Ankylosaurus

I've been covering Kieran's books ready for school tomorrow this year we decided to use Calvin and Hobbes Cartoons...

Thank-you Mr Watterson!
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State Theory of Learning

The list below comes from Ned Vare's School is Hell Blog an associate of his wrote it in reference to the US Public School sytem. I never eally looked at it like this before but do think it kind of sums up state education.

State Theory of Learning.

1. Children must be forced to learn
2. Learning requires teaching
3. Schools are the primary site for learning
4. Learning requires rewards and punishments
5. Children should be segregated by age
6. Knowledge and skills can be learned without context
7. Children’s work must be continuously judged and graded by others
8. Knowledge is divided into “subjects,” studied in “units” in linear sequence
9. It takes twelve years to learn the needed knowledge and skills
10. Education begins and ends when children enter and leave school
11. Central authority must decide what children should know, and when
12. Uniformity is the goal of education

5 days at timatanga

The last 5 days of school I've been away at a school called Timatanga visit in the 5 days were Thursday, Friday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

On Thursday I played littlest pet shops (lps) with the girls. My friend Amanda is very nice I am also friends with the rest of them but I play with Amanda the most. Will has come with me and met a girl (Wills girlfriend) called Jorja, he keeps on saying "Jorja" on the way home. Anyway on Thursday we played and then we went into the library and played the Ukelele. After the Ukelele we went out and did some dancing. For the dancing we did some stretches and some balancing the last thing we did was the sugar plum dance i was a toy horse (that won't surprise you) then i was a sugar plum. that day was fun.

On Friday we did the same things except from the dancing instead when we were playing lps people got called down to do their art while we were playing lps. I took a break to play ball tiggy then went back to play. Every day after tidy up we got read a story first i listened to Charlotte's web then i listened to the witches then went to pick up Kieran and Elliot then we went home.

On Monday i did the usual but i went down to an orchad and wrote poems I wrote a haiku
and a cinquain here is my haiku poem it is about horses and it goes like this

horses can run fast
foals are sometimes born in spring
hoses are very nice

and here is my cinquain poem it goes like this

horses
fast colorful fall
walk trot limp eat
galloping really fast in Fields
horses

and i also wrote a normal one this is how it goes

horses can run very fast or can eat
horses like eating grass hay carrots and apples
horses can be fun to ride
but mind they don't buck or rear so you don't get hurt
always wear a helmet
horses can be fun to have as a pet horses should not be killed

I WANT A HORSE pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease

and that day was fun.



on Tuesday we did the same but we were meant to do cooking but there teacher was away so we did the same thing and play all day and did work in the morning that day i did paper mache with Chontell that day and that was Tuesday it was fun

On Wednesday we did the work and play reading we played lps and me Taylor jorja Anahera played a princess game then we listened to a story called fantastic Mr fox and that is the end of my post see you next time.

Merenia

Trust, cooperation and nuturance

These are three essential qualities that are fast being hammered out of my children's school. Supposedly for their own good;

1. We no longer have AV monitors because they cannot be trusted to do their job- they cannot be trusted because some children made mistakes (shock horror) and the backstops that we employ at school (teachers) weren't there to support them and help fix the mistake. So a kind person withdrew the kids from the line of fire. What is the lesson here: if you cannot do a job perfectly you may not have the opportunity to do it at all, even if it means you were a contributing member of our school community and made life easier for all. (Can I also note here that recently members of the senior staff had to call in the now defunct AV monitors to help them set up some equipment when they were unable to. Hello?
2. Our School Patrol Monitors are no longer allowed to go out on patrols if there is no duty teacher present. But our children may cross the road still. We instill in them that it is a position of responsibility they have the local constabulary come and train and certify them. And for years they just sorted themselves out and did the job. If a duty teacher was held up due to an emergency or such they got out there and did the job. And as far as I know there has never once been an issue and if there was an issue I'd be willing to bet it wasn't attributable to the patrollers. Now I have lost count of the times I had seen children including juniors crossing the road ALONE when the patrol monitors are sitting 5 metres away waiting for the duty teacher before they are allowed out on the crossing. And the kicker for me is the fact that a LOT of the time the duty teacher will end up having a friendly chat with one or more parents and aren't actually watching the patrollers anyway. What's the lesson here: We expect you to be trustworthy but we do not trust you. And we will put our mistrust above the safety of all school pupils.
3. a. Our school population has grown so much in the past few years that we can apparently no longer have the full school assemblies we once had. These were an opportunity for children in each team to work together and share their work with the whole school. b. Our senior children may not play on the junior playground and our juniors may not play on the senior playground. c. Merenia and her friends have been told by a teacher that they should only play with children within their school 'team' (in other words their age cohorts). d. We used to have 'wet day monitors' where pairs of senior students were sent to 'supervise' the junior children in their classrooms on those days where heading out into the playground wasn't an option. This system is now defunct. e. And finally we have a system called Peer support where a select bunch of senior students are chosen and trained to support their assigned new entrant buddy. Kieran has LONG wanted to be a Peer support buddy but because the students are selected and not asked to volunteer he has not had the opportunity a fact that I find very disappointing as he has shown himself to be a very caring and nurturing individual to his little brother and would no doubt have a lot to offer a junior school buddy. What's my point: Key opportunities for students to co-operate together, to nurture and learn from each other are effectively outlawed and abandoned. What's the lesson here: Senior students are seniors and juniors are juniors are virtually never the twain shall meet. (That said some of the classroom teachers are providing limited opportunities for this to happen and all credit to them for it.) And once again the children are taught you are not be trusted though we expect you to be trustworthy. It's funny isn't it how teachers expect children to obey all the rules all the time and yet I expect many of them aren't entirely saintly in living their own lives - perhaps a little speeding here and there....

