Trekking

In Pokhara after 22 days trekking. Amazing experiences. Will write more in a few days as the internet is dreadfully slow here.

Have had a wonderful time and are now planning how to get to India as it is very hot here now as the monsoon approaches.

Kathmandu

Spent the last four days in Kathmandu. Hot and dusty but great fun. It is great spending $2 on a beer and $7 on a good meal.

Things have got run down since I was last here and that is sad but still lots to see and do. Most people I have talked to are very excited by the Maoists taking over as the see the previous leaders as corrupt and doing nothing for the people.

Going by the newspapers and the reaction of the previous leaders the people's views are probably true. There is a sense that things can improve from here.

The place is still wonderfully exciting and interesting and really hits you in the face.

Tomorrow we head off on the trek. Five hours on a bus and then into the mountains. Can't wait.

Next blog will probably be after the trek in 20 or so days. Although it may be possible to write some thoughts in the mountains.

Bangkok

So the first part of the journey begins. Found a free wifi in the motel so can do a blog.

The house may of sold the day before leaving so a huge job packing up the house and getting things organised. Then to a lawyer and off to the airport. Except the plane was leaving an hour earlier than we were given so we were the last people to check on.

Never was able to make all the phone calls we wanted to make from the airport.

Long flight to Bangkok. I hate the last hour of those flights with 'cabin fever' taking over. Nice food and service on Thai Air but all well and good. Easiest customs ever.

Nice cheap hotel near the airport. Very quiet!

And cheap bar and food down the road. $NZ10 for food and beers for two. Warm but not hot and poured with rain last night.

Next posting Kathmandu.

Shave 08

The senior learners at the school have been raising money for Shave 08 which is for child cancer. If they managed to get to $3500 I said I would also get my hair cut.

So over $7000 later on the last day of term it was the big haircut.

I was hugely impressed with the way the learners organised this especially Head Boy Max. A politician in the making.

I feel a little cold around the ears especially with a change of temperature. But two days till I am off to Kathmandu where the temperature is over 30 degrees C.

Nepal

With the end of term racing near my thoughts are moving towards the next few weeks. This term I have a sabbatical for one term.



The first part of this is travel in Nepal and India. So there will be a few posts coming from the Nepal when I can get near some civilization. We are planning to be trekking around the Annapurna circuit. There are interesting environmental developments in this area so this will be good to see.

I have been keeping my eye on what is going on in Nepal. As many people may know there has been a Maoist insurgency there for the last 15 years. A ceasefire last year resulted in elections last week.

Well amazingly the Maoists (or terrorists according to United States) are winning the election and look likely to set up the next government and then write a new constitution. Hard to get news over in New Zealand (nothing ever heard or read) but you can keep up to date here. Even more surprising the election appears fair and not corrupt. The election observers were from the Carter Institute (Jimmy Carter ex-US president).

Is this the first time a Maoist party has ever cooperated in election and then won the election? Who said communism (let alone radical Maoist thought) had no place in this century?

Should be a very interesting time to visit!

Last Weekend

Last weekend drove to Palmerston North for a rushed trip for the opening of an Art exhibition at Te Manawa. The exhibition was a retrospective of the work of John Bevan Ford. John died in 2005 and is the father of my wife. I had known John for only a few years but he had influence on most people he met through his vision and ideas.

It was humbling to see so many pieces of art depicting John's work over many years. With about 70 works on display (a couple from our collection) it is an exhibition well worth seeing. If you are in Palmerston North drop in and see it (is there much else to do in Palmerston North). I think it is also going to tour.

Year 12

I got some interesting feedback from a previous post about 'role modelling' of our older learners. The comments were probably warranted.

But something is different for teenagers around 16 or so. They see their role as individuals in the school as quite different and are developing an understanding of their place in the world. I have always found people of this age wonderfully stimulating with their energy and thought.

With that age group not in our school for four years it is great to see things happening based around their enthusiasm and ideas.

Some interesting posts

Those of you are little older, about my age can identify the changes that have occurred in computer technology. Two interesting posts one looking forward and one looking back.

The history of memory storage gives a visual picture of how computing storage has changed. Way back when I was at university in the late 70s we were the last student to use punch cards. We were also told as it happens (by the university professors) not to do computing because everything had been done. This was pre-PC, the Internet was not even a word, and Google was just a big number. I listened to them, I wonder how my world would be different if I had not.

The second post is about super fast internet being developed at CERN laboratories in Europe. The entire Rolling Stones back catalogue in 2sec. Bring it on.

The "Key Competencies"

It is interesting to see all the providers of educational support in New Zealand now providing courses on the key competencies of the new curriculum.

"Integrating key competencies into Mathematics" or "adapting the social studies curriculum to incorporate the new curriculum"

This is a concern as many of us feared. The key competencies are good practice around teaching and should not be seen as the outcome itself. If they are significant then these providers should have been doing this for years as many schools and teachers have been doing.

Is our new curriculum going to be determined by educational consultants jumping on the bandwagon or by teachers adapting their programmes to meet the needs of learners?

