Anyone who says he can see through women is missing a lot (Groucho Marx)

I had an interesting conversation with one of my former students (she's now in Year 11 at school) about the merits of male teachers and female teachers.

Actually it wasn't much of a conversation. But it was interesting.

I had asked her how she was doing and she had said, "Good' and then listed her teachers for this new academic year. Three were male which she noticed as she told them to me. Her next statement was, "I love having male teachers - they don't have different moods and I get on with them better than female teachers".

"Oh", I said and wished her a groovy day!

I've written before about the feminising of the teaching profession but I haven't considered the different styles between the sexes much. 

I think it's probably a given that men and women teach differently but I don't buy the student's idea that females are more moody compared to men. I think it's more that the age of the men she currently has as teachers are on the mature side (yep - they're old dudes) whereas the female staff are generally much younger. Hormonally speaking, men have testosterone 'surges' just as women have estrogen and progesterone rises and falls.  

A research study I read recently had this to say:

Student evaluations are a common, if flawed, method for faculty to receive feedback about their teaching. Research has shown that students’ evaluations can be significantly influenced by the gender of their instructors. Many studies reveal that students tend to rate female faculty members’ differently than male faculty members Reasons for these findings are multifaceted. For example, students may hold biased perceptions of the differences between men and women faculty.   

The student I talked with may be seen as echoing a belief that female and male teachers are a certain way because of some shallow perceptions. She rates me higher as a teacher because she got on better with me than she did the female teacher I replaced - even though she was an excellent teacher.

I think I've just discovered another reason why I'm suspicious of student evaluations!

You have brains in your head, you have feet in your shoes, you can steer yourself in any direction you choose (Dr Seuss)

Suddenly the excitement of being back at school comes to life with the friendly welcomes from the girls. Just the seniors this week but as I have three senior classes (out of four) that's a big deal for me.

It is SOOO much better starting a school at the start of a year. I've only twice not done that: Waimea College in 1990 and Woodford House in 2013.  It was a struggle both times and both times I felt off balance for the rest of the year. I know - cry me a river.

The thing is - at the start of the year you get all that valuable info and everyone is starting from the same position of ignorance and learning together. Starting in term 2 last year was tough as the girls had already bonded in term 1 with their form teacher. I know - cry me a river.

This year the form class feels more natural, more mine. It helps a lot that I know many of the students from last year through teaching them or being their football coach or something else.

The other thing I love about being back at school is the sense of belonging that I get from the staffroom. It's so much fun being back in the staffroom and reacquainting with my wild and wacky colleagues. 

Unlike George Costanza, below, my worlds don't collide - there's private Wozza World with Jacky in Otane and then there's Working Wozza World at Woodford House with all these other characters combining to make some of the Wozza Show cast.

No matter what we get out of this I know I know we'll never forget (Deep Purple)

It's started!

The new school year is here and, well, it's the same as the start to every one of my last 31 school years really.

Let me take you back to the end of January 1983.

I'd graduated from Auckland's Secondary Teachers' College at the end of 1982 and got a job in December at New Plymouth Boys' High School.

I'd had a great summer holiday staying with friends at Oakura beach and had moved into a flat in the Spotswood area of New Plymouth with two girls.

I turned up for my first day at NPBHS and sat through a day of admin messages, induction type activities (a tour of the boarding school was included) and PD for staff.

I got home to my new flat and took two Panadol. My brain was full to overflowing with information. I had eye strain because I'd concentrated so much on the various speakers. I had a fistful of paper including a staff manual. I went to bed early; I was exhausted!

Fast forward 31 years. 

I turned up for my first 2014 day at Woodford House and sat through a day of admin messages, induction type activities (a tour of the boarding school was included) and PD for staff.

I got home to my Otane home and took two Panadol. My brain was full to overflowing with information. I had eye strain because I'd concentrated so much on the various speakers. I had a fistful of paper including a staff manual. I went to bed early, exhausted!

Is there no other way possible to start a new school year?

I don't wish to begin the new year in non 'I'm so excited' mode but... in this new age of instant technology, is there no way we can somehow bypass the administrivia?

What about some fun? Some house rivalry maybe? Some games? A pub quiz about procedures maybe? How about the staff manual as an email attachment with hyperlinks attached?

Come on - we're innovative people right - let's do something different. Please.

I'd love to return home after my first day of a new school year and not have to immediately reach for the paracetamol.

I come, a lone man, from the void (Allen Ginsberg)

Christmas celebrations...tick; new year celebrations...tick.

The terrible news about one of my students who died suddenly just before Christmas has continued to hover over all the usual stuff that happens at this time of year. 

It's all been bitter sweet - seeing family and friends in abundance has been wonderful but I can't seem to shake images of my Year 12 students in general and the girls' family in particular (their Christmases will never be the same again).

Time is a healer though and inevitably other thoughts and projects at home have helped.

Work thoughts have centred on films and texts that I want to teach this year. I've been running through film contenders for my year 13 class in particular.

It's been tricky. 

The list of films that I've been considering?

Psycho
The Pianist
The Shawshank Redemption
Million Dollar Baby
Anna Karenina
Shakespeare in Love
Crash
Gran Torino

The criteria I've imposed makes it even trickier.

