greatest concern is the increasing numbers of children and adolescents who are succumbing to depression, emotional instability, anxiety disorders, serious mental illnesses, obesity and low educational and social competence. They are less resilient to coping with challenge and adversity. Today’s children are struggling! Many of the pressures and challenges of the modern world are invisible. What can be helpful on one level can be destructive on another level, like TV’s, mobile phones, the Internet and MP3 players.

Teachers Matter

Being affluent and having the ability to give your children things you were unable to have as a child should be a good thing. Unfortunately affluence can create more challenges to raising resilient children than financial challenge or adversity. The very experience of having to save for something or wait for it makes the receiving of what is desired so much sweeter.

Being able to delay gratification is seen as a key quality of an emotionally mature person. The Y-Generation has immediate access to plastic credit and the temptation that brings, before they have the maturity to manage the full consequences of their actions.

The prefrontal cortex The mature rational brain does not finish growing until the 20’s so the ability to make sensible choices, around things that are pushed by popular culture, is just one of the emotional competences that is weaker than in generations gone by. Emotional and social competence is developed largely in the years before a child attends school. We learn manners and socially appropriate ways of behaving under the guidance of caring adults – both family and carers like kindergarten and preschool teachers. Many of the little things in the early years become big things later in life. The immediacy of our world has helped to create an ‘instant’ culture with an expectation of ‘quick is best.’ The pressures of the ‘hurried child’ syndrome are evident in early learning environments. We must never forget that children are biologically wired to learn in mildly enriched environments at their own pace.

“The stronger a child’s imagination the more likely they will be able to avoid depression, cynicism and criticism as adults.”

Boredom has a very valid role in their development as it stimulates the child to look for something to interest them, when they are ready. Parent-driven entertainment comes at a great price – these children need to be entertained or helped to find something to break their own natural state of boredom. Many are deeply conditioned to use screen-entertainment as their main way of escape from boredom. Research

Maggie Dent

clearly shows that excessive TV viewing numbs the brain, stunts the imagination and can increase aggressive behaviour and the likelihood of ADHD. These changes impact the over-stimulated child brain, and the absence of calmness, quiet and even stillness in children’s lives can quite literally be contributing to their emotional and mental ‘unwellness’.

What is resilience? Resilience refers to one’s ability to successfully manage one’s life and to adapt to change and stressful events in healthy and constructive ways. In simplistic terms, it is our survivability and ‘bounce-backability’ to life experiences. That means both the really advantageous ones as well as the really challenging, traumatic ones.

According to Reivich, Shatte, Werner and Smith, “Thirty years of research tells us that resilient people are happier, live longer and are more successful in school and jobs, are happier in relationships and are less likely to suffer depression.” The early years, indeed from conception, are unbelievably important in helping our children be better equipped to live in this chaotic world with constant, rapid change. There are some key building blocks that strengthen the ability to be resilient, to ‘bounce back’ from the bumps and

“ Boredom has a very valid role in their development as it stimulates the child to look for something to interest them.”

Young children and adolescents have always needed effective coping skills, however the modern world is more challenging than ever before. It appears that many young people have fewer resources to deal with adversity than in previous generations. Our main concerns today involve the increasing numbers of our young who are aggressive, depressed, suicidal and engaging in maladaptive coping strategies such as substance abuse and anti-social behaviour. Resilience should be understood as a vital ingredient in the process of parenting and education of all children. Building resilience is a continuous process that directs our interactions as we strengthen our children’s ability to meet life’s challenges and pressures with confidence and perseverance.

bruises of life. These building blocks create vital protective factors that strengthen one’s capacity to cope and especially to overcome adversity. It is not only the child’s physical and intellectual development that are advancing rapidly in the first years of life, it is the emotional and social. Most of the important developments are invisible and difficult to measure. Often the little things are the big things.

Play Enormous amounts of emotional and social learning occur through play without the guidance of well-meaning parents or teachers. Children learn about taking turns, waiting, using thinking strategies (especially when playing Uno with Mum!), how to lose and how to win graciously. Play needs to involve the art of ‘being present’ whether that

be a solitary game or a shared game. The key ingredient is human interaction – something that the virtual world does not provide.

There can be serious consequences later in life for children who are ignored as children and who have very little play experience. Unstructured play allows the developing brain to be creative, connect with our natural world, have exquisite moments of autonomy and experience risk taking – yes, where they can potentially get hurt!

Children still need the basics They need plenty of loving interaction with significant people who care for them, enormous amounts of play and opportunities to make mistakes and learn from them. You don’t need a lot of money to raise children well, however the more children can experience the 10 Resilience Building Blocks (see page 10), the more resilient they will be - as adolescents and adults – on all levels.

Teachers Matter Maggie Dent

Maggie Dent

“ We m u s t n e v e r forget that children are biologically wired to learn in mildly enriched environments at their own pace.” This resilience model outlines key building blocks for children that build healthy minds and bodies, self esteem, and strengthens any child’s ability to be resilient and bounce back from life’s challenges. These building blocks clearly show the different areas that a parent, school or community can focus on in order to build resilience for life. Any building block will help, and the more the better! The one that can be done only once is obviously the first building block – positive, healthy pregnancy! The little things are often the big things later. A baby who is soothed often and quickly when distressed tends to become self-soothing as a toddler. The food patterns that a parent creates in the first two years of life will tend to stay with the child for life. Children who are not introduced to sweet drinks and high fat, high processed foods (like potato chips) in the first two years will be less inclined to have an emotional or comfort need to eat them as an adult. Children who have been able to play freely in the natural world with little parental

Young children need help to manage strong negative feelings and learn how to communicate their needs to significant adults. Unmet needs are the main driver for inappropriate behaviour in children, and helping them to understand what need is unmet is unbelievably important for later life. This is where children learn the difference between assertiveness, passivity and aggression.

supervision often tend to have stronger ‘seeking’ or enquiring thinking patterns as an adult than children who have largely experienced structured or adult-lead play. There are many steps in the 10 Building Blocks that impact on children for the rest of their life. There is no simple process that allows you to progress one step at a time because all children are created uniquely and their development is determined by many different factors – seen and unseen. Parents need to be constantly reviewing what is happening in each child’s life. This act of reflection with the other parent or family member or other person deeply involved in their child’s life is very helpful to stay in tune with an individual child’s development. Please avoid comparing children – that is disrespectful of the child’s individuality and essential human potential and has the tendency to invalidate the child. Children need to experience disappointment, challenge, failure and boundaries to fully develop the interpersonal and personal skills that allow people to live in society. They also need to have a voice, and agedependent moments of autonomy where they get to have a sense of control over their life. However, too much will lead to overindulgent, permissive and unpleasantly challenging behaviour that will create conflict and distress.

Children have an imaginary toolkit hanging off their shoulder. A simple metaphor in building resilience in children is the more tools in their toolkit, the more resilient they will be. It is the primary responsibility of parents to be filling that toolkit. Teachers or child-care workers merely add to the basic tools that are already present. Memories from childhood build patterns of expectation in the brain for life. Children who have experienced repeated ‘magic’ moments, like night-time rituals of snuggling up with a book, singing songs in the car, Easter-egg hunts or picking mushrooms, tend to anticipate positive and optimistic moments in life. T h e s t r o n g e r a c h i l d ’s i m a g i n a t i o n (especially under age ten) the more likely they will be able to avoid depression, cynicism and criticism as adults. This is the last Building Block – strengthening the spirit. Childhood is meant to be full of chaos, endless play, spontaneity, laughter and moments of wonder and awe! Let your inner child come out and play before they become teenagers, when they will only see you as an embarrassment. Consciously create the magic moments that build delight and lightness – turn the screens off, play music, go camping, watch clouds and stars, share meals and tell jokes anything that builds the sense of belonging, being valued and noticed. These are just a few of the little things that become big things later in life.

Teachers Matter

Puzzling Puzzles

For answers turn to Page 53

A. Even when they are starving to death, natives of the Artic will never eat penguin eggs. Why not? ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ B. If you put a small coin into an empty bottle and replace the cork, how would you get the coin out of the bottle without removing the cork or breaking the bottle? ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ C. If the day before yesterday is Sunday, what is the day after tomorrow? ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ D. It’s the first day of school and there are three other students in your row. If each person in the row shakes hands with everyone else in the row, how many handshakes take place? Make sure you don’t count a handshake twice! ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Thinking Puzzles Posters for your classroom Designed to stretch the brain and get students thinking! 31 colourful posters with 4 thinking puzzles on each A4 page. That’s 124 puzzles all on one CD. You can print these posters over and over again…

$39.95 (including the answers!) Available from www.spectrumeducation.com 13

Marion Miller

The Tiger in Your Classroom What do you look at when you have a child who is not performing in class?

s there something more the child should be doing? Is there something more we as teachers or parents could do? Are we addressing this child’s individual learning style? Is the classroom’s environment conducive to their needs? There are many aspects that can be looked at, yet we could be missing a crucial part of the picture. If this child is stuck in ‘survival mode’, none of these external factors are going to have the impact we would like.

stomach. This could well be a familiar story to parents getting their children off to school in the morning.

Let’s have a look at what happens to our body when we are stuck in flight-or-fight mode. Remember that this is one of your body’s basic reflexes that has been with us since early man. It has been called a ‘response to the Sabre-toothed Tiger’. It is when all parts of your body go into survival mode so that you can best respond to danger.

Teachers Matter

“ All parts of your body go into survival mode so that you can best respond to danger.”

The digestion of our last meal is also not important if we are about to be eaten, so the blood leaves our digestive system. This can translate into indigestion or stomach ulcers in adults but with our child it is probably ‘just’ a pain in the

Where do we tend to place these children in our classroom? Possibly near the front so we can keep an eye on them? This leaves these children needing to check out every movement or noise behind them in case it is the ‘tiger’ their body is endeavouring to save

Another very handy survival mode is that our peripheral vision kicks in, so we can see where the ‘tiger’ is going to come at us from. Can you remember looking up a number in the phone book when there is a bit of a

Today’s children are often in a permanent state of survival mode or ‘flight-or-fight’ response, due to a number of different stresses being placed upon them both at home and at school.

The blood goes to all of your large core muscles so you can either fight or run. Have you ever tried to unlock a door in a hurry when the phone is ringing inside with what you know is a very important call? Did your fingers feel a bit like fat sausages? We lose our ability for fine motor control - not important if we are about to be eaten, but not so good if we are in control of a key or pen or pencil.

panic on? Yet we ask these children to read, a task needing close focus.

5MinuteSwitch On

NLK Mental Fitness Exercises

Rub below collar bone & hold navel

Water

15 seconds Change hands

Cooks Technique

1st Cross ankles & cross wrists with interlinked fingers

2nd Uncross ankles & place finger tips together

1 minute

Stretch up one side

1 minute

Rub below bottom lip & hold navel 15 seconds Change hands

Skipping (X-Crawl) 30 seconds

Stretch up other side

Stretch up both sides

Rub below nose and hold tail bone 15 seconds Change hands

Marion Miller & Wendy Bennett

Marion Miller

“ Today’s children are often in a permanent state of survival mode or ‘flight-orfight’ response.”

them from. If they were in a back corner they may feel safer. How often have you asked this child - when they have done something irresponsible “Why did you do it”? The answer invariably and quite honestly is “I don’t know”. When in survival mode, our actions or responses are driven from the more primitive areas of our brain, where there is no analysis of whether it is right or wrong. To have a rational response we need to access the neo-cortex area of the brain not possible when in flight-or-fight mode.

As a classroom teacher, we have little control over the stresses that our pupils bring with them from home. What we can do though, is to start the day with some Neuro-Linguistic Kinesiology (NLK) Mental Fitness Exercises.

Some of the exercises work by activating the body’s electrical energy, others by releasing stress, or stimulating the two brain hemispheres by using both sides of the body.

NLK is a truly holistic approach to personal change and development. It is a way of improving performance and well-being in all areas of life. The Mental Fitness Exercise programme is a series of exercises that can be used at home, at work or in the classroom to enhance and support all areas of living and learning.

The 5-Minute Switch On routine (see illustration, pg. 14) that is part of this programme helps to relieve stress and activate the neo-cortex area or rational part of the brain, thereby getting children in a state where they are ready to learn, rather than being ready to run from their Sabretoothed Tiger.

s e c r u o s e R n e s Eric Jen In this best-sellin g book, Eric Jens en leads you through brain research on how the brain processes and ac cesses information .

$59 $27 $63

This practical, comprehensive guide connects the latest brain research with strategies to help you identify and cope with the most common learni ng disorders occurring in today’s classrooms.

Gain specific, simple techniques for recalling n names, faces, facts, formulas, definitions, foreig language words, correct spelling, lists, and more.

available at www.spectrumeducation.com 15

Sharyn Devereux-Blum

Cooking Up a Resilient Life

hen I meet students many years after they have been in my classroom, I am always amazed at what they remember about the class and the things they learnt. Often, what they share with me focusses on the way I thought, the way I worked with them or the way I taught (and role-modelled) resiliency.

“ I have made a conscious effort to include in my life the ‘ingredients’ for personal resiliency.”

We f a c e c o n s t a n t change every day in our lives, in the classroom and in our teaching world. Part of my teaching/ training philosophy is that I can only take the people I work with as far as I have gone myself.

Teachers Matter

To ‘walk the talk’ I have made a conscious effort to include in my life the ‘ingredients’ for personal resiliency, plus understanding how to create and adapt ‘resiliency recipes’, tasting and savouring the results.

Recipes are a language in the same way maths, science or technology are. This means the resiliency ingredients can be transferred across all areas of your life. You don’t cook with exactly the same ingredients for every meal, so drawing on a wide range of resiliency ingredients will maximise your strengths and abilities.

Have you ever read a new recipe and thought “I don’t have a clue where to start! How will this turn out?” Working with personal resiliency ingredients for the first time is like that. Getting the quantities just right and knowing when to add or mix ingredients together is all part of really mastering your cooking. These are the resiliency ingredients for you to reflect on. Acknowledge the ones you use already and identify which ones you could develop further in yourself - and in your students.

Love of learning The capacity to want to learn, to go that extra step to find the required information. Do you actively role model this in your life and does your classroom environment actively promote it?

Optimism A positive view of your future and of the students in your class. Do you expect positive outcomes of yourself and the students?

Self-worth The belief in yourself - as a person and as a teacher - that you make a difference; that your capabilities, potential and abilities are gifts worth sharing; that the students in your class are amazing human beings.

Creativity Draw on the imagination and the expression of yourself and your students, including the arts.

Intuition/ Spirituality Personal faith in something/someone greater.

Flexibility You can adjust and adapt to change and determine positive outcomes.

Perseverance The determination to keep going and persist, despite the challenges.

Sharyn Devereux-Blum

Competence Utilise a range of thinking skills as well as curriculum strengths/abilities.

Perceptiveness The ability to focus on a situation, see what is happening and gain insights.

Relationships The ability to be a friend, develop positive relationships and make fulfilling connections with people.

Independence The ability to distance yourself from unhealthy people and situations. Your ability to stand on your own two feet and consider a range of options that will enhance your life.

Resiliency is a word that holds so much ‘juice’ to life. It is your ability to draw on a range of attitudes and skills within yourself that will keep your heads above water. It is that inner voice or feeling that tells you “I will make it through this.” It gives you the determination to keep moving forward. I am always looking for stories that demonstrate resiliency - different stories suit different students. Both of these stories demonstrate some of the resiliency ingredients:

The other story is from ex-All Black rugby player, Glen Osbourne. He talks about growing up on the farm and working as a team in the shearing shed. There he learnt that no one quits until the work is finished. Our leaders of tomorrow need to hear stories like these. They need to see you walk your talk. They need to learn how to become great ‘resilience chefs’.

Sir Murray Halberg was recently awarded the Order of New Zealand for his work off the sportsfield. He initiated the Halberg Trust (which provides opportunities for people with disabilities) and the Halberg Awards (to celebrate Kiwi sports heroes). His story of resiliency began in 1950, when he was 16 years old. He received a rugby tackle which dislocated his shoulder. The nerves in that area were paralysed, causing blood clots around his heart. He spent two months in hospital barely able to walk. He learnt to walk, write and run – he kept on racing and moving forward in life.

“ Do you expect positive outcomes of yourself and your students?”

