Norah Colvin

Live Love Laugh Learn … Create the possibilities

Category: Alternative / non-traditional education

  • 3 Inspiring educators

    3 Inspiring educators

    Like every other teacher, I want to make a difference in the world.

    The thought that I could make a positive difference to the life of another is both empowering and inspiring.

    To do so, I seek out others making a positive difference and pay it forward, hoping that the ripple effect will carry it far and wide.

    flag on twitter

    Three inspiring educators who have positively influenced me are:

    Brian Cambourne

    Brian is an amazing literacy educator from whom I had the extreme good fortune of learning many years ago. I have written about him before here and here.

    Brian’s work focused on the conditions necessary for literacy development. His influence has spread beyond the classroom with the application of the conditions to learning in the workforce demonstrated.

    Tony Ryan

    Tony is an amazing educator who does his best to be the change he wants to see in the world. He talks about future-proofing and using innovative thinking to solve problems of both local and global importance.

    Anyone who believes ‘that education is the most important profession on the planet’ and does everything in his power to support teachers to be outstanding, as does Tony; must be pretty good in my books.

    One of Tony’s books The Ripple Effect is particularly apt for mention in this post. Tony says,

    “you must believe in your personal power to create ripples that spread out and change the world. In fact, if it is not you who is going to do it, then who else do you think is likely to make the effort? Remember that every change on this planet begins with a human being somewhere, somehow. It may as well be you.”

    This year Tony has started a new project called The Earth Movers Foundation which ‘helps young teenagers to create solutions to local and global issues. And they get to choose their own project. No adults will be telling them what project to do. They decide for themselves.’ Sounds pretty good to me.

    Ken Robinson

    Ken is another amazing educator. I fell in love with his ideas when I listened to his TED talk Do schools kill creativity? which I have also shared before here.

    The statement on his website declares that

    “Imagination is the source of all human achievement”.

    I could not argue with that.

    Ken introduces this short video The writing spirit which presents quotes from artists, thinkers, writers, innovators and snippets of interviews with writers. Just incidentally, and exciting for me, Richard Bach is included. Richard is the author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, one of my favourite books for its inspirational message.

    It is more than likely that these educators have no idea how they have influenced my life (and others as a result).

    How wonderful might it be to know of the positive influence you have had on someone, and to have the opportunity of letting others know that they have positively impacted your life?

    This is the purpose of The Butterfly Light Award which was bestowed upon me my Lisa Reiter, a lovely lady who is herself inspirational for her courage and her positive attitude which she shares with others through her blog Sharing the story. Thank you, Lisa. I am honoured and accept with pleasure.

    As with any award, it comes with conditions:

    1. You should write an acceptance post, making sure you link back to the blogger who awarded you and thank them. You MAY NOT lump this award in with a batch of other awards.

    Thank you Lisa Reiter!

    1. You must individually name and re-award to a minimum of 1 and a maximum of 9999999 bloggers. You must let them know either personally with a comment on their blog OR a pingback.

    As I have been writing about educators, I am going to stick with that theme. A quick visit to these blogs will explain why I have selected them.

    Ruth Mancini

    The Nerdy Book Club

    Two Writing Teachers

    Raising a literate human

    3.  You should link back to Belinda’s blog either to http://idiotwriting.wordpress.com/about/ or http://idiotwriting.wordpress.com/2014/03/13/i-love-charismatic-geeks/

    Done!

    1. You must write a short paragraph entitled either “How I’m Spreading Light” OR “How I’m A Positive Influence” (what Lisa calls ‘the squirmy bit’).

    Done! See beginning of article.

    5. Display Belinda’s lovely “Butterfly Light Award” badge on your blog.

    Thank you, Belinda. It’s a pleasure! We can never have too many butterflies!

    butterfly-light-award

    Note: The beautiful framed quote, pictured at the top of this post, was made for me by a wonderful lady, the mother of two of my students. They all share my love of butterflies! I thank them for sharing their appreciation of my positive influence.

    I welcome your feedback. Please share your thoughts about any aspect of the article.

  • It’s no surprise! Talking education

    https://openclipart.org/image/800px/svg_to_png/185077/creepyjackinthebox.png
    https://openclipart.org/image/800px/svg_to_png/185077/creepyjackinthebox.png

    We all like a surprise, right?

    Well, you might say, that all depends on whether the surprise is a good surprise or a bad surprise.