The Brain

Had an interesting email called the Brain Bulletin. This is a free email from Terry Small which gives interesting information on brain development and the importance of this with aging.

The article starts off (somewhat abridged)
As life expectancy continues to rise, people are doing more and more to ensure that their lives, if long, are going to be healthy. The American Heart Association now recommends 30 minutes of moderate exercise fi ve days a week. Not surprisingly, most large companies
offer health club memberships as a perk; many provide gyms on-site. Find yourself on the road, and you’re almost guaranteed to have a fi tness center in your hotel.

MANAGING YOURSELF Cognitive Fitness

Until recently, however, there seemed to be no guidelines for active efforts you could make to stay mentally healthy. here were no brain exercises – no mental push-ups – you could do to stave off the loss of memory and analytic acuity that comes as you grow older. In the worst-case scenario, you could end up with Alzheimer’s disease, for which there are no proven treatments. But concentrated commitment of resources ... yielded a broad front of research and training that has upended some deeply held beliefs about the brain. One such belief is that the brain necessarily diminishes with age. It turns out that neurons, the basic cells that allow information transfer to support the brain’s computing power, do not have to die off as we get older. In fact, a number of regions of the brain important to functions such as motor behavior and memory can actually expand their complement of neurons as we age. This process, called neurogenesis, used to be unthinkable in mainstream neuroscience. What does all this have to do with you? The process of neurogenesis is profoundly affected by the way you live your life."

The best thing is that the article then goes on with ways that everyone can act to improve their brain capacity. It is really good stuff.

The email is free and anyone can (and should) sign up.

What's with Year 12

Our school is a new school (in its fourth year) so it is our first year with seniors. We have Year 12 this year.

But we need to teach them how to behave and act and what that means. They have had no role models to show them what it means

But what a difference in the school with those sensible young adults around looking and acting so smart. Forgot how much I missed them with their attitude, passion and caring.

Creativity

Suggest people look at Bruce Hammonds latest blog post on creativity. He writes about how the important stuff is getting lost in the drive around numeracy and literacy. Every politician and policy maker should read it.

The concern is as we move towards only teaching what can be measured in output and input terms we will only teach those things that maximise that.

Annual reports, strategic plans, AsTTle, variations, ERO. Numbers, numbers, numbers.

What about creativity, insight, thinking, and never mind fun, happiness or laughter.

Visitors

Paul Seiler and Ian Munro from the Ministry of Education in Wellington visited us today. Great to have a chat with them about Wellington, Ministry and schooling.

I find the Ministry people always great to talk with but sometimes the inertia of their organisation sometimes stops things working. Do all educational bureaucracies around the world struggle with this aura of conservatism and inertia? The biggest barrier to making changes around the way schools operate is the bureaucracies. But not the people in them! There is a contradiction there which I think is probably the demands of the political process.

Showed them around the school and it was just great to see so many kids actively engaged and some really good learning.

Really pleased at the great interactions going on with staff and learners and how the spaces look to start to be working. Very impressed by the way the teachers work.

Budgets

I HATE working on budgets.

But getting very close and it is not too bad. Basically changes in structures and things come next. Going to be tight with the money at school this year.

Thinking & Learning

The 'New' Curriculum is started to come into place over the next few years. At Whangaparaoa College we have been wanting to make sure that it is implemented across the school and not just in a few areas.

We have started to look at what that means.

How do you get everyone to make change rather than just the enthusiasts?

So we have come up with a learning plan for the school with small targets for teachers to implement.

First target was for everyone to have learning intentions clearly written on the board every lesson. This was to be done by week 2. No discussion just do it! It is great to see it is almost universal now in classes. The quality of the intentions needs some work. But staff are now thinking on what that means.

We have also considered what a school wide approach to thinking. Everyone has to do some 'parts whole' thinking this term. We are using a universal model so that once established everyone can follow.

Looks great so far.

The new curriculum (which is not that new) fills like a challenge. By being directive the challenges for teachers can lessen at first.

Learning yet again

At the start of the year we like to make the focus about learning. What are we here for, and what does it look like when learning occurs.

The children at the school always jokingly say that Whangaparaoa College is all about learning, learning, learning.

But we always get distracted from the intention around learning.

Why is that?

So I have been thinking around why this happens. My thoughts

1. Children at risk are often 'free' and have few boundaries for seven weeks over the break. There are parents are working, and they just hang around doing little. We then force them into schedules and patterns of working which they resist.
2. While the children are two months older after the holidays, we as teachers see them as a whole year level older. They "were Year 10 now they are Year 11" approach.
3. Focussing on learning is hard. It is much easier to focus on uniforms and lateness. While I know it is important to get the 'little' things right, I sometimes feel many staff never move onto the 'big' things.
4. It is really hot and unpleasant at this time of the year.

Next year I am going to think around the whole year start stuff and getting it right.

Long time between blogs

Well it has been sometime since writing but with the holidays, getting married and now school starting it has not been a big priority.



A picture of the wedding with me, Stella my now wife, and my two lovely daughters. Had the wedding at home which meant a real hassle about getting things finished on the house.



But I am back in the job and with the year becoming more settled, I am going to be much more resilient about this blog.