Learning Josh

 ’NO GARY NO…………………NO GARY!!!’

After watching Gary Rego – Head boy of Corpus Christi, make his graduation speech on Youtube, it brought me back to when I was head boy of Woodvale in 2004. I can definately say this guy has boldness and courage, and his graduation speech was probably more interesting than mine.

This guy has made the local headlines because of his ‘abusive’ and disrespectful comments that he has said about his principal and deputy principal. Realistically, it was probably a slow news day which is why this made news. He also makes reference to peers who died in a car crash in August and his comments proved to be insensetive towards the families involved. After reading hundreds of comments from viewers and readers, it seems like half of the people applaud him for standing up for what he believes in and the other half deplore him for being so disrespectful and selfish. His peers have commented too and are mostly embarrased and ashamed of what he has said.

For the whole year, Rego has been in this leadership position. I’ve got to ask, ’is Rego a good leader?’ Well we don’t know him personally (although I think I know a cousin of his at uni) and he is only 16 years old but judging from the speech he has made,  I have made a list of good and bad leadership attributes of Rego.

• THE GOOD ATTRIBUTES
  * A strong public speaker - It’s great when a leader has a good, clear and manageable voice when they are public speaking. He also uses hand gestures to express what he means. Some might say he is being over the top with it though.
  * Bold and courageous – Yes, it took guts to say something as controversial like that and with such expression. I don’t think I could do that!
  * Connected to what’s going on – He is obviously not an emu putting his head in the sand. What he said about his principals was probably a reflection of how many students in his school feel about them. I talked to a work mate who went to CC and he would agree that the principals were pretty bad.
  * Exercising his democratic right – Legally, he hasn’t done anything wrong and he is entitled to free speech. But there really is a time and place for everything. A graduation dinner is NOT.

• THE BAD ATTRIBUTES
  * Just plain disrespectful – The school has given him a role that represents the school body. To talk like that about the leaders above you shows complete disrespect and insensetivity. By all means, you don’t have to agree or like the teachers or principals appointed above you, but there is a time and place.
  * Selfishness and arrogance - I wonder what was going through the head girls mind? Just because you want to make an attack towards the principals, don’t bring everyone else of equal leadership to your level. You can’t really see the expression on her face, but she would have been humiliated.
  * Lack of wisdom – If he had exercised judgment and common sense, he wouldn’t have been in such a pickle. He didn’t have the guts to show his teachers his speech before he presented.

If I was in his place, I too would have been dissapointed at the administration but I wouldn’t have expressed it in such a disrespectful way. After all, why is the principal on holiday when the year 12’s are graduating? I would have probably made a joking comment about the principal being away and wishing we could swap places. I believe that even though we don’t get along with our leaders, you have to respect them. And also, when it’s your turn to lead, you would want the same thing.

After doing a report on effective assessment and evaluation, I got my paper back and realised that I had passed, but I didn’t do too well compared to my other assignments. I talked about it with my teacher and she gave me an extra 2 marks as I was able to justify something in my assignment that she gave me the lowest mark for.

Don’t get me wrong, I trust my lecturer’s judgement and she marked it fair and true, but other than the odd few comments through out the paper there was no real evidence of evaluation in the marking. This teacher had not left any general comments for me to reflect on, or any decent constructive feedback.  I therefore saw the head of the unit and asked for him to give me some fair, valid and explicit feedback as to where I lost marks.

Just yesterday, I got a page full of typed feedback about the assignment. And yes, it was fair, valid and explicit. I really appreciated the fact that he gave me indepth points as to what I needed to have focussed on. The head of the unit took time out to evaluate my assignment, so he could give me constructive comments on what I need to work on.

I find it ironic that my assignment on effective assessment and evaluation, didn’t get the effective evaluation it deserved at first. We work hard on the assignments and so I expect our lecturers to give us the constructive feedback we need.

