My words, like silent raindrops fell and echoed In the wells of silence (Paul Simon)

I shared this TED talks presentation with a couple of my classes this week.

When my form class watched (and my Year 11 class) I could tell they were thinking about what they were seeing/reading (I had the transcript on as one of my students is deaf). How did I know? They weren't talking!

Did they get the message? I don't know. I hope so.



Why did I show it?

Well let's see...it's a tough message and I thought it was worthwhile and Clint Smith is an engaging speaker. And it was short, but long enough to generate thought without being a lecture.

Most of all though - I wanted to challenge myself.

What does that mean? Well, at times, we're all guilty of silence-looking away, not engaging with others, and not confronting prejudice front on.

I have been that guy in the past-the one who bites his tongue when people are racist or sexist or stoopid. It's tough for me to be confrontational in that instant. Particularly when they are strangers.

A bus driver took my football team to a game recently and he was vaguely homophobic and I couldn't let his idiotic comment slide. I used my old standby - friends of mine are gay and they are good people (better than a lot of heterosexuals I wanted to add, but I didn't-I wish I had but he was ignorant and I had to get my girls to the game in one piece).

Feeling like I needed to watch the talk a few times to get the message, I did just that with the classes. 

I think I have it now. I will not be so accommodating next time, I hope.

Say you just can't live that negative way (Bob Marley)

I wrote a post recently about my experiences regarding the past ERO visits I'd been involved in.

I am well aware that the blogosphere has been holding its collective breath for my report of my most recent bout of ERO.

Except...I have to exercise a large dollop of discretion and self censorship for this post.

All I can say is that it was... underwhelming.

They seemed to have little capacity to review a technologically innovative school so the less said the better.

And that's all I'm saying - as my mother said - if you can't say anything nice - don't say anything at all.

So - Next topic: We have a visit next week by our Minister of Education.

I've written about Hekia Parata in the past and so...I'm going to exercise another large dollop of self restraint on this one too.

Instead - another next topic: I wrote a post on my Wozza's Place blog recently about new forms of advertising in the digital age. Here's an excerpt:

The best advertising isn't advertising so says Chapter three in Velocity (the brilliant book by Ahmed/ Olander).

The goal is to create connections with customers and earn their loyalty by serving them; 

This means a shift from selling a product to selling a service.

At a recent school assembly we were shown an advert made by women's personal care brand Always.

http://www.always.com/en-us/home.aspx

You'll be stunned to know that the video itself wasn't about personal care products for women at all!

Instead it takes on the outdated idea of 'running like a girl, throwing like a girl' and promotes the worthy concept of women's self esteem. A self esteem that has been battered by the 'throw like a girl' pejorative term (or so says the advert).

I haven't heard the term for years but there you go.

As we were watching the advert I was getting the growing feeling that I was being manipulated. I couldn't help wondering what this video was selling. What was Always? 

Unlike the ANZ advert that I featured on my Wozza's Place blog - this one was more insidious. The brand name Always featured only at the end and only in a minor way.

See what you think.. http://blogs.wsj.com/cmo/2014/07/01/viral-video-of-week-an-ad-that-challenges-what-it-means-to-throw-like-a-girl/

This article mentioned a Dove advert that also effectively targets women's perceptions of themselves:



Clearly these are great examples of the shift from selling a product to selling a service. Who wouldn't want women to feel better about themselves?

I'm sure the Always advert's makers would be delighted to know that their advert was being shown to a school assembly.

My question - when does selling a service stop and selling a product start?

She made you tea, asked for your autograph - what a laugh (Jethro Tull)

We have the pleasure of an ERO visit this week at school. 

ERO stands for Education Review Office and if you're in the northern blogohemisphere think Ofsted.

I was reflecting today (as the ERO officer perambulated around my classroom and looked at my wall displays of The Beatles, Arsenal, Star Wars amid the work of students) how many inspections/reviews I'd been part of in my teaching career so far.

