Good Teacher Magazine 2019, Term 3

Term Three 2019

“The best teachers don’t give you the answers...

They just point the way ... and let you make your own choices.”

2 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

Your Soapbox

4 Teacher Learning through a ‘CLBL’ Model Dr Jennifer Charteris 5 Teaching resources support positive relationships Family Planning 9 Changing the culture John Hellner 10 Reframing Gifted for Educators Elaine Le Sueur (MNZM) 13 Teaching Literacy - What students might learn from play CM Rubin 14 On Belonging Opinion Piece 18 Social media has limited effects on teenage life satisfaction Oxford University 20 Spark up your learning with MOTAT MOTAT 22 Book Releases New Holland 27 Teachers Without Borders C M Rubin 28 11 Time Management Mistakes You Are Probably Making John Rampton 32 Book Release New Holland 35 Welcome to MOTAT’s Walsh Memorial Library…

Nina Whittaker 36 Milestones for SA heroes of aviation Flinders University 42 Mark Jenkins Placed Around Realistic Mannequins The World Sofie Tapia 46 What does it mean to be environmentally literate?

Stanford University 56 Environmental Literacy Setting the Stage Stanford University 57 LanguagevLearner Cards amd Books Lonely Planet kids 64 Book Reviews 65 New Middle School principal Jeremy Jones 66 Groundbreaking Māori health practitioners Wintec 67 If You Take My Mom To Target Stephanie Jankowski 68 Book Reviews 71 Is Virtual Reality the Ultimate Empathy Machine for Racism? C M Rubin 72 Korean Artist Uploads Step By Step Tutorials Ilona Baliūnaitė 75 Inside the mind of a young person Craig Brierley and Louise Walsh 88 Digging in to save amazing dinosaur gem Flinders University 96 Yale staff member has helped bring summer fun to area kids Susan Gonzalez 98 State funds lower dropout rate Carrie Spector 102 New Zealand Bans Plastic Bags: Sort-of.

Front Cover: Back Cover:

Roger

104

‘Summer Memories’ Photograph: barisa designs® Adelaide Zoo... Meditating meercat Photograph: barisa designs®

Good Teacher Magazine would like to acknowledge the unknown designers and craftspeople internationally for the some of the images and art in the magazine, every care has been taken to identify and acknowledge writers/artists/photographers... however this is not always successful... most were collated from a wide range of internet sources.

ed-media publications

is produced in the first week of each school term and uploaded to http://www.goodteacher.co.nz The magazine is internationally freely available online NOTE: The opinions expressed in Teacher Magazine are not necessarily those of ed-media or the editorial team.

Goo

d

publications

Independent publishers of quality education media.

Advertising enquiries and bookings: info@goodteacher.co.nz Submitting material for publication:barb@goodteacher.co.nz Enquiries: 021 244 3244 info@goodteacher.co.nz mail: ed-media publications

PO Box 5531

Mt Maunganui 3150 ISSN: 1175-5911 Layout and Design: barisa designs® Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 3

Your Soapbox!

“ ”

If you want to have YOUR SAY please email your offering to: info@goodteacher.co.nz

4 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

>Back to index

Teacher Learning through a ‘Collaborative Inquiry for Better Learning’ Model Inquiry into Teaching Practice: In this article we take a look at a model for collaborative inquiry that could be useful for use in schools.

Dr. Jennifer Charteris University of New England

We often hear the term ‘best practice’ which narrows the field into a prescriptive set of (formally or informally) condoned teaching practices.

However, quality teaching is a complex and situated suite of professional practices.

Through developing collaborative approaches to inquiry (aligned with ‘teaching as inquiry’ (Ministry of Education, 2007)), teachers can grow and strengthen their professional practice.

Personalised teacher learning through inquiry has been an important feature of the schooling improvement landscape.

For many years now, teachers have undertaken action research, teacher inquiry and collaborative inquiry.

There are associated practices like classroom walk throughs, peer observations of teaching, gathering of student voice data, and quality learning circles that all aim at encouraging reflection, goal setting, and engagement with data.

Dialogic Feedback When undertaking collaborative inquiry, teachers work together over time to problematise practice, identify challenges, curate and analyse pertinent data and determine pedagogical approaches to enhance student learning and achievement. There are forms of peer observation that can involve teachers gathering data for their colleague about their teaching, without necessarily judging the practice or

>Back to index

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 5

delivering feedback in a transmissive way (Smardon & Charteris, 2014). Conversations about curated data can be immersed in a dialogic process of shared analysis. The Latin etymology of dialogue suggests that the word is made up of two components- with ‘dia’ meaning ‘through’ and ‘logos’ meaning ‘word’ .This breakdown highlights how dialogue’s original meaning was ‘through words’- and the conversation was not restricted to just two people. In collaborative inquiry, dialogue between groups of teachers enables a reasoning process that fosters the growth of collective knowledge. The exposure to different viewpoints can enable teachers to alter or even reject old ideas and beliefs, and generate new ideas, new knowledge and understandings. Dialogic feedback has been found to be a powerful way for teachers to enhance practice. It involves a process where teachers are situated as co-learners and co-constructers of knowledge in peer learning environments (Smardon & Charteris, 2014). In a professional dialogue, each response is a form of feedback (Game & Metcalfe, 2009).

Deciding on learn What are we What are our What are our in collective inquir What is most impor we know about o

Body of knowledge Competencies Dispositions Ethical Principles Social Justice

Collaborative sense making -investigating impact through dialogue What happened?

Have we made an impact for each of our learners?

Collaborative Inquiry Collaborative inquiry is based on the notion that teachers who reflexively and collaboratively interrogate their own practice and support others to do so, foster a community of learning and practitioner agency. The ‘Collaborative Inquiry for Better Learning Model’ (Figure 1), adapted from Sinnema, Meyer and Aitken (2017, p. 17), embeds collaborative inquiry in a teaching and learning process which leverages six interrelated focus areas. These six areas have an interconnected purpose: deciding on learning priorities, deciding on teaching strategies, enacting teaching strategies, collaborative sense making -investigating impact through dialogue, deciding on and actioning professional learning priorities, and critiquing the education system (Sinnema, Meyer & Aitken, 2017). There are associated Figure 1. Collaborative Inquiry for Better Learning Model (Adapted from Sinnema, Meyer & Aitken, 2017, p. 17 in Charteris, forthcoming).

6 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

Body of know Competen Dispositio Ethical Prin Social Jus

Enacting teachin How are we enacti How are our experiencing their l are our interac relationships with like?

Body of knowledge Competencies Dispositions Ethical Principles Social Justice

Drawing on education’s body of knowledge of all learners, learning, society and culture, content, pedagogy, curriculum, and assessment

Deciding on an professional priorit What is most imp to learn (indivi collectively) so make a bigger diff learner

Using cultural, intellectual, critical, relational, and technical competencies

Demon dispo includi minde falli discer and a

Critiquing the edu How is the education system and its structures and po and the qualities of outcomes for learners? H

>

Back to index

ning priorities noticing? hunches? ndividual or ry questions? rtant given what our learners?

Key Resources Inquiries

Body of knowledge Competencies Dispositions Ethical Principles Social Justice

Ç√

nd actioning learning ties portant for us idually and that we can ference to our rs?

Deciding on teaching strategies What evidence informed teaching strategies will help us connect with each of our learners and are most likely to help them learn?

wledge ncies ons nciples stice

Ç√

ng strategies ing strategies? learners learning? What ctions and h our learners ?

nstrating ositions ing openedness, ibility, rnment, agency

Applying ethical principles and commitment to learners’ families, the profession, and society

Body of knowledge Competencies Dispositions Ethical Principles Social Justice

Demonstrating commitment to social justice by challenging racism, inequity, deficit thinking, disparity, and injustice.

ucation system olicies influencing the effectiveness of teaching How might the system be transformed?

>Back to index

questions in Figure 1 that can assist you to think about how you can make decisions around key aspects of the inquiry cycle. The inquiry process can start at any point and your peer dialogue can drive how the questions are collaboratively addressed.

Teacher Agency When knowledge is produced through collaborative inquiry frameworks (like Figure 1 above), teacher agency can be fostered.

Teacher agency is fostered through collaborative inquiry when teachers work with peers to address complex problems. They recognise and respond to the expertise that their colleagues bring to the collaboration (Edwards, 2011). A collaborative exploration of teaching practice values the professional autonomy of all parties. It leverages dialogue, is non-judgemental, and can support growth in professional practice and democratic accountability (Charteris, forthcoming).

Agentic teacher can involve the chance to critique aspects of the education system and may evoke strategic resistance to particular approaches and frameworks (See Figure 1.).

Nevertheless, collaborative inquiry take time, and may be seen as an encroachment on other activities or even an imposition if it is mandated as a requirement of the job.

Handled poorly, teachers may see it as a chore – “just another thing to do”.

Linking your Inquiry with Social Justice Teachers can address the complex and political nature of teaching through considering how their inquires link with five sets of resources: education’s body of knowledge of all learners, learning, society and culture, content, pedagogy, content, pedagogy, curriculum, and assessment; cultural, intellectual, critical, relational, and technical competencies; dispositions of open-mindedness, fallibility, discernment, and agency; ethical principles and commitment to learners, families, the profession, and society; and commitment to social justice by challenging racism, inequity, deficit thinking, disparity, and injustice. (Sinnema, Meyer & Aitken, 2017, p. 17).

An inquiry-orientation or mindset that is shared with colleagues can support you to Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 7

recognise and link your professional learning foci with social justice practices (Sinnema, Meyer, & Aitken, 2017).

Game, A. and Metcalfe, A. (2009) ‘Dialogue and team teaching’. Higher Education Research and Development, 28(1), pp. 45-57.

This article draws from

Ministry of Education. 2007. The New Zealand curriculum. Wellington, NZ: Learning Media.

Charteris, J. (forthcoming) Quality assurance through collaborative inquiry among teacher educators. Springer Encyclopedia of Teacher Education

References Edwards, A. (2011). Building common knowledge at the boundaries between professional practices: Relational agency and relational expertise in systems of distributed expertise.

International Journal of Educational Research, 50(1), 33-39.

8 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

Sinnema, C., Meyer, F., & Aitken, G. (2017).

Capturing the complex, situated, and active nature of teaching through inquiry-oriented standards for teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 68(1), 9-27.

Smardon, D., & Charteris, J. (2014).

Strengthening teacher co-leadership through professional inquiry. Journal of Educational Leadership, Policy and Practice, 29(2), 73-83.

>Back to index

Teaching resources support positive relationships Family Planning’s latest teaching resources aim to support children and young people enjoy positive relationships.

for schools to put the guidelines into action. The resources are downloadable, with lots of useful live links and engaging activities for students.

Equipping children in New Zealand with effective relationship skills is more important than ever, as New Zealand grapples with the second highest school bullying rates among OECD countries according to new survey results.

The four resources have been developed with the intention to build on students’ knowledge within relationship and sexuality education in an age and stage relevant approach. The resources in the series currently available are respectively targeted to school years 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8 and carry through the same five overarching themes:

Family Planning’s new school resources for relationship and sexuality education have a strong focus on inclusiveness, consent, celebrating diversity, as well as tools to build skills to manage healthy and positive relationships.

“It is really important to teach relationship skills from year 1 onwards to enable children with the ability to establish and manage diverse relationships with others. Being kind to others, being respectful of differences may seem pretty basic, but there is clearly a need for this to be emphasised and repeated throughout children’s schooling so it becomes part of how they interact with others,” says Family Planning’s National Health Promotion Advisor Amanda Hargreaves.

“Particularly in this digital age where young people can be bullied in several settings, it is really important to teach digital citizenship to children - being a respectful and responsible online user. They need to understand the consequences of their actions online, how it impacts on others and what to do if they need help. We’re really proud of the content in our new resources covering these aspects,” Ms Hargreaves says.

The content of the new resources - Navigating the journey: Sexuality education Te takahi i te ara: Whakaakoranga hōkakatanga, aligns with the revised sexuality education guidelines from 2015 for the learning area of sexuality education in The New Zealand Curriculum, making it easy

>Back to index

• Establishing a positive learning environment: Te whakarite i tētahi ao ako huapai • Who am I? Ko wai au?

• Relationships: Ngā whanaungatanga • Growing and changing: Te tipu me te huri o te tangata • Staying safe: Te noho haumaru Resources for Year 9 and Year 10 will be available over the coming months.

Each resource comes with a free supplementary guide for teachers, to help them in their planning and teaching of relationship and sexuality education.

The update of the resources gave importance to including te ao Māori perspectives, opportunity to explore diverse genders and sexualities, issues around consent, and ensuring there is room for teachers to adapt the content to their own contexts.

“I have received great feedback from teachers about the way the resources encourage teachers to adapt the content to their own contexts. This is exactly our intention, as we wanted to support and encourage teachers to be able to cater to the needs of their learners and also the wishes of the wider school community,” says Ms Hargreaves.

The resources are available to purchase through the Family Planning website and have already seen a high demand.

Family Planning is also offering free professional development courses for teachers centered on the resources. After completion of a course, participants receive the resource for free.

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 9

Changing the culture Here are four hands on strategies that can help to manage the culture of your school. The first two can start now, the last two can begin soon.

Use the school assembly as a “bully pulpit” American President Theodore Roosevelt viewed the office of the president as a way to set the tone and be the example of all that was best in the American Democracy.

School assemblies can serve a similar purpose if done right.

A couple of preconditions: firstly, what is best for your school needs to have been agreed on and to be simple and clear to all – consensus reached that all the staff are working together, supporting each other to work forward in pursuit of the “vision”; secondly, students need to understand how to behave at a formal assembly and need to know the proper etiquette for such a formal occasion.

Basic etiquette for both students and staff should be something such as: to sit or stand quietly; hats off; dress according to the standard of the real-world workplace (not the gym or beach); listen attentively, or at least pretend to; applaud when appropriate. The value of knowing basic good manners will serve students well in any company for the rest of their lives. Help them to learn it now.

The role of the assembly becomes to enunciate and clarify the “vision” – repeatedly and relentlessly.

The school vision should reflect long standing, tried and tested values and characteristics of the culture in which the school exists – simple rules of life, work, living, relationships (e.g. respect for others, tenacity, resilience, kindness, people caring about you, self-respect, being helpful). We know all this and have heard it most of our lives, but kids need to hear it, we need to be reminded.

Much like a fiction writer, “show, don’t tell” the message at assembly. Invite guest speakers, who 10 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

represent the achievement and epitome of the school vision. Address school issues, social issues and actions. Acknowledge behaviours and achievements, people and daily events representative of the values. Identify, share, describe what is important and leave it to the listeners to understand and interpret.

Above all tell stories. No need to lecture, no need to preach, no need to condemn. Tell the tale and share what it means to you.

Walkaround management – people first, paper second The senior administrators should leave the paperwork on their desks and find out what is going on in the classroom and around the school by going there. The paper work never finishes; the people do.

Walk around the school and talk to students out of class. Ask what they are doing and where they are going. Not like a warden, but with a friendly interest. Check the signage, posters and messages in the public places. Do they send the messages you want students to remember? Do they reinforce the vision and the culture you want for your school? Listen and observe.

Peek in the classrooms as you pass. Gain an impression. Notice what the teachers are doing, what the students are doing. What are the noise levels and is the noise “work noise” or “noise noise”? Are 80 percent of the students engaged and on task, or less than 40 percent? How are the desks arranged? Is the place clean, ventilated and well lite?

Visit the classrooms: keep the visits short, informal, frequent, positive and always express appreciation to the teacher. The visit is not about judging the teacher, it is about global impressions of the learning culture of the school.

It aims to open school wide discussion about pedagogy, not individual performance.

Look at the room. Do you see some student work, information about curriculum content or

> Back to index

John Hellner

skill development, rules, motivational messages, exemplars or benchmark standards for skills or performances?

What sorts of relationships exist in the room? Do teacher and students seem comfortable with each other? Is the teacher relaxed and confident? Do you see evidence of mutual respect in the way class members and teachers speak to and interact with each other?

Talk to students. Ask them questions. Look at their work. Do they understand it? Do they enjoy it?

The teachers and the students like to see the ‘chiefs’ out and about. It lets them know teaching and learning matter a great deal in their school, enough to get the bosses to take the time to visit and to talk to them about what they do.

Walkabouts can inform managers about day to day learning and shape decisions for changes or professional development opportunities.

Most importantly, walkabouts will enable the senior administrators to gauge the ‘state’ of the school by getting out in the ‘trenches’ and finding out what is being done on the ‘frontline’.

Real and practical professional development for staff Over the years, In the pursuit of improvement, education systems undergo enormous change and innovation. Good. Methods modify. Curriculum changes. Assessment alters. Policies progress.

