I was bruised and battered and I couldn’t tell what I felt... ... and here comes the sun!

And another week begins.

The weekend was meant to have been some respite from the ups and downs of the previous week. That was until my body realised what my mind knew all along. I had been infected by a virus of some sort. With irritated eyes, concentrating on computer screens difficult was difficult for me. What is worse, my computer claimed to be having its own sickness, although now it seems like hypochondria. It reported "virus-like activity" in MS Explorer. So I scanned, and fiddled and searched and let the computer scan while I was sleeping (hard to sleep with the computer on). This all bluntened my effort to prepare for the next two weeks.

The few successes of the weekend were the first meeting for my 10 minute drama, which now seems to be a 5 minute drama and negotiating Father's Day. I went to bed on Sunday and woke up on Monday morning with a feeling of unease. I was rather unprepared for the next day let alone the next week. I had only done an activity for their computer session and thrown together reading questions.

But I arrived at school, and the sun, as they say, rose again. Despite the worsen symptoms of a cold, things went well, and I controlled the whole class, for the whole day and everything was fine. Except for my voice, which has lost most of its upper registers. I had originally thought that I should beg my associate to takeover after lunch so I could recuperate at home, but when lunch came I felt OK. And I was even coughing less than many of the children... although some of the children seem to be faking.

Now, I am back in a confident mood but still suffering from this cold.

On Meanings and Change

From www.dictionary.com:

"The word study is based on Latin studium which meant "painstaking application" or "zeal, eagerness," and was related to Latin studere "to be zealous." Student, studio, and studious all share this base. Study's earliest uses are surprising: "affection, friendliness" (again, by Chaucer, c 1374), an "occupation or pursuit," and "a state of reverie or abstraction; state of perplexity." Soon, though, it was used to mean thought or effort that was applied toward the accomplishment of a purpose."

Study hard!

All things withstanding

Passing the half-way point in my practicum yesterday, I think I have snapped a little back from my early week highs, and have retreated past even mediocrity. I really need this weekend coming up. My battery is low and my immune system seems to be only just withstanding the juvenile bugs that I am assaulted with daily.

I was observed today and had a lesson so foul. It was ill-conceived, ill-managed and ill-executed. My visiting lecturer commented: “You seem a little frustrated.” And yes I was. She suggested revamping my classroom management for my own style (and not just the adopted system of my associate). Interesting advice, my associate teacher suggested some things although I just had a brainwave about something that I would like to try. I need to stop the triggers that lead to negative spirals that I get into. I try to be positive but when it is not noticed by the children (from whom attention needs to be obtained to continue).

Although illness didn’t precipitate like I thought it would, I felt sick by the lunch-time phase. I was close to telling my associate that I felt unwell and just leave for the rest of the day. Not professional at all. But I went on lunch-time duty with her and felt much more at ease afterwards.

Onto other things…

One intriguing thing I noticed tonight was TV3 was the most progressive channel in terms of correct pronunciation of Māori. Both TVNZ and TV3 seem to be including more Māori phrases such as “Poo marie” (commonly by Judy Bailey) and Hei konei ra.

I heard the most correct pronunciation of “Taupoo” tonight by the unlikely person, Dion Nash (cricketer now TV3 person on Sportzah). John Campbell on TV3 is currently doing a series called “A Queen’s tour,” in which he goes all over the place, and I noticed that he was pronouncing different placenames as accurately as possible. As was Richard Langston (another kiwi journalist).

At the recent staff meeting at school, one other teacher raised the mispronunciation and wrong words of the Māori and English national anthems sung at assemblies. If I felt more included and not an outsider criticising, I would have said much the same.

Unsettled

Well, the last 30 hours have rattled me a little. I was a little bit of a mess today, but got through what I could and scrambled the rest. I was quite punitive too, smiting children left AND right. Not good.

I am being observed tomorrow and feel even more unsettled. Things are falling into place but now it is late. And also I get the feeling that sickness is becoming me. This is not the time.

Oh well, back to work..

Oh, one good tidbit picked up today was that the school is trying to form a chess club. I might try and involve myself in it in my last two weeks, but I still don't know the details yet.

Deception~!

Subsequent to yesterday's exclusive on the self-sabotage in this important of important times, self-deception and fabrication of truth was added to the litany of crimes against my practicum.

Should I be happy or should I not? When has self-deception been a reason to celebrate?

