What makes a REAL Tween Teacher?

During the last week of term, one of the Middle School teachers received this email from a Year 7 student, who had just discovered that she would be in this teacher's class next year. The email is published unedited (just in case you were thinking my grammar and punctuation had a little bit to be desired!) Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent :)

Mrs. Holder,

as my teacher next year i have a few warnings for you. I love you and

sometimes i may not show it but i do, i get really angry and i just can't

control it but i don't mean to upset you or anyone else. i will often get

sad and just be really awful to be around but i will try not to be. i

will be really annoying and probably frustrate you to the limit and you

might hate me, but i really don't mean to be.

And if you haven't noticed i don't like not doing well on things, so if

you have any thing that get my marks up or extra activities to put on my

report card that would be great! And i would also really like you to be

hard and strict on me and make me do everything the way it HAS to be.

Love Ya miss xx

oh and i don't mean to get frustrated with other people, but people

really rant my type :)

Now there are a number of ways in which this Tween Teacher could have responded - indeed, she need not have responded at all. However, her response was so perfect that I asked if I could share it.  

Hi Paris,

As my student next year I have a few warnings for you. I love good manners

and, because I always use good manners, I expect the people around me to use

good manners as well. I also respect the people I love but, in return, I

expect that these people show me the respect that I deserve. You see, I do

not expect anything from you that I am not willing to do myself. I will

not ask you to pick up rubbish for no reason if I haven't already picked

some up myself, except if you aren't wearing a hat. I do not expect you to

work hard on an activity if I haven't worked hard on planning and

preparing it. I do not expect you to achieve good grades on something I do

not understand myself.

I guess what I am saying is that you and I will argue next year but I want

you to understand something. You are growing up and very quickly becoming

a young adult, and with this comes different expectations. I come to school

sometimes and I am upset, angry or feeling down about something, there may

even be times when someone in the class has frustrated me beyond my

breaking point and I would like nothing better than to tell them exactly

how I feel, but because I am an adult I can't. These are skills that you

need to learn - I am in no way saying that you have to put up with people

treating you poorly, I am merely saying that you need to find a different

way of dealing with it. This is something we will work on together.

I am willing to help you improve your marks and deal with all the other

stuff if you are willing to help yourself. I want to help you not feel sad

but when you do, instead of pushing people away how about you sit down and

have a chat with me or someone else that you trust. It really does help to

know that someone understand what you are going through and they love you

enough to just listen.

I know that a lot of students believe that I am very strict but I believe

that I am firm, but fair. If you do the wrong thing there is a consequence

but if you choose to do the right thing there is a good consequence.

I will not, at any stage, tolerate you being awful to me or the people

around you, but I would also never hate you. I will get angry with you but

that doesn't mean I won't still love you. All this means is that I am

human and so are you.

I want you to make the decision that Year 8 is going to be your year of

change. The year you stop looking at all the negatives and start looking

at the positives. Instead of saying "I can't do this!", think to yourself, "At

the moment, this is difficult but I am working to get better at it". Instead

of saying, "Everybody hates me and annoys me", try saying "I am so lucky to

have my best friend, Mrs Holder and Miss Matthew who will listen to anything I

have to say".

It is going to be a great year and I am so excited about all the great

stuff I have planned for us. All I ask from you is to believe in yourself

and talk to me rather than getting angry. I know you are an amazing young

lady and I love that you get my sense of humour.

Be excited about Year 8, 2015 - it will go so quickly and before long it

will be time for you to move on - let's enjoy EVERY second.

Love ya too xx

Mrs Holder

How lucky am I, to be working with REAL Tween Teachers?!

The Purple Cow

Seth Godin writes:

"Something remarkable is worth talking about. Worth noticing. Exceptional. New. Interesting. It's a Purple Cow. Boring stuff is invisible. It's a brown cow."

I want my class to be a Purple Cow.

I have just finished reading Teach Like A PIRATE, by Dave Burgess - one of the most inspiring 'teaching' books I have ever read. This treasure map of inspirational ideas on how to ignite your passion, creativity and role as a teacher through being daring, adventurous, and transforming your classroom environment was pure gold!

Essentially, the PIRATE system explores:

Passion - how to feel passionate, even when teaching your least favourite subject or topic.

Immersion -  how to be involved in the lesson to really engage your students.

Rapport -  how to really connect with your students.

Ask & Analyse - how to ask the right questions to help you come up with creative ideas.

Transformation - how to reframe your subject to overcome roadblocks with your students.

Enthusiasm - how this is the most powerful tool in the classroom.

As well as the philosophy behind the PIRATE system, the book also provided a practical guide on how to craft engaging lessons, by offering a trove of presentational 'hooks' to use in your teaching. Burgess has convinced me that "any teacher who is willing to put in the time, care and effort can transform their classroom and their life as an educator using these methods."

And so begins my adventure to transform my classroom into that Purple Cow - relentlessly search for what engages students in my classroom, have the guts to try these new ideas and teach like a PIRATE.

To begin your quest to find the treasure, join the conversation and follow @burgessdave
on Twitter (don't forget the hashtag #tlap) or his blog http://daveburgess.com/

Life-long Learning

After two years and eight assignments, I have finally submitted the final assessment task for my Grad.Cert. Middle Years Education. To say that it was a challenge is an understatement!

It had been 23 years since I had last hit the books and written an assignment. Balancing the demands of school, home and uni was very difficult, but there was no opting out. You see, in order to gain my Full Teacher Registration in Queensland, I had to become '4-year trained'.

I graduated from Armidale College of Advanced Education in 1990 with my Diploma in Teaching - a 3-year course, then embarked immediately on my first teaching adventure to Coonamble, NSW, and never looked back!

