The best classroom in the world.

The best classrooms aren't necessarily the ones with four walls.

Year 9 is an interesting time for kids. At our school it's a limbo space, a twilight time between the children that they were and the adults they will become. The desire to work to please parents or teachers has long passed. The need to work in VCE seems still far distant. For some, it's a time to opt out and when that happens it's often really hard to opt back in.

That was certainly my own personal experience. A bright and engaged student until year 8, I became a stereo type of angst ridden adolescence. I hated the conformity of the classroom, I despised the boring text book, one size fits all approach of many of my teachers, I found it difficult to find relevance to my world in the tasks I was asked to complete at school. I did opt back in eventually, but only because I was lucky enough to have a couple of teachers who took the time to see the value in me despite my arrogance and refusal to toe the traditional line.

That was 30 years ago but nothing much has changed. We still expect kids to keep plugging away , doing things our way even though we know it is essential for them to find their own way.We serve up a regurgitated diet of text book content seasoned with a sprinkling of 'active', but not necessarily relevant learning. We expect them to conform to school uniform and school rules, even though we know they'll learn best by making their own mistakes. And a lot of kids respond just the way I did. They switch off from school and more critically, the type of teacher student relationship that is so vital to engaged learning becomes very hard to maintain.

This year we decided to try something a bit different with our year 9s at the end of the school year. Like many of the programs that run in private schools (where funding makes it possible to be alternative), and the government run Alpine School program (where places are limited), we wanted to give them some real life, rich tasks to finish off their middle years schooling. We called it the 'Survivor' program and based the final 5 weeks of term around a range of life skill's and outdoors activities. I think the whole program was pretty successful but this blog describes the two activities that I was involved in.

One of the 'Survivor' challenges was to bike ride 100kms from Colac to Apollo Bay along the Beech Forest Rail Trail over 3 days. I was lucky enough to be the support car driver ( my glutes are no longer designed for a bike seat!). The first day was 45 kms of mostly uphill riding on bush tracks. It was hard physical work and even the super fit front runners were struggling by the time we reached the run down into Beech Forest. We lost a couple of bikes but with some reshuffling everyone managed at least 40km of the ride. Sara took a tumble during the bush leg and arrived at the lunch time pitstop covered in blood from where her braces had punctured her bottom lip but a couple of kms in the bus was enough time to staunch the bleeding and she was back in the saddle for the rest of the day.

When we arrived at our campsite (a local cricket ground with toilets but no showers or power), in drizzling rain, I wondered about my own ability to survive the next two days. But the kids had their tents up in no time and their trangia stoves were soon cooking a gourmet array of beans, tinned spaghetti and noodles. A game of cricket in the gloom of dusk ended the day.

On Thursday we rode another 30 km through the beautiful Otway Ranges, up and then down into Skenes Creek.With hair pin bends at every turn and sheer drop offs from our side of the road, I was a nervous wreck and spent so much time watching and counting heads in the rear view mirror that I missed the majesty of the rain forest. The kids tell me however that it was an exciting and exhilirating experience to hurtle themselves down the side of the mountain without touching the brakes!

Our camp site in Skenes Creek was right on the beach which afforded tired legs with a welcome sea bath. It also had a shower block which was a relief to everyone's senses. Suprisingly, almost everyone was keen to ride the 6km and back into Apollo Bay along the Great Ocean Road that evening. Not surprisingly, everyone was also happy to take up the offer of fish and chips before bed.

On the last day we rode into Apollo Bay again and then drove to Forrest where everyone rode enough of the bike trails there to make up their 100km. Remarkably, in 3 days together, I didn't hear a single complaint and I didn't have to 'speak' to a single student in anyway but the positive.

