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| Photo by Adrian "Rosco" Stef on Unsplash |
Finally, the Term 3 grind has come to an end. The winter term felt interminable.
However, the flu season and busy school events soon blur out of focus as soon as the two week spring holiday break rolls around.
Holidays are when real life takes over for a while - family times, adventures, work down on the farm, road trips...
Pretty soon we'll be back at the brick factory, but for now, let's celebrate!
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From time to time, I am still asked if I miss being in a senior leadership role (twice last week). I get why I'm asked because after seven years as an English teacher that was my life from 1990 to 2023 before returning to life solely as a classroom teacher.
Former school principals who have that particular career trajectory is nothing new. Partly it's because it's such a lonely road where only other principals understand the stresses and strains. Which can be completely overwhelming.
I'll always remember a lunch I shared with other principals in Taranaki where everyone apart from me talked about their heart conditions and the procedures they'd had. It was super scary and a good warning although I did do another seven years as a campus principal/ district principal.
All of those staff issues (serious and trivial - they are unrelenting), the demands from disgruntled parents, the discipline issues, the endless meetings, the petty jealousies, the back stabbing, all of that offsets the positive aspects over time.
I think it's an impossible job to do really well and remain sane without selling your soul - at least it was for me. Why would I want to go back to that?
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| Coogee Peters |
One of my former teachers at Mt Albert Grammar School passed away this week. Jim Peters (for some arcane reason, better known to us turd formers as Coogee Peters, and as Winston's brother) was my social studies teacher in the third form (Year 9).
It wasn't his fault that I came 35th out of 35 in that class. This was back in the day (1971 to be precise) when marks were read out in class and then your placing in class. I can still picture myself squirming in my seat as it happened. That naked statistic then appeared on my end of year report.
As an undergraduate, I did some history papers at stages one and two, and then, at Auckland Secondary Teachers' College, I trained to teach English and social studies.
I've only taught social studies twice over the last four+ decades - my first year teaching in 1983 and, hilariously, this year! Funny how things work out.
I'm sure Coogee (a real gentleman) would be tickled to know all that.
Photo by Sebastian Dumitru
on Unsplash
Mondays!
I could have used The Boomtown Rats for the title song lyric. Same deal - I don't like Mondays. Hang on! Stop it! Stop it!
I'm in need of a revisit to a previous post from six years ago, where I listed the five good reasons to shake it off and deal with Mondays (as opposed to all those weirdo nebulous copycat reasons you read online when you google 'reasons to go to work on Monday')
Yesterday, I was asked to adjudicate a House debating competition at school. It was very entertaining and a whole load of fun. Some great zingers were traded back and forth by the girls.
Overall, it was fairly obvious that the two teams who put in some solid teamwork, took most advantage of the opportunity. Having debating experience is a real plus too. That experience gives speakers' confidence.
Hats off to the 12 students who took part (three per House) - they did a great job. It's not easy standing up in front of a whole school and delivering arguments and answering points of information on the fly.
They seized their opportunity for sure, and the experience will only strengthen them.
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| Photo by Alicia Christin Gerald on Unsplash |
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.
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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.
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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!
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!
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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.
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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.
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| Photo by Alfiano Sutianto on Unsplash |
Currently, my Year 11 students are writing a piece on a trip or a journey they've undertaken as part of a Going Places unit. They could fictionalise their story, but only one student has followed that path.
So many of them have struggled with this activity, even though they have been on incredible overseas trips. For various reasons they struggle to commit to even a tentative start.
Surprisingly, their memory of even quite recent events is often vague. I asked a few students if they have ever kept a travel diary/journal, or if their parents did and they looked at me with a blank expression. When I said I did and that I could easily find notes on various trips I've made they looked at me as if I was clearly mad - like this was the most perplexing thing they'd ever heard.
Given the amount of money their parents have paid for these foreign trips, I find it quite sad that they have little to no memory of them.
Plenty of lessons to be learned.
I'm reading Dr. Ian Hunter's latest book on fixing the problem of student writing. Hopefully, he slips me the answer.
Currently reading
It's really as simple as that. Read and you shall prosper.
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| Photo by Michael Kucharski on Unsplash |
What a great quote with which to kick off term three. Monday morning! I'm ready!
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Ryan Holiday provides a good argument against using AI or ghostwriters in his book Wisdom Takes Work.
We think as we write. Indeed, we cannot finish a sentence until we have carried the thought all the way through. We ponder opposing ideas as we pause between keystroke, the pen becomes our third eye. It doesn't even need to be prose - a drawing can help, a diagram lets you see the problem in a new way.
On the page we see the pattern. Transcribing the passage or a quote, we get to feel real genius and insight pass through our mind and our fingers, processing each word, weighing and understanding the wisdom.
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Ryan Holiday uses the above quote in his book Wisdom Takes Work.
