Teachers Matter Magazine Issue 4

ProFessioNAllY llY & PersoNAllY ll ll llY

TeachersMatter The Magazine of Spectrum Education

co-coNstrUctiNg leArNiNg The Success-o-meter sets goals for learning

the DebAte hAs eNDeD You can mix phonics and whole-language

FiND YoUr WAY Take technology — and learning — into the great outdoors

NZ$15 NZ $15 / AU$15

Leaders in Developing Teachers

ISSUE 4

Habits of Mind Boot Camp

We have combined the 2 workshops into a super sensational four days of answers!

This is NOT a 4-day seminar where you simply sit and listen to presenters.

The Habits of Mind Boot Camp is a true hands-on experience of teaching in action.

(+ Leadership Challenge) Over four action-packed days you will: • Acquire the tools every teacher must have • Learn the processes to create, plan and teach powerful lessons

In addition, you will have access to an invaluable resource base to accelerate your learning curve in the areas of:

trudy Francis is the co-director of C21 Learning, and ex senior management from College Street Normal School. She is passionate about assisting teachers to improve the quality of their classroom instruction.

• Thinking Maps

adrian rennie is a Deputy Principal with incredible passion and practical ideas to implement and reinforce both the Habits of Mind and resilience. He will share his success stories, resources and assessment tools.

• Be mentored by an incredible group of successful teachers and presenters

• Planning and teaching for deep understanding

• Be involved in the actual transformation of schools with the Habits Of Mind Challenge 2008

• Metacognition

• Witness the effect of the Habits of Mind in real-life situations

• Assessments

• Learn how to build your teaching capacity and students’ abilities

• Matrices

• Benefit from the opportunity to make important decisions about your teaching, away from your day-to-day classroom

And heaps more!

• Have more FUN than is allowed!

• Listening • Rubrics • Leadership The Habits of Mind Challenge 2008 is at the core of the Boot Camp schedule.

• Plus… you will learn more than you thought possible

Over the four days you will enhance your understanding of:

The Thinking Toolbox

• the Habits Of Mind

When you arrive at the Boot Camp, you will receive a comprehensive manual containing working templates (in both hard copy and digital format) that can be modified and used at the Habits Of Mind Boot Camp and in every lesson you teach afterwards.

These essential templates will ensure you cover all aspects, and anticipate the opportunities and pitfalls in such areas as: • Discovering and exploring the Habits of Mind • Engaging and activating the Habits of Mind • Planning for deep understanding • Evaluation and reporting • Implementing the Habits of Mind • Exploring meanings • Expanding capacities • Increasing alertness • Extending values • Building commitments • Internalisation • Habituation

• the leadership in your school • your communication abilities • your personal effectiveness This combination of personal and professional development will happen in team exercises throughout the event, with partners and independently.

The Boot Camp Team Each member of the mentor panel is a leader in their area of expertise. Each will offer you invaluable mentoring to increase your success within the classroom. The format of the Habits Of Mind Boot Camp allows you to gain the most from their extensive Habits of Mind knowledge.

Karen Boyes is a highly skilled, enthusiastic and dynamic presenter with over 18 years experience in the education profession. The leading authority on effective learning and teaching in New Zealand, she is CEO of Spectrum Education and their head facilitator, working with teachers, parents, students and corporate clients.

GeorGette Jenson brings her wealth of knowledge and wisdom from her classroom in Gisborne. Having personally trained with some of the best thinkers in the world; Rita and Kenneth Dunn, David Hyerle and Art Costa, she puts her expertise of learning styles, Thinking Maps and Habits of Mind into practice in her own classroom.

Barry Musson is in the twilight of his career but has been re-energised in the last five years since becoming involved with Habits of Mind and Thinking Maps. His knowledge, passion and enthusiasm is now being shared with schools wanting to incorporate the Thinking and Behaving benefits these two powerful tools have to offer.

Matt allen is the assistant Rector at Lindisfarne College. He is a passionate, innovative classroom teacher who continually strives for greater levels of student achievement through a range of creative teaching techniques. Matt has created many classroom strategies in association with fellow teaching colleague Barry Musson.

GrahaM Watts is currently studying for a PhD in gifted education and thinking skills in London, after being the Director of Advanced Learning at a Year 1-13 school in NZ. His role involved leading the Thinking Skills program, working closely with all Year-level teachers, helping them infuse the Habits into their classroom, curriculum planning and assessment.

Programme Schedule neW Zealand MON 20th April, 9pm - 5pm TUES 21st April, 9am - 9pm WEDS 22nd April, 9am - 7pm THURS 23rd April, 9am - 1pm sydney TUES 11th August, 9pm - 5pm WEDS 12th August, 9am - 9pm THURS 13th August, 9am - 7pm FRI 14th August, 9am - 1pm Investment: $895 per person / $795pp for groups of 3 or more.

Investment includes morning tea, lunch, and afternoon tea each day.

Numbers are strictly limited and will fill quickly!

Reserve your place today - phone (NZ) 0800 373 377 or (Australia) 1800 063 272 Or email: info@spectrumeducation.com

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CONTENTS

In this issue

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Quiz the Kids

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Climbing the Metacognitive Staircase

Teachers Matter

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Surviving Teaching: Real Resilience and Passion

Start the New Year with New Study Skills

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Break Through the Exercise Barriers

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Gripping Issues in The Classroom

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Motivation is the key

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26

Teens are Wild and Adults are Boring

If We Allow It, We Teach It

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When I Ask Questions, My Teacher Gets Angry

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Picture This: A story with no words

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What’s your Money Personality?

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Measuring Success

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Will Your Children be Rich or Poor?

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A Peace Agreement in the Reading War

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Visualisation activities

Bla BlaCk-liNe MasTers T Ters Photocopyable activities: 25...Thought starters 38 & 65...Thinking Challenge

MAGAZINE CONTACTS

Subscribe today

teachers Matter Magazine team

To receive your own copy of the next issue, send an e-mail to magazine@spectrumeducation.com

Publisher, sales and Advertising: Karen boyes Managing editor: Kristen De Deyn Kirk graphic Design: 2nd Floor Design, Portsmouth, VA, UsA Printer spectrum Print, christchurch

subscriptions toll free (NZ) 0800 373 377 toll free (Australia) 1800 063 272 thanks to the educators, speakers and authors who contributed interviews, articles, photographs and letters. teachers Matter magazine is registered with the National library:

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issN 1178-6825 © spectrum education 2008

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Going for Goals

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Think COW to Manage Behaviour

Giving Your “Big Rocks” Priority

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From Understanding to Critical Analysis

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Secrets of Becoming a Hero

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Taking Responsibility

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Integrating Educational Technologies into Your Classroom

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Professional Development that Works

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Seven Ways to Boogie and Learn

All rights reserved.

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

All enquiries spectrum education ltd street Address: level 5, cbD towers, Main street, Upper hutt, New Zealand Postal Address: Po box 40912, Upper hutt, New Zealand Phone: (NZ) +64 4 528 9969 (Australia) 1800 063 272 Fax: (NZ) +64 4 528 0969 (Australia) 1800 068 977 magazine@spectrumeducation.com

Go for your goals,and make

www.spectrumeducation.com

it fun! Page 56 5

publisher’S NOTE

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elcome to Issue Four. Wow, it only seems like yesterday that we completed Issue One and here we are, a year later, with even more fabulous contributors.

Trevor Bond, a first time contributer, looks at the question of questioning. He suggests that there is sometimes a disconnect between teaching and learning and this is evident when students ask questions. Many times teachers are focused on the curriculum rather than on the learner. Learn how you can continue to feel enthusiastic and energetic in the classroom in Trevor’s insightful article.

Ngahihi o te ra Bidios writes from his cultural heritage using ancient wisdom for modern solutions. He writes about how important it is to invest in ourselves, just as all successful people do -- to take time for practice, health, fitness and time to reflect and hone their skills.

In this issue, you will find that Wendy Sweet mirrors this opinion.

She has some great ideas about starting an exercise program during the school holidays so that you can keep it going once you’re back at school. She also talks about staying motivated by not focusing on your big goal but setting smaller weekly goals. John Shackleton has more ideas, too, on getting fit and staying healthy.

Patricia Buoncristiani talks about incorporating phonics into whole language and makes the point that you don’t have to debate between the two. She takes you step-by-step through classroom lessons that will sell you -- and students -- on integrating both approaches into one superior learning effort.

Dr Art Costa again provides food for thought with his article on the Metacognitive Staircase.

He discusses the steps from being aware of the thinking process to intentionally taking charge of your thinking. Again, his wisdom is just as good for us as it is for our students.

Teachers Matter

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Stuart Fleming for his incredible support, friendship, wisdom and expertise that he has put not only into the first three issues of Teachers Matter, but also Spectrum Education over the past two years. He simply ran with my wild ideas and made them a reality. Without him, I would still be talking about this magazine. Stuart has gone back to empowering parents and teens – something he is incredibly skilled at. Thanks for being the best Director Of Enthusiasm I know!

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Our new Editor is Kristen De Deyn Kirk. She has been working as an editor and writer for 20 years and has often covered education and health topics, hoping to give people information that will make their lives better. She told me that most of her dearest friends are teachers (along with her mother!), and she couldn’t be prouder of them because they become parent, doctor and entertainer to a new group of children every year. Kristen shares the vision of Spectrum and the Teachers Magazine of Inspiring Teachers both personally and professionally. Welcome aboard, Kristen.

Enjoy this issue and the New Year that it brings with a new group of students and challenges.

Remember to make you a priority, and continue to make every other profession possible.

Rainbows and sunshine,

Schedule your personalised 2009 Professional Development today Book the specialist of your choice from the Spectrum Education team and develop your education expertise.

info@spectrumeducation.com (NZ) ph +64 4 528 9969 (Australia) ph 1800 063 272

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CONTRIBUTORS

Adrian Rennie A successful classroom teacher, Adrian is passionate about excellence in teaching.

He combines simple yet effective classroom techniques and Art Costa’s Habits Of Mind to create a culture of thinking.

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

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

Teachers Matter

David Koutsoukis

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David is an award-winning international speaker and author who helps educators build positive and productive classrooms and schools. He is the author of the Values Education Toolkit resources, the Behaviour Management Toolkit resources, the Daily Dose of Fun series and the Six Kinds of Best Values Education programme. www.dkeducation.com.au

Eric Frangenheim

Jenny Mosley

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

Over the past 19 years, Jenny has developed her highly successful school and classroom management models. Quality Circle Time encompasses a whole-school approach to enhancing self-esteem and building positive relationships within school communities. www.jennymosley.co.uk

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

Jan Tinetti Jan is the principal of Merivale School, a decile 1 school in urban Tauranga. Prior to this role she was principal in rural schools in Southland. She is passionate about children’s success in school and life.

Jenny Barrett Jenny is the CEO for Breathe Technology.

Her enthusiasm for technology came when thrown in the deep end whilst teaching at a Taiwan high school. Jenny has since u n d e r t a k e n a M a s t e r ’s o f E d u c a t i o n ( E d . Te c h n o l o g y ) a n d h a s s u p p o r t e d classroom teachers to use educational technology in UK and NZ projects. www.breathetechnology.co.nz

Jo Issa After 10 years teaching in New Zealand and the UK, Jo Issa swapped the playground for a pencil and began freelance writing. She is currently completing two diplomas in creative writing and publishing at Whitireia Community Polytechnic in Wellington. www.joissa.co.nz

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

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

CONTRIBUTORS

Kevin Mayall

Dr Marvin Marshall

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

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

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

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

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

Ngahihi o te ra Bidois N g a h i i s f r o m Te A r a w a a n d i s a n international consultant and professional speaker. He invites your comment through his website at www.ngahibidois.com

Patricia Bouncristiani Pat has spent over 30 years as an educator committed to the belief that learning how to think is the foundation for every successful learner. www.ThinkingAndLearningInConcert.org

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

Stuart Fleming Stuart is the guy who stops parents and teens from fighting about money. A professional speaker and workshop leader, his superpower is seeing the potential in people and situations. Stuart is living proof that going straight from school to tertiary study isn’t the only way to become successful. www.stuartflemingblog.com

Trevor Bond Trevor is an experienced teacher and principal and is currently working with schools throughout NewZealand in a consultancy role providing professional development in inquiry learning, thinking and curriculum implementation. http://ictnz.com

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

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

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MAGGIE DENT

Really Surviving Teaching: Real Resilience and Passion “in humanistic psychology, resilience refers to an individual’s ability to thrive and fulfill potential despite or perhaps because of stressors or risk factors.” James Neill It is our survivability and “bounce-backore than ever before, the teaching Step1: Develop positive ability” to the bumps and bruises of life. profession is experiencing complex change. The massive friendships and relationEssentially, resilience is a balancing act social and technological changes mean between the stressors in your life, and the ships within the school that what happens in our classrooms is

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changing rapidly as well. Today’s children are more challenging and full of variety.

Some IT experts are even suggesting that real human teachers may become unnecessar y as the global classroom expands into homes and bedrooms. Are teachers going to survive or are they going to become another endangered species? Will they survive or will they conquer these times of massive change?

Teachers Matter

The dynamics of processing complex and progressive change are very real. All change challenges our comfort zones. It causes anxiety and fear. Rarely does a change in circumstances or experiences last very long, however multiple changes multiplies the effects of a single transitory event. The healthy resolution to change involves a reworking of beliefs, values and perceptions of the world and can take people many months, sometimes years to fully integrate.

Often the sense of loss brings irrational grief and emotional instability. This can come from new curriculum, new forms of reporting or assessments, new leadership, new schools, different environments, and then there’s always new students.

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Teachers are currently in a prolonged period of progressive change, which means that they cannot complete any level of change before being swamped by another. This is a major cause of concern for staff health and wellbeing. The capacity to conquer the massive uncertainty and continual pressure to change and to still enjoy this amazing profession is what resilience is all about.

I’ve written before that resilience refers to one’s ability to successfully manage one’s life and to successfully adapt to change and stressful events in healthy and constructive ways.

protective factors that counteract those stressors. This balancing act is complicated for teachers who have families, serious hobbies and sports, or who suffer any longterm illness.

The very nature of education and especially schooling is that it is organic and it ebbs and flows every day. Events happen in the communities outside schools that impact deeply at the grass roots of our relationships within the school. Human differences, dramas and crises occur not just daily, but sometimes minute by minute. No wonder

We all need allies in life and reciprocal life-affirming relationships in our work environments are enormously valuable in lifting your coping skills. If you can develop the art of healthy venting, this can create positive opportunities to de-stress before leaving the school ground. Healthy venting involves asking a colleague to give you just five minutes to “vent.” You need to provide the cuppa and preferably the chocolate biscuit and ask them to do nothing but listen. They must not try to help you solve

“ Teachers are currently in a prolonged period of progressive change, which means that they cannot complete any level of change before being swamped by another. This is a major cause of concern for staff health and wellbeing.”

teachers are dealing with stressful issues that they have no hope of being able to control. Knowing that the unexpected is often the normal will help you master the dance of being a teacher. Sometimes you will be in step with your colleagues, but not your students, and at other times it will be the parents’ toes you may be stepping on – unintentionally of course!

So what helps build your resilience muscles and your coping skills so you can conquer this dance?

or fix any conflict, it is just the art of healthy venting. The ally must not speak or ask for more details. He or she simply gives you a safe opportunity to be heard. Without this opportunity, we tend to take home our “work stuff” and dump it on our loved ones.

Worse still, we can take home the tension and crabbiness and throw it at our children, partners or even the dog. It does need to stay at school. Remember, be confidential and totally trustworthy.

MAGGIE DENT

Step 2: Keep an eye on yourself for the warning signs that your body gives you when you are skating on thin ice We sometimes ignore many signs that show we are simply too stressed and tired for our own health and wellbeing. Some signs include:

“ Healthy venting involves asking a colleague to give you just five minutes to vent.” pattern if you step back to do this. It may only take a weekend in bed, a few small changes to your busy life and before you know it, you will bounce back.

Step 4: Ensure you are eating well, and avoiding too much overindulgence of any kind Eating well means as fresh as possible, rather than as much as possible. The body needs good fuel to keep the energy levels up.

Exercise does help reduce stress and make your brain work better. It also improves your moods.

• Poor sleep patterns • Over-eating or stopping eating

Step 3: Fill your own cup

• Short-temperedness and impatience

Check out the list below and take some action

• Memory loss and forgetfulness • Change of patterns: stop exercising/ walking the dog • Seeking junk food and sweet stuff • Thinking of red wine at 10 am rather than 5 pm • Disappearing from friends and family into an invisible cave • Too tired and no energy • Checking out job vacancies in other countries • Being unpleasant to live with • Kicking the dog This is just a short list. When you notice your warning signs, you need to then take action. This means you need to accept responsibility to take some steps to re-fill your cup, to take action to nurture yourself.

No, the world will not go into a holding

• Spend time with beloved pets • Meet with friends for coffee or golf or fishing or shopping • Get a massage or other form of professional nurturing • Catch up on sleep • Play favourite music • Go dancing, preferably not naked in the park • Do meditation • Make an effort to do something you really love doing • Spend time in nature • Enjoy creative pursuits like painting, cooking, knitting, sewing • Plant a garden or spend time in own garden • Prune everything in your garden • Do something for someone else • Take a retreat from your busy world • Go for a run or take a bike ride

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MAGGIE DENT

“ avoid allowing school to intrude too much at home and give yourself permission to have free nights during the week when schoolwork stays at school.”

Step 5: Build supports within your school • Maintain sense of humour • Develop connectedness and friendships • Create co-operative, collaborative classrooms • Choose Professional Development that empowers, encourages, motivates and inspires • Seek coaching and mentoring • Invite other schools in. Share ideas, resources and have fun • Look for professional buddies, your “venting buddies” • Engage in professional dialogue; have lunch bunch chats • Take time for positive reflective practice • Create a positive, supportive school environment • Develop healthy detachment • Increase life skills, especially stress management ones • Fill your mirth cup and nurture laughter • Communicate high, positive expectations • Nurture yourself at home • Resolve conflicts as soon as possible

Teachers Matter

• Model a solutions focus

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• Use life-enhancing language • Have great hobbies or outside interests • Fill your own emotional and spiritual cup • Believe in the significance of teaching as a privilege • Know there is no such thing as a perfect teacher

• Keep learning and growing. Avoid ruts • Encourage others • Have great holidays • Practice “kaizen” - Be the best you can be!

