School can be a sad place to work sometimes. Particularly at this time of the year. Part of the brilliance of working in a school is that things are always changing, leading to new challenges and something new to focus on everyday. At the risk of sounding sentimental however, when the people change, it can be sad. This year lots of things have changed for me both professionally and personally. At the end of the year last year one of my good friends and colleagues left the school. It changed the dynamic at school and in our friendship circle but in a way became a blessing because I feel that I have had new opportunities that I may not have had if he was still at the school. At this time of the year the realisation also sets in that the students that you have spent the entire year nurturing through year 12 (and possibly through several years before it) are leaving the school and you are likely never to see them again. You form relationships in this job and invest yourself in the students and then they leave and you rarely hear from them again which is difficult but part of the job. I think that the hardest thing about this job is the high turnover of teachers. Even in our school which does not have a high staff turnover by comparison has teachers leaving every year. This year two staff members who have become quite good friends to me are leaving. It's going to make next year another very different year to this one. Less of the people I love to be around and more hard work. I have found this year that it has been very hard to tune out work when I am at work and to relax and have fun. It has become easier to make work time work time and not to worry too much about socialising during the day because I simply have not had the time nor opportunity to socialise. And I also find that I can't tune out. I can't be frivolous and stupid and crazy as easily as I used to because I feel like there is a heavier weight on my shoulders these days. I'm constantly thinking about what the next task is that I have to complete or who the next person is who needs a piece of me for whatever reason. I'm hoping that the heavy weight will subside now that I am on holidays and that I can endeavour to start next year so organised that I don't feel like my load is a heavy weight on my shoulders next year. I am happy to work hard, don't get me wrong. What I am not happy to do though is allow work to change me and to stop me from having fun and being light-hearted. The only way to do that I think is to be super-organised from the beginning of the year which will involve planning ALL my lessons for all three of my classes as well as writing, organising and timetabling as much of the Year 9 program as I can before we start. So I think that I am going to have to allow myself to have the 10 days of Thailand to myself (maybe just read the novels I will be teaching on the beach) and spend the rest of the hols planning. This still gives me a nice holiday but will hopefully give me the best start to the year possible. That way I can spend next year focussing on correction and helping students and dealing with the new problems that fall on my plate without having to deal with the every-days like planning for classes too. Of course this is fine in theory...now I just have to make it happen.

Scrunch me up in a little ball and call me screwed.

I should be doing a million things right now. I should be writing the subject selection handout for the Year 9 program next year. I should be correcting Year 11 Exams. I could be writing reports. Instead I am sitting here because I can't concentrate. I don't want to seem ungrateful I guess, but I found out my allotment for next year a couple of days ago and I am not really happy. It seems that despite what I once thought, I am not immune to being told one thing and assured that that is what will happen and then having something entirely different eventuate. I worked really hard this year. I'm not saying no-one else did, but I often worked 12 hour days to get things done for this program, to build it from the ground up, and to make sure that things worked. And the work is not all done - next year there are many changes that need to be implemented to ensure that the program grows and improves. Despite being told that I would be getting my normal Year 12 and Year 11 English then BYTEs to make up the rest of my allotment, I have been given a Year 9 English class as well, and only 3 periods of my allotment are made up of BYTES classes. This effectively means that I am running a program that I have only minimal involvement in. This year, I was only timetabled into 5 periods of BYTES and was free during all of the other periods which meant that I could go into all 12 periods in a week as necessary without having to be covered. This next year I am timetabled into 3 periods of BYTES and timetabled against at least 2 if not 6 periods of BYTEs which means that I am unable to even visit other periods in my time off.
I feel like my load has been made larger, not smaller and that I am going to be unable to do all the things that I had planned for next year. I feel that the program will suffer because there is not enough investment in it and that my free time will suffer with 12 -hour days again whilst I run the program, learn the new texts at Year 12 for English and learn the entire course for Year 9 English which I have not taught before. But mostly I feel betrayed. I know that timetabling a whole school is not an easy task but when you are told one thing and another happens it would be nice to at least be told. There is an unfairness too to the way these things are done and that annoys me.
Most importantly I am getting insight into why so many young graduates spend so little time in schools before moving into the wider workforce. Graduates are taking the heavy load in schools - teaching VCE classes, taking on extra responsibility, getting involved in the extra curricular programs, working long hours for little monetary reward but placing their faith in the fact that their hard work will be rewarded other ways - through appreciation and consideration. It seems that I was wrong on both counts and I am not the only one who is unhappy. I guess it just takes the shine off things for me and makes me fearful about what next year will involve instead of being excited like I was a week ago. It is much easier to work your arse off when you feel like people are acknowledging the effort you are putting in.
I guess that I just need to get all of this off my chest. I will feel better when I have managed to get through some more of the tasks that are taking my focus right now and started to work on preparing for next year. It seems like at the moment there is this never-ending wall of work in front of me and I can see that I will be plodding through it for a long time to come. I don't want to sound like I am a sooky la la but just express my (hopefully) momentary disillusionment at this point in time. If there is anything that I can say in my own motivation it is that I am resilient and I will get over this and get on with it and make it work and probably be a better person for it but maybe I will also be a little bit broken... a little bit closer to being bitter and twisted like those that I see around me...something that I hoped would not happen to me...