Compliance demands differ. Evaluation and reporting strategies evolve. Appraisal amends.

Informed by research, by government policy, by curriculum area and professional bodies, subjects change, internal school policy changes, classrooms change, best pedagogical practices change, compliance demands change, accreditation procedures change.

Teachers bear the major burden of most of this change. Unfortunately, in a sector abounding in change, teachers are not given enough time or quality PD to perfect the strategies and techniques

to implement the change to best advantage.

We can’t easily stop change. We can’t increase the time for professional development. We can’t alter the funding granted for the growth necessary. But we can support some strategies to foster professional growth for staff.

Schools can facilitate staff exchanges with other schools and other with schools in other countries. For short visits and for longer, perhaps year long, visits. Set up one on one mentoring structures within schools and between schools. Encourage staff to seek new positions in their current schools and in other schools. Everyone benefits from “new blood” created by movement of staff.

If the system does not provide for sabbaticals, they can be structured by asking staff if they wish to donate a percentage of their salary to a fund, which they draw on later for their own sabbatical leaves. Collectively, such a fund could offer higher financial returns then any individual could accrue. The fund would also provide an easy opportunity for community monetary contributions.

But sharing of practice professional courses provides the simplest, most cost effective and valuable professional development tool for solving practical problems. Only resort to the “talking head” standing in front of the room, setting themselves up as the font of all knowledge, when it is necessary (or mandated).

Teachers like to tell stories, to present information and give instructions, to share, to help others to be better, to be practical, to solve problems. PD should capitalize on these characteristics. Teachers talking, sharing practice. Authentic. Practical. Hands on.

A group of teachers in a room has more expertise and experience knowledge than any “talking head” expert. The wisdom is IN the room, not at the front of the room. What is needed is a good facilitator to bring it off.

Continued over...

>Back to index

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 11

Teachers work best – everyone works best – when they feel a sense of personal and professional growth.

Get ‘em right in the first year New arrivals at your school don’t know what you expect and how serious you are about ensuring your expectations are met.

• They need to be told.

• They need to be reminded.

• They need to hear it from every teacher all the time.

• They need to hear and see it at assembly and in the classrooms and on the corridor walls.

• They need to see it in how teachers respond when the expectations are challenged by a student.

The “tone” of the school needs setting from day one when students first arrive in the school, even if it means we need to be firm, rather than friendly. If we miss the chance to set the standard early, or do not enforce the standard, students will adopt a lesser standard, which may not be in their own best interest.

early February, there used to be an old adage told to beginning teachers: “never smile before Easter” – start firm, set the standard, then you can ease up.

By Easter, usually sooner, the students understand the expectations, the standards and the foundation of good learning in your classroom and in your school. Then it is time to have fun. When the fun needs to stop and the learning routines observed, the students quickly slip back into the habits necessary for success.

This works for the individual classroom, as well as on a school wide basis.

Personally, my expectations are for a classroom and a school where the students understand that in order to succeed in the messy and difficult business of learning, or of doing anything successfully, there must be a combination of quiet time, talk time, listen time, a time to work, sharing time, a time to move and a time to sit still. Non-stop chaos and unstructured selfmanagement sell our students short on their great opportunity to learn in school.

If we as teachers and administrators do not “get ‘em right” early in the first year at the school, we will never get them right for their time at the school. They will adopt counterproductive learning behaviour habits.

For the sake of the culture of the school, all the teachers must consider what worthy expectations mean for them and for the school as a whole. They must agree to follow procedures and offer corrections to students, supporting their peers and the institution – corporate responsibility.

Bad habits are easy to form and hard to break.

Some teachers may need support to do that.

In New Zealand, where the school year starts in

Walk around managers can help to do that.

12 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

>Back to index

Reframing Gifted For Educators Elaine Le Sueur (MNZM)

Many of the myths about gifted students still persist in spite of the higher profile that the sector holds as a result of changes in government focus.

What have we learned from the last thirty years in New Zealand education?

There has been talk about meeting the needs of gifted in education spheres for many of those years but my contention is that little has changed for these students in the wider education community as a result.

C

Combine a can do attitude and the desire to find out what works for the students they work with, beyond getting bogged down with identification issues.

Talk is not enough.

This has led me to reflect on what I believe to be the things that successful educators do to promote change for gifted students within their sphere of influence in the hope that others can learn from the already converted and successful.

H A N G E

Have a plan that includes keeping up with cutting edge technology

Advocate for individuals and accept that there may not be school wide agreement but persist anyway.

Negotiate alternatives to keep students interested and on task while meeting the goals required

Give gifted students opportunities to focus on real world issues and interact with experts in their fields to find answers for themselves.

Evaluate own actions and work with the student and extended family regularly to make informed decisions These days I sell original resources online through https://teacherspayteachers.com/Store/ Thinking-Challenges I would love you to visit and follow my store to be updated as new resources are added.

>Back to index

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 13

Teaching Literacy – What Student

“We use play because play is learning.” – Catalina Gonzalez

Catalina González, founder and director of Literacy4all begins her story in Colombia.

A young school teacher, Javier GonzálezQuintero, was asked to send report cards for his students to their parents.

Javier decided this would not work since very few of the children’s parents were able to read and write.

So, he decided instead to meet with the parents in person. He invited the fathers to play dominoes.

Many of the dads (who couldn’t read or write) proceeded to beat Javier at dominoes and he wondered: what if these men could learn to read and write the same way they learned to win at dominoes — through play?

14 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

The abcdespañol board game was born, and for 30 years has been successfully implemented as a learning tool in more than ten countries reaching over a million children, youth and adults.

Today, LEMA – Literacy Education and Math Lab – works to support early literacy development in children from 1st to 4th grade that are not reading at grade level.

The Global Search for Education is pleased to welcome Javier’s daughter, Catalina González, to tell us how students are improving their literacy skill levels through play.

>Back to index

ts might Learn from Play C.M. Rubin

“Group play encourages relationship building and helps to promote the development of social and communication skills. It also allows and encourages peer-to-peer learning.” – Catalina Gonzalez Catalina, how would you describe your challenges and your progress with your model to date?

There are more children in classrooms today than there were 15 years ago. However, children are not learning how to read, write or use basic math. Children who don’t learn how to read by the end of third grade are likely to remain poor readers for the rest of their lives, and are likely to fall behind in other academic areas. Without these foundational skills, there is no lifelong learning.

Another challenge is how and what children are learning aligns poorly with how they learn best and with what they need to learn. LEMA´s solution is based in play-based group work. We use play because play is learning. Group play encourages relationship building and helps

>Back to index

to promote the development of social and communication skills. It also allows and encourages peer-to-peer learning, changing the power dynamics of the traditional classroom.

Through play, we are able to remove one of the biggest barriers to learning – fear. Learners are encouraged to explore, discover, develop and test hypotheses, making learning relevant.

Lastly, the key to the LEMA model is its flexibility with regards to who, where and when learning takes place, and who supports students on their learning journey. In some contexts, the process is guided by teachers during the school time. In others, the process is guided by learning coaches, who can be retired teachers, grandparents, parents, youth, older siblings, or volunteers. By bringing other social actors to support children´s literacy, we build communities Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 15

“Learners are encouraged to explore, discover, develop and test hypotheses, making learning relevant.” – Catalina Gonzalez able to support schools and their children, unburden teachers, and ensure that children acquire the skills they need when they need them. This form of learning can happen in and outside of the school time.

To date, LEMA has been implemented in 4 countries, reaching over 8,000 children, and has trained over 500 teachers and learning coaches.

The programs are set to become autonomous, allowing for programs and schools to incorporate LEMA in the way that works best for their community.

What makes the Literacy4All learning tools and games unique compared to other models?

We are changing where, what and how children learn. Our approach to literacy goes beyond memorizing rules or repeating sounds. We approach language (including the language of mathematics) as systems, with rules to be discovered and applied; studying and understanding exceptions as proof of these rules.

16 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

Play groups allow children to develop social skills, communication, collaboration, problemsolving and conflict resolution skills. It also promotes emotional intelligence and confidence, while supporting children’s creativity. In many parts of the world, the digital divide continues to be a challenge. Our model can reach populations were technology and connectivity remains a luxury few can achieve.

How would you describe the biggest challenges you’ve faced in engaging your end users? How have you addressed these challenges?

Despite increased access, many children today are not able to attend school; and those that attend school are not mastering the foundational skills they need for future learning, work and life.

Children from all socioeconomic backgrounds are affected, but the poorest children carry the heaviest burden. We work with the community to develop the capacity they need to support their children, using a play based model that is an accessible instructional tool.

>Back to index

“We work with the community to develop the capacity they need to support their children.” – Catalina Gonzalez If someone asked you to share 1 or 2 great examples of how your model has had an impact on learners, which stories would you show/tell us?

Teachers in India reported doubting the approach at first, but when they saw their children learning, it changed their confidence on the approach and their level of confidence in their children. In Panama, 1000 children with learning disabilities improved their skills using our games.

In El Salado, a population of Colombia devastated by violence, school teachers are afraid, often get sick or are unable to reach the school due to poor road conditions. By training community leaders, we made sure children continued to learn despite the adversity of the conditions.

Where do you see your model in 5 or 10 years from now?

We see our model expanding, reaching more children and adapting the games to many more languages, so children can learn in their first language. We also see ourselves partnering with organizations developing learning apps, to reach many more communities. We hope to work more intentionally in reaching children with learning disabilities. We also hope to work with parents of children 0 to 5 so that they can become more effective advocates and supporters of their children’s learning process.

C M Rubin and Catalina Gonzalez

>Back to index

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 17

On Belonging.

While we have always known we would homeschool, we are 18 months in now and I feel like we are settling into a bit more of a groove.

We have spent the past 18 months joining up to groups, meeting new homeschoolers, and finding activities to fill our days.

We have attended, joined, participated in and even initiated many, many groups and activities.

Some one-off, some regular.

We are finding what works for us.

18 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

Last year as my first year as a ‘homeschooler’ I really struggled to find ‘where we fit’. I felt I had to defend our decision to non-homeschoolers but equally when I turned up to homeschool events I struggled to find like-minded families.

We made some friends. We learned that some home school families did not want to be our friends at all - some for religious reasons, some because of deep-set social issues.

It was the hardest thing I have encountered so far. Learning that not all homeschoolers will want to be my friends and that I don’t want to be friends with them! I know it sounds obvious!

But I just assumed the homeschool community would be a warm, welcoming and supportive place. We all had thought long and hard about our decisions and that we would be bound by our shared identity as homeschoolers - people living outside of the mainstream. I thought that people would be happy to share what they are

>Back to index

doing and to welcome us into established groups and activities. I could not have been more wrong. We were welcome to attend activities and groups. But we were not welcomed into these groups. As new homeschoolers we were very much ‘attendees’ at activities which we would arrive at, participate in and then go home.

People were reluctant to talk to us and include us.

We bounced between activities and groups.

People we saw for an hour and then never had anything to do with for another week. We have made some beautiful homeschool friends interestingly all bar one we met outside of homeschooling activities - just through going about our normal life! They come and visit, the children play and then they go home.

So what was the rub? Why couldn’t I just be happy with having friends to visit and activities to attend? What was missing? Why was I so confused about what it was that we were doing?

One of the main problems for me was I kept coming up against people who were just not my people. was craving like-minded people. People who I respected or who I could see myself in to validate our choice! To say to myself “look! these guys are nice/normal/interesting and they are doing it too! we are ok!”. And I questioned what it said about me if I was in this same group of outliers opting out of society - was that really the person I wanted to be and the life I wanted for my family? Where did we belong? Who did we belong with? I didn’t just want to wait for the other kids to finish school so we had people to play with!

Big questions with very few people to bounce answers off - see when you homeschool as soon as you bring up any difficulty the default response is “oh so you’ll be off to school then?” like school is the ultimate fix to all your problems! Which is where I began to get to on my own when I questioned our identity and I questioned where it was that we ‘belonged’.

>Back to index

I thought about my own education in New Zealand schools - kindergarten through to tertiary and then back into the system as a teacher. I thought about the shared experiences many, many of us have - even cross-generational - a shared experience we can all draw on and a point we can all recognise at some level as familiar. Am I depriving my children of this shared experience? Should they be in school so they have a shared cultural experience? So they can be the same as everyone else? Attend the school, go through the rituals, share the laughs, share the conformity?

It dawned on me then, that I was looking to school to fill an enormous gap for us - to provide a sense of belonging even though I fundamentally disagree with so many of the processes and cultures that make schools and that ultimately bind people together. It made me realise what an enormous role schools play in creating a sense of belonging and how precious this is and I wonder how many schools truly treat this with the respect it deserves? And it made me realise how damaging it could be for those who don’t find their place in our schools, who never fit in, who battle to change themselves to feel they fit in, who lose their identities along the way. It made me feel incredibly sad that we are funnelling our whole population into institutions where there is very little room for freedom of expression, for thinking outside of the group and for non-conformity. What is the cost of this for individuals? For us as a society?

So we continue our journey, dipping in an out of activities, meeting all kinds of different people and slowly accumulating a beautiful group of people around us, all the while with a very open mind as to how we can create a sense of belonging for our children - not belonging to a school. But belonging to the world.

The occasional diary of an unschooler Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 19

Social media has limited effects on te A study of 12,000 British teenagers has shown that links between social media use and life satisfaction are bidirectional and small at best, but may differ depending on gender and how the data are analysed.

Researchers from the Oxford Internet Institute (OII), part of the University of Oxford, used an eight-year survey of UK households (Understanding Society, part of the UK Household Longitudinal Study) to study how long teenagers spent using social media on a normal school day and their corresponding life satisfaction ratings.

20 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

This is the first large-scale and in-depth study testing not only whether adolescents who report more social media use have lower life satisfaction but also whether the reverse is true.

Before this study scientists had little means of disentangling whether adolescents with lower life satisfaction use more social media or whether social media use leads to lower life satisfaction.

The current research has used improved data and statistical approaches and found most links between life satisfaction and social media use were trivial. Yet there were some bidirectional effects: Lower life satisfaction led to increased social media use and vice versa. These bidirectional effects were more consistent for females than for males, but again, these were modest trends.

>Back to index

eenage life satisfaction Oxford University

Professor Andrew Przybylski and Amy Orben, the co-lead authors of the study, stress that this represents an important step in understanding the effects of social media. Professor Przybylski, Director of Research at the OII, notes: ‘Given the rapid pace of technological advancement in recent years, the question of how our increasing use of technology to interact with each other affects our wellbeing has become increasingly important. With most of the current debate based on lacklustre evidence, this study represents an important step towards mapping the effects of technology on adolescent well-being.’

Amy Orben, College Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Oxford, highlights that: ‘The previous literature was based almost entirely on correlations with no means to dissociate whether social media use leads to changes in life satisfaction or changes in life satisfaction influence social media use.’

Dr Tobias Dienlin from the University of Hohenheim, who also worked on the study, elaborates that “More than half of the statistical models we tested were not significant, and those that were significant suggested the effects were not as simple as often stated in the media. Most statistically significant models examined teenage

>Back to index

girls. However, because these effects were tiny, they weren’t significantly larger in girls compared to boys.”

The researchers selected the UK Household Panel Study for their analysis because it provided the highest quality longitudinal data available.

However, they highlighted that researchers are still limited to the use of self-reported social media usage because of the lack of a political, ethical and scientific framework to share detailed usage data stored by social media companies with the scientists trying to investigate their impact.

The authors conclude: ‘Applying transparent and innovative statistical approaches we show that social media effects are not a one-way street, they are nuanced, reciprocal, possibly contingent on gender, and arguably trivial in size’.

Amy Orben highlights: ‘While our study is a very promising step towards robust science in this area, it is only the first step. To ultimately understand how the diverse uses of social media affect teenagers we need industry data’. ‘Moving forward access to this kind of data will be key to understanding the many roles that social media plays in the lives of young people’, Professor Przybylski added.

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 21

22 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

>

Back to index

Spark up your learning with MOTAT Many of us who have grown up in Auckland probably look back on our own school trips to MOTAT as quaint excursions into a world where heritage items were brought back to life to help demonstrate how our colonial ancestors might have lived.

It’s therefore somewhat of an understatement to say that the MOTAT of today has changed!

Over the last 5 years MOTAT has found its voice as the venue that celebrates past technology as well as championing stories of presentday Kiwi innovation.

What’s more, MOTAT translates these stories into sources of inspiration to fire the imaginations

>Back to index

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 23

of our next generation of Kiwi inventors, thinkers and entrepreneurs – your students.

This approach has successfully filled a gap in our country’s cultural landscape. MOTAT is asserting itself as New Zealand’s innovation hot house – a ‘lightbulb’ institution.

