Us do opposite of all Earthly things! Us hate beauty! Us love ugliness! Is big crime to make anything perfect on Bizarro World

As I sit here today, having worked from home during NZ's Level 4 lockdown, along with my teaching colleagues, and now from the campus as we've transitioned to Level 3, I feel pretty good that education and teachers have been labelled 'essential services'.

Consider the fate of professional sportspeople in contrast. Not essential. Not employed.

Every night on the news for the last few weeks the Australian Rugby League (NRL) people have presented a comical soap opera of daft desperate decisions to restart their season.

Teachers have taught on, while overpaid big burley hirsute blokes* in shorts have become more and more impatient to get back to playing games of 'footy'.

* Very few news stories have focused on female sports teams in comparison.

As The Donald would say, 'SAD'.

And yet, in a few weeks time they will have their wish and be providing entertainment for the masses of Aussie and Nu Zild couch potatoes while underpaid teachers, the 'essential workers' remember, will continue their work in relative obscurity, and definitely in relative poverty.

It's a bizarro world!

Teacher, I love you (Elton John)

Great teachers in more relaxing times

Sometimes teachers question what they are about. 

We suffer from a lot of guilt generally, on a daily basis - am I doing enough for ----, I wish I'd tried ----, if only I had ---- and so on.

This site should help - coming to you via Diane Ravitch's blog, it features prominent educators explaining why and how teachers made a difference for them.

Good time to reflect on those teachers who have affected your own life.

I feel reborn, I'm like a Phoenix rising from Arizona (Frank Costanza)

Above the line thinking by the cool kids at Teacher Academy

Time at Teachers' Academy with the most wonderful Karen Boyes has reaffirmed some long held beliefs:

• Teachers are hilarious
• There are some great teachers out there in Westmount schools
• Teachers are not afraid (for the most part) to challenge themselves and give things a go
• My colleagues are great learners
• The group chemistry is a mysterious and wondrous thing and we had an awesome bunch. Especially the small group of Murray, Kelsi, Gina, Renée and me (none of whom I knew before starting this PD and only Renée I'd met briefly before)

How wondrous? When we were given a task during the three days at Teacher Academy and told we could go anywhere to work, we stayed together as a group without any tacit agreement to do so (the only group to do that btw) - we just liked each other's company obviously. Wondrous.

I've known this feeling before a few times. At UNITEC 1999-2000 doing a post graduate diploma I was in a large bunch of educators and we all instantly clicked. Even the co-ordinators of the course commented on it!

The power of a team that clicks. Mighty.

So - raise your glasses and salute Super G, Muzza, K Dawg, Renoir and, erm, me.

I don't know why - throw it out and keep it in (Nirvana)

Welcome to the next edition of my bookmark cleanup. Five more for you to chew on:

1 Twenty one ideas to help students keep their momentum
This Te@chthought article is a useful run down of what it says on the tin. It's a site to dip into from time to time and I use it as a bit of a reminder.

2 and 3 Blended learning
A twofer: first an article from Mind/shift on blended learning. I'm a fan! I wrote a post using some key ideas from this but here it is again for your consideration.

Then one from eschoolnews, again looking at blended learning programmes.

4 Reinventing school
Another Mind/shift article - this one spoke to my strong desire to move away from industrial model education and embrace inquiry learning.

5 The science behind great teaching
I can't remember how or why I stumbled upon this one but an interesting article on what makes great teachers great is always going to hook me by the lapels!