The end in sight...nope, just another mirage

The start of term 4 brings with it the end of a chapter. The year 12's finish on Wednesday and this will leave with me a total of 5 periods of teaching time each week until the year 11s leave (and that is only 2 weeks later). Don't get me wrong - I'm really excited, but the things that I have been putting off as long as I can are starting to come back and bite me on the proverbial. The year 12s will keep visiting me during my frees so as much as they are gone they are really not gone but it is really the BYTES program that has been begging for my attention lately. At this time of the year I start to look forward to next year. Normally you don't really have an idea of what you will be teaching yet, but at least I know that the BYTEs program is still under my wing. This means there is so much to do before the start of next year.
There is timetabling, staffing, curriculum development, deciding on which BYTES to run, organising the orientation sessions for the first week back including lesson plans and activities for staff and students, meetings about what has gone well, what needs improvement, meetings about new technologies that need to be learnt and bought, and numerous other things including meetings about the new building that is being custom built for the program and is already 6 months behind schedule.
The beauty is that I am excited about it. I feel like this is my real focus at the moment and the whole teaching thing is just getting in the way a bit of me doing what i really am interested in. I am really ready to launch myself into all the tasks that I have been putting off for the entire term and a bit of last term too. I'm really ready to get things organised for next year and to make all the changes I have been wanting to make that I know will improve the program and make it even better. The feedback from students and other staff has been really positive and it is nice to be able to see the fruits of your labour. Unlike the classroom where the students would get a mark regardless of how you taught, (not saying that good teaching wont make all the difference to the students) but this program actually wouldn't exist, or certainly not in its current form, without me. It is a nice feeling. But the work is not over and I am not willing to sit back yet. Or ever really. It is not in my nature to sit still. I constantly need a new challenge. Something to occupy myself. Something to push me. Once I've found it and conquered the challenge I have to move the goal posts or I am bored. It is something that I have only really just learnt about myself. Like the fact that I am a visual learner. I don't really remember things that I'm told but if I read something I'll remember it for life.
It is amazing how much I have learnt this year in general actually. This program has been brilliant for my technical knowledge about ICT. I have been forced to make the time to learn about technologies and programs that I have always wanted to learn but never had the time or reason to. It has made me a total technogeek and I'm loving it. It's all about the newest toy for me... and the latest one is a bluetooth slate for the interactive whiteboard. Kinda cool.
I guess I'm just really greatful that I have a job that I love that is different each day, is challenging, is rewarding and is teaching me so much about all the things I am interested in. The possibilities in the BYTES classroom are endless and I'm ready to head off and explore them.

Out of the haze...

Today is the first day that I sort of feel well again. I was kind of getting sick of hearing myself feeling unwell so it is nice to feel okay again. And out of the haze comes the catching up process. I have managed (through going home and sleeping when I wasn't teaching) to miss very few classes. I am not behind, but I am not as far forward as I should be at this point in time. The problem with trying to move so full-steam ahead all the time is that when you are not steaming ahead so quickly you feel like you are going backward.
This last week and a bit has been interesting. Out of the haze of my illness I am finally able to lift my head up and reassess where I am with all of my classes, where I should be and where to from here. I don't enjoy the feeling of dealing with the next thing that hits my plate without too much forward planning, however my life this year (and particularly the way the BYTES program has been running) actually necessitates this approach. No matter how organised I am or how much I forward plan, things are still coming up, and often at the last minute that need to be dealt with and leave me with no choice but to rejig my plans.
There have been some interesting developments with BYTES of late. As always with a new program, particularly when you are developing it as you go without much of a template, there has been a bit of unrest amongst some of the natives.
This round of BYTES modules sees the introduction of the compulsory English eZines module where the students create their own online zine on a topic of their choice. The students, in their publication groups, have meetings at the start of each session in order to set their goals and work out who is responsible for each task each session and are working in a self-paced way to produce lots of different types of articles, interviews, and graphics to populate their eZine.
The unrest is coming from a couple of places. There has been a niggling complaint about the lack of communication about what is actually being taught in the sessions. As always with BYTES, the curriculum planning is falling on my shoulders and due to my illness, the final version of the lesson plans were not available until Friday for the BYTE starting Monday. Most of the staff are used to working this way, and whilst it will be different next year when there is more time and more of the curriculum is already written, this year the BYTES staff are using their initiative and taking the plans, with little prior warning, and running with it. Most of the staff have been brilliant at this. Some are a bit resistent. I happened to walk into my AP's office in the middle of a class the other day to hear one of the staff members sooking about his lack of knowledge about what was happening in the class. I took the opportunity to point out that nobody in that room (and their were 6 staff members teaching that group at the time) had any more prior knowledge than he did, but three of the members came up to me with their lesson plans printed off, rolled up their sleeves, worked out what needed to be done and actually took over the running of the session from me so that I could go home (sick). I pointed out that it was only him and another staff member who wandered around looking like they had no idea of what they were supposed to be doing - everyone else got on with it and made the curriculum their own.
The issue seems to be that some staff members have been working on the small group BYTES on their own, and have not been involved in the large group BYTES that involve team teaching and shared responsibility. What annoys me is not that he is having difficulty adjusting but that he complains without offering constructive ideas for improvement and also that he never complains to me when I am the one that he is complaining about. I guess that for some of the staff the 'fly by the seat of your pants' teaching style that BYTES relies upon is a bit of an adjustment. In general though most of the staff have been fantastic.
The other issue is coming from the Year 9 staff members themselves. Year 9 English gave up a period per week (so from 5 periods down to 4) in order to enable the BYTEs program to go ahead, and in return has it's own 10 week BYTE that all students must complete. In return, the media task that Year 9 students were supposed to complete within English classes has been scrapped. Unfortunately the Year 9 teachers feel that they are struggling to get through the other items they are meant to be teaching in Year 9 English and because of this are starting to get angry. Whilst they realise that it seems that they are not going to be getting back their period any time soon, it is also becoming evident that they want something to give. We have suggested that one of the writing pieces being developed for the eZine could count toward their writing folio, thus giving them one assessment task less to complete in class but they don't seem to be taking that idea on board. I guess I will just have to wait and see what comes of the whole affair. I do know for certain however that they will not be getting that period back - BYTES is here to stay so they will have to find another way to be happy with the arrangement.
In all I am looking forward to this weekend with the hope that I will actually unpack my guilt bag, do the work I bought home with me and go back to school on Monday feeling on top of things. My other resolution is to blog more... okay so I still have work to do on that one!