My memory, hoping to avoid the complete embarrassment of not knowing where my file organiser, decided to manufacture memories. Created were the memories of me holding my organiser, walking down Balmoral Rd on the way to Foodtown. I can still remember it as clear as the weather, that afternoon. I even wrote it in the previous blog. I am certain of that memory as I am of any other memory.

As I walked into St Lukes early this morning to look for that file-organiser, I could even mentally isolate where I had put down the folder. My reasoning follows:

I couldn't have put the folder down on the way to Foodtown on the road, yet I couldn't recall having trouble picking food off the shelves with my file organiser in one hand and a basket in the other. So I had put it down BEFORE Foodtown. I DID stop at the men's toilets on the way to the supermarket. I must have left it in there. Well, no...

St Lukes didn't have it at all. Never did. I returned to Balmoral Primary School forlorn and really annoyed at myself. I prepared to admit everything to my associate (especially the now lost books). I entered and saw a black file organiser on a chair. I even queried if it were hers. It was not. It was mine, which I had left on that chair when I left school that day. Containing school journals, precious feedback and assorted other vital notes.

Yet I can still remember carrying it out of the classroom. Aside from the impossibly small possibility of a malicious campaign to confuse me, my memory is now over-compensating for its incompetence, giving me memories I shouldn't have. Caught red-handed this time. Now can I trust anything at all? I hope I am not the witness in a court case, these confessions being publicly accessible and all.

I have my file organiser. Should I be happy or not?

Betrayed!

Backstabbed and sabotaged! They are all applicable. This event so foul, yet so predictable. I had anticipated it happening at some stage and this is the act that it has come.

It started out fine. I slept well last night. I prepared well for class and had everything at hand when needed. My associate was in the class most of the time and gave me three pages of precious feedback on my performance. It was a bumpy ride at times but I was in control until about 2:45pm. Then my associate took over and dismissed the children.

Then I prepared for the next day. I found good resources and photocopied them. Then after chatting with my associate I left and at the intersection of Balmoral and Dominion, I suddenly remembered, I had to do some shopping. This annoyed me somewhat as I was exhausted and ready for a lie down. This is when things turn awry. I headed to St Lukes Foodtown changing hands with my now full black filing organiser that I take everywhere. It was about a 15 minute walk, I walked thinking about what I could do tomorrow. I bought my food, where the lady put all my groceries (quite heavy stuff too) into one plastic bag. I walked out carrying it and changed it from one hand to another, stopping briefly to put some of the heavier stuff in my backpack.

Home I went, did all my chores, made dinner, resucitated myself so I could work on preparation for the next day. It was 8:45pm, when I looked for my black filing organiser. It was not home. It had taken me 4 hours to notice that I was missing a kilo plus of documentation, school journals and notes. It had the forementioned precious feedback too. And I don't have a clue, where I have left it. Foodtown St Lukes is shut till 8am tomorrow, and will be the first point of call in the search for it tomorrow. I will be rushed looking for it and then preparing my lessons tomorrow. IT MIGHT NOT EVEN BE THERE. If I have lost my documents, I need to redo all of them before the University moderator comes on the Thursday.

Autosabotage.

Mindblowing~ Time is on my side~

Sometimes I get a revelation that is obvious to myself. Even though I felt like things were going well in class, for the most part, in the last week, there was something that was obviously missing. A control of time. This is rather a large flaw in any wish to control a class. But I hadn't asked about what specific times I should be transitioning between activities. I just was checking randomly throughout the days.

But I am a chronocentric kind of person. I run by the clock. Of course, if I have no idea of time to set my pace and bearing, I will list and lurch from one activity to another. So, I made little cards for each day, which have the appropriate timing for every activity. And today it worked a charm!

This was good, as today was when I effectively taught to 12pm, doing the reading session solo (unexpectedly so, my associate did a runner till then). Also I had a rough night of sleeplessness last night, making me envy my nightmare-filled night previously. In other words, I was glad that I had something going for me. It was a bearable day, but my head feels as if it were in a fish-bowl.

Suddenly, my brain has moved into a metaphysical philosophical realm, hailing back to my philosophical taoist days. I had a mentally-generated image (MGI), a vision if you will, about the whole fabric of the universe and time. It doesn't translate into words well, and I can't draw it, but I like it.

