Teaching and Learning

Some of you may remember my previous blog post about the web of inquiry that I wrote almost a year ago now. http://jonoteachesandlearns.blogspot.co.nz/2013/12/a-fresh-look-into-web-of-inquiry.html   This is a follow up to that post.   We have been using the structure of the web of inquiry in our classroom for the last 8 months and it has been working incredibly well. Learners have become settled and into the routine of the process and it seems to flow quite naturally for them. We have found though that something was missing, something quite crucial to engagement, and crucial to the learners having purpose in what they are doing. This is the story of how we implement the web of inquiry into our classroom, and a proposed 5th step added in.  Experiment: As this is the first step, learners are exposed to different aspects of a topic. We found this imperative, especially for our students as they have a limited view on aspects of their world. Say for example our t...

The state of poverty in New Zealand today is horrendous. So many children are going without food, without adequate shelter, without clothing, without shoes, without education. The biggest problem that New Zealand faces today, is the widening gap between classes which are roaring back into society.  The upper and middle classes of this country have no idea of the amount of poverty that exists in New Zealand. That people survive with four children on a single income of less than $20,000 a year doesn’t feature in their ideas of life.  I work in one of the poorest areas of New Zealand and I see children constantly come to school who have no lunch, no breakfast, no shoes, no jacket. Who have been up late the night before, because their parents have had a sunday night drinking or smoking session. That have had to baby-sit their little brothers or sisters all weekend because their parents have been away. That have moved house in the middle of the night because they could...

It's a frosty, brisk morning, and James is on his way to school. As he wanders down the road he looks at his watch. Ten to nine. Ten minutes to make the twenty minute walk to school. Oh well, he only has English first and it meant an extra ten minutes sleep this morning. He scuffs the leaves as he walks along, his hands keeping warm deep in his pockets. Ten past nine and he walks into class "You're late!" shrieks Mrs Davids the English teacher as James takes his place next to his mate Tim. "English book open to page 93, we're doing adjectives! Hurry up you need to catch up with everyone else." James takes his time getting his book out, after all, the more time he wastes now, the less time he has to work on adjectives. The bell rings and James saunters out of the classroom. Finally he can have a good chat to Tim about the party on Saturday night. "David was drunk as, he hooked up with Julie!" He says as he walks into the science room. "...

Pity The Plight http://youtu.be/YuEb04HcJFM Pity the fate of young fellows Too long a bed with no sleep With their complex romantic attachments All look on their sorrows and weep They dont get a moments reflection Theres always a crowd in their eye Pity the plight of young fellows Regard all their worries and cry Their crusty young mothers were lazy perhaps Leaving it up to the school Where the moral perspective is hazy perhaps And the climate; oppressively cool Give me some acre of cellos Pitched at some distant regret Pity the plight of young fellows And their anxious attempts to forget These are the tears of a thug like murky water Crying tears as clear as mud for his fathers daughter His half-sister; he felt obliged to support her Since her mum was poor and his dad died even poorer Separated until she was 8 years old He knew as soon as he saw her That he adored her, so hes baying for blood with a borer And an automatic weapon; Smith & Weston T...

My name's Jono Broom, I'm going into my fourth year of teaching, and this is my story of change. In 2010 I went to teachers college in New Zealand. I did a one year diploma. I learnt all the usual things, how to plan lessons, how to manage a class full of bright eyed learners, how to be a good team member, how to use curriculum and progression documents, basically, how to teach. I graduated at the end of the year, and in 2011 started my new job, at the brand new Te Karaka Area School. Our induction week was intense. I was overwhelmed with things that I'd never seen before, school charters, annual plans, school values. Things that I'd never actually seen before out in the open, but I was finding out existed behind the scenes. I was assigned my first class of 30 6-7 year olds and, to be perfectly honest with you, I struggled. My classroom was a mess, my reading programme was atrocious and my maths programme was almost non-existent. The one thing in that year that I'm ...

During the industrial revolution, factories were revolutionised by the assembly line. Each person in the line would have responsibility for a certain part of the product, and when they all worked together, the finished product would come together as a tank. Or a plane. Or a machine gun. This was seen as a great boon for the war effort. Rather than one person making a product, a whole lot of people working together could get it done much, much faster. Schools were based on this assembly line model. Children were grouped into batches (year groups) and were moved through the process with a whole lot of different people contributing to the overall product. The children would have a different subject every hour and those hours would be separated by bells. Efficiency was valued over everything else. As long as the children were sitting in neat rows and absorbing information from the 'bosses' then all would be well. This model gave children a great introduction to the assembly line, f...