2011 - Term 4 - Good Teacher Magazine

Term Four 2011

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

They just point the way ...

Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011 1 and let you make your own choices.”

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Agitated, Disruptive – Even Aggressive Students?

We can help!

Are you concerned about the risk of violence in your school?

Are you prepared?

Since 1980, CPI has been teaching professionals proven methods for managing difficult or assaultive behaviour. To date, over six million individuals—including thousands of teachers and other education professionals—have participated in the highly successful CPI Nonviolent Crisis Intervention® training course.

This course not only teaches staff how to respond effectively to the warning signs that someone is about to lose control, but also addresses how staff can deal with their own stress and anxiety when confronted with these difficult situations.

For further details on the CPI Nonviolent Crisis Intervention® training course, call us toll-free at 0800 244 674, visit crisisprevention.com, or email us at information@crisisprevention.com.

Join us at an upcoming training course: 15–18 November Auckland (Otahuhu)

Australia and New Zealand Office PO Box 509, Dulwich Hill • Sydney, NSW 2203 Free Phone: 0800 244 674 Tel (Local Australia): +61 (0) 2 9516 5177 Email: information@crisisprevention.com • crisisprevention.com

22–25 November Wellington

Remember to keep an eye on us...

Bookmark our site: http://goodteacher.co.nz Follow us on facebook: http://goodteacher.co.nz/facebook Follow us on twitter: http://goodteacher.co.nz/twitter

2 Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011

Priority Code: GT112

Index 3 Your Soapbox

4

Making Your Teaching Creative and Interesting

5

Dennis Sale

Talking Point

7

Placing in depth inquiry learning first!

8

Bruce Hammonds

New Middle Years Curriculum Inspires Learners

10

From Snapshot ... ... to Photo Collage

16

Elaine Le Sueur

Cans Film Festival

19

Of Gaps and Holes

20

Laurie Loper

National Jandal Day

23

Understanding Middle School Readers

Scott Perrone

24

New school curriculum to be tested

Afshan Ahmed

29

Making the World of Difference for Gifted Children

Elaine Le Sueur

30

Literacy Lifters

Liza Jenkins & Kate Smith

32

One Man’s Dream

Neil Adams

34

books and things

38

Tape Installations Emphasising on Failure as The Key to Success

39

Planning for the BIG DAY

Michelle LaBrosse

40

Here’s to Your (and Your Projects) Health

Michelle LaBrosse

41

Back to (the wrong) school

Seth Godin

42

Summer/Winter Solstice

Tiz

43

Yellow Footed Rock Wallabies

46

Digger

48

Educational Word Puzzle

49

Fred

Think World Conference - think New Zealand

50

Letter to a Teacher

51

Abraham Lincoln

Teacher Magazine

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Cover Pictures... the boardwalk at Semaphore Beach, Adelaide....both going and coming.

Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011 3

Your Soapbox!

“

I do admire the non-English speaking people who manage to learn and master the English language…….

We’ll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes, But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.

One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese, Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.

You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice, Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men, Why shouldn’t the plural of pan be called pen?

If I speak of my foot and show you my feet, And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?

If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth, Why shouldn’t the plural of booth be called beeth?

Then one may be that, and there would be those, Yet hat in the plural would never be hose, And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.

We speak of a brother and also of brethren, But though we say mother, we never say methren.

Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him, But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!

Let’s face it - English is a crazy language.

There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; Neither apple nor pine in pineapple.

English muffins weren’t invented in England .

We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes, We find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, And a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write, but fingers don’t fing, Grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham?

Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend?

If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, What do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught?

If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English Should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.

In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?

We ship by truck but send cargo by ship...

We have noses that run and feet that smell.

We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.

And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, While a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language In which your house can burn up as it burns down, In which you fill in a form by filling it out, And in which an alarm goes off by going on.

And in closing..........

If Father is Pop, how come Mother’s not Mop.???

”

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

4 Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011

Making Your Teaching Creative and Interesting Introduction and context

Dennis Sale Section Head, Educational & Staff Development Department Singapore Polytechnic

In this short paper, I offer some reflections on certain findings from a research project which seeks to understand how teachers do what they do to make their teaching creative and interesting. Details of the research and methodology are beyond the scope of the paper.

Though what constitutes ‘creative’ and ‘interesting’ can be subjective, they are often considered important attributes of quality teaching in general. As Tuckman (1995) has pointed out, “…defining or describing the ‘competent’ teacher is neither an easy nor an obvious task” (p. 57). Similarly Ornstein (1995) argued, “…few facts concerning teacher effectiveness have been established” (p. 77).

What do we mean by being creative and interesting in the context of teaching?

Creative teaching resembles creativity in any other domain.

Primarily, it involves the combining of existing and new knowledge to create some other knowledge to get a useful result. As Amabile (1996) suggested: A product or response will be judged creative to the extent to that (a) it is both a novel and appropriate, useful, correct or valuable response to the task at hand, and (b) the task is heuristic rather than algorithmic. (p. 35) Teaching is certainly heuristic, and such ‘responses’ in the context of teaching are anything that contribute to student learning in a positive way (e.g. building rapport, making learning meaningful, improving the students’ learning state, enhancing students’ beliefs). Not only is creative teaching often a result of a teacher’s conscious planning, it is also the consequence of what I refer to as situated invention—a teacher drawing on his/her existing professional knowledge and improvising it to meet the demands of an unforeseen situation—as teaching is a dynamic human encounter in which much of the student responses cannot be predicted in advanced. Thus, teachers often have to think on their feet, quickly reframe what they are doing and deal with the perceived emerging reality. When situated invention occurs, a teacher has been creative at that point in time. Sometimes (but not always) this produces a desirable result. In many ways, this process of creating ideas is analogous to Schon’s (1987) notion of ‘artistry’, which he defines as: ...the kinds of competence practitioners sometimes display in unique, uncertain and conflicted situations of practice. (p. 22) The new knowledge that results from the creative act is now a resource for the teacher to use in the future. In other words, it becomes part of his/her personal stock of professional knowledge and contributes to developing expertise.

From my observations of video-recordings and personal interviews with many teachers, there are some teachers

Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011 5

who continually try to be creative (either in their lesson plans or in the flow of dialogues during the lesson), and others who recalled situations during lessons when an idea (e.g. a powerful metaphor, a insightful question, a novel example) sprang to their minds and translated this into productive communication to the students. Sometimes when an idea cannot be developed in situ, it is later reflected and elaborated on, and subsequently developed and used as a teaching/learning resource for future lessons.

Sadly, some teachers give little thought to make their teaching interesting; their focus is simply on relating the subject content to stated learning outcomes. Further, many teachers are more preoccupied with covering the content rather than making the learning process interesting for the students. As one teacher commented, “the content must be covered”.

In terms of what constitutes as ‘interesting’, I take a normative view. If students perceive a teacher as being interesting, then he/she is interesting (at least to the students involved). The more interesting question (no pun intended) concerns how these teachers do what they do that result in students perceiving them as ‘interesting’.

Teachers who continually seek to make their teaching interesting are inevitably creative Did the above header get your attention? I hope so.

Cognitive psychology, neuroscience and professional experience clearly identify ‘interest’ as central to the processes of attention, motivation and learning. To quote Csikszentmihalyi (1990) in this context: The shape and content of life depends on how attention has been used. …Attention is the most important tool in the task of improving the quality of experience. (p. 33) Csikszentmihalyi’s statement is not particularly surprising given the nature of teaching. Effective teaching is probably one of the most difficult jobs. To encourage motivation, promote self-esteem, gain rapport and make learning meaningful for a wide range of personalities and competence levels require massive effort and skill. Making teaching interesting—which really means making learning meaningful for the students—is a continual challenge for teachers.

Invariably, teachers differ in terms of their own motivations and attributes in this area. Some teachers continually look for ways to make their teaching interesting through either systematically planned lessons or situated inventions as doing so is consistent with their values and beliefs.

It is important to mention that in addition to the students, teachers can benefit from the process of making learning interesting for the students. This is because the process requires the teachers to continually combine elements of their existing professional knowledge with applications in the classroom. By doing so, teachers will create new knowledge, develop better skills of communication and be more competent in actual practice.

What constitutes creative and interesting teaching?

When students perceive (and rate) teachers as interesting, caring, knowledgeable, etc., these are constructs that the students derive from the sensory experiences provided by the teacher, but not necessarily what the teacher intends.

Bandler & Grinder (1990) pointed out: “The meaning of your communication is the response you get” (p. 61). From the 6 Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011

research so far, the following are some ways in which teachers can make their teaching interesting for students: •

Communicate in a clear, concise, engaging and friendly manner with the aim of achieve rapport with students

•

Imbue students with positive beliefs about self and learning

•

Enhance student’s psychological states

•

Make learning meaningful for the students

•

Engage students in challenging activities with achievable goals

•

Use stories and metaphors to create emotional anchors

•

Use relevant real world examples to sustain students’ interest

•

Use humour constructively

•

Use varied audio-video materials to engage senses

It is important to note that the above list presents only a sterile view of what really occurs in classrooms when teachers are making learning interesting and being creative.

Various other teaching materials are strategically combined (both consciously and tacitly) to create sensory experiences, which can energise and motivate students to participate fully in the learning process. Perhaps the following metaphor might convey the essence of this process: If we visualise each teaching resource as a key on a piano, the interesting and creative teacher typically plays a consistently good tune. Occasionally, he/she improvises the tune with the desire to provide something new to engage the audience’s senses. Likewise, creative teaching occurs when a teacher ‘improvises’ his ‘tune’ (knowledge), to make a productive contribution to the learning process.

References Amabile, T. A. M. (1996). ‘The Meaning and Measurement of Creativity’. Creativity in Context: Update to the Social Psychology of Creativity. Colorado: Westview Press. pp. 19–40.

Bandler, R. & Grinder, J. (1990). Frogs into Princes: Neuro Linguistic Programming. Middlesex: Eden Grove Editions.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper & Row. Ornstein, A. C. (1995). Teaching: Theory into Practice.

Needham Heights, Mass: Allyn & Bacon.

Schon, D. (1987). Educating the Reflective Practitioner: Toward a New Design for Teaching and Learning in the Professions. San Fransisco: Jossey Bass.

Tuckman, B. (1995). ‘The Competent Teacher’ In Ornstein, A. C. (1995) Teaching: Theory into Practice. Needham Heights, Mass: Allyn & Bacon. pp. 57–72. © 2011 CDTLink is published by the Centre for Development of Teaching and Learning. http://www.cdtl.nus.edu.sg/

11-CPI-ADS-GT112_ED VIEWS AUSTR 9/28/11 10:33 AM Page 1

Agitated, Disruptive – Even Aggressive Students?

We can help!

Are you concerned about the risk of violence in your school?

Are you prepared?

Since 1980, CPI has been teaching professionals proven methods for managing difficult or assaultive behaviour. To date, over six million individuals—including thousands of teachers and other education professionals—have participated in the highly successful CPI Nonviolent Crisis Intervention® training course.

This course not only teaches staff how to respond effectively to the warning signs that someone is about to lose control, but also addresses how staff can deal with their own stress and anxiety when confronted with these difficult situations.

For further details on the CPI Nonviolent Crisis Intervention® training course, call us toll-free at 0800 244 674, visit crisisprevention.com, or email us at information@crisisprevention.com.

Join us at an upcoming training course: 15–18 November Auckland (Otahuhu)

Australia and New Zealand Office PO Box 509, Dulwich Hill • Sydney, NSW 2203 Free Phone: 0800 244 674 Tel (Local Australia): +61 (0) 2 9516 5177 Email: information@crisisprevention.com • crisisprevention.com

22–25 November Wellington

Priority Code: GT112

Talking Point

An Ingenious Idea: Distorted Aquarium by Psalt Design You just gotta love a design idea so simple and fresh!

This aquarium is the creation of Psalt Design, a collaborative studio composed of three English friends who graduated together at Sheffield Hallam University: Richard Bell, Thomas McKeown and David Powell.

The piece is self-explanatory: simple, beautiful and stylish.

The “Bubble Tank” provides a unique touch to any type of contemporary environment. No need for wide custom made aquarium supports, a small table is enough, as this crazy design has stability just by occupying half the surface it is placed on.

And the fun thing about it is that this is one of the few aquariums out there that allows your fish to swim upstream and downstream.

http://freshome.com/2011/10/05/an-ingenious-idea-distorted-aquarium-by-psalt-design/?utm_ source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+FreshInspirationForYourHo me+%28Fresh+Inspiration+for+Your+Home%29

Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011 7

Placing in depth inquiry Exploring the animal life in local stream, studying adaptation of the animals, investigating pollution, working out speed, depth and capacity of the water and, in one case in our province, exploring the river from its source on the mountain to the sea.

This is the stuff of real learning.

Creative teachers have always placed developing authentic realistic and first hand experiences followed by creative expression through the arts central to their programmes.

Important to such teachers was the need to provide opportunities to develop all the innate gifts and talents of their students.

Today the emphasis is on literacy and numeracy and, along with the conservative nature of most teachers, this has lead to less real in depth inquiry. It needs to be made clear that creative teachers did not ignore literacy and numeracy but rather did their best to integrate it into their studies or at least to make it personally relevant to the learners so as to develop a positive attitude for such areas.

Even with inquiry being popular in schools as encouraged by outside experts it seems the emphasis is more on showing the process and not the in-depth understanding of the students of the content chosen. As someone has said , ‘it is all recipe and no cake’. In earlier days pioneer creative teacher Elwyn Richardson warned that ‘a study with no content is a study at risk.’

Today it is vital that teachers ‘re frame’ their literacy and numeracy programmes so that, as much as is possible, they contribute the skills and knowledge required for students to be able to dig deeply into any content they are studying. It is all matter of emphasis. In depth content will call upon all the isolated skills often being taught out of context (and thus easily forgotten).

Jerome Bruner wrote wisely that teaching was ‘the canny art of intellectual temptation’ and teachers who appreciate this, and the innate curiosity of students, keep their eyes out for ideas to tempt their students with. They also tap into their students interests and concern and seasonal environmental experiences.