This new past, present, future approach is reaping rewards and there is no better demonstration of its value than in MOTAT’s Learning Experiences Outside the Classroom (LEOTC) programmes.

The museum’s heritage collection offers numerous options for classes wishing to delve deeper into a wide array of learning opportunities in the social sciences and STEM disciplines e.g., - building complex machines using the six simple machines, daily life in Victorian New Zealand, coding and the internet of things, and social change through the lens of telecommunication With the guidance of MOTAT’s educators’ students can experience unique hands-on learning opportunities which cannot be duplicated in the classroom. The opportunity to experience MOTAT’s heritage collection is one

24 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

>Back to index

opportunity but there are also opportunities for students to engage with advanced technology and contemporary tools to develop their understanding of how technologies can be adapted and manipulated to solve their own real-life challenges.

Since 2017 MOTAT has further enhanced its education offering by joining forces with digital tech specialist educators The Mind Lab. The Mind Lab run their Auckland school and holiday programmes exclusively at MOTAT with great results.

This partnership has enabled MOTAT to complement its interactive collection inspired learning experiences with modules that focus on specialist digital areas such as Robotics, Coding, Animation and 3D design.

MOTAT, along with its partner The Mind Lab, can develop LEOTC programmes unlike anything that could be delivered in a traditional classroom environment.

Whether it’s a programme that will kick start your enquiry learning and fire your students’ imaginations or a programme that rounds off your learning, reinforcing their discoveries and embedding concepts through immersive learning experiences, or perhaps an experience in between that will help propel your students learning faster and further.

MOTAT has the resources and

> Back to index

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 25

expertise to develop a programme that is uniquely yours.

Talk to the education team at MOTAT about your plans and let them work with you to spark great learning outcomes in your classroom.

It could be the transformative experience our next ‘Peter Beck’ or ‘Peter Jackson’ needs to launch their future endeavours…

To speak to an educator: education@motat. org.nz To make a booking: bookings@motat.org.nz

26 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

DID YOU KNOW? It just got even easier to enjoy MOTAT’s vast resources with the launch of our Online Collection Portal. So far more than 83,000 items have been made accessible and more are being added each week.

Visit MOTAT’s online collection here: https://collection.motat. org.nz/explore

>Back to index

New from New Holland: Coo-Coo Kereru

By Terry Fitzgibbon With a mixture of poetry and prose this beautifully illustrated book takes us through the life of the Keruru, New Zealand’s Native Wood Pigeon.

Beautiful birds larger than the traditional an more well-known pigeon these magnificent birds are considered very special though at times they are rather cavalier with their eating and subsequent flying behaviours, the writer has witnessed these in action and the author’s description of then as comical is right on the mark.

A lovely book for reading aloud or just to enjoy with its beautiful illustrations, this would be an asset to any library, classroom or family collection.

On the Brink New Zealand’s Most Endangered Species

By Maria Gill, Illustrations by Terry Fitzgibbon Looking at the five most endangered: Birds, Marine Mammals, Reptiles, Frogs and Bats, Fish and Insects in New Zealand, this book is highly informative covering a general overview of each subject, their current status, the threats they face every day and what conservation measures are currently being undertaken.

There is an informative environmental section, a comprehensive contacts section and a useful glossary, all adding up to an interesting informative book which would be well used for any conservation/endangered species/ ‘looking at New Zealand’ research project.

>Back to index

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 27

Teachers Without Borders

At this very moment we have a community of 350 passionate teachers across 75 countries, offering free Skype lessons.”

Koen Timmers

In the era of globalization, interactions and learning between students of different countries have become a necessity for classrooms.

initiative, a youth service program that aims to foster respect and compassion for all living beings, and promote understanding of cultures and beliefs.

Koen Timmers, an award-winning educator, researcher, lecturer and author, is a firm believer in “borderless” education.

The Global Search for Education welcomes Koen Timmers, the Founder of the Kakuma Project, a global climate action and innovation lab, to talk about his initiatives and changing global education.

Already working with teachers and students across 6 continents, Koen is focusing on connecting students globally to solve real world challenges that can promote skills such as “creativity, empathy, critical thinking, and collaboration.”

More recently he began collaborating with Jane Goodall and her “Roots and Shoots” 28 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

Koen, please tell us more about your Climate Action project?

In our Climate Action project, students across 90 countries focused on climate changes. They took the lead in their learning process and explored, brainstormed, connected, and shared their

>Back to index

“We are fighting polarization by allowing students to experience something they will still remember in 5, 10 or even 20 years, and at the same time instilling empathy by allowing students to have an intercultural exchange.”

Koen Timmers

findings via weekly videos that are published at my website. Students were able to learn from each other in their own class and then from their global peers. This was really powerful because climate change varies from country to country.

For example, schools in Ireland were closed for the very first time in history due to hurricanes. In Sierra Leone, students were killed because of mud flows. In the Arctic Canada, ice is melting rapidly. Every nation has its own issues and students can get direct insights into the other participants’ lives. Learning was not only authentic, but it was engaging.

In our Kakuma project, I shipped my own laptop to a Kenyan refugee camp housing 200,000 refugees. I started to teach the students via Skype. With the help of a crowdfunding campaign, we were able to bring our own internet connection to the camp, and by teaming up with an American teacher, Brian Copes, we have been able to develop a solar suitcase which offers free power supply to the schools involved.

At this very moment we have a community of 350 passionate teachers across 75 countries, offering free Skype lessons.

>Back to index

What do you think makes your project unique?

I believe that the scale is unique. The fact that we are using simple, free tools in a global context allows us to do something powerful. We are able to increase the level of education in a massive refugee camp, and education is their only way out as they are locked in the camp. While most people are charmed by the project, they usually forget the fact that we are doing more than offering free lessons of Math, Science and English. We offer students across the world a fair perspective on the refugees’ lives and we allow them to have informal chats about habits, cultures, hobbies and art. We are fighting polarization by allowing students to experience something they will still remember in 5, 10 or even 20 years, and at the same time instilling empathy by allowing students to have an intercultural exchange. We are not dependent on agencies since we all are volunteers. The power of a network!

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 29

“Education needs to be customized and teachers need to focus on learning rather than teaching.”

Koen Timmers

The world is becoming so much more about appreciating global perspectives. How are schools adapting to this learning method and how is it more effective for children?

What are the challenges you’ve experienced in this journey? What lessons have you learned and how have you modified and improved the program for global classrooms?

Not everybody agrees that self-inquiry, projectbased and collaborative learning works. Some researchers still exclusively believe in direct instruction. But they are making one mistake.

The right pedagogy depends on the students’ age, topics to teach, schools and cultures.

Education needs to be customized and teachers need to focus on learning rather than teaching.

Students do need a proper introduction, context and background to a topic before they are able to have a successful discussion or solve problems. Sometimes teachers do need to “guide” their students rather than “instruct” them in order to point them to the right direction. For example, an American teacher, Tara, found out that her students believed basically everything they read on the internet.

Therefore, her major goal during the Climate Action project was tackling fake news. Other teachers were surprised by the fact their students came up with mind-blowing solutions: Canadian students 3D printed coral reefs, Nigerian students created their own biomass plant, and Tunisian students developed their own video game. Belgian students used Lego to create stop motion videos, and students across 50 countries simultaneously created an ecofriendly world in Minecraft. Learning has really become a fun activity. Teachers need to create a willingness to learn, since we don’t want our students to stop being eager to learn once they graduate.

One of the biggest challenges is, unfortunately, the lack of resources in some countries. While most European and American students were able to work on computers, African students usually had to use pen and paper. However, they were still able to have a discussion, to brainstorm, to create, and to share their findings. In most cases, the teacher used Whatsapp – an app which proves to be the most performant – to send short videos.

30 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

Also, English was an issue in most South American countries. But naturally, students and teachers there created their own Spanishspeaking community.

In terms of the wide age range of the project (we have students from 10 to 21 participating in the project), teachers all take different approaches, utilize appropriate pedagogies, and employ technologies differently on various age groups, as it is key that content, pedagogy and technology are in balance. It’s the teachers who are pedagogical engineers who need to judge which tool and approach need to be connected to certain topics.

If an educator wants her classroom to be a part of your global program, how does she get started? What are the steps?

I’m launching these kinds of projects throughout the year. Educators can go to Innovation Lab Schools, where they can find updates or follow me on Twitter.

>Back to index

“I aim to develop Innovation lab schools in 10 countries this year and plan to offer free and quality education to 1 million students by 2020.”

Koen Timmers

How would you describe your achievements to date and what are your longer term goals for the project?

I recently started a collaboration with Dr. Jane Goodall and her “Roots & Shoots” initiative. Together we will equip 3 innovation lab schools. The project involves our own curriculum based on the UN Sustainable Development Goals with connections to STEM (Science Technology Engineering Math). I aim to develop Innovation lab schools in 10 countries this year and plan to offer free and quality education to 1 million students by 2020. By setting up these schools we intend to bring content, pedagogy and technology in a perfect balance by shifting to a different style of learning that puts students at the center of their education journey. We will also have a global teacher community of 1,000 teachers offering free Skype lessons around the world. This way we are able to equip students with the right skills (collaboration, critical thinking, problem solving, empathy, etc), which have become increasingly important with the advent of the fourth industrial revolution. These skills will shape them to be the global citizens we need.

>Back to index

C.M. Rubin and Koen Timmers Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 31

11 Time Management Mistakes You Are P

Do you feel like you’re working all the time but not producing the results you desire?

You’re not alone.

It’s a problem that a lot of talented people must overcome. Unfortunately, some people, as a last-ditch effort, embrace time management techniques that only add to the time mismanagement struggle.

Avoid these 11 common time management traps that most entrepreneurs make. Learn ways that you can conquer the mismanagement of time -- and you’ll rectify this headache.

1. Denying you have a time management problem.

I’ve occasionally told myself, “If only I had more time I could have gotten to X, Y, and Z.” Of course, we can’t have more than 24 hours in a day, so why waste our mental energy griping about this issue?

“Complaining that there is not enough time will never create more time. It just makes you feel better for a moment,” John Mashni wrote in an article. “But it hurts you tremendously.

Complaining about the lack of time prevents you from facing reality: something is broken.”

32 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

Stop saying that you don’t have enough time to complete your commitments. Instead, admit that you need to get better at managing your time and start experimenting with techniques that will help you reach your goals.

2. Neglecting to plan out your day.

“It’s important to plan out your day for maximum efficiency. You don’t have to know what you’re doing minute-by-minute, but try to set daily goals including tasks you’d like to complete, then prioritize them in order of importance,” suggests Choncé Maddox of Calendar, who recommends preparation and brainstorming to save time and energy.

Spend a few minutes in the evening laying out your clothes and prepping your meals for tomorrow.

Reviewing your calendar will brace you mentally, save time in the morning and reduce decision fatigue.

Whether you use a calendar app or jot-down a detailed to-do-list, planning out your day gives you structure so you aren’t scrambling to figure what’s next.

3. Letting the “urgent” overtake the “important.”

Distinguishing “urgent” from “important” is a challenge for most people. How can you put out a fire when you’re on your way to an important meeting?

>Back to index

Probably Making John Rampton I use the ‘Eisenhower Matrix’ to help me prioritize my tasks so that I don’t let the urgent take control of my schedule. Take all of your tasks and place them into four quadrants: •

To do first. The most important responsibilities that need to be done today or tomorrow.

•

Schedule. Important tasks that are not urgent, you can schedule them into your calendar.

•

Delegate. Essential items that are not important... hand them off to someone else.

•

Don’t do. What tasks aren’t important or urgent? Delete these from your lists or add them to “would like to do if I ever get a chance.”

4. Improper delegation.

Teachers pride themselves on being a jack-of-alltrades but you don’t need to be involved with every single part of your school life. Be aware of what’s going on but check your ego at the door and delegate the right tasks to the appropriate people.

5. Having to wake up early.

Take a moment and read other time management articles. You’ll find one of the most common pieces of advice shared is to wake up early. As someone who practices habit -- I completely understand the rationale. Let’s say you wake-up an hour earlier. You can use that time to review your calendar, exercise, eat a healthy breakfast, read or clean out your inbox without getting distracted.

Here’s the thing. Setting your alarm to four a.m. isn’t all there is to time management. It’s all about working around your peak productivity and setting aside blocks of time to focus on your priorities. Think about it this way. If you’re a night owl, you’re going to miserable if you start waking up at some unbelievable hour.

Plan out your days to work on your most important tasks when you have the most energy and focus. If your peak is at sunset, that’s when

>Back to index

you should block out the time to focus on your most important tasks. It’s a much better strategy than fighting against your body’s internal clock.

6. Being inflexible.

No matter how well planned you are, you will get interrupted. That’s why it’s crucial that your calendar has some flexibility. For instance, the other day, everything was going according to plan until right after lunch when a someone reported some technical problems with our technology.

We had to stop what we were working on but, thankfully, I usually leave open the hour after lunch -- it always gets filled. On most days, it’s when I check my emails, catch-up with my team, or slip in an visitor who wasn’t scheduled.

However, because of this blank space in my calendar on that day I was able to resolve the matter without rescheduling any other items on my to-do-list.

7. Being “perfect.”

We all strive to deliver quality work, but constantly aiming for perfection is unrealistic.

Often the pressure we put on ourselves to “be perfect” leads us to pressure other people about their issues. It’s not worth it.

Take Steve Jobs as an example. While his perfectionism drove him to create some of the most iconic products in recent history -- it also extended the time it took to develop products and created friction with employees. If you put off what has to be done -- you can be confident that someone else will beat you to the punch.

8. Over-and-under committing time.

We tend to miscalculate how long a task will take us to complete. We estimate something will only take an hour, then it takes closer to two hours.

Sometimes it’s the other way around but either way it throws a monkey wrench into our entire schedule. Whatever was supposed to get done today has to be pushed until tomorrow.

It’s not always easy to determine how long it will take you to finish a task -- but usually it takes longer than you think it will. The best idea is to Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 33

keep a time log for at least a week to see how you spend your time. You can do this manually in a notebook or using time tracking software.

9. Cleaning your workspace daily.

Do I mean that you should leave food wrappings on your desk? No. Should you grab a file or tool and never return it to its rightful place? Of course not. The first is unsanitary, and not returning items to their home results in you spending a boat-load of time searching for misplaced items.

What I mean is that it’s acceptable to have a little clutter around your workspace. One study found that a messy desk can spark creativity. So, if you don’t have the time, then there’s no need to stress yourself out about a small mess.

Personally, I set aside the last hour of Friday afternoons to clean and organize my workspace.

The end of the week usually tapers off a little, and this is a soft productive task that still ends my week on a high note.

10. Working non-stop.

A lot of teachers pride themselves for putting in

34 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

an insane number of hours at their job. Elon Musk, for example, is known to work 80-some hours per week. The truth is regardless how much you have on your plate, everyone needs breaks to refocus and recharge. I’ve done the 80-hour weeks. It’s brutal on you and everyone else.

Your break need only be a 10-minute walk between but try to unplug completely during non-business hours. Seriously, force yourself to take a break and unplug -- get a remote desk and move it up and down a couple of times a day.

Walk while you have a meeting on the phone -- anything helps.

11. Never finding the time management system that works for you.

There is no shortage of time management strategies and hacks but there is no one-size-fitsall approach to the value of time. What works well for one educator may not be sufficient for you.

Experiment with various time management techniques until you find the system that works best for you. It will take some trial and error but until effectively manage your time, you’ll constantly battle the clock.

>Back to index

Antarctic Journeys Philippa Werry Published by New Holland Introduction: ‘This book tells the stories of Antarctic journeys, big and small, animal and human, scientific and practical, journeys of art and memory, journeys through the landscape and into the past’ With these words finishing the introduction page I turned the pages not being sure of what to expect … after all there isn’t much going on in the Antarctic is there?

What followed was the most interesting book about the Antarctic from the past and through to the future. Fascinating information corralled into 5 chapters: 1. Journeys of exploration; 2. Today’s journeys; 3. Animal journeys; 4. The landscape; 5. My journey.

Facts of interest to anyone who collects information, this book is staying on the writer’s bookshelf for a further read. It is jam packed full of interesting facts about expeditions, little snippets which would otherwise be missed and realistically covering both the good and the less pleasant aspects of being stranded on the most remote and coldest continent on earth.

>Back to index

I found the animal tales both appealing and sad though at least they have been recognised for their contribution to the exploration and development of the region.

The Author’s take on her trip to the Antarctic is interesting and followed by ‘Your Journey’ letting the reader know where they can find more information followed by a Glossary and great Timeline running from 1772 through to 2007.

