IE Magazine Issue 2/Vol 43 /2013

the professional voice of the Independent Education Union

issue 2|Vol 43|2013

FOCUS ON Special needs education from rhetoric to action

Islam awareness|Lesson observations|Boosting Shakespeare’s cool factor|Game-based learning

Executive Editors John Quessy Deb James Terry Burke Managing Editor Tara de Boehmler Editorial Committee Cathy Hickey Fiona Stutz Gloria Taylor Tara de Boehmler Sue Osborne Journalists Tara de Boehmler Sue Osborne Fiona Stutz Design Chris Ruddle About us IE is a tri-annual journal published by the NSW/ACT, VicTas and Qld/NT Independent Education Unions for members and subscribers. It has a circulation of more than 65,000. IE’s contents do not necessarily reflect the views of the IEU or the editors nor imply endorsement by them.

Email NSW: ieu@ieu.asn.au VIC/TAS: info@ieuvictas.org.au QLD/NT: enquiries@qieu.asn.au IE online www.ieu.asn.au/publications/ Contributions Contributions and letters from members are welcome. Printing does not reflect endorsement and contributions may be edited at the editor’s discretion.

Email iemagazine@ieu.asn.au Advertising Chris Ruddle (02) 8202 8900 Advertising is carried in IE in order to minimise costs.

Advertising does not in any way reflect endorsement of the products or services.

Subscriptions IE is available free to members of the IEU, or by subscription.

Kayla Skorupon: (02) 8202 8900 Print Post Number 100007506 Printing Print & Mail: (02) 9519 8268 ISSN 1320-9825

P4

Rhythm of life

Teaching a growth mindset – why praise can be a bad thing

P14

Think differently: The game brain

P24

Editorial Kaleidoscope Australia wide

Levelling the playing field

news from the states and territories

Diary Reconciliation

Doing the rounds Standards for Aboriginal education

P6 P7 P8

learning with an open heart

Feature

Special needs feature

Special needs education from rhetoric to action

Funding not meeting need – a case in point

Autism in the classroom

Teaching + learning

Teaching a growth mindset – why

praise can be a bad thing

P16 Preservice education – room for improvement? P18 Lesson observations that boost quality teaching P20 Headstrong P22 Keep it simple, Shakespeare P23 Turning PD into postgrad study P24 No more sausage rolls and meat pies P26 Think differently: The game brain P28 Refugees embrace power of education P30 Is the rise of social media a headache for schools? P32 Film remakes do they work?

P34

Leadership Diverse roles Technology Social justice Talking point Review

Rhythm of life – Jake Mangakahia

P4 P4

Professional and industrial

Vision for justice

P10 P11 P12 P13 P14

Islam education a boon for global citizens

independent education| issue 2|Vol 43|2013|3

hythm of lif

Levelling the playing field

Get it right with the education of students with special needs and everyone benefits.

Get it wrong and the very students who require the most assistance get left behind.

Without appropriate support, teachers are left trying to accommodate everyone’s needs, leaving less time for lesson delivery.

This issue of IE spotlights Australia’s watershed moment in determining the ongoing education of students with special needs (p10). We examine the review of Disability Standards for Education, the Gonski review of funding, and the new method for Nationally Consistent Data on Students with Disabilities.

We speak with those on the front line of educating students with additional learning needs and reveal a watering down of vital services in some NSW independent schools under the guise of classroom teacher ‘capacity building’.

As IEU member and Vision Impairment Support Teacher Beverly Scott points out, providing materials in an appropriate modality, along with education support and social skills training, is about nothing less than a level playing field. If we fail to provide it, students with special needs will not be able to compete with their mainstream peers at school or in the workforce.

“This would have no reflection on their intellect but they wouldn’t be able to achieve their potential. We’re here to make the playing field less difficult. They have a right,” she says.

Also in this edition we find out how one Queensland school is turning their professional development program into postgraduate study (p24), how lesson evaluations can be structured to promote growth instead of fear (p20) and how teaching students to appreciate a ‘fantastic struggle’ can promote a growth mindset (p22).

For a change of pace the technology feature on p28 examines how one US teacher went about reinventing his Biology class as a video game. The article highlights how the current education system lends itself to this treatment, shares some compelling success stories and warns of potential pitfalls.

We hope you enjoy the read and invite you to get in touch to share your own stories along with your feedback and suggestions.

Email iemagazine@ieu.asn.au 4|independent education| issue 2|Vol 43|2013

Dance to the rhythm of life with the spirit of youth.

Kaleidoscope

As a dancer with The Australian Ballet Jake Mangakahia has had an original Stephen Page work created about him which was performed last year in New York, has been featured in a year-long documentary series detailing the life of a dancer and won the Telstra People’s Choice Award in 2012. He tells IE Journalist Tara de Boehmler how he came to master everything from hip-hop to the haka.

I’ve been very fortunate to have attended schools with performing arts programs and had teachers who were effective in bringing people together and having fun.

I am also blessed to come from a very active and creative Maori family with a father who was a strong male role model. He really encouraged me to dance and saw the potential in it.

He does a professional cultural show at schools, called The Spirit of Polynesia, which teaches kids about the cultural dances and the culture of the New Zealand and Hawaiian, Samoan, Fijian and Native American Indians.

When he was a young adult he danced in clubs and when we were growing up he would dance with my Mum in the kitchen and with all of us around the house.

We liked playing sport and coming from a Maori family with two younger brothers we naturally played a lot, including basketball and rugby. But I was really into the arts, more so than was usual.

I started ballet classes when I was five years old and attended Hilliard State Primary School, where we put on an annual performance. One year we did Lion King.

The transition from primary school to high school is daunting in itself but it helped that our performing arts teacher at Alexandria Hills High School already knew of some of us before we started Year 7.

The school held an audition for a troupe and, so that everyone who wanted to be involved could be, there were a range of groups. This was great because you got the audition experience and still got to be involved if you were not picked for the first one.

We put on a performance in our first month or two of high school and it took off. It got our faces out in a high school of about 1,200 students. It helped build my confidence and I gained friends.

Our performing arts teacher was really good at getting groups together and having fun. She would be as professional as you can be but she was all about having fun, making something up and being yourself in that environment.

It was important to have teachers who were effective in doing this as it’s often a student’s first impression of performance. It’s about encouragement and not having a fear of being involved in anything, whether it be sports or the arts. Everyone makes mistakes and that’s fine. It’s often how you make friends.

As I got involved in sport, it helped me get these friends involved with the performing arts. We gained good relationships that way.

It was just good fun and a bit of a laugh.

Also at high school we had one dance group that was just guys. At times this was hell for the performing arts teacher but on the whole it was really good.

We’d muck around and make up stuff. It meant we could produce a really strong, fun

dance, not choreographed by a girl - so not at all girly.

We also had a mixed troupe and in our spare time we danced in a hip-hop troupe, just for fun.

The school held an end-of-year performance with and a fashion parade with dancers showcasing the clothes of local designers.

In some ways I’ve been very fortunate in always knowing what I want to do - to be in this area in this profession.

Academically, because I’ve always looked at everything in an artistic way, at school I saw every subject as a way of helping me to be better in what I wanted to do. Everything else would relate to it.

For me, Art was about stage set design, costume and lighting, Music is part of dance, Science showed me a lot of things like how light could bend and how chemicals could make colours react and create different colours. In English we looked at Shakespearean plays and so on. Whatever your passion is, everything else can relate to it.

While I was at school I did two or three ballet classes a week at Caprice Dancing School at Wynnum Manly in Brisbane. My friends didn’t even really know I did ballet until we did the whole hip-hop thing in high school.

I left high school in Year 9. I went to a master class at Caprice Ballet School and forgot my name tag but the teacher remembered my name from when I was little. I couldn’t believe it. After class he approached me and asked if I would like to be in the classical ballet profession. I said yes and he told me I needed to start at this time. He left it at that.

Then another guy in the class asked if I was doing the audition for the Australian Ballet School the following day. I didn’t know there was one on. I did it and I guess the rest is history.

At the Australian Ballet School I had a really a wonderful teacher who was supportive of the individual and took time with us. If we wanted to do eisteddfods she would make something up for us to do, but she wouldn’t go out of her way to do them or win them.

It was a very good environment that she brought us up in. She really took care to make sure her students understood things and focused on inspiring us to be better dancers and to use our art, telling us how to make things better quality and to be more effective in performance.

After my father saw me at the ballet school, he said he would have loved to have done it when he was growing up. But when he was a kid this was just something that was not even considered.

The key there is education and how dance is perceived. It’s great if guys especially can see ballet as this ability to dance and express themselves with a great amount of athleticism that is very strict but because of its strictness it allows you freedom. independent education| issue 2|Vol 43|2013|5

NSW Funding good/compliance a burden While a version of David Gonski’s vision has emerged and been signed off on in NSW, the IEU is now unpacking what additional ‘work’ will be necessary to comply with the funding protocols.

As NSW/ACT IEU General Secretary John Quessy indicated: “It means the $1.7 billion the State Government stripped from education will eventually be returned but the Government will find this money through further budget cuts across portfolios.”

Issues for classroom teachers are many and varied. They range from practicums being upgraded, mentoring, appraisal, the Australian Curriculum,

Asian languages, Science to be part of NAPLAN and data collection to be integral to all aspects of the National Plan for School Improvement.

The NSW/ACT Branch of the IEU intends to approach the complexities of national and state level demands on teachers in the following manner.

It will define current expectations and establish what members are already undertaking and distil what ‘new’ requirements are mooted. These will be checked off against the state requirements set by the NSW Institute of Teachers.

The underlying assumption should be that members are already (and have

been for a considerable time) engaging in teacher appraisal, professional reflection and meaningful professional development.

As the recent senate enquiry into teaching and learning noted: “There have been more than 30 inquiries into education in the past three decades”.

While accepting that change is a constant in education an evolutionary approach will produce a better outcome.

Recently the ACT and SA have also signed up to new funding arrangements under Gonski.

Queensland Most happy with assessment process While the Parliamentary Inquiry into Assessment Methods for Senior Maths, Chemistry and Physics took place, IEUA-QNT surveyed members to gauge their views on the Queensland Studies Authority (QSA) processes for assessment and moderation.

Of the respondents, the majority were satisfied with the core structures and processes of the QSA. Levels of dissatisfaction with the processes were fairly even, with the exception of Maths and Science teachers, whose dissatisfaction levels were higher than for other subjects.

There was also a notable drop in satisfaction across all subjects when the focus of the questions shifted from QSA

requirements to the implementation and operation of those requirements at the school level.

In relation to syllabus matters, such as the number of assessment items, range of assessment techniques and range of exam and assessment conditions, approximately 50% of Maths and Science teachers said they were satisfied or very satisfied with current arrangements, while teachers in other subjects such as English, History, Geography and the Arts reported levels in the mid 60% range.

