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!

Ageism Rules

Why is it that schools and school systems designate their students to age based grades and expect them all to achieve standardised, age based outcomes?

I'm really frustrated by this. Maybe part of my frustration is because it's a 'rule' thing ( see my previous post for my feelings on rules!), but mostly I'm frustrated because my teaching experience tells me that age expectations are so restrictive for some and downright depressing and unachievable for others. Just as kids differ so remarkably in physical development, cognitively and socially they are all over the shop as well and deserve to be taught where they are at, not where some arbitrary, chronological line assigns them.

In my own teaching unit I am lucky enough to work with two colleagues who share my opinion of the negative effects of pigeon holing by grade. We teach 64 kids from year 5 to year 7 and within our core classes we group them by learning style, not by age. The work we plan for them and the expectations we have of them are based on their individual needs, not on the grade list they belong to. We don't even think of them as being in particular grade levels and when asked by someone from outside our unit, we often have to stop and think very hard to say whether they are in year 5, 6 or 7.

The academic data from our unit is exceptional, especially at year 7 level and the break down of academic achievement is also interesting. In mathematics, for example, the range of achievement goes from a VELS level of 1.9 to 5.2. In reading, from 2.3 to above 5.8. Interestingly, the lowest scoring reader is a year 7 student and, you guessed it, the highest scores in both areas come from year 5 students. And yet, I read just as recently as this week, that it is very nearly impossible for a student to be graded at a higher level than grade level in mathematics because the subject is of a lock step nature and the child could not possibly have learnt the material necessary to score so highly! I just really don't believe that and our data refutes it. If my students' achievement was restricted to only what I, personally had taught them, then it would be a shame. Even I'm not egotistical enough to think all their knowledge comes from me. Heck, I have kids who know how to use semi colons properly; and they certainly didn't get that from my classroom ;-0. I have also heard it suggested that year 8 students shouldn't work in vertical groups with year 10s because they will hold the older students back. I would have a few year 8 students who would suggest it might be the other way around because chronological age is a pretty poor indicator of maturity in adolescents!

I've done a fair bit of surfing through Google Scholar while I've been thinking about this and while there isn't a plethora of research available, the work that has been published quite overwhelmingly comes down in favour of multi age grouping that involves individual and differentiated learning tasks. The interaction between the different ages not only enables individual progression, it allows for mentoring, role modelling and nurturing and creates opportunities for a team or family like environment in the classroom.

I'm not sure if it is a status quo thing, as in that's the way it's always been done, because age segregation is actually a relatively recent phenomenon and I found an old but easy to understand article that explains the evolution of this type of education in a far more articulate fashion than I can manage.
On the merits of Multi Age Classrooms.

My gut feeling about the continuance of age/ grade grouping is that it's done that way because it's 'easier'. Easier for teachers, easier for text book writers and test makers, easier for planning the furniture allocations, easier to explain to parents who were themselves taught that way and so think it must be the best way for their own children.


My hope is that this is one of the factors of education that will change dramatically through online learning. I certainly know from my own experience that one of the great benefits of online communication is that you meet the mind first. Your interaction and opinion of another person's intellect and personality is not prejudiced by what they look like, how old they are, or what their social or economic position is.
 
Imagine if this was the case with our students.If we took away the expectations we have of our students due to their age or grade level, how would that change the way we teach them and the ideas to which we expose them?

Rule 33.a

This week, George Couros posted a blog inspired by a TED talk by Barry Schwartz. I really enjoy reading George's stuff so I took the time to watch the video. It got me thinking about a lot of things and my brain overloaded so far that I actually took some notes while I was watching it.

