Above all, challenge yourself (Cecile Springer)

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Cecile Springer's full quote:

Above all, challenge yourself. You may well surprise yourself at what strengths you have, what you can accomplish.

My working life has been dominated by the need to challenge myself. Because I needed to move locations to meet those next challenges, it meant some collateral impact on my family that I do regret.

Serendipitously, in 1983 my path led from Auckland to New Plymouth. All of my initial job applications in 1982 had been to schools in Auckland because of my mother's health condition, and none were successful. Eventually, that lack of success meant widening my reach to include all of New Zealand. New Plymouth picked me, and I had to pick New Plymouth.

While there seismic events (marriage, a baby, my mother's death) eventually led me back to Auckland. By so doing, a pattern was established.

I have accomplished a lot via the challenges I've met along my path, but I sometimes wonder 'what if I'd stayed in New Plymouth and met challenges there for the last 40 odd years'. Cecile stayed in Pittsburgh all her life (she passed away last year) and managed it admirably.

Food for thought.

The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity (Amelia Earhart)

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Artificial Intelligence is reshaping our world in subtle, and not so subtle ways.

Currently, I am noticing how my students are using AI more as a tool, rather than as a quick fix to meet a deadline.

They'll use ChatGPT to reshape instructions (so that they can understand them better), provide images, generate ideas, and use Grammarly and other AI platforms like Gemini to improve or check work. 

AI is continually in the news as well. Recently, there was a well publicised story of an experimental AI model breaking out of a supposedly secure digital enclosure to launch a hacking attack on another AI company.

An autonomous machine world is a scary proposition, but that's the way we're heading (there's a 50% chance of that happening in the next five years). What will the world look like in ten years' time, I wonder.

The U.S. and China are the world leaders in AI research and it's hard to know which country is the lesser of two evils.

Trump's chaotic, vindictive leadership gives me little hope that reason and common sense with prevail in the U.S. in the short term, and China already has a totalitarian regime.

Help us, Obi-Wan. You're our only hope.

You can only milk a cow so long, then you're left holding the pail (Hank Aaron)

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If I were to apply this quote by the famous baseball player, Hank Aaron, to an educational context it would be - you can only exploit the good will of teachers for so long before you will reap the rewards of that exploitation - an empty pail. The consequences of that exploitation will be dire ones for my cherished profession.

The myriad changes to grading student work are doing my head in, and I am someone who has taught School Certificate, Sixth Form Certificate, University Bursaries, NCEA Levels One to Three, GCSE and A Levels while in the UK.

Recently, I graded some analytical essays by my current (quite frankly freaking awesome) Year 10 class using the NZ Government's new progressions that go from Emerging > Developing > Consolidating > Proficient > Exceeding. Cool. Okay. I actually like the progressions model with its need to articulate the student's next steps. This makes sense as I want students to move up those progressions during the year, right? Growth over time and value added are key measures of achievement,

However, next year (yes - next year) this class will be graded using the current NCEA Level One standards-based system - from Not Achieve > Achieve > Merit > Excellence. According to the government, this is a failed system.

The Year after that (yes - the year after that), as Year 12 students they and their parents will have to get their head around a third system that seems modelled on the UK's GCSE grades - E>D>C>B>A>A*.

Ssshhheeeeeesssssshhh!!! As a National Party flunky said recently on a different matter - What a shitshow!

My prediction? I can see a lot of teachers, including me, holding empty pails!

Daydreaming through branches (The Cowsills)

Teach Them To Write is Dr. Ian Hunter's latest book. It's brimming with good advice about how to solve the problems settling around student writing.

Basically, we need to return to The Composition period: 1800 -1920. 'Composition' meaning training in the principles that govern sound writing - which Dr. Ian Hunter can help with via his Writers' Toolbox (Write That Essay) ideas.

Along the way he busts a few myths. The biggest shock for me was that reading a lot doesn't improve writing. Shock, horror, probe! He puts up a good myth-busting case and concludes with 'Reading ability and writing skills are not connected'.

The takeaway: Good readers practise reading. Good writers practise writing.

If you're worried that I've summarised the book, and you don't need a copy - think again!

You need to buy it! If only for the chapter on boys' writing which had me laughing out loud. He knows boys! And writing!

Positive thoughts bring positive outcomes (Raisa Jimenez)

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One of the Pirate Code guidelines in my classroom is to remain positive at all times (accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, don't mess with Mr. Inbetween).

Some of my students (and colleagues actually) struggle with this concept. 

I get it: it's easy to complain, to throw the hate word around willy nilly, to vent your negative feelings. On occasion, when I ask them to reframe their negative comment into a positive comment/ thought they really struggle.

I'll keep at it, because positivity is the only way forward in my classroom.

Work like you don't need the money (Satchel Paige)

Leroy 'Satchel' Paige

That's good advice from Satchel Paige. His full quote is:

Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt. Dance like nobody's watching.

It's a vast generalisation, but I would say that nobody went into teaching to make a lot of money. Actually, I don't even think teachers are motivated by money. Yes, a fair pay is important to pay the bills, but I'm glad it's a salaried position rather than being paid by the hour, even though I'd probably get more money that way.

That helps me to work like I don't need the money.

Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people (Eleanor Roosevelt)

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Advice from Purdzilla #364: as much as possible - avoid 'office politics' and gossip. It will do you no good.