Interestingly, when I searched up the quote it emerged as 'Every lie is a poison; there are no harmless lies. Only the truth is safe'.
A lie and misconception are not the same thing, but I see why Holiday uses it. It's the truth that he's wanting to promote. Plus, a life-long pursuit of the truth, despite our many pre-conceptions, opinions and misconceptions.
As we age, the tendency is to get wrapped up in all of those things, but even my young students can get fixated on their own versions of events.
Part of my job as a teacher is to work towards them finding the truth away from their biases.
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The school holidays have kicked in, which means a change of pace and routine.
The alarms on my phone have been put on hold for two weeks, the family time has already begun with the Denver and Melbourne branches joining us at Maple Grove, and the school work is put away until the second week.
The FIFA World Cup, Joan Didion and Ryan Holiday books, and my records all beckon and jostle for attention as we look to visit family in New Plymouth, Palmerston North and Wellington in the first week.
Raisa's message will be front and centre during this time.
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| Photo by Eilis Garvey on Unsplash |
Right from birth, life is a series of both things. Along the way are milestones and a succession of various starts and finishes.
Iona College, where I teach, goes from Year 7 to 13. Many girls start at Year 7 and go on to leave, seven years later, at Year 13. My senior students are all heading for an exit and a new start somewhere doing something. That's exciting, and scary, for them.
Watching the NZ football team exit the World Cup after the group stage's three games was difficult, but so many nations (like Italy) failed to even get to this 2026 version.
I'm sure they'll immediately start thinking about 2030 and begin a new campaign.
Only two teams will be playing in the final match of the FIFA World Cup. All of the others will have their own dramatic endings along the way. Food for thought.
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| Photo by Massimo Sartirana on Unsplash |
I'm not sure about that. I just watched the Democratic Republic of Congo lose one nil to Colombia in the FIFA World Cup.
The effort they all put in was immense, yet they lost the game.
That hardly seems fair, Denis.
The FIFA World Cup 2026 edition has started and with it a host of great lessons to be learned for educational leaders, coaches, football players, and spectators.
Spain are one of the favourites to win the World Cup but the small African Island nation of Cabo Verde held them to a scoreless draw. It was a totally engrossing game that showed a really well organised team holding the line against a team of superstars.
Yesterday, Sweden and Germany had big wins against much lower ranked nations but that doesn't mean much at this stage. In fact, I can remember plenty of examples of teams winning big at previous cups, but not building and sustaining that success.
I'm definitely not writing off Spain, and you can never write off the Germans. It should be a really interesting tournament. I'm loving it!
Some weeks zip by, others are a slog to get through. This week has felt like wading through molasses.
I can put this down to a few things - it's week eight in an eleven-week term; Monday was a long day with online parent interviews; Wednesday was a Jammies for June fundraiser; that meant I had two days to go.
The Jammies for June day was stressful in that the students dressed in their pjs and dressing gowns for the day, and staff were expected to participate. Well, expected is over egging it, but I did feel pressure to join in with the other staff. Which I did. It's a worthy cause - to supply pjs to needy kids, but I felt really out of my comfort zone all day.
Luckily, no photos were taken (to my knowledge). In the end it wasn't too bad now that I think of it. Basically, I shouldn't have thought too much about it on Monday and Tuesday.
Anyway, it's now Thursday (a five-period day) and Friday has the FIFA World Cup opening ceremony - that will gee me up for the weekend.
A trendy, new agey approach to Thornton Wilder's idea may be 'Nourish the soul'.
We all need to be inspired by something each day. It's pretty easy for me to do that because I read every day, listen to music every day and I'm often inspired by things I see.
The recent Guardian Weekly had an excellent article by Jonathan Freedland - Arsenal's title win should be studied by politicians everywhere.
He explains why in the article, via ideas like vision, stability, perseverance, patience and cheering success.
That approach by Mikel Arteta and the Arsenal board applies to education as well.
Recently, I attended a well-run professional development workshop for English teachers on the Scholarship programme. It was a heartening experience in many ways.
Scholarship is intended for the top Year 13 students and is largely an unchanged concept that has been around since I started teaching in the 1980s.
Other Year 13 qualifications like Higher School Certificate, University Bursaries, and soon NCEA level 3, have come and gone, but Scholarship keeps on ticking.
It's an add-on for those top students - not a timetabled class in most schools. Interestingly, I've never participated in it because I've always had more qualified or more interested people leading the charge.
My current Head of English suggested I attend the PD workshop, so I did.
Along the way, the experts taking the workshop made the startling, revolutionary statement that we could learn from the experience of those who have taught Scholarship before - that this was a valuable exercise.
What a breath of fresh air!
Kirsten is a comedian, an actor, a screenwriter and a producer. So, she knows a thing or two about going out of her comfort zone. She's right - that's where the sweet spot is. Her caveat (and it works) is important. Although, if it doesn't work there's a pay off after the failure but that's a different, longer-term kind of satisfaction.
