Part of the Furniture

“I want to talk to you about a problem”, said the principal of the school where I’m working at the moment as a visiting science teacher. He had sidled up to me in the corridoor during the lesson I was teaching with a class of enthusiastic grade 3 and 4 kids today. We were in the corridoor measuring how far the cars they had designed and built out of recycled materials and some you-beaut plastic wheels went after being released down a ramp. 

Its not unusual for him to pop in on my lessons. He likes to know what’s going on. His comments about my work are usually supportive and positive. He had been talking to me about how impressed he was with the thought the kids had put into designing their cars and how the activity had promoted parental involvement. I was a little surprised when he changed the topic to broach a “problem” in the middle of a lesson and concerned that his timing could reflect its urgent nature.

I looked at him questioningly waiting for him to continue. When he recognised concern in my expression he smiled. His eyes lit up with happy creases. He has a very cheeky smile, this experienced and active principal who is close to retiring. I relaxed, smiled and waited. He had my full attention and he continued, “Yes, its a problem I’ve noticed. But I’ve already done something about it. I’ve noticed the gradual build-up of science equipment that’s been spreading around the school”.

“Oh yes! Um, sorry. I’ve got stuff piled up in the staff room, in the room opposite us and also in the other corridoor”, I admitted sheepishly.

“Mmm yes. So what I’ve done, is ordered two large double cupboards. I’ll put one in this corridoor and one in the other one”. His smile bubbled into an almost laugh. He was having fun delivering me the directive to be more orderly and tidy with my science equipment, in the nicest possible way.

And the up-shot is: I’ll have two special cupboards! I was already starting to feel like part of the furniture at this school. This has sealed it! 

 

Nut Crackers No Nuts

Hello Possums. Now that I’m back from New York, work is starting to hot up for me. I’m teaching an eight-week stint out at a primary school as a visiting science teacher. I’ll be teaching in every grade in the school once a week during that time. Tomorrow I start with the grade 5 and 6 classes on a topic chosen by the teachers, Simple Machines.

My first lesson will focus on levers. I have been trying to come up with an activity that is open-ended enough so that the kids will be able to play around and come up with their own ideas, as a starting point for the rest of the unit. For the past week I have been snatching snippets of time to test little experiments out on my own kids. For example, Sally and Emma experimented sitting on the floor in my study yesterday to see how far they could catapult marshmallows on a ruler over a tube of glue stick. They worked out that the further away from the fulcrum the marshmalow was, the higher it went upon release.

I was thinking of introducing the topic by asking kids to compare the force needed to crack a walnut with bare hands and with the help of a nut cracker (which is a lovely example of levers). Its my job to supply the equipment. I’ve been really busy and have left the shopping for walnuts and nut crackers until tonight, imagining it to be as simple as popping down to the local supermarket. The second supermarket I visited did have nut crackers. I purchased four. The young man at the check-out was so expressionless as he scanned the nut crackers: zap, zap, zap, zap, that I thought about making a ball breaking joke (but then thought better of it).

I now have nut crackers! But I have not been able to find walnuts in their shells. It seems supermarkets only stock walnuts pre-shelled. Tomorrow morning I will scour the local fruit shops and delis in the hope of finding some. Oh why do I leave these things ’till the last minute?

In the kitchen

I have been challenged to cook entrees for fifty people at tonight’s progressive dinner at the yacht club. I went into the club at one o’clock today in order to prepare the ingredients for my noodle salad served with chili seared chicken breast before hand. After four and a half hours I am happy to report that all is going to plan. On the way to the kitchen I stopped at the local supermarket where I was relieved to find fresh bean shoots and some fresh chilies, which weren’t there the other day. In the kitchen I found two sturdy pans to cook the chicken in,

 

a massive pot in which to cook the noodles

 

  

and posed for a cheesy self-timer shot (to show off my new hair colour, which is not really necessary to this story – the lighter tips are just noticeable). 

  

My daughters helped me prepare the salad ingredients. Here they are making carrot ribbons (difficult to catch them being serious in photographs). 

Our view across the dining room and out over the balcony was magnificent. Conditions for sailing were great. Unfortunately this was not relevant for us today. We were busy in the kitchen.

We have come home for a rest and a swim in the sea. All I need to do before heading back to the club is to make up a little more dressing.  In an hour or so we will go back to assemble the prepared ingredients for serving.  I’ll be back in the kitchen and the girls will act as waitresses. They are choosing matching outfits to wear as I write. Oh and I almost forgot. I need to pick an outfit. Women have to wear a splash of red tonight. (I don’t know why).

