August 21 2012

In the end, only kindness matters ….

Today was a wonderful day. Not because I taught any amazingly brilliant classes – sadly, not sure they qualified for that today!!!! Not because of the weather – froze my not insignificant butt off in my classroom today, despite the appearance of the sun!!!! It was a wonderful day because of how terrible yesterday was.
I had a class that was, shall we say, difficult. It’s not unusual for this class – all boys, challenging behaviours, and high levels of disengagement with school. Yesterday, it was windy, they were grumpy, and we struggled to get through the lesson. I kept breathing, held my temper, and continued to be polite and encouraging to them, despite the fact that really, the last thing I felt like doing was being kind and generous to teenage boys who thought I was the devil. 60 minutes later, and I walked out of my room with a big sigh of relief.
I had them this morning, and was half-expecting a repeat performance. I was pleasantly surprised though, when one of my students walked in early (which almost NEVER happens!!!!!) and came up to me to apologise.

“Sorry for being rude to you yesterday Miss, I had the shits about something else, and you were still really nice even though I was horrible to you. Yeah, sorry about that.”

Not only was it surprising, but it really made me think. Sometimes, we get so caught up in doing all the daily management at schools, the referrals for negative behaviour, the paperwork, the running around, and the politics of schools, that we forget about the important things. The little things. The things that are going to make a difference in the lives of the students we are there for. Yesterday, the important thing was not all the other running around I had to do …. It was the decision I made to take another breath, count to 10, smile at the kid who was set on making my life miserable for no apparent reason, and just get through the lesson with a minimal amount of tension.

The title for this post is from a Jewel song. it’s been going through my head all day, as I’ve been thinking about the little things we do that make a difference. What has yours been this week?

 

June 25 2012

Almost there ….

I feel like every teacher I talk to at the moment is feeling the same way I am. Flat. Exhausted. Fighting off the sickness that has been threatening them for weeks, and is bound to take up part of their holidays. And, like me, they have a mountain of work to get done in these remaining days of first semester (someone posted in one of my networks last night about how many centimetres of paper they had to work through – I’m too scared to measure mine!) As school promotions officer at my school, I am responsible for putting together our once-a-term newsletter, and if it’s not finished and published by Friday, I know I’ll end up tinkering with it for most of the holidays …. call it OCD, call it perfectionism, whatever it is, I suffer from it, and I need a break! So, I’m trying to convince myself of this …

I don’t know how successful I’m going to be, but I’m trying to give myself a break. To not get caught up in the things that I can’t control, and to stress about how it could be if only I had the time, or the resources, or the info supplied by others that I needed when I needed it ….. sometimes, Tamara, you just need to get over it, suck it up princess, and do it!!!

So, Friday. Buzz day. It’s going to be done, and I’m going to have a relatively work free holiday …. or at least, a holiday unencumbered by stressing about our newsletter, I’m sure I’ll have something else to obsess over, I’m good like that!!

So what’s your aim before holidays kick in? Good luck with it, may the force be with you!!

June 17 2012

The Hills are alive ….

I recently attended my first TeachMeet. If you don’t know what they are, it’s worth checking them out – great professional development and dialogue with colleagues from all walks of life! At the Hills Teachmeet, we had beginning teachers, teachers in training, primary, secondary, head teachers, LOTE, English, Maths, deputies and principals, from public and private systems. We also had people presenting via SKYPE, one from their loungeroom in regional NSW, one from the side of the lake near his house in Victoria, and one from overseas somewhere! It was a great experience to be a part of, even through my terror.

Why terror? Well, I’m totally comfortable talking in front of my classroom. I can cope at staff meetings at school. But put me in front of an assembly with parents, or a group of people I don’t know, and my knees start to shake. I volunteered to do a PK session (20 slides, 20 seconds each) about my experiences teaching Gaming to my yr9 boys class last year, and I think I was lucky it was something I was passionate about, otherwise I wouldn’t have made it through!

It was a few weeks ago now, but I’ve been flat out with reports, so I’m only just now getting around to sharing this here, as promised to some tweeps at the time. You can view the slideshare of my presentation, and underneath it I’ve pasted my notes about each slide. They are pretty reflective of what I said about each one ….. not word for word though, as I embraced the PK philosophy, and just talked!