Step 6: Ensure you have healthy boundaries Avoid allowing school to intrude too much at home and give yourself permission to have free nights during the week when school work stays at school. Avoid boring your nonteaching friends about “shop” talk.

Resilience means taking responsibility for one’s own mental, emotional and physical well-being while investing enormous energy in delivering great teaching to today’s interesting students. Without a deep passion and commitment, and a healthy pattern

of vigilance, even the best teachers can struggle to get out of bed some days.

My final top tips for conquering teaching long term are :

TOP FIVE RESILIENCE TIPS • Always keep some slack. Avoid stretching yourself too thin • Share the journey. Never walk alone • Fill your own cup. Enjoy your life • Lighten up – laughter lifts the spirit • Keep a positive vision for a better way of being by laughing, loving and living well.

Quiz Questions

For answers turn to Page 75

New Zealand Cities 1. Caroline Bay is in the shore of what city?............................................................................................................................................................

2. The Queens Gardens are in what city?................................................................................................................................................................

3. The Octagon can be found in what city?.............................................................................................................................................................

4. What is New Zealand’s least-populated city?......................................................................................................................................................

5. Which city has another planet on it?...................................................................................................................................................................

Hidden Fruit and Veges Find the names of different fruit and vegetables that are hidden in the following sentences. Don’t worry about capital letters.

Here is an example to help you: I would like to be an artist when I grow up 1. The upholstery in Bill’s car rotted very quickly once it had become wet............................................................................................................

2. Mary hit the jackpot at our local race meeting...................................................................................................................................................

3. The agile monkey climbed up the tree.................................................................................................................................................................

4. We were happy to see Tom at our school.............................................................................................................................................................

5. John’s leap pleased his coach...............................................................................................................................................................................

6. A top lumberjack can fell many trees..................................................................................................................................................................

7. Nicholas wed Evelyn at St Joseph’s Church last Saturday...................................................................................................................................

8. The children spent some lonely time together.....................................................................................................................................................

9. I hope my parcel will arrive today.......................................................................................................................................................................

10. Greg, rap Elli’s knuckles if she’s naughty...........................................................................................................................................................

Who’s Who? How well do you know who’s who in New Zealand? Write next to their name what they are most known for.

1. Jason Gunn...........................................................................................................................................................................................................

2. Maria Tutaia.........................................................................................................................................................................................................

3. Michael Campbell................................................................................................................................................................................................

4. Dean Barker..........................................................................................................................................................................................................

5. Margaret Mahy.....................................................................................................................................................................................................

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Dr ArThUr COSTA

Climbing the Metacognitive Staircase

Teachers Matter

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he human species is known as Homo sapiens, sapiens, which means “a being that knows their knowing” (or maybe it’s “knows they are knowing”). What distinguishes humans from other forms of life is our capacity for metacognition — the ability to examine our thoughts while we engage in them.

monitoring our interpretations, perceptions, decisions, and behaviours. An example would be what superior teachers do daily: Develop a teaching strategy for a lesson, keep that strategy in mind throughout the instruction, reflect on the strategy to evaluate its effectiveness, and modify the plan for future applications.

Occurring in the neocortex, metacognition, or thinking about thinking, is our ability to know what we know and what we don’t know. It is our ability to plan a strategy for producing what information we need, to be conscious of our steps and strategies during problem solving, and to reflect on and evaluate the productiveness of our thinking.

Students do not progress from “awareness of our thinking” to getting into the habit of good thinking in one easy step. It takes practice, reflection, evaluation and persistence.

Teachers can help students become more metacognitive by inviting students to be

When confronted with a problem, we develop a plan of action, we maintain that plan in mind over a period, and then we evaluate the plan upon completion. Planning a strategy first helps us consciously track the steps for the entire activity. It facilitates making temporal and comparative judgments, assessing the need for more or different activities, and

aware of, reflect on, talk about and evaluate their thinking. Learning to think about their thinking can be a powerful tool in shaping, improving, internalizing and habituating their thinking.

Think of this progression as a staircase.

Each step represents progressive levels of metacognition that facilitate the internalization of skillful-thinking habits and their self-directed use by good thinkers.

I represent the staircase as:

“Occurring in the neocortex, metacognition, or thinking about thinking, is our ability to know what we know and what we don’t know.”

Dr ArThUr COSTA MAKING A COMMITMENT TO BETTER THINKING: INTENTIONALLY TAKING CHARGE of my own thinking in future situations.

APPLYING MY THINKING: PREDICTING AHEAD to times and situations when this type of thinking would be useful.

EVALUATING MY THINKING: MONITORING the effectiveness of the strategy--before, during and after.

THINKING STRATEGICALLY: KNOWING THE STRATEGY that I am going to use/are using/have used as I do/did the thinking.

BECOMING AWARE OF MY THINKING: NAMING the kind of thinking I am going to do/am doing/have done.

The Metacognitive Staircase

Becoming aware of our thinking The first step is being aware of the kind of thinking we are doing by recognizing, identifying and labeling our thinking. Are you comparing, contrasting, hypothesizing, predicting, evaluating?

Most of us understand those terms, and, if our students don’t, we can teach the terms to them through repeated explicit use, by formal introduction of standard thinking terminology and by instruction in the process steps — what you do when you compare, contrast, summarize, predict, etc.

prompted us to use it and what questions we might be trying to answer as a result.

thinking strategically Climbing up on the second step of the staircase involves not only knowing the name of the type of thinking we are doing, it involves knowing the thinking strategy we are using. We can describe how and why we are doing this kind of thinking. We can analyze the ingredients, the sequence of steps of the process of thinking we are using.

We can link this thinking process with others we intend to use. When we are on this stair step, we can give reasons why we are using this thinking skill, what clues in the problem

applying our thinking O n s t e p f o u r, t h e t h i n k i n g b e c o m e s predictive. We are sensitive to situations in which this kind of thinking may be employed again. We predict the consequences of such thinking and are aware of times when this type of thinking is not appropriate. We plan how we will apply this kind of thinking in the future when we need it based on everything we have done so far.

evaluating our thinking On step three, the thinking shifts from descriptive and analytical thinking to evaluative thinking and critical thinking.

We must monitor the effectiveness of the strategy to determine if it is producing the effect we desire: Is this a good and effective way to do this kind of thinking?

We must apply a set of criteria to judge the effectiveness of our thinking strategy.

Making a commitment to Better thinking At the top of the staircase, we take matters into our own hands, and this involves committing ourselves to this way of thinking. We decide to deliberately follow the steps we think will work best for us in the future. We gather and evaluate data about the effectiveness of this kind of thinking and modify our thinking accordingly. We voluntarily set goals for ourselves with the intention of employing this kind of thinking the next time it is called for. When we follow this thinking plan on a specific occasion, we are taking charge of our own thinking.

Prompting the climb up the Metacognitive staircase Keeping the staircase in mind, the teacher can invite students to think at each level by posing invitational questions. Following are examples of how a teacher might prompt students to ascend the metacognitive staircase before, during and after the thinking task is completed.

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Dr Arthur Costa

Up The Metacognitive Staircase: Questions That Prompt The Climb STEP

METACOGNITIVE LEVEL

TEACHER POSES SUCH QUESTIONS AS…

5th

Making a Commitment to Better Thinking

“When else in (this course) (school) (life) (work) might this strategy prove useful?”

“Why is it important to you to………?”

“What goals are you setting for yourself to become more mindful of your own thinking?

4th

Applying our Thinking

“How might you do this thinking next time?

“As you anticipate similar problems in the future, what insights might you carry forth about how to think them through?”

“What makes you think that strategy will work in this situation?”

“What has worked for you in the past that you might draw upon?”

“When else in (this course) (school) (life) (work) might this strategy prove useful?”

“What situational cues will remind you to think this way?”

3rd

Evaluating our Thinking

“How well did your strategy work for you?

“How do you know your strategy is working?”

“What corrections, alterations in your strategy are you making as you…..?”

“What will you pay attention to while you are solving this problem to let you know your strategy is working?”

“What alternative strategies might you employ if you find your strategy is not working?”

“Why do you think this is the best strategy?

“What has worked for you in the past?”

“What makes you think that strategy will work in this situation?”

“By what criteria will you judge that this is the best way to approach this problem?”

2nd

Thinking Strategically

Going to Use “What approaches will you employ…?”

“As you approach this problem, how will you try to solve it?”

Are Using: “As you consider the steps in the skillful problem solving process, where are you……?”

“What patterns are you noticing in your approach to solving this problem?”

“What questions are you asking yourself?

Did use: “As you reflect on your problem solving strategy, what did it involve?”

“What led you to this decision to…….?

“What questions were you asking yourself?

Teachers Matter

1st

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Becoming Aware of our Thinking

We can think about our own thinking in a variety of ways. The metacognitive staircase is a framework for a series of repeated experiences with metacognition that helps students become more reflective

“Describe the kind of thinking you will be / are / were doing.”

“What type of thinking was going on in your head when….?”

“While you were thinking about_____, what mental processes were you using?” and able to take charge of how they engage in the thinking processes. Teaching students to think more critically, creatively and skillfully should also include the goal of thinking independently and

spontaneously. Teachers helping to develop students’ habits of ascending this staircase will help them achieve this bigger, even more important goal as they make their way through life.

KArEN bOYES

Study Tips for Success Setting up great study habits at the beginning of the year is important. Here are some ideas: 1. create a space or place where you can study. It could be at a desk, the floor, or a kitchen table. Make sure you have everything you need. I have a special little box with coloured pens, pencils, a ruler, a sharpener and more so I do not have to go searching for these items. Having the same place to go to helps the brain settle into studying faster and focusing better. There is a worst place to study – and that is in or on your bed. Your bed is for sleep.

If you study in or on your bed, the brain gets confused: When you cuddle down to sleep, your brain often thinks it should be studying, not resting, and it is hard to relax and get to sleep.

2. summarise your notes each day.

Many students take notes in class and at the end of the class have no idea what they have learned. If this sounds familiar, this technique is for you. Continue to take notes in class. At the end of the day, during your study time, take six (the number of subjects you have each day) cards about the size of a postcard. Look through each subject’s notes and summarise these on the card. The reason for the smaller card is to force you to create a summary – not just re-write your notes. Use pictures and

diagrams if appropriate. Ensure that you are looking for the key points, the info that you need to learn or recall in an exam. This process should take no more than 20 minutes for all of your subjects. The next morning, read or scan over these cards as a review.

Keep the cards and revise them over the next week and month. Use the cards to study for an exam. Remember to keep you original notes from class so you can check back later if you are not sure about some information.

3. Make up stories and mnemonics about your information. Your brain loves stories. Anything that is funny, different or has a novelty value will stand out in your mind. Any “one offs” will be memorable.

Often the sillier it is, the more memorable it will be. I have strong memories of a teacher who stood on his chair while teaching about height. The same teacher sat under a desk to teach us about earthquakes!

s Magic Affirmations s Magic Personal Affirmations

• Use the colour red for difficult or important facts. This colour goes straight into your long-term memory.

• Frame key ideas and number the points you are learning, that way you will know if you have recalled all of them.

• When practising spelling, make the bits you need to learn standout such as sepArate repEtition rHythm

• Mnemonics (nem-on-ic) are a way of remembering something. How do you

• Makeup rhymes, chants, songs or raps to remember your notes.

Fabulous A3 laminated posters for your office, study environment or back of the toilet door.

s 27 Study Tips for Success

• Highlight your notes. However, if you highlight all your notes they will not stand out anymore. It is important to use many different techniques to making your information stand out.

Here are six ways to make important information standout in your mind

Success Posters

Four to choose from:

remember the colours of the rainbow?

Many people remember the mnemonic ROYGBIV, which stands for Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet. If you’re doing chemistry, you can remember the periodic table by remembering a mnemonic: how he likes Beer By the cup not over Frothy. Or for reading music: The notes in the spaces spell F, A, C, E and the notes on the lines stand for Every Good Boy Deserves Fruit.

27 Study Tips Instead of studying harder, learn how to study smarter!

With the simple and effective techniques described in this book, students can reduce their study time and massively increase their ability to pass exams.

This quick-check reference guide comes with the audio CD 7 Keys to Memory, which explains how to study so you will remember.

s 101 Ways to Praise a Child

$15 each

$27.50 for book + CD Available from www.spectrumeducation.com

17

wENDY SwEET

Break Through the Exercise Barriers Although the summer months are a valued and necessary time to “chill-out” and unwind from a busy year, it’s also a great time for new exercisers to get motivated.

U

sing the extra time away from school to build up cardiovascular fitness and postural strength means you will undoubtedly start the New Year with a sharper mind, stronger muscles, and a healthier immune system.

Motivational research is on the increase as behavioural researchers try to better understand why some people “resist” exercise while others don’t. Leading the way is Jay Kimiecik, Ph.D., author of The Intrinsic Exerciser: Discovering the Joy of Exercise (2002).

The key to life-long exercise, says Kimiecik, is to develop your own positive experience of exercise through your thoughts and beliefs.

These beliefs (known as your “motivational processes”) then determine whether you will avoid exercise or maintain selfmotivation over time. Exercise psychology researchers have consistently found two reasons why people avoid or discontinue exercise and health regimes: Either people don’t understand their own motivation for exercising, or they succumb to perceived barriers that regular exercisers are able to overcome.

Teachers Matter

Barriers to exercise are internal or external.

Internal barriers are a collection of thoughts, feelings and perceptions people have about themselves and exercise that impede successful lifestyle change. Interestingly, the internal barriers to starting an exercise program differ from the internal barriers to

18

confidence in one’s ability to perform the exercise and to succeed with the intended outcome such as weight loss); intimidation and embarrassment; and anxiety about one’s physical appearance. An internal barrier for current exercisers includes being too fixed on the long-term outcome, such as losing a large amount of weight. Focusing on an outcome is useful for getting people to start an exercise programme. However, to maintain a steady course, people need to shift their focus to the actual process of exercising, and concentrate on setting small, achievable goals each week, rather than focusing on the overall goal.

External barriers to exercising include lack of time; lack of social support or spousal support; lack of energy; programmes that are too intense; lack of willpower/ motivation; lack of access to facilities or amenities such as parks, fitness facilities, and bike-paths.

Navigating both internal and external barriers is a constant challenge for all exercisers. For those new to exercise, it’s easier to give in to barriers when you don’t understand the potential gains and you haven’t developed any personal positive “experiences” from regular exercise.

But there is hope for new exercisers. Research indicates that those who are successful at “hanging in there” in the early weeks take time for personal reflection, goal-setting, planning, organisation and most important, support, in order to overcome or circumvent exercise barriers. As people then incorporate a range of strategies to h e l p t h em overcome any perceived barriers, they start to experience and process more positive “experiences” derived from regular exercise that then influence their motivation to continue.

“ Develop your own positive experience of exercise through your thoughts and beliefs.”

maintaining an exercise routine. For example, internal barriers for a new exerciser include low self-esteem and self-efficacy (lacking

wendy sweet

New Year is always a time of renewed vigour and resolve for many newcomers to begin exercising for health, fitness or weight management goals and they approach getting started with much enthusiasm. But as many teachers already know, the real challenge comes after the summer break, when work commitments kick in and “I don’t have time” becomes the regular catch-cry.

So, if this sounds like you, but you want 2009 to be the year you stick to your health, fitness or weight loss goals, then here are some great motivational tips for getting started and staying focused throughout the year: 1. Start your exercise programme at least four weeks before the new school year starts. New exercisers will hopefully be over the sore muscles that tend to present themselves when starting off, and hopefully by then you will also be into a more regular routine. If you wait until the new term starts to begin your exercise programme, then as you get busy, you will undoubtedly come up with a host of excuses.

2.Practice what you preach. Think about how many times you ask your students to set small, achievable and realistic goals, and then fail to put this into practice for your own fitness and health targets.

If you set fitness and nutrition goals for each week of the new term, then at the time when you are at your busiest, this should remind you to stick with it. Place exercise prompts on your desk and fridge, and pack your work-out bag the night before or set the alarm a little earlier for before-school workouts. Be realistic about what you can achieve from week-to-week, and remember that something is better than nothing.

3. When time is an actual barrier, move exercise up your value hierarchy and review your time management strategies. If you build up your fitness levels slowly over the summer break, and you get enough intensity into your workouts, then just go into maintenancemode for Term 1. You won’t lose much of your fitness or strength if you have trained regularly and hard enough over the summer break.

4. Change perceptions about yourself and exercise. For instance, if lack of confidence and embarrassment are the primary barriers, you need to find strategies that eliminate those feelings and perceptions. Try a few sessions with a registered personal trainer to help you to get over your lack of confidence. Go to www.reps.org.nz to find a reputable trainer in your area.

5. Start small. If you are a beginner, then stick with the healthy dose of 30 minutes of moderate physical activity either in one dose or by walking around the school grounds and accumulating your 30 minutes in ‘snac-tivity’ bites throughout the day.

6. T h e m o s t i m p o r t a n t t h i n g when commencing an exercise programme is to find a few activities you will enjoy doing on a regular basis. Check out your local health clubs for aerobic classes; your local aquatics centre for swim or aqua classes, or find a few walking routes that are safe and enjoyable. Whatever you choose to do, you need to firstly build up time (duration) and secondly, build up your intensity of effort, so that you are “huffing and puffing.” Working a little bit harder gives you the “health” protection and weight loss benefits.

7. Plan your term. Teachers are in a unique position in that they can plan their exercise commitments around the academic year. Just like athletes who plan in-season and off-season periodisation programmes, teachers can do this, too.

By going into “maintenance” mode during the busier terms and then using the school holidays to increase exercise commitments and work a little harder with your aerobic fitness, there will be good “carry-over” of your fitness as you inevitably back-off a little as work commitments increase.

8. Prioritise your values by creating a personal exercise mission statement and place this somewhere where you will read it daily. Unlike shortand long-term goals, a mission statement is a personal statement describing why and how you want to incorporate exercise into your life. To stay motivated, it’s helpful to stay connected with your true purpose for exercising.

If you are one of a number of people who consistently start out as a New-Year exerciser and then fail to continue, try the above strategies. They are known to work.

19

MArION MILLEr

Gripping issues in the classroom

D

o you have a child in your class who has an unusual grip on his pen or pencil? His grip is so tight that the whites of his knuckles show; he presses so hard that the indentation goes through three or four sheets of paper? He may even rotate his page by up to 90 degrees. Does the intense concentration he need to simply manipulate his tools hinder his creative process?