In relation to internal moderation processes, 44% of Maths and Science teachers and 55% of other teachers reported being confident that these processes are working well.

IEUA-QNT Secretary Terry Burke says the survey showed widespread support for current processes and requirements.

However, most teachers agreed many employers failed to provide enough time to manage the assessment of student work required by the QSA procedures.

The clear message from members was that problems with school level processes, more than QSA requirements, needs to be addressed.

Additional support from the QSA for professional development and more time were needed to deal with these requirements.

Details: www.parliament.qld.gov.au/ work-of-committees/committees/EIC/ inquiries/current-inquiries/QldAssessment

ACT Strong relationships key to success Implementation of the Australian Curriculum in phase one subjects is occurring in ACT schools. All K-10 schools are delivering curriculum content in English, Mathematics, Science and History.

This year schools will be reporting using the Australian Curriculum Achievement

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Standards. Every Chance to Learn, the previous Curriculum Framework, continues to inform curricula in those learning areas yet to be released.

Strong relationships have been established across the Catholic, independent and public sectors as a result of the implementation of the

accreditation process through the Teacher Quality Institute and through the successful implementation of the Australian Curriculum. The curriculum process continues to provide opportunities for consultation.

Australia wide

Victoria

Strengthening senior secondary pathways The Victorian Government wants to alter credentialing for senior secondary as part of a commitment to “strengthen pathways in senior secondary qualifications”. As a result, the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) has been consulting on three new forms of recognition proposed to sit within the existing qualifications (VCE and VCAL). They involve three forms of pathway or patterns of study which will receive recognition if completed at a high level of achievement.

The proposal includes a Victorian Baccalaureate (with a broader pattern of study and possibly including a LOTE and an Extended Investigation component), Specialist Programs (with sequences of study from one specialist category, essentially within a KLA), and Industry Pathways where students undertake a mix of existing courses determined as suiting a particular industry.

Students with a high achievement in the particular pattern of study essentially receive a testamur. It is not clear whether universities and industry will privilege or accept these testamurs. The stated aim of the three proposals is to support more coherent packaging of student programs of study, give new and different forms of recognition to high achievement, and to encourage the study of languages.

Tasmania

Senior secondary course development With the introduction of the Australian Curriculum for Year 11 and 12 subjects not yet in sight, some Year 11 and 12 teachers have been put under a great deal of pressure to participate in developing new courses.

The initial subject area the Tasmanian Qualifications Authority (TQA) chose to focus on was English and ESL. Early indications were that new or revised courses would be accredited for 2014 only. This time period is now under review.

There was an unfortunate start to the development process with unrealistic consultation timeframes and scant evidence that teachers’ comments, suggestions and critiques were seriously considered. Recently a more thorough and genuine consultation process has been implemented. The IEU has recommended that teachers actively engage in TQA‘s feedback process on the exposure drafts of some English and ESL courses. Teachers will be analysing and critiquing the proposed courses and will not be constrained by the limited range of questions put forward for comment by the TQA.

Diary

Diary IEUA-QNT Northern Territory Conference 10 August, Novotel, Darwin Managing the complexities and demands on the modern educator.

Workshops include: legal issues; exploring the new professional standards for teachers; disability, support and best practice; psychological social hazards in school; and the introduction of new technology in contemporary schools.

Details: www.qieu.asn.au NSW/ACT IEU Sustainability Education in the Australian Curriculum 16 August, Mercure Hotel, Sydney The Australian Curriculum identifies sustainability as a cross-curricular priority. Come and get the best tools and advice tailored for your needs.

Highlights include a keynote by science author and broadcaster Robyn Williams, a presentation and zoo mobile from Taronga Zoo, workshops by the Australian Academy of Science and The Department of Environment and Heritage and best practice examples.

Details: www.ieu.asn.au and iva@ieu.asn.au IEUA-QNT/QTU Professional Issues Conference 23 August, Brisbane Convention Centre A keynote by Dr Lawrence Ingvarson, Principal Research Fellow, Australian Council of Educational Research, will focus on linking teacher performance to pay, standards-based professional learning and certification. Workshops include: an overview of the trial of ACER Early Start tools; results of the 2012 IEUA-QNT Assessment and Moderation Survey; the use of Australian Professional Standards for Teachers in 2014; and the transition of Year 7 to secondary schools in 2015.

Details: www.qieu.asn.au NSW/ACT IEU Support Staff Conference 23 August, Mercure Hotel, Sydney Focusing on workplace bullying, this conference features a keynote

by University of NSW Lecturer Dr Carlo Caponecchia, an expert in psychological hazards at work. Highlights include a panel session by Bullying of Staff in Schools authors Dr Deirdre Duncan, Dr Dan Riely and John Edwards and a range of workshops.

Teacher Learning Network Conference - Mastering Student Engagement Wednesday, September 25, AEU Building, Melbourne This conference for casual relief teachers brings together Victoria’s classroom behaviour management experts, with workshops by Glen Pearsall, Jenny MacKay and Jo Lange. The conference is aligned with VIT standards. Participants will receive a Certificate of Participation for seven hours of professional development including a PDi code.

Australian Society for Music Education National Conference 29 September to 1 October, Hotel Realm, Canberra Redefining the musical landscape, inspired learning and innovation in music education.

Details: www.asme2013.com.au ACSA Biennial Curriculum Conference Uncharted territory? Navigating the new Australian Curriculum 25-27 September, Darwin Convention Centre Explore cross curriculum priorities, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures, sustainability and Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia.

Details: www.acsa.edu.au Australia and New Zealand Education Law Association Conference 2-4 October, Baha’i Centre of Learning, Hobart The conference explores safe, successful and sustainable education and asks whether the law is a sword or a shield.

Details: www.anzela.edu.au independent education| issue 2|Vol 43|2013|7

Standards for Aboriginal education

learning with an open heart Dancer, surfer, artist, storyteller, singer, didgeridoo player, educator and entertainer Dhinawan (aka Mick Baker) believes all Australians, but particularly teachers, have a responsibility to promote and share Indigenous culture, IE Journalist Sue Osborne writes.

Standard 1.4 (leading teacher level)

Develop teaching programs that support equitable and ongoing participation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students by engaging in collaborative relationships with community representatives and parents/carers.

Standard 2.4 (leading teacher level)

Lead initiatives to assist colleagues with opportunities for students to develop understanding of and respect for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories, cultures and languages Dhinawan Dreaming is a regular fixture at NSW/ACT IEU Conferences, having performed at the recent Indigenous Conference Renewal, Retention and Reconciliation, held in Sydney in March.

Dhinawan has also appeared at IEU environment conferences.

The Indigenous Conference explored how the new national teaching standards on promoting understanding and respect for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students would affect all teachers.

Dhinawan set a challenge to all Conference attendees: “If you learn, then you must teach”.

Dhinawan said he felt an obligation to share the culture he learnt as a boy with others, and that people should learn “with open hearts and minds”.

A readiness to accept new learning and share it would be required by teachers facing up to the new national professional standards 1.4 and 2.4, which refer to Indigenous education.

In his opening address IEU NSW/ACT General Secretary John Quessy said there was “much unfinished business between the oldest continuing culture in human history and the rest of us”.

John said the standards gave teachers an opportunity to engage through teaching and learning.

Conference keynote speaker Dr Zane Ma Rhea of Monash University, who heads up research investigating standards 1.4 and 2.4, said the new standards would require teachers to get in front of the class and teach things they did not know about.

“Teachers tell us they get their Indigenous content from Google. If we’re not careful we could end up stuffing up and teaching rubbish.

“I don’t want to see a whole load of non-Indigenous people sweeping their

8|independent education| issue 2|Vol 43|2013

way through to lead teacher status by ticking a lot of boxes, while Aboriginal Education Workers or Indigenous people on the ground with years and years of knowledge are not getting credentialed.

“Unless we have Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people working side-by-side in partnership with schools we’re not getting anywhere.

“We need real employment. PD for teachers should be assessed by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, not provided by professional companies.”

Dhinawan, a descendant of the Gamillaroi Bigambul tribe, has performed in numerous schools around the country, and was the King School’s first Aboriginal resident lecturer.

At the moment Dhinawan is not available to perform in Australian schools as he is on a tour of the Americas, based in Las Vegas.

But he encourages teachers to find people in their local community who can come in to school and showcase Aboriginal culture.

During his presentation at the Conference, Dhinawan explained how he has been learning his culture since he was three, initially through painting but then through dance and other media.

“Whether it is song, dance or music it is telling the same story,’’ he said.

“Our culture is not written so we have to learn these ways to keep it alive. Our culture was asleep for a while but now it is going through a reconnaissance.”

Dhinawan has toured the world and says people from overseas are fascinated by Indigenous culture.

“All Australians have a responsibility to learn about this culture and share it, so they can showcase it to people from overseas who are so fascinated by it.”

Dhinawan started his career as a tour guide on Fraser Island when he was 19, but later in life travelled to Europe with his French partner

Towards reconciliation

If you teach beautiful things to our children, they’ll grow up to be beautiful adults.

Coca Hamel and discovered the interest in Indigenous culture overseas.

When he returned to Australia he set up Dhinawan Dreaming and he established a corroborree program called Deadly Dancers, which includes more than 80 children, aged 5-17.

The group has performed at events such as the Quicksilver Pro and NRL All Stars game.

“I don’t get into the politics when I teach Aboriginal culture, I just talk about the beauty of our people.

“If you teach beautiful things to our children, they will grow up to be beautiful adults.

“As teachers we need to do that so we will have one beautiful country, that is worth aiming for.

“That’s what drives me to keep teaching my culture, to keep the beauty of it alive.

“If you do it with pride and a big smile people receive it with an open heart, and doors open up all around.”

Dhinawan said he enjoys presenting to teachers as they have the capacity to share their learning with a bigger audience.

“Showcasing something with pride and love means it will come back to us as something positive.

“It starts to break down the barriers that exist between cultures. I like to travel and absorb from cultures around the world.

“My family were walkabout warriors and that’s what I do now.

“It’s important for my mother because when she grew up she was not allowed to leave her small area. She had to get a pass just to go shopping. She was what’s called ‘mission-bound”.

“Now I’m going to get her to come to America and visit me, and I make sure all my children have travelled and learnt French and embrace all other cultures.

“They share that with my mother and her heart is filled with pride.

“So teachers, draw on people from your community and get them into your workplace to showcase a 60,000 culture we all have a responsibility to keep alive and share with others from around the world.” independent education| issue 2|Vol 43|2013|9

Special needs feature

Special needs education from rhetoric to action Australia is at a watershed moment in determining the ongoing education of students with special needs. The outcome will impact not just students who are currently ‘funded’, but the many unfunded students requiring additional support, mainstream students and the teachers and support staff charged with making policies work on the ground, IEU VicTas Education Officer Cathy Hickey writes.