Gordon Dryden

The Seven Keys to Unlock a New World of Learning All the signs are clear:

At its core are seven catalysts, now converging to change the way we live, work, play, learn, teach, think and create — at any age:

• Education is about to change more than

it has done since Comenius invented the modern school around 350 years ago and the Prussian government made primary schooling compulsory almost 300 years ago.

• New Zealand has a unique chance to lead

1. It’s PERSONAL: where information and learning programmes can be personalised and tailored to your own needs, and where you can share your own talents and skills with millions.

Yet the public debate on education seems unaware of the changes that have started to emerge in our school system — let alone those that are possible.

2. It’s INTERACTIVE: with new digital platforms and templates to make it easy, simple and fun to learn by doing, playing, creating, producing and interacting — a new world of creative experiences.

that change.

Canadian educationist Stewart Shanker is one visitor who has been bowled over by our world leadership. “It’s kind of surprising,” he says, “that New Zealanders don’t seem to see that they have an outstanding education system. Here I am looking at the great things you are doing, but the only questions I seem to get asked are: what are we doing wrong?” I’ve spent most of my life since 1990 investigating and promoting new methods of learning, teaching and schooling, and I agree with him.

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But even more research is needed as the world moves into what is fast emerging as the most profound revolution in history.

3. It’s GLOBAL: the ever-expanding worldwide Internet owned by no-one, used by everyone; where the combined knowledge of humankind is now available to virtually all at the touch of a digital keyboard.

F r o m t h e i r f i r s t d a y i n Ye a r O n e at Sherwood Primary School on Auckland’s North Shore, six-year-olds learn to videotape their classmates from several angles, and then edit what they have. Within a few days they are learning to do computer animations — part of the program to develop twentyfirst-century literacy.

4. It’s INSTANT: for the first time in history, the ability to learn anything ‘just in time’, when you need it, as you need it, at your request, and in your own unique way. 5. It’s MAINLY FREE: or nearly so — one low-cost click-at-a-time. The World Wide Web, browsers, search engines and digital platforms make it easy to access much information free, and to download other information for a few cents. Even free international phone calls. 6. It’s EASILY SHARED: the new world of collaborative networks to share your abilities with anyone, anywhere. To store — free online in community websites — your family photographs, videos, music and even your digital multimedia portfolios to demonstrate what you know and what you can do.

Amazingly, most of the world’s school classrooms still look like they did 300 years ago

7. It’s CO-CREATIVE: if we can dream it, we can now do it — together with millions around the world. We have the potential to merge our own talents into multi-talented global teams.

Gordon Dryden

So what is required to lift our schools to the next level... Students at Gulf Harbour Primary School learn, on adventure camps, to use the world as their classroom. They videotape their experiences before editing them in one of the school’s digital classrooms.

...and truly lead in every sphere of the new revolution? I personally would list these main ones:

• For those inside ‘education’ to study the These seven keys have already completely unlocked new doors to transform industries, countries, communities, commerce, communications and companies. They have the power to reinvent every aspect of lifelong learning, teaching and schooling. Yet visit the overwhelming majority of the world’s schools today and you will still find virtually the same layout your greatgrandfather would have found 150 years ago: children sitting at desks in rows, facing a teacher at a chalkboard — with only the colour changed, from blackboard to green. Even in progressive Si n g a p o r e , a f t e r spending $2 billion on introducing digital technology networks to school, walk into a typical school, and the same sight astounds: an average of 40 children sitting at desks in rows, chalkboard teacher up front, while ten new computers lay idle at the back of each room. Yet visit one of New Zealand’s leadingedge primary schools — such as Sherwood on Auckland’s North Shore, Gulf Harbour north of Auckland, or Tahatai Coast in Bay of Plenty — and you’ll find children from Year One using the world as their classroom, learning to shoot and edit video, contributing to their schools’ online TV stations and learning the basics of computer animation and multimedia literacy.

• New

Zealand’s ICT (Information and Communications Technology) clusterschools program is a model for the world. Already more than 60% of our 2,600

schools have been through the program in which one lead-school helps train up to eight others. But, more importantly compared with most other countries, our best schools have used ICT as the catalyst to rethink the future of schooling itself — and that is truly revolutionary.

• Our new curriculum guidelines provide another model. • O u r

decentralized administration system — where every school is a self-acting charter school inside those national guidelines — has helped other innovations flower. Every great idea that I personally have seen in operation elsewhere is already operating, at least in some schools, in New Zealand. And New Zealand is near the top of the world with homes connected to the Internet — although not leaders in broadband.

Only in the area of national debate are we hopelessly lagging — although nowhere near as poorly as the United States, where everyone seems mesmerised by standardised, multiple-guess questions — in a land that owes its wealth to nonstandardised innovation. Here, the public debate is preoccupied with senior high school academic qualifications and written annual examinations — when the technology exists for every student to compile one’s own digital portfolio of personal passions, talents, skills and achievements: to show precisely what each can do.

incredible opportunities that enable us all to share the world’s best breakthroughs: to learn the lessons from YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Cyworld (Korea), DoCoMo (Japan), Google, Skype, iPod, iTunes and Flickr.

• To study what students are already doing

in the four-fifths of the waking hours they spend outside school — in the Sim City, PlayStation, Nintendo world of interactive technology—and involve students themselves in choosing their own personalised learning programs.

• And perhaps, above all, lift the national education debate so that (particularly in election year) all New Zealanders can find out what we are already achieving—and what else we can do.

“Our best schools h a v e u s e d ICT as the catalyst to rethink the future of schooling itself.”

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What one thing would you like to know about the future?

What is your proudest accomplishment?

If you were leaving this country, which country would you want to move to?

What event in the past or the future would you like to witness in person?

Do you believe animals have emotions?

What new person would you like to have as a friend?

When you are having a bad day, what do you do to feel better?

What would be on the menu for your ultimate birthday dinner?

In what ways are you generous?

Which animal would you love to be for a day?

If you lived during the Gold Rush would you have made the journey to strike it rich?

Would you rather have a good but strict teacher, or a less talented but fun one?

Would you rather be a great musician, athlete, scientist, artist, politician or writer?

If you could have any view from your bedroom window what would it be?

What one special talent would you like to have?

Dr Art Costa, James Anderson and Bena Kallick

A Journey of Continuous Growth With Habits of Mind Developing our Habits of Five Dimensions of Mind is a lifelong journey: Growth • a journey in which we continually explore

and deepen our understanding of the habits;

• a journey of continuously becoming more

attuned to situations in which the habits would benefit our own behavior as well as the behavior of others;

•

a journey of a growing capacity to be more skillful and strategic as we use the habits;

•

a journey of developing our ability to critically self-reflect as we focus on our own behavior and the behavior of others.

As we observe students in our schools and classrooms, we quickly recognise that some are more adept, more skillful, and more effective at applying one of the habits than are others. As we observe students over time, it is our desire that they move through schooling and into adulthood getting better at employing the habits.

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A description of exactly how this journey takes place may be quite elusive. Until now we may have lacked a clear guide to and description of the development and improvement in the Habits of Mind.

Following are descriptions of five dimensions within which learners can grow in relation to their Habits of Mind. An understanding of these dimensions allows us to plan curriculum designed to develop the Habits. They also guide our efforts in assessment and suggest effective pedagogies in which teachers might engage learners to facilitate their growth of the Habits of Mind.

1. Exploring Meanings This dimension deals with a students’ ability to articulate the meanings of the Habits of Mind. As students explore meaning they develop a greater capacity to articulate more sophisticated definitions and acquire more concepts associated with the Habits. They develop a basic literacy around the language of Habits of Mind. They are able to draw upon a greater range of examples and build more complex analogies and they begin to connect them to their own experiences and recognise them in others. They become able to reflect on times when they have (or should have) used a particular habit. For example, in the early primar y years a student may define Persistence as “Sticking to it, and not giving up”. They may cite the examples of such books as The Little Engine that Could. They might reflect on times on when they play games or do their homework when they persisted.

might cite more contemporary examples from the media, raising questions about their observations of persistence in others and becoming even more fluent in using synonyms and analogies for persistence. 2. Expanding Capacities As students learn and practice the Habits of Mind, they should become more skillful. They develop a large repertoire of strategies they can call upon. As the skills and tools are repeated, students also grow more adept at selecting the most appropriate strategy at the appropriate time. They refine their ability to apply each of these skills and strategies in complex and sophisticated ways.

“As learners connect success to the effective application of the Habits of Mind, they begin to make predictions about when and why it might be appropriate to use a particular habit.”

H o w e v e r, a s t h e y are exposed to more experiences, and develop a deeper understanding of Persistence, we would want to see and hear them deepening their meaning. They might define Persistence in terms of keeping goals in mind, identifying blocks towards achieving these goals and finding effective ways around them. They

Learners begin to develop internal, meta-cognitive strategies and ‘selftalk’ for employing the Habits when confronted with problems, decisions and ambiguous situations. Further, as students expand their capacities in regard to the Habits of Mind, they are able to call upon different habits in sequence and employ them more effectively and strategically.

Persistence, for example, is not just a word. Rather, it is found to be a composite of numerous skills and strategies. The learner employs techniques that help them stay with a task in the face of uncertainty. When it is difficult to complete a task, learners develop new ways of encouraging themselves to stick with it.

Dr Art Costa, James Anderson and Bena Kallick

Internalisation

3. Increasing Alertness In order to engage in any of the Habits of Mind, students must first be sensitive to cues from the environment. They must recognise that a problematic situation exists and that the opportunity for engaging one or more of the Habits of Mind has presented itself. Students must build some guiding principles or criteria upon which they become increasingly alert to opportunities to engage in the sixteen Habits. Students will initially find it easy to engage in the Habits in very familiar, often simple contexts. However, over time we want them to be able to be alert to opportunities in new, novel and complex situations. Furthermore, students will often rely on external prompts from teachers or others to indicate when to engage in the Habits. As they develop their alertness, they will become more self-directed and apply the appropriate Habits of Mind spontaneously. As the person’s competence for persisting increases, for example, there is a realisation that persistence is not appropriate in every situation. Although it is important to persist to accomplish a task, it is not appropriate to persist with an argument in the face of contradictory and important evidence that does not support the argument. 4. Extending Values As learners connect success to the effective application of the Habits of Mind, they begin to make predictions about when and why it might be appropriate to use a particular habit. In doing so they also deepen their valuing of the Habits because they can understand why using a habit

would be important in these situations. They can reflect back upon the use of the habit and see that when the habit is appropriately used, it has led to greater success. Continuous experiences in which the habits show real benefits for successful interactions with work and others creates a better sense of self-confidence. As a result, the individual not only values the habits but also make a commitment to using them. As learners extend the value they place on the Habits of Mind, they express a belief that the Habit is important not just in particular situations, but also more universally as a pattern of behavior in their life and they express a desire for the Habits of Mind to be adopted in the lives of others and in the community at large. 5. Building Commitment Building a commitment to continuous improvement in the use of Habits of Mind occurs when learners increasingly become self-directed. Self-improvement in this dimension is recognised as learners become self-managing by setting goals for themselves, self-monitoring as they ‘observe themselves’ in action, and more self-reflective as they evaluate themselves, modify their behaviors and set new and increasingly higher standards for their own performance.

While the Habits of Mind are never fully mastered, as continuous learners, they are continually practiced, modified, and refined. If they are truly ‘habituated’ they are performed automatically, spontaneously and without prompting. They become an ‘internal compass’ to guide one’s actions, decisions and thoughts. When confronted with complex decisions, ambiguous tasks, challenging problems, or perplexing dilemmas, learners ask themselves (for example):

• “What is the most flexible thing I can do right now?”

• “What strategies do I have at my disposal that could benefit me now?”

• “What questions do I need to ask myself and others?”

• “Who else do I need to think about?” • “How can I refine the problem to make it clearer?”

• “What intrigues me about this problem?” This type of internalisation happens as individuals develop along each of the five dimensions outlined above and commit themselves to continuous growth in these dimensions. The point we strive towards when developing, improving, extending, and becoming more effective in the use of the Habits of Mind, is to become truly internalised and committed to continual growth in each of these dimensions.

Self-evaluation moves from being the quantitative recognition of the use of the Habits of Mind in them to being increasingly more descriptive and qualitative. Movement through this dimension indicates significant improvement, but for many students the improvement stops after a period of time.

Barry Musson

Improving Thinking is the Key to Learning Successful Habits and Behaviours

nfusing the Habits of Mind is a developmental journey - not a destination. Perhaps you never arrive, because it’s about constant improvement. No matter the thinking initiative you adopt you must anchor your beliefs and thinking about… thinking! You need cornerstones, bottom lines, and a few profound fundamental truth s a n d b e l i e f s t h a t underpin your plan going forward. These also underpin your practise as a teacher. This is critical if you want to sustain, nourish and benefit children’s learning. I teach in the Intermediate Department at Lindisfarne College, where we have been opportunistic and spontaneous with the infusion of the Habits into the classroom culture of teaching, thinking and learning. We have infused Habits of Mind naturally into the way we teach and the way students think and learn. We still have a long way to go with the structural, or curriculum, embedding of the sixteen Habits.

Teachers Matter

Be prepared to spend time (and money) getting to grips with your knowledge and understanding about ‘thinking’ and its crucial link to teaching and learning. If you want to spontaneously, authentically and opportunistically grab the moments to improve learning using the Habits of Mind, you must be a passionate, enthusiastic, knowledgeable and inspiring believer in what you are doing, where you are going and what you want to achieve.

Teachers who inspire students, and who are themselves inspired, will make the difference between mediocre and exceptional achievement by students. Habits of Mind have an enormous potential to inspire and empower students and teachers.

Although it makes no references to the Habits, I thoroughly recommend the book Inspiring Teachers, produced by Secondary Futures. It is inspiring and has the ideas at the heart of Habits of Mind woven throughout. It is stimulating reading for anyone interested in ‘thinking’ in a New Zealand context.

You must also be very clear about what Habits of Mind are. You must understand the potential benefits they have to deliver, especially if you want to spontaneously, authentically and opportunistically infuse them into the way you teach and in the way your students think and learn in your classroom.

At Lindisfarne College, we have five key beliefs that underpin our thinking, our planning and our practise as teachers. We want to infuse thinking strategies into teaching and learning, specifically using Habits of Mind and Thinking Maps. These five interlinked beliefs have taken time to evolve and articulate but we believe that a solid foundation is a must.

Habits of Mind are the sixteen behaviours of highly successful people. They are the positive behaviours you want your students to learn, use, apply and habitualise. They are the sixteen behaviours highly successful people knowingly (or unknowingly) make a habit of to be successful. You want your students to be successful and to constantly improve, so you need to teach them the habits and behaviours that will enable them to achieve this.

1. If we want to improve what people do we have to improve what and how they think. Improving thinking is the key to improving behaviour. Quality thinking precedes quality actions. 2. We need to teach students how to produce knowledge. We want flexible, independent and interdependent thinkers and learners. 3. What is important now isn’t so much what we know, but that we know how to learn new stuff and can think for ourselves. We are not devaluing knowledge because you have to have something to think about but it’s what we do with knowledge that is empowering. 4. The curriculum is a meaningful context in which to teach ‘thinking’. We are good in schools at teaching students what to think but the new challenge is to teach them how to think. 5. Thinking is like any other skill, it can be taught and it can be learnt.

There is a caution here. Don’t confuse Habits of Mind with Values. Values only have

“ Yo u m u s t b e a passionate, enthusiastic, knowledgeable and inspiring believer in what you are doing.”

Barry Musson

value, power and impact when manifested in actions and behaviours - otherwise they are merely rhetoric, empty words or abstract nouns. We think values influence thinking but thinking determines actions. Improving thinking is the key to improving behaviour. As teachers we need to consistently and persistently work together to model, acknowledge, celebrate and explain these sixteen behaviours. We need to teach students how to think in such a way that they can learn to habitualise the behaviours of highly successful people.

Imagine how empowering it would be for student’s actions and behaviour if teachers had a common complimentary language and approach to teaching this kind of thinking; a whole-school approach! Remember though that different people may use different language to describe the same behaviour. What one person may call ‘managing impulsivity’ another may call ‘think before you act’ or even ‘consider all the consequences before acting’. If it’s clearly the same behaviour, be careful not to get too precious or pedantic.

