She comes up with the morning sun and tells me life has just begun, oh what it is to be young (Barclay James Harvest)

Photo by hannah grace on Unsplash

Teachers as writers.

Confessions right off the bat: I'm an English teacher; I love writing (you're reading some of it right now!); and I love the Level 2 writing folio Achievement Standard.

It's six credits for producing two final pieces from a range of drafts that are taken to publication standard. The writing can be anything. How cool is that?

The opportunity to sit with students and write is heaven for me, and it's not for everyone - I do understand that. But it can be!

The great thing about it - by the time Level 2 NCEA rolls around, everyone has pretty much already done the first step (learning how to write), so the second step is much easier: turning it into a habit by writing (like a blog post a day frinstance).

'Committing to the practice. Showing up and doing it again and again until you're good at it, and until it's part of who you are and what you do' (Seth Godin).

Zactly!

I’m disinclined to acquiesce to your request (Barbossa)

My current Year 10 English class, which I started teaching this week, have spent some time tracking my on-line presence. Of course they have!

Because of the filters on their devices, they don't have access to my Linkedin, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, or Facebook pages, but they can Google me and look at my blogs - this one in fact!

Consequently, they've been asking me about Purdzilla and Baggy Trousers!

It's natural to wonder about your teachers private life - I get that.

I can still remember the moment I walked into a record store in St Lukes, while I was at Mt. Albert Grammar, and saw a teacher from school. Stopped me in my tracks it did! I'd never considered that any of my teachers had an existance away from school before!

Weird. These days the students are a lot more savvy, that's for sure!

Big man, pig man - haha, charade you are (Pink Floyd)

Being back in the classroom is tremendous fun!

Today's lesson with my Year 9 English class started off with a slight growl about some immature behaviour. That settled things down and I was able to launch into a great activity that the students embraced whole heartedly.

I walked out of the class feeling on cloud 9.

I've been at this game for 36 years now, so I know it's a roller coaster. Tomorrow could be a frustrating exercise in frustration. That's the deal.

During my supervision of the Year 10 English today (yes, I'm also the Principal of two campuses and covering two Learning Centres this term = needs must) their lesson was on literary devices.

Reminded me of this great collection of 21 rhetorical devices. Suffice to say none of these 21 came up in today's lesson, but you may enjoy checking them out

Oh yes indeedy, English is FUN.  

All I needed was the love you gave, all I needed for another day, and all I ever knew, only you (Yazoo)

Looking over an A level Language paper recently, made me nostalgic for teaching an English class again.

The last time I actually did that was at Woodford House, two years ago.

Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana.

It's the connections with students built up over time that makes teaching a class so special.

That allows you to see them pretty much every day so you learn their quirks. You see them on good days and average days (and even bad days if they're girls). You see them develop their thinking in bite size chunks. The nitty gritty.

Yes, the relationship is different to being a learning coach in the Learning Centre - my current context.

While I can help lead students to their own discoveries easy enough (my only way forward when confronted by maths problems is to ask them what strategies they've used already and then ask them what they could do next), that's not the same as conferencing a student through a critical response to a poem.

I can well understand why Principals/ Head Teachers decide to go back to the classroom.

Girls on fire, boys on fire, It's out of control (Jefferson Starship)

Help! My educational bookmarks are getting OUT OF CONTROL!!!!!!!

In an effort to wrestle a semblance of order from the chaos (you really have no idea) I have decided to list some of these and dispense with them over a few posts (and delete them from my bookmarks as I go).

Sorry to do this to you but I see no other way around it.

Awriight - strap in, here we go...


1 The curious incident of the novel chosen for study
This one is pretty funny - a study which indicates that NZ English teachers have no consensus about the novels that should be used!

Teachers have widely differing views about the appropriateness of various novels and the year level at which particular titles should be studied, which has lead to inconsistencies and inequity in the types and difficulty of novels studied in schools across New Zealand.

Genius - as if NZ teachers, better than that - ENGLISH TEACHERS - would ever agree on one text that everybody would use. Amazing.

2 Why students should take the lead in learning conferences
Mind/shift are responsible for a lot of my problem - they have such great articles! Here's one about, um - just read the title again...

3 Jigsaw
I like the jigsaw (cooperative learning technique) technique. I bookmarked this article to remind myself why.

4 Another mind/shift
This article is one I think I may have used in a post on inquiry learning. Some great video articles with American students.

5 Habits of mind
I bookmarked this from the Art Costa centre on the 16 habits of mind because I needed to attach the habits to pastoral care learning sessions.

I'm not sold on this, however. Why am I suspicious? I don't really know. I guess it feels a little new agey to me, putting these kinds of labels of things.

...and that will do it for this edition. Don't worry - I have more (a LOT more).