Do unto others

Using the golden rule as a basis for personal ethics causes many philosophical dilemmas as a teacher as it constantly comes into conflict with the utilitarian nature of public schools. As an employer I faced the issue of overstaffing and needed to tread the path of redundancies for staff. It was not the most pleasurable event in my life and one I would not seek to repeat.

The half cohort is causing schools to take a long look and decide - do we keep young or less experienced talented staff that are the future of the organisation or do we keep staff members that have provided long service to the school and have a raft of experience with our kids.

I imagine the former could be rationalised by saying that long standing staff are compensated through long service leave, having continuous employment and having the opportunity to develop a depth of subject knowledge not possible when often coming to grips with the individual needs of students in new school environments.

To some degree, the criticisms I hear issued at long standing staff are often grossly unfair - I would be quicker to point the blame at past management that has allowed or even promoted issues that lead to less competitive performance of staff. Staff need to be managed - if staff are struggling they need real support to improve (this takes effort and planning) or assisted to find an environment that works for them (a controlled exit takes less effort and is a more likely event in teaching).

The bottom line is that if I worked for a school for a long period of time and was asked to leave instead of a younger and seemingly less experienced staff member, I would feel let down, hurt and angry. To start again mid or end career in a new school would be a daunting event (even after being at my current school 2.5 years I would still have some fear - imagine doing it after 10 years!). Could I put someone through that now (as I would have without blinking as an employer) with little warning? I think without maintaining 'management distance' that it would be very difficult.

I suppose it's reasons like this that I put leadership positions behind me and focus on the classroom and departmental development. Having that level of inner conflict again (doing what must be done vs the right thing to do) is not something that I relish and there would need to be some real compensation or financial need to consider it again.

Moving averages and the CAS calculator

On the fx casio, moving averages were a bit of a doddle.. stick in the values and use the MAV application.

The suggested method for the classpad 330 according to the classpad website is to use spreadsheet mode. This has some disadvantages that I have not been able to overcome with my brief investigation.

To set up a MAV problem, clear the sheet and enter the basic data in columns. To calculate the MAV click on the middle cell of the first series (eg in a 3pt MAV it would be the second cell) and use the Action column to find the mean of the first three data cells. Then copy your mean cell down the column by highlighting the rest of the column using the stylus and then use the edit menu -> paste.

To graph it is a little on the fiddly side. Highlight the data column and the MAV column and press the line graph icon (there are two, it's the first one). Select the graph and go View->Markers to turn off the data markers. Under the Type menu, make sure you have selected Column Series.

This should display the graph.

If you need a line of regression, select the MAV line with the stylus and select an appropriate regression function on the toolbar. The main issue with it is that there is no way to interpolate or extrapolate data (the main thing you wish to do with this sort of data) for predicting data points whilst in spreadsheet mode for the line of regression. It's been fairly frustrating. I can recreate the line of regression for the MAV in "graph and tab" mode and use this but it would be easier just to have a trace mode on the stats graph... oh well...

Here's a link to an index of other CAS calculator posts.

Update 15/09/09: Download v3.04 of the classpad operating system from here. It greatly enhances the ability of spreadsheet mode to perform regression in spreadsheet mode. You will need to register and login before downloading it.  It's quite a neat trick to click on the line of regression, copy it and then paste the formula onto the spreadsheet at the the bottom of the y column.  Modify the formula such that x becomes a cell reference (eg A2) and viola - an alternate to trace for predicting y values.

:-)

Successes in 2008/2009

It's been about a year since I started this blog, so I thought it was time to look at the successes.

Most of them have occurred being part of our team, so I can't take credit for them, but I can definitely identify them and take pleasure from contributing.

Firstly there are the kids that claim that they are still at school because of maths classes. Every year you get a few that you manage to spot and cause some sort of intervention that makes them want to be at school or even repeat year 12. The core group of students that like maths (and select it in year 11 at all levels) has grown and it has been great to watch these kids mature into more capable maths students.

Secondly there are the things we did to improve learning at the school. The summer school (run over the Christmas holidays) was a great success resulting in students passing subjects that they would have otherwise failed. The programmes that we wrote for junior school in 2007 has produced a stronger cohort to draw our year 11's from. The maths lab is operational, has the start of a resource library and has five computers to work with. Students across the school are using mathsonline as an adjunct to normal classes. Students attend catchup classes readily when suggested - even those that typically would run a mile from the idea, (it was great for our confidence when some of the C class beat the whole of the B class!!)

Thirdly there is a rapport amongst the mathematics teachers that promotes development of our skills from year 8-12. There is a growing interest in learning more about senior and the junior school. Despite the odds, we have an 3AB MAS class and will have a 3CD MAT class when many thought it was over-reaching our cohort. It's been great to watch my practicum student become an educator and see the rapport grow between him and our students. He will be a great teacher.

Fourthly (is there such a thing??) is this blog, an avenue to develop ideas without causing any conflict at school. 3500+ visitors and 6000+ pages shown. It's a great home for my soapbox!

Fifth was the birth of my wonderful daughter and time spent with my wife whilst she learns every little thing (this is really the biggest success, although has little to do with the school!).
I was worried that I wouldn't be able to manage the sleep loss issues, before Friday I had done quite well, I've learnt my lesson; 1 hours sleep = sick.

Lastly, behaviour management has been less of an issue in senior school this year and far easier than when I started here in 2007. I have watched changes in the attitudes of teachers and students, there is definite improvement - senior school again believes that university is a valid path from our school, a far cry from 2007. There is support from the principal down for curriculum initiatives that lead students to university.

Bring on the rest of term 3 and the end of the year. (Whoa.. all this affirmation is a bit to exciting and has worn me out.. off to bed!)

Federal research report on rewarding quality teaching

Link here.

Quoted by Julia Gillard on the SBS Insight forum (transcript here). She is a right dill and my favourite IOTY candidate.

An expert stands and says, please don't create league tables for parents, their validity is seriously in question as variation between classrooms exceeds variation between schools. She consistently uses New York as an example (who has heard of a model school in New York)? Generally, even our worst schools are not at this level. A teacher, who has seen both schools in New York and Australia states to go the way of New York is the worst of mistakes.

A principal stands and pleads not to stigmatise schools.

Julia states again and again that she won't produce league tables yet the media states that they will use the data to do just that. She gently moves the discussion away from the failed curriculum direction given by government and places blame purely on schools. She agrees with anything that sounds positive and nods wisely yet continues with this destructive course of building league tables. We have enough problems with kids that think they are dumb, now we have whole schools that will be classed the worst (with kids that will take pride in being the worst). Gees, thanks Julia!

If she wants expert teachers in underperforming schools, will she also reward and recognise the experts that are already there or will they have to move to get recognition? It sounds like another rort to be exploited by the "look at me and how good I am brigade!" How will she produce the benchmark for existing performance (or should we act dumb and then make rapid improvement for financial reward?)

Can these experts transfer their knowledge across socio-economic sectors? Will expert teachers move between "like" schools (giving them some chance of success) and establish lasting programs, not just ones based on personality, material reliant on personal experience or quick fixes (such as teaching to the test)?

:-)

Opportunity lost

The half cohort was a wonderful opportunity for DET to regain some lost pride and gain momentum in the public sector. It was an opportunity to reduce class sizes for no extra cost in high schools even if the reduction was only in the short term. Lower class sizes could have meant lower staff/student ratios, increased opportunity for intervention and a real marketing advantage against mid range private schools (where class sizes have increased). This could have attracted a lot of students back to the public sector that have been lost due to issues with BMIS, the half cohort and OBE.

