Teachers Matter Magazine Issue 55

PROFESSIONALLY & PERSONALLY

TeachersMatter The Magazine of Spectrum Education

11 Ways to Promote Persistence Therapeutic Storywriting

Failing is Fun? 12 Tips to Being Super Organised

NZ$25 / AU$25

Leaders in Developing Teachers

ISSUE 55

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EDITOR’S NOTE

Dear Readers, What is it in life that truly motivates you to give your best? Whether it be work, sport or family - what moves you to want to do even more effort? I am sure that many of you may have answered with money. I do know that a competitive wage is a motivator for sure! However, I believe that employees don’t always give their best, even with the best wages. True motivation lies within the relationships built between supervisors and employees, colleagues with one another, and in the case of education - teacher to student relationship. I can “pay” my students with prizes and rewards all day long, and I’m sure they would help motivate a student to work a little harder, for a short amount of time. But the biggest bang for my buck that I will ever gain is by buiding a relationship that matters with each one of my students. Taking the time to really get to know them and what their life is like is vital to their success at anything else.

Emily Hales and Heath Henwood nail this idea down in their article, “Getting Teachers Engaged.” They discuss the importance of engaging teachers that will engage with students - and not just on an academic level, but a personal relationship level. What a difference knowing our students deeply can bring to their academic and personal lives.

While building relationships isn’t always easy, make sure to read “Failing is Fun?” by Dr Matthew Zakreski.

Here you will find encouragement about how to get back up, even after being knocked down. Don’t stop trying to break through the tough exterior of a kiddo just because the first time didn’t go so well. Likewise, encourage your students to keep trying at new things.

Lastly, check out Laurel Makowem’s, of Mothers Teaching Money, article entitled, “Normalise Talking About Money with Children.” In this ever changing economy, and the burden it is placing on so many, this article provides simple, yet powerful ways to help children understand the difference between wants and needs.

Take the time to sit with your kids and guide them toward sound money making decisions.

This issue is full of excellent topics and encouragement. Enjoy every word!

Yours in Education,

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CONTENTS

In This Issue

p14 – Teaching Mindfulness to Kids

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p18 – 11 Ways to Promote Persistence

Finite vs Infinite Learning Opportunities

16

The Smile Quotient

18

ERIKA TWANI

8 10

TOM HOERR

Leading Through Conflict NAIM SANDERS

Teachers Matter 4

Curiosity: A Key Driver of a Flexible Mindset

28

Getting Teachers Engaged

11 Ways to Promote Persistence

31

Not Every Group is a Team

33

Spotting the Signs of Stress

36

12 Tips To Being Super Organised

VANESSA MCHARDY

KAREN TUI BOYES

20

Design Thinking ORTAL GREEN

12

Failing is Fun?

MATTHEW ZAKRESKI

23

Quote

14

Teaching Mindfulness to Kids

24

Perfection is a Lie

KARI SUTTON

p28 – Getting Teachers Engaged

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MEG GALLAGHER

The Question is, “Why?” Part 2 BILL SOMMERS

EMILY HALES AND HEATH HENWOOD

CAROLYN STUART

LAUREN PARSONS

DEB BARCLAY

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How Study Improves Your Executive Functioning KAREN TUI BOYES

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Teachers Matter Magazine Team Publisher, Sales and Advertising Karen Tui Boyes Editor Jessica Youmans Art Director Andrea Aragon-Echano Printer Spectrum Print, Christchurch

Subscriptions Toll free (NZ): 0800 373 377 (International): +64 4 528 9969 Thanks to the educators, speakers and authors who contributed interviews, articles, photographs and letters.

Teachers Matter magazine is registered with the National Library: ISSN 1178-6825

p48 – 2022—Who do you Want to Be?

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Normalise Talking About Money with Children LAUREL MAKOWEM

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2022—Who do you Want to Be? JO MCBROWN

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p58 – Stress and Burnout

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Therapeutic Storywriting

58

Stress and Burnout

61

The Pleasure of a Great Read

Driving the School Bus ELIAS KANARIS

52

Picky Eating is a Spectrum

55

Quote

HELEN MEYER

MADELEINE TAYLOR

LESLEY JOHNSON

63

JUDITH YEABSLEY

Interested In Becoming An Online Executive Function Coach?

SEAN MCCORMICK

66

Differentiation

KAREN TUI BOYES

© Spectrum Education 2022 All rights reserved.

Parts of this publication may be reproduced for use within a school environment. To reproduce any part within another publication (or in any other format) permission from the publisher must be obtained.

The opinions expressed in Teachers Matter are those of the contributors and we love them!

All Enquiries Spectrum Education Ltd Street Address: 19 Rondane Place, Lower Hutt, New Zealand Postal Address: PO Box 30818, Lower Hutt, New Zealand Phone: (NZ) +64 4 528 9969 magazine@spectrumeducation.com www.spectrumeducation.com

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ERIKA TWANI

Finite vs Infinite Learning Opportunities What is Working and What is Not

Teachers Matter

“T

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his is not working. We are six weeks in this project and haven’t achieved what we planned.” This is how a project review meeting with my team used to start. “The customer is not doing their part. We need to push harder,” the team continued. These challenges derail the project’s timeline, which is always a major issue when there is so much to deliver. What would you do if you were the manager of this team?

Team meetings like this are typical in many organisations.

It is all about pointing out what we are doing wrong and where we are failing. The boss blames the team for not trying harder. The team ends up finding more tasks to do and consequently gets stressed out. Not even entrepreneurs are spared! A friend of mine, who is the CEO of a major company, shared her frustration of not seeing results during the pandemic, even when working a lot harder. I asked her, “Isn’t it time to work smarter instead of harder?”

There may be many reasons why we believe we must work harder after every meeting. Here is where it comes from: It is a habit learned in your school years! In previous articles, I emphasized the importance of forming habits. It takes 10,000 hours to become an expert on anything. You spent 16,800 hours in school, Kinder through 12th grade, sitting and waiting for someone to tell you what to do. Then came that test, and a BIG RED pen pointed out your mistakes.

You were told you must try harder, or you will never get into college and never succeed in life. Do you believe this is true? If so, reflect on this: Did Michael Phelps need to ace literature to become the most decorated Olympian of all time?

We formed the habit of laser focusing on our school years’ mistakes and solving them by trying harder. We bring this habit to work later in life. We become perfectionists, stressed out about what the boss will say in the next meeting. We

ERIKA TWANI prepare to blame someone else whenever there is a flaw in the project, like blaming teachers for not teaching well.

Is there a way to fix this? It all comes down to playing the infinite game!

In my book, Becoming Einstein’s Teacher, I use game theory to explain the importance of self-assessment that can be developed while students are in school. “There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite; the other infinite,” philosopher James P. Carse wrote in his book, Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility.

“Finite games,” he explained, “Have clear rules known by all players, and end when a single player wins.” Since a finite game must have a winner, there is a huge focus on enforcing the rules to maintain fairness to all players. Card games, sports, board games and video games are finite.

Players compete against each other, someone wins and the rest of the players lose.

on innovation and finding new ways to bring out the best in each learner.

Take Amazon, for example. Its CEO, Jeff Bezos, says that a customer will never say, “I want more expensive products,” or, “I am willing to wait longer to get my order.” They want to pay less and have it faster. So, its ultimate focus is to improve the shopping experience and shorten the delivery time continuously.

That customer will always come back over and over. This is an infinite game. Children CAN learn to play the infinite game of life with appropriate practice while in a safe school environment. By allowing learners to choose a path, experience and self-assess the consequences of their choices, we also will enable them to gain awareness of how decisions impact their reality under the coaching of their teachers. The infinite game enables children to become life-long learners because they develop the habit of continuous improvement of the best version of themselves.

If we teach students to play an infinite game, they will learn the habit of continuously transforming themselves, which is a key to happiness in this ever-changing world.

An infinite game’s objective, on the other hand, is never to end. Rules, boundaries and even players may change along the way to keep the game alive.

In Carse’s definition, “Finite players play within boundaries; infinite players play with boundaries.” In infinite games, players contribute to keeping the game alive with a clear purpose. Players have continuous awareness, able to identify the required resources and skills they need to develop. There are no losers; everyone is a winner as long as the game continues. The challenge is to keep the game alive.

Standardised tests evaluate students’ capacity to remember—or memorise—what they have, in theory, learned throughout the school year. They create a dynamic of competition because their nature compares one student’s testing performance to another’s under the same set of rules and gives those students A to F labels - winners and losers. This culture becomes prominent throughout learners’ lives… striving to be “the best” gets in the way of being better than they were yesterday. Like finite games, standardised tests require rules set by a third party—the education system—to compare students to each other. The students end up frustrated when they do not win.

If we teach students to play an infinite game, they will learn the habit of continuously transforming themselves, which is a key to happiness in this ever-changing world. Continuous self-improvement creates inner peace, and therefore, a better quality of life. Plus, putting educators into an infinite game instead of a finite one will lead to happier teachers focused

You may be asking yourself, “I already have this bad habit you talked about. Is there a solution for me?” Well, start your team meetings by highlighting your achievements so far and recognising the team’s strengths. Then, evaluate what areas need improvement. Self-assess the execution process rather than just trying harder using the same process.

Erika Twani Erika Twani is a learning enthusiast and an optimist of a better world built by humans with a life purpose.

She is the co-founder and CEO of Learning One to One Foundation. Her philosophy is to simplify complex concepts and make them useful for everyone, starting with children.

She can be contacted at

et@erikatwani.com

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TOM HOERR

The Smile Quotient How Does Your School Score?

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s a school leader, how do you measure the quality of your school? It’s an important question to reflect on— and to reflect on often. Take a moment to think of two or three indicators that determine success in your building. In my experience, enthusiasm for learning is key.

Teachers Matter

As a former senior leader and current leadership consultant, I frequently hear questions about school quality posed by parents trying to decide where to enroll their child. “What’s the best fit?” they ask me. At other times, the question is raised by prospective senior leaders in my graduate-level class on school culture. These students—typically teachers pursuing a master’s degree in education—are trying to

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understand what levers are most effective for improving the quality of a school. As a starting point, I turn the question around: How do you think school quality should be defined? These emerging leaders usually have an answer, but it’s often the wrong one.

What Constitutes School Quality?

For generations, the wrong answer has focused either on student achievement, determined by students’ standardised test scores, on the school’s graduation rate and/or the quality of colleges and universities where

TOM HOERR members learning with and from one another—was the norm, teachers were happy.

In a school with a welcoming environment in which individuals feel known, seen and heard, smiling becomes the norm.

seniors matriculate. While these are important indicators that a school is headed in the right direction, academic achievement is only part of what makes a school successful.

Instead, I propose this: The quality of a school can be determined, in part, by its smile quotient.

The Smile Quotient

For example, we formed committees of teachers to look at how to increase parent involvement, how to assess students’ multiple intelligences and how to ensure that we valued the diversity of our students. Our solutions and recommendations helped students learn more effectively and the collaborative process itself helped our faculty learn.

I learned with them and was happy, too. Teachers smiled because they enjoyed learning skills and pursuing creative ideas that would benefit their students. They smiled because their students were smiling (and as research shows, smiling is contagious).

Of course, not everyone will smile, even when a school has a high smile quotient. Life has its challenges and so do schools. Indeed, if someone smiled all the time, I would wonder what was really going on with them. But in a school with a welcoming environment in which individuals feel known, seen and heard, smiling becomes the norm. People smile because they are succeeding and because they want to be there.

What’s your school’s smile quotient and what might you do to raise it?

What’s a smile quotient? Simply put, a smile quotient is the number of students and staff who have a smile on their face as they work or learn. I believe it reflects the joy in a school.

A smile not only expresses an emotion, but also influences the emotional experience. When the smile quotient in a school is high, it means that people generally enjoy being there; they are confident in their role and anticipate success.

They often encounter others with a warm and welcoming attitude.

There’s even science behind it: The physical act of smiling releases chemicals in our brain, increasing our levels of happiness and lowering stress, research suggests. Smiling is good for us, both physically and mentally. Of course, a high smile quotient does not mean that school is easy—for either the students or the staff. It does mean, at least in my experience, that people are engaging in meaningful and relevant activities, that they trust others around them to look out for their interests, and that learning is taking place.

Student smiles are often easier to come by—maybe a student aces a test, hits a presentation out of the park or receives appreciation from a teacher for giving their best effort. Adult smiles, on the other hand, can be a bit more elusive. As a senior leader, I learned that trying to make all staff happy all the time was a road to disaster, as some of their priorities and interests naturally diverged and were not consistent with our school’s mission. It was not my job to make sure all staff members were smiling all the time. My job was to help everyone grow. But I did find that when I worked with my colleagues to create a setting in which collegiality—faculty

Thomas R Hoerr Thomas R Hoerr retired after leading the New City School in St. Louis, Missouri, for 34 years and is now the Emeritus Head of School. He teaches in the educational leadership program at the University of Missouri–St. Louis and holds a PhD from Washington University in St. Louis.

He can be contacted at:

trhoerr@newcityschool.org

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NAIM SANDERS

Leading Through Conflict 4 Steps to Navigating Difficult Situations

“The quality of our lives depends not on whether or not we have conflicts, but on how we respond to them.”

-Thomas Crum

Good school leaders know that there will be conflict when leading others. What should you, as a school leader, do when conflict comes your way? There is no way of escaping conflict. You should never run and hide when it arises.

By intentionally avoiding conflict, you run the risk of compromising the integrity of your leadership and potentially making matters worse than they actually are. Conflict is not always extreme. Actually, more often than not, conflict is a good thing since, at a minimum, it demonstrates that people are thinking, people care about what they are doing and for better or worse, they are putting forth an effort to do something and make things better as they see fit.

more effort has been required. When dealing with conflict between people you may want to follow these steps: 1. Listen carefully without any immediate judgment, quick response and be sure that you have heard all sides to the situation. It is common for people to only tell the side that speaks to their advantage or correctness. Have the initial intent of hearing what is the root cause of the conflict.

Your reputation and effectiveness as a leader can be predicated on how you deal with conflict.

Teachers Matter

You May Not Cause Conflict

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As an administrator, you may not cause the conflict or at least you may not cause it directly. This does not mean that you won’t have to deal with it to some extent. By deciding to be a leader, you have chosen to face conflict whether you like it or not and whether you caused it or not. It’s simply the nature of leadership and it is one of the prices you must pay. Often times, my teachers have come to me with challenges they are experiencing. The ranges of these challenges vary, even extending outside of work. The challenges from work where I am leading might consist of a lack of communication, misunderstandings or disagreements about resolutions to an issue. If you think of a conflict, I probably have dealt with it to some degree.

In my experiences, issues and challenges between teachers and leaders can be resolved with little assistance and by having a conversation in which sides are willing to listen to each other. But there have also been occasions in which

2.

Find out the expectations that people have for you. Sometimes people just want to vent, other times they may just want you to be aware of the conflict and have the intentions of solving it themselves while other times, they may want you to intervene and assist with solving the problem. You should always ask them, “How would you like for me to help you in resolving this issue or did you want me to just listen?”

