"How is education supposed to make me feel smarter? Besides, every time I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain."

Yesterday, I went to the Protest Rally in Christchurch. I wrote this post beforehand. The Rally was good and thus I’ve decided to post what I wrote. I can’t not say anything, after all.

Just over two years ago, Christchurch was the ‘second-largest city in New Zealand’. And over the past two years I’ve watched it crumble and shrink, just like everyone else living here. As a resident of east Christchurch, and as a teacher, the shrinkage (heh) is obvious. Swathes of houses in my suburb are currently being demolished - every day after I get home from school, I go for a walk and watch as a bulldozer pulls down yet another once-was-home. The weird thing is, it’s hard to picture each individual house in my mind after it is gone; I can remember how the street looked, but individual houses and their details seem to escape me. As a teacher in a west Christchurch school it’s obvious to me that, even in the more affluent suburbs, families have left for better lives elsewhere. In every class I’ve taught over the past two years, at least one student has up and left because their family decided to move elsewhere -  to Auckland, Wellington, Tauranga, the Gold Coast. And I must admit, I’m always a little bit jealous (except for the ones moving to the GC...). My school has a falling roll, and it’s most likely going to go through a CAPNA for a second year in a row. Yet, we are one of the lucky ones.

Schools have proven to act as a strong support network during hard times in this city. Many set up as (official and unofficial) welfare centres after Feb 22. Schools provided children with stability during a time of massive upheaval - many of the students I teach have moved two or three (or more) times since Feb 22. Schools have also dealt with a considerable amount of anxiety and emotional stress in young people; all over Christchurch schools have experienced a heightened level of disruptive behaviour this year. At a time like this, what Christchurch schools and communities need is more support; not school closures, or the prospect of seemingly-impossible mergers.

So there’s nothing like a shock announcement in week nine of term three to knock you when you’re down (such impeccable timing and delivery...). And the government’s proposal for Christchurch schools was really shocking. I’d heard rumours about possible school closures, and I know to never trust a National government to pour money into public education, or to even consult with teachers and principals about sweeping changes, but still, they were shocking, and hurtful too.

I’m definitely not a conservative; I argue against preserving the cathedral (much to everyone else’s dismay). And I’m not someone who thinks that schools are perfect as they are - there are definitely things that can be improved in the NZ education system. As I said earlier, I have witnessed the declining numbers. But I just don’t see how culling and merging schools is a progressive step for this city.

Closing (or merging? It’s a little unclear…) schools like Phillipstown - a school that provides not only a quality education for its local students, but also food if the kids need it - is just cruel. I live just around the corner from Avondale Primary - the government’s plans are to merge it into a ‘cluster’ with Woolston Primary, Chisnallwood Intermediate, and Aranui High School. That’s a pretty weird plan - Chisnallwood is right next door to Avondale (although it’s very different in terms of school culture), but Wainoni and Aranui aren’t that close by at all. That’s a fairly large catchment area across all four schools, and a huge range of age groups to cater for on one site. And what site would they all be located on exactly…? The whole thing seems preposterous. It fairly obvious that the proposal has significantly increased the level of uncertainty and anxiety that already exists in so many Christchurch communities.

So, why would the government make such ridiculous plans? Money. It’s blatantly obvious that Christchurch is simply being used as an excuse for the Right to slash and burn. Instead of investing in children’s education, the government wishes to remove as much funding from public schools as possible. Same old shit. Oh except they might chuck in a charter school somewhere along the line - eastside, I’m guessing. Ugh!

As for the future; I look forward to a new central library, to a new 50 metre pool, to strolling through the extensive green-belt of the new city centre and stopping for lunch at a delicious new eatery. But now also hope that we can save the local schools. I've come to realise life in Christchurch is not going to be about sitting it out and waiting for things to happen; it’s also going to be about fighting to preserve the good things we already have - at least, it will be for the next two years... We’ve got to ensure that walking to and attending the local school does not escape our collective memory.

Shitty, shitty life.

These last few months have been very difficult; at times I’ve felt like I've been living in the vortex of unluckiness. Three months ago today I was in hospital waiting to see if I’d be released on not; I had learned that I’d miscarried exactly a week before.