There is also (for those wishing to research further) a list of Useful Websites and Further Reading

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 35

Are We Prepped for Superintelligence Welcome to MOTAT’s Walsh Mem

MOTAT’s Walsh Memorial Library is a space where all visitors young and old can come together over learning.

In a library parents, teachers and caregivers can lead by example to show kids how to explore books, colours, and ideas.

In our daily lives as librarians here at MOTAT, we can easily pick out children who feel comfortable in a library.

At MOTAT’s Walsh Memorial Library we invite them in and give them tactile, visual and creative experiences to try their hand at.

Our main aim is to simply let them be children, in a library.

They are confident in asking questions, looking around, and settling down.

Unfortunately, some children haven’t yet had the opportunity to get used to libraries!

But this is where our team can help.

36 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

>Back to index

e? morial Library‌ Nina Whittaker, MOTAT Librarian

Stickers from our MOTAT Print Shop, bookmarks on book care, and an old telephone all let children who prefer tactile experiences or have difficulty reading know that they are welcome in this library.

My colleague Chelsea spent twenty minutes with the school group pictured here, teaching them about rare book handling and the role of Special Libraries.

>Back to index

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 37

We have a variety of books for all reading ages, and because we’re MOTAT these are focused around Transport and Technology-related topics.

These books enable children to see technology as something fun that they can relate to. If Mister Rabbit driving a car can be an expert, then so can they!

One of our popular Library initiatives has been to encourage restless children to get settled by simply drawing what they love. This gives them the time to sit down at the table and get used to the space, and all while doing something that makes them feel proud.

Baby steps like this empower tamariki to associate libraries with creative spaces.

38 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

>Back to index

We put their drawings on display above our Tamariki Young Readers collection, so that this space in MOTAT’s library really becomes theirs. They are always so proud to see their artworks on display. Doing this reinforces a sense of empowerment and exploration within a library setting.

Sitting down and drawing something from their day at MOTAT gives children a chance to pause and reflect on what they’ve seen. It’s a chance for synthesis of ideas, connection with classmates, and personal input.

What inspired them today? What was their favourite place to play? How do they feel when they are learning? What kind of car would they design?

This little prankster was determined to draw Spiderman. When we asked how it was related to his day at MOTAT, he proudly pointed to the “olden day car” in the background.

The “car with tiny wheels” is another favourite. This little Library visitor almost cried from laughter while drawing the “tine weols” on this huge car, and was very proud of the exhaust pipe he added beneath the chassis.

When I asked him if he could write the title he said “nope!”, but then gave it a shot anyway!

>Back to index

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 39

Since the Walsh Memorial Library is an important MOTAT Collections space, we are careful to make sure that our little visitors’ experiences do not affect the integrity of our collections and research spaces.

The colour pencils we use are non-toxic and water-soluble and are only brought out when all the collection objects have been put away.

40 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

Here’s a breakdown of pencil colour by popularity: the blue is a clear favourite, with yellow a close second.

Of course, such activity comes at a cost. After most visits there are pencils to be sharpened and stowed away, children’s books to re-shelf, chairs to put back, new drawings to display, and tables to wipe down. The research table is returned to a Collections-ready state, awaiting its next visit.

>Back to index

Being in a library expands children’s horizons.

When our little visitors or school groups come down, they can explore what it’s like to fly around the world, learn about blueprints, maps and manuscripts, learn how to safely operate Lundia shelving, and take turns spreading their wings down Aviation Alley (our aviation books).

Some people wonder why libraries have “nonbook related” programming like Wiggle’n’Rhyme, or MOTAT’s drawing initiative. Our goal is to empower children to claim “Lightbulb Institutions” as their own. For every child who

>Back to index

understands that they have the right to be in a library, there is a future adult who can stand on the shoulders of giants. And our researchers of today were the rowdy library kids of before.

As a Special Library, we are surrounded by incredible collections across a wide variety of media, and it is our pleasure to be able to show tamariki what that means.

He aha te mea nui o te ao?

He tangata, he tangata, he tangata

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 41

Milestones for SA heroes of aviat

Harry Butler, right, with engineer Harry Kauper with the Red Baron. Photo: Ron Blum

Two famous stories in South Australian aviation history are taking off this year, assisted by Flinders University academics.

The centenary of Sir Ross and Keith Smith’s epic world-first flight from Australia to England – and the first airmail flight over water in the southern hemisphere, from Adelaide to Minlaton across Gulf St Vincent – are the major celebrations of memorable heroic flying adventures marked by new history editions.

Flinders University historians are central in the two publications describing the daring ventures of those ‘magnificent men in their flying machines’ who put Australia on the world aviation map.

42 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

Flinders Professor Peter Monteath, who will launch a new book about Yorke Peninsula flying ace Captain Harry Butler at Minlaton on Yorke Peninsula next month, also has edited and introduced a revised original memoir by the world-renowned pilot Sir Ross Smith who tells of his crew’s victory in the Great Air Race of 1919.

Ross Smith and his brother, co-pilot and navigator Keith Smith were part of a four-man crew which successfully flew from Great Britain to Australia in under 30 days in 1919 – just 18 years after German Gustav Whitehead first took to the air in a ‘flying car’ and the Wright brothers first defied gravity for ‘just a few seconds’.

>Back to index

tion The flight in the Vickers Vimy G-EAOU twinengine plane, with an open cockpit exposing them to snow, sleet, hail and unbearable heat, was first described in 14,000 Miles through the Air (1922).

The Epic Flight Centenary is being marked by a series of events in the leadup to the 12 November 1919 takeoff in Hounslow, England to 10 December 1919 arrival in Darwin of the plane still housed at Adelaide Airport.

The new 2019 edition, Flight to Fame: Victory in the 1919 Great Air Race, England to Australia(Wakefield Press) includes an introduction by Professor Monteath and foreword by retired Air Chief Marshal Sir Angus Houston.

The record-breaking 1919 made Australia’s domestic aviation industry possible, with Qantas founded the following year as a consequence of the international Great Air Race achievements.

From the cover of ‘Flight to Fame’, a classic adventure story which tells the hair-raising tale of the world-first flight from England to Australia, in the words of the pilot, (Sir) Ross Smith.

Sir Ross Smith, Sergeant W.H. Shiers and Sir Keith Smith. Photo: J. Bennett (December 1919)

>Back to index

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 43

Another Flinders University academic, keen South Australian historian Dr Samantha Battams, is launching her second history book for the year.

The Red Devil (Wakefield), written with her navy captain nephew Les Parsons, who also hails from Minlaton in SA, coincides with the centenary of the historic flight across Gulf St Vincent 100 years ago.

Associate Professor Battams, who completed her PhD in Public Health at Flinders in 2008, works as a public and global health academic and consultant, and has academic status at the Southgate Institute for Health, Society and Equity at Flinders University.

Hailing from a small farming community on the Yorke Peninsula, Captain Henry John “Harry” Butler (1889-1924) became known as the Red Devil (due to his red monoplane) after becoming part of a daring corps of Australian aviation

pioneers who fought – and survived – the horrors of World War One. As a pilot over the Western Front in France, and then as an instructor training thousands of pilots in England, Captain Butler’s wartime efforts included chasing German planes dropping bombs over London and taking mail to isolated Scottish outposts.

Harry Butler returned from war with two aircraft and dreams of starting an industry. With his little crimson monoplane, Red Devil, Captain Butler inspired many thousands as he performed aerial shows in support of Peace Loan efforts.

Upon his return to South Australia, his flight from Adelaide across the Gulf to his hometown of Minlaton on 6 August 1919 is regarded as the first mail run and first flight across a large body of water in the southern hemisphere. The 4000 postcards he carried held a message from Butler on one side.

Crowds turn out to watch Harry Butler fly his Bristol M1C monoplane, the ‘Red Devil, over the Henley-Grange beach in November 1919. Photo: Margaret Creer

44 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

>Back to index

Associate Professor Sam Battams with the Red Devil memorial at Minlaton.

Returning from war with two aircraft and dreams of starting an industry, he also inspired many thousands doing aerial shows in support of Peace Loan efforts in his little crimson monoplane.

He later purchasing an ‘airport’ at Northfield with engineer Harry Kauper and starting the first commercial flying business and this was where the South Australian Smith brothers landed after they completed their historic first UK-Australia flight in December 1919.

He then set up the first passenger flights from his Hendon aerodrome, with many of its streets now bearing names of aviation companies, planes and early aviators.

With Harry Kauper, he is credited with starting the first passenger flight business in South Australia, taking the first aerial photographs and

>Back to index

setting up what became the first Commonwealth Government airport in Adelaide.

A memorial plaque on North Tce remembers his efforts, while the Minlaton memorial features the lone surviving Bristol monoplane, the Red Devil.

The Red Devil (The Story of South Australian Aviation Pioneer, Captain Harry Butler, AFC) will be officially launched by Professor Monteath during the two days of events to mark the historic mail flight at Minlaton on 3 August, followed by another book signing at the SA Aviation Museum on 17 August.

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 45

Mark Jenkins Placed Around Realistic Mann American artist Mark Jenkins is the name behind the faceless figures of the streets popping up in cities around the world.

Staged in provocative poses, his startlingly lifelike mannequin sculptures are often social critiques meant to challenge the viewer to question their reality.

46 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

In what he dubs urban theater these realistic sculptures provoke an array of reactions that transform his installations into multi-layered performance art.

The Urban Theater is Jenkins’s first monograph.

>Back to index

nequins The World To Mess With People Sofie Tapia

The book “documents a broad spectrum of his compelling, often disturbing street installations,” as well as viewers’ spontaneous responses and interactions with his interventions.

>Back to index

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 47

48 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

>Back to index

>Back to index

Yale University Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 49

50 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

>Back to index

>Back to index

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 51

52 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

>Back to index

>Back to index

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 53

54 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

>Back to index

>Back to index

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 55

What does it mean to be environmentally literate?

Stanford scholars provide a common framework with a 4 part series of research briefs about environmental education.

Environmental education can help people of all ages grapple with and act on issues involving sustainability and the environment. But schools and other organizations that design environmental education programs—and the researchers who study those experiences—often vary in how they define and measure environmental literacy, a broad term that typically includes an understanding of environmental concepts and the skills to make effective decisions around these issues.

The Social Ecology Lab at Stanford Graduate School of Education has released a series of research briefs to provide a common framework for environmental literacy and spark dialogue among researchers and practitioners in the field.

Stanford researchers Nicole Ardoin, Mele Wheaton and Archana Kannan coauthored the briefs, which identify three key themes:  Pathways: The components that comprise a person’s unique, lifelong learning trajectory  Progressions: Movement from one component to another through different stages or levels of environmental literacy  Dosage: The dimensions of an environmental education experience (e.g., program length or duration, repetition or layering, and the intensity level or content) The briefs, produced with support from the Pisces Foundation, review best practices and explore each theme in more depth.

Good Teacher Magazine will publish the 4 briefs over the next 4 issues (starting with this one).

56 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

>Back to index

EnvironmEntal litEracy: SEtting thE StagE E n v i r o n m E n ta l l i t E r a c y B r i E f v o l u m E 1

>Back to index

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 57

As environmental and sustainability-related issues become increasingly complex, the need for environmentally literate people who can grapple with and take action on those issues enhances in importance.

Environmental education (EE), which works to build environmental literacy throughout the life course, can help address this need.

Yet, organizations, agencies, schools, and other entities that design and implement EE programs and initiatives, as well as the researchers who study those experiences, often vary in how they define, conceptualize, and measure environmental literacy. This variation creates challenges when developing a unified understanding of how, and under what conditions, EE experiences enhance and support environmental literacy.

The ambiguity around the term environmental literacy, perhaps, should not be surprising,

58 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

considering its roots. First appearing in a 1968 Massachusetts Audubon article, author Charles Roth asked, “How shall we know the environmentally literate citizen?� Since then, numerous scholars and organizations have worked to clarify environmental literacy’s definition and components (For an overview of various environment literacy frameworks, see Roth 1992; Disinger and Roth 1992; Athman and Monroe 2001; McBeth and Volk 2009; Hollweg et al. 2011; NEEF 2015; and McBride et al. 2013).

The North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE) led a collaborative process with researchers and practitioners to develop a consensus definition, which is one of the most widely used. NAAEE proposed that this synthetic definition also be a framework for assessing environmental literacy (Hollweg et al. 2011).

>Back to index

proclivity toward the environment and natural world, and (4) pro-environmental behavior in personal and civic realms.

Even given NAAEE’s often-cited definition of environmental literacy, it remains a complicated term to study for several reasons. Researchers infrequently study environmental literacy holistically, particularly through empirical approaches. This is partly because environmental literacy has no endpoint and, therefore, determining at what stage someone is “environmentally literate,” or even where they are on a pathway, is complex. Given that each person’s pathway or trajectory may look different, it is challenging to demarcate specific stages that will be consistent among research participants.

Environmental literacy is knowledge of environmental concepts and issues; the attitudinal dispositions, motivation, cognitive abilities, and skills, and the confidence and appropriate behaviors to apply such knowledge in order to make effective decisions in a range of environmental contexts. Individuals demonstrating degrees of environmental literacy are willing to act on goals that improve the wellbeing of other individuals, societies, and the global environment, and are able to participate in civic life (Hollweg et al. 2011, 15–16).

The NAAEE framework (Hollweg et al. 2011) expands on the first part of this definition to describe aspects of environmental literacy: (1) conceptual understanding about environmental issues, (2) problem-solving and critical thinking skills, (3) a

>Back to index

For those researchers who do study environmental literacy empirically, and work to do so holistically, a limited number of measures exist. As a result, these studies examine environmental literacy dimensions with a single tool. One of the most frequently used assessment tools is the Middle School Environmental Literacy Survey (MSELS) (McBeth and Volk 2009), which includes “ecological knowledge; verbal commitment; actual commitment, or environmental behavior; environmental sensitivity; general environmental feelings; issue identification and issue analysis skills; and action planning” (McBeth and Volk 2009, p. 58). Although this instrument is one of the few comprehensive and consistently used measures, it only focuses on one student cohort, namely middle school students. This is understandable given the time and effort needed to design a reliable, valid instrument that includes many different concepts. In addition, given the range of concepts covered, the survey requires a substantial amount of time to complete (approximately an hour), which risks student fatigue.

While researchers design few studies or instruments to examine environmental literacy holistically, numerous studies and instruments focus on the various dimensions of environmental literacy as individual concepts. Researchers study the concepts in multiple fields in different ways and may consider them as either components or as

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 59

outcomes of environmental literacy. In addition, the majority of studies attending to the dimensions are not actually studying environmental literacy per se; for example, researchers across an array of fields, including education, psychology, sociology, ecology, law, and business, among others, study environmental behavior. A researcher may focus on examining a change in knowledge, attitudes, or civic participation, without connecting those notions to the concept of environmental literacy more broadly.

In addition, researchers examine diverse environmental literacy dimensions through various ontological, epistemological, and theoretical lenses.1 Researchers vary with regard to how they consider the constitution of knowledge, the sources of knowledge, and the evidence for knowledge. This complexity makes comparing or synthesizing dimensions challenging.

Relatedly, much of the work examining environmental literacy is evaluative, rather than theoretically based, and, therefore, is not rooted in learning, behavior, attitude, or civic-engagement theory.

Discussion continues about what dimensions should be included when studying and educating for environmental literacy. Debates about whether to consider behavior and action related to the environment, for example, persist within the research and practice communities (McBride et al. 2013). Some researchers consider environmental literacy to focus on attitudes, knowledge, and problem-solving skills (Clark 2016), envisioning environmental literacy as a precursor to action but stopping short of the action itself. NAAEE’s definition, by contrast, embraces action and participation, stating that, “environmental literacy includes both personal decisions and those decisions and actions that have broader consequences in time and space for the environment and societies” (Hollweg et al. 2011, 17). This perspective describes action as more prominent at higher levels of environmental literacy, suggesting that environmental literacy operates along a continuum or hierarchy (Hollweg et al. 2011; Roth 1992). Our briefs build on a foundation of NAAEE’s definition; therefore, we do consider behavioral dimensions.

Policymakers, practitioners, and researchers also often use the terms ecological literacy and ecoliteracy interchangeably with environmental literacy, although the genesis of the terms indicates that the purposes of each may be quite different (Orr 1992; McBride et al. 2013). In addition, other educators and researchers argue for taking a more critical stance on environmental literacy processes and outcomes as well as questioning common discourses in environmentalism (Stables and Scott 1999). Furthermore, some researchers reject the environmental literacy term altogether, suggesting that it is nebulous and aconceptual (Payne 2006).

Despite these complexities, environmental literacy continues to be widely used by practitioners, policymakers, funders, and other stakeholders.

