Lane Clark Speaks about Teaching and Learning

Lane Clark spoke very powerfully at ULearn10 about the need to acknowledge how we educate being more important than what we educate about, and that we need to work with students on how to learn, how to think and the relationship between the two.

To support this Spectrum Education have a limited offer on Lane’s Books.

Where Thinking & Learning Meet  - Lane Clark

Book and CD Rom

If it is our goal to see an increase in student levels of engagement and levels of high school retention, an improvement in student performance standards and learners skilled and ready to contribute to their world, then we have got to rethink what we are doing, and how we are doing it, in our schools.
We've got to teach our kids how to think and how to learn.
In Where Thinking and Learning Meet, Lane Clark challenges our individual and systemic educational beliefs and practices. She offers an approach to re-thinking and re-engineering how teachers teach and how learners learn.

Where Assessment Meets Thinking and Learning - Lane Clark

Book and CD Rom

A symbiotic relationship exists between thinking, learning and assessment. Criteria, void of thinking, result in little more than ‘quantity' statements or statements of subjective ‘quality' language. Neither stretches the learner in their performance, and the latter results in confusion and often a need for moderation.
When a learner is provided with criteria, but is not given the opportunity to develop knowledge and understanding of their elements, its use is compromised and the end result disappointing. This book is about the thinking and learning process. It's about the relationship between assessment, thinking and learning. It's where assessment meets thinking and learning!

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Do we need cybersafety agreements?

Tara Taylor-Jorgensen share her thoughts on cyber-safety and poses something interesting questions.

• Why do we force agreements on students and their parents when we don’t do that for any other curriculum area?
• Does it assume that students will do something BAD on the internet even before they are introduced to the media?
• Is it relevant for the students when they sign these agreements on school entry at five years old?
• Are we compromising student empowerment for the sake of wellbeing?
• Is cyber-safety the new ‘stranger danger’? Even if it is, violence against children, more often than not happened within families and communities.
• Is it about the victims? Or should it be about those that are hurting people?
• Is there not more bullying in schools and the community than in the ‘cyber-world’?
• Is web- filtering doing our students a disservice?
• Is it not better to have real conversations with the kids while working with them online?
• Does there need to be a national framework that school implement or will those decisions be left to the individual institutions?

Good questions...

How would you answer?


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Jack: What you gonna do about it?

Something needs to be done. By someone. And soon. Am just praying that someone else will step up and that it doesn’t come down to me.

What is up with the kids these days. With figures identified below there is a serious problem with the youth of today. I sound like grandfather, but it appears to be true.
Remember as you read these figures we’re talking about 10 to 13 year olds:

• Number of suspensions grown from 4800 in 2000 to 6595 in 2007.
• From 1998-2008, the number of police apprehensions for grievous/serious assaults increased by more than 70%.
• there had been almost 1,000 apprehensions for all violent offences, which include aggravated robbery, sexual violation, indecent assault, and serious assaults.

Its no good us all wringing our hands and tut-tutting. There is a major problem here that needs to be addressed. To say that it is the schools’ fault and they need to deal with it is short sighted and naive.
Does anyone know of groups or organisations that are doing a good job at engaging these youths?

"There are many factors that may be contributing to these statistics including the levels of violence in the media and games, the undermining of parental and school authority, the 'rights' culture being fed to young people, and family breakdown and fatherlessness," says Mr McCoskrie.

There may be some truth to that. But what are going to DO!!!

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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

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Safety Online: Are we making a difference?

Brett Lee, Closing Keynote for Learning at Schools conference says “Yes, we are.”

No longer will you see children jumping around on the backseat of the car but sitting, buckled up. The reason being is that if ‘dad’ were to have an accident then you could be seriously injured or killed. The other reason being that it is the law that everyone wear their seatbelt and ‘dad’ could get into a lot of trouble if you’re caught by police without a seatbelt on.

Two very good reasons; and so it is with Internet safety. Brett believes that students simply need the reasons spelt out.

From Brett’s  keynote he identified that:

• we can never under estimate the power of the screen in young people’s lives
• the technology will change over time but our protective practises, responsibilities and beliefs should remain
• we as teachers and parents only line of defence for our kids against the World-Wild Web.
• we can instil quality online behaviours in our children
• we must always believe we are making a difference to how our students interact socially within the internet. 

 Brett also identified the need for students to aware of the issue of cyber-bullying he share the video below and talked about the reality of the screen for young people.Interacting in an online space and/or through text messaging allows our students to create in minds a construct of reality that is not accurate but merely a projection of what others desire us to perceive.

Upper Coomera State College

Caught In The Crowd | Myspace Video

Useful Links:

Brett’s keynote on Learning at School blog 

Netsafe’s myLGP 

Cyber-safety discussion 
Cyber-safety page on Educating the Dragon 

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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:

1. 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. 
2. 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.
 

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Female teachers attire is called into question...

Female teachers attire is called into question... just like last year, and the one before that and the one... you get the idea.

As the Ad goes “It’s good to be a guy”.
There is not much thought that goes into what a male teacher should wear. In everyone’s head they are either wearing a tracksuit or semi-smart pants and a ‘smart/casual’ shirt. Somehow this covers a range of appropriate attire for school teaching.







Ladies on the other hand are once again faced with the great debate about what is classified as ‘appropriate’.
Neckline? Length of top? Length of skirt? Pants or skirts? Jeans? Its a minefield. Who gets to decide. Someone will always be ‘wrong’.
So what are staff doing to combat this? Where is written down, that definition of appropriate dress.

What is the 21st Century, PC, can’t offend, can’t be too liberal, too conservative, middle way?

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