Teachers Matter

This could be the result of the lack of inhibition of the Asymmetrical Tonic Neck Reflex (ATNR), which is one of the primitive reflexes.

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Primitive reflexes help in the birthing process and in the survival of the first few months of life. They are automatic and hard-wired to our primitive brain. If they are not inhibited appropriately, the reflexes have first call on the sensory and motor nerve impulses throughout life. This may interfere with body movements and brain function later.

Primitive brains only allow immature reactions. The primitive reflexes lay the foundation blocks for learning.

Appropriately using these primitive reflexes normally inhibits and weakens them so that newly learned motor patterns can replace them.

The ATNR develops in utero. You can see the reflex in a newborn when a baby moves his head to one side. The arm and leg on the side that he turns his head toward automatically straighten. This assists in the movement down the birth canal and later helps with keeping airways free when the baby is lying on his stomach.

It is usually inhibited at about six months of age. However if it is not inhibited by the time the child starts walking, any movement of the head will still cause an

“ if they are not inhibited appropriately, the reflexes have first call on the sensory and motor nerve impulses throughout life. This may interfere with body movements and brain function later. �

MArION MILLEr

arm and leg to straighten and will affect the child’s balance. If he is carrying a container of something liquid, it will spill. As the child gets older and begins developing fine motor control (as with writing), every time he moves his head, his finger will still want to open, hence the very tight grip on the pencil to compensate for this. This is but one of a number of primitive reflexes that, if not inhibited, can have a long-lasting and detrimental effect on learning.

A number of these primitive reflexes, if not properly inhibited, can also cause visual difficulties. The ATNR, for instance, can affect the ability to track smoothly; the Moro reflex affects our ability to fixate, and the Symmetrical Tonic Reflex our binocular vision (the ability of the brain to combine the two images from each eye).

And this is just one aspect of learning. (More information about the greater effects of the Moro reflex was covered in an earlier article, “A tiger in the classroom,” in issue two of this magazine.)

As the primitive reflexes start to inhibit, postural reflexes are developing that are controlled by higher centres of the brain.

Again, if the postural reflexes do not develop fully, many of the behaviours required for learning become difficult.

When this occurs it results in a brain that does not learn efficiently or easily regardless of intellectual ability. Students can only master learning through continuous, conscious effort and the skills they learn never become easy and automatic.

Tummy time as an infant helps to develop postural reflexes. Other important physical actions for the baby are creeping or crawling.

These movement patterns, amongst other things, help the eyes cross the midline, as they focus from one hand to another. The hands act as moving stimuli.

It is really important that preschoolers are encouraged to explore and interact in a physically challenging way. Slides, swings, tumbling, climbing, and balancing play an important part in developing their postural reflexes.

An enriched home or school environment that provides physical activities that stimulate postural reflexes and therefore improves balance and enables coordination, along with the appropriate sensory stimulation through such activities as rhythm and music, will cater for most children’s needs.

“ as the child gets older and begins developing fine motor control (as with writing), every time he moves his head, his finger will still want to open, hence the very tight grip on the pencil to compensate for this.”

If the primitive reflexes are not inhibited, and the postural reflexes do not develop appropriately, an older child may need to go back and repattern these earlier processes in order to reach their potential. A number of movement-based programmes such as NLK Mental Fitness Exercises can play an important part in helping schools address some of these issues. The more profoundly affected children will, as always, need more intensive intervention work on an individual basis.

If the primitive reflexes are the foundation for learning, then the postural reflexes are the framework around which our further d ev elopmen t h in ges. T he s e no t o nl y affect learning, but can also contribute to peers alienating these children because they appear clumsy, uncoordinated and “different”, hard-wired by their immature central nervous system to behave/react in inappropriate ways.

21

JOhN ShACKLETON

Motivation is the key

A

s an inspirational speaker, my job is to get people to act on things they fail to follow through on. When I ask an audience about their goals, the reply I hear from approximately 70 percent of my audience is, “I want to get fit and lose some weight.”

Let’s take the weight-loss problem. Let me suggest to you that you don’t actually want to lose weight. What you really want to do is change shape! Now you might think that I’m being a bit pedantic, but when you really think about it, most people wouldn’t care what the scales showed, if only they could fit into that special pair of jeans or that special party dress.

When you really think about it, losing weight is the nasty negative task that you have to perform in order to get the positive pleasant goal that you really want. Now, which thought do most people focus their attention on when they are dieting:The negative task or the positive goal?

Teachers Matter

Simple as it may sound, switching the focus from losing weight to changing shape can really help, especially if we continually focus on the shape we wish to be rather than the shape we are right now. If we put a picture of the shape we wish to be on the fridge and start to dream about that goal as often as we can, we’ll begin to feel more positive about where we are headed.

22

However, that’s not the biggest effect we can have on any health programme that we embark on. Motivation is almost always the key to getting the results we want in any endeavour. Despite what the magazines tell you, weight loss isn’t rocket science, is it? I think we all really know what we need to do to lose weight. The problem is, we aren’t always motivated enough to do it.

Let me ask you some simple questions to see if you can work out what you need to do to lose weight: 1. There are only two things you can do to lose weight. You’ll have to do more of one thing and less of another. More of what and less of what?

2. Which diet is better for you: Chocolate, chips and alcohol? Or fruit, vegetables and water?

3. Which exercise programme is better for you: Driving to work every day and taking the escalator up the three stories to your office? Or walking to work and then using the stairs?

So, we’ve established that the problem isn’t knowledge, everyone knows what to do. The problem is staying focused and motivated for long enough to get the job done. We’ve

“ simple as it may sound, switching the focus from losing weight to changing shape can really help, especially if we continually focus on the shape we wish to be rather than the shape we are right now.”

all set New Year’s resolutions and kept to our word for about 48 hours, but then something happens to our will, the old habits take over and we give up. I would suggest that the real problem is that we didn’t put the motivation in place to keep us focused for the long term.

I’m not suggesting that you don’t have a desire to lose weight. Of course you do.

What I’m saying is your wish for weight loss

John Shackleton

isn’t strong enough motivation to keep you on the path you have to be on to acquire the new habits.

A number of years ago, a friend approached me about helping him to give up smoking.

He’d tried to give up on loads of occasions, but found it so easy to slip back into his old habits after a few days. This time he said he was 100 percent committed, but he was worried his mood would change during his struggle to give up.

We talked about how difficult it would be to maintain his motivation levels over the coming weeks due to the fact it was Christmas time and all his friends and colleagues would be smoking at the social gatherings. He decided he would quit on January 1, and we came up with a plan to keep his commitment levels high.

As the owner of a company employing 35 people, he had the job of making a speech at the Christmas party. So he stood up in front of his entire team, announced that he would be quitting and gave his employees a challenge. He said, “From January the 1st onward, if any of you ever see me with a cigarette in my mouth, I will give you £1,000 cash.”

He now had three options: Quit smoking forever; sell his business, leave the country and never come back, or go broke! He chose option one and has never smoked since.

Now that’s what I call commitment.

For total commitment to a health and fitness goal, try putting this 10-step process in place immediately: 1. Stop looking for the easy way to health and fitness. There isn’t one.

2. Get some medical advice about your health and fitness from a fit and healthy doctor.

3. Join a gym or a swimming/cycling/ running club, paying a year’s membership up front. Ask the assistant or coach to help set some short-term goals within the chosen sport.

4 . Wi t h t h e c o a c h ’s a d v i c e , e n t e r a competition that will take place in three

23

JOhN ShACKLETON

“ The problem is staying focused and motivated for long enough to get the job done.”

or four month’s time. Decide to do a 5km run, a short ocean swim, a 40km bike ride, anything that will force you to stretch yourself and train hard.

5. Tell all your friends the date of the competition and ask them to come along and support you when you compete.

If you feel that I’ve overstepped the mark with this approach, then you may not be as committed to losing weight as you originally thought. I’m sure you’ll agree with me that the question is not whether the above approach would work, the question is, do you have the commitment to work it?

6. Ask a dietary expert to help you with a four-month weight loss goal and design a diet to achieve it.

7. Tell everyone you know of your goals and your action plans.

8. Book a venue for a celebration event and send out invites to all your friends to help you celebrate the achievement of your goal.

9. Buy the clothes you’ll wear to that event and hang them up next to the fridge.

10. On the invite you send to all your friends, tell them you’ll pay for all their food and drink at the event if you don’t achieve your weight loss and fitness goal.

Teachers Matter

If you think 70 is too old to climb Everest, 83 is too old to complete an Ironman triathlon or you think getting fat is what happens to us as we get older, then it’s time to throw those beliefs away and read LIFE IS FOR LIVING

by John Shackleton.

24

You’ll discover:  How to set achievable health and fitness goals whatever your age.  Why you get fat at the supermarket.  How to prioritise your own health needs to fit around your family and work commitments.

John Shackleton is an author and speaker with a Sports Psychology background who teaches audiences how to use their brain more effectively to achieve whatever they want. He practices what he preaches too, achieving personal best times in his own sport, swimming, at the age of 50.

Available from www.spectrumeducation.com

$25

Thought Starters Use them for class discussions, story starters, pair discussions… however you wish!

Which character traits of your brother or sister would you most like to have?

Which instrument would you like to learn to play?

Which other culture would you choose to be born into?

What do you most worry about?

Which activities are you most likely to persist at?

In what language would you like to be fluent?

What is a good loser and are you one?

What makes you say “wow!”?

If you could be a colour which would you choose?

What makes you the most excited?

If you could relive last week again what one thing might you change?

Would you rather travel by plane or boat?

Which bird would you love to be for a day?

Are you are team player or do you prefer working alone?

What skill would you like to master?

25

kevin mayall

Teens are Wild and Adults are BORING!

I

found myself in front of a small group of 16- and 18-year-olds recently. They had all been in some trouble and were despondent about adults and life in general.

They weren’t battling with the law, but they saw their parents or teachers as boring, miserable, and standing in their way of having fun, and it was affecting their feelings about growing up. After all, was being boring and miserable all they had to look forward to?

Their thoughts didn’t sit well with me.

While it would have been easy to ask them what they had done and “sort their life out,” I knew they didn’t want to be lectured anymore, so instead I asked them about their thoughts on life. These kids knew they had some good things in them, they just didn’t know how anything good was going to happen. The gulf between where they were and where they wanted to be appeared to be too great.

Teachers Matter

I went out and asked some “adults” what life was like when they were 16 to 18. It was funny to see a common theme in the responses: Not one of these 30- and 40-yearolds suggested they had been angels; in fact most said that they were absolute rebels.

Nearly all of them said, “If my parents knew what I got up to…”

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Even though they all avoided criminal behaviour and knew what was right and wrong, they still went out and did things their parents had no idea about, and that they would be mortified even now to have to confess.

Many of the professionals, business leaders and award-winners in our communities have been through university, and if you ask any former student, they will all tell much the same stories about their wild partying through those days. Even Bill Clinton said of his time at university, “I didn’t inhale.”

Yet I’m sure we can all agree there’s likely to

KEvIN MAYALL

be a “real” story, and Bill has been known to stretch things to suit in other circumstances.

And yet Bill Clinton continues to be one of the most highly respected international leaders and influencers of our time.

So it seems that we as a generation of “adults” have forgotten what it was like when we were teens. If that’s the case, then why are we so quick to come down on our new teen generation?

Maybe our kids have a point. Have we as a generation of adults become boring? Are we so consumed by our problems we have forgotten to have fun in life? Is there just too much political correctness now that makes many of us shudder at the thought of admitting we have all failed, because failure is not even taught as a sporting lesson in school anymore?

If that’s the case, then maybe we should attend classes where the teens are teaching us how to have fun.

“ They weren’t battling with the law, but they saw their parents or teachers as boring and miserable and standing in their way of having fun, and it was affecting their feelings about growing up.”

If life is boring and full of problems, then is it any wonder that our “I’ll do it later” generation doesn’t want to listen to what we have to tell them? If your boss was boring, would you listen?

We were all taught to “lead by example”, but are we leading?

My conversation with this group of challenged young people concluded with a discussion about what they would like “their” adults to understand about them.

They just want to get ahead, but they are still figuring out how and they need to do this themselves, so don’t lecture them.

The majority of teens actually really love their parents, it’s just that sometimes they don’t like them very much.

They want their parents just to back off and trust them to be OK. They want to see adults enjoy their lives.

It seems these kids were pretty smart after all.

So maybe part of the teens versus adults problem really is that it’s time for adults to remember how to have some fun. Wouldn’t it be great then to have our teens follow us and we can walk along side them helping them create their own exciting world and at the same time we can learn to combine work, life and fun together?

Now that would be a fun ride!

It was fairly simple.

Thinking Puzzles Posters for your classroom Designed to stretch the brain and get students thinking!

31 colourful posters with 4 thinking puzzles on each A4 page.

That’s 124 puzzles all on one CD. You can print these posters over and over again…

$39.95 (including the answers!)

Available from www.spectrumeducation.com

27

ADrIAN rENNIE

Measuring Success

A

success-o-meter is another name for a rubric. Teachers have been using rubrics for many years to set criteria for students and as a way of quantifying the conditions for success. The unfortunate thing is that many teachers create a rubric for a task or assignment against which they can measure student success and then fail to share it with students! How can they possibly achieve success unless they are at least aware of what a successful effort will look like? A success-o-meter truly becomes powerful when students are involved in creating the success criteria.

A success-o-meter goes further than an ordinary rubric. It specifies different levels of success and allows students to set themselves a goal or level of success to aim for.

It sits on a white board ledge and criteria can either be recorded on the whiteboard at the appropriate level or recorded on pieces of paper and blue tacked to the board at the right level. It also becomes an even more

powerful tool for successful thinking when students are set the task of identifying the criteria for success.

When reviewing what they have achieved, either during the assignment or at completion, students have detailed criteria against which to measure their work.

They then feel empowered to accurately self-assess their work. They can also ask themselves what they still need to do to be even more successful.

The names of the different levels of success and the form the success-o-meter takes can be up to personal choice and creativity.

Imagine a deep sea success-o-meter or a volcano shaped one! It’s quite important to include “success” in the wording.

There are obvious links to the Habits of Mind. A success-o-meter encourages students to think successfully on a number of different levels.

Habits Of Mind Links taking responsible risks: It becomes clear what students have, and still need to, master when displayed on the meter.

Managing impulsivity: Students stop and think clearly about what they need to do to achieve well.

Teachers Matter

Persisting: Students are encouraged to keep going until they’ve achieved well instead of being satisfied with something that’s half done.

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thinking Flexibly: They can see the big picture and come at problems from different angles. accuracy and Precision: Expected levels of accuracy can be built into meter criteria.

Questioning and Posing Problems: Students ask themselves, “what am I going to do to get to the top of the success-o-meter?”

ADrIAN rENNIE

A success-o-meter can become even more detailed and meaningful for students by dividing the criteria into two areas: physical signs of success and the kind of thinking required to achieve that success. These examples will help you:

Task Design and build a model car from cardboard that is powered by a rubber band.

Materials Cardboard, tape, wire for the axel, tape or hot glue.

Success-o-meter success level

Physical criteria

thinking required

On Fire Success

Car is well made. It is strong and accurate in construction.

It has free spinning wheels and a successful power system because it will travel at least 3-4 meters.

You’ll be able to visualise the finished car before starting. You keep talking inside your head and asking questions of yourself. You will check the accuracy of each finished part of the car. Don’t give up when it is hard. You’ll think of different ways to solve challenges and then choose the best one.

Burning Hot Success

Car is made pretty well and does actually move under rubber band power. It has wheels that do spin well.

You’ll be able to visualise the finished car before starting. There will be some talking inside your head and asking questions of yourself. Your accuracy and precision could be better. You probably chose the most obvious way to solve problems without considering many.

Heating Up Success

Car is made but will not move. Either the wheels don’t spin or the rubber band power system does not quite work.

You will persist even when it is hard. You may go too fast and want to finish quickly instead of staying calm.

Cooling Off Success

Tried hard to finish but noth- Too impulsive, not persising completed. tent enough. You need to check your accuracy more often. You need to gain an understanding of the big picture and be able to see the finished project inside your head and the steps needed to get there.

29

STUArT fLEMMING

Will Your Children be Rich or Poor?

A

friend of mine has one son at primary school. Recently his class had a “careers day”, with several parents visiting to share how they earn a living.

So what does all this mean for their bank balance?

At dinner that night the boy took great delight in telling his mother what he had learnt about the role of a doctor, a fireman, a lawyer, an accountant, a sales rep and a computer technician.

It means that financial literacy from a young age is just as important as the skills of reading, writing, using technology and solving problems.

His mum smiled and agreed that there were lots of jobs to choose from, but inside she was puzzled: not one of the adults who spoke to the class were self-employed.

When she mentioned that detail to his teacher the next morning, the response was one of pure surprise. “Goodness, you’re right!” exclaimed the teacher. “I never even thought about self-employment as an option!”

Given we live in a world where change envelops us – think credit crunch, rise of terrorism and climate shifts – I meet plenty of parents (and teachers!) who readily admit their money management skills aren’t able to cope with the external pressures they face.

Petrol goes up in price. Ouch! Dairy products are more expensive. Ouch! Mortgage rates rise. Ouch!

One of the scariest questions I can ask a parent is “Do you want your children to

Teachers Matter

“ Financial literacy from a young age is just as important as the skills of reading, writing, using technology and solving problems.”

30

Are you exposing your class to financially imaginative options, or are your students fi r m ly entr enc hed i n t he t r ad i t i o nal thinking of “go to school, get a job, save some pay, buy stuff, retire”?

Half of all students who enroll at university don’t finish their degree. The concept of “job for life” is historic. Today’s student is very likely to work in a role not even created yet!

have the same level of financial confidence and ability as you?” Their eyes widen in horror as the realisation hits them: they are the fiscal role-model for their kids.

This is often a vicious cycle, because we may have not learnt sound wealth-creation strategies from our own parents. In many cases, “cash” is a four-letter-word. Being “rich” is somehow taboo.

Having skills in creating, spending, saving, donating and investing money are vital in the overall self-confidence of children. Rather than being dependant on

stuart flemming

their parents, or their employers, or the government, financially savvy young adults have greater choice and are more resilient to the uncertainties of a changing world.

Here’s five ways to develop money-mastery in your children: 1. Never, ever, ever, ever, EVER laugh at any money-making idea your child comes up with. Ask them questions instead.

2. Play What-If? A simple game of questions: “What if you weren’t able to go to university – what would you do?” or “What if people paid you for your top skills – which talent would you choose to hone?” or “What if you didn’t need more money – how would you spend your time?”… let them turn the questions back at you too!