In the mix is the Gonski review of funding, the review of the Disability Standards for Education, and the new method for Nationally Consistent Data on Students with Disabilities (IE Vol 2/Issue 3/2012).

The Independent Education Union has for many years pressured governments and school authorities to provide adequate staffing and other resources necessary for quality educational opportunities for students with disabilities and special needs.

The Union’s clear message continues to be that quality education cannot be achieved by undermining the working conditions for staff through unreasonable workload expectations, which ultimately destroy schools’ capacity to provide flexible and meaningful learning environments for students.

State of play on special needs students While we are all yet to see the actual effect on the direct monies received by schools over the next funding period, the funding model currently under negotiation between the federal Labor Government and the state and territory governments involves a base amount of money per primary and secondary student, with additional monies available through ‘loadings’ for certain categories of students/schools. One such loading is for students with disabilities. It is proposed that this loading be phased in from 2015 once a nationally consistent data collection on students with disability has been established.

In the meantime an interim loading has been calculated and funding under the specific existing national partnership is extended to cover 2014.

Added to the mix however, are the many ‘unfunded’ students with special needs who require modified learning programs, specialised services, and additional resources. The needs of these students, and the provision of adequate support in terms of time, professional development, access to specialist services and other resources for the staff who work with them must still be met by schools and systems.

Backing rhetoric with action The IEU’s policy on special needs students focuses on students who have a range of physical, cognitive, emotional, behavioural

10|independent education| issue 2|Vol 43|2013

and/or learning needs and/or medical conditions that require the provision of additional services and support to ensure they receive appropriate quality education.

The policy is based on the following necessary interconnecting principles, which schools and systems need to address holistically: quality teaching and support; appropriate and flexible curriculum; timely and adequate access to services; comprehensive funding arrangements.

The rhetoric of governments and employing authorities about supporting and enhancing quality teaching and learning for students with disabilities and special needs must be backed on the ground by the provision of key enabling resources and work arrangements, including: • each student with an intellectual and or physical or emotional/behaviour disability should have access to an integration aide/ education support staff with appropriate expertise in the area of disability in learning contexts • time must be provided for teachers and integration aides to work together on curriculum planning and modification and to liaise with external agencies and parents when teaching students with disabilities/ special needs • class sizes must be decreased where students with developmental, physical or emotional disabilities are in the class to ensure equitable levels of educational provision are available to all students in the class • the employment of specialist staff at a system and/or school level must be in addition to normal staff allocations and be sufficient to address the diverse needs of students • continuity of employment must be provided to integration aides/support staff to ensure continuity of professional support • appropriate classification structure which recognise the skills and knowledge levels of integration aides, and • professional development for teachers and support staff should be recognised and funded as an integral requirement to the teaching and learning needs of students with disabilities and special needs.

Feature

Special needs feature

Funding not meeting need – a case in point Over the past 20 years there has been a substantial shift in the education of students with disabilities from special schools to mainstream schools. This pattern is reflective of changing policy and legislation that focuses on the benefits of educational integration for many students with disabilities.

In the NSW independent education sector alone the number of funded students with disabilities has grown from 250 to over 3000 over the past 20 years.

The percentage growth is more than matched in the Catholic and government sectors, writes NSW/ACT IEU Deputy Secretary Gloria Taylor.

Funding has not kept pace with these changes and teachers and special education assistants are concerned that new trends will further erode resources and quality education provision to students with disabilities. Visual impairment, hearing impairment and autism are examples of disabilities that require specialist skills both for directly teaching students and providing strategies for classroom teachers. While the number of students in mainstream schools needing specialist assistance continues to grow, some employers are opting for ‘watered down’ solutions in an attempt to meet expanding needs.

Under the ‘diversity’ flag, classroom teachers are expected to manage all classroom situations with declining support.

The ‘capacity building’ of classroom teachers

is meant to replace direct specialist support despite the complexity of some disabilities.

Imported online training has been identified as a solution to rapidly upgrade the skills of classroom teachers. These courses are also being used to unrealistically transform specialist teachers into generalists who are then expected to offer education across a wide range of disabilities.

Current funding cuts and freezes also have reduced the number of special education assistants in NSW schools.

Classroom teachers are committed to providing quality education to students with disabilities, but cannot be expected to do this complex work with scant support. Classroom teachers, specialist teachers and services and classroom assistance are all essential components in achieving this aim.

Building relationships

Working within the school system we become specialists in the needs of schools and have a lot of information around curriculum and curriculum modification.

School-based professionals such as speech pathologist Sarah Macdonald are in a good position to provide targeted support to teachers and learning support officers (LSOs).

Sarah has been a speech pathologist for Ballarat CEO for five years and says working within the school system is important to develop positive ongoing relationships with school staff.

“I did my training in NSW so I’m aware not all states have access to professionals like us working in the system. I think we are really lucky to have that type of service here,” Sarah says, Usually following a referral from a teacher, Sarah will visit primary and secondary schools in her region to provide students support with receptive and expressive language difficulties.

Students may have severe language difficulties or a mild language delay. Sarah also assists students on the autism spectrum with scheduling, social skills and communication.

She works closely with teachers and LSOs. This may mean providing individualised training to a teacher or LSO to deal with a specific child, or group professional

development sessions for all staff, or just teacher or LSO groups.

“We run PD sessions after school and meet with teachers to discuss planning and classroom implementation for specific students.

“Group PD might offer strategies to support language skills in the classroom or how to support students with additional needs.

“We help LSOs best meet the needs of the particular students in their care.”

Without the service, students would be disadvantaged, Sarah says.

“The geographic area we cover is quite rural and remote, so if our service was not available there is not a lot of access to other speech pathology services.

“If we weren’t going out to schools than those students would be missing out.

“Working within the school system we become specialists in the needs of schools and have a lot of information around curriculum and curriculum modification.

“When we talk to teachers we come with a lot of education knowledge which helps build those relationships.

“It is a positive situation.”

independent education| issue 2|Vol 43|2013|11

If our students didn’t receive material in appropriate modality and get the social skills training to be able to work in a group, they would not be able to compete with their sighted peers at school or in the workforce.

Special needs feature

Vision for justice Beverly Scott’s work, which this year sees her assisting four students with vision impairments in four separate schools, is about nothing less than ensuring a level playing field, she tells IE Journalist Tara de Boehmler

Serving K-12 students with a range of needs, Beverly’s work for the Sydney Archdiocese is varied and subject to change at short notice.

The itinerant vision impairment support teacher works with multiple modalities, including braille, audio and large print.

She up-skills relevant people with adaptive technologies, writes social skilling programs, writes submissions to purchase adaptive technologies, does WHS safety checks and reporting for schools, surrounds and excursion locations, performs triage, translates medical reports into what a student needs on the ground and so much more.

“We are reactive to the medical condition that is presenting so we need to be flexible.

Every year we are given a caseload so we look at every student’s needs for that year. At certain times during a student’s career priority will be given to them over other students, such as during the transition to kindergarten, between Years 6 and 7, and Year 12 and TAFE. If a student is experiencing a period of deterioration with their vision, and this can happen suddenly, it can bring many insecurities, and orientation and mobility readjustments, so we will put that student in a priority position.”

Supporting teachers in schools is “hugely important”, Beverly says.

“You can’t expect a classroom teacher to understand and interpret medical jargon

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to determine which is the correct adaptive technology and how it needs to be used.

They have 300 students a day so it’s hard to keep one student as a priority in their head.

But having someone in the background saying ‘can you enlarge this?’, ‘can you put that into braille?’ or ‘I need a copy of the HSC text in large print’, takes so much pressure off them.

It can also help explain “strange behaviours”, she says.

“We can just go to the teacher and tell them why something happened. For instance, ‘he only sees half a metre in front of himself’ or ‘he grew up not being able to see body language so doesn’t understand the unspoken rules’ and ‘he doesn’t know why someone’s annoyed when they wave hi and he doesn’t see and respond or when he sits where he’s not supposed to sit’. Without this knowledge, it can create conflict,” Beverly says.

“If you are truly talking about a level playing field for learning, if our students didn’t receive material in appropriate modality and get the social skills training to be able to work in a group, they would not be able to compete with their sighted peers at school or in the workforce. This would have no reflection on their intellect but they wouldn’t be able to achieve their potential. We’re here to make the playing field less difficult. They have a right.”

Feature

Special needs feature

Autism in the classroom With the diagnosis of children with autism at an all-time high, a new guide for teaching students on the spectrum is timely. Co-author and education consultant Kathie Lane tells IE Journalist Tara de Boehmler how she helps tailor classrooms to meet diverse learning needs.

A lot of what we suggest teachers do is useful for all kids. It’s about making the classroom routine predictable, so they know what is happening next.

It is estimated that one in 100 children are now being diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and suspected that many more are on the spectrum but as yet undiagnosed.

Some of their main areas of difficulty are impaired social interaction, communication issues, restricted and repetitive interests, activities and behaviours, and sensory sensitivities.

But just as no two people are alike, for those living with ASD the range, combination and severity of these impairments can vary widely, says Kathie, who last year coauthored A Practical Guide for Teachers of Students with an Autism Spectrum Disorder in Secondary Education.

Kathie says that while the majority of students with ASD in mainstream schools are of “average to high intelligence”, the range of difficulties experienced can “make school a nightmare for them”.

Many have light and noise sensitivities and can’t tell the difference between the teacher’s voice and other voices. Sometimes the repetitive behaviours they use to block out sensory overload are not acceptable.

They are frequently bullied. And while they may feel more confident in fact-based classes dealing with maths, information technology and computers, they can find language-based subjects extremely difficult.

“Students with ASD are unable to interpret others’ emotions by their facial expressions or the body language they use,” Kathie says.

“Most people learn this around age three but our kids can’t do it so they need to learn specifically: ‘If this happened to you, how would you feel or think about it? What would you do?’”

“If a student with ASD is asked to explain why a character in a novel behaved in a certain way or to describe the relationships, they may be able to pull out quotes but not easily put the information together to build a character profile. They focus on detail and describe rather than interpret.”

Therefore Kathie recommends “building the context”.

“Start with concrete literal information and build the knowledge base before asking the more difficult inferential questions,” she says.

Students may also have problems organising themselves, requiring encouragement to become independent, Kathie says. “These are the skills that help them come up with a plan B or work their way through a theory or a problem to get answers.”

Meanwhile a focus on positive behaviour support might see schools re-engineering learning environments to reduce sensory

overload, such as enabling students with ASD to use headphones when needed or to go somewhere to self-regulate.