My most interesting other thought of the day was courtesy of a TV2 news programme, for the youth market who can't be stuffed watching TV one or TV3 news. It is called Flipside, which starts at 5pm. It has the function where if you wanted to comment on a news item, that you can text in your thoughts and it will run across the bottom of the screen. I think that is pretty cool in that it makes an awareness of issues more interesting and interactive. Also, one thing that we are actually taught in our Education diploma, txtmsg language is almost too pervasive to ignore. Reading those messages, I can see why.

Let me Level with You

A script penned by me is now a goer for a show at the Maidment Theatre...

As if I didn't have enough on my mind already!

Steeds in the Night

Oddly I had the longest "sleep" I have had for about one month last night but it was beset by not one, not two but three nightmares. Two of them ended with me trying to scream in the dream, which both woke me. That is something I have only done once before. I can't really remember most of what it was all about though. The most lucid bit was the seeing the moon in a clear sky, clear except for a crab-shaped cloud just below the moon, I scrambled for a camera, but couldn't find one, so I switched on the light and someone yelled at me, as it was too bright.

Oh dear...

Another blog consumed by this system..

Thursday's phoenix

I have just watched probably the most interesting race of the Olympics (for me). New Zealand managed to win the gold and silver medals in the triathlon. The two kiwis were always in the front bunch and then the two leaders for most of the race, but there was always an enthusiastic Swiss man hanging on to their coat-tails, and the usual insidious Australian menace (who came in fourth). Also good was that they completely abandoned the Holmes show to broadcast it live!

Anyhow, today was a crunch day. Observed twice over. Compared to many of my colleagues, I am not averse to being observed. I usually forget that there is someone there while teaching and then am ready to chat with them after. I got some really good pointers from both the University lecturer and my own associate. Ah, I am in self-improvement heaven.

I was quite inspired after class too, figuring out the maths for the next day, spending a lot of time contemplating logical follow-ups and preparing seat work.

The day seemed to take its toll. After listening to the end of the Monday’s Koorero Mai on tape, my energy level collapsed for the first time this week. I just shut my eyes and may have passed out momentarily. Interestingly, looking back in my blogs, it was Thursday that I collapsed last week too.

Since then I have been focussed with the challenge for tomorrow. I will do the whole morning, handle all the transitions and send them off at the end of the day. Unfortunately, due to my own associate’s required lessons, I cannot do any more than that (I wanted to take on one more lesson of work to be completely my responsibility). But it would be nice to consolidate what I have done already. If I can use the feedback I have received, and solidly do the whole morning, it would be a big boost to my confidence before I take on new challenges from Monday to Wednesday before I take the whole reins on Thursday.

I am starting to feel I have timed this facet well. Although, I will have to put a lot of consideration into how I will do the required work for my assignments. Getting momentum and capability should come first, but the assignment stress in this practicum is quite intense too, especially considering the lack of any holiday at the end of it. This weekend had better be a focussed one. It will be the lynchpin of the both the practical side and the assignment side. I have to plan build up enough preparation to be self-determining in the lessons for most of this crucial third week and also calculate the exact execution of lessons to get data for my assignments in this three-week stretch.

Oh dear. I like my talk, now for the walk.

What a drag!

More about the title later... Koorero mai has a waiata section, which I usually I give scant regard to because apart from loud karaoke songs, I don't like singing much. But recently, while walking home, I have found myself singing them. Maybe they DO have heuristic value.

Anyway, today was another interesting day to be a student-teacher. And part of this is where the title comes in. Suddenly, many of the boys have found the joy is swinging from the arms of the male student teacher in their classroom. I will rein this behaviour in tomorrow. It was fun today though.

One interesting issue with one of the boys, who seemed overtly affectionate to not just me, but about half the boys in the class. He regularly gives me hugs. More shockingly, while sitting on the mat, a boy stood in front of him facing the other way, the boy in question then proceded to lift up the bottom of the other boy's sweatshirt to have a better look at the standing boy's backside. What is more, at times he almost puts his lips close enough to his best mate to almost appear to be kissing him. I chatted with my associate teacher and she just laughed about it a little and then mentioned that it was when his Dad left his mother that these things started to happen. .