3. Get all the information that you need, although this may not mean getting all of the information that there is, because you may not have the time to do so depending on the urgency of the conflict. After you feel that you have the information that you need and have talked to the parties involved, get those individuals who the conflict involves in the same room. I warn you to be selective because some people may not have healthy intentions in resolving the issue. Under no circumstance do you want to create a sideshow. People gravitate towards negative drama and it can also be a distraction to solving the real issue.

4. Lastly, start working on a resolution and consider all options. When considering the options, think about who the conflict is impacting, the urgency of the matter, the time that is needed to implement a resolution and doing what is fair. This does not mean that everyone will be happy because in conflict, all sides are rarely pleased with the outcome. The intent is not to make everyone happy. The intent is to resolve the issue with fairness and ensure that the success of the school continues to occur.

NAIM SANDERS

Do Not Run Your reputation and effectiveness as a leader can be predicated on how you deal with conflict. Teachers and staff members watch what administrators do, but more importantly, they observe what school leaders don’t do. If you don’t confront conflict - or worse run from it - you will lose the respect of your teachers and staff, possibly even hurt your reputation as a school leader. Great senior leaders serve teachers and students, which you cannot do if you are running away. You may even be running toward a much bigger problem or creating another one.

Conflict is rarely easy, but many cases, it will make you stronger if you don’t run. Running makes you tired and weak, so don’t do it! I have seen senior leaders try to avoid conflict by not addressing it, ignoring the problem and leaving their teachers to their own vices. Allowing teachers to solve the conflict on their own, when they need help from the school leader because they were not in a position to resolve the conflict creates a larger problem, things get worse and respect is lost for the senior leader. Never forget that great leaders deal with conflict head on.

Conflicts Come and Go Like Storms Conflicts are a lot like storms. They come and they go, but they never last forever. Also, like storms, conflicts weren’t created for us to “get over.” They are meant for us to get through. No one can physically get over a storm — they are too big. But, we can prepare to get through it.

When putting storms in a literal context, we know that some storms are unexpected. Real storms typically have signs that they are coming our way. These signs include a drop in

temperature, dark, billowy clouds, dimming of the sky and sometimes lightning. A great leader who is in tuned with their school environment will often see the signs of conflict in their school environment that is coming. When these signs are happening, be sure to pay close attention and do not take these signs lightly so that you can be as prepared as possible. Know what issues may cause potential conflict in your school by using your intuition about the teachers, students, parents, community and school environment. Be prepared and stay prepared in all that you do.

Keep the mindset that conflict can and will arise at some point, without being paranoid. Just hold to the fact that conflict will arise invited or uninvited, directly related to you and indirectly related to you. When storms come, work with others to arrive at the best resolution.

Naim Sanders Naim has served as a teacher, school principal, and charter school developer. He has worked as a consultant, professor, and university faculty site supervisor. Naim is the author of The Beautiful Struggles of Teaching, The Beautiful Struggles of Teaching Workbook and A Sacred Place For Learning: Teaching, Leading & Culture.

He can be contacted at

naimsanders@gmail.com

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MATTHEW ZAKRESKI

Failing is Fun? Or at Least Functional

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hen I was a little kid, I took ice skating lessons at the local rink. I really wanted to be a hockey player, so they gave me a little stick, little skates and sent my wobbly self out onto the ice. While I had visions of myself as Mario Lemieux (Google it) in my head, I will acknowledge that things looked much different in reality. If you saw me on that ice, I would’ve been standing rigidly still, eyes wide open in terror, slowly drifting on the ice as I was afraid to move because I didn’t want to fall down.

how scared I was if not even the idea of a blue raspberry slushie wouldn’t move me!) Ultimately, he would get frustrated and skate off to the other more willing skaters.

At some point, I would try and join them and then the magic would happen. If this was a Disney movie, I would suddenly be able to skate with speed and confidence. The score would swell and I would score the winning goal or something of equal magnitude. Instead, something else would happen:

Now, let’s pause for a moment. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that you’ve fallen down unexpectedly at some point in your life. Maybe it was on ice, like in my story.

Maybe it was on rocks, carpet or on an airplane. Regardless of where and how it happens, falling down is often painful and certainly is something that it would make sense to try to avoid. Right? Right.

I would fall down.

Teachers Matter

My coach would come over and try and get me to skate.

He would poke and prod me, cajole me and even try to motivate me with treats from the snack bar. (You can tell

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What? How does that help? Isn’t the goal of ice skating NOT to fall down?

Here’s how falling would help me. After I pulled myself off the ice, I would suddenly be like a normal kid again.

Skating, laughing, fooling around… a complete change from the terrified, rigid kid who entered the ice. Ultimately, my coaches and parents came to the same conclusion: I had to fall down to do well. Basically, my perfectionistic tendencies

MATTHEW ZAKRESKI were keeping me from succeeding. I was so scared to fail that it was guaranteeing that I would fail. Once I fell, though, I knew that I couldn’t be perfect anymore and was able to just go out and have some fun.

This strange reality put my coaches in a weird position.

They basically had to knock me down to get me to play to my potential. If that wasn’t weird enough, it’s not like I wanted to be knocked down (even though I knew why they were doing so), so I would complain and freak out. So, there were tension,frustration and tears.

But we all fought through the pain and got me on the ice. I got better and better at skating, to the point where I needed those interventions less and less. At the end of the season, my coaches gave me a special award, (and I’ll preface, this is a VERY mid-90s part of the story): The Chumbawamba Award, “Because you get knocked down and you got up again…”

Part of the reason failure hurts and hurts us so much is because we are afraid of its harshness. But we must make space for that pain to fully benefit from the lessons of failing.

One of the things that wellmeaning parents, teachers, mental health professionals and coaches do is that we minimise or rush through the pain of failure:

There is always a path forward and when we look closely, the ways that we failed likely gave us hints towards unlocking the road map to success.

Why do I tell this story? Failure is unavoidable. It is a part of life. We are all going to fail and fail repeatedly and, sometimes, fail epically. We might not want to - we might even fight tooth and nail against it. But failure can help us tremendously if we let it. Since it is unavoidable, if we can redirect some of the energy that we inevitably spend trying hard not to fail with, into trying to learn and grow from our failure, then we will get multiple opportunities to grow quickly and powerfully.

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• time!

It’s not that bad.

You’ll do better next

• Think of all the good things that you’ve done!

Those approaches, while good in theory, are dismissive at best and toxically positive at worse.

Let your kids/students/ players be sad when they fail.

Let them feel those feelings and let them know that when they’re ready, you will join them on the path forward out of this pain. There is always a path forward and when we look closely, the ways that we failed likely gave us hints towards unlocking the road map to success.

Failure isn’t fun, and I would never try and convince you of that. Rather, I would argue that failure is fundamental.

It instructs, organises, and supports. Its lessons may be harsh and even cruel at times, but there are lessons there, nonetheless. If you can reframe failure as part of the learning journey, rather than the end, then you are setting yourself up for future success. Because, as Chumbawamba said, “I get knocked down, and I get up again…you’re never gonna keep me down.” Take THAT, failure.

This cognitive shift is hard for gifted and neurodivergent folks. We don’t like to fail. We take a lot of personal and emotional gain from our successes, and an inverse emotional response to failures and falling short. Our brains try to protect us by both overplanning for failure and trying to avoid it, but centering failure in our thought process gives it far too much weight in how we approach tasks.

Rather, I would suggest that we accept failure as an inevitability and then ignore it as best we can. We don’t worry that the sun is going to rise or that the seasons will change or that eventually all things (no matter how heinous) end, right? Why should failure be any different? It is a thing that happens. It can be very unpleasant. But that’s all it is. Once we have accepted failure as a possibility (or as something that has already happened), we can move forward without the fear that accompanies thoughts of failure. Without that fear, we are looser, freer, more confident and are more likely to succeed. Paradoxically, embracing failure (like my small ice skating self) increases the chances that we don’t experience it down the line.

Matthew J Zakreski, PsyD Matthew Zakreski, PsyD is a clinical psychologist who specialises in gifted/2e people who has presented over 100 times all over the county and internationally.

He is a grown-up gifted kid who loves sharing practical strategies on living your best life.

Find out more at

www.drmattzakreski.com

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KARI SUTTON

Teaching Mindfulness to Kids 2 Activities to Help Calm and Refocus

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’m not sure if you’ve ever experienced this, but I have had days when I’ve hopped into my car and driven from one place to another, quite some distance at times, and not been able to remember how I got to the place I arrived at. I had been driving on autopilot without being in the present moment and aware of what I was doing – I simply drove the car out of habit. We can also go through life this way, often being miles away in our thoughts and not truly present in the moment without being aware that this is what is happening.

Human beings tend to be reactive. Our amygdala, one of the primitive parts of the brain’s limbic system, keeps us safe by responding to threats whenever it thinks we are in danger.

This can be actual physical danger or psychological and emotional danger. Sometimes, in these situations, we may say or do something that we wish we could take back the moment after we blurt it out or do it.

Mindfulness supports us to create space between our emotions and our actions.

We can learn how to pay attention to our feelings and thoughts so that we can deal with positive and negative experiences more calmly and make better decisions. It helps us observe what is happening in our bodies in the present moment, understand what is driving our behaviour and choose actions that are based on clear thinking.

Teachers Matter

The purpose of teaching our children mindfulness practices is to provide them with skills and tools that support them in recognising that their thoughts are merely thoughts and that these thoughts can pass. We wanted to help them develop an awareness of both their inner and outer experiences by identifying and understanding how emotions can manifest and feel in their bodies and to recognise when their attention has wandered.

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We can help them focus their attention and awareness on the present moment, and provide scaffolding and support so they can recognise, acknowledge and accept their feelings, thoughts and sensations in their body without judging them as right or wrong.

As parents, we are uniquely positioned to help our children develop mindfulness habits early in life that will inform their behaviours as an adult.

KARI SUTTON

When I am working with children, I explain that mindfulness is about noticing what is happening right now, in this present moment. Taking notice of how their body feels and what they can see, hear, smell, touch and taste.

I talk about how they can feel different emotions in their body. Maybe it gets tight somewhere when they are angry or they feel like they have butterflies in their tummy when they get anxious or nervous, or it could even be a good sensation. I encourage them to notice what their mind is doing, what they are thinking and how this impacts on their feelings and their body. When they pay mindful attention to what is happening around them and inside their bodies, it can help children calm down when they are angry, sad or frustrated and help them deal with big, tough emotions.

Many researchers found that mindfulness practices can help reduce children’s symptoms of stress, anxiety and depression, mitigate the effects of bullying, help improve their capacity to regulate their emotions, help them sleep better, improve academic performance, boost their confidence, optimism and positive emotions, develop increased compassion and kindness and develop stronger relationships and improve mental fitness and wellbeing.

As parents, we are uniquely positioned to help our children develop mindfulness habits early in life that will inform their behaviours as an adult. However, mindfulness is not a cure-all. Even if both we and our children practice mindfulness, we can still experience difficult, challenging emotions and negative mental chatter that cloud our thinking and cause us to reactively respond to events. When we implement our mindfulness tools and strategies, we can change our relationships with our thoughts, emotions and negative self-talk so they won’t have the same impact on us and our behaviour.

Here are two mindfulness activities you might like to try with your children: 1. Listen to a Sound

This is one of the first ways I introduce a mindfulness activity to young children. I hold a small Tibetan singing bowl (You could use a bell or a phone app that has different sounds on it.) and explain that I am going to tap the bowl and it will make a sound and then ask them to listen carefully until they can’t hear the sound anymore. (This usually 30 seconds to a minute.) I’ve

found that this exercise has a calming effect on the students I work with and they think it’s quite fun. It focuses their attention, and we can then move on to other mindfulness activities.

2. Focused Belly Breathing

Get your kids to lie down flat on their backs and gently put either a book, a stuffed animal or a small stone on their belly. Then they focus their attention on their breathing watching the book, animal or stone rise and fall as they breathe in and out. I also use triangle breathing to help older kids focus on their breath. I ask them to make a triangle with their forefingers and thumbs and then breathe into their belly for three counts (that represents one side of the triangle), then hold their breath for three counts (that’s another side of the triangle) and then breathe out for three counts as the last side of the triangle. This encourages them to focus on slowing their breathing down.

Other ways to encourage belly breathing are by blowing bubbles or pinwheels. Get the kids to focus on taking deep, slow breaths and then exhaling slowly, so they can fill the bubbles or make the pinwheel turn for as long as possible.

(Do watch that they don’t get lightheaded doing this.) Get them to closely watch the bubbles as they form and then either float away or burst.

Kari Sutton Kari Sutton is an educator, speaker and author who has helped over 25,000 children, parents and educators with evidence-based strategies, tools and approaches to foster children’s positive mental health.

She helps others to plant the seeds of resilience, emotional wellbeing and mental fitness in our children.

For more information, visit

www.karisutton.com

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SUSANNAH COLE

Curiosity: A Key Driver of a Flexible Mindset Encouraging Students to Delve Deeper in Thinking

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Teachers Matter

flexible mindset is a dynamic and ongoing interaction between self-awareness, adaptive strategy use and perseverance that empower learners to evolve and become self-directed. A flexible mindset equips our students to dig deeper into their learning and take ownership of it so we can transfer more of the responsibility for learning from the teacher to the student. One of the challenges teachers encounter when they attempt to encourage their students to be more active in their learning is that thinking is hard work.

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Thinking runs contrary to our brain’s evolutionary purpose.

Take time to think about what the tiger is doing and it

might eat you. Thinking is slow and effortful, inefficient and unreliable, yet it’s critical to learning. How do we prove to students that the mental effort required to think is worth the long-term rewards of embedded learning? The flexible mindsets solution is to spark CURIOSITY. If we want students to be more active in their learning and engage in thinking, especially deep thinking, we need to show them how putting effort into thinking will pay off.

Many teachers are familiar with a common instructional approach - I DO, WE DO, YOU DO. This common approach is often effective for foundational learning such as reading and calculations, but it’s so predictable that it doesn’t spark curiosity. Finding a balance in the classroom between teaching foundational skills as well as making time and teaching students how to dig into deeper learning is needed to build a flexible mindset. The key is using our curiosity to guide us to ask questions that make us want to discover more.

In our book, Flexible Mindsets in Schools: Channelling Brain Power for Critical Thinking, Complex Problem-

SUSANNAH COLE feeling curious and feeling bored or discouraged.

If we want students to be more active in their learning and engage in thinking, especially deep thinking, we need to show them how putting effort into thinking will pay off.

Solving and Creativity, we share five guidelines for piquing student’s curiosity: 1. Don’t give the answer. As teachers we are naturally inclined to want to help.

It makes us feel good, so it’s understandable that we want to answer students’ questions. To encourage students to be curious, we have to be okay with waiting and suspend the instinct to jump in and rescue students with the answers. We have to able to observe children’s confusion, frustration and discouragement. However, that doesn’t mean we let students sit in endless frustration. We use our instincts to judge when to intervene and give support versus jumping in right away to alleviate any uncomfortable feelings.