Sick Days?... Pigs might fly...

Why are we teachers generally a bunch of martyrs? Or maybe it's not that we are martyrs, we just have an overdeveloped sense of our own importance and the value we add to our school and our students. I decided it was time for a long-overdue update on my life at school. In the past 6 weeks (so, yeah, most of this term actually) I have had tonsilitis 3 times. This third time (diagnosed on Thursday morning) is by far the worst. Razor blade swallowing would be less painful I am sure and the sweaty, half delirious nights brought on by my raised temperature are severely over-rated. The question is - did I take time off school to recover? Answer- No. Well not any full days anyway. I did what most other insane teachers do and prioritised my health below my Year 11 English student's preparation for their Point of View essay on Nuclear Energy. So Thursday morning I managed to work period one and two and then went home, slept for 4 hours and did two hours of curriculum writing for the new BYTES modules starting on Monday. Friday I rang in sick but told them I would be in at lunchtime, again to teach my Year 11's so that I dont have to postpone their assessment task.
It is interesting that we have this stupid notion as teachers that we can never afford to have time off. This time of the year is particularly bad for teachers with senior classes as the Year 12s (and I have two of them) only have 5 weeks left of school and the Year 11s not much longer. Add to that my BYTES load and I really can't afford to miss school - I get way too behind. So you would think that that would make me be smarter about my health and look after myself so that I dont get sick. Right? Wrong. The reason I am getting sick is because I am so run down. I had this theory that I would find a balance this year and work 12 hour days during the week if needs be (I generally only need to work 10 or 11 hour days so that's not too bad) if it means that I can go out both nights of the weekend and do no schoolwork during the weekend. It has been working fine except that I am going back to school on Monday tired from the weekend and worn out and it is finally catching up with me. The annoying part is that I had made the decision to start taking it a bit easier and to stop going out on the weekends for a bit starting next weekend, but illness beat me to the punch. And boy am I suffering. I feel the worst that I have since I got glandular fever in 1998 and I am only spending marginally less time in bed. If this is what it takes for me to learn my lesson though then I can handle that. Everything in moderation I guess. I havent really had anyone to tell me that for the past year. So in the meantime I am spending this weekend in bed watching episodes of Scrubs on my video i-pod that a student downloaded off the internet for me. Hopefully by tomorrow the razor-blades will have become a little more blunt and the golf balls that are my glands will have gone down a little. Hopefully I will be able to get some more of the work done that needs to be done for Monday. Maybe one day I will actually be able to relax and put my health first... Keep wishing for that one... Pigs might fly too...

Wish List

Today one of the staff who is working closely with me on the BYTES program asked me what it is that I want to do with the funding and CRT days that I have received for Digital Portfolios and for TPL. She got me thinking about exactly what it is that I would like to spend more time doing. It is easy when everything is so busy to forget to reflect and I think that I am at risk of that happening. I would like to have more time to work with the students on their Digital Portfolios one on one - if we are going to make this a worthwhile program and give them a product at the end that reflects their learning journey and their work in BYTES then it is important that they are given feedback and individual help and guidance on their portfolios in order to encourage that higher order thinking and reflection. In terms of making the project sustainable and looking at producing the best reflection over the long term, it is important that I am able to talk to the students to gauge where their strengths and weaknesses are with the project. I need to get their feedback on what they are enjoying/finding difficult/learning/not learning in order to make the necessary changes for next year.
In my typical style I am starting big - the whole of Year 9 is involved in our Digital Portfolio trial and this is one of the major issues for me in terms of managing the project. How do I get to all the students, keep them all on task, give them the sort of prompts that encourage reflection and learning in all students, when they all learn differently? My first challenge was to introduce the program. In those early stages my focus was on how to introduce the concept to the students, how to structure their work and how to get them all to the same level in terms of their ICT ability.
In this next phase, now that most students have started their portfolio and seem to be working quite well on it, is to refocus my energies on getting the focus for them back onto the content of the portfolio, rather on the set-up. I want to encourage evidence and reflection rather than just surface information. Whilst some students are doing this quite well, I think others need to have that one on one feedback to help them on their way.
Moving on from Digital Portfolios, but still related, I think that I need more time out of scheduled BYTES classes in order to go around to students and talk to them about the program and what they are doing in particular classes. I think that it is important to gather data from students about the program when they are actually working in it. At the moment I am teaching during half of the periods and so I am not free to do this. Perhaps I can use some of the TPL stuff to give me more time to pursue that avenue.
I think that it is important if we want the DP project, and BYTES on the whole to survive and thrive, this, being the trial year, is the year that we need to gather the most data about how to improve the program, what the students are enjoying or not and what the staff think needs to be done to really engage the students. Obviously this year we have had the issue of space - because our custom-designed MERC is not built yet and that is impacting on staffing and spaces and how we do things. The new building will make a big difference in terms of student and staff attitudes, teaching methods and facilities, and will see us truly team teaching for the first time.
Therefore I really want to work on further developing the curriculum, building in further choice and engagement for students and building in new opportunities for staff to relate to students on a different level.
I want to visit other schools and find out what it is that they are doing with their new spaces and their new curriculum - work out what is working and what is not - learn from their mistakes and their successes to enhance our own program. So I need to work out where I want to go and make that happen.
I want to spend more time doing this - writing and reflecting on exactly what it is that we are doing and what we are trying to achieve with DP's and BYTES. I want to spend more time reading and working out where to from here.
So now that I have worked out what it is that I think that I want the next challenge is how to see that it happens. To my trusty AP...

