Leisure without study is death - a tomb for the living person (Seneca)

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I've written about continuing to study during the two week break before Term 4 a lot over the years. It remains a thing!

Here's a reminder (this was from a post in 2022):

There is no substitute for focused work when it comes to preparation for exams.

Our two week study break is coming to an end and students will have two heavily disrupted weeks to finish their preparations at school. Then they are on their own.

There are plenty of good tips out there for how to prepare for exams, like this article from Edutopia. But unless a student decides to commit to study and then use these kinds of techniques to focus on what they have learned and then be able to apply that to exam questions they won't do themselves justice.

Bottom line: commitment and focused preparation are musts.

Do not follow where the path may lead...(Muriel Strode)

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The whole quote by the perfectly named Muriel Strode is:

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

That's our lives right? Aren't we all leaving a personal and distinctive trail?

As a teacher, I feel I'm forging a trail on a daily basis. To some extent there is a predictability to our teaching lives - we follow a set timetable after all, but there is no predicting how a class will go precisely is there? It can go in all sorts of unpredictable directions.

Individual students can take one prompt and head off into diverse directions. I love that.

That's the joy of teaching, right?

You're a prima ballerina on a spring afternoon but you change into the wolfman (New York Dolls)

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Year 10 students (the 4th form in old money) is the least engaged year group at school. They are at a tipping point in Year 10. It's their age - 14. They know it all.

For many, overconfidence is their great weakness, and a liability to learning.

Contrary to their beliefs, they don't know it all at age 14. I certainly didn't, but I guess, yes, at that age - I thought I did!

Exasperating. I needed taking down a peg or two. The following year I failed School Certificate. Boom!

If you are already humble, nothing will need to be sent to humble you. Yet it's a lesson that some Year 10 students need to be continually reminded of from time to time: to dig in, and stay down to earth.

Life will deal out its own lessons if you don't.  

My best successes came on the heels of failures (Barbara Corcoran)

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A recent report in Morning Brew indicated that reading and maths scores among high school students in the U.S. have dropped to their lowest levels in 20 years, per new data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

The downwards trend was evident before covid-19 happened, but it's continued apace since then.

The following are some excerpts from the news article discussing this situation:

“Scores for our lowest-performing students are at historic lows,” said Matthew Soldner, the acting commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics. “These results should galvanize all of us to take concerted and focused action to accelerate student learning.”

“The news is not good,” said Peggy Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, which oversees the assessment. “We are not seeing the progress we need to regain the ground our students lost during the pandemic.”

While the pandemic had an outsize impact on student achievement, experts said falling scores are part of a longer arc in education that cannot be attributed solely to COVID-19, school closures and related issues such as heightened absenteeism. Educators said potential underlying factors include children’s increased screen time, shortened attention spans and a decline in reading longer-form writing both in and out of school.

This rings true for New Zealand as well. Anecdotally, this trend has been apparent to me and my English department colleagues for a while. Interesting that it is now backed up by research.

As I've written about recently, I've noticed, for the first time, students flat giving up. Because the task seems impossible, they don't believe in themselves. Their absence rate is also a real factor. 

This is a real worry, and I think school leaders need to be proactive now to consider courses wherein students can gain some confidence via success.

To paraphrase Soldner from above: we need to act now in a concerted and focused way to arrest this decline. 

Or else... 

Oh, smashing, groovy, yay capitalism! (Austin Powers)

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As an English teacher, I've always been a collector of words. One particular fascination of mine is the way slang words for positive expressions of glee have evolved in the teenage world.

One of my senior students (hi Alex) recently reacted to my use of 'bussin no cap' by introducing me to 'skibidi'. I thought he was kidding (sorry Alex) so I searched it up:

Skibidi: "Skibidi" is a meaningless slang word popularized by the YouTube series Skibidi Toilet, meaning it can be interpreted as "cool," "bad," or simply used as a funny, nonsensical filler word. Coined by the series' creator, the term became popular with Generation Alpha and has since entered the mainstream through social media. So, there you go, 6-7.

