Norah Colvin

Live Love Laugh Learn … Create the possibilities

Tag: learning

  • Adventures in Learning

    www.morguefile.com
    http://www.morguefile.com

    I have never been physically adventurous; never dived off a high cliff, surfed a rolling wave or bungeed into an abyss; I don’t like heights and get no thrill from the thought of a roller-coaster ride. I don’t believe it’s fear that holds me back. It’s lack of interest and opportunity: I never sought it and it never sought me.

    When I was very little I earned the nickname “Possum” because, apparently, I was a climber and constantly getting into mischief. I soon had that knocked out of me by a combination of physical and verbal admonitions. Perhaps this contributed to my dislike of heights, but I think my disinclination for the adrenalin rush of physical activities was inborn.

    www.morguefile.com
    http://www.morguefile.com

    Fear probably does contribute to my reluctance to participate in other height related activities such as parasailing, hang gliding, gliding and hot air ballooning. Each of these does have a certain amount of appeal and I think I would love the experience, if I was brave enough to take the leap. One day perhaps.

    Not only were my explorations through climbing curtailed, I was also discouraged from conducting my own investigations and from asking questions. While my parents encouraged reading through library membership and giving books as gifts, my father was often heard to say, “What you don’t know won’t do you any harm.” Though I read avidly, self-selected material was almost exclusively fiction. Non-fiction was the realm of textbooks set for study in boring school subjects with enforced memorisation for regurgitation in exams and then promptly forgotten.

    www.openclipart.com
    http://www.openclipart.com

    Fortunately, I gained some sense of the limitations of my own experiences and thinking and endeavoured to avoid limiting my own children in similar ways. Only they will be able to say how much their experiences and learning were restricted. Neither is into extreme physical challenges and I certainly didn’t provide them with opportunities that may have encouraged such activities. However, I did encourage them to be curious, to ask questions and to investigate. I closed the door on thinking that revered ignorance and opened the one for adventures into learning.

    It is important for parents and teachers to realise the impact of their attitudes, expressed and otherwise, on the developing attitudes of their children. There is a lovely poem Children Learn What They Live by Dorothy Law Nolte that expresses it rather well.

    Below is a list of a few further ingredients that I consider essential for maintaining the fun and adventure in learning throughout life. I’m sure you will think of many more.

    Children learn best when they have time to:

    • play,
    • choose,
    • grow and develop,
    • think,
    • problem solve,
    • make many attempts,
    • develop independence,
    • create,
    • be,
    • question,
    • wonder,
    • imagine,
    • explore, and
    • discover

    in an environment of respect and encouragement that is unhurried and non-competitive.

    While I often say that children are born scientists, constantly exploring the world and conducting experiments to find out what works, we can sometimes take their discoveries for granted as their investigations confirm for them something it seems that we have always known; for example, that something dropped will fall. However, any question that a child asks can be a springboard into further learning. It is the questions asked that have driven science discoveries and understandings: questioning, wondering and imagining.

    It is these adventures into the unknown, the exhilaration of learning, that drive me and that have inspired my response to the flash fiction challenge by Charli Mills at the Carrot Ranch to In 99 words (no more, no less) write an adventure, experienced or witnessed. I hope you enjoy it.

    As she reached for the unicorn-shaped balloon the man smiled and winked. She hesitated, accepted the balloon, and pushed back through the small audience. Something made her turn. The bystanders, the man, and the balloons were gone. Puzzled, she scanned the crowd for her mum. A sudden gust puffed out her skirt and, as she clutched the unicorn, lifted her high and away: across the city, over the fields, beyond the horizon; and back. She gazed at the patchwork unfolding:  beautiful, connected, serene; and recognised herself a part. As she descended all was as before. Only she had changed.

    And if you are wondering about a unicorn-shaped balloon, it is possible:

    Thank you

     

    Thank you for reading. I appreciate your feedback. Please share your thoughts.

     

  • Thankful and inspired: schools and education

    I have just watched the movie “He named me Malala”. The message has not lost its importance or impact. Sadly the need for her message to be heard and responded to has only grown over time. I share this post again as a reminder of Malala’s courage, strength, and determination. She says, “The terrorists thought they would change my aims and stop my ambitions, but nothing changed in my life except this: weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage were born.”

    Norah's avatarNorah Colvin

    In recent posts there was some discussion about the importance of education, the value of schools and the role of teachers. I thought it timely to re-share this post, first published in July 2015.

    Earlier this week I read a post by Kimmie of Stuck In Scared about Ten Things of Thankful. I have also read many other posts about things to be thankful for. These posts prompted me to share something for which I am thankful: schools and education.

