Reflections on a School Year

Yee haah!

2008-11-10T20:56:00.000+11:00

Have just finished my last assignment for university: a portfolio showcasing the culmination of a year’s work. Done-diddley-un! My prac finished last Friday, another A!

Uni is over.

Haven’t been writing much on here the past few weeks – most of my “reflecting” has been on the back of lesson plans trying to figure out how to engage and captivate my holy terror of a year seven class. Some lessons I spend at least 80% of the time trying to get the darling little cherubs to shut up and listen. have come to the conclusion that there are two basic ingredients in classroom management: relationships and consistency. On a four week prac it’s nigh impossible to build the former when said cherubs are trying every way possible to rile you and know their real teacher will be back soon, and in my attempts to try varying methods of behaviour control, consistency has gone out of the window. On a similar vein, the school seems to be lacking consistency across classes; some teachers are strict, others are lax, and supposed school policies of no phones in class, no hats on in class etc. are enforced with vastly different degrees of adherence. Half of the executive positions at the school are filled by acting head teachers and deputies and the chain of command is blurry to say the least.

Looking back at my Japan blog, I’m appalled by how much my desire to write has gone out the window this year. Enforced reflection doesn’t really work and these pages are as staid as my head has become.

I’ve found a really really cool juggling site and I plan to spend the coming summer learning to juggle, learning to draw and reading stuff for fun, not assignments.

Hopefully I will start writing again by choice by next year, but this is the last for a while.

Year 7 - learning the hard way

2008-10-25T14:18:00.004+11:00

At the end of week 2 I am exhausted, principally due to my battles with year 7. The school has a fortnightly timetable and in week one year 7 only have English twice, only once of which I had to teach them. However, last week I had them four times, and somehow, things didn't go as planned and went from not so good to really not so good!

I think it all started when they were really noisy and unsettled at the beginning of the week, and then the next lesson I decided to wait and start putting up times on the board, so we ended up having 60 minutes of built up detention. Then I started reacting to some of the students and my boundaries got all fuzzy in the wash until by Friday morning they had all the power and were playing me for everything I was worth. After class I was walking through the foyer and a number of students commented on how stressed I looked! I spent a lot of time that day thinking about all the things I had not done so well, how much I can choose to have learnt this week, and the ways I can use this experience to make me into a better teacher and person.

The meeting

2008-10-22T19:00:00.000+11:00

Dubbo has a collegiate system of schooling. There are two middle schools and one senior campus in Dubbo, the only government options for schooling. No 7-12 schools exist outside the independent sector. The teachers aren't especially impressed with this set-up, arguing that teachers at the 7-9 campuses burn out quickly and finding replacements is difficult as few teachers want to teach in a middle school. They believe that younger middle school students benefit from having role models within the school and that discipline problems have increased since the system was implemented. It also leaves teachers at the high school campus with two major assessments to prepare students for, increasing pressure substantially. There are arguments that splitting the stage 5 syllabus (years 9 and 10) between two campuses leaves students feeling unsafe about changing schools and the number of year 9 drop-outs is increasing.

Tonight the Regional Director came to address a full collegiate meeting, with teachers from all three campuses attending. It seems like every six months there is a review of this system, with a big push for it to be chhanged by the teachers. However the RD was holding the department line and despite an impassioned introduction where she spelt out the concerns of the teachers, she proceeded to talk about the closing of the gap for indig students and a whole host of carefully edited statistics to demonstrate why the system coudn't be changed. Every question that was asked by the teachers present was neatly evaded and several were openly chastised in front of their peers, including a three year out teacher who was admonished for daring to take on the regional director with his limited experience. The whole meeting was something of a farce and frustrations were not appeased.

Thank God it's Friday

2008-10-19T11:14:00.002+11:00

I am so so so tired. But in a good way.

Today I followed my year eight class all around school and watched them under different teachers. It was really educational. In geography they were really chatty, not at all engaged with the work and didn't really do very much. In maths they were a little bit better, even though they said the maths teacher was their favourite teacher, but there was still lots of talking going on whilst he was trying to explain pi to them. In science after recess they were much much better behaved. No talking for the beginning part of the lesson and everyone on task. Unfortunately the teacher gave them too long for the task and the silliness picked up in a big way, but then they got to watch a video on collisions whilst she explained all the students' idiosyncrasies. Next was P.E. theory and i was absolutely amazed. The subtle whiff of fear in the classroom kept everyone quiet as a mouse. This, on e of the chattiest groups in the school and you could have heard a pin drop. The downside was that all they got to do for the 45mins was copy notes of the smartboard and the room was filled with the scratching of pens busily at work. Even when they teacher left the room for a couple of minutes, apart from a couple of nervous giggles, silence was maintained.

I taught them in fifth period, and after a day of telling them I wasn’t in class to discipline or teach them, the whip came out. I think they made the mistake of thinking that because I had spent the day building relationships with them as a class and individually, I now wanted to be their best friend and they could get away with anything. Ha! It didn’t help that it was last period Friday (true last period is reserved for teachers’ meetings and detention) and we were all itching to get out of the room.

We were reading stories they had been writing for the past couple of lessons and my timing was out because I spent so much time trying to discipline them at the beginning of the lesson. After each student read out their story I tried to elicit some form of analysis from the class - Pebbles said it would have worked better if I had given them a matrix to base their judgements on, which his a good lesson for next time. Then I almost ran ot of time and was caught with a task that I didn’t really have time for, so it was a bit messy. I could have used the games on the smartboard but didn’t really want to reward them for mucking around so much. An interesting lesson and a lot learnt.

Thursday - Uniday!!!

2008-10-16T22:35:00.004+11:00

Today I almost learnt to ride a unicycle. But I'm much better at almost riding it than I was. We had sport at school today and I went to circus. I discovered that I can't qualify for my level 1 juggling certificate because even though I can now juggle three balls indefinitely, I need to be able to juggle two in one hand twenty times. There's a trick of rolling them and juggling them sideways which is necessary to pick up advanced juggling skills in the future, and all of a sudden I feel like I can't juggle at all again - a bit like learning to drive a manual car after after driving for several years!

There is a regular unicycle workshop at lunchtime on Tuesdays and Thurdays, but I passed because I had my first lesson with year nine after lunch. On monday, two turned up, and yesterday was the excursion, so today was my first chance to meet them. After my brainwave about setting up all my own management systems, and a bit of help from a book I am reading, appropriately called Getting the Buggers to Behave, I set up some really solid plans for the lesson today. We talked about expectations and stuff and I got them to do a fair bit of work - though it was all a bit of a culture shock to be honest. However, though engagement was very very low, with a lot of help we got stuff done and there were no major behaviour issues.

Then I went to Circus West in the afternoon and almost learnt to ride a unicycle - going up and down the stage, coming off, getting back on , coming off badly and almost spraining my wrist and getting back on and getting all hot and smelly. It was fun and I don't think I'm going to be able to walk tomorrow!

Wiped Wednesday

2008-10-15T20:52:00.000+11:00

This evening I'm absobloodylutely exhausted - wiped is the precise term to be sure.
This morning I taught two lessons in a row: year eight again, this time in the computer room writing up stories and then year seven straight after - introducing speech, well carrying on really from where Pebbles, my prac supervisor, left off.

Then in the afternoon we had an excursion with year nine to go visit the senior campus. Didn't get a break all day and discovered that standing up in my boots all day makes for very sore feet.

The lessons went okay - the computer room was really noisy, didn't have enough computers for all the students and I felt I was shoving snow uphill trying to get some of the students to do any work. Bribery seems to work better than coercion for a lot of the other teachers and I can see a reward system becoming a big part of my teaching practice over the next few weeks.

As Ray, the classroom management guy earlier this year said, good students don't need rewards, but even though this is the top year eight class, motivation and initiative are in short supply. I think I'm going to set up a raffle ticket system for all my classes starting Monday - give out chocolate bars on Friday to three winners from each class.

My first year seven class went a lot smoother, and I managed to pretty much get all of their names down in the first lesson, which I was pretty happy with. Again, there were a few bumps and hiccups, but on the whole I was pretty happy with their ability to produce some fine work and I think this is going to be my favourite class over the next few weeks - not that I'm picking favourites of course.

I learnt a couple of really important lesson today, possibly the hard way, about not being able to run with Pebbles' classroom management strategies as my own. It's easy to walk into a classroom and expect the students to behave for me as they have done for a different teacher; but of course that teacher has spent a lot of time building up a relationship with that class and I am a different person - a fact the students are well aware of. So of course I have to start from scratch with everything and build up my own strategies from scratch. Need to remember that with year nine tomorrow, as their reputation as not the brightest bunch in the school, precedes them.

The excursion in the afternoon was interesting but tiring. It wasn't especially well organised from the senior campus perspective and there were mix up with who was supposed to be where. Lunch was the typical sausage sizzle, a sausage between two slices of white bread and a slurp of sauce for everyone else, and an apple and a squished banana from the bottom of my bag, for me. There was a session before lunch and a session after; we went to the Trade Fair bit first before being removed (bad organisation) to the boring bit. The trade fair consisted of each year niner being given $30 in token money and a choice of different stalls at which to spend it, each stall's option costing paper$5 (not AUS$5)! There was a lot of sugar and fat (donuts, spiders, lollies, chips etc) on sale, a movie, some games and a few competitions with real cash (gift voucher) prizes. The sugar supplemented my squashed fruit for lunch. The we got whisked away to a classroom where students were being tortured by having to think of responsible vs irresponsible behaviour etc. Pebbles had to go back to this in the afternoon, but let me, the praccy, go back to the trade fair. I was kind of over it the first time, but at least I got to eat more sugar, which is still buzzing around my brain!

Tuesday - First lesson

2008-10-14T20:19:00.000+11:00

I had year eight straight after lunch; lined them up outside the room and tried to make two lines with them, but its something they're not used to and as it was the first time I had taught in quite a while I probably tried to wing it more than I should of.

We were starting visual literacy, and as on Tuesdays they normally do creative writing I had them write about a picure I had found on Time's Pictures of the Week. We talked a little about composition and what the students thought was going on in the photos, but I probably could have gotten into it deeper.

First lessons are always hard though because you don't know what you're walking into and have to start from scratch picking up class dynamics and the personalities of different students.

The lesson could have been a lot cleaner, but it also could have been much much messier. I didn't do anything to shoot myself in the foot and I think I started to build up a good rapport with the class. There are some characters in there who seem resentful of doing work, but also a lot of smart kids who don't seem to be challenged enough. It's good to have my first lesson done and dusted and I'm feeling a lot more confident about the next few weeks.

Dubbo

2008-10-13T21:58:00.000+11:00

This is my last practicum. I started today. Observation. Tomorrow I start teaching: visual literacy for year eight. We get to look at picture books, graphic novels, photographs. It sounds like fun.

