The Tyranny of Christmas Time
It is the last week of school and we’ve hit that interesting time when students and some parents (and some teachers) think that there is nothing of value happening in the school. The behaviour problems...
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Richard Turere (age 13): My invention that outsmarted lions
Here is another TED talk I’d encourage you to watch. Richard Turere is a young man from Nairobi who, while woking on his father’s farm caring for the cattle, came up with an invention to keep the...
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Once you were a child…
I came across this quote from CS Lewis the other day… “Once you were a child. Once you knew what inquiry was for. There was a time when you asked questions because you wanted answers, and were glad...
View ArticleEffective Relationships with Students
One of the books I read during my summer break (well, skim read, but that almost counts, doesn’t it?) was The Art and Science of Teaching by Robert Marzano. Let me reflect on just one of the chapters...
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Students as prospectors
I had a thought today about prospectors and the degree to which I allow my students to dig and search and sift knowledge to find the nuggets of wisdom they will value. I confess I too-often feed them...
View ArticleGuest Post: Middle Years Laughter
I have blogged about the value of laughter and humour a couple of times. Today, I am delighted to add to this discussion with this guest post by my colleague, David Cameron. There are few things I...
View ArticleSingle Gender Class Groups
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the need for male teachers in the educational lives of our young people. Another vital gender-element within school is the issue of single gender class groups. This...
View ArticleCareers Ed in Middle Years
I had an interesting conversation with our Careers advisor recently, looking at what sort of careers information, or advice, or exposure, we should provide to our Middle Years students. The reality...
View ArticleYoung Hearts; Old Heads
I had a conversation recently with a valued colleague and friend about the degree to which we understand ourself and how that self awareness impacts our teaching. We came to the agreement that the...
View ArticleValue Young Adolescents – AMLE’s Characteristic 1
The Association for Middle Level Education is considered by many to be a peak body for Middle Level education in the world. For me, their This We Believe statement, encompassing the 16...
View ArticleActive & Purposeful Learning – AMLE characteristic 2
The Association for Middle Level Education is considered by many to be a peak body for Middle Level education in the world. For me, their This We Believe statement, encompassing the 16...
View Article“Do you remember me?”
I have written before about the wonderful opportunities we have, as teachers, to enter into the lives of our students. Today I want to share just one experience that happened during the recent...
View ArticlePrac teacher in the room…
I don’t tend to have too many prac teachers visit my class now that I do not have a full teaching load but I have started this term with a second year Secondary English student teacher and it is...
View ArticleDestroying a novel
As you may be aware, am teaching English this year. We have just finished studying a new novel, Fog a Dox and I’m seriously wondering what damage I have done to the good work of the author. It is a...
View ArticleChallenging, exploratory, integrative, and relevant curriculum – AMLE...
The Association for Middle Level Education is considered by many to be a peak body for Middle Level education in the world. For me, their This We Believe statement, encompassing the 16 characteristics...
View ArticleA testing time…
It is NAPLAN* week here in Australia where every student in year 3, 5, 7 and 9 sit national tests. To say these are disliked by the students would be a gross understatement. To say the tests are seen...
View ArticleSocial Constructivism and the Flipped Classroom (family-guest post)
I’ve been blogging for almost a year now and always appreciate the feedback and/or comments people leave on my blog (just as I like leaving comments on others’ blog posts). So it was with a mix of...
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Post Conference Post
The MYSA conference finished this afternoon and I feel like I have had two days of stuffing information into my brain. I love attending conferences like this but it seems to take many days of...
View ArticleEngaging Year Nine Boys
Let me go back and revisit the content of one of the sessions I attended at the MYSA conference – that of Peter Nolan and his Unitas program. This is a life skills / life lesson / challenging activity...
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Dress-up fun today
We had a free-dress today at school today – a day when the students do not need to wear their uniform and pay a ‘fine’ for the privilege. It was a great way of raising some funds for an upcoming...
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