And they know the value of doing fewer things well.

With this in mind the following is a list of possible themes, topics, challenges that might be useful to tempt students with - topics that naturally involve a number of learning areas.

Interested teachers can add greater depth to any of them. Many would fit under Learning Area Strands.

8 Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011

learning first!

Bruce Hammonds

1 Animal companions - our relationship with certain animals, their welfare and habits....

15 Light - light sources, the sun, importance for plant growth, neon, electricity, shadows...

2 Barriers -all about edges, frames, borders, boundaries - and things that stop us.....

16 Looking - optical illusions, telescopes, perspective, memory and observational art..

3 Camouflage - how things merge into their surroundings in nature and man made.....

17 Me - my appearance, dreams, things I own, habits, family tree, signature, interests...

4 Changes - chemical, changes, life cycles, seasonal, cooking , fashion, art eras.....

18 Miniatures - replicas, scale models,working small, modern technology.

5 Colour - colour mixing, meanings in colour, rainbows, how we use colour....

19 Money - history of, designs,counterfeiting, alternatives....

6 Dirt - what is it? .Different kinds of soils and rocks. Dirt and germs....

20 Pairs - things that come in twos, fingerprints, twins, shoes, binary numbers,symmetry..

7 Faces - family resemblances, portraits, face maths, emotions, , face protection, masks..

21 Noises - sound effects, silence, scary noises, deafness, drawing sounds...

8 Feet - types of feet, bones, what we put on them, specialised coverings, shoe fashions...

22 Reflections - mirrors,,distorting mirrors, refraction, mirror writing, history of mirrors..

9 Flags and trademarks - countries, companies, logos, designing, history of....

23 Reproductions - of art work, printers, copiers, cloning, animal/plant reproduction...

10 Food - where it comes from , how sold, preserving, healthy food, when it goes off...

24 Shadows - making shadows , sun dials, shadow puppets...

11 Funny things - importance of humour, jokes, why we laugh ...

12 Inside/Outside -bodies, x-rays, openings, windows , doors...

13 Layers and cross sections - x-rays, fruit, cakes, buildings, skeletons, maths...

14 Life and death -life spans, wars, birth, seeds and fruits, extinctions, life after death...

25 Surprises - surprise titles, surprise endings, birthdays, puzzles, jigsaws....

26 the Bush - plant life, animals, ecology, planing natives...

27 Time - old things, clock science, time lines, geological, memories, museums...

28 Wear and Decay - preservation of things, food and people, rust.....

29 Wet and Dry - keeping dry, melting ice, puddle evaporation, fountains...

Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011 9

New Middle Years Curric This school year began with a very different learning approach for some Middle Years students in various parts of the world as they took on the new International Middle Years Curriculum.

Developed by UK-based Fieldwork Education - the organization behind the increasingly popular International Primary Curriculum (IPC) - the IMYC is a curriculum that focuses foremost on student learning.

It responds specifically to the needs of 11 to 14 year olds by providing independence and interdependence in their learning through discrete subject learning and themes, encouraging learning that helps them make connections that are relevant to their own lives.

It draws on current media platforms, involves active skills-based learning, and promotes self-reflection and the opportunity for students to make sense of their learning.

IMYC in action

10 Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011

Coherence and connection is achieved by directing the learning through a ‘Big Idea’ which provides a six week learning unit for every year group from 11 to 14. Each Big Idea focuses on an abstract, conceptual theme that challenges teenagers to think about its meaning and connection through each subject, whilst helping them to develop their personal dispositions. For example, in the IMYC Balance unit, students’ learning is all based around the Big Idea that ‘Things are more stable when different elements are in the correct or best possible proportions,’ and in the IMYC Collaboration unit, learning follows the Big Idea that ‘When people work together they can achieve a common goal’.

Through the learning of specific knowledge, skills and understanding in all subjects (science, art, ICT, music, history, design and technology, PE, geography, language arts), students make connections between their various classes by investigating how the Big Idea relates to each discrete subject. Through blogging or journaling over the course of the unit, students are encouraged to reflect on the Big Idea and to develop their understanding of how it relates to them personally and to the world around them. At the end of the six weeks of subject learning, students collaborate to produce a media project (such as a podcast or video) to present their personal understanding of the Big Idea to the rest of their classmates.

culum Inspires Learners

AISR Science learning with the IMYC Collaboration unit 2 Abbeyfield School in Wiltshire, England is one of the first schools in the UK taking on the IMYC. “Our ambition at Abbeyfield is to create a curriculum that puts the life and learning skills of children at its heart,” says Deputy Headteacher, David Nicholson. “The IMYC is the vehicle we have chosen to help fire the imagination and stimulate our students’ desire to explore further,” he says. “The IMYC supports a more progressive view of education that recognizes learning also takes place outside the classroom and that the role of schools is to prepare students for meeting the open-ended problems they will face throughout

their lives. The IMYC clearly promotes creativity and the arts with an explicit emphasis on the development of the creative process, and the IMYC helps to develop the skills and intelligences required for the acquisition of relevant knowledge.”

Supporting the school in its progress this year, Nigel Tong, North Wiltshire Federation Director says, “The programme (IMYC) is obviously well thought out and the materials for the balance module were extraordinary. The materials provide a brilliant base on which to design the actual Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011 11

IMYC in action. PE and the Collaboration unit

12 Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011

IMYC in action. The IMYC Collaboration unit and identifying the IMYC Big Idea of 'when people work together they can achieve a common goal' during PE

AISR Entry Point - experiencing the need for collaboration

learning sessions and develop the best environment for the learning to take place.”

Within the IMYC, a structured yet flexible teaching framework (which includes learning-focused and coherently structured activities for each subject) supports teachers in delivering specific learning goals for each subject and fosters personal dispositions and international mindedness.

For example, in the IMYC Balance unit, while students are engaging in the difference between the fact that ‘things are more stable when different elements are in the correct or best possible proportions,’ they are also considering what it means to be a balanced friend and team-mate and thinking about how balanced relationships work.

Throughout the unit, the reflective journaling encourages personal contemplation with the aim of helping each student to develop a deeper understanding of the Big Idea from multiple perspectives, as well as their own.

The Exit Point for the unit provides students with the chance to turn their understanding of the Big Idea into a collaborative media-based presentation. An Assessment for Learning programme tracks the development of skills through each subject over the three years of the IMYC. Academy 360 in Sunderland, England is one of the schools that took part in the initial pilot of the IMYC Balance unit during the summer term. The school says it saw an immediate impact. “This is a hard age for learning,” says Jackie Treleaven, curriculum leader Year 1 to 8 at Academy 360. “The children responded incredibly well to the Balance unit in terms of remaining engaged which directly influenced their learning progress,” she says. “We think the IMYC will help us to create students who are more creative and want to learn more and want to advance their own learning. From the pilot, we can see that this is a real possibility; already we can see that it’s helping the children to take more ownership of their own learning.”

And it’s not just schools in the UK that are taking on the IMYC. The International School of Bremen in Germany is another school that found the pilot a big success and, like Academy 360, is officially launching it to the school right now. One student at the school said after the pilot, “It helped me to learn better because I knew that everything was focused around balance.” Maths teacher, Sabine Keeley at IS Bremen explains: “The Big Idea of the balance unit gave her a framework to use as a hook.

It was up there in her mind constantly while the learning was going on and this gave her a focus to connect to.”

At the end of the unit, Sabine joined her students in a feedback session about the Big Idea. “At this point, having watched the Exit Point media presentations, it all came together for the children,” she says. “Being able to see all the different presentations, which all focused around the idea of ‘things being more stable when different elements are in the correct or best possible proportions’ (including presentations ranging from the food chain to football), helped the children to draw better conclusions about what the Big Idea meant to them.

We (the teachers) were extremely impressed with what the students came up with. It was amazing in fact.”

At the American International School of Rotterdam in The Netherlands, another school to have introduced the IMYC, eleven year olds are just completing the IMYC Collaboration unit. Miranda, one of the students at AISR reflects on the impact of the unit’s Big Idea: “In the beginning, we all wanted to work by ourselves, but now we all think that we get better answers together.

In many different ways, we’ve learnt that we’re smarter together when we collaborate than when we’re apart.”

Summing up the IMYC, Alison Lipp, Curriculum Coordinator at the American International School of Rotterdam says, “It is the first curriculum that really addresses what 11 to Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011 13

14 age students need. It actually attempts to put theory into practice and openly addresses the challenges that schools face when trying to bridge this gap. The IMYC shows real understanding of the unique philosophy and approach to learning that students at this developmental level require. Working in this way has been a confidence-builder for many children. It’s helping them to want to solve problems.”

Alison says it’s the theme with its Big Idea that is having a significant impact on the teachers: “It’s forcing us all to support the same approach and that’s getting the teachers working together. This is focusing our communication and it makes the time that we do have together much more productive. The IMYC is so natural.

It spreads, it’s infectious. We’re already sharing our experiences and our thinking, and to see and hear what everyone’s doing, that’s huge. It’s amazing to see the teachers collaborating with each other on the Media Project. I’ve never seen that level of collaboration before.”

Director of the International Middle Years Curriculum at Fieldwork Education, Emily Porter says, “Having taught 11 to 14 year olds for over a decade, it’s clear that they have very different needs to primary or senior learners. It’s not all hormones and attitude; their brains are changing. After working and collaborating with countless students, teachers and schools, we have spent several years developing the IMYC to support these unique and specific needs. We’ve had incredibly positive feedback from all the schools that piloted the Balance unit this summer. Teachers have been extremely enthusiastic about the improvement in students’ learning in terms of their interest and engagement, their increased ability to make connections among subjects and the world around them, and the ease with which they’ve been able to personalise the learning. The IMYC is much more than a bunch of good ideas in a framework; it provides students with a rope (the Big Idea) to hold on to as they move from subject to subject. The Big Ideas help students to connect their learning and to see how subjects interrelate while they develop their knowledge, skills and understanding in each subject in a rigorously academic way. But they also provide a way to encourage students’ personal development and to help them become more internationally minded.

We’re thrilled that so many schools around the world share our passion for learning and are launching the IMYC this year with the goal of addressing the learning needs of their own 11-14 year olds.”

For more information about the IMYC go to www.internationalmiddleyearscurriculum.com or contact Fieldwork Education at +44(0)20-7531-9696 14 Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011

IMYC Balance Unit Art and Design Learning

Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011 15

From Snapshot...

This article focuses on talent spotting the behaviours that have been noted by researchers and educationalists from both a positive and negative perspective and that may indicate potential and the need to provide differentiated opportunities for the learner and creating a workable profile.

Behaviours in isolation don’t tell us much, but in clusters they are indicators of a need for appropriate programming.

The aim is to build up a mosaic or collage of a student from a number of individual elements. (Each element is a reflection of a behaviour that may indicate potential.)

Teachers who help students recognise and understand their developing talent will have an impact on the student’s motivation to set realistic personal goals and pursue their dreams.

They will also be remembered long after their influence has ceased to be direct!

In today’s world of computer graphics, creating a profile is analogous to taking digital snapshots over time and then arranging them into a photo mosaic. One photographic session would not provide enough evidence of change or progress to enable the artist to complete the picture.

Collecting the snapshots is only the first step. Once there is a folder full of images, the mosaic artist needs to decide how the snapshots will be put together. The individual pieces of a mosaic are arranged and the artist’s perspective is shared with the world. Trial and error is an essential ingredient in the design process and this decision making relates equally to the classroom.

Good teachers recognise that they won’t always get it right, but are prepared to adapt their practice to create a better ‘fit’ for their students. Collaboration might be useful. New information might require different opportunities to be provided. Current information may be incomplete and point to a need for further observations or data gathering, but that shouldn’t be used as an excuse for procrastination. Each piece contributes to the whole but retains its own identity or attributes. The picture that is created is a reflection of the pieces that are available at the time. Checklists are only useful if they reflect current best practice in a field and are regularly reviewed and updated, just as photographs are frozen moments in time that may not be an accurate depiction of the here and now.

Talent spotting is most effective when it is grounded in a real world setting.

In the spirit of the current climate for rugby world cup comment, the following are some insights into the relationship between the process of top team selection and the school classroom from my educator/ dedicated rugby couch potato’s point of view ...

1. Rugby selectors know rugby, are able to determine the benchmarks for excellence in the field and have an understanding of the people that are involved in it, just as educators need to know the school community and the curriculum and have the experience to be able to effectively use a range of teaching techniques to meet the different learning needs of their students.

Time and support invested in this area is a priority in schools where the needs of able students are well catered for.

16 Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011

... to Photo Collage

2.

Rugby selectors have an extensive knowledge of the rugby and support players who learn quickly, are able to adapt and take advantage of new situations. Effective teachers of gifted/ talented students use information to diagnose and develop differentiated action plans that meet the needs of students who learn faster than their peers, and demonstrate a deeper understanding by creating new links between concepts.

The dissemination of up-to-date research best practice benefits all participants. www.tki.org is the website link for teachers wanting to know more about meeting the needs of gifted and talented students in New Zealand.

Elaine Le Sueur

Examples of behavioural check lists: Bevan-Brown, J (2009) Identifying and providing for gifted and talented Maori Students APEX 15 (4), 6-20.

Can be retrieved online at http://www.giftedchildren.org.nz Harrison, C (2003) Giftedness in early childhood GERRIC, Univ. NSW Kannevsky, L Brilliant Behaviours Checklist http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/specialed/gifted Successful talent spotting relies on having an understanding of the basic competencies and the progressions that are required to be able to develop an action plan that results in development of accomplishment further down the track.

3.

Rugby selectors use multiple sources of data including observation, talking to the players themselves about their aspirations and goals, player statistics, media reports, recommendations from coaches , order to inform their decision making. Prospective team members are given opportunities to showcase their abilities on a regular basis.

By providing a wide range of differentiated opportunities for students in the classroom there may be some unexpected surprises as talents are seen to be valued and nurtured.