What a weekend! Caleb (my twin brother) and I have just returned from Singapore on an all expenses paid trip by National Geographic and the Singapore Tourism Board. I had entered a video competition months ago and won 4D3N trip staying on Orchard Road. Having family and friends there, we naturally caught up with them and did all the touristy stuff too. The photo here is us on the ‘luge’ (like a toboggan) on Sentosa Island at night (can you tell which one I am?). People keep asking me ‘why do you keep winning stuff Josh?’. It’s simple, you’ve got to be in it to win it. They say that every 100-150 competitons you enter, you should atleast win one. So start entering people! (Just incase you’re wondering, we weren’t on the plane that had the nosedive..phew!~)

Anyway being the nerd that I am, I even decided to visit an English learning tuition centre, known as Morris Allen English Centres. It’s pretty much like Kumon but they specialise in English communication as all the teachers are native english speakers. Having observed a few classes and even having lunch with the principal of MAEC, I have gained further insight into Singapore’s education system and it’s pros and cons.

The values in education here are reflective of the typical Singaporean values. Just to be general, Singporeans are a competitive and profit earning bunch. There are around 4 million people on an island half the size of Perth and they want to be the next Tokyo and Hong Kong. They’ve just had the f1 night rally and will be holding the 1st youth olympics in 2010. Sounds like a progressive society doesnt it? But what we see in education, is that so many kids have to live up to EXTREMELY VERY HIGH expectations. In order to get ahead, they have to go to the best schools, get the best marks, to get into the best universities, to get into the best jobs  — so Mum and Dad don’t have to be poor when they retire. But what’s wrong with high expectations? Well nothing, unless your intent is driven by greed of making more money. Parents send their kids to tuition centres like Morris Allen and fork out almost 1/3rd of their salary on tution. A child at one of the centres told me this:

“I like tuition. Mum says I can only stay in tution, if I keep my marks up in school”

Well hang on, don’t you stay in tution so that your marks can improve? And if he doesn’t improve at school, he will just end up less skilled because he can’t go to tuition anymore…I would also believe this child would get 80% in his exams, but that probably wouldn’t be good enough for his mother — ‘what happened to the other 20%!??’. Do these kids ever get to play or have some fun? Talk about pressure!

I also talked to a teacher there and i told her these kids seem independant and smart, but its because all they do for their education is study for the next exam. Their english exams are set out in the same format every time, so there is a routine and way to study for them. First is grammar, then spelling, etc etc..I believe though, that when it comes to thinking outside of the box, being creative or getting a real attainment of the concepts, these kids can struggle. This can also be reflective in Singaporean society — everything is followed by set and organised ways — rules and regulations. There is even a website dedicated for people to dob in others who break the rules by taking photos of them and putting them online. This one photo had a woman taking a sip of water on the train and the caption said ‘There is no food or drink allowed on the trains!”

There have also been some pros to this high pressured environment – when it comes to diligence and best effort these kids grasp it fast so procastination isn’t as bad. Thier content knowledge would be alot higher than kids the same age in Australia.

Learning from this experience, I am not having a go at Singapore but their values in how children should learn are different from mine. But is it their fault? It’s a competitve world out there and Singapore wants to be a big mover and shaker in Asia and the world. But sometimes you’ve just gotta let kids be kids…

I sure have some exciting news….I have been offered to go to Jakarta for my third year prac and I am so excited to be going!  6 of us will be heading there for 6 weeks and we will be doing our prac at Binus school, a private school in Jakarta’s south.  From my research, Binus is a top shelf school as it is also a secondary school and a university as well. The picture below is what our campus will look like.

Here are the reasons why I wanted to go to Jakarta for my prac..

• I have a genuine interest in global education as I intend to take my teaching career overseas
• The school incorporates the International Baccleareaute in their Curriculum and many schools around the world use this. I am really interested to see how it works.
• The opportunity to see how English second language (ESL) kids learn.
• I know I will learn heaps and have loads of fun!

I would have to thank Jenny Vincent for giving us the opportunity for going and also Greg, who will be looking after us during our cultural visit. Stay tuned to this blog to find out what happens..

Over the last couple of days, the financial situation in the US has been the top story and people involved with the stock markets are concerned and on their toes. CNBC personality and money expect, Suze Orman has her own show and offers tips and advice to viewers on how to effectively use their money. If you have foxtel, watch her show, she is full of wisdom!

