EPD

Just spent the day at the Experienced Principals Development run by Auckland University. What a day!

• Vivianne Robinson on Promoting Educationally Powerful Connections
• Graeme Aitken on Helping Students Make Connections
• Educational Connections for Maori with Russell Bishop
• Simon Denny on The Health and Well-Being of New Zealand's youth

Four excellent presenters with great stuff.

Some ideas for me to consider

From Vivianne first

• Relational trust must come first
• We need to 'train' our parents if we want them to be involved in the learning.
• There is no research that there is any crossover between involvement in one area of school life and increase in student achievement
• Why do parents of older children not want to be involved in learning?

From Graeme

• Evidence does not need to be perfect
• 3-5 aligned experiences 2-3 days apart is important
• We do not need a child-centred learning or curriculum-centred learning we need connectedness between the two

From Russell

• Relationships, relationships, relationships
• Everyone's achievement improves when connectedness but Maori improve quicker.
• Are our resources culturally (and gender) acceptable? Need to check!

From Simon

• Connectedness is important in resiliency. Connected adolescents survive!

A great day for huge additions to my knowledge.

Mentoring

Been thinking a lot about how to get learners to achieve. As well as the knowledge and skills of a subject it is also important that learners know the skills of how to be organised, time management, organising work books, keeping data together etc. Saw an interesting programme in operation in how to keep this at the forefront at Albany Senior High School.

Considering trying this next year for some groups. Am starting to develop how it woll work.

Learning culture

Just read David Warlick's post about developing a learning culture. Great ideas about how to move learning from the back to the front of teacher's thinking. I've printed it off and are going to follow these all the time.

Got a meeting today and will be sharing them there as well.

Salary Claim

The teacher's salary claim seems to be heading down an unnecessary path. Negotiations have been going on for five months now.

Unfortunately the Ministry started off with big demands and big clawbacks. One things teachers do have is good memories. Looks like everyone is going to make big lines in the sand which are going to be difficult to jump over.

Can't see a solution anytime soon.

Sao Paulo

Had an excellent Brazilian meal last night. Washed down with ice cold beer. They have their beer very cold here. Actually the weather is not very warm in Sao Paulo.

Like all big cities traffic is bad but it is particularly crazy here. More agent visits today but need to squeeze in some shopping for my girls.

Churitiba

Meet a very positive response in Churitiba. But more plane filghts. when someone asks what I think of Brazil I can tell them lots about the airports.

Now in Sao Paulo. Very big city. More agents tomorrow.

Florianapolis

Off again today to Curutiba.

Four hour bus ride after a late night. Went to listen to a band on our one Saturday night in Brazil. Good music and great crowd. Funny though no one applauds the music. Just watch and dance. They call it 'Rock and Roll'.

Only four more days. Must admit I am feed up with constantly moving but that is the way things need to be. Florianapolis is a nice place but through the whole of Brazil there is a big disparity of wealth. Often related to the colour of the skin of the person. The darker the skin the poorer the people seem to be. Many people living on the street.

Need to pack again!