How to get your teacher mojo back again

Every term I help my students create student goals that will keep them focused and engaged. We explore how to set the goal, how to measure the success of that goal and how we know we will have achieved that goal. 

But do you set yourself goals as their teacher?

I'm not talking about data walls or evidence of learning - those are important of course, but I'm talking about the whole teacher.

What drives you day to day?

What makes you want to get out of bed and open that classroom each day?

What gives you the energy to spend your whole Sunday planning rather than Netflix binging another episode?

Teachers are humans (news flash) and this seems to be forgotten about in the push for teachers to undertaken more administration tasks, parent meetings, collection of returned signed forms and other such extra-curricular items. 

Teachers matter (wasn't that a slogan somewhere?).

So how do you get your teacher mojo on again and who has the time to set goals anyway, right?

Keep it simple.

WHAT
WHEN
HOW

WHAT

What drives you? This is a big question to answer but be honest with yourself. Personally I get excited when I see a new resource that will engage my students in a way that they haven't been engaged before. I get excited when I see a resource that makes a previously dull subject more interesting. Often I can hardly wait to get to that part of the day when I can introduce my new found exciting little toy/find/resource/printable whatever it is. 

At the moment I have been playing learning with SeeSaw in my class. If you haven't tried it, it's very exciting! Think of Facebook but just for your class and private. My students are so excited as well as we are Vlogging their responses to the reading text in reading groups.

Whatever it is that makes you want to teach. Find it. Find that one thing and hold on to that feeling. Don't let the curriculum drag you down (I used to love xyz until they made us do xyz). Curricula change, staff change, students change but your passion for teaching shouldn't change. 

Write the WHAT down by starting with "What I love about teaching is..."

WHEN

How are you going to hang on to that feeling? There will be times when you don't love teaching as much, how will you get that mojo back again?

I know, myself, I just have to spend 10 minutes on Pinterest searching for key terms for my next unit and I start getting some great ideas. What will you do WHEN you feel you are losing your passion?

Write down WHEN "When I feel I'm losing my teacher mojo I will..."

HOW

How will you know you have your teaching mojo back again? What are those descriptors, that we always teach students, that help us to identify a feeling or thought. 

For me I know how I'm going to feel when I have my teaching mojo back because I will feel inspired, driven, artistic, creative, challenged, passionate and ready to make a difference.

Write down HOW you will feel when you are feeling passionate about teaching again.

Now what?

Keep those notes somewhere, in your diary perhaps, anywhere where you will see them from time to time. When you're feeling low take a look at them and try to recall those feelings. Follow your own instructions and when you're losing the will to keep teaching, use your go-to remedy you recorded. 

We're teachers. We're not in it for the money. We do it because we LOVE teaching.

Remember, this is about what drives you. Because what drives you is contagious and will drive the students as well. It's a win, win.

Enjoy your holidays and hold on to that feeling!

5 ideas for celebrating NAIDOC Week 2018

The theme for this year's NAIDOC Week is 'Because of her, we can!' and what a fantastic idea for this year's theme! Aboriginal women are the key to a smooth running community. They are elders, leaders, sisters, mothers, aunts and grandmothers. They are doctors, nurses, teachers and community liaison personnel. They have marched and protested and have instigated many key changes to Australian indigenous policy. What better way to acknowledge all they have done, than to dedicate NAIDOC Week to their achievements? 

If you're unsure what NAIDOC Week is all about click here to visit their website. Essentially NAIDOC Week is an opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate the achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. 

This year NAIDOC Week will be held from 8 - 15 July and there will be lots of celebrations happening across Australia. 

How can you bring this fantastic celebration into your classroom?

The Australian curriculum suggests we explore community celebrations (HASS) and explore their links to our own. NAIDOC Week is the perfect way to look at celebrations students are familiar with and create those early links with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture.

Here are my five suggestions for ways to integrate NAIDOC Week 2018 into your classroom.

1 Explore the celebration and join in!

Explore the ways that NAIDOC Week is a celebration by creating a class Venn Diagram showing celebrations such as Australia Day and how NAIDOC Week is celebrated. Then, as a class, brainstorm ways that the class could celebrate NAIDOC Week. It is interesting to see what suggestions students come up with and what their understanding is about Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander culture. 

2. Create some art

Explore Aboriginal art, their use of colours and styles. Give students some templates and they can create their own stunning art works. 

Here is a dot painting my students did one year. 

3. Research some inspiring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women

Let students research an inspiring role model within the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community. SBS has a fantastic starting point here and students could select one woman and then create a fantastic wall display with their research.

4. Review a timeline of Aboriginal history

Review the obstacles that Aboriginal women have had to face from First Contact till the present day. What is Sorry Day and how did it impact on Aboriginal communities?

5. Invite an Elder to your school

Your school is already affiliated with your local Elder but if not, then contact your local tribe and see who the local school liaison officer is. I've always found Elders to be fantastic fun and they have so much knowledge to impart to the children about their local community.

Get students to pose questions in advance (it's a good idea to field questions before Elders arrive) and make sure students understand how to address their local Elder as Uncle or Aunty. If you're unsure what to ask the Elder to do, just ask them to come and talk. They have so many interesting stories. Our local Elder comes every year and give each student their Dreaming Spirit Animal and the students just love this!

How to help students make geographic connections to places

The 1st of July marks a special day for Canadians - Canada Day!

Canada Day is a great time to make connections to places and the Australia curriculum for HASS Year 3 asks students to explore:

"Celebrations and commemorations in places around the world..."