For a short-term adrenalin rush though, a leap into the unknown for a teacher in a classroom, and it works, is pretty intoxicating.
It's a daily crapshoot for a teacher - I'm not sure of the percentage payoff to crash and burn but I'd say roughly it's around 50%, remembering that 75% of all statistics are made up.
Those are pretty good odds, and there are oodles of learning moments in the crash and burns as well.
Oh, and the picture of the Walter Mitty film isn't random. Aside from it being one of my favourite films, Kirsten Wiig appears in it with Ben Stiller and it's always good to be reminded of the Life magazine quote:
To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer, to find each other, and to feel. That is the purpose of life.
It is often the small steps, not the giant leaps, that bring about the most lasting change - Queen Elizabeth II.
Once you know it's the Queen, you can certainly hear her voice.
She certainly lived her life following that maxim. Small steps.
Lao Tzu says a similar thing in his Tao Te Ching - A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
That, in turn, reminds me of Neil Armstrong's, 'One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind' as he walked on the moon (yes, he did).
I'm sensing a theme...
One of the main reasons for changing schools this year was student mindset. As in, my growing frustration with students who had the ability to study but decided not to.
That's a complicated thing. There are many reasons why someone won't commit to study. Nevertheless, the change has worked from that point of view. My expectations haven't changed but the collective mindset of the students in front of me is very different in my new school.
Again, it's a complicated set of reasons why that is so, and while I know from experience that educational utopias are a white whale, I am appreciating the difference.
I'm struggling a little to believe Adam Ant came up with that snappy aphorism (was hard for me to take him seriously in his early eighties poptastic years).
Nevertheless, the quote is a nifty combo of hard work and ambition (goals) equaling success. True that!
Musicians wanting to sell shed loads of records and gain public adoration need that combo as much as students slogging away to pass an Achievement Standard do.
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Just a quick post, thanks to a week of senior reports and Year 13 marking.
My professional development mini goal for the term centres on my interest in school culture.
Specifically, I'm keen to construct a best practice document for dining room duties at my school (Iona College). To that end, I've arranged to shadow a colleague who is a bit of a stickler, even though she thinks she's quite liberal with her interpretations of protocols.
That's happening this week. I'll collate some notes as I observe how she goes about her work. Should be cool and a practical way in to understanding some crucial school culture.
I also want to have the espoused theory at my fingertips, so I need to do some research as a precursor.
Wahoo! This sort of stuff excites me/ lights my fire.
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School socials are a ritual that I'd almost forgotten about.
Hastings Boys' High School didn't bother with them and they were certainly never an option at OneSchool Global. So my last school social would have been ten years ago at Woodford House where three schools (WH, Iona College and Lindisfarne) united.
Ironically, that's where I experienced the latest version. Nothing too much had changed. Same three schools, it was still very loud, the Year 9 girls are still taller than the Year 9 boys, the Year 13 students still appear to have the most fun, the music still doesn't quite hit the mark for Year 9's and only a few students actually dance.
My favourite moments from last night were when I caught up with my old colleagues at Woodford. Hugs and smiles and a shared history are elements that are hard to beat.
Yes indeed, some things don't change.
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The focus for this post will be on the 'study much/ suffer much' part of that Celtic saying.
During my varsity days at both Auckland University and especially at UNITEC doing a thesis for a Masters degree in Educational Management, I did a lot of suffering as I studied. A lot!
It was really hard work at times, especially given I was working full time as a Deputy Principal and we had four young children at home, but I pushed through.
Yes, I know. We had it tough in our day! No pain - no gain.
That thesis experience was good for me - built some resilience, even if I didn't exactly enjoy the discomforting process.
Am I wrong or is there a trend these days for students to shy away from the study much/ suffer much regime. Often students seem to want things handed to them on a plate.
That is not the path to true wisdom.
Ryan Holiday's book Ego is the Enemy has some brilliant passages that have provoked a lot of reflection for me and my practice as a teacher.
In the chapter Always Stay a Student, he makes the point that as we succeed in our chosen career, we continually find ourselves in new situations.
When I started teaching in 1983, I had to learn how to teach. At the start, I knew nothing. Holiday quotes physicist John Wheeler, who said, "as our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance".
In other words, each advancement in teaching that improved my practice also brought with it new situations and challenges that I had never come across before. So, my ignorance grew. I knew less, even as I progressed with my teaching.
The thing is, this never stops! I am still coming across stuff in 2026 that I am completely ignorant about. Like the uses for AI.
The more I learn about it, the less I know and so on ad infinitum.
The temptation is to pretend I know, when really I don't. Again though, the thing is - this applies to everyone!
The list of things I don't know about at Iona College, and the world of teenage girls is vast.
