Perspective

My Grandfather died this week at the respectable age of 95. He – my Poppy - was the most laid-back person I knew. He never got worked up about little issues and always seemed to have a different perspective, from just about everyone else, on most things. But this never bothered him.  Attending his funeral this week gave me the opportunity to chat with the family and the many friends he had and to listen to their stories. Everyone had a story about Poppy. And as sad as it was, it was a great opportunity for me to reflect on my relationship with him and the way he had chosen to live his life. This then led me to contemplate my own life.

At the start of this year I had very specific goals and things that I wanted to achieve. We are nearly 3/4 of the way through the year and I have already achieved most of those, plus more. I have happily put in lots of extra time and thought into my projects and experimented with some creative learning opportunities for the students, their parents and, even the staff. Professionally, I am very proud of what I am doing and where I am headed. But perhaps I have let other areas go unattended.

In my haste to forge ahead, I haven’t taken the time to reflect on where I have been. While I pride myself on being an innovative Teacher, always looking for ways to make my lessons more exciting and engaging for my students. However, taking more time to reflect on what we did in class and points which can be improved, might just make those lessons more innovative, engaging and exciting - adding a little more clarity and refreshing the ideas. Just last week I read the book, The most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires to my Pre-Prep class.  It is a story about a girl trying to invent something magnificent but struggles for ideas. Finally, she goes for a walk, taking the time to reflect and consider what she has done and what she could do. Suddenly I realised that this simple lesson from a picture book was one I could take on board myself. 

On my desk I have a quote from George Couros. It says “In a world that is constantly moving forward, if you are standing still, you are falling behind.” I love this because it gives me motivation to keep pushing to be a better teacher for my students but this is only part of the story. Instead of blindly surging forward I need to learn from what I have done and from what my students have taught me. Perhaps a better quote for me would be one from U.S. businessman, Peter Drucker, which says: Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action. Definitely worth thinking about!

Beyond the classroom, I need to take the time to count my blessings for the wonderful opportunities afforded to me and for the people in my life who take the time to encourage and support me. Without them I would not have had the confidence to move beyond my comfort zone and grow as both a person and a professional. Once again life keeps moving forward and all too soon the moment to say ‘thank you’ has passed and so this is another area of my life on which I would like to reflect.

My Poppy was not an educated man. He worked hard his whole life but he also took time to enjoy his life. By the time I came into this world, he already had 50+ years’ experience and so, to me, he always seemed to have his priorities sorted. He appreciated the simple things in life and took the time to enjoy them. Poppy made time for others, not just to have a chat but to really listen to what they had to say. In short, Poppy took the time that I have often thought I don’t have. So, although it has been a sad week for me, it has been in reflecting on my Grandfather’s life that I have learnt a great deal about my own. Thanks Poppy!

Design Thinking in Pre Prep...How???

Let Parents be involved.

Let parents be involved!

In my very first blog, I wrote about relationships and their importance to our kids’ education. This week, I spent some time working with parents, developing relationships between home and school and I thought this was a good opportunity to expand on that blog, in particular, the Parent/Teacher relationship. 

Early in Term 1, the Junior School invited the parents into the classroom to introduce themselves and their classrooms. On this particular evening, the creative subjects set up a market stall to showcase what we do. As such, I set up a display of work and photos. The volume of parents I had lined up to talk with me was overwhelming and the encouragement and support I received from them planted a seed. It was clear that the parents wanted to know more about 'Design Thinking' and the learning dispositions being fostered within my subject. Many said it was often a topic of conversation that their kids initiated and, so naturally the parents wanted to find out what was sparking this enthusiasm. Thus, the ‘Parent Design Thinking Boot Camp’ was born! 

I saw this as an opportunity to share with our parents what their kids do, but also to get them on board to further support the relationship between class and home. It was important to me to try to install in my audience the same excitement that they had seen in their kids so the ‘talk and chalk’ method of instruction was not an option. I had to get these parents to not only understand Design Thinking but to experiencing exactly what their kids were doing in my classroom. So, I set up a quick design challenge for them.

