Four Years On.........

Today it is four years since the day that Christchurch and Cantabrians were changed forever.  It is so hard to believe that it is 1461 days since that horrific day that not one of us will ever forget. In many ways it feels like yesterday......and in others it seems like a lifetime ago. The scars are so deep and Cantabrians are a changed people. It is impossible to go through such tragedy and be untouched by it.

Having said that, I feel like a fraud writing this.  I feel like I don't have the right to comment. You see, I know that I'm one of the lucky ones...the very lucky ones. I didn't lose any whanau or close friends, none of us suffered horrendous injuries that changed the path of our lives and force us to live with daily pain, we didn't lose our home and our house's structural damage has now been fixed. We didn't lose jobs or equity in our home or business.

My heart goes out to all those whose lives have been changed irrevocably....to those who have lost, arohanui.

Today, as in previous years we marked the anniversary by attending the River of Flowers. We bought flowers for Christchurch, red of course, and stood on the banks of the Avon River. As a family we were quiet and still for a minute at 12.51 before a lone piper played Amazing Grace. The tears flowed as I suspect they will for many years to come. Yes, I am one of the lucky ones but the hurt and sorrow I feel for Christchurch and our people remains raw.

I still find it hard to accept that so many in this city are suffering so much after all this time. I still struggle to come to terms with all that we've lost. The shops where my mother took me to buy school shoes and a brownie uniform as a child, the tea rooms where my grandparents took me for lime milkshakes, the Town Hall where I sang in numerous music festivals and attended my first rock concert, the City Mall where we used to sit on Friday nights as fourth formers outside HMV in our kungfu shoes, every single bar and nightclub my friends and I frequented as uni students, the restaurant and movie theatre my husband took me to on our first date, the church where we were married, the hospital where my son was born, the list goes on and on......the special places that mark the passing of my life are gone; only rubble, road cones or bare land remains.

But these are only buildings; though it is sad, I can accept their demise. What is harder to accept is the loss of innocence and the new found realisation that life can be taken from us at any time. I feel such anger at the quakes and I hate that I am now so desperately frightened of Mother Nature's ferocious power. Like many Cantabrians, when we suffer aftershocks it takes me a long, long time to recover. My heart races, my mouth is dry and my mind jumps straight away to mentally locate my children. It is hard not to think back to that horrific day at school and not hear the screams of 250 terrified children or picture their petrified faces. I hate that Christchurch people now live with a fear in their hearts that is so hard to shake.

And yet, today I look forward with hope. I believe strongly that there will be a better future for our city. I love the creativity that is such a part of the new normal in Christchurch. I love that we are more grateful and able to find joy in the little things. I see changes in Christchurch's children and feel proud of them for their resilience and compassion for others. This generation of children will be a force to be reckoned with, of that I am sure.

Today is a tough day; tomorrow will be better.

Making Class Blogs Authentic- a cry for help!

Today's post is a cry for help of sorts. I am hoping that all you blogging gurus will read this and weigh in.

We've had a class blog for two years now. Starting 8C Happenings in 2013 was so exciting. Our learners were completely and utterly on board and practically fought each other to get blogposts up. We formed many connections and spent lots of time reading other blogs and writing comments. We took part in International and Aotearoa Quadblogging and other projects including the Global Read Aloud. In 2014, we did a Unit of Inquiry around digital citizenship and sharing in online spaces. The unit was called "Straight to the Blog" a title which was kind of a sad in- joke between those of us old enough to remember the "straight to the poolroom" quote from that classic piece of Australian cinema, The Castle. We got all classes in our team blogging and making global connections. We even started a New Zealand-wide kids' book chat on twitter via our blog. I had endless enthusiasm for blogging as a class.

This year, I've got to be honest, I don't seem to be able to rekindle that fire! I am not sure why this is but I think its because our blog has really become a sequence of recounts. There seems to be an absence of the higher level thinking that my girls are so great at. We are documenting the events that punctuate life in our classroom but I have this question in my head that I just can't shake. 

So what?

I need to think back to my original learning intentions when we started our blog. I had three goals for 8C Happenings. 

a) Document life in the classroom for our whanau

b) Flatten the classroom walls so we could connect with and learn alongside others

c) Develop our skills in writing in online spaces and maintaining an engaging blog

We are certainly working on Purpose A but I'm not sure parents and family members are reading it. When I surveyed parents via google form last year, I got a lot of mixed responses. Most loved it and checked that they would hate to see us abandon the blog but many confessed that rarely read it, even when I emailed out links. Hmmmmmm......how do I address this? How do you encourage parents to engage with your class blog? Any suggestions? 

