Showing posts with label high-school. Show all posts

My reflections on the 7 myths of Generation Y

I was given an article to read the other day. Its entitled “The 7 biggest myths about generation Y” by Michael McQueen

Michael is an author, international speaker and social researcher on this very topic and the 7 myths he presents got me thinking.

Michael McQueen

Myth #1 They are self-centred.

There are a couple statistics presented here: 81% of youth aged 13-25 volunteered in the last 12 months and 69% consider a company’s social and environmental commitment when shopping. If these two are to be believed then there are a lot more engaged youth than I first thought.

Myth#2 They don’t think about the future.

Youths perception of the future is different and preparing for it has to be different. The key here is in the word ‘preparing’ rather than ‘planning’. Theirs is a vague future with ever shifting careers and skills required. Much better they equip themselves with the skills and contacts they need rather than trying to plan for a unpredictable future.

Myth #3 They have moral compass

From over here that may be the perception but McQueen talks about their understanding that there are no moral absolutes. Truth and morality and seen differently by each individual. This had left them being more tolerant and accepting of diversity than any previous generation.

Myth #4 The are disrespectful

I have heard this one time and time again. But reality paints a differnet picture. As far as Gen Y are concerned there is little respect for piverledge or power or authority. Respect is built out of being respected and out of a genuine relationship with the individual.

“being worthy of being respected is similar to being a nice person… If you have to tell them you are, then perhaps you really aren’t.”

Myth #5 They are lazy

This one is tricky. There is totally different mindset towards work with Generation Y. They have seen far too many heart attacks, strokes and failed marriages. They are being their careers with clearer picture about what work/ life balance is. They are committed to their work but not at the expense of family, friends and the relationships that truly matter.

Myth #6 They only communicate online.

It is true with Twitter, Facebook and MySpace, Pinterest and other online communities there has been a huger connection being made around the globe. But with the migration of people and the connecting through the internet Gen Y’s mideset is shifting towards real relationships with real discussion. Making connections with the older generation.

Myth#7 They don’t want to connect with older generations.

They have often been referred to as the Fatherless generation, with divorce on the increase and the blended family becoming the norm its hardly a wonder that so many wonder where their roots are and are crying out to make genuine connections with adults they can trust, look up to and respect.

But Generation Y is getting older. They are no longer filling our Primary schools and they are fast vacating our High Schools too. Do some of these myths still apply to this next generation? Are they the truly lazy? How are we going to address the students in our care? There is much to consider and reason enough to look for the good in our youth rather than assume the worst. What now? But what next?

Does lack of fluency in te reo make you a bad teacher?

A quick straw poll from NZHerald has shown that the majority of readers agree with the President of the Secondary Principals Association when he poo-pooed the idea of making Te Reo compulsory for all secondary school teachers.

As sad it as it may be but the older one becomes the harder it is to learn and maintain a second language. To make your ability to know and speak Te Reo a reflection of how great a physics teacher you are seems nonsense.

The idea is noble, the implementation complicated and questionable, the cost involved, huge. This would become a massive time commitment for staff with the potential of such damage to educators credibility that some would become further disheartened by the profession. Then it could sway so much with the political climate that it becomes an unreal expectation.

Current teacher training institutions deliver Te Reo and Maori studies as compulsory units toward a teaching degree, ensuring new grads have an awareness of the language at the very least if they have not been able to become fluent.

Asking my 58 year old Chemistry teacher to become fluent goes way beyond reasonable expectations.

Further reading:

Te Reo training needs resourcing

Principals welcome compulsory te reo

NZC Online

NZC Online has a newsletter which comes out regularly. I have identified a few lead stories but there is far more contained within each newsletter than I can reproduce here.

School stories

The NZC Online team interviewed educators at Learning@School 2011 in Rotorua about the curriculum based workshops they were presenting at conference.
Willowbank curriculum map
Jane Danielson and Julie Cowan explain how they used a map analogy to guide their curriculum development, because on a map you can go to different places, get to different points, take detours, and take different ways of travelling.

Middle schooling

Once Upon a School is a site designed to collect stories of how individuals engage with their local schools. This is a global project, inviting people to share their own stories of how 'private' individuals connect with 'public' schools.
EDtalks: Using teaching as inquiry to guide an eLearning action plan
Claire Amos is Director of eLearning at Epsom Girls' Grammar. Claire talks about how the school is using a 'teaching as inquiry' cycle to inform the eLearning action plans that will be implemented by professional learning groups in each of the school's curriculum areas.
Youth Mentoring Network - He Ara Tika
He Ara Tika is a programme that mentors Māori students, and is run by the Youth Mentoring Trust. A Gisborne secondary school has picked up this programme and, instead of using it to focus on Māori students, they have used it to give all students from year 10 upwards a teacher mentor. These mentors become the first port of call for parents, and follow the students right through their schooling.