Unfortunately, schools are adjusting their teacher ratios down causing issues with maintaining a range of course offerings. This raises the possibility of actually increasing class sizes as year groups are being combined into single classrooms (in an attempt to maintain diversity in offered courses) and also increases the complexity by teaching students of increased variation of maturity. It is likely that more teachers will teach in areas outside their specialisation (fewer teachers means fewer timetabling options). Admin time will be spent on deciding who will go and how losses will be managed over the next five years.

It's pointless and a waste of resources.

Independent Public Schools

There is a lot of talk in the papers about independent public schools in WA. Independent public schools would be given increased independence from DET and the ability to manage their own affairs.

This could be a wonderful thing:

• Schools given ability to hire and fire staff on a needs basis
• Schools better able to pay according to need within the school
• Schools able to seek maintenance independent of bureacracy
• Schools able to advertise based on strengths of school to attract students
• Schools better able to remove difficult students, bullying decreases
• Schools results gain on independent school sector

so on and so forth but ..

Schools become semi-autonomous Qwangos.. organisations that are paid for by government but that government is not directly responsible for. Typically these organisations start out well and then have their funding squeezed (typically by inflation) until they are inoperable. A very nice political manouver that brings about an expensive government rescue in a few years time..

So let's make some predictions about what happens when wholesale efficiencies are lost (such as staffing, maintenance, curriculum and payroll) and these roles are now paid for by schools with existing budgets.

• less FTE available for face-to-face teachers due to increased administrative requirements
• class sizes increase or time in class trade offs occur (see current private sector)
• lower availability of relief and PD
• fewer subjects available for students (especially where high teacher:student ratios are required)
• increased reliance on "online learning"/SIDE
• staff bullying increases ("managed exits" becomes a common euphemism)
• non-independent public schools are saddled with students unable to exist in independent public schools; rather than shared across all schools (non-independent public schools become safety net for disaffected youth)
• capable teachers move to independent public school sector
• schools exceed budget and seek emergency funding in term four
• inflation erodes school budget
• increased audit requirements
• increased pressure on parents and corporate sector to fund public schools with non tax dollars
• hiring in regional areas becomes more difficult (non-centralised staffing)
• schools expected to perform as businesses but run by administrators

DET is less than perfect, but asking schools to do more with less may not be the answer. If we know the issues upfront maybe we can sidestep most of them and initiate change within DET bureaucracy rather than creating larger administrative teams in schools!

The Pirahna occupation

Something that I always looked forward to was being part of a collegiate profession. I observed as a student that teachers worked as a block and always supported each other publicly. How different it is from the inside.

Criticism of teachers by teachers is rampant, a common source of gossip in the staff room. That's not to say there aren't some outstanding people that seek to assist the teacher needing a hand ( and often it's those you least suspect ), but often given an opportunity the boot goes in spikes and all. Often this results in losing developing teachers or slowing their progress with them doubting their progress. Maybe it's hard for experienced teachers to remember back to their first couple of years where behaviour management was dodgy at times and content knowledge and delivery was far from perfect.

This has also grown a culture of defensiveness, where teachers take insult where none is intended. I had to laugh when I heard that insult was taken by overhearing a reference to a stereotype of the stinginess of a specific religion via a movie quote. If I took offence for every time a Scot was called stingy I'd be in a continuous flap about nothing.

It would be much better to see a developing mentality seeking constant improvement rather than seeking to attack the weakest link. I suppose it's always been in the back of my mind that one day it might be me that needs that support due to a range of issues out of my control (lack of sleep, personality conflict, family crisis, overload of work, poor timetable, teaching out of area etc.)

It's humorous that we criticise each other rather than our superiors (which is more common in other occupations). It's even stranger to hear the criticisms filter downwards from senior staff. Who would ever think to do that in a management position? To some degree though, I understand their frustration as the ways of actually performing any form of performance management seems to be limited to, 'this could be a good idea for your classroom' or going through dismissal procedures over serious misdemeanours.

The closed door policy of many classrooms also makes me scratch my head. I don't understand - 'this is my work and I'm not sharing' or the lack of interest in common planning activities. I suppose that idealism of 'we are here in the best interest of the kids first and foremost' still rules my thinking and the cynicism still hasn't fully kicked in.

I was also thinking about next year, and how classes will fall to teachers; how will admin arrange classes. Will it seek optimal learning (and place the strongest teachers with the strongest students) or will it take a capacity building role again giving teachers an opportunity to develop their skills. If it does the former, what will be done to support and prevent burnout of the developing teachers. If it does the latter how will it ensure that adequate student performance is maintained. If a middle road is taken how will that work?

On another note, again I was reminded of the need for revision and pre-testing yesterday, when students showed that they had limited recall work they had previously successfully completed. I'm glad I've noticed as I will now create a revision paper for the test. That should assist them further.

Who do you want your child to be?

If you didn't see "Who do you want your child to be" on SBS one, 7.30-8.30 11/8/09 then it is worth digging up one of the many webcasts of it or reading the transcript to get a grasp of the ideas discussed. Having the attention span of a gnat, a show has to be relatively interesting to grasp my attention for 60 mins.

From the beginning it was full of ideas, presented in a viewer friendly manner - geared at parents and educators. Well worth watching a couple of times.

It reminded me of the first time I read Raising boys by Steve Biddulph.

Why students are taking easy options in yr 12

Students are taking easy options in year 12. Schools are encouraging students not to take harder upper school subjects. Why?

Students have:

• little resilience - failure is an end product rather than a path to success
• do not experience exams in lower school and fear them
• have little work ethic - would rather coast than strive for excellence
• fear not making TEE score due to perceived issues with scaling and moderation
• have not been driven to complete lower school curriculum in lower school heterogeneous classes and have to make large leaps in year 11/12 to succeed (ongoing problem)
• have difficulty moving from developmental approach (going at own pace is ok) in lower school to graded syllabus approach (you're a C get used to it, we have to go at this pace to finish the course) in yr 11/12
• Core subject areas (Maths, English, S&E, Science) have lost actual teaching time to "equal" learning areas T&E, Health & PE and the Arts.
• VET courses are more readily available and provide an outlet after fatigue of 10 years education

Schools:

• Fear poor league table scores (and thus only attract weaker, behavioural issues students)
• Small academic classes creates timetabling issues
• Require more effort and experience by teachers to get students to pass a difficult subject
• Can only "suggest" that students take harder subjects
• "Good" students are being attracted to academic schools and G&T programs
• WACE issues; have to reach 100% graduation rate (therefore coach students out of difficult classes if at risk of failing)
• Specialist subjects are harder to staff (check the number of schools unable to run Lit, Economics and Maths Specialist or more than one class of each if they wanted to) - exacerbated by the half cohort
• Schools now cater to 'all students' rather than focus on academic students
• Correcting behavioural issues takes precedence to correcting academic issues (just check time allocated to both in any school) - schools can be seen as behaviour centres rather than learning centres.
• Lack of rigor and programming in lower school programmes
• No single point of responsibility within learning areas for performance with loss of level 3 HoD positions to behavioural/administrative roles
• Have a large number of 'refugee' or 'parents with work permits' students with little primary schooling when entering high school
• Students that traditionally left school in year 10 and now staying until year 12
• Students that may have found work in better years are finding it harder to do so in today's economic climate

This is a rather cynical comment and to be honest, this year we have the largest equivalent G&T, Calc course than we've had for a number of years (it raised some concern that we had been too lenient when coaching for subject selection) and next year's cohort for 3A MAS/MAT is an order of magnitude larger again. The issues listed are not true in all schools and when identified schools do look closely at them. I think many of them have occurred all at once due to the simultaneous introduction of the NCOS.

It's not rocket science. Just talk to a few teachers, they'll give you the remaining reasons.

