Remember Susan Cain? You may have seen her fabulous TED talk that I posted a while ago, based on her book, Quiet: the Power of Introverts. The guru on introverts in an extraverted world, she gives ten tips for parenting introverts on her website, and now she’s got some ideas for how teachers can nurture introverts in […]
A warm welcome to Rochelle Gribble, here with an insightful analysis of the recently-introduced, highly controversial ‘National Standards‘ that New Zealand primary schools are now required to report on twice a year. Rochelle is a once-was, sometimes-is, may-be-again secondary teacher. She has a Masters degree in Education and sometimes even gets to use it! However, […]
Hands up if you had a favourite teacher. You can read about some of mine in an earlier post in this series, and plenty of yours are celebrated in the comments below the post. A passionate teacher is gold. Gold. Rita Pierson was one, and in this 7-minute TED talk, she rouses her audience of […]
I once read a report describing the quality of education in a variety of countries which concluded that the best curriculum in the world is the one used in New Zealand. I spat my tea. Poppycock. The one used in New Zealand is simply the best in New Zealand. It cannot be compared with the […]
I love a good list, and I’m a sucker for book competitions. So I was excited to see that the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Award finalists have been named. I was not excited to read some of the conclusions of the judging panel (Bernard Beckett, author of the very clever Genesis, Lynn Freeman from […]
Which of these comparisons are you most interested in discussing further?
I’ve been reminded this week why the ‘un’ in unschooling is not the same as ‘anti.’ First this challenge from Buffalo Mama, who is unschooling/homeschooling her son after traumatic school experiences: “Unschooling,” maybe, can be seen as an attempt to open up the pressure valve and let some of that build up out of everything […]
Delightful. Unique. Gifted. Our children mean more than the world to us and, if you think about it, it’s pretty silly that we, as a civilization, have decided the best thing for them is to chase them off to school to spend their happiest years with overworked groan-ups and other people’s (feral) offspring. It’s absolutely […]
Much as with our teacher-appreciation lists the other day, most of us will be fortunate enough to be able to list some of the adults who took an interest in us as we grew up, and beyond. When I was eleven, Chris H gave me my first ‘fancy book,’ to start my grown-up book collection, […]
It’s a no brainer really. Why I’m a teacher. I have 180 contact days every twelve months. Now, multiply that figure by one over 365 (days in a year) and you will see that I work a mere half the (days of the) year. Everyone should be a teacher. It’s great. We’re always (if you […]