Secondary

Secondary Education Gazette stories
These articles have a secondary focus and are published in the New Zealand Education Gazette. Each link will take you through to the story on the Education Gazette website.
Secondary Literacy Website
The new secondary literacy website has been launched on Literacy Online. It provides literacy in the learning area; leading literacy in your school; professional readings; links to Literacy Progressions, NZC, ELLP; NCEA and literacy; and much more.
Understanding NCEA: A relatively short and very useful guide for secondary school students and their parents
New from NZCER, this book explains the NCEA system in plain language and includes stories drawn from the real-life experiences of students who have followed different NCEA pathways.

Getting to grips with teenage issues

Sir Peter Gluckman, says one in five young New Zealanders will face problems as they grow up that will affect the rest of their lives.

There are many issues facing teens today:

Suicide
Drinking
Pregnancy
Drug use
Depression

The teenage years are associated with high risk taking. That is a natural part of growing up but it is the skills and abilities that New Zealand teenagers lack that is such a concern.

Sir Peter Gluckman releases the report stating that, compared internationally, New Zealand teenagers are in pretty poor shape.

"The solutions rely largely on preventative approaches very early in life, particularly in early childhood education years," he said.

It is essential that children as young as 2 or 3 are supported and encouraged by caregivers. The development and growth of self esteem is essential to how teenagers can cope with the issues and pressures they face. Positive self-image leads to good self-esteem and confidence in ones ability and worth. These, with the appropriate support network,s strengthen the develop self-control and the ability to act ethically and morally when faced with challenges and choices.

Gluckman hopes with the evidence included in the report, decision makers and society can set about what has been described as an "unacceptably high level of poor social and health outcomes for our young people".

The report will be released later today and further links will appear below:

Our kids should be choosing life

FEELING disconnected from Pakeha culture heightened the risk of suicide among young Maori, an international study found. Reported the SundayNews

click to enlarge

The article is written in such an emotive way as to enflame the debate over Maori youth.
Perhaps the figures indicating that Maori youth suicide is effectively double what it should be, representing 20% casualties. However, there was no reference to the remaining 80% and how they breakdown in terms of ethnicity.

Disappointingly, there is only quoted reference to the study carried out by Terryann Clark. I for one would have liked to have gone and read some of the source material.

I’m not saying Maori youth suicide is not a tragedy. Far from it. Youth suicide is tragic period. I mourn the loss of a single life from such a totally preventable manner.

There is clearly a disconnect between many youth and their parents. Without the feeling of unconditional love that we can only receive from our parents then life can be brutal. Friends are friends, but they still can let us down. Teachers play their role as do social workers and pastoral care workers, yet still it is the closeness of family that really counts.

Kids need to feel wanted and needed. Even during times when they themselves refuse to acknowledge that need. Through the good and the bad family needs to be there.

Today’s families look very different to those a few years back. But regardless of what a kids family is made up of they need that safe place to be alone. To be with those who will love them regardless. Provided that ‘home’ is a supportive place then we all can bear the trials of the wild-world outside.

Let us all love, support and care for those kids in our care.

Useful link:
Teenage suicides- OECD report (87.6k, pdf) Last updated 20/12/2010

Cyber-Safety: What can you and your school do?

Brett Lee is fast becoming a leading expert on Cyber-safety and what young people need to be aware of while navigating social media sites.
His unique experience in the cyber-crime unit enables him to share with teachers and parents some of the dangers facing students today and some of the simple precautions they can take.

Back in February he was the keynote speaker at Learning@Schools conference in Rotorua. View his keynote address below.

Things to do:
Use Brett's keynote to provoke staff meeting discussion this term.
Book Brett to visit your staff and parents
Subscribe to Edtalks
Subscribe to Brett’s newsletter
Join the Software for Learning discussion about Facebook

Dr James Hansen - Tour

"Human-made climate change:

a scientific, moral and legal issue"

Dr James Hansen

Head of Nasa's Goddard Science Institute

Given the inevitible CO2 impact that would follow were the current focus on coal and oil exploitation to go ahead as a panacea for our nation's financial challenges, Hansen's visit is an opportunity for the local climate change/global warming conversation to have a champion of excellent scientific credentials who has been asked to explain the risks to several White House incumbents.

NCEA 3: Is it worth bothering with at all?

The article entitled ‘Year 13 NCEA pass rate OK’ appeared to be littered with excuses and ‘reasons’. We were in for apologetics with the opening:

“Secondary Principals' Association of New Zealand president Patrick Walsh said the level-three rate was no cause for concern."