"The similarities and differences between places in terms of their type of settlement, demographic characteristics and the lives of the people who live there, and people’s perceptions of these places..."

Exploring seasonal celebrations are a great way to reinforce learning and may help make those connects to places for students. In particular, Canada has many similarities to Australia that make it a perfect country to compare and contrast population, culture, climate and geography. 

What is Canada Day about?

Canada Day is the national day of Canada celebrated on 1st July. Canadians have parties, barbeques, parades and fireworks to celebrate their special day. On Canada Day all things Canadian are celebrated! 

It’s important for students to understand the difference between a celebration and a commemoration, this resource may be helpful to teachers. 

How is Canada Day similar to Australia Day?

Australia Day is held on the 26th January and just like Canada Day, it's a time to celebrate and rejoice in all things special to our country. We hold barbeques, parties and parades and treat this celebration as a chance to share with the world how wonderful our country is.

Similarities between Canada and Australia?

There are amazingly many similarities between our two countries and this is such a fun activity to get students to research and then brainstorm their results together as a class. Some suggestions might be to break larger topics down into smaller topics and pair students up to research and present their findings on each topic to the whole class such as:

• Country status: both were British colonies 
• Connection to the commonwealth: both are constitutional monarchies 
• Population: both are spread out across a wide, mostly uninhabitable, area of land
• Language: both speak English 
• Population location: both have the southeast as the most populated region in each country 
• Geographic sizes: both have capitals that are not the largest city

Differences between Canada and Australia?

There are some interesting differences between our two countries as well, these include:

• Geographic layout: Canada has 10 provinces while Australia has 7 states and territories 
• Population sizes: Canada has around 36 million and Australia around 24 million
• Geographic neighbours: Canada’s geography means that it has closer ties with its neighbour the United States, whereas Australia has closer ties to its Asian neighbours
• Continents: Canada sits on the North American continent whereas Australia is its own continent 
• Industry: Canada has a thriving maple syrup industry where Australia does not 
• Climate: Canada is cooler all year round where Australia is warmer
• Language: Canada has a French speaking area called Quebec where Australia does not 

Where to from here?

In the past I’ve organised pen pals with a Canadian class and while we studied Canada they explored Australia. Writing to pen pals is the perfect opportunity to get students to pose open ended questions. The students have so much fun learning about life in another country and swapping pictures and can’t wait to get their letters each month. If you’re looking for a good site to find pen pals for your students try here.

If you'd like to download a free copy of the Venn Diagram shown in this blog post just click the link. 

How to improve behaviour in your classroom with student job cards

Are your students running you ragged? Are they tuning out of classroom instructions? You ask them to tidy up and they keep chatting. You ask them to stack their chairs and 3 out of 4 don’t listen and you end up doing it yourself. Does this sound familiar?

When I first started teaching Prep (Foundation Year) I would find myself, at the end of the day, tidying up after students. I’d collect pencils, brushes, glue sticks and scissors. I’d stack chairs that were left by students and find the odd journal that never made it home to its correct place. I’d tidy the classroom library and fix broken books. I’d nurture that room and bring it back to life every afternoon.

Okay, they’re just kids, right? They are supposed to be messy. Well no actually, that just doesn’t wash with me. We’re building little humans here and the example you accept sticks with them. I decided I was tired of nagging them to tidy up and so set about creating classroom jobs.

WHY JOBS MATTER IN THE CLASSROOM

Students need ownership of their classroom. I always feel sad when I see overly ‘teacher-decorated' classrooms. Work on the wall should be the students' work, not the teachers. Students need to own this space. It is THEIR classroom. A place they come to learn and spend their days in. Teachers just facilitate the learning. Therefore students should also take ownership of the jobs that need to be done every day. This is more than feeding the class pet in the corner. Students need to understand that jobs equal responsibility. You’re setting the standard for their future interactions in and outside of school.

WHY IT WORKS

The first few jobs I set up were Chair Monitor, Library Monitor and Journal Manager. As soon as I assigned the jobs to particular students, everybody was upset. “Where’s my job?” several wailed. So I began to brainstorm with the students other jobs such as Pencil Monitor, Technology Manager and Light Monitor but still they wanted more! Meteorologist was added (a great opportunity to build their vocabulary!) whose job it was to write up the weather each day (hello literacy!). Yet still they wanted more! Floor Sweeper, Rubbish Monitor and others were added until everybody in the class had a job.

What surprised me is that these 5-year-olds loved their job so much, they went to great pains to do their job properly. Soon my classroom was running like a well-oiled-machine. My students loved their jobs and I rotated them weekly. I was surprised they didn’t get bored and soon the jobs became part of the classroom culture. 

JOBS WORK IN ALL GRADES

Don’t think for a moment this idea won’t work with older students. Having taught all grade levels, I’ve applied it in every classroom and it has worked like a charm. With older students I like to add one that works particularly well with them - Substitute Teacher. If a student is away from class and missing work, the ‘sub’ collects copies of handouts for them. If you have more than one student away, you can allocate new temporary ‘subs’ so as not to overwhelm students with too much to do. I tell my subs that their job is to hand over the paperwork collected and let the student who was away make a copy of their notes. This is a great opportunity for students to teach each other and helps keep both the student who is away and sub on task!

I can’t recommend classroom jobs enough. They create students ownership in the classroom and improve behaviour by making students accountable. When you set up your classroom next year, consider creating some jobs. You won’t regret it!