3. Hunt out and share stories of financially successful people. Stephen Tindall, Sam Morgan, Richard Branson, Peri Drysdale: what do they have in common?

What attributes do wealthy people never have?

4. Develop a system to teach the value of a dollar. I use the Four-Part Money Mastery system, which divides income (whether it’s pocket money, birthday cash from Grandma or wages) into Spending, Saving, Donating and Wealth.

5. Give your children opportunities to take on financial responsibility. If your class is planning a field-trip, can they manage collecting the bus money? Is your teenager capable of budgeting their entire weekly spending? (They’ll have to do it when they leave home, so now’s the time to teach them how!)

I bet your kids have plenty of off-the-wall, never-seen-the-light-of-day-because-they’reso-wacky, risky-but-fun ideas for making a dollar or two. Encourage them to develop their financial imagination!

31

Patricia Buoncristiani

A Peace Agreement in the Reading War

J

Teachers Matter

ohn Holt, in his book How Children Learn, describes the devastating effect we would have on children’s learning if we attempted to teach them to speak in the same way we frequently see reading taught.

32

The reading debate has been characterised for decades by the extremes of the pendulum swing, with phonics and phonemic awareness instruction at one end versus whole language instruction at the other. We viewed the debate as a war between competing ideologies, but it doesn’t have to be that way. I used whole language in my classroom and embedded within it structured phonemic awareness and phonics instruction. I didn’t leave alone the children’s approximations to conventional letter formations and spelling to “get better” by themselves. My students were surrounded by a rich language environment, constantly talking, writing, reading and being read to. They saw me write and heard me talk out loud about how I was writing and why I was making the choices I was making about words and individual letters. I knew it was my task to help them organise their

learning by constructing well-organised experiences in the classroom.

then read and perhaps illustrate them. The illustrations were just enough to act as cues to meaning.

So, how did a reading lesson work? My literacy program was based on four fundamental beliefs:

Then the children would write. My classrooms usually comprised two grade levels and so the students’ expertise varied considerably. Some younger children were at the equivalent to the gurgling stage of spoken language, with lines of scribble and maybe the occasional recognisable letter; others wrote sentences that I readily understood. I acknowledged the lines of scribble as written language, in the same way that a parent recognises that the baby’s gurgling is a form of language. As the children were writing and illustrating, I would ask them to read their sentences, and I would then transcribe underneath their writing. At the end of the lesson, I would have the children read what they had written, demonstrating that they were all writers and readers.

1. If you can experience it, you can think about it 2. If you can think about it, you can talk about it 3. If you can talk about it, you can write it 4. If you can write it, you can read it Most lessons began with a shared experience that we then talked about, maybe read about and most certainly thought about, often by giving the children opportunities to respond orally to carefully formulated questions. Using the chalkboard, I would write the words that the children used as they talked about the experience, and

pATrICIA bUONCrISTIANI

But it didn’t stop there. I would collect the sentences, type them up into sentence strips and print two or three copies. The next day I would distribute each child’s sentence, and the children would match them up with the work they had done the day before. We honoured the importance of this work by pasting it into a large scrapbook. (Later in the year, the scrapbook would provide the most powerful demonstration of the child’s learning during parent-teacher interviews.)

The phonics instruction then began in a more focused manner.

Spoken language is not divided into distinct words. Our words run into one another, and it is a major task for children to recognise the integrity of individual words. So the first task would be for children to cut their sentence strips into individual words.

They would shuffle them on the desks and them reassemble them, first looking at the pasted version and then without.

Once they could do this, they would paste down the individual words in the correct sequence. Sometimes we would see if we could rearrange the words to create a different sentence, either leaving out or adding more words. I had a store of small pieces of paper so I could add a word, if requested, to a more adventurous child’s set. Older or more advanced students would do a similar activity with letters. I printed larger sentence strips for them so they could easily cut the individual letters in a selected word and then shuffle and reassemble the word.

As the children manipulated the language, they had encoded, and as they learned how to decode their own words and sentences, I would focus on specific letters, digraphs and spelling patterns. If, for example, we learned about plant growth and had planted bulbs, the frequent use of the word

“bulb” might be a perfect opportunity to look for other words that used the letter “b.”

I had a list of the spelling patterns I wanted to cover, and I tracked what we did to make sure that happened. But it always grew out of the language the children generated.

I collected lists of commonly generated words around themes – either topic-based or language-based – and displayed them on posters around the room. Similarly, as the students discovered language or spelling patterns, I displayed them prominently.

Each morning we would have a “wall walk” as a warm up to the day’s literacy lesson.

Children would choose posters, and we would read them together. These posters were also constant reference for children as they wrote.

Each week I gave the children a significant amount of time to write and illustrate their own books. Following a similar pattern, the children would create books by pasting their corrected sentences onto coloured cover paper, pasting in illustrations, designing face pages and covers, and then I would staple the whole thing together. It might take a month for a child to complete a book, but at the end, there was a finished work that they placed with great ceremony into the classroom library. My children knew that if they had finished some other task I expected them to read a book, and these child-made books were some of the most popular ones.

The books my students created were about all the things we were learning in the classroom, because that’s what books do: They contain information about the things in the world, and we are all real writers and readers, creating and reading real books. When we learned about the growth of plants, the role of the postman or the fact that multiplication is a form of extended addition, we wrote books about it.

Children used their literacy skills to make their understanding explicit and to read and review the things they were learning each day. They wrote books about spelling patterns and about adjectives, and they also wrote from their imaginations about dinosaurs, fantasy lands and visions of the future. These eager young learners developed phonemic awareness and learned the way phonics

“The reading debate has been characterised for decades by the extremes of the pendulum swing, with phonics and phonemic awareness instruction at one end versus whole language instruction at the other. ”

33

pATrICIA bUONCrISTIANI

worked through their own use of language.

They created the language and they explored it, uncovering the regularities and rules as I nudged and directed their endeavours, clearly understanding ahead of time what it was they needed to learn.

Teachers Matter

It was never a war between phonics and whole language: It was always the carefully structured and guided discovery of phonics through the use of whole language.

34

“ My students left my classroom able to read and write, but more important, they left wanting to read and write.”

My principal once said to me, “Every time I come into your room, your kids are hearing a story or reading or writing. And they talk a lot. Don’t they do anything else?” I replied, “Yes, they do mathematics, too.”

He smiled and walked away. He gave me the freedom to do it my way, because he knew how my children coped when they reached grade three after two years in my classroom. Every lesson in my classroom was a language lesson. Social studies, science and mathematics learning are all

mediated through language – by thinking, talking, writing and reading.

My students left my classroom able to read and write, but more important, they left wanting to read and write. What is the point of being able to do something if you don’t want to do it!

Dr MArvIN MArShALL

See It and Learn It

Visualisation activities make brain-compatible learning easy, fun, and engaging

B

rain-compatible learning infers that learning will take place in a manner that is “natural.” Unfortunately, however, many teachers expect students to learn in an “unnatural” way.

Let me explain by asking you to visualise the last time you dreamed. Not that you remember your dream, but did you dream in letters, in words, in sentences, in paragraphs? Or did you dream in pictures?

We often forget that the act of reading is a relatively recent development for humans.

Until recent years, very few people read.

Reading is not a “natural” brain activity, as is visualisation.

Think about it: How was history passed from generation to generation? The answer is in stories, stories someone told as people visualised them.

Here is an example from when I taught students about the 13 colonies that became the original United States of America. To make the learning easy, I classified the new states into divisions: New England, Mid-Atlantic, and Southern. We made maps, and the students memorised the states. I reinforced the learning with repeated drills. Still some of my students were not successful in learning, so I turned to visualisation.

Try this exercise: Say the ANSWER to each question OUT LOUD Visualise a cow. The cow’s name is Georgia.

What’s the cow’s name?

It’s a Jersey cow.

What kind of a cow?

The cow is sitting on the Empire State Building.

What is it sitting on?

And it’s singing a couple of Christmas carols.

What is it singing?

Under its chin is a ham.

What’s under its chin?

It’s a Virginia ham.

What kind of ham?

The cow is wearing yellow underwear.

What’s the cow wearing?

In its hoof is a pencil.

What’s in its hoof?

And the cow is making a connect-the-dots drawing.

What kind of a drawing?

Of Marilyn Monroe.

Of whom?

Walking down a road.

Down a what?

Going to mass.

Going where?

35

Dr MArvIN MArShALL

What was the cow’s name? ______ What kind of a cow was it? ______ Sitting on top of the ______ Singing a couple of ______ Under its chin is a ______ What kind of a ham?

The cow is wearing ______ In its hoof was a ______ It was making what kind of a drawing?

Of? ______ Walking down a ______.

Going to ______.

Congratulations!

You just named all original 13 states Georgia, New Jersey, New York (the Empire State), the Carolinas (North and South Carolina), Virginia, New Hampshire (ham), Delaware (underwear), Pennsylvania (Pencilvania), Connecticut (connect the dots), Maryland (Marilyn), Rhode Island (road), Massachusetts (Mass).

Teachers Matter

My students had no difficulty remembering them after this exercise because their brains easily visualised and connected each picture.

36

Yo u c a n u s e t h e s a m e a p p r o a c h f o r remembering the state’s capital cities.

Memorisation experts suggest that the more outlandish the image, the easier it is for your brain to remember. The students are even more engaged in the process if they create their own images.

here are two examples: 1. The capital city of Connecticut is Hartford. See a Valentine-type heart driving a Ford car connecting cutouts of itself (heart-Fordcutouts).

“explain to your students the reason for their improvement: The brain remembers experiences and images better than words.”

2. The capital of New Hampshire is Concord. Visualise a rolled up ham piloting the thin and sleek Concord airplane.

Conjuring up vivid images (right brain) while reading a book (left brain) encourages hemispheric integration and leads to improved memory and more efficient learning. If you think of engaging both sides of the brain, no matter what you are teaching, the learner builds up more hooks and cues to ensure long-term memory. The brain can keep on making connections and, therefore, grow throughout life. Learning builds learning because, as we continue to learn, the brain’s neural networks augment, creating ever-abundant connections.

We can even improve reading comprehension by encouraging students to make mental pictures as they read and use their own experiences. For example, students can mentally imagine the entrance to their residence, the first room they enter, then the kitchen, and then other rooms. This imaging encourages focusing and generates additional richness of detail. A person can mentally stop in any room and visualise the furniture and decor. Using this technique, students can visualise or “peg” information to any location.

Here is a simple experiment you can do with your students. Find two similar reading selections. Have students read the first selection and then ask questions about the reading. Then take your students through a visualising exercise. Use their bedroom as

an example. Say, “As you read something that is important or that you wish to r e m e m b e r, m a k e an image of it or describe it in two or three words and then place it on the bed. Place the next item in a different location and continue the procedure until the end of the reading selection.” Have the students answer similar questions as they did before the imaging exercise. Explain to your students the reason for their improvement: The brain remembers experiences and images better than words.

Visualisation can help people in training, which is one reason that professional athletes use the technique. The process transforms complex motor procedures into automatic movements. The reason is that imagining the movements activates the same motor regions of the cerebral cortex that light up during the actual movement.

Repeatedly visualising the movements strengthens or adds synaptic connections among relevant neurons. An alternative is to visualise the result — rather than the motions — such as a golf ball dropping into the cup. Golfer Tiger Woods reports that it is easier for him to sink putts when he imagines the rattle of the ball in the cup.

Dr MArvIN MArShALL

In learning information, you can create any image to enhance recall. For example, to learn Stephen Covey’s seven habits of highly effective people in proper order, I conjured up the following image.

is to convey information in story form.

When we use this approach, we help create meaning and improve retention for the listener. People retain stories longer than facts because they create visual images.

Habit

Mental placement on my body

1.Be Proactive

head

2. Begin with the End in Mind

shoulders

3. Put First Things First

chest

4. Think Win/Win

belly

5. First Seek to Understand,Then to be hips Understood 6. Synergise

back

7. Sharpen the Saw

thighs

By creating this visualisation, I have immediate recall. In addition, it took me less time to create the image than if I had attempted to memorise the list through repetition. And reinforcement takes but a matter of moments.

“SAVER” is a simple acronym to remember when using imagery. “S” refers to seeing the image in the mind’s eye. “A” refers to associating the image to some action.

“V” refers to vivid. The more colourful and clearly defined the image, the easier recall will be. “E” refers to exaggerate. The more extraordinary, the better! “R” refers to reviewing the image periodically. Reviewing assists long-term retention.

Encourage visualisation regularly. It is a simple technique to improve reading comprehension, vocabulary development, and other areas. Most important, because imaging increases comprehension and recall — two of the most tested skills in schooling — it gives students considerable confidence and faith in themselves.

Take every opportunity to simplify the written word so that you can create information as a picture or experience. One way to do this

Images touch emotions because they arouse sensations, which people remember longer than facts.

When someone asked a history teacher the secret of making the subject so interesting and students so enthused, the teacher responded, “I can tell you in two words: Tell stories.” An old storyteller’s tale makes the point: truth walked around naked, and everyone shunned him. story walked around in coloured clothes, and everyone liked him. truth inquired of story, “What is it that you do that people like you?” story lent truth some colourful garb and interesting clothing.

“When someone asked a history teacher the secret of making the subject so interesting and students so enthused, the teacher responded, i can tell you in two words: Tell stories.”

Everyone began liking truth.

More on this topic is available at http://www.

MarvinMarshall.com. This article first appeared in the June 2008 issue of teachers.net/Gazette at http://teachers.net/gazette/JUN08/marshall/

37

Thinking Challenge Undiscovered Creature | There are millions of different creatures around our world with all sorts of different characteristics. Combine two things from list A with two things from list B and two things from list C to create a new species.

A

Able to climb trees

B

Able to jump a long way

C Gills (breathing under water)

Powerful hearing

Huge muscles

Scaly skin

Trunk

Thick fur

Long sticky tongue

Spines (like a hedgehog)

Able to dig holes

Four legs

Two legs

Powerful eyesight

Able to spin a web

Wings

Flippers (like a dolphin)

Powerful sense of smell

Feathers

Six legs

Horns

Sharp teeth

Long tail

Sharp claws

Creature Design | Draw your new creature and add notes on what it eats and its habits.

Extra for Experts: Thinking Challenge | A habitat is where a creature lives. Describe the habitat in which your creature would live. How do your creature’s special body parts help it to live successfully?

Teachers Matter

HABITS OF MIND ADVICE

38

Creating, Imagining And Innovating: Get a picture in your head of your animal before you start.

Managing Impulsivity: Hold it! Don’t just draw straight on to the page. Get some scrap paper and do some practise sketches first.

For more activites like this see Powerful Thinking by Adrian Rennie

Thinking And Communicating With Clarity And Precision: Make sure your sentences explain your drawing really clearly.

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GLENN CApELLI

If We Allow It, We Teach It

M

y mum is a whirlwind. One minute on the phone with her, and your head is spinning. Two minutes, and you need to go and lay down.

Three and you need a week’s holiday in a spa resort somewhere nice and quiet. Yes, Mum is Cyclone Joan, except she spreads a lot of joy with her havoc. My mum is 78 yet she still has a spring in her step and a pow in her wow. Other 78-year-olds haven’t been so lucky.

Teachers Matter

There seems to be more and more home invasions and attacks happening in my community and it is so wrong. The commonly targeted victims are the most vulnerable, older people usually living alone. Recently a gang of five invaded a home, stole goods and money, brutally bashed the man who owned the home and left him to die. Two of the invaders were only 12. All over the country many elderly folk are double-checking and double locking every deadlock on their windows and doors before retiring to bed each night. Surely our homes should be places of sanctuary where we can feel safe and free from the worry of an attack, theft or physical danger. The respect for others and their property is a fundamental principle of character that appears to be fading in today’s world.

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And I might be starting to sound like my dad, Jack, but like him, I believe if you want money or special things then you have to work and save to buy them.

If you don’t have a job, get one. At the time of writing this, there are Staff Wanted posters all around Western Australia, and there is more than decent money to be made if you want to work for it. To my mind, burglary is not a job, a calling or a career – it is a weakness, a weakness of character.

“ The respect for others and their property is a fundamental principle of character that appears to be fading in today’s world.”

I learned many good lessons from my dad and mum: • Work hard • Share • Care • Laugh often • Enjoy the ups and the downs

GLENN CApELLI

• Learn from the ups and the downs • There will always be some ups and downs

“ if we live lives where we consider and care, then we’ll teach that.”

• Never support Collingwood or any other black and white sides I’m not so much into black and white thinking anyway. I prefer to think in colours, pastels, shades, continuums and complexities. I realise criminals have their own stories, and I don’t just want them arrested for their victims’ sake but for their own sake as well. And once arrested, I want them to learn some empathy, compassion and character because I believe if you have an understanding of these big three, you can learn how to love well, live well and enjoy the fruits of such qualities. I want a community that honours the elderly and the young. I want a community that cares. I want a community that turns hard knocks into community choirs and understands that each person has a right to prosper through finding their own character and voice. Hallelujah.

When I was a young man, fresh out of university, I was very fortunate to be invited to teach at a groundbreaking new public school in Perth called Wanneroo Senior High School. Mr Glynn Watkins was the principal, Betty Cockman and Tony Simpson were the deputies, and they were a magical and holy trinity for me. Each of them taught me something about being a better teacher, a better learner and a better person. Their messages still live within me now.

Glynn was one of the wisest, strongest and most compassionate of minds and hearts.

It was an honour to share time with him.

One of the many things he taught me was a simple philosophy that resonated then and continues to ripple outward today. He said, “If you allow it, you teach it.” Glynn passed on in October 2008, yet continues to be my mentor.

He wanted people to be: • Better learners • Better thinkers • Lovers of language • Lovers of Shakespeare • Lovers of maths and physics and woodwork But even more, he wanted students to learn to be better people, to discover their talents and to use their talents well. Anyone who’s been a teacher for any length of time knows that some students don’t believe in their talents and some talents get damaged through the unholy trinity of abuse, pain and drugs. We lose some very talented young people to what the poet Neil Young called “the needle and the damage done.”

I want a community that understands all this and takes action to prevent it.

Remember, if we allow it, we teach it.