    A surprise is simply something unexpected, and everyday life is full of surprises; some so little they go almost unnoticed, others of larger more life-changing proportions. Some are pleasant and others far less so.

    What got me thinking about surprises this week is the flash fiction prompt posted by Charli Mills at Carrot Ranch Communications.

    Charli’s challenge this week is to

    In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story that shows surprise without using the word. 

    I have been thinking of all sorts of surprises I could write about but decided to maintain my focus on education.

    There are many opportunities for surprises to occur throughout one’s education, which is not limited to (but probably, dare I say, by) one’s schooling experiences.

    For example:

    • Discovering you can read a book, all by yourself
    • Discovering an author whose work you just can’t put down
    • Finding a solution to a problem that had seemed insurmountable
    • Achieving a favourable result in a dreaded test
    • Being offered a place in the course you were wanting
    • Having work accepted, valued and receiving payment

     

    There are many situations in which the surprise could go either way.

    For example:

    • Being called to the principal’s office
    • Having a parent-teacher interview about your own child, or student
    • Receiving exam results or course placement offer
    • Meeting a new teacher
    • Working in a group to solve a problem

     

    Being a lover of stories, especially picture books, it is rare that a situation doesn’t trigger a thought connection to a story or book I have read.

    Thinking about the good surprises and bad surprises that could happen in some of these situations made me think of a book I had read to my own, and classes of, children years ago. Maybe you will remember it also.

    what good luck what bad luckThe book is What Good Luck! What Bad Luck! by Remy Charlip and relates a sequence of events alternating between good and bad.

    It appears, from what I can find out, that it was first published by Ashton Scholastic in 1964 and sold for 60 cents.

    Today Amazon has used copies on offer for $34.99 or $122 and a collectible as high as $157.70.

    What good luck, I used to have a copy.

    What bad luck, it is no longer in my possession.

    I was at the stage of mentally composing my story with my fingers itching to get to the keyboard to translate it into print when I glanced at the morning paper1 and came across this headline:

    Lesson 1: Bad teachers = bad results

    As a teacher who is passionate about education but also critical of top-down force-fed schooling institutions, headlines/comments like these have me vacillating between defiant self- (and professional-) protection and agreement with the criticisms.

    Teachers come in for a lot of criticism, some of it deservedly so, other of it not so much.

    One quote I love is “Teaching is the one profession that creates all other professions”.

    On the flip-side of this is “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.”

    While I take offense at this one, sometimes I am inclined to think it alludes to an important quality in a teacher. Frequently those who are expert at something, find it difficult to break a process into a series of steps that would enable an explanation to be easily understood by others. If one has struggled to master a task, the process can seem clearer and easier to explain. However there does come a point below which knowledge and experience must not fall or effective teaching cannot exist.

    In her article Bad teachers = bad results, Kylie Lang says that

    “C-grade teachers will not produce A-grade results”.

    She says,

    “Too many mediocre minds are becoming teachers. Universities usher them in, these academic underperformers who fail to qualify for courses with higher entry requirements.”

    She says that

    “A federal education department report shows a rise in the number of school leavers with poor grades being offered places on teaching courses. This year, 55 percent of Year 12 students that were allowed to undertake teaching degrees had an Australian Tertiary Admission Rank below the average . . .”

    It is a bit scary, isn’t it?

    She also says that,

    “If we are a nation that values education . . . we must attract brighter, more creative thinkers to classrooms.”

    I couldn’t agree more. However I wonder where they will get those creative thinkers if higher order thinking skills, creativity and innovation are sacrificed in the relentless quest for scores on academic tests which require students to spit back information forced upon them in hours of didactic instruction and rote learning.

    It’s no surprise that anyone who maintains the ability to think outside the square would rather not return to it!

    And so to my flash piece for this week, which comes with a warning – there’s no rhyme because there is no reason:

     

    What luck!

    No books, no talk were in the home.

    What luck!

    He was happy to play on his own.

     

    School began when he was five.

    What luck!

    Learning from flash cards, how hard he tried.

     

    “My boy can’t do it!” his Mum once wailed.

    What luck!

    With ‘forged’ test scores no child would fail.

     

    Leaving school, the options were few.

    What luck!

    Teaching was the one he could do.

     

    Uni years flashed by so fast.

    What luck!

    Number requirements meant he passed.