So here is the breakdown:

"With the downturn in the economy, we've got a large number of students who, traditionally, would not have been there as they may not be as academically able, so they would've left for apprenticeships or work, but they can't, so they're staying on," – Read: “they shouldn’t be on the course anyway cos they were bound to fail."
"There was also a "significant jump" between levels two and three, he said, so some pupils struggled to attain level three" – Read: "we have to accept all comers, even those that we think are just wasting time and resources."
"The figure also included special needs and international pupils who did not study NCEA, as well as those seeking mixed-level NCEA credits." – Read: "We’re just lumping the figures all together and it seems to be muddying the waters."
"Many pupils were focused on the more practical unit or achievement standards and national certificates or were involved in the Government's Youth Guarantee trades scheme." – Read: Actually, I don’t know what this means, were they or were they not sitting Level 3?
"We are and should always be working on improving level three [achievement], but it's level two that is the minimum qualification students should have in order to be prepared for the world, work and further education." – Read: "Level three is just there, but it doesn’t really matter... it is of no consequence in the REAL world."
"It's level three. It's not easy, and it's not designed to be, as it is a challenge," he said. – Well good, it should be, shouldn’t it?

Emerging Leaders' Symposium 2011

Nga mihi,
Some of you have seen the article in this month's Interface magazine about the 2011 Emerging Leaders' Symposium, but here is more information. It's an 'unconference' for emerging leaders in education; please consider either registering yourself or passing it on to the young guns in your school. It promises to be quite an exciting and inspiring event.

Did you know?

10,000 of New Zealand's 50,000 teachers are nearing retirement age.
50% of newly-qualified teachers leave the profession within the first 5 years.

We need to foster emerging leaders in education. We need to give them a voice and support them to develop a vision for the future of education, because soon that future will be in their hands. To this end, a group of emerging leaders have convened a two-day symposium in Auckland on 28th and 29th April 2011. Emerging leaders are invited to attend this 'unconference' to prepare a vision for the future of education in New Zealand-Aotearoa. This vision will be presented to Karen Sewell on the second day of the symposium.

Useful Links:
Emerging Leaders' on Facebook page

Thanks Mark for the info.

Stopping the bullying

When Casey Heynes’ video when viral the issue of Bullying hit the headlines. But even with video evidence it appears that the issue as to ‘who started it’ comes down to:
He started it, I’m the victim NO! He started, I’m a victim, too.
Many have an opinion with Facebook support for Casey passing 211,000 ‘likes’.
But to ‘LIKE’ seems a misnomer. Nobody likes the fact that Casey was getting bullied in the first place. Nobody likes that it came down to this. Nobody likes the circumstances, social-pressure or head-space Richard was in to make him think it was ok. But EVERYBODY likes the fact that ‘the bullied stood up for himself’.

Bullying has been going on long before school ever existed. Some might even argue that it's Darwinian. But that is not to say that we shouldn’t try to address the problem.
Beginning anti-bullying programmes in primary school are a positive step.
Having those values reinforced through intermediate and into high school is a further step in the right direction.

Bullying can be prevented if students, parents, teachers, and school administrators are proactive. Strategies to prevent or stop bullying include: raising awareness about bullying, improving student-to-student relations, getting involved to stop intimidation, developing clear rules against bully¬ing behavior, and supporting and protecting victims of bullying. One of the most powerful messages teachers can send students is to always model respectful interactions through their actions, tone of voice, words and non verbal gestures.

The hardest thing in the world for the bullied to do is tell someone that it is happening. Schools and parents need not only promote positive relationships between students but also provide an enviroment that is supportive and open. Only with strong positive messages and a caring environment where bullying is taken seriously and dealt with will a school or other environment become 'bully-free'. Far too often teachers and senior managment prefer the perception that 'bullying doesn't happen here' rather than working actively towards it actually becoming the case.

Useful Links:
Resources on TKI website

How can we combat bullying at school (pdf, 4 pages)

What Parents Can Do About It (pdf, 340KB)

What to do if you are being bullied- video

PPTA: No secondhand car purchase.

The PPTA are close to reaching a settlement with the Ministry of Education. Is this really still dragging on? I am clearly not one to speak to delicate negotiations, I am more of the "How much do you want for your car? How MUCH? I'll give you half that. Three Quarters? Done!".

"With the situation the country is in at present, it would be good to achieve a settlement and return to some sense of normality" PPTA president Robin Duff said.

