lizzzyyy051

Kia ora koutou...  The challenge we have is to explore Genius Hour. I have often found it enticing, dabbled a little, but I couldn't quite see myself following the rules correctly. Tonight I read the following blog post: Idea Starters for the Genius Hour Classroom   and what sweet relief! In the comments there was a thread about research and one comment struck a chord: " it’s a gra ssroots movement without a lot of rules about “how to do it.”"  Now regardless of whether this is correct or not it has give me a sense of freedom... no more feeling like I need to have a bunch of lists and criteria etc. I can have the focus on pursuing a passion and that's OK. A focus on creation as opposed to consumption works for me too.  I feel that this will meet a need that I haven't addressed fully for some of my tamariki this year fully. I am hopeful.  The lists of possible areas that may be explored are appealing too:  human ingenuity health and social education env...

Today is Day 7 of the giftEDnz October blogging challenge and the theme for today is finding your tribe. The inspiration was this beautiful post https://spark.adobe.com/page/ABPCjywrC2gRO/. For me, finding your tribe is all about belonging and as a teacher it is my job (and privilege) to create an environment that engenders this. So I thought I would share some of the ways we work in Room 5 to build a learning community that embraces belonging. A couple of years ago I was at a Teachers Matter conference (please check here for information about the Jan 2019 conference) and I heard Adrian Rennie speaking about his classroom practice, I got a lot from his work including the use of a class chant. I created the chant below a couple of years ago for the class and it is handed down from one class to the next now... it is part of a Room 5 tradition. This poem/chant covers our expectations, or qualities of Room 5 learners (including myself), rather than use rules. We spend time unpacking w...

A couple of years ago I wrote a post entitled ' Do you think you are better than everyone else'   where I recounted a story from my childhood that does haunt me even now (over 30 years later)... it was a tiny moment really but the words cut deep and created a loop that pops up from time to time. At the moment I am participating (a little!) in a blog challenge with giftEDnz and I am also in the midst of school holidays so a LOT of personal reflection is going on. I have also started reading Brene Brown's book 'Rising Strong' as resilience is a topic I am interested in and I love her work, it has got me thinking about vulnerability again and facing my own demons. I am not gifted but I think that the moment I had as a child could be one some of our gifted and talented tamariki experience, the words (and the venom they are delivered with) might be different but the damage done could be similar. This is the moment (click on the link above for more):  'I was one of th...

I have been particularly lax with my blogging this year (and possibly last year too) so I have decided to take on the giftEDnz October blogging challenge to get me back on track and consolidating some thoughts... who knows there could be some gems that arise in it all as well!  Today's topic:  The late Rita Pierson said that “Every child needs a champion.”  How can    we be champions for our gifted and talented students in particular? For me a champion is the person that is prepared to stand tall for others when they haven't the resources at the time to do it for themselves. If we are to be a champion for our tamariki, particularly our gifted and talented tamariki, then we have to be prepared to stand tall for them especially when they are marginalised or lack the resources to do it for themselves. In order to do this we need to know our tamariki- know what switches them on and off, know their social and support networks, we need to observe (with our heart...

I am a full time teacher and last weekend I attended the Professional Speakers Association Convention in Brisbane, Australia. I went as I was invited by my friend (thanks Karen!) and was offered the opportunity to present a small piece in a workshop during the weekend (thanks Glenn!). As I was heading into the convention I was feeling like a fish in the desert (that's how far out of the water I was feeling), I was thinking "I am a teacher at a professional speakers convention... what on earth am I doing here???" However to say that the weekend was inspirational feels like an understatement really. It was huge and I am still trying to get my head around it all to be honest but for now I hope to convey some of what I learned as a teacher in this post. We started with a session for newbies to the convention, what a relief to be around others who were feeling a bit out of their comfort zone. As it turned out there were people from all walks of life and the more people I spoke...

I am planning for the coming year and as I am doing so the impact of my learning about the brain is evident in the choices I am making… The brain grows and develops from the bottom up, the brain stem first, followed by the limbic system and then the cerebral cortex, with the prefrontal cortex doing it’s major work during puberty. It occurred to me today that my planning reflects this process using Glenn Capelli's Magic Brain model, along with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.   ( For more about the Magic Brain model check out this link )  I start with addressing the basic needs first. Belonging: It is said that belonging is an innate human need and so it is the first thing that we work on together. Learning chant: Room 5 has a name, it is called The Place to Stretch and Grow. We start with a class learning chant which encapsulates how we will work as a class together and our school values. This is now a tradition in Room 5, so the poem is passed to each new group of students that j...