BTW - Bussin is a slang term meaning extremely good, delicious, or amazing. It originated from African American Vernacular English and is now widely used to describe food, but also experiences, events, clothing, and more. You can use it to express enthusiastic approval or satisfaction, similar to saying something is "fantastic," "awesome," or "top-notch".

Here are some more of my favourites, starting with the hardy perennial - cool:  good, stylish, acceptable, or fashionable.

Gen Z slang terms for "cool" include slay, fire, gas, dope, lit, bussin', gucci, and cash, all of which describe something amazing, excellent,

Gen Alpha slang terms for "good" or "impressive" include "slay", "bussin'" (especially for food), "ate", "fire", "sigma", "snatched", and phrases like "understood the assignment".

You want more? Try these oldies but goldies - Fab, gear, gnarly, phat, mint, choice, rad, awesome, belting, sweet as, fit, epic, ace, pearler, dank, sick.

That's a bussin no cap list right?

Surround yourself with people who are going to motivate and inspire you (Charles M. Marcus)

Two of the all-star English department HBHS 2025

I have lived a charmed life.

When I think back to colleagues that I've shared schools with, I can't help but feel that. There are quite a few now. Schools and colleagues, that is.

English departments have come in for special mention over the blogging years. Notably the mighty earth-shaking Woodford House team (2013-2016), and King John School's rock steady crew (Essex 2004-2006).

The current crew of drones in section 7 G (that I am a part of) is the latest special bunch. Very special. They rate very high on the Wozza-meter. So, here's a list (I love lists) with a pithy comment for each of the ten English departments that I've been a part of or led.

1 New Plymouth Boys' High School. HoD - Terry Heaps. My first English department included Alan Elgar and Rosie Maben. Fun! High powered.

2 Maclean's College. HoD's - Lyn Trenwith and then Roger Moses. Roger was part Viking warrior and part Teddy Bear. Hilarious. The Principal, Colin Prentice, was an inspirational English teacher as well. 

3 Waimea College. HoDs -Aileen Ambler for a term and then...me! Peter Joyce and Annette Sivak were fantastic friends as well as inspirational teachers.

4 Mount Albert Grammar School. HoD - me again for a few years until I took the Senior Housemaster role full time - until then I'd doubled up. Shelley Masters and Brett Wardrope - great people/great motivators.

5 Cambridge High School. I was DP and a part timer in the English department.

6 King John School. HoD - me again for a few years while also doubling up as Assistant Headteacher. Natasha, Catherine, Ei, Mr O and Ali stood out - a gifted bunch fersure.

7 Stratford High School. As Principal I took one Year 11 class of Unit Standards students. The English department is a bit of a blur.

8 Woodford House. HoD - me again with the dream team (seriously): Greg, Amy and Andrew.

9 Three OneSchool Global campuses: As Campus Principal I was a part-time teacher again - taking one junior class.

10 Hastings Boys' High School: HoD - Matt Robertson (a superb non-micromanaging, non-control freak leader. Huh-ZAH!). Some terrific friends and colleagues - you know who you are (everyone can take a bow).

Really though, hats off to all that I've mentioned - you have inspired me in the past, and/or - you are right now motivating me to be better.

That's what it's all about right?

You must have long-range goals to keep you from being frustrated by short-range failures (Charles C. Noble)

I like the idea of Charles' quote. When I was much younger, I had some long-range goals in terms of my teaching career. That certainly helped with short-range failures. One was to be a school Principal.

Yes, that happened a couple of times: 2007 - 2010; 2017 - 2024. When they find out about that, some of my current students ask why I'm still not doing that job.

The answer is simple in each case: after a while the up moments didn't happen enough, and the down moments happened too much.

Having returned to teaching English, the opposite is now true. The up moments happen way more than the down moments.

I am happy to have fulfilled that long-range goal, but also happy to think about some new ones as well. 

P.S. Arsenal lost to the scousers this morning - a short-range failure, I'm sure. We have some big long-range goals this year.