So clearly everyone ( including the staff) had a great time. But what did they learn? As a YCDI school, the keys to success jump quickly to mind. Persistence; staying on that bike after the first 10km took bucket loads of it. Resilience; likewise. Confidence; you bet. Some of these kids have never ridden down the street let alone 100km. Success like that breeds confidence.Organisation; their bikes had to be in top shape and if they hadn't organised their food, they went hungry. And finally, Getting Along; speaks for itself if you can manage to spend 3 days with 22 unshowered classmates and teachers!

I can tell you there was a fair quota of numeracy involved in calculating mileage, speed, velocity and the percentage chances of rain. As for literacy, I heard a lot of really good stories and conversations during the two days :-) I also heard laughter and encouragement and cooperation. Not the things 15 yr olds are usually well known for at school.

The second activity I was involved in was 'The Christmas Elves'. During the week after the bike ride, the year 9s spent sometime in the kitchen whipping up batches of Christmas rum balls. These were wrapped in cellophane and the Years 5-7 students added a card of Christmas greetings. Then on Wednesday, everyone dressed in elfish finery and each year 9 led a group of 5-7s on a journey through town delivering the gifts to each household. The gifts were accompanied by some spirited carolling.

We thought this would be a fun way to provide some leadership opportunities and share some multi age comraderie while teaching the kids a little bit about altruism. I think the activity succeeded on both those counts but I don't think anyone anticipated how successful the activity would be from the recipients point of view.

We were inundated with thank yous from the townsfolk and even from some passing travellers.

One lady cried, another provided a song in return and yet another told the kids it was the first time she had felt the Christmas spirit in many years. Some insisted on giving the kids money (which they donated to a Breast Cancer fundraiser run by one of our Yr 8s the following day).

And so what, if any learning occurred here while the children were gone from their classrooms for the morning? One of the Year 6 boys summed it up. " I never realised you could have so much fun giving people stuff. I feel great!"

You know what they learnt? They learnt about Goodwill. The best Christmas lesson of all.

I'd love to hear about programs other schools are running to engage their students outside the traditional classroom.

What happens with the Year 9s at your school?

Alphonso's Dog

I really should be working on my reports but I read this blog post today Of Monkeys and Bananas and it reminded me of the story of Alphonso's dog. We refer to Alphonso's dog so frequently at home and at school, that it has become an embedded phrase for anything that continues to happen just because it's become accepted practice, regardless of whether or not it's good practice.

Alphonso's dog comes from a story someone once told me about a monastery where dogs had been strictly forbidden for hundreds of years. One day the Abbot (called Alphonso), took pity on a stray that he found outside the monastery and he began to feed it. The dog, of course, kept coming back and because Alphonso was cool with it, the monks began to believe that having a dog in the monastery was OK and that the dog must, in fact, be a creature of spiritual significance. When Alphonso died, the monks revered the dog in his memory. In this way, in time, all dogs became important to the monks and were treated as something special rather than something forbidden. Pretty soon no one knew why having a dog at the monastery was important, it just was.

We use this phrase to describe many things, just one of them being the acceptance of teenage drinking in our community. When did it become accepted practice for 14 and 15yr olds to get slaughtered every weekend? Why is it that football clubs and parents condone the behaviour and in some cases even supply the grog? Because it's an Alphonso's dog, that's why. Everyone else does it, therefore it must be ok.

When I was a kid, it was smoking. Everyone else did it, therefore it must be a good thing to do. Thank goodness someone euthanised that dog before it euthanised me.

There's an awful lot of teaching practice that's become an Alphonso's dog too. Grouping kids by age is one of them. Judging intelligence based on good spelling and neat handwriting is another!

I'm concerned that attitudes to social media are also becoming Alphonso's dogs. If you ask most of the people who have never used social media but are opposed to the use of it in the classroom why they don't approve of it , the reasons they give aren't based on their own experience but rather because 'someone' says so and 'everyone' knows. Thanks to shock jock media beat ups and just plain ignorance, the idea that the internet is a bad and dangerous place is becoming one of Alphonso's dogs.
One of the reasons I love teaching so much is the ever changing nature of the job. No two kids are the same, no two days are the same, every year is like starting a new job but with the bonus of lessons learnt from the previous year.

