Darce Goes to School

Balance - what the hell is it? Also known as the curse of the damn TV

2011-12-10T20:56:00.000+11:00

It has been about 4 months since I last posted and a lot has happened. I am loving my new job. It is combining my love of educational leadership with the new challenges of budgets, forecasts, staffing, advertising and technology. Without really knowing what I was looking for when I started looking for new jobs, I have fallen on my feet in this new role. I feel like it is extending me and challenging me but still allowing me to apply my strengths, build teams, build curriculum and focus on good teaching, only this time in an adult environment. I consider myself very lucky. I now work much closer to 9-5 hours, have more flexibility to manage my own time, set my own schedule and even work at home when there are projects to be done and I need some time without interruptions. I now have every night of the week and every weekend entirely to myself. I do not bring work home. I do not have marking. No one emails me after 5.30pm so when I come to work in the morning there are not 30 emails awaiting reply. This new job allows me to work really hard when I am at work, but have a life when I am at home.
Which brings me to the question of what I want that life to be like. I feel like although I have much more balance now when it comes to work and home, I am yet to find a real focus for my home time. I walk my dog or take her for a run with the bike, I cook dinner but the bulk of my nights are taken up with sitting around chatting to my husband (not so bad) and watching TV. I think that if I lived by myself as I used to, I just wouldn't turn the TV on - I would find other things to do with my time. But with my husband being somewhat addicted to the TV I feel like as soon as it is on, the noise and the distraction of it makes me totally unproductive. It feels like I have switched my brain off and it is about time I started thinking and working on something again. I wonder how other people find the motivation to come home from work after a long day and actually do something constructive with their nights. Sometimes we catch up with friends and family and that is nice. Sometimes I read a book and that is nice also. Maybe I am not good at sitting still and being happy with that. It is a bit ironic that when I had all this work to do at home I resented it and put it off and avoided doing it and felt guilty, and now I have nothing to do when I get home I am wondering what I should be doing!
It is hard to get the motivation though. I am in the middle of my Cert IV in Training and Assessment at the moment and so I should be working on that and knocking a bit more of it off. But at night the comfort of the tele and my husband and the couch calls and I just don't seem to be able to escape it. I am finally writing this post tonight because my husband is on a boys weekend and I am sitting with the laptop, having cleaned the house, and finally writing this post which has been whirling in my head for a week or so now. Can a woman only find time for the things she would really like to be doing when there is no man in the house? Perhaps it will be better when I get a house with two living areas because the house we are in at the moment has the lounge-room in the middle of it and if the tele is on (which it always is when my husband is home) it consumes the whole house. There is nowhere you can go to get away from it. Maybe I should take the somewhat drastic step of making it a tele free home at night - at least for an hour? Or maybe I should lock myself in the study regardless of the tele and just get on with something more interesting with the tv. Or maybe I should just give myself a break and not expect so much of myself all the time. Not sure what the answer is here but I will keep pondering.

Moving on

2011-08-11T22:24:00.000+10:00

I am sitting here tonight having just written two farewell speeches - one for the students, and one for the staff at school, because tomorrow is my last day. After tomorrow, when people ask me what I do for a living, I will no longer be able to give the one word answer, teacher, because I will no longer be one. I will no longer have to secretly lament the fact that when people find out I am a teacher they share with me how jealous they are of all of my holidays because now, whenever people find out I have left teaching, the first question they ask is how I am going to cope without aforementioned holidays. I will no longer see the smiling faces of my students, hear their sympathetic laughter when I crack a lame joke and get to vicariously experience their curiosity and excitement and the joy they find in the mundane. I will miss feeling like I am making a difference to young people and sharing their hopes and dreams. But it is time for a change.
I haven't written here for a while because I can only write honestly and I wasn't yet ready to share how I was feeling about the job I have been doing and loving for 7 1/2 years.
I still love teaching, don't get me wrong. And if I wanted to stay in teaching then this amazing school I have been calling my home for the past 2 years would be the only place I would want to be, but the fact of the matter is, I need a change. I came to this school because I was feeling unchallenged in my old school and feeling like I had more to give than I was given a chance to give. That all changed last year when I moved here because I was once again being challenged and engaged and valued and supported and nurtured. It turns out though, that it isn't enough. This year I have started wondering, despite my semi-charmed life at JMSS, what else is out there that I might be able to sink my teeth in to - what else might I be able to contribute, what other skills might I be able to build, how might I better myself and challenge myself and keep learning? I am the type of person who does not like to stay still for too long because I love to learn and I love to feel like I am constantly improving and growing.

So it is with sadness and excitement that I say goodbye tomorrow to over 400 students who have become like friends, and the best staff I have ever worked with. I am sad because I know what I am leaving behind, but glad that I am leaving with sadness because it means that I didn't wait too long - I didn't leave it until I was so ready to leave that I couldn't wait to just get the hell out. I don't know what the future holds for me and secondary teaching. My new job is still in education, but is more adult education focused and is a leadership and not a teaching position. I love the impact that you can have in a classroom and the relationships that you build and that moment when the lightbulb goes on in someone's eyes as they comprehend what it is they have been trying to learn. These are the elements of teaching I will pursue in my life outside of the classroom. All I know for sure is that in my pursuit of learning, this is yet another new beginning.

Why do we make it so hard?

2011-02-26T22:39:00.000+11:00

A conversation with a very close friend a few weeks ago made me really question how I feel about my job as an educator and why I do what I do. It is amazing how someone who knows you well (and is extremely insightful) can ask a few poignant questions that have you wondering exactly what it is that you think and feel about your work.
At the risk of sounding like a whinger (because isn't that how the media like to portray all teachers) there are some things about my job that I find challenging. Most of them have nothing to do with the classroom or the students because generally they are what excite me and buoy my spirit. What upsets me about being a teacher is that when you meet a new person and they ask you what you do for a living and you say you are a teacher, inevitably the first thing out of their mouths will be "oh, you get so many holidays - aren't you lucky!" You know what - we do get a lot of "holidays" and sometimes we even actually have a break during those holidays and take some time off, but I cannot imagine another job that so thoroughly consumes you and makes you desperately await the next set of holidays. I guess the bigger question here though is exactly why it bothers me and why I think in my head whenever someone asks me what I do for a living "here we go!" I think it bothers me because there seems to be an underlying lack of respect for teachers in the general population. When I meet a new person and they tell me what they do for a living, I never respond with a comment like "oh wow - you have it easy" or "geeh - that's a slack job!" I like to think that most people choose jobs that are challenging to them and that they work their hardest at that job, whatever it may be. My theory is that because everyone goes to school (and had varying experiences of education), everyone believes they are an expert and that they are entitled to bestow you with the qualities of their best or worst (generally worst) educators. Maybe this is a pessimistic attitude and I don't for a second think that everyone believes that teachers are slackers but when you work so hard at a job and then you feel like people are judging you unfairly when they have never been taught by you and barely know you, it is a hard pill to swallow. I just smile weakly and say, yeah, heaps of holidays... and generally my husband jumps in and starts talking about how hard it is to be married to a teacher and how many hours I work etc. I feel that if I say any of these things to defend myself I just seem like I am complaining about my lot, which I certainly don't want to do.
I love my job teaching young people. The sort of energy and enthusiasm that a room of teenagers has is infectious. I love the silliness, the seriousness, the controversial discussions, the opportunities for sharing and learning from each other and the way that kids are intensely passionate in a way that few adults ever are.
The thing is, I feel like teaching is a profession that you never feel like you have mastered. No matter how long you teach or how hard you work at it, there is no end point, no magical day when you realise you have made it - there is just a continual quest for improvement. For those who choose to take up the challenge. For some of the others there is the feeling that a life in education has taken from them all they have to give and left them unsatisfied, and angry, a twisted shell of their former selves, with no one to remind them how they used to be. Others still run for cover before they are chewed up and spat out - some of our most passionate and innovative young teachers end up leaving the profession because of a feeling they are not making a difference or a sense that they would get more recognition and more of sense of affirmation from a job that has clear goals and a clear measure of whether or not those goals are achieved.
You see the learning of young people is not something easily categorised and quantified and theorised and standardised. There is no magic wand that can be waved in the direction of the youthful masses that will bestow them with all the skills and attributes we believe they need to become successful adults. Not only is there no magic wand, but there is also no magic set of skills and attributes that each and every child will need to successfully navigate their adult lives. So I ask the question - when the world is changing at a rate that is ever more rapid and our sense of the future changing with equal speed, when will our notions of how we educate our kids catch up?
Can a standardised system relying on fitting every student in to the same box be the way forward? How will we, as educators, ever feel that we are truly making a difference to every student we teach when the system we teach in asks that we teach the masses, not the individual? How do we retain passionate teachers who do make a difference to students and convince them that what they are doing is making a difference, when the outside world still measures education by old standards that no longer ring true to the new reality?
Feel free to agree, argue or just have your say by leaving a comment.

Things I've been reading

2011-02-24T16:34:00.000+11:00

Over the holidays and amidst my planning for next year, I did some professional reading. I am planning to start my Masters in Education this year, and I feel like in some ways I am emerging out of a vacuum that I placed myself in at my old school, and searching for new ideas, new pedagogies and a new way of thinking about education. I feel that I was stuck in a rut before, and that I had stopped learning and challenging myself to a large extent and part of my inspiration for getting back out there has been the learning networks I have found on twitter, and the blogs I have found because of them.
Finding Twitter and Fellow Bloggers changed the way I think
in a professional sense because suddenly I was in contact with people who were way more creative, engaging and challenging than I was and this has been inspiring me to do some higher order thinking. To this end, I have been collecting books that I have come across through blogs and I would like to share my thoughts on some of them as a way of synthesising the important messages for me within their pages.
The New Rules of Engagement - Michael McQueen

I heard about The New Rules of Engagement through twitter from @andrewdouch whose blog can be found here. I have been following Andrew for a while - I first heard about the work he was doing with podcasting in my early years of teaching and recently went to see him at a presentation at CSE which was engaging and illuminating and really got me thinking. So anything that Andrew recommends is interesting to me - his comment was that it was a really interesting book that he read in a day because it really sucked him in.

I have long been fascinated by the idea that we can profile a generation and make an fairly accurate assessment of the way they view the world and go about their work and life. I'm still not convinced we can, but in this book McQueen explores the generations, and the factors and experiences that formed the collective "identity" of each generation. Reading the description of Gen Y really resonated with me. This book would appeal to anyone who is interested in generation profiling or who wonders why it is that their parents or kids are the way that they. He also gives advice on dealing with the different generations in the workplace, particularly Gen Y which I found really interesting. This book had me wondering about the way I spend my free time and what I expect from education - and whether these expectations match up with those of my students, or even marry with what I am creating in my classroom. Certainly an easy, engaging read if you are interested.

Another book I read over the holidays is
Yong Zhao's Catching up or Leading the Way

I heard Yong Zhao speak at an Innovations and Excellence event and thought he was insightful, engaging and he challenged some of the ideas I had about education. Zhao questions the education reform based on data and test based performance as an indicator of learning, explaining the Chinese education system (which he experienced first hand) and comparing it with the American system his children are experiencing. He believes that the Chinese system has been creating students who can memorise information, and that due to the fact that it the Chinese system does not value individuality or creativity, the students are not successful in the global workforce, which is increasingly calling for innovative, creative and divergent thinkers. He believes that education systems that value the individual and that focus on building student's individual skills and tap in to their creativity will prepare students betterfor a future of global enterprise than schools that focus on a systematic "one-size-fits-all" model.
I feel that there is a real tension for me between the push for data-based practice and educating according to the system, and the push to differentiate and cater to personal differences and encourage every child to develop their own skills and attributes creatively. Many still focus on what is necessary for the exam at the end that will determine where the students end up. And will this content that we are teaching them actually give them the skills they need for the workforce, or is the focus merely on winning the competition? If a university education is the end point and we decide that the system is good enough because it gets them to university then what will happen as university degrees become increasingly redundant, as many suggest is already happening? I wonder if we will ever really do the students justice whilst we still have a system that is summative - that aims to reduce a student's knowledge to a single test result or assessment task. No matter how hard we work to convince the students that it is learning itself that matters, and the skills they accrue that will make the difference in the wide world, whilst the judgement at the end of 13 years of schooling is so reductive, will they ever be able to see the bigger picture? Will teachers?

Linked with these ideas is Daniel H Pink's A Whole New Mind

(pic from Amazon.com)
The subtitle of this book - Why Right-Brainers will rule the Future really sums up the essence of the book. Pink argues, with interesting anecdotes, that "The Conceptual Age" demands right brain creative thinking, rather than the left brain, systematic, logical thinking that was valued in the past and is what the education system is based on. Pink believes that the "Six (high concept, high touch) Senses" he discusses are senses which we all possess, but do not develop and encourage because they have not traditionally been valued, and offers ways that the reader can begin to redevelop and encourage these senses and therefore become more right-brained. My summary may be a little reductive, but I found the novel really interesting, and the sentiments being discussed by Pink are similar to those being discussed by others such as Ken Robinson in this summary of one of his speeches created by RSA:

Perhaps the things I have been reading and watching are all predominately focussed on the failures of the current education system - I would love it if people have books they would recommend that might balance out the scales, but I feel that at this point I am looking for a better way of doing things and wondering if education will ever catch up with the modern world. How do we know what is best for our students when we don't even know the types of jobs they will be doing out there in the workforce of the future? Is content obsolete and should we be testing skills? Or should we be testing at all?
Hopefully my masters, if I can work out what to focus in on, will help me gain perspective.
I would love other people's ideas, thoughts and opinions on this and other ideas of what to read. Let me know.

The New Year and new challenges

2011-01-18T09:34:00.000+11:00

With every new year comes new challenges. This year I have exchanged my Head of House role with the new role of Director of Professional Learning. I am still the Head of English as well, and I am very excited about the opportunities that my new Professional Learning role will afford me. Our school has three hours of PD for every staff member every week, on a Wednesday from 1.30-4.30. It is a great way to do it because it means that the majority of staff have only one night of meetings each week, and these meetings, rather than being administrivia, are targetted professional learning experiences.
Over these holidays I have spent a fair bit of time procrastinating about all the work I need to get done rather than just sucking it up and getting it done. It has only been this last week where I have begun to get myself on track.
It is going to be a big year. I have started by applying for the Google Teacher Academy which I first heard about through Murcha's Blog. Part of the application was creating a video about classroom innovation or motivation and learning which was a really interesting experience. Here is my video:

I liked the idea of challenging myself to make and publish the video and it was a really great learning experience for me so regardless of the outcome, I have learned something from the process.

I also have a list of challenges for myself this year that I want to record:
1. Designing a challenging and differentiated curriculum for Year 10 and Year 11 English (we don't have Year 12s yet!)
2. Continuing to build leadership and pedagogical capacity in my English team.
3. Designing an interesting and relevant Professional Development calendar for the whole school and delivering it in an interesting and interactive way.
4. Getting accepted in to and beginning my Masters in Education by research at Monash Uni.
5. Promoting Professional Development opportunities through the school and encouraging staff to offer sessions for other teachers in areas of expertise.

It is going to be a year full of challenges but also a year where I am able to extend my knowledge and abilities in many areas which is always exciting. I have also been spending some time doing some professional reading over these holidays and I really should be making notes as I go and then writing down my thoughts so there might be more of that to come this year.
My biggest challenge will be to use this blog to record my thoughts and ideas and not drop off the face of the earth when things get busy. We'll see how that works out for me!

Our Ideal English Students @ JMSS - Look like, Sound Like, Feel Like

2010-11-30T12:10:00.001+11:00

Using Google Apps in a Paperless English Classroom

2010-09-14T14:12:00.005+10:00

Due to the fact that our school only opened this year and that the Ultranet was not yet released, we had to come up with a solution for a whole school email/network/website/online storage solution. We are a one:one tablet school so it is important to be able to deliver curriculum flexibly and digitally so we were looking for something that had complexity of features, but ease of use. It was decided that we would use google apps, as the fact that we could set up an education site free of charge was a bonus. It has allowed us to do a myriad of things, very easily and very intuitively. Staff have had no training, but all have managed to contribute to managing and developing our learning space.

TERM ONE:
In the first Term our student's tablets were delayed, as was our building, so we faced technological problems we were not expecting. Not only could we not deliver our lessons digitally, but we also did not have a printer so we could not print them out either! The result was a hybrid start to the year, with a back-to-basics approach in terms of collaborative work in the classroom without much of a technological influence. The upside was that we were able to build relationships and trust before we really set up our online spaces. By the end of Term 1 we had set up a Shelfari book group, a Bookcrossing community so that students could donate books to populate our bare shelves and through google sites I set up an English site with an online, self-paced module based around our theme of Identity and Belonging, that allowed students to choose tasks they were interested in.

TERM TWO:
Student e-portfolios were set up through Google Sites - one for each student to manage, populate and share themselves. The settings allow students to share their portfolios with individual people or groups, using group email addresses. They share them with staff only - making them a private space for them to record their work and reflect on their efforts. We use this for goal setting, reflection and as an online workbook. Term Two saw them studying Fahrenheit 451 under the theme of Future Worlds. During this term we introduced google docs and had students work on shared documents where they collaborated and created resources for their classmates about themes in the text. They were able to simultaneously edit the documents, share them with the rest of the class and then refer back to them when they began to consolidate their knowledge. At this point students also started posting work up on their portfolio pages so that this became like an online workbook that we, as teachers, could scroll through whenever we wanted to check on a student's progress.

TERM THREE:
I feel that it was not until term three that we really hit our stride in terms of working with technology in the classroom. Google apps has given us ways of totally avoiding paper in our classroom - collaborative spaces were all online. This term the focus was on media study. As a faculty we divided up what we would focus on in terms of curriculum development.
Self-paced worksheets were designed to expose the students to persuasive language techniques and the features of persuasive writing. Students were able to work on these at home or at school and then posted them on their eportfolio.
We started a reflective blog that students completed at the end of every lesson - the last 10 minutes of every 75min period was spent with the class posting their completed work online and blogging about their work that lesson. We put up some prompts to help students think about the important things from the lesson and how they felt they were going with the content.
An online 'help desk' forum was set up where students could post questions about the work they were undertaking at home or at school and could help each other. This was done through google groups and allowed an email to be sent to teachers every time a student posted a question - within an hour usually the student had a response to their question, often from a student. This is something we will continue to develop.
We used google moderator to get students to submit ideas about which persuasive language technique was the most effective and why, and then students were able to vote on each other's responses until we had a top 5 persuasive language techniques.
Students were able to share work through a google groups page and were able to critique their classmate's work and get ideas about how to improve their own writing.
Students used a google forms to mark sample essays using the rubric that teachers would be using to mark their final assessment piece. Using a google form meant that we could see an graphed overview of responses and talk with the class about why certain pieces had been marked a certain way. This led to rich discussion about the pieces we were marking and also the assessment rubric itself.
We created tutorial videos for students about how to annotate an article and how to write a language analysis. These were uploaded to google videos and were there as a resource for students, allowing them to watch and re-watch tutorials as they saw fit. These reinforced the in-class learning.
I was able to record, using free screen capture software, debut the in-class examples of annotation so that students who missed the class did not miss the practical instruction. This was posted online for students straight after class and allowed them to go back over important information. The annotated article was also attached to the web page so that students were able to download it as an example of a detailed annotation.
TERM FOUR:
We are only just approaching Term 4, but I already feel that we are taking the next step. Term 4 covers Macbeth and students have split in to pairs and are creating a digital representation of a scene of their choice to present to the class. The scene could be an animation, vodcast, podcast, photostory, narrated comic book etc. It needs to be digital because it will be uploaded as a resource for classmates. Students will then present to the class, a discussion of their scene including how it fits in to the play, themes and characters advanced in the scene etc. The students will be presenting and teaching each other the entire play. They will also be peer assessing via a google form which allows them all to engage in the entire process. Coupled with the in-class presentations will be online discussion forums with pertinent theme and character based questions for the students to discuss and debate, recorded teacher discussion podcasts about particular scenes to complement the student presentations and some moderator voting opportunities where students vote on who is to blame for the outcome of the play.

I feel like the sky is the limit at the moment for our digital learning environment. Anything I could do in a classroom sans technology, I am able to do in my google apps learning environment. I feel like although we have come a long way in a short space of time, we have only just scratched the surface of what is possible. The next challenge for us is to work out what place the ultranet has in our online learning environment. Unfortunately at the moment google apps is much more intuitive, functional and accessible than the ultranet and this means we really have to think hard about how to make it work for us.