Professional Conduct?

I found out recently that one of my Year 12 English students is going to another Year 12 English teacher's classes in her free periods. Humph. This raises a variety of issues I guess. Is this really professional conduct? What message is it sending to the students (mine and his) and what are the implications of a student being taught the same topic by two different teachers?

Is it unprofessional to allow a colleague's student into your class? I know that some people would not see it as an issue as long as the student attends the class they are supposed to be attending but I fear that it is not as simple as that. Personally I don't know how to feel. In a way it is totally undermining for me to have a student choose to attend another teacher's class as well as mine. I know that it is probably only because the student is listening to the hype that the other teacher surrounds themselves in, but nonetheless it hurts my pride to think that my teaching may not be good enough in her opinion. Perhaps I need to get a thicker skin, but the fact remains that as teachers, we can console ourselves with the fact that our classroom is our domain to a large extent and no student can really compare us to anyone else because they are not in the other class. In this case the student is being taught the same thing by the two of us and is able to compare how we are teaching and what we are saying. It doesn't sit well with me either because I know that the other class are further into the play than we are so she has already learnt the content and so she sits in my class disinterested.
I guess some of my issue comes down to my own insecurity. I don't like the thought that the student may have decided that she thinks the other teacher is better than me or knows more or teaches better. What message does this send to my students? That they will not do well in my class because I am not a good enough teacher? That they will only succeed if they have this one particular English teacher? What does it say to his class? That I am so crap that one of my students chooses to attend 5 extra classes a week so that they actually learn something? Despite the fact that none of this may be true, that is the perception that the students may have based on the fact that she is in both classes.

The question that I ask myself is this... how should I feel about this situation? I am annoyed that a) One of my students saw fit to ask another teacher if they could sit in on their class because that hurts my ego and that b) that teacher said yes and allowed her on numerous occasions to be in that class. I know that b) has nothing to do with me and is all about that other teacher's ego but it still makes me uncomfortable.
It also makes me question myself which isn't fair. I prepare fully for my senior classes, and although it is the first year that I have taught Year 12 English I think that I am doing a pretty good job. This just takes the shine off things a little bit.
Regardless, I will continue to do my thing and try to remain unaffected by the whole affair. It is out of my hands now anyway because other people know about it and are dealing with it. I will continue to refuse to give extra help to or answer questions from other people's student's because that is undermining and unfair and hopefully some time soon others will begin to do the same...

Blah Blah Blah

At the moment our school is trialling online roll marking. Eventually, both the rolls and a lot of our teaching content will be available to us online - including other teacher's resources and ideas - a great way to teach and learn and collaborate. Being the technobrat that I am, I think the idea is great - the online roll marking (which is the only bit that is really up at the moment) is an easy program to use, takes the same amount of time as manually marking the roll in your chronicle and has the added benefit of making the roll monitors that used to travel from class to class checking attendence defunct. This means that your classes are no longer interrupted by a student who requires you to stop teaching and tell them who is absent. In all a great idea that actually saves us time already.
Unfortunately there are some (the vocal minority) who are unable to look past the fact that they have to take their laptop to class and that they have to log into the program which requires them entering their password three times and that the wireless network lets us down in some classrooms. I am constantly hearing people whingeing and complaining about such minor things. The general state of negativity to anything new in this school both depresses and aggravates me. I know that this school is no different from any other in terms of attitudes - in fact it is probably more progressive than many with a large cohort of graduate teachers who are embracing the changes as making their jobs more simple. However I still cannot escape the negativity that started with the mere suggestion of these changes last year and has continued throughout the training and particularly this week. Why do people get scared by the idea of change? Is it because they do not understand the process behind the system? Is it because they are stuck in their ways and fail to see the benefits of the new way of doing things? Is it because they have nothing better in their lives to focus their attention to? Nothing better to talk about and so they are using it as a conversation starter? It annoys me that technology is always the first thing to get a bashing from the uneducated and unconverted. It's the old adage of knocking what you don't understand I guess.
Needless to say - I haven't had any problems with the new system. It does not bother me that I have to type my password in three times to get into the system because I can type fast and it takes me about 8 seconds. I do not complain about having to take my laptop to class because I take it will me everywhere anyway (you never know when google or dictionary.com may com in handy in the English and History classroom). I do not feel the need to use this new system as a starting point for conversation because I have a life and plenty of other things to talk about that are far more important and worthy of my time (was that a bit harsh)?
So what am I doing about this? I am helping those who may have problems or concerns by showing them how to use the program effectively and by talking them through and explaining the technical difficulties that they may be having. The two staff members supporting the new system are doing a brilliant job - and working a lot harder than they should have to to ensure that there are minimal issues and that staff have the support they need. There is a new computer tech to join the other two in helping to sort out any of those issues and allow students. Largely though people are not actually having difficulties - over 90% of the rolls were marked for the very first day of the trial without an issue which I think is a brilliant achievement. Largely people just want to complain - any excuse will do. My technobrat solution - to put my new 60Gb Photo/Video I-pod in my ears on full volume and ignore them. It's the only way a girl can get any work done these days...

Some breathing space...

