This was a workshop presented by Perry Rush from Island Bay School at an NZEI Wellington District Council “Staff Wellbeing” Seminar.

Just some rough notes until i can get some urls from perry …

He quoted Judith Aitkin?

Chn are compelled to be at school – it is therefore our responsibility to make sure they take something wonderful and worthwhile out of their 10+ years invested in the school system

Educational research from Graham Nuttal and ? EDwards (reminded me a bit of some of the things that David Warlick talked about) – we do what we do because that’s how we were taught / we do what we do because we learned from educators who did it that way because they learned it from educators who did it that way …

Modelling from the top – example of sharing his own appraisal with the staff – using an anonymous survey forum to get feedback; then sharing the results with the staff; sharing his goals concerning the areas he needed to improve in with them – and lastly sharing with them what he has done to meet those goals

the reggio emilia approach to learning
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reggio_Emilia_approach

http://zerosei.comune.re.it/inter/

http://www.brainy-child.com/article/reggioemilia.html

Oxford Dictionary definition of teachers : dispensers of facts and knowledge

I note that dictionary.com says
a person who teaches or instructs, esp. as a profession; instructor.

and my Collins dictionary say A person whose occupation is teaching

Teachers, however, are not merely dispensers of fact and knowledge!

We need to:

• pose provocative questions

• show the teacher as a learner

There is powerful teaching done through asking questions (instead of telling facts) and even more powerful teaching done by being quiet and letting the children figure things out.

Think outside the box

Dream the dream you are passionate about

Our kids deserve the absolute best

Maximum passion – maximum energy

I’m excited by new possibilities that have been presented to me. I always thing a con is successful if you come away with something new that you can do immediately – and I’ve done that, but I’ve also come away with professional tools which I think is even more exciting (and stuff that I can use for personal blogs/web pages as well!)

The most exciting presentations I went to were two by David Warlick – The Art and Technique of Wikis and The Magic of the New Web:RSS. I wasn’t booked in to either of these but after his keynote – Telling the New Story – I knew I needed to be in these sessions.

I happen to be sitting near Teaching Sagittarian on both days and was fascinated to see her blogging the second session as it was in progress – who needs paper notes – actually who needs notes at all when the presenter provides their notes online in a wiki?