Now, I don’t have shares, I really don’t have a credit card, my HECS debt is increasing and I don’t have any investments. I am definitely not a financial expert (yet), but I will not be ashamed to say that I know how to budget, I know how to save and I know how to be generous.

With money being a very important factor of our lives, I think teachers need to introduce the concept of saving money and even investing. I know teachers are doing all sorts of things such as reward systems that get students used to earning, saving and spending. But why should we teach the concept of investing? Because if kids can learn that money can work for them and they make sound decisions with their finances, they can set up a secure financial future for themselves, their families and even others.

People in all professions (especially teachers) complain about their pay because they have a family to feed, mortgage to pay off, bills, taxes etc etc. Fair enough, but imagine if they learnt how to save money, invest wisely and learn how to be generous with their money when they were in school – do you think the way they handle their finances now would be different?

But what does being generous got to do with it? I have learnt with my experiences, that If i give a portion of my pay to a charity or organisation, that I obtain a different mindset towards my finances. I suddenly feel as if I don’t need to hoard all of my money but I have control over it! Not only do you make a difference but I believe the benefits you get back are more than rewarding. And not once have I ever gone bankrupt.

So, the question is, how can I educate myself and my students on how to effectively deal with money? What strategies can I use in the classroom to promote earning, saving and investing?

10) You use worksheets all the time.

9) Meh…I’ll do it later.

According to Phil Dye, from THINK Education group, ‘children don’t need teachers, they need great teachers’. His opinion article on ABC’s news website about education reform has got me thinking. Dye actually supports the government’s education reform by making teachers’ pay salaries comparable with the performance of students. His article can be accessed here – http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/09/05/2356033.htm

Dye spells out the reasons why the reform is good. It makes teachers accountable. It means that teachers have to change their strategies, stay innovative and fresh so that their students are performing well. He quotes ‘It seems our schools contain many teachers who have never left school. Coming directly from university or the old college system straight into the classroom, their experience and knowledge of the world outside their teaching cube is limited to the odd overseas vacation.’ I agree with Dye, that there are many teachers out there who have never left a school environment and do not know how the ‘real world’ works. For many jobs out there, your pay is partly determined by your performance. Why should teachers be treated any differently?

I know I don’t want to be those teachers that are so ‘old school’ and uninspiring that I am only in teaching because I’ll get paid. What a wasted life! Dye calls these teachers ‘death by superannuation’ teachers – those that are waiting for their retirement and using old and slack teaching strategies from the 1970’s in today’s world.

If this education reform kicks in though, and my pay doesn’t increase because my students haven’t improved…will I take it personally? Will I feel like a failure? What happens if I’ve done my best to change my teaching strategies but nothing can get through? What if I am at school and most of the kids are in transient families?

Well, I never studied teaching to become rich in the first place, but an extra $20k a year would be handy in paying the mortgage…

Behind the News or BtN has been broadcasting on ABC since 1969. I remember watching this in year 6 and 7 at school and to be honest, most people in my class didn’t like it. We classified news = boring and so watching this on the VHS every Wednesday afternoon became a hard slog. I think the most exciting part of BtN was when they used to show music video clips at the end and one time they showed ‘Polyester Girl’ by Regurgitator. If you’ve seen the video clip, well….lets just say the guys couldn’t stop laughing.

I, on the other hand would look forward to watching BtN. I think it was because I saw this as my opportunity to practice my journalism skills –  my childhood ambition was to become a news reporter. However, there were some news stories that I actually didn’t understand and it was still a bit hard to comprehend. I think it was because sometimes we were given no context to the stories –  so words like ‘treaty’ ‘upper house’ and ‘right wing party’ would be quite abstract. On the other hand, BtN also made some of the current affairs more easier to understand – back then it was the Indonesian riots, the asylum seekers, and Timor’s independance that made big news. It also covered news that mainstream news sources wouldn’t cover, with quite a few coming out of the NT.

When I start teaching, I hope to be able to use BtN as a classroom resource for news and current affairs. It’s probably beacuse I have an interest in the media industry so I am biased - but I think it’s important for kids to get a look at the issues that are impacting our country and the world. Will my students find watching BtN boring? Well, I’ve seen a few episodes recently and it looks cool. But then again, I’m now old and 21 so it’ll be interesting to see what an 11 year old thinks. Perhaps the way I facilitate the ‘BtN’ time in the classroom can also make a difference. How does an 11 year old get an interest in current affairs? How is an earthquake in the middle east relevant to a year 6 in Kalgoorlie?