     

    Then into the classroom he unprepared went.

    No future joy for any student.

    What bad luck!

     

    I always enjoy reading your comments. I invite you to share your thoughts.

     

     

    1 Courier-Mail, Sunday May 25 2014

     

    If you enjoyed this post, you may enjoy others. Please click the button at the top on the right to receive future posts by email.

  • Passionate about literacy education

    Education is my passion.

    I have spent almost my entire life thinking about how to educate, and the rest of it being educated.

    That is to say, just like everyone else, I began to learn about the world from the moment I was born, if not before; probably before.

    From age ten I knew that I wanted to be a teacher and worked hard through school to achieve that goal.

    When I completed school I was fortunate to receive a teacher’s scholarship which meant that my three years of training was provided by the state education system and, in return, I was required to teach within the system for three years. Without the scholarship that path would have been unattainable.

    I remember sitting in my classroom on, what I will say was, my first day of teaching. I gathered a group of children around me, each of us with a reader in our hands, ready for a reading lesson. Suddenly I realised I didn’t have a clue what to do.

    Realisation 1: Teaching reading isn’t as simple as putting book in the hands of children and telling them to read.

    This was a third grade class, so I’m hoping that most of them were already able to read and we figured it out together. Round robin reading seemed to be the method of the moment.

    During that first, and the following year, I put a lot of energy into sorting books into levels and children into groups to read the books at the different levels.  I’m not sure what the children learned but I know I was earning my pay. I was ‘teaching’.

    Realisation 2: Children learn to read at different rates.

    At the beginning of my third year of teaching I was listening to children read individually, in order to group them according to reading ability, when one of the children, considered a good reader by his previous teacher, informed me proudly that he could read the book without looking; and proceeded to do so. He had memorised it! He didn’t recognise any of the words and could not read any other book.

    Realisation 3: Reading is more than reciting the words on the page.

    Major realisation: There was something wrong with the way reading was being taught, and I still didn’t feel confident about teaching it.

    Fortunately most children learn to read despite how it is taught, and although I sometimes think I’d like to apologise to all those students I “taught” when I didn’t have much of a clue, I’d like to say “I hope they’re not reading this”, but I really hope they can!

    Not long after this I had a break from teaching for a few years. During that time I read a lot of books about education, especially alternative views of schooling. I continued to feel strongly about reading instruction and even wrote a series of readers (unpublished) based on instruction in phonics. (Such was my ignorance!)

    I worked with groups of upper primary remedial readers who made great progress ostensibly using a phonics program. However they also received lots of individual attention, encouragement and opportunities for reading real books.

    At the same time I watched my three year old son become a reader without any formal instruction. I read to him, talked with him, wrote stories for him and transcribed his stories which we read together. We played games with language making up rhymes, playing “I spy”, singing songs and talking about print in our environment. Before I knew it he was jumping into bed in the mornings, prising my eyes open and begging to read to me!

    I struggled to make sense of what I was observing.

    Then the serendipitous moment arrived: I saw an advertisement for a graduate diploma in reading and language. It sounded tailored to my needs exactly. And it was.

    We packed up the family and moved across the country to enable me to undertake the study.

    It was one of the best things I have ever done. Suddenly everything made sense. The course about developing literacy skills also supported my developing beliefs and understandings about learning in general. I was at last in a place I felt comfortable. This was where I belonged. The course reignited my passion and provided the knowledge and skills that would underpin everything I have since done in education. Time has moved on but the essential understandings are timeless.

    The coordinator of the course, the person who deserves my sincerest gratitude, is just as passionate about literacy education today as he was then, influencing new generations of teachers and students. His name is Brian Cambourne, Principal Fellow on the Faculty of Education at the University of Wollongong. He is affiliated with the International Reading Association and the Australian Literacy Educators Association.

    Recently a friend sent me a link to an article about reading on The Conversation. It is titled “The seven messages of highly effective reading teachers” and begins with a caption under a photo:

    Teaching kids to read isn’t just about learning the alphabet or “sounding out”, it’s about making sense of what’s on the page.

    I read the article and quickly responded to my friend saying that I agreed wholeheartedly and that I was, in fact, writing a book about those very same ideas, right at that moment!

    Then I checked the author. Imagine my surprise when I discovered it was Brian Cambourne! I am delighted to be able to share his wisdom with you.