At New Plymouth Boys' High I was lucky enough to catch the death throes of the old Inspectorate system, before ERO was born in the late 1980s. These were scary things. The Inspectors came, watched in a humourless way and left. I never found out what they thought but I wasn't fired so that was good.

My first ERO visit was at MacLeans College. Ron Martin had been one of my lecturers at Teachers' College and was now working for ERO. He bounced into my class, watched for approximately 90 seconds and then asked if he could teach some stuff. Well Dah! I watched him for about 10 minutes and he bounced out. Great stuff!

The visit when I was a first time Head of English at Waimea College wasn't very memorable, nor my second time HoD English at Mt. Albert Grammar. 

Then I went to Cambridge High School as Deputy Principal and had two wildly contrasting reviews within months of each other. The first one thought we were the best school on the planet, but political pressure (or something) lead to a second one which was utterly scathing. Yes the same school. Yes within months of each other!! Weird.

In England at The King John School I enjoyed the terror of the Ofsted inspectors. It felt something like the old coldly bureaucratic School Inspectors. The school was in a complete tizz for weeks before and during the visit. But the review was glowing!

Back in NZ and my first year of Principalship and - you guessed it - an ERO review. Also a very positive experience at Stratford High School I am happy to report. A lot of paper work but we got a very encouraging review.

In the Middle East I found myself acting as a defacto ERO reviewer of a school while being embedded in it. It was a great experience and the school made a lot of progress in terms of teaching and learning.

And so - to my...let's see...my ninth review in 31 years of teaching. This time as HoD English again.

I really hope she is a Beatles/ Arsenal/ Star Wars fan!

To live will be awfully big adventure (J M Barrie)

The boys to entertain you: Greg, Ian, Andrew and Wozza

Our school's putting on some show in Napier soon. Can't for the life of me remember what it's called or when it's on but get along. It'll be awesome!!!

Hide-and-earth bound but there's no tether, on a zephyr (Mary Chapin Carpenter)

I'm reading an amazing book at the moment: Velocity by a couple of young whipper snappers - Ajaz Ahmed and Stefan Olander.

It's subtitled The seven new laws for a world gone digital. Don't let that put you off; the seven, the new and digital are tags to get you hooked.

I'm not sure where the idea that seven was the desired standard for these things. I'm pretty sure the seven deadly sins came before the dwarves but I'm a little hazy on these things.

Whatever, everybody's at it these days. I mentioned in my last posting that I'd finished reading Deepak Chopra's The 7 Spiritual Laws of Superheroes and of course there are Seven:11's; seven days in a week; seven notes on a musical scale; seven wonders of the world; the Buddha first walked seven steps; the magnificent seven; highly effective people have seven habits according to Stephen Covey; and, of course, there is that enigma wrapped in a riddle that is Seven Sharp. 

But I digress.

Velocity is written by two whizz kids. Ajaz Ahmed founded AKQA (https://www.akqa.com/). Have a look if you get a chance - their business is future innovation so it's interesting to see what their website looks like - big on graphics, high on mystery.

Stefan Olander has one of those what-the-hell-does-that-actually-mean job titles at Nike - Vice president of digital sport.

Together they talk about stuff in Velocity and it's terrific.

Lesson one/Law One (in a chapter called a Smith and Weston beats four aces) - trying to protect what you've already got is a mistake.

They obviously mean in a business context but I think this applies to other things like schools. School's have a brand association whether they like it or not.

I was filling up the car's petrol t'other day and the shop lady knows I teach at Woodford House. She was chatting about schools in general. When I asked her where she went to school she said 'Colenso College', followed by it was good then but it's not now.

And right there the brand suffered. Who knows the truth. Anyone coming in contact with this lady is going to get one version only.

Schools go through ups and downs. Public perception is fickle. Schools want to protect their brand if it's a good one but Ahmed/Olander say that's a mistake. Innovation/ continual improvement is a must.

I'm lucky to be at Woodford House. We are currently involved in some potentially major change to the brand but we appear to be quite fearless about it right now. Fantastic!! Long may that continue.