Bob Dylan told us “the times they are a-changing,” and he was right. Maybe the times need to be a-changing and rearranging once more. Maybe the times need to be learning and re-learning for us to be earning some respect by being more respectful. Burt Bacharach and Hal David said, “What the world needs now is love, sweet love, that’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.” The Beatles told us, “All we need is love.” John Lennon died from a stupid bullet, but I think he would still want us to “imagine all the people sharing all the world.” You may say I’m a dreamer, but I know I am not the only one. Dreamers of the world unite and take loving action. If we allow violence, burglary, disrespect and living without good character, we teach it.

If we choose to live our lives as working examples of positive qualities, striving for more humanity in our being, sure we will muck up at times, but by feeling remorse we can learn to muck up less. If we live lives where we consider and care, then we’ll teach that.

I hope we can help create a community where my mum and dad and all grandparents, parents and children get to sleep a bit sounder at night.

May we do the Graham Nash thing and “teach our children well.”

When I was a lad I’d roll my eyes whenever my dad started a sentence with “When I was a lad,” but now I understand where he was coming from. When I was a lad I earned my pocket money running the early-morning milk round. Every morning at six we’d go door-to-door in our neighbourhood with the horse and cart, delivering fresh milk and picking up the empty milk bottles and the money left out overnight. Imagine leaving your milk money out now days. I don’t think it would last very long.

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trevor bond

The question is: Are you open to answering your students?

“W

hen I ask questions, my teacher gets angry.”

How sad would it be to hear this comment from just one child? What a tragedy to hear it, as I did recently, by approximately 90 students from more than 20 schools at a children’s conference. Other student comments expressed that afternoon included:

Teachers Matter

“When I don’t understand I keep quiet.”

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“Usually when I put my hand up it is to answer a question, not ask one.”

I find these comments disturbing because education is about learning and therefore schools should foster learning. Curiosity is a driving attitude of learning so school should nurture curiosity. Questioning is a foundational and central skill for learning, and school should not only encourage learners to be questioners, but should facilitate students’ questioning ability.

Hearing students say, “When I ask questions, my teacher gets angry” indicates that we have a problem of epic proportions in our classrooms, and it indicates three major disconnects happening in our schools. Firstly, it indicates that there is a monumental gap in some classrooms between the process of learning and the practice of teaching.

Secondly, it indicates that there is a major disconnect between learner and teacher.

Thirdly, it indicates a disconnect between the management and leadership aspects of a principal’s role.

Let’s explore these disconnects further:

The disconnect between learning and teaching We t a l k m u c h i n e d u c a t i o n t h e s e days about “life-long learning” and “independent learners.” In fact these two concepts have become a central goal of much of our curriculum documentation.

The statement “When I ask questions, my teacher gets angry” reflects a disconnect between learning and teaching in relation to each of these two concepts.

Life-long learning As a life-long learner, I see that learning is all about change. Learning is when my world view is enlarged or enriched. Learning is when my knowledge and understanding is deepened. Learning is when I have a

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new insight into something. Learning is when one of my beliefs, values, attitudes, behaviours or skills is in some way altered.

Learning is when my curiosity is satisfied, and when my desire to understand has been fulfilled. Learning ultimately is when my questions are answered in some way that enables me to retain, apply, understand and transfer that learning. A learner’s ability to ask relevant and effective questions is one of his prime skills, for learning is driven by questions. Learners ask questions for a variety of purposes. Questions are asked to clarify vocabulary. Questions are asked to acquire information. Questions are asked to clarify concepts and deepen understanding.

All these questions emerge from a cognitive activity that we call thinking. Thinking itself is generally a process of asking and answering questions. When we are faced with a decision, for instance, we will internally ask and answer questions like: What are my options?

If I take this option, what are the possible consequences?

of questioning, then we have a disconnect between learning and teaching.

Independent Learner I also qualify myself as an independent learner. This does not mean that my learning happens in a void uninhabited by other people. Far from it! My world of learning is inhabited by many significant others. My independence comes because I learn with and through these significant others. They are the people who allow me to bounce my ideas and thoughts off them. They are those who challenge my thinking and ask me probing questions. They are the ones who encourage me when I am ready to quit.

They are the ones who foster and fuel my curiosity and ignite my spark of scepticism.

They are the people who encourage me to think deeper and wider. They are the ones who help me find answers to my questions.

These significant others are the ones who unconsciously and unknowingly fill the role of teacher in my world.

What would be the best choice?

Jamie McKenzie expresses this centrality of questioning to thinking clearly with the statement that “Thinking without questioning is like dri n k i n g w i t h o u t swallowing.” It is when we find gaps in our knowledge or understanding, gaps in our vocabulary, weaknesses in our knowledge, or a need for further information, that we pose questions to take to external sources.

This indicates that questioning plays a dual role as we learn. It plays a key central role in thinking, and it also plays a vital role in obtaining further information that we can add to the thinking process. Neil Postman encapsulates this well with his statement that “questioning is our prime intellectual tool.” If classroom interactions do not encourage and facilitate the skill

“ if classroom interactions do not encourage and facilitate the skill of questioning, then we have a disconnect between learning and teaching.”

It is on this basis that I see the student statement “When I ask questions my teacher gets angry” as being an indicator of a disconnect between learning and teaching. I think we have teachers in our classrooms who have become so focused on curriculum delivery, assessment, and meeting school-based requirements that they are stressed, tired and pressured to the extent that fundamental aspects of learning are being lost. The act of teaching should never impact negatively on learning, yet the statements expressed by the students I met indicate that there are classrooms, maybe more than we think, where the act of teaching is not meshing with the very nature of learning. Teachers are the significant others in student’s daily learning, and interactions with teachers should foster learning rather squash it. If we are developing independent learners, we need teachers who are effectively fulfilling the role of significant others in learners’ life.

The disconnect between curriculum and learning The classroom is an environment where teacher, learner and curriculum come together. Most teachers I meet share that they are teachers because they love children, love learning and love those wondrous “aha moments” when a child gains understanding, insight or a new skill. Teachers do not choose this occupation because they want to place ticks against vast lists of curriculum content they have covered.

Curriculum is about providing teachers with a framework within which they have flexibility to creatively craft engaging learning experiences that support their students in gaining skills and understanding. Curriculum should provide teachers highly relevant contexts within which they can interact positively with

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learners. Curriculum is construed to provide contexts for learning that fit with the pupils’ needs. Curriculum was never intended to be a cudgel held threateningly over teachers’ heads, forcing them into rushed lessons where vast quantities of ideas, concepts and information are delivered and covered.

A genuine student question is an indicator of engagement; it is the flag waved by an inquiring mind; it is the smoke signal of the fire of curiosity and, as such, a student question should delight a teacher, and as such should initiate a powerful interaction that results in learning. Yet we see teachers reacting with anger and frustration when student questions inhibit time frames, distract from the immediate goal or disrupt a planned lesson. This speaks of a disconnect between curriculum and learning, where the coverage and delivery of curriculum content has a higher value than student minds engaged in learning. If teachers’ days are pressured by the demands of curriculum, the school has a moral responsibility to reexamine their curriculum, re-establish their learning goals and clarify the teachers’ role.

Curriculum should be supportive of these aspects, not competitive with them.

Teachers Matter

The disconnect between managing a school and leading learning

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If there is any legitimacy in the disconnects outlined above, then ultimate responsibility for this lies in the school principal’s hands.

We have principals who have their hands so full with the issues of managing a school, with all the pressures entailed, that it has become very easy for them to lose sight of the more nebulous aspects of leading learning. Leadership and management are two integrated aspects of the complicated role of principalship. To fulfil their role well, every principal needs to operate effectively across both aspects. Management includes

the day-to-day running of the school. Its focus is on the details. When the details are managed, then the organisation functions effectively. Management, simply put, is about keeping the organisation functioning and moving. Leadership is focussed on direction and relationships. Leadership, simply put, is about keeping the organisation moving somewhere. An effective leader will focus on the core purpose of that organisation and will ensure that the organisation is continuously striving to achieve its core purpose. A school’s core purpose is unarguably learning. This would mean that an effective school leader would continually focus on achieving strong positive learning outcomes.

When we see teacher/learner interactions that dull a learner’s curiosity, minimise learner questioning and disengage students from learning, ultimate responsibility must rest with the principal. When we see these things happening, they indicate leadership that is mired in the busyness of management and has lost contact with the base concepts of learning and their application in daily classroom life. If teacher responses to learner questions are dousing curiosity, minimising learning and creating disengagement then there is a fundamental issue of professional malpractice in the classroom. If this is happening and the leadership team is unaware of it, then the

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principal needs to be taking a far stronger role as leader of learning. Leading learning is more than ensuring that curriculum aspects are covered and literacy scores are equal to, or above, national benchmarks.

Leading learning means ensuring that pupils are engaged with learning, that students are supported and encouraged, that the foundational attitude of curiosity is encouraged and fueled, that students are learning how to learn and that curriculum provides rich, exciting contexts within which these things can happen. Outside of this, we have a disconnect between curriculum and learning.

of curiosity in a single learner in your room. If you are so pressured and stressed that you’re angry or frustrated with learners’ questions, then something is seriously amiss. If critical self-evaluation shows that you are guilty of this behaviour, even occasionally, then it is time to change something at a personal, classroom or school level. Education is about igniting a fire, not filling a bucket.

The second challenge is to school principals.

Principalship is a complex role where you need to balance management and leadership aspects. It is important to manage effectively, but a school can be managed well and turn out learners who are disengaged, and or

attitudes and behaviours that are not learning-oriented, then you have issues that you need to identify and sort. The only way to keep your finger on the pulse of learner attitude is to have a high level of contact with the learners and to critically examine the detail of teacher-learner interaction.

Listen to your teachers and listen to your students, for it is in their comments that you will find the messages that indicate the reality of school effectiveness. Listen carefully and I hope you never hear statements like “When I ask questions my teacher gets angry.”

“ When we see teacher/learner interactions that dull a learner’s curiosity, minimise learner questioning and disengage students from learning, ultimate responsibility must rest with the principal.”

Challenges Thinking about the statement, “When I ask questions my teacher gets angry” I would like to pose some challenges to teachers and principals.

The first challenge would be to teachers.

The challenge is to be aware of how your reaction and response influences a learner.

Every little thing you do, everything you say, every reaction has an impact on the learners entrusted to you. You are the significant other in their learning lives, so be aware that the coverage of curriculum, the completion of planned work and the keeping of timetables is of no significance if you douse the attitude

achieving below their real capability. A school needs more than effective management; to fulfill its potential for its students, a school needs effective leadership.

The ultimate measure of effective leadership within any organisation is surely found within the core purpose of that organisation, and the core purpose of a school is learning.

Central to learning is the learner’s attitude.

The essence of your role is to lead and manage in a manner that cultivates learners’ positive attitudes toward learning, and the thing that impacts the most on this is the small minute-by-minute interactions between teacher and student. Where these interactions lead students to develop

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TrICIA KENYON AND bArbArA GrIffITh

Picture This: A Story With No Words We have chosen two books that show that sometimes illustrations can tell a story in a way that makes words superfluous and teach a powerful lesson.

Title: Window Author/Illustrator: Jeannie Baker Publisher: Walker Books ISBN: 0-7445-9676-9

A

uthor Jeannie Baker believes that, “… by opening a window in our minds, by understanding how change takes place and by changing the way we personally affect the environment, we can make a difference.”

Both books have a theme of environmental change, with each starting from a different perspective: Window, where a natural world becomes a concrete jungle, and Belonging, where a “slum” becomes a vibrant, tree-filled paradise.

The illustrations, copies of the author’s meticulous collages, are so detailed that they require many viewings.

Title: Belonging Author/Illustrator: Jeannie Baker Publisher: Walker Books

Teachers Matter

ISBN: 0-7445-9227-5

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“I started,” says Jeannie Baker, “by making drawings of my ideas on paper and collecting grasses, vegetation, tree bark, earth, fabric for clothing and any other materials that I thought would work in these pictures. I treated the natural materials to preserve them and added my own colour. The original collages are miniatures, the size as reproduced in this book.”

TrICIA KENYON AND bArbArA GrIffITh

Window This book contains 10 double-page llustrations following the development, over a 20-year period, of the area outside the window. The area becomes suburban and then inner-city, complete with billboards, high-rises, noise pollution, litter and overpopulation.

Each spread depicts a two-year time lapse and features Sam’s window, from which the reader can see the landscape evolving as Sam grows up.

Neighbours and houses replace forest and animal, factories are built, graffiti is scribbled on walls and other problems often found in populous cities appear.

Sam eventually marries and moves to a new house in the country, where the final window scene shows him holding his baby and staring at a sign announcing, “House Blocks For Sale.”

Belonging When baby Tracy is first brought to her new home, the view of the urban neighbourhood as seen through her window is not a pleasant one.

Billboards and graffiti are everywhere, garbage is strewn across the streets, and only a few meagre plants are fighting their way through the cracks in the cement. Bit by bit, as Tracy grows, the area is slowly reclaimed, so that the final view through the window is clean, lush, and green, with birds nesting peacefully in new trees and a glimpse of the now-visible blue river.

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TrICIA KENYON AND bArbArA GrIffITh

• Tree chopped down-firewood • Outside toilet demolishedfence • Trees on hill removed-bare land • Tree house and ladder gone – new games

COMPARE AND CONTRAST

Activities these activities can be used with either book: 1. compare and contrast Choose two double layouts to compare and contrast. They could be consecutive for a closer time-span or farther apart for more obvious changes. (Layouts could be colour photocopied or scanned for use with an interactive whiteboard so the class can easily view it.) a. You can do this orally or with a graphic organiser, listing specific components of the picture, such as vegetation, transport.

B. What events have taken place between the two pictures?

2. Visual cues This book is full of visual cues that tell the story. a. time Each double layout offers visual cues to allow you to make a decision about what has happened during the passing of time. Identify and list all the cues, on each layout, that helped to justify the decision.

B. character development Using all the pictures and a linear format, show how Tracy or Sam’s character develops, including personality, likes, and sports.

3. diary Create a written and visual diary of either character’s life or part of it.

4. dialogue Using the existing pictures, add speech or thought balloons to create a monologue or a dialogue with other characters. Explain why each character says what he or she does.

5. Background / Backyard

Teachers Matter

Focus on the background and backyard only, and identify the changes that take place in each layout.

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Layout

Background

Backyard

1

Trees Bushes Water Animals –kangaroos, birds

Undeveloped Not separate Outside toilet Dirt path

2

Fewer trees Meadow Ploughed land

Fenced Clothes line

These books are valuable resource for teaching environmental issues, and you can also use them in other curriculum areas such as science, health, and art.

We have just touched on the possibilities of these amazing books. Have fun, and we would love to hear of any new activities you have used that have worked well.

Habits of Mind four book series from ASCD plus The School as a Home for the Mind

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or the set of all four Habits of Mind books for

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available at www.spectrumeducation.com

ALLIE MOONEY

What’s your Money Personality?

If it’s true that more and more we are talking about a moneyless society, then some of us are ahead of our time!

I

wonder how things are financially for you at the moment. Christmas has come and gone. We had a wonderful day seeing the delight on our children and grandchildren’s faces, only to come down to a sharp reality check as the credit card statement greets us at the letterbox between Christmas and New Year.

As you walk from the front gate into the house, you wonder how you are going to justify the spend!

Could this have something to do with our personality? It just may.

Researchers have explored the moneypersonality connection. New York Times Journalist Natalie Angier has reported about the “Gene Linked to Extrovert Behaviour Trait.” She noted that “Two teams of researches have reported detecting a partial genetic explanation for a personality trait called ‘novelty seeking.’”

People high in a “novelty-seeking” quotient tend to be extroverted, impulsive (as in impulse buying), extravagant (as in not living within their means), quick-tempered, excitable and exploratory. You know, those flamboyant family members who show up with an armload of presents each time they visit (hot on the credit card.)

Teachers Matter

Those who score lower than average on novelty-seeking “tend to be reflective, rigid, loyal, stoic, slow-tempered and (here’s my point) frugal (emphasis added).

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Now at last there’s a genetic explanation for why some people tend to be over-spenders while others seem to be able to hold onto their money.

The gene described in the article fits the description of the “Playful” personality.

Those without the novelty-seeking gene have traits of the “Precise” personality.

When working on financial portfolios and spending, what works for someone like the Playful (fun-loving, nonstructured type)

would never work for a Precise (detail oriented).

Therefore to gain financial success and harmony in planning and budgeting, your personality certainly needs to be taken into consideration.

Usually in marriage we are attracted to an opposite. You are drawn to and love those character traits that are in them but not in you. That is what makes a couple interesting. Opposites do attract. l e t ’s l o o k a t f o u r d o m i n a n t personalities:

PLAYFUL: Enthusiastic, Storyteller, High-Energy, Relational their financial challenges: Spending money is their favourite pastime.

They have the most fun shopping. This type is the most prone to getting into financial trouble, spending on fun-loving things such as holidays, parties, and clothes. An impulsive Playful can find stress relief in shopping, but they quickly have buyer’s remorse when they get home. They’re usually married to a Precise, the type that sees shopping expeditions as frivolous and irresponsible, therefore tensions rise as the monthly credit card bill comes, resulting in the Precise falling deeper into depression.

This causes the Playful to get depressed by the criticism, which forces them to go get another “stress-relief fix” like shopping. their financial strategy: It is wise that a Playful look outside their abilities. An accountant is a must for this type. Or if they are not defensive toward the Precise person in their life, and can be open to their advice, they can turn to that person.

POWERFUL: A Doer, Visionary, Change Agent, Focussed, Natural-born Leader, Productive their financial challenges: This type has an insatiable need to be in control, pursuing things such as starting their own business. They are risk takers, so happy to look for another opportunity and have no problems over-extending themselves.

They have a sincere belief in their ability to succeed. Often married to a low-key, lessaggressive Peaceful type, these Powerfuls can

“ Now at last there’s a genetic explanation for why some people tend to be over-spenders while others seem to be able to hold onto their money.”

ride “rough shod” over them, telling them what they have just gone and done rather than including them in the decision. their financial strategy: Their inborn ability to organise could work well in gaining financial freedom. Once they get the idea that they can control their money, instead of letting their money control them, their inborn desire for control

allie mooney

PEACEFUL: Relaxed, Diplomatic, Patient, Great Listener, Predictable is met, and they can forge ahead financially.

They are curious about financial success, and read a lot about this. They are happy to attend seminars on how the rich got rich. They have an ability to set realistic, attainable and measurable financial goals that result in a speedy success.

PRECISE: Ordered, Tidy, Good Planner, Artistic, Fact-based Their financial challenges: These types are the most frugal. However, because they aspire to perfection they closely examine the quality of any item and will only want to buy quality.