Kathie says that because their learning is 90% visual and 10% auditory, an ideal environment would contain strong visual supports and a well-established routine.

This might include displaying clearly the class schedule, which also satisfies a need for “structured, routine programs.”

“Make the class as predictable as possible,” Kathie says. “This does not mean it must stay the same. Change is not always a problem, but unpredictability is.”

Kathie says many of these suggestions will have a broader benefit and are best approached at a whole-school level, with an emphasis on inclusion.

“A lot of what we suggest teachers do is useful for all kids,” she says. “It’s about making the classroom routine predictable, so they know what is happening next and what they have to do step-by-step, maintaining strong visual supports and reducing anxiety at a group level.”

A Practical Guide for Teachers of Students with an Autism Spectrum Disorder in Secondary Education (2012) by Trevor Clark, Debra Costley, Elaine Keane and Kathie Lane is published

by Jessica Kingsley Publishers and available from Footprint Books.

independent education| issue 2|Vol 43|2013|13

Teaching a

growth mindset

why praise can be

a bad thing

The Young Minds Conference held in Sydney in June, organised by the Buddhist Vajrayana Institute, asked the question, ‘how do we grow a good person?’

Among those answering the question were the Dalai Lama, who said inner peace was key to growing a good person. Keynote speaker Carol Dweck took a different approach, arguing that too much praise damages a person. IE Journalist Sue Osborne reports.

Trying is the first step towards failure.

Homer Simpson

When Stanford University Psychology Professor Carol Dweck was in Year Six at school her teacher seated the class in order of IQ intelligence, and only those students who maintained or improved their IQ score were allowed to clean the blackboard or carry the flag.

Professor Dweck said that experience has resulted in her lifelong mission to change that kind of thinking in education.

She has written several books on her theory of a ‘growth mindset’. Professor Dweck believes people either have a fixed mindset or a growth mindset.

Fixed mindset people believe that intelligence is static and cannot be altered.

You are born with a certain IQ level and will retain that level for your entire life, no matter how hard you work.

Growth mindset people believe they can increase their ability through hard work.

Professor Dweck believes the modern emphasis on testing and scores, and pressure to achieve, creates more fixed mindset students.

She quotes a favourite Indian proverb: “When we want the elephant to grow, we feed the elephant, we don’t weigh the elephant.”

“We’ve created a generation that can’t get through the day without a reward or ranking,” Professor Dweck said.

Fixed mindset students who were praised for achieving good scores became so focused on that achievement they became afraid of failure or ‘looking dumb’.

Fixed mindset students were more likely to cheat or give up if they encountered work that was difficult, for fear of losing their status of high achiever or ‘gifted’. They believed geniuses never have to work hard.

Growth mindset students care more about learning than grades.

In 2007 the journal Child Development published a paper co-authored by Professor Dweck entitled ‘Implicit Theories

14|independent education| issue 2|Vol 43|2013

of Intelligence Predict Achievement Across Adolescent Transition: A Longitudinal Study and an Intervention’.

The research showed how at one New York City junior high school students’ fixed and growth theories about intelligence affected their maths grades. Over two years students with a fixed mindset experienced a downward academic trend while the others moved ahead.

The psychologists then designed an eightweek intervention program that taught some students study skills and how they could learn to be smart – describing the brain as a muscle that became stronger the more it was used.

A control group also learned study skills but were not taught Dweck’s expandable theory of intelligence. In just two months, she said, the students from the first group, compared to the control group, showed marked improvement in grades and study habits.

“What was important was the motivation,” Dweck said. “The students were energised by the idea that they could have an impact on their mind.” Dweck recalled a young boy who was a ringleader of the troublemakers.

“When we started teaching this idea about the mind being malleable, he looked up with tears in his eyes, and he said, ‘You mean, I don’t have to be dumb?’” she said. “A fire was lit under him.”

Students with a growth mindset who do badly in a test are more likely to do everything they can to improve, form study groups, speak to the teacher or study more, whereas a fixed mindset student might be crushed and give up.

Homer Simpson epitomises a fixed mindset.

One of his famous quotes is: “Trying is the first step towards failure”.

What creates a fixed mindset? Too much praise – that is praise that is badly targeted.

Professor Dweck said the ‘self esteem’ movement of the ‘90s which encouraged teachers and parents to praise everything children did, had done a lot of harm.

Teaching and learning

When we started teaching this idea about the mind being malleable, he looked up with tears in his eyes, and he said, ‘you mean, I don’t have to be dumb’?

‘Person praise’ such as ‘you are so smart’ or ‘you did that really quickly, you are good at this’ or ‘you always do so well, you are brainy’ is harmful and creates a fixed mindset, according to Professor Dweck.

Rather, teachers should be praising effort not outcome. She calls this ‘process praise’.

For example, ‘you tried really hard to find the answer to that’ or ‘you used some good strategies to work that out’.

“Struggling should be a badge of honour, not something to be ashamed off,” Professor Dweck said.

“Easy is boring and a waste of time.

Teachers should go around the classroom asking who is having a ‘fantastic struggle’.

Struggle needs to be seen as heroic. That’s what builds a growth mindset and it builds resilience for students throughout their life, not just in academic work but in relationships and everything else.”

Professor Dweck said her favourite word is ‘yet’. She said some schools were giving students the grade ‘not yet’ when they did not achieve high marks.

The growth mindset could be taught in any cultural setting, as long as it was adapted.

In another study by Stephanie Fryberg low achieving native American students were taught the growth mindset. This did not achieve results until they were told they

could help their communities and families.

The students “caught fire” after this, Professor Dweck said.

For the growth mindset to be taught successfully to students, teachers must believe that students are capable of learning and growth and be excited by the prospect and ready to act as a mentor.

“Teachers need to believe in young minds to allow them to fulfill their potential.”

Professor Dweck has developed a website www.mindsetworks.com which offer schools the ‘brainology’ program to teach growth mindsets to students.

References Dweck CS 2012 Mindset: How can You Fulfill Your Potential, Constable and Robinson Ltd Dweck CS 2006, Mindset, The new Psychology of Success, Random House, New York Dweck C et al Child Development Journal, Implicit Theories of Intelligence Predict Achievement Across Adolescent Transition: A Longitudinal Study and an Intervention, 2007 Fryberg Stephanie 2013, Using Growth Mindset and Cultural Relevance to Foster Identity Safety for Native American Students.

(University of Arizona) independent education| issue 2|Vol 43|2013|15

Islam education a boon for global citizens Islam education programs in New York and parts of Britain offer a mine of ideas for those wanting to foster understanding here, IEU member and St Joseph’s College, Hunters Hill, Director of Mission Helen Smith tells IE Journalist Tara de Boehmler.

Thanks to a Churchill Fellowship scholarship Helen was able to set up more than 30 engagements in Britain and New York over the course of a six-week period last year. Tailoring her trip to study education as a means of addressing cultural misunderstandings of Islam in Australian society, Helen was keenly aware of the need.

“You encounter so much negativity towards Islam, whether it’s in the classroom when you start the topic with students or if it’s just in general conversation,” she says.

16|independent education| issue 2|Vol 43|2013

“You’ve only got to hear the conversations around what happened in Boston and bombings in Iraq related to the elections.

Things automatically go to a negative, derogatory description of Islam.

“I really got sick of the blanket carpeting of a core group of the world’s population based on what information the media chooses to provide us with, which is a very unbalanced look at these people.”

Helen chose to study how Britain and New York were dealing with the fallout because

Teaching and learning

I really wanted to learn from centres of excellence about how education in all its many forums could assist a greater understanding, dialogue and harmony.

they had “similar backgrounds” but had also experienced terrorist attacks.

“I really wanted to learn from centres of excellence about how education in all its many forums could assist a greater understanding, dialogue and harmony.”

What struck Helen during her engagements, whether big or small, was the “overwhelming good work and sense of unity between people of all faiths and even those of none, all wanting to engage in understanding and working to promote a better place for everyone”.

Art proved to be one of the most effective means of education about the richness and cultural history of Islam, says Helen.

In London the British Museum held a Hajj exhibition around the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has opened an Arts of the Middle East section. Birmingham has its own Islamic Exhibition Centre. All these have been popular with school groups and, for those unable to visit in person, educational resources are available for free online.

Some Australian schools have already participated in the Tony Blair Faith Foundation’s Faith to Faith program which sets up web-based meetings between schools in different countries.

“I was fortunate to go to a school in New York that was having a Faith to Faith conference and it was fantastic,” Helen says.

“Talking to the kids involved in the process I was struck by how much more connected the students felt as global citizens as a result of the dialogue with people from difference countries, faiths and backgrounds. They really had a sense that they could make a difference, which was refreshing and wonderful to hear.”

At university level, Helen says teacher education programs at New York University were impressive, as was the work of the Faculty of Divinity at Cambridge University.

“In all these organisations people are trying to make a difference and the overwhelming sense is that where you go in with a mindset of goodness and wanting to engage to do something for the betterment of society, then all sorts of wonderful things happen. It’s just a matter of having time to do all these things.”

A range of fortunate encounters helped Helen consolidate her own approach. During a meeting with World Council of Religious Leaders Secretary General Bawa Jain, he told Helen of the numerous high-level meetings between people like himself and the world’s religious leaders, with a focus on “using religion as a tool for easing some of the fraught relationships that exist on a global level”.

“His messages were to look at how we can teach young people to see religion as a source of good and not a source of evil or ill will, and to imagine a world where every person of faith becomes a diplomat

for peace in whatever they do. What a difference this would make.”

Another formative encounter was in Bradford, a culturally disadvantaged part of Britain where the textile industry has folded.

Here, Helen witnessed the local primary school working together with the broader community to provide the best education at the same time as promoting understanding.

“I met two mums in Bradford who were unbelievable,” Helen says. “One said to me ‘99.9% of Muslims want to live in peace and make a contribution but no one is going to hear my voice’. I said I would do whatever I could to be a voice to help her get her message out: people are people. Please don’t judge them all based on the actions of a few.”

Back in Australia, Helen is keen to continue sharing these messages and ensuring schools are aware of the opportunities locally and overseas.

Locally, the Islamic Sciences and Research Academy and the Affinity Intercultural Foundation both do “outstanding work in helping those outside Islam understand it through education”, she says. Whether through education days or outreach efforts and resources, Helen says it is just a matter of getting in touch and finding out what is available.

She also feels Australia’s studies of religion have a key role educating people about the role religion plays in society.

“It’s great to see how many non-faith-based schools have also taken this on,” she says.

“Wherever you sit on the religious spectrum the study of Religion is great for this, with about 16,000 sitting it in NSW alone.

“The great hope is that we break down some barriers and open people up to the possibilities. That’s what education at its best should always do. Ask the right questions and be open to hearing the answers.”