    In the article Brian explains the seven messages that highly effective reading teachers share with their students:

    1. A reader’s major focus should always be meaning

    2. Effective readers draw on all sources of information in the text

    3. Effective readers are always predicting

    4. Effective readers self-correct

    5. Effective readers have a range of strategies

    6. Effective readers know how they read

    7. Effective readers love reading

     

    Please read Brian’s full article on The Conversation.

     

    I welcome any feedback.

  • What is education, anyway? Pt.2

    This week I am sharing a post published on Teachling earlier this year. Teachling introduces her post with a TED talk by Sir Ken Robinson, an international advisor on Education. Like Teachling, I very much admire his work and would love to see education systems implement his recommendations. I hope you will set aside the 19 minutes it will take to listen to what Ken has to say. You will be amused, entertained and educated. I intended providing a summary of important points from his talk, but found I was recording the talk in full! Teachling has provided a few notes but I would love you to listen to the entire talk and let me know what you think. How can we join the revolution that Ken says we need?

    Teachling's avatarTeachling

    Let’s face it, children are basically all the same and should be taught in the same, tried and tested, chalk and talk, fashion. Teachers in schools should focus purely on the 3R’s – Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic – and leave that creative ‘fluff’ for kids to pursue in their own time. Children should be viewed as empty vessels and a teacher’s role is to fill them with enough knowledge to pass the test. Some kids are just lazy, hyperactive or incapable of learning, so teachers should let them be whilst focussing on the other kids that can and want to learn. Wait… What? Was there actually a time when people thought this way about education? I do hope that the opinions above are not felt by any person on this earth. My opinions are much more aligned with those articulated in Ken Robinson’s Ted Talk, “How to escape education’s death…

    View original post 447 more words

  • Must read: Neil Gaiman – “Reading and obligation”

    When I first stepped, rather tentatively, into the world of blogging and tweeting I had no idea of the pleasures I would find. I found a whole community of others who share my passion for education, learning, literacy and writing. I found a comfortable niche, discussion group, and a place for sharing ideas like I hadn’t for a long time. I’ve “come home” on the internet.

    In these few short months I have come across some bloggers with very powerful messages that I wish everyone could read and act upon in the ways described. What a wonderful world we would have!

    Over the coming months I will let you know about some  articles I consider  ‘must reads’.

    Please let me know of others you think I should also be reading!

    Thanks for sharing and supporting me on my learning journey thus far.

    The story has just begun!

    This first in the series is a lecture given by Neil Gaiman entitled “Reading and obligation”

    Neil Gaiman lecture in full: Reading and obligation

    Neil captivates me with his opening statement:

    “It’s important for people to tell you what side they are on and why, and whether they might be biased.”

    If you have read any other articles on my blog, you will know that I am biased; biased towards a child-centered, hands-on, creative and innovative approach to education. I believe that children are capable of far more than a structured didactic approach to schooling gives them credit for; and that big changes in the way education is delivered are necessary if we are to make best use of our most valuable resource – human potential.

    As a reader, writer and literacy educator I am biased towards approaches which foster a love of reading and writing. The pleasures to be gained from a literate existence are immeasurable. But more than that, being literate is not only personally empowering, it is a basic human right.

    Obviously the articles on my must read list will be those that share my biases.

    Please follow the link to watch the video or read the complete transcript of Neil’s lecture.

    I offer a few teasers below to incite your interest.

    “everything changes when we read”

    Wow! How powerful is that statement!

    “The simplest way to make sure that we raise literate children is to teach them to read, and to show them that reading is a pleasurable activity. And that means, at its simplest, finding books that they enjoy giving them access to those books and letting them read them.”

    “Fiction has two uses. Firstly, it’s a gateway drug to reading. . .

    And the second thing fiction does is to build empathy.”

    “Fiction can show you a different world. It can take you somewhere you’ve never been. Once you’ve visited other worlds, like those who ate fairy fruit, you can never be entirely content with the world that you grew up in. Discontent is a good thing: people can modify and improve their worlds, leave them better, leave them different.”

    Don’t you love that last statement? I do. If we are always “happy” with the way things are, why would we ever try to improve or change them? A little discontent can be a good thing!

    “We need to read and write, we need global citizens who can read comfortably, comprehend what they are reading, understand nuance, and make themselves understood.”

    Neil goes on to talk about our obligations as readers, writers and citizens of the world.