2. Inspiration can’t be forced. There are different types of thinking that our brains engage in. For example, we can be in focused mode or diffuse mode. Using the metaphor of a flashlight, diffuse mode casts a broad and scattered light, whereas the focused mode is concentrated light. If we want to spark curiosity, we need time to let our brains enter diffuse mode, when we are not explicitly thinking - such as listening to music or taking a walk. In these less focused times, our brains can wander and that’s often when some of best ideas start percolating.

3. Find the ‘sweet spot’ for learning. We all weigh the potential pleasure of solving problems with the mental effort required. If we think the challenge is too difficult or too easy, we will disengage. We need to find the ‘sweet spot’ for learning where there is just enough tension, discomfort or excitement to keep us digging.

Perceiving something as doable is the bridge between

4. Content and delivery matter. It’s no surprise that we are more curious about things that interest us. The challenge for teachers is that the required content doesn’t always appeal to students and that’s when we need to consider the delivery of content as well. When content is presented through a medium we enjoy, when we find relevance in our own lives or it includes an element of surprise, even the most boring topic can spark curiosity.

5. Build in time off-task. Boredom gets a bad rap.

Boredom is necessary to spark curiosity. We feel bored when we take away distractions and have nothing to do. It alerts us that we are no longer pursuing a goal, which leaves us feeling restless, agitated and craving an escape. Our brains naturally start seeking some way to stimulate us. Although it may appear that our brain is shutting down when we are bored, it’s actually digging into our memories, dissecting our interactions, reflecting on our lives and imagining possibilities.

Beyond foundational learning, effective teachers find creative ways to infuse their instruction in curiosity.

They use novelty to introduce a topic, use predications to build anticipation and design projects that are relevant to students’ lived experiences. Piquing curiosity activates the arousal network in the brain and propels students toward becoming self-directed learners.

People are naturally curious, but if we hand out the answers and we don’t teach students how to use curiosity as a tool to help them become active, engaged thinkers, we will miss the opportunity to build flexible mindsets.

Susannah Cole Susannah Cole is an author and executive function coach who partners with students to explore systems, habits and mindsets that facilitate learning HOW to learn. As a Flexible Mindsets consultant, Susannah supports educators to explore how to reframe teaching as the pathway toward agency, resilience and adaptability. She holds a MEd in developmental psychology and has grown her expertise throughout the past 25 years working in the field of education.

She can be contacted at

scoleconsult@gmail.com

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KAREN TUI BOYES

11 Ways to Promote Persistence Encouraging Students to Work Through the Tough Spots

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ersistence is the ability to stick to a task, especially when the going gets tough. It is hanging in there when a task becomes challenging, never giving up and to keep on going.

Teachers Matter

Do your students say often say, “It’s too hard,” so they don’t have to think any further? Do they crumple up their paper and say, “I can’t do this,” meaning they don’t have to do this? These show lack of persistence. Dr Art Costa, the cofounder of the Habits of Mind, says, “Teaching persistence is a matter of teaching strategy. Persistence does not just mean working to get it right. Persistence means knowing that getting stuck is a cue to ‘try something else.’”

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Here are some ideas you might model or adapt to develop persistence in your classroom: 1. Give your students a repertoire of problem-solving strategies. Invite students to make a plan before solving a problem and if plan A does not work, use plan B, C, D or E.

2. Teach your students to find at least three ways to solve a problem so they have a backup if one strategy doesn’t work. The more ways they have to solve a problem, the more likely they are to keep going.

3. As a teacher you may hear yourself saying, “Who has

KAREN TUI BOYES

another way to solve this?” or “What’s another way?”

Develop a bank of different strategies and ways to approach a task.

4. Allow children to be proud of and display their draft work alongside the finished piece of work to show the development and persistence that took place. A fantastic book that shows the persistence of an author is Dr Seuss’ Hooray For Diffendoofer Day. It shows Dr Seuss’ workings and changes, as well as his developing thought processes in writing the book.

5. A great activity to introduce persistence is to teach your students to juggle—it’s even better if you don’t know how to do it either! Find a book on juggling and all start together.

You will be learning at the same, which is great role modelling.

There is a saying, “Be like the postage stamp. Stick to one thing until you get there.”

However, there are also times students need to know when to stop, and know when to say enough is enough. Some students want to rework their ideas over and over again, in a search for perfection. Teach these students to strive for excellence rather than perfection, which is unattainable.

Create a culture in your classroom and school where it is OK to be different, to give new ideas a whirl and where persistence is celebrated.

6. Use a simple sticker reward chart to reward every time you catch someone persisting.

It can simply say, “We are Persistent,” with names ticked underneath.

7. Persistence awards or ribbons may be given out at assembly.

Most important: If your students are not developing persistence in your classroom, possibly the work they are being given is not stretching them. You will see the need for persistence when students, and adults for that matter, are stuck when they don’t know what to do.

In order to persist, students must feel safe in their classroom environment to take risks, make mistakes, think flexibly and even undertake something they have not done before. Create a culture in your classroom and school where it is OK to be different, to give new ideas a whirl and where persistence is celebrated.

8. When displaying students’ work that they have persisted in, create a sign that says, “We have been Persistent,” to showcase the development of this Habit of Mind.

9. Assign reflection writing or journaling after a task, activity or day with the question: How did I show I’m persistent today?

10. Parallels may be drawn between a character in a book and a student. For instance, after reading “The Tortoise and The Hare,” discuss how the tortoise was persistent and how the student shows persistence in other settings, such as at home.

11. It is often said, “Persistent people begin their success where others end in failure.” Study people such as Sir Edmund Hillary, the first to climb to the top of Mt Everest, sporting heroes, para Olympians or entrepreneurs. Meet with successful people in your community and have students ask questions about the tough times and how they kept going. Gold medallists will often talk about 10 years of training to get to the top.

Karen Tui Boyes Karen Tui Boyes is a champion for Lifelong Learning across nations, industries and organisations. Winner of the NZ Educator of the Year 2017 and 2014 and the NZ Speaker of the Year award in 2013 & 2019, Karen is a sought after speaker who continually gets rave reviews from audiences around the world. Her dynamic style and highly informative content—which turns the latest educational research into easy-to-implement strategies and techniques — sets her apart from others in her field.

Find out more at:

www.spectrumeducation.com

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ORTAL GREEN

Design Thinking Create Great Thinkers in Your Classroom

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f I tell you there is a framework for teaching and learning that drives the following excellent outcomes, would you believe it?

• Enhance academic results

• Create an innovative learning environment • Drive better engagement • Create great thinkers

• Create a better culture

• Provide your students with a voice and agency over their learning

• Increase students’ wellbeing

• Make your job as a teacher easier

I bet you think it sounds too good to be true. I promise you, it’s not.

First, I want to share with you a story.

Teachers Matter

Around the world, about 2.5 million babies die every year. The majority of these deaths happen in developing countries. Using a baby incubator could save many of them.

But developing countries don’t have the funds to buy such expensive lifesaving equipment. Even if Elon Musk would buy incubators for them, they wouldn’t be able to maintain them due to a lack of skills and money.

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Since computers take over the mundane and repetitive work we used to do, we are left with interesting types of jobs.

ORTAL GREEN NeoNurture takes advantage of an abundant local resource in developing countries: car parts.

So how might we solve this problem?

A group of Design Thinkers took up this challenge. They travelled to a developing country and explored this problem. They looked at commonly available products and explored what skills local people have.

The team discovered that many local people have cars and know how to fix them. So they designed a cheap incubator made out of car parts. By repurposing cars, they ensured the ability of local people to maintain the incubators, and therefore, to save babies’ lives.

This is the power of Design Thinking! It enables you to come up with innovative solutions to problems. Design Thinking is about immersing yourself in the world of the people who face the problem and designing WITH them, and not FOR them.

So, what does Design Thinking have to do with our school system?

As you are probably aware, our world is moving forward at an increasing rate. This trend is fueled by the pace of advancements in technology, machine learning, Artificial Intelligent and automation.

Computers now perform many jobs that people used to do.

These jobs include trading in the stock market, operating a warehouse to medical image analysis. Jobs that have been there forever are disappearing and new job types are popping up every day. (Who thought an e-sport coach or a drone pilot would be professions?)

Some people buy into the doom and gloom of machines taking over the world and humans being left without jobs.

I see it differently. I think it’s great news. Since computers take over the mundane and repetitive work we used to do, we are left with interesting types of jobs. Those that require us to use our superhuman skills - the kind of skills computers can’t replace.

You might have guessed that these are the famous 21st century skills everyone is talking about, such as creative thinking, problem-solving, empathy, collaboration and critical thinking, to name just a few.

But still, what is the connection between Design Thinking and our education system?

The connection lies within the skills people develop when they learn and apply Design Thinking.

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ORTAL GREEN

Design Thinkers are excellent problem solvers. This means they are innovative and inventive in their thinking. And this, in turn, means they have developed their beautiful 21st century skills.

Therefore, when you use Design Thinking as the framework for teaching and learning, your students develop their superhuman skills and become great thinkers.

Introducing the Double Diamond The double diamond is the Design Thinking’s framework.

This is the process we follow to develop new ideas for solving different problems or creating preferable futures.

examples for questions to explore with your students • How can we design a classroom experience that optimises learning?

• How might we design a happy city?

• How might we design a more sustainable school?

To be continued…

In the coming articles, I will walk you through the Double Diamond process and show you how to use it within a school setting. So stay tuned! The fun is about to start!

As an educator, you can use the Double Diamond process to work on questions that would make school life much better for everyone. For example:

Teachers Matter

• How might we create a stronger community at our school?

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• How might we help our students develop their creative writing skills?

• How might we increase students’ wellbeing at our school?

• How might we design a learning environment where learning math is fun?

• How might we create a more collaborative and supportive work environment?

You can use Design Thinking to facilitate deep and meaningful learning for your students. Here are a few

Ortal Green Ortal is a passionate educator with a mission to empower teachers and parents to create tomorrow’s innovators. She started her career as a computer scientist. She co-founded “Glittering Minds” and created a programme for schools, “PBL and Beyond”.

She is also a an author and speaker.

She can be contacted at

admin@glitteringminds.com.au

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MEG GALLAGHER

Perfection is a Lie What Keeps us Playing Small

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ho loves failing? Can I hear a YAY? Not many huh?

Failure usually hurts in some way, even when we know it is a key to learning and growth. Some failure can hurt others and even cause major problems, but thankfully most failures aren't that catastrophic. Most failures actually seem to end up hurting our pride and our sense of self more than anything else, which, whilst not catastrophic, can have serious ripple effect.

The pain caused by failure is there to protect us so we remember not to make that mistake again. It was extremely useful in the ancient past when our lives literally depended on not repeating mistakes like wandering near a certain cave where something with big teeth and claws was hanging out! However, our pain avoidance muscles can play tricks on us in the modern world. We are no longer likely to be eaten by a sabre tooth tiger (feel free to replace this with a more accurate ancient animal) if we make a mistake, but the weight of public opinion, self judgment and anxiety seem to have teeth and claws, too.

Once their claws sink in, it can be hard to shift them.

So we protect ourselves.

We avoid the risk of making mistakes.

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To our own detriment.

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One of the fanciest ways to protect ourselves is perfectionism, which often comes with a range of side-kicks, my favourite being procrastination. Striving for perfection seems like an admirable goal and to be fair, I am very grateful if the surgeon who operates on my loved ones has a desire to be as close to perfect as possible. But how many times do we put off things because it isn't perfect? We don't go for a walk because the weather isn't as nice as it could be. We don't call a friend because we aren't feeling as happy as we think we should be. We don't go out because we haven't lost as much weight as we wanted to. We don't follow through on the idea, start the business, write the book, etc because we haven't got the time/energy/finances/support to make it perfect. We put this all off for a sunnier, happier, skinnier, slower day... that never comes! This perfect day is a lie we have been told, usually by people trying to sell us something, and it's one that we keep telling ourselves. To an extent it keeps us safe, but it also keeps us small.

A rich, fulfilling life isn’t perfect.

MEG GALLAGHER

A rich, fulfilling life isn't perfect. I recall a line from a poem often quoted by a wise mentor of mine, Trevor Grice: “If it weren't for the rocks in its bed, the stream would have no music.” We need the ups and downs of life to truly experience the range of emotions that give life its colour. Goodness! The world would be boring if everything was coloured sunshine yellow!

Mediocrity is not the solution to perfection by procrastination, though. Stepping bravely, embracing our vulnerability toward uncertainty is what we are aiming for. Embracing good enough and kaizen (the concept of small, seemingly imperceptible, changes over time) is part of it. Trusting ourselves and others more helps. Letting go of trying to control everyone and everything is certainly going to reduce our stress and give us some relief. This means accepting that others aren't perfect either.

I believe strongly that we all have gifts and talents we need. I worry that many of these gifts and talents never get fulfilled because of the lies we tell ourselves about perfection. You are already good enough and you never know just how great you could be until you take that leap of faith to find out. So, are you ready?

Meg Gallagher Meg is a committed learner. She is a teacher and has been an educational leader who has specialised in health education for a number of years. She is an avid promoter of building resilience in our students and selves.

Contact her at

www.meggallagher.nz

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BILL SOMMERS

The Question is, “Why?” Part 2 The Answer is, “Because!”

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Teachers Matter

hen taking a psychology course in college, the instructor gave us a final. On the board, he wrote the question, WHY? We all had our blue books (Those who are older will remember these!) and most of us looked stunned.

One student finished in less than five minutes and turned in his blue book. When grades were posted on the wall outside the teacher’s office, he got an “A” on the final! Some of us found the student who received the “A” in such a short time. There had been over one hundred students in the class.

We asked what his answer was to the question. His response was, “Because.”

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Most of us wrote pages and pages of what we could remember from the class. Some of us received an “A,” some of us a “B,” and a few got a “C.” I don’t know if there were lower grades from other students. As I reflect on that experience fifty years ago and completing the training at the WHY Institute, it now resonates with me. When you know your WHY and what attracts you, you are more engaged and committed to an idea, project or colleague that wants the same thing.

Some questions occurred to me for you to consider: • What is your WHY?

• How do you accomplish your WHY? • What do you want to accomplish?

Eric Barker wrote this in his book, Barking Up the Wrong Tree: “The old saying is true: ‘You regret most the things you

When you know your WHY and what attracts you, you are more engaged and committed to an idea, project or colleague that wants the same thing. did not do.’” Thomas Gilovich of Cornell University found that people are twice as likely to regret a failure to act. Why? We rationalise our failures, but we can’t rationalise away the stuff we never tried. Simply doing more means greater happiness when we’re older - and cooler stories for the grandkids!

James Baldwin once wrote, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” Understanding your ‘WHY’ can help discover the reason some things become so important and why you are

BILL SOMMERS

attracted to specific jobs, avocations and/or people. When in alignment with your ‘WHY’ it feels right.

Another passage from Eric Barker’s book that spoke to me is: “As the WSJ reports, ‘Those who stayed very involved in meaningful careers and worked the hardest, lived the longest.’” Meaningful work means doing something that’s (a) important to you and (b) something you’re good at.