Today has also been a landmark as it is the start of REAL work! Tomorrow I will be under the objective eye of my Uni lecturer for at least 20 minutes of teaching (in a lesson where I will be doing an activity that flopped for me on Friday last week). This will be followed by being observed by my associate while I take my first lesson of maths on this practicum with the new format for teaching maths. I will maintain this level of work on Friday. Then prepare for what will be the escalation of work for the next week. I would like to assume control of the class either Wednesday or Thursday next week. That means that I will have to get all these easy things down pat, before adding the harder bits (to be added in the next 4-5 school days) and then putting it all together for 5 consecutive school days (I had to check that word in the dictionary, I wonder why its spelling is not more similar to the root word of consequence).

One important fact that I have neglected to mention in recent blogs is my recent capital investment in my teaching career: A whistle. I have been blowing my own whistle at PE for the last few days.

On the health front, I think my body has warded off a cold before it became symptomatic. My right foot is officially not to be messed with. I am going to treat it like fragile porcelain. It felt alright for almost a week, then last Friday shattered all illusions of a recovery with a terrible walk along Mt Eden Rd. It felt mostly OK this week until yesterday when it was feeling restrictive, and then today my foot slipped off the side of the footpath reigniting pain from the sprain in March (recently the pain was on the other side of my ankle... not the sprain side).

(for some reason this did not come up last night when posted... lets see what happens now)

Turei

I had another good day on prac, taking on some Reading and P.E. In general I am feeling like I haven’t taken up enough new challenges. It feels so much better than last week, which was now obviously just a mixture of settling in and slight disorganisation on both my associate’s and my sides.

I had an interesting discussion with my mother over dinner last night. She seems to like getting me into such discussions because for a while I seemed to be so neutral on many topics.

Yesterday, there was a protest rally in Wellington organised by the Destiny Church, run by an “American-styled” evangelist, Brian Tamaki. The message of the church is essentially Christian-fundamentalist grievance against the social liberalisation in New Zealand (“Enough is enough!”) and specifically wishing to prevent the passage of the Civil Unions Bill, which would allow homosexual couples who apply for a civil union to have the same legal rights as a married couple. They believe strongly that this will ruin the sanctity of marriage and harm the family. Both my mother and I thought this was highly specious logic and I think I have enough basis to out-argue proponents of those views.

BUT what we were most differing in opinion of was the “right” of the parents to pass on intolerance to their children. My mother thought that it was highly inappropriate for these parents to indoctrinate their children with hatred and homophobia.

I thought it was wonderful that parents are acting to pass on their values and morals. I think that it is good that children are first given some basis from which to build a worldview. It is only if you have an existing view will you be able to contrast it with another. It would be an egregious sin for a fundamentalist Christian to allow their offspring leeway to stray anyway, so it is unreasonable to expect otherwise. There was the issue that the children were off school for the march, I think that a march of conscience and morality is probably a good reason to not attend class and probably a good educating point about participating in society.

As abhorrent to me as their views are, I think that the existence of the Destiny Church or the National Front are essentially good thing as it gives a form to the prejudice. With form, it can be identified, addressed, and reasoned with. The devil you know is always better than the devil that lurks beneath.

On a side point of discussion, my mother was also highly upset that The Women’s Show at the Auckland Showgrounds gave free entry to men! I have no idea what a women’s day would sell but I raised the point that the opposite was done regularly by nightclubs (bring the babes, and paying men will come). Is this discrimination? Well, it is good business sense. My mother raised the point (strangely linked to the previous one) that gay men could take advantage of the Women’s Show…

Ah well...

A new week~

Things went much better and not so tiringly today. I feel I have regained some control of the general workings of the class and am handling many of the activities and transitions. I will be going a bit deeper tomorrow with actual teaching, not just facilitating. In a week and a half I will be starting full control.

Nga Uruora

I am part-listening to a radio programme talking about deforestation in New Zealand and the history of ecological change in New Zealand. It is a based on a book which I think has the name Nga Uruora (The grove of life).

There was a line, that I will paraphrase:

"When the new purchasers of the land found that the lush wet forest was not what it cracked up to be, quickly went about felling the trees... Naturally later, men saw the floods, erosion and landslides as anomalies for the land rather than their own occupation..."

We have had some devastating floods lately. In fact, in the history of my family, it was devastating Waikato floods in 1980 that caused massive losses of lambs on my father's farm that caused us to move to Helensville for market gardening.

Hmmmm...

"Sorry teacher, www.blogger.com ate my last blogwork. Could I have an extension?"

Tiredness

This day is notable in that it is the first day that I was overcome by tiredness upon arriving home.