For more information, contact Helen Smith via hsmith@joeys.org.

Resources Affinity Intercultural Foundation www.affinity.org.au British Museum, Hajj www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/past_ exhibitions/2012/hajj/hajj_stories.aspx Islamic Sciences and Research Academy www.isra.org.au Metropolitan Museum of Art, Islamic Art www.metmuseum.org/toah/hi/te_index. asp?i=Islamic Tony Blair Faith Foundation www.tonyblairfaithfoundation.org independent education| issue 2|Vol 43|2013|17

Preservice education

room for improvement but no crisis Is there a problem with preservice education or is it just the latest political football of our state and national leaders? IE Journalist Sue Osborne speaks with two university academics with some differing views about the debate.

The Federal Government’s National Plan for School Improvement calls for numeracy and literacy tests for teaching courses, to show teachers have skills in the top 30% of the population.

The NSW Government is also weighing in. The release of its Great Teaching, Inspired Learning paper in March sparked a flurry of publicity implying problems with preservice teacher education. This included a call by NSW Education Minister Adrian Piccoli for tougher entry standards for teacher training courses.

Curious controversy Charles Sturt University Education Faculty Dean Professor Toni Downes has 30 years experience in the field. Between 2010 and 2012 she was President of the Australian Council of Deans of Education.

Professor Downes says she found the timing of the controversy on teacher education “curious”.

“The states, universities AITSL (the national regulatory body) and Federal Government have been working steadily towards national accreditation for university teacher education courses for two years, coming up with a framework that addresses all the points in Great Teaching, Inspired Learning in a sensible, coherent, moderate way,” she says.

“There is no crisis in teacher education. Yes, teacher education has to change because schools have to change, because the world is changing.

“A variety of data from around the world shows there is a growing gap between Australia and other countries. So while we are still one of the best performing countries in the world, we are not improving as fast as some of our near neighbours. In particular,

18|independent education| issue 2|Vol 43|2013

the gap between high achieving students and struggling students in Australia is not being addressed.

“The rural/regional divide is not being addresses. So there is room for improvement and change, but universities have been systematically working on these challenges in preparation for national accreditation.”

By 2015, all university teaching courses should have national accreditation – many have already sent in their applications to their state jurisdictions.

“I would challenge the NSW Government to make public evidence upon which they have based their calls for higher entry scores for school leavers entering teaching courses.

What evidence is there that, five, 10, 20 years into their job a teacher’s marks in their last year of schooling impact of the quality of their teaching?”

Professor Downes says that when the Queensland Government released its own blueprint Great Teaching = Great Results, a month after Great Teaching Inspired Learning was released, it did not call for any major overhaul in teacher education.

Professor Downes says universities need to get better at showing the general public and governments how they are benchmarking graduating students, so they can feel confident they are well prepared.

“There is work to do on how we prepare teachers for the diversity in their classroom, so teachers can ensure all children, regardless of background, disability or talent, can achieve their fullest potential.

“But overall I think we are turning out good graduates.”

Teaching and learning

I do find it odd that the media is implying there’s something wrong with the standard of teacher education at universities.

Raising the standards Monash University Pro Vice-Chancellor (Social Inclusion) Sue Willis has spent years analysing data on entry to Victorian teacher education courses.

She believes minimum entry standards for university teacher educations courses have fallen to a worrying level this year.

Professor Willis began her own career as a maths teacher in Western Australia. She was a Director of AITSL and is also a past President of the Australian Council of Deans of Education.

She says the ATARs achieved by some Victorian school leavers admitted to teacher education courses this year have caused her “extreme distress”.

“I have been looking at the figures since 1998, and I saw them climbing by an astonishing rate, up by 10 to15 points, from 1998 to 2006/7.”

“In the late 90s teaching was not a well regarded profession, wages were low, but in the early 2000s politicians started to talk up teaching and wages and conditions improved.

“All of a sudden it became a career of first choice for large number of very high achieving students.”

The belittling of teachers in the media could contribute to the recent slump in teacher entry standards. But more importantly the removal of caps in the university sector has lead to an expansion of the number of undergraduate university places, many of which are going into teacher education.

“I want to emphasise that if someone is coming from a mature age background or a disadvantaged background, evidence shows they can do very well in teaching with a lower entry ATAR. “But if a school leaver with no disadvantage has had 13 years of education and not been

particularly successful in Year 12 then their strengths are probably not academic. It is difficult to believe they will suddenly perform better when they come to university or be well suited to prepare others academically for Year 12.”

Professor Willis says she has seen an ATAR of 50 allowing a student a place in an arts/ teaching double degree this year and students were admitted to some courses at considerably lower ATARs. “Low ATARs matter. I know this is not a popular message in our community and I understand why.

“I emphasise again, I’m talking about school leavers with no disadvantage. More flexibility with ATARs is suitable for those from a disadvantaged background or mature age entrants who have gained experience in work places or undertaken other study.”

“I do find it odd though that the media is implying there’s something wrong with the standard of teacher education at universities.

That’s a different issue altogether.

“Teacher education programs may be doing a terrific job if they’re turning people whose circumstances have meant that they struggled at school into terrific teachers. I believe we are producing many excellent teachers.”

Simply cutting back on the number of teachers being trained may not resolve the issue, as in some areas of teaching there are shortages.

“The problem occurs when in order to reach unrealistic targets, universities enrol students who may be ill equipped to become teachers.”

Professor Willis is a strong supporter of the national accreditation scheme, which she hopes will “help get rid of the anomalies”.

independent education| issue 2|Vol 43|2013|19

Lesson observations boosting quality teaching, evaluating teachers The recommendation by the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) to make lesson observations part of the teacher evaluation process should focus on promoting better teaching and learning rather than appraising teachers. ITC Publications co-director Gerard Alford tells IE Journalist Fiona Stutz he believes teachers and school leaders require high-level training in lesson observations to support AITSL’s new national education framework.

The Federal Government’s Australian Teacher Performance and Development Framework outlines a nationally consistent approach to teacher performance and development, including the idea of classroom visits to observe teachers in action resulting in appraisals on their performance.

However, using lesson observations for teacher evaluations focuses on the wrong issue, Mr Alford says.

“Lesson observations should be the catalyst for schools to examine their current pedagogical goals with the aim of using lesson observations to meet these goals.”

He says it was encouraging that state ministers had agreed visiting classrooms and providing feedback to teachers on their teaching approach was vital for professional development.

“The classroom is a very closed and private space by its architectural nature so it’s important that we open our classrooms and invite other teachers and educators to observe teaching in action.

“This is how best to share effective and innovative ideas, strategies and approaches to pedagogical teaching. There are brilliant

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teachers at every school so let’s provide opportunities for their colleagues to see them in action.”

However, he cautioned that the majority of teachers and school leaders felt awkward about entering their colleagues’ classrooms.

For lesson observations to be successful, a clear set of mutually agreed guidelines must be observed from the outset.

“Our experience tells us that school leaders require training to confidently perform observations of their colleagues. For the new Framework to be successful, teachers and school leaders must gain the skills to gather quantitative feedback and provide this data to the relevant teacher with the aim of improving their pedagogy.”

He said there were numerous teaching and learning frameworks to assist schools, including the Quality Teaching Framework (QTF) and the Explicit Instruction and Principles of Learning and Teaching (PoLT).

“Once schools decide on a teaching and learning framework, the role of lesson observations becomes clear: how can we assist teachers to meet the standards of this framework? If, for example, one of

Teaching and learning

It is important that teacher performance is not rated with a score card system as the Federal Government’s Framework suggests.

the agreed set of standards in a lesson observation is ‘using strategies to foster imagination and creativity’, then what feedback can be provided to a teacher to improve this? Is any further professional development required in this area?

Professional development should be the focus – not teacher scorecard ratings.”

The new Framework’s proposal to evaluate and appraise teachers on their classroom teaching performance was more likely to breed fear rather than boost professional development, he said.

“It is important that teacher performance is not rated with a score card system as the Federal Government’s Framework suggests.

Lesson observations are most powerful when the learning – rather than the teaching – is observed.

“True lesson observations should involve collecting data and then providing this feedback to share amongst teachers with the goal of improving pedagogy in the classroom; it shouldn’t be about evaluating and assessing performance to catch teachers out. As soon as you evaluate teachers’ performance, you breed mistrust and fear, rather than a collaborative and positive environment for professional development.”

Gerald said his company’s Lesson Observation training encouraged the use of the GROWTH acronym in a supportive and non-judgmental environment: Gather the data - Clearly state what you plan to observe, for example, what data will you be collecting? Discuss this with the teacher beforehand and reach agreement. Recognise the position and status of the teacher.

Relate to they school-wide pedagogical framework and what the school is striving towards in order to make a significant difference to student outcomes. Ensure it is supported by educational research, e.g. higher-order thinking or co-operative learning.

Observe the lesson and the learner and not the teacher. What are the students doing and saying (writing) and discussing.

There should be no hidden agendas. The teachers need assurance that it is about the students and not about them.

Warmth of discussion - Immediately after the lesson, discuss the data you collected with the teacher. Do not attempt to evaluate the lesson. Discuss what really helped the learner.

Target future growth - Both parties reflect on the lesson within 48 hours and both sides suggest professional development ideas as a result of the lesson observations. Teachers have the autonomy to suggest their own professional development program.

Honour the experts and giants of teaching in the school. Focus on encouraging trust in this process. The lesson observers should be people who are respected and trusted by their colleagues.

Both lesson observers and teachers whose lessons are being observed need to feel totally safe and collegial in this situation. If this is done well, there will be all-round growth in the school, he said. “This acronym says it all – true teacher observation is about growth rather than judgement and threats.”

Gerard Alford is a former teacher and currently a Director of ITC Publications. The company develops a range of user-friendly resources and professional development programs to support teachers and schools in their desire to promote effective teaching and learning.

Resource www.aitsl.edu.au/verve/_resources/ Australian_Teacher_Performance_and_ Development_Framework.pdf

The Union’s position The IEU recommends that the processes around any implementation of classroom observations must be negotiated with the relevant staff at a school, should not be a top down process nor used to isolate or ‘weed out’ underperforming teachers. The process should be about supporting teachers to enhance their skills.

However, one of the greatest issues in this debate is the cost of implementing this process.

It must be done in normal working hours and adequate provision for release time for those engaged in the processes must be provided, both for the persons doing the observation and for the time following observation when discussion would take place between the observer and the observed. There should be an agreed outcome of the observation.

Teachers should also be able to choose the observer from a pool of possible people so that they feel comfortable with the process. Those doing the observations should have substantial training in the wide range of skills necessary to make the process successful. independent education| issue 2|Vol 43|2013|21

Teaching and learning

HeadStrong The creative way of thinking, talking and teaching about mood disorders The Black Dog Institute’s HeadStrong program supports schools, students and education communities with the tools to build resilience and support those living with mood disorders.