Almost there

2008-10-10T11:32:00.000+11:00

Today is my last day in Wodonga. I have just had my last week at uni. Tomorrow I make the journey to Dubbo to complete my final practicum, and thus my graduate diploma in education. I haven’t written in this my reflective journal for some time, a symptom of my increasing disillusionment with the course.

My last practicum was fun; I felt like I was finally learning important lessons, lessons that have been harshly missing over the previous nine months. Most of it has felt like irritating hoops to be jumped through as the university has concocted a course that sketchily meets all the department’s regulations for teaching registration, but little else. Tedious small group tasks upon small groups tasks devising units of work, which I doubt I will ever use. The only English discipline based unit we were force to manufacture into a cross discipline unit, which is much outside the true nature of text and theme based units eschewed by most curricula.

The one reason I was really excited about this course, the opportunity to dirty my hands in lots of educational methodology, we have been left to discover by ourselves, given only a cursory introduction to some of the discipline’s earlier protagonists such as Piaget and Vygotski; the equivalent of trying to approach the ethical philosophy of stem cell research with only Aristotle and Plato to go on. Unfortunately the multitude of tedious small tasks have detracted from my mission of reading voraciously, and in recent months, reaching for escapism, weathering under the strain of being talked at for endless hours at a time, I have found myself gorging on fiction for the first time in many years.

Today my philosophy essay is due, and I have spent the last two days re-reading, investigating, dredging through and being inspired to greater and lesser extents, by the subject matter I was so excited by so many months ago. In concert with the vagueness of the rest of the course, our excuse for an essay question is:

Develop a statement about personal philosophy to teaching.

Like, what is that? The one thing that has come home to me during the year is that precise planning and targeted questions open up students thought processes much more than a vague “what do you think about x?” But this year has been marked by huge double standards. “Don’t forget multiple intelligences” drone the lecturers week after week in the same style, with the same monotonous voices over badly constructed powerpoint presentations. “you must be engaging” we further get droned at, as most of the class have taken to doodling, reading, watching youtube videos on laptops, or filling in the cryptic crosswords in the attempt to complete the necessary 80% attendance rate for the requisite piece of paper we are all here for.
“Build meaningful relationships with students” demand lecturers who are known for ‘going off’ at innocent students who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time whilst lecturers are stressing about their own research. What happened to ‘user-pays’? You’d never guess that we are the reason they are getting paid, as yet another lecturer whinges about the marking and the paperwork they have to do.

Patrick, David, Andrew, Tom. My cultural studies lecturers. Whatever happened to the guys who inspired me to see the world in a completely different way, headfucked my brain, bent rules and encouraged rule bending. Macquarie University’s “higher earning for higher learning” I guess. and now the department no longer exists, leaving being the fuddy-duddies and their straight modernist readings of Shakespeare and Melville and Chaucer. The politics of education. And this is what I want to write my essay about, where politics meets philosophy, for both are surely interdependent upon the other.

Driven

2008-09-03T13:30:00.000+10:00

Drive driven drove
Hide hidden hid
Play played played
Say said said
Swing swung swang
is that a real word
write written wrote
He is hidden.
Adjective or verb
question questioning questioned
leave the continuous out
for a moment
a pause
confusion
flickers or near comprehension
masked by the rushing clouds of doubt

I’m good at this and after a day of self doubt
it’s good to have my hands on
concrete facts
but I’m out of practise,
knowledge hiding behind
questions of ethics
in class today.
The only ethics in this ESL class
involves a decision to leave the cross dressing question
out of the activity.
My ethics, saturating a classroom.

What are the ethics of the closet?
Ideals vs. safety, playing chicken
in the middle of the desert.
Maybe the dust will remove
blame
and guilt.

Bleach

2008-09-03T11:28:00.000+10:00

Swinging in my hammock,
Bleach in my hair.
Tim Winton lying face up on the concrete below.
Driven
said my mate Tony on Facebook last night.
I’d said flakey, but he corrected me.
Everything made sense in
a flash.
Sure I’m restless,
not grounded,
figety
- call it what you like.
But that’s okay too.
Maybe I am still looking
and maybe not an old tree
roots tugging at the centre of
the earth in the middle of a storm.
Haunted by my destiny,
still trying to learn to smell the roses
but I inspire other people
if not myself.

Swinging in my hammock,
yoga stillness
looking lovelorn at the hills
whilst the wind berates me with stories I don’t understand.
The wind chimes sing
The plastic bag on my head
rustles a hoarse plastic bag rustle song
and I’m almost content.

Tuesday and Wednesday - week 2

2008-08-13T21:23:00.000+10:00

One of the lecturers from uni came and observed me today. She said she would probably give me an A, which made me really happy and somewhat cocky for the rest of the day.

I was glad I had gone to the extra effort of making a copy of my lesson plan, printouts of this reflective journal for the first week, and a neat stack of all my lesson plans and documentation. It gave her the impression I was organised. I am. She also commented on my professional attire. Lol. Funny how that 10 mins of extras preparation can make all the difference. Or not.

I just had year 9 and I wasn't so happy with how that lesson went. It missed something; when the discussion wasn't as animated as I had hoped, I went to the video and I felt like I lost them in the middle of Zefirelli. I don't like this 1960s version with men prancing around in "venetian" costume (or venonian) and perhaps the kids picked up on that.

Yesterday we had a debate that went really well, but perhaps it was just a question of flogging the proverbial dead horse - find a good trick and change it quickly next time before it gets old.

But with this lesson I thought I was well prepared, but maybe I should have gone over stuff immediately before walking into class, because in truth, I didn't feel fully confident of my material. I also tried to follow an apparent brainwave about the text I had in the middle of class, but I think I completely lost them then. despite ability they are still a year 9 class and I momentarily confused it with my old uni tutorials where anything goes.

In the afternoon I had a chat with Fred, my supervisor, and he said I was being too hard on myself. Yes there were parts where I dug myself in and should have extricated myself annd the class a little earlier from the confusion. But Fred said that leading complex discussions is always a tricky balancing act and he reckons if he has 4 or 5 REALLY good lessons then he's happy.

I guess this is all part of learning the mystical art of teaching.

Friday

2008-08-08T18:25:00.001+10:00

First thing in the morning I had year seven poetry. Wilma was away again and I had the same casual teacher who was supervising me when they class ran riot last time. This time, first thing in the morning they were beautiful, thanks largely I think to my exceptional organisational skills . . .
In groups they read some poems to each other about school, teachers and being in trouble. Then I read a passage written by a teacher about a kid on detention wanting to write a poem. The students were really attentive whilst I was reading; the passage desribed the process involved in brainstorming and editing a poem and they seemed to understand the gist of it when we were recapping it afterwards. On Monday I’m going to scaffold on this and get them to have a go at writing their own poems.

In the afternoon I had year nine for Romeo and Juliet again. We watched the first scene of the Baz Luhrmann version and highlighted in the text how much he actually used, which led to a further discussion about visual versus verbal literacy. Then I had then choose a scene from Act II and treat it similarly as well as choose a setting to place it in. It involved walking an interesting tightrope between giving them too much time, thus encouraging general chitchat, and not enough time so they felt rushed and stressed about the activity. The class didn’t seem that comfortable with it, but I think it was good to stretch them, though they wouldn’t agree if you asked them. However it got them thinking with and beyond the text and encouraged a closer reading than they may not otherwise have had without spoon-feeding.

To sum up, I feel I’ve had an excellent week. I can see huge progress from Monday to Friday and I’m really excited about the next couple. Fred and I are going to sit down and do some goal setting on Monday; a process I was a bit concerned had fallen through the cracks. But as he said and I realised beforehand, it makes much more sense to do it after the first week when I’ve settled in and the teachers have a better idea of my strengths and weaknesses.

Thursday

2008-08-07T19:21:00.000+10:00

I went to the Murrie Kulcha excursion over lunchtime; it was kind of cool but it took a while for the kids to get engaged though. Perhaps this was because the guy presenting it, Lewis Parkes, talked for a long time about his culture, before getting the kids involved. Maybe if he had started off with a song they would have been more interested initially. However when he started talking about his digeridoo, and demonstrating some of the sounds he could make with it, the students became much more interested.

I spent a fair bit f time planning lessons and talking with people today; I had an interesting chat with one of the teachers, Pebbles, about registration and accreditation. It seems like if I want to teach in NSW at a later date I might need to stick around here for while. However, I really need to have a big think about where I want to teach, one of those big meaning of life questions which is important and don’t want to see myself lounging about in a rut in five years time that I clearly saw coming. It’s that balance between having a secure trade/profession to fall back on whilst not losing my freedom. I need to prioritise whether I want to go overseas, save some money, or both. Right now though I need to focus on my prac, in the short term, and finishing my course in the medium.

Anyhoo, last period I had year seven. After the dog’s breakfast I had made of my class yesterday, I really wanted to get them (and me) back on track and focussed. We had a seating plan arranged, which was implemented with minimum fuss, and managed to get through most of the work planned, which made me happy. I had planned excess, as I didn’t want to be left without work for them to do. The students had some difficulty distinguishing between metaphors and similes, and I want to go over that stuff again on Monday. Tomorrow I want to do something a little more light hearted.

Wednesday

2008-08-06T18:20:00.000+10:00

I was really nervous about teaching iambic pentameter, and thus as a result I planned really thoroughly for it. I made sure I had a variety of activities planned in case:
a) the students wouldn’t get it
b) I would get confused trying to explain
c) the students would hate it.

We spent some time as a class and in pairs practising reading the fragmented parts, where characters get distracted or interrupted etc. I had students find similar examples in the text and then we went on to IP. Explained it briefly and then put up an overhead for them to copy which took longer than expected. Then we found some examples and most of the students seemed to get a grasp of what we were doing which was good. I emphasised that this was an introduction and that they didn’t need to feel they understood it completely as it is quite an advanced topic for year nine.

Mid way through the lesson, when I was trying to explain why they used so many puns in Elizabethan times, and show the difference between visual and verbal literacy I became enthusiastic about my subject matter and finally felt like I was injecting some passion into my lesson. It was good to remember what teaching feels like, as opposed to following a script.

In period 7 I had year seven again; a casual teacher was observing me and this meant that I was left to cope with classroom management by myself, without an authoritative figure sitting in the back of the classroom. It’s amazing how much difference that makes even when they don’t say anything.

I learnt the hard way that classroom management is largely to do with having lessons well planned and getting students working as soon as they come into the room, not getting sidetracked and hijacked, especially late in the afternoon. We only got through the stuff to be finished from the last lesson, not new work. I think I was blasé about year seven after having got my double Shakespeare out of the way.

At least tomorrow is a new day and we can all start afresh.