Dispositions and education

I was reading an article on the disposition of teachers that investigated how teaching schools should identify potential students in a similar way to how doctors are identified. Personality traits or "dispositions" to act could be used as a criteria to predict the success of student teachers.

It tied neatly to a discussion I had in the staffroom this week about how teachers had a persona (or disposition) they had to maintain in society. In the past, there was a clear expectation that teachers were pillars of society. They have been maids that did not date or marry. They have been philosophers, terminally interested in the pursuit of knowledge. They have been experts in their subject areas and acknowledged for their ability to do something at a level that is beyond most. They have also been over harsh disciplinarians, child molesters and cretins.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

The idea of dispositions was interesting as it worried me. Too many see the 'A type' personality as the only teacher worth having (poor treatment of practicum students in schools is common where "lack of personality" is the main reason for failing or "great personality" hides multiple failings). The 'A type' type teacher is good from an administrative point of view as typically there is little in the way of additional behavioural assistance required, students graduate out of their classes and when kids look back they say that they liked the teacher (but may not have learned much).

Yet if you dig a little deeper and ask a student that has left school who they admired, it seems to be the opposite. It is the disciplinarian, the teacher that yelled at them and gave them detention, the one that made them try harder when there was little left in the tank to try with. The ones that did not need to be liked to maintain a high level of learning in the classroom (but may have needed assistance from time to time to reset the classroom - think back to that time you have seen a teacher explode at a class or a student).

I'm concerned that if you define dispositions, that inadequate research will define the disposition required as being the "type A" personality and exclude the people I have always admired as the true teachers - the teacher that takes pride in their performance first (often to their personal detriment) rather than the teacher that rattles the least amount of cages. The one that seeks out performing and under performing students with mild motivational issues (I don't mean students ill suited to the classroom environment) and lights a fire under them when the easy option is to let them figuratively play cards in the back corner.

Maybe it is these people we need to search out and put discipline frameworks around for education to reach more students.

Assessment and reporting, not more exemplars!

I notice with despair that systemically we are going through another attempt at defining what an A -E is for a variety of topics and year groups to help teachers accurately mark assessment. I wonder how long it will take "those in the know" that providing A-E definitions either is so cumbersome with detail that it is impossible to use or too vague to be of any real use.

There are good reasons why teachers have used percentage grades (and not exemplars or rubrics) historically to assist in judging grades. Percentages combined with basic teacher judgement has been the only valid tool for judging students A-E on assessments. The simple fact is that teachers gain accuracy in assessing students over many years and by teaching as many year groups as possible in their sector (primary or secondary). By watching students mature into more capable students, teachers are better able to determine the snapshot grade of students and judge what makes a student an A (in any given year) and what type of student deserves B-E or the politically incorrect and now defunct F.

The sheer breadth of the curriculum and the variety of responses by students makes the task of defining A-E for all topics in all learning areas a task that serves no real purpose. Teachers do not have the time to find and refer to these exemplars when marking nor are the exemplars accurate for a variety of socioeconomic sectors (yes, I am saying an A in a low socioeconomic area is lower than a higher socioeconomic area by reducing amounts until TEE examinations). Much of marking is viewing the material of the student, noting key issues and making a teacher judgement on where the student is positioned on a continuum. As more students are guided through to TEE (or yr 7 graduation) by a teacher, teachers get better at giving feedback to students with information that helps them reach their potential.

That is what teachers are paid for, they get better with experience and this experience (or lack of) should be valued where accurate and monitored and augmented by senior staff whilst experience is being gained.

(...now if we were being given EPW's with solutions for all maths NCOS then I might give a little cheer as a good use of systemic resources).

Idiot Generation

I wonder now that developmental curriculum has again given way to syllabus driven curriculum if we will look back at the current generation as the illiterate or idiot generation. A bunch of kids that have 'challenged' spelling, writing, reading, grammar and arithmetic. A generation where challenging oneself was only the domain of those driven from outside the education system or those lucky few with teachers with the ability to entertain or drive students through sheer will.

This being the case, will children that have been betrayed by a poorly implemented experimental education system be able to seek redress from the government in years to come?

We risk a lot when we keep children in the system until year 12 regardless of their want for education. These children typically do not succeed and do not want to be in the education system. Are they the stolen generation of the future, "abused" by being kept in a system neither of their want or perceived need (by either their parents and themselves) a system not really geared to their needs, in many cases the children themselves are resented by those within the education system as time wasters and do nothings?

Will we be accused of preventing children reaching their potential by not providing adequate measures to curtail disruption in the classroom? Should we be doing more to create optimal environments for learning? Is preventing disruptive kids from these "optimal learning environments" abuse by neglect?

As society becomes a more litigious environment and legislators are less able to create common sense legislation, schools could become a battleground for lawyers on behalf of parents and children, based on the expectations gained through unscientific reports given by schools in early years and via standardised testing and IQ analysis.

Are students that only respond to physical violence at home (and/or experience few real boundaries) able to respond to verbal chastisement at school? Is a teacher that hits a student on the arm with a ruler worthy of an assault charge? Can we better protect the 100's of teachers that are assaulted every year?

I would hate to think that negative questions become the focus questions facing our next decade. I personally would much prefer to be concentrating on creating a stronger education system, well funded, well managed and with willing participants.

Curriculum Council PD events

Curriculum council events are always attended with a healthy amount of skepticism. They have typically been fairly patronising towards teachers in their approach, devoid of usable content and fairly defensive of their purpose.

The most recent compulsory moderation was the latest shmozzle. The requirements sent to teachers during the reporting period were as follows for each course gathering materials for four students, an A, B, C & D student:

"Each file must consist of all completed assessment tasks that have contributed to the grade for the first semester unit or all tasks completed so far if units are being delivered concurrently, including:

• the assessment outline for the units/s
• the tasks/ task briefs/ task descriptions and marking keys indicating the allocation of marks
• a complete set of all marked tasks for each student (Including the Semester 1 Examination if one is used).

It is advisable that schools supply photocopies of the assessment tasks (not the originals). Where possible indications of the school and students name should be removed from each of the tasks and the student work."

This might sound like an easy task, but photocopying and anonymising 4-5 tasks for four students (up to 10 pages per task) plus a 10 pg exam, marking keys, unit outlines, descriptors is about 240 pages of photocopying and a fair amount of work at a busy time of year. Do this for two courses and it is 500 pages of photocopying.

Teachers would have appreciated knowing the requirement at the start of the year and then the task would have had negligible impact (as it could have been collected as the term progressed). As there is no moderation generally in year 11, these materials are not normally kept in the same ordered manner year 12 materials are kept. There were many stories of teachers needing to spend considerable time during the break gathering materials. This may have been exacerbated by a lack of feedback from school admin to teachers of requirements as information became available.

The task itself on the day involved 10 teachers examining the marking of fellow teachers and stating whether their grade based on a cursory inspection of the results of students. The process failed to some degree because 80% of DET schools were using the same exam (from the TDC). Thus what we saw was the same exam 5-6 times, we examined the percentage score of the exam and defined a grade accordingly (80%+ -A, 65-80% B, 50-65% C and 35-50% D) or thereabouts depending on the level of difficulty of associated assessments.

A better use of time (but not the purpose of the meeting as I was chastised by the Curriculum Council person at great length) would have been to swap EPWs, discuss timing and difficulty levels of the courses and how students are performing in the courses. I was told to ensure that I wrote my feedback down. I responded that I had been down that path before and would no longer spend time on unread feedback but she was welcome to feed back my concerns. I find my blog a much more therapeutic venue for developing my understanding of the coursework.