A wide range of challenges for students to demonstrate what they are capable of doing is a priority in classrooms where the needs of able students are well catered for.

4.

Rugby selectors and educators both have to be able to make and justify the informed choices between potential and performance that are based on the resources available, but the window of opportunity is reduced for the rugby player because the season ends. Teachers, however, deal with students in their classrooms all year round.

Behavioural checklists provide useful clusters of behaviours to look for, but in themselves are not enough. Just as it would be unrealistic for out rugby selectors not to take into account a range of other variables such as age, experience, and position in thinking about potential team members, it is important to have a multidimensional approach to identification of student talent.

Ongoing, sustained and dated data gathering is a contributing factor in schools where talented students are identified and the diagnosis is supported by planning for differentiated action.

Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011 17

Dear Teacher, Visit my website and register for your FREE resource to use in your classroom with your able students. No strings attached. It is my thanks to you for taking action and following through on this flier.

If you would like heaps more ideas and strategies for differentiating your lessons to meet the needs of these students, check out my new teacher manuals, available from www.thinkshop.org.nz

Check out the LSSNA (Le Sueur Student Needs Analysis) and the link to University on wheels for even more help. www.universityonwheels.org.nz Thank you for your interest.

From Elaine

18 Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011

Wattie’s Cans Film Festival Wednesday 9 November EVENT Cinemas, Hoyts Cinemas, Reading Cinemas and independent cinemas across New Zealand This year Kiwis CAN help the Wattie’s Cans Film Festival reach a significant milestone by donating its millionth can. The Festival, now in its 18th year, provides essential support for The Salvation Army, stocking up its food banks and assisting The Sallies to help those in need around New Zealand. From 1 November, New Zealanders can head to their local participating movie theatre and start swapping their cans for movie tickets ahead of the event on 9 November. Wattie’s then matches this donation with a can of its own. Movie goers need to get in early, as tickets often sell out in advance.

The Wattie’s Cans Film Festival is a great night out at the movies. For just one can of food per movie ticket, on Wednesday 9 November Kiwis can see family blockbusters, such as Mr Popper’s Penguins, Spy Kids 4 and Green Lantern at cinemas nationwide.

As of today, movie lovers around the country can go online to www.watties.co.nz to find out what movies are playing in their town. It’s a cheap, fun night out for the whole family to enjoy, while also supporting The Salvation Army Christmas Appeal.

It has been a difficult year for the whole of New Zealand. One year on from the first of the devastating earthquakes in Christchurch, the cost of living has reached new heights. Never has there been a greater need to help The Salvation Army to lend a hand to our fellow New Zealanders.

“This year alone we have distributed more than 68,750** food parcels to New Zealanders in need,” says Salvation Army spokesman Major Robbie Ross. “We couldn’t have done this without the support of events like The Wattie’s Cans Film Festival and the generosity of Kiwis around the country.”

Once again, EVENT Cinemas, Hoyts Cinemas, and Reading Cinemas are generously offering their theatres for the night, along with independent cinemas, at approximately 40 locations across the country. * All details will be on the Wattie’s website, see www.watties.co.nz ** Figures are for the year ended 30 June 2011.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wattiescansfilmfestival

Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011 19

Of gaps and holes Though underachievement is constantly in the media, the actual amount of it in our schools will come as a real surprise to most people.

Nobody thinks of counting in the “hidden” stuff – the student performance shortfall that you can put down to undeveloped learning capacity – for that simply goes unnoticed.

When that’s added to the tally, one could be excused for thinking that underachievement is the espoused aim of the education system.

The sheer amount of it implies a deliberativeness for it’s on a scale far greater than you’d expect. As a means of rationing academic success, though, it’s pure genius, just as it’s perfect for maintaining social inequalities. Of course, we know nobody ever sat down and deliberately designed things to work that way. For starters, can you imagine anyone making such a good fist of it that underachievement is able to operate as smoothly and consistently as it does across the board, sector wide?

have a measure of two things. We can see how many students – given their virtually even capacity to learn – are underachieving, and by how much. We can also see how much of the total capacity to learn of any given student population has been developed, simply by comparing the combined shortfall with what the situation would be if every one them turned in top rating performances – something their “remarkably similar” capacity to learn should certainly be leading us to expect.

Surprisingly enough, the origins of underachievement are even far more bizarre than anything most might imagine. For like Topsy, it just growed, all of its own accord. It’s evolved that way, over the course of human history, simply because the act of learning has not been properly understood.

A notional graph diagram developed on that basis reveals that only about half of the overall capacity to learn possessed by our nation’s young is being developed, if that (Loper, 2007) . That means around half is not, with the “hidden” component, as will be apparent shortly, being a very significant proportion of that.

To bring more substance to this expose, let’s look to some of the more pertinent detail. As things stand, the odds against any student learning as well as nature intended would be very high indeed. That’s because quality research – now a decade old, but still new to many – tells us that almost every student has virtually the same capacity to learn as do the best, each possessing a “remarkably similar” capacity to learn (Nuthall, 2001).

Yet what’s being experienced in our schools and other places of learning is a distribution of academic success that in no way reflects that fact.

Continuing to use findings from that outstanding research, let’s keep building substance into the analysis.

Hold in mind that the success of our so-called top students is being obtained in an “inherently inefficient” learning regime (Nuthall, 2001).

That aside for the moment, by using their success as a bench mark, we

20 Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011

But even that’s not the full picture.

As said, top students are doing their achieving in an inefficient learning environment. That they, like the rest, are functioning below what they’re capable of so have undeveloped learning capacity going spare, is easily enough demonstrated. Watch the performance increases such students show when they take part in hot-house type activities, elite programmes, and the like. Any use of their more everyday performance as a benchmark, then, is understating their value in the comparison. How much that’s so, can only be guessed at.

On that point, reference the notional diagram mentioned, adding a modest ten per cent compensatory increase to the performance level of the top students raises the bar sufficiently to push the total of undeveloped learning capacity, in respect of the whole student body, above the fifty per cent

Laurie Loper Psychologist mark. As said, we simply don’t know by how much top students are under performing, learning wise. It will be appreciated, then, that if that ten per cent itself is an underestimation, the situation’s much worse than described.

As it is, limiting the increase to ten per cent, underachievement now is able claim the dubious status of being the major academic outcome.

An example of what this looks like in real life comes from checks kept over recent years on the NCEA results of the eight most “successful” secondary schools in the local region.

These show not only the existence of “hidden” under performance gaps to a disappointing extent, but that the proportions of students not achieving top level passes has remained high and is virtually static.

As already signalled, what such a notional diagram also makes clear is that, depending on where the performance benchmark sits for those top students, the amount of “hidden” underachievement is some three to four times the amount of the “visible” underachievement – taking that to mean what’s contributed by the lowest achieving twenty per cent of students. This “visible” group, of course, is the only group that everyone thinks of as being of concern.

Certainly, they’re the group with the greatest ground to make up. From a policy perspective, though, there’s no doubt which group, the”hidden” verses the “visible”, offers the possibility of reclaiming the greatest part of that currently unused, fifty per cent plus portion of learning capacity. Or which of the two offers the chance of easiest salvage. Findings of this nature have obvious policy implications. It’s not the intention here, though, to argue for one group getting the resource against

the other, but to prompt a solution that would ensure the needs of both get served. That there’s a viable means of doing this – increasing the efficiency of the learning process – is something I’ve been sounding off about now for more than a decade.

Now comes the final and most bizarre aspects of this whole sorry saga. None of the sort of researchbased thinking being advanced here is evident in current policy, nor does it ever look likely to feature in the future. For none of the research that’s underpinning what’s been discussed is being taken notice of by the education sector. Hence efficacy is still something that’s being taken for granted, much as has occurred in the past.

If you believe the hype, though, where efficacy is concerned, the proponents of present day approaches to learning think they’re well on to it. But they’re not. Continuing to display their ignorance of the nature of learning, the approaches being used are mere donkeys masquerading as the thoroughbred race horses they can never be, but must be, if learning efficacy is ever to be established with the surety, speed, and to the across-the-board extent required.

What’s being highlighted, then, is that there’s a need for a better understanding of how little of the capacity to learn possessed by the entire student body is being made use of. Especially in view of the demands of today’s world, this underuse of the capacity to learn has to be seen as an entirely unsustainable impost. The tragedy is, though, that this situation has always existed and it bids fair to continue ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

Put it this way, the potential’s there to double educational outcomes for

virtually the same teaching input. That fifty per cent plus of undeveloped learning capacity represents an awful lot of slack that’s yet to be taken up.

To date, the education sector has only had eyes for one form of underachievement, the “visible” type. To its credit, it’s always been something that’s been regarded with concern. However, over the years, the sector has never been able to make much headway in reducing it, especially across the whole student population. That concern, then, looks pretty thin.

Critics could argue with some justification that, in effect, concern is all the sector has ever been able to come up with. It’s also provided too convenient a shield from the criticism that not enough is being done.

Of latter years, that concern has become coupled with a growing complacency, it being evident in the conviction that any new intervention approach – take your pick from amongst the current ones – is always said to be on the right track, to be well based and to possess the wherewithal to do the job. Given the many that don’t actually get the job done in any truly across-the-board and enduring fashion, in its search for better approaches, this is a complacency that switches its favouritism more often than political parties do u-turns. It’s also evident that there’s more than a tinge of arrogance associated with this complacency and that these values are now well embedded in policy.

But the addition of the “hidden” group to the underachievement equation puts an entirely different face on things. Complacent concern, arrogant or otherwise, has never

Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011 21

been an adequate response. The sheer scale of performance shortfall across the whole student population, as has been revealed, indicates just how much that calibre of response is out of whack with what’s required.

As said, there’s definitely a way out of this impasse – make learning efficient.

But the way things are at present, all talk concerning that has unfortunately become somewhat beside the point.

For the whole scene in which both the “visible” and the “hidden” types of underachievement are occurring, is so conflicted, nobody seems capable of thinking straight. Nobody either seems to have the sort of handle on things to know what to do. Or to be able to recognise a solution when one presents itself, let alone gauge it’s calibre. Or to be able to think beyond the constrictions of their own beliefs and habitual practices, these after all being the two main causative factors that are involved here. Until there’s been a change of mind set, until the elements of the confliction that messes up this issue are nullified, until there’s a proper understanding of what breakthrough research says is going on learning wise, we’ll simply have to put up with the current situation.

Let me now answer some queries a friend put to me not long ago. Is the achievement gap as bad as I’m making it seem? Absolutely, no doubt about it. Shouldn’t someone blow the whistle on what’s happening?

Certainly, the sooner the better.

Shouldn’t there be questions asked as to why we spend so much to achieve so little, by not doing enough that’s a match of what the relevant research says needs doing? I couldn’t agree more.

But digging oneself out of a hole, while remaining ignorant of the nature of the hole you’re in, isn’t seen as smart practice any place on the planet. As long as we demonstrate that we’re content with the amount of across-theboard, sub par achievement we have, and as long as the perception remains

that underachievement is due to everything else other than the “inherently inefficient” process that’s inflicted daily on every one of the nation’s young, that hole isn’t going anywhere. No sir, it’s just going to stay put and get bigger.

Let me finish with these thoughts on the plight of the “visible” group. The impact of that inefficient, underachievement-causing learning technology on them is as disproportionate and cripplingly inhumane as is the injustice and unwarranted hardship that any ill-targeted tax inflicts upon the poor.

That most of those involved are children of the poor anyway lends added force to the metaphor, not that it requires more. That a decade of non recognition of the efficacy based reasons for underachievement has already rolled by, further compounds a situation that’s of very long standing.

But it’s plain that this situation of gross inequity – of equally glaring iniquity – isn’t something that just they have to bear. The rest of us have to bear both the cost, and the shame of it. We’ll

have to bear both for as long as this impasse over the understanding of causes continues. By the look of it, that situation will continue until it’s realised that they can’t be salvaged until learning effectiveness is improved right across the board. And until more value is placed upon that fifty per cent of learning capacity now wilfully being wasted.

Laurie Loper References: Nuthall, G. 2001 “The cultural myths and the realities of teaching and learning”. Address to the NZEA Annual Conference, Dec 2001, at Christchurch.

Loper, L. 2007. Notional diagram.

Unpublished

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22 Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011

******SAVE THE DATE****** Surf Life Saving’s annual national appeal day, National Jandal Day, is fast approaching! We would love you encourage your readers to get behind National Jandal Day by wearing jandals on Friday 2 December 2011 and donating to such a worthy cause.

Please put this date in your diary: What: National Jandal Day When: Friday 2 December 2011 Why: It’s Surf Life Saving’s national appeal day. We are an essential charity and need the public’s support to raise more money to help lifeguards save more lives on New Zealand’s beaches this summer.

How: Wear your jandals and pledge your support by donating to our street collectors who will be out in force with buckets on the day.

For further information, please call: Liz Tindall m: 0275 833 228 e: liz.tindall@surflifesaving.org.nz

Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011 23

Understanding

Introduction I was a bit nervous about introducing an independent novel project to my seventh grade English classes after several students in my homeroom decided to have a sit in after seeing the due dates for the project on the board.

In unison, they all cried “WE HAVE TO READ ANOTHER BOOK! “ With a simple nod implying yes, they sat in front of the chalkboard refusing to do work.

Well, after dealing with this situation, how was I to go on and engage the students in this project after rumors of “tons of work in English” spread among the students.

Hoping for the worst, I was shocked (and relieved) that the students found the project interesting but still dreaded the fact of reading another book.

This led me to wonder, why do so many middle school students view reading as a burden rather than a pleasure?