    I know that I often write about what I consider the shortcomings of traditional schooling and make suggestions of how schools could be improved. However I live in a country that values education and in which every child has a right to a free education. For that I am thankful. Those of us who have access to schools and education are the lucky ones.

    This week I have been…

    View original post 238 more words

  • Learning environment

     

    gardeningIn last week’s post I shared information about research projects students could become involved in to be scientists in real life. Some of the projects such as Project BudBurst and BudBurst Buddies encourage junior scientists to observe and record changes in plants throughout the changing seasons. Many commenting on the post agreed that projects such as these would make the learning of science come alive. Pauline King the Contented Crafter even commented that she may have to reconsider her opinion of schools if children were involved in projects such as these.

    © Norah Colvin
    © Norah Colvin

    Shortly after posting I read an article on Co.Exist describing a preschool that doubles as urban farm where “Kids learn among the plants and animals in this design for a radically different education environment.”  A bit like my concept of an early learning caravan, the school does not actually exist. The design was entered into and won an architecture competition. It is an interesting concept and I especially like the suggestion that children spend more time learning about nature through experiencing it in wild spaces in the outdoors rather than only through classroom activities and books, both of which do have their role.

    Jeannie Baker - planet changing

    I have previously shared the wonderful books of Jeannie Baker which have strong environmental themes encouraging children to care for nature and appreciate the natural wonders and beauty of the world around them.

    2015-09-19 11.09.45 2015-09-19 11.11.04

    This morning, thanks to a recommendation from Sarah Brentyn who blogs at Lemon Shark, I received another lovely book in the post that will sit among my favourites. The Curious Garden by Peter Brown tells the story of how a curious boy helps transform a city from a drab grey concrete jungle to a one filled with gardens and gardeners. The story affirms the belief that the actions of one person can make a difference.

    Never-doubt-that-a-small - Margaret Mead

    I am currently listening to Earth in Mind: On Education, Environment and the Human Prospect, an interesting and thought-provoking book by environmentalist David W. Orr who challenges the focus of schools and advocates for learning outdoors in the natural environment. He may approve of the preschool farm, but he’d probably be more in favour of a forest preschool.

    This, however, is only a small part of his position and I do not wish to misrepresent it. In an article, which reads like a chapter from the book, Orr describes “Six myths about the foundations of modern education, and six new principles to replace them”. The part of me that strives towards meliorism is seriously challenged by the picture Orr paints. The picture books, stories, and research projects are fine; but there’s much more to be done if we want to do more than simply wish for a greener future.

    I agree with Orr wholeheartedly that education for, with and through the environment is essential; and that many of our problems are caused by miseducation. However, I had not thought about education in the way that Orr explains. I think I’ll be sharing more of his work in future posts.

    Thank you

    Thank you for reading. I appreciate your feedback. Please share your thoughts.

     

     

  • It’s classic!

    By UnknownMarie-Lan Nguyen (Own work) [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
    By UnknownMarie-Lan Nguyen (Own work) [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
    This week at the Carrot Ranch Charli Mills is talking about the classics and libraries. I was a bit intrigued by the coincidence, for my current audiobook is A Classical Education The stuff you wish you were taught in school, written by Caroline Taggart and narrated by Bill Wallis. Maybe the words would reflect my situation better if they read “The stuff you wish you retained from what you learned in school”. I did study ancient history and even retained enough of it to get a passing grade in my final year of school, but most of what I learned dissipated once the exam was done.

    http://www.morguefile.com/
    http://www.morguefile.com/

    Although I am enjoying the audiobook, I think I will be none the wiser at its conclusion and retain little more than in earlier days. It is a reflection on my retention rather than the worthiness of the book.  At the top of Taggart’s webpage is a statement from the Yorkshire Post that I think is probably no idle boast:

    Caroline Taggart…has carved out a niche for herself in user-friendly, wittily written factual books which capture the imagination and quickly find their way to the top of the bestseller lists. 

    Prior to reading this statement I had thought that it was perhaps the narration that had brought the book alive in a most entertaining way. I was surprised that the narrator was not the author for the wonderful meanings and interest he evokes. If not the author then, I thought, he must be a wonderful character actor. Indeed, I was not surprised to find, he was.