And yes I know there is a long line of reasons and excuses for these actions. But essentially it boils down to all of the children having to bare the brunt of the 'misbehaviour' of a very few of the children- perhaps if we let them work together in the first place the misbehaviour may not have happened or even better the children would have sorted it out themselves in a manner that meant that the offender came to understand why their behaviour was unacceptable and what the benefits are of being a responsible member of the community. And no I'm not talking about some warped playground justice, children are vary good law makers and arbitrators and have a keen sense of true and fair justice. As opposed to the dictatorial crap that school law makers come up with. Children are excellent at caring for each other, they are fantastic teachers and capable learners long before they reach school- if only teachers and administrators could give them the credit they deserve as such.

NB; there are some great teachers out there who do realise this and struggle and fight for children's rights. In our school I believe they fight a losing battle in fact I believe most have either given up, are choosing to pick their battles, or have gone to schools where they don't need to fight so hard.

Why? Part 4 A Rose by any other name;

Kieran's class participated in an interesting experiment last week. After a suggestion during a Professional Development course his teacher challenged herself and the children to take the word 'work' out of their vocabulary. As a part the challenge they recorded who said work and how many times. Unsurprisingly, I believe, the teacher was the one who said it the most. This brings me to a point....

Children go to school to learn.

Learning is not necessarily the same as work.

The meaning most of us have when we consider work is probably better described as 'toil' (I would describe toil as work that is some, or all, of the following; arduous, un-enjoyable (is that a word?), boring, repetitive, difficult).

It's not unreasonable to expect children to put some effort into learning. But I am firmly of the view that learning should NOT involve toil. I'm not sure though that all teachers would share that view.

There seems to be a belief that play is frivolous and that if something is a lot of fun then it is not serious, and if it's not serious it's not worthwhile or valuable.

I believe that most of the time teacher's forget that all children enter school as accomplished learner's. Seriously they spent the last 5 years learning all day, everyday enthusiastically with absolutely no toil involved. For the most part I don't believe that school builds on that instead it starts the work of moulding children to fit the system of work and toil..... as opposed to making the system fit the children.

Many traditional teachers will say that the system has to be that way but it's simply not true. There is proof of that all over the world- I'd like to tell you about that but it's way beyond the scope of this post.

The fact of the matter is 'the system' has not worked for Kieran (despite a history of excellent teachers) and it is not working for Merenia. So rather than wait another 1, 2 or 3 years and realise what a huge mistake we have made when she is in year 7 (as we have for Kieran) we are taking her out now and making our own system, though there will be very little that's systematic about it.

Nb#1 Kieran has also been given the option to homeschool but is seriously keen to stay at school. He has been working hard throughout his school career with year 7 & 8 in mind. He believes, quite rightly, that he is amongst the smartest kids in school, he has worked hard to be a good citizen as a P.E & AV monitor, School patroler, Librarian, he has represented the school in sport and science and has hopes to be a peer support buddy and house captain. Both of which he is a more than worthy candidate for. Year 8, prizegiving, and graduation are what he has been working towards for 7 years. I respect his reasons for wanting to stay at school.

Nb #2; It's important for me to note here I have huge respect and regard for Kieran's teacher. I believe she is an excellent and professional classroom practitioner. My comments about her experiment were simply a platform from which to launch this post and not in any way a criticism.

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Progress Report

Just up the road from the kids school is a little school with 20 odd pupils. From what we have learned so far the follow a very child lead/centred Summerhill/Sudbury valley style of education.

Mira's and I went and had a look at the school from the road during the holidays and along with Les we've had a few conversations about the school and homeschool and looked at the pro's and con's of both. Merenia's first choice at this stage is to go to the little school.

We have made a request to their BOT to consider Merenia as a possible student for the school next year. This week we found out that the Board is interested in speaking to us and next week I'm going to go and meet with the principal and will get to check out the school in liviong colour.

One of the challenges of taking this option will be helping Merenia adjust to self-directed learning. Although we'll have the same challenge with home school- the duifference is that she'll be in an environment with a bunch of other kids and could potentially be a bit disruptive. The suggestion is that it takes a month for every year of formal schooling for students to settle into homeschool- so four months around about for Mira's if we homeschool and maybe a little less if she goes to the little school as she will have the example of her peers around her.

At the moment I think she can see herself gardening at the little school and heading down the road from the school to sketch the horses in the paddocks nearby and hoping for some like minded girls and boys to act in the plays she has been writing recently.
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School

" It is lame and restrictive and effectively kills spirit and adventure by providing adults the opportunity to pretend like they know everything and the child's only purpose on this planet is to do as they are told, become who the adults need them to be and work work work"
I forgot to note who the quote came from... I like it!

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