Posts by tim kong
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John Oliver's piece filmed on the Mall - was classic laugh out loud funny. Tapped into the hype - and the discussion about comparing this to moon landing - superb.
Indeed an excellent episode.
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I think TDS will be fine - it's a comedy show. And it skewers the system, regardless of it's editorial bias.
I think even in last night's show - they were showing up some of the absurdity in comparing the language of the Obama's speech and the Bush ones over the years.
Obama might be in the White House, but there's still plenty of good material in Congress and beyond. I also hope - that in TDS style, Stewart holds this administration to the promise and principles that we all hope it will deliver. I will be disappointed if they just cheer from the sidelines.
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I once worked on a "Smash Hits/Top of the Pops" type show in the UK and I watched the front row of the audience - spend the majority of the 90 minute show watching the large video screens. They were 5 feet from the acts and for the most part, ignored the performers.
I wondered why you'd pay money to be part of a live experience, then spend the whole time with your facing to the left or right of the stage watching the experience being edited by a director.
I remember thinking there was a generation of audience goers - who only know and relate to their musical heros if they are framed in 4:3 or 16:9 headshot. They're so used to seeing them larger than life, they struggle to actually watch them live and in person.
I was a little disgusted with myself, seeing it was my work that they were watching - and that maybe I had a part in destroying a tradition of "live" music. But then I figured they'd made the choice, and I was getting paid well as a result- so I'd be OK with it.
I'm not anti-texting, but my feeling is if you're going to be at an experience, enjoy the experience. That's any experience, the Grand Canyon, the pub, midway through a set by Yothu Yindi at Glastonbury. I really learned to enjoy travelling once I learned to stop fretting about recording every minute of it with my camera.
I'm hoping to get to the Arctic Monkeys on Tuesday, so will make observations. After the fact of course - no iphone here. :)
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Have tried getting students to help make rules - but sometimes that becomes part of the game as well. So you get specific rules, like "Don't distract others." "Make sure you have all your tools." "Respect others opinions." - That the students put up because they know that's what the teacher wants to hear.
When I was in a decile 2 school - had a chat with the class, and made the first rule: "Turn Up." We painted it across the wall above the board in 2 foot high letters. I said - that's my rule - if you're not here, you won't succeed here - I'll be here - the rule applies to me as well - I hope you choose to follow it. Not sure if it was that or what I did in class that was the difference - but I didn't have a truancy problem.
The best set of 'big thinking rules' that I've found, were from:
http://hi-and-low.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/01/a-new-year.html
I used them with my students this year - and I think it confused them mainly. Some loved it - some went "Huh?"
1. Find a place you trust and then try trusting it for a while.
2. General duties of a student: pull everything out of your teacher, pull everything out of your fellow students.
3. General duties of a teacher: pull everything out of your students.
4. Consider everything an experiment.
5. Be self-disciplined. This means finding someone wise or smart and choosing to follow them. To be disciplined is to follow in a good way. To be self-disciplined is to follow in a better way.
6. Nothing is a mistake. There is no win and no fail. There is only make.
7. The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It’s the people who do all of the work all the time who eventually catch on to things.
8. Don’t try to create and analyse at the same time. They’re different processes.
9. Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It’s lighter than you think.
10. “We’re breaking all of the rules. Even our own rules. And how do we do that? By leaving plenty of room for X quantities.” - John Cage.===
On topic.1986-1990: High school in Metro Manila. Lots of places to bunk off too - never did though, school was small enough that it would have been noticed.
1991: Christchurch - Too cold to bunk off. Not that I relished my first year of secondary education back in NZ. But I couldn't be bothered wandering the streets of a town I didn't really like. -
Teachers don't generally get consulted on changes. They, like the rest of the public sector have the usual choice of getting on with it and making the best of what they've been given, or looking for another job.
The point is - no-one has been consulted. And there are direct implications for education and teaching - as the bill allows the MINISTER to publish what standards are applicable to all students, in all age and year groups. To my mind, you're getting quite close to the "Those that can't - teach" line.
So yes - if the Minister decided, we could have SAT type tests for 5 year olds.
There's also nothing in the bill as to what happens if a student does not meet the applicable standards? Do we hold them back a year, despite best practice being to keep students with their age group peers for the best learning. Do we lower the standard next year, to make sure more go through? Or do we - as is constantly said - teach all of our students what's on the test - so that they pass and the National party can claim credit for our nation's high scores on international rankings.
I think you might find a direct correlation between an increase in truancy rates and teaching to the test. The students are bored already - don't make it easier for them to have a reason not to go to school.
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@Peter Martin.
Both sides really.
Absolutely boring to be taught by one of those teachers.
And I'd find my job skull-numbingly dull if I had to teach like that on a daily basis.
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Sorry, just need to edit that paragraph.
The worst failing a teacher can have IMHO is an inability to continue to learn and listen. To learn on a professional level, from their colleagues, from their daily experiences and most importantly, to listen to and learn from their students.