    According to the Yorkshire Post, the writing itself is worthy too, though it seems to me, in many ways to be little more than a list of names, dates and snippets of events brought to life by an expert narrator. I’m not sure that I would read it cover to cover as I have listened to it, but it would definitely make a useful resource for checking out who and when, which is more or less impossible to do with an audiobook.

    ausines headphones

    One thing I have not liked about the book is the repeated opinion that maths and science in school are boring, and that most of us would only groan when thinking of what mathematicians like Archimedes and Pythagoras have burdened us with. If you’ve read many of my posts you would probably accuse me of being inconsistent, for haven’t I often agreed with that opinion of maths at school?

    algebra

    However, learning in mathematics should not be that way. I wish that everything we learned in school would be alive with interest, purpose and meaning. Then there’d be no need to groan. We’d be amazed and inspired by these great thinkers who have enlightened our lives.

    Arthur Benjamin, Mathemagician, would agree.

    He summarises his talk with these words:

    “Mathematics is not just solving for x, it’s also figuring out why.”

    But I digress a little. Charli’s main point was about the joy to be found in libraries. In my younger years I spent many hours in libraries. And if I wasn’t in a library, I was reading a book I’d borrowed from a library. Our home was filled with books but there were never enough to read and my parents and many of my siblings were frequent library book borrowers. On many Saturday afternoons throughout my teenage years I would walk the 5½ kilometre journey to the local library and back. I can’t remember how many books I was allowed to borrow, but I borrowed as many as I could.

    So many things about libraries have changed from those days of enforced silence, carded catalogues, and microfiche readers. But I don’t feel nostalgic for it. The systems are much more efficient now, and libraries have much more to offer the changing needs of a changing society.

    library
    http://www.morguefile.com/

    What does sadden me is that many local councils and schools are doing away with their libraries, and many schools are choosing administrators over teacher librarians when organising their staffing. A teacher librarian should be first enlisted. Nobody knows books and readers better than a teacher librarian.

    While I have not frequented my local library in recent years, I would be very distressed if it were to close. Not everyone has the luxury of being able to choose ownership over borrowing as I do. Libraries are important to communities and should be accessible to everyone; and not only for their books. Libraries play a significant role in developing a sense of community by providing meeting spaces for books clubs and groups of all sorts, activities for children including storytelling and reading, craft activities, films, games and puzzles, visits by authors and illustrators …

    They are also a great place to brush up on the classics that you may have missed out on in school, or find a book about mathematics that may inspire you to ask a big question and figure out why.

    The idea for my flash in response to Charli’s challenge, to In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story that includes a library, comes from the idea of taking books to the people, in their own neighbourhoods, and connects with my thoughts for an early childhood caravan.

    © Norah Colvin
    © Norah Colvin

    Another life, another dream, another possibility …

     The Book Lady

    She pulled the trailer from the shed, cleaned off the grime, gave it a lick of paint and hitched it to its once permanent position behind her bicycle. A trial ride around the yard confirmed all, including her knees, were still in working order. She propped the bike against the stairs and trundled back to her library where books lay scattered, spewed from shelves no longer able to hold them. She bundled them lovingly, tied them with memories, and wished them new hands to hold and hearts to love. It was time to share, and she knew just where.

    Thank you

    Thank you for reading. I appreciate your feedback. Please share your thoughts.

  • Be a scientist in real life!

     

    Scout, Science Girl https://openclipart.org/detail/192588/science-girl
    Scout, Science Girl https://openclipart.org/detail/192588/science-girl

    I have often talked about the scientific explorations of young children and referred to children as born scientists. Their curiosity, ability to engage in their own explorations and investigations, and make their own discoveries can be encouraged by adults who welcome their questions and become co-investigators.

    I recently read a post on The School Bell, An Official Blog of Harris County Department of Education that excited me about ways of maintaining that engagement. The post, contributed by Lisa Felske, is entitled Kids Count: Let them Be Citizen Scientists. Lisa says that there of hundreds of projects children can get involved with, some for the long-term as a classroom project, and others that can be conducted independently. They are all real projects that help researchers collect and analyse data.

    Lisa says,

    “For students, participation can make them feel connected to a community or a place far from home and can give them the satisfaction of knowing they have made a small but important contribution to real science.”

    How exciting to be part of a real project, collecting data that will make a difference to our world.

    www.morguefile.com
    http://www.morguefile.com

    Lisa says that one of her favourites is “Penguin Watch, which allows students to monitor penguins in remote regions by looking at still images and counting the number of adults, chicks and eggs seen in the photos.”