There were some key findings:

It was reported by teachers that there is major concern about students passing from 2CD to 3AB in year 12 as the difficulty jump is seen as more than possible for the majority of students (many students are destined to repeat the same course). Another issue has been raised that there is not enough "teaching time" for low ability students in the 1BC course which seems to be more focused on assessing past learning than having time to teach new material.

The Curriculum Council representative raised issues with the Saddler 3AB text stating that it was flawed and that the Westone resources were superior. I nearly fell over when she said that, as I have found the Westone resources near useless as it is far too investigative for my liking. It should be noted though that this may be my teaching limitation and a reflection of my cohort, rather than an issue with the Westone resources. The usability of the OT Lee materials were questioned by a number of teachers (although I like them as a supplementary text) and in general it was considered that Saddler texts were the preferred text, albeit you needed to be careful where content exceeded the course requirements.

There is a lot of confusion about what the TEE papers will look like and teachers are waiting impatiently for example papers. It was generally considered that it would have been preferable to have been given full TEE exemplar papers for each module before schools had to create and run courses.

My favourite issue raised though related to a hearsay Curriculum Council comment made by a teacher in the 3A MAS moderation meeting that the curriculum for the 3A courses is aimed at 30% of mathematics students as opposed to the old Introcalc & G&T course that aimed at about 10% of students. This raised mirth from the whole room of senior teachers who indicated that if this was the case, the course was failing in its objective.

As the most junior member at the 3A moderation meeting I attended, I did appreciate the feedback given by the more senior members. For this the meeting was worthwhile.

ta!

Board game supplies

I've been a fan of local stores, but paying retail Gamesworld prices is just ridiculous. I've recently made four transactions with Bestgames.com.au out of Sydney and been very happy.

Battlelore was $160 at Gamesworld and $115 at BestGames , and managed to get Runebound (Second Edition), Race for the Galaxy and Dominion for $213 (about $70 each).
Tactics (just off London Court in the city- a little hard to find if you don't know where to look) is cheaper than Gamesworld if you are looking for a physical store in Perth.

There was a problem with Race for the Galaxy, Bestgames tried to rectify it, notified me and offered to refund my money or to wait another week. It was one game of three, I'm happy to wait.

The web based orders from Bestgames were ~3 days delivery by courier. They even offered me a discount when I wrote a review for them on Battlelore. Shipping is free over $100. Nice people.
There are others; serepeco.com.au (offer to beat any price), gamesparadise.com.au (that has Battlelore at $99, free postage over $85 and also has physical stores) are two I have looked at but not ordered from.

I like the instant gratification of buying and playing games on the same day, but a 50% markup is just plain silly. Shame on you Gamesworld, because of you I'll wait my three days by mail order.

If you're thinking of playing some out of the ordinary board games, http://www.boardgamegeek.com/ is a good place to start. Days of Wonder, Rio Grande, Fantasy Flight and Z Man all publish great games.

Now to wait and order Arkham Horror, Steam and Power Grid later in the year.

:-)

Arkanoid Clone

Here's a basic outline of an Arkanoid clone, made by modifying the space invaders code of last week (it was done in a day!).

Click here to play.

Click here for source.

To complete this I had to use polar coordinates, bearings, reflection, complementary/supplementary angles, recursion and a lot of boolean logic.

The paddle reflection is not perfect and the game could use more levels. There is an issue with ball speed that I need to resolve. It doesn't work in other than 1024x768.

A link here to the space invader clone of last week.

As always, the games are written in Java using Netbeans. All of the game logic written by yours truly. Feel free to do use the code as you see fit.

Enjoy!

Ms Gillard you are a dill!

Here's a link to the latest nonsense by Ms Gillard.

"It's not about raw scores," Ms Gillard said.
"We want to compare like schools - schools serving similar populations, so we can tell what difference the teaching is making."
"If you see one school going streaks ahead, that means there is great practice there we should be sharing.
"And if you see one school that is falling way behind, that means we should be doing something about that school because it is under performing and it can do better."

Ms Gillard - teaching is not the only factor in performance. Shall we also grade community support, funding, parent capability, parent education, family income, proportion of single parents, strong administrative leadership and support, an interactive P&C, effective behaviour management policy. It is not just teaching that makes a school good and these factors cannot be graded in simplistic socio-economic indicators.

So.. do we just teach to the test to gain good results and forget about whole student needs? If a student is not academic, do we give them the weakest teachers and reserve our finest teachers for those that bring academic results? Do we pander to teachers that only will stay if they get certain classes? Will the tables measure actual progress or focus on academic performance (if they do measure progress will they use NAPLAN/WALNA and ignore the basic timing issues that occur in low socio-economic schools?).

So I ask again.. what purpose does this have in being released to the public? To remind parents that the school they are sending their child to is not as good as the elite schools in the Western suburbs or the G&T schools in the state school system?

If we are only looking for improvement - release league tables to staffing and strategic planning. After all it is these two parts of DET that need the information. By releasing this information to parents you are seriously hindering reform in troubled schools. The students that the school needs most to benefit from reform just won't come.

If you want to release this information - do so when schools are well funded and outperforming private schools. To do it now after years of underfunding in the system and poor curriculum support is inappropriate. Unless of course the agenda is to close schools and sell assets. After all education is the single biggest burden on government (and the single biggest eliminator of class difference as we are all entitled to a good education).

It is just another teacher bashing that is on the way, with primitive statistical analysis used to try and correct schools in political time frames inappropriate to education.

I heard a suggestion that we should create league tables for politicians.. Promises vs actual over the past 10 years. Set up league tables for local pollies on how often they are seen and how many members of the public they have spoken to outside of polling times. Identify how many times they have spoken in parliament and made a contribution to government (as opposed to oppositional backbiting). How many times they have been seen doing stupid things in public. Then we could re-release this information at polling time.

Education has no place in politics and league tables are just nonsense, aimed to appeal to naive voters. I'd like to meet a person in education that thinks league tables are a good idea.

Only the best possible education for all our children is what matters. The rich should not be the only ones with access to the finest education. Education is the most valuable privilege in Australia and it is our way to ensure that all in Australia feel Australian and have an opportunity to succeed, regardless of race, religion, sex or any other demographic you care to mention.

.. and that's the way it should stay.

Schools becoming learning institutions

With the experiment of making schools "a one size fits all" solution for society's juvenile justice problems finally noted as a failure, schools are again focusing on their primary role - that is of teaching and learning.

Keeping students in school to reduce unemployment figures and reduce pressure on the justice system just lumps pressure on the education system. Teachers that enjoy teaching are rare enough, teachers that can enjoy teaching and teach the "unteachables" are worth their weight in gold. To expect all teachers to have this ability is to invite the burnout and low morale that teaching (as a profession) faces.

Here is an article on the education system pushing back on other sectors of the community.

We have to be careful not to push back too far.. or if we do, ensure that troubled kids have a path to some form of success. To fail in this regard is to invite youth to lives of drugs, crime, homelessness and other forms of antisocial behaviour. School has its place - that of a learning environment and once the system (justice, community services/youth work, adult education, health, local government) has positioned a dysfunctional youth into the mindset of being a student - then and only then does a school have a part to play in supporting the newly found learner - this is social justice - not keeping them in school to disrupt the ability of others to learn.

School needs to be a privilege not a right. A privilege available to all, that can be lost, and only regained through a level of trust and forgiveness between all parties. We need to reconsider the purpose of schools in the community. It's the only way.

Re-branding a school

So... here's a scenario.. a school is delivering great results, has a dedicated bunch of teachers, a strong management structure but a poor reputation in the general public. It is the butt of low socio-economic jokes. When you tell someone that you work there, they quietly question whether you are crazy or too stupid to get a job elsewhere.

