Reflection on 3 people/events who have influenced my education journey (Coaching and Mentoring paper)

Activity – Telling Your Story

 Identify people and events that have influenced my education journey

·         

 Getting into grammar school

In the last year of Primary school we had to take a test to decide our secondary schooling.  If we passed we went to Grammar School and if we failed we went to Secondary Modern.  I knew I had to pass if I wanted my life to be good basically.  I heard stories about our Secondary Modern school and I did not want to go.  It did not align at all to my future goals.  We were all handed out the envelopes – I got a fat one which meant that I passed.  Thank goodness was all I could think.  I remember that feeling of fear even now very vividly.

This was a strange trigger.  Positive because I knew how much education can enhance or hinder your life chances at 11 and I went to a really good school with generally nice people who wanted to learn.  However, from a societal point of view it is very negative as why should your whole future (to some extent) be based on a couple of tests you do when you are 11?  This is definitely a Social Justice issue and whatever anyone else tries to say I know that it was based on class.  At the Grammar school there were loads more middle class kids than working class kids – some schools taught to the exams and parents paid for tutors.  I went to a very mixed Primary school where not many people passed and there was no extra coaching there.  

·         Miss Searle

She was my first form teacher and my History teacher.  She was mad as a box of frogs but she loved teaching!  She was definitely before her time (and after her time in some ways as for example she always wore her academic gown to teach) but she enthused us all – well maybe not all of us but me definitely!  She was great!

This was a positive trigger as I love learning and I love teaching.  I don’t mind making a fool of myself (within reason) in the classroom and hope I enthuse my students with a sense of loving learning.  She inspired me to visit (in the future) lots different places and historical sites which is fab.  However, she must have really made Knossos into this amazing place in my mind as when I went there I was very disappointed!

·          Going to Long Bay College

Not all teachers at my Grammar school were as great as Miss Searle.  Once we hit 4^th form (year 10) and started preparing for exams – oh my goodness the teaching methods went from pretty good most of the time to sooo boring.  They knew how to get you to pass exams at a high level – but where were all the thinking skills and enthusiasm for learning?  In History all we did was dictation and in English we just read a line and analysed it. 

Luckily for me I moved to NZ with my family and went to Long Bay College for my 6^th and 7^th form.  I actually had interesting teachers again – all be it for 6^th form certificate – a weird system.  My History teacher, really got me excited for History again and there were lots of different teaching activities, it was fun and we had to think.  English was brilliant and very thought provoking.  I really loved it.  The teachers built respectful relationships as well with the students, although some tried to court us too much and I didn't like it which has made me aware of this in my own teaching.

It was a positive trigger for me because I was just going through the motions at my school in England.  Maybe it was my age – I am not sure but if me, someone who loves to learn, was turned off, what would happen to others?  I knew that university was where I had to go if I wanted to live the life I wanted but all this rote learning was driving me crazy.  It was a great move!  Plus there were boys there – a definite positive trigger!  

Are there commonalities across stories?

The commonalities across the stories are they are all about education.  I have a very strong sense that education is very important and great public education for all is vital.  How I am taught has a real impact on me (even today – maybe especially today) and I think this (coupled with my short attention span) is why I try to make my lessons hopefully interesting, hopefully fun and hopefully full of critical thinking.  I believe that my job as a teacher is to make students think and to help grow them as people.  Great relationships are important but you don’t need to get too close to the students – a professional respectful relationship is what we should aim for. 

What does your story tell you about the type of educational leader/ Coach & Mentor you are?

My story tells me that as a leader I am very focused on education which is a good job as I am a teacher!  I think all teachers should be thinking about their own professional journey and engaging with academic thinking all of the time (well maybe not all of the time but a great deal of the time!) and reflection and critical thinking should be part of who we are.  It tells me that I am also child centred and that the student should be first and their experiences in the classroom and outside in the real world should encourage them to love learning.  All children should be given the opportunity to have a fantastic time in school.  It also shows me that I have very strong beliefs about Social Justice issues and that equity is vital.  We shouldn't pigeon hole people and tell them that “this is all we expect of you”  - one of the reasons I am slightly hesitant about Vocational Pathways and in general just doing what the Ministry says to do without a good think first.  I am a pragmatist and believe we have to work in the system and do the best we can but I think we need to think deeply about ideas so we know exactly what they are about – not automatically accepting.