    I imagine many children would be interested in that too. But when you follow the link to Penguin Watch you find it is only a small part of the Zooniverse, “a collection of web-based citizen science projects that use the efforts of volunteers to help researchers deal with the flood of data that confronts them”. With projects ranging from astronomy to zoology, you could say there is something for everyone.

    gardening

    Lisa also mentions other favourites including Project BudBurst and BudBurst Buddies (for younger students) in which junior scientists observe and record changes in plants throughout the changing seasons. While these are US based projects, the websites are rich with suggestions for adaptation in other places.

    Finding out about, appreciating and caring for everything, plant, animal or mineral, large or small, near or far is a major part of the real purpose of education. I think involvement in programs such as those described in Lisa’s article will do much to maintain a learner’s curiosity and sense of wonder. What an amazing use of the Internet. I was definitely born too soon.

    Thank you

    Thank you for reading. I appreciate your feedback. Please share your thoughts.

     

     

  • Are we finished?

    work-in-progress
    Anonymous, Work in progress https://openclipart.org/detail/12941/work-in-progress

    I am a work in progress. I reflect on the past, predict the future, and live in the present moment. Nearly everything I do is a work in progress. Some things just make more progress than others!

    Over the past few years I have been preparing resources for my readilearn website. It’s slow going, slower than I expected, but I’m getting … somewhere. Even when the website launches it will be a work in progress as I update old and add new resources.

    Launching soon - readilearn2

    In a flurry of activity, with the intention of completing additional resources as development of the website nears completion, I experimented with making a product promotional video. My intention is to make a number of these, possibly explaining the use of each interactive resource. Doing so is far more time consuming that I had expected.

    Below is my first attempt. But please don’t let that word “first” mislead you into mistakenly thinking it was my only attempt. I lost count of the number of takes and couldn’t believe how difficult it was to utter just a few short sentences. While I am sharing it, please consider it a work in progress. Making promotional videos for my products is something I need much more practice with.

    My purpose in sharing the video is to illustrate the importance of being a lifelong learner, which involves a combination of persistence, resilience and confidence, including:

    • a willingness to make mistakes and repeated attempts
    • a growth mindset without an expectation of immediate success
    • confidence to say “I haven’t got it yet, but I’m working on it”
    • belief in the ability to succeed, either independently or with support
    • an ability to adjust future attempts according to feedback provided from the past.

    I learned a lot in making this video, perhaps more about what doesn’t work than what does. But eliminating what doesn’t work is crucial in finding out what does. For example, I learned after repeated attempts on both, that selfie videos recorded with phone or iPad just weren’t going to be good enough. I learned that neither of the software programs for making videos I owned would allow me to achieve what I wanted on its own. I needed to combine recordings from each. After many trials I finally made something that at least has the semblance of an attempt.

    Included in my passion for learning is a passion for learning about learning: how we learn, why we learn and the conditions that contribute to our learning. I am fascinated by learning that occurs at all ages, but particularly during early childhood.

    Morguefile http://mrg.bz/omEd2M
    Morguefile http://mrg.bz/omEd2M

    In the process of repeated attempts described above, I responded constantly to feedback provided, and adjusted each new attempt accordingly. Feedback is necessary for learning. But perhaps more important than the feedback is the response to it.

    Hopeful of getting some other feedback, I shared the video with my family on the weekend. They made some helpful suggestions. But perhaps the most interesting feedback, about feedback, was that given by my four-year-old granddaughter, G2.

    G2 watched the video with her mother and immediately wanted to play the game. I was delighted, of course, and opened the resource on the iPad for her to use. She had no trouble manipulating the objects to make the ice creams and quickly made a few combinations. When I asked if a mango with strawberry on the top was the same as, or different from, a strawberry with mango on the top, she confidently explained that they were different because “this one’s got the strawberry on the top and this one’s got the mango on the top”. She went on making combinations.

    icecreams
    © Norah Colvin

    After she’d made about ten combinations she asked, “Are we finished yet?” I said, “We can finish whenever you like.” I wasn’t using it as a “teaching episode”, simply as something fun for her to do. She asked again, “But are we finished? You know –“ and she indicated for something to happen on the screen showing that we had finished.

    Suddenly I realised that she was wanting feedback from the program to tell her that she was finished, that she was successful; perhaps some bells, whistles or fireworks. Because I designed the resource as an open-ended teaching episode, for use by a teacher with a class rather than by individual children, the resource does not have any inbuilt feedback. The feedback occurs in the discussion between teacher and students.

    What I intended as a teaching episode became, for me, a learning episode; thinking and learning about feedback.

    • G2 expected to receive feedback about completion, and
    • she wished to continue until she received that feedback.

    However,

    • she doesn’t’ require feedback about completion from all apps, for example, drawing programs: she decides when she is finished, and
    • during play she decides which activity she will take up and when she will finish.

