My year 10's are a quirky bunch - spirited, curious and sensitive. I had initially planned to finish the year with a unit on comedy, but after an inspirational discussion with my 6 year old I decided to through the unit out and try something different. I have called this new unit of work The Genius Project and I will blog about it in detail once I have completed the unit with my quirky, spirited, curious and sensitive year 10's, but in essence it stems from the concept of Genius Hour . 

As a lead into this unit (and out of my own spirited, curious nature), I posed a question. I told my students that there were no wrong answers only right ones and that they should put no limitations on what they wrote. I was so intrigued by there answers that I asked them if I could publish them here. They said, 'Spread the word Miss. This is where education should be at!' (or something along those lines). So here is their answers to the question we all should be asking. I haven't changed or adapted the list in anyway. This is verbatim. What will I do with their answers now that I have them? I will listen. 

The Question We Should Be Asking
What do YOU wish you could learn in school?

The Answers
I want to learn:

• To take amazing photos
• Self Defence
• How to do ‘grown-up’ things
• I want to learn to make nuggets crispy without burning them
• To fix the wifi
• Body health
• How to make candles
• How our mind works
• How to live our lives to the fullest
• About the lifestyles of different cultures
• To draw
• How to make movies
• Magic
• How to buy and sell a house
• How to do taxes
• How to start a life
• About mythology
• How to be smart
• To be a wizard
• What it is like to do each subject in university
• The reality of what it is like after school
• Psychology
• How to be successful
• How to be disease free and healthy
• How to scuba-dive
• Mind reading
• How to look good
• About how other people live
• How can we travel to the places no one else knows
• How can we become amazing humans
• How to drive
• How to make clothes
• About time travel
• What it is like to walk in another persons shoes
• How to make fireworks
• Robotics
• More experiments
• History (Middle Ages, Kings and Queens)
• How to be philosopher
• Conventions of society – How we are supposed to act and why
• How to be a mermaid (I told you they were spirited)

Additional notes they added to their list:

• Make a school based on creativity
• I want my classes to be outside

Image by Greg Rakozy via Unsplash.

"But the really important ones are here. I don't want to get too technical, but these are called Core Memories. Each one came from a super important moment in Riley's life, like when she first scored a goal. That was so amazing! And each core memory powers a different aspect of Riley's personality. Like Hockey Island." - Joy, Inside Out

I recently watched Pixar’s Inside Out. If you haven’t seen it, you should. There is nothing ground breaking about the concept; however, it sparked a fuse within me that has lead to deep thinking around our memories and our emotional make-up. One concept I especially connected with was the idea that we have core memories that shape and aid the development of the many aspects of our personalities.

I began to wonder about my core memories.
What core memories have shaped my personality?
What core memories have shaped my teaching personality?
And what can I learn from identifying and reflecting on them?

My Core Teaching Memories
The project was on Japan. He gave me full marks for my efforts. My favourite part of the day was hearing him read. He read the BFG by Roald Dahl. Funny, he was exactly what I imagined the BFG to look like in my ten-year-old imagination.

I was twelve. My godmother took me to the theatre to see The Taming of the Shrew performed by The Bell Shakespeare Company. She gave me a thin narrative version before the play worrying that I wouldn’t understand it when I saw it. I understood it. That’s what theatre does - makes stories come to life. I remember the set, the costumes, the actor’s faces and the confetti that was blown into the audience. I went home and began to memorise Shakespeare.

I played grandma in our play Unhand Me Squire. I had to die dramatically on stage. I was nervous. Miss Dodd believed in me though (well at least she made me think she did) and so I died a most dramatic death. The audience loved it.

I was the only girl in my class and the teacher didn’t like me. I knew she didn’t like me because she told me often that she didn’t know why I was studying music. She liked to make music herself by screaming insults at us all from the tops of her lungs.

Year 12 English, King Lear. How can this man make Shakespeare suck so much? We snuck next door to listen to a real teacher teach, hiding in the cupboard at the back of her room. We called it Narnia. He didn’t know we had left; she knew we were there. She also made sure we got a copy of her notes.

The joy of my university lecturer, Dr Carol Richards. Boy, did she love teaching!

Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China. One hundred Political Science Majors sat before me. I am 21 years old and their English Teacher. “Um… Why don’t we start by practicing an introduction? Each of you stand, greet the class and introduce yourself.”
“Chinese name or English name?”
“You have English names?”
“Yes.”
“Ok. English names.”
That was the day I met Apple, Chewing Gum and God.