So how come some teachers keep regurgitating the same lessons year after year? When so many rich and varied tools are at the disposal of 21st century teachers, why do they continue to deal in 19th century teaching practices? I know it's boring for the kids but it must also be boring for the teachers. If I wanted to know what I'd be doing in week 4 of term one I think I'd be better off working in garbage collection. When the doors to classrooms all over the world are open and inviting us to Skype or Tweet or Elluminate ourselves in, why are some of us still working behind closed doors and closed minds ?

It's that damned dog of Alphonso's that's why and if anyone has ideas on how to get rid of him, I'd appreciate it if you shared them.

The Class of 2010

Today was the last school day for our Year 12 students. Tonight they party, tomorrow they start Swatvac, next week they start exams and soon they will step off into the big, wide world of university, training or employment. So this reflection is a tribute to the graduating (said with supreme confidence in their ability to pass the upcoming exams!), class of 2010.

There's a lovely sense of privilege and pride, especially in a P-12 school, that comes from watching tiny, timid five yr olds transform into confident young adults. This is the third group of kids that I've been lucky enough to be associated with from Prep to yr 12 and with this group in particular, I've always felt a very strong affinity. They were the babies of our first middle years group, guinea pigs in a bold and very successful experiment to break the barrier of transition from primary to secondary school.They were also the first of our 'super' school productions, with everyone from years 5-7 involved in the chorus.They were founding members of our Kapahaka group and part of our school's performance tour of Knox during the Melbourne Commonwealth Games. Many of them joined our first ever school tour of NZ in 2005 and some even returned for a second trip two years later.

Outside of school I coached quite a few of them in netball or junior tennis and when I think about it, I can't  remember any really negative behaviour from any of them. Most classes go through a bit of a 'too cool for school' phase when they get to yr 9 and 10 but not this lot. They're just a very special, lovely group of kids and it will seem rather strange not to have them at school anymore.

One of the outstanding features of this group is the amount of altrusists among them. Josh , Josh and Emily have been Moyne Shire Youth Councillors for the past four years and have given great service to the youth of the Western District. As one final initiative, Josh and Emily, along with Shelby and Lucy will be part of an 'Alternatives to Schoolies' trip to the Phillipines after their exams. Instead of partying at one of the country's  beach haunts, they'll spend three weeks in the Phillipines, living with a local family and helping in the school there. Before they go they are working flat out to raise money to buy vegetables to plant in the village farms and school supplies to distribute to the children. If you'd like to donate to this fine cause, please contact us at school.

When they were in the 5-7 unit, these kids helped to establish 'Rainbow Reward' days, where everyone dressed up and took a day off class to celebrate the preceeding weeks of hard work. They approached these days with great fervour and their dressup skills were impressive. The legacy of this is that dress up days are now cool right across the school and everyone enjoys the chance to play for a day.

In a similarly flamboyant fashion they are almost all performers and nearly everyone of them has been involved in the Performing Arts during their time at school. They have created a aura of excellence around our school productions and 'mainstreamed' performing for boys. Of course this year also marks Geoff and my first foray into VCE drama and we are grateful to Sonia, Andrew and Paul for once again becoming guinea pigs and positive role models for a De Manser initiative.

To the 14 who completed the whole journey with us, we wish you well and hope that your life is full of wonderful events. To those who left to work or complete their schooling elsewhere, especially Johan and Grace and Aisha, we miss you and wish you all the best of luck with your exams too.
Can't wait to catch up with you guys when you're all rich and famous :-)

The Class of 2010 on PhotoPeach

Oh, the Drama!