    G2 has a good balance of activities with home and Kindy; indoor and outdoor with a variety self-selected and self-directed imaginative play mixed with cooperative activities including reading, board games and screen time with a variety of apps.

    GDJ, Playful stick figures https://openclipart.org/detail/230070/playful-stick-figure-kids
    GDJ, Playful stick figures https://openclipart.org/detail/230070/playful-stick-figure-kids

    With such variety she receives feedback from many sources including self and others, as well as from manipulation with real and electronic objects. I think her question “Are we finished yet?” was related to use of the specific device and type of activity (game to her), not indicative of a generalised need for feedback from outside.

    But what of children who are more engaged with electronic games, have less time for self-directed activity, and fewer opportunities to engage with others? Will the need for feedback from an outside source overtake the ability to provide feedback for self? I hope not. I believe the abilities to self-monitor, self-regulate and self-determine to be extremely important to life-long learning. What do you think?

    Thank you

    Thank you for reading. I appreciate your feedback. It is important to me! Please share your thoughts about any aspect of this post.

     

  • You’ve got the power

     

    Super s

    If I had the ability to bestow upon each of you a super power of your choosing, what would you choose?

    I’m sure you’d be eager to accept with a suggestion immediately. I am not an exception. I would love to be able to control time, to make it go faster or slower when I want, and basically to just have more of it.

    But the reality is that each of us reading this post, myself included, already has one of the most amazing super powers available: the ability to read. Living in a print saturated world as we do, the ability to read is essential for full participation. Not surprisingly, but perhaps also a little sadly, those of us who can, tend to take it for granted.

    The love of reading is gift

    I am a compulsive reader. I read everything everywhere. I wish I could stop myself reading the signs on the back of the toilet doors for the umpteenth time, but it’s virtually impossible. This is not my genre of choice. Many of us bemoan the fact that we do not have enough time to read all the wonderful material available to us.

    studentbooks

    Time is not my only reading frustration. As I age my eyesight is changing and even with the assistance of reading glasses I struggle (and often fail) to read the fine print on labels or in instructions. Not only that, my eyes tire more quickly now than ever before and the physical act of reading is not as pleasurable as it once was.

    However, even with these frustrations, I am one of the lucky ones.  Not everyone in the world is as fortunate as I with my lack of time and failing sight. While the literacy rates around the world are improving, there are still too many suffering the disadvantages that result from inadequate opportunities to acquire an education in general, and specifically, the ability to read. Even in our midst there are those who, for various reasons, have failed to become literate.

    The empowering effect of the ability to read and of acquiring a quality education is never far from my mind or my blog. If you were to type the word “power” into the search button at the top right of my blog you would find at least ten posts with the word “power” or “empowerment” in the title, including

    The power of reading

    The power of imagination

    The power of words, and

    Empowerment – the importance of having a voice.

    This week at the Carrot Ranch Communications Charli Mills is talking about power and has challenged writer to in 99 words (no more, no less) write a story that explores the question, “What good is power?”  What choice did I have but to discuss the empowering effect of reading, an ability that is a right of everyone.

    reading

    Super Power

    Bored with responses as repetitious as their store-bought costumes, he scanned the room of superheros, wondering how many more interviews to fulfil his quota. Spying a child sans costume, he winked at the camera crew and moved in, the opportunity to highlight another’s inadequacies all too alluring.

    “And what superhero are you?” he smirked.

    The child held out a book, drawing artefacts from within its pages. “I am a reader. I can soar on dragon wings, explore the Earth, and the farthest galaxy. I can fill my head with imaginings, or discoveries new and old. Reading: my Super Power.”

    Thank you

    Thank you for using your Super Power. I appreciate your feedback. Please share your thoughts.

  • The importance of community

    This week at the Carrot Ranch Charli Mills is talking about the importance of belonging to and having the support of a community. Charli is talking about the supportive rural community where she lives and describes the way everyone rallies around to help in times of need. No asking is required. Everyone responds and pitches in, like spokes on a well-oiled wheel.

    Charli also talks about the importance of the online community, reminding writers that spending time on social media is not a bad thing but an essential part of building community. For many of us introverted writers it is the easiest way of linking up with like-minded people. We gravitate like moths to the flame for our weekly meet-ups around the Carrot Ranch camp fire where Charli stokes the flames to inspire writers and build community.

    Charli says that,

    “Community is my foundation. All else pushes out from that hub like spokes on a wagon wheel.