  1. My experience with trialling a unit of Game study with a yr 9 class I taught last year. Some successes, some challenges for the future.
  2. Boys class – 16 students, varied backgrounds, wide range of issues which have the potential to impact their learning. History of a distinct lack of engagement, particularly in English!
  3. This is what we have to cover in English –content, literacy, grammar, skills … it’s full on, and it’s often a very text-focussed course – often the biggest concession that is made to meet the needs of the students is picking a novel which has masculine themes if you’ve got a lot of boys in your class.
  4. Surveyed the class at the beginning of the year – and this is what they thought. English is rubbish. Lots of boring books. What’s the point? One student told me that “teachers think they can try and make it interesting, but I don’t know why they bother. English sucks”.
  5. I spoke to my HT, the principal, a lot of people around who were starting to look at gaming in schools, but there wasn’t really anything that FIT what I wanted to do… small sections of games used to illustrate a class topic, for example. But nothing holistic. When I told my class that in T3 we’d be working in our Interactive gaming room, which is usually just used for sports or drama, they were over the moon.
  6. They thought we’d be doing this all the time. A whole term of playing games? They were psyched, and started planning what games they’d bring in, if we had enough controllers, and whether they’d be able to play online or not.
  7. The reality was quite different. We spent the first 4 weeks of the term doing some solid in depth research. We looked at the background of the gaming industry, and their target audience. We studied ads for games, and looked at how they targeted that audience.
  8. These low literacy, low interest, low engagement kids got very familiar with these terms, and more. Before they picked up a controller in class, they were able to talk about stock characters, symbolism, and narrative threads.
  9. Our equipment in the gaming room – 3 wii consoles, 1 ps3, 4 networked pcs, 2 nitendo dsi’s and 2 PSP’s. Most students spent more time on the wii’s and PC’s, with almost no use of the stand-alone handheld consoles.
  10. These were our texts for the term. The class suggested games that would be appropriate based on our research, and also limitations of ratings. They were dying to play COD, but were satisfied with lego starwars and age of empires as suitably violence laden substitutes.
  11. So what were the benefits? There was a marked increase in the level of positive cooperation in class. The boys had to negotiate who was playing on which console when, what games were being used, who would work with who. It helped build cohesion in a difficult group.
  12. We got to deal effectively with a wide range of cross curricular outcomes – particularly HSIE and PDHPE. Incidental conversations about what Alice Leung was doing with Need for Speed in her science class led to some great discussions about what games applied to other subjects.
  13. It was important that this group recognised that what they were doing was significant! The emphasis on the rigourous academic study at the beginning of the term helped emphasise that this was serious stuff – as did my head teacher’s occasional input, when she’d pop in and say “wow, I can’t believe you are doing archetypes with this class, I’m not even attempting that with mine until next year!” It really helped to build their belief in their own capacity.
  14. They were the experts. I didn’t know how to unlock easter eggs on these games, or find the hidden levels. Mostly, I’d tell them “this is what I want us to be able to do” and they’d sort out what we needed, and how we’d accomplish that. It was certainly a challenging thing in some respects – to walk into a lesson and not really know what was going to happen – but letting the boys have the reigns worked fairly well.
  15. Biggest success was that they were empowered – they saw themselves as able to achieve, and it removed many of those barriers that they saw in front of them previously. When faced with a test at the end of the unit, they were excited, because they actually knew something about what was being assessed – and it was meaningful learning!
  16. EDUCATIONAL OUTCOMES – improvement across the class in almost all cases, above the rate of improvement for the year group.
  17. Feedback from students was, not surprisingly, fairly positive. 🙂
  18. Maybe not 100%, but there was certainly an increase in attendance for this class, which continued after the unit was finished, into our Shakespeare unit in the following term. Not all teachers were happy about these kids showing up more – but it was certainly working for me!!
  19. Negatives – initial perception by other staff that this was a bludge, and that it was just a way to kill time and keep them entertained. Perceptions by other students that “Rodgers’ class are just playing games, it’s not fair!” were also difficult to address without them seeing what we were actually doing.
  20. It was almost too big a unit to try and manage in just one term – when I do this again, I’ll be looking at ways to limit it a bit, so it’s not bigger than Ben Hur. Limiting of the games studied, through consultation with class.
  21. I would so do this again – and I will be!
  22. Contact details.