Conversations in the Car 1: on the topic of dissection.

My eldest daughter, Kat, described her day at school: “We dissected brains today. It was kinda interesting but gross. I dared Susie to squeeze them. I didn’t think she would, but she did. All this like brain juice came out of them. It was sick. I screamed actually”.

I replied with my own anecdote: “Hmm. Yes it is interesting, but I don’t particularly enjoy it either. Once I dissected rats with a year eight class and one girl found out that her rat was pregnant. She’d done a great job of the dissection and you could see all these little bumps in the two uteruses of the rat. She carefully opened it up to reveal the little babies, tiny and curled up but recognisably almost perfect little mice. She brought one of them up to me holding it in her hand. She was excited. Can I take it home to show my brother? Please? I paused, but in the end I could not refuse her enthusiasm and curiosity. Yes, I said. So she wrapped it in a tissue and put it in her pocket. I made her promise she would throw it out after her brother had seen it.

For the next couple of days I dreaded a phone call from the girl’s parents. It never came. I was relieved. However, I felt that I’d made a poor decision and have almost been expecting it to catch up with me one day”.

My head is too big

Where would I be without my students, Possums?

Today was the last day of semester at uni. My three classes of post graduate students came in dribs and drabs to hand in their assessment tasks. Throughout the day I had to say goodbye to all sixty odd of them. I wished them well.

Becoming a teacher is not an easy journey. Its risky. Its the most intensive personal development course anyone could take, I reckon. As a consequence, if you care about these students and model good teaching practices yourself, they appreciate you. I usually get pretty good feedback on this course, but this year’s bunch of students were exceptionally fluent. I’m not talking about ‘thanks it was great’ sorts of comments (although I did get some of those too), I’m talking about critical, positive feedback on aspects of my teaching. Its the best sort of feedback I could ever hope for.

But do you really know what its all about, Possums? This teaching/ learning/ education thing? Its about listening and building relationships: creating a space for open communication. So that’s what we were saying goodbye to.

One of my students from last year wandered into my classroom today. She sat down opposite me and struck up a conversation about what she’d been doing since last year. She stayed for over half an hour and participated in my conversations with the current students as they filed in and out with their essays. After the last of my current students left she explained why she had come:

I was in a lecture about mandatory reporting, and I couldn’t cope. You see I had a rough childhood. I ‘ve suffered post-traumatic stress. But I’m thirty now and I’ve had councelling. I thought I’d be OK. But I started wondering whether my teachers could have seen the signs in me, yet did nothing about it. I had to leave. I didn’t want to start crying in there. When I came upstairs and saw the classroom open I decided to come in. I loved your classes last year. I felt like I needed to be in a space where I could feel safe. I thought it might bring back how happy I felt then and calm me down. I didn’t even expect to find you here. I just wanted to be back in the room. But finding you has been a bonus.

Did it help? I asked. (It did).

I packed up after she left and went downstairs. On the way out I saw another of my students from last year.

I walked up to him and, with my best authoritative teacher voice said, where’s your assessment task?

What assessment task? He looked worried.

Just kidding! I’ve been missing bossing you around, you know, and just felt like a little power trip!

He smiled. I’ve missed you too, he said. His sweet reply was unexpected. Well look me up on facebook, I said. We both laughed.

So I had a good day. I was just about to shut the computer down and go to bed when I found an email from another ex-student who is now teaching in a school: Hi Bindi remember me? I’m teaching grade 3/4 students and wonder if you could send me that info you had about making the best pin hole camera?

Any teacher knows you don’t often get feedback. I used to joke that for a teacher, one tiny skerric of positive feedback can keep you in teaching for five years. But I’ve just had a whole day of it! I shall bask in it while it lasts! Somebody widen my door so I can fit my head through it please.

Something to try at home

Hello Possums. As you know, education is one of my passions and I currently work as a science educator. I have a new gig starting next term in a primary school here in Melbourne. Working with the classroom teachers, I’ll teach a series of science lessons to every grade in the school. This is intended as professional development for the teachers and also as a fun learning experience for the kids.

I’ve just come from a planning meeting with one group of teachers, who were very enthusiastic about my involvement. That they could engage in such lively discussion with me today, instead of giving in to end of term fatigue, is a credit to them.

I have lots of equipment to order before next term. Prior to leaving I fossicked around in their science storage area amongst forgotten tubs filled with equipment for programs that were running one or two curriculum changes ago. Just on curriculum change, I have a friend who cynically thinks that frequent curriculum change brought about by the government is a plot to occupy teachers to the extent that they have no energy left to become activists (of any kind).