    Community is the hub; it’s our core. From the community, spokes of opportunity open up to reach the wheel that drives us in the writing market — readers.

    An organic community is one that occurs naturally. It’s the kindred-spirits, the shared-values bloggers, the like-minded who gather to write, read and discuss. We might be from varied backgrounds, genres and experiences, but we find common ground in our process, ideas and words.”

    People are social creatures, and that sense of belonging to a community, whether large or small, is something most desire. The type of community in which I have spent most of my life is the classroom community, typically an early childhood classroom. As with any other, it is essential that all members of a classroom community have a sense of belonging and feel valued and respected.

    https://openclipart.org/image/800px/svg_to_png/192642/Children_holding_hands.png
    https://openclipart.org/image/800px/svg_to_png/192642/Children_holding_hands.png

    Creating a welcoming classroom with those essential ingredients: having a sense of belonging and feeling valued and respected were always high on my list of priorities as a teacher.  I tend to mention this frequently and have done so here, here and here, to list just a few.

    That these ingredients, along with the other essentials, learning and fun, were thoroughly mixed through everything I did is what characterised my classroom. In my classroom, the community knew that everyone, whether child, parent, support staff, or volunteer, was welcomed and valued for the contribution each made.

    Routines and expectations enabled the classroom to function effectively and I tried to add a little fun to lighten up even the dullest of routines expected of us. One routine that will be familiar to many is the daily roll call. The teacher sits or stands at the front of the room calling, in a repetitive monotone and in alphabetical order, the name of each child who responds with a half-hearted, “Present, Miss”. Meanwhile the other children wriggle and fidget waiting for the tedium to finish.

    But not in my classroom. Within a matter of days my children knew their position, and probably that of many others, in the roll. While I marked attendance on the roll each day as required, I didn’t call the children’s names. Each child in turn stood  and greeted the class warmly, “Good morning, everyone!” The class and I responded by returning the greeting to the child. Everyone was involved all of the time, a community in action.

    https://openclipart.org/detail/117199/Friendship
    https://openclipart.org/detail/117199/Friendship

    This five minutes of the day was always fun and filled with smiles and laughter. Some children jumped up with arms outstretched and called out loudly. Some popped up quickly and back down with a quick greeting. Some did a little dance and sang the greeting. Others greeted us with a new language they were learning, or their own first language.

    When the children were confident with the order, we would sometimes do it in reverse order. This gave them a little more to think about, but it didn’t take them long to get the hang of it. The children who were usually last on the list enjoyed being first for a change.

    When new children joined our class, their names weren’t always immediately added to the roll in their permanent alphabetical location as the rolls were printed fortnightly. This gave us a great opportunity to discuss where in the roll the child’s name would be. Sometimes we had to discuss more than the first letter in family names to determine the correct placement. Oftentimes this would be one of the first things children would insist upon. They wanted everyone to feel welcome and fit in to our warm classroom community.

    Adding a little bit of fun to an otherwise tedious task had other benefits:

    • Building community,
    • Recognising individuals.
    • Being engaged,
    • An opportunity for activity
    • Learning alphabetical order
    • Developing memory

    We could also have a bit of fun seeing how quickly we could line up in alphabetical order, each time improving on the last. It was a quick way of making sure everyone was there after an activity or break.

    It is this theme of community that Charli has used as her flash fiction prompt this week, challenging writers to, in 99 words (no more, no less) write a story about how a community reaches out. I hope you enjoy mine about a classroom community.

    Belonging

     He waited quietly as yet another teacher heard his life story; a story without hope of redemption or the expectation of a happy ending. With each familiar incriminating snippet, “more schools than years”, “single parent”, “transient”, “neglect and abuse”, he’d instinctively glance towards the teacher. Instead of the usual furrowed brow and flat-mouthed grimace, he found sparkling eyes and a turned-up smile.  He peered into the room. When the children saw him looking, they waved him in. He hesitated. Then the teacher said, “Welcome to our class, David. We’ve been waiting to meet you. Come and join us.”

    Thank you

    Thank you for reading. I appreciate your feedback. Please share your thoughts.

     

  • Reflections on living a contented life, teaching and school

    In a previous post I introduced you to Pauline King, The Contented Crafter. In comments on my blog, Pauline revealed that she was a teacher so passionate about education that she had attempted to establish an alternative school. I was excited to discover that we have these things in common and I immediately invited her to share some additional thoughts about children, learning, schools and education.

    I am honoured that she has agreed, and delighted to welcome her here. In this post Pauline shares a little of her life journey, and her reflections on teaching and school. In a future post she will share her some of her wisdom about children and parenting.