Tuesday

2008-08-05T18:19:00.000+10:00

Today went well. I had two classes: year 7 poetry before recess and Romeo and Juliet with year nine after recess. It was my third lesson with year seven, and the one lesson of the week they have with a different teacher. We got through more work than I expected, and I made a point of moving around the class, getting to know the students. Some of my instructions were a bit messy and some of the students were confused, but all in all, the lesson went well. Learnt about not putting the OHP to close to the board, as some students couldn’t see.

After recess I had my first class with year nine. I planned to have them write a condensed form of the play, discuss it and then have a quiz. After some initial complaints that they had done it all before, they worked together really well, apart from one student, who wouldn’t stop talking. After they had finished the summary I got them to read out what they had done. I wasn’t sure if they were bored or not as some students were critiquing other work, but many seemed a bit disengaged, but perhaps that is just my lack of self-confidence.

It took longer than I expected to go through this and I wanted to change tack because the activity had clearly run its course. There were only five minutes to go however, and I told them they could pack up and wait for the bell, but realised I couldn’t really leave them just sitting there. It seemed like a perfectly fine thing for teachers to do when I was at school, but now felt awkward. I went over and asked my supervising teacher, Fred, what I should do about it (Ihave a different supervisor for each class) and he suggested going through some of the questions from the quiz before the bell.

I felt a bit silly for ending the lesson so scruffily, but he said it was okay and that he liked the way I had used the group time to wander around the class.

In the afternoon we had sport. I went to basketball and was coerced into playing a game I haven’t in to many years to mention. It was great fun. Didn’t embarrass myself and saw a couple of the more troublesome boys in their element. Haven’t run so hard in forever and I felt awesome afterwards.

Practicum II: A-One High School.

2008-08-04T18:00:00.000+10:00

Today was a really good day – a nice start to my practicum. I taught year 7 twice, and I think I’m well on the way to winning their confidence. I’ve learnt about a third of the kids names and by the end of the week I should have all of them down pat.

I need to work on the clarity of my instructions; at the moment they are a little vague. I also have some classroom management stuff to work on; need to walk around the room some more and check out what the quieter girls are up to. My prac teacher, Wilma, said they were sitting up the back colouring. She also said that whilst I was discussing some classroom discipline issues with the class a lot of the students were bored, and this could be a greater problem in the afternoon classes, of which I have three a week. So the trick seems to be to get them working on something as soon as they get in the door as “busy work keeps them occupied late in the afternoon” according to Wilma.

There was also a smart board in the room we were in this afternoon, so, either next Monday, or another time soon, it would be really good to take it for a test drive.

Classroom management

2008-07-10T16:51:00.000+10:00

The first day back from holidays and we had a three-day seminar on classroom management. We looked at different types of power and then looked at four different types of students.

Legitimate power refers to that granted through a position, for example, police have conferred power, and to some extent teachers do too. Reward power is granted when one uses a carrot to convince someone to do something. e.g. when you finish your work we’ll play a game. Coercive power is that gained through the threat of punishment. Expert power occurs when one person has knowledge that another wants to receive. Finally, Referent power comes from the respect acquired through meaningful relationships. Supposedly, with all students, legitimate and coercive power usage is the least effective, and referent power the most.

Ray, the guy giving the seminar, went on to talk about four types of students:
A students are those who are self-managing. They will organise themselves to learn the curriculum.
B students are occasionally disruptive in class, but do not have to be isolated or referred to others.
C students need to be isolated or referred to others for behaviour management; and
D students generally seem unmanageable no matter what is attempted.

He said that when you first set up a classroom, the teacher needs to elicit a set of rights and responsibilities that come from, and are agreed to by all students. Rules are really bad, because by definition they come from outside the students and are thus disempowering. The rights and responsibilities should cover two areas: that students have the right to do as much work as possible in the classroom and that everyone has the right to feel safe. Just about all discipline problems will fall into one of these areas. The next step is to encourage responsibility rather than obedience. Individual and group responsibility. The latter involves students encouraging peers to behave appropriately as well as themselves.

A students should only need hints to get them back on track. This involves low intrusion responses such as pausing, walking closer, or glancing at a student casually. A verbal intrusion should be non-specific such as describing the general situation in the class or restating expectations. They shouldn’t need rewards or recognition because the behaviour itself, and knowledge of their own maturity should be enough of a reward. This set up huge disagreement within the class as many people felt that everyone appreciates rewards and recognition.

B students respond well to praise and recognition. When they out of line the inappropriate behaviour should be identified, why it is inappropriate clarified, and the corresponding appropriate behaviour pointed out.

C students are a little more difficult and often need to be dealt with out of class. Ray talked a lot about the difference between being in your “adult” and “child” space. This isn’t about age. When we get emotional, we all revert to our child (me especially), which has a tendency to be self-absorbed and petulant. The trick is, when reprimanding a student, to get them into their adult space where they can be reasoned with. This involves always staying calm as a teacher and a manipulated conversation that doesn’t ask why questions, but gets the student to acknowledge their behaviour was unreasonable.

D students supposedly, don’t believe they are liked, and their behaviour stems from a whole host of other stuff. The trick is to separate the student and their behaviour and make them feel important and liked.

With all this stuff, building relationships was the most important factor in classroom management, which makes sense. One odd thing that came up half way through the last day though, was a discussion about the difference between first and second born children. Ray believes that all first borns carry the weight of their parents’ expectations on their shoulders and are doomed perfectionists. Thus, they shouldn’t be teachers as nothing will ever be god enough in their quest to save the world. Second borns, on the other hand, are carefree and happy go lucky, whilst third borns don’t count! Me as a 15yr gap accident supposedly falls into the trap of a born-again first-born. Lucky me! However, Ray turned out to be a born-again behviourist, which lost him a lot of credibility in my book.

Another interesting side-not which came up was an understanding of how Ritalin works. I had never understood how giving a hyperactive kid speed could possibly calm them down. Supposedly their hyperactivity comes from not being able to process all the stimuli received, but the Ritalin helps them process said stimuli faster and thus not go crazy. Intersting.

English Presentation Day

2008-06-12T17:16:00.002+10:00

We have an absolute plethora of small group work in this course, which is somewhat frustrating me. I guess I'm just not used to it. There are obvious pluses: getting to divide up work, being available to a variety of ideas etc. but sometimes it seems that the downsides are the frustrating amount of time it can take to make decisions and the joys of working with other people's thinking styles. And this is working with friends. We keep being warned about having to collaborate with other teachers within staffrooms. I think I'm going to keep practicing karate. lol.

Today we had an English Presentation Day. Each group had to invent a unit of work for middle years students, which is between years 5 and 9. And the nasty catch of the assignment was that it had to be within a discipline outside of English, but applying to the English dimensions (a vic.gov.au techo expression) of writing, reading, and speaking and listening. Read that three dimensions, not four, notice the careful placement of commas there. Coming from an ESL background its kind of weird having speaking and listening smashed together in one dimension, as its an exceptional person that's equally good (not average) at both, whether one is talking about second (or third, fourth, fifth) language or communicating in one's first tongue.

Our group chose to base our unit of work on the recent 2020 Summit, and designed it for year nine students. We started off wanting to tackle all or several of the key areas, but ended up honing it down to the section on sustainability. Me - hanging out with bloody greenies. Never!

There were 18 groups in all and we had to present in less than 10 minutes. We had been told the time was to be strictly adhered to, but after spending last night timing speeches and shaving and juggling time it was annoying in the least to have to sit and listen to some groups waffling on for up to twenty minutes. There were a couple of key areas we had to address: how we had incorporated the English dimensions into our unit and used the work of a couple of theorists called Luke and Freebody. Any doubts I had about the more minute points of the latter were clearly fixed up after listening to almost eighteen groups specifically call attention to such work ( a couple missed that line on the assessment criteria - they didn't do so well I suspect).

On top of all this we were being peer assessed, which meant we had to listen to each other, which is good for the people presenting. It also meant we all learnt a lot from each other, which is somewhat stating the obvious, but when I was in a high school watching students give talks in English, lots of students were staring out the window or writing notes to their friends whilst other people were giving their presentations. We were just before lunch and attention was well and truly flagging by that time; it must have been awful for the people going last. I was worried because a lot of people used attention grabbing devices to keep engagement, but we just had a somewhat dry power point presentation and the benefit of three loud voices - until my high school presentation nerves revisited and my voice started cracking. Luckily no one but me seemed to notice.

It was interesting that the people who used food and or gimmicks didn't necessarily command the most respect. Despite how much we have been trained in whole-group-whole teaching, only one group broke the class up into smaller groups. Some people did far too much work for a unit that had to be a minimum of six lessons long. We had sat down at the start and decided we wanted to do the minimum work necessary for the maximum marks. A lot of groups brought food, especially sugar, in, and I felt sorry for the groups who had to follow them, remembering how much I hated teaching kids after school whose parents loaded them up with sugar just before they came to class.

All in all in was a long but interesting day. I think the thing I brought away from it was that being prepared and confident and knowing your subject matter is much more engaging than having zingy distractions that haven't been thought out properly. But I guess I always knew that.

Excursion teaching

2008-05-28T21:34:00.004+10:00

We had an excursion to the Regional Arts Gallery and the Library Museum in Albury yesterday. I didn’t even know there was an Art Gallery in Albury. It was really cool. I wish I had known about it earlier, it was a really nice space. There were some cool Tracey Moffatt photographs. Talking to someone else at the end of the day who was pretty critical of the space actually made me more appreciative of it because I had to justify why I thought it was good. Either I’ve only seen crappy art spaces or they’ve seen some amazing ones, but for a gallery in a small country town I was impressed. There was a nice mix of open free space and areas where you could sit and draw or write or play. When we first go there they gave us some time to “acclimatise” – about 5 minutes just to wander around and feel comfortable in the space. The staff explained that they did this so students didn’t find the space threatening and have a chance to calm down and be, rather than be excited and rowdy. They had a team of education officers who explained to us how they run the space. I would have liked to have more time to look around independently, but these are tactics used with school students and we where there to learn about using such community spaces as a teacher rather than look at art. We were sat and were talked at, and one of the staff said she preferred to run less structured activities with students, because students have a chance to get a broader range of experiences out of the visit, even though a more structured visit may have more “cognitive” value. I felt however, that it may have been more beneficial if we had had time to wander around and come up with our own ideas on how to use the space, rather than be spoon-fed others – which weren’t especially amazing anyhoo.

However, at the time, the remark about cognitive versus emotional experiences got me thinking about a paper I was reading for a tut on preparation for early years learning, where the authors were talking about the different social pressures that have arisen in recent years – increased access to and use of drug and alcohol among youth, the replacement of the ‘nuclear’ family by other versions of family life and how we need to be redesigning our curriculum to give students the tools to cope with these pressures. It occurred to me that there has been an increased focus on inter and intra personal skills in schools since I was there, and that if we had had education directed at social skills I would probably be a completely better, more well adjusted person!