If a school implements a coherent, unified and systematic approach to teaching thinking, it will be doing students an enormous service. They will be equipped with the thinking strategies and behaviours to help them become effective life long successful learners.

“Teachers who inspire students will make the difference between mediocre and exceptional achievement.”

Eric Frangenheim

The RAS Alert and its Role in the Classroom

ublic speakers know they have twoto-three minutes to engage their audience. People navigating through a website will go elsewhere after 30 seconds if they cannot find what they are looking for. Are there any lessons here for what happens in a classroom? It can be claimed that if students are unsure where the lesson is heading within a few minutes, they become confused and switch off. This is where the Reticular Activating System (RAS) - a part of our reptilian brain, our ‘fight or flight’ mechanism - could be of value to teachers.

What is the RAS and the RAS Alert? Its major purpose is to keep us safe, to recognise danger and to make us successful. It is usually context-based and filters out unnecessary stimuli to allow us to focus on the job at hand. For example, when driving a vehicle, the

RAS filters out scenery as soon as a potential threat emerges, and it alerts us to those potential dangers such as a person on a bicycle or an erratically driven vehicle (and also those suspiciously parked white vehicles with cameras). The reason this occurs is that our past experience has taught us to be alert to these potential dangers. When on a shopping mission, once we have decided on a particular item - such as clothing, food or technology - our RAS Alert filters out unnecessary stimuli to allow us to identify these objects as we enter the relevant store. We will also notice this item elsewhere in the public domain. Students who have one or more tormentor at school have an acute RAS Alert and will easily spot these people, even in a large crowd. The RAS Alert filters out other stimuli in order to help them identify potential danger and keep them safe. As teachers, we can use the same principle of the RAS Alert at the start of the lesson to give more purpose to what is to follow.

One idea is to draw a bow and arrow pointing at a bullseye on the top lefthand side of the whiteboard. Next to the bullseye, identify the major topic or purpose of the lesson to follow. Then list three to seven bullet-points, identifying the major subsets of the lesson. These bulletpoints could include content headings but might be behavioural and organisational points such as active listening, being careful with technology and collecting and returning resources. For example, in a lesson about Romeo and Juliet, we used this RAS Alert:

Year 10 English Lesson Romeo and Juliet- A Question of Power

• Understanding interaction of characters • Understanding

relative strength of the

two gangs

• Noticing links to life today in school, sport and commerce

• Discussion – analytical thinking • Working

in pairs – active listening and providing feedback

Teachers Matter

• Writing a concluding paragraph

“This RAS Alert can prepare students for clarity of purpose and lead to greater engagement.”

Eric Frangenheim

Why is the RAS Alert valuable in the classroom?

Here is another RAS Alert example:

Year 3/4 Science/ Literacy Lesson The Sun

• The

importance of the sun - how it touches us

• Research and discovery • Sun Smart • Small group work • Important words • Presentation of a story • Self-confidence • Recall/comprehension/decision-making • The sun and the seasons

ENHE ERIC FRANG

Reflections on classroom thinking strategies 8th Edition : Year

This is not the lesson plan but rather the lesson purpose. It assists in avoiding confusion for students and is more likely to ensure greater understanding with reflection. Both detailed and global learners (commonly referred to as left and right brain learners) will appreciate being offered a map of the lesson. In The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey describes the importance of being proactive and ‘sharpening the saw’. By this he means it is better to spend a few minutes preparing for the task - such as in sharpening the saw or axe - before embarking on the job of cutting the wood, since any time lost in the initial preparation is soon recovered by the use of a more efficient tool. In this case, the RAS-Alert is an ideal tool for use in the classroom.

Identify your major content areas to be covered. Then ask yourself, what are the major outcomes, essential learning or key competencies you wish to achieve? Note these and decide how they link to the content areas. Finally, include any particular management advice you wish to ensure occurs during the lesson.

Observation and Reflection The RAS Alert at the start of a lesson is more than an agenda. It is a list of what you as a professional educator wish to see occurring in your classroom. Sharing these ideas by RAS Alerting your students will more likely lead to shared ownership and purpose of the lesson. You can also test the usefulness of the RAS Alert by asking students what they think of it. Enjoy your lessons!

Teachers...reflect on Eric Frangenheim’s Excellent Teacher Resource Reflections on Classroom Thinking Strategies Practical strategies encourage thinking in your classroom

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Spending one or two minutes on this RAS Alert at the start of the lesson can prepare students for clarity of purpose and lead to greater engagement. Leaving the RAS Alert on the board is also useful if the teacher regularly refers to it during certain stages of the lesson.

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Trudy Francis

Robust Inquiry Begins with Big Ideas “The illiterate of the 21st Century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” Alvin Toffler

any schools are integrating the curriculum in an effort to engage their students with authentic opportunities to make sense of the world they live in and to internalise skills and dispositions that develop the characteristics of a life-long learner. Inquiry models are varied; however according to Kenneth Saltman the best ones have coherent design where big ideas relate to democratic concerns of equality, freedom, justice and power sharing, as well as to help students to consider how individuals or communities can act with the new knowledge to transform the situation.

Teachers Matter

Therefore big ideas that motivate students are embedded within social problems that affect them and their community. Making

Fig. 1

explicit links to the student’s experiences and big ideas that are relevant and significant results in deep understandings about self and others, society and the future of the planet. Big ideas like these are very different from thematic planning whereby we would integrate disparate curriculum areas whilst focussing on something like ‘flight’, for example. Kath Murdoch suggests we ask “What’s worth teaching?” George Boas said, “Education is learning what you didn’t know you didn’t know.” The teacher role is to take students beyond their experiences and find out about their interests, passions, questions and experiences. The role of the Backward Design model is to develop in students complex performance where they

create new knowledge and participate in new ways.

The Model for Backward Design Created with teachers at College Street Normal School, Palmerston North (Fig.1) A backward design approach to planning an inquiry unit begins with the end in mind. What would we like to see and hear by the end of the unit? Once a big idea has been selected it can be narrowed down to a context (student voice has a valid place in these two phases). Considering the Key Competencies at this stage will help teachers develop a complex

Trudy Francis

“ Rich experiences lead to rich reflection that enables students to articulate their thoughts and feelings with greater clarity.” view of them, which in turn, enables them to engage students in the development of the Key Competencies in conjunction with a deep understanding. For those schools who value the Habits of Mind, further links can be made. The Habits of Mind can facilitate exploration of aspects of the Key Competencies in more explicit ways. Creating an outcome statement in the form of a deep understanding defines the performance which further clarifies the desired outcomes. Terry Crooks believes assessment to be one of the most potent forces affecting student’s learning. It affects motivation to learn, self-regulation and perceptions about competence. Assessment consolidates learning and infers value that the content is worth lear ning. Assessing deep understandings, competencies and dispositions challenges us to critically analyse our beliefs about assessment, the purpose(s) for assessment and how assessment can be used to empower students. This model emphasises a paradigm shift from summative, and often subjective, assessment of performance that is usually completed by the teacher on behalf of the student. The information gained may be used to improve teaching and learning as well as gauge the success of the unit, the curriculum delivery program and school in general. Today’s classrooms are busy and dynamic places where the teacher is consistently challenged to manage often competing pressures on a daily basis. In this context assessment can be viewed as ‘another thing to get done’.

The Matrix - a smart tool for planning This model places assessment at the very heart of the planning process. Breaking down each part of the deep understanding into continuums (that describe complex performance from Novice, Apprentice, and Practitioner through to Expert) elaborates on the deep understanding and clarifies our learning goals. These continuums become part of a matrix. The matrix describes knowledge outcomes, competency development and how students take critical action as they apply their learning to existing and new contexts. It is important to note two things in relation to the matrix continuums. Firstly, novice is not a deficit performance; instead it describes an awareness stage and/ or the first step(s) in skill development.

uncover their prior knowledge, perceptions and misconceptions. Figure 2 demonstrates the first stage of inquir y planning created in Newbur y Primary School, Palmerston North in 2008. This example illustrates the cogent links made between the significant questions, the matrix indicator, the purpose and ideas for lesson design for teachers to select from. The experiences we engage the students with are critical. A holistic approach is more than just a cognitive approach. Instead, it draws on diverse funds of knowledge, attitudes and values as the students make sense of the experiences they are having.

The Matrix - a smart tool for student goal setting These experiences create space for the second purpose of the matrix. Rich experiences lead to rich reflection that enables students to

Secondly, limiting the use of semantics to differentiate performance and replacing this language with the facets of understanding as described by Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins manifests understanding. Making links between the outcomes described in the matrix and the New Zealand curriculum validates and refines what you are doing. Where to from here? We have described the performance outcomes, but how do we transfer this to the classroom? As we reflect on the outcomes we can ask significant questions which will enable us to unpack the desired outcomes with students. Placing them and specific matrix indicators into Kath Murdoch’s stages of inquiry create a learning journey. For example: at the tuning in stage the desired outcome may be to hook students at an emotional level, perhaps to polarise them in an effort to

Trudy Francis

Fig. 2 articulate their thoughts and feelings with greater clarity. Their reflections can be used to create continuums of performance in their own words. The teacher co-constructs these descriptions with students in conjunction with the experiences they have been engaged with. This co-constructive process evolves over a series of lessons. When the student matrix is complete they assess themselves, gather evidence to support their judgements and then set a goal.

Teachers Matter

Teachers at College Street Normal School in Palmerston North are experimenting with the matrix tool I created. They are finding the matrix is the fulcrum of their planning, but more importantly they have a tool that empowers students as they employ formal thought such as Metacognition to regulate their learning. The students are ‘insiders’, having created the learning goals instead of having external measures of performance placed on them by others.

As described by Wiggins and McTighe, this enables the student to revisit and rethink important ideas to deepen their understanding in an authentic context, and uses multiple forms of assessment as students demonstrate their understanding in various ways. The matrix is a smart tool for planning and assessment because it makes a difference:

our planning is better, our processes are better, it is manageable and the data we get is reliable. It is valid because the learner is involved in formative evaluation throughout the inquiry. They actively seek evidence and judge their own performance. It positions the learner in a place of empowerment, encouraging them to move beyond the risk of misinterpretation. According to Hipkins, Boyd and Joyce, this position is critical when assessing attitudes, values, competencies and deep understandings.

The Matrix - a smart tool for differentiation “I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.” Pablo Picasso Collating data on more traditional tracking sheets has been difficult. This difficulty was the catalyst for Corinne Walsh (Assistant Principal, College Street Normal School) and myself to design a tool that would enable us to identify where each student was on the continuum after they had completed their first self-assessment. This tool looks a lot like the matrix – it has the deep understanding recorded on it, three layers representing each section of the desired outcomes from the original matrix, spaces

for student names, a key that shows shifts and space for notes and final evaluation. Corinne and interested teachers are trialling the use of this data collection sheet. For the first time they have a tool that helps them differentiate instruction in accordance to students’ own goals. This makes it possible for the teacher to plan specific experiences for groups of students that enables them to achieve their goals. It shows the shifts each student makes when they achieve their goal. It demonstrates that students are multi-faceted learners with learning strengths and learning needs. Our more able students often feature quite high in relation to knowledge outcomes, but many feature quite low in the Key Competencies. The teacher is able to facilitate growth in the competencies when the student can see they have needed to develop something of importance. Some of the complex challenges we face when we integrate the curriculum can be simplified when we use smart tools to plan, teach and assess. As teachers make sense of the new curriculum opportunities to be creative, energetic and enterprising will come about. New learning partnerships will evolve as the position of the learner changes.

Rich Alle n Resour ces

as seen at Teach ers

Matter C onferenc e

2008

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Matt Allen

Positive Reinforcement 101 “You may tell your child “good job” after he or she cleans their room; perhaps you tell your partner how good he or she looks when they dress up; or maybe you got a raise at work after doing a great job on a project. All of these things increase the probability that the same response will be repeated.” B.F.Skinner

ositive reinforcement is a powerful teaching strategy to use within your ‘teaching toolbox’. I have come across very few students who don’t respond encouragingly to positive reinforcement, whether it is certificates, public recognition, stickers, popcorn, chocolates or other goodies. I think we all - young or old - like to be recognised for the positive attributes we possess and also strive to obtain.

up their money and use it to buy rewards like popcorn, chocolate bars, rulers, pens, etc. We also conduct an auction at the end of the term, which is extremely popular.

If you want to change the actions of the students within your class I believe you must first change their thinking. I like to modify the thinking, learning and actions of my students by incorporating instant, fun, successful positive reinforcement. I have developed and modified many approaches that I believe are worth placing inside your teaching toolbox.

This is an adaption of the ‘Caught Being Good’ idea, where students and teachers can catch students behaving in intelligent ways, write their name on a card and drop the card into a box at the front of the classroom.

Adapt these ideas to suit the level and gender of the students you teach: 1. Funny Money

Teachers Matter

Create a class set of funny money that is unique to your class or school. Add photos which are relevant. Students enjoy creating the money so you could run a class competition to create it.

Use the money as an instant reward for positive behaviour. I reward all behaviour inside and outside the classroom including bookwork, manners, helpful behaviour, sporting/cultural achievements, etc. You will be amazed how disciplined and respectful a class will become if you wave a handful of funny money in front of them. Carry money around with you so that you can instantly find positive situations to highlight. Give each student an envelope that they can name and use as a secure place to keep their money within their desks. The students save

Use this reward system during one or two terms of the year only so that it doesn’t lose its appeal.

2. Caught Behaving Intelligently

We photocopy the 16 Habits of Mind on the back of the card so students can identify the Habits that their peers are demonstrating and importantly - explain the intelligent behaviour. These are then drawn out at special assemblies, syndicate meetings and the like for prizes, certificates or some other rewards. A letter could also be sent home to parents explaining the positive behaviour of their child.

3. Habits of Mind Cards We have made up cards which have the 16 Habits of Mind written on them. Each card explains the Habit and gives examples of how it might be seen in others. When a student demonstrates an action that can be directly related to a Habit of Mind - such as persisting on a task - the class is stopped and the Habit of ‘Persistence’ is reinforced. A card is given to recognise the behaviour. Students aim to collect all 16 cards during the year. They can trade the individual cards for minor rewards or try to collect all 16 for a major prize, eg. CD/sports vouchers. We have found that students love collecting cards (similar to the All Black cards found in Weetbix and packets of chips).

4. Super 14 Squad My colleague, Ben Spriggens, came up with this strategy to highlight positive social and self-management attributes within the boys we teach. Each student is assessed by the teacher on a 1-to-5 scale for their classroom management, productivity, timemanagement and so on. Once they have all been assessed they can be ranked from 1 through to however many students you have in your class, syndicate, school, etc. The top 14 students make the ‘Super 14 Squad’ for that year. We announce the squad (team) around the same time as the Super 14 rugby finals to add a bit more excitement. The selected students receive a certificate at a full school assembly and also a sports voucher from Rebel Sports. By focussing solely on self-management you take away the pressure of academic achievement, so all students are on the same playing field. We have found this highly motivating, especially teaching in a single-sex boys’ school. The same idea could be adapted for a netball, hockey or cricket squad. We also require all squad members to create a player profile on themselves to be displayed prominently at school. Enjoy creating innovative and imaginative ways in which to positively reinforce the behaviour you want continued within your classes. I believe all people, irrespective of their age, enjoy being rewarded for their efforts. Have fun and share your successes with others!

Matt Allen

â&#x20AC;&#x153;By focussing solely on self-management you take away the pressure of academic achievement, so all students are on the same playing field.â&#x20AC;?

Dr. Marvin Marshall

Elicit, Rather Than Impose

roblems with students often arise from imposing, rather than eliciting.

When teachers impose ‘logical’ and/ or ‘natural’ consequences on students, they are using their authority to impose a form of punishment. It matters not if the adult’s intention is to teach a lesson. Imposed punishments increase the likelihood that the student will feel punished by the adult. Anything that is done to another person prompts negative feelings of reluctance, resistance, resentment, and sometimes even rebellion and retaliation.

Teachers Matter

In addition, when authority is used to impose, it deprives the student of an opportunity to become more responsible.

Working with the student, rather than doing things to the student, is so much more effective. This approach avoids the problems typically associated with imposing something because: a) students will not feel like victims when they design their own consequence b) they are guided to focus on learning from the experience.

