Happy

Some weeks you just have to focus on the happy. A wise piece of advice I got this week from @GeoMouldey

So here are my GREAT things that happened this week!

1. I got an Easter present from my secret buddy. My first EVER Lindt Bunny. Our school has a secret buddy society and all the staff have someone they have to be 'nice' to for the year. Secret Buddy's are reveled at the end of the year function. It feels good to give, and it's exciting to receive!

2. I graduated to the next level of teaching P4C - small steps.  We got a new resource at school and I ran my first Philosophy session from it. "Philosophical and ethical inquiry for students in the middle years and beyond." by Chesters et al. I had a great discussion with my Y8 students using Bob Dylan's Blowin' in the Wind as stimulus for thinking. My students had some awesome ideas about what Dylan meant by "The answers are blowing in the wind." 

3. I found clipboards for $2 each and decorated them to put on my classroom wall to make a display for "Great Writing" - I always want to display students work - but have found it hard - looking forward to putting the display together and getting some student's everyday work on the wall! 

4. My class got out of the classroom and we went on our first field trip of the year. We visit the local Museum and dressed up in WW1 uniforms to learn more about ANZACs and the war. There was some great learning, and loads of things to be hand on with. It did mean almost 90mins of walking for my class - but it was a great day, and we enjoyed being outside together. (Loads of complaining - and 'Are we there yet!") I feel lucky to live in a small town where we can get out and WALK to the museum. Looking forward to next weeks visit to the local War Memorial. 

5. We stream maths at BIS - and I have one of the lower classes. This week they successfully added & subtracted DECIMALS! I have never seen kids so excited about maths. This term I taught written form instead of the Numeracy project - and my students have had success after success. They feel confident about maths - something these guys probably never had had. When they solved addition problems for 7 digit numbers there were high fives all round. 

6. #TWIMA - I introduced this to my class a week or so ago. We did 100 dreams in 10mins - I have never seen so many smiles in a classroom. EVERY single student left with a smile, and went on to try and make their dreams come true.  When we got the email on Friday morning Room 1 were so excited that their writing would be in a book & that there was a possibility to create music to go along with it really made some of the class really excited. 

The more I wrote - the more I realised that my week wasn't as bad as I thought it had been.

What were your happy moments this week?

After 8 years at school

This year I am teaching year 8. You would think my students had school kinda under control by now. After 7 years & 8 weeks at school you would think they know the general rules & expectations of how a classroom runs and can work independently to complete work to an acceptable standard. Alas - I am beginning to think I have set my own expectations of my students way too high.

I am trying to allow my students to be independent self managing learners. However I am finding that I am backtracking, explaining, re-explaining and using wait time over and over again. Small things bug me - like not following instructions and calling out. I know why these small things happen - it's because I talk to much, or I give too many instructions at once -this is something I need to work on. It's the bigger things that have been learnt over 7 years at school that I am struggling to fix.

I want students to have choices and decide for themselves what tasks they should be doing, to be able to come to work shops when they need, and work collaboratively with each other. Instead I am getting 101 questions. What should I be doing? What do you think? Is this right? Does this look okay to you? What should I do next? What are we doing next period? What do you want me to do? Just tell me what to do! These questions are from ALL level of students - low level to my GATE students.

For 7 years of their lives they have been told what to do, where to sit and what is happening next. Given the freedom of choice they are lost.

By the end of Year 8 I would love my students to be critical, creative, caring and reflective thinkers. I would also like them to be able to manage themselves to complete a cycle of inquiry and produce something they are proud of. I want school to be somewhere they want to be and are excited about the things we are learning about. I want things to be authentic, hands on, filled with creativity and FUN.

I have high expectations of my students. I believe they are all capable of these things - whether high learning needs students who are not expected to pass level 1 of the curriculum or my GATE students who need extending beyond their years.

How I am going to do this is going to be a journey. It'll either break me or make me as a teacher and as a person. Step one on this journey is establishing a joint understanding of what managing self really means. Back to the drawing board for my class, and back to square one for me.

What do you want students be capable by the end of Year 8?