Sorry about the “dot point” notes – next time, I’ll work out a way to share this more effectively. But there you go – my PK session from the Hills Teachmeet, about gaming in English!

June 13 2012

Six years.

It’s been six years since I started working at my current school. I got a phone call 2 weeks before the end of term 1 2006 offering me a position, and after finding out where on earth Evans was, I said yes. I was doing some casual work at the time, after turning down a full-time position at the school I was previously part-time at, because I didn’t really want to be working full time until my youngest child started school. Circumstances changed, though, and we’d just decided that I should start looking for something full time, but relatively close to home …. this job was perfect!!

So, six years on, and what have I learnt? A lot. I’ve learnt that I’m a much better teacher than I thought I was.

I’ve discovered that in DO like the idea of being a head teacher. I said, which I first started teaching, that I wanted to be in a classroom, not in executive meetings, but the opportunities I’ve had over the past few years have shown me that I could do HT … and, in fact, that I want to. I’m still clarifying whether for me, that’s going to be English, or in a Welfare role, both of which have their attractions for me, but it’s definitely something that’s on my radar.

I’ve learnt that it’s ok to say no. That sometimes, I really SHOULD say no!! I’m a chronic people pleaser, and that often results in me doing way too much for other people, and not nearly enough for myself. So, I’m practicing …. and sometimes, feeling completely ok about saying “no, I’m sorry, I can’t help you with that!!” (I’m still very likely to find a way to help, though, coz that’s just how I roll!!)

I’ve learnt that I’m more capable than I give myself credit for, and that my doubts? Sometimes they are useful. I’m giving less creedence to the “you suck” side of my self-doubt, but paying attention to what they are telling me, because sometimes, my own insecurities about something will help me discover what I need to get better at. Sometimes they help me go in a direction I never dreamed possible!! Sometimes they are just bogus crap, so I ignore those ones …. but you know, it’s all about discernement.

Most importantly, I think for me, anyway …. I’ve discovered that teaching IS ME. It’s not just something I’m doing because I don’t have the time to go back to uni and do my PhD (yes, I still want to do it ….. no, not giving up my career to!) The reason I get so pissed when people have a go at teachers and their holidays? It’s because I have ENORMOUS pride in my profession. I think we rock, and I’m proud to be a part of such an amazing industry. I love what I do, and I love where I do it. So, six years? I’ve probably got another 18 months in me here, before I start thinking about moving on …. but it will be done with a lot of tears! I’m not ready to go yet, though – there’s still a lot I want to do in this incarnation of Rodgers’ Room!

June 30 2011

On being connected ….

confusedI’ve been thinking over the past week, since coming back from Unconference, about what “being connected” means to me. Both personally and professionally. This post is really motivated by 2 pechakucha presentations by members of my PLN, presented on the first day of unconference during our lunch break. The first, by Clarinda Brown, was a reflection on her 12 months, how her life has changed, and what’s important to her now that wasn’t a year ago. The second, by Pip Cleaves, was about the notion of 21st century learning, and a key line from her presentation struck me – “We shouldn’t be talking about 21st century skills, we’re 11 years into it. They are just skills.” (I think I’ve paraphrased Pip a little there, but that was the gist of it!!)

I was talking to my principal yesterday, who is new to our school, and the discussion got onto the topic of what’s working, and what has changed since she arrived. And that, too, led me to thinking about what’s changed for me in my professional life.

So, what has changed? For me, the MAJOR difference in my experiences and skills as a teacher is directly attributed to the expansion of my PLN. This time last year, I had very few connections to other professionals outside the boundaries of my own school. Over the 2nd half of last year, I ventured onto Yammer (which we are saying goodbye to today) and then Twitter, and the professional dialogue that opened up to me was mindblowing. I’ve always been the kind of person who has loved to share with others, but had little opportunity to do that outside the walls of my staffroom. Now, the possibilities to network, to share ideas, to get feedback … they are almost limitless, and they are expanding almost every day, as new people get added to my list!