I have a bit of an issue with 'rules'. In fact everytime someone asks at staff briefing "What's the rule on that?", the hairs on the back of my neck start to bristle. I know rules are necessary for many things, however I believe most of them could be left unwritten if everyone followed my favourite rule, Rule 33.a, the Rule of Commonsense. My dad coined that rule when he was the president of the local football league. He said that meetings often got bogged down with trivial discussion and when that happened he would just tell everyone that it was covered by Rule 33.a and move on. So when I was watching this video of Barry Schwartz, it occurred to me that this was exactly what he was talking about. If we teach our kids to be wise moral citizens, who act in a particular way because it's the right thing to do rather than the mandated thing to do, they will understand Rule 33.a and the need for a lot of our rule making will be over. If kids learn character and to respect themselves and others, then the rules will be redundant.

A few years ago we instigated a one rule fits all approach. The rule is ' In this school, every student has a right to learn and every teacher has the right to teach. Anything that interferes with that is against the rule." Backed up by Rule 33.a, and in an atmosphere of shared respect and accountability, this stands us in good stead in our Yrs 5-7 unit. Pretty much all behaviour can be bought back to that one rule and Restorative Practice helps to point any wrong doers back in the right direction. Unfortunately, outside the immediate classroom, we still have a fair few rules. Take the hat rule for instance. The Rule says you have to wear your hat when you are outside during terms 1 and 4. All very well unless you get an extreme UV day in term 2. And what happens when kids don't have a hat? Can they sit under the shade sails? Can they just take the hat off while they play sport? What if their little sister stole their hat and sold it on the black market? Here's the thing. When the UV is over 3, you're going to get skin damage from sun exposure. Respect yourself and wear your hat when the UV monitor tells you it's 3 or more, or stay inside.

How about the uniform policy? Boys must wear grey school socks. You know what? I don't care if they wear pink socks (actually I'd prefer it) but the policy says grey, so just get your kid grey socks! And if on rare occasions they have to wear white ones (which are generally grey by recess anyway), should I rant and rave and demand detention from them? Rule 33.a. Don't sweat the small stuff.
Anyway, I digress. What really struck me about this video was the notion of how 'wiseness' relates to use of social media. I'm a great fan of social media. I was an early adopter way back in 1997 when ICQ was the way to chat online and the Teachers Net lounge was 'the' collaborative space for teachers. These days I'm an avid facebooker and I'll write another day about all the useful ways that I use the application. But what I'm thinking about today are the rules that the digital dinosaurs keep inventing to cope with new technology like Facebook, Youtube, Twitter etc? The front line defence rules are the 'block' and the 'ban'.This might work except the kids are a lot smarter than the grown ups when it comes to social media and they can get around every techno wall I've ever seen. The other problem is, these applications are full of learning opportunities. How can we teach our kids to be moral and ethical digital citizens if we don't model and scaffold the correct behaviour in our schools and in our own lives?

Many schools (thankfully not mine) have a rule that says teachers may not friend students on facebook. I just really don't understand this. I live in a very small town. I'm friendly to the kids in the supermarket. I'm friendly to them at the football. In fact I get along pretty well with most of them at school! I don't request access to their pages but if they invite me into their space and they are of legal age to have a facebook account then I am more than happy to be friendly to them in an online environment. I don't stalk their pages looking for private information about them. If I were the type to conduct inappropriate relationships with my students then I certainly wouldn't do so on a public forum like facebook! Just like when I see them out at any public event I interact with them in a friendly and professional manner. I take notice of the things they choose to show me and I comment positively on items they present to me. As teachers, within our community we are always teaching and someone is always watching. Therefore, rule 33.a would tell you that as a teacher I need to have the same awareness of my digital profile as I do my public profile in the community. As Schwartz says in this video, " As teachers we should be ordinary heroes - we should strive to be moral exemplars to the people we mentor", and if ever there was a place that needed moral exemplars, it's social networking.

So, I think we should worry more about how we teach our kids to become great citizens and less about how many rules we can put in place to tempt them to become bad citizens. Rules get in the road of respectful relationships. As Schwartz quotes Scott Simon from NPR, "Rules and procedures may be dumb but they save you from thinking."