New Zealand

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...

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Out of the haze...

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

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

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