By eliciting, rather than by imposing a consequence, the young person owns it. People do not argue with their own decisions. By imposing a logical or natural consequence, the responsibility for thinking about the nature of the consequence falls to the adult, rather than upon the student. The student (as opposed to the teacher) should be the one to create a procedure or consequence that will help the student prevent creating another such occurrence. Here is an example to show the difference between something imposed and something elicited: A young student has scribbled on a wall or an older student has vandalised a wall with graffiti. In a school where consequences are imposed, the adult would think about the situation and arrive at a consequence that seems fair and meaningfully related to the misbehavior. In this situation, the adult would decide that, as an appropriate consequence, the student should be required to clean up the mess on the wall. The adult would impose the consequence, thereby making it feel like punishment.

“ The student not only takes ownership and responsibility but also is more likely to make more responsible choices in the future.” In a school using a collaborative approach working with the student, the situation would be handled differently. The teacher would expect the student to do the thinking, thus allowing the student an opportunity to take responsibility. Instead of imposing a consequence on the student, the teacher would elicit an appropriate consequence from the student. The student would be asked, “What do you think should happen now that you’ve marked the wall, making the school less attractive to everyone else?” Because the student would be asked to think, you can imagine the student might say something like, “I should clean the wall.” The teacher would agree that this would be a suitable consequence. Interestingly, in either case, the consequence is exactly the same; the person who committed the act cleans the wall. You may ask, “What’s the big deal? If in both scenarios the situation ends with the young person cleaning up the mess made on the wall, why does it matter who thought of the idea?”

dr. Marvin Marshall

This one difference is critical. Learning, growth, and long-term change come as a result of reflecting about one’s actions and about the outcomes that may result from them. By being prompted to think about and determine the consequence, the student not only takes ownership and responsibility but also is more likely to make more responsible choices in the future. Also, being consistent is a very important consideration when dealing with consequences. As a former elementary, middle, and high school principal I was concerned that when I disciplined students I should be firm, fair, and consistent. I soon came to realise that being

firm and fair required a different than usual approach to be consistent. I found that imposing the same consequence on all students was the least fair approach. A more fair way was to elicit a consequence that would help each student become more responsible. In a classroom, simply ask students if they would prefer the exact same consequence (punishment) be applied to everyone or whether they would rather be treated as individuals? Students will quickly indicate that they would rather be treated as individuals. Young people implicitly know that meting out the same consequence to

everyone seems at first to be consistent, but they soon realise that treating everyone as if they were exactly alike is not fair. In other words — and especially considering our educational objectives for young people — consistency of procedure is the fairest approach to be consistent. In summary, the most effective way to promote responsibility — be it regarding inappropriate behavior, reducing apathy toward lear ning, or even with home assignments — is to elicit a consequence or elicit a procedure to help the student, rather than impose a consequence (punishment).

Re-Light Your Flame! With this 4-DVD set of keynote presentations from Teachers Matter 2008 s Four hours of inspiration, entertainment and knowledge sure to ‘Light Your Flame’ and transform your teaching s A must-have resource for your library s Perfect for professional development Five thoughts for a More Thought-full Curriculum - Dr Art Costa Five themes are presented as ‘lenses’ with which to view a thought-filled curriculum. Dare to be Exceptional: Lighting the Flame and Keeping it Burning - Maggie Dent Learn the keys to being an exceptional teacher and how to keep our passion alive and strong as we do the second most important job on earth! Busting the Fear Factor - Karen Boyes Students are being average in our classrooms because that’s what we expect! Learn how to overcome fear and increase performance both in and out of the classroom. Igniting a Passion for Learning - Dr Rich Allen The students walking into classrooms today are radically different than those we taught 20, 15, even 10 years ago. Experience brain-based teaching techniques you can use to seize - and hold! - their attention.

Suitable for every teacher, this valuable material is available now for just

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Drama Challenges

Teachers Matter

In this challenge you will have to be able to become almost a different person by acting a different way. Match a situation from the list on the left to an emotion from the list on the right. With a partner, work on what you will say and how you will act with each other to be successful in the challenge. The Habits of Mind you will use are thinking interdependently, creating and innovating and applying past knowledge to new situations. Don’t be shy. Get stuck in and be very confident.

Have a cup of coffee with someone ...

… in a joyful way

Measure someone for a new coat ...

… in a suspicious way

Show someone a treasure ...

… in a depressed way

Ask for the time ...

… in a thoughtful way

Demand an apology ...

… in an angry way

Buy an icecream ...

… in a silly, immature way

Tell off a small child ...

… in a hurt, pained way

Have an arm wrestle ...

… in a very formal, polite way

Compare weekend stories ...

… in a very abusive, rude way

Eat some imaginary spaghetti ...

… in a grovelling, sucking up way

Check someone for headlice ...

… in an in-charge, orders others around way

Have a slow motion boxing match ...

… in an over the top, enthusiastic way

Give someone a haircut ...

… in a giggly, silly way

Haggle over the price of a shirt ...

… in a spooky, scary way

Play a song on guitars together ...

…in a nerdy way

Take a pet to a vet ...

… in a sarcastic, bullying way

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Quiz Questions

For answers turn to Page 53

1. What are the most northern and southern cities of New Zealand? ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 2. How many positions of the feet are there in classical ballet? ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 3. Who was New Zealandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first Prime Minister? ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 4. What is the deepest lake in New Zealand? ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 5. Where is the Bay of Islands? ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 6. What is the closest New Zealand city to the Chatham Islands? ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 7. Which fruit was originally known as the Chinese Gooseberry? ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 8. What is the name of the water between New Zealandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s North and South Island? ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 9. What is the fastest running two-legged creature? ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 10. Which is the first two-digit prime number? ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 11. Which organ in the body controls the sense of balance? ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 12. What is the cube root of eight? ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 13. From which animal do we get catgut? ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

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Adrian Rennie

Engaging Students Towards Success

ne feature of middle-school students is their fascination for collecting things that interest and engage them.

Over the years advertisers, marketers and retailers have taken advantage of this fact. They have harnessed this fascination in younger children in order to boost sales of specific products. Students have collected trading cards, figurines and toys to an almost fanatical degree. Students have competed with each other to see who can amass the most complete collection. Teachers have found their classrooms invaded by these products that often interrupt learning and distract students. The fact is that these collectables are interesting for students. They are engaging and motivating. At Northcote School in Christchurch we have turned this around and made collecting an object a positive and meaningful process. We designed our own trading card template and set students the task of creating their own personalised card that include images of themselves, some of their favourite things, their strong Habits of Mind and some advice for success. Each student has created their card. We have made them for all staff members and even our class mascots. Students printed

eight copies of their card and laminated them. They trade t h e m . We u s e them as rewards for successful learning. We ask students to select other successful students to award cards to. They are valued by our students. Our students feel valued when their card is valued by others.

The cards: • Promote and value the Habits of Mind • Reinforce our Northcote School Family development • Make students feel valued and important • Actively engage our students • Encourage positive interaction between students • Help to develop their ICT/computer skills

Habits Of Mind in action when creating cards: • Persistence (can’t stop until it’s done) • Thinking Interdependently (students worked in pairs to create cards) • Accuracy and Precision (you can’t print something that’s full of errors) • Manage Impulsivity (students made plans before starting) • Creating and Innovating (your card must be different from others)

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• Responding With Wonderment and Awe (students are keen to collect)

“ We designed our own trading card template and set students the task of creating their own personalised card.”

Adrian Rennie

an easy task! These cards fit the bill perfectly.

The over whelming message of many contemporary teacher development courses and conferences is the need for us to actively engage our students and to make their learning meaningful. Somehow we must increase the fun factor while also maintaining good pedagogical practise. Not

We put in place an agreement among all students that our trading cards are for rewards and for fun so they are to stay in desks during learning times. No one bothers to test this rule. They value their cards too much!

â&#x20AC;&#x153; Our students feel valued when their card is valued by others.â&#x20AC;? If you have access to a colour printer and a laminator this project is a great motivator and should draw your students closer together as a team.

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Lynley Russek

You’re Worth It! Self Esteem and Self Worth in the Classroom

elf worth is the backbone of being h u m a n . F e e l i n g w o r t h y, v a l u i n g ourselves, trusting ourselves, and having confidence in ourselves are the platforms for living. Children need this essence in order to learn, create, and connect with others. This essence and a focus on building self esteem needs to be of highest value in our whole school culture. Schools can choose to focus on behaviours and curriculum delivery practises that enable children to: • believe that they deserve happiness • appreciate their uniqueness, gifts, skills and talents in all aspects of life • identify their passion and goals, dreams and motivations.

• r e c o g n i s e a r e a s f o r i m p r o v e m e n t (including any weaknesses ) and be open to coaching and learning strategies to change and grow In Six Pillars of Self Esteem, Nathaniel Branden defines self esteem as “…confidence in our ability to think. Confidence in our ability to cope with the basic challenges of life and confidence in our right to be successful and happy.” As a teacher, we can have self esteem building as an underlying thread/platform going throughout the year in all learning. Specifically we can be awake to low self esteem indicators such as: • not being aware of his/her abilities

• be able to act responsibly towards others

• being very jealous, overly critical, and/or a perfectionist (very different from having high standards)

• feel safe and secure – and from this place take risks and challenge themselves as learners

• does not risk or set goals (prevents possible ‘failure’) or sets goals that are unrealistic (leading to possible ‘failure’)

• focus on strengths and competencies and get success

• has very high, unrealistic expectations of self and others

• feel that they are fundamentally ‘OK’ and valued

• is unable to say ‘no’ and stand up for themselves or set healthy boundaries • d o e s n o t e x p r e s s n e e d s o r w a n t s , sometimes verbally or non-verbally suggesting “I have no needs” or “What I want isn’t important”

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• blaming, scapegoating, or not taking responsibility

• finds ‘other things to do’ to avoid participation if it might lead to ‘getting it wrong/making mistakes’ (fear of mistakes is often huge, ie. if I get it wrong, I’m not OK, I am wrong!)

Also, be awake to high self esteem indicators and put in regular practises that encourage the following: • knows ones strengths (in all areas of life/ curriculum) and knows ones weaknesses • feels admiration for others and successful people • sets realistic goals (academic, personal and social) • establishes positive relationships • takes responsibility for own actions • expresses wants and needs effectively • can set boundaries and say ‘no’ assertively (not aggressively) • express themselves creatively • is optimistic and positive • develops transformational relationships • finds giving (compliments, helping, time, appreciating, sharing) easy. In her keynote presentation at the 2003 New Zealand Learning Convention Veronica de Andres said that “…we are building self esteem the day we stop making others responsible for our life and we find ourselves the largest source of well-being and achievement.” This means teachers and schools supporting and coaching children to ‘rewrite old scripts’ such as “you are not good enough” into “you are good enough” and “you are OK” (even if the presented behaviour is not OK). Children who wear masks to protect low self esteem and wounds from the past need to receive messages that they are loved, valued, unique, and fundamentally OK. They need lots of affirmations and experiences where they develop security, a sense of identity, belonging, purpose and competence. They also need to learn how to develop the skill of giving to others, which builds a sense of self worth, and also learn the art of receiving with grace and gratitude.

Lynley Russek

“Children who wear masks to protect low self esteem and wounds from the past need to receive messages that they are loved, valued, unique, and fundamentally OK.” 7 Easy Things Teachers Can Do In The Classroom To Build Self Esteem 1. Have lots of esteem and responsibility based posters/wallcharts around the room – get children to make and decorate their own: • I am responsible for my life and my actions • I am loveable and loved • I am unique, valuable and precious • WIIFU? What’s In It For Us? • I am OK right now • We s u p p o r t e a c h o t h e r i n t h i s classroom • I can do it • We can do it • How can I contribute or give something back to another/others in my class?

2. Practice and coach for ‘changing habits’. Choose positive self talk instead of negative, as well as self esteem building behaviours, eg. setting realistic goals and getting success (competency building). Doing things they love and are good at. As a teacher be kind in the areas of self care and kindness toward oneself – for the child – and be harder on the victim “poor me” sabotage patterns. This is a dance between supporting the child to grow their self supporting strategies, and not allowing them to continue re-patterning destructive patterns that ultimately may hurt others and themselves. 3. Lots of laughter, fun activities, and teambuilding games, which encourage cooperation. Celebration of different strengths and diversity. Henry Van Dyke said “The woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang the very best.” Build this into the class culture and ground rules. This will also encourage security and a sense of belonging. 4. Coach and teach assertiveness skills and effective communication skills. Model and practice these. Remind children that “all feelings are OK” and support healthy ways to express them.

5. Encourage strengths-based classrooms where children gain a sense of identity through their whakapapa (identity/place), past achievements, qualities and identifying their unique gifts. Use lots of practical activities, eg. coat of arms, family tree, fingerprints, etc. 6. Create a culture of ‘No mistakes, only learning experiences’ / ‘no failures, only feedback.’ Teach children at their level of readiness, with goals that are achievable and which they can get success in. Opportunities to persist and gain competency in a skill are fantastic esteem builders. 7. Provide lots of activities and processes that focus on children’s abilities to understand themselves and to relate to others, eg. lots of giving and receiving practises/activities, co-operative/collaborative approaches, healthy competition (acknowledge and celebrate other successes too), validating others, valuing all intelligences and gifts. As William Purkey put it “Students who feel good about themselves and their abilities are the ones most likely to succeed.”

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Jenny Mosley

Promoting Positive Behaviour Helps Children Develop Self-Control

n integral part of the Quality Circle Time® model is the incentives and sanctions system entitled ‘Golden Time’. This acts as both a celebration for children and a way of teaching delayed gratification.

encouragement and reliable and consistent systems in place, these children may learn to wait for their ‘reward’ for longer and longer periods.

We work hard – respect for work We look after property – respect for property –

What about middle-of-the-road children who persistently demonstrate thoughtful and responsible behaviour? They need to be the ones receiving the rewards and being celebrated!

We listen – respect for other people’s views – We are honest – respect for honesty • The golden activities on offer need to be discussed and decided with the class. During class circle time, brainstorm what activities the children value and become excited about, and create a list of achievable activities.

The theory behind the Golden Time system is that every child who keeps to a pre-agreed set of Golden Rules will automatically receive a reward or privilege time to thank them and to celebrate their ability to keep to a set of rules. The reward is a timetabled session of Golden Time where children can choose and indulge in their favourite educational activities.

Teachers Matter

The whole Golden Time system relies on children delaying their gratification until an agreed time of celebration. For early-years children, we only ask them initially to delay their gratification until the end of each day when they are offered a short amount of Golden Time (say, ten minutes).

With slightly older children, many are able to wait until the end of the week to receive their Golden Time reward of an hour or so of their favourite activities. Some children, including some with special educational needs, will find it difficult to wait this long to receive their reward and need a daily incentive system in a similar way to the younger children. In time, with

We are gentle – respect for physical safety – We are kind and helpful – respect for emotional safety –

In the past, many reward systems focused upon children whose behaviour was often poor but showed improvement, or upon re-rewarding children who were already academically successful.

The sanction comes in if children proceed with breaking a rule after receiving a visual warning to stop the offending behaviour.

• The negotiated and reinforced Golden Rules usually fall into the following general categories:

Practicalities of setting up Golden Time • G o l d e n Ti m e n e e d s t o b e p r o p e r l y established within a class before it works to best effect, which means consultation with parents and other class teachers. • It also needs to be firmly linked in children’s minds with the Golden Rules. These are a set of rules negotiated within the class and displayed prominently in the classroom and other areas of the school. Note they are not practical routines like “Please put away the scissors,” but are a set of moral values like “We respect other people’s property.”

• One of the key aspects of this reward system is that children can choose their activities. It is best to create a ‘signing up’ sheet where children put their names down each week for the activity of their choice. They then have something to look forward to and work towards which helps with practicing delaying their gratification until a later date. • Only the best, most desirable activities should be on offer to the children and activities should be varied and reviewed quite regularly, using other spaces in the school when appropriate. • Golden Time should be prioritised as an activity and timetabled, and also talked about with enthusiasm and anticipation. People from different classes or the local community can be invited to share the special occasion.

Jenny Mosley

Losing Golden Time

“ The whole Golden Time system relies on children delaying their gratification until an agreed time of celebration.”