Plenty of research shows that if you do the things you’re uniquely good at (psychologists call them “signature strengths”), they’re some of the most significant happiness-boosting activities of all. A Gallup study reported, “The more hours per day Americans use their strengths to do what they do best, the less likely they are to report experiencing worry, stress, anger, sadness or physical pain.”

When we are barking up the wrong tree our energy, time and resources may be wasted or have less impact.

There may be less of a commitment to common goals which can result in more stress. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “We are always getting ready to live, but never living.” The current pandemic is forcing us to find ways of living to balance our working to live. I am reminded of the story of the “Five Balls.”

Eric Barker, in his recent post titled The Lazy Way to An Awesome Life: 4 Secrets Backed by Research, provide four suggestions. This is how to be better at adulting and dodge the midlife crisis: • Meaning > Happiness: To increase your happiness, ditch “your” and “happiness.” Focus on “others” and “meaning.”

• Less Amelioration, More Joy: All defense and no offense is not how you win. That’s how you lose slowly.

• Endless Options Are a Trap: Options always seem appealing but closing off options is what leads to happiness. Choosing is meaningful.

• Enjoy The Process: If it’s all about the end result, you’re stuck on the treadmill. Define what you do in a way that helps you enjoy the journey. Changing dirty diapers isn’t joyous, but the process of parenting is.

My wish for you is to find your WHY, HOW and WHAT. The answer is BECAUSE.

We are all juggling five balls: Work, Family, Health, Friends and Integrity. The work ball is made out of rubber. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four (Family, Health, Friends and Integrity) are made out of glass. If you drop them, they can get chipped, cracked or broken into many pieces and are not able to be put back together. The message is to be careful not to drop the four balls made of glass.

Bronnie Ware, an Australian palliative care nurse, asked people in the last twelve weeks of their lives to share their top regrets. Three of the top five were related to relationships.

1. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard and missed my children’s youth and my partner’s companionship.

2. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

Dr William Sommers William A. Sommers, PhD, of Austin, Texas, continues to be a learner, teacher, principal, author, leadership coach and consultant. Bill has come out of retirement multiple times to put theory into practice as a principal. His latest book is 9 Professional Conversations to Change Our Schools.

He can be contacted at

sommersb4@gmail.com

3. I wish I’d stayed in touch with my friends.

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EMILY HALES AND HEATH HENWOOD

Getting Teachers Engaged The Importance of Teacher-Student Relationships

Introduction

Teachers Matter

Ever wonder how some teachers can engage students, while other teachers struggle with the same group? The key may be the teacher-student relationship. In this article, we explore from our own experiences what positive teacherstudent relationships look like, why they are important and how to make it happen in your classroom.

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William was a year four student who had a long history of refusal to participate in learning and ran from the classroom when he disagreed with his teacher or peers. He struggled academically and socially and had a diagnosis of autism.

Because his teacher could not cope, he was transferred into my class mid-year.

On his first day in the classroom, he sat at the back, building walls around himself with his desk, chair and books. I let

EMILY HALES AND HEATH HENWOOD Why is it important?

It takes time to develop relationships, so don’t expect a miracle cure overnight.

Research has demonstrated that strong positive teacherstudent relationships engage students to perform better academically and socially. Students are motivated to learn because of the positive relationship with their teacher.

Students’ intellectual, social and emotional development is faster and higher. There are also impacts on students’ selfacceptance leading to better relationships with their peers.

How to Develop in the Classroom — Strategies Now we have covered the theory of what and why, we turn to the more valuable for busy teachers – the how - the practical component.

him. I knew that this change was frightening and that he needed time to get used to the new classroom environment.

Over the next two weeks, I ensured that I made time to talk to him. It turned out that we had many similar interests. Slowly, he took his walls down – both literally and metaphorically.

When the class was doing a Maths assessment, I noticed William crying in the corner. I sat beside him for almost ten minutes when he finally said, “I am scared I will get it wrong. I want to do well at this.” So, when he was ready, he came back to his desk with me and tried again. I marked his assessment and returned it to him that afternoon – the smile on his face said everything.

At the end of the year, William had written a story that he proudly shared with his classmates. He completed all his classwork, even tutoring his peers from time to time. Most impressively, he got an A in Maths.

What is it?

Positive teacher-student relationships go far beyond fair and equitable interactions between the teachers and students. It refers to the quality of a caring and nurturing relationship, where the teacher truly knows and understands the student at an individual level.

There is a tendency for teachers to get to know students on a surface level. This often looks like knowing an interest, the family members, the student’s learning style and their strengths. Engaging teacher–student relationships are more in-depth and comprehensive than this. It is knowing the student beyond pure academics, seeing the student as a person - socially, emotionally and as a valued member of society.

Start From Day 1 Where possible, it is important to start from the first day. We recommend that teachers invest the first two weeks of the school year in building positive relationships. We say invest because that is what it is – an investment. An investment in the student, an investment of our time and an investment in ourselves as professional teachers.

Frequently, I have been given classes that have been deemed difficult in the middle of the school year. Similarly, there are always students, like William, joining the class midyear. The need to build relationships is never-ending.

For the teacher reading this now, desiring to develop relationships with their students, we recommend that you take the time over a week to focus on getting to know the students.

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EMILY HALES AND HEATH HENWOOD

More Important Than Curriculum — Impact on Learning One of the things teachers say to us is that with crowded curriculums the investment of two weeks is too much. We argue that two weeks is the bare minimum. With a range of activities, the first two weeks build the relationships that will allow curriculum to be taught quicker later when there are fewer distractions and interruptions as students have developed an understanding of us as teachers.

Investing time in students shows that we care for them and want to understand them. It takes time to develop relationships, so don’t expect a miracle cure overnight.

Yarning Circle In our classrooms, we have dedicated space for a yarning circle. It is a space where we spend fifteen minutes sharing what is going on at school and in people’s lives each day.

Sometimes this is with small groups, other times the whole class and occasionally just one-on-one. As teachers, we share some of what is going on in our lives as well. It allows us to talk about changes occurring in the day and week, which supports our students diagnosed with autism.

Action Steps • Plan out two weeks of ‘getting to know you’ activities.

• Plan to spend time with individual students, just talking to them.

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• Establish a yarning circle, a space just to talk.

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Heath Henwood

Emily Hales

IHeath Henwood is a practising teacher with over twenty years’ experience in teaching and educational leadership. He is a Doctoral Candidate (Educational Leadership) and Coach of teachers and community leaders. Heath is an active member of the education community with roles with Adobe, Qsite, Education Queensland and many non-profit organisations. and education. He has written many articles and is a popular conference speaker.

Emily Hales is an early career primary school teacher.

She has a passion for students with differing abilities and backgrounds. Emily believes that all students deserve the opportunity to learn at their own pace.

She ensures that students of different abilities are recognised and supported so that they can become their best selves. She values building strong, long-lasting relationships with her students so that they feel confident when accessing the curriculum.

Currently, Emily is teaching a year six class in Central Queensland.

He can be contacted at

heath.henwood@bigpond.com

CAROLYN STUART

Not Every Group is a Team Building Relationships to Build Success

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ecently, I read an interesting article by Susan Fowler in which she explored the different ways you might lead a group compared to leading a team. It kind of stopped me in my tracks because in all my years of being a leader I’ve never thought to differentiate between teams and groups.

According to Susan, if each person’s job influences another’s success, then it is a team. Conversely, if there is no interdependence and group members work independently, even with a common job description, then it is a group.

This group versus team idea is intriguing. As I began to ponder, I started to wonder if some of the difficulties encountered by organisations occur as a result of teams acting like groups and groups being judged for not acting like a team.

Teams Acting as Groups Most organisations are led by a senior leadership team.

The two main purposes of this team are to ensure the organisation functions well and to deliver the organisation’s strategy. Senior leaders are generally given specific areas of responsibility as well as being expected to progress the organisation’s strategy.

Senior leaders that work as a team understand how their work impacts on and contributes to the success of the other leaders. They trust one another and remain open to the ideas of others. They seek feedback and are willing to participate in vigorous debates ahead of decisions. Senior leaders who work as a team achieve more collectively than they would working on their own.

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CAROLYN STUART Senior leaders working as a group generally value delivering in their specific area of responsibility above delivering the organisation-wide strategy. They exhibit low trust towards others in the team and react defensively to any suggestions as to how they might do their job more effectively. They pay little attention to how their work impacts the success or otherwise of others. The challenge for a team that is acting like a group is that whilst each member might be high performing, their delivery is limited to individual contributions rather than the exponential impact that comes from collaborations. We know that a champion team will always beat a team of champions.

Groups Expected to Act as Teams Consider middle leaders — the leaders that sit between the senior leaders and the teams of people doing the work at the coal (or chalk) face. When middle leaders are working in the organisation, assuming they are effective, they will be leading a collaborative team.

The challenge comes when organisations bring middle leaders together and expect them to act as a team. If there is no interdependency between the middle leaders then they are a group not a team. In this situation it should surprise no-one that middle leaders will advocate for solutions and strategies that provide the greatest benefit for their team. If you find yourself wishing that your middle leaders team would act as collaboratively with each other as they do with their teams, then you know they are a group.

Through relationships, people discover what is important to others and will often uncover ways that they can help each other be more successful.

stuck trying to figure out their purpose, work out the shared goals and use them to inform the purpose. Once the purpose and shared goals are agreed then you will be able to start identifying the interdependencies of your everyday work together. It is often wise to use an external facilitator to do this team building work as they can bring experience and perspective to this important work.

Isn’t it great, that as leaders, we still have so much to learn?

Turning Groups into Teams First and foremost, make sure that the group needs to be a team. Remember, to be a team there needs to be interdependency. If the answer is no, then only bring the group together for information sharing and meet individually to listen to their advocacy.

If the answer is yes, and you want the group to act as a team, then here are some actions you might take:

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1. Relationship Building

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Help the leaders to get to know each other better.

Through relationships, people discover what is important to others and will often uncover ways that they can help each other be more successful.

Relationship building will be events designed for people to get to know each other better and to make connections. Be wary of team building activities if you are trying to build relationships. Getting people who don’t know each other well to work as a team to solve a challenge may backfire on you.

2. Team Building

Figure out the purpose and shared goals for the team.

This can be surprisingly difficult to do. If the team gets

Carolyn Stuart Carolyn Stuart is a weaver of futures, who uses a strengthsbased approach to help people and organisations to unlock an abundant and enjoyable future. Carolyn’s varied career in education has included 13 years as a principal, 5½ years in a senior system-level education role and now as the founder of Weaving Futures, a company that combines the latest design strategies with sound leadership practices to help people navigate their preferred future.

Carolyn can be contacted at:

carolyn.stuart@weavingfutures.nz

LAUREN PARSONS

Spotting the Signs of Stress How to Recognise When Things Aren’t Going Well

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s an educator, you not only play a key role in looking after your students’ well being, but also the well being of your colleagues. With stress and anxiety on the rise, it’s vital to know the full range of signs to look for that could indicate mental distress among your teammates, and to know how to respond when you see those signs.

A US study showed that 80% of workers feel stressed at work, 40% feeling very or extremely stressed and 25% viewed their jobs as the number one stressor in their lives.

In 2017, the World Health Organisation said that depression is the leading cause of ill health and disability worldwide. A New Zealand study showed that the risk of burnout tripled over an 18-month period up to November 2021, increasing from 1 in 9 people to now just 1 in 3.

A major British study also revealed that 48% of workers have experienced a mental health problem in their current job, but only half of those who had experienced poor mental health at work had spoken to their employer about it. This suggests that 25% of your team may be struggling in silence.

It’s clear you’re highly likely to have staff within your team suffering with mental distress. Putting your head in the sand and ignoring this only exacerbates the challenge.

Withdrawal, sadness and angry outbursts are commonly known signs to watch for. Here are some of the other signs that may not always immediately come to mind.

9 Signs to Look For 1 - Memory

Becoming forgetful and missing small day-to-day things can be a sign of mental distress. Ongoing stress interferes with the brain’s ability to think clearly. It impacts on normal decision making, reasoning and memory. Watch for confusion and regularly forgetting things.

2 - Temperament

Get to know your colleagues well so you can notice any change in mood or behaviour. If someone is naturally quiet or reserved, that’s not necessarily a warning sign. It’s more if you notice a change such as those who are normally outgoing becoming withdrawn, or vice versa.

3 - Appearance

A lack of grooming, or no longer taking care about how they appear can be a sign as well. I can recall this personally, many years ago when I was in a workaholic phase and not in a good head space. I would dress all in black, tie my hair in the same bun every day so I didn’t have to style it and I never wore makeup. It was really a symptom of feeling overwhelmed and lacking time or effort to even do the basics. Wearing black isn’t a sign in itself, of course, but seeing changes in people’s standards of personal grooming can be.

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LAUREN PARSONS 4 - Lack of Interests

Take note if your teammates are no longer taking part in or being interested in hobbies that you know they normally are. If you ask how their painting is going, what’s growing in the garden or where they’re been mountain-biking lately and they respond in a flat, uninterested way or say that they’ve stopped or haven’t made time for it lately it, that’s a sign something is bothering them. It’s important people have pursuits in life that bring them joy.

The first step is noticing how someone is doing and choosing to be courageous and ask.

8 - More Frequently Unwell

Ongoing mental distress can suppress the body’s immune system function. Take note if you hear staff complaining of ongoing minor illnesses or increasing sick leave.

9 - Personality

Take note if normally sociable people withdraw and avoid their workmates. Sometimes people can become more easily irritable, angry or cynical. Listen for the language that’s used.

Taking Action

5 - Change in Decision Making Ability

There are two ends of a spectrum with this one. Watch for people being overly rash and making lots of hasty decisions.

Also, watch for people being excessively indecisive and procrastinating or having an inability to make a decision at all.

Teachers Matter

6 - Pace

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Sometimes people will speed up their pace, trying to fit everything in at super speed, and block out time for too much thought or reflection. They can appear hyper in their actions and their speech.

7 - Control

Again, this can be different ends of a spectrum. People lacking the ability to control their emotions, for example, becoming easily upset at a time and place when it’s difficult to understand the reason. At the other end, people may seem overly controlled, being stoic and not displaying any emotion as they’re trying to hold everything in.

It’s so important for you and your leaders to have the skills to spot these signs and open up conversations with your fellow teachers. You might start with an, “I’ve noticed you don’t seem like yourself lately and I’m concerned about you,” statement. Then ask how they’re doing. Be sure to do this in an appropriate time and place and show genuine empathy.

Remember, you don’t need to solve their problems.

Listening non-judgmentally is powerful in itself, as it helps people gain clarity and helps them feel valued and heard.

You may want to put them in touch with a counsellor through your EAP provider so they get the support they need.

There is a lot more to this process than what can be covered in one short article, but the first step is noticing and choosing to respond.

It’s worth investing in professional development around spotting the signs and knowing how to respond. I’ve helped many organisations introduce a team of what I call Well Being Champions, who are equipped with this special skill set. It has helped them not just boost their own health and happiness, but also to create a well being-focused workplace culture, increasing team connection and psychological safety

LAUREN PARSONS - which is the number one key to a high-performing team.