It was my 12-week scan and I was SO excited about seeing a tiny, live foetus inside me. Unfortunately, as soon as that ultrasound machine touched my stomach, a series of rather devastating events followed. I learned it had died a while ago (it was a ‘missed miscarriage’). I made   a decision about what to do. There were complications; I stayed in hospital for two days (and met a racist nurse; “Do you want to bring in your own food? Oh, that question is mostly for the Indians and the Chinese. I don’t know how they can eat that stuff…”). The nurses were actually lovely (except for the racist one who seemed super-nice until that moment when I realised that a) she was racist, and b) she thought that over-cooked, salty, flaccid hospital food was somehow superior to any other sort of food). I now have a renewed appreciation of the free health system (with the exceptions of the food and that nurse), though I wish I didn’t.

Grief is a really overwhelming process. To add to the mess, my body continues to behave in random, unpredictable, and frustrating ways. Quite a bit of my confidence, along with my innocence, has been slain. I wrote about it, numerous times, and each time I decided against posting what I wrote. But I’m posting today because eventually horrible stuff needs to be talked about, and because I’m trying to focus on recovery.

These are the things I have found that have helped, in no particular order:

• Talking. It doesn’t really feel like it helps sometimes, but I’m fairly certain it does. Sometimes I feel a bit ‘pay attention to me and my horrible experience’ when I'm talking about it. I have talked about my experience with friends who have also experienced miscarriages - with some friends in more detail than with others - and it has been helpful. I realise that every miscarriage is a really different (though often devastating) experience. Talking to friends and family who haven’t experienced miscarriages has also been helpful; after all, I appreciate any form of support I can get, no matter how much someone might not be able to comprehend what I’ve been through.

• Crying. It’s so dehydrating and not a great evening-wind-down strategy, but I always feel just a little bit better for crying. It is a release, if nothing else.

• School. School has been great, because teenagers (and teachers) are rather self-absorbed, and so I’ve had a daily opportunity to not think about what happened to me, to us, and just focus on the teaching and learning of young people. My students were pretty alarmed at the fact that I disappeared for over a week, with no explanation (my two favourite questions were: “Was it an STD, Miss?”, and, “Was it mental?”), but they were very happy to have me back which made it so much easier to be there. I love my job; it gives me purpose when nothing else seems to.

• Facials. These are definitely the most enjoyable thing that's helped. I initially booked my first facial because my skin was so incredibly terrible; I had massive under-the skin-pimples as a result of my body’s hormones being all over the place. The facial was amazing. Not only was it incredibly relaxing - my scalp, face and shoulders were continually cleansed and massaged - but my skin looked so smooth and shiny and clean afterwards. Then some lovely friends gave me a voucher for a facial. I’m hooked.

• Support of a loving partner.

• Exercise. I’d like to say that it’s been super helpful (and it has, in theory) - the problem has been that my miscarriage coincided with the onset of winter, which, as usual, has resulted in many rainy days, colds, and an inability to warm up without injuring myself. Continued exercise is one of my long-term plans though, and I am looking forward to the end of winter when I can really get stuck into my swimming, walking and weight-lifting. It’s good to know my legs, arms and core can increase in strength when it seems like my body is working against me.

So there we have it; the last 3 months of my life briefly summarised in approximately 900 words.  I guess you might ask why I bothered posting this. My answer is, I want to move on and write posts for my blog without feeling like I’ve avoided something fundamentally life-changing. I also don’t want to remain silent on what seems to be a fairly common occurrence (although, NB - it’s not actually a reassuring thing to hear that miscarriages are “common”. Neither is “at least you can conceive”….maybe I should write a ‘what not to say to people who've had miscarriages’ page. Oh wait - it’s been done already).I guess I just want people to know how I’ve been feeling, and why. Finally, I hate not talking about stuff. And anyway, it’s my blog, and I’ll cry if I want to.

Reading is cool (but misuse of data and ghettoising of students is not)

NB: I wrote this post about 2 weeks ago but never go round to editing and posting it. I'm currently almost completely brain-dead, so here it is,  only vaguely edited and very, very late.