I do find it hard if people aren't so keen on their own professional learning as I am and I  actually think it is unprofessional.  I need to think how I work with people on this – or does my mindset need to change?  I also need to be aware (and I am) that traditional educational settings are not for everyone – it is not some peoples’ cup of tea.  However, we need to try and find what makes that student tick and it may be outside of the classroom.  As I believe in taking personal responsibility for your own learning/ own classroom/own behaviour management I need to be aware that I might not be as supportive as I should be and I have to make sure myself and my coachee/mentee work together to come up with not only the solutions but also the implementation.    

Real live AKO

I talk a lot about the concept of ako (on #edchatnz is one example) and how it is essential in education that authentic learning should be between students and teachers and that the transmission of knowledge and skills has to be a two way street. I think that I do this in my classes to some extent.  However, even though I listen to students' ideas and take note, change or add to my "world view," use their ideas to teach the concepts to other students or get them to teach other students these concepts, I wanted to challenge myself further - I really wanted to give my students agency well as much as possible within NCEA.



Health education gives students quite a lot of scope and their teachers as well. I was challenged through reading a tweet about students teaching teachers and I thought to myself I have the perfect opportunity to do this - AS 91236 Take action to enhance an aspect of people’s well-being within the school or wider community (level 2, 5 credits). It was important for me to do this within my "normal" teaching as I have a lot of senior classes and want to try and make NCEA more viable for interesting, exciting and real learning. I believe strongly that we should fight the good fight within the system and that although students have to do NCEA we have to make it all about the learning.

Anyway, in this AS students have to do something to make peoples' well being improve.  As a PB4L school (first proper year) I felt that one way to reach all students and all staff was to create lesson plans for the form times linked to our key words of respect, resilience and motivation.  It was the students choice on what topic they wanted to do.  However, through ako (them teaching me what is important for them) and the strong mindedness of some of my students (which I love although it makes my life harder!!)  they had their own ideas!

The first group were adamant that they wanted to try and change the uniform so they didn't exactly teach the teachers but met with the BOT to discuss their ideas and the views of the students they had asked in their questionnaires.

The second person wanted to re-vamp our bullying form and that was great as so did I - so she did it in relation to the Ministry's new guidelines.  She came and taught our pastoral team how to use the new form and we fed back ideas to her.

Pastoral team

The second group did want to create lesson plans which was great but they wanted to do sexual identity and treating people who are different to us respectfully, which I think was also great but we are a very traditional style school and these PB4L lessons are delivered by the form teachers. Before teaching the teachers the students wrote the lesson plan, created pre and post questionnaire and resources.  As it was such a sensisitve subject The students also talked to the Guidance Counselor. They did great - explaining the lessons, talking about why it was important to do, answering questions etc.  I did have to after the session field a few comments from teachers especially about the video as it was graphic but it went well and so did the lessons.   It made students and teachers think - the most important thing

Love is all you need

Sexual identity lesson plans

The third group (well one girl) also wanted to complete lesson plans but was keen to look at drink driving and talking about how to resist getting into a car with a drunk driver.   This links to resilience.  She went through her lesson plan, discussed what she wanted them to do and why she chose that path and answered questions.

Resisting getting into a car with someone who has been drinking alcohol

 So, what have we learnt?

ME
1. I have learnt (well reinforced the idea) that although giving your students opportunities to lead and choose their own pathways is great, rewarding and how it should be, it is also hard work.  It was a stressful week for me - especially as a tough topic.  However, one of the most important topics there is

2. It is brilliant for students to come into the staffroom or meetings and be the expert - it is all about their peers so they should have a greater understanding then we do

STUDENT VOICE - a sample of students 

1. What did you feel about talking to the teachers/BOT?

ROBERT It was scary but once i got to know the board they are great people to talk and share ideas with.

KATIE It felt like we had control of the problem we were discussing and we felt like that teachers were finally listening to what us students what to say.
 BRIE It was okay but our turnout wasn't that great
 ELISE I felt pretty comfortable with talking to the BOT in our meeting and the teachers who’s classes we were surveying were very helpful in allowing us to take time out of their work schedule to do so
CORTNEY they were good 

2. Do you think they listened to you and followed your ideas?

 ROBERT Yes they did greatly and explain why they cant do our ideas and  explained why and give as a new idea to work on.