When children break one of the Golden Rules they are given a warning. This can be a warning card that is quietly laid on the child’s table and left there until the end of the lesson or session. During the rest of the period if the child re-offends then their name is noted on a tally sheet and they lose five minutes of Golden Time. The warning card is taken back and the child starts again with a positive expectation of not breaking any rules. With younger children, a display can be made with all children’s names or pictures, and the offending child’s name can be moved to another ‘warning’ part of the display. Often with younger children we use a picture with three areas, a sun, a sun half covered with cloud, and a cloud. All children start off the day with their peg on the sunny symbol. When a child’s name has been moved to the warning symbol, if the child stops the offending behaviour, by the end of the lesson or the next appropriate break time, the warning is taken back and the child does not lose any Golden Time. If, however, the child continues with the behaviour or starts it again before the warning is removed, their name is moved to the ‘cloud’ area until the end of the lesson or session. They automatically lose a minute of Golden Time, which is quietly noted on a sheet.

Teachers can negotiate earning back some of their lost Golden Time using an Earning Back contract, and fulfilling a specific positive behaviour requirement. However, they can only ever win back half of the session of Golden Time otherwise it is seen as unfair by other children. If it is felt that children are quietly using this earning back system in order to gain negative attention, they need not be offered the earning back contract and their motivations may need some further thought. When children have lost Golden Time and the Golden Time celebration time arrives, it is most effective for them to sit in the very room where their chosen activity was to take place, with a sand timer timing the lost time. This is another way of practicing delayed gratification as they must wait until their lost Golden Time period is over before they can join in the fun. If children continually lose Golden Time, some thought needs to go into why this is. Sometimes the child may not be capable of behaving in such a way for so long and may need alternative incentives and behaviour management strategies.

Key questions to help keep Golden Time golden Golden Time works because it is special and desirable to children. This involves keeping it fresh and keeping it golden. Use this checklist to help: • Have I made Golden Time an important part of the week on the timetable so children know that it is given priority? • Do I continue to reinforce the connection between the Golden Rules and Golden Time?

Jenny Mosley

“ What about middle-of-the-road children who persistently demonstrate thoughtful and responsible behaviour?”

• Do I talk about G o l d e n Ti m e w i t h excitement, in language that maintains its celebratory status? • Have I replaced old or broken toys and equipment? • Have I provided an opportunity to discuss Golden Time during Circle Time and found out if the children’s interests have changed, so that some activities need to be replaced by something more exciting? • Have I let the children become bored with the activities?

Get ready to

• Can I think of new, inspiring ways of having a Golden Time: trying some wholeclass activities like parachute games, or inviting a special guest, including a special pet, or having a picnic? • Do I award all those children who have lost no Golden Time during a half-term a special Golden Certificate that they may keep? • Do I enable older and younger children to work together?

• Have we, as a school, considered starting Golden Time clubs (where children choose a club for half a term) when Golden Time has become well established? • Do I offer any children who are not enjoying their clubs the chance of an open games club?

Photographs taken from Better Behaviour Through Golden Time by Jenny Mosley and Helen Sonnet. Published by LDA www.ldalearning.com

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KAREN BOYES

Study Tips for Success Use music

Go over notes one day after learning them Actively reviewing your notes can at least double your recall. If within one day of learning new information you read over your mind-maps, grab your notes and go through them or talk about and discuss your notes, your recall will stay at as high as 90%. If you do not review your notes for three days, your recall will drop to 30%. You can forget up to 70% of what you have learned in three days without active reviewing. Most information is forgotten because it wasn’t moved from your short-term memory to long-term memory. Make it a priority to revise you notes the very next day to keep them at 90% recall. If you wish to keep your recall at up to 90% then review your notes within 24 hours, then one week, one month and every six months. A student I met several years ago went from not passing any tests or exams to earning top marks in all she did. Here is her study tip: Each night after school, summarise the notes from each subject onto an index or flip card - one subject per card. The small size card ensures you do not write too much, only the key points. You may draw pictures and diagrams instead of just words. This should take a maximum of 20 mins. The next morning (within 24 hours) revise these cards for 2-4 minutes in total. Keep these cards and file them, revising them a week later, month later and every six months.

A great way to review information is with a ‘review concert’, invented by Dr Georgi Lozanov. Simply record the information you wish to remember on a CD or iPod with soft Baroque music playing in the background. Replay this when you are relaxed and just listen. Using this technique Lozanov was able to teach people to speak a new language, fluently, in six weeks!

Highlight the important parts Use the colour red for difficult or important facts. This colour goes straight into your long-term memory. Of course if all your notes are in red they won’t stand out anymore! When practising spelling make the bits you need to learn stand out, such as:

Make up stories and mnemonics

sepArate repEtition rHythm

Your brain loves stories. Anything that is funny, different or has a novelty value will stand out in your mind. Any ‘one offs’ will be memorable. Often the sillier it is, the more memorable it will be. Mnemonics ( nem-on-ic) are a way of remembering something. How do you remember the colours of the rainbow? Many people remember the mnemonic ROYGBIV, which stands for Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet. If you’re doing chemistry you can remember the periodic table by remembering a mnemonic — How He Likes Beer By the Cup Full Not Over Frothy. Or for reading music — the notes in the spaces spell FACE and the notes on the lines stand for Every Good Boy Deserves Fruit.

Simple and very effective!

Tricia Kenyon and Barbara Griffith

Simple or Sophisticated? A Look at Picture Books Picture books often have more depth of learning and teaching than first meets the eye. Here is one of our favourites: Title: The Fox Author: Margaret Wild, Illustrator: Ron Brooks Publisher: Allen & Unwin, Australia ISBN: 1 86448 465 9

his is a beautiful and powerful book, set in the fire-ravaged Australian Outback. It has bold earthy colours and uses strong lyrical text. In the storyline, Dog rescues Magpie and the two animals forge a deep friendship, both of them helping to overcome the other’s disability. Sitting high on Dog’s back, Magpie becomes her friend’s missing eye, and as they speed through the countryside together, she forgets that she can no longer fly. At the end of the long day, they curl up to sleep, secure in their togetherness. Then Fox enters their lives. Enveloped in malice and overwhelmed with loneliness, he sets out to destroy their friendship.

Visual Language Colour Attention can be drawn to the use of colour; Dull for Dog and Magpie, brightening when Fox appears, and intensifying towards the end of the story. The feelings and moods of the characters are depicted by the levels of intensity of the colours.

Text Layout The layout of the text is a cut and paste collage which challenges the reader because it is different from the usual top-down, left to right reading format. At first it appears crude, even incorrect, but at a closer look, in fact, all surface features are correct.

The initial devastation of the forest fire shows as the drab brown and beige of the initial backgrounds. As the characters move out of the forest and it starts to regenerate, the background becomes more colourful. The heavy brushstrokes and implied paint thickness add texture to the illustrations.

Teachers Matter

This visually striking book lends itself to delving into and exploring the relationships between the diverse personalities of the characters.

The initial areas of focus we recommend are: • Visual Language • Vocabulary • Comprehension • Character Study

The printing adds a personal touch, as if the story is told by a close observer.

Tricia Kenyon and Barbara Griffith

Form and Shape The outline of Dog is solid and stable. Magpie is drawn with solid lines, but a ragged silhouette. Fox is feathery, elusive, with no solid lines on which to focus visually and this helps to give the Illusion of speed when he runs.

Visual Language: Activity Event

Dog meets Magpie

Fox carries Magpie on his back

Form and Colour

Browns

Red, green, blue sky, white clouds, textured, feathery lines

Shadow Dog-bold lines Flat - no texture

Vocabulary Imagery The text is filled with wonderful examples of imagery: “…melting into blackness.” “…wakes with a rush of grief.” “…a smell of rage, and envy and loneliness.”

“Fox scorches through woodlands…” “…burning into nothingness.” “…the air is creamy with blossom.” “…flickers through the trees like a tongue of fire.”

Context Specific Vocabulary The story contains words indicative of the Australian Outback. • coolibah tree • stringybarks • salt pan

Vocabulary: Activity Find and record examples of strong imagery from the text

Imagery from Text

In my words, it means.....

The air is creamy with blossom

There is a strong smell of flowers in the air

Tricia Kenyon and Barbara Griffith

Comprehension

Comprehension: Activities

Comprehension is not about setting questions for the children to answer to see if they read or understood the text. It is about encouraging children to think about and beyond the storyline.

Prequel What do you think caused the forest fire and where was each of the characters at that point in time?

The recording of ideas and possible answers must not be an onerous task, but one of co-operation and collaboration. These activities encourage children to look at, think, explore and discuss the text, using a wide range of comprehension strategies and graphic organisers.

Sequel How do you think the story will end? Do Dog and Magpie reunite? Write a sequel: for example ‘Magpie’s Journey Back to Dog.’ What happens to Fox? Write a sequel.

Timeline of events and feelings Good/ Positive

Key Dog

Event 1

Event 2

Event 3

Event 4

Magpie Fox

Bad/ Negative

Discussion Discuss what is the moral, if any, of this story? Writing Alternative Forms Re-write the story as a diary. Write part of the story as a dialogue and perform as reader’s theatre.

Character Study Write a biography of Fox - what has caused him to be enveloped in malice and overwhelmed with loneliness? Compare and contrast characters using Venn Diagrams

Teachers Matter

Compare two characters

Dog Caring Considerate Hopeful Thoughful

Magpie Loyal Empathydisabled

Sad Depressed Worthless

Compare three characters

We have just touched on the possibilities of this powerful book. Have fun with it! We would love to hear of any new activities you have used that have worked well.

Dog

Fox

Magpie

Answers Quiz Questions

Puzzling Puzzles

1. Whangarei is most northern and Invercargill is most southern

A. There are no penguins in the Artic

2. Five

B. Push the cork into the bottle, and shake out the coin

3. William Hall-Jones

C. Thursday

4. Lake Hauroko

D. Six

5. On the east coast of New Zealand, north of Whangarei 6. Wellington 7. Kiwifruit 8. Cook Strait 9. Ostrich 10. Eleven 11. Ear 12. Two 13. Sheep or goat

��

Glen Capelli

Superteachers There are certain years that stand out in life, and some that don’t. Some just seem to blend in with all the other years.

ou remember the stuff, but you can’t equate the events with a specific time. Some years, however, have specifics attached, and probably always will. For me it was ‘the biggie’ - the year that most of my peers could attach a specific to. It was the year of “one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind.” As they sang in a song, it was the year “a man named Armstrong walked upon the moon.” There are several reasons why this year stands out for me and most of them are cosmic, though some are comic. The comic ones go back to the first kisses of boyfriends with girlfriends. It was my Grade 7 year at school and the Susan Carters and Linda Hornes were emerging as great attractions to my 12-year-old eyes.

But let’s bypass the comic and add a letter ‘S’ to move to the cosmic.

Teachers Matter

The first great memory was the fact that we got our first television set: a new, blackand-white beauty. Just in time, because the moonwalk was going to be shown on telly. My figuring was we should not have to go to school that day, because school did not have a television. However my school, my parents and the way the world was at the time all combined to say to me “Get to school – now!”

So off I trudged, and that is when the second big memory kicks in.

We were sitting in class with my teacher, Mr McNab, when the headmaster, Mr Hopkins, walked into our room. We stood up, parroted our perfect ‘Good morning, Mr Hopkins’. He then said something that still shines like a moonbeam in my mind. He said “Good morning class. Today is an historic day and we believe you should see that history in action. This morning you are invited to my house to see the moonwalk.” To this day I still do not know which the biggest event was: seeing the moonwalk or sitting in my headmaster’s lounge room! From memory, it had carpet – a rare thing for my young bum – and it was the first house I can remember being in that did not have a row of artificial ducks on the wall.

The other great memory of 1969, one of cosmic proportions, was the fact that my class had a ‘Superteacher’. Mr Duncan McNab was a gem. He never wore a cape or flew over any tall buildings, but he helped to develop the capability of our young minds, and taught us to soar. I did not realise how great a teacher Mr McNab was until many years later when I started my own career as a teacher. It was then that I realised how this mild-mannered master was masterful. He had our class of misfits exploring the art of Matisse, the writings of Robert Louis Stevenson and the poetry of Hilaire Belloc’s Tarantella: Do you remember an Inn, Miranda? Do you remember an Inn?

“ He never wore a cape or flew over any tall buildings, but he helped to develop the capability of our young minds, and taught us to soar.”

We sat, our eyes glued to the small black-and-white set and we watched Neil Ar mstrong make his step and our leap. I guess the real leap for me was seeing my headmaster as a person for the very first time.

He had us loving to read, to recite, to write, to spell, to think and to do well. He taught us there were many roads to choose from, and he taught us to believe in our

Glenn Capelli

talents. He also taught us to work hard. I don’t think it is an accident that many of the students from Mr McNab’s class are now teachers or principals. Others are painters, sculptors and writers. A person – whether a distant Neil Armstrong and his Apollo team, or a very present Mr McNab and his Doubleview Primary School team – can plant seeds that grow for years. One of the things I am thankful for in my life is that I got to say “Thank you” to Mr McNab. It was the late 1970s, and I was umpiring a junior football match. Mr McNab happened to be coaching one of the teams. At the end of the game, I went up to him and said “Mr McNab, you won’t remember me but…” That’s as far as I got before he replied “Glenn Capelli, Doubleview School, Grade 7, 1969. Good to see you.”

It wasn’t long after that chance meeting that I discovered Mr McNab had passed on. He had been battling cancer for some time. The world had lost a great teacher. Every now and again when I speak to teachers and principals at education conferences, I tell them about my memories at Doubleview Primary School. I tell them of the caring decision that Mr Hopkins made in opening his house to the blue and gold jumpers of the girls and boys. I tell them of when a world stood or sat (on carpet, no less) to watch a momentous step in time. And I tell them about the beauty of the seeds planted: my very own ‘Mr Chips’; my very own ‘To Sir With Love’; my very own Superteacher – Mr McNab. I then tell them to believe in the seeds that teachers plant, because from such seeds magic happens. Greatness can grow.

I then told Mr McNab that I was going into teaching, and now realised how good a teacher he was. I thanked him for the seeds planted and the lessons learned. He was very humble, and thanked me for ‘my kind words.’ Hopefully, he was also a little chuffed inside.

After one such presentation, two people approached me. One was a man who told me that Mr McNab had been his teacher many years before he was my teacher. He then explained that it was because of Mr McNab that he had become a teacher and was now a principal. The other person was a woman, and she had tears in her eyes. She too was a teacher, and she explained to me that my Mr McNab was her Uncle Duncan. She told me how great it felt to have a Superteacher as an uncle. She also thanked me for keeping his memory alive. So, this is what I think we should do. Think back on the Superteachers of your life. Think back on the ones who believed in you, and gave you great lessons. If they are still here on Planet Earth, find them and give them a ‘thank you’. If they have moved on from this planet, perhaps to the moon and beyond, send a prayer or wish of thanks to the sky. This world needs people called to this profession, to be great and caring teachers. Maybe a few more ‘thank yous’ will help keep the warmth glowing and the good seeds growing.

“ I still do not know which the biggest event was: seeing the moonwalk or sitting in my headmaster’s lounge room!”

Allison Mooney

Weird or Wired? Working with Personalities.

re you the life of any party, making others laugh and wanting to be centre-stage?

Would you rather lead than follow, or do it yourself instead of risking someone else? Are you content to let others lead the way, letting them forge ahead, enjoying the fruits of their labour as they make progress? Or do you prefer careful planning of projects and activities, insuring they are done right the first time? Whatever your preference you will always find people that have a different perspective and bias to you. You probably want to sort those people out, and those very same people want to sort you out!

personality expresses different behaviour. If they operate from their weaknesses they can drive us nuts. However, if we know how to press their strength-buttons, it makes it much easier to work in a team or syndicate. This is not about categorising, or trying to put people ‘in a box.’ It’s much more than that. What are the visual clues can I see (in your behaviour) that will help me relate to you in a way that you find enjoyable?

Let’s look at the four dominant personalities: The Playful Their desire? Fun.

The ‘Number One Issue’ in any organisation or workplace today is staff retention, and schools are no different. Personality clashes – the frustration of not being able to work with someone on your team - can drive you to look in ‘The Gazette’ for another teaching position.

Visual clues? Talkative. Stylish dresser.

Perhaps those difficult people aren’t weird after all – maybe it’s how they are wired.

Their desire? To take charge.