I had 2 hours and I wanted it to be busy, fast paced. I wanted the parents to learn through participating. I wanted them creating, out of their comfort zone. I wanted them sharing collaborating and making. But most of all, I wanted them to be curious, experimenting, failing forward, being optimistic, empathetic and iterative. I wanted them to ‘low definition’ prototype, draw, share, scribble on whiteboards and play with materials the way their kids did. I wanted them to experience all this to not only value the process, but experience how their kids are engaged and learning throughout the process. I had set myself a large task.

Firstly, the parents were organised into small groups with people they didn’t know. The challenge was introduced to them and then I shared with them the Design Model we use. Then, they were presented with a provocation to work through using the Design Model. As they worked through the process, strategies for each step were added. Eventually, the group had designed and created a solution to the problem. The groups were then invited to share their creations. Even though their creations were quick prototypes, the thinking that had gone into them was inspiring. The presentations were a chance to have a laugh at their own creations but also explain the thinking behind them. I think the group surprised themselves with the creativity they had displayed! Overall it was an informative but fun night and one which was very rewarding for me personally.

In an earlier blog, I stated that, “Parents can be a challenge… but they can also be great allies, supporters, volunteers and sources of expertise”. This event has further reinforced my thinking. Since the Boot Camp, I have had parents donating materials for our Tinker Club and offering their expertise to assist in various fields. Parents are regularly emailing me asking if I need certain things, offering industrial waste materials from their business or telling me about something they saw or read that might assist in my classes. However, more importantly parents are having discussions with their kids about what they did in the session and what their kids are doing and working on.

Sure it took a little bit of effort to make this happen but the benefits have been well worth it. I’m now looking forward to other ways I can include or collaborate with parents and the community to provide better learning opportunities for our kids. I’m excited about the possibilities!

Getting Organised

Getting Organised!!!

If you’ve read my blog before you will know that, in the last couple of years, I have had somewhat of an epiphany regarding the way I teach. My perception of how I taught and how I should be teaching has changed. This has had a huge impact on many areas of my life. 

We, as teachers, are very lucky in that we have more holidays than most. I used to always treat my holidays as well earned time away from work. I would make a point of not going anywhere near school, school email or my laptop. I believed that I had put in the hard yards during the term and I was more or less prepared for the term ahead – I could justify my decision to impose a ban on all things school in many many ways.

Then came the epiphany!

Teaching has now become so much more than a job to me. In fact it’s my passion and so I enjoy spending time on my practice. It has also meant that, in order to give my best, I need to be organised.

Being organised is in my DNA. I love a good plan and to ensure that the preparation is in place so that all things come together. I know that this is an area that many struggle with and so I thought I’d share a few tips on how I get things sorted.

 Planning prevents poor performance

To do anything well you have to have the right attitude and the determination to invest some time to the task. The big thing for me once I knew I had the right attitude was to invest time into making a plan. I started by drawing a document with three columns. I headed the columns - Short term, Medium term and Long term (not very original, I know). However, after more thought, it seemed more relevant to label them with more specific time frames, which then became ‘this week’, ‘this term’, ‘this year’.

I've always had an A5 diary that I wrote in everyday. Not memoirs or personal matters but things I needed to get done. It's the best $10 I spend every year! However, my attitude has changed and I knew if my teaching was going to reflect this, my organisation needed an overhaul. After some serious contemplation I realised that what I wrote in my diary were the things I had to do. What I needed to write in my columns was things I wanted to do! 

So I started to think about what I wanted to achieve? Things I wanted to do this year to improve my teaching and to improve my students’ learning. Things above and beyond what I had always done. I then broke those down into achievable chunks and placed them in the appropriate columns. 

While there’s nothing better than a good list, It's pointless unless you refer to it often. So I place my plan in a place where I can read it, adjust it and work to it.