    Pauline, please tell us a little about yourself. What things are most important to you? What do you hope to achieve through blogging?

    art of contentment

    I was a Steiner School Teacher for some twenty years, here in NZ and in the UK briefly.  It was a demanding vocation that taught me more than I ever imparted to the students in my care.  I left teaching in 2003, spent a year or so recovering my health and eventually took up life coaching – a kind of a natural segue as I had spent a lot of my time in the school system mentoring young parents and teachers. I retired in 2014 and stepped full time into the art of contentment.  It’s what I think I spent my life looking for and in these later years what I taught to the women who came to me for life guidance. 

    joy of blogging

    In my personal life I have always been a creator – hand work, interior design and decorating, gardening and various crafting and artistic outlets that changed over the years.  I took up blogging almost three years ago simply to keep track of my creative work as I was notorious for making stuff, giving it away and not being able to remember what I made or the processes around it.  I soon started using my blog as an on-line diary, documenting the things that amused or dismayed me along with whatever I was playing around with at the time.  I don’t think I really expected anyone to read my blog and was quite surprised when I got comments and returned visitors and followers.  In a surprisingly short time I discovered a new world that was peopled by like-minded souls and fun people and I kept blogging for the joy found in the community that built up around my little blog.

    I live alone in a tiny house with a Maine Coon called Olando and a Shi-Tzu X named Siddhartha [Siddy for short].

    positivity

    I live simply and contentedly, paying close attention to my own personal development and take responsibility for the events in my life.  I am not religious but view life and the planet from a spiritual outlook.  I study quantum physics, enjoy nature and believe in spreading positivity wherever I can.

    I don’t write about education in my blog – even though it is an area I am passionate [and opinionated] about – I simply don’t want it to impinge into the simple creative life I lead nowadays.

    Pauline, you were a teacher? What was it that attracted you to teaching in the first place?

    teacher

    I always wanted to be a teacher, from a very young age.  School was a safe place for me in a family that was damaged and dysfunctional, so I guess that may have been the genesis.  However, I was not allowed to stay in school and was put to work in a factory at the age of 14 [my mother lied about my age].  When I gained my freedom I set about continuing my education and have kept on learning formally and informally ever since.  I was 33, a wife and mother, before I finally achieved the goal I had as a child.

    What things did you love about teaching?

    art of teaching

    I loved being in the classroom – working with the students and the Steiner curriculum [which is a wise and clever thing].  Later when I side-stepped into too much administration and other non-teaching roles I simply dried up and eventually became ill.  That made me really conscious that it was the art of teaching that I really loved.

    You said that you spent many years attempting to establish an alternative school for your eldest daughter. Why was this important to you? What was lacking in schools available to you? How would your school differ?

    bloom and blossom

    My feeble attempts to start a school were short lived, I did not go as far as you did as there was little support or enthusiasm for my initiative.  Within two years I had discovered Steiner Education and serendipitously fallen head first into that with my two daughters.  Both began to bloom and blossom in ways they never had in the state system they were so briefly in and I soon transferred my interest and passion to that form of education.  I began an informal study under the auspices of a venerable old retired teacher and soon went on to study full time.  I think I was incredibly fortunate for throughout this time I was mentored and supported by several practising teachers, and one wonderful head lecturer who went out of his way to keep pouring his wisdom into my listening ears.

    How wonderful to have the support and encouragement of a community so passionate about children and education. Do you have anything else to add?

    it takes a village

    Only that, from this vantage point I find I have become a person who would like schools scrapped and to see education in the true meaning of the word be given back to parents and the community.   My new mantra is ‘It takes a village to raise a child – and educate one too.’

    I totally agree with your new mantra, Pauline! Thank you for your openness in responding to my questions. I could hear the passion in your words as you answered them. I appreciate the time you took out of your contented creative schedule to share your thoughts with us. I think there are many of us who could do with some contentment mentoring. I look forward to welcoming you back next week to share in your wisdom about children and parenting. I’d also love to know more about the Steiner curriculum. Another conversation …

    Addendum: Since this post was published, in an attempt to add clarity to her statement referring to the scrapping of schools, Pauline has expressed some of her reasons for wishing to see changes to schools and the way children are educated. She has done so in a response to an observation made and query posed by Anne Goodwin which you can read here, and a little more clarification here. I apologise, Pauline, if the inclusion of that statement misrepresented your position and caused you concern. It made perfect sense to me! The differences I see between education and schooling feature regularly in my posts.

    Connect with Pauline on Twitter or on her blog The Contented Crafter where you can also check out her delightful Gift Shop. 