Back to the art gallery. They gave us a worksheet (rather structured) whereby we had to write two narrative descriptions of what was happening in two different pictures. I liked it because it made me look at and think about the pictures more closely, but as one of our lecturers pointed out, there was nothing in it that asked for an emotional response – it was all very intellectual. And it was asking for a written [or drawn] response to the work [but the paper was lined so there was nowhere to draw except on the back]. I thin on a once off visit it would have been hard to get a lot out of it using the materials the gallery provided, especially if you were coming from out of town and didn’t have the opportunity to pre-prepare. [have I just invented a new tautological word???]

Then we went over to the library museum. A really nice library with big orange [or were they lime green?] carpeted steps for kids to sit one, but again the [same] staff were supposed to be demonstrating the services they had on offer but didn’t seem to be au fait with. To be frank, the museum was my idea of hell. I found it boring and tedious and I’m a semi-grown adult. Cramped displays in a dark claustrophobic room featuring historical objects. This is the stuff that used to make me think history was deadly boring; museum spaces crammed with objects featuring few descriptions and no stories. The sort of places I always go to overseas and hate, but feel obliged to suffer. Rooms filled with variations on the same theme. The National Museum in Bangkok is an exception. It has informative and interesting guided tours, which walk you through the different stylistic features from different ages and regions. For example, by looking at a Buddha statue, the way the hair is curled the feet designed and the nose shaped, you can tell where and when they are from. The symbolisms of the different poses are also explained, leaving the visitor leaving with a sense of learning – not boredom.

Artefacts are interesting evidence, but the evidence without the stories leaves me cold. We were given a coloured photocopy resource sheet that looked expensively but poorly designed. It merely required students to find things and ill in factual information; but little or no critical thinking was required.

Day 10 :: I think I survived!

2008-05-23T18:05:00.000+10:00

My last day was all about paper aeroplanes. The first lesson was a read and do lesson, which started a little bit late because assembly ran a little late. Every Friday the school comes to gether and awards for the week are given out.

As I anticipated planes flying everywhere and had been told that on no account could planes be flown inside the classroom or without proper direction, I was sure an over enthusiastic kid was going to get their plane confiscated early on. Thus I set out extremely clear instructions, detailing that this morning was for making and decorating planes and this afternoon everyone would get a chance to fly them. Heeding Thomas' advice, I set up tight procedures on how the students would form a line and wait for their instruction sheet one at a time before selecting piece of coloured paper and moving quietly to their desks. I also set up an expectation that they would behave, not the reverse, and this paid off.

Last night I went to bed early, for the first time in this practicum, and thus I arrived at school feeling refreshed and full of the milk of human kindness. My edginess gone, I spent time with students who were have difficulty with the instruction sheet and encouraged those who finished early to decorate their of help friends on their table only, thinking that wandering students were more likely to be seduced by the temptation to let one fly.

When everyone was finished we gathered at the front of the room and I explained the military procedure in which we were to fly and measure the distance of our planes' flight this afternoon in maths. However I suffered from the first of my timetabling, clock reading mistakes and had extra time left over when I finished, which took some f the shine off my achievements.

A similar mistake occurred after lunch when I though I wasn't teaching until later in the afternoon and then lost ten minutes. I think Rebecca thought I was standing around for my health, and I was wondering what she was doing, so that was all a bit awkward.

I began the maths lesson by giving them 20 minutes to finish up a sheet they had started a couple of days earlier, but hadn't finished, on volume. The we all went through the procedures again; I divided the class into four groups, and explained how one group at a time would move up to the front line, and wait for instructions before test flying their plane. Then, upon further instructions they would collect their planes and return in line at the back of the class. After each group had two test flights we would measure the distances their planes had flown.

Amazingly, up until the moment we officially flew the planes, only one student succumbed to the urge to take his for an unscheduled test run, and it promptly ended up on the school roof. I wasn't sure whether to laugh or feel sorry for him. On the whole the students were amazingly sensible and well behaved during the whole exercise and I felt enormously proud of them. As we were clearing things away and preparing to go back inside, a couple escaped their owners' hands tempting more to follow suit, so I had to confiscate a handful, but I couldn't believe how much of a difference careful planning could make.

I wished I had another week of teaching in which to hone my newly developed classroom management skills.

Day 9 :: Home stretch

2008-05-22T17:42:00.000+10:00

My first lesson of the morning was a small group guided reading session. I had previously taught the higher level students and these guys were at the lowest standard of reading in the class. We made predictions about the book The Great Shopping Cart caper and then read through the story, with each students getting to read several times. I went over pronunciation and new words with them whilst the were reading and at the end covered comprehension issues. The I gave each student a chapter and they had to summarise it. I went around each students and made sure they understood the task and helped if need be. About this time I lost three of the students to a remedial spelling catch up class and finished the session with only two. With the other students gone however, they seemed to write their summaries much more quickly and we came back to together and shared their writing and then talked about some of the issues in the book. It was a nice session, possibly made much easier by only having two students for much of it.

Then I had the same top group of students for spelling and have no idea what went wrong here. Somehow I missed the engagement factor. We identified the silent consonants inthe vowels, finishing up fro the other day, but then I couldn't get some of the students to stop being silly. I'm not sure if it was me the activity or a combination of both. I need zing back. Exhaustion crippling!

I had planned to give them a word search after we had completed the activity in a circle, but they were getting positively boisterous by this time and I didn't want to reward them for being silly, so I gave them a writing exercise to do for the remaining time, with the threat that anyone not finished would be doing so at recess. Everyone miraculously worked very efficiently and we came back together and shared stories and poems.

I again made mistakes with expectations and engagement, but think I did a good mid-lesson correct.

In the afternoon we continued on with integrated studies and looked at the communication issues that would have faced the early settlers and the indigenous community. I spent a lot of time planning and scaffolding this lesson, because the problems that could beset it were multiplicitous, and the extra extra effort paid dividends. We played a simple form of charades as a whole group, and then I gave each small group a phrase they had to try and communicate to the rest of the class without words, sounds or props. Each individual student was given a role and then everyone was given five minutes to prepare. After which each group had a minute in which to communicate their message followed by time for small groups to decide what they thought the messages were. At the end we came back into a whole group, discussed what students thought were the messages and what they really were, and then moved into a short but effective discussion on the problems peoples of differing linguistic backgrounds have communicating with each other.

I was really really happy with this lesson. Finally things seemed to be falling into place.

Day 8 :: meltdown

2008-05-21T18:44:00.000+10:00

I woke up this morning not really wanting to go to school, exhausted before I started and seriously considering chucking a sickie. But today I learnt a lot.

My first class was handwriting. I got in early and wrote out the words on the rolled up piece of whiteboard, some of my spelling was a bit off but Rebecca said that I spent too much time focussing on the content rather than the form of the letters. She also asked rather acidly whether we were taught the Victorian standard for cursive handwriting. Another of her digs at the course. And the answer is no. Plus, I was taught to write very differently, letters were looped below the line and s's looked completely different, as did r's; all letter are now linked by a diagonal line. I also found it odd that kids these days aren't taught how to print but are launched straight into cursive, supposedly removing the transition difficulty later.

In poetry writing I got caught up with random questions, spent too long at the front of the class talking and was starting to getting really really exhaustion frazzled. We ended up not getting enough time to finish writing let alone for the students to share what they had written. Apparently one of the focuses of primary education is going from whole group to small group or individual work and then back to whole group. This way the kids get to share what they were doing, develop a sense of its importance and themselves as individuals within a larger group.

In maths, total meltdown occurred when the front table of boys just wouldn't stop talking, focus and do their work. A lot of this was because of the expectations I did or didn't put on them, but hoped the mere idea of punishment would convince them to behave. Clearly this was never going to work. I nedd to be much clearer about boundaries.

This also happened to be the lesson Thomas, my prac coordinator came in to watch and he ended up yelling at the boys and putting them in their place. When I talked to him about the lesson during lunch (at which time the build up of stress overflowed into tears) he spent a lot of time talking about processes: how I need to plan my whole-group-whole transitions as carefully as my content; how to get kids set up and organised and moving from one project to another with minimal fuss so as not to lose tie and focus in these in between periods. He said if you watch how primary teachers operate they have every step included for a reason. I learnt more from Thomas in half an hour than I had from Rebecca in a week and a half.

After lunch I had integrated studies and I took all this advice on board and feel like the lesson went much better. We were discussing the effect white settlers has on the indigenous community when they arrived. I took them from a whole group discussion to a small group brainstorm and then back to a whole group report back with much less drama. The students worked much much better. Rebecca said I broke from whole to small at exactly the right time. It was some rare and exceedingly welcome praise.

Day 7

2008-05-20T21:22:00.002+10:00

In the morning I had to teach a poetry writing lesson. Me, who hasn't written any poetry since I was the same age as these kids. I never liked poetry, I tried studying it at Uni out of a sense of obligation, but gave up on it pretty soon. I mistimed my lesson yet again.

Having trawled the internet for poetry writing ideas I had settled on the idea of teaching alliiteration and tongue twisters. Every child in the class wanted to have a go at saying the tongue twister and then telling me every other tongue twister they knew of, which was good, but time consuming. I wanted them to have a go at writing a tongue twister themselves, after all it was a writing lesson, and thus made a panicked decision not to write up the structure on the board. I had already got into trouble with Rebecca several times for writing on the board in front of the students and not having stuff prepared, so skipped the [who - did what - to who or what - when] bit that they really needed in retrospect to put their poems together. Tomorrow I have another writing lesson so will pick up where I left off then.

After recess I had number two in my series of maths lessons. It was a big improvement on yesterday's lessons. We weighed all the objects as a group, with all the students getting a go using the balance. I was happy trading off order for more student centred learning. Hopefully with more experience classroom management and more free form learning will have a better chance at coexistence. All my lesson objectives were met but some students still experienced some confusion about when to use grams or kilograms. Some conversion practice might be a good idea for tomorrow.

At the end of the day I had a computer studies lesson. Another dreaded event. The school computer room is an echoey converted hallway between the year 2s and 3s. There are always children running through and with all my students necessarily facing away from me towards a computer I could foresee disaster. I was showing them how to draw boxes and arrows in WordArt and it went surprisingly well, even given that the Word version the school has differs remarkably from my Mac version. A lot of the students were really good at helping out other students in the room, and after I had given each instruction I wandered around the room and helped out those still having trouble. the ones who got it quickly had fun discovering and playing with the other options.

