Thursday, February 24, 2011

6.3

I created this blog to reflect on teaching, but the deadly earthquake that struck while I was at school on Tuesday 22nd September is what I’m going to write about now. This post will hopefully be a cathartic one for me. Counsellors reckon that it’s not good to constantly re-live a traumatic   event, but it’s hard not to, and writing down what happened will help me get it out of my system, if you know what I mean. Please don’t read this if you are feeling traumatised by the quake – there’s nothing horrific in it, but ‘quake stories’ are hardly comforting.

Tuesday began with the PPTA PUM in the Christchurch Town Hall. I saw lots of lovely friends from my last school, yay. Then I went back to school. I had a free period and planned some lessons, had lunch, went on duty…then, about five minutes before 1pm, the start of period 4, I went into my classroom to write out my lesson plan on the whiteboard and set my laptop up. And then the quake hit. I had felt a quake in my classroom before; when I went in to sort some stuff out before the school year started, there was a 4-pointer which felt, well, unpleasant but small. This one started gently, and I thought, “Oh! Another wee one.” But it got bigger very quickly. I heard students screaming in the building. I ran to the door and hung onto the door frame – it was a violent one. The power went off. Once the rocking and swaying stopped I ran outside. Kids everywhere, some excited, some crying, lots of hugging. I was weird, because it felt bad, though not as bad as the 7.1…but then I work in West Christchurch and we live in the East…

I ran outside to the field, the school assembly point, as we had practised earlier this year (though I think that was as a result of a faulty alarm, not an intended practice, and definitely not an earthquake). My form class (Year 9, newbies to high school) came to me. They surrounded me, all chattering about what happened. They are such a great bunch. One of the girls began to cry when the first big after-shock hit - it must have been one of the 5-pointers as it was yukky. I held back tears myself, and then tried hard to not cry twice again as two other students broke down. Many students were upset because they couldn’t get hold of their parents by cellphone – over and over again I explained that Telecom and Vodafone would be experiencing system overload, delays and even might be down.

I had left my cellphone in the building, and was, eventually, allowed to go in and retrieve it. The building I teach in is fairly new and obviously very well built as there was no damage. In fact, I don’t think there was much damage to the school at all. At one point, while the whole school was on the field, a helicopter flew over us, headed towards the city centre, and all the students waved. That was a strange moment. I felt like crying then too, even though it was kind of lovely that so many people were obviously safe and well and able to wave at a helicopter. I tried to imagine what that would look like to the people in the helicopter. Then I heard a rumour that people had died in the city centre. That was a shock, and I didn’t really want to believe it. After all, rumours are always rife in emergency situations.

We spent two hours on the field on that overcast, rather chilly, slightly spitty day. I stayed at school until every single student from my form class had been picked up by a family member; I finally left about 3:30pm.

Along the way home it became apparent that things were bad. I saw huge, grey volcanoes of liquefaction on the road side…and that was in west Christchurch. The traffic crawled across the northern roads. I got to Burwood at about 4:20pm and then I ditched my car in a side street and walked, because the traffic was so terrible and I just wanted to get home as soon as possible. I ran across Avondale bridge, fearing a quake would hit as I crossed the already-ravaged-bridge, and walked down Avonside Drive, avoiding, on the way, the huge cracks, including ones that had swallowed cars. Avonside Drive is ten times worse than it was in the 7.1, which is scary, ‘cos it was munted then.

Two blocks away from our house, I came across flood water. Realising that flooding was a major issue, I wandered around the area for a while, trying to find a way in to my street. Finally, I took my sandals off, put them in my laptop case, rolled up my trousers, and waded up Wainoni Road to our street. The water was knee high and was that strange-but-oh-so-distinguishable grey-brown. I went very slowly, as the silty sand is incredibly slippery. There were hot and cold spots, just like when you go swimming in the sea, and some parts were very squelchy under my feet. I got to the corner of our street and peered around. The whole street was under water. So scary. There was one car parked in the street and not a person in sight. I made my way to the car, and then very cautiously shuffled from the car, across the street, to a lamppost near our fence. It was so disconcerting not being able to see the curb or grass verges on the side of the road. I walked along the fence line and opened the gate. Bubbles were rising up from the water where our drive would be. I heard Z open the front door and I called out, “What are the bubbles?” “Liquefaction,” he called back. That was comforting…I thought there was some sort of earthquake-bubble-monster under our property.