24 Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011

Middle School Readers Scott Perrone

Three Types of Middle School Readers Over the course of the year, I heard many comments from students about reading. Some would say they really enjoyed reading. It was a way for them to relax or something to do when they had free time. Others would comment they read because it was required of them. They knew that in English they were going to have a quiz on the novel or have to complete some type of project. They wanted to do well and read only to get a good grade. Finally, there were the students who refused to read. They thought reading “took to much time to do”. Although the reading ability and habit of middle school readers varies tremendously, I ultimately observed three types of middle school readers: avid reader, school reader, and non reader. These three types of readers I observed displayed the following characteristics:

Avid Reader: Enjoyed reading Made time for pleasure reading Viewed reading as beneficial Viewed reading as entertaining

Non reader: Did not enjoy reading Did not make time for any reading, school or personal Saw no benefits in reading Viewed reading as time consuming

School Reader: Enjoyed reading Did not make time for pleasure reading Viewed reading as somewhat beneficial Viewed reading as a school practice only I feel most middle school teachers would agree that finding avid readers as the majority in middle school is rare. Students that I have observed as avid readers truly enjoyed reading. These students not only made time to read assigned materials in English class, but also could be found reading outside of school. Avid readers did not always enjoy what they were reading in class but felt an excitement about reading something new.

They discovered whether or not they enjoyed the type of books we were reading in class, while continuing to read novels of interest during their free time. Reading was a form of entertainment that was fun. While these students were reading they felt aesthetic pleasure in sitting down and reading a good book. Avid readers also viewed reading as beneficial. One student commented, “They (books) help improve my vocabulary” Readers who are characterized as avid reading combine the entertainment of reading, as well as the joy that can come from reading.

School readers, like avid readers, I found really enjoyed reading, however they did not make time to read outside

of school. Although they were reading for class, their only motivation for reading, was to complete a writing assignment or project. Reading was beneficial for them in the sense of completing school related activities. I do not believe they viewed reading as beneficial in ways avid readers perceived the benefits of reading. One student stated, “Sometimes reading is OK I don’t usually read a lot because I like to skateboard, listen to music, and talk to people” whereas another student stated, “Books wake up your imagination.” I also noticed school readers as students who wanted to read, but were “too busy with other things to do.” They viewed reading as a school practice rather than a form of entertainment. Although avid readers also expressed finding time to read was difficult, they made time to read whereas school readers wanted to participate in other activities rather than reading. The activities these students were participating in ranged from sports, video games, going to mall, playing on the computer to just hanging out with friends and watching television.

The group that I observed to be the most prominent was the non readers. Many students I worked with did not enjoy or find pleasure in reading. In research I found that “young adolescents do not read much for pleasure, read less than they did in earlier years, and continue to develop negative feelings about reading as they move through the middle grades” (Broaddus and Ivey 65). These findings directly relate to the group I have identified as non readers. I do not know how these students felt about reading during their elementary years, but I have observed and heard their negative comments and actions about reading. Again, they never expressed a pleasure for reading and I saw this type of behavior throughout the year and sense it will continue next year. Non readers never experienced the benefits of reading. A constant theme among this group was that reading was too time consuming and like school readers, felt they had other things to do besides reading.

The question I ask myself now is how we can account for these differences? The factors that explicate for students to fit into one of these three categories can be construed based on many different theories. In wanting to understand the mind of a middle school reader, I asked my students to share their thoughts about reading.

What the Students Shared about Reading “I enjoy reading books outside of school because I have the power of the books I want to read and I’m not forced to read it by a certain time.”

“Sometimes reading is OK I don’t usually read a lot because I like to skateboard, listen to music, and talk to people. I like social things and reading is not very social.” I’II enjoy reading books outside of school because I pick what I want to read.” “Let us pick the books we want to read.” “I don’t like to read. Only if I have to. I like to do sports and games.”

“I read outside of class because I have the power over what reading material I choose, so almost all the time I find the story interesting.”

“It’s (reading) fun, interesting, and you can learn from it.”

Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011 25

“I play sports, hang out with friends instead of reading. It’s much more fun.”

“I like reading because I have a busy schedule with ice skating, drama, dance, and piano. I really look forward to curling up with a good book.”

“I read a lot. It’s one of the major activities I do. To me life wouldn’t be as interesting. It lets you do things you normally can’t do.”

“I only read if I find a good book.”

“I love to read books. They give you vocabulary and my whole family is a bookworm.”

“I really don’t enjoy it unless I pick it out.”

“Reading can tell you so many things like on levels such as responsibility and controlling anger. Books wake our imagination which helps you learn at a faster rate and they can use superior vocabulary and help you learn to spell.”

“Reading is the most fun when you get to pick your book freely.”

After surveying my students and reading through their responses, I once again must reiterate that the reading ability and habit of middle school readers varies greatly.

Just from the sample of responses one can see middle level learners’ feelings about reading ranges from enjoying to read to feeling other activities are more important and reading is just boring. “It’s (reading) fun, interesting, and you can from it” and “I play sports, hang out with friends instead of reading. It’s much more fun” are just some responses from students about how they feel about reading. However, I must point out some of the similarities among their responses. The majority of students surveyed overwhelming stated that reading was fun for them when they got to pick out the books they had to read. One student boldly quoted, “Let us pick the books we want to read.” That is an important factor in fostering reading motivation that I would like to discuss in the next section.

One student mentioned how his or her family influenced the habitual nature to read. I believe family has a tremendous factor on ones choice to read. In an article entitled, “Why Boys Don’t Read”, it stated, “Joel Shoemaker, past president of YALSA, attributes the difference between boys and girls to cultural pressure. ‘It’s how you promote reading in our society. Evidence says there’s a biological root to this, but the main thing is social. You just don’t

26 Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011

hear parents yelling out the door to their son, ‘Put that football away and read this book.’ You don’t hear parents telling their daughter, ‘Put that book down, go ride a bike.’

We need to show them it’s okay to read” (Abramson 87).

Although I do agree that boys are sometimes more likely to be praised for scoring a touchdown rather then reading a book, I feel the same situation occurs with girls. I have had girls who say they do not have time to read because they have dance after school. Or, their parents really want them to concentrate on practicing hitting for the big softball next week. 1 believe parents need to be role models for their sons and daughters. Parents should not only encourage their children to read, but let them see how they enjoy reading.

Several students also mentioned that reading is not very social. Adolescents, especially middle school students, value time they spend with their friends and they do not see an opportunity to interact socially with reading. Showing children how reading can lead to chances for social activity is another way to motivate our students to read, which is what I would like to discuss next.

Motivating our Students to Read In Linda Gambrell’s article “Creating Classroom Cultures that Foster Reading Motivation”, she reveals strategies for teachers to encourage reading in their classrooms.

I would like to explore these strategies by relating them to what I have seen during my year in a middle school and if they have been effective or ineffectual.

Gambrell stated, “One very important way in which teachers motivate students to read is by being an explicit reading model. Research suggests that teachers who love reading and are avid readers themselves have students who have higher reading achievement than do students of teachers who rarely read” (19). This author goes on to state that teachers need to do more than model reading during silent sustained reading (SSR).

Teachers need to share with students how reading has enriched their lives. They can do this by revealing to the students why they read and possibly talk about how a certain book has affected him or her. What I viewed during SSR was the complete opposite of what Gambrell feels teachers

should be doing. That time was for teachers to “catch up”, doing activities such as grading papers or planning for the next day. I am guilty myself of not being a proper “reading” role model for students. The daily life of a teacher is extremely busy and I would also use that time to grade papers and plan. The hectic schedule of a teacher also lends itself to rarely making time for our own personal time for pleasure reading.

In essence, sharing with students how reading has enriched our lives was not a practice we used during SSR or class time. I agree with Gambrell that when we share our own reading experiences with students, we show them how reading can enrich our lives. As a novice teacher, it was refreshing to discover this strategy and I intend to incorporate this into my own teaching in the future.

A second way that we can foster reading motivation in our students according to Gambrell is to have a book rich classroom environment. “A number of studies during the past decade have provided support for the notion that when children have environments that are book rich, the motivation to read is high” (Gambrell 19). Almost all of the (English) classrooms that I visited or observed, the environment was notably book rich. A classroom with books that are available to students creates a nurturing and supportive atmosphere for our students. ‘Throughout the year, many students asked me to sign out books they wanted to read because they seemed “interesting” or “cool”.

Our classroom library gave our students an easy option to finding a book to read. However, I agree with Gambrel] that just having books available is not sufficient for the development of highly motivated readers. But, our students must first have an opportunity for exposure to quality books in our classrooms to support them in being motivated readers (Gambrell 20). This approach should be attractive to teachers because maintaining a classroom library is not very time consuming, when “finding enough time” continues to be an issue with teachers.

An opportunity for social interaction was the third strategy Gambrell suggested to motivate our students to read.

“Current theories of motivation recognize that learning is facilitated by social interactions with others. A number of recent reading studies have indicated that social collaboration promotes achievement, higher level cognition, and intrinsic desire to read” (Gambrell 22). Working with my seventh grade students this past year, I discovered many of them feel reading is not very social. One student stated, “Sometimes

reading is OK. I don’t usually read a lot because I like to skateboard, listen to music, and talk to people. I like social things and reading is not very social.” It became apparent that middle school students like activities where they get the opportunity to talk and share, and they don’t view reading as an opportunity to do these types of activities. I think teachers need to show students how reading can be social.

The English classroom should focus more heavily on social interactions such as discussion groups and other sharing opportunities that motivate students and foster a positive view of reading. Essentially, I feel all of these factors that can lead to a motivation to read are all connected to giving students an opportunity for choice.

Giving students the choice to read what they want can be a very significant key to fostering reading motivation. “Let us pick the books we want to read”, was a notable theme among the students I interviewed and talked with during the year. In the curriculum I was teaching, only one unit allowed the students to choose a novel they wanted to study for that unit, whereas other thematic units restricted the students to reading the same novel. Although the students were in a sense restricted, by reading the same novel a chance for a type of shared experience occurred. This led to opportunities for social interactions, but that is not how the students viewed this experience. Students felt like they did not have any power in choosing the books they wanted to read. “I enjoy reading books outside of school because I have the power of the books I want to read and I’m not forced to read it by a certain time,” was a response from one student.

If students felt empowered by being able to select a novel they want to read, this can lead to positive views of reading and learning. “In a study by Schiefele (1991), students who were allowed and encouraged to choose their own reading material expended more effort in learning and understanding the material.

It appears the opportunities for choice promote students’ independence and versatility as readers” (Gambrell 21).

One student stated, “I read outside of class because I have the power over what reading material I choose, so almost all the time I find the story interesting.” Despite the fact that I believe the power of choice is important, I also found that many students discovered that they enjoyed the books that were assigned to them in class and explored issues they may not have on their own. Overall, I firmly believe that students should be given the chance or power to self select reading materials more often. My hope is that the power of choice spurs an intrinsic motivation to read.

Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011 27

Conclusion

Works Cited

My year in a middle school English classroom has been quite an exciting and challenging experience. It was very easy for me to say to my students that reading is a fun activity that will help them explore and grow, yet it became a challenge to prove this to them.

Abramson, Marla. “Why Boys Don’t Read.” Book January/ February 2001: 86 88.

Middle school students are busy; they want to hang out with their friends, go to the mall, play sports, and do anything that keeps them active. Reading was not seen as a priority in their lives. Studies have shown that during the “middle” years of a student’s education is when they experience the most antipathy for reading. Although it should not be the teacher’s job alone to get our children to see the benefits of reading, it ultimately does become the role of the teacher.

Whether we have students who like to read or students who may not have had a good experience with reading yet, as English teachers our priority should lie in helping our students by giving them time and creating positive experiences to grow into reading. Ultimately, we should listen to our students and help them meet their needs to become successful readers.

Beers, Kylene. “Choosing Not to Read Understanding Why Some Middle Schoolers Just Say No.” Into Focus: Understanding and Creating Middle School Readers.

Ed. Kylene Beers and Barbara Samuels. Norwood Christopher Gordon, 1998. 37 63.

Broaddus, Karen and, Gay Ivey. “Tailoring the Fit: Reading Instruction and Middle School Readers.” The Reading Teacher September 2000: 68 78.

Gambrell, Linda. “Creating Classroom Cultures that Foster Reading Motivation.” The Reading Teacher September 1996: 14 25.

Hill, Margaret. “Reaching Struggling Readers.” Into Focus: Understanding and Creating Middle School Readers.

Ed. Kylene Beers and Barbara Samuels. Norwood: Christopher Gordon, 1998. 82 104.

Lowery Moore, Hollis. “Voices of Middle School Readers.”

Into Focus: Understanding and Creating Middle School Readers. Ed. Kylene Beers and Barbara Samuels. Norwood: Christopher Gordon, 1998. 24 35. www.ed.psu.edu/englishpds/inquiry/projects/PERRONE.htm

Summer’s almost here..... remember that over summer you can access all previous

issues of Good Teacher Magazine at: www.goodteacher.co.nz

28 Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011

New school curriculum to be tested In Abu Dhabi a new curriculum cutting from 13 to a maximum of seven the number of compulsory subjects in the last three years of school is to be tested in 2012. The revamped curriculum, which will go on trial in selected secondary schools in Abu Dhabi next September, will also offer a vocational stream for non-academically inclined pupils in Grades 10, 11 and 12.

The existing curriculum had to be restructured to meet challenges, Dr Mugheer Khamis Al Khaili, director general of Abu Dhabi Education Council (Adec), said yesterday.

“We need to update the information we offer to pupils and reduce the burden of learning so many subjects with no time for any extra-curricular activities,” he said.

The move will end the old two-stream approach that divided subject choice into arts and science paths. Dr Al Khaili compared the new system to the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) and International Baccalaureate (IB) followed by international schools.

The proposed changes come after a thorough review of Adec’s secondary-school system by Parthenon, an education advisory group. It found the system was not meeting the goals of preparing pupils for higher education or relevant careers.

Parthenon found that non-instructional activities were conducted for no more than a quarter of the school year and exposure to life skills was offered in only one class a week.

Pupils do not take music classes after Grade 6 or art classes after Grade 9.They said maths was not linked to real-life situations, and science did not provide a globalview, while Arabic and English courses did not provide the vocabulary needed for college-level reading.

About 95 per cent of pupils passing out of high school still need remedial programmes before they can start degree programmes at university. Adec also found parent satisfaction with high school education very low.

Dr Al Khaili said both the coursework and time allocated to each subject will be altered and more emphasis would be placed on liberal arts and personality-building courses.