Benefits 

A day in the life of a teacher is often littered with interruptions – photos, music lessons, special assemblies – some of these are expected but sometimes things happen out of the blue. However, I’ve found that being organised, makes it so much easier when those other distractions come along. You have things in place ready to go. You can focus on making those individual lessons even better! And best of all, you have the flexibility for a Plan B if necessary.

Possibly the most important benefit is less stress or pressure. You’re confident because you have already put that thought and planning into your preparation. You’re not thinking on the run as much. You may find that you have more time during term and that is a luxury!

Rewards

Let's put this into perspective. Everyone has their own interests and life outside of work. It's unhealthy to make life all about working. But here's something for you to think about. I have found that devoting a few days in the holidays has so many rewards. It sets me up for the term. It gives me the confidence to deliver lessons that I know will be better than the last time I taught the concept.

However, most importantly, it's the kids who reap the rewards. I read a paper recently that described a Teacher’s responsibility as “not just teaching Maths or English, but teaching the hearts and minds of our students.” I view my job now as the opportunity  to challenge my students to be the best they can be. So it is essential that I set myself the same challenge.  And now, I challenge you!

Creatively Speaking

What is Creativity? What does it mean to be Creative? How do I teach creativity? These were questions to which I thought there were no answers. However, when I enrolled in a PD on Creativity, these were the exact questions that I wanted answered.

To kick off the PD, we were asked to bring along a unit of work that we could develop. I chose a Year 3 unit because they were my youngest class and my starting point to changing the way I added creativity to my units. I thought this PD was going to be about me being creative. Creative in the way I planned units of work and the way I delivered those units, but it was more than that.

I’d been teaching this unit for a couple of years and there some good learning had happened. From a Design Technology point of view, the students were learning skills with tools and machinery as well as working with and learning about materials. I had also included in my planning opportunity for the students to design and be creative. However, I was about to realise there was room for students to be even more creative in their designing.

Usually the way I had taught this unit was to:

• Have the kids frame up the base
• Design the outside shape
• Attach and decorate the ply 

The overarching idea was for the students to use the product to convey a personal message. I was very chuffed that all of the products achieved there desired purpose, but when I was asked why the kids all make the base the same, the only response I had was “because that’s how we do it.” …There it was! The most dangerous phrase in Education! Because that’s the way we’ve always done it! In that light bulb moment, I realised that I had to change this unit and I was now starting to think I needed to reflect on all the other units I taught!

Conveying the message was still the overarching idea of the unit. We were using the same materials, tools and machinery and had the same time frame. I was uncertain about so many things. Did I have enough time to get through it? Would the kids run with it? How was I going to teach how to construct all the individual designs that would come from this? However, I was excited about the possibilities and was willing to jump in and give it a go and that was essentially the key!

The big difference with this revamped unit was the kids were now going to design their own bases. One of the strategies I used to help them visualise their ideas was to model in cardboard. I cut cardboard pieces the exact size of the materials they would be using for the base. They spent time playing with the cardboard, manipulating it into shapes and designs. Lots of shapes and designs and they photographed each one. They loved this process and wanted to share each step with their peers and me. We then had a lesson where they had the opportunity to discuss/share/critique each other’s ideas and this was the moment I realised how powerful this learning strategy is. 

The kids had conversations about:

• How suitable each other's designs were
• How strong they thought they would be
• How to best construct them
• Good and bad aspects of each and what improvements could be made

Reflection and cooperation – such valuable tools for learning!

In yet another departure from my ‘usual’ practice was that I let go of the reins. The kids experimented with how materials joined and worked together. Literally, we had boxes full of scrap materials that they joined and glued together, then they broke them apart. Again, the kids analysed what worked and what didn’t and why. Conversations about their learning flowed and there were no correct answers. These were conversations that I would normally facilitate. Was I doing myself out of a job?!

In the end, every student came up with a different solution to the problem. Every child had worked through the design process, drawn on their own experiences and created a unique solution to suit his or her situation. But more than that, they had an explanation of why they designed and made it like that and could and would explain this.

