Start me up (The Rolling Stones)

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

New starts.

I've just started a new job - fixed term for this year at Hastings' Boys' High School. Teaching English. It was a good start on Monday, but aside from a fire alarm evacuating the school during my first period, nothing really dramatic happened. It was just a new start in a new job.

I do remember a few new starts extremely vividly.

First day at Royal Oak Primary in 1962.

First day at Mt Albert Grammar in 1971.

The first day in my first job at New Plymouth Boys' in 1983. I smiled so much and shook so many hands, I hurt.

Interestingly, after that, I don't really remember starting new jobs apart from my last one at OneSchool Global in 2017 when I got the day wrong!

I'm much more able to remember interviews for jobs. 

The phone call from Tom Rider (New Plymouth Boys') in 1982; The Colin Prentice interview (Macleans); the phone call with Aileen Ambler (Waimea); the MAGS one with Hensman and Taylor; Cambridge High with the panel - I even remember some of Alison's questions and my responses....and so on. In fact I remember them all.

But not the actual first day on the job. So, I don't get anxious or nervous about starting afresh. When I get into the car to drive to the school I just feel a lightness, because I know the hard bit - winning the job - is over.

Same deal this week.

Human affinity

Progress can only be achieved in calmness and harmony.

Human affinity can only be fostered through service to others.

Venerable Master Hsing Yun

You make the path

The Spanish poet Antonio Machado wrote:

Traveler, you make the path

with your footsteps, nothing more;

Traveler, there is no path,

you make the path by walking it,

by walking it you make the path

and when you look back

you will see the path,

a path you will never walk again.

Traveler, there is no path,

Only the wake left by ships in the sea.

Put me in coach

I loved reading this suggestion from Seth Godin:

Big football at colleges in the US costs more than $5 billion a year. And none of these programs has a student acting as a coach.

The same analysis, at a much smaller scale, applies to school theater directors and producers, conductors of the jazz band or orchestra and even the coach of the chess team.

We learn by doing, not by winning.

What happens if we embrace this and make education about learning? What would happen if the head of the football program simply taught students how to be coaches? Or the head of the music program challenged kids to conduct?

My most important learning experiences in organized schooling came from the random moments when I actually got to organize instead of being organized.

When I was a student at Mt. Albert Grammar, student coaches were often matched to junior teams. Maybe there weren't enough staff to take them, I'm not sure, but I loved having someone from the first XI coaching us. 

Of course, the quality varied but I had a couple of great student mentors in those teams before I joined the first XI myself for three memorable years in the mid-seventies.

Hearts and minds

 

You have to leave the city of your comfort (Alan Alda)

Photo by Karol Stefański on Unsplash

One of my old posts from 2009 popped up in the right-hand list of my popular posts and, being curious, I checked out what I'd written 15 years ago.

It was about leaving my position as a Principal and heading off on a new adventure. Here is part of it (I've edited it a bit):

Why am I embarking on this change of course? The opportunity and adventure involved in doing something exciting in a new environment is the overriding reason. This quote from Alan Alda sums it up, “You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. You can’t get there by bus, only by hard work and risk, and by not quite knowing what you’re doing. But what you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover will be yourself.” It would be hypocritical of me to preach the idea of dreaming big and taking a risk, and not following through with that myself, wouldn't it? 

My plan at the moment is to delete this blog in about two weeks' time. It's been a really fun thing to do but I will incorporate my ideas into my other blogs from now on.

Funnily enough, I'm at this point again, having recently resigned from another Principal position. Clearly, I didn't delete the Baggy Trousers blog!

I'm again wanting a fresh challenge and that means shaking things up a bit (not sure what that will look like at this point). And I am again thinking about the relevance of this blog. But, again, I can't see myself deleting it. It's of use, if only to selfishly keep a record of my progress and thinking.

It's going to be an interesting few months ahead.