It is also interesting that in an age where obesity is often describe as epidemic, that many schools including this school fundraise by giving EVERY child a box of 20 90g Cadbury Caramello chocolate bars. The children don't get to choose, they have to bring it home, and sell what they can and bring back the remainder (even if all of it). That must be part of the sponsorship agreement as well as the most simple way of doing things. Many children got two boxes, one exclaiming that he was going to eat one box by himself and sell the other box.

It makes you think...

Today, I observed my associate teacher conducting an activity called “Community of Inquiry.” This is where the whole class is in a circle and discuss particular topics. There is a set of rules of how to contribute ideas. Today was the topic of whether magic existed. It was first introduced from the book “Where the wild things roam” (I think that was the title, which is a ubiquitous book in New Zealand classrooms). Children could raise their ideas and give arguments for and against. The teacher is more or less a prompter rather than a contributor, in that if the discussion is getting weighed to one side, she would ask a question that could trigger differing opinion and explore other aspects of the topic.

Interestingly, the most vociferous contributors believed strongly in magic. Their arguments at first appealed to the story as a reference, “…if there was no magic, then how did trees grow in his room?” Once debate on the credibility of fiction frothed from the other side, discussion went rather metaphysical such as “if there was no magic, how was the world created?” and this lead to questions of god(s). A couple of students asserted that they didn’t believe in gods. One student (a usually problematic child) said that there is so much magic in the world making everything work. The teacher nearer the end of the session checked whether anyone who hadn’t contributed had any thoughts they wanted to contribute. The previous week they had apparently discussed “dreams.”

For me, it was a revelation, because I had planned to generate a forum atmosphere at the start of the day when I finally have a class of my own. I was going to be completely experimental (which is always my compulsion) rather than do a thorough search of the existing techniques.

Originally I had intended to get them to discuss in small groups before contributing as a class. This means that all students had the opportunity to bounce their thoughts around as well as quickly find what objections there are to their thoughts.

I hadn’t considered what I know is a crucial part of the teaching process, motivation. The technique mentioned above uses a storybook to establish the meaning of the discussion. I was naively planning just to be the teacher setting the topic of discussion, which thinking about it now is very simplistic. Probably another advantage of their scheme is that the topic was more accessible to them, whereas I had lofty ideals of discussing responsibility, values and truth etc. as concept topics.

I already had the idea of having special rules for contribution (a la co-operative teaching), which is a common element between my intended model and that I saw in class today. The technique I observed apparently is based on a book, which I now want to have dearly!

You Name It!

I have officially got all 29 names of the students of my class in my mind and can say them with a moments hesitation. It took me a day longer to do this than last practicum BUT this class does have more students. It also has more lookalikes too (even though my last practicum I had to deal with identical twins) but I do have the advantage this time of having very few foreign names in the class to get a handle on.

Kei runga noa atu, raatou

Closing the second day of my practicum, I have found myself where I want to be.

This is quite surprising because I woke up very uneasily and wondering whether I would like to take on a class like I had. In fact, when I woke up it struck me again, "I will have FULL CONTROL of THIS class for a week, this practicum."

But although I was relatively passive, I observed many of the different cues and ideas used by my associate. I mentally criticised some of what she did (I think this shows that I am engaged into thinking about pedagogical techniques), but also saw far more positives that negatives.

After class today, there was a staff meeting. And I was pleased to see a leader as a principal. The previous Principals I had seen were almost nominal in their influence. This one held everyone's attention. Persuasively sent us off to a task. Then in small groups, we completed our tasks with an industrious hum. The whole group was co-operative, productive, focussed and committed to the task. The teachers wanted to be there and saw importance in what they were doing. It is the kind of environment that I think suits me.

Some interesting points from today's observations:

A student was "labelled" as a potential ADHD child by my teacher. From my knowledge of the disorder, I think it is obvious that he wasn't. I had an enlightening chat with the expert teacher who came in who said that teachers tend not to want to raise that possibility. One of our lecturers convincingly argued against the prevalence or even the existence of the disorder.

I received the first challenge to my authority today. I will prepare mentally how I will reply in future. My extemporaneous reply was OK but forethought is my advantage as an adult. Children think on their feet better though in the verbal exchanges. They have the freedom of complete irrationality too (teachers can sometimes play on this too, because it is taken as a given that adults sometimes are completely arbitrary about some thing)

Anyway, I am now motivated and optimistic and over the hitches of yesterday.