I discussed this with an ex-principal of the school and they said that they did not re brand the school because too much work had gone into repairing the name of the school in the community. He conceded that the biggest detrimental factor to growth of the school was it's postcode. It sounded ok at the time, but when I thought about it the immediate came to mind..

a) we attract few academic students
b) the general public associates the suburb with low ability students and behavioural issues
c) there is very little positive media coverage (translated: none that I can remember) of the school

So as a marketing problem - we have the product but not the customers and are poorly positioned to attract new students. I went to school at Mercy College - the sisters of Mercy are a reputable organisation and nobody knows that the school is in Koondoola. They have 1500 students now and have conquered the postcode issue.

Why should we feel pride in names such as Balga, Girrawheen, Koondoola, Lockridge, Kwinana, Clarkson that have social issues attached to them, when the focus could be taken away from the suburb name and the school can stand on its own name and reputation in the community without the stigma of suburb names? Yes, a lot of work has been done in the school to improve its image and performance, and we do feel pride in the school itself - but a name is not a school, it is but one facet of its public image.

State schools as they gain more independance will need to face the reality of no students - no school. If state schools are to compete fairly with private schools for students (and not face issues like that has been exacerbated by the half cohort) then they must be able to attract students based on academic programmes and have methods to ensure that students under forced intake (ie. live in the area and no other school will take them) have a programme suitable for them that does not disrupt students attracted to promised academic programmes. Changing the name to distance schools from its location (where the location is seen as a negative marketing factor) seems to make a lot of sense.

Space Invaders

Here's a little space invaders program that I wrote on the weekend. If it doesn't work the first time, maximise it and try again.. I haven't optimised it for anything other than 1024x768 yet.. Maybe tomorrow.

It was written in Java using Netbeans and some free sound and graphics from the web. With exception of some of the graphics, database and sound routines, the game logic was all written by yours truly.

It has a high score table and multiple levels. It should auto load using Java Web start (fingers crossed).

I've been writing these games with the hope of starting a programming group of students. The basic ideas gained have direct application in mathematics, especially in algebra, coordinate geometry, functions, recursive algorithms and trigonometry.

Click here to play game

Click here for source code

Best of all.. all of the software used to make it was free!

Pretty cool huh?

Defining students

How students see themselves impacts greatly on their performance. Lately I have been discussing with students how I see them and what that view indicates of their performance.

I have been examining classes and defining students motivational level under four categories: disengaged, coasting, good and determined. Each category is defined as following:

Disengaged: a student that will only complete work under strict supervision or under threat of detention. This is an at risk student that needs further analysis to seek why they are disengaged (personality conflict, lack of ability, reduced prior knowledge, low self confidence, low self esteem, peer issues, home issues, bullying etc.) This student retains very little knowledge and has to relearn each topic on re-presentation of material each year if not re-engaged. Typically there are only a few of these in each class.

Coasting: A student that will complete work if there is nothing better to do. One that does the bare minimum to avoid attention of the teacher. If allowed to develop at their own pace will progress very slowly and have little retention. Typically this can be up to 4-5 students.

Good: A student that does all tasks asked of by the teacher willingly. Is able to answer most questions asked by the teacher but rarely will offer to answer a question unless called upon. Is not disruptive, completes homework, is enthusiastic and asks questions of the teacher when difficulties are encountered. In mid streamed classes this is the majority of students.

Determined: A student that attacks their work and seeks deep understanding actively. This student finds reward in the act of learning, is self motivated and can learn independently. These are the students seeking promotion to higher classes, those working at the level of their ability or the majority of the 'academic' students. The number can vary greatly from class to class and teacher to teacher.

By identifying where a student is and what to do to reach the next higher level students can set goals that would improve their opportunities for success in the subject. It has motivated a range of students to seek improvement and has given areas of discussion to engage parents with.

Work Ethic

I had a discussion today as to whether work ethic could be taught.

My reply was no.. it couldn't be taught but it could be instilled. By this I meant that work ethic is not something that could be learned from a lesson, it was something that grew in a person over time.

As a school, fostering work ethic is something that needs to be done from an early age. Assuming that kids will instantly start doing 3 hours of assessment and study in year 12 is a recipe for disaster if they have only been doing the bare minimum until year 11.

So.. how do we instill a good work ethic? This is what I have considered thus far...

1. Model it at all times. If students see that you work hard they are more likely to think that adult behaviour requires work.
2. Build it up slowly. Start with little things like developing an assignment in class over a number of days, analysing a task, breaking it down into multiple steps and creating a timeline for completing the task. Homework is another good way to do this. Start with 15 mins in one learning area, develop the use of a diary and start giving homework in multiple learning areas.
3. Recognise achievement. Praise students that show signs of developing a work ethic. If a student does well, explicitly draw attention to what has contributed to the result.
4. Tie effort to reward. Without the effort being commensurate with the reward students cannot learn to value their effort. If a students does the work and fails, ensure that the failure is identified as a path to success.
5. Group students with a similar work ethic. This will create demand for students to work with like minded students and create an environment of success for these students.
6. Teach self correction and independent learning. A key component of work ethic is when a student feels empowered to teach themselves. A student with a good work ethic will not give up purely because the answer is not under their nose! In maths this could mean asking a friend, reading a worked example or checking answers in the back of the book and then correcting mistakes.
7. Being punctual and ready to start (not five minutes after the activity begins).
8. Being prepared and having all required materials.
9. Showing respect for those around them by being focussed on the task at hand and not distracting others needlessly.

I'm sure there's more - as I think of them I'll add them on.

Point 5. is a bit contentious, but I am a little sick of teachers sacrificing good students to assist with behaviour management or to "model" the behaviour to others. I think if we actually analyse the usual approach of mixed groups - the good kid is the one who usually suffers.

:-)

Inspirational educational stories

Here's to making a difference in your own life. Sent to me from one of my educational heroes. Ta Keith!

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-harvard20-2009jun20,3,3233106.story

It reminded me of an 'A' student that I met that had cystic fibrosis that knew she would pass away before she was 17 yet still searched for excellence.

Inspiration in education is one thing we are never short of.

Isolates within a school

In primary if a child is isolated, with few if any friends, teachers are relatively quick to pair them up with students of like interests or with similarly few friends. There is a process that happens with new students and other for socialising kids with new friends.

It's pretty easy to spot when it happens and it's a fairly major issue in primary years.

In high school it's completely different. It's not uncommon for a group of students (normally girls) to ostracise a student over some perceived misdemeanour, whether it be based on appearance (cheap clothing, lazy eye, red hair, braces), socioeconomic background, race, perceived intelligence, jealousy, personality... Forms of bullying often manifest in this sort of behaviour where physical violence carries a heavier penalty. It's humourous in a sad sort of way that in our school, there is pride in being a misfit and the 'normal' kids tend to be the ones that may find it difficult to fit in.

Isolates can be completely miserable in the playground and find the classroom a haven, as it removes some of the pressure to find, create and maintain friendship groups (at least until the first group activity). A classroom environment doesn't remove the loneliness. Some students can remain in this state for all five years of school.

What can we do as teachers to assist these students? Typically these students erect barriers that make it very difficult to assist them. They truant, gain attention through misbehaviour and defiance, become introverted, lack purpose and direction, lack social skills, can be depressive and generally unpleasant to be around. These are protections to hide their remaining self esteem.

It's easy to overlook them in amongst TEE preparation, programming, testing, assisting the students that 'need' our help. Typically they would have dropped out of school at year ten and found their way (I'm not sure what happens to them after school..).