Some of the dos and don’ts we cover include:

Do

• Choose a good time and place to connect. (If you get this wrong, people will feel you’re insincere or inconsiderate, and be less likely to open up then or later on.)

• Have conversations in an appropriate, private setting where they can feel most comfortable.

• If you don’t have an appropriate space on-site, head outdoors for a walk or arrange to meet off-site – for example at a café.

• Let people know your conversation will remain confidential.

• If you feel it’s worth alerting their manager to something that is raised, discuss this with the individual first and help them with this process.

• Show that you have an open mind by avoiding judgment statements.

• Listen actively without mentally rehearsing what you want to say next and jumping in. (Try it – this is tough!)

don’t need to solve someone’s problems for them. All you need to do is listen non-judgmentally, provide reassurance and refer them on to the appropriate support – whether that’s professional or family/work-based supports. Being listened to has huge power to allow people to get clarity, to start think through solutions and to feel valued and supported, so it is highly beneficial in and of itself.

When you and your leaders tune into your colleagues and make it the norm in 1-on-1s and staff meetings to check in on how everyone is doing, rather than only what people are doing, you’ll have a thriving team culture where everyone can perform at their best and go the distance.

If you or someone you know needs further help, reach out. Don’t try to solve everything on your own. Get help early on before things snowball. You can phone (or text) 1737 anytime day or night to speak to (or message with) a trained counsellor.

• Slow down and take your time. Allow pauses.

• Talk about mental health and mental fitness in a positive way.

• Follow through if you promise to do something, such as checking in again later on.

Don’t

• Bring up private or sensitive conversations in a public space.

• Try to jump straight in to solve problems. Listen first and ask open questions.

• Tell them they should ‘just relax’ or ‘toughen up.’

• Tell people what they have to do.

• Tell people what you would do if you were them.

Everyone is unique in how they will best respond.

• Involve other people without discussing it with the individual first, unless you are concerned that they or someone else may be at risk of harm.

The first step is noticing how someone is doing and choosing to be courageous and ask. Remember that you

Lauren Parsons Lauren is an award-winning Wellbeing Specialist who believes that everyone deserves to thrive. With over 20 years’ experience in the health and wellbeing profession, she is a sought after speaker, coach and consultant.

TEDx speaker, author, founder of the Snack on Exercise movement and host of the Thrive TV Show, Lauren is based in Manawatu, New Zealand. She specialises in helping schools and organisations create a high-energy, peak- performance team culture, which enables people to thrive.

For more information, visit:

www.LaurenParsonsWellbeing.com

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DEB BARCLAY

12 TIPS To Being Super Organised Lead Smart!

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Teachers Matter

s a busy school senior leader by day and coach outside of work hours, I have to be super organised. Fortunately, I’ve learnt effective strategies and tips from the many people I’ve worked with over the years and through trial and error of my own. Organisation and order are vital to my ability to function effectively in my role.

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Getting organised improves your work flow, your sense of control and your energy. Here are 12 tips to help you set priorities, complete your to-do list and thrive in your work.

DEB BARCLAY 1. Lists With so much work to get through and not enough time, we have to learn how to prioritise our endless to-do’s. I suggest always working from a list.

I typically use two lists for work: a master list and a daily to-do list.

A master list is a document where you write down all of your ideas, tasks and responsibilities. At the end of every work day, peruse your master list and ask yourself this question.

What are my highest priorities?

Select your three highest priority items and write them on your daily to-do list. Be sure to place the list somewhere you can see it throughout the day. These three items are the first thing you want to see when you arrive at work in the morning, focused and ready to start.

Tips for Your Daily To-Do List

• Start on your list in the morning - you'll gather momentum and it will propel you to keep going.

• Add anything new that comes along to the master list.

• When someone asks you to do something verbally, ask them to email the request or write it on a post-it note.

Transfer the task to your master list as soon as you receive the note.

• As you complete your tasks, cross them off your daily to-do list.

• At the end of each day, review your list. What hasn't been completed gets put on tomorrow's daily to-do list.

• Before you leave work, write your daily to-do list for the next day.

Getting organised improves your work flow, your sense of control and your energy.

2. Your Big Rock Your big rock is your biggest, most important task, the one you are most likely to procrastinate on if you don't do something about it.

Here are my tips for getting a big rock completed:

• Make it your first task of the day, even before emails.

• Start as early in the day as you can.

• Clear your desk to limit distractions.

• Prepare well - make sure you have everything you need.

• Race against yourself or set a time limit. It will propel you forward!

• Discipline yourself to do nothing else except get that task done.

• Set aside a block of uninterrupted time. This could be a half hour or more. Your door could be shut, your phone set to vibrate and you can tell your colleagues not to disturb you for an hour while you complete an important task.

Here's the thing about our big rocks –

• Avoiding a difficult task drains much more energy than we realise.

• It usually takes far less time to complete a task than we imagine it will.

• The idea of completing a task is almost always more daunting in our heads than in reality.

• We usually start to feel better the moment we begin.

• Inactivity breeds anxiety but action builds momentum.

Just begin!

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DEB BARCLAY Six Tips to Reducing Distractions

3. Managing Interruptions

• Provide a mechanism, such as earphones, for indicating 'do not disturb.’

Interruptions can arrive anytime throughout the day and without notice. They can come in the form of phone calls, texts, emails or in person. They can be questions, requests or announcements.

Often, we're interrupted to make a decision or to solve a problem.

• Switch your phone to 'airplane' mode.

• Move to a different, quiet location.

• If you have a door, use it. Yes, we all know open doors are great, but sometimes you need to shut them.

Interruptions can be frustrating as they almost always occur when you are in the middle of a task. However, they are part of the job. Our perception of interruptions needs to change from being annoyed to realising it’s part of our role.

Five Tips to Handle Interruptions

• Schedule time in your diary for interruptions, since they are inevitable.

• Be available for questions, requests or problems at a certain time of the day.

• In the event that someone interrupts you and you think it requires a lengthy discussion, arrange a time to meet so that you can sit down together with your full attention on the issue.

• When someone interrupts you, swivel away from your laptop or desk so that you give the person your full attention.

• When you're in the middle of a task, such as finishing an email, if you could finish it in a minute, ask the person interrupting you to wait while you finish.

The truth is, of course, that what one regards as interruptions are precisely one’s life.

C.S. Lewis

Teachers Matter

4. Avoiding Distractions

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Whether it's social media, notifications on your phone, text messages or people, distractions take you away from what you're meant to be doing. Getting back on task can be challenging. Distractions reduce our 'flow state.' When our attention is lost, we lose our productivity.

Consider what usually distracts you.

Is it your phone, people interrupting you or email notifications on your laptop?

• Establish boundaries with colleagues who frequently interrupt you. Let them know you are busy and you will get back to them when you are free.

5. Email Email is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that email makes communication possible at any time with anyone at home or at work. What is the curse? Everyone else can do the same with you.

The key is to manage email, not let it manage you. Because we take our work home in our back pockets, it's important to have clear boundaries in place with emails.

5 Tips for Email

• You decide when you read your emails. It might be the first thing you do when you arrive at work or a scheduled task you do once or twice a day. (Like at 10am and 2pm.)

• Read your emails in blocks rather than as they arrive in your inbox.

• If you receive an email, don't feel pressured to reply right away. If you always respond immediately, it sends a message that you are always available.

• Get into the habit of filing emails. Create folders and then file or delete as you read them. Don't let your inbox turn into another to-do list.

• If a call to action takes no more than 60 seconds, do it.

Otherwise add the task to your master list, then file the email.

DEB BARCLAY version of filing if you need to keep files close to you as you work. This frees up space on your desk.

• Know where everything in your workspace belongs.

(Paperclips, rubberbands, etc.)

• Pick up each item on your desk and ask yourself if you need it. Over the years, we accumulate items that we no longer see. This applies to your notice board, the prints on the wall and items such as ornaments and plants. What kind of inspiration do you get from them? Do they bring you joy when you look at them?

If not, pass them on.

• Keep your desktop on your computer clean, too.

Digital clutter has the same effect as physical clutter.

6. Paper File, don't pile!

Initially it can be time consuming to create a filing system, but long term, it will save you time. Despite living in a world of technology, we still receive paper. The key to managing incoming paper is to have an effective filing system.

The rules for paper are as follows: • Touch it.

• Read it.

• File it or bin it.

Be prepared - create files and label them clearly. In the event that you want to keep a piece of paper and it does not have a place to be filed in, create one on the spot. Files and labels should always be close at hand.

Work in Progress Documents

Make a file titled 'This Week.' In this you can store any documents you are currently working on or need to access quickly in the upcoming week or two. You can easily access it and take it home if needed. Instead of keeping articles and readings, scan them and save them in a file on your computer. Use upright files as this keeps paper off your desk space.

7. Simplify Start each day with a tidy workspace.

• Have minimal items on your work desk. In addition to creating a sense of space, it will also decrease distractions.

• If you have a pen holder, limit the amount of pens you have. Do you need 20?

• It's worth considering the upright

• Today, resolve to clean up your desk so that you can sit down and feel ready to work without distractions.

• Wipe your desk down at the end of every week. I keep a packet of wet wipes in my top drawer for this purpose.

The more stuff we have around us, the more overloaded the brain becomes.

–Scott Shonenshein

8. Your Schedule Managing your schedule effectively will determine what gets done and what doesn't. When it comes to your diary, you’re in the driver's seat.

Schedule uninterrupted blocks of time to complete your priority tasks.

• Highlight your weekly meetings and commitments.

By doing so, they will stand out to you and are instantly non-negotiable.

• Appointments should be scheduled by you, not the other way around.

• Allow time between appointments, especially if you are driving. Make sure to allot enough time to comfortably drive and arrive with time to spare.

• Plan your appointments around an event, such as a morning tea or lunch, so they end naturally.

• Always provide a timeframe when someone requests a meeting with you.

• Allow time in your schedule for interruptions - they are inevitable.

Either run the day or the day runs you

–Jim Rohn

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DEB BARCLAY • Create a quick system whereby you teach someone how to do that task. This could be a verbal recording, written instructions or a video.

• Train them to do the task. You are going to have to take the time here. Think big picture. Think long term investment.

• Give them feedback and praise as they progress with the task.

• Set clear expectations. For example, by the end of the month it needs to be completed.

9. Meetings Why do we have meetings? Meetings create open, clear communication and smooth systems and organisation.

An effective meeting must be a time for team members to communicate openly and get clarity on goals and how to proceed.

Questions to consider when thinking about the meetings you attend or facilitate: • Is the day of the week and time of the day ideal?

• Are the right people in the meeting?

• Where is the location? Is there the right amount of physical space? Does it convey casual or professional?

• What is the name of the gathering? Does it reflect what you're there for and who you are as a group?

• What is the time frame for the meeting? How long does it need to be to accomplish the goals set for the meeting? Does the meeting start on time or when the last person arrives? Does it end on time?

• The agenda: is it crowd sourced? Who decides on the agenda items? Not all agenda items need to be discussed at a team level. Review the agenda and see if any items could be one-to-one discussions instead.

• Do people come prepared?

• Who records the minutes? Are follow-up actions recorded and when are they re-addressed?

• What happens to the items on the agenda that we don’t get to?

Teachers Matter

Check out Priya Parker’s work. Her book, The Art of Gathering, has so much useful content about meetings.

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10. Delegating The truth is…without delegating a leader burns out very quickly.

How should we delegate?

• Make a list of all of the tasks you do in your job.

• Highlight the tasks that someone else could do for you.

When you delegate, however, keep these points in mind: • Do not delegate only the unpleasant tasks.

• Hold back from commenting if they do the job differently than you - if they also have the same positive result.

• Don't leap in at the first sign of trouble. Support them with effective questions to steer them back on track.

11. Information Overload Information creeps into our lives from many different sources, texts, emails, television, radio, podcasts, books, social media and many more. Too much information is overwhelming and stressful. It also takes up a lot of our time. An organised person limits the amount of information coming in, otherwise, it becomes a major distraction from our priorities.

• Start by taking a mental inventory of what information you receive.

• Ask yourself, “What could I remove?” By cutting back on some sources, you can claim back time for yourself to focus on your priorities.

• Set limits on the time you invest in watching Netflix or scrolling through social media.

• Could you turn off notifications on your phone? That way you are not in reaction mode each time a news bulletin is announced.

• Disconnect - see if you can go for a walk without your phone.

DEB BARCLAY

12. Organising Books and Articles It's not uncommon to hold on to books with the hope of reading them again or starting to read them someday.

Here are six questions to ask yourself when culling your bookshelf. Pick each one up and ask: • When did I buy this?

• How many times have I read it?

• What role does the book play in my life now?

• Would I still buy it now if I saw it in a bookshop?

• When did I last pick it up?

• Am I going to ever read or need it again?

Articles and Readings

• Scan a magazine or journal quickly for any interesting articles you may be interested in reading.

• If you see an article you want to keep, scan it and save it in a folder on your computer, then pass the magazine on.

• To save time at work, create a hard copy folder called “Readings,” and each time you see an article or a journal you want to peruse, place it in the folder and take it home on the weekend. When you're relaxed at home with a cup of tea or coffee, work your way through the folder.

Deb Barclay Deb Barclay works as a Principal in a North Shore Primary School. She is an Accredited Coach and works with teachers and leaders in education on fine tuning their organisation and their well being. Her philosophy is Lead Smart with Heart.

For more information, visit

www.debbarclay.com

• Photograph snippets of articles you like and think you will need for reference.

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KAREN TUI BOYES

How Study Improves Your Executive Functioning 7 Executive Functions Needed for Life

Teachers Matter

S

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tudy is the process of learning what you need to know to pass a test or an exam. Passing the test or exam is a way to get the qualification you require to move forward in your goals and journey. Often, the information learned is forgotten the next day or week as the learning focus shifts to the next subject or topic. The extra benefit of your study time is learning the executive function skills important for life beyond the classroom. Below is a list of the skills that you learn through the process of studying and can be useful tools to enhance your learning.

What are executive functions?

Executive functions are a set of mental skills which are the management system of your brain. Studying gives you a wonderful opportunity to practice these skills, which are highly intertwined and are important for great learning

and success in life. Here are seven executive functions you develop through studying and are also success keys beyond school: It is important to note you are not born with these skills, they are all learnable. You were, however, born with the potential to develop these skills. Emotional control is how you control and respond to your emotions.

1. Planning & Time Management Whether you are planning an essay, your time, how to lay out a webpage or a gaming strategy, you are learning many smaller skills associated with planning. These include breaking a task into smaller manageable parts, estimating how long a task will take, using a system to keep track of projects and planning ways to use your time wisely. These

KAREN TUI BOYES

skills are important not only in school but also if you are an office assistant, a lawyer, a truck driver or a professional sports player. If you find you hand in assignments at the last minute, forget to bring homework or materials to school, find tasks take longer than you think or get caught up in the details, this is an executive function to work on.

