February made me shiver with every paper I'd deliver (Don McLean)

During February this year (a leap year means it's 29 days before March) I've decided to embrace Austin Kleon's idea of a 29 day challenge.

My challenge is to say a sincere thank you each day to someone at school (my two campuses or elsewhere) who has added positively to my existence on planet Earth.

My first one was to thank Karen Boyes and Meg Gallagher for the daily inspiration they provide via a Facebook group that Meg created.

The second was to our brilliant Year 3 and 4 teacher who brings joy and, via some exceptional teaching, quality learning experiences to her students on a daily basis.

Will you be my third?


Austin's PDF is up top. Feel free to do your own 29 day challenge (and LMK how it goes huh).

The five things I do when I don't know what to do!

What do I do when I don't know what to do?

Karen Boyes posed this question to me recently via one of her vlogs.

Robert Pirsig calls these moments 'gumption traps': moments of stuckness which sap your energy, undermine your faith or otherwise cause you to falter in your drive towards completing a project.

Here are my top tips to get over gumption traps:

1 Walk away. Give myself room to breathe. Very often - when I stop actively thinking about a problem a solution will come to me.

2 Talk it over. A problem shared and all that. I've noticed that often when people ask for my advice they will relate their issue, I will listen, I won't say much and they miraculously come to a realisation about how to get themselves out of a gumption trap.

3 Relentless positivity. This involves thinking about other times I've been stuck and knowing that eventually a solution happened. Thanks to my mum, good strong positive thinking has got me out of many a jam.

4 Deliberately go back to go forward. Sometimes I've missed a vital step and I need to retrace and adjust my approach.

5 If all else fails, re-evaluate: maybe I was stuck for a reason. Maybe I was pointed in the wrong direction. This one means I need to re-evaluate this project. I guess this one is my 'don't sweat the small stuff, and it's all small stuff' fallback position.

There's a city in my mind, come along and take that ride (Talking Heads)

Photo by Andrew DesLauriers on Unsplash

So, here I am at conference with all my Westmount colleagues and buddies. Wow - I must say they scrub up well!

All the effort to organise the event and actually get everybody under one Holiday Inn roof is, like, totally worth it.

Highlights from day one: 

• Chris Gregory producing a minor miracle - a maths lesson that I actually enjoyed AND learned something about cuboids from - thanks to my table colleagues!
• Catching up with my confrères including Renoir, K Dawg, Sunshine and Rainbows (gonna miss you)
• Dessert
• Being called 'Fearless Leader' by one of my staff
• Meeting all the Tasman and Manawatu staff - good looking bunch
• Getting locked out of the building because my entry card demagnetised (top tip - don't put it anywhere near your mobile phone) and walking around for ages outside on a beautiful calm night
• Buzz word bingo: the winner on the day was 'journey' way out in front (23 mentions). The rest? 'Roll out' 6, 'Unpack' 6, 'moving forward' 8, 2 'underpins' and one 'without further ado' (NOT by B Sloan shock horror)
• Gaining a few new acronyms - EAP, WIIFM, and the truly epic HCP (Human Capital System)

Day two - I wonder what you have in store...with any luck it's some more fun activities (Jim's PBL intro, Chris' maths lesson, Jon's musical warm downs) and far less being talked at for 40 minutes with wordy powerpoints.

Remembering always: you gotta take the crunchy with the smooth, there are many on-line sources for advice these days on 'how to give great presentations without talking to powerpoints for 40 minutes'.

You know the sun gonna shine in my back door someday (Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee)

It's open letter time again people:

Photo by Leio McLaren on Unsplash

Dear Toni

Hey! It's a year on since leaving the familiar and launching myself into the mystery of 'what's next for Wozza?'

How has it gone? Well, last week I ventured up to Paihia for a meeting with other secondary school principals from Northland.

Being amongst tangata whenua protocols again was the first shock. The next was the generally dour atmosphere during the meeting.

Along the way, it was interesting to compare my life as a campus Principal at a private school with the poor saps, sorry, my fellow professionals at state schools.

Seriously, looking around the room, it took me back with a bump to my time ten years ago at Stratford High School when I would meet with fellow Taranaki Principals; the gradual beat down of demands trying to do an impossible job takes its toll.

As my Principal friends compared their heart attack histories I knew I was in trouble.

At that time, I quickly decided life was far too short to be in that situation so I left and went to the Middle East where I met remarkable people, had loads of adventures and learnt a lot about myself.

I learnt that I needed to push myself, to be busy, to be challenged, to try new things, to not settle.

As I pootled home through the beautiful Northland vistas, past some depressed looking towns in Rapid Roy I remembered how lucky I was to be living my life.

A few posts back, I included a quote from Hunter S. Thompson where he celebrates a life lived with the final statement being 'Wow, what a ride!'

When that feeling goes I start getting the 'what's next for Wozza?' vibe.

Do I miss Woodford House? At times, yes, of course I do - I definitely miss the great Woodford people (tip of the titfertat to my buddies), Bay Espresso visits, the time to pause and reflect that is so hard to eek out in the hurdy gurdy days I currently have (I haven't got that figured out yet), the twice weekly chapels (great meditation time) and I miss being in a formal classroom setting teaching English.

But...but, I love the way Westmount School is so keen to experiment with timetables and everything else, the balanced mix of autonomy and collegiality, the full-on environment of self-directed learning, the teacher inquiry process led by Karen Boyes, the challenge and the adventure (every day is a mystery box), the feeling that I am being appreciated and that my skills are being gainfully employed, the return of optimism and positivity (I was getting dangerously close to becoming a grumpy old fart at Woodford) and the Whole Food Cafe in Maungaturoto is a pretty gnarly substitute.

So, all up, going forward, I often think (to myself) that my skin is still in the game.

But enough about me! How was your year?

Love and peace, happy holidays and Merry Christmas to you and the family!

Wozza

Well she's walking through the clouds with a circus mind that's running wild (Jimi Hendrix)

It's conference and PD time in Wozza's World this week.

I am super impressed at the commitment by my current employer to provide all staff with quality PD opportunities. Yes, all!

These things aren't cheap - three days out of school for each staff member, accommodation for two nights, flights and so on. A massive undertaking.

With great outcomes! In all sorts of ways.

One of the things I missed at Woodford House (and I do really love you WH and I do kind of understand why but not really) was the lack of such opportunities for me personally.

This week there have been two great professional development events for me to attend. The first was about Campus Trading and the financial aspects of what makes Westmount and OneSchool Global keep on ticking. 

Sure, some of it was gobbledegook and way over my pretty little head, but it was wonderful to see colleagues getting so passionate about revenue streams and stuff. Very inspiring!

Now, okay, normally my eyes glaze over when finances are involved but I came away with new, and deeper, and more meaningful appreciation for the context I work in. And that was a good feeling people!

Next up are three days leadership PD with the delightful Karen Boyes. Rightfully world famous in Nu Zild, Karen is a superb presenter, and all round lovely person. She makes learning fun! 

Three days with Karen is a joy.

Niggles: sorry, but, going forward, if I hear one more , learning journey underpinning the nitty gritty, I will cover off a retreat...and may just scream!

Again we are positioned in rows facing forward, looking at a screen, as a talented individual lectures us (at times about the nastiness of this practice in the 21st century). The irony is not lost on them. But still it continues.

And the English teacher in me hates it when slides to power points have grammatical errors. Okay, I know most people d'o'n't' care about apostrophes but would it kill to get them proofread?