Over 2000 years ago Hippocrates figured out that people are different and their primary

They are enthusiastic, talkative, energetic types. They thrive on attention, affection, approval and acceptance. The Powerful

Visual clues? A doer. Functional dresser. They love to lead, are decisive, strong willed and productive. They love appreciation, getting credit and really want loyalty in the ranks. The Precise

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Their desire? To get it right.

They want value, respect and harmony above all. Looking at these four personality types, you can see how different their motivations and needs are. Unless you know the motivation and instinctive needs of each type, there will always be a feeling of struggle when working in teams. As a teacher, you’ll receive very little engagement from your students if you don’t know how to create an environment that is conducive to their learning. Can you imagine having a syndicate team that is all the same personality type? All Playful - full of fun and energy and lots of stories, but very little execution. Their learning is: “A closed mouth gathers no feet!” All Powerful - lots of ‘head-butting’ as they all seek to have their own way. Their learning is: “You don’t always have to be right,” to which they would retort, “But I have to have a high batting average!” All Precise - putting off projects through ‘paralysis by analysis.’ T h e i r l e a r n i n g i s : “ I t ’s O K t o m a k e mistakes.” All Peaceful - low energy and little conversation.

Visual clues? A thinker. Classic dresser.

Their learning is: “Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.”

They are reliable, fact-based, organised and persistent. They value sensitivity, silence, space and support.

Maximising the value of a team is by having each personality type involved, bringing their own special strengths and abilities.

The Peaceful

Playful brings: Ideas, creativity and innovation

Their desire? No conflict. Visual clues? A watcher. Comfortable dresser. They are balanced, diplomatic and patient.

Powerful brings: Focus and assertion Precise brings: Method and structure Peaceful brings: Clarity and mediation

Allison Mooney

“You will always find people that have a different perspective and bias to you.” That is one high-performing team! Yes, you can still experience some tension by all being different, but everyone contributes something to keep the team moving, focussed and enjoying better outcomes. When your needs aren’t being met, you can easily fall into operating from your weaknesses. These are your ‘strengths out of balance.’ When you’re pushed to an extreme, you can default to these limiting behaviours: Playful Superficiality and avoidance Over talk, become louder, and embellish stories No focus and can’t say “no” Powerful Arrogance and selfishness Dictatorial, bossy, impatient and tyrannical Finds it hard to say “I’m sorry” Precise Self-righteous and unreal expectations Nit-picky and pedantic Hard to please

Peaceful Silent aloofness Uninvolved Hard to get motivated. How do you get back into alignment? It’s easy! Playfuls need attention, affection, approval and acceptance. First thing on a Monday morning listen to what the Playful did over the weekend. If you don’t, they keep repeating themselves, which can be a cry to be heard. They prefer working in a team than on their own. They bring life into lifeless situations and love including others.

Peacefuls need, above all else, to be respected. “A human being, not a human machine.” Value them as a supportive team player and acknowledge their attributes, which could include: patient, caring, constant, inviting, accommodating, loyal, harmonious, mediator, internally strong. According to Ron Willingham, people are more apt to relate to you (or learn from you) if they perceive that you view their world as they view it. I challenge you to walk into your next meeting and observe the brilliance you have in your team. Look for their strengths, draw more from them and feel the difference. If you do, ‘The Gazette’ won’t have the same appeal!

Power fuls need appreciation for all that they do, credit, and a sense that the troops are loyal to them. Observe what a Powerful does and sincerely tell them you are amazed at how much they get through in a given day. They love producing. Precise types need to you to be sensitive to what they think and say. They need supportive colleagues and principals who say “I believe in you”; space to call their own; satisfaction from quality achievement; and silence and separation from noise (they restore their soul by being alone.)

Stunted under pressure

Stephen Lethbridge

The Lasting Residue of Energy, Passion and Enthusiasm

longside death and taxes sits one of life’s certainties: change.

One change we are all dealing with at the moment is the Revised New Zealand Curriculum. Some people have responded favourably: “We live in exciting times, we are at the cutting edge of education change. We are pioneers, constructing a framework that will allow our children to thrive in a rapidly changing world.” Others haven’t been quite so enthusiastic: “We have seen it before, change for the sake of change. Can’t we just do what we have always done? We really haven’t got time for this in our busy lives.” The New Zealand Curriculum vision talks about our young people being confident, connected, actively involved lifelong learners. Words like creative, energetic and enterprising sit side by side with resilient, resourceful and motivated. Our challenge is to model these ver y attributes in front of our students.

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Energetic, enthusiastic educators who model the NZ Curriculum vision, values and key competencies are what our children need in their lives.

Whenever I think about the role of enthusiasm and passion for learning in schools I reflect upon a conference I attended a few years ago, where the keynote speaker crystallised my thoughts in a very public way. In his opening address he asked how many principals in the room were tired. A number of principals put up their hands. Then came the killer line: “Well then, perhaps it is time to retire and let the energetic, enthusiastic people take over.”

Whilst harsh and hard hitting it is true schools are not the right place for those who have lost their spark. But rather than weeding out the unenthusiastic and tired people, we have to find new ways to reignite the passion. One way to do this is the notion of legacy.

What is your legacy? It was said to me once that it is not what you teach, it is how you teach it that will be remembered. I am lucky that I had teachers who, whether they knew this or not, demonstrated this very point. What I value today is a result of how my teachers taught. Mr Kay taught me about persistence through sport. Mrs Nicholls taught me about the joy of music. Mr Thornewell taught me about curiosity, about questioning. He left with me a love of learning and most importantly he taught me about enthusiasm.

At high school, Mr Staniland, Mr White and Mr Druitt showed an enthusiasm and a passion for their given subject areas that was infectious. Sure I must have learned all the other stuff (the what of their teaching) but it is definitely the how that is their legacy. It remains with me today. Currently we are grappling with curriculum change and the notion of explicitly teaching thinking and learning dispositions. We have schools adopting wonderful programmes like Costa’s Habits of Mind and Claxton’s Building Learning Power. How many of us model these dispositions? If we really think they are important for children to have, how are we using them successfully in our personal and professional lives? Dr John Edwards uses the example of de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats tool. Lots of people use it in classes but how many of us use it in making decisions about the future direction of our schools? If not, why teach it? When the children of today think back on their schooling, what will they say about how you taught them? Will how you taught be remembered at all?

“Energetic, enthusiastic educators who model the NZ Curriculum vision, values and key competencies are what our children need in their lives.”

At intermediate, Mrs Gribble taught me that looking at things from a different perspective opens up a range of new ideas and possibilities.

What will the residue be in 5, 10 or 20 years? Will they be reflective thinkers because you explicitly modelled this in your classroom? Will they have an enthusiastic outlook on life because you were energetic about all that you did with them?

Stephen Lethbridge

Will they be creative because you allowed them the freedom to step outside the square more often than not? Will they love life and all it has to offer because you showed them something about your life outside of school? Will they treat others with dignity and respect because you did? Fortunately or unfortunately, you can’t hide from the children you teach. They watch you, they pick up on your values, on your beliefs. Yo u k n o w f r o m y o u r o w n l i f e experience that teachers leave a legacy, so why not leave a powerful legacy for your students.

“Perhaps it is time to retire and let the energetic, enthusiastic people take over.”

Kevin Mayall

Great Adults Are the Key For Great Teens “If you teach or parent teenagers/young adults aged 15 to 20, this article is for you” – Ed.

hat are you going to do for a job?” “What are you going to do with

your life?”

We all want the answers for our kids, so what’s the role of a parent in all of this? Why weren’t we given a handbook at birth!?

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Families today can be characterised by barely surviving in the increasing change and pressure of work/life balance.

Parents are struggling and getting stretched beyond breaking point. They need to provide for their families plus play a significant and inspiring role as a family member, as well as an individual. The damage often goes by unnoticed or unchecked. All too often it is too late when the rebellious teenager rears their head. We have our kids for such a short period and we all want the best for them. We want our kids to become resourceful young adults,

where they go on to become great citizens in their own right. It’s about then that you realise how much you love and admire your young adult.

Here are seven tools for you to use during this process: 1. Have a look at your own life. Kids know if you are being hypocritical. How can you get your kids to have a great life if you aren’t doing it yourself? Be the parent that your kids look up to. Your young adult’s future starts with you. Your kids will watch you. They will see you laugh and enjoy life. Whatever you do will become normal - it’s what they will create in their lives, in their own way. They will see you having good loving relationships. That will become normal for

them. They will recreate that, in their own way. They will see you live by good values. That will become normal... Here’s the most important thing you need to know if you want your kids to grow up into fine individuals - you have to live the great life first. That will become normal for your kids. That’s what they will create in their own way, in their own lives.

“If you want your kids to have a great life, it starts with you.

Kevin Mayall

Who said work had to be hard? There is no law that says work has to be hard. Certainly work hard at what you love, but why work hard at something meaningless?

2. Don’t tell your young adult what to do. The hardest part in the young adult/parent relationship is the breaking-away point when your teen wants to be their own person. No longer can you tell them what to do. Parents - there is a way:

Before you make judgments on our young adults, ask yourself this: if our generation was so right, why did our generation invent Prozac? Think about that.

Use questions. Let them come up with the answer. For example, instead of “You have to do this course” try “If you do that course, where will that take you?” 3. Speak their language. Do the shape test on www.kevinmayall.com. I see most conflict between a square parent and a squiggle teen. Go and do the free test and then do it with your partner and kids. 4. List the good things about your young adult. Admire your young adults. It’s so easy to pick on the negative things. There are also positive things. Pick on those. 5. Get involved. Find out what your kid’s hobbies, sports or dreams are. Take an active interest. Get involved. 6. Listen to their dreams. It’s their dreams (and those of their generation) that will shape the world’s future. It’s in our interest for them to dream big. It’s our responsibility to foster those dreams and do what we can to help them become real. Just because we can’t see something or don’t know something, doesn’t mean it’s not real. Every new idea starts with a dream. In 1959 J.F.Kennedy shocked the world by saying “We are going to the moon.” His advisors told him that it would take over 100 years for that to happen. It took exactly 10 years. Never crush someone’s dreams.

“Kids know if you are being hypocritical.”

7. Pass on the good stuff. What are we as adults passing onto our kids? “Get good marks at school and you will get a good job”. “The road to financial success is through hard work.” “You can’t have your cake and eat it too”. Have a close look at these common beliefs. I think you will agree they are all outdated. These are beliefs that were passed onto our generation. It was the world of our parents/ grandparents. Why would we want to pass them onto our kids as well? The world has changed.

Have a close look at what we as a generation are passing onto our kids. Not everything is bad of course, some things need to be kept and fostered.

Here’s one: Community spirit. I was taught you help your fellow man. If the neighbour needed a babysitter, had a tree that needed cutting down or the cat fed for a couple of weeks while they were on holiday - no problem! Giving was good. And what goes around comes around. Give and you shall receive. Have a good analysis of your own life thoughts, beliefs, habits, values and lifestyle. Is it time for a change in your own life? Have a look at what you, as a parent, are passing onto your kids. If you want your kids to have a great life, it starts with you. I am so inspired by our young adults. I have witnessed great ideas, amazing stories, and a strong will to make lasting significant change for the future. As a fellow parent, I want to give you hope. Yo u r y o u n g a d u l t s a r e p a r t o f a n extraordinary generation. Be proud. Foster their dreams. There is hope and that is our young adults. That’s why my favorite saying is “Bring it on the world.” That’s just what our young adults around the world are doing.

HOWARD SMALL

Bullyproof Your Kids Nearly everyone at sometime in their life has been teased or bullied.

Bullying can happen from pre-school to high school, from workplaces to relationships. The best place to intervene is during early childhood.

t may have been by brothers or sisters, parents, school kids, neighbours, adults or teachers.

Bullying is a problem in many preschools and most schools. For many children it can be a living nightmare. A lot of people think it is just a part of growing up. Why should it be? Why should a child’s life become a vicious circle of fear, threats and abuse? Noone deserves to be the target of bullying. What is the solution to this hidden epidemic? I believe the answer lies in teacher training. As I travel around New Zealand presenting positive-strategy workshops on anger and bullying, I talk to hundreds of teachers, from early-childhood through to secondary. It seems the missing piece of the teachertraining jigsaw is the key area of behaviour. It seems the colleges of education, universities and private training institutions give much theory on many topics, but what is missing are practical strategies.

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Trainee teachers need to know how to deal with angry and aggressive children displaying bullying and other antisocial behaviours. I believe this is one of the reasons many teachers actually give up their teaching career. They get worn out physically and emotionally.

Bullying can take many forms: Physical (direct) - hitting, spitting, kicking, strangling, pulling hair, taking money or lunches, etc Physical (indirect) - getting someone else to do the physical acts

“ Bullying is when someone keeps doing or saying things to have power over another person.”

How to bullyproof the kids in your classroom.

•

How to identify at-risk students and how to deal with them.

The first thing trainee teachers need to learn is exactly what bullying is:

Strategies in behaviour management, anger management and stress management.

Bullying is when someone keeps doing or saying things to have power over another person.

How to deal effectively with bullies and the targets of bullying.

Bullying is an abuse of power and has the potential for causing short-term misery, and can lay the foundation for long-term aggression and violence.

•

Let us take a closer look at this, one step at a time…

Non-verbal – obscene gestures, threatening, hiding belongings Group bullying – exclusion, text message, phone, computer Sexual – touching private parts, unwanted contact Trainee teachers need to learn that the old childhood taunt of “sticks and stones” is totally untrue. Being called names does hurt and can cause ‘internal bruising’ and psychological damage, which can be even worse than some physical bullying.

Now is the time to make some changes. I believe teachers in training need the following practical skills:

•

Verbal – insults, name-calling, swearing, spreading rumours

New teachers should be able to: Teach positive self-talk, so that their students can build confidence and boost self esteem. Teach the targets of bullying armouring techniques so they can protect themselves. For example, using an invisible shield from nasty words or putdowns. Take class lessons on passive, aggressive and assertive behaviours, and then focus on

howard small

assertive skills. This could lead to friendship skills and role-play sessions. All of these lessons and skills could be integrated into the normal classroom literacy programme. The skills taught would begin to increase harmony throughout each individual classroom. I believe teachers should know the ‘No Blame Approach.’ This teaches empathy and gives the bully the chance to make amends and help protect the target from further distress.

By watching and doing nothing to help, they are actually condoning the bullying. Bystanders can be taught to say something or at least go and get help. Many bullies want and need an audience. Dispersing that audience diminishes their power. What bullies really need is help. They need help to change so they can lead happier lives, which in turn would eliminate the targets of the future. This would then allow teachers to get on with the job they were trained for: teaching.

Let’s also equip new teachers with an understanding of the power of the bystander.

“Being called names does hurt and can cause ‘internal bruising’ and psychological damage”

john shackleton

Exercise: Pain or Pleasure? Exercising is something I’ve done all my life and I find it really difficult to understand when people tell me they don’t like it.

opefully you’re past saying things like “I’m no good at exercise” or “I’m not the exercising type” but perhaps you have reverted to the next denial stage – “I don’t exercise because I don’t enjoy it”! Do you really believe that athletes wake up to their alarm at 4.30am and leap out of bed exclaiming “Oh boy! Another four hours of pain! Fantastic! I can’t wait to go training!”? There are a number of reasons why people don’t like exercise. In case you’re one of those people, I’d like to discuss four areas to help you overcome any blockage you may have.

1. Pain Exercise can be painful at times, although I wouldn’t describe the pain as serious. Having watched my wife give birth twice (the second time without any pain relief) I don’t think I’ve ever experienced anything like serious pain! I would describe what I experience during training as short bursts of annoyance rather than severe agony. My muscles hurt a little during training and they feel slightly sore afterwards - especially if I don’t stretch and then stiffen up.

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Strangely the soreness that I feel a couple of hours after training gives me some very positive feelings. It’s a reminder that I’ve done my exercise for that day and it makes me feel quite righteous.

The other uncomfortable feeling I experience during training is from a shortness of breath - that sensation of not seeming to breathe deeply enough or not getting enough oxygen into my lungs. Again I would not describe this as serious – if the sensation gets too bad I just back off a little or stop; within a few seconds I’m able to breathe normally again.

I ’ m n o t suggesting that I look forward to experiencing the pain of training! I think you’d have to be a bit odd if you desired the pain. The pain I experience when swimming in a competition is so intense that I sometimes worry about it before I race, but if an athlete spends a lot of time focusing on the pain they are about to experience then I’m sure they wouldn’t even enter the race.