    He lists the following (read or listen for his explanation)

    • Read for pleasure
    • Support libraries
    • Read aloud to our children
    • To use the language
    • We writers – and especially writers for children, but all writers – have an obligation to our readers: it’s the obligation to write true things, especially important when we are creating tales of people who do not exist in places that never were – to understand that truth is not in what happens but what it tells us about who we are. Fiction is the lie that tells the truth (underlining is mine)
    • not to bore our readers
    • not to preach, not to lecture, not to force 
    • never, ever, under any circumstances, to write anything for children to read that we would not want to read ourselves.
    • to understand and to acknowledge that as writers for children we are doing important work,
    • to daydream We have an obligation to imagine. . . . individuals change their world over and over, individuals make the future, and they do it by imagining that things can be different.
    • to make things beautiful.
    • to tell our politicians what we want

    Neil reminds us that

    “Albert Einstein was asked once how we could make our children intelligent. His reply was both simple and wise.

    “If you want your children to be intelligent,” he said, “read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.“

    I couldn’t agree more.

    What about you? What do you think of Neil’s list of obligations? Are there any you would omit, or any you would add?

  • What is education, anyway? Pt.1

    One of my favourite talks about education is a TED talk given by Ken Robinson in 2006 “How schools kill creativity”.

    His contention is that

    “creativity . . . is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status.”

    Although the video has had more than 21 million views (while quite a few of them mine, nowhere near that number!) and drawn over 3 000 comments during the last 8 years, his views need to reach a wider audience still; an audience with the power to enact change.
    One thing I had always loved about teaching was the opportunity to express myself creatively, and to encourage my students to do the same. Unfortunately the current emphasis on a content-driven, top-down approach where test results reign supreme has left little room for anyone’s creativity. I am not saying there was ever much opportunity for creativity in formal schooling, but creative teachers could always squeeze a bit it. Now the opportunities for creative “massage” are few.
    My optimism for positive change in education is always raised when I read or hear of others who share similar views. I think if enough voices are heard chanting the same message that a change may come.
    This post (and article in Saturday’s QWeekend magazine) by Mary-Rose Maccoll “Why Banff means the World” also proclaims the vision of Ken Robinson. Mary-Rose is another fan.
    She says that

    “Being at the Banff Centre (in Canada) has made me reflect on what we lose when we don’t foster art, when we don’t foster creativity. And what we lose is the world.”

    She says that

    “even as school education becomes increasingly narrow in its focus, we’re also seeing a decline in performance on the very outcomes that standardisation seeks to improve.”

    She concludes by saying,

    “As I sit in my room and watch the mountains, listening to the trail of a contraband sax down the hall (you’re supposed to play in the soundproofed studios in the forest), reading a piece by a Scottish writer, I am grateful for artists. In our 21st century world, we surely need them.”

    I agree wholeheartedly as, I’m sure would Ken Robinson, along with Teachling whose post What is Education, anyway?Pt 1 I reblog for you here.

    I agree with Teachling’s belief that

    “many teachers would feel that – as well as their students’ innate talents and creativity being snuffed – their own talents and creativity don’t get much of a look-in. I believe most teachers are very restricted in terms of what they teach as well as how they teach it.”

    I also agree with her when she states that

    “that there’s very little teachers can do about it.

    It’s the administrators and politicians that should take Robinson’s advice. It’s also the perceptions of a majority of parents that would need to vastly change if any rethinking of fundamental principles were to occur.”

    Have a listen to Ken and read these other posts, then let me know what you think.

    How can we make our voices be heard to ensure that creativity and innovation is not lost for the future?

    Teachling's avatarTeachling

    Ken Robinson’s take on schools, and how they kill creativity…

    You’re likely one of the 20,738,467 viewers of Ken Robinson’s “Schools Kill Creativity” 2006 TED Talk. Robinson’s assertion, and general gist of the talk, is that “all kids have tremendous talents, and we squander them; pretty ruthlessly”. The “we”, we can infer from the rest of his talk, are schools.

    Let me pick out some key points:
    • “My contention is that creativity, now, is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status.”
    • “We are educating people out of their creative capacities.”
    • “Every education system on Earth has the same hierarchy of subjects… At the top are Mathematics and Languages, then the Humanities and at the bottom are the Arts… And in pretty much every education system there’s a hierarchy within the Arts. Art and Music are normally given a higher…

    View original post 423 more words

  • Counting on the holidays!

    algebra

    When the topic “Maths” is mentioned in conversation among adults, including teachers, many of them moan, “I hate maths. It’s too abstract. I could never understand it. I can’t see the point in it.”