Personally, I’ve always been a social media junkie … I love facebook. I’m a pop-culture freak. And I think that we as educators are doing our students a great disservice if we don’t recognise the role that social media plays in their lives. I also think that as an English teacher, social media can be ENORMOUSLY useful. I’ve had discussions about the groups and “like” features on facebook to help illustrate the concepts behind our Belonging Area of Study for the HSC. The opportunity to discuss modality, tone, methods of communication, characterisation …. I can’t even tell you how beneficial facebook is to me as a point of reference for students! I believe that social media, of which facebook is a part, is something that will be filling the landscape of communication in an ever-increasing way, and as a KLA which fundamentally deals with communication, we need to prepare ourselves, and our classrooms, to deal with this effectively, or we run the risk of being left behind, and teaching 20th century skills to a 21st century clientele.

phone boxSo, social media in schools? Yep, I’m a fan. My school is one of the first that I know of in NSW to be creating a social media presence. We’ve set up a twitter feed, and a facebook page. We’re working on a school youtube channel. And we’re moving towards a more regular email newsletter update about what’s going on around our school. A few other schools are doing this too, and it’s great to be able to chat to people I know in twitter about our experiences with this – and, I must say, it’s kind of cool when people approach me to ask how I did this, or what we have done there …. I don’t often consider myself an “expert” on anything!! lol

How’s it working? A lot more successfully than I’d envisaged, actually! There is a lot of negativity in mainstream media about facebook in schools, and it’s potential for cyberbullying, stalking, etc. I get that. I don’t think, however, that’s a reason to dismiss it completely – I think it’s an opportunity for us to engage with our students over these issues, to better prepare them to be “21st Century communicators”. We did little to no advertisement of our school facebook page, and about 2 months after it launched, we have over 2oo people “liking” the page. In the beginning most of our likers were my friends, who I asked to like it so we could claim our page name, but the balance has definitely shifted – most of our followers now are students and parents, and it’s been an effective tool to share information with them, as well as get some feedback, and start some discussions.

Problems? Yep, we’ve had a few. What’s surprising to me is how few we’ve had!! We’ve deleted only 3 comments – one because I accidently posted twice, one because some inappropriate language slipped by the FB filters, and one that was a spam post from a US homework help site. That’s it!! Given the clientele of the page, and the negative hype surrounding facebook in schools, I would have expected a lot more.

Benefits? Well, I’ve already mentioned the increased communication with our school community. The main benefit for me has been in my classroom discussions with students. I’m a year advisor, and with my cohort this term in Study Skills lessons, we’ve been looking at Cybersafety and Digital Citizenship. The interactions I have with them through the school facebook page have given me the opportunity to talk in real terms with them about these issues, and it’s been a really positive experience.

I feel like this post has jumped about a bit, but that’s ok … I’m not really expecting this will be anything more than a bit of a reflection for me on my place in this digital world!! If you’re reading it, though, I’d love to hear what you think, either about your personal digital presence, or the place of social media in schools. Thanks for popping by!

June 19 2011

Gotta Share!!!

 

Last minute unconf prep. (Anyone who knows me irl knows why the “last minute” thing is NOT a surprise!!) And of course, things are going wrong again  – this time with my stupid head!! I’m pumping drugs (of the legal kind) big time in order to fend of this impending headache (I refuse to call it the M word because I do NOT have time for a migraine at the moment!!) Plus, I created a spreadsheet to keep track of my registration in the sessions for the next 2 days, then went to upload it to google docs to share with other attendees, but it’s not working …. arggghh again! So, if anyone has any great ideas, that require minimal effort from me, I’d be happy to hear them, otherwise I’m all out of options for it. You can download the file from here if you’d like to use it – it’s a simple “choose from the list” set up. Click the arrow next to each discussion or microlearning session, select what you’ve registered for, and then type in anything else you’ve got planned, and save it on your desktop to help you keep on track throughout the 2 days.