KATIE They listened to us and gave us ideas about what we were doing.

 BRIE  NO
ELISE The BOT listened to our presentation and ideas and they were very helpful in understanding where we were coming from, offering us compromises when they could not give us what we wanted. The only I had with speaking to them was that they continuously interrupted us when we were doing our presentation even though at the start we asked them to save all questions until we had finished our presentation.
CORTNEY YES

3. What advice would you  give other students doing this?

 ROBERT Prepare well and be confident towards the people you discus with. Work as a team and have a back up plan.

KATIE Don't be afraid to speak your mind and tell everyone what you think about what you are doing your topic on. And tell them how you actually feel.
 ELISE Choose people to work with who you know will get work done and not muck around leaving you to do it all because it would make your meeting with the BOT much easier for all of you and it would be easier for you all to pass your internals.
CORTNEY be confident, its not that scary
BRIE  pick a subject that is more likely to happen

4. Did you learn anything from this activity?

 ROBERT to be confident towards your group you speaking to and have a back up plan increase it doesn't work. be realistic.

KATIE To not be scared about talking to different people about your problems and to speak up for what you want people to know and think about.

BRIE  take more responsibility in doing m wok

ELISE  I learnt that you can actually make a significant change within a school if you are a student with a school project.
CORTNEY - no

5. Anything to add?

ROBERT nope :)
KATIE Understand what other people are saying and to get there point on the topic listen to what ours options are. 
CORTNEY no

TEACHER VOICE

·          Plus – great for them and us

·         Minus – none

·         Interesting – fosters communication, models the idea that we are all learners, encourages students to take responsibility for their own learning

       Seemed to be a little awkward ---for both!?

·         Need to get/canvas the students' perspective?

·         Maybe a more "neutral" area should be considered?

·         Good but it scares the crap out of the students!

·         I really enjoyed the students coming into the staff room teaching us. It would have taken them so much courage and confidence to get up and do that! I couldn't even imagine doing that at my school when I was a student! I think it made it more relevant because they had put it all together themselves.
     Overall- awesome!!!

  fine with me

#edchatnz conference

#edchatnz conference at Hobsonville Point Secondary School

8-9^th August 2014

What is #edchatnz and why as a teacher should I know more?

I discovered #edchatnz (don’t forget the hashtag #) earlier this year when I finally decided to give twitter a proper go.  I had had an account for a couple of years but never found my calling – I was already using Facebook personally and loved to try new technology but couldn’t see the point of twitter.  However, a couple of young teachers at school had been singing its praises for a while and they seemed to have lots of innovative exciting ideas around pedagogy, so I thought that I would try again!

My attempts to connect with the twitter world would have failed again but I found the #edchatnz community which meets specifically on twitter every second fortnight from 8.30 to 9.30 pm.   It is a time to be challenged about a number of issues in education with the central question always– how can we do the best for our students? This is led by the remarkable @MissDtheTeacher otherwise known as Danielle Myburgh who is the host and founder.  Although Danielle had been tweeting on international education sites she had found that there was no way to connect to NZ teachers on twitter so she decided to start her own hashtag and #edchatnz was born in 2012.

Danielle told me that she loves twitter because when she uses it she is not limited by her immediate surroundings and has 24/7 support – she is a true global citizen.  It might surprise you to know that Danielle has only taught for three years but this is the great thing about true leadership, especially at the grass route level, anyone can do it and she does it in style. She also has the support of her school leaders, including her Principal Mauri Abraham who believes that everyone is a leader, who give her the freedom and support to fly – a message to all school leaders out there.

#edchatNZ conference

The conference was born out of a discussion between Danielle and some of her fellow tweeps (a person’s followers on twitter) a number who had been interacting for two years or so but most had never met!  It took the steering committee (from Auckland, Wellington, Hamilton and Christchurch) just 20 weeks to organise the whole conference using Google Hangout and Google aps for education meeting for 30 minutes before #edhchatnz kicked off on a Thursday night.  They had decided from the beginning to make it affordable – you could go for $20!  All of the presenters, through the steering group’s connections, gave their time freely.