Today, our first ever (as in first for Geoff & me), intrepid pioneers of the world of VCE drama, completed their solo exam performances. This is our first year of teaching unit 3/4 Drama. Like most things in life we do it as a team, and while that in itself is not without tension sometimes ;-), it's nice to be able to share the highs and lows of working with these amazing young people in a subject that is, surprisingly, as academically rigourous as it is creative. It's scary though, to do something for the first time and we can only hope we are learning fast enough to keep in front of the kids and give them the best shot at being successful.

35% of the total marks for the year for Drama are externally assessed via a 7 minute performance. The students have to write the script themselves from one of 10 prescribed structures and stimulus. Within that 7 minutes they have to show a particular dramatic style, a number of dramatic elements and transform themselves into a range of characters who, in turn, transform through time and place with just a single prop. It's pretty demanding stuff. We've been working on these solos for 7 weeks now. There's been a fair amount of scolding, cajoling, encouraging, pleading and advising going on. As you would expect, some worked harder than others but in the end I think everyone gave it their best effort and today was the day.

What a tension packed experience! On a scale of don't care at all to having a baby, it was right up there. I actually found it very similar to coaching netball teams in grand finals. No matter how good the preparation, there was that feeling that you should be cramming a bit more feedback, a little more advice, just doing something, to get them over the line. That dreadful separation anxiety of not even being able to be in the room while they performed was like dropping your first born off at daycare! What if they forgot their words and you weren't there to prompt? What if they were going too fast and you couldn't give them the slow down signal?

In the end, as we knew they would, everyone came through with flying colours. There were no lost lines and no disasters. All performances filled their allotted time. They didn't need me to be there and that's a sign that we've done our job well. And so have they.We don't get the marks for a couple of months yet but really, in the scheme of things, the marks are sort of irrelevant. As I said to one of the kids today, drama solos are a life experience worth banking. Once you've bared  your soul with seven minutes of non naturalistic theatre, on an empty stage in front of three complete strangers, who hold the key to part of your immediate future in their hands, and survived...why you can do anything :-)

So to "The Family Car", "Mrs Lovett", Meip Gies", "Jeeves" and the other "Family Car', congratulations and well done. We couldn't be prouder of you.

Now get back to work and study for the written exam!!

Lucas and the Ultranet

On the last day of last term we finished reading 'Tuck Everlasting' in class. I love this story. It's full of metaphor and personification and it asks questions that make kids think.

Right at the start of the book Natalie Babbit writes of three events that happened on a single day, events that seemed unconnected but were. It caused me to reflect on three things that had happened in my day.

At our staff meeting, one of the Preps showed us how to manage the express space on our Ultranet pages. He explained it very carefully, the way you hear people speaking to newly arrived immigrants or very old people in nursing homes. And then he flicked the cursor around the page at light speed, showing off the work his teacher has put up for he and his classmates and the awesome programs he's able to activate from within the collaborative space.

That afternoon, I posted my latest uni assignment, a reflection on the progress of my action research project. The project is about digital citizenship and using web 2.0 and social media to communicate, collaborate and facilitate learning and I'm still in the root cause analysis stage.

And that evening, my friend Alison drew my attention to an article in the Herald Sun newspaper about the dangers of facebook.

Because of my research project and because I'm a fairly active online citizen, I've done a lot of reading about participation in social media lately and at least in part, this blog is a way for me to sort out some of the ideas in those readings in my own mind.So for those who choose to read my ramblings, prepare to hear a lot more about digital citizenship in the near future.

The little preppy who showed us how to use the Ultranet is part of a generation of kids who will grow up with social media. I have a 7yr old at home who knows how to text, can independently log on to Club Penguin and often Skypes his Nanny in NZ so she can back up any arguments he has with his parents! He has his own facebook page ( and yes I know facebook sets an age limit but it's like a bank account in his name but under my guardianship so he doesn't actually log into on his own). I was tired of him wrecking my Farmville crops and besides, via facebook chat he can type away to his cousin in Dunedin and his sister in Melbourne at university. While he does those things we talk about the way he should respond and react to people online. He develops a relationship with his sister and his cousin that given their distance and difference in age, would be highly unlikely otherwise. His father and I teach him the etiquette and social rules of online citizenship just the same way as we teach him how to behave in society in general.