But after teaching 3 lessons in a day, boy am I exhausted. And its only Tuesday and I've yet to prepare 4 lessons for tomorrow. Aaargh.

Week 2 :: Day 6 :: Monday

2008-05-19T20:34:00.000+10:00

First thing in the morning I had a whole class shared reading session where everyone gets a go at reading a page. I chose Rainbow Fish because I really like the artwork. I don't know if other children feel similar, but I never liked a lot of books both as a kid and now as an adult, if the pictures are not to my taste.

Before we started I went through some of the vocabulary they may have found problematic. Unfortunately I had miscounted the pages in the book and thus not everyone got a chance to read, which was a shame. They also read the book faster than I expected and I didn't end the lesson very well. there was also a constant murmur of talking that I didn't squish very well. I think a lot of this is about my confidence as a teacher; not wanting to be strict, but not surely why this is. I guess I've stepped over the friend-friendly line.

Then I had a spelling group and tried a couple of activities that didn't work especially well, students were calling out on top of one another. The end of the lesson, where we were talking about silent consonants was a bit squished and my group management had a lot of room for improvement.

In the afternoon I had to take a whole group maths class. This one had been freaking me out for a while. English and literacy are my safe comfort zones; maths is a whole different ball game. we were doing mass, which involves a whole bunch of equipment preparation, and I didn't feel I got nearly the support I would have liked from Rebecca. I've has this growing feeling of hostility from her over the past week and haven't figured out if its me or her usual sunny disposition. When I was a kid, my mum was pretty strict with me, and I remember spending alot of time looking over my shoulder wondering what I was going to do wrong next; That same feeling has been haunting me throughout this practicum. If I ask questions I feel like a monumental nuisance for taking her away from more pressing things, and if don't and then I screw up, then I'm in the doghouse too!

However, back to the lesson - because I didn't know my material well I had gone through every possible contingency and planned exactly what I was going to do - something I took away from the minutiae that was imposed during our CELTA ESL training - so all though I was out of my comfort zone and the lesson was not as smooth as I would have liked, I completed all my lesson objectives thoroughly.

I think my main achievement was finally being on top of disciple. After letting some things slide last week it was time to take some definite action so the whole class would take me seriously. Even within the lesson I could feel respect for me growing and more attention being paid.

Day 5 :: Friday

2008-05-16T20:29:00.001+10:00

Today things went somewhat downhill. In the morning I had the same guided reading group as yesterday, doing the same book. They weren't at all impressed about doing the same book again, said it was boring and generally resisted all attempts at engagement. We recapped the plot summary and reread the description of the eccentric Professor Prong, but then I lost their focus. The lesson objective was to understand the difference between statements and ideas i.e. from a description of Professor Prong we might be told that his walk is odd and his hair sticks out at crazy angles and these statements may give us the idea that he is eccentric. It was always going to be a hard idea to get across, and I should have probably scaffolded it better. I think I got complacent because the day before they had handled the story prediction really well and seemed to have a firm grasp of the comprehension.

Two of the louder, smarter students wouldn't pay attention and this pulled the focus of the rest of the group off track. One student however, came up with a really good point that he thought Professor Prong was kind because he always said "good morning" and offered to help Jack, the central protagonist. I tried to bring in others at this point and elicit more examples but by this stage had lost the group and didn't know how to get them back.

They had a written sheet to do, first write a description of Professor Prong in their own words and then, decide whether certain statements were statements or ideas. Some weren't focccussed and then complained they didn't have enough time. Few of the group actually got the concept very well and the lesson ended with me feeling somewhat frustrated. I think a large part of the problem was discipline; I still don'[t have that middle ground worked out between slight and major infractions and I think this is compounded by me being a student teacher: I have neither the authority of a 'real' teacher nor the relationships.

In the afternoon I had to teach sport and this was a headache and a half! The time seemed to g really slowly, although I had expected it would go really fast as often I tend to run out of time when conducting learning centred games in the classroom. I got a little bit confused with the rules of one of the games, which was a tad awkward and then I changed games because the class wasn't really into it. I'm not sure how much the students' engagement has to do with the game of the way it is presented. As they didn't seem to like any of the games i had prepared I asked the students what they wanted to play and then they seemed much happier and more engaged.

Afterwards Rebecca said I needed to inject a "buzz" into the activities to encourage student excitement. i think I was initially more worried about them running out of control. This week seems to have been a big long lesson in mistaken expectations. perhaps the trick is to have none!

Its been a really long exhausting week and my phone keeps ringing with invites to go have a wind-down drink, but right now a bath and an early night is all I can manage!

Day 4 :: Lesson reflections

2008-05-15T17:31:00.002+10:00

Today I had to teach two lessons. A small guided reading group and a maths revision activity to the whole class. I'm supposed to teach 2 lessons per day during my prac, so I'm on track now.

Guided reading group - Professor Prong
I went through my lesson plan which I think I had devised quite well. we predicted what might happen from the front cover and then the pictures in side the book. The students came up with some quite accurate outcome predictions, however they kept talking over the top of one another and I wasn't sure if stopping this behaviour is something that comes naturally from having familiarity with a group. It would be good to be able to get them to think about what they thing they want to say before they put up their hands and then um and ah through their thinking process.

Then my supervising teacher cut the lesson off early, which was somewhat frustrating when for once I actually had my time management on track. In summary, I had the students engaged in the task but could have given them more encouragement and devised ways to get them to think about their answers before answering a question. I think I'm not so used to Australian children who need attention more than they need to be right.

Fractions revision game
I changed my old core favourite Guns bombs and angels to Rain fire and lightening with trees instead of people because Rebecca had expressed some hesitation about having them killing each other with guns, which was a fair call!

The idea is to divide up the class into teams, preferably more than 2, with each team starting off with three lives. A grid is drawn up and behind each square is a hidden rain cloud, fire or lightening bolt. A correct answer elicits a pick of the board. A rain cloud signifies an extra life, a fire a loss of a life, and a lightening bolt the loss of a life for another chosen team.

The students were pretty into the game, and one group, after answering individually and getting answers wrong, started collaborating more, rather than the individual students trying to prove they knew the answers by themselves.

Day 3 :: First lesson

2008-05-14T19:28:00.001+10:00

I took a small group of six kids for spelling. Every day the year 4s have spelling from 10:30-11am. The group had just finished the unit they were working on and thus we were revising. I had two games prepared and gave myself some time in the middle do go over the rules for the spelling convention they had been studying; how to make plurals for words ending in y.

We were sitting on a big rug of the world at the back of the classroom. I had made up a pile of flashcards with tthe words written on them, shown each to the students who read them out collectively before placing each on the mat in the middle of the circle. The I explained the rules of the game - karuta, a Japanese game - and made sure everyone understood the aim was to slap the word called out as fast as possible, and then spell it whilst the word was still covered. If they hit the wrong word they had to sit the next turn out ensuring the words were read properly.

The students were noisier than I expected and I was a bit worried they were disturbing the rest of the class, but generally they played the game well and it was good to see them thinking and trying hard to get the spellings right. I was intending to play a series of rounds, but it took longer than I expected and after the first round I reviewed the spelling rule again and moved on. I also think that if we had played a second or third round I would have lost the engagement factor.

Then I gave the students a word search and let them choose whether they worked individually or in pairs. One student yelled out really loudly when he had found the first word so I asked them to tell me when they had found all twenty, trying to reduce the impact on the rest of the class. They worked really well and didn't get distracted. I think it was an effecting first lesson.

Day 2

2008-05-13T18:58:00.000+10:00

Today I finally had a meeting to talk about expectations and how this couple of weeks are to be arranged. I sat down with Thomas, my practicum coordinator, and he seemed very
knowledgeable about the whole practicum process and put me at ease considerably.

In the afternoon I spent until 5 o' clock with Rebecca sorting out exactly what and when I'm going to teach; tomorrow I'm starting off with just one small group in spelling. I've got to check they know their ey/ies rules properly and have a couple of games worked out.

We had chapel this morning and it was really interesting watching the year 4 boys singing songs and performing the actions to them in the midst of a whole school setting. They seem to be caught in a pre-pubescent stage whereby they still have fun doing the actions, but have a sense that it is not particularly cool. The year 5s have stopped participating, but the year 4s are making fun of themselves and the songs as they sing and do the actions. That way,it seems, they get to be cool and have fun at the same time. It's an interesting stage of development they are going through.

Practicum - Day 1

2008-05-12T16:06:00.002+10:00

My first practicum round. Practicum is time in schools when we have to plan and give lessons and then we get marked on our performance by our supervisors. Its different from fieldwork in that the latter is more about observation and ungraded. We had three days of fieldwork at our practicum schools to get used to the schools and sort out requirements and expectations. As I was sick last week, I missed one of my fieldwork days when I was supposed to have meetings with my practicum supervisor and coordinator to sort all this stuff out.

I'm in the primary half of a small P-11 private Christian school that is somewhat more conservative than the state schools in the area. Behaviour and uniform standards are stricter and the kids seem more respectful and better behaved; I'm not sure if this is because of the Christian bias, or because parents are paying for education and thus more likely to enforce standards at home, or a mixture of the above.

On the weekend I had an online tutorial assignment to do about "connectedness" and "engagement" within middle schools (yrs 5-9). Lois Irving talks about three types of teaching: delivery, modification and collaboration. Delivery is the teacher centred chalk and talk style of teaching where the students are told what they need to be learning and expected to fit in with the teacher's requirements. Collaboration takes this curricula and tries to make it more applicable to the students interests and needs, but the teacher is still deciding what and how learning will take place whereas collaboration occurs when students and teachers decide together on learning styles and outcomes and multiple intelligences are catered to.

Last week and today, my practicum supervisor, lets call her Rebecca, seemed to spend a great deal of time focussing on the kids behaviour and telling them what they "need" to be doing. She seems to spend a large proportion of the day being somewhat critical and rarely praises kids behaviour with any real enthusiasm. She hasn't been teaching all that long, but already seems somewhat burnt out. It seems like she's teaching more with a delivery style when she's tired and just wants to get through the day.

I left Japan - and I forget this on the days I really miss the place (like always) - because my patience had run out, and I was finding my cute little kids and my sweet old ladies, really annoying. I think burn-out might be a natural process of teaching, and maybe as a society we need to find a way for teachers, after a few years teaching, to be able to leave the system for a year or two and slot straight back in when they are ready. But instead, we reward teachers for long service. Isn't it better to have teachers who are fresh and reinvigorated?

Passing Seasons

2008-05-10T09:46:00.000+10:00

The past week I have had something of a thick head, a seasonal adjustment urging me to slow down and remove the build-up of stress from my life. Amazing how when we try to go hard, nature has a way of stepping in and going “Not so fast, buddy.”