But how effective is it? HeadStrong is looking for high schools interested in participating in a trial, IE Journalist Sue Osborne writes.

The Black Dog Institute provides a free education program and curriculum resource on mental health, mood disorders and resilience, designed and aligned for the PDHPE syllabus for teaching Stage 5, Years 9-10 (IE Vol 42/Issue 3/2012).

HeadStrong particularly teaches students about mood disorders (eg depression, bipolar disorder), how and when to seek help or support someone you care about, breaking down stigma, and building resilience.

HeadStrong is being rolled out nationally and is highly relevant to the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers.

The ready-to-use activities and teacher development notes help teachers to meet syllabus requirements relating to mental health in a straightforward way, using a range of technology-based, individual and group work.

This year, the Black Dog Institute is evaluating HeadStrong by conducting a randomised controlled trial in several schools in central west NSW. Non-government schools participating in the trial are located near Charles Sturt University in Bathurst and include: • Kinross Wolaroi School • James Sheehan Catholic High School • La Salle Academy • Macquarie Anglican Grammar School • MacKillop College • St Stanislaus College • Hennessy Catholic College • Orange Anglican Grammar School • All Saints College, and • St Joseph’s Catholic School.

The evaluation aims to measure HeadStrong’s effectiveness for students in terms of increasing mental health literacy, reducing stigma, impacts on help seeking attitudes, intentions and behaviours, and increasing resilience.

In 2014, the Institute is looking to extend the trial and more schools would be invited to participate. Participation in the trial has

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benefits for schools including free professional development training of PDHPE or other relevant staff prior to Term 1, 2014.

Schools that wish to participate in the 2014 trial need to be willing to be randomly allocated (via a coin flip) to one of two conditions: the ‘intervention’ condition or the ‘control’ condition.

Schools allocated to the intervention condition will deliver HeadStrong to Year 9-10 students in Term 1 of the 2014 school year; schools allocated to the control condition will deliver HeadStrong to Year 9-10 students in Term 3 or Term 4, 2014.

All participating students, regardless of their allocated condition, will complete a questionnaire (on mental health understanding, attitudes, behaviour and resilience measures) on three occasions: pretest (beginning of Term 1), post-test (end of Term 1), and follow-up (beginning of Term 3 or beginning of Term 4).

Participation in the HeadStrong trial encompasses: • Free training for PDHPE teachers or other relevant staff at your school to support the delivery of the HeadStrong program.

Schools are provided with ready-made classroom resources to use, allowing them to meet their syllabus targets pertaining to mental health.

• A quality educational program which aims to break down stigma, encourage early help-seeking and treatment, promote resilience, and increase mental health literacy.

• The collection of data on the effects and benefits of the HeadStrong program to support the Black Dog Institute and ensure high quality education programs continue to be available to schools across Australia.

If you are interested or would like to be in touch with the Project Manager, Youth Programs, who is managing the HeadStrong program, contact Mei Li Quah on 02 9382 8320 or m.quah@blackdog.org.au.

Sustainable Classrooms

Keep it simple, Shakespeare Bell Shakespeare Company has launched a new initiative to help teachers battling the bored teenager who is way too cool for Shakespeare and it starts in primary school, IE Journalist Sue Osborne writes.

It’s really important young children have quality arts experiences so they can start engaging in the cultural conversation.

Bell Shakespeare Head of Education Joanna Erskine says many secondary school teachers face students who have made up their mind they don’t like Shakespeare “before they have even heard a line of it”.

“We want to get to students before they have their walls up, when they’re still open minded and wide eyed and liable to believe in fairies. We decided to target primary school children,” Joanna says.

Bell Shakespeare has launched a new primary schools education program, with a view to a national tour in 2015.

Over the past few years the Company has been piloting primary programs with great results.

The program involves 90-minute in-school performances, national teacher professional learning and digital workshops at Sydney Opera House with Bell educators.

Two adaptations have been produced for in-school performances, including Midsummer Madness based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Into the Canon, a journey through a number of popular plays.

Diverse Learning Needs Teacher at Blessed Sacrament Primary School in Sydney, Paula Stefanatos, has benefited from a number of in-school workshops by the Company.

The IEU Member is also on the Company’s advisory panel.

“I’ve used the Company’s workshops for some gifted and talented classes and it has worked really well,” Paula says.

“The children are engaged with the fun of the stories and the acting process. They get to dress up in costumes.

“It’s all about keeping it simple and modifying the language so they can access it.

“I don’t approach it in a thematic or analytical way, it’s about the characters and the stories.

A scene from Midsummer Madness.

“If you can engage the children they’ll love Shakespeare. He sells himself.

“Primary teachers need to realise that it isn’t that difficult to teach Shakespeare, even if they haven’t trained for it themselves.

“There are great teacher notes on the Bell website and the Globe Theatre in London has a great website too.

“Hopefully by doing this we can instill a lifelong love of Shakespeare in children.”

Professor of Teacher Education and Arts at the University of Sydney Robyn Ewing, also on the Bell Advisory Panel, says the arts in general have been cut from teacher education training in recent years, although research showed introducing children to arts at a young age was beneficial.

She said the Bell repertoire provided lots of support for primary teachers not trained in Shakespeare.

“It’s too late if you wait until they’re teenagers. It’s really important young children have quality arts experiences so they can start engaging in the cultural conversation.

“I recommend teachers explore what Bell’s got to offer.”

Shakespeare Fever, a day providing teachers with strategies for teaching Shakespeare, will be visiting centres around the country in November.

Resources Bell Shakespeare Company www.bellshakespeare.com.au/learning Globe Theatre www.shakespearesglobe.com/education/ teachers independent education| issue 2|Vol 43|2013|23

Turning PD into postgrad study One Queensland school is sending their teachers back to the classroom, offering to pay the costs for a Masters in Education degree. IE Journalist Fiona Stutz looks at an initiative aimed to benefit the school, teachers’ classroom performance and ultimately the students.

Teachers have a fundamental impact on student learning and performance.

Acknowledging this concept The Rockhampton Grammar School has tailored a Masters degree with Griffith University for its teachers.

Recognising the importance of ongoing learning and professional development, more than 40 staff members have signed on to the degree, where they can specialise and select coursework or research that will directly impact on their classroom performance.

Early career to experienced teachers who already hold Masters degrees and PhDs have decided to enrol in the degree, appreciating the value of the program.

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Headmaster and IEUA-QNT member Phillip Moulds says teachers who have enrolled in the course are raising their skills, expertise and level of understanding in areas they love to teach.

“The degree will have a direct impact on the classroom experience and benefit students. It’s also wonderful modelling for our students. We talk a lot with them about the value of lifelong learning, and with the program, they can see that their teachers are engaging in learning and discovery on a continual basis.”

Research has shown that excellent teachers enable students to achieve excellent results, Dr Moulds says.

Leadership

As a school, we’re all better off when the bar is lifted, when we have greater expectations of one another, and when presented with new and different opportunities.

“As a school, we’re all better off when the bar is lifted, when we have greater expectations of one another, and when presented with new and different opportunities.”

He says the investment in his teachers to undertake up to two Masters courses per year were similar to the costs associated with their annual professional development programs, which was already budgeted for.

There were more than just monetary incentives for teachers to choose to undertake the program.

“Teachers do take time to study their course during the day in school, and many have chosen to form study groups that meet weekly or more to support each other.

“We advise that one course per university term be taken; more than that would be a strain on full-time teachers. The Program will also help us recruit and retain excellent teachers in regional Queensland – it’s a great employee benefit.”

Teacher and Union member Miranda Broadbent has enrolled in the degree this year and often meets with five other staff members to review their course notes.

“Making time at school to study is invaluable.

It has been very rewarding,” she says.

While the Masters degree can be customised to suit the individual needs of the teacher, there are at least two mandatory courses which are written and delivered by the school.

One program covers using data to improve classroom performance, while the other concentrates on the school’s learning environment, their teaching philosophy and the use of the ‘Dimensions of Learning’ and ‘Habits of Mind’.

“Both of these courses give our teachers, especially new ones, additional common grounding in our ethos, expectations and methods.”

Director of Teaching Nanette Murphy says the rigour of university makes the level of

learning in the Rockhampton/Griffith program higher than that of standard professional development programs.

“This Masters is teacher-centred. Teachers have come to me very enthused that this degree will focus their learning on their own special areas of interest,” she says.

Nanette, who is an architect of the program, is also enrolled in the degree. Both she and Dr Moulds have each written Masters level courses for universities in Australia and overseas, and will also design and create content for the Masters degree.

Dr Moulds says the initiative has not only been well received by staff, but also by the local community.

“We’ve taken a very simple idea and turned it around… so that a PD program not only benefits the individual teacher, but it has significant flow-on effects for our students, the school, the teaching profession and the wider central Queensland community.”

Griffith University are also on track to conduct research on the program as it matures so that other organisations and learning institutions can benefit from this initiative.

“Rockhampton Grammar is a Centre of Education Excellence – it is for our students and equally, our teachers,” Dr Moulds says.

“We talk about giving every student, every opportunity, every day to succeed and to do the best to their ability. We can now say the same for each and every teacher.

“We’re here to support our teachers – they are people with special talents and abilities who know their students and their students’ parents.

“We’re here to provide them resources and give them an opportunity to be not just an excellent teacher, but an outstanding one.

“We are also, through this Masters, saying thank you to them. We acknowledge their expertise and professionalism. We just don’t value it; we champion it and because they make such a difference in the lives of our students, we as an institution want to make a positive difference in theirs.” independent education| issue 2|Vol 43|2013|25

No more sausage rolls and meat pies Providing nutritious meals for students and staff at Grace Lutheran Primary School, Clontarf, is all in a day’s work for Tuckshop Convenor Anita Steffen. From hearty breakfasts and generous lunches to delicious take home dinners, Anita’s homemade meals are so popular she has even won nutrition awards. IE Journalist Fiona Stutz spoke with the experienced chef about the important role she plays at the school.

Tuckshop Convenor Anita Steffen puts her heart and soul into providing homemade meals to students and staff at her school.

Opening the Tuckshop three days a week and offering take home meals for four days, Anita begins work at 5am preparing for the day.

She starts by prepping meals and making up 10kg batches of fresh sauces and other healthy meals, then at 8am the doors open for breakfast service. Together with two parent volunteers and her husband Jens, Anita makes up orders, prepares for lunch and also offers afternoon tea options before finishing for the day.

For six years Anita has worked in the Tuckshop, bringing with her 28 years of restaurant experience. After seven years in retirement, Anita heard about the Tuckshop Convenor job and decided to apply.