I could go on and on but you get the gist. I'm ignorant of a lot of things.
The risk is of thinking I am set and secure, when in reality understanding and mastery is a fluid, continued process (Holiday).
So, hence the chapter title - Always Stay a Student!
Although Tim is speaking from an athlete's perspective he is delivering a deep truth that applies to many people.
Ryan Holiday in Ego is the Enemy asks two fundamental questions (What is your purpose? What are you on Earth to do?) and I find myself using the word/concept a lot to justify my decision not to retire from teaching any time soon.
I know what my purpose in life is. I know what I am on Earth to do.
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I have observed that those who have accomplished the greatest results are those who 'keep under the body'; are those who never grow excited or lose self-control, but are always calm, self-possessed, patient, and polite.
Booker T. Washington
Ryan Holiday's Ego is the Enemy forms part of my reading for the study break.
I love his work because he writes about things that make me reflect on my life as a teacher and as a leader, and life in general.
To be or to do? Which way will you go? That was a question posed by American military strategist and teacher, John Boyd.
Ryan indicates that it is a crucial question. At its heart is a question around purpose.
What is your purpose? What are you on Earth to do?
To be, or to do?
Thanks to that purpose question, the answer is obvious.
During my career (now in its 43rd year) my purpose has been reasonably consistent during those years - to do.
But, yes, there have been times when I may have chased promotion, salary and titles like Principal (Stratford High School) or District Principal (OneSchool Global).
When I applied for the Stratford job, I was desperate to return to NZ from England for family reasons. When I applied for the District Principal job, I was keen to challenge myself by helping my colleagues.
In the end I stepped away from those kinds of high-status positions because I wanted to accomplish something else or prove something to myself.
For instance, it was an easy decision to return to classroom teaching in 2024, because that's my purpose.
Easy because I knew what I had to do and what was important to me. To quote Joni Mitchell, "No regrets, coyote".
Late last year, that thinking (to do) meant moving to a different school as an English teacher because I wanted to improve my teaching. I still have a lot to learn about this job.
Recently at Iona College we had Browse Week. Teachers were asked to visit a couple of teachers informally during the week and observe the class and teacher for a few minutes. While there the idea was to note a couple of takeaways.
I visited three classes and instantly found things I could do to improve my own practice. That's exactly what I need.
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A two-week study break at the end of the first term has kicked off with Easter weekend. Some Year 10 creative writing assignments need to be marked, and I want to plan out the next term's programmes more thoroughly than I did last term's.
The marking I want to get done asap so it doesn't hang around in my brain, but the planning can wait until the end of the break.
Aside from that - it's a case of outside chores when the autumn days allow and regular walks to get some fitness back. There are a pile of books to dip into and my turntable has been repaired so I'm energised to find some fresh vinyl to play.
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
Iona College had an open day recently. I was stationed in an English department classroom natch.
One of the DPs who was doing a walk around during the morning said to me something like - "this will be old hat for you, having been a Principal".
I laughed and agreed with him, because by that stage I'd warmed up. "Yes", I said, "I can do shmoozing".
It had taken me a while to warm up because I'm a little rusty at this sort of thing now.
By the time the afternoon shift had kicked in (and we'd got used to the flow of tour groups), I was getting into my hail-fellow-well-met stride.
Funnily enough one family remembered me from last year's open day at Hastings' Boys! I laughed and said, "Yes, I'm working the Open Day circuit."
I've often wondered where the inspiration for this kind and nurturing character came from. Apparently, it's from Roald Dahl's own experiences and observations of his children. To have such a person as Miss Honey as your teacher is a true blessing.
How many Miss Honeys have I come across? Well, only one stands out in my memory from my own schooling. Mrs. Alexander at Royal Oak Primary was fantastic. Sadly though, I can't now picture her.
In terms of how many I've met during my own teaching career - there have been many more (but somehow, not enough).
Luckily for the girls at Iona College, there are a couple of Miss Honeys on the staff. I'm in awe at their genuine niceness, kindness, compassion and empathy.
They certainly inspire me, and I'm sure they inspire the girls.
Watching the Formula 1 show on Netflix, Drive to Survive, is always interesting for the contrasting leadership styles of the team principals.
The episode I watched last night (Season 8, episode 2 - Strictly Business) showed the stark contrast between how two teams at the back of the field do their thing.
Flavio Briatore is the Ming the Merciless figure/ team principal at Alpine F1 Team, while Jonathan Wheatley of Kick Sauber is the nice guy who rules via relentless positivity.
Flavio ruthlessly fires Aussie rookie driver Jack Doohan, while Jonathan nurtures and supports his rookie Gabriel Bortoleto. The drivers emerge from their meeting with Flavio grim faced while it's all smiles at Kick Sauber.
Guess which team emerges with a successful result at the end of the episode?