Numerous programs articulate environmental literacy as a primary outcome, funding agencies describe it as an area of emphasis, and researchers endeavor to operationalize the concept holistically, as well as in elements. As such, this series of briefs attempt to highlight some areas of discussion related to environmental literacy grounded in the research literature, with the intention of sparking dialogue among researchers and practitioners as well as providing common background.

1 In short, an ontology refers to the nature of reality (e.g., one reality or multiple, socially constructed realities), epistemology refers to the nature of knowledge (e.g., objectivity and subjectivity), and theoretical refers to explanatory ideas based on generalized principles (Mertens 2015).

60 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

>Back to index

This Series: Pathways, Progressions, and Dosage To ground this series of research/practice briefs, we draw on NAAEE’s characterization of environmental literacy. We provide an exploratory literature review related to three EE programming considerations relevant to practice: pathways, progressions, and dosage.2 Specifically, we discuss: (1) potential avenues for considering pathways in environmental literacy, informed primarily by science education; (2) learning, developmental, and environmental literacy progressions; and (3) dosage, as applied in and relevant to the notion of environmental education, informed by perspectives from other sectors and fields.

The pathways framework presents a macro view of the dimensions that comprise a person’s unique, lifelong learning trajectory. Pathways are enduring and move in meaningful directions that are shaped by one’s social interactions as well as participation in social activities. Environmental education programming and experiences (among other aspects) can be a component of such a pathway. EE programs can influence what and how people learn about the environment, and they do so within the larger frame of each person’s social and cultural context.

Within pathways, progressions (at the meso-level) represent movement from one component to another through different stages or levels. What one learns or experiences in a certain stage lays the foundation for the next stage. There may be different types of progressions: for instance, a learning progression indicates movement from simple toward more complex understandings of a topic, such as biodiversity. A developmental progression, however, may refer to movement through specific life stages in connection with environmental learning.

Finally, dosage occurs at the micro-level of the pathway, as it refers to a specific characteristic of EE programming such as the amount of time spent in a particular program or the intensity level of a program.

Although we present this macro–meso–micro framework, we note that there are multiple ways to frame these concepts and that they do not nest together neatly. These terms, especially pathways and progressions, are generic in research; there is no single agreed-upon definition, especially in education. In addition, researchers study these concepts in different ways depending on their epistemological and theoretical perspectives. This is evident in the briefs, namely the one on pathways, which predominantly uses sociocultural frameworks, while the literature about progressions mainly employs constructivist or stage-developmental psychology frameworks. Finally, the literature on dosage rarely presents an explicit theory. While certain aspects of dosage, namely repetition, have been theorized in general, dosage is more of a programmatic or measurement concept.

2 We explore these terms and concepts as practice-oriented stakeholders, such as program planners, funders, and policymakers, frequently use them.

>Back to index

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 61

Further, although the Pathways brief presents a critical perspective—suggesting that concerns related to equity, power structures, and cultural values are foundational to environmental literacy— the other briefs pursue different lines of discussion.

The foci of the other briefs, namely Progression and Dosage, derive from epistemologies and ontologies that emphasize positivism and constructivism.

To engage further with critical perspectives in environmental education, including topics about pedagogy, place-based education, Indigenous environmental science education, the role of caring, and environmental citizenship and neoliberalism, we urge readers to explore resources such as Lousley (1999), Gruenewald (2003), Lowan (2012), Bang and Marin (2015), and Schindel and Tolbert (2017), and Dimick (2015).

Finally, current perspectives of environmental literacy focus primarily on the individual, emphasizing development of competencies that enable fuller, richer participation in civic life, with environmental wellbeing as a goal. Other disciplines, such as science and health, have begun to consider literacy not just as belonging to individuals but also to a collective, such as a community (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine 2016). While these briefs focus on the individual lens of environmental literacy, we believe that a collective lens needs to be theorized, researched, and connected to practice (Wheaton et al. in prep.).

Environmental Literacy: Literature Review Process We gathered, analyzed, and synthesized current (to 2018) theoretical and empirical literature to inform development of these briefs. We performed Boolean searches using four primary thematic terms (pathways, progressions, dosage, and duration) and 20 education-specific terms in Google Scholar, EBSCO, and Web of Science.

Examples of our Boolean searches included phrasing such as pathways AND environmental literacy, and pathways AND conservation education. Then, we conducted additional snowball searches using relevant articles from our previous searches. We included academic articles, books, and conference papers; white reports; and research briefs, with the majority of references being peer-reviewed journal articles.

62 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

>Back to index

References Athman, J. A., and M. C. Monroe. 2001. “Elements of Effective Environmental Education Programs.” ERIC/CSMEE Digest. http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED463936.

Bang, M., and A. Marin. 2015. “Nature–Culture Constructs in Science Learning: Human/ Non–human Agency and Intentionality.” Journal of Research in Science Teaching 52, no.

4: 530–544.

Clark, C. R. 2016. “Collective Action Competence: An Asset to Campus Sustainability.”

International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education 17, no. 4: 559–578.

Disinger, J. F., and C. E. Roth. 1992. “Environmental Literacy.” ERIC/CSMEE Digest. http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED351201.

Gruenewald, D. A. 2003. “The Best of Both Worlds: A Critical Pedagogy of Place.”

Educational Researcher 32, no. 4: 3–12.

Hollweg, K. S., J. R. Taylor, R. W. Bybee, T. J. Marcinkowski, W. C. McBeth, and P. Zoido.

2011. Developing a Framework for Assessing Environmental Literacy. Washington, DC: North American Association for Environmental Education.

Lousley, C. 1999. “(De) Politicizing the Environment Club: Environmental Discourses and the Culture of Schooling.” Environmental Education Research 5, no. 3: 293–304.

Lowan, G. 2012. “Expanding the Conversation: Further Explorations into Indigenous Environmental Science Education Theory, Research, and Practice.” Cultural Studies of Science Education 7, no. 1: 71–81.

McBeth, W. and T. L. Volk. 2009. “The National Environmental Literacy Project: A Baseline Study of Middle Grade Students in the United States.” The Journal of Environmental Education 41, no. 1: 55–67.

McBride, B. B., C. A. Brewer, A. R. Berkowitz, and W. T. Borrie. 2013. “Environmental Literacy, Ecological Literacy, Ecoliteracy: What Do We Mean and How Did We Get Here?” Ecosphere 4, no. 5: 1–20.

Mertens, D. M. 2015. Research and Evaluation in Education and Psychology: Integrating Diversity with Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed Methods. 4th ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2016. Science Literacy: Concepts, Contexts, and Consequences. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi:10.17226/23595.

National Environmental Education Foundation (NEEF). 2015. Environmental Literacy in the United States: An Agenda for Leadership in the 21st Century. Washington, DC: National Environmental Education Foundation.

Acknowledgments We are grateful to our colleagues who engaged in discussions related to these topics and provided thoughtful input to this series of briefs, especially: Heidi Ballard, Judy Braus, KC Busch, Charlotte Clark, Rhiannon Crain, Noah Feinstein, Joe Heimlich, Martha Monroe, Jason Morris, Stephanie Rafanelli, Alan Reid, Bora Simmons, and Arjen Wals. Support was provided by a grant from the Pisces Foundation, which seeks ways to accelerate to a world where people and nature thrive together. Photographs courtesy of the Pisces Foundation and its grantees.

Authors: Mele Wheaton, Archana Kannan, Nicole Ardoin Research Assistants: Indira Phukan, Samantha Selby, Lynne Zummo, Emily Williams Editors: Wendi Hoover and Avery Hanna Designer: Lindsey Chin-Jones For questions, please contact: Dr. Mele Wheaton, melew@stanford.edu Suggested Citation: Wheaton, M., A. Kannan, and N. M. Ardoin. 2018. Environmental Literacy: Setting the Stage (Environmental Literacy Brief, Volume 1). Stanford, CA: Social Ecology Lab, Stanford University.

Orr, D. W. 1992. Ecological Literacy: Education and the Transition to a Postmodern World. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

Payne, P. 2006. “The Technics of Environmental Education.” Environmental Education Research 12, no. 3–4: 487-502.

Roth, C. E. 1968. “On the Road to Conservation.” Massachusetts Audubon: 38–41.

Roth, C. E. 1992. “Environmental Literacy: Its Roots, Evolution and Directions in the 1990s.” ERIC/CSMEE Digest. http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED348235 Schindel, A., and S. Tolbert. 2017. “Critical Caring for People and Place.” The Journal of Environmental Education 48, no. 1: 26–34.

Stables, A., and W. Scott. 1999. “Environmental Education and the Discourses of Humanist Modernity: Redefining Critical Environmental Literacy.” Educational Philosophy and Theory 31, no. 2: 145–155.

Wheaton, M., M. Luce, and NM. Ardoin. (in prep.). “Environmental Literacy as a SocialCognitive-Cultural Endeavor.”

All websites accessed in August 2018.

AUGUST 2018

>Back to index

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 63

First Words Flashcards and Books Published in June of this year (2019) these cards come in English, French, Italian Japanese, Mandarin and Spanish. Each sturdy (solid card) pack contains 50 basic word cards, again pretty sturdy and built for solid use! They have great graphics and a logical simple pronunciation guide. These cards are ‘travel size’ they are suitable for small hands and convenient for those older people who want a smattering of a language before they travel.

Great for ‘playing’ at home, use in the classroom in group situations or for paired practise these cards also have a free online audio pronunciation guide for every word... accessible either through a WR code on each pack r through the lonely planet website.

On the same theme are the First Words Card Books for little hands As a fore-runner, in conjunction or separately from these fantastic card sets are the card ‘first reader books, Lonely Planet has released at the same time. Wanting to start your toddler on a second language, or perhaps instilling the one used in your everyday living, these are an asset to your library whether at school, pre-school or

64 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

at home. Again constructed for regular use these books will take the kind of beating dealt out to books which are constantly referred to.

Encouraging Look, Listen and Learn these are invaluable whether as a group or individually.

>Back to index

Boo k Reviews Lonely Planet’s Ultimate Travel Quiz Book 2000 Brain-Teasers from Easy to Hard RRP 16.99 AU ‘Pit your wits against family and friends, or just challenge yourself, with Lonely Planet’s ultimate trivia book, featuring questions on everything from geography and culture to history, wildlife and space.’

I was hoping to define the perfect target for this book but gave up!

If you’re a trivia buff and just like enlarging that incredible store of (sometimes useless) facts you retain then this is for you.

If you are travelling with family and dread the inevitable ‘are we there yet ‘question then this is for you.

• If you are continually

having to invent questions for those fundraising Quiz Nights, then this will help you immensely.

• If you a stuck for activities which involve an element of research and will occupy, while learning, those members of your class who always seem to finish at an obscenely fast rate compared to the rest of the class.. then you need to look no further.

• If you need a diversion from the task in hand… something to dip into which will take your brain to a different place for a while… here it is!

There are 100 quizzes in the Ultimate Travel Quiz Book each with 20 questions.

They have been divided into chapters, Chapter 1: Day Tripper (easy), Chapter 2: Traveller (medium), and Chapter 3: Explorer: (hard) The questions themselves are a combination of either multiple choice or stand alone. The answers are provided so I would suggest one person being designated the quizmaster (and guardian of the book) to ensure war does not break out in the back seat of the car (if that’s your use of the book!)

Some of the questions are so difficult they could easily be converted into research questions.

While this is an unassuming looking small paperback I’d highly recommend it for the multitude of usage possibilities listed above

>Back to index

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 65

New Middle School principal wants to foster growth and exploration

Jeremy Jones

“The students today are not the same we worked with 20 years ago,” she said. “We have to grow and change.”

Vatthauer was selected to fill the position held

by Todd Grina, who will retire at the end of the month. Monday was her first day working in the school, though she joined staff for a half day of training this past month. She was hired after a round of interviews with School Board members, and another round with central office staff. She comes to Hutchinson Middle School from Lincoln Park Middle School on Duluth’s west side, where she was principal for six years.

Her career started in Fosston, Minnesota, as a family and consumer science teacher at the high school and middle school. She also coached girls basketball and track. From there she taught in Red Lake Falls and later Thief River Falls. That’s when she decided to pursue her master’s degree in curriculum instruction.

“It was my high school principal’s encouragement to go on and obtain an administrative license,” Vatthauer said. “So I did. From there, the Northwest Service (Cooperative) approached me and asked if I would work for them as an education consultant.”

The cooperative serves as a regional education hub for professional development.

Brenda Vatthauer will take over as Hutchinson Middle School principal.

66 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

From there, Vatthauer went on to her first principal job at Montevideo Middle School, which has a population of about 400 students. She was there four years.

“Then I felt I needed a big change, bigger challenges and a bigger system,” she said. “So I went to Duluth.”

Six years later, Vatthauer said she was attracted to Hutchinson as an instructional leader.

“I’m excited about what the high school is offering with TigerPath, and the innovation up there,” she said.

TigerPath is the school’s award-winning workforce development and career exploration program.

“There is a lot of opportunity here (at the middle school) to have kids ready for high school,” Vatthauer said.

But there’s a bigger picture to keep in mind, she added.

“Education now days, especially in the middle school, is more than academics and standards,” she said. “It’s social/emotional. It’s being connected to the community. It’s service. It’s the whole child, engaging kids so they feel part of something. I think that needs to really be looked at, and we need to provide opportunities for kids to have those experiences. ... Middle school is about exploring. (Students) maybe don’t know what (they are) really good at yet.”

As an administrator, Vatthauer said she is focused on instruction and engaging with what is happening in the classroom.

“Things need to change with the times to meet the needs of our students,” she said. “We know change is hard. It does take time.”

She has found teachers in Hutchinson are open to trying new things and hearing new ideas. She has also found a welcoming atmosphere, which is encouraging for a principal who enjoys promoting and building culture.

“If you can develop relationships and trust with parents, your students and your staff, you can do a lot of things,” Vatthauer said.

>Back to index

Photo by Jeremy Jones

The world is always changing, and to keep up with it educators must also change. That lesson is one Hutchinson Middle School’s incoming principal, Brenda Vatthauer, keeps in mind.

Groundbreaking Māori health practitioners bring their expertise to Wintec

Wintec

Groundbreaking Māori health practitioners bring their expertise to Wintec There’s a growing practice of recounting Māori indigenous stories or pūrākau as therapy and it is making meaningful change in Aotearoa, New Zealand.

Health and social practitioners, and educators are increasingly seeking ways to incorporate pūrākau, whakapapa kōrero (history) and pakiwaitara (legends and stories) in their practice.

This a focus for Wintec Centre for Health and Social Practice academics Allanah Ashwell (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Awa, Ngāti Pūkeko and Kāti Mamoe) and Andre McLachlan (Ngāti Apa and Muaūpoko) who are exploring the applications of pūrākau within the hauora (Māori philosophy of health and wellbeing) space at Wintec.

In November last year, more than 50 Māori health and social service practitioners and educators working within the Waikato attended a Wintec forum, Ngā Matapihi Ōhākī - Traditional Stories as Windows to the Legacies Left from our Ancestors.

The forum explored the use of pūrākau within therapeutic spaces. Speakers included Lisa Cherrington (Ngāti Hine, Ngāpuhi), and Moko Tauariki (Waikato).

The workshop was a success and Andre McLachlan says it inspired participants to create a Waikato-based group of Māori health and social practitioners and educators interested in learning and applying pūrākau in their practice.

“Pūrākau is grounded in narratives (stories) handed down through whānau to transmit traditional values and strategies for maintaining wellbeing and managing change,” says Andre.

Last month a group of 27 participants continued their learning, attending a wānanga with Hinewirangi Kohu-Morgan (Ngāti Ranginui, Ngāti Kahungunu, and Ngāti Kahu) at Te Kōpū Mānia o Kirikiriroa marae on the Wintec campus. This wānanga explored the use of pūrākau, whakapapa kōrero and pakiwaitara (stories of whānau history, identity and connections) for the wellbeing of practitioners and its role in their practice with

>Back to index

whānau (family/community).

Next month, Dr Diana Kopua (Ngāti Porou, Te Aitanga a Hauiti) and Mark Kopua (Te Aitanga a Hauiti, Ngāti Ira and Ngāti Porou) will host a workshop for Māori health and social service practitioners at Wintec. Dr Diana and Mark Kopua have extensive knowledge and experience of applying pūrākau in practice, in what they have called ‘Mahi a Atua’.

They have developed Te Kuwatawata, a ‘single point of entry’ mental health service in Tairawhiti, which uses Mahi a Atua as a pathway to engagement, learning and healing. They will deliver a full day workshop, Mahi a Atua Wānanga, on Saturday 3 August at Wintec.