The New School Model, rolled out in 2010, was the start of education reform in the capital’s government schools aimed at addressing these and other problems. It was introduced in the lower grades last year to introduce pupils to bilingual,

Afshan Ahmed

practical-based education. The system will be applied to all Grades by 2015.

But officials say a rapid improvement programme is needed to address the performance of 67,000 pupils expected to graduate before then.

Dr Rafic Makki, director of Planning and Strategic Affairs at Adec, said the aim of the Cycle 3 changes was to give pupils the flexibility to choose courses according to their interest and skills.

“We are looking at a less-is-more approach,” he said. “We will create more pathways with academic and vocational choices. There will be fewer subjects to choose but more in-depth coverage of material.”

Dr Makki said there will also be a greater emphasis on career guidance so pupils can tap into their interests and pick subjects that are relevant to their future careers.

The restructuring programme is being developed in collaboration with other education authorities, including the Ministry of Education, the Higher Education Ministry and Abu Dhabi Centre for Technical and Vocational Education and Training.

Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, said a change in high schools would help to get rid of the foundation courses, a key objective of the 2020 education strategy. “It is costing our economy to continue with this programme. We want students to be able to successfully join degree programmes at university.”

Dr Makki also bemoaned the fact that Emirati pupils were heading to university without the critical, creative and problem-solving skills they needed. He said it extended their time in tertiary training to up to eight years because they had to take foundation courses.

Prof Rory Hume, the provost of UAE University, said the current Cycle 3 model was not meeting needs. “Students are not prepared for tertiary education in either Arabic or the English language,” he said. “There must be much more focus at schools on creative, group and research work and less on memorisation.”

Full details of the restructuring, including how many schools it will be tested in and for how long, will be announced next year.

http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/education/new-school-curriculum-to-be-tested Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011 29

Making The World Of Difference 19th biennial conference of the World Council Conference Report

‘Making a World of Difference for Gifted Children’, the 19th biennial conference of the World Council was held in Prague, Czech Republic, from August 8th to the 12th this year.

The conference drew delegates from more than 50 countries across the globe and featured a number of well respected speakers including Maureen Niehart, Franz Mönks, Dorothy Sisk, members of the World Council executive committee and others.

It was a great opportunity to put faces to names.

As you are no doubt aware, Rosemary Cathcart and I were successful in our bid for the next World Conference to be held in Auckland, New Zealand in 2013. In Prague we were well supported by a small group of well-known names in kiwi gifted education circles who made their presence felt both as presenters and ambassadors for our country. Rosemary had prior commitments back home but I undertook to complete the formal requirements with the World Council Executive and to promote New Zealand as a fantastic conference and tourist destination, with the help of CINZ (Conventions and Incentives, New Zealand) and the marketing expertise of The Conference Company in Auckland. The New Zealand Power point/ film clip exhibit proved a popular attraction and will be used by the World Council to promote New Zealand at other conferences over the next two years leading up to their 20th biennial in Auckland . My colleagues’ presentations made my job of advocacy for 2013 easier because every time a New Zealander delivered a workshop or gave a presentation, it was followed shortly after by an increase in people visiting the booth and wanting to know more about us ! Thanks heaps to Tracy Riley, Kate Niederer, Rose Blackett, Robyn Harawira, Lisa Barlow , Sonia White, Lynn Berresford and Michelle Parsons-Simms (expat kiwi) for your help, your expertise and your generosity with your time.

The Charles Bridge over the Vlatava River.

30 Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011

e For Gifted Children Elaine Le Sueur

I am sure that our New Zealand booth must have been visited by all the delegates to the conference at some time over the five days because we were a very busy hub in the exhibition hall. We were kept really busy fielding questions and we all became experts at •

•

•

Changing or approximating centigrade to farenheit for climate comparisons, and converting New Zealand Dollars (thank goodness for internet connections and the Ipad ) to sterling, the greenback and the euro !

Giving explanations about our geographical location and distances from a wide range of starting points. ( In view of the distances that we had travelled to attend the conference, this was surprisingly easier task than I thought it would be. Most International conference attendees were familiar with distances and travel times from their home locations to those of major airports such as Heathrow, Gatwick and Paris.)

Networking with friends and colleagues from across the globe and making new connections

It was wonderful to see and feel the enthusiasm and interest with which we were received. So many of the delegates there indicated their intention to see us all again in 2013.

In fact, one delegate from Finland made a point of telling me that he had already been to the internet to book his air tickets but was disappointed to find that no airline was prepared to take a definite booking so far ahead of time!

In addition to organising the New Zealand stand and promoting ‘down under’ I was invited to give a short presentation about New Zealand’s Gifted Awareness week, and we were all delighted to hear that the World Council has committed to promoting an International Gifted Awareness slot at each of their conferences from now on, with the emphasis on sharing what is being done within other countries to raise awareness and understanding. Watch this space !

I am also very grateful for the assistance that the New Zealand representatives gave, allowing me to have a free day to sightsee in Prague while we were there. I made the

most of the opportunity by taking a six hour walking tour around the old town and making a fleeting trip through the more modern part of the city before finally getting back to the hotel with no feeling left in my feet, but thoroughly enamoured of this historical preserve with cobblestones that millions have walked before me. If only stones could talk!

My highlights include ...

•

The Lobkowicz castle with its wonderful view and the changing of the guard ceremony at midday

•

the amazing medieval architecture and splendour of the churches

•

the sudden downpour on the Charles Bridge and the fact that it was so hot that I was completely dry again by the time I had walked to the other side, and the boat trip underneath it.

•

the John Lennon wall (where I added my own tiny bit of graffiti, as a Beatles fan from way back);

•

the hundreds and hundreds of stairs to go up and down (I lost count after the first 500)

•

the amazing astronomical clock;

•

the wonderful friendly people

•

the pet shop with a furry brown tarantula (the size of a bread and butter plate) for sale.

•

the need for making myself understood in shops where the only conversation was ‘No English, sorry’ but delivered with a smile.

I make no apologies for this list sounding like a travelogue.

I didn’t do the city justice in the time that I had. There are lots of places left to explore another time. It will stay on my bucket list as a place to revisit if I ever get the opportunity.

With the help of New Zealanders our aim now is to make the New Zealand experience equally memorable and fulfilling for all who attend the conference at the Sky City Convention Centre in Auckland, August 5-9, 2013. We have a wonderful opportunity to make a real difference for our able students over the next two years and to showcase it to the world in 2013. The World Council and our local organising committee is looking forward to seeing you there!

Bookmark this website today... www.worldgifted2013.com

Umit Davasligil Taisir Yamin (President) Julia Link Roberts Leonie Kronborg Ken McClusky Klaus Urban Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011 31

Literacy Lifter

Compare and Contrast! Diagram a Story Comparing and contrasting elements in narrative texts involves identifying how story elements, situations, and plots are alike and different.

Comparing items helps readers make connections and conclusions between key elements in a story.

Here’s how you can get your students started: What You Need: •

Paper

•

Pencil

•

A book or short story they are currently reading

What You Do: Step 1 Have the children begin by drawing two large circles on a sheet of paper, linking them in the center.

The intersection should have enough space for writing in.

Step 2 Start simple by choosing two things to compare and contrast. For example, compare shoes and shirts or televisions and radios.

In the outer circles, list the differences between the objects, and in the area where the circles intersect, note the similarities.

Step 3 The next step is to use the same diagram to compare and contrast familiar characters from a story or book.

Have the children select characters from a book or short story that they are currently reading at home or in school.

They should list the differences between the characters in the outer circles, and the similarities between the characters are listed where the circles intersect.

To keep from getting off track and too complex, focus on the actions of the characters.

For a more advanced challenge, try analyzing some of the character’s dialogue, motivations, or roles in the text.

The skill of comparing and contrasting is an important one.

It helps students focus on specific details, such as character or tone, that form the underpinnings of the story.

This not only helps with reading comprehension, but is an essential skill in writing reports in high school and college.

By Liza Jenkins - middle school Language Arts teacher and private tutor from Maryland 32 Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011

Literacy Lifter

Get Metaphor and Simile Savvy through Writing It started with “see Spot run,” and quickly progressed to “see Spot run, the brown dog, run after the stick.”

But in the development of your childrens writing, what about “see Spot, the brown dog, run like the wind after the stick”?

This last sentence uses a literary device called simile, and if your middle schooler hasn’t run into it yet, they are about to.

But how do literary devices work?

And how to help your middle schoolers go from literal meaning to abstract expression in writing?

Here’s a review of some common literary devices, and a fun creative writing activity to make things like metaphor a piece of cake!

What You Need: • Familiarize your middle-schoolers with these common terms: • Metaphor: comparing two dissimilar things as though one is actually the other, as in “Your room is a pigsty.” Is there really dirt and slop in the child’s room? Of course not, but by linking the two, you send a clear message: your room is a mess, and it’s time to clean it up!

• Simile: comparing two dissimilar things using “like” or “as.” For instance, “She’s as mad as a hornet,” or “Her love is like a red red rose.”

• Personification: giving human qualities to a non-human. In the poem “Paul Revere’s Ride,” for example, Longfellow writes, “…he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,/The watchful night-wind, as it went/Creeping along from tent to tent,/And seeming to whisper, “All is well!”.

What You Do: Your children have been using metaphor, simile, and personification for a while now, they just don’t know it.

To help them use and understand these key literary devices, here are three fun writing challenges that should have your children making metaphors, using similes, and personifying in no time!

Step 1.

Take metaphors to school. For a fun and funny poem that will have your children in stitches, have them compose a poem using only metaphors to describe a day at school. First, help them describe what their teacher, classmates, and classroom are like. For example, is the teacher nice and but a little sour? The schoolwork bland and boring? “Ms. Crabapple is a yellow lemon/who turns punctuation into porridge.” Before long, your children will master the whimsical side of metaphors!

Step 2.

Make a simile sandwich. For an entertaining way to practice similes, have your children plan a picnic, using similes. What to pack? How about apples green as a grasshopper, rhubarb pie with whipped cream like clouds, or a sub sandwich big as a baseball bat? This exercise will let your children flex their creativity, while giving them practice in simile skills!

Step 3.

Personification Nation. Many children’s books and movies show a world where everything - the trees, the rivers, the animals, and the stars - have a voice. Help your children write the world alive by personifying everything around them. If that table were a person, what would he or she be like? What about likes and dislikes? How would the table get along with the other furniture in the the room? You can take this exercise outside, around town, or use objects found around the house for a prose piece featuring dialog, humor, or drama.

By Kate Smith

Kate Smith has been a teacher since 1997. She has taught in New York and California, with experience in all subjects and grades from 1 to 12, but the heart of her expertise lies in middle school, primarily English and Journalism. She has a B.A. in English and a Master of Science in Teaching from Fordham University.

Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011 33

One Man’s Dream Who does not hanker after pssibly following a dream held for many years?... we will follow Neil, Joy and their three daughters as Neil leaves on his adventure of a lifetime... fulfilling the dream which he had carried with him for 40 year, since he was six.... this first introduction has Neil gaining experience with others... much of the writing is in diary form.

Introduction

It’s over now. She’s lying still at last. All that remains are the memories - happy memories, sad memories, some memories are funny, others fearful. To her, RUBEN JANE, we owe a debt. Yet within her, and I believe in all of us there is a stirring. Somewhere there is another place beyond the horizon, beyond the sunrise, beyond the sunset. Still she lies, but she deserves her rest. We are going home now for some much needed sleep also. It is only just dawning on me what pressure I have been under for the past 6 months. Is it only that long? Throughout that time I have been responsible for peoples’ lives for 24 hours a day out on the restless ocean. That responsibility is now over. It is the price of following a dream. But it is worth it!

Auckland-Fiji 1/6/-11/6/ Started 5 days before departure with a farewell hugs (Don’t they ever expect to see me alive again)?

Geoff phoned after the briefing the previous night to say that departure had been postponed 24 hours due to weather. A front with winds to 50 knots expected Saturday morning 0300-0700 over Auckland according to Bob McDavitt (top meteorologist). Slept until 0800 hours although did hear high wind during the night. Geoff phoned his brother who urged him to leave on the 1st as originally planned. Asked him if we should leave under bare poles streaming a drogue!!!

In the words of Martin Luther King ‘I have a dream’. The scary thing - I tell my wife, is that ‘I have another dream!!’

A yacht carrying a German couple was rescued off North Cape yesterday in Force 9. Although the front has gone it will be some hours before the sea settles so think we are making the correct decision. Spent the day doing small jobs.

How did it all begin?

Owners & Skipper: Geoff and Jane.

Well I was a country boy through and through, living about as far from the sea as it is possible to be in New Zealand.

However from about 6 years old I had an old apple box on the back lawn with a large stick for a mast and a single sail.

I sailed that boat across the harbour and across the world many times in my fertile imagination. I remember that the boom was a piece of dowel. I remember it was worth half a crown which in my terms was two and a half week’s pocket money. I wish that a boom only cost that much nowadays.

The next 20 years were only punctuated by two sailing trips - one on Hamilton Lake and the other in a keeler for an afternoon around Tauranga.

Crew: Patrick, Simon and me, and the vessel is Karangi.

My wife didn’t know when she married me that I had this dream burning in my bones. Although my parents took me on numerous fishing trips in the 1960’s on the Firth of Thames it did not constitute sailing. It did instil in me a healthy respect for the sea, a respect that remains with me to this day. I have no real apprehension of losing my life at sea but I do have an abhorrence of throwing my life away. I did own a Sunburst sailing dinghy for about 7 years before graduating to a trailer-sailer for another 12 so I had a reasonable amount of experience before we ventured into the deep blue yonder.

I have concluded that only dreamers achieve anything in life because “unless you have a dream how can you have a dream come true?” One of the joys of Blue Water Sailing is the opportunity to think uninterrupted for hours on end. This enables one to transcend the thinking which society imposes.

In preparation for our voyage I signed on as crew on the good vessel Karangi.