I always find it really hard to decide what to write about on my blog - not because I can’t think of anything to write about, but because I find it difficult to decide which topic to explore. It’s also quite challenging accurately estimating a topic I can explore and discuss in one post without spending over one and a half hours writing and editing it…


So, this post’s potential topics of discussion were:
a) streaming and how it sucks
b) John Hattie’s work and how it’s actually valuable despite the fact that it’s been twisted by the National government to serve their selfish, stingy purposes
c) Literacy and how it’s really important yet really complex


‘a)’ This would be a reactionary (but very well-informed) post in response to working in a school that streams its students. Just to clarify, streaming is when you rank students from top to bottom (usually on English, Maths and/or Reasoning Skills) and then place students in classes accordingly. This means that there is always a ‘bottom stream’ classes (or maybe classes) and ‘top stream’ classes, and everything in between. This year I teach one of the two bottom stream classes; they are my form class and I teach them English. My class can be challenging to teach, but every student in there is an individual with so much potential, and so much to offer. They might be, academically, at the bottom of the cohort, but I am confident that, with the right guidance, they can all do very well in school, and do very well in whatever they choose to do with their lives. So I’m glad I teach them, even though I hate streaming. So, if I like my class so much, why do I hate streaming? 


• Because it labels them. The students in my class have been labelled ‘bottom-stream’ and ‘low-ability’ since day one at high school. I never told them they were one of the 'bottom' classes. They figured that out themselves. Many of my students have low self-esteem, and the streaming isn’t helping.


• Because it disadvantages them. Teachers know from Day 1 that they are a bottom stream class and they set their expectations accordingly. To add to this, students in bottom stream classes are not sitting in classrooms where they have high achievement modelled to them by other students.


• Because streaming in itself has not proven to actually raise the achievement of students in streamed classes.  Many schools stream students - often making the lower-stream classes slightly smaller than a top-stream class- and then expect these ability groupings to somehow raise the learning and achievement of these students.  Very little extra support for the students and teachers is provided. And that’s stink. Teachers need training and support if they are to lift up the literacy and numeracy levels of students who have been working well below where they should be for quite some time. The teachers of these classes are not simply ‘teaching content’ (not that I would argue teachers of any classes are - see the NZ Curriculum - but some high school teachers still believe that is their primary role). Also, just to bring it back to the research,  John Hattie’s work has shown that streaming has a 0.05 effect size. BOOM. Which brings us to b)


b) Teachers love to hate on John Hattie. Don’t get me wrong - I can certainly see why. His research has essentially been used by the New Zealand government to increase class sizes in schools across the country. My largest class this year has 29 students in it. Some of my friends (in other schools) are teaching classes of 35. There’s no need to explain how hard that is, eh.


Class sizes are determined by the amount of funding each school receives from the government. Thus, more money = more teachers = smaller class sizes. So it’s obviously going to result in a big thumbs down from teachers for any research that supports a government taking money away from schools and making their workload significantly larger than it is already.


But I’m going to defend Hattie here, kinda. He’s not to blame for how the government has used his data. Hattie’s research looked at the most influential factors in relation to student achievement. Feedback was at the top of the list with a 1.13 effect size (and I don’t see the government pouring training into professional development on Feedback…). He NEVER said that class sizes don’t matter. He just calculated that class size has a -0.05 effect size (see Physical Attributes of the School). He was looking at student achievement, not teacher workload, teacher stress or teacher mental health. Obviously, this is not a particularly holisitic way of looking at education, but student-centred research is certainly valid - after all, aren’t we in it for the students? (Aside: if you haven’t read Russell Bishop’s student-centred research then you should - it’s all about student voice, using student narratives, and it’s super valuable; I don't have a link, sorry. Anyway, the National government then took that piece of Hattie’s data and de-contextualized it for its own purpose - to provide less money for schools. BLERGH. And now onto c)


c)  Literacy is my passion. To summarise, literacy is the ability to read confidently, to write coherently, and think critically about the written word. I know that ‘literacy’ is a pretty broad term in that it can also include the ability to understand all forms of communication, but I guess the literacy I’m most concerned with is the skills of reading and writing. A large proportion of students I teach have relatively low literacy levels. Students should, according to the NZ Curriculum, be reading and writing on the cusp of curriculum levels 4 and 5 when they enter Year 9. Many are in fact reading and writing well below this. And this has huge implications for these students’ achievement, and their happiness, at high school and beyond. Therefore, literacy is all connected up with self-esteem. And it’s also all connected up with privilege and socio-economics, and power too. That’s all pretty heavy stuff, so I think I’ll leave this topic for another day…


So it appears that I have (briefly but fairly satisfactorily) explored two of the three biggest educational issues swirling around in my head right now. 