You think?
The time for fighting is over and the time has now come to lay side petty, see the big picture... be the better person and agree to a settlement before the whole economic situation changes and negotiations begin for a new pay deal for 2012.
I just hope that the ratification process is merely a formality and we can all return to the business of educating the next generation.

English is not really ‘all that’

One school that has welcomed the option of learning Mandarin is Otonga Rd Primary School.

There are only a few languages in the world that feature so highly for the future and English is not really ‘all that’.
Japanese, Mandarin, Spanish and English are all key languages for the future. It is good to see that language learning is beginning to feature more prominently in Primary schools but as the old adage goes ‘you use it or lose it’.
So in light of that, there is mounting pressure on Intermediate and Secondary schools to continue the language learning options that are first presented to primary students.
Teachers will also be put under the spotlight. Primary school teachers with language skills in the three ‘foreign’ languages mentioned earlier will be in something of high demand. Secondary school teachers may feel the pressure in the coming years as increasingly more students will present in their classes with higher abilities in international languages.
But what languages are offered in the schools that you know?

PPTA: Applaud or *tusk now

The PPTA has said it will keep up its fight for improved conditions and higher pay, and that more strikes are likely.
It appears that the PPTA is last to ‘fall’. I’m sure that the union is feeling the warming flow of mana knowing that they are the ‘last one standing’.
In such economic times though, there must be a thin line unions walk between looking like their standing up for members and looking way too greedy.
Secondary teachers must be applauding their union for the backbone it is showing but public perception is the key here and when extra-curricular activities and educational opportunities for young people are cancelled then *tusks from parents ripple through the wider community.
Enough is enough though. Let’s refocus now on educating our young people, enriching lives and brightening the future of New Zealand through top quality educational expertise.

Pop Quiz- National Standards

“Since the Standards were launched last year, growing numbers in school communities have said they have no confidence in the Standards and they will do nothing to raise student achievement.”

Does the quote above mean that:

National Standards will do nothing to raise student achievement.
School communities will do nothing to raise student achievement.

20,000 New Zealand teenagers not in education

“There are 20,000 New Zealand teenagers of year 12 or year 13 age not in education or training.”
“The academy, which requires pupils to attend from 9am till 3pm five days a week, is a way for pupils to pick up NCEA credits while earning a practical tertiary qualification.”

“Wiremu is one of 60 founding pupils from 30 high schools around Wellington at Weltec – and one of 800 around New Zealand. They will be placed in classroom-style groups, through which they will continue with core NCEA credits such as maths and English.”

Students given alternative to study trade

A couple of point I managed to glean from this article:

I am assuming that the shocking statistic above refers to those teenagers NOT in gainful employ. Otherwise, I guess, we’d all be whooping and cheering for joy.
I’m wondering if replacing school with ‘school’ is anything like a solution.

Let us consider the evidence from the article:

Students will be expected to attend from 9am to 3pm.
Students will be expected to attend five days a week.
Students will work on NCEA credits.
Students will work on Maths and English NCEA.
Students will work within classroom-style groups.

Hmmm, sounding suspiciously like school to me.Perhaps it’s the location that’s different. Is ‘class’ in an aircraft hanger? In a mechanics workshop? Hairdressers salon? Perhaps it’s the tutors that are different? Perhaps they are younger and hipper than the regular high school variety, perhaps they know the funky songs or know the clubbing scene.

Whatever the secret ingredient really is I wish Weltec all the luck in the world.

High school not quite cutting edge

High school not quite the cutting edge, 21st Century learner centred place we thought it was.

This blog is not an Agony Aunt column but… I received this email tonight and would appreciate some thoughts about how to address this.

Evening,

My daughter has started with excitement and nervousness at High School! 13 years old, keen and eager to learn... 2 periods of health over the last 4 days = 5 pages of written RULES copied from an overhead projector.

The learning intention is "become familiar with health class routines."
Success Criteria - "completed all overheads" - thereafter follows the 5 pages with headlines such as:

Be prepared
Get ready fast
Be quiet
Behave

Followed by more paragraphs on what will happen if these basic expectations aren't met.

Not prepared - copy out the lack of equipment essay in your own time from the window in A6 and hand to your teacher at the end of the next lunchtime. NO equipment will be loaned to students.

Not quiet - copy the talkative behaviour essay in your own time from the window in A6 blah blah blah blah...

As you can imagine this is only part of it!

What is a parent to do? Where are all those incredible 21st century teachers and learners hiding?

Any words of wisdom on how to approach this in a professional manner would be appreciated.

This sounds disappointing if not downright shocking. I appreciate the ground rules for behavior and expectation are to be established at the beginning of the school year but come on… seriously.What disturbs me more is question that is left hang…

“Are all high schools like this?”

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