    I think it is a sad situation that many such adults were turned off maths in school by teachers who didn’t introduce them to the beauty of maths, who didn’t teach maths in the context of real-life purposes and whose pedagogical kit bag was entirely filled with worksheets of meaningless and endless algorithms to complete.

    I am one of those adults too. In my final years of high school I had a “teacher” who could do the math but couldn’t teach the math; couldn’t explain the why or the how, or any of the steps required to achieve understanding. Maths became an impenetrable forest of meaningless algorithms, formulae and theorems.

    As both a parent and teacher of young children, I was determined to not be an instrument of math torture. Granted this may be easier with young children than it is with older students, but I’m sure there are still ways of making maths fun and meaningful in high school classrooms.

    The suggestions in this article provide parents of young children with ways of finding maths in everyday contexts and incorporating mathematical learning effortlessly into holiday activities. Of course, the activities are of benefit at any time, not just during the holidays!

    If you don’t have young children to inspire, or inspire you, please move on to the end of the article for some suggestions to excite your own interest in maths!

    Although the word “counting” appears in the title, it is important to remember that maths is not just counting.

    The strands of maths as described by The Australian Curriculum include:

    • Number and place value
    • Patterns and algebra
    • Measurement and geometry
    • Probability and statistics

    My list includes just a few suggestions for each of those strands to get you started. Need I say there is an infinite number of possibilities?

    25 ways to keep children thinking mathematically during the holidays:

    Number and place value

    1. Count items e.g. birds in the sky, shells collected from the beach, people for lunch, steps in a staircase, windows on a house, seats in a bus . . .
    2. Count out the cutlery required for each person at dinner
    3. Include your child in shopping activities by helping them to:
      • Recognise the coins and notes
      • Count the value of coins and notes
      • Predict whether they have enough money to purchase an item, and whether there will be change
      • Tender the money in payment for an item
    4. When your child is sharing e.g. the biscuits, balloons or slices of fruit, ask them to:
      • Predict if there will be enough for everyone to have one, or more than one each
      • Share out the items, allocating the same number to each
      • Determine if there are any left over and what to do with them
    5. Use terms like half and quarter correctly, e.g. when cutting apples, oranges, sandwiches, pizza, to indicate pieces of equal size
    6. Play games that involve counting, e.g. counting the number of skips, balls in hoops, pins knocked down or dice games like snakes and ladders that require adding as well as number recognition and counting
    7. Make up number stories e.g. “We had five apples in the bowl. I ate one, and you ate one, how many are left?” “
    8. Read books with number concepts e.g. Pat Hutchins The Doorbell Rang, Eric Carle Rooster’s off to see the world  or Kim Michelle Toft One Less Fish

    doorbell rang

    Rooster's off to see world

    One less fish

    Patterns and algebra

    1. Use items to make patterns e.g. sort and create a pattern from shells collected at the beach, building blocks or toy cars
    2. Look for patterns in the environment e.g. fences, tiles, walls and window, zebra crossings
    3. Decorate cards and drawings with a patterned frame
    4. Make gift wrapping paper by decorating with potato prints or stamp patterns

    Measurement and geometry

    1. Include your child in cooking activities and allow or support them to:
    • measure the ingredientscooking-man
    • set the temperature on the oven
    • work out the cooking finish time

    2.  A child’s understanding of volume and capacity can be developed when they:

    • pour glasses of water from the jug and discuss terms such as enough, full, empty, half or part full, more, less
    • pour from one container into another of a different shape to compare which holds more and which holds less

    3.  Scales can be used to compare the mass of different items or quantities e.g. compare an apple and an orange, measure the mass of butter required for a recipe

    4.  Measuring length can be included by:

    • measuring and comparing height
    • cutting a length of string to tie a package
    • measuring who is closest to the jack in a backyard game of lawn bowls

    5.  Use the calendar to

    • Learn the names and sequence of days in the week or months in the year
    • count the passing days or the number of days until an event

    6.  Identify shapes in the home and environment e.g.

    • 2D shapes: tiles on floor and walls, shapes of windows, sections of footpath
    • 3D shapes: cereal boxes (rectangular prism), balls (sphere), bottles or cans (cylinder), dice (cube)