Growing Up

2010-09-03T22:19:00.000+10:00

At some point I grew up and became a responsible adult and I’m not quite sure when that happened. Anyone got any ideas? I have a job with a lot of responsibility and sometimes that makes me feel like I have a bit of a split personality. When I was earlier in my teaching career, the me in school and the me out of school were very different. Now that I am a bit more comfortable in myself, what you see is what you get in terms of me in the classroom and me outside of work, however the professional me, the one that deals with managing adults and delivering professional development and making leadership decisions is another beast entirely. By beast I don’t mean that that side of me is in any way horrible or beastly (others may disagree!) but rather that I think that that responsible, professional adult me is not the way I see myself. I think sometimes about the job I do and about the discussions I have with people about the wellbeing of their children and curriculum planning and the state of education and I feel almost like that person talking, the responsible Caitlin, is some other person, one who can now mix intellectually and socially with adults of all ages, one who is grown up and seen by others as a leader and as someone to go to for advice. I guess I still feel in some ways like that 24 year old who started teaching and was only 12 years older than the year 7s she was suddenly responsible for and only 7 years older than her senior students. I guess I still feel like the silly, impulsive, immature, fun-loving teenager that I sometimes still behave like.
I occasionally ask other people if they ever truly feel like they are grown up and responsible and ready to “be an adult” and usually they agree with my belief that you never really feel like you are getting older, or even that you will ever be as responsible and grown up as you see all of the other ‘grown ups’ acting, but that you just ‘get on with it’ and deal with what life throws at you in the best way you know how. I think that when you are young you think you know everything and that you are so mature and when you get older you realise how little you knew when you were younger and yet, at heart, you still feel like you are that person. Despite my feelings that inside there is still a large part of me that is silly and happy and free, there is inevitably a bigger part of me that is responsible and clever and passionate about what I believe in and what I do for a living and what and who I love. I guess that is the way it will always be.

Good Leadership + Innovation = a happy Caitlin

2010-08-30T21:26:00.002+10:00

Work at the moment is hard work. Part of what I love the most about my current role is the fact that I get to truly have a say in the running of the school and the leadership team do just that- lead the school, determining much of the direction, detail and vision of the school. It is so energising and affirming to be doing a role that not only has responsibility but that also has true consultation and collaboration and creativity attached to it. I am implicitly trusted to do my job - there is no-one looking over my shoulder and checking or questioning or controlling. I am given the ability to run my own faculty, design innovative curriculum from scratch and incorporate technology as I see fit. I feel like I have been given a license to fly this year - and it is amazing how much you achieve when you are given the tools and the freedom to imagine what it is that you wish to create.
In the 6 months I have been at this school I feel I have undergone an amazing journey. When I got the job I felt like perhaps I was a fraud and surely at some point they would work out that I didn't know what I was doing and kick me out. I truly believe though, that it is not until you really venture out of your depth that you are forced to swim and that these are the times that we see what we are really capable of. I never really felt stifled at my old school, but now I realise that I was so bound by the institutions that had been set up over years and that I felt that I didn't have the power to change. I dreamed of big things, and even put in place some substantial changes, but the fact remained that much of what happened in my old school had happened the same way for years before, and would continue to happen the same way for years to come, because people were not willing to change, and despite the flood of younger staff, the ceiling never moved and the innovation was never complete. Not that I think that innovation is ever an end point, or something that can be achieved and then moved on from, but when you starting point is the past and not even the present then how can you imagine a different future?
The liberation I have experienced at this school is complete. A liberation from a cage I never realised I was in. One where I maintained the status-quo and didn't try to be really different because I didn't see that I could be. Now I feel like all the walls are down and I am able to imagine the best, most interesting, innovative, engaging ways to deliver curriculum and to design curriculum because I have the technology, freedom and support at my fingertips. This school wants me to be innovative and enables it and my growth in this short space of time has shown the power of autonomous leadership in opening up new worlds to staff.

Direction

2010-08-27T15:51:00.002+10:00

Today we had a couple of researchers come out from Deakin to do a study on Innovation in schools. The principal nominated me as one of the people who would be interviewed for the study and it was actually a turning point for me in terms of how I am thinking about what we are doing at this school and how we are creating a culture and curriculum and teams and relationships. It is amazing the things you articulate when asked some interesting questions about leadership, curriculum, students, expectations, etc. I will post the transcript up here later (once I receive it) because I really want to record this point in time and how I am thinking and feeling about things and about what we are doing at this school. Here are some of the things I was thinking about:
What is it that creates a culture at a school?
What creates highly aspirational staff/students?
How does leadership impact on these things and create the feeling of autonomy and ownership and excitement?
Why am I loving my job despite the workload and why am I so energised by it?
What is it that is giving me that energy?

This conversation really got me thinking about my Masters next year. I have always wanted to do further study. The idea of academia appeals to me but I was thinking of doing a Masters in School Leadership which is entirely course work because I was thinking that maybe that would be a good way to get back in to the study. The problem is that although I am interested in Leadership I don't really think that is what drives me and so I have been worried that if I start a Masters I will not enjoy it and it will seem like a chore rather than an opportunity to really explore what I love about what I am doing. So I have been really undecided about what I should do and asking around for ideas because although I am interested in the idea of research, I haven't had a clear idea of what that would look like for me. What would I research? What am I interested enough in to sustain me for a few years?

Today's interview has really got me thinking. Deb was really good at synthesising the things I was saying to her and said that a lot of what I was talking about was exploring different elements of a teacher's identity and how I am operating in this environment in a whole lot of different ways. This idea interests me. I feel so passionately about this school and what we are doing here that I want in some way to explore that and unpack that and share the lessons we are learning with whoever wants to listen. The opportunities and the thinking and the creating that goes in to designing and building a school from the ground up are so involved and exciting and interesting that I think there is a whole lot to say.

So I think I still have a lot of thinking to go before I work out what it is that I want to do but I feel like this discussion has set me on the right path and got me thinking about the right things and stopped me thinking about a Masters in a way that is so theoretical and abstract and really thinking about what I am doing in my work life at the moment that I could be really examining and thinking about and sharing. I want to research something that interests me and I want the writing that I do to be more narrative than academic - readable, accessible and an interesting insight in to what is going on in schools where innovation is a mandate and a lifestyle not an option!
So much to think about. I think step one is to post more to here, thinking about what we are doing in the classroom and to really start filtering down what it is that I am really interested in exploring. I will also be contacting my university friends for advice and focus and my principal to work out what my options are here!
I feel even more excited about where I am at the moment than I already was. My whole experience this year has taught me that nothing is more exciting to me than the freedom and autonomy and creativity that I am afforded at this school. This is something I want to nurture even further.

The Ultranet

2010-08-09T15:41:00.002+10:00

Yesterday every government school in Victoria had a pupil-free day in order to launch the Ultranet to staff and teach them how to use it. I am one of the Ultranet trainers at my school. Although we are currently using the features of Google Apps heavily in our school and are quite happy with the capabilities, we wanted to train our staff yesterday in the ultranet so that we can have a detailed discussion about how we might use it. The phase two rollout of the Ultranet will have student tracking and assessment capabilities that are potentially more advanced than what we are using now, so we wanted the staff to be Ultranet literate by the time this next rollout occurs. At JMSS we are in the lucky position that most staff are highly computer literate and our daily work includes heavy ICT use. The students all have tablet computers that allow them to access any online resources and lesson plans wherever they are and much of our curriculum and staff and student collaboration occurs online.
Unfortunately, as most of us predicted, the system fell over at around 9am when most of the teachers in the state attempted to log in. Although this was a much-needed capacity test for the system, around the state many a "plan B" was unveiled and rolled out to fill the Ultranet gap. In my 'plan B' I had decided to show a couple of the Common Craft videos on Social Networking and Social media, and then discuss what Twitter is and how we could use it as a professional networking tool and to communicate and interact with students.
This session was a big success. The staff were not asked to join twitter, I merely discussed how I use it and what I think it is good for, however as I was talking, most of the staff in the room joined up and starting contributing to the discussion. In fact, JMSS now has such a twitter presence that I think I have created a monster!
Throughout the day I had been following twitter discussions around the Ultranet as I find that twitter is often very useful as a news source and generally quicker than most other communication channels. The beauty of the discussion around the ultranet yesterday on Twitter is that it put me in touch with a whole lot of Victorian educators - something that will help expand my professional online network. For me this was a big plus because part of the way I use twitter is as a way of keeping up with what is going on in education, however it is not easy to find good teachers to follow. I feel like that has been the biggest gift that yesterday gave me.
The other upside for this day was the chance to do some collaborating as a group. Any school who did not have a plan B that was technology and pedagogy focussed really missed an opportunity to get some serious thinking and planning done around what the Ultranet means for Victorian schools and how technology can be better used to enhance teaching and learning. For many schools who have not had the access or the know-how to access technology in their teaching, the Ultranet means big changes and more options. That is something that the media have failed to acknowledge in their reports today about the failure of yesterday's training day. They have also failed to acknowledge the hard work that went in to many school programs for the day, and the learning that came out of it.

Once again I have been slack...

2010-08-09T13:47:00.003+10:00

So this is a post that talks about some of the things I have been thinking about over the last month. Probably the most enlightening thing to happen this term has been the Presentation I went to by Andrew Douch who is a leader in innovative teaching practices and creating online resources. Check out his website by clicking on his name. I have been following Andrew for a while but I felt at my old school that creating online resources would not be as useful because the students had virtually no access to computers in the classroom. Due to the fact that at JMSS we have a one to one tablet program, I feel like I can finally do all those things that I ever wanted to in terms of ICT. The fact that we are working in a team teaching, open plan learning space also means that it is even more important to steer away from chalk and talk and to use the classroom times for interaction and creativity and communication.
So I started creating online video-tutorials in order to start taking some of the content out of the classroom and in to the students homework or down time. The Andrew Douch presentation was really just in time for me because it helped to give me a context to what I was doing and to focus in on not only what I wanted to get out of the project but also what was possible to get out of the project. It made me think more critically about how I want the pedagogy of my english classes to run and has really set the agenda for me in terms of future directions for English at this school.
Here is what I'm thinking:
- All the content based "chalk and talk stuff" will now be turned in to video tutorial podcasts to be posted online. This includes topics like "annotating news articles" "how to write a language analysis essay" "writing persuasively" etc.
I have already created 5 different tutorials.
- Students will be expected to watch these tutorials as "pre-learning" ie, before they come to class.
- Classes will be spent with interactive activities, communication, group work, presentations, and creative pursuits - things that students can't do on their own.
- We are also building in more opportunities for one on one conferencing - where students get to bring in what they are working on and get their teacher's help and advice.
- We are also working on creating workshops that students can withdraw in to during work time if they need extra help with certain elements of the content.

All of these strategies will help students to work at their own pace, watch and rewatch presentations if they need to (saving you from answering the same questions over and over from students who were not listening), interact with each other and the teacher in a way that best suits them, ask more questions, get more individual time with the teacher, and be more responsible for their own learning. It also claims back the classroom from the content a bit too.
Of course the downside is that these tutorials take time to create but with any basic screen capture software and good content, the payoff is that you create it once and it is there for years. Each year we can build on the information that is there, rather than recreating the wheel or repeating the same information time and time again. As the years go on, students have a solid bank of tutorials to draw from, something that helps them get the extra reinforcement that they need from their learning experiences.
The beauty of this also is that you know that each teacher is contributing to the creation of resources and that despite who their classroom teacher is, the students all have access to the very best lessons and advice from ALL of the English teachers at the school, something that you cannot say in most places.
It will take away any element of competition from between teachers and classrooms because everyone is working for the good of the whole cohort and not their individual class.
So that is my utopian classroom vision for English at JMSS. I feel that although there is still much to be done, we are well on our way to creating a dynamic, interesting and relevant curriculum that engages kids and meets their needs when and where they need them. Now, back to it!

New Term-New Beginning

2010-07-14T20:08:00.002+10:00

Term 3 started with our official opening. 150 official guests, weeks of planning, the Minister for Education Bronwyn Pike and a bit of a circus really! We had to change our normal timetable to fit around the minister's schedule and the kids had a weird 'third-of-a-period' where they acted like they were doing something so that when the minister came through she could check out the sort of work we do at our school. Very surreal but an affirmation that we are an 'official' school and that everything we have worked hard for is coming together. Many special guest speakers and much food later, the kids finished off their period one classes and the hard work was done!
I feel like this term things are really coming together. I came down with the 'Man-Flu' (given to me by the special man in my life) in the last week of the holidays and I still have a bit of a mannish voice and 'snotty' nose a week and a half later, and it kind of put me behind schedule. Forced me to relax a bit though I guess!

So far this term (and by this term I mean in the last three days) I feel like I have really taken steps towards organising my time at work more efficiently. There is so much to do in a day and I felt a bit like I was playing catch up during first semester rather than taking the bull by the horns and being proactive. I think given the fact that we are in a new school and starting from scratch it has been easy to let some things fall by the wayside and my house leader duties certainly took a back seat to the more pressing issue of curriculum development. Some things that happened at the end of last term really bought the student management procedures to our attention so over the holidays the house leader team had a meeting where we came up with an abridged policies and procedures document for house leaders and classroom teachers to ensure that everyone knows what their responsibilities are in terms of student management and wellbeing. This way we know we have procedures in place so that kids won't slip through the cracks. We are now tracking, reporting, and pre-empting student issues with more rigour and a tighter process.

What I really love about this school is the way that the responsibility for student health and wellbeing is shared amongst our staff equally. Rather than having a top heavy process or one where two people are responsible for 200 kids, every staff member is a tutor who is responsible for the welfare of 10-13 kids and they are the first port-of-call for any issues. Escalated issues are then referred to the house leaders. I have scheduled time in my week where I do admin activities - following up student work and doing my attendance reports and chasing kids and this makes me feel more organised and also makes me use my time for efficiently. Instead of sitting around looking at an overwhelming pile of work and not knowing where to start, I now have a super detailed timetable and schedule and the time that isn't devoted to house stuff and meetings is devoted to curriculum development. I think this way I will be more efficient.

I have also put in to place some extra elements of the curriculum this term that will make it easier for me to track my students. Due to the fact that we have a one to one computer program, all of our curriculum documents are online and the students can access all their work from home or school. They have a Personal Learning Site of their own and they post all of their class work online. This stops us from having to collect and mark workbooks and we can access the work from home or school to check it. I have also added an extra column to the lesson plans titled "What should I be able to explain by the end of the lesson." The students are given 10mins at the end of each lesson to put up a blog post online that reflects on what they learnt in the lesson and explains the dot points under the "what should I be able to explain" column. I think it is a nice way for the students and staff to measure the student's level of understanding of the themes and ideas of the class. It will help us determine which areas of the content are problem areas for students and how we can cater our extra support sessions in class. In order to systematically track the kids I have timetabled in an extra period as part of our English meeting time where we can sit together and look at our students work and plan and chat about their progress.
I am excited by the curriculum we are creating and I guess it is all a bit of an experiment at this stage because it is something that I have not tried before. It is all about trying to get the balance of the classroom right when the classroom is an open space full of students. The aim is that with the digital resources online, teachers will be more free to run "just in time" workshops with students and extra support sessions in areas of need. That is the next layer I need to embed into the curriculum. Right now I should probably get off the computer and get back to finishing off these digital resources.

Yong Zhao - 21st Century Learning Skills Workshop

2010-07-06T15:37:00.003+10:00

One of the other leading teachers and I went to a workshop in the city yesterday run through the innovations and excellence branch with renowned academic and educator Yong Zhao. I think that the point of the day was for this particular branch to work out what their next project would be and we were there to help them workshop ideas. Yong Zhao had some interesting things to say. I have been to plenty of sessions on 21st century learning in the last 5 or so years but some of the things he was saying were a little more left of centre. He was asking us to think about what knowledge we think is of most worth in this age of technology and information and suggesting that now that we are in a globalised world, and distance no longer defines us, what determines how well an adult will succeed in this global market is what you can give them that makes them worth more than the others who would cost less to pay. Companies will hire people from any where in the world if their labour is cheaper than somewhere else so it is not necessarily about qualifications any more but about what students have to offer.
Zhao believes that what matters in this global economy is
- diversity of talents
- creativity - not skills
- entrepreneurship
- passion
He believes we can encourage this in students through personalised learning - and by that I mean not the watered-down version that we have been attempting to do here for the last 10 years, but actual, personalised learning based on developing the students strengths and helping them reach their own personal life and career goals through resources and learning styles. No standardised, national curriculum with tests to check whether students have met pre-determined benchmark levels.
Interesting stuff that is so far removed from the current moves of education towards standardised, centralised testing and reporting.
This certainly raises questions and also provoked some ideas for me. I have been working these holidays on creating electronic "video" documents that work through the steps of language analysis in a way that covers the sorts of information I would normally chalk and talk. I will be providing students with these sorts of resources, and paper based resources and the learning from these documents can occur whenever and whereever they see fit. This means that during class-times I can run work-shops on the things that the students are struggling with and spent time with individual students working on their own particular concerns.
I am hoping that as the year progresses the english curriculum becomes more and more interactive and student focussed and self-paced like I always hoped it could be.
I will leave this post with a couple of questions posed by Yong Zhao:
What knowledge is of most worth? _Herbert Spencer 1859
Which human jobs should be replaced in schools?
What matters?
What strength does our school have that makes us different or unique?
How to we spread innovation?
What is the cost of high test scores? What do you lose?
How often do we trust out students?

Post 101 - getting lost

2010-06-28T15:25:00.002+10:00

Apparently this is my 101st Blog at this site - it has only taken me 6 years to get there! I often feel like I get lost. Not that I lose my way really, but that I have an incredible ability to block out anything that I don't want to or have time to deal with. I can be focused on the next task at hand to the detriment of the whole picture sometimes. It happened in my first long term relationship- I blocked out the fact that I no longer wanted to be in the relationship in favour of addressing only the things in my life that were easy to deal with. I learnt the hard way then that that was not something that is sustainable. No matter what you decide to block out, inevitably it is still there when you come back to it- and may, in fact, have become worse.
At the moment I feel like I have dropped a few balls. Work for me is hectic but fantastic and I am focussing a lot of my energy on getting the job done. I come home at night, after 10 or 11 hours out of the house and I am tired and just want to sit on the couch like a vegetable. This bothers me though. It seems sometimes like I am living to work and not working to live and there needs to be more balance. A lot of the time I can't be bothered cooking dinner let alone preparing a packed lunch for school the next day and as a result we have been eating badly. I have put on over 5 kilos since the wedding a year ago and I really don't like it. I need to somehow find a balance between work and health and 'me' time because it is only going to get worse if I don't do something about it now.
I am trying to get back on track. I have organised to go swimming one night after work with a workmate. Another two nights a week I am supposed to go walking with another one of my colleagues. So it is just the diet really. I sat down, on this, the first day of my holidays, and planned out what I will eat for lunches and for snacks because these have been my biggest issue. I have made a shopping list and am currently trying to work up the motivation to get off the couch and go out and purchase said goods. I want to make the holidays my kick-start to a healthier lifestyle rather than a eat-fest which is what it can be if I don't watch it.
I also think that professionally I need to make this year at work about more than just surviving. I am already looking around for the next challenge but I think I really need to make sure that I am doing everything at work to the best of my ability before I start piling more work on myself. I have been thinking about doing a masters next year, partly just to give myself some concerted time to think and reflect on what I am doing and how I can improve. I seem to never make enough time for that these days. Maybe this blog is part of the answer. I will be having a chat these holidays with my boss about what he thinks I should do in terms of post-grad study and am doing some soul-searching myself about what is motivating me and what I want to get out of the next few years. I want to stop letting life pass me by and make some concerted decisions about where to next.

What do I want to know about English in an open plan learning space?

2010-06-16T16:36:00.003+10:00

I have been asked to think about what I want to know about my English classes and what data I would like to collect regarding English in an open plan learning environment.
These are the things that I would like to know short term.
-What the students like about English
-How they think it could be better
-Do they feel we cater to their needs?
-Do they feel like they are cared about?
-What do they want to learn?
-Do they think we use the spaces effectively?
-How is English at JMSS different from at their old school?

I think I would also like to do a study that would tell us if we are adding value to the students over their time in English at JMSS. At this stage we don't have any real data about their potential and our potential to help them realise their own.
Just some quick thoughts. I think I will need to ponder this further.

Another new beginning

2010-06-15T14:15:00.003+10:00

Here is my new blog resolution: to blog at least once a week about what is going on and about things I am reading and connections I am making. I feel like a lot of the time I get bogged down in the fact that there is always something that needs doing in this job and these "guilt bag" items are the things that I prioritise over everything else. For the remainder of this year I am going to try to make blogging a priority.
I am reconnecting with the education community digitally, at least this is my aim. I have just set up a twitter account and have added a whole lot of educational sites - let me know if there are good ones I should add.
Today I went to Ultranet training - I was quite excited because this is my first glimpse of what the ultranet can do since my old school was a trial school many years ago. I am pleasantly surprised by its functionality. Coming from a school using Google Apps (which I find intuitive and clever and functional) I was more than a little concerned that the Ultranet was going to be a cruel and dysfunctional joke of an online network that was miles behind what we are already using. I am pleased to say that this is not so. The ultranet appears to have much of the functionality of Google Apps, but what it lacks is the ease of navigation of Google Apps, and the high end functionality. We will certainly not be replacing everything we do with the Ultranet once it goes live, because the systems we have in place are suiting our needs perfectly and doing much of what the ultranet will, but I can see that for the majority of schools who do not have a system in place at all, it will be a revolution in the way that they do things and in the way that they communicate with each other and with students.
One of the things that I have loved the most about coming to this new school is the technology. Due to the fact that every student has a tablet computer, the sky is the limit in terms of what you can reasonably expect them to do in a class. I found that at my old school access to technology was limited and intermittent, and it made you reticent to do anything because it wouldn't work anyway (and I am one of the believers! imagine how the technophobes felt!) At this school, with the combined strength of tablets and google apps - we are doing everything! Curriculum online, groups set up for student communication, sites for student parliament, curriculum, student groups etc. Google docs created and shared in class, google forms used to survey students and collect data in real time for a variety of purposes.
When technology is working for you and not against you it is the most liberating feeling as an educator. I feel like everything I ever wanted to do in a classroom in terms of communication and collaboration is possible here and there are very few drawbacks.
So this is what the Ultranet Pd made me think about.
I am going to try to do some professional reading as well and post on here my thoughts. At the moment I am investigating starting my Masters next year too so stay tuned! I think that I really need to wake my brain up and start learning again in a variety of forums and that is what I'm going to try to do!