Quality always comes with a price tag. They love “state of the art,” high-end items. They thrive in well-organised environments, so will overspend in an effort to get organised.

They are artistic, quiet, reflective in nature, so their need to read, listen to or play music, paint and spend time on the computer can cause financial challenges when the budget doesn’t extend far and they want the bestquality sound system, musical instrument or computer.

Their financial strategy: Of all the personalities, they are the best at handling money. They waste little.

They buy the best that will last. They are happy to spend time well into the night reconciling their bank statement.

Their financial challenges: The Peaceful will do anything to avoid conflict and can easily overspend. They pick up the tab when they are in a social environment.

They oblige to co-signing a loan for a family member. They avoid conflict at any price and will seldom deny anyone.

Their financial strategies: They hardly spend money on themselves.

Often they will still wear their honeymoon tweed jacket they purchased 40 years ago.

They are conservative, low-risk takers. This means they will not buy extremely high-risk investments, a quality that brings muchneeded balance to the less-cautious Powerful spouse, if the Powerful will only listen.

How to overcome your Financial Challenges Playfuls (NEED FUN): Bring some fun into the equation when there has to be conversations around the dreaded subject of money. Enjoying something social, entertaining or eating out occasionally will help keep this one on track and cooperative.

Peacefuls (NEED PEACE): This mindset will ultimately set them up for a major financial confrontation. They must learn to say “NO!” to children, relatives and friends.

It’s hard for sure, but to keep buoyant financially, it is a must.

Examine carefully the underlying motivations that govern your attitudes toward money. Ask yourself: Are you operating on the basis of truth or a misleading notion for your financial life?

Here’s how you might think: Playful (desire fun): “If I had … (fill in the blank), I would be happy” Powerful (desire power): “If I have the gold, I then can make the rules!”

Precise (desire order): “If I had enough money, I will have no stress and won’t have to worry anymore?”

Peaceful (desire peace): “Money buys peace; this will make everyone happy!”

As you can see, our personality can greatly influence how we look at money and how we spend or save it. By understanding and being aware of your own personality’s strengths and weaknesses, and that of your spouse, you can then begin to take steps to work with them, and find strategies and ways that we can be more financially independent.

Powerfuls (NEED CONTROL): They find taking advice difficult and often interpret advice as someone taking control of them, which they abhor. This one must learn to listen and accommodate his spouse’s needs.

Precise’s (NEED PERFECTION): They may need to comprise the high-ticket items for something less expensive. They don’t need to have the best of everything at once. Plan over time, going for just one item that is top shelf, until your budget is more workable.

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JENNY MOSLEY

Going for Goals

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hatever our life goals, our ability to be persistent is a crucial key to success. American writer Eric Hoffer put it this way: At the core of every true talent, there is an awareness of the difficulties inherent in any achievement, and the confidence that by persistence and patience something worthwhile will be realised.

As educators, we need to ensure that our children are guided toward learned persistence and away from learned helplessness so that “something worthwhile will be realised” in each of their lives. To achieve this, we need to teach them how to bounce back when they are faced with setbacks, frustration, anxiety and fear. In other words, we need to teach emotional resilience. We cannot protect children from failure or difficulty, but can help them manage by constructing ageappropriate situations in which they learn how to persevere and come to understand the value of persistence.

The Quality Circle Time model is underpinned by a commitment to a set of values that need to be applied consistently by everyone in the community. The values create an emotionally safe environment in which everyone feels supported and can practice risk-taking and coping with mistakes. The ability to persevere requires self-confidence, self-belief and the ability to not let your negative thinking damage your self-esteem. Shakespeare first cried the brilliant phase, “Nothing is good nor bad but thinking makes it so.” The Quality Circle Time model is built on a solid bedrock of unswerving encouragement for each and every child and creates the positive striving ethos in which persistence and goal orientation can thrive. Everyone needs to agree on and consistently use The Golden Rules in your setting. Our “Golden” schools in the U.K. take photographs of their children keeping each rule and display them next to the rules on the walls.

• We are gentle.

• We are kind and helpful.

Teachers Matter

• We try to work hard.

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“ Only action can get you where you want to be. role-playing enables children to experience situations that cause them anxiety and explore ways of overcoming them.”

• We listen to people.

• We are honest.

• We look after property.

Persistence is encouraged consistently throughout the model. Here are just a few practical examples:

Role play Only action can get you to the place where you want to be. Role-playing enables children to experience situations that cause them anxiety and explore ways of overcoming them. For instance, you can encourage them to understand the perseverance that becoming a successful performer entails. You can practice being in a fearful situation and practice “keeping

JENNY MOSLEY

going” despite their peers coming up with a range of imaginary obstacles.

Games Games are highly motivating, not just because children enjoy them, but they also learn that practice makes perfect. Persistence is about not giving up but continuing to try to get better at something so that, finally, you are good at it. Here is a simple game that can help children learn that throwing fast and straight requires training:

this is how it works: One child (or adult) describes a problem: For example, “I need help to stop losing my temper.”

Members of the circle then offer solutions using the sentence starter, “Would it help if…?” For example, “Would it help if you counted to 10 before you flip?” The response might come, “No, I can’t get past three but thanks.”

Then you start again: “Would it help if…?”

never let the box be empty You need a box full of balls.

One child is chosen to be the thrower.

The other children take up positions a little distance away from him.

The thrower takes out one ball at a time and throws it in any direction as far away as he can.

The other players have to run after the balls and return them to the box.

These players have to try to make sure that the box is never empty. When it is empty, the thrower has won.

If the box is never empty, the thrower can call “time” to show that he now chooses to give up. Then choose another thrower.

Would it help if …?

To persist successfully, we need to be flexible and creative. We need to keep on trying until we find a way that works. The “Would it help if …?” script helps children widen their understanding that there are often many ways to solve a problem or achieve a goal and that persistence will pay off. The technique also empowers children because they quickly see that everyone in the circle has knowledge and experience they can use to help others.

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JENNY MOSLEY

You can use this technique to search for solutions for group problems or personal difficulties. The group, child or children then choose an action plan that they will review in a future circle time.

Visualisation Visualising future success is one of the keys to achieving goals. Use visualisations to teach children about the persistency they’ll need to overcome obstacles. Some classrooms have suggestion boxes where children anonymously submit ideas on what they want to face. Prepare a script like the one below before you lead a visualisation. Read each script in a calm voice, pausing often for children to imagine.

Sit still with your hands resting gently in your lap. Close your eyes and concentrate on your breathing. Breathe in slowly to the count of three and out slowly to the count of three.

Imagine you are breathing in cool oxygen and energy and letting go of stale tension and toxins.

Imagine you are feeling very nervous about taking an exam. Now I want you to use your imagination to make a picture inside your head. Imagine yourself being successful at the goal you have chosen.

Teachers Matter

Enjoy the good feeling of success for a while and then begin to bring yourself back to the classroom. Remember to bring that good feeling back with you!

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Shake your arms and legs and take a deep breath. Open your eyes when you are ready and smile at the rest of the class. Hold on to the good feeling that your imagination has given you.

Puppets “ The ‘ Would it help if …?’ script helps children widen their understanding that there are often many ways to solve a problem or achieve a goal and that persistence will pay off.”

Puppets can also be used to model the behaviours you want to encourage. For instance, you can use one to show that things can go wrong and open up ideas about how to make them better if you persist. You need to prepare a script before you use a puppet in this way. Like this: y you: Poppy the puppet is having a bad day. She got her sums wrong, she lost her pencil, no one would play with her at lunchtime. What are you going to do now, Poppy?

Poppy: Yes, it hasn’t been much of a day, but I’m not a quitter. I just need a little bit of help to find a way to make my day better. you: Well children, have any of you felt the way that Poppy is feeling just at the moment? She’s not a quitter. She’s determined to make things better. Does anyone have any suggestions that might make that happen?

Take suggestions, starting with, “Would it help if …?” from the children and praise them for their wisdom and kindness.

DAvID KOUTSOUKIS

The Cow Principle of Behaviour Management Using cows to manage Student behaviour

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can hear you asking, “What on earth do cows have to do with managing student behaviour?” If you’re in the mood to find out more, don’t be a coward, read on.

This article will show you how to moove your students towards positive behaviour, and how to encourage them to have respect for udders.

The cow principle is a fun metaphor I have developed to help teachers, students and parents understand the ethos and frameworks behind behaviour management systems in schools. It gets its name from the comparison it draws between a cow paddock and the school environment. It tells the story of two cows and their life in a paddock, and gives students and teachers key messages and pointers to reflect upon.

The use of cows not only lightens up an otherwise dry topic, but also provides a useful picture when explaining the concept of behaviour management to students, staff and parents.

It is especially useful for explaining concepts to students in the early years of schooling.

To use the cow principle with students, staff or parents, read them the cow principle

story and then discuss the key messages and/or pointers at the end.

The cow principle story the cow paddock There is a nice, clean, green cow paddock set among rolling pasture with a big, steep hill at one end. The sun shines brightly over this beautiful, green paddock. It’s a wonderful place full of juicy, nutritious grass. Towards the lower end of the paddock is a lovely pond with cool, fresh water. At the top of the steep hill is an orchard of trees laden with different types of fruit ready to be eaten.

Any cow that might live in the paddock is provided with all the nourishment it needs.

The paddock is bordered by a clearly visible, signposted electric fence.

• The clean, green paddock represents a positive school environment.

• The sun represents our responsibilities.

• The pond and the juicy, nutritious grass represent the information that students learn.

• The fence represents the boundaries of acceptable behaviour (rules), and is there to protect the rights of others.

• The signs on the fence specify the rules and outline what will happen if they are broken.

“ The cow principle is a fun metaphor i have developed to help teachers, students and parents understand the ethos and frameworks behind behaviour management systems in schools.”

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the inhabitants A farmer lets two cows named Daisy and Crazy into the paddock. They graze in the paddock under his supervision. He tends to their individual needs throughout the day. The sun is quite bright, so they both have hats to wear. They know that if they don’t wear their hat the sunshine will drain their energy. Both cows are aware of, and understand, the signs on the electric fence, and the consequences of pushing against it. If they push against the fence they get zapped and it drains their energy. The harder they push, the bigger the zap. They both know that there is “good stuff” at the top of the paddock and that they need a lot of energy to get there.

• Wearing the hat represents facing up to our responsibilities.

• The cows’ energy levels represent their attitudes towards school.

• The fruit trees at the top of the paddock represent the “extra stuff” that happens in schools, the things teachers do on top of the normal curriculum to make school fun, such as class games, fun time, socials, camps, reward days, incursions and excursions.

Teachers Matter

• The farmer represents the teacher.

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Patterns of behaviour Although the conditions are the same for both cows, they behave quite differently.

Daisy wears her hat, does not push against the electric fence and cooperates with the farmer. Crazy’s behaviour is quite different.

He often bumps into the electric fence and gets zapped. Sometimes it is because he is trying to eat the neighbour’s grass on the other side of the fence. Other times he just doesn’t think about the consequences. He has been zapped so often that his energy levels are quite low. Crazy doesn’t like wearing his hat either, so his exposure to the bright sun has drained his energy levels even

further. At times, Crazy is uncooperative with the farmer and refuses to do what the farmer asks. the cowboys The farmer realises that some cows like Crazy have trouble resisting what’s on the other side of the fence or keeping their hats on, so he has some cowboys around to help.

• The cowboys represent school support staff such as teachers aides, education assistants, school psychologists and chaplains. life in the paddock Daisy, who does “the right thing”, has a great time in the paddock. She wanders all over the place looking at lots of different things, and because she has plenty of energy she gets up to the top of the steep hill to the fruit trees and “the good stuff”. She literally enjoys the fruits of her decisions. However, Crazy isn’t having a very good time. He doesn’t wear his hat so his energy levels are low, and being zapped by the electric fence drains his energy levels even further. He is unable to get to the top of the steep hill to enjoy the “good stuff” and doesn’t feel like doing much at all. He becomes increasingly uncooperative and finds life in the paddock frustrating. Occasionally, he even head butts Daisy and causes so much trouble that the farmer has to remove him from the paddock. The farmer really likes Crazy, but is concerned about his behaviour. Every now and then the farmer gets the cowboys to spend some time with Crazy. the end (for students and parents) At the end of the day, Crazy sits down. He is exhausted. “I hate that fence! I hate that sun! I hate those cowboys hanging around me? Why can’t I get to have some ‘good stuff?’ I hate this paddock!” he complains.

In the meantime, Daisy wanders down the hill after spending some time in the “good

stuff”. She is happy and feeling good. “I love this paddock!” she says to herself. the end (for teachers) At the end of the day, the farmer sits on a gate chewing a wheatstalk. He contemplates the day’s events. He thinks about Crazy. “Why does Crazy push into the fence? Maybe the boundaries need to be clearer or the consequences more effective?

Why doesn’t he wear his hat? Maybe I need to remind him of his responsibilities? Why does he misbehave and how can I help him change his behaviour?” A little bit later the cowboys lead Crazy back to the barn for the night. As they walk past, the farmer says “I like that cow, he’s got potential”.

Key messages for students from the cow principle of behavior management: • The great news is that you get to choose what life will be like in the cow paddock.

• If you make good choices, school

will be a pleasant experience with plenty of time to enjoy the “good stuff”.

• If

you make poor choices, expect to suffer consequences that will cause discomfort, lost opportunities and will mean you miss out on the “good stuff”.

DAvID KOUTSOUKIS

Key pointers for teachers: 1. Do you provide a nice, clean, grassy paddock? Do you have a positive learning environment?

2. Do you provide juicy, nutritious grass and a deep pond full of clear, fresh water? Do you have relevant and engaging learning programs?

3. Do you provide opportunities for the farmer and the cows to get used to each other? Do you do relationship-building activities?

4. Are your fences strong and clear? Do you have clear guidelines of expected

behavior and consequences that are known by all?

5. Do you know the steps to follow to remove the naughty cow from the paddock? Do you have clear routines for disciplining students?

6. Do you have enough resources to run the farm, such as fencing materials, water supply, farmhands? Do you allocate adequate resources (staffing, money, PD) towards managing student behaviour?

7. Do you have cowboys and cowgirls to assist recalcitrant cows? Do you have support systems to help students change their behaviour?

8. Do you chew a piece of straw every

now and then? Do you take time out to reflect on how you might improve behaviour management processes in your classroom and/or school?

These eight pointers represent eight dimensions of behaviour management as outlined in the Behaviour Management Toolkit.

How does your classroom or school rate? Well, there it is, the Cow Principle of Behaviour Management. I hope you enjoyed this different look at behaviour management and trust that you found some elements that will help you fine tune your own behaviour management skills. In fact, I hope you were able to milk this article for all that it’s worth!

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jenny barrett

Tech Recipes

Integrating Educational Technologies into Your Classroom

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n each issue we profile a simple but powerful activity designed to help integrate technology into your classroom. With summer here, we are going to look at integrating technology outside of your classroom, beginning with the GPS.

What is the GPS? The GPS (Global Positioning System) is a “constellation” of 24 well-spaced satellites that orbit the Earth and make it possible for people with ground receivers to pinpoint their geographic location. The location accuracy is anywhere from 100 to 5 meters for most equipment. GPS equipment is widely used and the U.S. Geographical Society summarises its use perfectly:

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What better way to have students conduct field investigations than by using the same tool that these scientists, engineers, and other professionals use every day on the job?

GPS and teaching and learning As well as introducing genuine workplace technology into the classroom, teachers can use a GPS to tightly focus learning to a context. Here are eight ideas for how you might use GPS in your teaching: 1. Science: Get upclose and personal with the environment Give the students some handouts with

coordinates of some native tree species.

Provide some tree identification information and photos. Remember the GPS will only get the students within range of the trees so a genuine information gap is created and their detective skills and knowledge should come into play, encouraging them to engage with the information provided. The handout should specify a task for the students to complete such as collecting a leaf or taking a bark rubbing. An extension activity could get the children to create their own environmental treasure hunt or you can send them out with handouts and no information to see if they can identify trees using the leaves and bark rubbings that they collated.

You can adapt such an activity to replicate field work and data collection of any nature.

2. Social sciences: Longitude and latitude, map reading Depending on your proximity to a degree of confluence, you and your students could head off to find where an integer degree of latitude meets an integer degree of longitude. You can upload your adventure to this web site: http://www.confluence.org/ country.php?id=16. You may need to find a reasonably accessible one (although the web site has a handy letter that you can print off for private landowners!).

3. Numeracy: Where do we start? Area, averages, angles, distance, triangulation and direction One simple example would be to use the GPS to determine the perimeter of an area by walking around the edge of a playground. Students could also calculate their average speed.

photo courtesy Rev dan catt

Teachers Matter

Archaeologists use GPS to mark dig sites and specific artifacts within them; historians use GPS to map historic sites; military historians use GPS to mark troop movements on battlefields; genealogists use GPS to mark gravesites and

abandoned cemeteries; cartographers use GPS for mapmaking, E-911 crews use GPS to find accidents and residences; utilities personnel use GPS to map and plan gas and electric lines; and thousands more applications exist.

4. Languages: Contextualising language Students use the GPS to navigate to places where they find a clue to crack or a task to complete. Ideally, you should relate the clues or tasks in some way to the location.

For example, if you are studying adjectives, they describe what they are looking at. Once

JENNY bArrETT

“ Choose a topic to focus on, such as damage to the environment or tagging. students then create a map of local environmental damage or tagging.”

back in class, other groups can try and guess from each description what it is they are describing. By contextualising the language it becomes much easier to remember.

5. History: The local area The GPS leads students to sites where interesting events took place or old buildings used to or still stand. Students can take photos and consider how the site has changed, perhaps comparing their photos with archived images.

6 . C i t i z e n s h i p : Mapping your local community Choose a topic to focus on, such as damage to the environment or tagging. Students then create a map of local environmental damage or tagging. The activity can then develop into so much more. Why do you think tagging happens in these locations?

What could we do to reduce tagging?

Maybe even take it a step further and set up a community project and use the GPS to analyse progress six months down the line.

7. Any subject: Purely and simply because children love to move Once students are familiar with the GPS, you can use coordinates to bring any activity to life and get the students moving and learning at the same time. Just place clues, questions or activities in envelopes around the school.

8. Literacy: Storytelling Many GPS devices allow you to record points of interest or “waymarks” that you come across on a journey. Students can create their own narrative of a field trip, recording where they may have seen a curious site or had a laugh with friends. They can then create a genuine story map, and with digital cameras and MP3 players, insert photos, video and sounds. They can insert all of these memories into one class map using Google Earth.

