All things in moderation...revisited

2011 revisited

A colleague (I'll call her Angel) and I did some impromptu moderation of some Year 10 essays after school today, which I found incredibly valuable. 

It reminded me of a time in Ali bin Abi Taleb school (Al Foah) when I was a lead advisor there and met with the Arabic department to moderate a test. I learnt so much from those guys.

That post is here, and well worth my time revisiting it. Lovely to see those photos again too.

Te taura hāngai: Instead of changing you, we will change the assignment

One of my colleagues sent a link to Te Kahu Rolleston - a NZ writer/ poet/orator who 'mixes kapa haka with battle rap to get school kids hooked on language'.

I was taken with his story about having to memorise a passage from Macbeth when he was in Year 11 (Form 5): 

The fifth form arrived. We had an English teacher who was tasked with getting us to memorise a speech from Macbeth. It’s not much of an exaggeration when I tell you that this teacher’s job may as well have been to extract fish oil from mountain boulders. Since our third form year, our class had a reputation for burning through English teachers like a bonfire does kindling and twigs. One term, we had four English teachers. Some teachers stopped teaching our class. Others left the school completely after their time with us.

His school experience is not an unfamiliar one. I remember my classes during my fourth and fifth form years. Boys often nodded off under the influence, others were only interested in baiting teachers. Many were caned (the boys, not the teachers).

Te Kahu goes on to tell how one teacher made a breakthrough with him, by getting the students to translate the Shakespeare passage into their own language. Eureka.

The message is a great one - Te taura hāngai: Instead of changing you, we will change the assignment.

It's hard to make sentences too short (Seth Godin)

Photo by Wesley Tingey on Unsplash

As usual, I'm reading two books at once. One is a non-fiction book by Ryan Holiday, the other is a novel by Penelope Fitzgerald. I love them both but for different reasons.

Generally, Ryan uses shorter sentences than Penelope. She's a brilliant writer who packs a lot of brilliance into her sentences - so much so that I savor the words a lot more, whereas I savor the message more from Ryan.

Here's what I mean:

Ryan - Outward appearances are deceptive. What's within them, beneath them, is what matters.

Penelope - She had a kind heart, though that is not of much use when it comes to the matter of self-preservation.

See what I mean? Both are examples of great short (ish) sentences, but different.

Seth Godin says:

The most direct way to improve your writing is to make your sentences shorter.

I was reading a magazine article yesterday and was rapidly losing interest. The topic appealed to me, but I couldn’t keep reading. Then I noticed that halfway through the first column, I was still on the same sentence.

We have trouble keeping that long a string in our heads at once.

You can make sentences too long.

But it’s hard to make them too short.

...here today and it's gone tomorrow (The Beach Boys)

Movember has arrived at Hastings Boys' High School!

The women folk are exercising to fundraise for men's mental health and the men folk are growing their hair for the month. To be absolutely accurate, this means that the few men on the staff without facial hair are growing their hair.

This includes me, having got sign off from the boss.

This takes me out of my comfort zone. Big time. But it's for a good cause - men's mental health. If you want to support my efforts you could visit the link here.

It is dangerous to assume that people can be trusted to behave in a rational way (Vance Packard)

This is great, from James Clear:

"In many cases, you'll find the only thing preventing you from learning is your ego.

No one enjoys feeling foolish, but attempting something new requires that you climb down from your perch and struggle as a beginner. You must ask questions that reveal your ignorance or attempt skills that make you look uncoordinated.

Learning demands the willingness to live in a brief state of discomfort. You must believe that looking like a fool for an hour will not ruin your reputation for life."  

In many ways I realise I have a lot to learn!

A colleague took a class for me last week, on social media. I learnt a lot - about how much the boys knew (a lot) and about things I had no idea about (also a lot).

Teaching constantly evolves. Like the earth spinning on its axis, teaching evolves without you feeling it necessarily.

While film techniques have not changed much, social media is a different beast.

I do have an Instagram account but it is seldom used so I don't access it; I abandoned Twitter when Elon Musk took over and changed it to X; I also abandoned Whatsapp when I left my previous employer; Facebook is mainly to publish my blogposts; Messenger is to keep in contact with my mates; WeChat is exclusively for family; LinkedIn has also been kind of abandoned.

Marketers are constantly evolving how those platforms are used and it was great being brought up to date last week.

Actually, it would be fun to reread Vance Packard's The Hidden Persuaders (published in the late fifties!) to see if anything much has changed. He could be writing about 2024 advertising algorithms on Facebook when he says:

What the probers are looking for, of course, are the "whys" of our behavior, so that they can more effectively manipulate our habits and choices in their favor.

Another week of learning looming. Wahoo!!

A skilful person is always active, giving happiness to people, very accomplished, and easily adaptable (Hsing Yun)

 

Mature and seasoned version

Yes, clearly there are differences between 1983 and 2024. 

How different? Well aside from a white board replacing a blackboard, long sleeves replacing shirt sleeves, and every cell in my body having regenerated completely about 6 times, not much. 

I'm still the same simple guy with a complex life.

Quivers down my backbone, I've got the shakes down the kneebone (Johnny Kidd and the Pirates)

In a galaxy far away and long ago...

I was looking back at a post I wrote about this time in 2011 - one about a teaching staff comprising three basic types:

• Superstars (the cream - the top 5 - 10%) 
• Backbones (the middle 80 - 90%)  
• Mediocres (the foot draggers, the gripers)

You can read the full post here. 

I am not a foot dragger, a griper, but these days I'm not a superstar either.

We have a couple of these in the department and they are great for advice. They are also hugely tech savvy. I get by, but I am not in my twenties anymore, i.e. at the cutting edge of new technologies.

I realised this as I looked at a brilliant presentation one staff member had made on fake media and I reflected on how, once upon a time, I used to teach media studies. That was 30 years ago though and I am out of date with the ebbs and flows of social media.

I intend to get more current by looking at current jargon. That will be my next post.

Let's see if a seasoned campaigner can learn new tricks.