2. Task Initiation This is your ability to start a task without procrastinating or external prompting. Linked with the executive function of planning, task initiation is about learning to break a task into manageable chunks, get started without being asked and with enough time to finish the task. People who have challenges with this often become overwhelmed with projects, are easily distracted and need someone to tell them to get started.

3. Organisation

when you have a setback is crucial. Maybe you have a designated time to study and suddenly your parents say you are excepted to go out with them to a family occasion, or you are halfway through an assignment only to discover you have answered the wrong questions. Your capacity to be flexible and change direction, pivot or pirouette swiftly without distress, will have you back on track toward success quickly.

5. Working Memory Being able to keep track of what you are doing until task completion is called working memory. It is like having a sticky note in your brain to keep you on track. It holds new information in place so the brain can use it to connect with other information. Working memory is short-term, just tackling the task at hand and helping the brain organise information for longterm storage. This is your ability to follow multi-step directions such as answering a three part question. It helps to minimise distractions such as social media, clutter and interruptions and keeps your attention focused on your work. Using memory techniques such as repetition, association and chunking can help develop your working memory during your study sessions.

Study is a vehicle and opportunity to learn and practice the executive functions which help with long-term success.

Keeping track of information, notes, resources, due dates and important tasks is imperative when working in a job beyond school. A builder needs to know where her tools are and a surgeon must stick to the schedule.

Develop a system to store your notes for fast and easy retrieval. Create a routine to record all due dates in the same place such as a diary, online calendar, a digital sticky note, etc. Designate a place to keep your belongings. This can be as simple as always putting your keys in the same place to having a place to study with all your resources together.

Interestingly, research clearly shows people who keep their surroundings clean and organised are more focused and can concentrate for longer.

4. Flexibility Your ability to adapt to changing conditions by revising plans or changing strategies is a necessary skill in the workplace. Having a routine and a plan is great and being able to change direction or cope with the unexpected is a skill of the successful. Over the past two years, during a pandemic, we have seen the rules change many times and often without warning. Being able to revise your plans

6. Self-Monitor Being able to self-evaluate and watch yourself from a different perspective is another key skill of adulthood. I call it parenting yourself. Studying and completing homework are great opportunities to learn to make your own decisions and make adjustments when required. It is also a great way to learn to check your work, correct mistakes and take and act on feedback. Being able to self-monitor also includes understanding your own strengths and weaknesses and monitoring your progress or lack of it and then self-correct as required. Reflection on your process is important. Ask yourself these questions: • Am I on track to get this assignment finished on time?

• What did I do that was helpful towards my success?

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KAREN TUI BOYES • How can I improve my process?

• Are there more effective learning strategies I could be adopting?

• In what ways might a streamline my study?

This executive function skill helps you to be more independent in school and life.

7. Emotional Control Studying and learning come with ups and downs, wins and failures. Being able to manage your positive and negative emotions and experiences is an important life skill to achieve task completion. Emotional control is how you control and respond to your emotions. If you feel anxious, can you bounce back to achieve your goals? Maybe you do not get the mark you were hoping for on an assignment – can you recover quickly from disappointment? When a circumstance seems unfair, can you keep sight of your goals, avoid overreacting and complete the tasks required? All of these emotions are normal and should not be suppressed, but rather, controlled.

The next time you settle down to study, complete an assignment or practice a new skill, take a moment to think about which of these seven executive functions you are using or developing. Studying not is all about the marks you get. Study is a vehicle and opportunity to learn and practice the executive functions which help with long-term success.

Teachers Matter

Karen Tui Boyes

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Karen Tui Boyes is a champion for Lifelong Learning across nations, industries and organisations. Winner of the NZ Educator of the Year 2017 and 2014 and the NZ Speaker of the Year award in 2013 & 2019, Karen is a sought after speaker who continually gets rave reviews from audiences around the world. Her dynamic style and highly informative content—which turns the latest educational research into easy-to-implement strategies and techniques — sets her apart from others in her field.

Find out more at:

www.spectrumeducation.com

LAUREL MAKOWEM

W 4 Fun Ways to Start the Conversation

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any adults feel uncomfortable talking about money, not only with children but also with partners, friends and family. If you are not talking to your child about money, they will learn from another source, be that advertisers, social media influencers or friends with a limited education.

Talking about money openly and often will not only help shake off the awkwardness and teach children the financial confidence, skills and habits they need, but is also an opportunity to share family values, goals and beliefs.

These activities can help make talking about money feel more natural and fun.

Play the Needs and Wants Game First, explain NEEDS as things we cannot live without like water, food, shelter, clothes and shoes. Explain WANTS as

things we can live without but are fun to have like sugary drinks, McDonalds, branded shoes, toys, the latest phone or ice cream.

How to Play:

• Invite everyone (including the adults) to go to their rooms and get an item they think is a want. Initiate a conversation by asking why they think it’s a want.

• As a group, walk around the house pointing to needs.

Use this opportunity to find items that may be thought of as needs but are wants. Talk about how different people can have different needs and wants, and sometimes one person’s need can be another person’s want and visa versa.

• Finally, chat about something you really want and how you are planning to save up enough money so you can buy it. Ask everyone about something they

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LAUREL MAKOWEM more interesting for them, allow them to keep any leftover money.

The more opportunities children get to talk openly and honestly about money, the better they will get at managing money.

Ask questions like:

• Do you think it will cost more or less money to have the party at home or at a venue?

• Will it be cheaper to buy pizzas or make them at home?

• Would you rather have more decorations and less friends at your party or the other way around?

• Do you think we can find a special deal on a website

want and talk about how they could get the money to buy it. This is an opportunity to talk about different ways to earn money, saving up to buy wants as well as setting and tracking saving goals.

The game can lead into conversations about the family budget and how the family spends their money on needs first and wants second. This will help them understand why you don’t buy them everything they want when you go shopping.

Other conversations could start with questions like: • How much do you think we spend on electricity?

• Is electricity a need or a want? Why?

• What do you think would happen if we didn’t pay our electricity bill?

• Do you know how much our Wi-Fi costs?

• Where do you think our family’s money comes from?

• Can you guess how much money we spent on snacks last month?

• How many hours do we have to work to be able to pay for our next holiday?

Teachers Matter

Use Common Events to talk About Budgeting and Saving

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An easy way to open up conversation about budgeting and saving is by using common events in life, such as birthday celebrations, gift buying, purchasing a new car or even planning a holiday. These conversations won’t only be about dollars and cents, but also about planning, problem solving, allocation, needs, wants and even negotiating.

Together, create a budget for the event, involving them in all aspects of allocating monetary values to categories, like food, decorations and venue. As they get older, give your children more responsibility for specific items in the budget like drinks, entertainment or food. Show them how to comparative shop and find ways to save money. To make it

like Grab One?

• Help them work out the cost per head for different options.

Play Challenge the Ad Helping children become more aware and mindful of how advertising works will help them make more informed, unemotional financial choices in the future.

How to Play

• Gather everyone either in front of the TV, the home computer or go for a trip to the mall. While you watch or notice adverts, ask questions like: • Do you think an ad has ever made you want to buy something?

• What do you think this ad is trying to sell? Do we need it? Do we want it?

• Do you think the people in the ad use the product they are advertising?

• Do you think the people in the ad are being paid to say

LAUREL MAKOWEM good things about the product they are selling or do they genuinely love the product?

• I wonder if the item they are selling is good quality.

A fun way to end the session is to design your own adverts.

Come up with a product to sell and have a simple brief, including things like: • Who are we trying to sell this to (target audience)?

• Is our target audience mostly on social media or in the malls?

• What other things do they love doing that we could use to make them want to buy our product?

• What words can we use to make them feel they just have to have it?

Car Chats As you are driving children around, use your surroundings to have casual, fun chats about money.

Ask questions like:

• Do you think the people who live in that house own it or rent it?

• Do you want to own a house one day?

• What kind of house do you want to own?

• How much do you think that house (point to houses as you drive past) costs?

• Is everyone who lives in a big house wealthy?

• How much do you think those police get paid?

• How much money do you want to earn one day?

• How much do you think that car costs?

• Do you think it cost more or less than our car?

• Who do you think pays to collect the rubbish from the park?

• How does money get into the auto bank?

• How does a bank make its money?

• Has the price of petrol gone up or down?

• I wonder where that big delivery truck is going and what it’s carrying?

• What are they advertising on that billboard?

• How much do you think they paid for that ad?

• Would that ad make you want to buy that?

• If you could sell something, what would it be and how much would it cost to make?

The more opportunities children get to talk openly and honestly about money, the better they will get at managing money and making educated and informed financial choices. Keep conversations short, to the point and most importantly - have fun!

Laurel Makowem Laurel Makowem is a Certified Financial Education Instructor and founder of Mothers Teaching Money, a business and movement helping parents raise financially confident, responsible and independent adults, regardless of their own financial knowledge or situation.

Her mission is to demystify financial literacy through the Millionaire Mindset Money System, a comprehensive holistic financial education system.

She provides fun online courses, workshops and products for children from 4-18 years.

Laurel can be reached at

mothersteachingmoney@gmail.com.

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JO MCBROWN

2022:

Who do you Want to Be?

Teachers Matter

How Will You Get There?

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JO MCBROWN

H

ave you ever noticed that kids are great at role play?

They easily get in the flow of another character and assume the identity that he/she/they portray. Research has shown that the more kids get into ‘role’ and the more they feel that character, the more powerful an ally the identity, often a superhero, can be in their lives. They are able to call on it almost at will and use the ‘powers’ of that identity to help move them forward. Teenagers continue to experiment with and try out different identities in order to find out who they are and what they are capable of achieving. As adults, we tend to think of our identity as being more fixed. This is a bit of a misnomer as our identity is actually quite fluid and can change depending on where we are and who we are with.

Exploring this subject with my students gave me pause to wonder whether identity could help me to understand why some parts of our lives can flow so well and some parts, not so much! We all have goals that we want to achieve and sometimes they seem a little unreachable or we block ourselves in some way. It is here that I have found how a new perspective on the subject of identity can help enormously.

It strikes me that we assume different identities continuously in our lives. We are the mother, the father, the leader, the boss, the diligent worker, the athlete, the speaker, the author, the party animal, the recluse, the taxi driver, the social worker, the loyal friend. These identities are slipped into without us thinking much about them. This is (and always has been) a natural human gift and can be used as a tool for moving ourselves forward.

I will use myself as an example. At work, I am my optimal self: energetic, positive, well balanced, open and generally joyous. I am so because I want the students in my care to get the very best of me, because they deserve it. It also seems to come naturally to me. It is my work identity. I can put it on like a cloak as soon as I walk through the doors in the morning. There are, however, other parts of my life that I find more challenging. Why is this and how can looking at my identity in those areas help me? Let’s take health and fitness as an example. I realised a while ago that I was struggling in this area. When I analysed my identity in this context, I clearly saw that I didn’t identify as someone who was healthy and well. (To be honest, it was something that I always thought I would get around to later!) No wonder that things were falling apart! I realised I could take the work I had done about identity with the kids I teach to help me in this other area of life.

The power of this was two fold. Firstly, by understanding how healthy people identify themselves, I was able to work out what this looked like in my life and clearly see where I wanted to go. I had direction. Secondly, I then had a framework on which to hang the changes I needed to make to see this identity flourish. I was able to clearly see the baby steps, the activities I needed to engage in regularly, which

It strikes me that we assume different identities continuously in our lives.

would lead me closer and closer to the new identity I held before myself. I had to change my habits and then build new ones.

I found a great book on the subject - interesting how books sometimes fall into your hands at exactly the moment that you need them! The book is titled, The Alter Ego Effect, by Todd Herman. His work demonstrated to me that I was on the right track. As Todd says, “This identity trick can be applied to any area of your life that you want to enhance.”

Is there a place in your life you are not showing up as your best? Do you want to find your 'flow' more easily? Do you want to be a better wife, girlfriend, friend, mother, boss or team player? Do you want a better level of fitness? Would you like to study more? Whatever it is that you want, working out what identity you need to incorporate into your being or what identity will get you to your goal can be of tremendous value. It has an almost magical effect of overriding the things that stand in your way. You will likely find that this identity was actually part of you all along!

Jo McBrown ReSeed Yourself Fascinated by human behaviour, Jo knows that no one does anything without reason. Her passion is to support others to make breakthroughs in understanding how they work so they live their best lives. Jo has a warm, humorous, open and non-judgmental outlook.

Her experience as a coach, mentor and teacher of all ages means she has a huge depth of knowledge and practical tools that can be applied immediately.

Jo can be reached at:

reseedyourself@gmail.com

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ELIAS KANARIS

Driving the School Bus Five Business Lessons Learned on the Route

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hen my wife came home and told me that they were looking for someone to step in and drive the school bus, I had no idea that she was thinking about me.

They needed someone who could drive a stick-shift. Tick!

They needed someone who was fully vaxed. Tick!

They needed someone who was in the country. Tick!

They needed someone who could fit this into their morning and afternoon routines. Hold on… you’ve got to be kidding…

The travel time between our locations wasn’t onerous, but it required shifting a lot of things around to make it happen. I was running my own business. Adding this to the mix was going to impact me on many levels. So, with a bit of planning, here are the five points that I learned from this experience that has helped me to grow my business.

Being on the road for up to two hours a day, I needed to make this work for me and my business. The pickup time for the kids in our Mt Wellington campus was 7:45am and the return trip departure time was scheduled for 3:45pm.

Whilst the physical distance was only 30km each way, traffic conditions could significantly impact my day. Therefore, I had to hatch a plan.

Teachers Matter

It became apparent that the children were not the problem – it was their parents. We communicated via a Facebook Messenger group. My daily routine started by asking if any parents were running late or if their children were not catching the bus. This started a regular dialogue with the parents.

Plan ahead to make sure that you can fit it all in.

1 – Time Management Is Essential

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2 – Educating The Parents Is Essential

My normal daytime routine started at 6:30am with a 90-minute walk. Driving the bus necessitated a change. The new plan meant waking up at 5:30am, showering, getting changed and heading out of the door by 6:00am. It was a 40-minute walk to where the bus was parked. I would prepare the bus and be ready to leave by 6:50am at the latest.

Arrival at the Mt Wellington campus was between 7:15 and 7:25am (subject to traffic).

The plan was to leave Mt Wellington with a full compliment of children in the bus at 7:45am, but that was difficult to accomplish given that some of the families didn’t arrive until 8:05am!

I used the chance to introduce myself and build a rapport with them. Soon I identified the families most likely to be late. What I now needed to do was to connect with them and get them to buy into me. This was done by putting myself in their shoes and explaining how I also had to struggle to complete chores in the morning and get my children off to the same school on time.

I added that as a business owner, I needed to be extra diligent with my time to ensure that I got things done in a timely manner. I reminded them that taking the extra 10 minutes in the morning (or the night before) to prepare paid dividends for their children, who could arrive on time at school refreshed and stress-free!

