These days of dust, which we've known, will blow away with this new sun (Mumford & Sons)

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

But maybe, just maybe, the times they are a-changin'.

Maybe, just maybe, the industrial model of teaching will finally be smashed and broken up thanks to student learning systems like Schoology.

Fifty-five years ago, Marshall McLuhan wrote that thanks to mass media like TV, radio, and movies we taught in a classroom without walls.

Except that TV, radio and movies created a false dawn. Teachers adapted and used these media to change what we taught and how we taught, but it didn't fundamentally alter the regimented/timetabled way we taught.

We are basically still teaching as we have since the printing press was invented.
 
But...

...we are slowly waking up to the fact that, thanks to being connected by computers and the interweb, we now need to teach in a different kind of school.

Now, thanks to Schoology and the ever expanding world of new devices that our students are using, I glimpse a new dawn, people.

These new ways of connecting/ communicating 'threaten, instead of merely reinforce, the procedures of this traditional classroom' (McLuhan 1957).

 

Great!! let's get rid, I say.

Hey camisas, your favourite shirt is on the bed (Haircut 100)

I found myself blurting out something in class t'other day that (I'm pretty sure) I've never blurted out before.

Blurt is definitely the best verb! I was in full stride with my Year 10 English class, the class was going great, when I said, "I love teaching you girls!"

They, of course, immediately asked me if they were my favourite class.

Every now and again, I get this from every class I teach, as I'm sure the other teachers do too - the need to be the teacher's favourite.

My response (also a blurt) was that you girls find that kind of thing far more important than teachers do. Which is true...(notice that I didn't commit myself to such a thing as a favourite class - clever huh) but...

...it made me reflect later on the favourite class/ favourite student tag.

My favourite book

I have favourite films, favourite music groups, and favourite books. I had favourite subjects and favourite teachers when I was a student, so why not a favourite class?

Because we're not supposed to that's why. It's a bit like having a favourite child. I have four children - they all have their moments but no one is a favourite.

Why not? Because that is a world of hurt, that's why. The children may feel like one of them is a favourite but no way am I stoopid enough to confirm that.

So - favourite classes? Well, okay, yes - during that moment with my Year 10's they were a solid candidate for favourite class status (see what I did there?) but tomorrow is another day.

Don't confuse me, for I know - it's the name of the game (Badfinger)

Teaching girls is an art that I am slowly slowly adjusting to. I think the girls understand this. They are a perceptive bunch.

While we were on the way to the football game at Havelock North High School on Wednesday - one of the girls, apropos nothing, asked, "You haven't taught all girls before have you".

Clearly I have a lot to learn.

Maybe she caught an expression on my face. I am definitely a walking wysiwyg.

I was caught during a pastoral care staff meeting with a blank look on my face last week as well. While wearing that expression I glanced at two of the women staff sitting next to me and they burst out laughing!

Clearly I have a lot to...oh...I've already said that.

With all that in mind I am turning to google to help me out.

There is a lot of good advice on line - here's something I like from a research paper:

Girls show greater interest in communication from an early age. Baby girls will hold eye contact

much longer than baby boys. Baby girls study faces within weeks of being born and seek to

make eye contact and gaze at faces which increases over 400% over the first 3 months of life.

(while boys don't have the same motivation). At just 4 months old, most baby girls can identify

photographs of people they know from strangers.

 

Girls tend to receive information from a wider range of sensory input with more sensual detail

memory (smell, taste, touch, sound). Girls tend to hear better than boys. They are sensitive to

'tone of voice' used in conversation (heightened hearing ability) and have more sensitive skin -

for touch and pain than boys. Because there is a primacy on relationships, communication is

important/better.


I think this is proving to be one of the things I am adapting to. More on this subject:

Girls generally learn by talking-thinking-

doing

Often girls need to discuss an issue in small

groups and then need some time to think

about an issue before applying the knowledge.

Try to structure most activities for girls in the

sequence of talk-think-do.


I like knowing this though - legitimises what is developing in my classroom as the girls start to trust me more. I'm aware this will be a lengthy process. This term is all about settling in and gaining that trust.

It's proving much harder to do this with my form class - they only see me briefly three out of five days. This makes it really hard to set up a rapport. No wonder they are standoffish and slightly begrudging and, let's face it - rude at times.

They are a Y12 group and set in their ways. Nevermind - I'll just have to keep at it and wait for them to adjust to me I guess.

Cold as ice cream but still as sweet (Blondie)

Life is starting to settle into some semblance of order with work days and weekends forming patterns. For so long we have had to snatch glimpses of normalcy and routines had no chance.

It's been an old school Sunday today. I've been doing marking and preparation for the coming week pretty much all day.

With a twist.

I've physically only marked two scrips with a pen - the rest have all been assignments delivered into a dropbox on my school schoology account. I've checked the various essays and 'written' comments on the work digitally. Apart from a couple of DOH! moments where I failed to save my comments it's been smooth sailing.

The reading and commenting on a screen has taken some adjustment. I'm from a generation that is mostly comfortable editing stuff in hard copy.