    Thank you

    Thank you for reading. I appreciate your feedback. Please share your thoughts.

  • I found it first!

    Launching soon - readilearn2

    In my previous post Not lost but found I discussed the notion of adopting the title “Founder” when describing my relationship to readilearn my soon-to-launch website of early childhood teaching resources. The title both bemused and amused me at first but I have now accepted its appropriateness. In fact, I realise that readilearn is not the first thing I have founded.

    © Norah Colvin
    © Norah Colvin

    Create-a-Way was perhaps the first that I founded. It was a home-based business offering educational sessions for children of before school-age and their parents. The impetuses for founding Create-a-Way included:

    • The decision, made before Bec was born, that I would parent and educate her (The alternative to keep teaching the children of others while entrusting her education to another didn’t make sense to me.)
    • A dissatisfaction with playgroups that were simply bitch and coffee mornings for mums and squabble sessions for children left to their own devices
    • A realisation that parents didn’t stimulate or foster their children’s intellectual growth because they didn’t know how, not because they didn’t care

    I saw a niche that would honour:

    • My passion for education and need to be doing something in that area
    • My firm belief in the importance of early years learning
    • My appreciation of children’s innate curiosity and need to learn coupled with the joy of sharing their sense of wonder and creativity
    • My certainty in the power of reading and education to improve the lives of individuals and society
    • A conviction that there are better ways of educating than simply accepting the status quo.

    And best of all, I could do it with Bec! (Although she is not in this photo.)

    Guiding parents in play sessions for parents and children.
    Guiding parents in play sessions for parents and children.

    I express this passion and these basic beliefs repeatedly. They are what make me. They are my driving force; the threads that weave their way through everything I do, holding them and me together. They were the basis for my attempt at founding an alternative school; they guided my classroom pedagogy and now the preparation of resources for readilearn.

    © Norah Colvin
    © Norah Colvin
    © Norah Colvin
    © Norah Colvin

    It’s funny looking back now at the documents I wrote, it seems almost a lifetime ago (well almost all of Bec’s lifetime and more than half of mine), on an Apple IIE computer. I’m still proud of what I offered and truly believe in the value of sessions such as these. However, I can see that, while there has been little change to my passion and beliefs over the years, if I were to do the same thing now I may update some statements to more closely match my current understanding of a growth mindset.

    The thought of doing the same again now is not far from my imaginings. The format of Create-A-Way sessions forms the model of another project I would love to found The Early Learning Caravan. Maybe Steven’s suggestion of crowdfunding would be appropriate for getting it started, but that’s not a project for the immediate future.

    © Norah Colvin
    © Norah Colvin

    I wonder if my inability to simply accept what is could be considered rebellion? What is a rebellion? I’m thinking of these terms as this week at the Carrot Ranch Charli Mills has challenged writers to In 99 words (no more, no less) write a rebellion.

    rebellion definition

    The rebellions of which Charli writes are of a larger scale, more in keeping with the first definition.

    In this TED Talk Ken Robinson urges us to Bring on the Learning Revolution making “the case for a radical shift from standardized schools to personalized learning — creating conditions where kids’ natural talents can flourish.” I’m proud to be a rebel fighting in the same revolution as Sir Ken.

    In addition to these larger scale rebellions and revolutions there are many that take place on an individual and daily basis in our families and classrooms, and on our streets. Some of the battles, such as  teenage rebellion are fought for justice, independence and identity, a natural and necessary part of growing up. But the need to establish one’s individuality, one’s separateness as a person begins years before that, as anyone who has ever had anything to do with a two-year old can testify.

    Sometimes the same battles are played out over and over and parents wonder why the children just don’t accept that they need to clean their teeth, wash their hands, put on their shoes or whatever, rather than battle over it each and every time. It is this early childhood rebellion that has inspired my flash fiction response to Charli’s challenge this week. I hope you enjoy it.

    crying

    You’re not the boss of me!

    Eyes blazed defiance, daring a struggle which could end only in tears and frustration, or a standoff with no real winner. She was ready to flee the moment there was a hint of movement. Our eyes met. I contemplated my options. Did we have to do this now?

    Again the challenge: “You’re not the boss of me!”

    I pretended to read.

    Another volley, quieter: “You’re not the boss of me.”

    No response.

    Soon she was snuggling beside, pointing to pictures.

    I read aloud.

    We laughed at the antics.

    As I closed the book I said, “Ready? Let’s do this.”

    Thank you

    Thank you for reading. I appreciate your feedback. Please share your thoughts.