So I have finally had a chance to breathe this weekend. My reports are written, the new BYTES have started (generally without too much of a hitch), all of my correction is done and I managed to leave school on Friday without anything (including guilt-bag) in tow but my laptop - so nice to have such a light load on my shoulders. This last few weeks have been hectic to say the least. i have had Year 12 English SACS (50 SACs to correct with 4 essays in each), Year 12 History SACS (60 essays) and Year 11 Text Response Essays and exams. The BYTES changeover meant that I ran a six period long Digital Portfolio session for the entire year 9 cohort including producing a 37 page booklet to guide them. I also wrote the new english BYTE (with a little late help from my friend). Needless to say the school buildings and I have become inseparable over these past three weeks to the point where I have been working 12 hour days to get things done (and I still had to take last Wednesday off to get some of my SACS corrected). But I am not complaining. On the contrary it is nice to know that I am capable of such hard work and it is nice that I have the head-space to concentrate on my job so thoroughly. It is almost like I have such a clearer head this year and it is getting me places. I really feel like I can say that I have achieved this year already. I have pushed myself, I have dreamt big and then managed to make most of the dreams become reality in some form. I am happy, professionally, personally and emotionally. I am making decisions for myself about myself and my life and it feels nice to be in control.
In terms of work I feel like I have finally been challenged and given a role that I know that I can perform - something that is brand-new and that I get to make my stamp on. A new program that is being shaped and pushed along by me and that is challenging me but also giving me a sense of autonomy and control that I don't feel that I have had before. Despite the fact that I am at work at 7 in the morning and leaving at 7 at night at the moment, I feel that i am making progress and I am happy with my job right now. I am working the long hours during the week but trying to keep my weekends largely free in order to go out and have fun and let my hair down. So it seems that now, more than ever before I am getting the balance thing right. I am balancing work and play so that neither is suffering. I think it would be interesting if I was still in a relationship though - I think that it would be suffering because I am giving so much at school that when I get home I dont even want to talk (as my sister could tell you).
It is one of the interesting things about teaching I think. The job can be so all consuming and emotionally draining that it is hard to find that balance. It is difficult to switch off at the end of the day (if you are lucky enough to be able to spend enough hours at work to actually get your work done so that you dont have to bring it home). It is difficult not to take your work home with you whether it is planning, correction or even just the relationships. It is difficult to get to sleep some nights with everything going on in my head. But despite the things that make this job hard I love it and at this stage I wouldnt change it for anything.

A Learning Curve (of the mountainous variety)

I Just foudn this post and it was never finished but i think that it should be posted in the interest of capturing a moment...
So this has been one of those weeks. A week of mountains rather than undulating hills, a week of tiredness and bad moods (possibly due to last Saturday night and the hangover that endured longer than it should have) a week where it seems that possibly all that could have gone wrong has gone wrong. But it is Friday. And I am still here and relatively unscathed. This week I have been juggling my BYTES committments, including producing a 37 page instruction booklet for their Digital Portfolio project, with the committment to my student teacher, my Year 12 students (one class who are preparing for a SAC, one class who have just finished), Year 12 correction (of the aforementioned SACs), and a myriad of other things that crop up unexpectedly in the life of a teacher.

A BYTE Anyone?

It seems that old chestnut is true - it never rains it pours. Melbourne weather alone at the moment would suggest that is the case but there is also so many things going on in my life that are making me wish for finer weather.
Life at school at the moment is busy. The first round of BYTES modules are coming to a close which means that new curriculum is being written, subject selections are being done, student and staffing allocations are being organised, and we are also having our BYTES students complete a Digital Portfolio. All of these things are my responsibilities under my (undefined) role as BYTES coordinator and so my head has been full of nothing but BYTES for the past week with no end in sight. But I am plodding along and things are getting done. I am half way through the student manual I am producing on Digital Portfolios (8 hours later) and I have organised a PD night for the BYTES teachers on Digital Portfolios and how to construct them so that they are able to facilitate students during the Digital Portfolio workshops I am planning. Despite the amount of time it is taking to complete these tasks I am loving it. I enjoy the creation and curriculum side of this job. I love the opportunity that it gives me to branch out and try new things and to give my other skills a workout. I am lucky that this week has largely been free of work and planning for my year 12s because both classes have been preparing for their SACS.
To life outside of school things have been okay. My sister is still living with me until another mate moves in and then she will move home to try and save money. At the moment we are cruising along nicely although I am getting a bit grumpy lately and I dont know why. I think it may be that I was used to having more time to myself than I am getting these days because my sister is home more than my brother was. At any rate it will be nice to be living with a guy again in a couple of months. They talk less and grunt more and that is fine by me (in fact I prefer that really)!
Other dramas in my life? Apart from me dropping my phone in the bath last night and possibly destroying it (okay so I was bathing and removing nail polish and trying to answer a text message)(multi-tasking at it's finest!) things are pretty calm with me at the moment. On my own again after a short and rather dismal dalliance (and now I dont even have the dalliance's number due to said bath water incident) and loving it. It certainly is preferable to be on my own than in the hands of a loser and I just need to remember that whenever I am in doubt!
Mostly I am just concentrating on having fun. Going out with friends and having new experiences. This year like last year is a learning curve year. Actually I hope that all of my years are learning curve years from here on in. Cause if learning curve years are all as fun as this last year has been I am sure to enjoy them!
What a strange and random little post this is...