34 Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011

Gratitude to friends for the loan of equipment. Thanks for their confidence that they expect me to return the equipment personally. Rang Joy and heard that Susannah had won ‘player of the day’ at netball. Who needs an excuse to phone a nice lady like Joy? Went to bed and slept well.

Departure date: 2nd June.

Had to call at Westhaven to pick up some chain from Geoff’s brother Gary. He accompanied us past Rangitoto in his yacht.

We left Westhaven at 1230 hours and passed numerous yachts heading into the harbour. One had a broken mast and another a flying halyard. We could laugh because it had happened to us all at some stage or other. Tailend Charlie (the Aries wind vane) has been functioning well with the wind virtually dead astern. We have one reef in the main and although we initially tried the jib it was more trouble than it was worth. We put in a gybe off Rangitoto but apart from that we have not looked like adjusting the sails. G and I have also just had a discussion about when a chop becomes a swell.

Just past the Tiri channel I reckon it became a swell (currently 1.5-2 metres) from astern. P has been feeling seedy.

The boat’s motion makes writing difficult. We have been averaging just under 6 knots and it’s bitterly cold on deck. I signed on for a tropical cruise not a frozen jaunt. G just asked P what he thought of the trip so far - ‘Pretty cool’ was the cryptic reply. On the first evening I asked G where we were going to anchor for the night because Joy said I had to have a good night’s sleep each night. For a moment he didn’t realise that I was joking.

4th June: Yes, that’s correct. Yesterday was a write off day.

On the 2nd the sea was green; yesterday the sea turned blue

and the crew was green; today the bread is expected to turn green, the sky is blue (although largely covered in clouds) and the sea is grey.

At the end of my watch yesterday morning a front came through raising a nasty cross chop and a confused sea. I finished my watch but only just before mal de mer took over. I tried drinking salt water but after little improvement over 12 hours I finally used medication with good effect. I came off my afternoon watch 10 minutes early. Slept soundly after that and had 3 mouthfuls of a nice rice dish cooked by J but I thought better than to try the chicken.

By midnight when I woke I was feeling good. The other guys had decided to stand my watch for me so P was surprised when I showed up. I didn’t know of their arrangement. The confused sea is now more orderly. Due to a misunderstanding (American accent 315 degrees vs. NZ 350 degrees) I initiated a heading more westerly than desired instead of North. This was then transferred through two more watches before the error was discovered at the start of G’s watch. Over a 2 hour period yesterday the sea changed from a pea-green to a deep blue - quite a remarkable transformation.

Charlie. Also the cloud cover broke but when the breeze died and we started motoring again, the sky looked ominous, however it came to nothing. Apparently we are in the middle of a ginormous high with very widely spaced isobars. It is virtually stationary. The water is a cobalt blue and the swell fluctuates between 0.5 and 3 metres. We were visited at dusk by 2 tiny red breasted land birds. They stayed in the rigging long enough for S to get a photo but his flash scared them away. They looked tired, as well they might. They were 120 miles from the nearest land which is the Kermadecs 300 miles from North Cape. Hope they find a ship to rest on before they make landfall. The early part of the night was very dark with heavy cloud cover. We were contacted after the evening sked by Ed Pahl on ‘Trident’. All is well at home and he said he would pass on my love to Joy. I heard on my return that he had been listening in each night and then passing my co-ordinates to Joy. Noeleen, his wife, said after a few nights that Joy would not know what he was talking about but she was pleasantly surprised when Joy told her that she was plotting our progress on an atlas.

The radio contacts are a real source of comfort whilst at sea.

Land dwellers cannot know the incredible conflict of emotions which occur with contact with land. The 2 main emotions are This morning there is no wind so we have continued to motor. joy that someone ‘out there’ knows where I am and cares, As the sails are furled Charlie has gone on strike so it is coupled with a feeling of tremendous loneliness that one is tiresome to have to steer all the watch. The position of the so far from loved ones. After many months away from New wheel means that one is either leaning right forward off the Zealand I can still sense very deeply the intense loneliness park bench at the stern or twisting around from the cockpit. when the SSB is turned off for the night. A very special tribute Both positions are quite awkward. Still I guess the old-timers is paid to John Goater (Auckland Cruising Radio) who night had to steer by hand too. P just made us some chilli for after night is faithfully there to pass on messages and plot afternoon tea - not too hot - but still very enjoyable. I think it courses. Without people like him, cruising would be greatly reminds him of Corinna, his wife - a Mexican. He cooked impoverished. Later when we went steak and tomatoes, potatoes and cruising he became a real friend. cabbage for tea - delicious, we’ll keep ‘We who adventure upon the Whenever we are cruising the family him on. Some phosphorescence sea, however humbly, cannot really enjoy listening to the evening tonight. At midnight the motor stopped but feel that we are more sked. When it is over, the day ends. I - a fuel blockage of some type. We think the radio builds a real sense of fortunate than ordinary people raised both sails but the best course camaraderie amongst the cruising and that we have something we could steer was 270-300 M so we fraternity. Another enjoyable aspect is which we could not tell nor they lowered them again and resorted to hearing people on the air over a period understand.’ the motor again on a different tank. of time before meeting them. The Claud Worth.

Somehow the fuel is not balancing mental picture one builds is almost between the tanks as it should. It Or more simply ‘sometimes a always entirely different. One is able to occupied an interesting part of my man’s got to do what a man’s share the highs and lows, the joys and watch. Visited during my watch by G got to do’ the sorrows, the laughter and embarjust after my 2am fix and the boat was Me. rassments of a friendly generous group.

50 degrees off course, and by P who The idiosyncrasies of different people was still too hot after the earlier sail are also imitated by the children as well. work. Course is still 350 degrees magnetic. We still have too much cloud cover for a sight and 6th June. little sign of it improving. G has just told us that an old skipper I really enjoyed my night watch, singing right through it. P had once told him that the sun will shine through for a short time found that the boat wandered all over the ocean on his watch every day. I have figured out that it is easy to find Fiji - exit but when I took over I adjusted the steering for 1/4 hour then Auckland harbour and take the first turn left. didn’t touch it for 1/2 hour.

5th June.

We had a choice for breakfast this morning - take it or leave it Still no sea life that we can see: some bird life. G saw a light - I cooked. We had fried eggs and tomatoes on toast. They a couple of nights ago and I thought I saw one astern just were amused by the way I cooked the toast - on the element before that. This bit of the ocean looks just like it did yesterrather than under the grill. There were fried onions for the day or was it the day before. Apart from the radio the rest of later ones. Everyone was complimentary including S the world might not exist. We passed a barge floating although he insisted in cooking his own (to get out of doing semi-submerged a couple of nights ago without sighting. It is the dishes I suspect). making one knot NE. There is also a yacht in distress This afternoon on my watch we put up the genoa and poled it somewhere off the Marquises. All the other boats in the fleet out. Some of the swells appear to be about 5 metres high but are motoring. Eilean - a 52 footer is doing 7.9 knots. They because they are not steep it is very hard to assess. When had to put in to the Bay of Islands for repairs. Windemere II everyone was below I tried to engage Charlie (they call him has been motoring for 2 days. Yesterday the land was 3914 Dr Floppy now) but the wind was so light that I almost back metres away - straight down. This afternoon the breeze came winded the genoa (65 degrees off course). Put it down to in SW for several hours so we raised the genoa and engaged experience. We also saw an albatross this afternoon (could Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011 35

have been a petrel) but it distanced itself from us before I had time for a photo. What do you photograph out here? Auckland over the horizon? Palm trees yet to come into view? A picture of a whale down deep?

Doused the genoa just after dark. Very starry night. Everyone remarked how many stars there were. I thought it was like a good clear night in Tauranga but was assured that it was clearer than in Auckland. P bumped the throttle twice on his watch causing the motor to almost stall both times. He had been writing over the top of it and leaned/fell against it. G both times bounded out of bed to see what the problem was.

Very rolly overnight. It had been fun cooking eggs until they solidified a little. It would pay to either use glue instead of cooking oil or to use a stick fry pan (rather than the non-stick variety).

7th June.

Annoyed during my night watch because I could not remember the Morse letter for ‘Do you require assistance?’

This is just in case a super tanker or a Royal Naval destroyer or US aircraft carrier should come over the horizon.

Saw two jet trails this morning so they are on the right course. I wish we could tell them because it would be of tremendous comfort to them I’m sure. J actually saw the planes. If we run out of fuel we can sail but if they run out of fuel they will require our assistance. Yesterday S ate the last banana and now he’s worried about scurvy. I told him to eat the mould off the bread. Our first piece of mould appeared today - not bad for 5 days out. Had the genoa up until the wind died at lunchtime. Put both sails up at 1500 hours. They are both slatting a bit in the chop but we are persevering. No we are not. We are motor sailing with the genoa. We had a preventer on the main but it still slatted. As soon as we doused the main the whitecaps returned and we are making good speed. Should reach the tropics tomorrow. S gave me his copy of Ebbco sextant use and adjustment booklet tonight.

8th June.

Sailing should be a freedom experience but we still put on safety harnesses every time we go outside unless it is very calm and we are in the cockpit with somebody else. (Is my Mum reading this?) It’s not calm at present with small 0.5 - 1 metre swell but choppy. P is still having difficulty keeping his feet. He just came lurching across the cabin towards me with his arms out. I don’t think it was with amorous intent.

Sometimes he reminds me of my friend Glenn with his American ways. He is an undergraduate lecturer at Auckland University. His speciality is genetics. We had an interesting discussion about genetics. I felt it was very fatalistic as, according to him, every decision we make has been genetically determined.

We’re sailing - at last - 2 sail reaching with no motor. The sound of no motor is deafening after the past few days and nights. Just after raising the sail I looked out for whales but instead saw my first flying fish of the trip - only about 5 inches long. Then I spotted an orange buoy (pronounced booee by P) 100 metres off the starboard beam. The place now looks like a boat belonging to ‘boat-people’ with my washing drying on the lee lines.

Clothes dry now. We have been averaging 6 knots under sail for the last 8 hours. We are in the SE trades at last. G has said we’ll shorten the foresail overnight. If this breeze keeps up we may be at the Navula Passage by late Monday. Took some photos of the boat sailing well in 18 knots. When I was up at the bow I was almost lifted off my feet. Glad I was holding on firmly. G lost a bucket overboard. Just before the reef went in we took several big waves over the coaming. It’s 36 Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011

more manageable now. The masthead light hasn’t been working for several nights so if a ship comes over the horizon we will turn on the anchor light. Still with the port/starboard lights on the bow it makes a spectacular sight with the spray coming on deck.

9th June.

Came on deck at midnight for my midnight/0230 watch to find a ship’s light 2 points off the starboard bow. Probably Eilean.

About 1/4 past midnight I was looking out over the port beam at the small amount of phosphorescence in the bow wave, then when I looked over the starboard beam several minutes later there was what appeared to be a cruise ship dead abeam, all lit up. It gave me a big fright until I realised that it was the moon rising - the upper limb was entirely flat and the lower limb was still below the horizon.

Made some breakfast and took some porridge to the cabin boy, S who was sleeping again. He didn’t know that I had cooked it so he later complimented J on her cooking. He did make disparaging remarks about sticky spoons until I pointed out that he had done last night’s tea dishes. P had assisted with very helpful? hints on cooking porridge. I’m worried about him. He spends a lot of time in the saloon. Is he an alcoholic? He even sleeps there. Mind you, so do I. This morning it looks as though rats have been into the chilli-bin (actually I think P put a hole in it last night with his foot on one of his out-of-control forays across the saloon). Last night being Saturday night we had a concert. There was only one item. After I had sung the second verse I had the audience screaming - for me to stop.

This afternoon we all had a very enjoyable chat in the cockpit for several hours. There are a few more flying fish around but I still want to see a whale. I was hit by a flying fish this afternoon during my watch - it was dead - S threw it at me.

Now I know what it’s like to be slapped in the face by a wet fish. Had to rush the radio sked tonight as we had too much sail on. We reefed the main. Then we rolled the jib almost right away. It certainly made the motion much easier. When I went out to do the sail change I went flying across the cockpit before I was hooked on. Fortunately I landed on top of portly P - he does have his uses. G cautioned us sternly to be safe.

It wasn’t until after completing the sail change that he confessed that although he was on the helm, he had not been harnessed on throughout. P cooked tea and I cleaned up afterwards - spaghetti and sauce everywhere - he’s certainly messy. He’s been talking to himself more over the last few days. At least he’s found someone of equal intellect - still he is only a junior professor. I’m not convinced that he is really enjoying this trip.

10th June.

This ocean is getting crowded. Yesterday we heard a conversation on the VHF as Chanticleer came up behind Eilean. She was complaining that Chanticleer (Big wave) was going to steal her wind so Chanticleer went right around Eilean. We suggested that Eilean should lee bow her. In all the miles of ocean, it comes down to this.

Rory Mohr (Big red - her original owner had been a big red headed man) raced past us over the Western horizon during the night doing 9 knots. On this morning’s sked they had slowed to 7.5 knots. At 0830 hours we had 110 miles to go to Navula Passage so should make it at about daybreak tomorrow. It looks as though there should be 4 other boats there about the same time. Te Anau is through Navula Passage now.

Salusa and Windemere II are behind us. Windemere II only just now entering the trades. They tried sailing when the rest of us motored.

During my early watch I reminisced on my purposes, aims and aspirations for the voyage. I’ve also calculated that over the 9 day voyage with one wave every 5 seconds on average, we have encountered approximately 155,520 waves, give or take a few.

The name Karangi means ‘Far Horizon’ or ‘Food God’ depending on which tribe one asks. There was a Karangi, a boom tender, which was one of the vessels to go to the assistance of the SS ‘Runic’ when she ran up on Middleton Reef in the 1950’s. The island of Kandavu lies off the starboard beam 55 miles away so we cannot see it. Another flying fish came aboard earlier. This one was about a foot long. The water is getting pretty shallow now - it’s only 1280 metres deep. I think the deepest water we crossed was 4900 metres.

