Resolution re-vision...

How do you spell intelligence?

I've never been one for New Year's resolutions but it was obvious that this year required that rule to be broken....just this once: "I resolve to keep my blog up to date; make at least two entries per term." 

So: "Dear Diary..." yeah, nah...that's just not gonna cut it!

Having had a decent "stay-cation" (never went anywhere but got a decent Southland tan anyway - albeit singlet shaped): work beckoned. So, today we kicked off two days of professional development with the teaching staff.

The troops followed up their compulsory professional reading programme by comparing the facets of a "fixed mind set" with those of a "growth mindset". 

The flow-on activity involved the staff being divided into teams to sort and sift their discoveries before going head to head in a little problem-solving action.  

A good team looking sharp: with Justine, Pauline, Cynthia, Carolyn (praying for victory - at this stage, the rest of us didn't even know there was a contest!);
and Dale (wondering whether or not she's had breakfast).

The growth mindset is one we want to cultivate in our kids (and in our staff too); we'll provide more links and information on this a the year progresses.

Mean time: how much does 'effort' count? Way more than you might think. A very good example of the growth impact of an 'effort' mindset, makes this five-minute clip well worth watching. 

No point rewriting something I completely agree with (source NZEI):

Important information about teachers’ vote this week rejecting the “Investing in Educational Success” policy


Dear Parents and Caregivers

You may have heard in the media this week that New Zealand’s teachers and principals have
voted to reject the government’s Investing in Educational Success policy.
I wanted to write to you to explain the reasons behind the decision and what this may mean
for our school.
What is Investing in Educational Success?
In January the government announced this new policy, aimed at raising the quality of
teaching to improve student achievement, backed by $359 million of new funding over four
years.
The policy proposed that all primary and secondary schools would be grouped into clusters
of about 10 schools, with each cluster led by an Executive Principal from one of the schools,
who would be paid an extra $40,000 a year and work two days a week across the cluster.
About 1000 Expert Teachers would receive an extra $20,000 a year and spend two days a
week out of their own classroom while they mentored other teachers across the cluster.
About 5000 Lead Teachers would be role models to teachers within their cluster.
Why are teachers and principals opposed to it?
Like their colleagues around the country, teachers at our school could see no direct benefit
for our students from this policy. Teachers have a number of concerns, but the key issues
are:

1) Teachers want the money to go to much-needed frontline resources for students,
not into another tier of management.
2) The relationship and continuity of learning between primary students and their
teachers is very important for effective learning. Taking an Expert Teacher out of
their classroom for 40 per cent of the time, to be replaced by relievers, could have a
negative effect on students’ learning.

Consider this...

Read this through this list

http://saveourschoolsnz.wordpress.com/2014/03/17/the-list-what-national-has-done-to-new-zealand-education/

Now ask yourself:
"Have our kids really benefitted from this?"
"What's the real agenda?"
"Is this designed to turn out an educated / innovative workforce - or simply a compliant / conformist one?"
"Who cares - they're only kids right?"

NZ schooling is about to die - here's what's been going on to make that happen....

Here's the truth:

http://saveourschoolsnz.wordpress.com/2014/04/06/join-the-dots-what-government-is-doing-to-nz-education/

http://networkonnet.wordpress.com/2014/04/06/ernie-buutveld-delivers-when-a-person-of-ernies-stature-does-this-we-should-all-listen-intently/

Excellent summary!

http://saveourschoolsnz.wordpress.com/2013/05/06/charter-schools-the-winners-and-losers/

So many people saying it better than I ever could

So straight to the links:

http://localbodies-bsprout.blogspot.co.nz/2014/03/the-destruction-of-new-zealands-public.html

http://publicaddress.net/busytown/school-bully/

http://publicaddress.net/busytown/testing-1-2-3/

This GERM is seriously infectious...

The Global Educational Reform Movement is an international phenomenon that is damaging  kids and education systems wherever (largely first world) politicians have managed to contrive to get it to take hold.

  Here's a good example of the Aussie version - they are a few years ahead of us in the GERM infection process - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1bhx3H5Qic&safe=active 

.... and here are two clips from Finnish expert Pasi Stahlberg - from Finland (not unsurprisingly) - the country at the top of OECD rankings; the country that has consciously retained the student-centred model that most OECD politicians have destroyed in their own jurisdictions: http://www.youtube.com/watch...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdgS--9Zg_0&safe=active

Meantime: here's the take of a long-time critic of National Standards; the redoubtable Kelvin Smythe http://www.networkonnet.co.nz/index.php?section=latest... 

Hidden inside the inevitable political spin - these are dangerous times (again!) for the future quality of education - is that what's happening now is the real reason National Standards were established.