That requires constant humility matched with patient confidence.
A fine balance for anyone - but one that we teachers sometimes forget to maintain.
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Ken Robinsons' speech at TED is from a while back now - it was popular around the educational blogosphere. He spoke at a principal's conference in Auckland about 2 years ago I think. He is right about many things - and his dry wit is wonderful.
I do believe there is a generation of teachers who are passionate on the horizon, and currently working, and there are many experienced teachers in the system who are struggling to maintain that passion after years of constant change. At the same time there are teachers whom I cannot defend - both young and old - on a professional level.
The worst failing a teacher can have IMHO is an inability to learn and listen. To learn on a professional level, from their colleagues, from experience and to listen and learn most importantly from their students.
This bill will suit those teachers who want only to deliver the required instruction so that students can pass the test. Those teachers who are content with their 9-3 lot. Sadly there are a number of those.
I can't really think of a more boring existence.
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A S - But schools are doing this already. At the very least the one's I've taught in are doing it. The teachers I work with are passionate about what they do and constantly evaluating how we can be doing our jobs better and more effectively.
We're well aware of the students that are failing, in our own classes, in our schools and across the country. It's not as if Anne Tolley has somehow uncovered some amazing fact of life in her briefing papers.
It's the arrogance of this bill - rushed through under urgency - and the fact that as stated, it's got NOTHING of substance, that will better or ensure improvement - that make me see it as nothing more than a cynical political movie.
Education has become more and more evidence-based in the last 15 years, and it is rigorous and becoming more constant. I'd expect that same rigour from the Minister of Education.
We already constantly test and assess your students. I spend most of Term 1 sorting through testing results and making informed choices as to what my individual students need. In Term 2 - I have midyear conferences with all parents. In Term 4 I write reports, oddly enough in English, that explains what students are doing well - and what they need to focus on. Throughout the year I have an open door policy and am happy to meet parents as and when necessary. As a teacher I will ask my students to write down what they know about a subject before we begin, with the express purpose of not boring them by covering what they already know.
I teach the grammar and punctuation. Students silent read regularly, they partake in literature circles, I teach specific reading strategies to small groups. I love to read aloud - this year it was Neil Gaiman's 'Coraline', Steinbeck's 'Of Mice and Men' and now having just finished "To Kill a Mockingbird" - we will be watching Gregory Peck portray Atticus tomorrow. We listen to speeches by Reagan, Bush, FDR and compare their oral and written effectiveness. It's pretty amazing how insightful an 11 year old can be! I use Joni Mitchell lyrics, when discussing poetry. I introduce Rudyard Kipling's "If" by showing Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal reading the poem.
I give them time to practise basic facts. I do regular speed tests of those basic facts. I spent 4 weeks covering the metric system and how to use it - purely so that my students would head to college with an understanding of one of the core concepts of how we define the world around us. We discuss various mental math strategies, we share ideas in groups and as a class. We attempt to solve problems, such as "How we make a cantilever out of ice-block sticks and blue-tack - and who can make the longest one?" We play maths games. We look at what the standard written form actually means - you know, "what does that little 'carried one' actually mean?"
I give my students time for fitness, for PE, for art, for topic studies. I have allowed my students to teach for a day - giving them full control of the room, their classmates, and the activities therein. We have tipped our desks over and rebuilt the room into a series of trenches, and worked in them during ANZAC Day studies. I ask my students to write reports on me and tell me what I need to do to be a better teacher - and to be brutally honest, just as I am with theirs. I play New Order and Marvin Gaye and Pavarotti. We argue at times, I throw up my hands in despair at times, we laugh a lot and occasionally we cry.
Don't tell me I have to teach TO a set standard - because I don't want that standard. I will not teach to some Tolley standard - I want my students to be so much better than that. I want them to be better than me in every way.
I want the space and time to work with and prepare my students so that they are able to set their own standards - so that they are wanting to be better, in all areas. They need to recognize where they need to improve, understand the effort that will ensure that improvement, and have the self-discipline to make those changes.
They need to be thinkers - not test takers. They need to be able to solve the mundane and insanely huge problems of the planet and apply wacky ways of fixing mistakes, because god knows, we're leaving the place in a shit-storm. They need to be not afraid to have a go - and have the support to go beyond what they've done before. We need to believe in their potential to be so, so much better than us - and give them tools and the time to discover that potential. We need to always believe in them.
Peachy was right last night - our children do deserve better. They deserve better than this arrogant dross, that's passing for policy.
One of my students came up to me after the election last month - and said simply, "Does this mean we have to do more tests now? I don't want to do more tests." I had to smile, albeit a little bitterly.
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I always liked the brief bit of badminton branding from about 2 years ago.
The Black Cocks wasn't it?
Can't remember if it was just what the players wanted, or what was actually proposed by some other highly paid marketing firm. It said it all, and it said it well. Don't think it was ever officially used though.