Now I am no great gardener, but as I was pruning back my grapes earlier this afternoon (I can now feel some of you are nodding ‘yes, you are no great gardener, way too late!’) I was struck with a small epiphany that I needed to put into words. And now I am sharing this with you… but first I need to give a little more context… You see I didn’t just wantonly run out to the glasshouse with my clippers and start hacking willy-nilly, not at all. I know enough to check (and already had an inkling that the best time to give the vine a good hacking was in the middle of winter dormancy) so I did what I often do in these circumstances, search the net until I find someone else who has done things not quite at the right time and got away with it. Invariably, I always find some obscure chatroom that provides me with the green light, and often a little sage advice to go with it. Today, I found my green light (obviously, although I was fairly committed to the course of action anyway) and also a possi...

As I write this we are in the last days of the end of the second term of the year, in the middle of winter where it is cold and miserable and the flu/bug season seems to be incessant. Many schools have mid-year reporting happening, so there is the added stress and it shows for many of us. Let’s be honest though, teaching as a profession is inherently stressful. We are working with people all day and human beings are complex, sometimes tricky even. And relating to people is only the start of what a teacher is doing as you all know, but I am not going to spend time talking about what stresses us for two reasons; 1. There is plenty of research and anecdotal data to confirm that teaching is stressful and 2. Spending energy on talking about what stresses us often feeds the problem and doesn’t necessarily provide any solution to it. In the last year I have conducted a small study as part of my masters in education qualification exploring positive wellbeing for primary teachers in their mid-c...

I remember sitting opposite my boss in a little coffee shop having my quarterly appraisal review and we got to the final KPI (Key Performance Indicator), the same KPI that I had had on my appraisal for a couple of years. I remember the conversation starting, as it always did, "So, how are you getting on with your work-life balance?" It was almost a script that we ran at the end of each appraisal meeting where I'd sigh, my shoulders would slump and guiltily I'd respond with "not quite there yet" and then a conversation would be had around my inadequacy in this area. This particular day however, for some reason, I changed the script. Instead of sighing I looked at my boss and said "I'd like to remove that KPI from my appraisal" and when asked why I responded that I was sick of feeling bad for working the way I did which was passionate and outside of the hours others worked, but it gave me joy to do a good job, it fitted with my optimal thinking t...

In Aotearoa/New Zealand there is much wisdom carried in Maori whakatauki or sayings. One that is in mind at the moment is: Kua hinga te totara i te wao nui a Tane The totara has fallen in the forest of Tane The totara is a tall and mighty tree and when it falls it leaves a great gap in a forest. This whakatauki acknowledges when someone of importance has passed away. In the last two months two mighty 'trees' have fallen and I write to acknowledge them, honour them and in some way take heart from the gifts they have left behind. Both my friend, Liz Bowen-Clewley, and my uncle, Ted (Neil Edward) Gallagher, were champions of those who did not have a voice. They were tenacious and unyielding in their pursuit of justice for others. They did not go around trying to please and placate, they got out there and did stuff and made a difference in this world. They worked between employers and employees, bridging what is sometimes a treacherous divide to reach solutions that met the needs o...

This weekend I have been involved in a lively twitter chat about the New Zealand Curriculum and how we can use it to re-engage our teaching community with the front end of the document in particular. The front end is where the principles, values and key competencies are explained. I believe that they were put at the front because we put the first things first, meaning that these are the foundation blocks of all that we do within our curriculum. I believe they are aspirational, broad and challenging, they give us scope to be bold and brave (thanks Wendy for those words) in establishing learning cultures in our schools that support our learners to aim high, think deep, connect and contribute. We are required by law to teach to this curriculum (the whole curriculum not just the AOs), we are required to report against national standards in literacy and numeracy but here's the key thing we are NOT required to teach to the national standards despite what we might be led to believe in som...

It's been a long time since I last wrote, the excuse is that I am doing my masters research this year and any time I go to write something that isn't related to my research I feel guilty! Crazy huh?! But today I am putting my guilt to one side so I can share a wee thought that has been rattling around in my brain for a little while now. A few months ago I read a headline for an article on behaviour management called Be Curious Not Furious and it was a great read and supported a lot of the stress and brain development material I have spoken about previously. But it also sparked another thought and this was about the power of curiosity in my wider teaching practice. Curiosity for me as a teacher means not constantly anticipating and predicting children's responses, losing the predetermined nature that can sometimes feature in classrooms especially when our planning is too tight, too rigid. It means letting go of the tension built from trying to squeeze every last educational ...

I've gotta stop my mind Working overtime It's driving me insane It will not let me live Always so negative It's become my enemy (From Save Me by Jem) Last month I was presenting at the Teachers Matter Conference in Wellington. It is a real privilege to attend these professional development events and to be invited to present is a huge honour indeed. And one I didn’t take lightly. When Karen asked me if I would be interested in coming along I didn’t hesitate, I was in and I was excited. This would be my third opportunity to work at the Teachers Matter Conference and the previous times had been massive for my own learning as a presenter as well as providing me with the opportunity to be inspired both personally and professionally as a teacher, parent and general human being. As the time passed I started to become anxious… I didn’t recognise it as such at the time however, I just thought I was uninspired, stressed, tired. I found it hard to get what I wanted sorted easily, it ...