“ What other people think about you isn’t important - doing what is necessary to get your goal is.”

2. Boredom Some people tell me they like swimming or running but they find it so boring. They say that swimming laps is so monotonous that they get bored in five minutes and want to do something else. What amazes me is that they assume my brain is different to theirs!

If you don’t like the sensation of pain associated with taking exercise then I suggest you try looking at things a little differently.

I don’t find swimming boring because I’ve got so many different things to think about. No competitive swimmer ever gets into a pool and just swims laps for 90 minutes. They have certain schedules or training programmes that they follow and they concentrate on different things during their workouts.

It’s a bit like going to the dentist when you’ve got toothache. If you focus on how much the visit to the dentist is going to hurt then you will never make the appointment. Instead, if you focus on how bad the toothache is right now and how nice it will be when the dentist has fixed the problem, then it’s easier to go.

Now I don’t have to design a training programme for myself - I’ve got a coach that does all that for me. I usually do these training sessions with five or six people who are doing exactly the same work I am. That means I’ve added another five or six things I have to think about during every repeat.

Spend some time thinking about your future, exploring how bad your life will be in a few years time if you don’t start exercising.

You can get lazy and bored very quickly if you exercise by yourself, so join a group that are like-minded and want to exercise to improve their health in the same way you do. If you want to be really committed, join a club or exercise class and pay for the whole year in advance!

Go and visit some older friends that haven’t taken care of themselves and ask them to describe their aches and pains to you. Spend some time just watching elderly people move about. See how much effort they have to expend just to stand up and notice the look on their face when they experience the pain of something simple like sitting down. I don’t necessarily want to live until I’m 100, but I do want to be able to swim, run and play with my grandchildren right up to the day I die.

john shackleton

“ I don’t necessarily want to live until I’m 100, but I do want to be able to swim, run and play with my grandchildren right up to the day I die.” 3. Standard

4. Low self esteem

The next popular excuse I hear on regular basis is “I can’t join a class or club because I’m not good enough.”

You might be at the next stage of denial: “I couldn’t join a group like that because I won’t know anyone / I won’t be able to do what they do / I won’t be as good as them / I’ll look stupid. What will they think of me when they realise I’m so slow and useless?”

Who said you have to be good at swimming to join a swimming club? You’ve made the assumption that everyone in my swimming club is just like me: a dedicated, experienced, fast, competitive swimmer. Wrong! One of the ladies I used to swim with in the UK was in her 80’s. She took up the sport when she was 65 and when she trained with us she usually completed less than a quarter of the distance that I did in a training session. She swam at the back of the slowest lane, stopping every length to get her breath back and making sure she kept out of the way of the other swimmers around her. She was completely accepted by everyone in the pool even though it took her three times as long to swim a length as the faster swimmers in the club. If you can’t swim at all then don’t join a swimming club. If you can manage a few lengths without dying, don’t tell me you’re not good enough to train with a club without first finding out the standard of the people who do train. If you like the idea of swimming to get fit, look for a Masters swimming group who train close to you and go to the pool to watch them. Talk to the coach and discuss your speed and fitness level – they’ll tell you where you’d fit in. There are similar groups in running and cycling if swimming is not for you. Every sports centre runs loads of different classes for people who want to get fit, I’m certain there’s one that would suit you. Whatever form of exercise you decide on, join a group and learn how to train properly - it will stop you from getting bored.

Is that thought going to help you take the action you want to take or is it going to make you procrastinate or simply do nothing? Let me tell you a story called…

Too Cool to Dance. When I was about 13 I started to go to discos with my mates, where a strange ritual would occur. For the whole two or three hours we would stand around the outside of the hall chatting and messing around while all the girls would dance in the centre of the room. At the end of the night we’d all leave. One night as I was walking home I started to wonder why I was attending these events. What I really wanted was a girlfriend but the ritual that we all took part in wasn’t producing that result. Asking my older sister how I could get myself a girlfriend, she told me I’d have to dance. She explained that if I asked one of them to dance there was a reasonable chance she’d say yes, because that’s why most of them were at the disco in the first place – to get a boyfriend. I didn’t like the idea that the girl might reject me but my sister described how once I’d found a willing partner I’d probably only have to endure a maximum of two or three dances before a slow number came on - then I’d be able to do some smooching which was far simpler to do! After the slow-dance record finished I could take the girl outside for a walk and a chat. At the end of the night she’d probably let me walk her home.

It worked like a dream! The first girl I asked to dance said yes, we had a couple of dances and then a slow record came on. We smooched for a bit and then went outside for a chat and she agreed to let me walk her home. When the disco ended I found our coats, collected my girl and – bingo! - I’d got a girlfriend. The next morning when I met my mates I explained the strategy that got me to my goal but they seemed to lose interest. They weren’t going to give up hanging with their mates so that they could dance with the girls. The impression they gave me was that they were far too cool to dance. I too had felt worried about what everyone would think of me if I danced with a girl, so I knew their concerns. But for me the goal was so important I overcame the desire to look cool in front of my mates. I’d learnt an extremely important lesson in life: What other people think about you isn’t important - doing what is necessary to get your goal is. If you want to achieve your fitness goals but you don’t want to join a group of likeminded people, you’ve got to ask yourself why you are choosing to avoid one of the best ways to stay on-track and be motivated. What’s the real reason you’re avoiding working out with other people? Perhaps you are concerned with what they think about you and what you are trying to achieve?

Are you too cool to dance?

wendy sweet

Health and Wellbeing for Female Teachers “ Ask most women (especially teachers!) what they want to achieve around their ‘health’ and most would say “More energy!”

nowledge of women’s health and fitness has come a long way since Frenchman Pierre de Coubertin revived the ‘modern’ Olympics in 1896.

their risk of heart disease (especially postmenopausal), hypertension, obesity and its co-morbidity of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus as well as breast and colon cancers.

He established the Olympic Games as a male preserve and was then challenged by Melpomene, the first female Greek marathon runner who secretly trained to compete in the marathon. Although the Olympic officials refused her entry, Melpomene chose to run beside the official runners and covered the distance from Marathon to Athens in 4.5 hours.

In America, the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute reports that one in ten women aged 45-64 years has some form of heart disease and this increases to one in four in women over 65. Smoking, high blood cholesterol, high blood pressure and physical inactivity are the major modifiable risk factors.

Despite substantiation by journalists, her achievement went unrecognised. Nearly eighty-eight years later Joan Benoit won the 1984 Los Angles Olympics, becoming the gold medalist in the first Olympic marathon for women. Her time (2:24:52) would have won 11 of the 20 men’s Olympic marathons. Joan Benoit’s achievement is as significant as Melpomene’s in overcoming disapproval, h o s t i l i t y a n d t r a d i t i o n f o r w o m e n ’s involvement in sport.

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Thankfully today, the participation of women in exercise and sport has moved on significantly. Health and exercise-related research has also been increasing. With it predicted that by 2051 half of all New Zealand females will be over 47 years of age, it seems pertinent that women seek information on the healthy benefits of exercise as they move through the decades.

Although health and wellness varies in its interpretation, there appears to be growing evidence of the beneficial relationships between exercise (and physical activity) and the major chronic diseases in women. Evidence linking sedentary lifestyle and physical inactivity with increased risk of disease is growing. For New Zealand women, this means making significant lifestyle modifications to reduce

The Healthy Women’s Study in America has been a longitudinal study following premenopausal women through menopause and offers some insight into how exercise mitigates the risk of heart disease. Women with higher physical activity had the least age-related weight gain and the least decline in HDL-cholesterol (the ‘good’ cholesterol). Women who expended >2000kcal/week of energy had significantly better health profiles for total cholesterol and blood pressure. Systolic blood pressure was lower in women expending over 500kcal per week and diastolic blood pressure was lower in those expending over 1000kcal per week, compared to sedentary women. Non-fatal stroke is another leading cause of disability among women. Risk factors for stroke include hypertension, heart disease and smoking. Approximately 2/3 of all stroke victims have high blood pressure. Until age 64, hypertension is more prevalent in men but after 64, is more prevalent in women. In the Healthy Women’s Study, those women who were active at least one hour per day reduced their risk of stroke by half compared to women who were doing less than 30 minutes of physical activity per day. Data on cancer relative to physical activity is often difficult to interpret because cancer represents a host of site-specific diseases. However, increasing evidence over the past decade suggests that physical activity is

wendy sweet

“ Evidence linking sedentary lifestyle and physical inactivity with increased risk of disease is growing.”

associated with decreased overall breast and colon cancer mortality. Lifetime physical activity also seems to decrease breast and colon cancer risk. Research in the mid-late 1 9 9 0 ’s l o o k i n g a t t h e relationship between physical activity since the onset of menstruation (menarche) and risk of breast cancer, found that women reporting 3.8 or more hours per week of exercise since menarche had a 50% reduction in breast cancer risk. A 30% reduction was observed in women reporting 1-3 hours per week of exercise since menarche. High body weight and body fat in women increases the incidence of both heart disease and Type 2 Diabetes, so maintaining a healthy weight is an important issue for all girls and women.

The National Weight Control Registry (NWCR) is a longitudinal study of individuals over 18 years who have successfully maintained weight loss for a minimum of a year. Currently the registry includes over 4,500 individuals and is starting to provide key facts about those women who succeed with weight loss compared to those who don’t. Women who succeed with weight loss or maintenance seem to be implementing some important strategies, such as: 50% report that they receive some sort of ‘help’ with weight loss, eg. a commercial programme, physician, trainer 89% use a combination of diet and exercise to produce weight loss Those succeeding use a variety of strategies to lose their weight and frequently monitor their body weight 78% consume breakfast Low calorie, low fat intake was preferred by those most successful

Those succeeding with weight loss had the highest levels of physical activity (over 2800 kcal/week expenditure) Most of those who regained their weight, reported greater decreases in activity levels and less emphasis on dietary restraint Persons who reported eating a consistent diet across the week and year (and did not differ too much with holidays) were 1.5 times less likely to regain weight Maintaining optimal health as a female also means being aware of bone health. Strong bones are essential to women as they age, as decreasing oestrogen levels at menopause increase the risk of osteoporosis. Weight-bearing exercise (such as resistance training using bands or weights) increases bone density and joint integrity and should be incorporated into any training programme for women from their 20’s on, as peak bone mass is usually attained in the early 30’s. Some studies demonstrate that mixed high-intensity exercise programmes compensate for most negative changes to the menopausal transition. Although post-menopausal women frequently report sleep problems, exercise undertaken early in the day for at least 30 minutes has been found to increase the ability of women to fall asleep and stay asleep, compared with women who exercised later in the day.

goal for all women to achieve and is a great starting point, however more research is appearing which justifies more vigorous activity over moderate activity.

S w a i n a n d F r a n k l i n ’s extensive review of studies in 2006, assessing the multiple benefits of physical activity, noted that more vigorous activity elicits greater energy expenditure and results in improved aerobic capacity, which corresponds to an 8-17% reduction in cardiovascular disease risk. As well, the authors state that the function of the autonomic nervous system improves with vigorous activity and this system is recognised as being responsible for ‘speeding up’ bodily processes. Keep in mind though that mitigating against more vigorous activity is an equal amount of research that shows that as intensity of exercise increases so too does the risk of injury, as well as poor adherence. Progression in intensity as well as behavioural support is therefore an essential part of any exercise programme for women. Ask most women (especially teachers!) what they want to achieve around their ‘health’ and most would say “More energy”! Women have a host of tasks and activities to accommodate into every day and need to maintain their energy levels throughout the day. The answer is getting the ‘basics’ right – uninterrupted sleep, adequate exercise (not too much) plus a focus on staying hydrated and eating fresh, high nutrient foods (rich in iron and calcium) daily. [Next issue: Men’s Health]

The amount and intensity of exercise is another factor that women must consider in their quest for optimal ‘health’. Thirty minutes of spontaneous daily activity is a

jenny barrett

Tech Recipes Integrating Educational Technologies into Your Classroom

n each issue we profile a simple but powerful activity designed to help integrate technology into your classroom. You can use your webcam to develop thinking skills, by setting up an experiment to test a hypothesis. Webcams can produce time lapse video. This is where a series of photos are taken at regular intervals over a period of time, be it a few minutes (an ice cube melting next to a flame), a few days (germination or decomposition) or a few weeks (caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly). The snapshots are then run together so that you can view the whole process in a matter of seconds or minutes. Let’s look at the ‘cycle of decay’ which could be included as part of an environmental studies unit focusing on composting or recycling, or for food science. This activity is aimed at intermediate-level students but time lapse can be used at every level. A kindergarten in Tauranga photographed a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis; juniors have used it for watching their beans germinate; and secondary science

students can use it for any experiment or reaction that occurs over time.

Recipe #2 Time Lapse Trickery The goal? To bring to life the following concepts: • that decomposition or decay is a process that happens over time • that variables such as temperature and moisture affect the rate of decay

Ingredients Webcam or digital video camera Time Lapse Software For Mac: If you have a regular webcam you will need to use Single Framer 2.4, free software that you can download from www.zachpoff.com/site/software/ software.html#singleframer If you have an i-sight camera or a digital video camera you can use iMovieHD (not iMovie08)

Teachers Matter

For PC: M i c r o s o f t We b c a m Ti m e r s h o t , f r e e software that you can download from w w w. m i c r o s o f t . c o m / w i n d o w s x p / downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys. mspx

MovieMaker or iMovie

Instructions As a whole class activity: 1) Initiate a discussion by posing questions about a fruit appropriate to the season: • Does kiwifruit decay faster when you leave it in your desk, in your bag or in the fruit bowl?

• Which decays faster if left in the same place - a kiwifruit or a banana? 2) Show them a time lapse video – there are many examples on YouTube. Suggest conducting an experiment using time lapse technology to test which conditions cause fruit to decay faster and to compare decomposition time between fruits. 3) Ask a group to follow the Setting Up Time Lapse guidelines and have the whole class watch an example of how time lapse works. Choose a relatively quick example for your test run such as something melting or (with caution!) some incense burning. 4) Ask the question “What do you need to think about when you set up your time lapse experiment?” Hopefully Step 3 will have highlighted some of the pitfalls such as the camera needing to be completely still, the ice cube melting and moving out of shot, the lighting being inadequate, or the time settings for the snapshot being too close together or too far apart. By doing it together first and learning from mistakes, it should minimise disasters further down the track. Also ask “What other information should be included in the video to make it useful to an audience?” Here, they should talk about a title, narration or music, talking heads, a conclusion and credits. Use the class conclusions to both these questions to co-construct a rubric for the project. In groups: 5) Plan your experiment and report back to the class to see if they can offer any more good ideas to your group. a. Identify your hypothesis. b. How are you going to test it? c. Consider all the factors that were identified in Part 4 and state how you are going to address them.

jenny barrett

6) Each group sets up their experiment (where only one webcam and computer is available groups can rotate week by week). 7) Each group shows their video to the class and discusses their findings. 8) Each group produces a final product, adding a title, narration or talking heads explaining the process, a sound track and credits using either MovieMaker (PC) or iMovie (Mac). The narration or talking heads element is crucial to ensure that the activity was not just good fun, or about working in a team, or discovering new ICT skills. This component of the video should demonstrate that learning relating to decomposition and setting up an experiment to test a hypothesis has taken place and that they can draw some conclusions. 9) The videos are presented to an audience, or entered into a competition or assessed against the co-constructed rubric.

Setting Up Time Lapse 1) Plug your webcam in. PC users open Microsoft Timershot (in Programs, under PowerToys for XP/Vista). Mac users open Singleframer or iMovie. 2) Look in the preview screen and check your webcam is lined up c o r r e c t l y. Attaching i t t o a tripod or, if y o u d o n â&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have one, taping it to a desk light can help.