It seems at the moment that, just like in Macbeth, someone upset the natural order of things this year (ie, the 10 week term) and now things are not quite what they seem. Fair is foul and foul is fair. The timetable is in a state of total disarray. I have only 20 periods with my year 11's in the next 7 weeks (the equivalent of 4 weeks of classes) and I think this is more lessons than either of my Year 12 classes have. You would not think that such a small thing as a change in the number of weeks in terms could really make a difference to the teaching schedule but it has. The whole of your timing and lesson plans and number of lessons is based on a ten week term. And it is not like we will have a 20 week semester and therefore be all caught up by the end of semester- that would be too sensible. Instead, we have an 18 week first semester and a 22 week second semester. Oh the wisdom of the powers that be! So we have the right number of weeks in our year, but at the wrong end of the year, when the students (year 11 and 12 ) have already left. Anyway, a short rant - dont really have time for a long one - too much work to catch up on!

BYTES 101

I am currently sitting in a bytes session. McKinnon Melodrama with the BYTES B group to be precise. Most of the groups seem to be working with the exception of a few annoying students who cannot seem to participate with the rest of the class. I am reflecting on this BYTES organisation and a large component of this job of mine is people management. Having a team of people who are all dealing with less than ideal situations and circumstances, working with people whose methods they may not agree with and working on topics they did not necessarily design is very interesting and at times quite difficult to manage. There are issues with people not being given enough information about what they are supposed to be doing with their groups and people who want to strangle others for their perceived inability to organise their way out of a paper bag.
Perhaps the biggest issue at this stage though is the lack of access to technology and to appropriate workspaces. At the moment students are completing both a compulsory BYTE - 9UP and an elective BYTE. Because it is a rotating timetable the students have 4 periods one week and 2 the next on their elective, and then the opposite on their compulsory BYTE. At the moment, the timetabling has BYTEs in the library, in 2 of the computer rooms in the school and T8, a small technology room with only 10 computers in it. When the 9up groups are in the city, this is not a problem because there are 75 students off the campus. However when 9up decides not to go into the city but to work at school, those 75 students invade the library and other BYTES classes are shunted into other areas. My Bytes classes for the last 2 weeks have been forced to run in the small room t8, which is too small for 20-25 students and also does not have the required access to technology. At the moment the students are actually getting behind in their tasks because of the lack of access to technology. One of the points of this program was to experience 'ubiquitous ICT.' The only thing that we are currently experiencing is invisible ICT. At the moment they are buying another class set of laptops in order to try and ease the pressure on technology, but in the meantime, and even when these laptops arrive, there are still going to be issues with not having enough. Ideally and realistically we actually need access to enough computers for every student in the year level, which is at least 200. I dont know what the options are for this and whether there is the funding to allow so much ICT.
It is raising interesting issues for the planning of the The MERC (McKinnon Education Research Centre?)which is being designed at the moment but will not be ready until next year. In some ways it is difficult running this program without the specifically designed centre with necessary resources, but in the other respect it is important that we are able to look at how the program is currently running, and make changes to the design or technology of the Merc in accordance with what we are discovering that we need. We are learning a lot at this point in time about the organisation, staffing and technology that we require to make this program run smoothly. Hopefully by second semester or next year at the latest we will have ironed out some of the issues that we are currently experiencing and will start to feel that the program is running smoothly and that people are happy in their roles. In the meantime is that another grey hair?

Alcohol, Antibiotics, Sudafed and stitches…oh yeah…and school…

So this week has been interesting and perhaps for all of the wrong reasons. Those of you who know me will have, at least once, heard my infamous (roof seal) cough. Yeah, that’s right, the one that sounds like a seal barking. So after going out on Saturday night, I awoke on Sunday to find that the roof seal had come to visit again. This happens whenever I am run down or sick and so is an ominous sign really.
He made a rather dramatic (and embarrassing) appearance at the staff meeting at school on Monday night in front of all of the junior school teachers whilst the junior school AP was holding the floor. Not only did he make a smart remark about my cough but he stopped speaking so everyone could turn their full attention to me as I coughed! However I am not one to be sensitive about my cough, I have lived with a visiting roof seal for long enough to be used to the strange stares and ‘amusing’ comments that the roof seal earns me. By Tuesday I was suffering from swollen glands in my neck, an improved, more awful cough and the beginning of blocked sinuses. I went home early on Tuesday afternoon because I had the last two periods off and was not really feeling well. I had coughed my way through 4 periods already which had considerably amused my students. Wednesday morning I had a doctors appointment to remove more skin from around a freckle that I had previously had cut out. Whilst I was at the doctors I asked him to check me out because I really wasn’t feeling the best. I had a temperature and other such nasties so he put me on antibiotics. I headed back to school for a scheduled PD day with the best intentions, however my flu-like illness (bird-flu? Can chicks get that?!) and the nausea that I feel after a local anaesthetic meant that I had to keep getting up and walking out of meetings to get fresh air because I felt like I was going to be sick. I ended up going home at lunchtime that day too. Thursday I woke up worse and so had to call in sick. I spent the day in a drug induced haze correcting practice year 12 writing folio sacs and year 11 assessment tasks as any good sick teacher will do (well I cant waste a day off can I?). Friday I woke up and still didn’t feel any better really, however Friday night marked the first social outing that I had organised for the staff (ten pin bowling at Strike on Chapel) and I decided that if I was going to make it out that night, then I was going to have to put in a day at work! (stupid I know). So I coughed, spluttered and snotted through my day at school (again the students were some what bemused by my coughing – particularly at the discovery that laughing made me cough which resulted in much laughter, much coughing and not a lot of work being done) all so that I could go out that night. Not only was I on antibiotics, but Sudafed too to keep the sinus headache away. Managed to make it through the day, came home and had a well-needed nanna-nap for an hour and then got ready to go out. Bowled like the total unco that I am, drank 2 ½ vodka and orange, which I might add does not mix well with antibiotics and Sudafed (as my stomach noted at 4.30 this morning) but had an okay night. Was a great turn out and I think that it was good for newbie/oldie relationships and a bit of getting to know you outside of school.
On reflection though I feel as though I have lost most of the week to sickness and PD, and it means that in an already ridiculously short term, I have lost even more classes. Not only do we only have 6 weeks this term, but school has packed more social/sporting events into the 6 weeks too which means that we haven’t had a single week yet without at least one day without classes due to something else on. It is a strange scenario. There are people who, due to unfortunate timetables, have only seen their year 12 classes for 8 periods instead of 16 over the first 4 weeks of term, which is a massive difference. It is making it hard for my fellow Year 12 history teacher and I to keep our students up to the same point in terms of content because I have had so many more classes than she has. Due to the short term too, we have a ridiculous number of teachers trying to run SACs in the last week which means our History students have to come in to school on the holidays to do their sac. Dedication hey? Or craziness? But you do what you have to do I spose. I am hoping that I can return to school next week with renewed health and vigour because I really don’t enjoy feeling like crap and dreading going to school because I don’t know if I can make it through the day. I guess no one does really so maybe that was a stupid thing to write… I can sense the delirium setting in again…