Things to be thankful for:

2010-04-04T22:06:00.002+10:00

I have had a few posts mulling around in my mind over the last few months but with all the craziness I never made time to get them down. I want to make a list of the things I am thankful for, because I feel that this new job has been the best move I could ever have made and I want to capture the moments I have been thankful for so far.
1. Having a job description with specified roles and responsibilities.
2. Being trusted to do that job.
3. Having a genuine voice in all decision making. It makes me feel valued.
4. The opportunity to work with many people that I admire and aspire to be like. I feel like I am learning so much every day from every interaction.
5. The opportunity to challenge myself and learn and grow. So important to feel like I am improving rather than stagnating.
6. The team of people I work with and the team of staff I lead. Amazing people who work so hard and just want the best for this school.
7. The students - a little bunch of nerds who just want to be as good as they can be at everything. Brings back memories of a little 'darce-nerd' from yesteryear!
8. Most of all I am thankful that I took the leap in to the unknown once again despite being scared because it really is only when you do this that you once again start to learn and grow.

First day of Teaching at the new school!

2010-02-04T20:56:00.002+11:00

So after two full on weeks of meetings and planning and collaborating and debating and brain overload we started school with our brand new first lot of Year 10s on a three day camp. I have to say it was one of the better camps I had been on. Getting to know the kids on a camp was really interesting. The highlight of the camp was a talent show that showcased ACTUAL talent - and a lot of it. The most amazing performance was from a student who prefaced his act with the admission that he had never performed in public before. He got up with his guitar and the hand written lyrics and notes to the song he had penned himself and started to play. The kids could see it had taken him a lot to get up there and that he was very nervous. He then made a mistake on the guitar and it seemed like he was going to give up and leave the stage, or worse, cry. Rather than heckling him off-stage as may have happened in another school, these kids started yelling out keep going, and other encouragement and started clapping and cheering him to keep on going. He had a great voice and despite other mistakes and him seeming like he was going to break down a couple of times, he kept on going and got through his whole song and earned himself a standing ovation from the crowd of kids. Not only was this the gutsiest thing I have ever seen from a kid - putting himself out there with a crowd of complete strangers but the crowd's reaction to him made me want to cry too- I really think these kids will be amazing and I am so excited to be part of something that promises to be so special.

So today was the first day of teaching and it was really nice to get back in the classroom. It feels like my job was just administration for the past few months and although I have said in the past that I don't think I would mind if my job involved less teaching, I actually think that I'm changing my mind. Despite how tired I am coming off the camp and straight into teaching I am energised by this job in a way that I haven't been for a while. The staff team are amazing and every day I have moments where I smile to myself thinking that this whole thing is too good to be true and wondering how I was so lucky to end up here.

It's not all peaches and cream, don't get me wrong. The building is not finished and the university buildings we are working out of are quite old and spread apart so that all of my classes are literally a five minute, brisk walk out in the elements. I can't get used to leaving so early for class!
We only just got a printer/photocopier so you can imagine how frustrating it has been not being able to do things as basic as print and copy, especially because the student's laptop tablets have been delayed a second time so we can't even provide them with electronic documents. Having said that though, we are already high tech in our tablets and the programs we are using and I feel like I can use all the skills I have acquired over all these years and really help to create something great. This school is really appealing to my techno-loving self - so much so that I now have an iphone too which is synced with my email and my calendar etc. I feel like all my Christmases have come at once!

In all, despite the fact that I would like to go to bed and not wake up for days, I am buoyed by the start of this school year in a way that i haven't been for a while. I don't think that this is a reflection on my old school, rather a reflection of my itchy feet when it comes to change and challenge and new experiences. I know for certain that I have made the right decision. Bring on the rest of the year!

The Year ahead

2010-01-03T14:07:00.002+11:00

I generally don't make New Year's Resolutions but I think this year there are many things I want to achieve.
- A healthier diet that involves more home cooked meals and less take-away
- At least 30 mins of walking each day or every second day, or some other form of exercise
- Date night with James once a week to get us out of the house doing fun things together
- A healthy herb garden to complement my dedication to cooking
- A flourishing English faculty with an interesting curriculum and happy students
- Maintaining a regular blog to enable reflection and recording of what I have learnt
Some days I sit at my desk at home and wonder where to begin in order to get all the work done that I need to before the school year starts. Other days I work for hours excited and motivated by the new challenges, the endless possibilities and the intrinsic reward in creating something from scratch.

New Challenges and a little bit of Sentimentality

2009-12-05T09:59:00.002+11:00

I have begun the task of clearing out my office. Back in August/September when I first found out that I had been successful in my application to my new school, all I really felt was excitement. Now I'm still excited but as I clear out my stuff from the school where I have spent around 50 hours a week for the last 6 years, I am realising I am having moments where I really feel a bit sentimental and a little bit sad.

e5 framework

2009-10-01T14:10:00.000+10:00

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English

2009-10-01T14:07:00.000+10:00

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Lesson Activitie Wordle

2009-10-01T13:49:00.002+10:00

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Principles of Teaching and Learning Wordle

2009-10-01T13:23:00.003+10:00

Here is a wordle I just created on the Principles of Teaching and Learning.
I want to put some of this stuff up on my wall at home whilst doing my curriculum planning because it might prompt some ideas.
More to come! www.wordle.net - Check it out.

2009-09-11T15:04:00.002+10:00

I am starting this post with only 30 free minutes and I probably need longer but here goes:
Since I wrote the last post everything has changed. I had convinced myself that my best career option was to stay where I was but somewhere deep down I really felt like I needed a new challenge. That little niggling feeling that I needed to go out of my comfort zone started to niggle harder and I found myself in a situation where a position presented itself that seemed like too good an opportunity to give up. So I applied, was shortlisted, interviewed and got the job! The position title is Staff and Student Leadership: English and Whole School Literacy. It is a leading teacher position at a brand new school currently being built on Monash University Campus in Clayton that is opening next year. Whilst the position only begins next year there is much to be done before then in order to get an English Curriculum developed that will see the students off to a good start next year. The school is 10-12 and is predominately a Maths/Science school so the cohort will be significantly different to what I am used to. It is designed to be a school with cutting edge technology and the teacher with the e-leadership position is innovative and amazing at what he does so I am really excited about the amount I am going to learn. I am excited about the leadership team who I will be meeting in full the first week of the holidays and I am really looking forward to throwing myself in the deep end again for the first time in a long time. To be in a totally new environment with a new team to work with and with a new role and new challenge is something I am really looking forward to.
Having said that, I am sad that I am going to be leaving such a fantastic workplace. I am sad that I will leave behind the first school I worked for; a school that has given me every opportunity to pursue my dreams and goals; a school that has taught me so much about people, schools, teaching, leadership and myself. I will always be thankful that I started teaching in such a wonderful environment because it is partly due to that nurturing that I was able to get this promotion.

Another new beginning

2009-07-26T13:44:00.004+10:00

This has been a big year for me. I got married, went on a 6 week honeymoon to Europe and saw sights I had only imagined I would ever be lucky enough to see. I have entered a period of relative stability in my relationships and home life and so it seems that things are changing at work.
Just before I left school to get married (start of term 2) the AP I have been working under in my curriculum innovations role, got a new position at a new school, and gave 1 month's notice. This meant that before I even returned from my honeymoon, he would be gone. I knew that due to this, the first couple of weeks after my return would be full of catching up on my behalf - working out what had gone on whilst I had been gone and what this meant for me and my position.
It seems that what it means is a renewal of sorts; a rethinking and reimagining of what it is that I want my role to be. This has been reinvigorating, remotivating and exciting. There is much to be done. I am working on a new job description, imagining what it is that I want to be doing around the school for the next 3 years. I am imagining what the school will look like in a year when the new building is finished, and what the new curriculum that we are intending to introduce at Year 7 will look like. I am meeting with the acting AP and with the Principal about what our visions are for this new curriculum in this new building and I feel like everything is new again.
I am now one of the few people who has worked on this project from the start and this gives me an autonomy that I have not had before in my projects at school. I am able to work with the larger school community to gather ideas, formulate theories and to create something from scratch. Something that I feel will be the start of bigger changes, whole school changes, not necessarily in what we teach but in how we teach it and why. Changes to the leadership structures and to the way we have always done things, not because we can, but because it is time to rethink the things we have always done in the light of where we want to be at the end of the journey.
When we were on our way home from our honeymoon, I started our 'post-wedding budget.' This is a three year plan that I have since realised is almost like a 'strategic-plan' in that it is designed to get us where we want to be in 3 years time, with various milestones and achievements along the way. This is not because of my fear of uncertainty (my fatal flaw) but rather because I believe that if you set goals and a way to work towards them, even if they are not all achieved on time and on budget, you will have come much further than those that don't even dare to dream.
To this end I am also intending to go back to uni. It is something I have always wanted to do but the potential finanical burden was always what put me off. And it never seemed like a good time. I feel like this next three years, with my planning at home and at school, is the perfect time to do it and I happened to find out about a scholarship that is available that will allow me to do it without putting a dent in our 'post-wedding' budget.
Sometimes you go through periods of time where everything seems to just work out for you and go in your favour. I used to think I lived a semi-charmed life and in some ways it is true that I do. I have never had to endure what I consider to be great hardships in life but I have also learned that most of the things that I felt just 'fell in my lap' came after considerable planning or hard work on my behalf but that I never really connected the work with the end product. Now I am at a stage in my life where I not only am ready to reap the benefits of my hard work but I am also ready to knuckle down to the next stage of hard work because the dreaming about what I want the reward to be at the end is worth all the effort that goes into its making.

An End

2008-10-31T14:49:00.002+11:00

Today my Year 12 English students did their exam. Boy am I glad! For the last week and a half my studious Year 12s (and I don't include the whole class in that definition) have been making appointments, writing essays, asking questions and getting prepared the best they can for their exam. Whilst any teacher is more than happy to spend time with those who are putting in the effort and who want extra help, this is a taxing time. I have not had a free period in over a week, and due to the fact that half of my job is administration, things have been piling up. This afternoon was the first joyous free afternoon I have had in what feels like an eternity and my jelly-like brain has switched off well and truly. I am also excited that there is a four day weekend coming up because if I am a good little teacher and do all of my correction (3class sets worth of essays) then I will come back to school next week refreshed, with no work hanging over me and with a three day week ahead. Just the thought of it soothes my aching bones. If I am a bad little teacher however (which is entirely possible given my ability to be extremely unmotivated at times when it comes to correction) then that will be what consumes my entire week next week, a fate I don't really want to condemn myself too.
This is the part of the year that is exciting for me. The time when I get to look forward, identify my goals and targets for next year and start planning and working to bring them to fruition. This is the time of the year when I start to feel like I am really getting things done. The challenge though is to keep the momentum going and to get my teams working towards next year too. I have tried to start early, to set up teams of people to work on particular tasks and hopefully if I can keep them motivated and united we might get a result that doesn't involve me doing all the work. I'm proud of my BYTES team actually because I put out an urgent email this week for them to come up with report comments for their BYTES modules and within a day they had all responded. Due to the fact that I was dealing with Year 12s this whole week, the fact that I didn't have to chase anyone and that the comments were all of a decent quality was fantastic.
Anyway- I'm packing up so that I can leave ASAP after the bell goes. Tonight I am going to have a nice long bath with a nice long book!

Reflection on the Women in Leadership course

2008-10-04T11:48:00.003+10:00

Many times I have been meaning to sit down and actually reflect on this course as a whole and what it has given me, but I haven't made the time, until now. This year I made a decision to PD myself crazy. I wanted to improve my skills and capabilities in leadership in particular because this is an area that I am increasingly moving into, and I think that I still have a lot to learn about people management and creating a team environment. So I found this three day, women in Leadership course and got involved. The beauty of this course was that we did two days, then were sent off with homework and reflection time, as well as two-like-minded mentors/peers to keep us on track. Here is what I gained:

Two new friendships and many more new contacts
A knowledge of how to deal with the teams you work with and how to manage difficult situations
Practical activities and procedures for implementing change/promoting teamwork and creating a group vision
A better understanding of what I value in the leaders around me and the type of leader I want to be
A Vision of Leadership

Here is how I have implemented the knowledge so far:

Used a Y chart and some negotiating skills with my Year 11 class to get them all on the same page and better control their behaviour.
Began working with the BYTES team using the same methods to get them on the same page before we move forward with planning for next year.
Helped the school rewrite its vision and values statement and come up with core values
Reached out to form better relationships with managment and peers in the workplace.
Taken time to really listen to everyone that comes to my door.
Been proactive in seeking out advice about my position for next year.
Rethought my priorities and motivations.

Here is what I am hoping to achieve by the end of the year:

A cohesive BYTES team with a vision for the future and a strategy to get there
A survivor team (the Year 8 program)
New curriculum ideas and initiatives for BYTES and Survivor
A better leadership structure within the programs under my charge
A large role in the Year 7 redevelopment
A role in the leadership of change in our school

I think that the leadership course really gave me the foundations to start moving forward with my positions at school. I think it is one of the most valuable forms of professional development that I have done so far in my career but I think there is still so much work to be done.

Holiday Revitalisation

2008-10-03T11:01:00.002+10:00

I am horribly slack with this blog. I realised it has been way too long since I have written. Sometimes I think that I have to know what I am going to write about before I start and that there has to be a purpose. If I am going to get better at blogging more regularly, then this thought process will have to stop. I have had an eventful, yet restful holiday so far. I spent the first weekend in Brisbane, bridesmaid dress shopping for my best friend's wedding and we managed to get shoes too which is a bonus. Since then I have read 4 novels, spent two days doing activities (jewellery making and cooking) with my mum's day care children, have been for a walk almost every second day (I need to get the wedding exercise program back in gear - I'm hoping the extra daylight from daylight savings will help me there) I have finished Year 12 SAC correction and have spent two afternoons at school working on a curriculum team structure with my AP. I have done two budget request forms for two of my programs for next year which is something I haven't had to do before so I am glad that is out of the way. I have caught up with some friends, visited my cousin and her new baby and just these last two days I feel like I am starting to relax.
Term 4 should be interesting. Things will really begin to be fleshed out with our new Year 7 structure and hopefully the positions and structure for next year too. There are so many things at the school at the moment that are uncertain so it will be interesting to see how things fall into place. I am excited about the potential new challenges for me next year. I'm not sure how certain things will pan out but I do know for sure that in May I am getting married and then going to Europe for 5-6 weeks which will be amazing. This may impact on my teaching responsibilities though, because 6 weeks is a long time to be missing Year 12s. I think if I am involved in running curriculum initiatives in the junior school then it makes sense that I take Year 7 again and perhaps Year 9 (still not so keen on Year 8s!). I have also been teaching Year 11s for 5 years so I am happy if I have a bit of a change if necessary. It is always at this time of the year that I start looking to next year and thinking about what is necessary to forward plan and what the best way is to start getting things done.
Before the end of the holidays I would love to get my Year 11 correction done but I also have some homework to do from the BYTES program so that I am ready for next staff meeting.
My new term resolution is to write more - lets see how that goes!

2008-09-10T16:44:00.002+10:00

I've tried a couple of times to sit down and write lately but I haven't been able to work out exactly what it is that I wanted to say. I have been feeling a bit adrift lately - not sure of what my role will be next year, not sure about my place in the school and how what I am doing is contributing to the greater picture. I love my job and I love all the little aspects that are involved in it (except, perhaps, the dreaded marking)! but lately I have been recognising the importance of being reminded that you are doing a good job. That acknowledgment and validation that we all crave from our leaders is a huge motivator - helping to keep us on track and to keep our spirits up when the chips seem to be down.

There is so much happening at the school next year and I am keen to get involved but wasn't sure about what the opportunities were going to be. Rather than sit around dwelling in the uncertainty (which is something I do too often -see My Fatal Flaw) I have decided to be proactive and to find out what is going on and what my role will be when it all starts happening.

Today I had a discussion with my boss and really told her how I was feeling and she gave me some really positive feedback and concrete details about next year. I feel now like I have some certainty in my role and like I am ready to face the next challenge. For me it is really important to feel like I am moving forward - I don't ever want to sit back and simply repeat things that I have already done so it was important to me to know that there would be more challenges in store.

I feel like I have been revitalised. There are still many details to work out and a long way to go before my role is really fleshed out the way that we both hope it will be but for the moment it is enough.

My Fatal Flaw

2008-08-23T17:26:00.003+10:00

There are things about myself that I have always known: 1) that I do not deal well with uncertainty and 2) that I often internalise my stress and instead of going to the source and dealing with it my conflict hating self just stresses quietly without sorting out what it is that is going on. These two things are going to be the things that I will have to watch over my journey. I need to be more patient - not constantly thinking, planning and worrying about the future. Central to this is the fact that I also need to trust more. Trust that I will be looked after if I continue to work hard and do the best that I can. Sometimes I lose sight of this and I feel like I lost sight of this over recent weeks and I am just beginning to pull myself back out of the fuzz. As part of the leadership course I am completing, one of my colleagues suggested that a female mentor would be really positive for my development and it seemed to me to be exactly what I needed. I asked our principal, who was so influential to me as an AP when I first started teaching, if she would be interested in mentoring me. We had our first meeting on Friday and discussed her experience of leadership and how she came to be in the role that she is in now.
Funnily enough for someone who is now a principal, she said that her aspirations were never to be a leader, rather it was others around her who saw her potential for leadership through the relationships she built up with the students and staff. She said she has never been in it for the money, but rather for the outcomes for the students and that the relationships are what she loves about the job and the ability to make a difference.
I think that lately I have lost sight of this as I have been putting pressure on myself to take that next step financially because at the moment money is scarce in our household as we scrimp and save for the wedding and our honeymoon and then a mortgage after that. So instead of focussing on what I love about my job and how satisfied I am to be doing something that challenges and motivates me, I have been getting caught up on the little things- the things that ultimately do not matter.
So one session down and already I have learned some valuable lessons. I need to make sure that I seek out the reassurance I need so that I do not lose sight of the bigger picture and my place in it. It was also nice to confirm that my Principal is happy with the role I am taking in curriculum development and that she feels that I am contributing to the future direction of the school. This is important to me as I work really hard to create innovative and practical applications for curriculum in the classroom on a wider, program, scale and I wanted to make sure that this fitted in with her vision too.
Ultimately I have to get over my desire for certainty. I have to realise that I am doing what I love and for now, that is enough and not to be looking too far into the future, or focussing on the negatives. On the horizon is a new curriculum redevelopment for me to sink my teeth into and it is exciting and has infinite potential at this stage as we research and plan and start to make decisions on what form it will take. I'm looking forward to our next meeting!

Did I mention I don't deal well with uncertainty?

2008-08-17T12:43:00.002+10:00

It seems that things are always changing in schools and that is something that makes them such exciting, dynamic places to work. It also makes them the perfect place for someone like me to work (I hate doing the same thing for too long and love a change and to broaden my horizons). Strangely though, although I love change and new challenges, I don't deal well with uncertainty and at the moment it seems that my position as I know it is uncertain. Our school is undergoing a leadership restructure. The proposed structure that was put forward to management committee this week left my position up for discussion and debate. Many decisions about the leadership structure have been made, however the classification of the curriculum innovation position is yet to be decided. There are all sorts of reasons why this position is problematic for the school. This becomes problematic for me too though because I don't really know where I stand and at the moment I am just waiting for a decision to be made about my future. The position will exist, but the debate is about the pay classification of the position and whether it will be classified as a leadership position. I thought that during this leadership restructure this would all be sorted out, however it seems as though it is far from sorted. All I can do at this stage is wait for further news and keep my fingers crossed.

How to create a team when the team won't turn up?