The film needs to be worthy (won awards and have an established reputation); it needs to be free of controversy (no sex scenes and as much obscenity free as possible); it needs to contain solid thematic (great literature deals with the big themes - death, violence, tragedy, love) and character driven material to provide material for essay writing; and as well as that it needs to appeal to a female audience as much as possible.

That means each of the above has at least one mark against it.  

Psycho is out - too old and it's a murder mystery at heart so no big themes.
Anna K and Shakespeare have sex scenes and Crash is on the too controversial side of the ledger for me. Shawshack may not be worthy enough.

The Pianist and Torino remain contenders, this week.

Any suggestions will be gratefully viewed.

Rearrange my mind In turquoise (Blondie)

Our junior students have been involved in end of year projects for the week (stretches into next week as well) and I have to say: I am stunned by their involvement and leadership so far.

The school's organisation for the two weeks has been great - in the morning students are doing supervised individual projects (my classroom has been taken over by some junior girls who are learning to dance some scenes from Swan Lake) and in the afternoon they do collaborative projects (the year 9's have about four to choose from and the year 10s are doing a leadership/community project).

I'm helping out with the year 10 students in the afternoon. The onus has been definitely on the students to organise themselves. They generate the leadership activities, organise and execute them while staff act as watchers, facilitators and participators.

Next week they've nailed down three  focus areas for their community service: the children's ward at Hastings Hospital; S.P.C.A.; retirement villages in our area. They've found out what these places need in terms of help and they are planning how they can assist them.

First prize 

This week, though, has been about the students planning/organising fun leadership activities for themselves. So far we've had Aqua-robics, a treasure hunt, Woodford Wipeout, and a Masterchief competition.

Second prize

All have been brilliant but the Masterchief competition will remain with me for a long time.

I was one of the taste judges and I was, yes okay, a bit nervous about how things were going. The home economics room was taken over by 20 noisy, energetic, noisy, enthusiastic, and noisy year 10 girls.

Looks peaceful huh?

As they started their task (they were given three random ingredients, could not access any recipes and had a trolley available with assorted other things) I stepped back and watched semi organised chaos break out.

The organising group was superb - they had individual roles and a great sense of purpose. I was seriously impressed (and a little scared - these girls did things FAR more efficiently than I could have).

The end product and presentation was fantastic. My fears proved groundless as dishes that I'd be thrilled to receive in a restaurant were given to us.

My overriding feeling was - this is how education should really be. We (teachers) control things way too much. Teachers? Control freaks? Surely not I hear you ask. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!!!!!!

In my teaching next year I'm going to aim for a lot less control regarding the content and a much bigger dollop of student input into their learning.

Exciting!!

Now I see the sunshine (Ricky Nelson)

A few years ago I was a media studies teacher. Hang in there - there is a point to this...

I had a practical video component in the course. The idea being that students would design a script, storyboard their video, shoot it and edit it. This process would take weeks to complete. The biggest time was spent on post production edits and soundtrack dubbing. The editing suite would only handle one group at a time.

Weeks I tell you, weeks!

It was actually a pretty stressful time as a teacher - making sure the video cameras were charged, allowing students some latitude to work outside the classroom, making sure everyone was engaged and focused, booking editing equipment and helping students with the technology that we had.

Weeks!!

Ah, the bad old days.

Last week I gave my Year 10 a film assignment. They had posted their favourite adverts onto Schoology and we'd watched them in class. The brief for the film assignment was to create a new ad in an existing campaign.

The students got to it.

I watched as two students (Z and R) decided on the format of their new Snickers ad. It was to be an extension of the Betty White advert that aired during the 2010 Superbowl.

.

They enlisted my help (they needed an 'old geek' they told me) to play the Betty White/Abe Vigoda role.

They told me what they wanted. R and I rehearsed it for a few minutes. Z was the camera person/director who filmed us (R and I were joined by Imo) on her iphone. She and R then edited the footage on their ipads and added the Snickers logo to the end. It took minutes!

We then watched it in class with the other students who'd completed their own ads, after they had all uploaded their videos to the class' Schoology page.

https://www.schoology.com/system/files/attachments/files/m/201311/course/40716439/SNICKERS_528aa0964a3fc.mp4

All this happened in a period! Less than an hour!

This was thrilling to see. As a teacher I had pretty much nothing to do but sit and marvel at their expertise.

It was wonderful. Literally!

Spring leaves learning look to the evergreen (Mostly Autumn)

I love this time of the year - the seniors are doing their exams, the juniors are doing their end of year project things and I'm busy throwing out resources from the English resource room.

I must have the cleanest hands at school - I've been washing my hands after every trip to the resource room: dust and clutter and more dust!

I have just about finished my first year back in the English classroom and I now have something of a mandate to chuck away junk from the filing cabinets and old boring books from the textbook stock.

I've not touched things during the year because, during the first terms being new in a school, I'm never quite sure whether I'm looking at someone's prize possessions or a festering pile of tat.

Teachers tend to be hoarders. The filing cabinet was full of old task sheets, so old they were on banda paper. Teachers of a certain generation will understand why that means they are OLD! That's not all - old School Certificate and University Bursary papers have also gone into the skip - along with some tired and dreary looking textbooks.

Teenagers these days will just not read a tatty old book - no matter how great it is.

The dust on the Shakespeare collection remains undisturbed. Shakespeare has been surgically removed from the NCEA syllabus but it's sure to re-emerge at some point. Greatness will out, eventually.

In the meantime = the great cull of 2013 continues apace!