3 – Reinforcing Good Behaviour Is Essential With strong on-going communication, celebrating the wins of leaving on time, avoiding traffic build up, and arriving early at school, I started to notice that the families most prone to tardy behaviour were starting to change. I made sure that their children knew that I had noticed them arriving earlier and encouraged them to tell their parents that they were doing an awesome job! Encouragement goes a long way.

4 – Rewarding Yourself Is Essential As time progressed, we would be leaving the Mt Wellington campus on time - and occasionally ahead of time! This meant that we would return to school to drop the children off by 8:10 or 8:15am. With my 40-minute walk back home,

ELIAS KANARIS

I was not only getting in my daily exercise allocation, but I was able to get back to my office around 9:00am.

My route just so happened to take me past the local café, where I would stop off to order a flat white and a date scone.

After all, it was a reward that I had earned!

5 – Focusing On The Right Things Is Essential

I understood that when life throws you a curve ball, make sure that you don’t panic and take things in your stride. Plan ahead to make sure that you can fit it all in. What I found was that my business has continued to grow even though I had less time to dedicate to it.

Now that the original driver is back in the country and able to reclaim his rightful role as bus driver, I have handed back the keys and taken ownership of navigating the way for my own business.

I now knew that I had to be focused between 9:00am and 3:15pm, Monday through Friday. This was the time that I allocated for my business.

It is easy to be distracted by ‘white noise’ that surrounds us. If I needed to have a client meeting, I would ask, “Can we do that virtually?” as this helped to save unproductive travel time in my day. I was already on the road for up to 2 hours – why would I want to spend more time on the road?

WHAT DID I LEARN FROM THIS EXPERIENCE? Well, the first thing that I learned is that I got attached to the children and their families. As a motivational leadership teacher, I wanted to bless each child and their family. I gifted a copy of my book, Leading From The Stop, to the parents and made sure that the older children received a copy of John Maxwell’s book, Sometime You Win, Sometimes You Learn For Teens. I believe that it is important to invest in others and to leave a legacy.

Elias Kanaris Elias Kanaris is a professional speaker who talks about resilience and leadership. He’s the author of ‘Leading From The Stop’ where he shares leadership lessons learned from the people of Newfoundland, Canada in the aftermath of 9/11. It is about positive influence and heartfelt resilience in times of adversity.

You can contact Elias here:

elias@EliasKanaris.com or visit:

www.EliasKanaris.com

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JUDITH YEABSLEY

Picky Eating is a Spectrum How to Best Support a Picky Eater

P

icky eating is a spectrum rather than a fixed definition (even in medical circles), which can cause some difficulty when looking for advice. It also means that what is ideal for one child may not be a fit for another.

Generally bandied around advice includes: • Just feed them what you’re eating. They will learn to eat it.

Teachers Matter

• Children don’t starve. They will eat when hungry.

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• Feed them what they like. They’ll branch out when ready.

• It’s just a phase. Relax.

• They are growing fine, so don’t stress.

Advice like this comes from friends and family, but also professionals who work with children and it is not necessarily incorrect. There is some truth in most of it. But, (and this is a BIG but) like much general advice, it can be appropriate for some children but not others. If this truth

JUDITH YEABSLEY

was equated to exercise, it might sound like this: Yes, it is good for everyone to move, but the plan given to a marathon runner would not be the same as for someone beginning an exercise program.

Eating is the same. A child who prefers nuggets to broccoli is not facing the same challenge as a child who looks at a pizza and thinks, “That is so scary looking.” Therefore, we would not treat them the same way. The child who struggles to eat pizza may well starve themselves rather than eat foods, which to them, are extremely discomforting.

There are a frightening number of children for whom this is the case.

Thinking of fussy eating as a spectrum is a great way to conceptualise how different children are at either end and therefore, how advice, strategies and approach must also differ.

The Picky Eating Spectrum Knowing where a child sits on the spectrum can help make decisions that support them long term. For example, if a child sees pizza and thinks ‘spiders,’ they are probably not going to wake up the following day and happily eat the family meal – no matter how hungry!

An averagely picky eater: • Eats 25+ foods.

• Does not have an extreme reaction to new foods.

• Will sometimes try something new.

• Eats from all the main food groups – protein/carbs/ fruit and vegetables.

Towards the far right of the spectrum are the super selective eaters.

A super selective eater: • Eats less than 15 foods.

• Has an extreme reaction to new foods.

• Rarely tries something new.

• Does not eat from all the main food groups – protein/ carbs/fruit and vegetables.

As it is a spectrum, a child may be a mix of the two. For example, they may eat a fairly wide range of foods, but have a really extreme reaction to something new. Also, super selective eaters are way more common than you may think. It is important that we recognise that if a child is this selective, it’s unlikely they will magically snap out of it.

Logically, if food is this difficult, why would they suddenly say, “Just kidding! Give me the moussaka!”

For children who do find food very challenging, much of the ‘normal’ advice is unhelpful or even inappropriate. For example, serving regular dinner foods or food at camp and creating a situation where it is, in effect, eat it or starve. How does this reduce anxiety around food for those children?

How does this build a positive relationship with food in general? How does being hungry - or stopping eating regularly and losing those natural hunger cues - help make progress?

The left-hand side of the spectrum is children who prefer to eat their favourites (as do most of us) but CAN eat a range of foods. On the far right of the spectrum are children with ARFID (Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder), who struggle to eat enough calories to fuel their body.

From the left moving towards the right there are averagely picky eaters.

With children who have extreme reactions to new foods, support is going to be most helpful when it’s tailored to them specifically and works with their individual needs.

Or at least doesn’t inadvertently make challenges worse.

However, there are many ways to support even the most anxious and challenged of eaters. But, knowing where a child sits is important and useful. It also enables us to filter advice.

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JUDITH YEABSLEY

Adding food independently and without support is unlikely if: 1. They have not added anything for a long time.

2. They are unable to taste new foods.

3. They have an extreme negative reaction to new foods.

4. They are funnelling, which is where a child refuses to eat foods they previously accepted.

It is one of the biggest areas of concern and yet is not commonly discussed or identified. Many super selective eaters go backward rather than forward over time. This occurs as they get bored or have bad experiences with foods – or their approach becomes more rigid – so foods are dropped.

Neither option is right or wrong. It’s a question of what’s a fit for the family.

What can Parents and Caregivers Do? Firstly, recognise where a child sits on the picky eating spectrum.

Teachers Matter

Secondly, filter all advice through the lens of a child’s specific situation.

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Lastly, evaluate whether you are able to make changes that will support them to move forward, or whether you are comfortable adopting a relaxed ‘wait and see’ approach.

Neither option is right or wrong. It’s a question of what’s a fit for the family.

Judith Yeabsley Judith is an AOTA accrediated picky eating advisor and internationally nutriontional therapist. She works with hundreds of families every year resolving fussy eating and returning pleasure and joy to the meal table. She is also mummy to two boys and the author of Creating Confident Eaters and Winner, Winner I Eat Dinner. Her dream is that every child is able to approach food from a place of safety and joy, not fear.

You may contact her at:

Judith@theconfidenteater.com

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HELEN MEYER

Therapeutic Storywriting What it is and Why it’s Important

T

herapeutic Storywriting explores the relationship between emotional and cognitive development, the emotional significance of story metaphor and active listening in the context of story work.

At any one time, almost 14% of children aged 4 – 11 years have experienced a mental health disorder. The most common disorder for children is ADHD, which is the most common disorder among boys. Anxiety disorders, coming in second – are the most common difficulty among girls.

Teachers Matter

Just as it “takes a village to raise a child,” it also takes more than one program or approach to support a child at-risk or with needs.

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Children need access to good nutrition, adequate sleep, a range of exercise activities and where appropriate, access to medical treatment. Well placed, evidence-based school centred programs can play a significant role in supporting a child’s emotional wellbeing.

Therapeutic Storywriting is a targeted mental health intervention with a proven impact. Not only do children in the group develop their wellbeing but they also improve their literacy skills and their ability to thrive in learning situations. This program provides emotional support whilst

also doing the main job of teaching. One way this can be done is to bring more psychological mindedness into the school environment.

What is Therapeutic Storywriting?

Therapeutic Storywriting aims to help develop the confidence in children and young people to talk about, and understand, any troubling emotions that are holding them back. The program works with the metaphor in stories written by the students themselves to address the emotional issues that are getting in the way of children’s learning. The stories they write allow children to project their feelings onto the characters they are writing about. This enables them to explore difficult feelings without getting overwhelmed.

Each group usually consists of six students aged 7-13 years.

The program runs for ten sessions and each session lasts an hour.

How does the Therapeutic Storywriting session begin?

Therapeutic Storywriting Groups start with a mindfulness exercise which helps the students relax before the writing

HELEN MEYER

Just as it “takes a village to raise a child,” it also takes more than one program or approach to support a child at-risk or with needs.

3. The program is appropriate for those with dyslexia.

Research by Harris (2013) found that Therapeutic Storywriting led to significant improvements in children’s emotional vocabulary and sense of belonging.

Holder (2015) found that it led to a significant reduction in levels of anxiety and improvements in verbal working memory.

4. Other reported benefits include such as improvements in students’ motivation to write, in listening skills, in confidence in their own ideas and in being more willing to work independently and put forward more creative ideas.

Why does the program do so well? begins. This pause can then help to focus minds on the content of the story as Therapeutic Storywriting is not primarily concerned with spelling, grammar and structure but on developing plot coherence and characters in which the child can relate. This may be why teachers often report that children write more in these groups than they ever write in class.

What does a typical Therapeutic Storywriting session look like?

1. A typical session starts with a ‘mindfulness’ activity to help the students relax, followed by a feelings ‘checkin,’ where student’s place themselves on a ‘ladder’ to show their current emotional state.

2. Next is a suggestion for a story, such as, ‘There was once a very angry dragon…’ and the students then write their pieces.

Children are challenged appropriately in the groups and are encouraged to build their confidence in their schoolwork through participation in the groups. Over time, writing skills can improve and with that comes potential development across the curriculum for children in Therapeutic Storywriting groups. The fact that children receive their finished stories typed up, with correct spelling and punctuation, can greatly boost their confidence as a writer.

Who can be trained do deliver the program?

Professionals including teachers, counsellors, psychologists and teacher aides can be trained allowing schools and play therapists to set up storywriting groups in the knowledge that this intervention is evidence-based and demonstrably effective in improving the wellbeing of children as well as their literacy skills.

3. At the end, they share their stories and, while listening, illustrate their own.

4. Often there is a review of emotions at the end.

5. The facilitator then types up the stories and provides feedback to the students on their work. This feedback is very important as it validates their writing and gives the students something to be proud of.

What are the benefits of the Therapeutic Storywriting method?

Research has shown that: 1. It can increase the motivation of students whilst giving them the chance to explore their emotions through writing stories, reading them to others and drawing pictures. It also allows students to take control of their situation and change how they approach things in the future.

2. It improves students’ literacy skills as well as their emotional wellbeing.

Helen Meyer Helen Meyer is a special education consultant based in Sydney. Her experience spans more than 30 years across primary and secondary schools working with students, teachers and parents. She is inspired by her strong interest in a dynamic approach to thinking and learning. She is an accredited trainer of three programs: Therapeutic Storywriting, Cognitive Abilities Profile and the Bright Start program.

For more information, visit

www.broadeningspecialeducation.com or email helen.specialeducation@gmail.com

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MADELEINE TAYLOR

Stress and Burnout What’s the Difference?

What is Stress?

Stress is defined in terms of the interaction between a person and their (work) environment and is: 1. The awareness of not being able to cope with the demands of one’s environment, when

2. This realisation is of concern to the person, in that both are associated with negative emotional response.

What are the signs?

Teachers Matter

Individual

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Organisational

Type

Some Examples

Type

Some Examples

Physiological

Tiredness, shallow breathing, muscle tension

Physiological

Lots of sick leave, tension, unhappy staff, high staff turnover

Behavioural

Sleep problems, too many things on the go, changes in standards of appearance

Behavioural

Accidents, mistakes, systems not working well, people indifferent to the job, too much going on

Relationship

Reduced tolerance, grumpy with others, avoidance

Relationship

Conflict, role confusion, problem focused, noncommittal, disconnection with leadership

Emotional

Marked mood swings, powerful emotions

Emotional

Lots of changes and tension, fault finding culture, blaming

Spiritual

Loss of connectedness to beliefs and purpose

Spiritual

Lacks of connection to purpose and group behaviour does not match the stated purpose

MADELEINE TAYLOR What is Burnout?

Other things that can contribute:

It can be anything that is causing ongoing stress or pressure – where the physical, mental or emotional demand exceeds the available capacity.

• Working long hours or having a heavy workload.

It is common in certain professions, such as healthcare, emergency services and law enforcement. These ‘helping professions’ can be emotionally draining work, particularly in situations where the individual is unable to fully control the outcome of a stressful event.

• Unclear boundaries or expectations.

Specifically prolonged stress or problems at work tend to be the most common reasons.

What are the symptoms?

• Do you feel like you have to drag yourself to work, and having trouble getting started once you get there?

• Do you lack energy and productivity?

• Do you have difficulty concentrating?

• Are you excessively irritated or frustrated with colleagues or clients?

• Do you have a lack of satisfaction from your achievements?

• Are you feeling like a failure?

• Are you overwhelmed or unable to cope with the pressures of the job?

• Do you feel helpless?

• Are you experiencing a drop in confidence or a lack of self-efficacy?

• Having high pressure to perform.

• Negative workplace environments.

• Perfectionist tendencies or difficulty managing work/ life boundaries.

• Being consistently bored.

The different types of fatigue: • Moral Exhaustion This occurs when we are overwhelmed by so many moral obligations that we just don’t have the energy to do every single thing right.

• Compassion Fatigue This occurs when psychologists or others take on the suffering of patients who have experienced extreme stress or trauma and often suffer stress or trauma themselves.

• Decision Making Fatigue or Moral Fatigue Michael Baur explained, “In the pandemic, previously routine decisions (Simple decisions such as going out to eat or visiting relatives.) suddenly had potentially significant health consequences for others and, therefore, became freighted with moral considerations that had not previously existed.

• Self-control Exhaustion (or Self-control Depletion) The underlying idea here is that it takes self-control to resist temptations we face to unethically advantage ourselves. We may have opportunities to

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MADELEINE TAYLOR sleep with attractive people who are not our spouses, or to take credit for accomplishments at work that are not our own or to cheat on an examination in school.

If we have depleted our self-control by working very hard, training for a marathon, following a very strict diet or resisting other temptations to act unethically, we may not have enough self-control left to resist new moral temptations. The evidence for the existence of Self-control Exhaustion in the psychology literature is mixed, but it is supported by significant evidence that people are more likely to screw up if they are tired or hungry or stressed.

Take time to recharge the batteries. Do what you find most restorative.

What is the difference between stress and burnout?

While chronic stress is typically indicated by an overactive nervous system (ie., trouble switching off, a busy mind, elevated heart rate or feeling anxious), burnout sits at the opposite end of the spectrum. (ie., disengagement, detachment, feeling beyond caring) • Stress is… “If I could just get XYZ done, then I would be able to relax.”

• Burnout is… “I’ve got nothing left to give anymore.”

