Going Green

I want to write about the environmentally-friendly ways that I live my life ... but not today.

Today, I split my time between tending to a couple of sick trees and my rather taxing essay that I am writing.

Eight years ago, Chris planted a West Australian Red Flowering Gum Tree.  It usually grows in sandy soil.  I'm telling you - we live by the beach but have the densest clay soil you are likely to ever see ... which meant that it was with amazing joy that I discovered the tree still standing on our arrival back in Oz last month.  It even had three small flowers (proving that it was, indeed, the same tree).

My thoughtful tenants had put house bricks around the base in order to protect it but I am afraid that this was exactly the wrong thing to do.  It needed space and nourishment.  It was being strangled by the grass (which, with the rain we have had, decided to put on inches and inches).

So I cleared the bricks away and filled in the gaps with rotting leaves.

I did the same to the lemon tree.


I used to try to grow plants on the balcony in GE.  It was hard work.  It was either too wet, too dry - or it stormed so violently that everything was destroyed by hailstones the size of ... well, the proverbial golf ball.

We have winds here ... and dry weather ... and unfriendly soil. 

But this time these are my plants and I am here to stay and look after them.

Do you think it will help if I talk to them?

mum ... its just a maths test ...

but this time it was my maths test and not theirs.

I've always tried to be supportive when it comes to tests (and goodness knows, they came along fairly regularly in the German system).  I've provided food, drinks, time, comfort and hugs on demand.  I've even learnt that staying away and not mentioning the test was often the wisest course of action.

Yesterday, I had my first maths test for about 33 years.  (I can do the arithmetic by mental calculation - by either split, jump or compensation method - just ask me how).

I multiplied, divided, considered equal fractions, and then drew diagrams explaining my thinking and working.

But the worst part was sitting there waiting for it to start. The last ten minutes - in the room, with my pens, my drink bottle, and the lecturer out the front trying to be cheery.  Everyone was there.  Why couldn't we we just 'pretend' it was 9:30 and start (and finish) early?

Those ten minutes ...

Seemed like thirty ...

Instead of staying calm a sense of panic rose: what if I haven't enough information about the theorists? what if there is a question about comparing the syllabi? what if I make a stupid mistake by rushing?

The clock ticked on ...

Should I try to get to the bathroom one more time ...

Then the papers get handed out.  We put our names, our numbers on all four of them (yep - all four papers - and Mr Bean springs to mind).

Finally, allowed to start.

I am just so glad I am not studying medicine ... I can't imagine the internal pressure before the exams.

here for the long haul

For so many years now, we have been touring the world, often on short stays.  Sometimes its been part and parcel of the opera singer life, other times its simply been as visitors to a new place.

I have walked into so many bare kitchens and have had to stock the cupboards - for a week, a fortnight or maybe a couple of months.  I've bought salt and pepper shakers knowing that if I left them, then the maids would just ditch them.  I've bought instant meals because buying the full array of herbs and spices was just not an option.

Now I am stocking this cupboard for life.  I'm putting cans on the shelf knowing that if they don't get eaten in the next couple of days, then I wont have to throw them out.  I can buy herbs in large quantities knowing that they wont go to waste.  I'm looking at flour and wondering what I will bake with it.

Now, as I reach for something on the supermarket shelf, I dont have to think about the waste when we move on - I just have to remember to use it before its shelf life expires.

I'm sure that there is a parrallel to be found here for life. 

fridge magnets

for the first time in many, many years, I find myself searching for fridge magnets.

I have to stick up the party invitation that Isabelle recieved today - its in a month's time.  Advanced notice!  I can't remember ever recieving almost a months notice for a party in Germany.  It was always 'Hey, Mum! Party tomorrow'  and then a mad rush to reorganise life, buy present and find outfit to wear.  (Isabelle is very fashion conscious).

Now I am accumulating advance notice for all sorts of things - Matthew's assignments, school dinners, community events.

I need these things visible.  Of course, I have a calendar and it is all written carefully into that but it is so much more fun, lively and obvious when it is stuck onto my fridge.

My dilemma now is ... do I go and buy a packet of matching (though nondescript) magnets?  or do I wait patiently and allow my magnet collection to grow, organically and naturally, just like I had done many years ago when the needs were not so urgent.

layer upon layer upon layer

or how we become better educators and teachers


Someone asked me how it was that I could go back to study something that I have been doing for so long.

Easy!

I trained as a teacher a long time ago.  It was so long ago that several of the 'now' major theorists were unknown then (Vygotsky for example).  Certainly it was before such things as 'backwards by design', 'whole language', 'phonemic awareness', 'multiple intelligences' (yes - I trained before Howard Gardiner wrote all his stuff), etc. etc. 

While I have always tried to keep well informed about what was considered 'best practice' at any given time, my learning has always been a bit like a patchwork quilt - snatches of fabric here and there (although, unlike most good quilts, my learning had significant holes in it and, just as a holy quilt doesn't do the job on a winter's night, my patchwork learning had left me with as many questions and unsureties as it had given me answers.

So I am learning.  I am mending my quilt.  Filling in the gaps.  Understanding not just what but why.  I'm also thinking - bringing my experiences to my learning to question what I am being told.  I am also aware that the PYP curriculum is even more cutting edge than what I am being taught so I am constantly mentally applying my learning to how I would be teaching in an IB school.

Its not boring.  Its not even frustrating.

Its a very thoughtful kind of learning and I am glad for the opportunity.

I can honestly say that I am NOT missing public transport

okay - I have a bit of a bad conscience about it.  I do believe people should use public transport and reduce unnecessary travel BUT ... I'm loving driving our little car!

I do not miss:

cold train platforms
morning crush
missing the tight connection
sitting next to someone unpleasant
not sitting but having to stand
thinking about leaving in time to catch the last train
not going somewhere because the Sunday timetable is so bad
rainy, cold bus stops


I do resent though:

having to think about what I drink in the evenings
having to pay for fuel
my kids thinking that I am a taxi

but for that I have

my own airconditioning
my own choice of radio station (the kids are plugged into their own machines so they don't care what I listen to)
my own choice of route
and speed



I know its not a great environmental choice - but here it is THE ONLY choice available.

and I'm loving it ;-)

talking education

Part of journeying back, is returning to uni to update my qualifications.  For many varied reasons, I decided to do a Graduate Diploma in Education (Conversion) here in the area where we live.  This is called a conversion course because it will allow me to teach primary in the state education system.  (Up to this point, I have been able to teach primary in independent and international schools as well as Music and English in High Schools).

We've been doing the course for two weeks now.  Two days on literacy, two days on numeracy and three days to reflect and revise and prepare.

My thoughts?  How am I coping?

The notion of being 'literate' has exploded.  The scope of 'language' is immense. And, because we have become a people obsessed with research and statistics, there are now good reasons to believe what educators are saying about not only 'good' but, more importantly, 'effective' practice.

Being literate now means not only pen and paper literate - it also means having understanding and power over the technologies of today; it means being critical of all the myriad of texts hurtling at us in daily life (texts in the very broadest sense of the word); it means deconstructing the messages behind what we encounter (we are teaching critical thinking for our media dominated world).

Is this different from what I have been doing? 

Well, in many ways my own educational journey has been leading me this way for a number of years. I have never been 'just the music teacher'.  I have always been interested in the bigger picture of education.  I have certainly been inspired by my recent experiences with the PYP (IB) programme.

I'm happy to now have the chance to consolidate my knowledge; to take time to think deeply about what I do as a teacher; to consider how I should prioritise learning in my classroom; and how I can help young people to prepare for what it to come.

I'm lucky.  Not many people get this chance.