The article in the paper horrified me. It was another negative, participate at your peril piece, full of dire warnings for teachers who dare to inhabit the same cyber space as their students. The sub heading was 'Tell us your facebook horror stories." Why doesn't someone in the written media write an article asking for positive feedback? Maybe it's because I can get my news faster and more accurately on Twitter or Facebook on my iPhone than I can waiting for tomorrow's newspaper and the print media are feeling threatened by that.

Then there was the principal whose kids had been writing negative comments on facebook. She said it shouldn't be a primary school problem. Ummm, maybe it shouldn't be, but clearly it is. Maybe if there were a few more adults involved in their kids online activities it wouldn't be. I've also heard people say sex ed shouldn't be taught before year 10 because the kids shouldn't need to know about it until they're legally old enough to engage in it! Oh dear! To me, it's the same scenario.Start teaching them before they need to know, concentrate on building healthy relationships and provide accurate information so they don't have to make up the rules for themselves.

The third event that day was my Uni reflection. So, how is my action research going? Slowly. I think I may have bitten off more than I can chew (how unusual) and when I read news articles like the one mentioned here then I'm not sure one old lady like me has the energy to fight against the negative propoganda and ignorance that surrounds this new means of communication.

But then I remember Lucas and the Ultranet, and Taine telling his big sister about his day on chat and I know that the opportunities for teaching with social media are just too important to ignore. It is at the childrens' peril that adults keep putting their metaphorical heads in the sand.

Bon Voyage Mitchell

In a land where all students are equal but some are more equal than others, one of our favourite sons sets off an adventure tomorrow as an exchange student to France for the next 5 months.

When I wrote my first post on this blog about things I'd do differently in another lifetime, student exchange is one of the things I should have listed. Unfortunately I didn't have the confidence or the bravery to do it and here I am many years later, still only dreaming about visiting places like France, so I am looking forward to sharing a vicarious journey with Mitch.

I like to think that as a school we have contributed something to Mitchell's decision to make this trip. He is a remarkable boy by nature, a caring and inquisitive soul with an empathy for others and a strong sense of justice but he hasn't always been as outgoing and confident as he is now. Since year 5 however, he has taken every opportunity offered to him and it has been very rewarding to watch his personal growth. As one of our Performing Artists he has been shot on the battlements as 'Gavroche', cavorted around the stage in a lycra body suit as 'Mungojerry' and perfected a magnificent hair flick and sung an (almost) high C as 'Sir Galahad'. As a member of the Kapahaka group, he has stripped to the waist and performed countless haka with such mana and conviction that he has been left bleeding. Once you've shown the confidence to do that, a few months in a foreign country is a trifling matter!

Mitch has been on our NZ camp twice and didn't waste a second of the time that he was there.

Last year Mitchell had the opportunity to attend the Alpine School program at Glenormiston. For 9 weeks, he and three other students developed their leadership skills in a technology, junk food free environment. They came home changed, invigorated, motivated and ready to take on the world as valuable contributors to their society. From that experience, Mitchell's desire to go on exchange was born. It is testament to his strength of mind and the support of his family that having decided this was a good thing to do, he went about doing it!

Last year, another of our stunningly successful students Emily, spent 5 months in Italy and hopefully these two have set a precedent for many more of our kids to follow. There's nothing wrong with growing up in a tiny town like Mortlake when the world is just outside your doorstep.

And so, armed with 12 months of French by correspondence and a 'take it as it comes and expect the best 'attitude, Mitchell will board a plane tomorrow , followed by a train on Sunday, to Marseilles, where he will sacrifice his Summer holidays to spend the next 5 months at school.

We know that he will charm his new friends and family and have a magnificent adventure.