Z got home before me, although it took him 3 hours to get across town. He cleaned up the mess inside, which was much worse than last time, and found Gusto cowering behind a chair in the lounge. Finally, he found Grillz under the deck, perched on some rubble, surrounded by flood water. He put a plank across the water and, after a lot of coaxing, Grillz walked to safety.  I am so grateful to him for sorting all that out before I got home.

In the end, we had to make a decision: stay or go. We decided to go. The flood waters on our property were very distressing. We both thought our place would be OK after the 6.3 – it was pretty OK last time. The cats got shut into a bedroom, with plenty of food and water and a litter tray. Wading through a kilometre of water carrying them was not an option as they were very stressed. Just as well we didn’t too, because I lost my sandals in the squelchy, quicksand-like mud as we walked to the car. We drove to our friend’s and stayed with him for the night. I’m so grateful to him too. Hardly slept though, due to aftershocks and worrying about the cats…

And that was my 22nd February 2011. We are so lucky.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

The challenges that lie ahead.

So, I have a student in my year 9 class who is working at curriculum level 1. Just to put that into context, students should, ideally, be at curriculum level 4 by the beginning of year 9; curriculum level 1 is where a 5-6 year old should be working at. This student is 13 years old.

I have had a lot of professional development in literacy over the last few years, which gives me *some* confidence that I can actually make a difference to this student. I've also taught a lot of really challenging classes over the years with some students working at really low levels. And I certainly wouldn't want to see this student held back and in a class with much younger students. I do believe that a 13 year old should be learning with other 13 year olds, no matter how different they might be in terms of needs and ability.

Anyway, this year is going to be a challenge (as is every year...)

I need to embed differentiation into my planning and teaching (somehow...yikes!), as this will allow me to cater for the wide variety of needs in this class, including this particular student, as well as the ones sitting at the 'top' of the class who are working at curriculum level 4. This is something I will probably reflect on again in this blog. Hopefully at some point (soon) this year I will be able to say,  "I taught a cool lesson that was differentiated to meet my students needs and they all learned something and enjoyed the experience". I'm very worried that I might not though...

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Teaching rocks, but the workload sucks.

I, like many of my fellow teacher-friends and colleagues, have spent most of this weekend doing schoolwork. I marked, I planned, I marked and I planned...and I still didn't get nearly as much done as I would have liked. This is not because I have silly - as opposed to smart - work habits, nor is it because I am a procrastinator. It is because the workload for the average secondary school teacher is simply too big.

Secondary school teachers teach five classes each (unless they have middle-management responsibilities, which certainly does not reduce the workload in any way). That's 20 teaching hours per week. This is the best part of my job, in my opinion. I love being in the classroom, interacting and guiding the kids in their learning, and feeling a sense of accomplishment when students 'get it'.


I also enjoy the planning. And the better you plan, the better your lesson, I reckon. As a responsible teacher, you have to take into account your students' needs, and then create lessons to fit those students which will engage and facilitate learning. NB: There are a lot of demands on teachers in terms of planning today, compared to, say, 15-20 years ago when I was at high school. No longer can a teacher get away with seating a class in alphabetical order and make them copy in silence from a blackboard for an ENTIRE YEAR (yes, Mrs Whatever-your-name-was who took me for Third Form Economics, your 'teaching' sucked). This is a good thing - in the end, teachers are there to teach, not to be a big scary authority figure. However, it means we need more time to plan - how else can we cater for students from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, who speak a variety of first languages, who learn in a variety of different ways, working at a variety of curriculum levels? The PPTA has won teachers more non-contact hours in the past which rocks...but still, the workload is a killer.