I’ve been emotionally fragile today. Probably looking towards the end of the voyage and leaving friends. Also eager to get home to Joy. She’s wonderful, never stopping me from having dreams and she allows me (nay encourages me) to fulfil the important ones. I do really appreciate her love, wisdom and counsel. And the sacrifices she makes to enable the fulfilment of my dreams. Thanks also to the girls for putting lollipops all through my luggage. I enjoyed one every night-watch. When S took over the watch he brought me a mini moro bar every night so on the last night I gave him a lollipop for which he may be forever grateful, he had eaten my oddfellows earlier.

11th June.

After my watch I was awoken at my request as we entered the Navula Passage. We passed Navula light at 0705 hours.

Officially this is the end of the voyage. Our ETA had been 1000 hours on 11/6 when we left New Zealand. Still when we anchored just off the leading lights of Navula Passage we were .01 mile out on our waypoint. This is 17.6 yards so I told G that the reading was from the wheelhouse and the anchor was on the other side of the waypoint. G took one look at the saloon this morning (where P and I slept) and said that it looked like the inside of a cheap brothel. I said I couldn’t comment!!

Well, here we are tied up at Lautoka wharf after a 3 hour motor of only moderate interest. Beautiful islands to the W and interesting boats heading out to them. When we arrived off the wharf we were told to anchor 1/2 mile off the wharf by a harbour board official. The other boats; Rory Mohr, Chanticleer and Eilean all complied. We were circling preparing to comply when we were instructed to pull alongside the wharf, so we did. When we had been anchored inside the Navula Passage we had been visited by a courtesy boat from Vuda Point Marina. They gave us all the documentation to fill in as we motored to the wharf. They also gave us a big chilli bin filled with sponsor’s products including fruit and drinks.

Anyway here we are still at the wharf. We have been through agriculture with my camel-hide hat. Then G went to customs.

He had been only about 5 minutes from finishing the documentation when the official told him it was lunchtime so come back in an hour or so. That has been done and we are waiting for them to come to inspect the boat. Then it’s off to immigration. Just for the record, I think it was June when we arrived.

We wuz robbed. The customs official didn’t even come on board. He stood on the wharf for several minutes not saying anything as we all stood on deck and glared back at him.

Then he told us we were cleared. We hopped on foreign soil (actually a concrete wharf) while G finished clearing with immigration to sign us, the crew, off the ship. Then we motored to Vuda Point Marina. What a fiasco docking was.

We initially had a bow line to a buoy lying off but as I paid out the bow line P tried throwing a stern line ashore - 4 times!!!

Then in exasperation J picked up the line and easily lobbed it the 20 feet to the jetty. Finally we turned the boat around and went bow to shore on the next berth. G got heaps from the crew because he was fending off Eilean assisted by the well endowed bikini clad American lady from that vessel as she fended us off too. Finally we tied up. 4 hours for clearance preceded by a 3 hour motor from Momi Bay and a 1 hour motor to Vuda Point made for a full day. We dined until late at the adjacent ‘First Landing’ restaurant. Along with the marina, the restaurant had only been open 3 months. Nevertheless the building looked old with holes in the walls of the toilet block etc. However the cuisine was lovely. I had a Walo steak which I couldn’t finish.

So why did we do the trip?

G made no bones about the fact that it was a means to an end. His holiday starts now.

J enjoyed it in a quiet way, although her maternal instincts longed to see her 12 year old daughter, Kimberley who’s flying up on the 15th, again. She was the quiet one of the trip.

J probably did about 1/2 of the cooking - always pleasant and unassuming.

S injected youthful enthusiasm into the whole situation. He also had a great attitude when the pressure was on. He is now experienced enough to qualify for Yachtmaster Ocean.

He, along with girlfriend, Stacey, is off in 2 weeks time for 2 years OE in Europe - hopefully getting involved in boating management for rich guys in the Mediterranean.

P didn’t really enjoy the trip. He wanted to do the ultimate trip and now he has done it he can cross it off his list. His history is sailing his 15 footer on lakes in Missouri. I suspect his CV said that his experience was in sailing boats overseas as opposed to sailing over seas. He was the odd man out on the trip, often being nauseated and nauseous. In fact it happened so often I accused him of being pregnant with his morning sickness. His description of all people, including Americans (of which he’s one) was ‘jerks’ - I rest my case.

Me - I did it to gain experience for 2 years time. There were times that I hated it especially seasickness and motoring with the noise and the fumes but there were times when it compared favourably with almost any other physical endeavour including work. The one regret I have is that I didn’t get to see any whales. In fact there was a lot less sea life than I had expected. S said he saw a dolphin one day but nobody else did. The overriding sentiment is one of intense satisfaction with a big smile on my face.

12th June.

Woke early and caught a windowless bus to Lautoka (65 cents) and after several hours’ a taxi back ($9). Then to the airport and home. I arrived at airport in shorts, jandals and hat. Every hour of the flight I put on one more article of clothing to find when I arrived in Auckland that it had been snowing during the day on the Kaimais.

Some quotes used during the trip.

Me to S. ‘Stick by me kid and you won’t go wrong’ and ‘I’m tough - very tough’ (just in case he wasn’t sure)..

‘There is a very large possibility of something going wrong on the voyage but there is a very small possibility of anything serious going wrong.’--Geoff. (Our sumlog stopped working as did our masthead light and we lost one bucket overboard - nothing serious).

‘There are no experts on ocean voyaging in small vessels; just wise survivors’- Tim Findley.

Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011 37

Gypsy Day on the Farm Jennifer Beck and Lisa Allen Published by New Holland New Zealand RRP 19.99 (NZ) The New Zealand farming community has one period, in the middle of the year where things are on the move… from share-milkers’ moving o work for new farm owners... to farmers upsizing their holdings.

This charming book told through the eyes of a brother and sister who have to face the enormity of not only leaving their home but also leaving behind their friends and school for new district and new challenges.

The fun farm children have on the land is wonderfully illustrated by Lisa Allen showing a life city children can often only read about and rarely have the fortune to experience.

This book is perfect to have for children who find themselves strangers in a new school, and a welcome addition about life in rural New Zealand for any library

Perhaps the installations on the right were influenced by....

Felice Varini: Felice Varini is a Swiss artist who was nominated for the 2000/2001 Marcel Duchamp Prize, known for his geometric perspective-localized paintings of rooms and other spaces, using projector-stencil techniques. According to mathematics professor and art critic Joël Koskas, “A work of Varini is an anti-Mona Lisa.”

Felice paints on architectural and urban spaces, such as buildings, walls and streets. The paintings are characterized by one vantage point from which the viewer can see the complete painting (usually a simple geometric shape such as circle, square, line), while from other view points the viewer will see ‘broken’ fragmented shapes. Varini argues that the work exists as a whole - with its complete shape as well as the fragments. “My concern,” he says “is what happens outside the vantage point of view.”[1] He was born in 1952 in Locarno, Switzerland and lives in Paris.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

5 Open Ellipses. Urban painting of Felice Varini, in Metz, 2009.

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Tape Installations Emphasising on Failure as The Key to Success Designer Stephen Doyle has achieved a series of tape installations based on a highly intriguing statement.

After carefully analyzing the school environment in “his” institution, Dominic Randolph, headmaster at Riverdale Country School asserted: “What if the secret to success is failure?” He says “whether it’s the pioneer in the Conestoga wagon or someone coming here in the 1920s from southern Italy, there was this idea in America that if you worked hard and you showed real grit, that you could be successful.

Strangely, we’ve now forgotten that. People who have an easy time of things, who get 800s on their SAT’s, I worry

that those people get feedback that everything they’re doing is great. And I think as a result, we are actually setting them up for long-term failure. When that person suddenly has to face up to a difficult moment, then I think they’re screwed, to be honest. I don’t think they’ve grown the capacities to be able to handle that.”

The tape installations in the photos below are a tribute to this idea, as promulgated by the The New York Times article, “What if the Secret to Success is Failure? Grit, optimism, curiosity and even failure- they are all at the basis of building character, allowing the students to become stronger with each major life experience

Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011 39

Planning for the BIG DAY When a wedding invitation comes in the mail, my gut instinct is to leave it in the mailbox and have the mailman take it away to someone else who might actually want to attend. This is my thought for about two seconds, before logic sets in and I realize that wedding guests are not so replaceable, that I must reply to this RSVP either way, and that I better have a pretty good reason if I plan to reply with “not attending.”

Now don’t misunderstand me, I love my family and friends, and wish nothing more than to spend time with them and celebrate their biggest moments in life. But going on my 30th year of attending weddings, quite regularly mind you, I have had quite enough of the chicken dance, bad cake, sloppy best man speeches, and most of all, the poorly planned wedding that causes frustration and boredom for all involved.

That was my view on weddings, up until this last summer. A co-workers daughter invited me to her wedding and I prepared myself for the usual wedding scene, bringing along with me my iphone (for unexpected delays), some mints to share with the other guests as the night and the drinks wore on, and my sense of humor. To my surprise and relief, the wedding was the most smoothly run event I had been to in years! And the biggest shocker of it all is that it went off without a hitch…in the middle of a hurricane! It was so much fun I completely lost track of time and danced the night away.

While I attributed my evening of surprising fun to great companions, a fantastic band, and amazing food, I also think the success of the event relied solely on the expert planning by all involved. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that any big experience that I had that was fun, adventurous, and successful sprouted from detailed and accurate planning.

The concept of “planning fun” can sometimes be hard for those of us out there who like to “live in the moment” and who generally get nervous if too much planning takes place (you know who you are!). But the moment that you invite others to “live in your moment”, as you do while planning any sort of event, is when you need to make sure that good planning takes place to produce an event that is fun for all.

Here are a few things to keep in mind when planning your big day, whether that be a wedding, job interview, holiday party, work retreat… or whatever!

Develop a scope statement. There is one thing worse than not planning at all, and that is planning for planning’s sake, without an end result or goal in mind. To keep this from happening, at the very beginning of planning your big day, develop a scope statement that focuses your planning efforts on one main goal. For example, let’s say you’re planning a work retreat for your company to improve communication and morale. Your scope statement could read: “Gather all current employees for a one day retreat to be held before the end of the year. Also, create a detailed 8 hour schedule of team building activities with the end goal of increased communication among employees, as measured by project success rates, and improved morale, as measured by employee satisfaction surveys.”

Select the planning team, and deliverables for each person.

PMP is a registered trademark of the Project Management Institute.

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One of the best things about wearing a project manager hat is that once you define your project tasks, you don’t have to go at it alone. Master the art of delegating through your PM powers of influence and negotiation, and define a team that will help you with your planning.

Develop a Schedule. Decide when your big day will take place, and work backwards from there to see what you will need to make your big day a success. Remember, you are not a machine, so make it easier for yourself to remember due dates of deliverables by creating a calendar and setting reminder alarms to go off on your phone. Also, ensure that everyone on your project team is accountable for their deliverables as well by publicly displaying the schedule (Google calendars, or a company’s shared workspace) so that there is no confusion over who is responsible for what.

Develop a Budget. Nothing sucks the fun out of planning (yes, planning can be fun!) like running out of money when half the deliverables are accomplished. Develop a budget that prioritizes the activities that “must be done” first, leaving secondary items for money left over. For example, when you are preparing for a job interview, it might be “nice” to get your hair cut and colored before you go to your interview, but it is a “must have” to have appropriate clothing and your resume printed. Save the nice-to-have’s for last to make sure you are planning for success.

Risk Planning. The last thing that you want when planning for a big day is what could potentially go wrong. But that is exactly what needs to happen before your big day. To do this, use your imagination, your team members, friends, and coworkers to get a good idea of what could happen if things don’t go as planned, and then come up with ways to mitigate these risks. For the wedding I attended that took place during a hurricane, the risk plan included getting umbrellas that complimented the wedding party’s dresses and to make sure the wedding facilities had back up plans if the electricity went down.

Have Fun! All that planning can be stressful and time consuming, but the payoff for your big day makes it all worth it. Do your big day the right way, with good project management planning. Before you know it, even the most klutzy of guests (like me) will be dancing the night away!

About the Author: Michelle LaBrosse, PMP, is an entrepreneurial powerhouse with a penchant for making success easy, fun, and fast. She is the founder of Cheetah Learning, the author of them Cheetah Success Series, and a prolific blogger whose mission is to bring Project Management to the masses. Cheetah Learning is a virtual company with 100 employees, contractors, and licensees worldwide. To date,

more than 30,000 people have become “Cheetahs” using Cheetah Learning’s innovative Project Management and accelerated learning techniques.

Here’s to Your (and Your Project’s)

Health

It is a basic concept, but it is something that many of us have forgotten how to achieve in our ever-busier lives. It is a frame of mind that can be all too quickly brushed aside in the name of efficiency, career advancement, or other obligations.

What activities can you eliminate that will ultimately cause harm? In order to enhance the quality of your life, realize that every day counts toward your wellness goals, and set up your day-to-day actions with the mindset of achieving a lifetime of healthy living.

What is this illusive concept that I am referring to?

While working on your project day-in and day-out, keep your end goal in mind. Don’t let daily hiccups deter you from your project’s end goal. When you plan for longevity you give yourself, and your projects, a life force that can pull you, and your projects, through hard times.

Wellness!

Wellness has been on the backburner for many professionals striving to make careers for themselves in their chosen profession. These people may have been under the notion that in order to be the best they had to give up their personal needs. Things like rest, exercise, and time with family and friends were thrown by the wayside in order to reap the benefits of hard work in a career. Finally, there is a new wave of individuals who are challenging this way of life and are claiming their rights to wellness.

I recently received an email from Mike Lamitola, PMP®.

Mike wrote to me in appreciation of Cheetah’s article, published in the Cheetah PHAST Magazine (www. cheetahphast.com), entitled “Wellness Buddies.” Here is part of what Mike had to say: “I went through the Cheetah Exam Prep course with Jeff Allen and was so impressed that Cheetah used nutrition and basic yoga/breathing exercises to help increase alertness and mental clarity. After 12 years working in the construction industry and living the business professional life I’ve had some eye opening experiences and have seen some serious struggles with fellow coworkers. I became such a huge advocate for health and wellness that I decided it was time to move in a new direction that was calling me.”