Getting YOU started!

A fun introduction to GPS is geocaching, defined by the geocaching community as “a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online. Geocaching is enjoyed by people from all age groups, with a strong sense of community and support for the environment.”

Step-by-step introduction to geocaching

7. Head off and find the container. The idea is that you do not reveal the container to any “muggles” (non-geocachers). Some caches contain a log book where you can write a comment and some contain small gifts. If you take a gift, you should replace it.

8. Ba c k h o m e a n d o n li n e c laim y o u r “geocache” by creating a log.

9. Before next ter m you can create a geocache or two for your students.

10. A n d a l s o w o r t h a l o o k i s a m o r e environmentally aware alternative, “earthcaching,” where each cache aims to teach you something about your environment. The list of New Zealand e a r t h c a c h e s a r e h e r e : h t t p : / / w w w. geosociety.org/earthcache/Earthcache_

1. Begin by visiting the h o m e p a g e w w w. geocaching.com 2. Have a quick look at the getting started guide 3. Join 4. E x p l o r e a l i s t o f geocaches near you by simply entering your town (it even knew where Whakamarama was) 5. Choose a geocache by looking at proximity, how interesting it is and level of difficulty (this is based on terrain or how hard it is to find). If you scroll to the bottom of the page, you will see “logs” left by previous visitors to the geocache.

SearchResult.aspx?Country=New+Zeal and&Type=All&State=All. This website includes a teacher resources section.

6. Print off the “simple” version of the page and take this with you. The page may include a code to crack to help you if you can’t find the container.

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photo courtesy Rev dan catt

jenny barrett

Ingredients for geocaching • Internet access • Pen and paper for filling in the log book, taking notes and cracking the code • Gift for the container (optional) • Digital camera to take photos of your adventure to upload (optional) • A GPS device

A note on types of GPS devices

Teachers Matter

There are many GPS devices on the market so you need to define what you want your students to do and take into consideration the equipment that you already have available. If you already have MP3 players

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and digital cameras, you can use these and then “geotag” the photos and recordings after the event. Also consider add-on GPS devices: Attachments are available for some digital cameras, and you can attach Bluetooth GPS devices to phones and computers. Newer mobiles and cameras even have GPS built-in. Once you have established that you do not have GPS lurking in any of your current equipment, then consider buying a simple handheld GPS to get you started. Prices start at around $200 and allow you to do the following: • Fix a position using coordinates • Navigate along a set route • Find a fixed point • Interact with a digital map

For a number of the above-mentioned educational activities, the ability to link to a computer to import and export GPS data is useful. This data can then be analysed and mapped but this will of course add to the price tag.

If money is no option or you have fallen head-over-heels in love with a GPS, then the world is your oyster! GPS devices now come with integrated cameras and recording functionality so that you can record images, sounds and thoughts relating to your trip.

Some have built-in barometers for weather prediction and even speakers to enable you to listen to your MP3 files or an audiobook while you are curled up in your tent.

Want to know how GPS works? http://www. howstuffworks.com/gps1.htm

• R e c o r d s p e e d a n d d i s t a n c e d a t a

by Educators for Educators Become a more effective educator by embracing technology in your learning environment.

Web 2.0, Video, IWBs, Eportfolios and much more!

Request professional development with Breathe Technology today.

Phone: 07 927 2260 Fax: 07 927 2264 Email: info@breathetechnology.co.nz

www.breathetechnology.co.nz

Thinking Challenge Colours and Smells | How creative and thoughtful are you? What if you could describe things using only colours and familiar smells? Here is an example: Anger

What it smells like….

Anger smells like burning tyres.

The Colour of Anger:

Now it’s your turn. Create some fabulous descriptions for these ideas: Happiness

What is smells like…

The Colour of Happiness

Greed

What is smells like…

The Colour of Greed

Beauty

What is smells like…

The Colour of beauty

Strength

What is smells like…

The Colour of Strength

Fluffy

What is smells like…

The Colour of Fluffy

Delicious

What is smells like…

The Colour of Delicious

Fear

What is smells like…

The Colour of Fear

Smooth

What is smells like…

The Colour of Smooth

Lonely

What is smells like…

The Colour of Lonely

HABITS OF MIND ADVICE Creating, Imagining And Innovating: You’ll need to search your feelings. Remember the times in your life that you have experienced these feelings. Imagine colouring in a picture of your face to show those feelings (that’s the colour).

Ask yourself what smell would make you feel these things.

Gathering Data Through All The Senses: Remember all of the different smells you can remember. Think of different places and then list in your mind the smells of each one. Eg. The kitchen, the back yard, the garage, a forest, a refuse station, the mall, a workshop, school, petrol station, toy box, wood pile, beach, the airport, supermarket etc.

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JO ISSA

Professional Development that Works

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hat makes effective professional development? Is it one that delivers instant results? Can it be found inside a textbook or photocopyable resource book? No, probably not. A type of development that pushes teachers out of their comfort zones is more likely to lead them to reap rewards.

Brent Griffin, principal of Western Heights Primary School in Rotorua, tried The Habits of Mind professional development taught

by Karen Boyes. With the introduction of the new curriculum, Brent considered the professional development the next step for the school.

“We flew Karen in as we saw this as being more beneficial to bring her to us,” he says, “and Karen spent time with the whole staff.

We had already focused on behavioural management and created a lear ning culture, but we wanted to explore ways to hit the mark with students so we could engage them in learning. Karen taught us how to implement Habits of Mind in our school. Without The Habits in operation, it would be difficult for teachers to manage classrooms 100 percent effectively.”

Teachers Matter

Nicola Girling, principal of Hillsborough School in Auckland, describes Karen’s Habits of Mind professional development as “hugely successful.” Nicola was already familiar with Art Costa’s Habits of Learning, and she saw an opportunity to utilise Karen’s experience to introduce the Habits of Mind to the School.

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Nicola identified one of the challenges a s , “ We d i d n ’t k n o w w h a t w e d i d n ’t know,” but the teachers overcame their lack of knowledge through Karen’s deep understanding of the Habits. Nicola says that the professional development has been driven by assistant principal Mark Lewington, but describes Karen as “the lynchpin to make it happen,” and credits the success of the professional development to Karen’s knowledge.

“Karen was able to guide Mark and support him through the process of implementing the Habits of Mind in the school,” says Nicola.

Some of the highlights of the professional development included:

Show, don’t tell Most teachers want to know: how can I use these ideas in my classroom? Brent says, “Karen understands the gap between knowledge and practice. She showed us how to implement The Habits in the classroom.

The curriculum doesn’t give us strategies to engage students in learning, but Karen showed us how to integrate, for example, the Habit of persisting into planning.”

In Hillsborough School, Karen led staff meetings on the theme of 21st-century learners. She told teachers, “Let’s teach you some new things, and then try it out on your kids.”

“ We often ask students to take risks without really experiencing how it feels to step outside of our comfort zones. karen challenges teachers to take the plunge.”

Both principals attribute the professional development’s success to a shift in whole school philosophy; all teachers had the opportunity to participate in professional development with Karen and share in her enthusiasm, and, over time, the teachers were able to support one another and take ownership of teaching the Habits of Mind.

JO ISSA

Walk the talk

Proof of the pudding

Habits of a lifetime

By living the Habits of Mind, Karen shows teachers what Habits look like in practice.

Brent says, “Karen expresses Habits of Mind in her presentations and this engages teachers in the workshops.” He planned the workshops from 2 p.m. until 7 p.m. on the last week of term. Mission Impossible?

Not so. Brent describes the teaching staff as “wired” during the workshops, and afterwards the staff felt revitalised. It was also the perfect time to plan for the following term.

Brent says that the professional development has had a huge impact. He is seeing the Habits of Mind in action both in pedagogy and student achievement.

“Karen has filled our toolbox with the

There is no doubt that Habits such as “Taking responsible risks” and “Finding humour” can be utilised by both students and teachers, but providing students with the tools for success involves long-term

Nicola says, “Mark worked closely with individual teachers with the knowledge that Karen was behind the scenes and he could ring her for guidance at any time. One of the unique aspects of this training is the way Karen considers your school and tailors the professional development to suit the culture, the students, the parents and the community.”

Venture out of the comfort zone We often ask students to take risks without really experiencing how it feels to step outside of our comfort zones. Karen challenges teachers to take the plunge.

Nicola says, “Karen introduced us to experiences, then gave us permission to push ourselves to the limit. She reassured us that it’s OK to fail and learn in a different way.”

“ Now that the Habits are in action, one of the incredible successes is the way teachers and students interact with one another.”

tools to achieve what we want with students and the whole school is behind the professional development.” All schools face the challenge of sustaining professional development, but Brent attributes the retention and recruitment of high-quality teaching staff to the success of the programme, and teachers’ willingness to share their ideas and classroom practice with new staff members.

Nicola says, “Now that the Habits are in action, one of the incredible successes is the way teachers and students interact with one another.” Nicola describes hearing teachers saying, “Can you tell me which Habit you were using?” and students responding with, “I am managing my impulsiveness.”

commitment. Nicola says, “We are on track, but we are not finished yet. We know we can ring Karen anytime and say, ‘This is what we’ve achieved so far, but what next?’”

While both principals recognise that t h e y ’ v e b e g u n t h e i r j o u r n e y, t h e i r commitment to ensuring these Habits remain a school focus is clear evidence that they practice what they preach, and the success of this professional development confirms one thing: these Habits of Mind are worth keeping.

Book Your Habits of Mind Workshops Today call 0800 37 33 77 NZ or 1800 063 272 Australia or go to www.karenboyes.com

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LYNLEY rUSSEK

Seven Ways to Boogie and Learn

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t the early childhood and first years of primary school stage, children are far less likely to think it’s “uncool” to dance or put up barriers to moving creatively. Dancing is usually as natural to them as eating and breathing. It’s a ripe time to fully embrace learning through dance and movement expression.

There’s hope for older students, too. I am currently teaching in Ghana, in a school with children from 12 different countries, aged 3 to Senior Secondary school age, and dance and creative movement are simply part of “what we do round here” – for everyone!

No one blinks an eyelid and the teachers’ joy of dancing and moving themselves accelerates the ease of taking part in dance, drama and creative movement.

A dancing culture is worth fostering, given the incredible benefits: 1. Experience pure joy 2. Master any curriculum by using the body as a medium

Teachers Matter

3. A c c e l e r a t e m o t o r s k i l l s , coordination and language development

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4. Activate the brain. Boost and develop neural pathways by using the whole body 5. Develop rhythm and improve memorization 6. Improve social and life skills 7. Boost energy and self-esteem

Most adults, free from their own selflimiting beliefs or negatively conditioned rules about moving, would love to continue the freedom, liberation and joy of creative movement and dance.

Start by moving and dancing more yourself, and by making it part of “what we do round here“ in your school with these tips: 1.select a theme: Weather, outer space, things that fly, move or make a sound, machines, doing jobs at home, monsters, the beach, myths and legends, feelings, animals. Use a great book with a great message as a starter, too. For example The Rainbow Fish, Fish or Where The Wild Things Are. Whatever your focus or theme is, take it into the movement and dance.

2. use props: Balloons, ribbons, stretchy Lycra is fantastic for shape making, masks, dress ups and hats, boxes, puppets. Better still, get the children to make their own props.

3. name that movement: Introduce new words each week so they develop a vocabulary of movement. Some examples: Leap, skip, shake, wriggle, creep, gallop, pounce, hop, dodge, twist, flop, run, jiggle, jump, float, dart, wobble, creep, stomp.

Create your own cards or get your children to create them with visuals.

“ Most adults, free from their own self-limiting beliefs or negatively conditioned rules about moving, would love to continue the freedom, liberation and joy of creative movement and dance. ”

4. take up space: Moving up high, low, medium levels, fast, slow motion, straight lines, zig zagged, pausing and freezing; creating pair or group sculptures using different levels. In pairs children can create different pathways. Include concepts such as time, space, beat, shape, size, directional, tension and mood expression.

Encourage use of imagination, planning solutions to tasks and c r e a t e s i m p l e characters and narratives. Learn maths through movement and drama.

5. Move to the music: Music is not always needed, yet it can be a powerful movement stumulus and creativity enhancer. Two of my music favourites (from a selection of over 800! ) are Butterfly by Jeff Clarkson (slow and beautiful; ideal for creative movement, relaxation and warm downs) and Imbal Imbalan by Megan Collins (ideal for movement dramas, upbeat, excitement, surprise) from the New Zealand Music For Creative Dance CD. I got my copy from Auckland College of Education Resource Centre. I recommend the whole CD. With music, it takes time (like a good wine) to suss out what works best. Start thinking about the purpose of the music and experiment.

Better still, get the children to create their own using instruments and sound.

“ With music, it takes time (like a good wine) to suss out what works best. start thinking about the purpose of the music and experiment.”

6. Bend into better language skills: Use our bodies to create letters, shapes, and numbers. Take letters into the whole body experience by being the letter, sounding it out, moving as the letter. Bring alliteration and movement to it, such as “grumpy giant” or “slithering snake.” As well as the usual role play and drama processes we use in language, bring in a dance component.

Instead of simple role playing, get the children to dance it or bring dance qualities into the role play.

7. rely on resources: Start a file of great ideas and collect inspiration from books and newspapers. Learn from those who have “been there, done that,” so you are not reinventing the wheel if you are just starting out. The ultimate resource is your children, their ideas and your enthusiasm to facilitate the process.

Are your children reaching their Literacy Potential?

Letterland is the most child-friendly, multi-sensory way of teaching children alphabet knowledge, reading and writing Find out why hundreds of New Zealand schools are now using this resource Contact us now for a FREE coloured catalogue or check out our website:

www.letterland.co.nz Wakelin Education Services, letterland@xtra.co.nz, phone 03 307 7473

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JAN TINETTI

Giving Your ‘Big Rocks’ Priority Do You Struggle with Fitting all your Tasks Into Your Day?

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ncreased compliances seem to have put more pressure on my role as a principal and increasingly tied me to my desk.

Returning to school after attending a threeday course, I asked a student how his three days had been – he didn’t even know I’d been away! I was devastated, as I have always prided myself in being a “visible” principal.

Finding myself telling a group of colleagues how difficult it was to find time in my day to attend to the important tasks, one commented, “I guess it’s about dealing with the big rocks.” This one simple comment changed my thought direction completely and made me focus on how I could address the important things to me.

My school’s learning day is divided into four reasonably even blocks – 20 each week.

With each learning block being five percent of the learning week, I created my own timetable to fit.

I enter in any “must do” activities such as scheduled meetings. Then I sit down and decide on my “big rocks” and what percentage of time I want to give to each one. These percentages are then converted into learning blocks chunks and added to the timetable.

Teachers Matter

I am happy because I am attending to the aspects of my job that are important to me first. I also feel more connected to my school – students and teachers see more of me. More important I am recapturing the passion that makes me believe this job is the best.

“ i feel like i have created more time in my week.”

I’ve seen many demonstrations of Steven Covey’s Rocks in the Jar illustration. I love its “wow factor”, but my colleague’s comment led me – for the first time – to make the concept personal. I excitedly began to develop a strategy to deal with the “big rocks” in my professional life.

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This level of organisation is totally opposed to my thinking style. I had my doubts it would work for me or that I would be able to stick with it. However, it has been my saviour. I feel like I have created more time in my week. There doesn’t seem to be as many “fires” to fight.

For example, if I want to spend thirty percent of my week in classrooms I write this in six of the learning blocks. Then I fit the “smaller rocks” into the blocks that are left.

I leave two blocks towards the end of the week blank, allowing for flexibility. This means when “critical incidents” occur, I don’t feel guilty or pressured about dealing with them since I can push my “rocks” into the blank slots.

Any position in education can be frantic and hectic. It is easy to feel completely overwhelmed and frustrated, unable to work on the big picture in our schools.

Our challenge, as educators, is to determine which “big rocks” will make a positive difference for our children.

Ngahihi o te ra Bidois

Invest in you In economically challenging times such as these, when we hear about trilliondollar bailouts in the U.S. and investment companies going under, “investment” can seem like a bad word.

H

owever, investing is a straightforward process: It’s finding something worth putting our money, time or energy into that is going to benefit us.

So, when was the last time we put money, time or energy into our own development?

It’s tempting to back away from investing in yourself. One of our Maori proverbs says, “Kahore te kumara, e kōrero i tōna reka,” outlining that it is not acceptable to talk to others about our achievements. If we really are that good, then let others say so. One of my kaumatua calls it the “glycaemia disease.” A person can be so busy saying “I did this” and “I did that,” they can’t see past themselves!

However, I believe there is a huge difference between talking about ourselves and investing in ourselves. While talking about ourselves may be unacceptable, we do ourselves a disservice by not investing in ourselves. We are our greatest asset. We are also our own CEO. We make the decisions on whom and what we invest in. It is OK to look after number one because those who invest in themselves succeed. Most of our answers

to life come from the person in the mirror, and we need to look after that person.

Rotorua-based Danny Lee recently became the youngest-ever player to win the U.S. Amateur golf championship, beating Tiger Woods’ record. He also won the Mark H. McCormack Medal. This medal is awarded to the leading player in the World Amateur Golf Ranking. An interviewer asked him what he did with his days. Danny replied that when he wasn’t golfing, he practiced hitting golf balls for hours on end. Put simply, for many years Danny Lee spent many hours each day investing in himself through practice and received a payout that is world renown. His advice for new players: More practice makes a better player.

To invest in yourself, practice the right things.

More practice at the right things makes us better people. Practice makes perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect outcomes. The difference between a professional speaker and an amateur speaker is that an amateur practices his speech until he gets it right. A professional speaker practices until he can’t get it wrong. What are you practicing?

Preparing to win through practice is investing in ourselves. Another Maori proverb sums up this process beautifully: “ Whaia te iti kahurangi Ki te tūohu koe, me he maunga teitei.” It means: Pursue excellence and should you stumble, let it be to a lofty mountain.

“Taking our vitamins” is an important part of investing in ourselves. George Faddoul, a leading business coach, encourages people to take vitamins A, B, C, D, E and F daily. He’s not talking about pills, but a frame of mind:

A is for Attitude B is for Belief C is for Courage D is for Discipline E is for Enthusiasm and F is for Fun. In summary, look after number one. It is acceptable to do this. Pursue excellence through practicing the right things and taking the right vitamins.