“Our wānanga are about growing spaces for ‘communities of practice’ (those who share a passion in a particular kaupapa) where we learn to appreciate critical thinking. Mataora (change agents specialising in Mahi a Atua) learn to respect kōrerorero (discussion) and we value spaces and conditions where this dialogue can happen,” say Doctor Diana and Mark Kopua.

“Mahi a Atua is a way of being, where Mataora (pūrākau practitioners) learn creation and customary pūrākau from our ancestors which support us in indigenising the spaces we occupy and liberating ourselves to thrive in the communities we live in.”

Weaving together Māori creation stories and contextualising them in our contemporary environment is the focus of the wānanga.

Find out more about the Mahi a Atua Wānanga, on Saturday 3 August 2019, at Wintec.

Dr Diana and Mark Kopua have extensive knowledge and experience of applying pūrākau in practice, in what they have called ‘Mahi a Atua’.

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 67

If You Take My Mom To Ta My Mom is not a shopper, which makes me wonder if I was switched at birth.

You can imagine the teenage angst that was my Mother’s refusal to shop with me. Ask your friend’s mom; she loves the mall! But she would hand over her Visa, and all was forgiven.

This year, though, she requested my company as she completed her Christmas shopping for my kids.

She needed help, and I was the perfect choice: I know what my kids like, I can always sniff out a good sale, and I have a special gift

68 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

for carrying 16 bags at once, thereby eliminating the need for several trips from the car to the house once we arrive home.

I don’t like to brag, but I’m pretty impressive.

When my Mom suggested Target, the heavens parted and the angels began a beautiful harmony of Joy to the World! I wiped the tears from my eyes, grabbed my Red Card, and suggested we leave my paddy wagon at home and drive my Dad’s fancy Cadillac that neither he nor my Mother knows how to properly operate.

> Back to index

arget

(journal of an adult daughter)

And we were off.

With my behind in a heated leather seat, I delight in my Mom’s multiple failed attempts at working the touch screen that probably controls a space station somewhere. How do you change the radio station? Is that a map?! What the &%$* does that do?!! She curses Christmas-y curses and I smile contentedly.

This is how holiday memories are made, people.

We’re halfway to Tarjay when an alarm goes off somewhere on the computerized dashboard. I almost soil my heated leather seat, but Mom expertly advises: “just ignore that, it happens all the time.”

Once at our destination, an unforeseen panic starts rising up in my throat. What if I’ve made a mistake?! What if she’s not ready?!

Imagine, if you will, a holiday or summer break from school.

Students who had previously been on their best behavior sitting in a cramped classroom explode off the bus and run around in circles because they can. Unable to contain their excitement, they no longer have control over their bodies or words. They scream, some cry, others need a hit off of their inhaler. They are, in a word, insane.

Those kids are my Mom and her classroom is the Dollar Tree. You feel me?

With the red bulls-eye enveloping her in a welcoming hug, a Starbucks to the right, a clean bathroom to the left, I’m afraid

>Back to index

she’ll start dry humping the dollar bins. She immediately proves my apprehension correct when she compliments a nice young man’s red blazer as he’s corralling carts.

Ooooh! You look so festive!

Everyone’s in red for Christmas!

Mom, everyone’s in red for Target.

It is in this moment I know I am in over my head. Learn from me, friends. Heed the warning signs. It’s not pretty, but you need to know what happens when you take a woman out of the Dollar Tree and into Target…

If you take my Mom to Target, she will be giddy over the selection. She will spend 17 minutes of her life ensconced in a rack of infinity scarves she can’t figure out how put on, and when you ask her to please move on, she will look surprised because she doesn’t realize she has been petting them.

When you pass the children’s clothing, she will insist your kids need new underwear, then complain (loudly) because they’re not two dollars “like she usually pays.” She’ll then move on to the toys and comment (loudly) on how Barbie dresses like a whore, and you will both giggle (loudly) because YES. Eventually, she’ll saunter over to the food section where she decides now is the perfect time to try and figure out that texting thing on her new cellphone. When you are on the verge of stabbing yourself in the eye with an organic beef stick, she declares success, then stands, unmoving in the middle of Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 69

the aisle with her overflowing cart acting as a road block, staring at her phone for a response.

36 minutes later, you are counting backwards from 100 as to not freak the freak out in the Target cereal aisle, and she is adjusting her glasses as to locate the proper emojicon because a winky smiley face is the only way to conclude her texting conversation. Once she realizes you have abandoned her, she will begin shouting your name as though you are a lost toddler.

The other shoppers will believe they are witnessing a live Amber Alert situation, but when my Mother explains she is looking for her 34-year-old-daughter, they will nod politely and curse her under their breath.

As you are about to round up your purchases and head for the checkout, Mother Dearest remembers she wants to buy that Easy Bake Oven for your three-year-old. You suggest a lovely Frozen headband instead. Nope. En route to the gift that will burn down your home, a Target employee materializes and asks Mom if she needs help. You silently thank Baby Jesus that she resists the urge to give the friendly employee a lap dance for his “impeccable timing and willingness to help,” also known as doing his job, and continue on your way.

Once one of everything–except those two-for-one Pepperidge shortbread cookies, she gets six of those–is in her cart, Mom announces she would like to go home now. Approaching “so many open check-out lanes” from which to choose, Mom begins to 70 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

salivate when she realizes she is going to get the GOOD bags.

Though I’m avoiding eye contact, I feel the cashier’s friendly gaze on me as she entertains my Mother’s ranty request for a “few extra of those great big bags because they don’t give those out at department stores any more! Can barely get a box from those people! Spend alllllll this money on their stuff, but they’re so stingy when it comes to their paper and plastic! It’s almost like we’re supposed to supply our own bags any time we shop!” Encouraged with her wide array of bags, I pray for a fainting spell that never comes as she holds up the line pouring over her receipt, audibly gasping over every item that cost more than five dollars.

Outside in the cold winter wind, Mother continues with, “Can you believe those underwear were eight dollars?!” while you regret bragging about your ability to carry so many bags at once. Again planted in the heated leather comfort of Daddy’s Caddy, my Mom remarks how the temperatures have dropped and she really should have treated herself to one of those infinity scarves. And chances are, if you’ve yet to pull out of the parking lot, she’ll want you to run back in to Target “just real quick.”

Hey there, I’m Steph! English teacher by trade, smack-talker by nature, and mother of three who lives by the mantra: Life is too short, laugh! I hope you’ll stick around and check out my stuff. And by stuff I mean my writing.

>Back to index

The Cities Activity Book Lonely Planet Kids RRP: UK 5.99; US 8.99

Boo k Reviews

Jam packed with quick facts and puzzle or activities to complete this activity book travels to cities all over the world – 48 pages of interesting involvement.

The bonus feature of the book is not just it’s global coverage but that it comes with that delight of all children both big and small… stickers! And the opportunity to use them in the interactivity.

While the facts about each city are minimal the activities make up for this and the book is interestingly illustrated with a combination of drawings and photographs. Answers to the puzzles are illustrated near the back.

A fun book with interesting facts to keep children well occupied while still imbuing facts for them to consider or look up further on, Great for a gift for that child who needs to be dragged away from their device and encouraged to read and undertake an activity. Also a good book for parents to work on with younger children.

READY SET GO! A Kiwi kids transport book Beck Wheeler Published by little love This is the first in a planned series of educational books for Kiwi kids by Beck Wheeler and Little Love Quintessentially Kiwi this book has a semi cartoon format, the graphics utilising both appealing cartoon characters and photos of treasures from the MOTAT collection the author mixes speech bubbles of easy to read – either aloud to a group or on your own - with a highlighted box giving more factual information of the transportationvehicle being discussed… there is always at least one child who needs to know more!

The MOTAT timeline and acknowledgements at the back also make for interesting reading!

A Kiribati family at their local medical clinic.

>Back to index

Great book to have around for quick facts or for those children who have a fascination with machines of days past.

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 71

Is Virtual Reality the Ultimate Emp

“We believe that achieving racial justice requires that we all understand racism and that this is best done through visceral experiences rather than intellectual exercises.” – Dr. Courtney Cogburn

Since the 1990s, Virtual Reality projects have been aimed at cultivating empathy for people with serious health conditions.

Recently, Stanford University conducted an immersive technology study that discovered that people who underwent a VR experience that enabled them to experience what it would be like to lose their jobs and homes were more empathetic towards homeless people, compared to getting this exposure through other media (such as books, TV shows or traditional films). In one of the studies, 85% of VR participants signed a petition to help homeless people in comparison to 63 percent who read a narrative.

Overall, participants in the study were significantly more likely to be sympathetic to the plight of homeless people.

72 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

1,000 Cut Journey received a world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival as a VR project that highlights the social realities of racism. In this VR project, the viewer becomes Michael Sterling, a black man, encountering racism as a young child, adolescent, and young adult. “We believe that achieving racial justice requires that we all understand racism and that this is best done through visceral experiences rather than intellectual exercises,” says Columbia University’s Courtney Cogburn who collaborated with the Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford University on the project.

The Global Search for Education welcomes the film’s Co-producer, Jeremy Bailenson, to discuss the impact of using immersive technologies to connect human beings to social issues such as racism, with the ultimate goal of promoting enduring social empathy and action.

>Back to index

pathy Machine for Racism?

CM Rubin

“In creating virtual experiences we can increase empathy for others, encourage helping behaviors, improve communication strategies, and enhance education.” – Jeremy Bailenson

Jeremy what was your inspiration for 1000 Cut Journey 1000 Cut Journey was created as a collaboration between the Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford University and the Cogburn Research Group at Columbia University, headed by Dr. Courtney Cogburn. Courtney studies racism and evaluates its effects on mental and physical health. Our lab has done a lot of research on perspective-taking and empathy in virtual reality.

Virtual reality can create visceral experiences because it is a unique medium that allows you to embody someone different from yourself, and experience an event from their perspective.

>Back to index

In what ways do you believe a VR Story can add to our understanding of the social realities of racism?

Our lab has done a lot of research on perspective-taking and empathy in virtual reality.

In creating virtual experiences, we can increase empathy for others, encourage helping behaviors, improve communication strategies, and enhance education. We feel that these types of experiences are important to focus on as VR permeates society. Never before in history could we allow anyone to instantly step into the shoes of someone else. When you experience something as someone else, for example, experience discrimination because of your race firsthand, it can leave a powerful impression and perhaps encourage awareness and change.

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 73

“The most important factor in creating a convincing VR experience is in tracking the user’s movements accurately and quickly rendering the scene to update based on those movements.”

– Jeremy Bailenson What have you found so far in examining the effects of this immersive virtual experience on changes in psychological processes such as empathy?

We have conducted several research studies that have shown that VR can increase empathy and pro-social behavior. In a study where participants either became colorblind in VR or simply imagined that they were colorblind, those who experienced the actual visual impairment in VR were likely to spend more time helping someone with the same disability after the study. In another study, we found that having someone become a superhero made them more helpful in a real-life situation following the study. These results show that an immersive experience, where you actually feel as though you are in the body of someone else, or feel as if you’ve taken on a new ability, can especially impact your thoughts and behaviors in the real world.

According to your study so far, what qualities are needed to make up an ideal virtual experience? What do we know about “how immersive is enough” for a virtual classroom?

The most important factor in creating a convincing VR experience is in tracking the user’s movements accurately and quickly rendering the scene to update based on those movements.

Good tracking and rendering capabilities surpass other factors like graphical quality or photorealism in terms of feeling immersed in the 74 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

environment. We’ve found that with convincing tracking systems, people will respond to VR as if it is real, even with fairly rudimentary graphics.

What new social issues or important questions have arisen from the use of immersive VR communication systems? How do you see this evolving in the future?

There’s a long line of research about social presence in VR that suggests that we tend to treat digital representations more or less as we would real people. In fact, even the mere belief that you are interacting with a real-time representation of another human makes you behave differently than you would if you were interacting with a computer algorithm. There are certainly still differences between interacting in VR and interacting face-to-face. However, if we do succeed in creating a social experience in VR that feels like it does in real life, it could have an enormous impact on the world. For example, if you could have a meeting in VR that felt real, then you could cut down on the amount of time spent traveling in a car, plane, etc, significantly.

C. M. Rubin and Jeremy Bailenson

>Back to index

Korean Artist Uploads Step By Step Tutorials On How To Draw Beautiful Flowers If you’ve ever dreamed of becoming a worldclass artist, an illustrator or simply wanted to improve your drawing skills, then you’re in luck.

Prominent illustrator Kate Kyehyun Park is known not only for her beautiful botanical drawings but also for her desire to help others achieve the same success she has. Park’s Instagram page is full of beautifully rendered watercolor drawings of flowers and plants, as well as countless tutorials showcasing how absolutely anyone can reach the same level of expertise that she has.

Ilona Baliūnaitė

From roses and tulips to cacti and daffodils, the Korean illustrator seems to breathe life into everything she draws with her paintbrush.

Meanwhile, her tutorial sketches are crystalclear and very simple to follow. Drawing with Park is as simple as counting to three because her tutorials have only three steps that you need to take in order to draw any flower you want.

Botanical artist Kate Kyehyun Park creates art tutorials on how to draw any flower in just 3 simple steps.

Image credits: Kate Kyehyun Park

This means that absolutely anyone with a pencil, a scrap of paper and five minutes to spare can show off their inner creative talent if they follow her straightforward directions. It’s a miracle how a few lines and circles can quickly turn a rough sketch into an awe-inspiring masterpiece that’s sure to garner lots of praise from your friends and family.

The Los Angeles-based Korean artist’s drawings have captured the hearts and minds of the online community and have resulted in her work being massively popular. She has more than 164,000 followers on Instagram and the ranks of her supporters are still swelling every single day.

She has uploaded plenty of work in progress photos and videos to her page which lets her fans and other aspiring artists see exactly how she makes her outstanding botanical drawings.

>Back to index

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 75

76 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

>Back to index

>Back to index

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 77

78 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

>Back to index

>Back to index

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 79

80 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

>Back to index

>Back to index

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 81

82 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

>Back to index

>Back to index

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 83

84 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

>Back to index

>Back to index

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 85

86 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

>Back to index

>Back to index

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 87

Inside the mind of a young person

By Craig Brierley and Louise Walsh

Our brains begin to form in the womb but continue to take shape into adolescence.

In a series of articles, we look at how the latest research could help us support children’s development, helping them overcome learning disorders and build resilience against future mental health problems.

1. The glue that builds a strong child Could the early moments of a newborn baby be a crucial window for helping prevent problems in later life?

Most animals are born relatively complete: a newborn gazelle, for example, is running within a couple of hours of birth. Not so for humans: for us, birth is very much just the beginning.

“In a newborn baby’s brain, many cells haven’t gotten where they need to go,” explains Professor David Rowitch, Head of Cambridge’s Department of Paediatrics. “We think this ‘commuting’ process is vulnerable to adverse events. A lack of oxygen or infection, for example, might block cell movement and derail the schedule of brain circuit formation.”

He and colleagues have shown that neurons travel extensively in the brain as part of this schedule – which makes this a vulnerable time for developing infants. Take a preterm infant born after six, rather than nine, months in the womb. It will spend its early life in a neonatal intensive care unit and has a higher risk of having medical and neurological complications. Such an infant, says Rowitch, is also at risk of mental health problems in later life.

“Because these are not kids who are genetically predisposed to mental health conditions, something must have happened to them early in their life that made them at high risk – that’s an important clue.”

88 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

What that ‘something’ is may relate to Rowitch’s own research on the preterm brain – and particularly its ‘building blocks’, cells known as neurons and glia.

‘Glia’ literally means ‘glue’, a rather nondescript term – an indication, he says, of how their importance has been overlooked by neuroscientists. Yet it’s becoming increasingly clear that glia are essential to brain development, in assembling neural circuits and in helping brain centres communicate with each other and the body. Crucially, glia provide myelin to insulate the nerve tracts during development.

Rowitch, whose work is supported by the Wellcome Trust, European Research Council, National Institute for Health Research and National Institutes of Health (USA), believes that abnormal glial function plays an important role in the development of neurological, cognitive and mental health problems later in life.

He explains that if these circuits need to balance each other, and there is an adverse event like preterm birth, then suddenly there will be an imbalance in the brain. “Migration of neurons is a relatively late process in the human brain, so problems that affect the newborn may be sufficient to explain long-term problems such as cerebral palsy and cognitive and mental health problems. It could also provide clues to disorders like autism.”

But bridging the diagnosis and treatment of physical changes in the developing brain to the diagnosis and treatment of mental health disorders faces a challenge, he says. “While the majority of mental health problems manifest in children, teens and young adults, the norm for healthcare is that physical and mental health are treated separately, usually at entirely different clinics.”