UNCONF Activity_Schedule

One of the awesome things about the leadup to unconf has been the sms updates. The latest one we received had me laughing, and my daughters stole my phone so they could watch it. Check it out – it’s very cool!

Improv Anywhere – Gotta Share!!

June 16 2011

1:1Unconference …. woo hoo!

I love technology. Did I mention that? LOVE it!! And I love learning so much, it’s hard to explain it to you!! So, when I first heard a couple of colleagues in my PLN throwing around the idea of an UNconference, I was intrigued. I am always looking for ways to increase engagement in my classroom (for both students and myself!) and looking at different kinds of learning, so the idea of a technology in education conference which wasn’t just “chalk and talk with shiny gadgets” really appeals to me. I approached my principal last week, got approval to go, and am all booked in.

I can’t wait – but I’m also a little nervous. Why? Well, I’ve been asked to lead a facilitated discussion about 1:1 learning in the English classroom. 1:1 learning is about 1 person – 1 device, whether that be laptops, DERvices, tablets, or mobile phones, so it’s supposed to be a 1 hour discussion session with up to 24 people on the implications and applications of this to the English classroom. So, nervous? Yes…. because I don’t know what I have to offer! I know that I’m passionate about what I do in my room, and I’ve grown leaps and bounds in my confidence with this in the past year, but I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed at the idea of leading a session with other educators. I’m sure it’ll be fine, and everyone else is going there with the same idea I am – that we’re all hoping to talk, network, and learn something from the other people there. I’m hoping I’ll get over the stress of it, and learn something awesome from the people in my discussion group, as well as hopefully offer something to them!!

Are you going to the UNconference? If you are, come up and say hi …. I’ll be helping to man the social media desk on Tuesday afternoon too!! How many PD sessions encourage you to spend time tweeting? LOVE it!!

June 15 2011

Rodgers’ Room is open …. kind of!

So, I’ve had this blog parked for a little while now, waiting till I had time to get around to actually starting it!! I can tell the teachers who are reading it are laughing right now at the idea of “time”, right? So, I figured I’d start off with an opening post …. a little bit of a blurb about me as a teacher, why I love what I do, and why I keep coming back for more, even after a bad day/week/month/term (and they do happen sometimes!)

I’ve always wanted to be a teacher, for as long as I can remember. Apart from a brief flirtation with an alternate career (I enrolled in Commerce/Law at uni in my first year because I thought Marketing sounded cool!!) English has always been my passion. Those Gen Yer’s might not remember it, but the Challenger launch in 1986 had civilian members of the crew. One of those, Christa MacAuliffe, was an English teacher, and as an 11year old, I was a bit entranced by the idea of going into space (who hasn’t been sometimes?) so I watched her story with interest. Well, Challenger blew up. On her tombstone, Christa has inscribed a quote which has kind of been my teaching motto – “I touch the future – I teach.” I believe that what we do as teachers has almost incalculable impact on the future, in so many ways, and I feel priveleged to be a part of a profession that is so important, and so valuable.

So, what are my passions as a teacher? My classroom is a special place – for me, definitely, but also, I hope, for my students! I’m obsessed with pop-culture. I believe that every text on the HSC prescriptions list has a Simpsons episode which could be used as a related text. (Happy to do the research on this, if someone wants to pay for it!) I’m what a yr10 student of mine calls a “functional nerd” – I might not know exactly what the specs are, but I know what I want it to do, and I’m obsessed with new shiny gadgets, and how I can use them in my classroom. I also love to read. OLD SKOOL though …. I don’t yet own a kindle or e-reader, and am coveting an iPad, but when I do get one, my first love for reading will still be paper. Books are a huge part of my life, and I have been known to launch into extended rants about certain novels which shall remain nameless (cough **sparkly vampires** cough) and why they should NOT be considered literature. I love finding new ways for students to engage with the textual world around them, and am convinced that there is as much value in studying Eminem or COD as there is in analysing Blake or Chaucer.