I've lived on the lip of insanity, wanting to know reasons. The door opens: I've been knocking from the inside (Rumi)

I've been reading a book by Deepak Chopra called The 7 Spiritual Laws of Superheroes during my holidays. 

Well with a title like that how could I ever resist - spiritual laws AND superheroes?? A perfect fit!


Deepak Chopra is a name synonymous with new age wisdom and you either are open to that or not really. 

I'm not usually. I prefer my wisdom of the gnarly old aged variety (trust you're well PJ) but I bought the book on sale at Poppies in Havelock North when I saw Chopra had used The Silver Surfer as a subject in his analysis.

Now, I LOVE The Silver Surfer. He first came to my attention in The Fantastic Four comics that I collected when I was much much younger.

The Silver Surfer, for the uninitiated, started off as a young astronomer named Norrin Radd on the planet Zenn-La. Wikipedia tells us that "he saved his homeworld from the planet devourer, Galactus, by serving as his herald. Imbued in return with a tiny portion of Galactus's Power Cosmic, Radd acquired vast power, a new body and a surfboard-like craft on which he could travel faster than light. Now known as the Silver Surfer, he roamed the cosmos searching for planets for Galactus to consume. When his travels took him to Earth, he met the Fantastic Four, a team of powerful superheroes who helped him rediscover his humanity and nobility of spirit. Betraying Galactus, the Surfer saved Earth but was exiled there as punishment". 

It's the rediscovery of humanity that Chopra is interested in.

As I read through the book I became aware of how a lot of what Chopra was talking about related to change philosophy.

The Silver Surfer starts out as one thing, for altruistic reasons he becomes aligned with evil and destruction but then ultimately changes to become a 'warrior for good'.

Chopra outlines a nine step process to change that I like (it dovetails at points with the inquiry method that I've been engaged with during the last couple of months at school):

• Intended outcome (a clear vision of the intended outcome)
• Information gathering
• Information analysis (the pros and cons)
• Incubation (time spent processing information)
• Insight
• Inspiration
• Implementation (action)
• Integration (a new context and meaning)
• Incarnation (integration leads to a new incarnation)

This is a tad more complicated than the simple NIssan model of steep slope improvement (>Plan>Do>Check>Action>Plan>Do...) and although there doesn't appear to be a cyclic nature to Chopra's model, the concept is very similar.

My school has set up a Change Action Group (CAG) and I've volunteered to be a part of it which is slightly against Groucho's maxim (don't belong to a club that would have me as a member) but it could be an exciting way forward. 

I like the way change and action are aligned in the group title. That gives me a degree of confidence. I keep thinking about those bananas!

Rest assured - I'll keep you posted.

My self-esteem is heating up the room (Jessica Lea Mayfield)

Every once and a while a news story comes along that reminds me what a small, petty minded place New Zealand is.

Usually the story is about a school student who has upset the school rules in some way - jewellery, a uniform breach or, as in this case, hair. 

The student refuses to comply (even though they've chosen the school and said they'll abide by the school's expectations).

They dig their toes in.

His or her (often) liberal parents get on their high horse and challenge the school, the media then gets involved and the whole thing blows up into a cause célèbre.

It's all so boringly predictable. Suddenly lawyers get involved and it becomes a winner/loser situation. 

Thanks to this 'story' everything we try to do in schools about restorative practices becomes something of a joke. 

The end result in this case was the school was found to be at fault on a technicality. Their hair rules weren't specific enough!! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

The student and parents were right. The school was wrong. Please. It's hair. 

It's a nothing story.

There are bigger things happening in education. Great things. Innovative things. But the debate becomes about rules.

I spent Friday engaged in a PD win/win discussion about what future learning at Woodford House would look and feel like. It was an inspirational session. It was a move away from an industrial model to an innovative approach to learning.

It won't make headlines anywhere but, potentially, it was far more important than a petty story about hair.