What stood out the most for me were:

• How engaged the kids were in this task.
•  How giving them more freedom to design allowed individual creativity.
• The ownership they had of this task
• Through play/experimentation kids were learning more deeply than they would from me lecturing.
• How they were teaching each other
• And how by standing back or letting go allowed more critical, meaningful learning that also naturally fostered learning dispositions.

·        Don’t get me wrong. Not everything was plain sailing. There were lessons I had to change on the run. Sometimes I cut things and other times I extended things to take advantage of the quality of learning. I still have to make changes for next time I use this unit and, in fact, creatively speaking, this unit and I will continue to change and evolve with each new set of students.

The Power of Professional Conversation

In my last blog I wrote about the struggle I had experienced with one of my classes at the start of the year. I outlined how the class addressed the issues and settled on 5 class values. This exercise got me thinking about values in general and, more specifically my values. What do I value in my classroom? What do I value every day? What do I value in life? What had been a seemingly small hiccup in a lesson plan turned into a personal contemplation about the dramatic changes to my attitude towards education and teaching over the past two years.

A couple of years ago I was assigned a mentor. At the time it did not impress me. I thought I wasn’t being considered professional or that the school was keeping an eye on me. Why were they watching me? Were others being watched ….mentored?        

Thankfully my mentor was someone with whom I had worked closely and someone I respected. We started meeting once a week and, surprisingly, it wasn’t that bad. The meetings were really informal. We discussed my wellbeing and how I was travelling in general. These discussions branched into how my classes were travelling and where I was with them and eventually developed into discussion specifically to my subject area, the delivery of the curriculum and learning strategies used in my classes. I would never have believed that I would have gained so much from a meeting.

Now, we all know schools have meetings. Sometimes it seems like there are meetings for the sake of meetings! A buzzword that I had been hearing a lot of lately was ‘professional conversation’ but I wasn’t to be fooled. I knew that this was just a new name for a meeting. However, my mentor had mentioned this word in our discussions and even referred to our meetings as professional conversations. How did I get in this position? I was now having ‘professional converstions’!  

I could go into a lot more details about our meetings/professional discussions and the outcomes of them, but in short, they have changed my mindset about what I do, how I do it and most importantly, why I do it. Although initially I had resisted the idea of having a mentor, over time not only did I reap the benefits of my professional conversations with my mentor, I actually looked forward to them. So how did my mentor achieve this amazing transformation? By making the time to talk and listen to me. To share, discuss, debate and engage in my teaching and learning. Through these simple acts, I grew as a person and a teacher. My mentor and I have gone on to develop a supportive and encouraging working relationship. A relationship that has encouraged me to take my teaching practice to another level. One that has given me the confidence to challenge myself and the desire to continually strive to improve. And, in particular, a relationship that I would like to see fostered in other professionals within and outside my workplace.

At some stages in life we all find ourselves in a rut. In life and at work. We form habits, we take the easy road, the comfortable path, the line of least resistance. Doing what needs to be done without taking the time to think about ‘why’ we are doing what we are doing. For a long time I was just like that. I was one of those people. Someone who was just doing a job. Sure I was doing some good things but I had settled on that. I was doing it that way all the time. I wasn’t challenging myself to do it better.

However, with the encouragement of my mentor and my active engagement in professional conversations I now take every opportunity to reflect and review my teaching practice. I have the courage to challenge myself daily and, rather than being a chore, it is exciting and invigorating. My kids come into a classroom where the teacher is energised and that is contagious.

As teachers, we work in an environment where we are surrounded by a valuable and free resource – our peers.  Other people like us that day in day out share similar experiences to us. But, how often do we make the time to talk and share with them? To listen and learn from them? To lend an ear, support and encourage them? To collaborate or prop them up when they need someone? To challenge them? Creating an environment where teachers feel supported to take risks and try new things is a gift that will be passed on to the children in the classrooms. In the words of Grace Hopper, ‘ The most dangerous phrase in language is We’ve always done it this way’.

So what do I value? I think I’ve already answered that. But, I ask you, ‘What do you value?’  Take the time to think about it – I’m here if you’d like to have a professional conversation.