• Maintain a work/life balance.

• Connect with others who make you laugh.

• Do work that matters to you.

• Take time to recharge the batteries. Do what you find most restorative such as coffee with a friend, time in nature, art, music, journaling or a hot bath.

Recognising the difference helps you to take stock and to work out the best course of action.

How to recover?

The answers lie in the old advice: • Get enough sleep.

• Eat food that nourishes you.

• Move your body enough and avoiding long periods of sitting.

Teachers Matter

Madeleine Taylor

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Madeleine Taylor is a parent of three grown sons and works as a People Skills Consultant. Madeleine is an accomplished workshop facilitator and long-time trainer of negotiation, influencing skills and managing difficult conversations. Madeleine is a parent educator exploring how to grow resilient children in this complex world.

She also is the coauthor of “The Business of People Leadership for a changing world.” Published 2020.

Madeleine can be contacted at:

madeleine@peopleskillsconsulting.co.nz

LESLEY JOHNSON

The Pleasure of a Great Read Build a strong, reciprocal and interactive reading community in your classroom

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he true value of a good book often seems to get lost when it is translated for the purpose of sharing digitally where actions become more important than vocabulary.

Reading for pleasure tends to be replaced by both children and parents by screentime, lessening the benefits of reading influence on our behaviour patterns. Strong levels of grammar and text comprehension, content knowledge, vocabulary growth, spelling, phonemic awareness and, perhaps most importantly, self confidence as a reader are well researched benefits of reading for pleasure.

Reading is an important factor in social-emotional development as well. Children from homes where reading for pleasure is modelled will understand that reading is a form of entertainment. Children who value and enjoy reading are more inclined to understand their different

feelings and emotions as they ponder the experiences and reactions of the characters in the story plot. This also encourages empathy for the feelings and actions of their peers. Reading can teach healthy ways to self regulate emotions by exposing the reader to situations and solutions they might never otherwise encounter in their lives.

Through the process where children read and find commonalities in different storylines, they develop their own voice, their ability to relate to different situations, to think and problem solve on their own before seeking help from an adult.

A two-phase research completed by Open University and the UK Literacy Association examined children’s and teachers’ reading lives, and established effective ways to support Reading for Pleasure.

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LESLEY JOHNSON

Reading is an important factor in social-emotional development.

• Teachers are encouraged to plan for reading for pleasure alongside formal reading instruction.

• Gain and use a wider knowledge of children’s literature and other texts to enable them to enrich children’s pleasure and experience in reading.

• Encourage children to enact greater control over their choice of what they read.

• Make time in the reading programme for children to explore texts in greater depth, share their favourite stories and talk spontaneously about their reading.

• Actively seek to build interactive and reciprocal groups of readers.

I was recently introduced to author Anna Kenna’s three-part series, Viola Vincent Reporting. Anna is a former journalist, working in television, newspaper and radio. Taking a break from investigative journalism, Anna took part in a creative writing course. This sparked a career change to writing books for young readers using her investigative journalism talents to help enlighten and entertain the young readers about important current global issues and topics of injustice.

Anna states:

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“My books are for kids who care about what’s happening in the world and for parents interested in raising good global citizens, who are tolerant and compassionate.”

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Her three-part series, ‘Viola Vincent Reporting,’ is built around the journeys of Caitlin Nove, a 13-year old girl, whose experiences become the subject for her investigation.

These are nurtured by her journalist friend, Megan, and her admiration for a great aunt whose short, but illustrious, journalism career ended in tragedy.

All three books in the Violet Vincent Reporting series are published by Tiromoana Publishing.

Lesley Johnson Lesley Johnson has taught for 30 years. The facilitation of an ICTPD cluster nurtured her three passions: Literacy, ICT tools and Thinking Strategies. She now runs her online business, Read Think Learn, providing online literacy resources that promote higher order thinking.

For more information, please visit:

www.readthinklearn.com

SEAN MCCORMICK

Interested In Becoming An Online Executive Function Coach?

Five Skills that Allow you to Teach from Home

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during 2020, due to the fact that many students struggle with managing, tracking and completing the various assignments provided by their teachers.

Online executive function coaching is a rapidly developing education niche that focuses on helping students with organisational challenges develop skills related to taskinitiation, time management, prioritisation, communication and other “functions” that help them reach their goals. As the founder of Executive Function Specialists, I watched my business grow from 1 to 30 clients in less than ten months

Since then, my business has grown to serve over 150 families by a team of credentialed educators and educational therapists who I have trained in the art and science of executive function coaching. I also have had the honor and privilege of speaking worldwide about how to support students with executive function challenges. Recently, I completed my training course, “Become An Online Executive Function Specialists,” for educators who want to utilise their teaching skills to support students through online executive function coaching. If you are thinking about

ave you been feeling worn down by working in a large school? Perhaps you want to transition from teaching, but don’t want to start a new career from scratch?

If you answered yes to either of these questions, you may want to consider leveraging your teaching skills to provide executive function coaching for students online.

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SEAN MCCORMICK grow from zero to thirty clients in less than ten months.

#3: You Know How To Work With Parents

a side-hustle or career switch, here are five skills you already possess that will make transitioning into online executive function coaching easy for you:

#1: You Know How To Write SMART Goals As a public, special education school teacher, writing specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound goals (SMART) was the secret sauce to helping my students make yearly progress. Having this skill made it easy to work effectively with parents and students and track and measure their progress so they knew they were getting value from my coaching. As an online executive function coach, by starting my work with a student having a clear metric of success, we knew what we needed to focus on in each session. As a teacher, you have been doing this for years, likely for many students, so making the leap to providing this for one student will be a piece of cake! Moreso, families will be immensely grateful when you set a goal and help their child reach it, quickly helping you develop a reputation as an effective coach.

Teachers Matter

#2: You Know How To Chunk Big Projects Into Manageable Bits

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Another critical skill to help students with executive function challenges is the ability to help them chunk test preparation and projects into manageable, daily bits. If you have worked as a learning specialist or special educator, you have been doing this your whole career! From helping students create a step-by-step study plan that they can check off each step of the way, to guiding them in plotting their assignments onto a color-coded calendar, you’ve likely been doing this for years as well. One of the core competencies of an online executive function coach is the ability to help a student break these larger, often overwhelming projects, into steps they can take each day. Parents of students with ADHD everywhere will sing your praises if you can apply this skill in your online coaching sessions. By consistently providing this support for students, I was able to quickly

As a special educator, I learned that keeping parents informed and aware of the approach and plan I was taking with their child allowed them to feel involved and engaged.

When a child would do something positive, I’d often write a short email to keep them informed of the good things that were happening. By filling up the “positive bank account,” when something challenging would come up, I would have the funds necessary to draw from if I needed their assistance. As an executive function coach, I take detailed notes on all that my clients accomplish in our sessions, which I then easily send to parents through my customer relationship management system, Tutorbird. These weekly updates allow parents to engage in the process and reinforce what we are working out, rather than making them wait for an annual meeting. If you have been communicating with parents as a teacher, providing these updates from your sessions will be second nature, and will allow you to foster positive relationships with your clients.

#4: You Know How To Gather Baseline Data and Progress Monitor Working with students with ADHD, autism and other special needs, I learned the importance of having clear, measurable goals that could help me understand if the student was making progress in their areas of need. To take it further, I found that having the student self-monitor their progress by showing them how to track their data on a Google Sheet boosted their confidence and increased their motivation. When the intervention wasn’t working, we would discuss the data and collaboratively adjust the approach. Teaching this to one student at a time is often more manageable than attempting to teach it to an entire class, and can be life-changing for students who struggle with missing assignments, tracking their grades and communicating proactively with their teachers.

#5: You Know How To Celebrate The Small Wins One of the most important things a great coach does is celebrate the small gains or what I like to call, “micro-wins.”

In my sessions, I always start with things that are going well when working with a student and their family. By starting this way, a student is more receptive to new ideas and feedback that can help them improve their organisational habits. While other teachers might describe a student as “lazy” or “careless”, it is my mission to find out what makes a student tick and how to motivate them. As an experienced educator, you know the power of a kind word and can easily

SEAN MCCORMICK

translate this skill into affirming and positive relationships with students that change their perspective on school into a positive one.

Online executive function coaching is a rapidly developing education niche that focuses on helping students with organisational challenges develop skills.

With all these tools in your toolbox, you are ready to create your own online coaching business and impact students with your wealth of experience. While it takes time to put your name out there and build a client base, the flexibility of creating your own schedule, working from home and trading paperwork for transformational relationships, is well worth the risk.

Sean McCormick Sean McCormick is an international coach and consultant.

He founded Executive Function Specialists, to help middle school, high school and college students strengthen their executive function skills so they can lead happier, more productive lives.

To stay connected to Sean, visit

www.efspecialists.com.

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KAREN TUI BOYES

Differentiation Supporting Students as Individuals and Valuing Student Voice

D

ifferentiation means tailoring the teaching and learning to meet individual student needs. It is the ability to modify and adapt within your classroom in several main areas. These include the content, process, products and the environment, as well as assessment and flexible grouping.

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Teachers in many countries I visit and work with are not as fortunate as many of us who work with a flexible curriculum, which gives us freedom of how we deliver it.

The necessity to differentiate the learning in our classrooms not only is facilitated by this freedom, it is also an important step away from teaching to the average, the one size fits all education and valuing each student as a unique person.

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An underlying factor in successful differentiation is the mindset of your learners. If they believe they do not have the capacity for growth, the ability to learn and improve and have what Carol Dweck refers to as a ‘fixed mindset,’ then a teacher's effort might be in vain.

It is recommended you spend time explicitly building students’ learning capacity, helping them understand the learning process as well as modelling and promoting a growth mindset before you launch into a personalised learning programme. Once students know themselves as a learner, your differentiation efforts are far more likely to gain more traction.

KAREN TUI BOYES Differentiating the Content As the teacher, you decide what the big ideas, learning intentions, skills or concepts all students are required to understand and know. This is likely to come from your curriculum documents. For example, in literacy, one learning goal is to understand opposing forces and morals by analysing and writing fables. While all students will be unpacking texts and designing their own fable through whole group instruction, you can individualise the content depending on the student’s ability and next steps in their learning. For example, some learners may be working on character development while others are practising adding speech into their text. Other learners may be working on sentence or paragraph formation, and still more working on using adjectives to describe the setting. Different skills can be taught in small withdrawal groups, mini-workshops or during coaching sessions. You may have some students within your field of study go off and conduct a mini project on a parallel topic or theme to give depth of understanding to their learning.

Providing choice within the content is another way to differentiate learning. For example, if students are exploring technological changes in sport, then the sport and the technology might be selected by the student (or a small group of students). In history, you could give students different time periods to explore, which will be shared with the class in a presentation format.

Another way to differentiate content is to know your students' likes and interests. A colleague I worked with had three boys in his classroom who adored WWF and was able to use this knowledge to motivate them in maths by using their ‘heroes’ as examples.

Differentiating the Process The process is how students make sense of information and their learning. Readiness is an important consideration at this step. Know what students can do, what they already know and consider what their next learning steps are.

Knowing your students and them having awareness of their personal learning preferences will support differentiating the process. Provide choice through instructional methods.

You might host discussion groups, engage learners with videos and/or provide experiences. For example, when studying a novel, give students the choice to read the text (hardcopy or in e-book format) or listen to the audiobook.

Station rotation learning can work well here, too.

Give students choice about whether they work alone, in pairs or in small groups. Ensure your students have insights into your expectations of working with others.

Other useful tools whilst giving the process options is to use reflective practices such as a think-pair-share or journaling, which allow students to reflect on their learning and if the

process was useful or not. This will provide more data and information about their personal learning preferences to strengthen their learning abilities further.

Differentiating the Product Giving students a choice about how they display or present their learning is one of the easiest ways to differentiate in the classroom. The purpose of the product is to apply what they can do, extend their understanding and skill, become involved in critical and creative thinking and to reflect on what they have learned.

There are 101 ways to show what you know. Products may vary in complexity depending on the student and where their next learning steps are. It is important to note here, that if you expect students to design a poster to show their understanding of a topic, it is essential you give them parameters and/or explicit instructions on what a successful poster contains. That is to say, have clear academic criteria that students understand for the product choice. You may also want to consider the product being aligned with the content you are teaching. A student once reported to me it took her two hours to learn the science content to a level she felt it was fully understood, and then another 12 hours to make the required short video to show her understanding.

Unless it was an integrated unit with the digital tech teacher, she may have been able to use those 12 hours more productively on more focused learning.

Give students three or four options to show their understanding. You may even wish to add a student choice option that needs to be negotiated with the teacher. I have a class rule which says, “If you made a podcast last time, you need to choose another way to show what you know this time.” Students who really want to refine their learning of

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KAREN TUI BOYES

Being able to differentiate the learning in your classroom ensures students have their voices heard and is a step towards helping them become self-directed learners. product delivery, such as improving their podcast skills, can negotiate with extended criteria to show growth in this area.

Differentiating the Environment Environmental preferences such as where students work and learn is another simple shift to provide choice. This includes having spaces for students to spread out, a quiet area, a place for students to work alone or in groups. It might include an area for performance or discussion.

What is important is that you, as the teacher, continually work towards making your classroom a safe place for learners - a place where students feel safe enough to ask questions, be vulnerable, try new ideas, make mistakes and risk failure. This takes time by getting to know your students, being consistent, building positive relationships, etc.

Teachers Matter

Differentiating Assessment

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The purpose of providing differing assessment options is to personalise the learning and allow students to use prior knowledge and work on their next steps of learning. For example, if you have a rubric with ten criteria, you can have some students work on all ten or give them a choice of four they want to be assessed on and you choose four that you will mark. (Make sure they know which four you have chosen!) In this way, you can easily personalise the assessment. You may have some students only focused on two or three of the criteria. It all depends on your educational outcomes and goals for them.

The key is to make criteria explicit and measurable and ask students to self-assess against the criteria before you assess them.

Ask Your Students Perhaps one of the best ways to create a differentiated classroom is to ask your learners. My favourite way to do

this is to give each student two different colours of post-it notes – on the blue one, invite them to write something they perceive you do well as a teacher. On the second post-it, record one thing they believe you can improve and do better at. This can be insightful and scary all at the same time.

Another way is to share with your students the outcomes for your next unit or piece of work. Invite your learners to consider and share how they might make this the best, coolest, most fun project or unit ever. It always astounds me how creative and insightful they can be!

Being able to differentiate the learning in your classroom ensures students have their voices heard and is a step towards helping them become self-directed learners. It is empowering for learners and a great way to help them stretch and grow.

Karen Tui Boyes Karen Tui Boyes is a champion for Lifelong Learning across nations, industries and organisations. Winner of the NZ Educator of the Year 2017 and 2014 and the NZ Speaker of the Year award in 2013 & 2019, Karen is a sought after speaker who continually gets rave reviews from audiences around the world. Her dynamic style and highly informative content—which turns the latest educational research into easy-to-implement strategies and techniques — sets her apart from others in her field.

Find out more at:

www.spectrumeducation.com

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