The other neat element of today was conversing with my students as I marked their work. Little messages and updates kept popping up all day long as they responded to my notices and assessments and their essays.

Cool - marking didn't seem such a chore and I got to listen to some Miles Davis, Ten Years After, Stan Getz, The Exponents and others.

Keep on the sunny side (The Whites)

Shot myself in the foot this week didn't I!

It seemed like such an innocuous thing to do but I clearly didn't thoroughly think things through (hey hey, alliteration kids).

We have a student learning system at school called Schoology. It started a few weeks ago and staff and students are getting slowly into it together. Usually technology + students means they are way ahead of teachers but in this instance we seem to be slowly learning about the possibilities of Schoology together.

I placed a photo on my profile page that Adam had taken of me in San Francisco (below right) and placed on his facebook page.

Wozza creepily contemplates how
stoopid he can be!

Unfortunately my Year 9 students told me that the picture was 'creeping them out' and they asked me to change it. Sure I said - how about of our cat, 'Waffles'? Yes they said.

I was at school without my picture files so I went to my blog to find a picture of Wafi. As I was doing so the girls spied the title to the blog - Wozza's Place. "Who's Wozza?". they  asked innocently.

At that point I swallowed hard, made noises like a blocked drain, and said, "Um...actually - that's me".

BAM!!!! The genie was out of the bottle and I have had to face some WOZZAAAAAH type comments on their Schoology messages to me over the last few days..

My baad!!

I had to have 'the talk' and explain to the girls that calling me Wozza from now on was NOT going to happen. They are a sensible bunch and they knew what I meant. More sensible than me as it turns out.

Moral of the story? Don't you eat that yellow snow!

There's no one as normal as me (Skyhooks)

Things I've missed by not being in a NZ classroom for three years (a random sample):

Assemblies (yes really) – I've experienced two so far at Woodford House and they have been wonderful: a group of girls performing some theatre sports; an inspirational speech by a Y13 girl (she had her right leg and left foot amputated as a consequence of swine flu in her Y9 year); a performance by a visiting group of percussionists – Ginger Baker eat your heart out!

It's such a relief not having to be responsible for the assembly any more; instead I can enjoy them again from the staff rows.

Staffroom camaraderie – it's a small staffroom for about 50 staff (including all the office and ancillary workers) but everyone has been very welcoming and friendly. A staff quiz happens at 1pm each day (after the staff has visited the staff dining room) and it's a lot of fun.

My own classroom – I have been a peripatetic teacher in my schools since moving to senior management positions (the last place I had my own classroom was as Head of English at Mt Albert Grammar in 1995, then a gap until King John School 2004 to 2006). I can put up posters, arrange the desks as I want and have a home at last.

A desk in the staff workroom – I have had my own office at schools since 1989 (Head of English at Waimea College) so I haven't shared a work space since I was at Maclean's College (and before that at New Plymouth Boys' High School). It's where I am right now as I write this post.

Having an office is fine and dandy but it can also be quite an isolating experience. I've had some doozies over the years – the broom cupboard at King John springs to mind (no windows and a swinging cat would have suffered massive concussion).

A sense of belonging – my pronouns will soon shift from 'they' to 'we' as I begin to understand and embrace the culture of the school. It's been three years since I've felt that. In the Middle East I was an adjunct to Ali bin Abi Taleb school. I was advising and critiquing and all the while I was part of Cognition Education – not a teacher on the staff. Don't get me wrong, I was certainly made to feel a real part of the school but I was still a foreigner and an outsider.

The sense of belonging has been dormant for some time. I certainly didn't have it as a Principal - too isolated and too solitary a position. The last time I truly belonged was The King John School in Essex; a magic staffroom and wonderful people.

Busy and tired at the end of the day – nothing like mental exhaustion to make you sleep all night. I was busy and tired in China but I've not worked in a classroom since the end of January so I feel refreshed and ready to go.

So raise a glass and drink with me. Here's to being Head of English again and here's to normal and here's to stability!

And here's to the teacher profession! Hurrah!!

A cautionary tale

Poor old Baggy Trousers! I have not posted during the time I was in China and yet it remains a case of 'build it and they will come', as the blog appears to grow in visitors when I DON'T post. Humpf!

The Wuxi experience (the job, the people, the city of Wuxi) was fantastic but things are in limbo as I await salary payments for January and February from the company. The American businessman who recruited me has exited from the company so I am left experiencing something a friend had warned me of before I left for China (Simsy you know it). That something being a seeming reluctance for Chinese companies to pay a man what he's earned.

We were given a one way ticket home for the Chinese new year amid promises of payment, promises of a return ticket and visa extentions but none of those things have materialised. Indeed our apartment in Wuxi has been handed back to the landlord. The writing on the wall is plain to see, even for me.

I have been waiting in New Zealand to see if a long promised new contract to work in China was going to materialise and I have continued to wait patiently for my pay to arrive.

Obviously with this limbo I have needed to consider my future in China. While patiently waiting, I have yearned for the stability I had in the Middle East with Cognition Education, or longer ago the stability I had working for the NZ government as a teacher.

Those were the good old days!