Just look around you, you can set your spirit free. Look all you people, you can change your destiny (The Weather Girls)

Open days. 

I've been involved in a few over the years. They come in all shapes and sizes - open classrooms during the day, multiple event days, an evening event (the current situation), and old boys' days (my first one of these in 1983 was a concert where we did a few Monty Python routines of all things).

Do they work? Do they generate new enrolments? 

Google's AI tells me that while the open house marketing ploy by realtors is not the most effective way to sell a home in today's market, school open days 'can be highly beneficial, offering parents and students a valuable opportunity to experience a school's environment, ask questions, and assess its suitability. While a school's marketing materials and a slick presentation will be on display, attending an open day provides a more tangible sense of the school's culture, facilities, and the interactions between staff and students'.

It's impossible to know what effect yesterday's open night had on all the prospective students and parents (in total about 300) but they must have been hugely impressed by the kapa haka performance alone. It was spine-tinglingly awesome!

Common sense is the knack of seeing things as they are and doing things as they ought to be done (Josh Billings)

      Simpler times in 2011 - Ali bin Abi Taleb school -
       Abdulla, Salem, me, Abdelazim (HOD), Shaban

Some of my favourite memories of my time advising at Ali bin Abi Taleb school in Al Foah (Al Ain, UAE) are around moderation sessions with the teachers.

I wrote about them at the time in a couple of 2010/2011 posts - 'all things in moderation, including moderation'. and 'got my mojo workin'.

In that 2011 post I said: 

Nu Zild educators could learn heaps from the rigorous moderation procedures we use here BEFORE the teachers mark their tests. They then have a benchmark to mark against. It so much harder to moderate after the fact.

And less is more, as this extract indicates (and Mark Twain's quote summarises):

Moderation is considered a key part of a person's personal development in Taoist philosophy and religion. There is nothing that cannot be moderated including ones actions, ones desires and even thoughts. It is believed that by doing so one achieves a more natural state, faces less resistance in life and recognises one's limits. Taken to the extreme, moderation is complex and can be difficult to not only accept, but also understand and implement. It can also be recursive in that one should moderate how much they moderate (i.e. to not be too worried about moderating everything or not to try too hard in finding a middle ground).

I'm reminded of all this after following the 2025 moderation processes at my current school. Doing moderation cover pages (if I had a degree to navigate these docs I would still get lost every time), distributing papers around my equally busy colleagues to moderate, putting the results on Kamar, attaching moderation notes, writing assessment comments and so on. 

All. Mind. Numbing.

Beam me back to Ali bin Abi Taleb 2011! Pleeeeeease!

I'll try to sail the sea, ride wild and free (Quicksilver Messenger Service)

Photo by Resume Genius on Unsplash

It's worth repeating this pearl of wisdom from James Clear:

"Strangely, life gets harder when you try to make it easy.

• Exercising might be hard, but never moving makes life harder.
• Mastering your craft is hard, but having no skills is harder.
• Uncomfortable conversations are hard, but avoiding every conflict is harder.

Easy has a cost." 

Paradoxically, the easy life comes at a cost. 

I am very fond of that saying, "There's always a price to pay".

Stumbling is not falling (Malcolm X)

Photo by Alexis Mora on Unsplash

The concept of resubmissions for Not Achieved grades is a great one within NCEA. I like the idea of a NY grade - Not Yet.

Over the years I have had to deliver the news of NY's to many students and, in my experience some didn't take it too well, some don't care, and some pin their ears back and go for it.

Those last ones see a Not Yet for what it is - a chance to improve their failed work. It is a stumble. 

I had to give out some NY's to a few of my students this week and to them I say: 

Harden up. Get over it. Move on. Show some grit. Make it better!

Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm (Winston Churchill)

Photo by Eugene Lim on Unsplash

Recently, I was reminded of failures' benefits while re-watching Star Wars Episode VIII The Last Jedi. 

Yoda says to Luke: Pass on what you have learned. Strength, mastery. But weakness, folly, failure also. Yes, failure most of all. The greatest teacher, failure is.

Having just marked all my seniors' work, I'll have to pass on that message to a few of my students next week.

Through sacrifice - bliss (Joseph Campbell)

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

Poet Ellen Sturgis Hooper reveals a little secret of life:

"I slept, and dreamed that life was joy;

I woke, and found that life was service.

I acted and behold, service was joy."

Source: The Dial (July 1840)

Courtesy: James Clear

Sometimes I, I feel like a fist (Porcupine Tree)

 

It's our term 2 study-break/holiday.

Marking and holidays are a dodgy combo for teachers. While others prefer to delay their marking, my general time management philosophy centres on the touch-it-once idea.

Which means I can only start feeling like I'm on holiday when the marking is done. Given I had marking for all five-year levels/classes, that meant the first few days were devoted to clearing the decks.

Luckily Jacky had work in the midst of this, so I had a day to mark my Year 13 writing folios.

All the marking is now done - so I can enjoy the break with just prep for the start of the term to come.

Having re-read all that - it sounds more pompous and sanctimonious than I wanted it to. Yay for me!

I do stand by that touch-it-only-once idea though, so let's cling to that shall we.