One of America’s top sports coaches, Paul “Bear” Bryant, says, “It’s not the will to win that matters. Everyone has that. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters.”

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eric frangenheim

From Understanding to Critical Analysis Some Ideas For Enquiry Learning

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hen encouraging students to move from the Understand level of thinking to Analyse and Evaluate, the following process may prove useful:

Step 2 On the white board, insert two more vertical lines and four more horizontal lines to create a 4 x 6 organiser including the original responses.

Step 1 Start at the Understand level by asking a question such as “what is x about?” “X” could be a book, a film, an event or anything worth considering in the student’s curriculum.

We could use the question outside of the classroom, too. Imagine a staff meeting where the principal may invite you to think about the school’s performance. The question he or she may ask of the staff could be, “What is school basically about from the perspective of our students?” After a volunteer draws a large 2 x 2 table on the white board, inviting four major comments, the teachers could insert their responses as below:

Then explain that you’re moving from Understand to Analyse by using the magic word for Analyse. The question now becomes: “What is school REALLY about for students?”

The word “really” encourages a broader response.

Learning

Socialising

Handling Routine

Games

Teachers Matter

“What is school about for students?”

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Learning

Socialising

Handling Routine

Games

Offering four to six comments or even phrases or sentences generally leads to some understanding, just as four to six responses to “What was that film about?” would give us a general understanding of a film. What has occurred is that we have addressed the Understanding level in terms of Bloom’s Taxonomy (cognitive).

To lift the conversation from Understand to Analyse, we need to go to the next step:

1

2

eric frangenheim

Step 3 Ask each group of four to six teachers to discuss the “really” for at least one minute and produce at least four more responses.

After a minute or so, ask for their responses and then enter these into the table. Your chart might look like this: Learning

Rules

3 Socialising

Bullying

Parental expectations

Consequences

Success

Inclusion

Teachers

Teamwork

Goal Setting

Assessment

Routine

Creativity

Games

Teacher care

Adversity

Social Rules

Competition

Sport

Leadership

Cultural pursuits

Peer Pressure

Food

In a class situation, the teacher could offer more time to respond and then congratulate the students for showing more analysis of the issue and moving away from the obvious. You can expand the organiser to more than 24 topics or sections if necessary.

However, this only shows potential Breadth of Analysis, but nothing substantial, no real depth.

To achieve this we need to go to the next step.

Step 4

4

The staff meeting facilitator could pair up teachers and give each pair one or two of the table’s 24 topics. Each pair investigates, examines or analyses each topic by means of a PCQ Chart.

Once they complete the PCQ, each pair can take this process to the level of Critical Analysis by using the Extent Barometer assessment tool.

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eric frangenheim

What is school Really about for students at this school?

Based on the data in each Pros, Cons and Questions box, each pair can assess as to what extent the school is providing good learning, fulfilling parental expectations, preventing bullying, providing leadership opportunities and more.

Participants insert an Extent Barometer into each cell of the table and evaluate how successfully the school provides for students. If teachers have marked all or most of the Extent Barometers in the Very High range, they can create an Overall Extent Barometer stating that they are catering for students’ needs at a Very High level. Of course, teachers and administrators can address problem areas where they’ve scored themselves with more Cons than Pros.

Step 5

Teachers Matter

The principal can now take all the PCQs and Extent Barometers and create a report about how the school is faring.

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Overall Extent Barometer

In the classroom, students can work in teams to produce a subset of critical analysis reports.

This is an exercise in critical analysis. They could present their results in a number of ways: A written report; a PowerPoint Presentation; through a debate or an interview; or as a poster with a collection of comments on each subtopic. Each topic in the organiser can serve as a paragraph or a chapter, thereby offering a structure for the report.

5

Conclusion As a process for enquiry learning, these five steps are clearly learner-centred, allowing both the teacher and the students the flexibility to insert other steps, such as research and criteria setting, by which to judge each part of the analysis.

Answers Quiz Questions

(from pg 15)

New Zealand Cities

Hidden Fruit and Veges

Who’s Who?

1. Timaru

1. Carrot

1. TV Personality

2. Wanganui

2. Potato

2. Netballer

3. Dunedin

3. Lemon

3. Golfer

4. Upper Hutt

4. Tomato

4. Yachtman

5. Napier

5. Apple

5. Author

6. Plum 7. Swede 8. Melon 9. Pea 10.Grape

20 Interesting Facts 1.

The only animals that can’t jump are elephants.

2.

There are over six billion dust mites in a typical bed.

3.

If you spin the word SWIMS upside down it still reads the same.

4.

The youngest parents in the world were just eight and nine years old and lived in China in 1910.

5.

About 300,000,000 human body cells die every minute.

6.

The only planet that rotates clockwise is Venus.

7.

A crocodile can’t stick its tongue out.

8.

If a cockroach loses its head, it can live for nine days before starving to death.

9.

The human brain is made up of about 85 percent water.

10. All humans start as female in their mother’s womb.

11. Popcorn was the first thing that ever cooked in a microwave.

12. Ancient Egyptians had pillows that were made of stone.

13. Strawberries have more vitamin C than oranges.

14. On average, right-handed people live nine years longer than left-handers.

15. Almost half of all bank robberies take place on a Friday.

16. If you give someone a pen to try out, most people will write their own name. Try it!

17. It takes 17 muscles to smile and 43 to frown.

18. It is impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.

19. Homer Simpson’s middle name is Jay. 20. The fear of long words is called “hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia.”

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Sharyn Devereux-Blum

Secrets of Becoming a Hero

If I asked you who your heroes are, I wonder who they would be.

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ould yours be a person from a book who overcame great odds or from a movie who battled an enemy and won? Or would your hero be a family member who you shared time with or would it be someone you heard stories about but you have never met?

Heroes come in all ages. They can be famous or they can be quietly achieving their goals. Our heroes come from New Zealand and overseas, are women and men, and are young and old.

They come from the sports field, medicine, science, music, the arts, and agriculture. Yes, heroes come from all walks of life, and they are resilient people with a passion to succeed.

So let’s focus on some of these wonderful heroes and recognise the resiliency ingredients they used in their lives, which in turn inspire us, our students, and our leaders of tomorrow.

Intuition/Spirituality: Personal faith in something or someone greater

Teachers Matter

One of our most famous heroes was Sir Edmund Hilary, a determined climber who scaled Mt. Everest and worked as a practical philanthropist with the Nepalese to set up a trust and build a hospital, a school and a complete community. He overcame great personal loss in his early years after his first wife and child died in a plane crash overseas.

He just saw himself as an ordinary person who lived and worked for a greater cause. “What a fortunate person I have been,” he once said.

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Love of learning: The capacity to want to learn, go that extra step to find the information needed Peter Jackson has a passion for learning and overcoming all odds to become a wonderful

filmmaker and producer. One of his earlier movies, “Bad Taste,” was a challenge to film.

Peter had no budget, so he paid for the filming out of his salary. He had no equipment so he bought the minimum, which was a camera, and built the rest himself. Peter had no crew and no cast so people volunteered for a laugh. He has continued to succeed, and New Zealand is now visible on the world stage.

Optimism: A positive view of your future Scott Dickson was a determined young man who set high goals in car racing. In a recent interview, he said he made many sacrifices when he first started to achieve his goals. The public did not see his sacrifices.

He left New Zealand at young age, leaving his family and friends, to set himself up overseas. He had to work to overcame great loneliness. He always believed he could achieve his goals, and many New Zealanders cheered his r e c e n t wins on the racing circuit.

Self-worth: Your belief in yourself as a person B ru ce M c L a r e n w a s a brilliant driver, with a vision that extended far beyond the driver’s seat. He loved car racing and winning Formula One titles.

He became the engineer, t h e i n v e n t o r, t h e constructor, the tester.

It wasn’t all plain sailing.

At the age of nine, Bruce developed Perthes Disease,

a rare condition caused by insufficient lubrication of the hip joint. For the next two years, he was confined to the Wilson Home for Crippled Children, harnessed into a contraption called a Bradshaw Frame.

Through the ordeal, he kept his spirits up by talking to his father about the cars that were coming into the workshop and accepting and looking beyond his predicament. His positive nature and optimism would be a great asset to him in later life. His recovery took two years and left him with a permanent limp.

With his health restored, Bruce gave his full concentration to cars and then motor racing.

Creativity: Draw on the imagination Joy Cowley is an inspirational New Zealander writer that has used her imagination to enhance readers’ lives for generations. Joy decided to begin writing seriously in 1960 when pregnant with her fourth child, sending two or three short stories to the NZ Listener each month. Although she sent in 29 stories before one was accepted, she has always acknowledged that the editor, M.H. Holcroft, was her main mentor and early supporter. Joy began writing for children to help her son, Edward, who, like her, was slow to learn reading skills. Her picture books are timeless and read worldwide.

Flexibility: Like water you can adjust and adapt to change and determine positive outcomes

Sharyn Devereux-Blum

Archibald Hector McIndoe was no ordinary surgeon. His goal was to be the best surgeon he could. He brought plastic surgery to the forefront of burns treatment. In his earlier years, he was misled by a person who pretended he had a job for him in London.

When he arrived, the great English surgeon denied that he had ever offered him a position.

Showing him to the door, he stated rather indifferently, “Something good will turn up.”

McIndoe was beside himself. He had nowhere to go. He had severed his ties in America and his American qualifications were of no use to him in England. For the next few hours he walked the London streets, recalling what seemed like a nightmare. That day he had received a letter from his mother insisting that he look up a distant cousin from New Zealand, a plastic surgeon by the name of Harold Gillies. Touched by Hector’s “tale of woe,” Harold was more than happy to help his cousin and used his influence to secure a temporary position at a London hospital for Hector. The two men worked together and Hector developed the saline bath and also took into consideration the psychological needs of his badly deformed patients during the war and set up a programme that assisted the men back into the community. The rest is history.

Perseverance: The determination to keep going despite the challenges and persist Vanessa Quinn, our top New Zealand mountain biker, broke her neck during the national championships in Nelson in 2007 but escaped paralysis. The former world downhill champion fractured her C2 vertebra after spilling in her seeding run on Saturday. She cracked her sternum and suffered hand injuries.

It was the second time in five years Vanessa had broken a bone in her neck, after crashing on a velodrome in 2002. Her boyfriend, Niki Urwin, is a former motocross champion who was paralysed after crashing during a competition in Melbourne several years ago. She was in a metal brace for 10 weeks and was determined to get back on a bike again. She said, “Like I’ve said in the past, you can’t live your life in cotton wool. I’ll take this one day by day, and I’m just feeling very, very lucky. We all have our own Everest to climb.”

Competence: Utilise a range of thinking skill, strengths/abilities Neil Britten and Burt Munroe were two amazing men. They are each known for their incredible energy and drive to achieve their goals. Neil built the world’s fastest bike in his spare time. The V1000 prototype engine was “baked in a back yard kiln and the shell modelled with No. 8 fencing wire and a glue gun.” He broke world speed records.

Burt was a New Zealand motorcycle racer, famous for setting an under-1000cc world record, 183.586 mph (295.453 km/h), at Bonneville in August 1967. Working from his home in Invercargill, he highly modified the Indian motorcycle, which he had bought in 1920, for over 20 years. Burt set his first New Zealand speed record in 1938, but later set seven more. He travelled to compete at the Bonneville Salt Flats, attempting to set world speed records. During his 10 visits to the salt flats, he set three speed records, one of which still stands today.

Perceptiveness: The ability to focus on a situation, see what is happening and like a laser beam gain insights from the situation Kate Sheppard was a leader and the main figurehead of the suffragist movement in New Zealand. We were the first country in the world to grant universal adult suffrage to men and women equally. Kate was a source of inspiration to suffragists and campaigners for equality between the sexes, both in New Zealand and throughout the world. Sheppard also possessed the tact and perseverance necessary to see the long struggle through to its eventual success. This required lobbying sympathetic politicians, preparing pamphlets, editing and writing a women’s page in the national temperance newspaper, The Prohibitionist, and organising petitions to be presented to Parliament. The first petition, in 1891, included 9,000 women’s signatures and the second, in the following year, 19,000 signatures. Almost 32,000 women, estimated

to be about a third of the adult female population at the time, signed the third and final petition in 1893. It was then the largest petition ever presented to Parliament. The Electoral Act granted universal suffrage to New Zealanders in 1893, making it the first country in the world to grant full voting rights to women. British women were not granted suffrage until 1918 and American women were not granted it across the whole country until 1920. Her sole focus was achieved.

Relationships: The ability to develop positive relationships and make fulfilling connections with people John Belsham, a winemaker, industry consultant, judge and enthusiast, is the perfect mentor for any aspiring winemaker.

Beginning his career at 19, with five vintages in France as an apprentice winemaker, John learned the essential principles of patience, quality, hygiene and attention to detail.

Returning to New Zealand, John began at Nobilo Vintners, progressing to sole charge winemaker at Matua Valley Wines, then Hunters Wines. In 1992 he established his own label, Foxes Island Wines, producing small releases of exquisite, complex Chardonnay, Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir, sourced from premium fruit in Marlborough and from his estate vineyard in the Awatere Valley, Marlborough. As managing director of Wine Focus Ltd, John acts as technical advisor to Craggy Range in Hawkes Bay, assists Elephant Hill with their winery development and consults to a number of emerging wineries in Marlborough, Hawkes Bay and Central Otago. His passion and energy for the industry is infectious. John takes the time to be with people and help them move forward.

We can be proud of so many heroes, such as Sir Peter Buck, Jean Batton, Arthur Lydiard, Godrey Bowen and Denny Wake who dedicated their lives to a greater cause, and our war heroes, including the brave Maori Battalion soldiers who were awarded Victorian crosses for bravery.

Lest we forget. Share the lives and successes of our heroes with your students and share with them young heroes so they understand dreams start at an early age. Websites such as www. nzedge.com and www.inspiringnewzealanders. co.nz offer resources for students.

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ThE LAST wOrD

Taking Responsibility Karen Boyes

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Teachers Matter

continually hear teachers (and parents) say, “I wish that student would be more responsible.” I find this fascinating. As teachers we want our students to behave in a certain way. However, we also many times think students will learn it by osmosis, or we think it is another teacher’s, or worse, the school’s job, to have taught that behaviour.

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spoon feeding or educating?

I recently sat in on a senior social studies class.

The teacher was presenting a fabulous lesson about the e-waste’s impact on the environment, particularly cell phone disposal. She showed a five-minute DVD, led a class discussion, asked students to read sections of the text out loud, expanded on the ideas and then finished with the same five-minute DVD and asked the class to write down, while the video was on, the metals and minerals mentioned that are causing concern for the environment. I noted two small but significant points while watching that led students to have the attitude that they are not responsible for learning. Firstly, a student reading aloud read the acronym “LDC.” Another student asked, “What does that mean?” The question was a great example of a student taking responsibility for his or her learning by asking a clarifying question.

The teacher replied, “I’m not sure, I’ll find out and get back to you tomorrow.” Now I know teachers have big hearts and want the best for our students. However, this teacher, although by a subtle distinction, has missed the point of learning. While the teacher goes away to find and “learn” the information, she is robbing the students of the real learning opportunity. The teacher does all the work, while the students are passively waiting to be spoon-fed. A simple shift in understanding of the teacher’s role would have created a somewhat different response: Maybe saying “Gina, could you please find out and report back tomorrow?,” or offering some form of small incentive for all those who look it up that evening. Even if they don’t find it, they will have the opportunity for a wider learning.

For example, they are practicing searching skills, linking what they find to the topic, and revisiting the topic by way of review.

Secondly, when the teacher showed the DVD again and asked student to take notes, most

of the students had no idea how to take notes, especially at speed while the DVD was playing.

Surely if we want students to take responsibility for their learning, they need to be taught how to take notes, how to hold information in your head while you are writing, how to listen and write at the same time and be able to pull out the key ideas to write down. It still astounds me when I hear senior students saying, “Should I write that down? Should I underline that?

Which colour should I use?” These students have been “should on” so much they have forgotten, or not been told, that note taking is for them, for their memory and learning. It is not for the teacher. If you want students to be responsible for their learning, you have to teach them how to be. Here’s how: notice it The first step is to notice when students are being responsible and exhibiting the behaviours you want. Adopt the philosophy of catching them doing something right, instead of focusing on the students who are constantly pushing boundaries or misbehaving. What you focus on is what you get. It is a Universal law called The Law of Attraction. The Law of Attraction and the subconscious mind have no favourites. Rules of operation govern them. The subconscious mind does not know the difference between fact and fiction. It thrives on what you feed it. What are you feeding to the minds of your students? What are you focusing on? label it Next, you must label the behaviour for the student. If they have never been told what being responsible means, how will they know? Tell them, “That was a responsible thing to do,” even if it is when you see them voluntarily picking up rubbish. When my daughter was two years old, she set the table for dinner by herself. Looking at me over the big table she asked, “Was that being ’sponsible, Mum?” When a student offers to find out more information, when he or she takes a leadership role, when he or she puts in more effort that expected, label the behaviour. A great teaching and parenting tool is to make sure they overhear you telling someone else in the class, another teacher or family member that you observed them being responsible. This

is far more powerful than praising or labelling the behaviour directly. teach it To teach a behaviour such as responsibility, develop a framework for explaining it. I call it above or below the line thinking.

Sometimes when people make mistakes or get things wrong, certain behaviours can pop up that are not useful for success. For example, some may deny what is happening and pretend it’s not their fault or not even happening. Some people make excuses for the results they are getting. The third behaviour that often occurs is blaming others for your results or outcomes. This is Victim Thinking.

The good news is there are three alternative behaviours to choose “above the line.”

Learning Thinking Ownership Accountability Responsibility Blame Excuses Denial Victim Thinking The first is taking ownership. Simply say, “Oops, I made a mistake” and admit you are at fault. The second behaviour is to be accountable for your life and results. This means you are able to account for what is happening in your life and why. The third is being responsible. This means taking full responsibility for the results you get without making excuses or blaming others. Which kind of thinking is going on in your classroom? demo it People will ultimately do as you do, not as you say. Emerson said, “Who you are speaks so loudly, I can’t hear what you are saying.”

Do you live your life above or below the line?

Are you taking responsibility for your actions?

Do you make excuses or blame others? Show and demonstrate in your life responsibility and others will follow.

qUOTE

Once children learn how to learn, nothing is going to narrow their mind. The essence of teaching is to make learning contagious, to have one idea spark another.

Marva collins

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                                                                 

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

  