It rankles to know that there are a number of kids in the yard that only get spoken to when I walk past and say hello as I rush to my next class. You see them every day, walking around on their own, waiting for the bell to go back into class and away from the hell of the playground. Any attempt that I've made in the classroom to assist has been ineffective, maybe as I am only one teacher who sees them for four hours a week.

On a priority basis, do you deal with the violent kid, the kid stealing from bags, the truant or the kid who is lonely in the yard and not causing any trouble? I've seen schools deal with this issue as a primary purpose of pastoral care... but they were green leafy schools.

Do we have the resources to examine the issue in state high schools?

Probably not. ... but we should anyway.

Lockharts Lament

Lockhart's Lament was recently /.'d and is a really good read about one person's thoughts of where mathematics has diverged from being an art to a science (yes you read that correctly, was an art form now a science). It was interesting to read how a classroom could be transformed from a fact finding mission to a place focusing on the development of ideas, more akin to a history and art class than as a science. I've read a few different variations on the same theme, but this is one of the better ones.

It would be funny (thinking of pure maths as an art form) if there wasn't some truth in it. True creativity and inspiration is at the heart of any discovery. On the other hand, if I was hiring people to build a bridge or a skyscraper I'd want a person doing it that had been drilled in maths and understood how to apply it rather than some introspective, dreamy, philosophy driven hippy. The approach suggested infers putting even more language in mathematics, running the risk of removing maths even further from those students that find it a refuge from humanities based subjects.

There's nothing stopping us implementing or re-introducing some of the ideas in the article into the curriculum. I'm always looking for ways to reinvigorate my classes and this may be one! I would though be wary of any approach that took more maths out of mathematics. After all, we don't all have the genius to discover maths the way of Gallileo, Pythagoras, Archimedes, Newton and Leibniz... but like the writer I can appreciate and revere the simplicity and elegance of their findings.

Report time again

Here's the time of year when the most important communication will be made between the teacher and parent. A paragraph of words can lift the confidence, invigorate flagging academic performance or deflate a student to the point of giving up.

Identical paragraphs given to two students may have completely opposite effects.

Teachers for the most part create these paragraphs straight after marking exams and under some fairly tight deadlines. It's usually at the end of a term and we're far from fresh and chirpy. After the exams are marked, reports are finished, students are at their ratty worst at the end of term then we get to talk to parents.

It's week 8.. that time when we think, OMG I'm a little tired.

So, do you play safe and write bland comments and save the deep and meaningful for parent discussion. From a strictly legalistic point of view, it is the safest option. We are often urged to write detailed reports by admin but as a lawyer once told me.. don't commit anything to writing that you wouldn't want to see in a court of law, and it's far safer to not commit anything to writing.

Are we opening ourselves up to legal issues by writing encouraging words to students and enticing them to try harder in order to reach the potential we see in them? If they don't reach the potential are we opening ourselves to liability issues?

Just in time intervention

Since starting teaching I've endeavoured to provide kids with just-in-time intervention. I'm not sure where the concept originated but I use the term as an in between to "early intervention", "delayed intervention" and "too bloody late intervention".

Just in time ("JIT") intervention is finding an area where the curriculum has failed (such as weak performance found after a test in an unexpected area) and plugging the gap by providing extra tuition or resources to fix the issue, immediately after the issue has been discovered (thus the "just in time"). Examples when JIT intervention would be be needed would be finding BIMDAS problems during the teaching of percentages or discovering negative number issues when expanding brackets in algebra topics. Students needing JIT intervention typically can master new topics but can't apply their new learning due to an associated issue - leading to poor retention of the new concept. Fix the associated issue and fix retention problems of new concepts.

JIT intervention is different to early intervention as early intervention is typically preventative and is sprayed around like a weed killer - "catch the issue before it occurs and hopefully we will stop what happened last year". It's different to delayed intervention as this can be seen as "the next teacher can try again with the same sort of material next year (only more difficult) and try to find success" and too bloody late intervention which occurs in senior school where students are finally streamed into classes where they can find success but have little time left in school to do so.

Until now I have focused on finding worksheets and doing lunch workshops for particular areas of the curriculum. I have avoided online resources as until now they have been overly focused on fun and are not focused enough on addressing requirements of students. As there is only one of me, workshops and worksheets have had limited success - in senior school if you scratch the surface it wells with underlying issues that require attention, more than any one person can address.

Our latest attempt to provide JIT intervention is to leverage some of the developed online tutorials that have shown some promise and direct kids to them. In an art imitates life experience (think 'the Simpsons'), the free McDonalds sponsored "MathsOnline" project is getting a guernsey at our school as the tutorials have found success with indigenous students - which we hope will extend to other struggling students needing help. We are setting up a maths lab that allows students access to the MathsOnline resources and will use them in conjunction with maths resources bought from the ESL budget for low literacy students. The mathsLab is adjacent to my room (connected with a concertina wall) and I aim to be able to monitor students as they attempt to rectify a range of issues and assist where possible.

I do like the maths online implementation as it is not "button mashing" or "timing based competition" but requires listening to a short tutorial, working out answers on paper and then checking them against an online marking key - similar in concept to the pizzazz or mathomat/mathmagic type worksheets (without the awful maths jokes (that I tend to laugh wayy too heartily at))... It also records the attempts of students so that I can investigate when the tutorial is insufficient.

We presented mathsonline today to the IT committee and hopefully they see some benefit in it. Our principal was positive with his praise of the initiative - now we have to find some success to warrant the praise.

Right Angle Trigonometry Meta-language

My prac student is to deliver the right angle trigonometry unit and I was thinking about all the little things that I like to emphasize to students.

The first thing I would like him to consider is to design the course to make connections to previous courses of work (prior learning) especially with regard to language. Mathematics has such a rich history of precise language that it is important to identify ideas correctly to students in a manner that ties together topics to promote abstraction.

For instance before actually doing anything, we need to remind students what the LHS and RHS of an equation is, and how to identify the subject of the equation that we want to work with. Then we might think about how to eliminate coefficients and pronumerals/variables from one side on an equation, transpose terms/pronumerals/variables and multiplying through/simplifying to remove a denominator. What can we substitute into an equation? How do we solve the equation? Do we need simultaneous equations? We need to use every opportunity to reinforce concepts learned in previous algebra topics.

We have geometry prior learning to consider, three internal angles = 180°, a right angled triangle has one internal angle 90°. Line properties give us complementary, corresponding, co-interior, supplementary, adjacent, vertically opposite, exterior, alternate angles. Also the types of triangles, isosceles, equilateral and scalene help us find other angles. Circle geometry gives us tangents, subtended angles, cyclic quadrilaterals. Properties of 3D shapes!

Only after we consider possible connections to prior learning can we think about actually teaching the relatively small amount of new material. Without these connections we are just teaching students a new trick that will be forgotten immediately after assessment (a key issue exacerbated by the increased assessment required by OBE reporting requirements).

We have to introduce a range of new ideas such as opposite, adjacent and hypotenuse for right angled triangles. We have equations such as Pythagoras' and the three trigonometric ratios. .. and the dreaded bugbear bearings (until vectors makes bearings look easy!!)

We have conventions such as labelling the hypotenuse 'c' and the remaining sides a, b for Pythagoras' theorem problems and opp, adj and hyp in trigonometric problems.

We have good practice such as always writing the symbolic form of a trigonometric equation before substituting values, labelling diagrams, identifying right angles.

We have acronyms to help us remember trigonometric ratios SOH, CAH, TOA.

What is the correct sequence for introducing the material? What resources can we use or have available?

So now prac student, your job is to help students see how their prior learning is necessary to solve these problems!

Touchy.. Touchy...

Often speaking at school you think.. bloody hell.. that's not what I meant.

This seems to happen to me a lot as I am a bit introspective at times but will say what I think - and subsequently seem to live with a constant case of foot-in-mouth.