To conclude:


• I actually really love my school but as long as it streams students and then does very little else for those students in the bottom streams, I don’t think it is working towards better learning and achievement outcomes for students.
• Teachers need to stop the hating on John Hattie and instead look at the research and what it actually means and question how it has been manipulated by the Right (although I always encourage suspicion and questioning of those held up on a pedestal).
• Literacy is so important that I’m going to have to write at least one or more post on it. 

On 22/2/12

I haven’t written a post for ages; the start of the school year has been insanely busy. I have thought of a few things I’ve wanted to write about, and so this afternoon I made the decision to write a post about the 22nd of February, 2012. It was either that or a post about how much I hate inconsequential punishments like detention…and whilst the latter topic is much more in line with the general theme of my blog, I think the former is more personal, and it’s definitely more topical, and therefore possibly (hopefully) more interesting.

So, here we are, one year on from the 22^nd February 2011, and really all ‘one year on’ means is that the earth has completed one full orbit around the sun.

Yet we recognise one year as a celebratory anniversary for many events – a year of life (which is definitely a great achievement, for a baby or young child especially), or a year of marriage/partnership (also quite a cool achievement, assuming that things have gone well in the relationship of course). But when it’s a year of being without someone close to you, or some big horrid event that screwed over a large number of people, it’s not a celebration, obviously, and therefore it’s not fun, or enjoyable. And so about two weeks ago I realised that I really didn’t really need the media hype around the 22^nd of February 2012.

The impending gloom of it was obvious – the mass media love a good grief-fest, and it’s not like we’ve been living in The Land of Chocolate down here. So this week, I tried to avoid the news (which is very hard these days when you have Wifi and a typical, modern-day, mild internet addiction). When I flicked onto Facebook on Wednesday 22^nd February, I flicked away again very quickly. And I didn’t really need, or want, two minutes of silence at 12:51pm, along with 2800 other people in my school. Having said that, the embarrassed, smirking faces of the 13 year old boys in my class during that two minutes was actually quite comforting – it made me feel like I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t really into standing there and being coerced into reflecting on stuff that I’d already thought about over and over again.

If two minutes silence and memorials and ceremonies work for people – to help them ease the pain, to remember those who were lost, to remind them of the plight of those left behind, to think about the future and be hopeful - that’s cool, but different people deal with stuff in different ways, and at different times. And when you are living in Christchurch, it’s actually really hard to forget what happened. Personally, I don’t need to be reminded. Because every day I drive along munted streets, past munted houses and businesses, and I miss the flat, boring normality of pre-quake Christchurch. Every week I swim in an overcrowded, 25 metre pool, dodging children that streak across in front of me and occasionally yelling at kids who stop and hang out on the lane ropes. I miss the large 50 metre pool that I could swim up and down in at my leisure – those were days when I, occasionally, got a whole lane to myself (which is ridiculously luxurious, I know…there’s nothing luxurious about Christchurch pools now). Every time I pull into my drive and hear the clunk-clunk of the loose slabs of driveway under my car I am reminded that my property needs work and that I am most probably stuck here in Christchurch for quite some time, because who knows when EQC will deliver, and who wants to buy a slightly-munted house two blocks from the red zone in east Christchurch in the next 10 years anyway? Don’t get me wrong – I love my house and I (we) had planned to stay here a while, but when you buy a house and the land that it sits on (and you buy insurance too - I thought we got it in case I left the stove on…), it’s very hard to comprehend the possibility of thousands of 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s, a handful of 6s, and a 7 attempting to rip their way through your property over the course of 18 months, and then consequently being stuck in it for the unforeseeable future. And, most horribly, every time I go to the doctor these days, I am reminded of my old doctors’ surgery, The Clinic, that relocated into the CTV building not long before the 6.3. I’d been a patient there for over 8 years because the doctors and nurses were so empathetic and people-focused. It’s hard not to think about those who are gone when I sit in the waiting room, waiting for my new doctor to call me in.