No jumping off the train anymore; we’ve hit full speed and the ride is on. Though I’ve been studying for less than three months it’s on for young and old now. One minute I was craving stuff to get my teeth into, and now I’m grasping for a long lost focus I’ve never really possessed. No time for procrastination now, though. The funny thing is, I seem to be scared of success. Every time I complete a task, feel a sense of achievement, I seem to run from this sense. For example, I’ve been making another attempt at learning to draw; got myself a kids book - lets start simple his time - with a copious number of tasks that take one through basic construction of shapes to the addition of features and shading: the same task is repeated in an infinite number of forms. But, after successfully completing the first drawing, I’ve become afraid of the book. Perhaps I’m afraid of the monster in my head that will jump out on my first failure and leeringly remind me I can’t really draw.

Is study like this too? I want to master everything at once. No baby steps for me nosiree. My desire for profundity makes the required simplicity required for most of my assignments slip my grasp. I’m in the middle of an annotated bibliography; it should be a simple summary of a handful of notable thinkers in education, but, my ego wants to prove the complexity of my reading in a small assignment, not worth a lot, where we are being assessed more on form than content. I hate my brain.

School of late has become somewhat tedious. A routine has been established and I find myself in class listening to the bleeding obvious. I, the nerd, like the methodology, but we also have numerous classes on subject content: art, English, science, humanities and maths. And they all are preaching integration and group work. Yes, group work is important, yes I understand we need to work in groups cause that is how curriculum planning occurs in schools for the most part, but it would be really nice to be given the chance to think creatively alone. Oh how I miss Mitoyoshi sometimes – to think I used to rue my complete control over lesson content!

The other thing that’s bugging me is that with all this integration, I get to help other people develop units of work, but I never get to play with novels, plays, films and straight up and down English stuff. Integration is about taking a couple of subjects and blurring the boundaries, which have hitherto fore been set. Everything seems to be diluted with humanities in that watered down way I remember from high school, the life sucked out of topics I’m passionate about - or maybe that’s just this course. We have lecturers who can structure content well, and those that bring enthusiasm, but bar our science lecturer I continually find myself either bored or confused.

Next week I have my first practicum – real teaching – yeehah. Bring on November. Better still, leave me in the library with a list of books.

Magic Formulas and Cultural Capital

2008-04-15T11:02:00.001+10:00

Last night, unintentionally, I got to thinking about learning capabilities. I think it had a lot to do with asking Mark for clarification on the annotated bibliography we have to do.

When I was a kid, I was brought up to believe I was really smart. I was pretty much always at or near the top of the class and never felt like I was putting in any real effort towards school. It all came naturally.

From about year 10 onwards, I noticed myself starting to slip; friends who I thought I was smarter than, were doing better than me in assessment work. One day this girl, whom I knew I was smarter than, but whom was now getting consistent A's, said it was about writing to the formula.

It clarified this suspicion I had, that smart kids were judged to be smart by their mystical ability to crack the formula. Sometimes I got A's, C's, sometimes B's. I often felt, still do feel, overwhelmed about knowing how to study.

No teacher ever explained this; they just presented us with vast hoards of information.

When I got to Uni, we were taught about Cultural Capital in first year Sociaology. The lecturers asked people to put up their hands if they were the first member of their family to come to Uni. This was something I had never thought about before. Our family drove the same kind of car, had an equally biggish house and we lived in a reasonably affluent middle class area. I knew my parents had grown up in poverty in the north of England, but had always thought of myself as the same as my peers.

It all suddenly made sense why my best mate throughout high school killed me in year 12. One of her parents was an English teacher, the other a Science teacher. My folks hadn't helped me with homework since my mum went through homework flashcards with me when I was learning to read at about four years old.

However as Uni progressed, the mystery never became any clearer. My marks remained erratic and I was often pulled up for not explaining the obvious thoroughly enough.

When we were recently given our science group task and the lecturer gave us a marking rubric I had strong opposition to the concept. It was being like asked to sit an exam and being given the answers, as long as you show the working. For those not in the know, a rubric is a table covering every aspect of the task and showing what level of information or competency will achieve what grading.

A few short weeks down the track and it makes perfect sense telling student's what you expect of them. If you tell students the expected learning outcomes and what knowledge they need to demonstrate, surely that makes for more efficient learning.

Anything else is just a grand old conspiracy theory in action.

Albury High: Day Four

2008-04-10T21:25:00.003+10:00

This morning I got to sit in on a year 12 advanced double English session. I spent the first period with one teacher and the second with another. It is amazing me this week, how much the English syllabus has changed since I was in high school. The kids were studying a comparative literature unit, Jane Austen’s Emma and the film Clueless. The purpose of the unit is to show how stories remain the same through the ages even as contexts change dramatically. The class was talking about he way Frank Churchill’s character in Emma has been replaced by a gay character in the movie, but both characters fulfil the role of the unattainable male beau in the storyline, Frank Churchill through his engagement and the gay guy for obvious reasons. I never did comparative lit until university, however it would seem that the current high school curriculum has far more breadth. In third period I sat in on a year seven class where the kids were finishing up some group work assignments. They were studying Harry Potter and the teacher had divided them up into Slytherin, Hufflepuff, Gryffindor and Ravenclaw for the assignment.

After lunch I sat in on a year eleven essay marking meeting amongst the teachers. I got to examine the rubric they were using and read some of the essays. It was interesting listening to them discuss various marks and acknowledge that they wanted to give various kids higher or lower marks due to their expectations of the kids. However it all seemed really fair and certain essays were passed amongst all the teachers for corroboration. Initially there seemed to be more discussion over the higher marked essays and the teachers themselves disagreed over what the question was asking and the criteria a perfect scoring essay should meet. The teachers were also confused about having to translate marks out of twenty into fifteen for this task.

Again I found myself questioning my own learning style and whilst I could see myself having been a 12/13 student in year eleven twelve, I wondered if I would be capable of writing a top scoring essay myself, now. If the work some of these kids are handing in is better than mine own, how can I have aspirations to teach them? I can only take comfort in the fact that as my understanding of grammar and English usage has improved over the past few years as an ESL teacher, so will my competency as a story teller and decoder. Which follows up on what I was saying before on using this opportunity to improve my storytelling. “If you can’t do something, teach it.” The wisecrack that wrote this neglected to mention that after this process, one should also be able to do it.

Another year 12 modern history class cemented my view that I think I really want to teach English. It was somewhat confronting to realise that I was learning history in the class, more than learning teaching. I have this arrogant idea that I have a reasonably good grasp of Asian histry gleaned through my travels, but I was truly wrong. The class was finishing up a unit on the conflicts in South East Asia that centred on what we call the Vietnam War. They were discussing a massacre that I had never even heard of. The end of a Four Corners documentary was shown - the other part was shown yesterday - and I was very impressed by the way the teacher got the kids to examine really subtle instances of bias. The class spent quite a bit of time critiquing the "source" - I'd even forgotton about primary and secondary sources; I don't think I've heard those expressions used since high school - and again, I don't remember learning such sophisticated analysis skills in high school, although I did have an especially crap senior history teacher. Home work was set to cover a section from the text book on Cambodia and write an essay on how the Khmer Rouge altered life in Cambodia from 1975-1978. I laughed that the question itself was an understatement in irony, although I was embarrassed that I had to double check those were the actual dates from Year Zero.

Storytelling

2008-04-08T22:35:00.001+10:00

Watching the last few minutes of How Art Made the World on the ABC it suddenly struck me why the universe has led me down this teaching path. As George Miller explained how the sound effects worked in a particular scene from Lorenzo’s Oil, I realised how much, by teaching kids about storytelling, I will learn so much more about this art.

As practicing graphic design improved my photographic composition immeasurably, so this period in my life will ultimately make me a better storyteller.

There is a purpose to my life and this is another step on the windy road towards what may be.

Strike - Day Two

2008-04-08T19:19:00.002+10:00

We got to lie in today whilst the teachers went to a union meeting. This afternoon was scheduled for sport, so most kids took the opportunity for a day off as there were only 2 out of 8 periods of classes.

I rocked up to school just before eleven and went to an English class in the computer room. where there may have been eight kids in attendance. This was a higher level year 9 class and they were given the time to complete stories for the Young Writers Competition and articles for a Newspaper unit they were just finishing up. I was amazed by their discipline and self motivation; there was hardly any idle chatter even though this was essentially a "bludge day" and they used the time profitably. Kids I've talked to seem remarkably switched on and engaged and not at all threatening.

Did I go to a really bad school? Other schools in the area were supposed to be worse. I remember many of our teachers in year seven saying we one of the worst classes of all time - and we were streamed as the smartest - teachers running out of classes in tears - always a victory for the class - and student teachers and casuals unmercifully tormented. We were smart kids in a middle class area with mostly professional backgrounds. Was I just a tormented teenager caught up in my own Gothic moroseness?

The other period was a mashing together of several classes into one classroom with a video player and some hot chips. Teacher and kids alike seemed happy to relax. Nicole, the teacher I was assigned to, pulled her three kids out the class half way through and we went back to her classroom to complete a speaking assessment task which hadn't been done the week before because she had been away. Her kids had asked to do it whilst there were only three of them so they would be spared speaking in front of the whole class.

The kids at Albury have been unfailingly friendly towards me, if sometimes a little cheeky - and in a couple of days I find my whole opinion of teenagers changing dramatically. Where has this preconception come from? Is it purely my own miserable youth or has this been fuelled by relentless bad press for teenagers in the media. I always thought I would be a strict teacher, but I find myself wondering at some of the things teachers are pulling kids up for. I guess what I consider harmless loses its charm day in day out with the same kids pulling the same stunts.

I'm really liking being back at High School.

Albury High - Day One

2008-04-07T22:05:00.002+10:00

Sitting in the car pool this morning, heading across the border, a trickle of nerves meandered across my abdomen. Going back to high school. Ughh! Something I swore I would never do.

I'm having doubts about this course; it would seem that La Trobe have been taking as many students as possible for funding purposes. A uni motivated by money? Never! (I still have nightmares about the signs from my last year of undergrad: "Macquarie Uni: Where higher learning equals higher earning"). Anyhoo, many of my classmates were unfortunate enough not to receive a place this week, i reckon, cause La Trobe have taken on far more students this year and haven't thought about how to accommodate them.

So Pete and I walk into the school and are taken to the Social Science staffroom. Pete is a history major (humanities) and I'm supposedly English/Humanities, I guess from the spattering of linguistics, philosophy and cultural studies I did. So we both find ourselves in a room where the teachers focus on economics, geography and commerce. So not either of our areas. Pete get taken to the history staffroom and I'm taken to the English staffroom where the head teacher is none too impressed with having a student teacher dropped on him out of the blue in the last week of term when all year elevens are in exams. Supposedly he declined a request some weeks ago to take on student teachers for the exact reasons outlined above.