    7.  Play games that involve shapes e.g. jigsaw puzzles, tangrams

    8.  Talk about directions e.g. left, right, forwards, backwards and follow directions on a grid

    9.  Play games that involve directions and movement in space e.g. battleship, Hokey Pokey, Simon Says, snakes and ladders, ludo

    10.  Read and discuss books that include measurement concepts e.g. Pamela Allen: Who Sank the Boat? (volume); Eric Carle: The Very Hungry Caterpillar (days of the week) and The Bad Tempered Ladybird (time); Penny Matthews and Andrew McLean A Year on our Farm (months and seasons); and for looking at places on a map Mem Fox Sail Away The ballad of Skip and Nell or Annette Langen & Constanza Droop Letters from Felix

    who sank the boat

    The Very Hungry Caterpillar

    A year on our farm

    sail awayLetters from Felix

    Probability and statistics

    spite_sun_rain

    1. When discussing the weather or desired activities include the language of probability e.g. possible, certain, likely, unlikely, impossible
    2. Encourage children to collect data about family or friends by asking yes/no questions e.g. do you like swimming, or making a graph of the family’s favourite colour or meal.
    3. Play games with spinners and dice and talk about the likelihood of spinning or throwing a particular number

    This list is really just a beginning. I’m sure you will add many more suggestions of your own.

    For your convenience, the list is available to download FREE in my TEACHERSpayTEACHERS store.

    As promised I will leave you with a few suggestions to spark your own interest in and love of maths. Be sure to check them out:

    These are must listen TED talks by Arthur Benjamin:

    The magic of Fibonacci numbers

    and A performance of “Mathemagic”

     And a fascinating one for the Christmas season “The 12 days of Pascal’s triangular Christmas” by Michael Rose on The Conversation.

    If you want to delve a bit deeper, here are some interesting reads to get you started:

    Charles Seife Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea

    Mario Livio The Golden Ratio: The Story of PHI, The World’s Most Astonishing Number

    Rozsa Peter Playing with Infinity: Mathematical Explorations and Excursions

    I listened to the biography of zero on audiobooks this year. It was a fascinating listen.

    What do you think of maths? Do you love it or hate it?

    I hope you enjoy your adventures in maths! A world of possibilities awaits!

  • The pretender – putting on a show!

    19178-School-Building-Graphic

    Back in the early days of my teaching career, back before many of our younger teachers were born, let alone teaching, we used to have a visit from a school inspector every year or two. The role of the inspector was to monitor and evaluate the implementation of school programs as well as to provide advice and support to teachers.

    However many teachers tended to think of them in less positive ways and these visits often engendered a sense of fear in some teachers as the inspector could appear at the classroom door at any time and ask to see current curriculum programs and mark books, test the spelling and computational ability of the class as a whole, and hear individual children read.

    Because of this, when one of these visits was imminent there was often a flurry of activity getting curriculum documents and assessment up to date, and displaying children’s work in the classrooms and foyer.

    But I wasn’t one of those teachers frantic in preparation and fear of being found out. I firmly believed that if what I was doing each day for the children in my class wasn’t good enough, then so be it. They were the ones that mattered after all and their education was my priority. I could not see what else I could do to prepare for these visits.

    My programs were well researched, up to date and innovative. They were responsive to individual needs which were well documented with anecdotal records and diagnostic assessments as well as required testing, and supported by samples of student work. My classroom had an ever-changing display of children’s current work allowing visitors to see what we had been working on as well as giving the students a sense of pride in their achievements.

    I guess also, for me back then, the school inspector was only one of the many visitors to my classroom as I was used to people coming to see what we were doing. Parents were always welcome and there were many who helped out on a regular basis and others who made the effort to come for special events and celebrations.

    The principal was very involved and supportive and often popped in to see what we were up to and to provide additional support for children’s learning. In addition, teachers from other schools would visit in order to observe and take ideas back to their own classrooms; and pre-service teachers (student teachers they were called then) were often involved.

    So, for me, the inspector’s visit was just another day, business as usual.

    I am having difficulty in summoning words to describe how I felt when I saw the teacher next door (our classrooms were open, separated only by cupboards and shelves) busily testing children and writing marks in mark books, filling in “current” curriculum programs for the preceding term’s work and covering the previously bare classroom walls with displays of children’s work completed that day.