I’m a social networking addict. I jumped at the chance to run our school social media presence, mostly because I’m on facebook a lot anyway, I might as well make it work for me! I think that mobile phones in the classroom are a massively underused tool, and I’m pushing bigtime for there to be more recognition and use of the tech skills that kids carry around in their pockets. (I must confess, part of this comes from my own mobile phone addiction – my long-awaited iPhone 4 is one of my most prized possessions. Apple haters need not comment on this!) I tweet. I youtube. I blog (well derr – you’re reading it! but I have a personal, long-running, ocassionally neglected blog too). I text sometimes more than I talk, much to the dismay of my mother, but I text using correct spelling and punctuation, much to the horror of my students!

So, that’s me. And this is my Room. I don’t really have a vision for where this blog is going, but the unknown nature of the journey is part of the fun, right? Thanks for visiting!

April 13 2007

What teachers make …

I was just checking out the blogs of people who left a comment at Little Book of Sketches … I found this at kpitt.typepad.com … I love it! So during these school holidays, this is for all of you who teach, or who have a teacher in your lives somewhere – it’s a great read!
WHAT TEACHERS MAKE
The dinner guests were sitting around the table discussing life. One man, a CEO, decided to explain the problem with education. He argued, “What’s a kid going to learn from someone who decided his best option in life was to become a teacher ?” He reminded the other dinner guests what they say about teachers: “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.”
To stress his point he said to another guest; “You’re a teacher, Bonnie. Be honest. What do you make ?” Bonnie, who had a reputation for honesty and frankness replied, “You want to know what I make?
(She paused for a second, then began…)
“Well, I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could. I make a C+ feel like a Medal of Honour. I make kids sit through 40 minutes of class time when their parents can’t make them sit for 5 without an I Pod, Game Cube or movie rental…
You want to know what I make?”
(She paused again and looked at each and every person at the table.)
I make kids wonder.
I make them question.
I make them criticize.
I make them apologize and mean it.
I make them have respect and take responsibility for their actions.
I teach them to write and then I make them write.
I make them read, read, read.
I make them show all their work in math.
I make my students from other countries learn everything they need to know in English while preserving their unique cultural identity.
I make my classroom a place where all my students feel safe.
I make my students stand to sing Advance Australia Fair because we live in the best country in the world .
Finally, I make them understand that if they use the gifts they were given, work hard, and follow their hearts, they can succeed in life.
(Bonnie paused one last time and then continued.)
“Then, when people try to judge me by what I make, I can hold my head up high and pay no attention because they are ignorant… You want to know what I make?
I MAKE A DIFFERENCE.
What do you make?”
THERE IS MUCH TRUTH IN THIS STATEMENT:
“Teachers make every other profession.”

So big hugs to all the teachers out there!!!

Don’t forget to check out Little Book Of Sketches … there is a great comp running at the moment where you can win free scrapping products, and lets face it, are there any better kinds of products than free ones???
October 27 2006

Happy World Teacher’s Day!


I mentioned that I won a prize in the treasure hunt on ScrapbookingTop50? Well, my prize arrived … OMG! I’m still not over the shock – so much stuff, I don’t know how Jude got the box taped shut! TOO noice! I got everything you see in the picture, plus a $50 gift voucher to KSK, so I’m pretty happy. How nice is all that Urban Lily? Totally loving it! Plus a Lime Tart kit – I already had this one (all the bright papers in the top right hand corner) but couldn’t decide what side of them to use, as they are all double sided, so I’m more than happy to have them again! Plus, I didn’t know that Heidi Swapp had a smaller set of alpha masks – so now I have both sizes! Some awesome stamps from Scrappin’ Bug Stamps rounded out my faves, although everything is so nice, I just don’t know where to start!

In other news, I’ve finished my lo for round 2 of Chookscraps Survivor … and I’m loving it! I’ll upload it as soon as the judging for this round is finished, along with the verdict … lol. And most importantly – it’s World Teacher’s Day! You’d think that a teacher would be on top of stuff like this, wouldn’t you? Well, guess who’s kids went to school today with nothing for their teachers’? That’s right, campers, I forgot about it. So a big “spoil the teacher” session coming up on monday, to make up for it! Ok, I’ve got to go and get some scrapping done – I’m on a roll!