However, after initial grumpiness, he and all the other teachers were most accommodating and I had a really good day. I discovered that high school kids aren't nearly as nasty as I remember - perhaps my own high school was especially cliquey - and it was comforting to realise that I'm totally capable of doing the face to face teaching, in fact have already done much of the same, just with kids from a very different cultural background.

Literacy and competancy levels were stunningly varied. the year 8s had a reading test that reading through, I doubted many adults could pass. The same kids spent the rest of the double period prepping for debates later in the week and I had an astonishingly astute conversation with one girl about the difference between an intellectual and an emotional argument as she tried to get her head around the different angles of animal cruelty and testing.

However, later in the day, reading some of the year 9 kids work from one of the lower level classes, the literacy levels were scarily low. One kid's work I read had a phenomenally bad grasp of basic grammar. Whilst this kid was truly competent with Microsoft Publisher, the spell check was clearly an alien phenomenon! Talking with the teacher afterwards, I asked how these kids could be helped; literacy programs are aimed at the kids on the bottom rungs, but those just above are allowed to slide through the system with grammatical misunderstandings many of my ESL students would be ashamed of. For the first time ever I questioned the theory that kids naturally pick up the grammar of their first language and wondered if we shouldn't be spending more time on basic literacy in high schools instead of everything English being directed towards comprehension.

Feathertop

2008-04-06T21:37:00.001+10:00

This weekend I went hiking up Feathertop with some mates from uni: Kat, Kate, Hayley and Julia.

Kat and I had been talking about going up since before easter. The week before it had snowed for the first time this year on Hotham and we were concerned about extreme cold weather but an unexpected day off on Friday saw us take off Thursday evening and camp at the caravan park in Harrietville next to the Ovens River before it got any colder.

We woke up latish and after waiting for others to come and join us headed up the mountain around eleven. We planned to hike a steep 8kms to the old camp site a km south of Federation Hut and supposedly more sheltered. I haven't done an overnight mountain hike since Seoraksan in South Korea many years ago when I was younger and much fitter. Trying to guauge where we were on the map, the kms seemed to be passing very slowly; we had supposedly done about 3kms when we stopped for lunch around twoish. Yeah, we weren't flying but they were the longest three kms of my life and I was practically in tears. I think the worst part was coming to terms with the fact that we weren't half way yet, and everything was engulfed in a not so dull ache.

I was in front about a half a km later when we came upon our campsite and suddenly the world was beautiful again. A beautiful flat sunny patch, we ditched bags and made like cats. That afternoon we even found the energy to hike the remaining 2 and a half kms to the summit where the clouds teased us with views that they took away as quickly as they gave.

Coming back was much easier but as we reached the rainforest canopy almost at the bottom, I realised how much as I like mountains, I like forests much more; the rich smell of hummus, the call of the birds and the conversations between the wind and leaves connect me much more deeply to the earth. On the way home we stopped at the big shed cafe and had the yummiest cake ever. I got home and fell into a hot bath with a glass of wine immediately.

In spring we're going to hike from Hotham to Harrietville. Wanna come?

Photos are here.

Excursion

2008-04-03T20:15:00.000+11:00

Yesterday we went out to Wirraminna Environmental Education Centre. Up over the border into Burrumbuttock and NSW. Its been set up next to Burrumbottock Public School. As the blurb on the website says:

The Wirraminna Environmental Education Centre has been developed adjacent the small rural school at Burrumbuttock. A visionary team of school and community volunteers have transformed a four-hectare ‘eyesore’ into a unique, highly acclaimed and heavily used learning environment. This coordinated and innovative project is helping to address the global environmental challenges of the 21st century.

It started off and has continued to be a local grass roots initiative, spurred on by the community and taken up by the School Principal, Owen Dunlop. Funding from Landcare has seen the project grow and the enviro centre has become an integral part of the educational environment for Burrumbuttock Public. It includes an outdoor classroom and the Discovery and Learning Centre, a mud brick structure with windows the sun side only to maximise energy conservation. There are a ton of guided walks in the grounds and other schools regularly visit on excursions.

The school recently put together a curriculum resource called Living River, which is about the Murray Darling Basin but can be adapted to other river systems in the country. All this stuff has been achieved through teacher dedication and lots of grants. They just installed rainwater tanks in anticipation of the $50000 the govt. has promised schools for such a purpose.

Its really nice to see kids getting a natural education and being taught from a young age to appreciate their environment and the flora and fauna it supports.

Groupwork

2008-04-01T19:54:00.002+11:00

After school today I got together with my science group to work on our project. we have to assess the merits of a specific resource as a learning tool. We scored a Finding Nemo intereactive DVD.

Its really interesting working with people with different educational experiences and backgrounds. I always thought there was a magic formula to writing essays and doing assessments, and knew that I didn't know what it was and that other people somehow did. From about year ten or eleven I started to slip and never understood why sometimes I did well and other times I didn't.

For the first time ever, I am being given rubrics for assessment tasks, that label clearly what is required. This has completely demystified the learning process for me, and makes so much more sense too - surely if you're trying to teach people something, its helpful to tell them precisely what their learning objectives and outcomes should be. I went through high school and Uni getting grades that varied from As to Cs and I never knew why.

Working with the guys in my science group we each have different skills. I have higher literacy skills but have always had a tendency to skimp on details and explanations, cause surely that stuffs bloody obvious isn't is? If I've said something insightful, isn't the insight enough? Why do I have to turn my thinking into an American sitcom where every joke gets explained three times for the dummies. Yeah I'm an intellectual snob, and proud of it, and you know who I'm taking to. lol. ;-)

However, lets call her Abigail, in my science group, comes from a science background and has a completely, diametrically opposed learning style to me. For every "advantage" of the science resource we cite, she wants to include three examples from the resource to prove the point and I've learnt, from an educational viewpoint, how important it is to dot the Is and cross the Ts. Watching and comparing how we approached the task was like someone hitting me over the head with a baseball bat and letting the sun pour into my brain.

Group work can be tedious as hell at times, and even more frustrating for a self confessed control freak, but its good to learn stuff too!

visual note taking

2008-04-01T19:04:00.000+11:00

Today we had a lecture where we were asked to take notes visually rather than linguistically. At first it was really challenging and I found to an extent I was focusing more on broad points being made rather than “30 second sound bites” which was an interesting revelation about the way that language can form our own ideas rather than express them. By translating the ideas into a visual form, I was forced to think more deeply about their true meaning. Often it is easy to spout jargon that sounds intelligent but is just intellectual bulls*&t. We kid ourselves of our higher learning whilst others may laugh at our pomposity!

I also found that initially I was having a hard time coming up with ways of representing ideas, but over the course of the lecture I developed a symbology for myself. At first it seemed that I had just replaced one language system for another, but on deeper reflection, my symbol system is more personal, even though it is still influenced heavily by socially understood symbols (see fig. 1) which can be widely understood, and this comes perhaps, from a clearer internal understanding, rather than an externally enforced method of communication. This is probably heavily linked to the way some children invent their own language systems between themselves, although I never did.

Will post notes taken when I get them back.

Refreshed and Energised - thinking at last

2008-03-31T21:49:00.000+11:00

After a most excellent easter break spent swimming, snorkling, surfing, the odd full-moonlit mystery kayaking trip, visiting friends, drinking coffee, bush regenning and propagating trees, seeing movies - new Gus V. Sant good - drinking more friends and visiting more coffee with a beautiful last day art gallerying, I found myself so sad to be saying goodbye to a Melbourne I had discovered I was still in love with and coming back to a town and a course I am both very unsure about.

However I walked into class to find myself being happily walloped with masses of pedagogy, or what i always thought was called educational methodology. Besides the piece of paper at the end, this is my raison d'être, the thought of getting my hands dirty with lots of philosophy and turning my brain into interesting origami shapes. Four weeks too late in my opinion - lecturers have been conveniently teasing us with scattered names of people we keep being assured we'll be hearing lots more of this week, but no-one until now has thought to explain any of this shit.

In the first week we were shelled with assignments and panic but little guidance. One of my most anticipated is the annotated bibliography we have to submit in just over a month. However beig told to pick and compare theorists from different schools of thought is somewhat daunting when none of the names being lobbed are familiar. I know of Dewey from cataloging, but felt frowned upon when I tried to explain Plato as being about Truth with a capital T and "tableness" (as Ben Gilbert, my most excellent yr 12 English teacher explained Truth - I got it!) but apparently there's an educational side to Plato related to but outside the cave.

Today however, we were showered with ISMs, as refreshing as the drought breaking torrents that covered Melbourne this week. Idealism, Realism, Liberalism, Progressivism, Behaviourism, Humanism, Radicalism, Eclecticism, Cognitivism. I've grabbed a bunch of books by a dude called Freire who sounds more interesting than some of the old school psychology hacks from the 50s and 60s.

Stay tuned.

exam stress and politics

2008-03-13T22:44:00.005+11:00

I've been reading Brookfield's Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher over the past couple of days. It warns of how our own experiences as students can inform our affect our approach as teachers. Although we all have various learning styles, we have a tendency to assume that what works or not for us, is applicable to all our students.

Today I got smacked up by my own personal educational histories and my aversion to exams. I remember being taunted by the horrific spectre of the HSC from the moment I entered year 7. Teachers would threaten our disobedient selves with this ghoul that would come and get us if we didn't behave, just as parents of bygone days worried their offspring with the bogie man. There was to be no life after an unacceptable HSC score and as the years wore on the pressure mounted until those fateful three weeks that would decided each of our futures. After under performing in my exams and being banished to Newcastle University for 12 months, I avoided all subjects that required final examination for my entire uni career.

Over the past couple of weeks we've been talking about the new Victorian education curriculum for P-yr10s and its utopian ideals of cross curriculum learning - a post structural theorist's paradise where basic skills are interwoven across disciplines instead of boxed up and compartmentalised. Today we had guest speakers come in to talk about the VCE and newer vocational sibling the VCAL. We got into that always fun topic of scaling, which supposedly is fairer than in "my day" when those who wanted high TERs focused on 4 unit maths and science. There's an additional practice now to iron out anomalies between schools. If, for example, one school does much better in its assessment than another, but then worse in the final exams, the assessment tasks results will be modified to fall more in line with each other. However, they're also doing that with individual students. If your assessment results aren't reflected in your exams, the former will be pulled down into line with your exams. So the whole moving away from exam based assessment has just been reversed. Have a stressed out bad couple of weeks during exams and say goodbye to two (or twelve depending upon your perspective) years of hard work. No system's perfect defended the guest lecturer.