Friendship and Profession - Do they mix?

A few things that have happened lately have prompted me to ask this question. I feel this year that the dynamic of my workplace relationships have changed somewhat. One of my best friends at school has moved to another school, and I think I am finding it quite a different experience without him. Not that I saw him much during the school day, but there was always opportunity for chats and laughs after school and a often much-needed de-brief.
This year also marks the return of my best buddy in the state to school after her 6 months off last year to travel so I have almost traded one best mate for another at school. Our relationship is uncomplicated and one of total trust so it is good to have her back.
Another thing that has changed is the influx of new graduate staff members. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. A good thing because it is great to have new young teachers and more fresh minds and enthusiasm, but a bad thing because the social circle that we are so used to has increased dramatically. I think that this will cease to be a problem when we all know each other better and this will only happen with time.
Perhaps the biggest issue I am facing at the moment is mixing the personal with the professional, because it is becoming an increasingly blurry line. I often go out with other teachers from my work on the weekends. I count some of my fellow teachers amongst my best friends but there are issues with this. I told one of my friends something in confidence because sharing details about my personal life with my friends at school has caused problems for me before. He happened to mention it in front of some other people (in a way that was meant to be him and I sharing a private joke) but it meant that people started catching on to what he was saying. Team this with another male friend who happened to come over on the weekend to be told the same personal information by my sister, and the news was out. The two of them made comments in front of other staff members when no one was supposed to know at all.
It all ended with another friend being upset because I didn't tell her what was going on, when in fact I told only one person (and only in confidence). Thus illustrates the problem with having friends at work.
The question I pose then is this: in spite of my newly found honesty about myself and my life, do I need to be a separate person at work to the one I am in private? And if some of my friends at work are also friends in private, then how do I reconcile the two to ensure that the things that should remain private do? Like the different person I am in the classroom compared to the staff common room, do I need also to be a different person in the common room to the one that I am outside of it?
Don't get me wrong. I certainly have my professional persona. I do act professionally at school and am able to separate out the private me from the school me, except when the people that know both me's' constantly blur those lines. Its seems that despite my best attempts to keep the professional professional, the private just keeps getting in the way. It seems that the only solution to the problem is to never socialise with people from work, which is a break that at this stage I am not willing to make. Maybe one day...

This is an email I received from a student about his Year 12 English Oral.


hi miss
this is mine and my partner's oral. sorry about the late email, i was on sport yesterday and i also got a new puppy on saturday so you may or may not know what that is like. anyway see you tomorrow.
P.S : ATTACHED A PIC OF MY NEW PUP. :-)

An ingenious excuse for not completing homework I think! (anyone out there had this excuse before?) And I love the photographic evidence sent as proof too!

A little bit tired...

Back again already after a bit of a mixed day. Day two of the BYTES program did not run as smoothly as Day One. To begin with, we discovered that the subject with 40 students in it has only one staff member timetabled on to teach it - bit of a problem. The AP that needs to deal with said problem is, in fact, on year 12 camp and so I was unable to even talk to him about it. I will file that away for discussion and resolution at a later date. I am also a little bit disappointed with how our next BYTE, What's My Scene started off. The activities that we had designed to begin with started off a little slowly and many of the students became a bit bored. Luckily the afternoon session was a bit more lively and I think they enjoyed it. Will check their blogs later. On that note we suffered from a technical difficulty too. My beloved blogspot.com was undergoing a scheduled outage at the precise time that we were trying to set up the blogs for this group so I was reduced to having the students write in a word document that they have saved in order to have them post it next time (my wasn't that a long sentence!). Dramas galore! It can't all be smooth sailing though. I have no doubt that once the students get into What's My Scene a little further they will actually love it - we just have to get past the content crap to get to the self directed project bit that they will love. At least through this blog I am recording what went wrong this time so that when the topic is repeated later on we can tweak it. That is what this whole year is really - a learning curve. For me, for the school and for the students who are our guinea pigs. This year is the trial run - next year the new centre will have been built and the program will run as it was intended in an even bigger and better format. For the moment we need to celebrate the successes and then reflect on the changes to be made at a later date.

Yes...I'm still here...