Ready...?

Am I ready? You bet! Another new school year & new school classes. I was prepared and confident. I'd been in well before we were due back & had all my unit plans completed & was ready for that first lesson with each new class. However, there are always some things for which you can never be prepared.

I walked into my new year 8 class, excited to meet them, willing to get started & looking forward to seeing what I could do with a unit plan that I had spent considerable time reflecting on and ‘pimping’ over the holidays. But…… the first lesson wasn't great. In fact it was quite uncomfortable. It was almost like all 18 kids were new to the school and each other. I walked out of that lesson and couldn't stop thinking about the strange atmosphere. The next lesson I went in confident I could improve the dynamics and get on with the year. But it was similar to the previous lesson. No one was talking, despite opportunities to share and collaborate. No one was even mixing socially. This was the quietest class I had ever been in. What was going on? 

It got to a point where I asked the kids to pack up. We sat in a large circle ‘counselling style’ and I had to ask, “What's going on?” Again, no one spoke? After some serious cajoling and asking them to help me out, I finally got some answers. They were scared of being judged! Worried about getting the answers wrong. Concerned that if they shared an idea, thought or answer that someone might laugh. They were worried that if they were the person to answer the Q's, they'd be considered the goodie, goodie! I could not have foreseen this and certainly wasn’t prepared for it.

We spent the rest of the lesson breaking this down. We talked about the issues they raised. I was able to relate a lot of this to the Design Thinking process we use for solving problems within Design Technology. The fact that there often isn’t a right or a wrong. The fact that no idea is a bad idea. The fact that people like Albert Einstein, Thomas Eddison and Steve Jobs probably had their ideas laughed at, at some stage. It wasn’t much, but Finally …we had some discussion in the room!

I knew that next lesson I had to build on last lesson so we could have a learning space that everybody felt comfortable in …including me! Through a little Teacher persuasion I was able to get the kids to agree that we needed to set some rules to address these issues. But, I needed them to collaborate and all agree on them. Progress wasn’t fast. In fact it took the whole lesson but I was determined not to force this. It had to come from them. All of them! Eventually this is what they came up with.

1.      We should respect everyone’s ideas (Listen to them. Never laugh at them)

2.      We should all have to contribute equally (if everyone has a go we are all equal)

3.      We should work together (to be more comfortable and share the load)

4.      We need to understand that everyone is different and has different ideas (never laugh at them)

We were getting somewhere. I posed the questions “What if someone breaks these rules?” Did they need to be ‘Hard and fast’ Rules? Did they need to be ‘Rules?’ The discussion hovered around naming them something else. Standards? Guidelines? Things we respect? …ValuesJ They all agreed on ‘Values’ and we spent the rest of the lesson (collaboratively) writing these as values. This is what they became:

Year 8 Design Technology Values

1.      We value others’ Ideas

2.      We value others’ Contributions

3.      We value Teamwork

4.      We value Feedback

5.      We value Creativity

By the end of this lesson I had mixed feelings. I won’t lie and tell you the kids had turned a complete 180 degrees, but I do believe we had made progress. Each kid had contributed. Each kid had agreed that these would be our class values and I may have even sensed that this class was now ready to get started.

Personally, I was a little disappointed that I had spent three lessons to get to this point. I had a clear idea in my mind, where I wanted to be by now, but I was still at the starting line. It was only through discussion with a colleague that I realised I had in fact made significant gains. I had managed to start a Teacher/Student/class relationship that I could build on. I had set them a challenge that they had solved. I had started to teach Design Thinking without even realising. They had collaborated, shared, given feedback, ideated, developed and refined ideas. All key dispositions that we use and refer to in teaching Design Thinking. I also had a base from which I can launch the rest of my time with Year 8’s.

Was I ready for the new year? In hindsight no. However, as Teachers we have to be flexible and accept change every day in every lesson. It’s what we do. We also have to learn from every day and every lesson. Will I be ready next time? Who knows? But I’m confident I won’t underestimate this kind of situation next time.