The art of an apology... taking risks in teaching and learning.

This term some of the learners in my class have been testing the boundaries, and not making the most of their learning time. Some had been rude and disrespectful towards myself or their peers. When addressing this with them, and requesting that they apologise to the person they had wronged I felt that the apologies were very heartless and insincere. This reminded me of a blogpost I had read earlier this year called A Better Way To Say Sorry. I dug it out again and considered how this may be useful for the students in my class, not just those who were acting up, but all of them.

As adults we (mostly) know how to interact with people and how to negotiate differences between ideas and opinions with one another. However, children are often still working out this ability to negotiate differences and as a result can offend or upset others, therefore I thought that teaching the art of an apology to the whole class might be a worthwhile endeavour. However, I was also aware that this lesson was risky and might go horribly wrong....




During the lesson we acted out several scenario's which included both bad and good examples of a sincere apology, where learners identified the apologies that did not include the four steps, they would then work on correcting them to make it complete.

After completing this activity I was unsure about it's affect. Much of the problem behaviour still continued, however now I had a reference point for guiding learners to a better restorative process with their peers. Particularly Step 3. where learners make a positive plan for how they will behave in the future.

This lesson did not solve the problem overnight, but three weeks later, I realise that it had made an affect, as one of my learners waited to speak with me before morning tea. He launched into a 4 step apology of his disruptive behaviour from the prior day. Delighted that he had taken this on board and used his own initiative to apologise I gratefully granted his forgiveness, and thanked him for his sincere apology.

What I learned from this experience is that it is worth persevering with things that I find important as a teacher. Though learners may not adapt straight away, eventually they do take things on board. Similar to teaching curriculum subjects, they do eventually come to terms with more complex mathematical strategies and comprehension, just like they can with more complex ideas. Also, teaching is not just about teaching the curriculum, it is also about teaching life skills.

Puzzles for learning

I am an absolute puzzle fiend. There is nothing I love more than stealing away with the daily newspaper and completing the sudoku puzzle sipping on a coffee.
I love word puzzles, number puzzles, 1000pc puzzles, wasjigs, logic puzzles, rubix cubes, anything that can be solved, I want to solve it.


Today I got to share some of that love with my learners by doing Tangram puzzles as part of our Geometry learning in Maths. Students got to explore the different shapes, using rotation & translation, we used the 7 tangram pieces to make other shapes. Learners worked in teams of three to problem solve and collaborate. 

I remember part of my love of problem solving and puzzles came from my year 5/6 teacher Mrs Robertson. She would talk us all through how to complete Logic Puzzles [Figure 3]. We would do these for 10 minutes at a time gradually working through the puzzles together. After a while I became more confident and more independent in these puzzles, and my love for puzzles grew. 

Today was a great experience for me to share one of my passions with my learners. I look forward to exposing them to more puzzles as the year goes on. If you've shared puzzles with your learners I would love to hear any insight on how best to introduce and scaffold them, or any good online sources for them. 

[Figure 3]

P.S. The answer to the problem at the top is 9.

Garage Band

Building my technological repertoire of late and practicing using Garage Band for the first time. 
Listen to this riddle and see if you know the film/book that I am referring to. 

Figure 1

In recording this I found that it had a terrible echo. I'm not sure if this was due to the quality of the microphone or the room I was recording in. To minimise the echo I selected the audio and used the editing tools in the right hand side. Here I adjusted the Master Echo and Master Reverb [Figure 1], until it the sound quality improved. 

Figure 2

Next, I enhanced the audio by copying it twice and then adjusting the balance dial in the middle [Figure 2] to enhance both the left and right speakers of the audio player. This greatly enhanced the audio quality and I would recommend doing for your movie's and presentations.


Good luck solving my riddle!

How good does our spelling really need to be?

A learner in my class was complaining about our upcoming spelling test. 
"We don't need to know how to spell anymore", he explained, "spellcheck does it for us!" 
This may be the case, however there are many spelling errors which spellcheck doesn't pick up, often because they are both actually words. 
For example:

Lose vs Loose

Their vs. There vs. They're

Choose vs. Chose

Conscious vs Conscience

Whose vs. Who's

Fare vs. Fair vs. Fear

I must admit though, I did have to hide my embarrassment at my misspelling of a few of the words on this test from The Oatmeal as originally I only scored 80%! Knowing which few I'd possibly got wrong, I thankfully scored 100% on my second attempt. 

For me, this proved that my learner was correct, even I rely on spellcheck more often than not. 

Perhaps it is more the need to teach proper grammar and contextual language which is often lacking with our learners (and ourselves). 

I know that I cringe when I see people use words incorrectly in public forums of facebook or twitter, or even worse, the newspaper!  

