Fight Club & media beat up

RE: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/11/25/2428740.htm

Here we go again. Another beat up by the media of a topic that will waste immense amounts of time within schools. Here's a forum post on the topic.

Amount of research done by media? Positive outcome for the community? None.

I feel for John Forrest SHS as they were just the poor school that was focused on this time. Morley kids in fight after school - hardly headline news..

I wonder if the genius that suggested keeping all students in school until the end of year 12 (especially those students too lazy to get a job) thought through the consequences properly. Couple this to increased scrutiny on suspension rates and we end up with the situation of dangerous students being kept within schools and encouraging/bullying students into situations like the 'Fight club' scenario. How long before we have metal detectors looking for knives, police required on school grounds, security guards patrolling a regular occurrence and schools feeling bullied with little support, with blame pointed squarely at schools? Oh that's right - it's already happening.

We (parents, media, community, government) need to support schools not finger point. We need solutions (exclusion of troubled students is a starting point) not blame. That means parents taking responsibility for their children, programmes that empower social workers with real consequences (such as removal of welfare payments), society taking responsibility for ill prepared parents (like removal of the baby bonus), support for academic students (whether aimed at low or high ability students with grading on progress rather than state based comparison - abolish the smartie chart and myschool!), and no in-school baby sitting programmes (students, not clients/customers).

Senior school is now effectively many things: pathway to university, pathway to vocational studies, home of unsure students and a dumping ground for kids that don't wish for a job nor to study further. There is no pressure on these latter students to perform away from home and little leverage to ensure that they enhance the school environment by contributing to the school. They are disenfranchised, lack enthusiasm, see little in their future beyond today. They need babysitting to prevent them from causing social ill. This is a social problem, not an academic one; worse still it only defers the problem by two years and has significant negative impact on schools. Children that cannot be directed into contributing students (despite all attempts) of the school community need to be directed out of school so that they either come back wanting to be a student or find a new pathway.

Teachers are not social workers, entertainers or babysitters, they are academics there to guide the learning of students and should be valued as such. Schooling is a privilege and a responsibility offered to all but should never be seen as a right. If a student brings a school into disrepute - they should be looking for a new school with fairly tight restrictions placed before re-entry into the school system. If we want better schools we need desperately to make schools academic centres of learning with spotless reputations, place clear boundaries around students, provide power to principals to act; and empower teachers effectively as tools of learning.

Class load next year

I don't know if I like or dislike my proposed timetable for 2009.

It looks like I will have 3 dot periods in a row next year (on a Thursday) which will make life a little difficult. The saving grace is that most of my class sizes are around 15 with taking the level three year 11 classes, modelling in year 12 and some of the alternate eduation kids. Only my year 10 class bodes to be larger than 17.

This time only 3 of my five classes are first timers rather than all five (I've taught year 10's and modelling before). The level 3 classes and the alternate education kids have the potential to draw a lot of time.

So far I'm one period down, which will make me a lightening rod for reliefs too. At least I'm not teaching out of area!

Upper 10's and exam preparation

My upper tens have begun revision for their exam. I've pushed them over the last week, getting them to complete twice as much work as my normal expectation per class as a prelude to expectations in year 11. Next I wanted them to experience the expectation of exams and model how to study in year 11. I set aside four days for them to revise and they did the following:

Day 1: Identification of material that could be in the exam
Day 2: Finding of resources (where in texts, portfolios) and identification of areas of weakness
Day 3: Preparation of notes / judging detail required via marks allocated
Day 4: Review and identification of material to study over weekend

Key findings
Students tend not to use contents pages in texts very well. Even when given words to find (solve, substitute, trigonometry) they can't find where in the text to examine. Students also need to consider that higher order questions are more likely to be in the exam therefore they should make sure they can answer questions at the end of exercises.

It was interesting to note levels of anxiety from the beginning (a couple of students with high levels) and the anxiety decreasing as they realised that they had mastered most of the content already. I look forward to next year when I can show them the progress made from year 9 to 10 by showing them their own year 9 exams and comparing it to their year 10 exam.

Students can now produce notes quite well and after a year of reinforcement they can see how to both use and benefit from them.

Students are starting to see that exam hints can be used to improve marks and how necessary it is to follow up and fix any areas of weakness.

Probability & statistics

I have running battle with my lower tens getting them started but found that a game of craypots generally helped. I've bought some foam cubes from Clark rubber (2 for $3.50) 125cm x 125cm x 125cm.

I've labelled the sides storm, storm, last, fine, fine, fine in red marker so that the students can see what the weather is and decide how to play their craypots to maximise the chance of profit.

It's been great to see students find the maximum possible value, the quickest way to get out of the game (eg. the riskiest route), see their mental mathematics in action and their ability to follow a process. It's a game that's easy to set up (it needs a worksheet and a teacher with dice) and one where the class highscore can be kept to be aimed for. Here's a copy of the online version. When I remember I'll bring home my worksheet for upload.

A fair few other dice games can be found here.

It's also a bit of fun to throw the foam cubes around the room near students not paying attention.