Did you used to watch BtN in school? How did you find it? Would you use it with your students?

Doing the 4th year maths unit in semester 1 this year, we had a rather street-smart lecturer who truthfully didn’t teach us that much about maths as we would have liked, but gave us so much insight and street-smart ideas for when we really start teaching. I personally loved his class because he was full of great ideas, quite wise and very confident. I think he run his own business in IT with education now..

Anyway, he introduced us to CURRIKI. According to the website, its ‘your world of educational resources and curriculum’. Users can develop, publish, share, discuss, evaluate and download free classroom resources (such as curriculum documents, worksheets, lesson plans, weeks worth of programming) from all over the world. One week, our homework was to check this website out and report on our findings. I must say, it is relatively new and predominantly American, but still I think this is one education website to keep your eye on.

Check this video out: A guide to Curriki (youtube)

 The reason why I think this is that the potential is so great! This one stop shop for teachers could be the answer to good quality resources that we use in the classroom. Their goal is that ‘Every student and educator will have access to quality learning resources aligned to frameworks that support learning within the US and support the UN Millennium Goals globally’. Schools and teachers in remote areas can benefit from this as it is accessible and free. Eventually though, I think this resource will and should be used by all teachers around the world – it just might take a while to catch on.

There are some issues that come with this new territory – how much of the material is actually ‘good’ and relevant for my classroom? What makes a good classroom resource in Texas, doesn’t necessarily mean it will be good for an international school in Japan.

With technology making the world so globalised, a concept like Curriki may be a practical way we access our resources when we start teaching. Even though Curriki does have that ‘American’ stigma to it, we should still give this a chance. I’ll be interested to see what you think of it!

Well, I’ve applied for it and we have to wait and see if I get it. Every year, the WA education department offers ‘final year teaching scholarships’ to student teachers embarking upon their final year of uni or doing a Dip Ed. This year, they are offering up to $60k in scholarship money, but that’s only if you sign up for a 4 YEAR contract with the department and work in hard to staff or rural areas. I thought 4 years was a bit too long (it’s half a decade), so stuck with 2 years where I would get half that amount but more freedom come 2012.

I must say, the department is offering quite a generous amount this year to primary teaching students compared to lastyear (they only got around $6 000 to $20 000). But I reckon this has to be one of the most generous scholarship offers in the country. It is taxable, so I guess I have to consider that too.

So why do they do it? I think it’s because they want to attact teachers to hard to staff or rural areas in WA. The media has been saying that there is such a big teaching shortage, but what they aren’t saying, is that there isn’t that much of a teaching shortage in the city. It’s in areas such as the pilbara, goldfields and the wheatbelt towns that need them the most.  In my opinion, I think the teaching shortage will be so big that it will be easier for most graduates for find a job in the city.

The trouble with working in mining towns like Port Hedland or Kalgoorlie, is that yes the liklihood of finding a teaching post there is very high, but that’s the problem - It’s too easy. You are actually one of the more lower income earners in the town if you compare yourself to a maintenance worker for BHP who can get $150k/year.

Personally, when I take up that scholarship and if I agree myself to work in a mining town like Newman, I don’t see myself wanting to work on the mines. It’s not really about the money, but I know that if I do work on the mines, I just won’t enjoy it. It’s not me.

So, I think the real issues are – how do we get teaching back to the status where the best of the best were applying for teaching degrees? And most of all, how do we retain them?  It seems like the government is luring student teachers like me with financial incentives to work in the country.

I must say part of the reason why I am choosing the scholarship is because of the money, but it’s not the only reason. It’s because I want to see what it’s like to teach and live in a rural area. It is definately not in my comfort zone, as I know I will have to change parts of my lifestyle to suit the rural lifestyle - Learn how to cook, how to change a tyre, how to look after a car, play some team sport, how to deal with town gossip, etc (I guess this also applies in the city too). But whenever I go out of my comfort zone, I embark into new territory – and that’s what makes life exciting!