Trickey thoughts 2019

Well a massive happy new year and how exciting to be starting 2019 getting close to the near-mythical year of 2020!! This first blog of the year is going to be covering a few different things. Firstly we will look at Whānua and talk about the break, secondly, I will talk about a few personal goals before looking at education. So strap yourself in for an eclectic rollercoaster (or alternatively skip to the parts that interest you or just look at the link on grebes).

Whānua

Christmas above anything to me is about whānua and in this way I was truly a rich man at Christmas, though I still thought of my parent's siblings and cousins spread through the Northern Hemisphere big love to you all.

The greatest thing I spent this holiday was my time, with an abundance of the commodity it meant we could bike ride, water ski, kayak play games and much more. As they grow older they become more independent and sometimes that is difficult for me as I would much prefer to be playing games with them than anything else. Camping is paradise for the kids with new exciting friends appearing and cousins close to them. They create memories and friendships that will last and importantly through play develop skills and confidence to develop into the people they are becoming.

Personal

Personally, it has been a great break it took a while to wind down at school, the awesome end of year function did help but we had a wee bit to work through after the students had gone. It is always tough in term 4 and saying goodbye to the classes can be difficult. Teaching mostly in the junior school the students journey on and you are more of a cheerleader watching them do well as they go into the senior school. I guess it has been over ten years since I taught my last year 13 class and they are all well into their professional lives now.

The holidays have been a great chance to be more active after a year of saying no. Due to an injury in 2017 I have only just started to get back into activities. I have been Mountain Biking, Kayaking and water skiing and look forward to being more active this year.

Lake Wanaka is absolutely magical and one of the most exciting things over the last few years has been the Grebes on the lake. They are so awesome. Anyway moving away from Foul. The break from the internet was fairly easy with no data on my phone three weeks was just great. That said tech is everywhere I was still listening to Huckleberry Finn on a downloaded podcast with my daughter, downloaded Spotify tracks created a soundtrack for our holiday and there was even a drone video of Hogmanay. Getting back to tech I tried to ease myself back into it and not gorge on Social media and took a while before I started gaming again on the awesome fummbl (If you are into fantasy football have a look). The time spent on this now though does take a cost and unfortunately, I haven’t been able to finish the awesome Empower, which is another great book by John Spencer and A J Juliana.

A lot of interesting stuff going on at the moment the political sphere and now my Blog isn’t strictly academic I could wade into these issues. Lets not though. I would like to look briefly at a couple of the news piece that I found interesting. The McJesus interested me, to be honest, I was really hoping it would be a lot better I can see what the artist was trying to do. I didn’t really understand the offence though it seems again a hang up on the crucifixion any historian or Theologian would know the Romans crucified thousands of people. Maybe the artist should have instead crucified Santa I wonder if he thought about that. Anyway, these are just my thought from an agnostic perspective.

The US teacher strike also struck a chord, pun fully intended. While our own negotiations go on, I was really upset to see the conditions in LA. I pretty much think the Young Turks hit this on the head. The whole education model needs to be looked at in the states and sadly some of this is mirrored in New Zealand.

Education

Talking about education though that brings me out of the personal into education. 2019 invites exciting new prospects with a brand new timetable format we have a 75-minute lesson. Following the ideas outlined in both Launch and Empower it will be great to really dive into something here. How can we ensure student ownership though that is the question rattling through my mind at the moment? It is an exciting and daunting prospect but luckily as a Social studies department, we have had some time to think about it. Thinking about my own journey I am continually coming back to the reflective cave and its importance in my own journey. How can we recreate and help students find this think space? The pace of challenge and change in our student's lives is breakneck and the number of pressures they have on them often means the topic we are looking at is somewhat lost on them. How can we empower the students to take ownership? Well, I am still formulating my ideas and firmly believe it has to start with relationships if I can ensure I develop an atmosphere where students can safely share their passions and dreams then we can build a programme around these ensuring students cover the material in an integrated way. So a really exciting year ahead.

Wishing all of you an awesome year and I know many of my Northern Hemisphere friends will already be well on their journey. I will try and keep sharing mine.

In the late post good work Gillette and Enter the Spiderverse a movie that is a quantum leap in digital animation, wow!