2008-07-31T09:10:00.003+10:00

Yesterday I had a lunchtime meeting with the team that focussed around team building. There have been some rumblings from staff in the program that other staff are not pulling their weight and that a small number of staff are shouldering the burden of the other staff and 150 students on their own. In order to try and start building capacity in the team, I decided that we needed to get some lunchtime meetings (where lunch is provided) happening in order to get the conversation happening. We started with a Y chart on which everyone wrote their own personal ideas on what their ideal BYTES class looked like, felt like and sounded like. Once each person had done this, we combined responses on to one chart, which is now pinned up in my office as a reminder. We talked about the things that we needed to see improved and then each team member was given an individual goal setting sheet that asked them to imagine the words they would speak, the actions they would undertake etc if they were contributing to making this 'ideal' a reality. But here is the problem when you are working with staff. Of the 15 staff in the team, (and despite the three weeks notice) three couldn't come because of sporting committments, two could only come for half the meeting because of yard duty (I knew about that when I planned the meeting - it couldn't be helped) and one just forgot. Another turned up late after telling me he was definitely going to be there. What do you do about that sort of thing? It is frustrating because the meeting was organised a long time ago and these other things just "came up." It is frustrating because you put a lot of effort in (including buying food and drink) and some people don't bother to contribute. It is frustrating because one of the new staff that I was particularly trying to target because he is a classic "watcher" and not a participator was one of the ones that didn't turn up because of 'other' committments. Just like he often leaves the after school meetings early because he has family committments. It is difficult. I don't get a say in the staff who are in my team - the timetabler decides who she can fit in and people get to indicate their interest on their allottment form. This means that this year almost 1/2 the team are new, and this 1/2 of the team have been timetabled on together so they can't even learn from the experiences of others because they are all new. In the other 1/2 of the team there is not one single new person so they automatically work much better than the other team.
I guess this is one of the issues with dealing with busy people in a school environment. In an office it is expected that everyone turn up for their meetings so you can target the group as a whole. In a school, everyone has so many other committments to do with school that often they have things on that mean that they have to miss a meeting. It makes it hard to build that team spirit if there isn't a team there to build. I guess I have no choice really but to keep on plugging away. My goal is to now get them thinking about the type of skills we want to promote in our students in this program and then audit the curriculum with this is mind, improving, adding and making what we do stronger. I will continue and hopefully by the end of the year there will be an achievement to write about.

Sharing Stories

2008-07-15T14:45:00.002+10:00

As part of this leadership course we are required to return to day three with a teaching story (two actually) that are "magical and memorable" that model our values or vision. I have been really stuck as to what to write about but I have an idea that I will develop here for now. As I was writing the post about Leadership philosophy I decided that I would attempt to use some of the techniques I had learnt in the leadership course in order to try to curb the misbehaviour of my Year 11 class. This years Year 11 class for me have been the worst behaved of the 5 classes I have ever taught. I have been at my wits end - and my main concern was not with my sanity but really with the quality of their learning. Due to the fact that they are rarely quiet whether it is me or one of their peers speaking, they learnt very little in class. Their social tendancies also meant that when given the opportunity to complete a task in class, they would rather talk. No amount of yelling, punishments or pointing out to them how insanely rude they were for talking over the top of each other seemed to make a difference and I could see them slipping behind fast. So here is what I did. Yesterday (the first day of term) we had a double. I went in there with little individual Y charts and asked them to imagine what their ideal English class would look like, feel like and sound like. We then compiled the responses onto a wall chart for display. I then asked them to come up with a list of things they could do as a class to achieve this ideal English class. From this we came to an agreement and wrote a list titled
"To create our ideal English class we must:" Once we had agreed on those, I asked them what the consequences would be if someone was acting inappropriately in class. They brainstormed a list of possible consequences and then we excluded those that were inappropriate (like public humiliation) and voted to come to an agreement on the procedure to follow if someone was behaving inappropriately. I also asked them to agree on a reward if they went a whole lesson without one person being given a warning for misbehaving. They voted for 5 minutes free time at the end of the lesson. I made a big deal of this and everyone wrote down the list, consequences and rewards on coloured paper with coloured pens and I gave them a plastic pocket to display it in the front of their folder.
The beauty of this is the EVERY student was involved and every student had their voices heard (despite the incessent chattering). They have come up with their own classroom rules and system of discipline and they are rewarded for following their own guidelines.
Now I'm certainly not suggesting that I just reinvented the wheel and that I am brilliant. However although I have used this method for Year 7s I have never used it in the senior school because I never imagined that the kids would respect the process and that it would work.
The amazing thing is that we went the whole lesson today without one person AT ALL getting a warning. For this class that is unheard of. And you know what - we actually had fun. And we had an intelligent, insightful conversation about an issue that involved the students actually learning from one another and engaging with the subject matter. Simply breaking the cycle, thinking laterally and allowing the students a say in their own management has transformed my english class. I never would have thought it was possible.

Leadership Philosophy Musings Part 1 - What do people want in a leader?

2008-07-08T14:18:00.003+10:00

As part of the leadership course I am participating in we all have to write our own Leadership Philosophy really getting clear in our heads what sort of leader we want to be and what we hope to achieve with our teams. Below is my first attempt to begin to write out that philosophy. I am going to first look at what people want from their leaders and what I think they deserve from them.
When trying to determine what it is that I value in leadership, and therefore the type of leader I wish to be, I decided to think about my first couple of years of teaching and think about the leaders I was exposed to and the sorts of impact they had on me and the lessons I learned from them.
When I had just started teaching what I needed most was feedback and an opportunity to talk to people about my teaching and get advice and honest ideas about how I could improve. Really what I needed to encourage me to grow and take risks and take on new challenges, was validation that I was doing a good job and the knowledge that I was being appreciated. It was important to me to know that what I was doing was contributing to the team and to the school vision and the team vision.
In my first years of teaching I had amazing leaders, all of whom are still with me and still leading me. My mind thinks particularly about my AP (one whom I have discussed on this blog before and who is responsible for much of my present confidence and the reason why I love my job so much). This person was always there with her door open for advice, encouragement and a friendly word. Her ability to make you feel like you were someone she respected, relied upon and valued as an integral part of her team were things that had a big impact on me and on how I view leadership.
My KLA manager has been another person I admire and who has had a big impact on the way I lead. His manner when conducting meetings is amazing. His diplomacy is something I admire immensly, as is his ability to craft his faculty meetings so that despite the fact that there are many differing personalities and differing opinions in this very large faculty, harmony is always maintained, and a resolution and productive outcome is always obtained by the end of his meetings. The focus is always on the curriculum and how to obtain an outcome, never on the attitudes and negativity of certain members of staff and this is something that I aspire to. The ability to lead your team along with you in a positive direction despite the sometimes difficult environment of school life is something that is the mark of an effective and efficient leader and is something that I try to keep in mind when planning and conducting my own meetings. This person has always maintained an open door policy, able to offer friendship, support, understanding, ideas and focus for my sometimes scattered mind. I only hope that one day I will be the calm, thoughtful, wise and considerate person he is and that I will have the same sort of intuition with people that he seems to posess to allow him to respond to people in a positive way that reaffirms them and makes them feel reassured in their purpose.

So let me try to summarise these things in a way that makes them a possible inclusion in my own leadership philosophy:

I think that a leader should lead by example and be the very best leader they can be. I think that everyone deserves to be heard, to be trusted and valued in their contribution to the team, to be shown compassion, empathy and understanding and to be listened to without judgement. I think that people deserve to have their achievements acknowledged and celebrated and that this is one of the most important elements in building the confidence and capacity of your team.

I want to be the sort of person who leads through inspiration, not domination and I want to motivate and engage my team by enabling them and entrusting them to participate and contribute fully to achieving our mutual goals. I want to build a team environment that is trusting, collegiate, repectful, innovative and dynamic and one that utilises people's abilities and strengths, giving them purpose and celebrating the achievements of the team and the individual. I want to enable my team to achieve with me and without me. I want to set up a team that has such mutual responsibility and shared vision that any one of the team members could take over from me in an instant and none of the momentum would be lost.

As I was writing this I stopped in order to write up an action plan for my BYTES team. When term 3 begins, I will begin a series of fortnightly lunches with the team (2 meetings a term is not enough to get anything done) and I have planned out the first three of these meetings. These I have set up under three headings:

Team (Creating a vision for the team).
Values (What Qualities do we value in our students?)
Action Plan (Developing an action plan to improving student learning in our program).

This might be a lot to try and achieve in three lunchtimes but I have developed activities to get these things happening. I think that this is really important to set up the team this way before we embark on further developing our curriculum for the following years.

I am also brainstorming ways in which a session like this might be adapted to put some of the responsibility for learning back onto my Year 11s. They are the noisiest, most disengaged bunch of Year 11s i have ever taught and I think it is important that at some point before next year they develop a responsibility for their own behaviour and their own learning - after poor Exam results that they all deserved (lack of work, excessive talking in class, no drafting, planning, revising) they wanted me to justify why they got such bad marks. I need to do something before leading them to the lions of Year 12 so perhaps this is the new start we need for Semester II. I will keep pondering.

Holidays...what are they good for?

2008-07-06T13:57:00.003+10:00

School holidays are really good for renewing your focus and energy. I have done a whole lot of nothing over these holidays - or nothing life-changing anyway and it is very nice to have the time to do nothing. So far I have: caught up with my mum on several occasions and spent time with her little family-day-care charges (very small and loving and cute); caught up with one of my university lecturers and a girl I went to uni with; purchased some beads for my jewellery making; corrected 26 SACs; written pages of ideas for the new Year 7 program; read half of Oscar & Lucinda by Peter Carey; met with the two friends I made at the Leadership course to discuss the work we have been doing as part of the course; been to the movies; done some baking (and more to come - the more I can get into the freezer before term starts again the better off I will be - so far I am at 4 meals and counting).
These are the things that I am yet to do but that need to be done: My year 9 BYTES website (my brother and I built it before the start of the year but it still has not had the finishing touches put on it and therefore still sits patiently waiting for its debut on my laptop); Read my Year 11 information and plan classes for them for Term 3; Read Richard III in preparation for the Year 12s and plan activities. If I can finish off all of these things I will feel quite pleased with the use of my time these holidays. I also need to write my leadership philosophy and some inspirational teaching story for this leadership course I am doing. I think I should probably work on that these holidays because otherwise it might get lost in the mire of term and all the things that need to be done.
One thing that plays on my mind. Sentences that begin like this: Oh, it must be so great to have a job where you get all these holidays... Anyone who is a teacher or who lives with a teacher would cringe at these words. I managed to bite my tongue before I answered (especially considering that the comment came from my housemate who does shift work, has 3 days off every week, six days off in a row every fourth week and about 6 weeks of holidays every year). The response I wish I had given is that I would greatly prefer to be in a job like his and get 18 days off every month but I'm never quick enough to be bitchy on the spot. So I just mumbled something and kept on cleaning the house before going back into the spare room to correct Year 12 SACS. Teaching is one of those jobs that is misunderstood and that everyone thinks they can have an opinion on. Unfortunately everyone has been to school at some time in their life and therefore everyone seems to think that they can have an opinion on how easy teachers get it. What upsets me about this is that I don't deign to judge other people's careers, wages, working hours and their holidays and yet it seems that everyone thinks they have the right to judge how hard teachers work. I don't go round saying "oh lawyers, they get paid so much and do nothing" or "people in retail have really got it easy - no responsibility, no one counting on them if they don't turn up to work." Think about the comments made about teachers though. Luckily my partner is great. When we're out and someone asks me what I do and then proceeds with "oh it must be so great to have all those holidays" it is James who comes to my defense, explaining the hours I work during term time, the amount of work that I bring home with me, the weekends lost to correction because there is no other time in the day to do it. At least I don't have to sound like a whinger because that is what everyone thinks that teachers are. If teachers are just whingers and they actually have it good then why is it that the retention rate for teaching is lower than in any other profession? Why is it that someone like me who is in their fifth year of teaching is a statistical anomally (generally graduates leave before they have taught 5 years).
I don't even know why I am writing about this. I guess I just hate being judged. I love my job and I hate having to defend myself to people. I guess there are teachers who are slack and who come to school at 8.45 and leave at 3.30 and who do the bare minimum. Just like there are people like this in every other walk of life. Then there are the rest of us who love what we do, work hard at it, are often at school from 7.30am to 5pm or even 7 when the school is shut by the cleaners. There are those of us who don't just do the bare minimum but who want to make a difference and what to improve outcomes for the students in their care and who join every committee they possibly can, who co-ordinate teams of staff, taking on extra responsibility, often with little financial gain. Teaching is a job that you cannot do for the love of money. There are many people I work with who are extremely talented and could get jobs out in industry that would pay them at least 20grand more than what they are getting paid teaching but they would rather have a job that they believe in that is making a difference than a job that pays well. If only there were more people who felt that way.

An Acknowledgement

2008-06-28T15:10:00.002+10:00

I've been thinking a fair bit lately about what makes a good leader and the qualities that I admire in the leaders around me and this has prompted me to think about my relationship with the person at school who most closely leads me. I think the beauty of his leadership style is that I never feel like I am being told what to do - I feel like I am part of his team and that we work side by side to get work done. He includes me in the decisions being made and values my opinion and input in the projects he is working on. I am able to vent to him, question him, trust him, work with him as well as for him and he makes me feel like what I am doing has a purpose and is important to what is going on within the school in terms of the bigger picture.
At the moment I am excited about school and about the possibilities. At my school it seems like things are always happening and it is his inclusion of me in the new and exciting happenings around school that reaffirms to me that this is the place that I want to be and that all the challenge and innovation I need is right here in the place where I already work.
At the moment I'm just trying to do my bit. I'm trying to be as involved at work as possible and I'm trying to learn as much as possible about the school. This seems to be a time of renewal. New principal, new direction and once again a new beginning. I hope that when the dust settles I am revitalised and ready for whatever comes my way.

2008-06-26T08:25:00.002+10:00

Today is my last day of term because tomorrow one of my mates from work is getting married. I'm really excited. When I went to wish him luck yesterday he told me that before I know it it will be me getting married and the thought made me swell up with joy just a little bit on the inside. I can't wait to be married which is very different from my previous experience of being engaged. Another friend from work got engaged too on the weekend so if they get married in the next two years that will make 5 weddings from our school. I think it is the age - there are a lot more of us 'young' ones now (and I am one of the eldest of the young ones which makes me feel a little nanna-ish) and it is that time I guess where you are ready to meet someone and settle down. I guess I just need to enjoy where I am right now and stop wishing that I had everything yesterday!
On to work things - I have started working with our Teaching and Learning AP on a new curriculum model for Year 7. Due to the fact that we recently got funding to knock down an existing 50 year old building and create a new admin wing and Year 7 centre we are busily planning the sort of curriculum changes that might befit such a new building that has all the resources that Year 7 have previously had no access to. Building is due to start over this year's Christmas holidays and finish before the end of next Year so there is no time to lose. This is the part that I love - starting with a blank slate and imagining the possibilities. Thinking about all those things that you never thought were an option and that suddenly are now possible and working out how you can produce the best learning outcome for the Year 7s.
I am only taking home with me tonight a folder of Year 12 SACs ( a couple of hours work) and general planning for my three classes as well as this Year 7 stuff. I also have some long-term projects like the BYTES website that I would like to tidy up and get happening once and for all. I will use the holidays to get myself up to date and then start with a clean slate. Hopefully my housemate isn't home too much over the holidays or I might have to find myself somewhere else to be in order to escape. We don't have internet anymore either since he decided to stop paying the bill so I have to do something about getting some form of internet so that I don't have to drive to my mum's (30 mins away) just to use the internet. I will go crazy if I can't check my email! Anyway - here's to another long term (damn the people who set the term dates for vic) and to another new beginning next term.

Pressure

2008-06-19T08:14:00.003+10:00

Lately I have been putting a lot of pressure on myself. In every way. Pressure at work to be involved in as much as I possibly can be. Pressure at home to save for the wedding with a ridiculous budget that takes most of the fun out of living. Pressure to work out whether we should go overseas for our honeymoon or put that money towards a home so we can get into the property market sooner (in the hope that we can actually afford something more than a one bedroom hovel somewhere). Sometimes when I really think about the future and about where I want to be the future seems pretty bleak. That is the way it is for people of my generation. We are faced with soaring house prices, hecs debts and years of study, meeting our partners later in life and it seems the same rules that applied for our parents just don't anymore. I know I need to focus on the positives and I know that once we actually buy something, things will seem a whole lot brighter but at the moment it seems like time is ticking away and we are going nowhere. We are renting from my partner's mother which should be cheaper but works out to be almost as expensive as living somewhere else because of the extra bills and petrol that comes with living so far from work. And until his mum's new house is complete, we are also sharing a rather small house with my partner's cousin, something which I find difficult because I enjoy my own space. I guess sometimes I struggle with control. It seems at the moment like I am not in control of where I am heading and I don't like this feeling at all.
The truth of the situation though is that I am in control. I am the one that is putting pressure on myself to control things that I cannot control and that I should just move on from. I am the one that is wanting everything yesterday. It is hard when you have found the person that you want to be with to be patient while you set up your lives together. I want everything yesterday - the wedding, the house, the family and it seems that something has to give. I don't want to give up on my dreams but perhaps I need to work out what I really value and then prioritise. Perhaps the european trip may need to be put on the back-burner until we have achieved some of our other goals. Whatever the answer I think I need to let go a bit. Stop trying to control the things I can't and stop trying to plan out my entire future. Easier said than done...

relationships

2008-06-16T08:32:00.004+10:00

I have been thinking about this post for a while now and have restarted it a couple of times. I want to talk about relationships. I think my cosmic challenge this year is relationships. Someone out there wants me to learn some lessons about dealing effectively with others in difficult circumstances. And I am having some difficult circumstances. As I have mentioned before, life at home involves not only my relationship with my partner (which is more a pleasure than a concern) but my relationship with his cousin, our housemate. When I moved into this house over 11 months ago I thought that it was a short term arrangement. It has turned out not to be at all. I have been paying for storage for all of my stuff for nearly a year and James and I are still sharing a house with someone else which is difficult when we both want our own space. The issue for me is that my partner and his cousin have fallen in to a passive aggressive relationship. They both annoy each other but no-one talks about it and they just ignore it on the surface and then do little things behind the surface to try and make the point. I have moved in and have fallen into the pattern of being annoyed about things but not talking about them because I feel like it is not my place because I moved in to their house and I don't want to feel like I am making anyone uncomfortable. The problem is it is uncomfortable regardless because no-one really says what they are feeling.
I think that there is a lesson I need to learn about this and that is about taking control of the situation and getting things out in the open regardless of how difficult that may be because not talking about things is not working. One of the things that has become an issue is the fact that I do all the housework. If I was being given financial incentive to do all the housework I wouldn't mind so much - pay me and I will work. But the fact is that I spend just as many hours at work as my partner and his cousin and then I do all the cooking (for my parter and I ) and the housework for the entire house. The cousin does not even take the rubbish out, has never once swept the floors and barely even does his own dishes. My partner does his share (but works 6 days a week so has less time to do it in). I have decided that I am going to deal with it once and for all because I am resenting the housework and silently wanting to punch the cousin in the head every time I see him. So I am going to call a meeting of the house and I have drawn up a list of chores that I am going to get them to volunteer for - they can choose what they are happy to do and then somehow I have to hope that they do it so I don't become the nagging mother.

It was something in this leadership course that made me think about relationships. Trin made the comment that relationships are very difficult to repair once they have been damaged because that trust is not there anymore. I think that one of my lessons for this year is about being positive in every situation and in the way that I deal with people, regardless of how tired/overworked/sick/frantic I am. I have had a couple of experiences this year with a couple of people at work, one who I felt betrayed me in a professional sense and another who has always been an issue to deal with (this person doesn't like me and don't even make an effort to be civil) and these have led me to realise that it is important to always be open and honest in your relationships at work and to value them and to endeavour to make every interaction with people a positive one. This is really hard to do when you are working to a deadline and suddenly everyone wants to come and see you and chat to you for no particular reason. It is hard to do when the person you share an office with and the person who has interloped their way into spending a vast majority of their time in your office have no work to do and proceed to talk crap whilst you are trying to work.
I just think that I have been internalising things way too much this year. I have been focussing on the things that I have no control of and not changing the things that I can control. I have been focussing on the negative and not turning these things into positives. I have been playing the martyr when I should be playing the problem solver. I am sick of being a whinger. I am sick of not taking control of the things that I can. I am going to endeavour to change that. It is going to take concious effort but it is also going to take looking at things a different way. Being more patient and thinking about things with my problem solving hat on, not my venting hat. I am hoping that this will bring more positive outcomes.

Goal Setting and the Master Mind Partnership

2008-06-03T15:20:00.003+10:00

As part of the follow up to this leadership course we have been given partners (or in my case two partners) to help us in accomplishing our goals visions and intentions. They do this through weekly meetings, support, questioning and clarifying of goals and ensuring that ultimately we win. It is a reciprocal relationship and I am just as responsible for my partner's successes and failures as I am for my own.

This brings me to goal setting. There were some ideas that stuck out to me from the two day meetings that I want to record here in order to help me clarify what I would like to achieve.

In order to effect change in your workplace and in your staff you can't take people too far out of their comfort zone at once - rather you have to gradually stretch their comfort zone so that they don't even realise you have taken them out of it.