350 people gathered at Hobsinville Point for the opening Keynote.  One of the key themes of the conference for me was the idea of the lone nut, check it out on youtube Leadership Most of us don’t work in new build schools with handpicked teams who build and live the school vision but we can still initiate change in our schools – not change for change sake but to improve the learning of our students.  We might be the lone nut for a while until we can hopefully encourage someone else to support us or just as importantly we might be the first follower who sees someone in our school trying to be innovative and then stands by them as support.  

The conference was about, as Karen Melhuish Spencer from CORE said in her closing remarks, “growing purpose ready learners.”   Technology itself is not innovation in schools it is a tool to help create a transformative curriculum.  Yes, technology was abundant at the Hobsonville Primary and Secondary schools and we saw students use it (both had a normal school day on the Friday) but there were two common themes in the conference for me.  Firstly, social justice through making a real difference and by keeping it authentic and secondly, ways to enable students to critically think and make connections in their learning.  I was lucky to see a number of HPSS teachers discussing how they do these things through Project Based Learning, cross curricula themes and SOLO taxonomy to name a few.  I also loved Pam Hook, our NZ guru, talking about SOLO and inspiring us all to give students the tools and a common language to improve their critical thinking skills and understanding.

Seeing the political debate between Labour, the Green Party and National, chaired by Claire Amos, was very stimulating.  Danielle told me that she loved hearing teachers coming out of the debate saying that it had increased their interest in politics as she believes that we must have a bigger influence in politics if we want a bigger change.  However, my own highlight was listening to Kelston Boys High School talking about their Year 12 Health class’ anti bullying programme – it encompassed all of the themes of the conference – what a fantastic group of young people.  Follow them on Defeat the Label Facebook page

Final thoughts

It was great, although I must admit slightly strange, to meet other twitter folk for the first time who I follow and who follow me.  I think it will make tweeting even better as I can put a real person to the handle.   I was especially impressed by teachers who took a day of unpaid leave, paid their own travel accommodation and conference fee because they believed so strongly in #edchatnz and what it stood for.  I thank these teachers who care about our young people in NZ so much.

I would also like to thank Danielle and her steering committee for the conference and the Thursday night discussions.  I can only say how much I appreciate the intellectual stimulation, innovative initiatives (I have initiated at my school Techie Breakie and students teaching teachers from ideas on twitter), the support when I try to implement ideas and the total positivity.  It is great!  Thanks to the PPTA ICT committee for paying for me to go – very much appreciated.

If you feel like the only lone nut in your school and/or you’re just looking for a challenge and ideas on how to improve the learning of your students I would encourage all teachers to try twitter and more specifically #edchatnz and its subsidiaries for English, Science and education books and maybe more by the time this article is printed!  It doesn't have to be an extra and you don’t have to do anything at first, just watch the Thursday night debate for example.  As Danielle astutely said we have to start encouraging and connecting to each other in our own schools and with all schools in NZ if we want to make real change.  Give it a go!

Samantha Mortimer

Te Aroha College

@sammortimer70

Name of my blog, twitter and #edchatnz

Well, that was pretty tough - naming my blog.  I was debating between "blog from a small town," the uncatchy "my personal challenge to write a blog" and ummm not sure but I suppose "Collecting my thoughts" is actually what I am going to do.  I wonder if I can change it?

I have recently, well since about 3 months ago, become very attached to twitter - I have definitely found my "nerdy self" in it.  I enjoy the challenges, the co-constructing of ideas and general way of connecting with many similar minded people that you get from twitter and especially #edchatnz which is fab fun to take part in.

It was actually #edchatnz which has challenged me to do lots of things that I have been thinking about for a while: making a Facebook page for my classes - well one of them, giving me more confidence to consistently discuss issues in SLT, among other things. As an aside I would have liked to have thought more about modern learning environments before we revamped a science room in the block I teach in during the summer 13/14 - another blog topic I think.

Of course it was also #edchatnz that encouraged me to blog.
In one such conversation we were discussing "students teaching teachers" and it made me rethink my year 12 assessment to really emphasise this.  Now the students are starting to teach the teachers and I couldn't wait to tweet the people I had been discussing it with.  I will blog more later about this as I think I want to write an article about it.

Is this what blogging does - it makes you want to discuss more and more things in greater detail?!

Now the next thing is to publish. Haha!  Not yet - a bit scary actually - maybe later tonight?!