“Retirement isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and every day was sort of the same and we needed some structure and purpose back in our lives again. So we thought the hours would be ideal and much better than running a service restaurant,” Anita says.

Frozen, reheated and manufactured meals were part of the typical tuckshop menu before Anita became the Convenor. “We changed it totally, because we’re both foodies and because also healthy eating is part of the

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curriculum and an important part as well. So we wanted to practice what we preach.”

Anita and her husband introduced homemade meals, such as butter chicken, pasta, rice and salad boxes. All have proved a hit with students and staff.

Anita’s popular and healthy menu has also been rewarded with three Nutrition Australia awards. Grace Lutheran Primary is one of only three schools in Queensland to be honoured with the award. Anita says she believes the awards recognises the passion she has for the job.

“We really enjoy every moment of our job and we try and keep an interest. That’s why we wanted to do take home meals for staff because it was something different. Every week we have different menus, which keeps our interest alive while offering a service, especially for those children who go to after school care. They need to be taken care of.”

Anita says she enjoys the hands-on role in the school Tuckshop, in particular working with the volunteers and providing healthy meals to students.

“I enjoy being hands on and the kids, especially little first and second graders, they’re very sweet. And the volunteers make a very pleasant day. We laugh and joke, and they

Diverse roles

help tremendously to make our lives easier.”

For two years Anita has been a member of IEUA-QNT after never belonging to a union before. She says she sees the many benefits of union membership, particularly for school officers.

“A school is a business nowadays, and I think it’s very important that in each aspect there is support, not just for teachers. This is for the children and we all working for the children.”

The role of schools in nutrition Schools have an important role in promoting healthy eating to students. Tuckshops are Every week we have different menus, which keeps our interest alive while offering a service.

an important part of the school environment as they can offer healthy food and drink choices that are interesting and taste great.

The Smart Choices Healthy Food and Drink Supply Strategy for Queensland Schools was developed by the State Government with the help of Education Queensland, Queensland Health, Queensland Catholic Education Commission, Association of Independent Schools Queensland, Sport and Recreation Queensland and nutrition reference groups, as a strategy to address the nutritional value of food and drinks supplied in Queensland schools.

The introduction of healthy food choices in school tuckshops is now more important than ever, as new research shows Queensland tuckshop menus are failing to meet healthy food and nutrition guidelines. According to advocacy group Parents’ Jury, a review of 263 state school menus across Australia identified that 30% of surveyed primary schools and less than 19% of surveyed secondary schools were compliant with nutrition guidelines.

Well-resourced school canteen support services should be part of the solution.

Lucinda Hancock from Nutrition Australia says school canteens play an important role in supporting healthy eating messages for students.

“Healthier foods can definitely be profitable, and there’s support available for schools to introduce healthier foods and drinks that will appeal to children and teenagers.”

To find out more about the strategy, visit http://education.qld.gov.au/schools/healthy/docs/smart-choices-strategy.pdf independent education| issue 2|Vol 43|2013|27

Think differently: The game brain IE Journalist Daniel Long investigates an alternative style of classroom teaching that is heavily influenced by computer games.

Game-based learning challenges how teachers interact with their students. The role of teacher as the dominant provider of knowledge has started to shift to that of mentor, as classroom gaming ushers in a new era of learning. Often not considered in this ‘gamification’ discussion, is that the existing education system is already designed like a computer game. There are test scores, incentives, rewards, and challenges and through this all, students strive to climb levels in order to graduate.

The game changer: accepting failure The classroom of Paul Anderson, Montana Teacher of the Year 2011, offers an excellent case study in game-based learning.

“I wanted to reinvent my class as a video game,” Biology Teacher Paul told the audience at a recent TEDx lecture.

In order to challenge his student’s preconceived notions of classroom learning instruction, Paul set out to ensure that every student in his class felt comfortable with the concept of failing – the one academic rule that students fear the most when they start school.

According to researchers, the brain is hard wired to recognise the lures of reward and the fear of failure. These distinct areas of the brain, found in the prefrontal cortex (notable for its role in analysis and planning) are found to be in constant competition with each other. Game-based learning helps motivate students to reconsider this inherent risk/ reward ratio through simulated repetition.

Traditionally computer game characters motivate players to try to achieve goals as often as they fail at them. And instead of fearing failure, students are quickly taught to recognise that failing is learning.

And learning through gameplay, made famous by Australian software such as Mathletics or the thrills of discovery in multiplayer game Second Life, succeeds most when students no longer see their own efforts to learn new concepts as futile or monotonous. They learn this way, because it becomes too much fun to stop playing.

“Failure is okay,” Paul says. “If it takes you 80 times to clear the third elevator stage in Donkey Kong, that’s okay.” Paul identifies failure as part of the learning process, and says teachers should not be afraid to encourage it – a concept inverse to traditional learning protocol.

“In schools, we tend to stigmatise failure,” he says. “You don’t get to take a quiz over and over again until you pass it. We need to send the message that failure is okay.”

The motivation was to remind his students that game-based learning techniques (as

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opposed to traditional textbook-based learning and grading) could actually be fun. “I wanted to take the most compelling elements of gaming and apply it to my class”, he says. “Video games are fun and schools should be fun as well.”

To achieve his goal of a gaming classroom, Paul decided to let his students work at their own level, exactly as a computer game would allow the player to choose their level of difficulty. By allowing students to learn at their own paces, they could “level up” and “become more powerful as they moved through the class”, Paul reasoned.

To top it all off, Paul’s gaming classroom, notably called ‘BioHazardfive’, features video podcasts, custom-made game levels to suit the curriculum, iPads at each desk and score leader boards – all based on adopting the essential tenants of gaming values: experimentation, failure and ultimately, learning.

Reward and motivation Not only did Paul’s student’s test scores increase, but so did their sense of work satisfaction, self-esteem and interest in learning new and more complicated concepts.

Researchers have demonstrated that young people’s brains are hard wired to be rewarded, in much the same way that children (and adults) naturally crave sugar and fats. Educational gaming instruction is one way to feed this reward centre, as students are more likely to compete for higher scores in a simulated gaming environment, provided with motivating stimulus within a game structure. Different games can provide different pathways to learning new concepts.

Gaming isn’t just good for lesson planning and academic success: it also improves our health. Studies have shown that regular gamers exhibit decreased blood pressure associated with increased relaxation. So, what’s the catch?

The dark side of gaming Unfortunately, not all the evidence points to game-based learning as being free of complications. It should be noted that while there is strong evidence to suggest that students have much to gain from gaming from a positive learning perspective, some researchers are concerned that it triggers the part of the brain that encourages behavioural addiction.

In one study of high school students, researchers found that those who regularly played more games than others, were likely to gamble significantly more in simulated

Technology

In schools, we tend to stigmatise failure. You don’t get to take a quiz over and over again until you pass it. We need to send the message that failure is okay.

blackjack games, a concern that researchers say may have future ramifications for those students at risk of developing such addictions.

However, Professor and clinical neuropsychologist Murat Yucel at Melbourne University wrote in The Conversation that it was still too difficult to assume the outcomes of these addition-focused studies were all negative. “By playing rewarding computer games, these kids are influencing the connections their developing brains are making, through the production of dopamine,” Yucel noted. “So they’re reinforcing certain networks in the brain that are very sensitive and reactive to reward.

This is likely to influence their behaviour, temperament and personality. But whether that actually goes on to be a problem or a disorder, we don’t yet know.”

Simulation-based learning By encouraging students to design their own rules and concepts within these games, they can be empowered during gameplay.

As a teacher, you can track data/stats from the game and use this information to stay up-to-date on the student’s progress.

It’s also important to let the students have access to some of this data so they can track their own progress individually as a team or class. It’s worth having some perspective in all of this though. As Bill Gates once wrote:

“Technology is just a tool. In terms of getting the kids working together and motivating them, the teacher is the most important.”

Resources Classroom Game Design: Paul Andersen at TEDxBozeman www.youtube.com watch?v=4qlYGX0H6Ec The Adolescent Brain www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/ PMC2475802/ www.nature.com/tp/journal/v1/n11/full/ tp201153a.html Energy expenditure of “Kinect” Excergaming in school children www.chesterrep.openrepository.com/cdr/ handle/10034/218373 Sketchup www.sketchup.com/intl/en/product/gsu.html Byond www.Byond.com Second Life www.secondlife.com/ Foldit www.Fold.it Fear of Failure: The latest research on fear of failure and procrastination www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dontdelay/200902/fear-failure TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conferences www.ted.com

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Refugees embrace power of education Refugee children across the globe would have better access to education, as part of an international campaign by Australia for United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. UNHCR National Director Naomi Steer tells NSW/ACT IEU General Secretary John Quessy how education is making a difference.

JQ: Can you tell us what you are working on at the moment?

NS: I am going to Africa, including the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya and Nakivale Refugee Camp in Uganda.

We’ve funded a big water and sanitation program in the Kakuma Refugee Camp and I’ll go and make sure it is working the way it is supposed to. Afterwards I’ll go to the Nakivale Refugee Camp. Nakivale has about 60,000 refugees of which 40% are under 18.

Australia for UNHCR has consistently supported it for the past five or six years.

We have funded water, sanitation, shelter and livelihoods and we built its first-ever secondary school. The camp had existed for more than 40 years without a secondary school and when it opened it had 145 students. Now it’s got about 400 students.

Also at Nakivale, we’ve got a consultant working on a computer centre that opened last year.

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This computer centre is really important.

It took about two and a half years to get going. It is solar-operated, has 45 computers, internet access and an internet cafe. Its purpose is to give people access to basic computer training skills and it had its first graduates in November last year.

It is self-sustaining as the refugees pay to access the internet cafe and this is used to pay the computer trainers who are all selected from the refugee community on the basis of capacity and experience. Because we’ve managed to connect to the internet, people are now emailing and on Facebook and some refugee students also had their first Skype hookup with an Australian school last year.

Another thing that is happening on the internet is a kind of Facebook for refugees, called Refugees United, which is a tracing service where you can go online and put up your profile and who you are looking for.

It’s also helping some people relocate to

Social justice

other countries. I asked one young woman what she felt was the importance of the computer centre. She said: “It makes me feel more than a refugee”.

She is equal with anyone on Facebook.

She can access the same stuff and it really is about the opportunity of the internet.

After they’ve been fed and got water and shelter, refugees say the two most important things are security and education.

JQ: It’s also about self-worth. I must say computer centres are not what I associate refugee camps with. I always assume they are just dusty, out-of-the-way settlements.

NS: I think they should be about the future.

JQ: Isn’t it sad that we have to plan for the future of refugee camps?

NS: That’s a very incisive statement because they are always going to be there.