The way we listen delivers a message - what message do I want to be delivering?
4 leadership qualities: Flexibilty, Adaptability, Creativity, Innovativeness.
Quantam leaps are based on a firm foundation of the fundamentals.
It is impossible to lead without a philosophy of leadership
You win some, you lose some - do the best you can with what you have at the time.
Clarity check your definitions within your team - make sure everyone is on the same page.
Learn to read the signals from your team-members and use them.
Prepare and your chance will come.
Strengthen your own talents and use them to make the team better.
Credibility builds trust. If you give your word then keep it - or change it responsibly.
They may not remember what you taught them. They will always remember how you made them feel.
Don't ever drain your relationships - fill them up.
Observe the energy in the room - Did you raise or lower the energy - are you giving or taking?
Teach people to go to the source and talk about it. Open communication is important.

These are just a few of the things that I thought were important to record and revisit from time to time, however there were a couple that stood out to me - things that resonated with me because they are things that I feel are shortcomings in my own leadership and it is these that will inform where I go from here.

I guess these three below are my long-term leadership goals. The ones that I am going to try and keep in mind as I work day in and day out:

Listen to understand - really listen to the people around you, particularly when people are coming to you for advice or leadership and don't listen from a place of judgement - listen to really understand where they are coming from.
Credibility builds trust. If you give your word then keep it - or change it responsibly. Follow through on all the things you say you are going to do - or be careful before you promise something if you don't think it is something you can achieve.
Following on from this, this includes for me following through on all the little things that I am responsible for. I need to make sure that I go back and cross every t and dot every i because too often I fear that I lose those tiny details at the end of one task in the beginning of the next task. I focus my attention too often on the next deadline and don't stop and refocus and work out what needs to be finished off and tied up. I don't want the forgetting of a few minor details to detract from the bigger picture of the work I am doing.

The following are the things I want to achieve before the end of next week:

Organising the Year 8 Chant-off day down to the last detail.
Completing the BYTES website.
Organising Guest speakers for BYTES.
Set up a lunchtime BYTES discussion group to organise the next unit.
Follow up Cyber Safety.
Meet with BYTES team leaders to touch base and organise next unit.

Not sure if this is what I should be doing but I think these are the things I need to do to get myself on an even playing field. Then I can think more proactively. Tonight I will meet with Imelda and Julie and we will discuss!

Another new Beginning

2008-05-30T14:38:00.003+10:00

I think I have discovered in myself a new beginning. For two days this week I attended a leadership course for women. It is a three day course, with the third day in August and between now and then we have homework to do.

I think I sought out this leadership course for both a concious and an unconcious reason. Conciously: I have been running a team at school now for 2 1/2 Years and I have never had any formal leadership training to help me develop my skills. I am also hoping to continue taking on more responsibility within the school and this year, running all the Junior school (7-9) curriculum programs has certainly left me busier than I have ever been before, and dealing with more people than ever before. I believe in constantly learning and improving and I think I certainly have a long way to go in developing and working on my leadership skills.

It was not until the second day of the course though that I started to really clarify why I had subconciously sought out leadership training. I think that this last year or so I have been searching. I have been feeling lost at school, not sure what the future holds for me and unsure how to deal with the uncertainty (I really don't deal well with uncertainty). When you don't know where your career is headed it makes it really difficult to set goals and to imagine yourself achieving them. I have been loving my job; don't get me wrong - to be challenged everyday is a satisfying thing to me and I feel that the more I am challenged the more I strive to achieve. The only problem is that I have been feeling that perhaps some of the things I am doing and the skills that I feel I have to offer are going unnoticed. Or not even that they are not noticed, but that they are not acknowledged.

Part of this course asks us to create our own philosophy of leadership. Kind of a mission statement to live by I guess and in brainstorming this idea, I started with what I think people deserve or expect from a leader.
This is what I came up with:

compassion
understanding
to be heard
to be trusted and to trust
to be valued
to be proud of their achievements
to be treated with respect

Through discussion with others in the group I clarified and added that people want to be acknowledged and affirmed in their roles.

I realised that in making this list I had thought back to my first year of teaching and remembered the influence that one of my AP's had on me. The support, encouragement and affirmation that I got from this person was one of the fundamental building blocks of my confidence as a teacher. Having someone who celebrated my successes, gave me confidence to take on more and encouraged me to challenge myself further.

What is also obvious to me is what a difference it makes to someone when the support that they once had is no longer there. Not that I think this person has decided they no longer like me and no longer want to encourage me, but in taking on more responsibility themselves, this person has less time to spend reaffirming me and letting me know that I am doing a good job and that I am on the right track and this has left me a little bereft. The problem for me is that this person is the one who I answer to, the one who is in charge and without that reassurance from them that I am doing a good job and that I am appreciated I become concerned that I am just floating along and going no-where and that the things I am working towards don't necessarily have a place in the school's vision.

Understanding my own need for validation and affirmation has made me realise an important lesson in my own leadership. Constantly tell your staff that you appreciate what they are doing and celebrate the things they do well. Ensure your team has a vision and that everyone knows their role in the team to bring about change and thus ensure that everyone is on the same page and working towards the same goal. I don't see myself as an insecure person (in fact sometimes I think I am a little too sure of myself) but I think that all it would take for me to have a bit more confidence that I am in the right place and that I am doing a good job would be to hear it.

A time of renewal and revitalisation

2008-03-17T14:17:00.002+11:00

This year has been an interesting one for me already. For the first time since my first year of teaching I have wondered once or twice whether or not I have bitten off more than I can chew. I have the same classes as last year (minus some BYTES periods) and I have taken on the organisation of two other programs. This leaves me in charge of the programs from Year 7-9 and has given me the opportunity to execute organisation on a scale not seen by me before! I decided that since I will be getting married next year and might need some time off for a honeymoon, that this year I would cram it choccas with extra responsibilities. So add to my 7-9 programs my membership on Curriculum Committee, Managment Committee and School Council as well as involvement in our Building Futures bid, and leadership restructure and you can see that I am a girl that spends very little time at home. So little in fact that I actually missed the VCE formal (I have been to every one since I started teaching) because I wanted to have one night in two weeks where I was home before 9.30.
Having said that, I feel that despite the stress and the new challenges that are coming with this year, there are great personal rewards. I am enjoying the new challenge (although it sometimes makes it hard to go to sleep at night) and I am enjoying the number of new skills I am learning this year. I am loving the people I am working with and the feeling that I am making a difference. I am enjoying the feeling of renewal as the school welcomes it's former AP as Principal and some long over-due changes are made. I like the feeling that the school is looking towards the future, and not just concerned with maintenance. I like being a part of this.
A recent PD on wellbeing allowed me to make a change in my diet and a new gym membership has seen me take some time out from my schedule for myself - to ensure that I am happy and healthy and feel good about myself. I was hoping to get rid of my pot belly in time for the wedding and I am now well on the way! This year has also made me realise the importance of having this time to myself and looking after myself. When work is taking up the majority of your time and your headspace you need to make sure that you are at least attempting a balanced lifestyle.
I have also started a new organisational regime that may sound somewhat like a cult but involves an almost sickening affection for my newly acquired brother p-touch labeller. I am organising myself in a way that I have not before - with the help of the aforementioned labeller and many a manilla folder. Now I just need a filing drawer in my new office and I will be the most organised I have ever been in my life. It is a great feeling to take control - especially when there is so much going on that a small break in the chaos allows you to get back on your feet again. I am looking forward to the holidays. Partly because i will be able to rest and regroup but mainly because it will give me an opportunity to get my head above water and get myself up to date with all of my work without people giving me more work to do. Regardless of what happens I am enjoying the new opportunities and I feel like this year, like all that have come before it so far, will be bigger and better than the last.

A bit of fun

2007-11-13T08:02:00.000+11:00

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

ramblings

2007-09-11T17:03:00.001+10:00

I am beginning this post without a clear focus which may be a very bad thing, or therapeutic depending on how it all works out. Planning for next year has begun in earnest, with our first session on developing rich tasks and fertile questions on Friday. Unfortunately only four staff members from my team turned up but the ones that did managed to get a lot of great ideas down, for working on at a later stage. I have been working on a brainstorm in inspiration to try and collect my thoughts on organsisation of BYTES next year, curriculum development, resource collection and other ideas. I think it is important to keep assessing, keep thinking, keep planning. I think it is soon time to make a few decisions about the organisation for next year so that we can start getting things done. The fact that we are moving into the new centre next term, and that all of our bad habits will move in with us is not something I have forgotten. Before we can really start dealing with next year, we need to first put in place some structures for this year because the way we are currently doing things will not easily translate into the new centre. The curriculum, despite the original brief, does not really fit the model of rich tasks and fertile questions, albeit close, and so when we move into the open plan centre (all 125 kids and 6 staff members) there will have to be some careful organisation to avoid a disaster. This is the main reason that things have to change for next year. Next year there needs to be structure instead of improvisation, facilitation instead of teaching, and mentoring instead of marking. We are already well on the way to achieving these goals, but there is still a significant journey ahead of us. Sometimes though, like now, I lose all motivation for anything other than sleep. I find myself wasting valuable time blithering about when I should be planning, constructing, creating. Sometimes I find that I just can't be bothered. Is it because I didn't get enough sleep on the weekend, because of the Parent/Teacher interviews that have taken up 2 of the last 4 school nights? Or the short days that before an interview (where the students finish at 2,30) or the short days that follow (where the students start at 10) that are designed to give us a sleep-in but which only rob us of time in class so that we spend our days rushing through things and feeling like we have achieved nothing? Or am I just tired because I am not getting enough sleep or because I struggle to switch my brain from thinking mode to relaxing mode. Now I am rambling... bring on the hols!

multiple intelligences test

2007-08-17T14:03:00.000+10:00

This one is interesting and would work well in a classroom - getting the students to do this test and actually trying to incorporate their preferences into your classroom would be a really interesting experiment (not one that no-one has ever done mind you, but interesting nevertheless).

my personality test-more to follow

2007-08-17T08:23:00.001+10:00

One of the blogs I read had one of these and we have talked about personality types in one of the leadership courses I have been doing.

This is what it says about people with my profile:
INTJs are introspective, analytical, determined persons with natural leadership ability. Being reserved, they prefer to stay in the background while leading. Strategic, knowledgable and adaptable, INTJs are talented in bringing ideas from conception to reality. They expect perfection from themselves as well as others and are comfortable with the leadership of another so long as they are competent. INTJs can also be described as decisive, open-minded, self-confident, attentive, theoretical and pragmatic.

Interesting. Let me know what you think. I looked up the personality type that I got from the quiz in the leadership course and it was very similar but this one seems to be more accurate.
Next is the mutiple intelligence test!

2007-08-15T18:14:00.000+10:00

I am at an interesting stage in my career. I feel like I just want to push on to new and bigger and better ventures and test myself and push myself in new positions with new challenges. I fear however, that I am missing the little things, the details and perhaps the reasons I am here in this profession in the first place. Perhaps in the pursuit of new endeavours and new horizons I have forgotten what my primary focus should be and that is on first and foremost being the best teacher I can be in the classroom. Sometimes I feel like I don't have time or energy to plan properly. When time and energy is also being taken elsewhere with other programs and other ideas, it is sometimes my classes that get left behind. That is not to say that I think that I am an awful teacher. I think generally I have a good rapport with my students, we have fun and we also learn together, but I feel that I am not innovative enough in my own classroom. I research and plan and speculate when it comes to programs on a whole school scale, but then I fear that I am not doing anything particularly exciting at all in my classrooms. When did I stop focussing on the classroom and start being an administrator. Not that there is anything wrong with admin - in fact that is where I want to be but at the moment I can't forget about the classroom. I need to remember that I have so much more to learn and stop trying to have everything yesterday. I need to relish the little moments and the little victories and have this be enough for me. I need to stop trying to conquer the world before I'm 30. I need to work on what I can achieve and realise that I can not do everything - at work or at home.

I think sometimes you get to this part of the year and you think about all of the things that you would have done differently if you had the chance but you dont have that chance. The same 150 kids come into the same classes each day and the systems that you set up at the beginning of the year and have positively or negatively reinforced remain. At the moment I just need to take some time to stretch my head above water and realise what I can still do and how I am going to do it. I need to refocus on the remainder of the year and what I am going to do differently. Then I just need to do it.

Looking out to see within

2007-08-03T14:52:00.000+10:00

So in the process of looking outward to see what else is out there in the world of education and in my impatience to get somewhere fast, I have actually, inadvertantly, learnt a lot about myself. Lately I have been restless and looking for a new challenge. When I feel this way I generally look for a total change and that is what I have been doing - checking out what else is out there and working out my options. I have visited numerous schools this year due to the TPL funding and I am looking at building design and pedagogy as well as curriculum innovation. Travelling to different schools has opened my eyes to two things. The first, how much more we could be doing at this school to provide innovative curriculum to our students by introducing some diverse and engaging activities. This is not to say that we are not doing anything - the BYTES program is going well, and many other schools are looking to this program for guidance in their own schools. But when I see what some of the truly innovative schools are achieving with their students, it makes me want to push for more here too. The second is the fact that it will be difficult for me to find a position in another school that has the sort of school culture and opportunities that I am used to. I want to be able to continue working in the area of curriculum innovation, ICT, learning spaces and program development, but there are not many opportunities out there in these areas. I am an impatient person and I want everything yesterday in some respects but I need to ensure that I don't cut off my nose despite my face. The opportunities that I have had lately at my school and the possibility of more to come have made me content to focus inward again and set my own plan into action, rather than looking somewhere else for motivation. I have taken stock of where I am, and in deciding that this school is where I want to be, at least for the next couple of years, I have been able to refocus my goals and my attentions to achieving change and innovation as best I can.
So the first goal, and it is a 6 month goal; is to re-develop BYTES so that when we move into the MERC (which is still not complete) we will be making the most of the learning space, making the most of the staff/student mentor relationship and making the most of the learning opportunities for the students. I am working on more of a fertile question/rich task model to redevelop the curriculum so that students are given the opportunity to explore learning for themselves and develop those skills we want them to have by the end of their schooling, that they are not really developing any other way.
So my plan is to:

Get together with staff and look at the qualities and attributes that we want our students to have in BYTES by the end of the year.
Have a workshop with current year 8 students to work out what it is that they are interested in learning so that we can develop fertile questions and tasks around these areas.
Present our findings to the entire staff body so that we can get others on-board to be part of the curriculum rewriting and planning phase if they are interested and to keep people involved.
Get together a curriculum writing team to plan and write the curriculum
Work out the redesign of the organisation of BYTES to move us into the new facility

and the list will go on...

As well as that there is the possibility of the new building. If that goes ahead there is the possibility of having a major role in the building design and curriculum design due to the fact that I have been researching these things for the last 6 months. So rather than feeling stifled at the moment I feel that the possibilities are endless and that they really are what I make of them. It is all up to me.

2007-06-20T11:00:00.001+10:00

After weeks with no posting (okay make that months) I am now going to post several times in a couple of weeks! How inconsistent is that? It's good to be unpredictable I think. I have a lot on my mind at the moment and I feel like after 4 years of teaching this is the time to make some decisions. I am confused about what it is that I want to do. Actually I guess it is not so much that I am confused about what I want to do, it is more that I do not have any guarantees that I am heading in that direction. Everything is uncertain and it is difficult for me to work out what it is that I should do.

In my perfect world, I would like to be in a position where I was working on innovative curriculum design, ICT innovation in the classroom and designing buildings for 21st Century learning. This is where my interest lies. I have been lucky enough that I have been co-ordinating the BYTES program last year and this year and it has started really well. The next challenge with BYTES is to overhaul the modules to make them more integrated and less teacher-focussed. Aside from the new focus in BYTES, I feel that I am ready for a new challenge. The school has been investing in me in terms of PD, the trip to NZ and has been involving me in the projects and building designs and curriculum designs for the other year levels that we are currently working on. This is the stuff that I am really enjoying at school at the moment. I would love for this to be my entire focus and to be able to research, go to PD and visit schools to allow my contribution to school to be one based on information and knowledge to avoid the last-minute-lets-slap-something-together attitude that becomes all too prevalent because schools are time-poor.
I enjoy teaching, but I wouldn't mind if my job involved purely administration and curriculum design rather than teaching because that is where my passion is. I also wouldnt mind doing consultant sort of work, or working for the department if something came up that was suitable. I guess that for me being challenged is important, and always learning. I love to learn about new things and increase my knowledge and I guess that is why I keep thinking about going back to uni all the time - because I really like learning and challenging myself. If I could find a position like that it would be great.
Although I love where I'm working, and I think I lead a pretty semi-charmed life there, I think that my new challenge is going to have to come from outside this school, in another school, because it seems there are no guarantees at all when it comes to promotion and leadership positions at my current school, and as much as it is tempting, I cant hang around waiting for a position that may never eventuate.
So I was thinking of going back to uni to do honours or masters to research in that area but I would still want to be working full time so I'm not sure if I want to take on such a committment. I feel like at school at the moment I have so much to offer and so much that I want to achieve, but I do not have a defined role that allows me the time and the chance to do these things. It seems like the school's leadership structure does not really complement the way the school is moving and growing and there are lots of areas that are not being covered that are desperately in need of some focussed attention. So that is where I am at I guess. Looking around for opportunities that will allow me to follow my passion and hopefully are also a little closer to where i am living in Ferntree Gully at the moment too. I will keep you posted!

New Zealand

2007-06-20T08:24:00.001+10:00

I am trying to make this a more regular thing. It seems that there is a lot going on at the moment. School has been hectic as you can imagine with reports (and the new VELS reporting to boot) and exams and marking. Things were made even more hectic for me due to the fact that in the middle of report writing time, I went to New Zealand as part of a study tour for 6 days to look at schools over there. It was an amazing experience. Aside from the fact that it meant that I had to mark 2 classes of exams and a class of essays in 2 days in order to get my reports done 4 classes in said 2 day period, the 6 days in NZ opened my eyes to the interesting things going on in education, not just in NZ, but in Victoria as well. The trip involved 13 principals and leading teachers from Victorian schools, and the aim of the trip was to look at some schools in NZ, and see how they were designing their curriculum, incorporating ICT, and designing their buildings. The majority of the schools we looked at had only opened in the past 5 or so years and were aiming to provide education for 21st Century learners. They focused on personalised learning, individual learning programs, creating community, integrated curriculum, self direction and reflection, and had designed programs that catered for their students' individual needs, learning styles and allowed them the freedom to cater their own learning program to their needs and preferences. Their buildings were also designed with this premise and they included lots of glass for high visibility, student breakout areas of varying sizes and varying quietness, meeting rooms for student groups, accessible technology or laptops for all, and classroom spaces with flexibility to be resized. All this and they still claimed to prepare students for the rigours of external assessment at Years 12 & 13.
So the NZ system is different from ours in Vic, but there are some similarities in the approaches they took to the approaches of some of the other schools in Vic who are being similarly innovative. They seem to have looked at the curriculum documents they are made to work with and stripped them back - eliminating the content to leave only the key learnings and the student skills that they would like to see as an end point, and then designed their curriculum to incorporate and work towards these skills and learnings. In doing this they are allowed a greater freedom to incorporate rich tasks, fertile questions and integrated learning, rather than teaching all these skills in distinct classes for different learning areas.
At the moment we are thinking about BYTES, including what is done well and what can be modified or improved and at the same time thinking about changes to Year 10 to incorporate a more authentic careers program and Digital Portfolios. We are also in the process of applying for funding for a new building for Year 7 students in order to get rid of some of the portables and to try and increase the Year 7's connectedness to the school. At the moment the Year 7's are split up as a year level between the last two blocks of the school, in ageing portables, a long way from the rest of the school. We are also looking at ways of improving learning for the Year 7's and this trip gave me so many ideas about what we could do.
It is important to remember that these NZ schools had all been either purpose built or purpose designed for the curriculum initiatives they were trying to develop. So our journey will not be without blockers. We have an intense focus on VCE results at this school and so anything done at junior year levels must not be seen to be losing the rigour and the focus needed to prepare our students for VCE. We also do not have the ability, due to timetabling etc, to totally rejuvinate the way we do things and begin from scratch. There will be no clean slate at our school to work with, only a chance to incorporate some of these learnings of other schools into the way we do things in order to help improve student connectedness and student learning outcomes. In some ways I see the amazing possibilities that a total reform would bring about but I am realistic about the chances of that happening.
I think that this is a really interesting time to be working in education and it is this sort of stuff that really interests me - curriculum and building design, innovation, and ICT. This is the path I would like to folllow in my career and there are a lot of exciting things going on to get involved in. It just also reinforces for me my confusion at where to from here in my career...

Still Here...