This seems particularly disjointed when one considers children with eating disorders or those with chronic diseases, who are particularly vulnerable to depression. While there is increasing evidence that genetic factors can

>Back to index

increase a child’s vulnerability to mental health conditions, this is clearly not the whole story.

Rowitch and NHS colleagues believe the time is now to bridge the divide between physical and mental health. A vision being developed for a new Children’s Hospital on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus integrates both facets and develops a holistic approach to healthcare.

This would mean that a child with an eating disorder, for example, would be seen by both psychiatric and medical specialists, and a child with a chronic disease would see a psychiatrist, providing early detection and intervention for mental health.

“We need to move away from silos,” Rowitch says. “And this is where Cambridge, with strengths across the board from genomics to complex medical care, child and adolescent psychiatry, is perfectly positioned to lead by example.

“It has been said that it is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men,” he adds, quoting the words of 19th-century American abolitionist and ex-slave Frederick Douglass. “If our vision can be realised, then Cambridge could help ensure there are fewer ‘broken’ men and women to repair in future.”

>Back to index

2. Struggling with labels

Labels help us make sense of the world – but only to a limit. The latest techniques are helping scientists develop a more nuanced understanding of learning disorders and identify new ways of supporting those who struggle at school.

The education system is awash with labels: pupils are dyslexic, have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), or have a particular ‘learning style’. Sometimes, like these latter labels - visual, auditory or kinaesthetic learners – they have found common currency and yet are based on no credible evidence.

These styles are “nonsense”, says Dr Duncan Astle from the Medical Research Council (MRC) Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge.

“Children will tell you they have a preferred learning style, but they’re no better in their preferred style. In fact, there are probably some dangers to telling a child that they’re a kinaesthetic learner or whatever, because then when you try teaching them in a different format, they think ‘What’s the point in paying attention?

This isn’t in my preferred style.’”

Other labels, particularly those based on clinical diagnoses – dyslexia, dyspraxia, ADHD, for example – can be helpful in ensuring a child receives specialist support. But diagnosis is a “thorny issue”, Astle says. These conditions are complex, their causes poorly understood, and Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 89

children will often meet the diagnostic criteria for multiple disorders. This makes studying them, and hence developing effective interventions, challenging: one child’s ADHD may be very different from another’s. As Astle says: “The labels don’t fully characterise what the child struggles with.”

Together with colleagues Susan Gathercole and Joni Holmes at the Centre for Attention Learning and Memory, Astle sees hundreds of children who have been referred by health and education professionals for problems in attention, memory, language or poor school progress.

Rather than grouping them together according to a clinical diagnosis, the team applied machine learning to identify children with common cognitive problems. They found that the children could be split into four broad cognitive profiles: children with verbal cognition problems (or ‘phonological difficulties’), those with working memory problems, those with more severe problems across the board, and those who do not appear to have any cognitive problems but still struggle at school.

These cognitive profiles may allow for more effective ways of supporting the children, says Astle. He gives the example of a typical problem that might confront a child with working memory problems.

“If you spend time in a primary school, you soon learn that if you can’t follow a list of instructions, you’re stuffed. ‘Hang your coat up, go to the table, pick up a card and a green pen, and come and sit in front of me.’ Even copying things down from the board will be very slow and error prone if you can only hold one or two letters in mind at a time.”

Problems with working memory can soon spill over to other aspects of learning, so if a teacher can limit the number of instructions or the amount of copying from the board, for example, then this could benefit the child’s overall learning and development.

Astle’s team has been looking at whether ‘brain training’ could help these children. The researchers showed that just 40 minutes of training per day focused on working memory led to improvements – and to changes in brain connectivity – although the benefits were limited.

90 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

“They get better at the thing they’re training on and closely adjacent skills, but the kids who undergo this kind of training don’t spontaneously get better at maths or start experiencing fewer symptoms of ADHD,” he says.

Brain training is becoming an increasingly popular way to help children overcome their learning difficulties. Professor Usha Goswami from the Centre for Neuroscience in Education is working on a game that could help children with dyslexia, for example.

Surprisingly – and possibly as a result of the heterogeneity of learning disorders – opinion is still divided over what the condition actually is.

Dyslexia literally means ‘difficult reading’, implying that it is a visual condition. Not so, says Goswami, who argues that dyslexia is about how we process speech.

Speech is transmitted as a sound wave. It’s interpreted by brain cells that vibrate at several different frequencies, for example delta (1–3 Hz) and theta (4–8 Hz). The delta frequency relates to the perception of stress patterns in speech, theta to syllable segmentation.

When a speech signal comes into the brain, it acts as a ‘reset button’ to these cell assemblies, which then align their vibrations to the rhythm of the speech: when they are accurately aligned, speech becomes intelligible.

When Goswami analysed the speech patterns of parents talking to infants – for example using nursery rhymes and exaggerated baby speech – she found that they emphasise the delta frequencies. “My work suggests that this delta frequency, which helps you perceive the stress patterns used in all languages to convey meaning, is the foundation of language. Once you’ve got that skeleton, you can start adding things, like the syllables, the single speech sounds, the phonemes.”

Crucially, she showed that, for children with dyslexia, their delta networks were out of phase with the speech patterns. It appeared that they were missing the initial ‘reset’ command.

It isn’t clear yet why this should translate into problems with spelling and reading, but, says Goswami, “there’s something about reflecting on sound as an abstract pattern that you need for learning a system of spelling. Even if you’re learning a straightforward language like Italian or

>Back to index

Spanish, if you have these phonological and acoustic processing problems, it’s still a very hard task for your brain.”

in a world with human beings, lights and everything. It’s clearly a very dramatic event for the brain.”

If you can intervene before a child is faced with learning to read, you may have a better chance of limiting the impact of the disorder. Goswami has developed a music and poetry activity to encourage pre-schoolers to learn speech rhythm patterns and develop phonological awareness – “things that used to be ubiquitous in the playground, like clapping games, matching beats to syllable beats in language, marching games, drumming, even poetry out loud.”

In collaboration with Professor Topun Austin at the Rosie Hospital in Cambridge, and building on earlier work by Professor Simon Baron-Cohen at the Autism Research Centre, Johnson plans to use the latest prenatal MRI and ultrasound techniques to study the behaviour of the baby in the womb. It’s been clear for a while that the fetus has a “behavioural repertoire”, he says. A recent study, for example, showed that a fetus will follow a light source shone onto the mother’s abdomen.

She is also working with a team at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland on a children’s ‘brain training’ app that will help reinforce these skills – the English language version has recently been licensed by Cambridge Enterprise, the commercialisation arm of the University.

The app, GraphoGame, has been shown to be as effective as one-to-one teacher support but any number of children can be playing at the same time.

Goswami is particularly enthused by the idea that, in future, infants at risk of dyslexia – for example if they have a parent with the condition – may be able to use a device that hooks over the ear and helps to amplify the elements of speech that are not processed correctly. She has received funding from the MRC and the Fondation Botnar to develop a proof of principle.

“It could eliminate dyslexia,” she says, excitedly.

One way of getting to the root cause of learning disorders could be to identify infants at greatest risk and to see how their brains develop in the first few months – or even days – after birth. This is not without its challenges, as Professor Mark Johnson, Head of Psychology, knows too well.

Johnson joined Cambridge recently from Birkbeck, University of London, where he pioneered research into infants’ and toddlers’ brains at the world-renowned Babylab. He is now turning his attention to an even earlier stage, the period from immediately before birth to the first few months after.

“Most people will agree that the biggest change in environment that the brain has in its lifetime is birth,” he says, “going from being a baby in the womb to being outside within a couple of hours,

>Back to index

Once the babies have been born, he hopes to observe their brain development over their first few days in the outside world. Babies’ skulls are relatively thin and translucent. By shining infrared light on a newborn’s head, it’s possible to observe subtle changes in the colour of the blood, which becomes bluer as activity (and hence oxygen) levels in a brain region fall, and redder when they increase. Using this technique, known as near-infrared spectroscopy, Johnson wants to validate initial data that suggests there are dramatic changes in brain function over the first few days.

His research has already shown how certain brain regions ‘tune up’ during infancy, such as the area that in adults has been shown to process faces.

“In infants, those same regions respond to faces, but they also respond to other complex objects,” he says. “Over time, they become selectively interested in faces. This could be one of the processes that goes awry in autism, where the part of the brain that responds to social stimuli has not been properly tuned.”

This is unlikely to be the whole story, however.

Johnson points out that there are also other, more generalised problems in autism, such as subtle motor delays and problems with visual and auditory perception, which then manifest in social challenges later in life.

Johnson believes that these later manifestations may arise from the autistic child’s inability to process complex information. “If you’re a 12-month-old, the most complex aspect of the external world is other human beings. They’re unpredictable, they’re dynamic, they make Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 91

sounds, they smell. It’s a massive challenge to understand the social world, which might explain why autistic children prefer stimuli that are repetitive or more predictable.”

He agrees with Astle that understanding and measuring brain function is better than applying labels. When trialling interventions to help ameliorate some of the traits of these conditions, brain measures are better than clinical tools at predicting outcome.

This move away from broad labels and towards a more nuanced approach is reflected in the latest edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), which has moved towards ‘dimensions’ of symptoms of autism rather than categories (the term ‘Asperger’s’ is now classified within the Autism Spectrum, for example).

“In the past, we’ve been overly reliant on biomedical models,” Johnson says. “People tend to think of autism and ADHD as diseases, when they in fact describe a series of behaviours. It’s not right to think of them in the same way as, say, the flu.”

As humans, we like labels: they help us categorise and simplify the world around us. We may not be able to dispense with labels like autism and dyslexia anytime soon, but if science is teaching us anything, it’s to look beyond the label and remember that behind it lies a unique – and complex – individual.

92 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

3. It’s not easy being teen

By understanding how the adolescent brain wires and rewires, scientists are helping to pinpoint why teenagers are especially vulnerable to mental health problems – and why some are resilient.

When James Downs (pictured) was at secondary school, he was bullied for standing out. He developed OCD and a fixation with his appearance, which then led to an eating disorder. Now recovered, he describes his treatment as being “like an experimental DIY project rather than something with clear oversight and a plan”.

James’s story is not uncommon. When Charly Cox was diagnosed in her teenage years with depression and other mental health disorders, what lay ahead for her was “a long and painful ordeal of trial and error, guesswork and delay. I felt loss and frustration more times than I was ever gifted hope, knowledge or effective treatment.”

Flo Sharman, who suffered from mental illness from the age of eight, says: “I lost my childhood to the stigma surrounding mental health.”

One in four of us experience the debilitating, isolating and traumatic effects of mental health disorders. Around 75% of adult mental health problems begin before the age of 18, disrupting education and social interactions, affecting relationships with family and friends and future

>Back to index

job opportunities, and in some cases, costing lives.

Charly, Flo and James are among those who have lent their support – and their stories – to the mental health charity MQ to help work towards a future in which adolescents no longer face the life-altering challenge of living with these disorders.

Dr Anne-Laura van Harmelen from Cambridge’s Department of Psychiatry leads a project funded

by MQ, called HOPES, and shares this vision: “Our brains undergo complex neural development during the teenage years to prepare us to take care of ourselves. However, some of these changes may be linked to a vulnerability to mental health disorders. If we can better understand what these vulnerabilities are, we can identify those at risk and treat them early, before the disorders emerge.”

But, until recently, remarkably little has been known about what’s going on inside a teenager’s head. Unravelling some of the complexity has required the combined input of psychiatrists, neuroscientists, psychologists, social scientists, computational biologists and statisticians – and the brains of hundreds of healthy teenage volunteers. The teenagers were scanned as part of the NeuroScience in Psychiatry Network (NSPN), set up in 2012 by Professor Ian Goodyer from the Department of Psychiatry with funding from the Wellcome Trust.

So far, 2,300 healthy volunteers aged 14 to 24 years have been recruited by the University of Cambridge and University College London for analysis through behavioural questionnaires, cognitive tests, and medical and socio-economic history. Some 300 adolescents have also had their brain anatomy and activity scanned millimetre by millimetre using MRI, a method that can reveal connections between brain activity centres.

The result is one of the most comprehensive ‘circuit diagrams’ of the teenage brain ever attempted. “The project has been a big step forward in looking inside the black box of the teenage brain,” explains Professor Ed Bullmore, who leads the NSPN. “We found that there were distinctive patterns of developmental change in brain structure and function during adolescence that could help to explain why mental health

>Back to index

disorders often arise during late adolescence.”

For instance, Bullmore’s colleagues Dr Kirstie Whitaker and Dr Petra Vértes discovered that the outer region of the brain, known as cortical grey matter, shrinks, becoming thinner during adolescence. As this happens, the levels of myelin – the sheath that ‘insulates’ nerve fibres, allowing the fibres to communicate efficiently in the white matter – increase.

In a separate study, Dr František Váša designed a method to combine all of the scans of the structural changes in the brain through a ‘sliding window’ – as if viewing the changes in the brain network of an ‘average’ adolescent as they mature from 14 to 24 years of age. It sounds simple enough but this innovation was so complex that it took several years of statistical and computational analysis to perfect.

“We saw that the changes are greatest in the most connected ‘hub’ parts of the brain. Our interpretation is that when the brain develops it builds too many connections; then, during the teenage years, those that are used frequently are strengthened and others are ‘pruned’,” says Váša, whose PhD studies were funded by the Gates Cambridge Trust.

What makes this especially interesting is that Vértes and Whitaker also discovered that the brain areas undergoing the greatest structural changes during adolescence are those in which genes linked to risk of mental health disorders are most strongly expressed.

One of the disorders is schizophrenia, which affects 1% of the population and often starts in adolescence or early adult life. Vértes has recently been funded by MQ to search for unique patterns of brain connectivity among those who develop symptoms of schizophrenia, and to cross-reference them with patterns of gene expression across the brain. “Not only is this knowledge important for identifying new treatments that are more effective for a greater number of patients at an earlier stage, but it could also help in predicting those who are at risk,” she explains.

Another area where there has been little improvement in predicting behaviours is that of suicide – the second leading cause of death among the young.

“Around 16% of teens think about suicide and Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 93

8% report making an attempt, yet there has been little improvement in our ability to predict suicidal behaviours in 50 years,” says van Harmelen, who is a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin fellow. The HOPES project she leads aims to develop a model to predict who is at risk of suicide by analysing brain scans and data on suicidal behaviour of young people from across the world to identify specific, universal risk factors.

comes from family members, and for 19-yearolds from friendships.

“These risk factors may be connected with traumatic and stressful events early in their lives,” she adds. “In fact, we know that about a third of all mental health problems are attributable to events such as bullying, abuse and neglect. Much of my work has been to understand the impact of these factors on the developing brain.”

“We are diving deeper into the factors and mechanisms that might help,” says van Harmelen. “We know there are lots of social, emotional and behavioural factors that help to build resilience, and that these factors are amenable to intervention by therapists – but which are the most important, or is it a specific combination of these factors?

She discovered that childhood adversity is related to an altering of the structure and function of parts of the brain, and that this increases vulnerability to mental health problems. Intriguingly, some adolescents with traumatic early life experiences fared a lot better than would be predicted. This ‘resilience’ was enhanced by receiving the right kind of support at the right time. She calls this ‘social buffering’ and finds that for 14-year-olds it most often

94 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

With funding from the Royal Society, she is now starting to look for biological factors that underpin resilient functioning – for instance, how does the immune system interact with the brain during periods of psychosocial stress in resilient adolescents? Are there biomarkers that can be used to predict resilience after childhood adversity?

“If you speak to anyone who has had a mental health problem, you will know the effect it’s had on them and their families,” she adds. “Even a minor contribution to lowering this effect through early diagnosis and treatment is worth a lot of effort.”

>Back to index

>Back to index

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 95

Digging in to save amazing dinosaur gem More than 100 million years ago, when Australia was part of the supercontinent Gondwana, a vast array of dinosaurs lived, died and left a remarkable fossil record – some of it beneath our remote outback opal fields.

Now a collection of ancient rock with opalised bones from Lightning Ridge in NSW is about to ‘come to life’ in a novel project involving scientists from around Australia

This week palaeontologist and video documentary maker, Flinders University Associate Professor Paul Willis, will announce plans to ‘rescue’ the rare fossil, thought to be a substantial part of the skeleton of a small planteating dinosaur.

It would have lived on a forested floodplain 100 million years ago, along with other dinosaurs including the recently discovered Weewarrasaurus and Fostoria, says Associate Professor Willis, whose video production company Palaeo Pictures will record the recovery and analysis of the fossil found by opal miners and stored in a box and old suitcase.

Reconstruction of plant-eating dinosaurs looking for bunya pine nut seeds.