The camps in all these regions were really set up for short-term refugee flows, such as from the Rwandan crisis and the Somalian crisis. But 20 years later people are still living in these places. Short-term is not the nature of most of the emergencies we deal with.

JQ: Tell me about your Educate a Refugee Child campaign.

NS: Educate a Refugee Child is a new initiate of UNHCR globally to provide education to thousands of refugee children.

Most are in sub-Sahara Africa, in exactly the situations that you were talking about – emergency situations that have developed into protracted refugee situations.

I think once upon a time, education was at the back of what was seen as life saving essentials. It was about food, water, shelter and then it was education. Now education is up there in equal priority recognising that, in an emergency, education provides stability, normality and cohesiveness. I go to refugee camps all the time and I speak with refugees about what they need. After they’ve been fed and got water and shelter, they will say the two most important things are security and education.

JQ: I can really see how that goes - from survival to security to the future.

NS: Yes exactly, so UNHCR through this Pacific initiative is trying to enroll 172,000 young refugees in school, provide them with a quality education and keep them at school.

In terms of the difference this makes, one example is at Kakuma Refugee Camp where we have supported a number of school projects. I was taken out to the newest settlement in the camp where people were arriving after having trekked across from South Sudan and were just setting up their shelters on a mudflat. I spoke to a guy who had arrived with his young family that day.

He had been a primary school teacher in South Sudan but said he had grown up in Kakuma Refugee Camp and this is where he

had got his education up to Year 5. This had been enough to qualify him in South Sudan to become a teacher.

JQ: It’s concerning, at that level of education.

NS: This is an issue in these countries where the entire infrastructure has gone due to fighting – people lose the opportunity to get an education. So he had become a teacher but then his village was bombed.

He, the other teachers and the children had escaped to the bush and made their way into the camp where I found them.

But he was really a glass half full guy.

When I asked what he hoped to get at the camp he said he wanted to be enrolled in the secondary school so he could finish his education. It was extraordinary to me. His only education and only opportunities in life were provided in this refugee camp.

A doctor working in a refugee camp once told me emergencies also presented opportunities because they could galvanise resources. At Australia for UNHCR I also see these resources being galvanised around education for refugees.

At the Kakuma Refugee Camp we funded a secondary school which had experienced a dramatic improvement in exam results compared with the previous year. I was introduced to the young dux who had come top of the school and in the top 5% of all Kenyan students.

He was Sudanese, had no parents, was in the camp as an unaccompanied minor and had been a refugee since the age of nine.

He managed to get himself through school and achieve this result. I asked him why the school’s results for all the students were so different and he said it was because we had funded a solar lighting program.

JQ: So they were not restricted to reading and writing during daylight hours, when they would also be busy doing a number of other things associated with their survival.

NS: Exactly. It was one of the unexpected outcomes. The solar lighting had been for safety and security and a little bit of study, but the results were so dramatic.

JQ: You were trying to get to the moon but a whole lot of interesting things happened along the way.

NS: That’s right. When you look at refugee numbers, which I think is around 43 million, one wonders what difference can one person really make. But there are so many examples of where fairly small interventions have produced significant results. You give people the resources and they run with them.

JQ: People know where the need is and they are inventive.

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Is the rise of social media a headache for schools?

Same problem, different medium

Brenda King, Principal, St Francis de Sales Regional College, Leeton NSW Social media is the way our students communicate and we have to learn to live and work in their world. Dealing with issues that arise from the use of social media has replaced the way students often used to get into mischief. Students today have access to each other 24/7 so there is more opportunity to do the wrong thing.

Yes, we can say social media is a headache but it is really no different to 32|independent education| issue 2|Vol 43|2013

dealing with the issues of face-to-face bullying, name calling and playground fights. The social media interaction leaves a trail which assists in untangling who did what.

Ultimately the headache is worse for the student and family who are affected when social media is used inappropriately. Schools have to address the use of social media and educate students and parents. Students in Year

10 at St Francis College have formed a student consultative group, which has established guidelines for the use of social media. This group is keen to share their message and by doing so perhaps the headaches may ease.

Talking point

Cultural norm

Cheryl Mutabazi,Deputy Principal, Billanook College, Victoria To learn about social media I visited a Year 7 class. All 22 students were confident, self confessed social networkers. Collectively they subscribed to 13 sites and were able to explain the merits of each. It was also argued, games fell into this category as “you could chat with people at the same time as playing, as well as play with and against others.”

The benefits were they had control over the respondents and how to respond - muting angry or abusive players or cutting them off altogether. They also valued the opportunity to meet new people, potentially from all over the world and make connections with those of like interest. As social networkers they

never feel isolated or alone because they socialise even when on their own.

A social experiment with the class led to further discussions about trust, decision making, personal judgements and risk assessments as students were invited to send a message to someone in the school using their chosen form of social media: to report to the Head of Middle School in room 707.

Much excitement followed and the first respondent arrived at the door in under a minute. A few others followed including two teachers checking the legitimacy of the message. It is a powerful form of communication, but on questioning it was also apparent that astute judgements had been made based on

the relationships between the users. It could be argued that students in other classes were distracted and should have been doing their work as a notification popped on their screen. This is the world in which they live. Whilst working silently in class, two students on either side of the room can collaborate on line, a question may be easily answered by a peer without distracting others, an online conversation can prompt further investigation, offer clarification and expert advice from reliable sources.

Social media is now the cultural norm and whether it’s a headache or not for schools all depends on our approach to learning in the 21st century.

A pain, but there is a remedy Irene Mengel, Year 12 student, St Aidan’s Anglican Girls’ School, Queensland The answer is clearly, yes. In recent years, the focus has been the extension of bullying from the playground to the internet. Schools are alarmed by the trend as they have less control than before. A second issue arising from the escalation of wired teenagers is a diminished work ethic, negatively affecting student performance, and therefore school results and reputations.

However, social media also provides many benefits. Many schools are using Facebook pages and YouTube for advertising and communicating

information to the school community.

Parents can check the Twitter or Facebook newsfeed to see the names of guest speakers, read reminders about the excursion itinerary and check whether the forecast has caused the postponement of the sports carnival.

New technologies allow students to use the latest learning tools. For instance, at the University of Texas in Dallas, a history professor has used Twitter as a tool for classroom discussion, sharing links and taking notes. Yet, even as an advocate, the professor has had to confront

unexpected problems associated with privacy, copyright and discriminatory language.

In the constantly-evolving age of high technology, it is beneficial for all to ‘seize the day’ by harnessing and mastering the latest gadgets and gizmos. With insightful leadership and management the process of learning can be significantly enhanced. Social media is only a headache for those who cannot see a way to harness and manage technology effectively.

The magic of engagement

Briony Mowbray, Teacher, McCarthy Catholic College, Emu Plains, NSW Joel and his mates ‘hate school’! In fact, they don’t like much apart from playing footy and updating Facebook. So, when Joel’s maths teacher said that his next assignment was a weekly blog of his team’s progress throughout the season he couldn’t believe his luck! For the first time ever, Joel was good at maths – he could calculate cumulative scores, determine averages and percentages finally seemed to make sense.

We all know the opportunities that have been presented by social media and the success that many teachers and students have experienced through social networking sites, forums, discussion boards, blogs, microblogs and the like. As a teacher, it is a pleasure to witness the

enthusiasm of an otherwise disengaged student as they seem to magically ‘switch on’ when presented with a particular task, or see the insight shown and quality of work produced through the collaborative efforts of a talented group. The ability to communicate with parents and students in real time allows for unprecedented feedback on student progress. And so the list of genuine benefits and success stories goes on.

However, the unfortunate consequences of cyberbullying have blurred the distinction between the role of the school, family and police in managing issues of this nature. No teacher can possibly monitor the moment-by-moment contributions of

students on a class discussion board or confirm the reliability and safety of every individual that a student interacts with online. As well as these issues for students, the buzz of social media presents increasing challenges for already-exhausted classroom teachers who are now expected to be available 24 hours a day to answer questions while simultaneously marking tasks and preparing earth-shattering lessons to engage their over-stimulated classes.

So, where does this leave us – to tweet or not to tweet? Read my blog to find out, like this article on Facebook or see how it trends on Twitter!

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Reviews

Film remakes: do they work?

Countless classic novels and stories are turned into films, which then become the subject of continual remakes.

Why does this occur?

One explanation is a good story can be retold many times and be re-envisioned by a variety of film makers for contemporary audiences. Another is that coming up with original ideas for a film is not easy, and remaking previous films provides a quick method of visualising an existing story.

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Shakespeare and Dickens are two of the most remade authors with countless films made of their stories. Dickens’ Great Expectations has been made into 24 film and television adaptations since 1917, including a version set in modern day New York, directed by Alfonso Cuaron (1998). This film remained faithful to the original story but updated the linguistic style, with the spirit of the story intact. The most recent version directed by Mike Newell (2012) was very faithful to the original story and settings, highlighting the moral, ethical and social issues faced by the protagonists in this salutary tale.

Shakespeare has been remade so many times because the ideas and situations are complex and timeless. Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet (1996) was an outrageously modernised and musicalised version of the much told story (67 film and TV versions have been made), which gave contemporary audiences new insights into this popular romantic tragedy. Indeed, in 2013, a new version of the story, very faithful to Shakespeare, directed by Carlo Carlei will be released. Much Ado About Nothing has been filmed only 26 times in comparison, but a new version directed by Joss Whedon (2012) has updated the settings and given a modern gloss to the comedy. All this indicates the significance of a good story in influencing countless filmmakers and remakes.

Now, a new version of F Scott Fitzgerald’s jazz era novel The Great Gatsby directed by Baz Luhrmann has been released.

This is the fourth film version of the novel, and indicates that filmmakers see relevance in the historic period and issues intrinsic in the story for contemporary audiences. However, a word of caution with adaptations and remakes, they don’t always work.

The classic Alfred Hitchcock film Psycho (1960) was remade in colour, with new actors but otherwise a complete replica of the original film, by Gus van Sant, and that turned out to be an unmitigated disaster. One often wonders why filmmakers remake excellent films. It is important to re-imagine films for contemporary audiences, but they need to have a different approach, otherwise why bother? Many foreign language films are remade as there is an assumption that English speaking audiences do not like reading subtitles. A good example that worked well was Tomas Alfredson’s Swedish film of a bullied boy and a female vampire Let The Right One In (2008), which was remade as a similarly good American version

by Matt Reeves, Let Me In (2010).

In summary, remakes will always exist, with filmmakers finding new ways to tell a well-known story, or re-imagine a previous film, but it is always the audience that decides the veracity of that remake or adaptation.

Peter Krausz is Chair of the Australian Film Critics Association, hosts a weekly two-hour radio program on film in Melbourne, and is a film journalist and film festival advisor. He can be contacted on: peterkrausz8@gmail.com