2007-05-22T10:09:00.001+10:00

Yes, I am still alive and well but I haven't really been motivated to post lately. I think that this year I have been just as busy as I have been before, but a lot more contented with the way things are going and I tended to use this as a way of venting more than anything. So with nothing to vent about I have been relatively uninspired. But not so anymore. Saturday I went to the ICTEV Conference. I presented at two of the sessions, the first with Lynn Davie on Digital Portfolios and the second with Di Morwood on the Year 9 BYTES program and our Digital Portfolio program. Whilst these were affirming experiences (including seeing filmed footage of myself for the first time in front of 30 people which was actually quite mortifying) the real motivation and excitement for me in the day came from going to one of the other presentations. It was a presentation on Digital Storytelling that really inspired my - digital storytelling has been something we have been dabbling in with the year 9s in their digital portfolios but it is not something that we think we are doing very well. This session gave me not only the inspiration to continue (and also to try and develop a similar activity for the Year 7s) but it also gave me some of the know-how by including a copy of the booklet they give their students in order to get them properly focussed on the task. Another presentation I went to was on a particular school and their use of technology and was really interesting. Whilst some of the schools uses of technology were really good, there were other technologies that they had not taken on board and were quite cynical about which I found interesting. He also talked about VCAL IT which sounded really interesting. I reckon if we ran it at our school there really would be a lot of interest. It is really great to go to these sessions and come out inspired. Lots of the things that were presented were really practical and had been successfully incorporated into the curriculum at the school that were presenting so you know that it is tried and tested.

In fact something I have been doing a lot of lately is presenting at, and attending conferences and it is really through conferences and PD days that you get some of the most valuable inspiration.

2006-12-18T19:59:00.000+11:00

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.

2006-11-17T10:30:00.000+11:00

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

2006-10-12T21:22:00.000+10:00

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...

2006-09-01T12:17:00.000+10:00

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...

2006-08-26T15:55:00.000+10:00

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

2006-07-25T16:58:00.000+10:00

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?

2006-07-14T14:03:00.000+10:00

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

2006-07-07T10:08:00.000+10:00

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...

2006-06-04T14:48:00.000+10:00

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)

2006-05-12T14:58:00.000+10:00

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?

2006-05-04T13:51:00.000+10:00

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...

2006-04-11T09:52:00.000+10:00

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

2006-02-28T11:49:00.000+11:00

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…

2006-02-27T11:18:00.000+11:00

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?

2006-02-15T12:01:00.000+11:00

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...

2006-02-15T11:08:00.000+11:00

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...

2006-02-07T16:21:00.000+11:00

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...

2006-02-07T08:16:00.000+11:00

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...

2006-01-31T08:28:00.000+11:00

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...

2006-01-25T16:43:00.000+11:00

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.

2006-01-23T14:13:00.000+11:00

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…

2005-11-17T08:29:00.000+11:00

It is that time of the year again. Reports are being written, the whingers are out in full force and life is a bit of good and bad for me. On the one hand, my Year 12’s are finished. They had their exam on Friday and there were no nasty surprises so I am fairly happy that they were well prepared. Some of the students have started emailing me to thank me for the year and that is really nice. It is an amazing feeling to know that you have been able to make a difference even to one student. My Year 11’s have finished too and I actually am really missing my senior classes. You have the benefit of being able to have really close relationships with your senior students and it is always sad to see them go. The fact that all of my senior classes have finished leaves me in the enviable position of having only 2 classes (7 periods a week) of Year 7’s. But this is where some of the bad comes in. As much as I love my Year 7’s and would happily talk to each of them for hours on their own, at the moment, as a class, they are a nightmare. Some of it is due to the fact that the end of the year is in sight for them and all they want to do is be silly and show off and talk, but part of the problem is that in conjunction with their lack of motivation, is my need to finalise their assessment and so each lesson at the moment with them I am fighting a battle to get them working. I feel like I am in a war zone every day and I really don’t like it. Maybe it is their lack of motivation. Maybe it is the fact that the work they are doing is boring. Maybe it is the fact that I don’t have the senior classes to balance me out and provide the mental stimulation I am used to having. Maybe it is a combination of all of those things, but I really don’t like the fact that the only classes that I am teaching at the moment really aren’t fun at all. The thing that amazes me the most though is that no matter how mean I am to them they all still love me and they all still want to tell me everything about their day and who said what and interrupt important instructions to tell me that my hair looks nice or that they like my necklace. I don’t feel like I deserve their affection at the moment and yet they still give it to me which is really special. By next week though things will get more fun. They have an Ancient History Day tomorrow which should be interesting and then next week we will work on some fun, interactive, not-for-assessment activities to liven them up again and finish on a fun note. So in general the year is looking positive at the moment. Work pressures are easing and the social scene is gearing up so I have been able to shift my attention away from school a little bit and more onto my fitness and health, my social life and having fun. After a year that has been so long and so hard in so many ways it is nice to have a change of pace and a change of focus. Looking forward is certainly more fun than looking back…

To teach and what to teach? – That is the question…

2005-10-10T12:16:00.000+10:00

It is that time of the year again when I am being asked what I would like to teach next year. To be honest, I have been devoting time to thinking about other things and I am yet to tackle the issue of what I would like to teach. I would certainly like a Year 12 English. I love teaching Year 11 English and would be disappointed to have no Year 11’s at all. Those are the certainties in my mind at the moment. I guess that the major question that I need to answer, for my own benefit and the benefit of the admin staff is whether or not I want to teach Year 12 History next year. History has been hard work this year and it will still be hard work next year because there is so much that I need still to learn. History is such a content based subject that I have spent a lot of this year working on learning the content myself and there is still a long way to go for me in terms of really knowing my content inside and out. So next year, although easier than this year because I know what to expect and I have an idea of the structure and content of the course, will still be hard work because there is so much that I would do differently and still so much for me to learn. The other teacher taking the Year 12 History class is a lot more experienced than me in terms of knowing her content and I feel that perhaps it would be better for the students if she took both classes next year. But I am in two minds. On one hand I feel that History was such hard work this year that it wouldn’t bother me if I didn’t teach it next year. On the other hand I think it would be a shame to waste all of the hard work and effort and planning that I have put in over the year by not building on it next year. In some ways I would love it if the decision was taken out of my hands, but that would be taking the easy way out and I am trying to avoid doing that in my life in general at the moment. So I need to make a decision and as yet are unsure how to go about doing it.
The other uncertainty for me is the new MERC and what sort of a position would be available to me in order to get involved in it. I would love to have some sort of administrative role within the MERC or some sort of position of responsibility that gave me challenges away from the classroom. I was thinking of going back to uni next year to start Honours, but I have decided that it might be better for me in the long term to have next year as a year to myself so that I can take stock of my life and avoid extra pressures on my time. So I am hoping that there will be a position at school that can in some way fill the void left in my life without study. The issue for me is that I am unsure at the moment, as is the administration, of what sort of role would be available in the MERC and so I am unable to make a decision or to know at this stage what the possibilities are for next year. Again the feeling of uncertainty prevails. Such is life in schools though I think…

Thursday 22 September

2005-10-05T08:33:00.000+10:00

I’m at school today – in the middle of the school holidays giving a class for my Year 12’s. I wonder sometimes if I am insane. Only 9 out of the 17 turned up and very little constructive work was done by anyone. The students are really struggling to even know where to start to begin their notes and I can see that the majority of the work is going to be done by them at the last minute. I keep trying to remind myself that I can only do so much – I can give them the information, I can give them ideas and strategies as to how to revise, I can give them exam revision questions and offer my time to answer questions, but I cannot force them to do it. If only I could.

2005-09-18T17:28:00.000+10:00

So I have reached the end of another term, but I feel that I have been dragging my feet. In the mind of a perfectionist, nothing is ever good enough, and in my mind, the last few weeks of this term have involved me trying to survive, rather than deciding to thrive. Personally, I have come to some liberating conclusions about where I am and the fact that this is exactly where I want to be. I have stopped waiting for my new life to start and have realised that this is my life now and that I am going to go out and live it. I am ready to take the wheel and steer for the first time ever, rather than letting myself be directed by what happens around me. I am writing a lot more than I ever have before and am finding it a way to explore my feelings and learn about myself.
Professionally however, I feel that my current workload is weighing down on me and that it is leaving little time for me to do those things that I am valuing in my life at the moment – spending time with friends, exercising, writing and thinking. I feel that I am not prioritising appropriately. That I am putting the things that I like to do above the things that I should do (teachers guilt bag anyone?). Should I feel guilty for nourishing my private life and neglecting my professional one? Am I even neglecting my professional life by anyone’s standards but my own? In some ways I realise that my private life is what needs nourishing at the moment – it is important that I continue to learn and grow and reflect. This will become easier over the next term as my Year 12’s and Year 11’s finish, and will give me more time to myself. It might also allow me to prepare for next year early which will give me time to relax over the holidays.
I feel a little like I am a contradiction. In some ways I am at a point personally where I have learnt a lot about myself and I am excited and happy to be me at the moment. In another way I am really tired and would just like some time without the pressures of school on my mind and on my time. Just when I feel like I am at the point where I am ready to embrace life again and all that that involves, I find that my motivation for school is at its lowest. Again …maybe the holidays…

sensory overload...

2005-09-14T09:53:00.000+10:00

Somedays at school it feels like I am in sensory overload. Bells ringing, announcements barked over PA systems before class, after class, during class, students asking questions, talking, mumbling, laughing, arguing. Thoughts in my head; questions, comments, songs, family, weekend, friends. Sometimes there is just too much to think about so I find myself tuning out – avoiding, blocking, looking for peace, looking forward. Maybe the holidays…

...are a girl's best friend

2005-08-30T15:07:00.000+10:00

It seems that in the absence of diamonds, it is a laptop that has become this girl’s best friend. Is this a sad indictment on an already sad existence? Or is this the norm, something that is acceptable; expected even? I take my laptop everywhere with me. It comes to every class, it travels interstate with me, on school camps and is in the boot of my car where ever I am. In a way, this ‘notebook’ contains the notes of my life, all the originals of my blogs, photos of friends and family, school work, all of my appointments and birthdays and addresses and emails. Is this little black box, as slimline as it may be, my ultimate accessory? (and is this the smallest blog I have ever managed to post?)

Restriction free and floundering...

2005-08-30T15:05:00.000+10:00

You would think that it would be exciting to suddenly have all of the restrictions removed that you had previously imposed upon yourself. Far from finding it exciting, I am finding the lack of restriction is feeling like a lack of direction. And this is an issue that I have discussed before. When I was in a long term relationship I felt that a lot of the direction for my life came from the momentum of the relationship. Much of my future was inevitable. I would get married, work for a couple of years, have babies etc. It seemed that my life was planned out, without any real conscious decision making on my behalf. In some ways that was the way that I liked it. I didn’t feel that I had as many choices as I might like, but I also didn’t feel that I was missing out on too much. I have floated through life until this point without having to make too many momentous decisions (none really until ending my engagement) and now it seems that momentous decisions are all I have to make. What am I going to do with my life/career etc now that I am single, living with my brother and free from the financial constrains of a mortgage? My views on all of this are changing daily. I had thought that I would like to go back to uni part time to do my honours, whilst still working full-time. I now think that maybe it would be nice to have a year to just exist, without putting more pressure on myself and without tying myself down any further. I feel as though this year I have not been able to do anything as well as I would like, but much of this probably comes from the fact that I am a perfectionist and I struggle to be satisfied that anything that I do is good enough.
I have discussed possible allotments with one of the APs at school and she is very supportive and happy to cater my allotment for my needs. At this stage I think that I would like to take on more of an administrative role at school in some way. One of the reasons that I wanted to go back to uni was to get back into the sort of research and writing that I enjoy. To hook myself back into the other side of the profession, whilst still teaching at the same time. The programs that the school are starting next year would give me the ability to do this, but to continue teaching some senior classes as well.
I think that I would also like to travel in the next couple of years, so at the moment I am starting to save and think about where and when I might like to go. But unless I go overseas over the Christmas holidays when it will be winter over there (which means missing summer here for a whole year) I will have to miss at least one term of school to make it worth my while. So I need to think and plan ahead so that I am not teaching senior classes in the year that I would like to travel.
It is funny. Before I was single all that I had that was mine was my career. Now everything can be mine again and I don’t know what it is that I want. So many possibilities and I still struggle to make a decision. It seems that the world is my oyster. Only problem now is working out which pearl I want…

The Issue of Technology (and why is everything an issue?)

2005-08-26T09:48:00.000+10:00

It seems that one of the biggest issues in our school at the moment is the issue of technology. ICTs. Or perhaps I am the only one that sees that it is a problem.

A PD day that the school held recently on the new ELS saw us auditing our current English curriculum at the various levels, and identifying what it is that we are already doing, what the ELS is asking of the curriculum and working out where the gaps are between the two so that these can be addressed. One of the biggest differences I can see between the CSF II and the ELS is that the ELS makes quite explicit the extent to which teaching should be combined with technology. It outlines the skills students should have in ICT, and the different sorts of technologies and applications that should be used in the classroom.

Somewhat intentionally, the KLA manager gave the task of presenting the ELS technology audit to myself and another graduate teacher, knowing my particular interest in the use of ICTs in the classroom. I presented what it was that the ELS was specifying, and how our English curriculum was currently failing to address these points, particularly focussing on how the ELS talks about the internet as another form of text that students should be taught to read analytically. The discussion that ensued was somewhat disappointing to me, but not entirely unexpected.

My favourite comment : “ICT is not great, Shakespeare is great”
Closely followed by: “I don’t know why we have to hold up ICT as a “solution” to every thing, as some sort of wonder technology that is more important than anything else in the in the curriculum.”
To a certain extent that is a valid point. ICT is not the solution to everything and it is not a guarantee that students will be engaged, or that they will learn better or faster or in a more authentic way. Incorporation of ICT into our classrooms and the focus we give it IS problematic. What role should ICT have in our classrooms? To a large extent the ELS has spelt this out for us. So now the question of ‘what if’ has been answered and so the focus needs to shift to ‘how?’

At the risk of sounding like a technobrat I think that what many teachers are failing to see is that ICT is not an imposition, it is a reality. Or it is in my world anyway. The majority of my communication is done over the internet – I have email conversations and MSN messenger chats with my friends. I have two blog sites – one where I can blog about school issues and the other that I use to help me deal with the uncertainty that is my life at the moment. It is through these blogs, that are, although public property, rather anonymous, that my friends get daily or weekly insight into how I am and what I am thinking about. And through their blogs I get the same insight and am able to comment – to offer support or advice as they offer me. The internet is a tool that helps me not only to perform my job at a better standard and more efficiently, but it is a way of life for me. My students email me essays and work which I edit, make comments on and send back. I use my laptop and the digital projector to present many of my classes using PowerPoint, scanned images, photographs, etc. Whether or not people want to admit it, technology is here to stay and it is a reality in the lives of most of our students. Technology is not just a tool, it is communication, information, presentation. So why is it such an issue?

I think that there are several separate issues with technology and its implementation in the classroom that both our school and many others in the same situation will have to deal with when the ELS is implemented, and have been dealing with for some time already.

Up-skilling of Staff will be one of the major hurdles that the school will have to o’erleap in order to enable staff to incorporate ICTs into their classes, and facilitate their students using ICTs effectively and critically. One of the main reasons for the resistence to ICTs that so many of the staff exhibit is due to the lack of working knowledge that they themselves have about technologies and how to use them. Schools need to implement some sort of radical personal development program in order to pass on the skills, and therefore the confidence, in using these ICTs that staff members need.

Access to ICTs are another issue that many, particularly government schools, face. When the teachers who are willing and able to incorporate ICTs, in an effective and challenging way into their classroom, are unable to even book their students into a computer room, some serious problems arise. Many schools have a limited number of computer labs, and when these are fully booked, it is a struggle to incorporate computer based activities into the classroom, regardless of how valuable and engaging they may be.

Another problem is incorporating ICT into the classroom in a “real” way. Computers should not just be used as an alternative way of presenting something that can just as easily be presented in writing or on paper. Instead, ICT should be used to enhance the learning of students, to present to them new challenges or activities that are more authentic in their nature than many of the paper-based activities they are asked to complete each day. ICT should be incorporated in a natural and authentic way into the classroom, not as an artificial and imposed “added extra.” However this is easier said than done. In order for this to be the ‘norm’ rather than the exception as it currently is, more discussion, sharing of ideas and promotion of the possibilities of incorporating ICTs into the classroom is necessary.

So, I guess that perhaps the battle has just begun. The battle to incorporate ICTs into schools. The battle to have ICTs seen as valuable and a way to enrich teaching, and increase efficacy and engagement in our students.

I don’t know what the solution is. At the moment I am seeing the problems and beginning to think about how the ‘issue of ICT’ can stop being an issue and start being accepted and incorporated. With the schools technology centre being built next year, dealing with these issues becomes more of a priority. I am expecting a struggle. I wonder how we will go…

Musings of a non-dreamer

2005-07-19T11:11:00.000+10:00

Sitting here again (wasting time) and thinking about the idea of dreams. I am in a situation at the moment where I am being forced to think about what I want from my life. When I was in a long-term relationship, my notion of what I wanted from my future was coloured by what people, including my partner, expected of my future. I have never really been a dreamer, rather quite practical and I like to deal with problems and issues as they arise. However for the first time in my life I feel as though I am expected to have an idea of what I want from my future, and I can’t say that I have any. Is that a bad admission to make? I feel as though people are congratulating me for being brave and following my heart and encouraging me to follow my dreams, but I don’t think that I really have any dreams. Do I need to have a definite notion of what I want out of life?

When I think of the notion of a dream I think of something that is all encompassing, something that you strive for against the odds, something that makes you motivated to achieve. I think that I have short term goals, but not anything that I would classify as a dream, and I am feeling a distinct lack of motivation at the moment. Do I need a dream or something to work towards to spur me on? I think that I have always wanted to go back to uni and do my honours, then eventually a PhD. I don’t know why, just think that I have always wanted to. Is this a dream or do I need to have a deep seated motivation that is driving me?

Maybe you don’t need dreams to be a successful person and to be happy. Maybe it is enough that I try in my everyday life to do the best that I can in all aspects of my life. Maybe for me the dream is simply to constantly challenge myself and to rise to the challenge in the best way that I know how. Maybe I don’t need some all encompassing dream to spur me on other than the need to feel fulfilled in what I do. At the moment my career is providing me with that challenge and that sense of fulfilment and maybe this blog has just helped me come to a conclusion about whether or not to go back to study next year. I think that if the only thing that I am certain about at the moment is that I would eventually like to go back and study then what am I waiting for?

The problem of professional relationships

2005-07-11T08:06:00.000+10:00

Relationships at work are a funny thing. And I have quite a few at the moment that are having differing impacts on my life. I have 2 best friends at work; one who I regularly avoid so that it does not seem that we are spending too much time together, and another who has become my very best friend and confidante, but who is having this semester off to travel overseas. I feel as though I will be losing my best friend at work and that I will be losing a part of the reason that I enjoy getting up in the morning and coming to school – spending time with her. I guess in the last couple of months school has become more social for me, largely because what is going on in my personal life means that I need more support, and my friends at work are the ones that are there for me more than 8 hours a day, at least 5 days a week.

But relationships at work can be problematic too. Professional relationships are not always based on wanting to work together, but rather having to work together and the need to get along in order to get the job done. One of my professional relationships is causing me a lot of stress this year and I know that there are many different reasons for this. Firstly, the colleague in question is new to the school and is trying to work out her place in the grand scheme of a new school and is doing some adjusting to the different ways that things work. Secondly, we are very different in both ideology, background and attitude, and this makes it difficult to agree on how we will teach our content and on planning and designing SACs. Thirdly, the issues that I am trying to deal with at the moment at home have made me retreat somewhat at school, and I prefer to keep to myself and try to get my job done with minimal fuss and interaction. In short, a lot of the issues are coming from the fact that I just don’t have the energy at the moment left over after dealing with all the other complications in my life to deal with issues at school. Another large part of the problem is that as this subject is new for me this year, and the colleague that I am teaching with is so different to me, I am not getting the support in terms of content and teaching that I feel that I need. The subject is largely content based and it is a content that I am learning almost from scratch. And it is becoming an issue. The situation has been playing on my mind to the point that I am considering seriously what I would like to teach next year, and am considering giving up the subject that I teach with this colleague and taking up another at the same year level just to get myself out of the situation. I know that in this other subject I will get a lot more support, there are more teachers who are teaching it who I can go to for advice and support and my KLA manager tried desperately to get me to teach it this year so I know that he would support me changing next year. The problem though, if I decided to change subjects next year is that I will lose a whole year of content and planning and subject knowledge. I will lose the experience that I had this year and the ability to reflect, reshape and reform my teaching of the subject next year. It seems a shame to effectively waste a year of content and learning, but is it better to pursue the subject to the detriment of my happiness at work, or should I take the option that will be better me in terms of enjoying my school life? Although this is not a decision that I need to be making anytime soon, it is a decision that is playing on my mind, something that is worrying me and that I am thinking about now, so I thought that I would put it out there for discussion and get some ideas on what to do or that by posting about it I might gain some perspective myself. Will see which one…

Professional relationships – take 2

I guess that there is some more information that really should be added to the original relationships blog – a complication I guess. I think that some of my problems with teaching this subject with the difficult colleague is the fact that I am a perfectionist and that I don’t think that I am doing the best job that I could be. I know that I am doing the best job that I can manage at the moment, but I feel that the other teacher has a more sound subject knowledge than I do (something that comes with time, I know) and that her class is going to do better than mine at the end of the year (which may or may not be to do with the calibre of her student and not my teaching). I feel like the lack of support that I am getting and the lack of someone there to guide me and to encourage me has left me feeling a little out on a limb and a little unsure of what it is that I am doing. In some ways this year I am re-inventing the wheel with this subject as the study design has changed and so the course is different this year to last year. Is my desire to leave this subject behind and take on something different that might be more personally satisfying and that might offer me a more supportive environment really just another way of me trying to avoid dealing with issues?