Purpose B is the one that I believe provides the greatest rewards and I always feel the greatest enthusiasm for blogging when we are right in the thick of connecting and forming relationships with classes around New Zealand and the world. I am deeply committed to giving constructive comments with wild abandon as a class; giving others feedback and helping others learn if we can. Our greatest challenge is time. I am wondering if the best way to give real impetus to commenting is to incorporate blog reading into our reading programme. I wonder if there is some way to bring blogs into the 40 Book Challenge? How do you make time for reading and commenting on blogs in your classroom? Is it timetabled? A Must-Do? Homework? 

Purpose C brings in those ideas around blog management. My learners are good writers and can create posts with visual elements with independence. The challenge for me is to hand some of the initiative needed for blogging over to them. I don't want Liz (my co-teacher) and I to be the ones who initiate every post. The girls will blog at the drop of a hat if we ask them to but we need a better system for getting them to take charge. Do we need a job list around this? A daily reporter? A photographer? A videographer?  A tweeter? Should a small team be blogging every day or just when there is a special event? (I am pretty sure I know your answer to this!) How do we get our posts out there for others to read? And how do we create posts that make others want to comment? 

As you can see, I have highlighted my questions. I am really hoping to hear about the systems you have around blogging in your classroom. Our goal is that our blog will be more authentic and chronicle our thinking and learning, not just the "big ticket" events.  I'm really hoping that this blog and your feedback will help recapture my blogging mojo! 

Thanks in advance! 

   

   

What would you do if you weren't a teacher?

Yesterday's post about helping our learners find their element challenged me to consider this question.......

Hmmmmm......... this is tough. I LOVE being an educator. I love the learners, I love the creativity, I love the variety, I love the changing technologies, I love constantly learning and I love the relationships that we work to form with our learners, their parents and with other educators.

So, what would I do if I chose for some reason to give up my role in the classroom? I have been thinking a lot about finding one's element. Sir Ken Robinson describes your element as the place where your aptitudes or talents and your passions meet.

Image by D.Richards, inspired by Sir Ken Robinson's, The Element

What would "the element" be for you? I find this question very, very difficult to answer. The irony is that I can see exactly what my family members' elements might be......

My daughter is deeply passionate about computer science and animated movies. She has a real thirst for learning more about animation and story creation. She gets on lynda.com and works through tutorials to teach herself Blender in her spare time. She watches Disney movies in a very academic way, passionately pointing out where both hand-drawn and computer-generated techniques have been merged. She even tracked down an animator from Dreamworks on my twitter account and quizzed her about the software she uses. I can see if she continues on this track, she'll end up working for an animation company and I wouldn't put it past her to start her own storyboarding and animation company.

Heroes/ Mentors are so important for following our dreams.  

My 8 year old son LOVES rugby the way I love dark chocolate! He is also very passionate and good at maths and spends a lot of time making books of statistics in the rugby season...things like who carried the ball the most during a game and who achieved the longest drop kick. Totally beyond me. He is also mad keen on geography and I think that his current dream job would be as a travelling statistician for the All Blacks- even better would be if he could also play First Five! That'd be perfect for him! He'd be in his element!

My husband is incredibly creative, a very talented artist with a deep passion for healthy city building (how ironic that we live in Christchurch, a city desperately in need of people just like him) Exactly six days ago, I think he found his element when he moved from working with engineers and people who look at the world in a very different way to working for a new firm of urban designers and landscape architects- people who care deeply about creating a vibrant and dynamic city with the well-being of its people at its very heart. It is truly awesome to see him having found his element. His enthusiasm for his work has increased exponentially and it's wonderful to see and be part of that.

So, what is my element? When I asked my family what they thought I'd do for a profession if I wasn't a teacher, my husband answered that he thought I'd either own my own florist shop (hmmm....not a morning person so that's probably NOT going to happen!) or open a children's bookshop, matching children to the perfect book. That sounds very cool- I would LOVE that! My son answered that he thought I'd be a person that helps people or perhaps a lawyer- he and I are quite skilled are arguing our points! My daughter answered that she thought I'd have a job helping people identify their passions....how ironic that I can't identify my own element but can clearly see possibilities for others.

So what would you do if you weren't an educator? Hmmm.....I don't have the answer; perhaps that's because I've already found it.....in my classroom.

Leave me a comment, I'd love to hear what you'd do if you weren't in education.