A couple of students came to me and said, "such and such teacher just doesn't understand.. I ask them for help and they don't listen." I sat down and talked with them about the kind of questions they were asking and it turned out to be a conversation like "I just don't understand anything!", to which even I would respond, "then go back to primary. I can't help you either." I then talked to the students about leading questions, redrafting and investigated what they did know. By the end of it, we realised that they had actually learnt a lot from the teacher already and that the angst they were feeling was that they now had to use this knowledge and that this required work.

.. so I said to myself... job well done.. and mentioned it to the teacher and asked if students resubmitting redrafted work was a problem and discussed the conversation I had with the kids.. this was turned on me as, "don't you think I provide scaffolding for my kids." OMG.. I'd just been praising this teacher to students and pointing out what they had already learned!

Another case in point occurred when I was asked did I have a preference to teaching boys or girls, to which I responded I thought I had a bit more experience teaching girls, therefore found it a bit easier.. to which the scamp teacher cheekily replied.. "I find boys easier to teach, are you saying I have less experience with girls?" ARGH!!!

These were jokey experiences, but sadly in teaching often analysis of our strengths and weaknesses, or sharing our ideas is seen as a prelude to punitive action to rectify a perceived issue. This fear often hampers any reform process and causes much angst with regards to performance management issues.

Oh and don't even think about robust discussion or sharing subject passion or investigating your own perceived flaws.

One of the ways of stopping teacher close mindedness is to nip it in the bud with practicum students and promote sharing of ideas (using new media where a young group of teachers is not at hand) to ensure that we become collegiate as a profession and welcome self and group analysis as a way of improving our performance. With many of our experienced teachers on the verge of retirement beaten down by OBE we will need to accelerate the speed that teachers become competent and we can no longer rely on the "closed door, hide in our classroom and teach ourselves" method of learning. It's inefficient, in a world where people change careers like underwear, it is also impractical.

That's my rant for today.

Unrealistic expectations and belief

As a teacher you hold fragile confidence in your hand every day. Belief in a student is a powerful thing, it can set a child on the path of success and make them believe in their own futures.

When we get caught up in grades and league tables and moderated scores and all other such associated bulldust we forget what a powerful thing belief is. When we believe in the person miracles are possible.

When we don't let students try, succeed and fail, we fail our students. Failure is important when seeking the utmost of our ability.

School is not about high stakes testing, nor about consequences. It is about creating a safe environment for our kids to explore their limits and seek excellence. Sometimes as a society I think we have forgotten this.

...as teachers we see the evidence of our beliefs every day.. as well as the consequences when our belief fails.

It's something to ponder.

The meaning of life

Today, I was talking about the meaning of life with my daughter..

Her response was definitely, "GOOP!".

..and how true she is. We start out as goop, we end as goop and we goop about a lot in between.

In fact there is very little that can't be explained by the word goop..

but.. I was unsure if she was interpreting our existence as part of a predestined global goop entity rather than as individual gooplets with free destiny. Does she lean more towards intelligent goop design or a more darwinistic goop approach? I'll have to check with her later.

Very thought provoking little 3 month old Mackenzie! Maybe she can explain it to me when she learns her second word.

A different model for success for state schools

Permanency has always been a key goal in state schools with teachers falling into permanent positions and then staying in the same school for 7-10 years, perhaps reaching long service leave and seeking a new school.

Stability, one would think, would be a key advantage over the private sector. I would suggest that it is the exact opposite. What tends to happen is that schools in adjacent suburbs function like teachers in classrooms. Many not knowing what is going on in the school/classroom next door.

Another key advantage would be the non competitive nature of schools is of a reasonable distribution of students, with students being part of catchments removing competition between state schools. In the private sector it is counterproductive to assist neighbour schools find talented students as they are potential customers. Yet in state schools we find it is common practice to poach students (and thus lower a school's potential results) either through systemic planning (eg. G&T schools) or through informal discussions with year 7 groups across catchments.

I think that increasing the rotation of teachers in schools within a district would solve this problem. Teachers would be attached to districts rather than schools and key teachers (level 3 CT's perhaps) used as troubleshooters for schools that cannot reach benchmarks. Benchmarks would be created for districts rather than schools. Funding would be linked to performance of the district with underperforming schools being given proven troubleshooters to improve performance (Think similar to the AFL draft!).

This would promote common frameworks to assist teachers with transitions between schools (the new system couldn't work without them). It would also lessen the poaching aspect as we could distribute students freely between schools in the same district knowing common teaching methods were being used and that school based performance was irrelevant.

By being district teachers rather than school staff, needs based movement could be made based on cohort size and specific needs of schools. I imagine this was the original idea of central staffing. To maintain consistency of approach, pastoral, teaching assistants and administration staff would remain school based but would need to agree on baseline standards. Consideration could be made on how HoD's and level 2's are distributed and moved and on what basis. Movement of HoDs and level 2's would give graduate teachers a wider exposure to teaching methods and promote exchange of ideas and resources between our expert teachers. Similar to the movement of principals in the metropolitan area.

It would require a change in mindset from 'development of a school' to 'development of students for a district' - seeking the betterment of the system rather than the betterment of a school. It's a philosophical change of mindset.

I like this idea. I doubt many others would.

Dancing...

Often I bop about with Mackenzie when music is on and she quietens.

Today we were at Woolworths and she was crying...

So here I am at the checkout..


"We are, We are.. the fresh food people..."

Dancing.. Singing.... baby in arms...

What a rocking tune.. The poor checkout girl thought I was nuts and Kendra is still laughing..

Milestones

6000 hits since July last year.. 750 hits & 499 unique visitors for May.. passed the 200 post mark... not bad if I do say so myself..

Hello to everyone out there !!

Career development & Half cohort musings

Today I was thinking.. what's the best way to get better early in your teacher career and do the most good in the community? Is it better to stay in one place surrounded by people that are supportive and appreciate your contribution, developing your own ideas with a small group or move amongst a range of schools, view what they are doing and use that to cross pollinate ideas whilst developing your own skills?

The half cohort is a critical moment in state school teaching in WA, with DET very late realising that it is having a negative impact on both school morale and student intake. For Ms O'Neil to release a missive saying the half cohort is being managed properly is to ignore the fact that it is not! Something that is being managed properly would not endanger subject delivery at schools, would not reduce student numbers over a five year period (which to my knowledge is not happening at private schools), cause further loss of teachers, leading to a loss of teaching knowledge (both about content, cohort, process and individual students) and further loss of confidence in your employer.

Schools are contemplating busing students between schools such that they students will have access to courses that individual state schools will not be able to offer due to small cohorts (this includes core subjects, Maths, English, Science and S&E). This means that students are taken out of their social settings, have reduced access to their teachers, lose contact time due to travel. Teachers lose access to certain courses for periods of time, have to teach more often across learning areas, have to teach subjects with gaps or years between offerings (eg. 3A subjects offered in 2010 & 2011 at one school, would move to another school for 2012 & 13), teachers may have to flit between schools with all the associated issues with managing split shifts, marking, load and travel time (equivalent to moderation issues 8-12 all subjects, all year round). Schools have to manage timetabling across multiple schools reducing the flexibility for change and development, manage attendance, manage the different acceptable behaviours/pastoral care, the consistency of assessment requirements and manage differing academic, literacy and numeracy standards.

Other options include merging 8/9, 9/10, 10/11, 11/12 classes.

There is more potential for students to fall through the cracks; it is an awful lot to deal with.

Subjects with low numbers (typically academic subjects such as maths specialist, physics, chemistry, lit, politics, history, economics), drawcards for students when selecting schools, all of a sudden may not be offered by a school unless under the busing students model (parents will really need to read the fine print!).