2005-07-04T19:00:00.000+10:00

The following is an experiment. It is a joint blog, written by both myself (in the normal font) and my Queensland best friend, K, in the italicised font). I started the blog from a random thought in my head and where it ended was a fair way from where it began.

High school seems like a very long time ago to me and I don’t know if that is a good thing or a bad thing considering that I am a teacher. Whenever I get together with my best friend from Queensland (who I have been friends with since year 10) we inevitably start to reminisce about things that happened at school or people that we remember. Generally I remember the people and the teachers, but I do not often remember the events and so usually these discussions remind me of things that I had long buried in my mind. I loved high school – everything about it. I loved the social side of school – spending ridiculous amounts of time with your friends – often more time than you spent at home with your family. I loved the challenge of school work and the feeling that you got when you solved a difficult problem or wrote the perfect essay (now I am kidding myself that there is such a thing) or finally understood something that had been baffling you for a long time. I loved the different personalities of my teachers, and I used to study them during class, spending so much time watching and listening to them that even the grumpy teachers or the shit ones or the ones who had no control over the class still managed to win their way into my good books.

In this I think we get to see the birth of Darce the teacher.

I also loved high school towards the end (and only towards the end) but for very different reasons. For me, in the beginning high school was a threatening and challenging place. It took me a long while to form friendships and to find my place. In fact it pretty much took me until year 12. This is why I was loving high school at the end and why I did not want to leave it. I had finally found my place, worked out where I fitted in the grand scheme of things and had decided that the ‘popular’ girls were actually no better off than I was. I think I can see both sides of the argument, I understand those who loved high school and never wanted to leave and I feel the pain of the others who never did find their place, who still feel victimized by their experiences and who would never go back there under any circumstances.

It is funny really. Funny how two best friends can have such a totally different experience of school. Funny but not surprising. I can remember my first day of high school , but for me it was a fairly easy transition – there were other people from my primary school in all of my classes and it did not take me long to make new friends. But I could always see that intimidation that people felt at the hands of the ‘popular girls’ those that we dubbed ‘california’ girls; the blonde, bimbo surfie type that sought out validation in all of the wrong places because they were actually really insecure. The type of person who puts down the ‘lesser’ of us out there in order to make themselves feel bigger and better. I was happy at school avoiding this type of person and making friends with everyone. I don’t now, and never did believe in being nasty to anyone and so I generally got along with everyone in the best way that I could.

I sometimes wonder how much of the ‘California girls’ nastiness was imagined and how much of it was real. But in this, I guess we also see the birth of K the Psychologist and the true meaning of popularity. You see, part of the reason that I realized that the ‘California girls’ were a farce was the fact that I could see Darce’s genuine popularity. It is something that I think likely still exists today and is something that Darce is blissfully ignorant of. People genuinely warmed to her and would stop to listen should she speak. She was well respected and well liked and never in my time as her best friend have I ever witnessed anyone be mad at her or bitch about her behind her back. It is sobering just how powerful the influence of high school can be on people’s lives.

It is also amusing to me to be told that no-one (to K’s knowledge) ever bitched about me behind my back because these days I seemed to be overly preoccupied with what people think about me (or what I think they think about me) and whilst I can see that this preoccupation is a waste of energy and perhaps even self-obsession, it is difficult for me to come to terms with the fact that generally people don’t really give a shit about the decisions you make (so long as they have no negative impact on others) and that perfect is a state of the imagination, not a real or attainable place. I used to be quite content in the knowledge that I was a good person and that people liked me, but I find myself questioning myself more now than I ever did before. Is it the increased scrutiny (or the feeling of increased scrutiny) that comes with having over 100 people watching you each day for 45 minutes each? Am I just a little more self-obsessed than I used to be?

There are two things that I want to point out here;

All people are inevitably self-obsessed. We actually aren’t given the gift of anyone else’s perspective therefore we are terminally doomed to only see things from inside our own heads. Often what this means is that people spend more time thinking about themselves and things that effect them than they do thinking about anyone else. Is this a bad thing? NO. It most definitely is not. It just means that often when we think that people are talking about us they aren’t even thinking about us at all and this in turn gives us an excellent reason to be a little less paranoid.
Given that Darce can only see things from inside her own head, the scrutiny and judgment from other people that she is concerned about is also occurring inside her own head. She has no firm idea whether people are actually talking about her and if they are even what they are saying. Does it even matter? Should our self worth be defined by others as it was for the ‘California’ girls or should our self worth be defined by ourselves?

Given this, I would then like to pose the following alternate hypothesis. That it is not other people who are creating this insecurity and anxiety but rather, Darce’s own insecurity regarding the extremely difficult choices she has had to make lately. It is only natural that after having to make such drastic changes to her life she would wonder if she did the right thing, if she has the ability to make sound decisions and if it was maybe something she did that lead to this situation.

True. The situation that I am in at the moment has made me more insecure because for the first time in my life I do worry about what people think because I do not have the security of going home to a partner who loves me and does not care about what other people think. Judging myself more harshly than anybody else does has always been something that I have been guilty of. So the main aim for me at the moment is to get myself to a stage where I am secure in myself and happy with myself. Perhaps that will take a healthy dose of self-obsession!

An explanation I think...

2005-07-04T16:20:00.000+10:00

Firstly I would like to say - "Thank goodness for best friends!" Then I think that I would like to explain what prompted the last blog that I posted. I guess I hadn't really thought about what this holiday to Queensland would be like or what it would mean to me. I just planned it (sort of last minute as I tend to do) and got on the plane to come up here, without much of a preconceived idea of what I expected or of what I would get out of the trip. I guess I just thought that this holiday would be like any other that I had spent up here. I would get to spend some quality time with my best friend, catching up on gossip and talking about the last couple of months, I would get to meet her new boyfriend whom I have heard so much about and I would get to catch up with her family who generally I get along with really well. I don't think that either of us had really counted on the emotional baggage that we were both bringing to the trip this time. I had thought that I was dealing with my breakup really well when it turns out that i was just avoiding the issues and it all came crashing down on me when I got up here. She is dealing with her parents break-up and the feeling that she has lost her whole family now that her Dad has gone. Neither of us had realised the amount of emotional support that we were going to need from each other, and the first two days involved the two of us trying to work out how to get back into the groove that we have always had so effortlessly before. I guess that I felt like when I got up here my support network was suddenly gone - the support network that has been doing such a good job supporting me that I have been able to really avoid dealing with my break-up issues. I felt like I just wanted to crawl back into my unit in Melbourne, even if it was by myself so that I was back where I felt safe and where there were enough distractions to stop me from thinking so much. In some ways the honesty of my relationship with my qld friend meant that I knew that I would not be able to avoid the things that were bothering me because she is so insightful that she practically reads my mind. I tried to work out some way to escape, including trying to organise a ridiculous spontaneous road-trip, but as best friends do, she saw right through me and pulled me up on my avoidance tactics.

One of the things that I found so difficult when I got here was the different atmosphere in the house with my best friends father gone. Whereas the house used to be fun and happy, I walked in to an oppressive situation where my best friend is treated almost like a modern-day Cinderella; biting her tongue whilst the others gang up on her and expect the world from her. I had no idea of the awful situation that she was dealing with because often all of her issues are dealt with internally and she rarely asks for help and support. I guess that neither of us actually realised that we needed support until we were looking at each other and trying to work out what the hell the other one was thinking.

I will conclude by saying that despite the fact that I initially felt like I wanted to run away screaming from this holiday, it was never because I didn’t want to spend time with my best friend, rather because I did not know how to deal with the issues that suddenly hit me, or her issues, which seemed so much worse than mine. But in the way that we always have, we both found a way to get through to the other and to be there for each other. She has helped me to see what I was doing to try and avoid my issues at home, and helped me with ideas on how to deal with the things in my life that I need to reflect on. Whilst I haven’t been able to offer her any solutions to her problems, I have tried to give her the support she needs, and hopefully have eased her burden a little bit. The best thing that this holiday has given me is the reassurance of something I already knew; that despite the fact that we live hundreds of kilometres away from each other, we will always find a way to be there for each other when it matters most.

Maybe this will help...

2005-07-01T14:38:00.000+10:00

Sitting here with a million conflicting thoughts and I am not really sure what it is that I want to write about anyway. Maybe I will begin by posing some questions.
Why is the weather so bad in Queensland when it is supposed to be beautiful one day and perfect the next?
Why am I so self-obsessed at the moment?
Why do I feel like now that I am in Queensland, spending time with my best friend, that I would rather be at home?
Why do I suddenly feel so disconnected?

Next task I guess is to try to answer the questions.

Why is the weather so bad in Queensland when it is supposed to be beautiful one day and perfect the next?
I guess that I had unrealistic expectations of the weather up here. Was kinda hoping that (despite the fact that it is the middle of winter) the weather up here would be a happy 22 and sunny everyday. I really am just dying to feel the sun on my face again and some heat in my body. At the moment, it doesn't seem as though that is going to happen.

Why am I so self-obsessed at the moment?
I feel like I am incapable of having a conversation that does not revolve around me. Perhaps that is just because I have not seen my best friend for such a long time and that so much has happened since we last saw each other that I have a lot to share. Perhaps I have suddenly become boring and have nothing interesting to talk about? Whatever the reason, I feel that I am sick of talking about me and because we both have shit going on in our lives at the moment it is a little depressing. Why do I not have anything else to talk about?

Why do I feel like now that I am in Queensland, spending time with my best friend, that I would rather be at home?
For some reason, now that I am finally on this holiday that promised to be so relaxing and exactly what I needed, I just keep thinking about things at home and wishing that I was there. I don't know why. Although I am loving spending time with my best friend and her boyfriend (who seems lovely and so good to/for her) my thoughts are at home and I am feeling a little bit disconnected. My brain seems to be working overtime thinking about irrelevant things at home. I am also wishing that she could meet all of my friends, see my new place, and be involved in my new life. I guess that coming up here has reinforced to me how much I miss having my best friend in my life and closely connected with my day-to-day life as she used to be. It is making me think back to the uncomplicated days when we lived 15mins away from each other and could share everything immediately. Can spending time with a person make you miss them more acutely even though they are right beside you?

Why do I suddenly feel so disconnected?
I don't know why, but I suddenly feel so disconnected. Maybe I am under a lot more emotional strain than I realised and the pressure of being out of my environment and so far away is actually making me less relaxed and more fretful about life. On one hand it is great to be able to share what I am feeling with someone who knows me so well and gives such great advice but on the other hand I wish that I could get my self out of this fuzzy-headed daze I seem to be in and reconnect with her on a more fun and funny level like I used to. I don't feel like a very good friend at the moment. Maybe I am incapable of giving like I used to and so this is changing the dynamic of the relationship. Although I don't think that it is the relationship that is changing, I think that it is me who has (hopefully temporarily) changed and at the moment I am a little removed from everything and a little distant. I feel like my brain is working overtime - overanalysing everything, all that is said and done between me and the world and all the things that have happened in the last 3 months. When will I be able to reclaim my brain and get on with life the way I used to? Why must everything be so analytical with me all the time?

Can you hear the cogs turning?

2005-06-24T08:42:00.000+10:00

I think at the moment maybe I have a little too much time to think. Although time to think is a new and exciting experience for me, it is also a dangerous one because I have a tendancy to over-analyse. So here I go…
I think that I used to be a person who was a little bit judgemental. I had certain views on certain things and used to get caught up in discussing the “scandalous behaviour” of different family members or friends who were doing things that I deemed gossip worthy. Not that I was an awful gossip or anything, and I never said anything bad about the person, but I took a certain pleasure from another person’s misfortunes, safe in the knowledge that my life was perfect. These days for me, however, nothing is certain, and my own experiences have taught me that things aren’t always what they seem. I realise now that nobody is perfect and that everyone needs to make decisions in life to make themselves happy, rather than acting to please other people.
However having said that, this is still not an easy premise for me to adhere to. I still worry about what people think of me and what they think of what I am doing and the decisions I am making. I am trying to find out who I am, experience life a little, and make myself happy. And I thought that I was doing a good job at being true to myself, actually I still do, but a conversation with a couple of friends earlier tonight made me second guess myself enough to still be thinking about it now and needing to get it off my chest.
Ridiculous conversations are often had at the pub with my group of friends, without the need for alcoholic intervention! Tonight a conversation started, on a general topic that began as a bit of fun, but carried on too long to just be a random conversation, and seemed to end up pointedly directed at me and one of my recent decisions. I felt that instead of making a general statement, the friend ended up sermonising, and I started wondering exactly why it was that he was pursuing the conversation. Don’t get me wrong- everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I ended up feeling as though this opinion was being foisted onto me in an effort to somehow make me feel bad and it left me wondering how I should feel and questioning myself. I felt as though my own ability to look after myself and to make educated decisions and act on them in a mature way was being questioned, although I’m sure that wasn’t the intention. I felt as though I was being judged and that his values were being used to read my actions when his values really don’t matter.
So after I left the pub, one of the other friends who was there rang to make sure that I was okay and that the conversation hadn’t upset me. The conversation didn’t really upset me, I just was unsure really of how to read it or why the conversation happened in the first place and so I am still a little perplexed at what to take out of the whole experience. I guess that I just need to remember that it is my life and that I am making decisions for me for the first time in a long time, that don’t involve considering somebody else. I know that I need to focus only on myself and what I know will make me happy (without having a detrimental impact on anyone else) but breaking that old mindset, the one that says “everyone is watching you” and “you need to be perfect” is difficult. It is something that I constantly deal with now that I have done “imperfect” things like breaking up my engagement. Can someone so used to being judgmental learn not to judge herself so harshly? Stay tuned…

Teaching - life in a fishbowl

2005-06-21T11:01:00.000+10:00

I will admit that I watch Big Brother. And I kind of enjoy it too. Sad perhaps, but true. However I bet you will never see a teacher on Big Brother. Too much of your personal credibility is at stake as a teacher to subject yourself to Big Brother scrutiny. And personal credibility is an important part of a teacher’s credibility with students, parents and colleagues alike. Imagine having past, present and prospective students seeing you naked, watching you in the shower, hearing all of your personal conversations, seeing you kiss people, watching you get drunk, seeing you in your underwear. You would never have credibility again in the classroom, or among your colleagues, or at conferences you might attend or at university if you went back to study. People would feel that they knew everything about you, including your values, your likes, dislikes, what type of teacher you would be. I wonder how any Big Brother contestant would fit back into the real world. Who would respect you in any walk of life? What would your friends, relatives and colleagues think of you? What parent would want you teaching their child? Can anyone act in an endearing manner in the Big Brother house and maintain their dignity?

But it also makes me think about the fact that a teacher’s everyday life is lived in some sort of a fish-bowl. Everywhere you go, particularly if you live near the school, there is someone who knows you or who knows who you are, a student, a parent, someone who knows someone whose kids go to your school. I used to live 30 minutes from school. Even then I was not safe. I saw students in the bakery, students walking through my suburb, students at my shopping centre. But at least it was very rarely so I did have some sort of anonymity. Now that I have moved closer to school (I am five minutes away) I see students everywhere I go. I went for a walk last week up a main road near my home and before I had walked even 5 minutes, I had seen 4 students and one teacher. There are students in my supermarket now, working and shopping, there are students at my local shops, students walking down my street, students in the pub with their parents when I am having a drink with people from work on a Friday night. I feel a little bit like I am under surveillance, like Big Brother (George Orwell style) and that everywhere I go there is someone watching and waiting for me to act inappropriately and call me in to some austere office for rebuke.

But I guess that it is a small world in general. I went to a party on the weekend and a guy that I met went to uni with my cousin, so any ridiculous drunken behaviour on my behalf has the ability to go straight back to my family. Some of the young staff from work often go out together, either to house parties or out to clubs or pubs, and sometimes we are seen. One of the year 9 students asked me in front of the whole class if I had a good time at the pub on Friday night. One of my year 11 students came to school one Monday and told me that he saw me on Chapel Street on Friday night, walking with some people from work past his parents gelati shop.

In a way it isn’t a problem because the students know that you are only human and that you have a life (although sometimes it takes them a while to believe that you do have a life despite the fact that you are a teacher!). Although after our last house party, one of the AP’s saw some photos (none of which were at all incriminating) and jokingly warned me that I needed to be careful now that I was a teacher about how I behaved because there are people everywhere that might see you. Is this an appropriate warning? Should teachers have to exercise more discretion than people in other professions? Should we have to stay home, or shroud our personal lives in secrecy just so that there is no possible way that anyone connected with school sees us out in public and decides to talk about us? Are we not allowed to have a life out in public because other people might recognise us? How does a teacher split the notoriety of being a teacher inside the school, with the need for anonymity in life outside of school?

At the risk of sounding like I'm whingeing...

2005-06-17T08:40:00.000+10:00

This year for me so far has been filled with difficult moments. Despite the most obvious difficulty, I have also been dealing with problems at work that I did not come across last year. Was last year some honeymoon period where I was kept in the dark and fed crap? Or am I just a little more wary this year? Has something changed in my work environment that is affecting changes on my sense of enjoyment this year?

Last year was a totally positive experience. I am not saying that I did not go through the problems of planning, classroom management, correction, meetings and all of the other million-and-one things that are all new in your first year, however, I just feel like last year was somehow easier than this year, like I enjoyed it more. I feel like everyone was happier last year – this year there is more whingeing and less satisfaction in general. At the moment I am grappling with why.

It seems that because I am no longer a first year teacher, I am no longer getting the support and encouragement that I was afforded last year from the Principal class. It seems like last year I spent heaps of time with one of the AP’s who encouraged me and gave me the positive feedback that reassured me that I was doing a good job. This year, despite having a considerably heavier workload, I am not getting any of the encouragement or feedback that might give me some indication of how I am going, or at least how the school admin perceives me to be going.

But there may be any number of reasons for this lack of support. Perhaps the school feels that I have ‘been there and done that’ and that I don’t need the sort of support that I had last year. Perhaps the focus has shifted to the new first year teachers and there is no more time for me. Perhaps the reason is that the AP who I spent a lot of time with lost a good friend (one of our colleagues) to cancer only a couple of months ago and is still not back to being herself. Or maybe she is feeling more pressure this year due to changes in the AP positions. Maybe the school environment has changed. Maybe it is busier. There seem to be more interruptions. There are curriculum changes and new building programs and funding for learning centres that are adding pressure to people’s roles. Certainly I am hearing more complaining and it is getting me down.

Or maybe the person who has changed is me. Maybe I am so busy that I am burying my head in the proverbial sand trying to get on with my work and avoid dealing with unnecessary drivel. Maybe the other stuff that is going on in my life at the moment is taking up a lot of my energy and this is the reason why I often feel flat this year. Maybe I am not talking as much as I did and sharing my thoughts and seeking out support and that is why I feel unsupported.

I think that the question remains though. When has a teacher been teaching long enough to not need support? Does the system only support beginning teachers through their first year? When something like 40% of new teachers do not even make it through their first 5 years of teaching, (does anyone have actual stats on this stuff
‘cause I would be interested to know) does something in the system need to change to stop young teachers from feeling like they have been left to fend for themselves in a sometimes hostile environment?

Insecurity is not a dirty word

2005-06-14T14:28:00.000+10:00

Well it is 11.08 on Sunday night and because I don’t have the internet at my new place ( I don’t even have a home phone actually!) I am blogging into a word document and will post this blog at school on Tuesday. I am sitting here tonight thinking about the possibility of starting a blog about my life outside school and I have realised that my life outside of school is inextricably linked with my life inside school and the issues and problems that I talk about in this blog are generally common to both anyway. So I guess that this blog with now attempt to bridge the gap between both. You will now get the whole me, and not just the “trying to be academic” me!

One thing that has been playing on my mind recently is the issue of insecurity. I guess that ending a 7 1/2 year relationship has brought the issue of insecurity to the fore in my life at the moment. I have always been a confident person. I have always had a healthy ego (that I don’t think gets away from me too often!) and I guess that I have always felt secure in myself. Now, although nothing about me has changed but my personal status, I am feeling a little insecure. I am questioning myself a little more than usual. I am more conscious of the way that I act and the things that I do and who I am friends with because I am a little more worried about what people think about me. It is funny in a way, because being single for the first time in my adult life has made me worry about what people think about me and it is making me a little paranoid.

Strange huh? I am worried about my friends getting sick of me now that I spend more time with them. In my rational mind I know that they would just tell me if they were sick of me and that they wouldn’t invite me over if they didn’t want to see me, but in my paranoid mind, I feel like I am becoming a burden. I have taken to avoiding my best friend at school because he is male and I am worried about what people might think about the amount of time we spend together. When really this is the time in my life when I need more support than ever before, I am concerned about what people think, and so I am worried about spending too much time with any one person. It is a strange and new phenomenon for me, dealing with my own little insecurities and I find myself psychoanalysing myself! But it also makes me think about the universal issues with insecurity at work.