Ah, the marking. It's great seeing your students improve in their assessment results. It's awesome when a student gets an Achieved with Excellence. But the marking is constant, and while I fully support NCEA (in the sense that it's a much more democratic way of assessing senior students) it has caused major workload issues. For teachers and students. I can only imagine how stressful it would be having to sit assessment after assessment all year, and then having to sit a whopping final exam too. Probably almost as stressful as marking up to 30 (or more, depending on the school) assessments every week...

Teachers also attend form time and duty, which are essential in managing the general well-being of the students in any school. During form time and duty we interact constantly with students. During parent-teacher evenings (of which the average teacher would do at least 2 a year) we interact constantly with parents. We also interact with parents through via student reports, which take a loooooong time to write, and which we have to do at least twice a year. And we phone home. Yet nothing other than the 20 hours of teaching is considered 'contact' time.


And lets not forget all the extra-curricular activities that teachers are expected to do. Actually, it's usually in their contract. And extra-curricular activities are heaps of fun. But it's yet another thing that teachers have to do.

I'm sure I haven't even covered all of the things teachers do. But that wasn't my aim. My point stands; the workload is too big. 

Many teachers work all weekend, most weekends. Some teachers work all school holidays. And that's not good enough. We need a reduced workload. More non-contacts. More respect wouldn't go amiss either (please don't feel the need to remind us that we have "good holidays" or "decent pay"). 

I would like to see education, teachers and students valued once again by society. I'd like to see students getting the most out of lessons, not just what the teacher managed to whip up in the small amount of time they had to plan for that lesson. I both hope for and look forward to it.

And I'd like to have a weekend in which I can read a book or watch a movie and hang out with friends...





 

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Trying do justice to an awesome text

I am now 4 days down in the teaching year and 10 days down at my new school. Things are going very well so far (I think) and I am feeling quite settled already, despite leaving so many teacher-friends behind at my last school. 


I began teaching my Year 13s the novel today (<3 The Great Gatsby <3). I'm trying really hard to scaffold the reading and teach it better than I did last year (which didn't go badly, I don't think). I do think that the activities a teacher uses during the reading of a text is really fundamental to students having a really thorough understanding of it. Today we did some pre-reading activities, read the first section of chapter one (which is only about a page and a half long) and then did a bit of work on it, mostly deciphering the complexities of what Nick is saying about his non-judgmental nature (haha, he cracks me up) via a cloze and paraphrasing task. Hopefully this will improve my students' understanding of the narrator and his attitudes and values, thus improving their analysis of the text, as well as their ability to write perceptive essays...which I will no doubt find out soon enough...

My new blog! And it's all about teaching (mostly)...

I have decided to create a reflective blog about teaching. I decided to do this partly because teachers are now required to keep a 'reflective journal' as part of the requirements for teacher registration, and partly because I've always wanted to start a blog where I can discuss things that I am passionate about but I've had no idea what to blog about. 

I think an online journal-blog will suit me better than a written diary as I type much faster than I write, my typing is highly legible, and this way I can share my experiences with other teachers who may wish to comment and discuss. Also, I am a regular user of the internet so I will have no excuses for not updating regularly. Ideally, I would like to update every day - it is definitely best to reflect at the end of the day on your teaching, I believe - however, I think every second or third day is a more realistic goal, as the job is very demanding and I also think it's important to simply relax and forget about things sometime. 

I will try and stay focused on reflecting on my teaching i.e.. how my lessons went and why they went like they did, although I do reserve the right to rant on about anything I want to from time to time, especially if it's related in any way to education :-)

And now I have to think about what I'm going to write in my first post...eek.

My first journal publication

Kia ora! I'm not sure anyone really follows my blog anymore - it's been a couple of years since I last posted. Having a second chi...