Everyone in this city has a story and has been affected in some way or other – some much more than others, I realise that. And I’m one of the lucky ones in terms of how little the quakes have affected my life. So I would hate to tell people what to feel, or how to deal with what they are feeling, or even when to grieve and reflect. And that’s what irked me about February 22^nd 2012.

But I want to end this post on a positive note. One thing that I did appreciate about February the 22^nd was the flowers-in-road-cones thing. I came across an Avonside Girls’ High girl on Tuesday evening putting together amazing posies of ferns and flowers in the road cones just up the road. The road-cones were transformed from ugly, muddy, sand-covered, plastic points into vibrant vases of beautiful flower arrangements. Sometimes – no, often – teenagers are really awesome.

Happy HAPPY New Year!

The first few months of the year are a great time to be a teacher, I reckon. Obviously, the year begins for NZ teachers with a lovely, long, summer holiday. Often, the period that begins just before Christmas and runs through to mid January is the only time of the year when I actually stop doing schoolwork, stop thinking about school, and relax. Those school ‘holidays’ that occur throughout the year in between terms don’t really suffice – for me, and many other teachers, they usually involve catching up on lost sleep, marking and planning. So, I try to spend my summer holiday enjoying the good weather, reading, watching stuff, playing games, catching up with friends and family, and organising stuff that I never managed to organise during the school year. I always spend way too much money in the summer holidays but I’m OK with that because I am generally quite stingy throughout the year anyway (alarmingly, it’s much easier to be frugal when you are working a 50 hour week, despite the cost of transport and general living).

By February we are back at school and getting stuck into term one, which is by far my favourite term. It’s my favourite for so many reasons. Firstly, I’m fresh and well-rested from the holiday, so I have energy and enthusiasm like I just don’t have any other time of the year (I must admit, sometimes I get to term four and I’m so completely and utterly exhausted I actually wonder if I’ll make it to the end…I’ve always made it, but sometimes it’s incredibly painful). Secondly, I have usually spent mid to late January planning, and that planning is usually pretty good quality planning because I’m alert and fresh and full of ideas. I’m organised, and I’m also super-eager to get back into the classroom. For me personally, the greatest, most enjoyable thing about teaching is being in the classroom with the students; for some/many teachers, it is the planning that brings them the most joy in the job (I’m yet to meet anyone who says it’s the marking/admin…). So, being an extroverted, fairly well-organised people-person, I am usually itching to get back into the classroom by the time school starts. I love that first week where you meet your students; there is lot of pressure to set clear expectations regarding work habits and behaviour, as well as learning over 100 new names, but I really enjoy sussing my students out, and I enjoy watching them suss me out too. This is where, as a teacher, you develop those teacher-student relationships that are so fundamental in the classroom, and this is where you set the tone for the year. Although it can be very challenging, and at times a bit stressful, setting up your classes, it is usually very rewarding. Amusingly, this part of the year is where those clichés that teachers seem to like to repeat are trotted out, for example, ‘start as you mean to go on’ (I quite like this one actually – consistency makes sense to me) and ‘don’t smile before Easter’ (bollocks to that – I’m a smiley person and I couldn’t actually not smile for 4 months - that would be insane. Also, students appreciate warm, smiley teachers. Who wants to sit in front of a surly, agro grump for a whole year?! There are definitely times when you have to be a grumpy teacher, but fortunately it’s not most of the time).

One of the great things about term one is that the students are alert, energetic and engaged in the classroom. Often I hear students return to school and talk about how they were bored during the holidays. Almost all of them are eager and willing to learn when term one begins. They see the new year as a fresh start - usually with a new teacher in each of their subjects - and often they have their own personal goals that they hope to achieve throughout the year in your subject. And I enjoy trying to mould my students into having good work habits in English, especially the Year 9s and Year 11s who are entering a new, rather intimidating system and are usually very keen to take direction. In my experience, this is also the time of year when you are less likely to see depressing stuff like truancy and disengagement amongst specific groups that underachieve in our education system. It is the honeymoon period for the students and the teachers, and it’s just so, so lovely.

This is the point in the year when I feel most hopeful and most inspired. I want 2012 to be a good year for me and my students. I especially want it to be a good year for everyone involved in education in Canterbury. The ground is still shaking, obviously, but I do hope that we can have an uninterrupted year of teaching and learning, 'cos we need and deserve it.

So I guess I better start doing some planning soon...