At our school at the moment are 3 first year teachers who are dealing with the sort of professional insecurities that I dealt with last year, and that every teacher deals with all the time. Teaching is a notoriously lonely profession. No matter what is said or done outside of the classroom, when the door of that classroom shuts, it is you and your class and often you feel as though the things that you are experiencing are only happening to you. You can feel as though you are out on the edge of a cliff that no one has ever stood on before and that there is no where to turn for advice on whether or not the cliff is too high to jump off, or if there is water below to break your fall.

Exams have caused a stir amongst the first years this last week, as they have been dealing with marking exams for the first time, and cross-marking with other teachers, and finding out that their students have done better or worse than they expected. And I guess in a lot of ways I am in the same situation with my Year 12 Sacs. I have to cross mark with another teacher, I felt that my students didn’t do as well on this sac as I would have liked and I find myself questioning myself and my methods.

Perfectionism seems to be a quality found in a lot of teachers, none more so than myself, and I am also speaking for a couple of the first year teachers as well. Perfectionism has both an upside and a downside. The upside is that as perfectionists we are constantly striving to do better and to be better at our jobs and to do the best for our students, and we are never happy to rest on our laurels. However the downside to this is that you find yourself questioning yourself constantly and thinking over what you have done and said and what you could have done differently. I find myself constantly questioning myself and whether or not I am good enough to be teaching year 12s. Sometimes I feel like a fraud- like I am playing the part of a teacher and that pretty soon someone who is actually qualified for the job will come and relieve me.

Teaching is a profession that can play on your insecurities. There is no other career where you are scrutinised every day by over 100 different people, each of whom spend at least 45 minutes noting your every move, listening to every word, noticing that you dried your hair with a hair-dryer and not a straightener, or that you are wearing the same pants for the second time in the week, or that you have worn the same top two Tuesdays in a row. How does one survive such insecurity and personal uncertainty? You tell me.

Report Time again!

2005-06-03T11:10:00.000+10:00

Can I begin my blog by saying "I have not started my reports!!" and am I worried? No! But is everyone else? It seems so!
This time of the year at my school is an interesting one. It seems that when the pressure is on there are those who just get on with it and then there are those who let everyone else know exactly what they are up to and why their lot is worse than anyone elses.
And then there is me! Instead of writing my reports in this, my first free period all week with no correction, I am sitting here blogging instead! (well I do have lost time to make up for!)
It is interesting to watch how different people deal with the stress of this time of the year though.
There are the "oh woe is me" bunch, who waste time that they could be using, complaining that they possibly cannot do the exam supervision that is scheduled in a period that they normally teach in, because they have "too much to do."
Then there is the "this report writing system is ridiculous" group, who have limited computer skills and find the 'tick-box' system of report writing all too hard.
Then there are the "where the hell did my reports go" group, who somehow save one report pad over another and lose a whole class worth of reports. This group inevitably surface on the day that reports are to be printed off and run crying down the corridoors mourning their lost reports.
Then there are the "I have finished my reports already" group who only add to the tension and the apprehension of the "oh woe is me" bunch by making them feel that they must be dismally behind the 8 ball.
At this time of the year I try to keep my head in my i-pod, not only so that I do not have to listen to the complaints, but also so that no-one tries to get me to help them with any computer problems! So maybe I fit into the "anti-social" group who keeps to themselves and doesn't get involved in the staffroom dramas. Or is the "anti-social" group anyone under 25? Or even 30? Or anyone who doesn't complain at least 4 times a day?
Maybe the administration have the answer to everyone's problems: lollies and chocolate biscuits provided for free in the staffrooms.
Maybe one day it will be free relaxation MP3's for i-pods at this time of the year.
Maybe one day they will have a cone of silence Maxwell Smart style that I can stick my head in at this time of the year.
...maybe i really am anti-social...

I’m Back… but for how long no one can tell!

2005-05-28T14:37:00.000+10:00

Despite the fact that I thought that nobody even read my blogs, my friends have drawn my attention to the fact that my blogging has been sadly lacking of late. There are many reasons for this. Around the time of my last blog (just after returning from the central trip) I broke up with my fiancée. It was my decision after I came to the realisation that I loved him, but was not in love with him (something I think that is an important distinction to make). We lived in our unit together for 3 weeks (me in the spare room) until I found a place to live and I have now been in my new unit (renting) with my 19-year-old brother for nearly 3 weeks and I am settling in nicely.

I guess for the first 5 weeks of this term I felt like I was simply surviving through each day, going through the motions, sitting at my desk but getting nothing done and avoiding going back to the unit that I was still sharing with my now-ex-fiancée. I did not have the head-space for half of the things that school expects of me and that I expect of myself and I found myself in survival mode. Unfortunately I don’t really think that school is the sort of environment that is necessarily conducive to survival mode. Don’t get me wrong – I did survive, and everything is relatively back on track now, but looking back on the last 5 weeks, I wonder how I did survive. My year 12’s were what really stressed me out. Teaching the creation of the new society in Russia after the revolution for the first time having lost a week of my holidays on Central and then the second week breaking up with my fiancée meant that I had not planned my classes to the level where I felt confident and competent. And when you wake up in the morning feeling ill-prepared and stressing about the day to come, it really takes its toll on you. Because I was also still dealing with the issues that come with a break-up, trying to concentrate at work or on work in order to learn the content myself proved almost impossible. Some days all I needed was to talk to people and so when I wasn’t teaching that is what I did. Despite my overriding desire to soldier on, sometimes you also need to take time out for yourself and I did that too whenever I could.

This week though I feel like I am getting my life (and my brain!) back. I have done my Year 7 correction and this weekend will work on my Year 12 Sacs and the first ½ of my Year 11 Macbeth essays before the second class finish and then the two classes do their exams. To top it all off it is report writing season at our school and the stress for everyone is not writing the reports but getting 10 weeks of assessment done in 6 ½ weeks in order to have it corrected in time to go on the reports in week 7. This season at school really brings out the whingeing too and so to combat the incessant sooking that is going on at my school I have taken to plugging into my i-pod before school, after school and at any other moment when I am sitting at my desk and likely to hear the complaints. The only downside to this anti-social behaviour is that I cannot hear when there is a student at the door of our office, even when someone calls out to me! The student that spent 5 minutes standing at the door waiting for me yesterday when I had no idea he was there was less than impressed with my i-pod excuse! We are only up to week 6 and counting though so the complaining is sure to be combined shortly with the devastation that ensues when some gammy who cannot use the report program saves over their reports with another class, or somehow performs some other strange function which deletes their reports. Was that really bitchy! Oh well! The drama of it all! There is something to be said for those people who just shut their trap and get the hell on with it! The serenity!

Central Australia- The good, the bad & the ugly

2005-04-11T13:20:00.000+10:00

Many people would not think that 2 weeks on a bus touring SA and the NT with 92 students would be a fun way to spend 1/2 of your school holidays. I however, disagree! Despite the hours of bus travel (including the 22 hour express trip home from Coober Pedy!) the Central Trip was fantastic. We saw some amazing sites, walked some gruelling tracks (stay away from Wilpena Pound!) and got to know some fantastic students, none of which I had met before we left. I also had the chance to consolidate new friendships and old ones, and got to know all of the staff better than I previously had. This is probably one of the few perks of teaching - a free trip interstate and as I had never been before, I had a fantastic trip and was amazed at the sights.
We travelled the Oodnadatta track, saw Wilpena Pound, Standley Chasm, Alice Springs, Royal Flying Doctors, School of the Air, Kings Canyon, Ayers Rock, The Olgas, Coober Pedy and lots more - none of which I can remember without getting up to get the itinerary and I can't be bothered doing that!
Early on in the trip the other bus (we were a 2 bus convoy) was run off the road by a ute driver who had fallen asleep at the wheel and was heading straight toward the bus. Driver had to make the decision to run off the road and onto an embankment in order to narrowly miss the ute. Although the ute driver woke up just as he was level with the bus and swerved, he only just missed the back of the bus and trailer. Could easily have been a fatality - and made me more vigilant with my seatbelt for the rest of the trip.
Apart from that no real dramas.
Highlight: Kings Canyon - easy walk, amazing views and landscape and brilliant company - thanks Bec!
Lowlight: A certain staff member who was an embarrassment the whole trip, and me missing out on seeing Ayers Rock due to an unscheduled trip to the Flying Doctors for a student who had cut her toe and needed 3 stitches. Whilst the other 91 students and staff visited the rock, we were visiting the flying doctors! All the way to Central Australia and the closest I get to the rock is one of the lookouts at Yulara! Oh well, for me there is always next year- the student who missed out doesn't get the second chance.
22 hour bus trip home was an ordeal. I have never had to sleep on a bus before and frankly, I am not good at it! Got home and slept for 6 hours then slept that night from 9.30 to 7 in the morning and am feeling better for it!
Might write more later - for now, essays call and I only have 5 days left to correct them and get my planning organised!

Central bound!

2005-03-28T20:56:00.000+10:00

Just a short blog as already my eyes are hanging out of my head (did I just have 5 days off?) and tomorrow we leave for Central Australia. Left our holiday destination at 1.30 today for what should have been a 3.5 hour trip. Due to an ill-placed booze bus that slowed public holiday long weekend traffic to a crawl, we didnt get home until 6.30 meaning that all of my last minute central preparations (including doing washing from the weekend and having it dry by tomorrow) were pushed back later than I would have liked. However - all I need to focus on now is two weeks of fun in the sun (and near 40 degree heat) of central australia with 92 year 10's. Despite the sarcasm I am actually looking forward to it! I will try to keep a diary whilst I am there and then post it here when I get back but I won't have much internet access as I am going.
signing out for two weeks...

A new excitement

2005-03-22T19:44:00.000+11:00

Well exciting things are happening at school at the moment! Apart from the fact that tomorrow I teach my last class for the term (I am leaving after Easter for Central Australia with the year 10s for 2 weeks) we had a meeting last night about the Leading Schools Funding that our school has received and it sounds like a fantastic thing to be involved in.
The school has been provided with substantial funding, for new purpose-built wings to be added to the school that contain ICT rich environments and open learning spaces to trial a new program with the Year 9's involving rich tasks that are cross-curricular and student focussed. As the use of ICT in schools has been an interest of mine (thanks IS) I thought it would be a fantastic project to be involved in, and so wrote an expression of interest, which was taken up, and a team of around 20 of us had a meeting last night with the principals and talked about the possibilities and about what we invisioned.
It seems like most of us were on the same page in terms of what we would like to see in terms of facilities, and programs, and as the program will be aimed at year 9, we looked at all of the things that we are doing well at year 9 as well as all of the things we could be doing better.
In terms of my own professional growth and learning this project is a fantastic thing to be involved in, and I am hoping to be taking on as big a role as they are prepared to give me. At the moment nothing is concrete, but from what i heard at the meeting last night I am really excited about the possibilities of working in teams designing interesting and innovative curriculum that incorporates ICT in an authentic way into the learning process.
I am also thinking of the possibilities of somehow using my involvement in this project as a basis for an honours thesis or something, because I have been thinking about going back to uni part time in the next couple of years, and the authentic use of ICT in the classroom is one of the things I have been interested in researching and discussing. This might be the perfect opportunity for me to combine what I am doing at school with what I hope to be doing at uni because I think that study is more relevant if it is related to your every day working life. So I am going to email some of my uni contacts to see what they think and what the possibilities might be for study next year. Maybe that way I can get some reading done early. But I don't really know if and how that will work at this stage so I had better keep myself thinking small until I am given the go-ahead to think big.
At this stage I am really excited about the possibilities to be exciting and innovative. If this is done well, and if we take risks and are daring with what we do, then the possibilities are endless. I am concerned that some people might be too conservative when it comes to making changes, but we can wait and see I guess. For now, I will contain my excitement to my blog!

Perhaps I have been too harsh?

2005-03-20T10:44:00.000+11:00

I have been thinking since the last time I blogged that perhaps I have been whingeing just a little too much about history and how difficult it is to work with someone who is very different to you. I guess that part of the reason that I complain about it so much and that it effects me so much is because of the fact that I feel like I don't know as much as I should. I feel like I should be the expert, and for this year I won't be, I am just learning as I go too. But that makes things hard. Because I don't feel that the other teacher I am working with is 100% up on the new course outline, I feel uncertain about everything, and this compounds the problems that I have with working with said person. I feel like I have to be totally up with everything so that I can keep her on the 'straight-and-narrow' when she should be acting as a mentor to me, teaching me how she does things and what she knows. Unfortunately that is not the way that the relationship works at all, which makes it harder for me because I have to go elsewhere to get my advice. Networking is a wonderful thing though!
I also have spent more time with said history teacher and have found out that really she is as unsure of things at school as I am about things with History. She worries about whether or not she will have a job next year, and is trying to adjust to a very different expectation and work ethic at this school compared to what she was used to last year. All of these things mean that I really need to be more understanding and less judgemental so that is my aim for now.

Enough about that. Getting very excited! I have only 2 classes left with my Year 12's, 3 with my Year 7s and a similar number with my year 11's before the end of the term! With easter this next weekend, school finishes on Wednesday for the students and Thursday for us, with a lovely long weekend ahead of me of sailing, knee-boarding and fun in the sun. Then I get home from the easter weekend away on Monday night, only to leave at 6.30 the next morning for a 2 week year 10 central australia trip! Can't wait, but I have so much to do between now and then, including getting my packing done. I have just organised my holiday homework for the 7s and 12s and I am a bit excited about having a holiday (well two actually!) It should be great fun!
Anyway I am not really talking about anything exciting at the moment so I will go and get ready for my Sunday history lecture at melb uni! Yay!

Trying not to be so slack!

2005-03-08T14:44:00.000+11:00

Well here I am trying to lift my average blog from once a month to something a bit more regular. I am actually sitting in my Year 11 English class and the students are doing an essay on Lord of the Flies so I have some time up my sleeve. Have been thinking about the Early Career Teachers conference on Friday - trying to work out what I was going to talk about in my role as a panel member, and it got me in a reflective mood (but sorry Scott, I still haven't finished writing out my notes).
School at the moment is all of these things: interesting, exhausting, difficult and new. My year 12's have their first SAC tonight after school and I think that there is a strong possibility that I am more nervous than them. The shoes of the history teacher who I took over from this year are big shoes to fill, and I am concerned that our marks will not be good enough. Last year there were several perfect study scores in History, but I think that this year the result might not be so good. But then we all know what I am like with trying to be perfect and worrying when I think my efforts fall short. I know that in the end all I can do is teach them what they need to know and point them in the right direction and that it is up to them to make the most of the year.
I am also finding it difficult to find a balanced way to work with the other history teacher. It is important that we are in close contact about what we are teaching and the sources we are using, but we are very opposite in both our teaching styles and in the way we go about things, and so it is difficult for us to reach a common middle ground. This SAC that we are giving them tonight was not written early enough for my liking, and so I am feeling like we are all under-prepared, and I can't work like that. So even though it is another 7 weeks until the next SAC is due to be done, I will be insisting that it is written much earlier, so that there is not the type of rush that there has been this time around. It is just very difficult to get my colleague on task and organised to get things finished. But in a lot of ways this colleague is dealing with a lot; new school, new subjects and a whole new culture, so in a lot of ways I understand, but it does not make it any easier to get things done with her!
That is one of the things that is difficult about this year - dealing and working closely with new staff members who do not necessarily share the same ideas as you, or the same work ethic and with who you are writing assessment, planning curriculum and cross-marking. I am finding it very hard to feel on top of things when a lot of my time is spent waiting on things. I guess that some of that comes from my anally organised nature - I like to be able to plan ahead, but when I am relying on another teacher to be able to do that then that is a bit of a problem.
Anyway, enough of the whingeing. My double is coming to a close and some of the students have finished off their writing task and are getting restless so I better sign off here.
Off to the SAC I go - so so nervous!

Such a slacker!

2005-02-26T18:04:00.000+11:00

After much procrastination, here I am again, back in the bloggers chair. It's not that I don't want to blog - I think about it a couple of times a week. But the reality of my life at the moment is that I don't know what my desk looks like (other than to say that it is a total mess) because I get to sit at it for around 30mins a day if I am lucky. That sounds pretty normal, you say? It might be normal if I was only at school from 8.30 till 3.30, but my school day at the moment starts at 7.30 and ends at 5.30. I am getting very little work done at school other than some photocopying and it seems that my days consist largely of me teaching, running around like a chook with my head cut off and sitting in meetings. Add to that a large dose of wedding planning (have finally set a date and booked a venue) and I am pretty tired and pretty pinched for spare time.
But, having said that, life at the moment (school included) is good. My Year 7's are adorable (and we are at week five so normally their cuteness would have started to wear off by now!), I adore both of my year 11 classes and my year 12's (despite seriously keeping me on my toes) also seem to be doing the work that I am asking of them and so should do well on thier first sac in a week and a half. My english classes (7's and 11's) are just fantastic in terms of me knowing the content and having taught it all before which makes it so easy. This is leaving time for me to worry about my year 12's. Teaching year 12 for the first time, I am putting so much pressure on myself to help my students achieve. I know that only they can learn the content and do the work but you really wish as a teacher that you could ensure the success of all of your students, because you take it as almost a personal defeat if they fail (and despite knowing that is a ridiculous way to think), you do feel like the eyes of the school are on you checking if you are doing a good job.
Because I had the double trouble of having to learn the content myself, I feel like I am only now coming to grips with the course and the content. It seems though, that when you are down or worried, things can go one of two ways - your class will flop, making you feel infinitely worse about the situation and yourself, or your class will be a big success, restoring your faith in the fact that the year 12's are doing the work you are setting and that they are listening to the things you say. The latter happened to me in my double with the 12's on friday afternoon so for the weekend I feel renewed, relieved and maybe even rejuvenated somewhat.
But I will go back to school on Monday, with my head so full of the classes i will be teaching for the day and the memos that I need to write and the emails that I should be sending that I will forget about the meeting that I have on until 2 minutes before hand or I will forget about the dinner that I am organising for Saturday night with my friends (even if we plan it on Friday). I need to get some sort of diary organised because at the moment I can't remember anything for longer than 2 minutes and I am concerned that I will start offending my friends by forgetting to turn up to the functions they have organised. Is this normal or am I a headless (brainless) freak!?
On life outside of school, I actually had some time today to do some gardening which is great because the weeds were literally bigger than some of the plants and I was beginning to think that they had taken over for good. I am also managing to keep up some semblance of an exercise routine which has really been great for my bad back and my sanity! Spent last weekend looking at wedding venues, cooked dinner for the mothers (mine and future-mother-in-law) on Wednesday night to discuss venues and plans, drove back to Arthurs Seat on Thursday in between school and a school function starting at 7 to show said mums the venue and have booked, which means the procrastinating is over and the wedding will happen in March next year! Crazy times ahead!
I am sensing a theme with me and procrastination. Maybe I should do something to make myself more decisive? Maybe I will just think about it for a little bit...

That Demon Doubt again

2005-01-10T20:58:00.000+11:00

Here's the deal. Today I went and spent some time with the person that I am teaching history with this year to get a few things organised. I left feeling exhausted, and that there wasn't enough hours left in the holidays for me to get my head around all the stuff I still need to do. I feel as though I haven't really had a holiday as it is (although I have done a lot of catching up with friends and that has been really good) and that time is just ticking away from me. I am sure that I will feel better in the morning but this blog thing is supposed to be recording how i am feeling and what I am thinking so I guess even the bad has to be talked through as well.
Don't get me wrong, the woman that I am teaching history with is lovely and she knows her stuff but we are very different and I think that our teaching styles are very different. She has also never taught history with anyone else so I think that she is looking forward to having someone else to run ideas by and to work on things with, but in a way I felt like she also wanted to do everything together, and I had to keep impressing on her the point that we can teach the content differently as long as we are teaching the same content and doing the same SACs. I feel like I am about to embark a battle when really all I want to do is do my own thing. I am not sure of anything yet really in terms of how I am going to approach things, but this woman has a few years of teaching the subject behind her, and fairly ingrained ideas and predispositions about how she teaches it. Some of the things she is talking about arent even in the study guide as things that we are supposed to teach, and so then I question whether I really know enough to be doing this.
I think I need to talk to S (the guy that I am taking over from) and find out what he thinks about a few things and how he has done things. He has a proven track record in terms of both inspriring the students and achieving great results with them so i would like to base my approach and content on what he does. In the meantime I guess I just have to have faith in myself and my ability and keep doing things the way that I think and that works for me.
One of my main concerns though is that I just do not know the content well enough. I know that will come in time but I feel that these kids dont have time and that i should know everything for them now.
I guess I am just having a momentary freakout and I am probably entitled to one!
Again though, sitting here isnt getting the job done so I might get back to it and email S at the same time and organise to catch up. I am sure he will put my mind at ease...