Mike’s new direction was to enter the wellness profession as a Health Coach/Nutrition Counselor through a company that he and his wife started called “Welcome to Wellness!” (welcometowellnessnow.com). In his website, Mike says: ”Life is a series of projects. Some big, some small and some all happening at the same time. We need to make time within these projects to focus on our well being.”

So, how do you make time to maintain your health to ensure that you are successful in all of your endeavors, including being the best project manager you can be?

The good news is that a lot of the same ideals that are followed to maintain optimum health can be translated to project success. Follow the tips below to achieve ultimate health, for you and your projects.

Plan for Longevity.

How many of you start a project, planning on failure? If you do that, you will be out of a job quicker than you can say “negative Nick.” Likewise, when you begin a wellness plan, you need to think about the future you, 10 years down the road, and have positive expectancy. What activities and habits can you form today that will benefit your wellbeing?

While projects are usually shorter than a lifetime, the same philosophy applies.

Live in the Moment.

Being present with our surrounding and ourselves is easier said than done. When there is all that noise running through your mind, you may find yourself saying, “Excuse me, what did you say?” far too often. An important part of your wellness is to be present in each and every moment, because the past events and future possibilities are inconsequential compared to what is happening in the here and now.

This practice can be greatly beneficial to the projects you work on as well. Instead of getting lost in the anxiety that can comes with worrying about what might go wrong in the project tomorrow, or how stupid that mistake was that you made yesterday, focus on the task at hand and what needs to get done today. By being fully present in your project tasks, you are better able to perform them correctly with clarity and confidence.

Stakeholder Buy-In. As a project manager, you are the master of communicating with stakeholders and ensuring the project you are working on is meeting the needs of the various stakeholders in order to get their buy-in.

Use these same skills in your wellness project, and treat yourself as the primary stakeholder. Analyze what your needs and wants are to maintain your wellness goal, and recognize other stakeholders that might be involved with you achieving wellness. For example, your stakeholder might be your significant other, and the buy-in might be to cook dinner every other night so that you can work out after you get home from work. When you get buy-in from all stakeholders, you have set up their expectations of you appropriately, and are more likely to achieve your wellness goals.

Celebrate Progressive Achievements.

When you have achieved a wellness goalcelebrate! After all, you worked hard for it, and will be more motivated to achieve greater states of wellness if you take the time to acknowledge your efforts and awesomeness.

This is also true for your project team. When your team members, either individually or as a group, accomplish a major project milestone, don’t let it go by unnoticed.

Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011 41

Celebrating intermittent achievements fuels the fire for the entire project. After you read this article, take a moment to evaluate your own wellness goals and how you are achieving them. If you are not where you want to be in terms of wellness, find out what the specific barriers are that are keeping you from getting there. You are, after all, a resourceful project manager that procures resources when needed, manages and communicates with important stakeholders, and brings a project from start to successful finish. Use your skills today for the biggest project of your life: your wellness project.

About the Author: Michelle LaBrosse, PMP, is an entrepreneurial powerhouse with a penchant for making success easy, fun, and fast. She is the founder of Cheetah Learning, the author of the Cheetah Success Series, and a prolific blogger whose mission is to bring Project Management to the masses. Cheetah Learning is a virtual company with 100 employees, contractors, and licensees worldwide. To date, more than 30,000 people have become “Cheetahs” using Cheetah Learning’s innovative Project Management and accelerated learning techniques. Recently honored by the Project Management Institute (PMI®).

By Michelle LaBrosse, PMP®, Chief Cheetah and Founder of Cheetah Learning, and Kristen LaBrosse, Co-Author, CAPM®

Back to (the wrong) school A hundred and fifty years ago, adults were incensed about child labor. Lowwage kids were taking jobs away from hard-working adults.

Sure, there was some moral outrage at seven-year olds losing fingers and being abused at work, but the economic rationale was paramount. Factory owners insisted that losing child workers would be catastrophic to their industries and fought hard to keep the kids at work--they said they couldn’t afford to hire adults. It wasn’t until 1918 that nationwide compulsory education was in place.

Part of the rationale to sell this major transformation to industrialists was that educated kids would actually become more compliant and productive workers. Our current system of teaching kids to sit in straight rows and obey instructions isn’t a coincidence--it was an investment in our economic future. The plan: trade short-term child labor wages for longer-term productivity by giving kids a head start in doing what they’re told.

Large-scale education was never about teaching kids or creating scholars. It was invented to churn out adults who worked well within the system.

Of course, it worked. Several generations of productive, fully employed workers followed. But now?

Nobel-prize winning economist Michael Spence makes this really clear: there are tradable jobs (making things that could be made somewhere else, like building cars, designing chairs and answering the phone) and nontradable jobs (like mowing the lawn or cooking burgers). Is there any question that the first kind of job is worth keeping in our economy?

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Alas, Spence reports that from 1990 to 2008, the US economy added only 600,000 tradable jobs.

If you do a job where someone tells you exactly what to do, they will find someone cheaper than you to do it. And yet our schools are churning out kids who are stuck looking for jobs where the boss tells them exactly what to do.

Do you see the disconnect here? Every year, we churn out millions of of worker who are trained to do 1925 labor.

The bargain (take kids out of work so we can teach them to become better factory workers) has set us on a race to the bottom. Some argue we ought to become the cheaper, easier country for sourcing cheap, compliant workers who do what they’re told. We will lose that race whether we win it or not. The bottom is not a good place to be, even if you’re capable of getting there.

As we get ready for the 93rd year of universal public education, here’s the question every parent and taxpayer needs to wrestle with: Are we going to applaud, push or even permit our schools (including most of the private ones) to continue the safe but ultimately doomed strategy of churning out predictable, testable and mediocre factory-workers?

As long as we embrace (or even accept) standardized testing, fear of science, little attempt at teaching leadership and most of all, the bureaucratic imperative to turn education into a factory itself, we’re in big trouble.

The post-industrial revolution is here. Do you care enough to teach your kids to take advantage of it?

via Seth’s Blog by Seth Godin on 9/5/11

Summer/Winter Solstice Who has not dreamed of leaving teaching, living in France and minding a pension (or in this case a Chateau) for an absentee owner? To be able to immerse yourself in the language and customs of another country and amble around the countryside at will ... well almost at will.

Good Teacher Magazine is delighted to introduce Tiz who has just such a life at present... Perhaps after reading her letters you will want to go even more...

Or you may just change your mind!

So nearly Adieu à la belle France Less than 4 weeks before departure! Where did the time go? I’m writing this now as the rest

of time here is pretty booked up – rugby world cup, farewells, my friend Jane to stay, the reoccurring problem of packing-within-limits. I still have 7 bottles of champagne to drink (such a problem!), to say nothing of 6 bottles of French white – absolutely NOT my cuppa tea. I shall distribute it to unsuspecting hosts, and assiduously avoid drinking it. It was left over from the Chateau where, funnily enough, the guests didn’t drink it either.

Speaking of wine, the last time I was here the French were slowly but ever so cautiously moving towards screw caps. I read an article in 2008 from one of the leading Bordeaux wine-makers who predicted that within 5 years, 50% of French wine would have screwcaps. Well, he was wrong. They have absolutely disappeared from French wines – I haven’t seen any! Their reasoning is, apparently, that screw caps are bad because the wine can’t breathe. Trouble is, the majority of the cheaper wines now have plastic corks – sooo good for expiration! I think what it is, is that the French didn’t think of screw caps first, and that therefore it can’t be a good idea. Just like they resisted the internet, and invented their own (called Mintel – sunk virtually without trace). Sort of like pushing back the tide with a straw.

Enough of silly resistance to great ideas. I had my week in gay Paree which was just as exciting as always – such a great city! The weather Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011 43

was distinctly more autumnal there, so I had a wee spending spree and bought winter boots, and 2 jackets - none of which I have worn since I returned to the Dordogne. I spent quality time with my friends there, went on an excellent boat trip on the Canal St Martins, and generally wandered around the sights and sounds. The best part was my tiny apartment. It was only 20 square metres, but fantastically designed with every nook and cranny used, and with lighting that could be changed both in intensity and colour! Best of all, it was situated in the 4th arrondisement, off a street that was just crammed with bars and restaurants and prostitutes. But my apartment was dead quiet at night, because it opened onto a light-well rather than the street. Wonderful.

Then it was back to the Dordogne, to the warmer weather, and to swimming. I had my last swim 2 days ago, and that may be it as the pool here (see photos!) is starting to get a bit

algae-slimy. The cleaning robot is AWOL, with no word of its return. Never mind, there’s always biking – always a joy and a delight on these empty country roads. We have had the most extraordinary late summer – and before you sigh, and say here she is banging on about the summer again, let me say that the French farmers would give their back teeth for some of the rain NZ is having. We’ve had NO rain since July, and the countryside is burnt to a crisp. There’s been a huge high pressure system sitting over the top of us for nearly 3 weeks, and the temperatures have been consistently around 30C. The poor plants are most confused – not sure whether to drop their leaves

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or start pumping out new ones. Tomorrow I’m heading south to the Canal de Midi to do some serious cycling – perhaps 100 kms – so maybe that will invoke Sod’s Law and it’ll rain.

Doesn’t matter – can always get dry, and one must think of the Greater Good.

I’m at my new house-sit near Eymet, looking after 3 pussy-cats and occasionally 2 dogs.

For the last week I’ve been at another housesit about 20 kms away (1 dog, 2 cats, 3 horses, 2 donkeys), and just visiting this one each day. It’s quite nice just to stay put! This is a Very Nice property. The aforementioned pool allegedly cost 500,000 euro – true! I have the ‘cottage’ – 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, vast fireplace – and a BMW 330d to drive.

There’s Sky TV in HD on a huge screen, so it’s the general gathering place for RWC games.

It’s not a bad life.

But, 30th October I leave all this and wend my way homewards. There have been ups and downs over the past 5 months, but hey, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. No, indeedy. All that remains is for NZ to win the RWC (such a shame about Dan Carter!), and for that ship off Tauranga to be safely salvaged. Oui. Looking forward to joyous rendez-vous upon my return.

Bisous à toutes, Tiz

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In Term One 2012 we will be printng a photo journey through the Adelaide Zoo. In the meantime see how many Yellow Footed Rock Wallabies you can count resting on the pile of rocks.

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Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011 47

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EDUCATIONAL WORD PUZZLE #15

by FRED

This is an internally assessed achievement standard in Puzzle Solving Level 1 Print your answer in the box provided.

Group work is permitted.

Each puzzle is worth 1 credit.

Time: all afternoon These credits can be used to gain the literacy requirement for Level 1

ACHIEVED

MERIT

board

liybait class

EXCELLENCE

SCHOLARSHIP

U2

class

Cold Play Red Hot Chili Peppers

order derro order order

Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011 49

Think World Conference – think New Zealand!

New Zealand’s gifted education community has scored a huge success. In 2013, for the first time ever, the biennial conference of the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children will be held in New Zealand.

The World Conference is the highlight on the international calendar for those involved in this field. It attracts leading researchers and practitioners from all points of the globe. Hundreds of teachers, administrators, counselors, psychologists and parents meet to share new research findings and practical developments for able students.

Held every two years, the WCGTC conference is usually located in Europe, America or Asia and has never ventured this far south before. Bringing it to New Zealand will open vistas of knowledge and experience only a handful of New Zealand teachers have had the opportunity to engage with before now.

It will also create an opportunity to showcase what New Zealand itself can do in this field. The Kiwi reputation for taking the initiative has led to some outstanding work in some schools and in some individual programmes, which will be reflected in some of the conference activities.

Many months of planning, organising and fundraising now lie ahead. However the committee which submitted the successful bid to bring the World Conference to New Zealand has a remarkably comprehensive membership including professional and parent groups and key individuals from throughout the entire country. Co-chairs Elaine Le Sueur and Rosemary Cathcart say they will be drawing on the diverse strengths of the committee to create a conference that’s as exceptional and interesting as the children themselves. “The ideas are flowing in already,” they say. “Watch this space!”

Contacts:

Rosemary Cathcart Elaine Le Sueur

07 357 4232 reacheducation@xtra.co.nz 09 239 2852 elaine@giftededucationservices.co.nz

Photos courtesy of the Gifted Education Centre and the Gifted Kids Programme.

The conference website www.worldgifted2013.com is expected to be live very shortly.

Word Puzzle #15 Answers are: white board

mixed ability class

top band class second order change 50 Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011

Letter to a Teacher

by Abraham Lincoln

He will have to learn, I know, that all men are not just,all men are not true.

But teach him also that for every scoundrel there is a hero; that for every selfish Politician,there is a dedicated leader Teach him for every enemy there is a friend, Steer him away from envy,if you can, teach him the secret of quiet laughter.

Let him learn early that the bullies are the easiest to lick Teach him, if you can,the wonder of books But also give him quiet time to ponder the eternal mystery of birds in the sky, bees in the sun,and the flowers on a green hillside.

Teach him to close his ears to a howling mob and to stand and fight if he thinks he’s right.

Treat him gently,but do not cuddle him, because only the test of fire makes fine steel.

Let him have the courage to be impatient let him have the patience to be brave.

Teach him always to have sublime faith in himself, because then he will have sublime faith in mankind.

This is a big order,but see what you can do He is such a fine little fellow,my son!

In the school teach him it is far more honorable to fail than to cheat Teach him to have faith in his own ideas, even if everyone tells him they are wrong Teach him to be gentle with gentle people, and tough with the tough.

Try to give my son the strength not to follow the crowd when everyone is getting on the band wagon Teach him to listen to all men but teach him also to filter all he hears on a screen of truth, and take only the good that comes through.

Teach him if you can,how to laugh when he is sad Teach him there is no shame in tears, Teach him to scoff at cynics and to beware of too much sweetness Teach him to sell his brawn and brain to the highest bidders but never to put a price-tag on his heart and soul.

Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011 51

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

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

52 Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2011