3) (PC) To change the settings of Timershot click on the >> button and you will see: Change how often a picture is taken and the size of the picture (this is important for quality and disk space)

Choose a file name for your pictures and wheree they will be stored

Make sure you tick this box or you will only get one picture

(Mac â&#x20AC;&#x201C; iMovie) Click on Time Lapse. Choose how often a picture will be taken and click OK. Click on the Record button to begin capturing your images. Click the same button again to stop the process. The video created will appear in the clips pane and can be dragged to the timeline.

jenny barrett

4) (Mac – Singleframer) Go to the Menu and click on Watching > Start watching. The picture from your camera should now appear on screen. Go to the Menu and click on Movie Setup > Start new animated movie. Give your movie a name and choose where you would like to save it. Click on Save. In the Time Lapse box choose how many seconds or minutes apart you want to take each shot. Click the START button. When finished click the STOP button. Your movie will be saved automatically.

Teachers Matter

5) Think carefully about time interval. Most movies show around 20-30 frames per second; the more frames per second (fps), generally the smoother the movie will play back. 24 fps is a pretty good rate to get your movie nice and smooth. How long do

want the final movie to be? For a movie of around 30 seconds do some quick calculating to find out how many frames you need to capture:

• Select all the pictures that were taken and click on Import

24 fps x 30 seconds = 720 frames

• Open iMovie

Now you know how many frames you need, you will need to work out how often you need to shoot frames of your subject. If an event takes about 4 hours (or 14,400 seconds), it would work out like this: 14,400 seconds (length of actual event) divided by 720 frames (frames needed for final movie) = 20-second intervals between shots/frames 6) Once you have all your pictures you will need to import them into windows Movie Maker or iMovie. (PC) Importing into Windows Movie Maker • Open Windows Movie Maker • Under ‘Capture Video’ click on Import Pictures

• Click on Tools > Options > Advanced • Change the picture duration to the lowest possible number > OK • Select all your images and drag them to the timeline or storyboard (Mac) Importing into iMovie • Go to File > Import • Select video and click import 7) Watch and edit your movie!

Extension Activities Repeat the experiment with different variables, or team up with another class or school and compare notes. This creates a genuine audience. Use a digital microscope in place of the webcam to go in for a closer look. Many such microscopes have time lapse functionality built in. Consider what the implications are for food science, recycling, composting, whatever unit you are studying. Encourage your students to build the wider conclusions into the final video and add this element into the rubric for the activity.

by Educators for Educators Become a more effective educator by embracing technology in your learning environment. Web 2.0, Video, IWBs, Eportfolios and much more!

Request professional development with Breathe Technology today. Phone: 07 927 2260 Fax: 07 927 2264 Email: info@breathetechnology.co.nz

www.breathetechnology.co.nz

ian jukes

Into Tomorrow: Moving the Educational Debate

uring a recent break from my travels I put some time aside to learn how to use a new electronic toy I’d bought. I thought that being a reasonably educated person, having taught at almost all levels of education and being somewhat technologically adept would have more than prepared me to learn how to use a simple gadget. Nothing could be further from the truth. I read the manual and understood very little. At first glance the instructions appeared to be written in tongues. Written by someone who spoke English as a 37th language. So I decided to do what any educated person

does based on my training. I broke the instructions down into even smaller pieces in order to understand what to do. Breaking the instructions down into pieces didn’t help because no part of learning about this gadget was linear. I did the tutorial and lear ned a few techniques, but when I tried to repeat them on my own, I found myself in a whole new situation with no prescription for what to do next. My son, Kyler, kept chuckling, telling me how proud he was to see me struggling with what people of his and my generations all over the globe are attempting to do.

“ This was learning unlike anything I’d experienced in school or had allowed my students to experience.”

This was learning unlike anything I’d experienced in school or, when it comes right down to it, I had allowed my students to experience. It was what I call “Ready, fire, aim,” or making-it-up-as-you-go learning. Although I’m an author who writes and presents about the need to change how young people are taught in preparation for the Information Age, this event brought me face to face with my own non-digital ‘programming’. I simply had no past experiences that would support learning by searching for the critical patterns, feeling free to experience ambiguity and uncertainty and experimenting and allowing myself to fail in the process of learning. Despite being a vocal advocate for this type of education, I found it extremely difficult to walk my talk and to act, or take the lead, as a learner. The entire venture left me more convinced than ever that the way we are teaching in our education system is fundamentally flawed. Much of what we do in schools is simply wrong if we want students to succeed in an age of technology and ‘InfoWhelm’ where

ian jukes

organizing information and continuous learning are increasingly critical skills. Skills as important, if not more so, than simply recall.

student interests, purposes and meaning? Why is testing still limited to paper/pencil tests that largely ignore genuine performance?

making to raise standards and test scores may just be us rearranging the proverbial deck chairs on the Titanic.

Clearly the public has every right to expect higher standards from our students, for teachers to do better at teaching the basics, and ensure that all kids are technologically and informationally literate, if not fluent.

Why do the teacher, the school, and various administrative and political bodies retain the sole authority over instructional materials, class organisation and teaching methods? Why is significant teacher time taken up with classroom management — maintaining order, monitoring student work and conducting quizzes? Despite a whole class setting, much of the time students essentially work and achieve alone, with virtually no opportunity for small-group collaborative work.

In reality, it’s our collective beliefs, our mental models about education and learning - which are grounded in the Industrial Age - that are actually keeping education spinning its wheels at precisely the time that there is the greatest need to change our collective thinking.

But hidden behind these expectations are powerful assumptions about what schools should look like, based on our own collective experiences in the schools of our youth. Genuinely new solutions are hard to envision because so few of us can imagine the age for which this generation needs to prepare. Most of us grew up in the industrial era and yet, in less than five years, only 8% of the population will be working in industry. We lived and grew up in schools modeled after the factory and, by and large, those schools worked. The problem is that much has changed while our schools have not. In order to really understand the changing nature of education, we need only ask local schools why all children are ‘herded’ into a large building or site, and why subjects, regardless of how simple or complex they are, have been fragmented into ‘periods’ lasting from 45 to 60 minutes.

Little time is spent on commending and correcting students, or on guidance for improved performance. Students have limited exposure to primary sources of information, relevant technology, field trips, outside presenters and little handson contact with subject matter beyond the printed page. The truth is that the purpose and assumptions behind the c u r r e n t a p p r o a c h to schooling have long been forgotten. Assembly line procedures with pay for ‘work done’ (grades), time lines (due dates and paper/ pencil tests) and rewards (promotion) are so deeply entrenched that we no longer question them.

Teachers Matter

“ The truth is that the purpose and assumptions behind the current approach to schooling have long been forgotten.”

Why does the teacher typically divide and deliver ‘lessons’ on topics dictated by an outside agency of one kind or another? Why are learning activities often unrelated to

Unless we are willing to examine the assumptions that underpin these fundamental ‘basics’ and reinvent schools and education at a deeper level, there is the real danger that all of the efforts we are

These mental models have become deeply entrenched, unexamined beliefs about how the world works. In terms of schools, these collective assumptions dictate what schools should look like, what teachers should do, how students learn and how that learning should be assessed. We accept these mental models in large part because, despite the fact that many educators will acknowledge that the world has changed and continues to change, the existing educational model ‘worked’ for us. When my generation of adults went to school, society as a whole could agree on what students should learn and what an educated person should know. Much of what we are still teaching in our schools is based on this view. E v e n d e c a d e s a g o h o w e v e r, m a j o r researchers in several fields were lamenting the fact that it was impossible to keep up with the information explosion. Today, anyone who wants to maintain relevancy and marketability as a professional must continue to learn on an ongoing basis. Because there is simply too much information, we no longer expect to ‘know it all’. Yet traditional educators still insist on specific topics and content to be ‘covered’ at different grade levels - that there is a specific set of standards students need to know, and be able to regurgitate on demand, in order to be an educated person.

ian jukes

“ By the year 2010 the amount of unique new data and information in our world will be doubling every two weeks.” These experiences range from replicating the Amazon jungle (down to the topography, rivers, plants, animal species and insects) with basic materials to designing products; creating bike paths; printing newsletters and newspaper columns; designing space stations or following the paths of birds and animals on the endangered species list. At the same time they are ignoring most of the literature, music, art, science and knowledge that has been added to the human front in the last 30 years, not to mention what we have learned about history, archaeology, geology and many other fields since technology and advanced dating and research tools have been with us.

Students do this in groups and individually. Their work includes math, writing, reading, computer know-how and sophisticated research, communication and interpersonal skills. Skilled teachers guide their projects, ask substantive questions, insist on the inclusion of critical skills and continually urge students on to higher standards.

Even more daunting is that according to some estimates, by the year 2010 the amount of unique new data and information in our world will be doubling every two weeks.

Students are also allowed to determine their own learning goals in consultation with an expert adult, and to measure their learning in relationship to those goals. Although traditional paper and pencil test are included, genuine performance is critical these students are doing what any successful citizen and worker in the Information Age will be doing and will need to know.

How does today’s prescribed curriculum prepare students to live in a world where massive amounts of infor mation are available at the touch of a button? Learning can no longer be defined by the amount of ‘stuff’ we know and recall, but by how well we can access the appropriate knowledge and information necessary, and then use it to complete real-life tasks, inventing new approaches to solve real problems in the process. The new age of InfoWhelm and the ‘flat world’ are already bringing with it the need to communicate both locally and internationally with different individuals of varying cultures, and different perceptions. If today’s students are going to effectively operate in this new global economy, education will have to look different than it does now. There are a very small number of schools where students are already lear ning through complex experiences that require them to apply and use knowledge.

Timelines are flexible and determined by specific tasks. Breaks are taken on an ‘as needed’ basis. Knowing how to find information is as critical as the information itself. Many sources for learning and information are utilised. Individuals work with others as they plan, coordinate and cooperate. They also access their own creativity, acquire self-discipline and come to believe in their own abilities. Let’s contrast this with a classroom deeply steeped in (almost exclusively) replicating what the teacher decides to be important and marked by an environment where the curriculum is fragmented into courses, topics to be mastered and tests be taken.

At the heart of this type of teaching is an almost pervasive meaninglessness and lack of purpose. In an age of unlimited access to information, students are stuck in a curriculum unrelated to the world they experience outside of school. Is it any wonder that they must be controlled or that classroom management and student discipline is of growing necessity? The differences between the 21st century school and the Industrial Age school are staggering. Real education reform cannot succeed until the adults in charge of education have a new mental model that embraces the future. The answers are already there, but in order to move ahead, teachers not only need to have expertise in their respective disciplines, they need to know how to engage students in meaningful and complex learning experiences. To do this, teachers will need help in moving away from an outdated factory approach to teaching. They will need support and guidance, not edicts and mixed messages. Teachers also need to have the opportunity to work together as professionals in their schools. They need to experience the conditions for 21st century learning we want them to provide for students, and to develop the skills that they themselves will be expected to teach their students. Genuine meaningful change means not succumbing to the seductive certainties of the past or assuming that the future will be a natural extension of that past. Only by challenging our assumptions about ourselves and embracing the future one step at a time will we move our schools from where they are to where they truly need to be. It won’t be easy, but do we really want to settle for less?

the final word

Be the Teacher You Would Want For Your Child Karen Boyes

hen you are a parent, the teacher your child has can make a big difference to the year your child (and you!) experience.

These outstanding teachers are also p a s s i o n a t e a b o u t t h e i r students and interested in them in a holistic way, both inside and outside the classroom.

If you reflect on the teachers who influenced you during your education, what was it that made them so special?

Author and educationalist Lauren Resnick states “Students who are held to low expectations and have not been taught to think and problem solve… accept the judgment that inborn aptitude matters most and that they have not inherited enough of that capacity… their performance remains low.”

“ Just because you failed this time, last week, all last year, does not mean you will fail the next time.”

Teachers Matter

A wonderful example of excellence in teaching is shown in the movie The Triumph. It’s based on the true stor y of Ron Clark, the new teacher of an underachieving class in Harlem, New York. He has an amazing faith in his student’s abilities – despite what they, their parents and the school principal believe.

The movie shows how Ron inspires these underachieving students to dream big and attain their goals. His book, The Essential 55, describes the 55 rules and expectations he has of his students and how he uses manners and respect to help his class achieve outstanding test scores and go on to live amazing lives. When I meet outstanding teachers, the one thing that stands out for me is the high expectations they have of their students, despite past results. They know the past does not equal the future – just because you failed this time, last week, all last year, does not mean you will fail the next time.

She continues: “…students who… are treated as if they are intelligent, actually become so. If they are taught demanding content and are expected to explain and find connections… they learn more and learn more quickly. They think of themselves as continual/powerful learners.” Great teachers are constantly ‘looking outside the box’ for ideas to engage and motivate their students to learn. Ron Clark used rap to teach his Harlem students geography, history and science. Knowing your students is important. What do they like? What kind of activities do they participate in? How can you engage all the senses? How can you make learning novel and exciting? How can you use wikis, blogs and other technology to motivate learning? Here are some more ideas to raise the level of your teaching and student learning:

• Give students a reason to exist.

Why are they important? Help them see that their lives are purposeful. Celebrate their gifts and the things they are good at.

•

Value the contribution of every student and help them feel important. Tell them regularly “I enjoy having you in my class.” If you don’t mean it, find a reason you do.

• Teach students to frequently celebrate all

that they have achieved already in their life. From the smallest success to the big

the final word

achievements. Teach them to set goals, chunk them down into achievable steps and go for it. A great quote I saw recently was “Those who don’t have goals are doomed to work for those who do.”

• Encourage students to think about their

thinking and affirm themselves positively with statements such as “I like myself.” A simple statement like this is very powerful - the more a person repeats this the more they will focus on all the good rather than bad in their lives.

•

Allow students to know it’s OK to make mistakes and take risks, and that their achievement is not tied up in being correct or perfect all the time.

• Make students feel important on a daily basis by laughing with them (not at them!), playing with them, taking time to listen and understand them and giving frequent smiles.

•

Turn the negatives into positives. Have you ever noticed that five years after a negative situation has occurred you can now find the reasons it was actually a good thing? Why wait five years? Do it now! Encourage students to find the good in all situations. If it is hard to find the good, ask “What could be good if you want it to be?” Role-model positive self esteem and learning. Step outside your comfort zone regularly to stretch and extend yourself. Be the change you would like to see in your students.

When you reflect on the teachers who influenced your education, how many of these bullet-points did they display? How did they encourage you to be your best? Tucking my 8-year-old son into bed, I told him “You are my best boy!” “You are my best Mum!” he replied. I smiled and informed him I was his only Mum - he is also my only son, however he has not registered this yet. He looked up at me and said “Miss B is like my Mum.” Miss B is his teacher this year. She displays many of those wonderful characteristics of a great teacher. My son bursts out of bed each morning, ready for another day in the classroom. Are you the kind of teacher students (and parents!) feel lucky to have?

Inspirational Movies For Teachers Being a teacher is not just a job, but a calling to make a difference in the world. As a teacher, these movies will remind you of how important you can be in your students’ lives. You’ll be inspired to continue showing excellence and to be a positive role model that your students will respect and want to emulate as adults. The Triumph Freedom Writers Take the Lead Dead Poets Society Stand and Deliver Lean on Me Mr Holland’s Opus To Sir With Love The Miracle Worker Dangerous Minds 75

quote

“ ” The mediocre teacher tells.

The good teacher explains.

The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.

Teachers Matter

William Arthur Ward

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Helping Teachers Grow Since 1994 Habits Of Mind Effective Learning Strategies Learning Styles Thinking Skills Communication Skills Creativity Team Building Speed Reading Student Study Skills Motivation and Goal Setting Resilience Train the Trainer Workshop Design and Deliver On the Job Training Skills

Not only do we show educators how to bridge the gap between teaching and learning, we make it easy for Principals and PD Co-ordinators to plan their year. With an enormous range of specialists on hand to work with your team, cluster or conference, we can easily personalise a professional development event or extended programme to suit your needs.

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Contact Keri Hohipuha to arrange your individual PD Assessment today! keri@spectrumeducation.com (NZ) ph +64 4 528 9969 (Australia) ph 1800 063 272

At Sitech Systems we understand the difficulties in embracing new technology in the classroom...

Activity led by Gemmi Matenga, aged 8yrs

With Sitech’s range of Interactive equipment, from programmable robots to data loggers, weather stations, interactive pads and sound systems, our staff are fully sympathetic to the rapidly developing world of the ICT environment. The professional advice on hand before and after the purchase of our range of equipment may go some way to explaining why Sitech has been leading the way in the supply and development of Educational technology to schools throughout New Zealand for over 20 years.

Sitech Systems (NZ) Ltd Working with teachers to improve teaching and learning in the classroom.

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