Any way, I found some useful stuff. I have boxes of bulbs and batteries etcetera to sort through and my clothes are now covered in dust.

I love teaching science to primary school kids. They become so excited when they get the chance to explore things. Actually adults do too. Here is something for you to try at home:  Get a wire coat hanger and tie a piece of string or wool to it so that the string can easily pass over your head and the coat hanger can hang down in front of you like this:

Plug the string into your ears and bang the coat hanger on a solid object by swinging it. The sound travels to your ears through the string and the result is remarkable!

The best teacher

Hello Possums. Have you noticed how many more hats you tend to wear as you mature. You tend to take on more responsibility, either at work or when you become a parent and become involved in community life, or both, or all and more! Between swapping hats for my various roles as a parent, community member, teacher and educational researcher I am privileged in the sense that much of what I do involves listening to children’s points of view. However, often as a parent the things my children say wash over my head because I’m busy trying to organise them to eat their dinner, find their shoes, practice their instrument, pick up their socks, etc. But today in the car I consciously put my researcher hat on and questioned Sally to elaborate her point of view on teachers and teaching.

This child talks non-stop. On a Saturday morning, after a Friday night with the grade 2 parents at a local bar followed by a night cap with D (who is down from Sydney for the weekend) driving Sally out to an early start for a choir rehearsal is generally not my most receptive time for chatter.

In amongst the constant stream of Sally-thoughts that were fired at me during the drive, she said.

… and Mr Dean is the best teacher I’ve ever had in my whole life! Note that she is all of seven, and currently in grade 2.

There was a moment’s silence while I actually weighed up whether or not I had the energy to quiz her about this or whether I should just let it go and let her go on. But she seemed to have lost momentum, or had drawn a breath or something, allowing me time to think and a chance to get a word in. So I decided to follow up her comment and question her reasoning:

Why do you think that?

She took time to think and then articulated herself very well. I will list her ideas in point form, to stress that she actually paused between each idea.

1. He has a great sense of humour.

2. He is very tall. Its good for teachers to be tall because then they can see everything!

3. He’s nice.

4. He lets us do good work, that’s easy and fun. Like, well, its sometimes hard, but a bit hard and a bit easy, not too hard.

5. He’s not like the teacher we had yesterday and some other teachers who talk to us for too long and we have to sit there listening to stuff we already know and they talk to us like we’re dumb. When I have to listen to teachers who do that I feel like killing myself. I just can’t stand it.

She is a little dramatic perhaps, but this is a beautiful illustration that children of this age are already discerning. All you need to do is ask them.

Parent-Teacher Interviews

Sorry I’m a couple of minutes late. There is a magnificent rainbow out there. It went the complete arc, from one point in the horizon to another. Beautiful. I just had to take a couple of photos of it.

Hello Possums. I couldn’t fit the entire rainbow into one shot. What you see above is a third of the rainbow that I saw on my way to parent-teacher interviews last night.

Being the parent in the duet was a strange thing for me at first, especially the secondary school parent-teacher interviews. Even though I now have two daughters in secondary school and have never missed their parent-teacher interviews, and despite the fact that I resigned from secondary teaching years ago to look after my own children, I still have had more experience as the teacher.

My first feelings and impressions of the situation are still salient. I felt them all over again last night.

When I was a secondary school teacher, I used to use parent-teacher interviews to get to know the child better. I find if you get to know the family and let them talk about their child, perhaps about their child’s interests and strengths, then you will develop a broader understanding of who the child is as a person and as a consequence, be a better teacher for that child.

So I get annoyed, Possums, when teachers who speak to me as parent of my children try to fill in our precious ten minutes of interview time with their own non-stop talk (often reading grades from their mark book that my child has received in this and that project) and telling me that my child is quiet in class, but fairly conscientious. I interrupt them as soon as they draw breath. For some of them this is a long time. Then I say (for example),

I’m not interested in going through all of her grades. Did you know that Kathleen has three sisters? She has been teaching her sisters how to say ‘oh look, flying mushrooms‘ in French just for fun. You know, she loves to perform and if you gave the students an opportunity to perform a play in French you would see that Kathleen is not so quiet after all.

Comments like this can occasionally turn a boring parent-teacher interview into an interesting conversation and give the teacher a chance to find out more about their student. Sometimes, the teacher will not engage in conversation and does not show an interest in learning more about who my daughter is and the family she comes from. This I do not understand!