Busing students could be positive especially when tied to more options for students - with adjacent schools specialising in areas such as aeronautics, dance, LOTE, drama, specialist science courses, maths enrichment, sporting initiatives, computing, shed work, VET courses and the like that could not normally be offerred in a single school of 400-700. My concern is when schools are diminishing their offerings rather than enhancing them. Perhaps restricting busing to non core subjects and limiting it to one/two afternoons a week is the commitment that could be made by DET to limit potential issues. MESS teachers would need to take an option/specialist class or have all their DOTT at once. Anyone with VET courses at schools knows the timetabling issues caused by kids being out for half or whole days. Running specialist courses over schools is something that could have been done without the half cohort issue which leads me to think that more than likely it has already been tried with limited success.

There are other potential indirect benefits: in small schools, class sizes of 5-6 are more difficult to develop cooperative learning opportunities; it is also more difficult to instill some level of competition between students; (and the big one) these classes are more difficult to justify in terms of cost per student. Courses that may only be offered occassionally based on demand may be able to be offered consistently under a busing model.

So... going back to my original question, in amongst all this uncertainty, what is the best option for doing good in the community and developing my teaching skills? Sadly, it could be the private system for the first time in two years, especially with my family on one income and having a temperament like mine that needs a level of stability. I'll continue to think it through and seek more of the positives in my current situation as I love working in the state school system otherwise.

Exam Time

My students are primed for their exams, have completed their practice and been given time to revise. They have completed the content designed for them and are busily refreshing their minds with the content.

They say they're not ready...
They say that they will forget it all...
They say that they can't remember.

... despite all this

THEY BETTER DO BLOODY WELL AFTER ALL THE EFFORT THAT'S BEEN PUT INTO THEM!

We'll see. I'm tired and am looking forward to them going off on their exam weeks..

My HoD came into class today and laughingly told my students I'd get fired if they didn't do well.. In industry that's what would happen.. trainer no good.. get a new trainer..

I suppose teaching doesn't have the luxury of firing teachers in the learning phase as a good teacher takes a few iterations of fairly mediocre teaching before making a good teacher. Maybe we're heading to more disposable teachers.. It wouldn't surprise me.

My personality is more to just stand aside and let a better person take over than tell everyone to f&ck off and let me do my job.. but standing aside is not the fastest way to my skills getting better and wouldn't give my students the best chance of success (they know me, I know them.. a bit of support and I'll get the capable ones over the line). The question has always been can I handle the mediocre phase until I get truly good as I have always been able to do in past occupations.. Do I have the skills to get past the mediocre phase? Can I recognise the real vs the perceived consequences of my failures for my students?

I think for now I just have to take a big deep breath and dive back in.. If I get fished out and benched for awhile I have to just take it on the chin or bite the bullet and find something I am good at with my existing learning. When I make it.. I'll finally be a skilled maths teacher able to teach all levels of 8-12.

Who knows when that will be.. Certainly not me!!

Nature vs Nurture

Interesting article here outlining the limited effect of nature and how schools (and parents) can make a difference.

Content vs Process

Here is the first of (I imagine) many articles on the importance of teaching content in schools and the reemergence of the idea that developed conceptual understanding can only be achieved by having a baseline of subject knowledge.

It has always been to my mind counter-intuitive to request a student to "understand" a topic without having facts to scaffold that understanding upon. There is no use in giving students methods of learning information if time to learn the information is not given and valued. The constant devaluation of content knowledge vs developing process has lead to a flawed education system.

I have to agree with the writer that being a yr 11/12 subject teacher with a deep understanding of a course requires more ability than that of 6/7/8/9 or 10. These experts in their fields deserve to be paid more and gain recognition for the guiding of students at this critical point in their lives. It is high pressure work with success leading to recognition for the school and the making of careers for students. Failure can lead to pressure from parents, administration and (more damaging) self criticism and confidence depletion.

Having experienced now 7,8,9,10,11,12 there is no doubt in my mind that the pressure involved in getting students over the TEE line far outweighs anything in earlier years. I have utmost respect for those that do it successfully over long periods of time.

Mid Semester Exams

Yesterday I was asked why run exams in year 8 & 9.

I could think of 8 reasons:

1. To reduce fear of exams (students use the idea of exams as a bugbear for not attempting level 2 subjects.)
2. It gives an anchor to the idea of study/revision.
3. It is good practice for upper school and identifies students bound for more difficult courses.
4. It provides feedback on what has been achieved by individual students during the semester.
5. It supports grades allocated by teachers put into reports.
6. It provides a benchmark of performance from year to year.
7. It is the backbone of academic rigour in a school, short of doing a personal project (which is impractical in most public schools).
8. Students gain confidence in doing exams by.. well.. doing exams.

Then I heard the excuses and heard what was really going on:

1. Such and such is just rewriting the NAPLAN test (fine if that is all you have taught in Sem 1!).
2. It's a lot of work (it's our job!) for little return (see 1-7 above).
3. I have to mark it (well.. yes.. but we teach math, compare that to issues in English & S&E, we have it easy!).
4. The kids can't do exams (some can, and they are severely disadvantaged compared to the rest of the state if the first time they see an exam is term 2 year 10(think league tables, think school numbers people! No results.. no school)).
5. I can't write an exam (huh?? ..nor can anyone else, we don't know what you have taught, nor do we know the level of your students! If you need help with formatting we have loads of support staff and teachers willing to help).

There is some argument that there is a level of over testing in year 9 due to NAPLAN but exams and NAPLAN have very different focus. NAPLAN looks at the student compared to the student cohort of the state. The exam should show a snapshot of the learning and retention of the most recent semester.

I can also understand the argument that some students should not sit an exam. If a student has a learning difficulty or is miles below the level of the exam (and a special exam has not been prepared for them) then it makes sense to exclude them.. these are our 1B kids.

Subject selections

I had a call from my dad today who asked, "I've been told all along that your stepbrother is university bound by the school but I have his subject selections for year 11 and they are all level 1 subjects."

When I dug a bit further he had been counselled into 1C English, 2C Maths and some non NCOS subjects. He had been given not recommended for 3A MAT and 3A MAS and told that he would "struggle" in 2A English, 2A Physics and 2A Chemistry.

I think many parents may be getting suggestions like this soon where schools make cautious subject selections to ensure that only the best students seek university entrance and along the way maximise league table results.

This move from encouraging students to seek excellence and challenge themselves towards seeking subjects that they will definitely do well in is contrary to the human spirit (especially when many of the non NCOS subjects lead nowhere). When we seek the improbable, all too often we succeed as we have underestimated our own capabilities. So many students that develop late are currently thrown on the TEE scrap heap without being given an opportunity.

Worse still, many parents still do not understand that level 1 subjects (in general) condemn their child to TAFE and not university - with ECU now saying that level 2 subjects are minimum for entry to university. Schools are effectively moving the university entry point to year 10 rather than pushing students through the year 11/12 learning curve/ litmus test where they have a go. Many TEE students succeed/many fail but all learn about themselves from the experience.

Somewhere we gave up on our youth.. before they turn 16 we drown their dreams in politically correct statements about students finding success and designing courses suitable to their needs. Shoot, we can't even devise an assessment programme systemically that can measure their ability (yes, I am talking about the failed levelling experiment). How can we judge with 100% accuracy who will improve enough to reach university? We are failing the 5-10% of students (or maybe even more if we count those that benefit from the effort) by not making them try to extend to university levels - especially those without environmental or behavioural issues. We have an obligation to encourage them to try, extend themselves and seek excellence.

It always amazes me what kids can do when given opportunities and are taught to value them.