It's 8.15 in the morning and despite the fact that I possibly have a million other things to do, I am choosing to write this instead. I think it's important and I made a pact with myself that I would keep this blog up to date. So... Thursday and Friday saw the official launch of the BYTES program with information sessions for the Year 9 Students, in their two groups, BYTES A & BYTES B. I managed to make the super-confusing timetable situation (2 different timetables running on a two week rotation) crystal clear for 14 & 15 year olds which is something to make me proud, and the other staff sitting in on the session were impressed as well. First official function down without so much as a hitch. Breathe in, Breathe out! Yesterday was the first day of BYTES classes, and I taught the same group 4 periods straight, but the activities and information that we had for them, to introduce them to melodrama, seem to have gone well. Started them on a reflective blog to get them thinking and writing about the experience of both BYTES and this particular unit but haven't had a chance to read them yet so I am interested to see what they think. So yesterday was a 6-on day for me and today may be the same which means that despite the fact that the Year 12's are on Camp and I am 5 periods down this week, I have not really had any time to myself. This morning is the first time that I read my blogs since Wednesday (and usually I obsessively read them every morning).
But I'm not complaining (even though it may sound like I am) because so far things seem to be going well and I am really happy with both my new position and my classes. My resolution to be super-prepared this year has so far not failed (we are only in the second week though) and I am enjoying the feeling of being truly on top of things.
Anyway, although only a small update, at least I am confirming that I am still here and that things are ticking along nicely albeit quite quickly.

Day One and not a student in sight...

So today was the first day back at school and the fun and games have started already. I guess that I hadn’t really thought about how last minute a lot of this BYTES stuff is. We are only a week away from beginning to teach the modules and they haven’t really been finished yet – ie – we don’t really know what we are even teaching yet and it is my responsibility to get two of them up and running and then to teach them too. In some ways they cant be fleshed out too much because the whole idea is that they are largely student driven, but if we have an objective for the students then it is important that they reach that objective and we have to work out how to get them to the end goal without chalk and talking or making it boring. They somehow have to gain all the information and knowledge that they will need to complete the end task and produce the final product, the challenge comes in how to get them to the point where they can do this, without bombarding them with information.
So my life at the moment is fairly hectic. We didn’t even have classes today – just meetings and I can already see how much work there is to be done for this BYTES job as well as the preparation for my other subjects. At least I have done my first couple of weeks of planning for most subjects. I think that I will just have to really organise my time this year and keep motivated. It is easy to have good intentions at this time of the year though – the challenge is in keeping them.

Back to the grind but maybe with a new attitude...

Just completed my third day back at school (an 8 hour day today) and school does not even start till next Monday? Am I insane you ask? No (or maybe that is a subjective question and I am not equipped to answer it) but I do have a lot of work to do before Monday, and I am going away tonight until Friday so I effectively have only two days left to sort out the mire that is my lesson plans! The BYTES thing is coming along nicely these last couple of days. We have sorted out staffing and student groupings, have mocked up a timetable for staff and students and are working out what we will be telling the Year 9's about the program when they return to school so that hopefully they will have an idea of what is going on. Wish the same could be said for the staff... The nature of this beast that is student centered learning is that the modules that we have formulated for the MERC involve students being guided by staff, but largely formulating and working on their own projects within the module's topic. This means that there is some serious "thinking on your feet" involved in teaching within this program which as well as being exhilarating is also quite daunting for many. It has to be our enthusiasm and ability to help and encourage that will determine largely how the students respond to the modules and activities so the onus is on us to be on our game. I wonder how that will sit with some people. I just hope that it all happens and that there are no major hitches. It might be a good thing that that Year 12's are on camp for the first three days that the program is running because it means i will have extra time to deal with the potential muck hitting the fan. Should be an interesting return to school. In other news I am getting fairly organised with Year 12 History which is exciting me. Year 12 English still requires some serious work and guidance from my KLA Manager as well as a more concerted effort from me as does the first text for Year 11 English that I havent really planned yet. When all of this is supposed to happen I do not know. Maybe the weekend or on the beach in Inverloch tomorrow or Friday. I am actually feeling quite motivated and inspired at the moment. I feel quite organised in terms of how I am structuring my planning and my work load so now I just have to hope that my energy levels hold up in the first week to see me through. As usual and despite every best intention on my behalf I have fallen into bad habits again like staying up until 12 or 1 every night and sleeping in until 8 or 9. This means that returning to getting up at 6 next week will be a severe strain. Normally by day three of the new term I am ready for a holiday again. Most years day three of term is a Friday so we do get a break, but not so this year. Anyway, on that chirpy note, I think that I should get the hell out of here and actually have a break!

Another new beginning.

The beauty of life is that there are constantly new beginnings - no one action determines how the rest of your life will proceed, and things are always changing. That idea used to scare me I guess, but now I gain encouragement from it. So this year is another new beginning. A new year at school, a new housemate (my sister moved in two days ago), a new subject to teach (year 12 English) and a new position in the MERC (BYTES Co-ordinator). This year will be exciting, but extremely hard work - I can see that already. I have my old favourites (Year 12 history and Year 11 English) but even within those old and trusty subjects there will be new challenges. I guess that new challenges are what make life and work interesting. I came into school today with the intention of continuing to get ready for next year and to a certain extent I am, but I am avoiding working in favour of completing more niggly things. One of those things is this blog. I became very slack over the last few months and failed to blog regularly. This was for a few reasons. 1) My personal life sort of took over my head space in the last few months of last year and so my personal blog was running rampant whilst this one was left to languish. (Sorry - that was unintentional alliteration!). 2) There wasn’t too much happening at school that I thought was worthy of being recorded which may just be an excuse to cover up that 3) I think that I was putting other things before blogging through lack of time and lack of motivation.
I don’t make new year’s resolutions however if I did then mine would be to keep this blog updated – at least a couple of times a week. I am hoping that this blog will record this year and the trials and tribulations of my new job. As it is at the moment, I am unsure what my new position even entails and so it will be interesting to see how the year unfolds and how this new MERC works.
Hopefully it will be an interesting journey…