Ayez un temps magnifique. Coffre-fort de voyage. Voir-vous en Janvier :-)

Action Research

This year I returned to study at the University of Melbourne in the Master of School Leadership program run through the Bastow Institute. It's a two year course delivered by intensive, on campus study in three, two day blocks each semester. The reading and the assessment schedule are fairly intense on top of a pretty crowded full time work schedule but I'm really enjoying the intellectual challenge and the opportunity to learn from amazing educators and fellow student colleagues.

One of the major requirements of the course is an Action Research Project designed to effect change in our school and improve student learning. Last year I was involved in the Leaders in the Making program and together with other participants from the Warrnambool network we identified online behaviour as one of the leading problems in all our schools. We put together a proposal for the network principals to initiate a student led action group to educate parents as a way of improving the digital footprints of our students. Due to almost all our group members falling pregnant during the course (luckily my advanced age provided me with immunity from that!) our plans for this project have gone on hold. So, given that the problem with online behaviour has worsened rather than improved since then, it seemed a logical idea for me to pick up and continue in the MSL project.

My ruminations about the content of the project can be found on the collaborative wiki set up for my school team participants and I would appreciate it if anyone who has taken enough interest to read my blog could also take the time to read my project outline. My biggest problem is narrowing down the information I want to find out and deciding what exact course of action I might take once I've found the information. I would sincerely like to solve all the problems of the world in one go and I hate being restricted to achievable chunks! Unfortunately this attitude frequently leads to a revolving crisis of brilliant ideas and no action.

On Friday we had a visit from Michael Phillips, an educational researcher from Monash University. Michael is conducting research into students' online behaviour with a view to compiling a guide book for them explaining the legal ramifications of some of the stuff they do online. We had previously completed some of his online surveys and I was really interested to meet him as a lot of the questions in his survey related directly to the ideas I'm keen to pursue in my study. One of his sessions involved interviews with several of our middle school teachers. During that interview it became evident to me that I was not alone in thinking of the internet as just another place where kids hang out and that our reaction to this space needs to be the same as any other space our students use. Much of our discussion revolved around the tendency of school administration to use the 'block, ban, ignore' method of dealing with issues that occur online with the excuse that it 'didn't happen in school time'. Unfortunately a lot of it is now happening in school time. Free facebook access on most smart phones means that status updates are happening from inside classrooms and during breaks and when those updates are negative toward someone in the school then I'm pretty sure it's a school issue.Online incidents that happen after school almost invariably end up on the welfare officer's doorstep at the start of each school day. We also talked about the idea that, in a lot of education circles, social media is almost always referred to in a negative context with the emphasis on the perceived dangers, rather than as the incredibly useful communication tool that we see it to be.

One of the reasons I've chosen this area to study is that I feel so strongly that social media can provide another avenue for building the kind of strong relationships that are the heart and soul of every good school. This blog post by Ric Murry tells it like it is. I certainly think that part of the reason my students do so well is that they want me to be proud of them. We have the kind of mutually respectful relationship that engenders best effort and it's simply not possible to get the same results unless you care about the kids and they care about you. Today is my birthday and it is interesting to note the different ways the kids at school helped me to celebrate. I had a birthday wish from the entire school at assembly this morning, the 5-7s sang a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday and the Yr 12s shared some of their mad Monday cake with me during Drama. And....by the time I checked my facebook as I was finishing this post, more than a dozen current and ex students had taken the time to post a personal birthday message to my wall. That's a lovely, real way of communicating and connecting and it's worth fighting for.

Anyway, as usual I digress. As you can see I've done a lot of talking with like minds and I've become an avid reader of other bloggers and almost without exception the same themes keep recurring, all reiterating my own thoughts about online spaces and behaviours but also confusing me by adding even more thoughts and ideas to the maelstrom spinning around in my head. I need help with the focus of my project.
I'm off to eat more cake. Please check out my wiki and give me some guidance!