Try the test for yourself and let me know how well you fare?

Also, interested to hear (not hair or hare) peoples ideas on spelling and grammar instruction. 

5 Actualisations of a Beginning Teacher

As the mid year holidays commence I am drawn to reflection on my teaching journey so far, and the one ahead. 
These five reflections are all things that I 'knew' to be true at the beginning of this year, but it is now, after 6 months of teaching, that they come into actualisation, and I 'realise' them to be true. 



1. Make mistakes. Often. 

Fear of failure is a real thing. As a teacher, I fear when a lesson I have prepared flops, I fear learners not being engaged, I fear failure in my post-grad university papers, I fear rejection from friends and colleagues. 

This is natural and our learners also fear failure. And that is OKAY. One of the most difficult things to learn is resilience therefore, modelling failure is important for our learners. Then they can learn how to bounce back from that, and how to turn that into learning. 

Some of my learners participated in a chess tournament, and while one found success the other didn't fair as well. Seeing the disappointment in his face I shared my own recent 'failure' and disappointment. Having received a less than pleasing mark on my university assignment I had reflected on my essay topic and upcoming assignments and realised it to be a poor choice, resulting in a low grade. However, I had learned some valuable things, and gained insight into the bigger picture. I discussed this with the learner who had lost at chess, and together we determined that although he had lost the game, he had in fact learned a lot about the rules of play, and was now more prepared for future games, than had he won. 

Learning from our mistakes is something we often say, but is often not truly understood. Making mistakes in a variety of contexts, and being able to truly reflect, learn from, and if all else fails, laugh about them. It's what makes us human. 

2. Discipline. Be firm, but fair. 

An experienced teacher once told me, that there's a great skill in being able to reprimand a child, while still letting them know that you care about them. You can smile even if you have to talk to a learner about their behaviour. 

Remembering that we were all once children, and taking discipline light heartedly is important for the learner's and my own psyche. You do need to be firm but fair. And remember it's the behaviour that's upsetting, not the person. 

Just yesterday I had to remove a child from the touch game. I'd no more than 30 seconds earlier reminded them that we were playing touch, and I didn't want to see any tackling, that if anyone did tackle, they would receive time-out. When the child tackled his classmate, I reminded him again this was unacceptable, and asked him to sit out for 2 minutes. 5 minutes later he hadn't returned and was sulking on the sideline. I went up to him and explained that I wasn't angry at him, but that I'd warned of the consequences, so had to follow through with them, otherwise they would be pointless. I told him that I wasn't mad at him, and didn't hold a grudge towards him, so he shouldn't hold one towards me either. He was then able to happily carry on with the game. 

3. Be prepared, but not too prepared. 

It is crucially important that we are prepared for the lesson/day/week/month and term with our learners. We need to know the bigger picture and what the main learning outcomes are for our learners. We need to have a variety of resources and activities ready to go that will motivate, engage and challenge our learners.

However, we cannot script teaching. Ako, as in the title of my blog, sparkAKO, is a Māori term about the reciprocal process of teaching and learning. Just as we need to be prepared to teach a variety of experiences our learners need to come prepared to engage with the experiences. And what motivates their learning may be different from what I, their kaiako had intended. Therefore we need to allow ākonga, learners to take charge of their learning. Allow them voice, and choice over how and what they learn. 

Being flexible with planning a rich curriculum allows learner input, drive, and often richer learning. 

4. There is always something to be done, including 'me' time. 

But, don't sweat the small stuff. Coming from a corporate background I used to sometimes, not always, go home from work and switch off. Work rarely came home with me, figuratively speaking. However, in teaching, teachable moments are everywhere! If I'm not seeing things through a potential learners eyes, I'm working through a never-ending to-do list. But one of the things I am learning to accept is that that to-do list will always be there, and one of the main things to remember is to put 'me' time on that list too. Whether it be relaxing with friends, going to a yoga class, watching some mindless TV, or simply painting my nails. Schedule it in. Daily. We deserve it. By then, the to-do list seems more manageable too.


5. You can't change the past, but you can shape the future. 

This has a two-fold meaning. Firstly, in terms of my practice. In hindsight, mid-way through the year, there are somethings that I would do differently in setting up my class. I've, as I said above, learned from mistakes, or at least grown confidence in myself. There are some things that I will do differently next year, but this does not mean that I have wasted time, as it is through that realisation that I understand my current shortcomings and why change is necessary. 

Secondly, remembering that our learners have diverse backgrounds, that although we cannot alter that, nor would we want to, but we can, and do shape the futures of our ākonga, but cherishing what capital they bring to school with them, and empowering them to aim high. 

Ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi, engari he toa takitini.

It is not my strength alone, but the strength of many that contribute to my success.