Between surviving my first years in the classroom, planning, teaching, travelling, getting married, having babies, buying, renovating and building houses, moving states, starting new jobs, becoming a basketball mum, working in a boarding house and still teaching, there were not enough hours in the day to even think about further study.

After moving to Queensland for a second time, it was necessary to register with the Queensland College of Teachers and this is where it all came unstuck! To be given Full Teacher Registration in QLD, I had to be 4-year trained. This meant I would have to go back to school.

I was initially quite excited by the prospect - my children were older and not as demanding, and I was no longer full-time in the classroom with my new position as Head of Middle School. So, I eagerly started looking for courses.

My first roadblock was finding a course that related to my passion - Middle School, and I could not find a '4th Year' course that focused on this age group. So, I started looking for Grad.Dip. courses, until I was told I had to choose a Grad.Dip in any other field than Education (as it had to be in a different area than my first qualification). I did not qualify to apply for my Masters (as I only had a Diploma, not a Bachelor Degree). So, I was left to search for a Graduate Certificate course (of which I must complete 2, in order to meet the criteria for the QCT). Seriously?! Four years to gain an extra year's qualification? You've got to be kidding me!

So, here I sit after two years of part-time study, on the cusp of gaining my Grad.Cert. in Middle Years Education and having to begin the search for yet another relevant course that will keep me engaged and excited for another two years - jumping through hoops for bureaucracy, but hopefully coming out the other side a fully registered and better informed educator.

Signature Pedagogies

There is no better feeling than returning from a conference feeling excited and inspired by what you have seen and experienced. 

Meridan State College, an independent public school in Caloundra on the Sunshine Coast, QLD, hosted a Junior Secondary conference that left me wanting to implement their ideas and practices immediately.

A Pilot Program school for introducing Year 7 into secondary school, Meridan openly shared some of the key pedagogies, developed by their talented and dedicated staff, that had successfully been implemented into their daily middle years program. 

Over the two days, I had the opportunity to view and participate in hands-on activities, visit and observe classrooms, watch demonstrations and attend masterclasses that gave me the opportunity to understand the philosophies, structure and planning behind the pedagogies.

Instructional rounds of classroom visits demonstrated the college's use of Flexi Learning - a collaborative, team-taught, differentiated approach to negotiated curriculum (for an entire year level of 300 students) and Student-led conferences - where students take ownership of their learning, goal setting and scripting to 'change up' the traditional model of parent/teacher interviews, to address some of the signifying principles of Middle Years education.

I also gained an insight into the college's Community structure, Student Leadership program, Action Plan, timetable structures and curriculum time allocations, how to build a school brand, marketing and promotion.

I felt a sense of excitement as I witnessed the Flexi Learning activities in action - an idea that could so easily be adapted and introduced into my own school. Our teachers already used personalised, precise, small group instruction within their individual classrooms. All we needed to do now was move this to a bigger scale and involve the entire year level - at the same time - in the same space. Targeted, small group, rotational activities, based on student needs, identified by the data and taught by an amazing team of enthusiastic teachers who are focused on student improvement. We could do that!

What excited me the most were the Student-led conferences. In six words, if I had to describe the traditional model of Parent/Teacher Interviews, I would say:

"Potentially most terrifying experience for teachers!"

These student-led conferences involve the students gathering evidence (creating folios of assessment pieces and report data), reflecting on the 'snapshot' (summarising strengths and weaknesses, developing strategies for two areas of improvement), setting SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-framed) with their parents, scripting & directing the entire conference with their parents, in the presence of their teacher - being actively involved in their learning and taking responsibility for the learning process. 

The thing I liked most about the student-led conference was the fact that their parents received "homework" - they had to write a positive personal note to their child about the conference and email it to the teacher, who would print it onto a certificate and give it to the student. What a valuable, positive process! Feedback from the Meridan students involved in the process included: a focused effort to improve, pride in showing and telling their parents what they had achieved, and a sense of partnership between student and parents by formulating the SMART Goals together. We could do that!

What I took away from the conference was that we (Riverside) were almost there - with a little bit of tweaking and courage, we could make the learning experiences for our Middle College students not just great, but AWESOME!

Why Tweens?

Perhaps it wasn't the Tweens that hooked me - in fact, I'm sure it wasn't! 

I have wanted to be a teacher for as long as I can remember - in fact, I really wanted to teach in Special Education (but that's a whole other story). 

I began my teaching career with a Kindergarten class. However, I have never regretted my decision to specialise in Middle Years education, and have spent the majority of my 24 teaching years working 'in the middle'.

Surprisingly, it wasn't the pimple-faced, smelly, moody, hormonal Tweens that attracted me to teach in the Middle School. It was the passion of a man - an educator, a colleague, and now my mentor and dear friend, Dennis Dempster, that intrigued and enticed me enough to experience what he so obviously loved. Teaching Tweens!

For most of my career, I have based my understanding of what middle schooling is all about on the teachings of this passionate Middle School educator. Hailing from Alberta, Canada, Dennis shared his knowledge, experiences and advocacy of the philosophy and underpinning principles of middle schooling with me and, in doing so, fuelled the fire that has remained with me ever since. My recent university study of Middle years Education has only clarified, and reaffirmed my belief in, everything that this man has taught me. 

Above all, teaching Tweens is about passion – passion for the young adolescents with whom I want to make a connection and establish a relationship; passion for teaching content that is engaging, relevant and challenging; passion for the pedagogy and signifying practices of middle schooling; and the passion to learn as much as I can about Middle Schooling and Tweens, in order to achieve the best possible outcomes for my Middle Years learners.

If I can ignite that spark in Tweens to be passionate about something, just as D did in me, then I am happy. Teaching Tweens is an exciting, challenging and rewarding adventure and I would like to share it with you.