    I guess you could say I was aghast at what I considered to be blatant dishonesty. I felt it was so wrong that I almost wanted to remove what I had on display for fear of the inspector thinking it was simply there for his benefit.

    I didn’t.

    Instead I turned to poetry, as I often do, to express my feelings; and I would like to share it with you, its first readers.

    I had forgotten all about it until I came across it unexpectedly while looking for something else. It reminded me of the attempt at deception I saw enacted. I say “attempt” because, of course, the principal would have been aware of the situation and I have no doubt that these trained inspectors would be able to see through the veneer.

    I think if I was writing the poem now, rather than 30 years ago, I would not be so generous with my analogy, nor so disrespectful to the butterfly.

    Here it is:

     

    ©Glenn Althor www.http://obscurepieces.com/ Used with permission.
    ©Glenn Althor www.http://obscurepieces.com/ Used with permission.

    Not really about a butterfly

    Look at you now.

    You put on your show.

    Your butterfly colours are warmly aglow.

    It’s hard to imagine

    That not long ago

    You were a mere silent pupa

    With nowhere to go.

    You flit and you flutter

    Cry, “Hey, look at me!”

    And all turn their heads

    -wondrous beauty to see.

    But where have you come from?

    And how can this be?

    Before . . .

    Not one head would have turned.

    There was nothing to see,

    –          just a little green ball,

    curled up on a tree.

    Is it dishonest

    To change rapidly?

    What do you think?

  • Learning At Its Best

    If you have been following my blog you will know that I have certain misgivings about traditional styles of education. That’s not to say that I don’t have certain misgivings about alternative styles of education as well, for I do. It was these collective misgivings that led me to home educate my daughter in her early years while attempting to establish an alternative school that met my expectations.

    In researching programs on offer in many traditional and alternative schooling environments, I read a lot of school descriptions, policy and philosophy statements. I usually find there is little to argue with in these statements, it is usually the way the beliefs are translated into practice with which I have difficulty.

    Occasionally I read something about a school that really excites me and I think “Wow, this school has really got it all together: philosophy and pedagogy. Children and their learning needs are at the centre of this organisation.”

    Recently I read a description that made me wish I was six years old again and enrolled to start my schooling there.

    According to the article it is
    “Learning at its best . . . where the MAGIC happens” and describes a “Disney World – only better”, where
    • Imagination can prosper
    • Friendship and freedom of speech is fostered
    • Conflict resolution skills are developed
    • Active and open listening is encouraged
    Among other things, it has:
    • a creativity corner
    • a nature reserve
    • a dramatic play area

    Why don’t I just let you read the article that fired my imagination, then you can let me know what you think . . .

    Hope's avatarshecando

    .. Is where the MAGIC happens.

    Given my interest in all things children, education and teaching, being lucky enough to have a tour of Miss Charlie’s classroom was like getting a private and personalized tour of Disney World – only better!

    Her class, and the rest of the Junior School (Kindy, Year 1 & 2), share newly renovated and connected federation houses in one part of the campus. Here they have their own tennis courts, play grounds, rooftop gardens, a junior library and even a secret corridor connecting them to the main gym and swimming pools and on to the rest of the school. It’s rather impressive, even if I say so myself.

    What really amazed me, and made me want to never leave (I’m not joking, I might have to apply for a teaching job there ASAP), was the open planned piazza that connects the junior school classrooms. This…

    View original post 616 more words

  • Goals of education

    reachstars
    http://www.openclipart.org

    The following quote from Jean Piaget, Swiss psychologist (1896 – 1980) is one that has driven the direction of my own thinking about education. It has guided many of my choices both as a teacher and as a learner.

    When I listen to the creative ideas and view the innovations demonstrated through TED talks, I know that the principle goal is being met by many.

    When I hear about the wonderful work being done, such as that by The Philosophy Foundation and P4C (Philosophy for Children), to introduce school children to philosophic enquiry, including critical thinking and reasoning, I know the second goal is also being met.

    “The principle goal of education is to create people who are capable of doing new things, not simply of repeating what other generations have done – people who are creative, inventive, and discoverers.

    The second goal . . . is to form minds which can be critical, can verify, and not accept everything they are offered.”

    What do you think?

    How did your education help you achieve these goals?

    How do you see these goals being achieved?