Illustration: James McKinnon.

96 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

>Back to index

m The documentary will continue with the study and reconstruction of the animal at the Flinders University Palaeontology Lab in South Australia before the stunning discovery is returned to its ‘burial ground’ in NSW, in the new $20 millionplus Australian Opal Centre at Lightning Ridge.

Then the bones will be put back together and studied.

A team of leading Australian palaeontologists, from Flinders University, the University of New England in Armidale and the Australian Opal Centre, will conduct the preparation and study of this specimen.

“Only in Australia can you get dinosaur fossils that are also solid opals,” Associate Professor Willis says. “We can’t tell yet how much of the skeleton we have or what species of dinosaur it belongs to. It could well be new to science and it’s certainly a beautiful specimen.

The research will use CT scans for an initial examination of the sandstone-encased bones to see what is there, before the rock is removed.

While still encased in sandstone, the fossilised remains are most likely to be from a small ornithopod dinosaur, a plant-eater that often walked on its hind legs.

The opalised fossils have been collected and stored ready for transport to the Flinders Palaeontology Laboratory in Adelaide.

Photo: Jenni Brammall

>Back to index

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 97

For 26 years, Yale staff member has h During the month of July, Carlos Pinela ’82 will begin his weekdays doing what he asks of all the children who file into the Payne Whitney Gym’s Lanman Center at 9 a.m. each morning: completing a certain number of pushups, sit-ups, squats, and other floor exercises.

Pinela has been following this summer routine for 26 years, and says it’s one of his favorite times of the day during the fiveweek Yale Bulldog Sports Camp he has directed all those years.

“I lose about five pounds every summer doing calisthenics with the campers,” says Pinela. “I try to coax the kids into a daily fitness routine, and those mornings are one of the joys for me of running the program.”

In the Yale Bulldog Sports Camp, children ages 6-14 develop their skills in in a range of indoor sports and recreational activities, including basketball, swimming, ping pong, volleyball, squash, gymnastics, and yoga, as well as outdoor sports such as soccer, baseball, tennis, golf, field hockey, lacrosse, kickball, and more. The indoor sports take place in the Payne Whitney Gymnasium (PWG), and the campers travel twice weekly to Yale’s athletic fields for the outdoor sports. Every Wednesday (weather permitting), the campers journey to Yale’s Outdoor Education Center (OEC) in East Lyme for lake swimming, fishing, and more. Youngsters are enrolled at the camp for weekly sessions for up to five weeks.

“Our days are spent doing wall-to-wall sports at campus facilities or fun and games at the Outdoor Center,” says Pinela.

Carlos Pinela ’82, director of the Yale Bulldog Sports Camp.

98 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

>Back to index

Photo by Michael Marsland

helped bring summer fun to area kids Susan Gonzalez Pinela became director of the Yale Bulldog Sports Camp just one year after it began, and has seen the program grow from its early days, when it had some 50 campers, to its current average of about 100 children per week (although it has sometimes enrolled some as many as 150 participants weekly).

He was a recent Yale graduate when he began a part-time summer job to direct the sports camp.

A political science major, Pinela took part during his student days in intramural football (razzle dazzle and tackle) and basketball, and gained experience as an athletic coach and a referee after he graduated. He was glad to be back on campus sharing his love of athletics, he says.

I try to coax the kids into a daily fitness routine, and those mornings are one of the joys for me of running the program.” carlos pinela “It’s easy to be excited around a bunch of kids who are excited themselves to play sports,” says Pinela, who has for many years also coached sports teams at Hamden Hall Country Day School.

Within a couple of years, Pinela was hired on a full-time basis as the Yale camp director, and he eventually also became assistant director of athletics and the director of aquatics.

“Part of our mission with the summer sports camp is to showcase Yale’s exceptional athletic facilities as we introduce kids to a range of sports,” says Pinela, noting that the PWG is one of the largest athletic facilities in the world.

For Pinela, preparations for the summer camp get underway in March, when he begins interviewing camp counselors, many of whom are college students who are home in the New Haven area for summer break. Some attended the Yale camp themselves, so Pinela has gotten to know them well over the years. Altogether, he hires a staff of about 25, which, in addition to the counselors, includes several lifeguards and a camp nurse. The counselors lead a group of children (sorted by age and gender), and also

>Back to index

coach one indoor and one outdoor sport. All attend a one-day training orientation at the end of June, which Pinela leads.

“When I interview counselors, I always ask them if they swim,” says Pinela. “The kids love to play with their counselors in the water. In all of the sports, the counselors always have a skill advantage, but in the water, things are more equitable: Everybody’s a kid in the water.”

About a decade ago, the Yale Bulldog Sports Camp began to offer lunches to all of the campers, with food catered by nearby restaurants. On Wednesdays at the OEC, hotdogs and hamburgers are on the menu, and on Fridays, the campers are treated to pizza from the Big Green Pizza Truck.

“Providing lunches to the campers has definitely been a hit with busy parents,” says Pinela. He notes that while food prices have gone up, the fee for the camp has remained the same over many years, and one of his challenges as director is to ensure that the expense of running the camp is mostly covered by registration fees.

Part of our mission with the summer sports camp is to showcase Yale’s exceptional athletic facilities as we introduce kids to a range of sports.”

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 99

During his more than two decades directing the camp, Pinela has watched the children of many Yale staff and faculty members — as well as those of non-Yale affiliates — grow up and go off to college or careers themselves. A particular pleasure for him was to have two of his own three children participate in the Yale Bulldog Sports Camp. His daughter Sona is now a senior at the University of Connecticut, where she swims competitively, and son Simòn is a junior at Villanova University. His other daughter, Natalie, did not attend the sports camp, but she will be a Yale sophomore in the fall.

“Natalie sometimes stopped by for the pizza truck,” Pinela laughs, “so she wasn’t entirely absent.”

With his various roles in Yale’s Athletics Department, Pinela spends much of his time at the gym or on Yale’s fields. As assistant director of athletics, he is responsible for some of the facilities maintenance and scheduling, and he

assists at many of the varsity contests that take place at the gym, including swimming, volleyball, gymnastics, and basketball. He has spent many of his Friday nights and Saturdays at sporting events at the gym, often with his children tagging along.

“Between the summer camp and sports events, I’ve long had the privilege of being able to bring my family to ‘work,’” he quips.

As he approaches his 30th year at the university, Pinela says he’s is grateful for his long career in athletics, especially since he had barely known the name “Yale” while he was growing up in a large Mexican-American family in Los Angeles.

“My mom and Dad only had elementary-school educations, but they had the good fortune to bring up seven children who all went to college,” Pinela says. “What I knew of the Ivy League when I was a kid was just some grainy video of the Yale-Harvard game. Later, one of the guys from my high school who attended Yale came back and gave a talk, and one of the things he said really resonated with me. He said, ‘It’s a different place, and if you go and don’t like it, you can always come back.’ I did enjoy it, and also enjoyed the city of New Haven, especially because it is a pedestrian-friendly place, like Paris.”

Pinela says he has a long list of memorable moments during his summers managing the Yale Bulldog Sports Camp. Every year, on the last day of camp, he receives exclamations of “thank you” from both children and their parents, and he poses for photos with the many youngsters eager to take a picture with their camp director.

He recalls how one year a young camper gave him a handwritten note, in which she wrote, “I’m so sad this is my last day of camp.”

“That really says it all,” says Pinela. “That’s the best compliment I can get from a child.

The greatest compliment I get from parents — and do get often — is when they tell me their child or children went home, ate dinner, and then went straight to bed. We keep the kids busy and tire them out, in the best way possible and while having a lot of fun.”

100 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

>Back to index

>Back to index

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 101

State funds lower dropout rate Schools that received state funds to expand career training programs saw lower dropout rates, Stanford researcher finds California high schools had higher graduation rates after partnering with community colleges and local businesses to revamp career readiness programs.

For decades, high school students who weren’t considered “college material” were steered onto a vocational track with limited academic requirements, which may have helped them develop job skills but left them unprepared if they wanted to continue their education.

That’s beginning to change as high schools move toward a new model known as career pathways, which combine a technical education with collegeprep coursework while linking students with local employers for real-world experience.

A new study by a Stanford education researcher shows that this approach pays off. California school districts that were awarded state funds to form career pathways in high-growth fields saw a 23 percent decline in high school dropout rates, according to research by Sade Bonilla, a doctoral candidate at Stanford Graduate School of Education (GSE).

The decrease was driven largely by female students, which Bonilla said was likely due to the schools’ focus on creating pathways in traditionally female-dominated sectors such as health care support.

“These findings suggest that a pragmatic approach to this type of school reform can make a difference for students who are at risk of dropping out of high school,” said Bonilla, whose research is detailed in a working paper released May 2 by the Stanford Center for Education Policy Analysis (CEPA). “It serves as a proof point for other states.”

Bonilla also presented the findings in March at the annual conference of the Association for Education Finance and Policy and at the National Academy of Education/Spencer Fellows Retreat.

A new model The “pathway” approach is distinct from many 102 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

schools’ career and technical education (CTE) offerings in that it provides a progressive sequence of job-related courses in a field, rather than an assortment of stand-alone classes, and connects students with community college programs and local employers in their field of interest.

“There’s more intentionality about students making progress in an area and getting more value when they enter the labor market,” said Bonilla.

What’s more, she said, by delivering collegepreparatory academic coursework, the pathway approach integrates college and career readiness.

“It doesn’t preclude you from doing one or the other.”

Students in a pathway program on building design, for example, might choose to go on to the local community college and get a certificate in plumbing or an associate’s degree in engineering.

“Or they could go to a four-year school and major in architecture,” said Bonilla. “The idea is that kids are going to get off this pathway at different points, but they’re all going to start in the same place in high school.”

A natural experiment The competitive grant program Bonilla studied was established by California lawmakers in 2013 to award one-time funding for schools to establish or expand career pathway programs. Recipients were chosen in two rounds and awarded a total of $500 million statewide between 2014 and 2017.

Bonilla took advantage of what she calls a “natural experiment” that occurred through the award process: The selection committee rated applicants using a detailed rubric based on the schools’ plans and capacity to implement a career pathway program. Districts that just made the cutoff and received the grant were nearly indistinguishable from those that fell just below the threshold in terms of their underlying capacity.

Spending data confirmed that grant recipients increased their per-pupil expenditures on CTE programs by more than 20 percent, compared with applicants who didn’t receive the funding.

The impact of that spending was significant: Bonilla documented on average a 23 percent

Carrie Spector decline in dropout rates among grant recipients.

Female students accounted largely for the decline, even though past research has shown that males are more likely to self-select into CTE academies. A key requirement for applicants of the California grant program was to identify high-growth occupations in their region—and many focused on creating career pathways in the expanding health care industry, Bonilla said, where entry-level support roles are traditionally dominated by female workers.

“This type of program seems like a useful policy lever to get school districts to think more about the regional economy—which fields are growing, and which are shrinking. It’s a way for states to help districts, and for districts to help kids, better understand the careers that are potentially available.”

—Sade Bonilla, doctoral candidate at Stanford Graduate School of Education

Impact beyond school engagement The return on investment for a state that offers start-up funding for this type of program is substantial, said Bonilla, a Spencer/National Association of Education fellow who will join the faculty of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst this fall.

Based on the spending data for the California grant program, she estimated that preventing a single student from dropping out cost the state approximately $18,000. The diploma is worth far more.

“The average high school graduate will realize approximately $300,000 more in lifetime earnings than someone who dropped out,” Bonilla said (the figure is higher for men and lower for women). “A high school graduate will pay more taxes, be more likely to have health insurance, have fewer emergency room visits, fewer interactions with the criminal justice system—you can think about it in a lot of different ways.”

Meanwhile, administering the funds as California did—through a competitive grant program that encourages schools to design their career pathway programs around regional economic trends—can better prepare students for the landscape they’ll face when they enter the workforce, Bonilla said.

“We know that most kids tend to stay close to home to find a job,” she said. “This type of program seems like a useful policy lever to get school districts to think more about the regional economy—which fields are growing, and which are shrinking. It’s a way for states to help districts, and for districts to help kids, better understand the careers that are potentially available.”

Sade Bonilla, a doctoral candidate at Stanford Graduate School of Education, found that California school districts that received funds to partner with community colleges and local employers saw a 23 percent decline in high school dropout rates.

This research was supported by the Spencer/NAEd Dissertation Fellowship, the Karr Family Fellowship and the Institute for Education Sciences. Sade Bonilla’s GSE faculty advisor is Thomas S. Dee.

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 103

New Zealand Bans Plastic Bags: Sort-of So, I popped in to the local price-raiser supermarket, and as I wanted only a few items, I took a basket at the door instead of a trolley. As one does, I impulse-bought more than I intended: a bottle of Chateau Exxon Pinot Gris 2019, a loaf of rye bread, some freerange bananas, chicken breasts, eggs and sundry other items. At the checkout, I asked if I could keep the items in the basket, take them to the car and return. Big mistake. That’s a no. The checkout operator glared at me as if I’d voiced an intention of murdering her kittens. No exceptionsthese things activate alarms if taken through the doors. As I am not Chuck Norris or Vishnu, and there were about five items too many to carry through the blizzard to the car, I resorted to buying a paper bag, one with the ‘recyclable, reusable, sustainablysourced’ symbol shaped like a heartjust to show we care, you know.

As it was, my newly-purchased Warehouse jacket triggered an alarm but nobody took any notice.

At home I checked my items which I had salvaged from a rapidly disintegrating paper bag. Seven out of nine were wrapped in ‘single-use’ plastic. For some of these I could also have asked for ‘barrier’ bags. How to 104 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019

justify using nasty plastic? Easy, give it another name. ‘Barrier’ sounds so comforting, so protective. Doesn’t matter if they’re only fit for wrapping around leaky meat containers and discarding afterwards. Sad that the popular culprits are those multiuse single use ones which are now verboten. They’re the only ones that turtles look for to stick their heads in, apparently. I used to keep them for all sorts of uses. I’d put my lunch in them when relief-teaching. Now I find bananas in an interesting condition at the bottom of my briefcaseobviously overlooked as luxuries such as lunch tend to be forgotten when one is on playground duty.

So, it seems that we are doing our bit for saving the planet by buying into the idea of bagging the bags whilst ignoring the plethora of plastic wrappers and containers.

Makes sense.

Come to think of it, we are privileged to have wonderful people easing our way by being creative with what we call unpleasant things. We can thank real estate literati for the wonderful ‘character home’ for any abode which is totally dilapidated and needs a touch of paint to cover up the borer holes. Likewise, the local undertaker’s

>Back to index

f. Let’s Pack and Save the planet. has morphed into a ‘funeral home’ home is where the hearse is.

So it goes with barrier bags. I can envisage a think tank of supermarket executives spending a week in a Bay of Islands’ resort working fifteen hours a day deciding on an appropriate name for the little bags we pull off rolls in the vegetable aisles, or the meat department. Perhaps ‘barrier’ is apt as I find I always try to open the wrong end. Anyway, Think Tank, you also need to come up with a handy euphemism for the ubiquitous wrapping plastic. Shouldn’t take you too long. Just a name to divert our attention away from the turtlechoking, often smelly stuff which covers a large percentage of your stock. How about ‘Diversity Wrappers’ or ‘Green Covers’? ‘Transparent Protectors’ has a certain je ne sais quoi.

As we’re into renaming, I am going to ask for single use council rubbish bags with handles next time at the checkout. I guess the message won’t get through. I bet the rubbish collectors are impressed with the noisome liquids oozing out from them now that (some) plastic has gone the way of the unicorn.

I wonder how much the supermarkets

>Back to index

have saved from the ban and how much they’ve gained from the sale of the lovely, heart re-usable bags. Not enough to keep prices static anyway.

I read somewhere that the energy used to make one of their replacement bags constructed from recycled, fairtrade, vegan hemp* is the equivalent of making well over a hundred of the old single use plastic ones, but who’s counting? Anyway, as far as plastic wrappers and containers are concerned supermarkets needn’t worry as apparently, only bags with handles are banned. So, they’re safe at present-bet they’re breathing a big sigh of relief and singing Handles’ Messiah.

So, as I cover the back seat of the car with numerous items, happy in the knowledge that I am being virtuous as well as contributing to the supermarket’s profit, I look forward to seeing how many items can be carried inside in one go, avoiding the administrations of a bouncing Border Collie intent on dislodging the dog roll squeezed in my armpit.

For those who think the ban is the best thing since sliced bread, consider that we’d never be able to buy sliced bread without a plastic bag. *possibly incorrect

Roger

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019 105

“The best teachers don’t give you the answers...

They just point the way ... and let you make your own choices.”

106 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2019