This had me up in arms, probably to my peer's dismay as I derailed the discussion. We have a class that is far too big for the discussions we need to have, trying to get into meaty debates is impossible with a group of 74; and our tutorials only split us in half. What is happening is that the same students are voicing their opinions, me included, in these discussions and half of us are frustrated we don't have the time and scope to explore the issues fully, whilst the other half wishes we could just stay away from the side issues that keep cropping up and stick to the curriculum.

All this comes down to funding: the lecturers and course conveners know that student teacher ratios are far too big but have their hands tied behind their backs. Tutorials aren't even tutorials in the true sense of the world and are usually used to introduce new material rather than discuss the stuff from the lectures. Basically, the online blackboard is the only place to field in-depth discussion, but online discussions have never really worked for me.

There are other issues too: many of the people in the course have serious listening skills deficiencies. A couple of people are forever talking over others, including lecturers, and the classroom becomes a stadium for ego battles. I find this especially worrying within a course where we are supposed to be learning to install some value system into our youth; this is quite emphatically defined within the new Victorian curriculum. So where does the responsibility for teaching values to our teachers lie? This is much more subtle than inflicting our world views directly on students. How we treat our peers and students sends such a strong message to our students than I am beginning to think many of my peers may understand at an intellectual level, but haven't really taken on.

Fieldwork

2008-03-12T22:41:00.000+11:00

Today we started fieldwork. The course demands 20 days of fieldwork practice over the year. Ungraded observation with a mixture of early, middle and later years students.

Today I met my new mate, lets call her Kerry. One of the local primary schools has a programme up and running called “My Mate,” a mentor scheme which buddies up kids with extra needs with a student teacher. We get to spend an hour together every week for eight weeks, hanging out, providing friendship and support, and doing cool stuff together. The scheme has been up and running and is immensely popular with the kids. The teacher running the programme told us how for weeks kids have been coming up to her in the playground asking for a “mate”. I thought that that some of the kids may have felt stigmatised, but this seems far from the case and Kerry quite happily pointed out everyone in her class and her friends around the school, clearly expecting me to remember all their names.

Even though I have been hanging out with eight years olds for a few years now I found, as Kerry showed me around her school, that I was having problems understanding and relating to her. I was asking her questions about her friends and hobbies and pets, trying to forge the first stages of trust and friendship, but I kept needing to clarify her answers, so I could understand her as much as to giver her confidence that I was listening and interested. In my two weeks here in Wodonga, I’m noticing cultural and linguistic differences that are much greater than I anticipated I would encounter in a decent sized country town. I think I was expecting a variation of the lower hunter, and maybe I just have a very stymied view of that area limited to my mum’s friends. But, to get back to Kerry, as I sit here writing this, it occurs to me that my communication with most of the other eight year olds I know has only used spoken language to make requests and give instructions. Our friendship has centred around smiles, gestures, visual jokes and physicality. As I left Kerry, I asked for a high five and then pulled my hand back at the last minute. Her reactions were surprisingly fast. As I walked away, I wondered if that was a bad thing to have done in a country where I’m not allowed to let a kid hold my hand. I have so much to learn.

The Kid in the Candy Store

2008-03-10T22:37:00.001+11:00

Boy! I though I was over my confusion, but I just don't know where to turn next, or first, or next.

I'm beginning to be exposed to all this teaching methodology - well actually, bombarded with names that i know nothing about, would be a more accurate description - and it's all really exciting. And I want to read everything. NOW. The strong irony being that I'm beginning to feel like Pavlov's dog as I rush off to the library to borrow a new (to me) book every time I hear a new name. At the moment I have six books out directly related to my course and a further four of general interest that I have sooo much time to read.

Today has been a day of ironies. It started off by having uni on a public holiday - yes where is the time for bludging? em - and then continued when I labeled myself as an activist learner in a lecture on experiential learning. Me, that reads ten books on any subject in order to develop the confidence to approach said topic, categorized myself as someone who jumps in head first. And don't even start with the hippy references y'all. I hear them. I was wearing my Danger! Landmines t-shirt today however; maybe that had something to do with it.

So this idea comes from a guy called Kolb (I think) who states there are four types of learners: activists, reflectors, theorists and pragmatists. Activists and theorists sit on opposite sides of a circle, and on the other two faces are the reflectors and pragmatists. Whilst the dichotomy between the first two is somewhat obvious, the latter are leaving me somewhat confused, more so after our lecturer said that pragmatists are forward thinking and plan stuff, and reflectors review what has happened in the past. But if the whole point of history is to prepare us for the future I'm finding it really hard to separate the two. And how can you plan without looking backwards? Anyway, apparently we use all these styles in a continuous circular progression as we learn, but most of us have stronger tendencies towards one of these styles.

We then went on to talk about critical reflection and it's usefulness as a tool for budding teachers. Stephen Brookfield talks about four lenses through which we (this is a very inclusive course) can look at our prac.: autobiographically, peer feedback, student feedback (which were often one and the same for me in Japan) and through literature (the fun nerdy bit). And this is where you guys come in, that is to say, anyone reading this.

I had a bit of a discussion with one of my lecturers today about using my blog as the forum for my reflective journal. A reflective journal is the place where I get to dump all my wonder, confusion, irritation etc. The poor student's couch. There is a danger that if I drop everything in a public domain, I'll necessarily filter some stuff, which of course compromises the exercise. I was reading Hosseini's Kite Runner recently - bear with me, there is a point - and was absolutely blown away by the manner in which the central character bared his human flaws, and claws. No tragic hero this, but at times, an over privileged brat who still manages to evoke compassion from the reader by his sheer honesty. After reading it I truly wished I had the bravery not to sugarcoat my own shortcomings in my writing, so for me, this will sometimes be an exercise in honest confrontation.

Of you dear reader, I ask for critical feedback, given with sincerity and compassion. I think you have to register to post, to keep the spammers away, and as this is my blog, I reserve the right to moderate flamers. But I invite you all to come on what promises to be a crazy, exiting roller coaster of a year.

What's going on

2008-03-06T15:02:00.007+11:00

I'm mid way through week two of uni. Week one was somewhat of a blur. A slew of facts, figures, dates and assessment requirements jumbled upon us as the class as a whole fought to tread water. The lecturers have warned us that the whole year might be an exercise in creative water treading.

The course:
I'm studying a grad dip ed p-12 at LaTrobe's Albury Wodonaga campus, which incidentally feels smaller than my primary school. In efffect it's a two year course crammed into 9 months, which I'm quite happy about given my attention span and current funds. We have to be at school 5 days a week, mon-friday, 9am - 4pm. Wednesday is class free, but starting in a week or so we have field work - ungraded observation days within a school environment.

The course is split into three streams: issues, methods and fieldwork/practicum. And this is where my brain starts to hum loudly as the pressure builds up within. The Issues stream looks at teaching methodology whilst Methods looks at the 5 disciplines within the Vic system: Arts, English and LOTE (Languages Other Than), Maths, Science and Humanities. Health, I.T. and warm fuzzy topics like interpersonal skills get slotted into some other fuzzy space, but here my brain is really starting to overheat. The third stream is our practical experience: 20 days of field work and 45 days of graded practica (or practicum - one is the plural of the other but the left side of my brain has started to melt).

The p-12 qualifies me to register to teach in both primary and high schools in Victoria. Though "middle schools" are slowly being introduced - yrs 5-10. But who wants to teach in Victoria when the money is so crap compared to other states. The keener question would be "why would you want to teach in an Australian school? Well I don't. Although the challenges of teaching up north or out west within an Indig. community are quite appealing. It's nice to be back in an Australia that is finally Sorry, and it would be good to be able to make a positive contribution to the reconcilliation process. Otherwise I'll possibly be heading back overseas at the end of the year, although that's a year of philosophy away.

The assesment is huge, as is the amount of paperwork I seem to be dealing with at the moment. In effect, on top of practical teaching stuff, we have assesment for about 8 areas, all of which have a ton of different styles of assessment. Just to completely confuse and scare the pants off us, the past week has included overviews of everything that is expected of us over the whole year. We have about 35 differing assignments over the next 8-9 months. You do the maths cause it's my weak area. Then we have relective journals, visual journals, portfolios and various other individual and group w*%k tasks. This is multitasking gone ballistic.

At the moment I'm trying to figure out the difference between a reflective journal and the visual journal - why can't I use a blend of art of written work to reflect my experiences? or maybe I can? - plan a peer teaching exercise for next week, review an interactive CD as a teaching resource, familiarise myself with prominent educational theorists, devise a P.E. warmer, freak out about a maths diagnostic test next week, and find and contact schools overseas with a view to doing my final practicum in Thailand, Indo or back in Japan. Oh yeah - and I think AUSTUDY have already screwed me over of course!

It's all really quite exciting though and is slowly falling into place. This time last week I was in a state of denial, but I managed to make sense of a goodly portion of my notes yesterday and feel like I'm somewhat getting on top of things. Kind of. Send me hugs. And my new contact details are on facebook too.

No longer upside-down

2008-02-21T17:21:00.000+11:00

The brain is an amazing tool. And the ego is more so. It's intriguing how one day you can be sailing along happily, then completely floored the next. Or spend months in inner turmoil only to wake up and find your life sorted one morning. That's the trailer for the tele-series of the recent months of my life. Except its not nearly interesting enough to write much about let alone make a tele-series of.

After coming back from Thailand last month, I rang just about every university along the eastern seabord to find out my chances of making it back in. My idea, well, Jyab's idea really, to come back home for a year, get my dip Ed and then hike back to S.E.A. or somewhere I could conceivably make real money working in an international school.

Initially however, I received some duff info that it was too late for any Uni this year, and I started to stress about what to do with my 2008. Me - stress - never. Luckily I found out late January that it might not be, and after literally ringing up every school of education I could find, realised I had about three days to gather all my info and submit my application to the Universities' Admissions Centre.

Anyway, to cut a dull story short, on Saturday I'm moving down to the border town of Wodonga and start at La Trobe Uni on the 25th. I ran down a couple of weekends ago in Mum's car and spent a crazy day house hunting. I found a cute little house on the other side of town from Uni with a woman called Billie. She had nag champa burning when I went for the interview, which is always a good sign, and seems like the type of woman I'd like to be in twenty years time.

Wodonga is an odd little town (though technically a city I think). Situated next to the Murray River and across from its twin city Albury in NSW, the pair are on flat grazing land surrounded by the foothills to the Snowy Mountains which are about an hour away. Melbourne is about three hours away and Sydney about seven. Wodonga seems to have more parks than houses - well, only a slight exaggeration - and lots of bike paths running along the tributaries. Kirstie is moving back to bike heaven. Uni is a nice 5km ride away, and there's a decent pool on the way. Must get fit again. Uni goes from 9-4pm mon-fri and I think I'm actually expected to work hard this time around but I'm actually really excited about becoming a nerdy mature-aged student.