The first day of my first permanent teaching position. “Just so you know, the naughtiest boy in the school is in your year 11 class. Sing out if you need a hand and whatever you do don’t take any nonsense from him.” Turns out he was one of the best kids I have ever taught.

“And the winner is….” I can’t believe it. We just won a National Competition and I have been part of leading these students to this moment. My heart is full of pride, achievement and joy. For the first time I feel like I really do make a difference in their lives.

Skip forward a few years…

The nurse passes me my first little wrinkly, blood covered baby. My heart explodes.

I lose my third daughter to Congenital Heart Disease. As I enter my classroom for the first time since she passed away, I look into the eyes of my students and wonder if their parents or other teachers fully realise the gift they have been given.  It is a privilege to know and love these students each and every day.

One cubicle door is shut. Why the hell didn’t they look here first? “Hey there. I know it is you. It’s just me out here. Do you think you could open the door so I can make sure your ok?” Silence. Slowly the engaged symbol shifts to vacant. I take a breath. Her eyes meet mine. The saddest eyes I have ever seen. I hold her gaze as my right hand moves to her left and carefully untwines her fingers from around the knife.  “You’re ok,” I say to us both. “You’re going to be ok.”

His name is Peter. He loves wrestling and practical jokes. He is 13 years old and the best teacher I have ever had. He has quadriplegic cerebral palsy.  We laugh together until I have tears streaming down our faces.

“Do you know what your greatest and worst quality is?”,  begins my boss as she leans back in her chair. “You care too much.”  I decide to take this on board.

It is my second day at my new school. I excitedly tell my year 10’s about the great project we will be working on this term. My enthusiasm is met by blank stares and silence. “Is everything ok? Do you not like the sound of this idea?” More silence. One brave soul raises her hand, “We do Miss. Honestly we do. It’s just that we aren’t used to being challenged like this. You are going to take some time to get used too.”

And so I continue to collect these core memories.

Reflection
Firstly, I am surprised by the memories that came to me during this exercise. Moments I have not thought of in many years and moments I think of often. Each a volt of energy powering my Island of Teaching.

And then there are the faces. Faces of my many teachers, my many students, my many colleagues. Each has their own place on my island. Some have led by example, some have shown me what not to do through their own actions and some have opened my eyes to either the world around me or a part of myself.

Oscar Wilde wrote, “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” He makes a point, but I wonder how much of ourselves come from everyone else? The people we meet, our relationships, our connections, our experiences with and through others. I have learnt and continue to learn about what type of teacher I want to be by watching other teachers teach; by being present in the moment with my students; by loving and engaging with those around me.

I am a creative teacher.
I am an independent learner.
I am a resilient teacher.
I am a performer.
I am an empathetic teacher.
I am an advocator for those students in my class that just don’t fit in.
I am a mother.
I am a ‘I-am-going-to-change-the-world’-kind-of-teacher.
I am a joy-fueled teacher.

And I am these things due to my lived experience. My teaching personality is built from my core memories – good and bad.

Challenge
I challenge you to undergo this same project. Identify and reflect on the core memories that have shaped you as a teacher. For me it has been an affirming opportunity and I don’t believe we affirm ourselves enough as teachers.  Instead of reflecting on your lesson plans, assessments and programs, take time to reflect on your own defining moments. What can be learnt from these experiences? What can be gained? What can we take with us on our journey?

Feel free to share some of your core teaching memories in the comments below.  Or better still share some of these memories with your own teaching colleagues. I think there is much to be learnt from the experiences of others and I feel if we, as teachers, had an insight into each others core teaching memories we may be more respectful of each others decisions and more open to those who teach differently to us.

Teaching in Nanjing, China.

A Workshop With Dr Carol Richards.

 I want to share with your 5 separate stories. Each apparently unrelated, yet deeply interrelated. 

Story Number 1 - Three weeks ago, I handed my student a mark for an assessment she had completed. The mark was 24/30 . Twenty - four. Not twenty. Not four….. 24. She burst into tears.

Story Number 2 - When I was choosing a primary school for my own children I went to two open days for two similar demographic primary schools of which I live smack bam in the middle. The first principal addressed the parents and began to tell us of the history of the buildings listing the wonderful resources the school had to offer. The principal of the second school stood up, introduced the students, sat back down and let them speak instead. I chose to send my daughters to the second school.

Story Number 3 - I was sitting in parent-teacher interviews last night when one student and her mother came and sat across from me. The student looked deflated. 
“I am sorry. We don’t have an interview but I really want to speak with you.” 
“No worries”, I replied. 
I began to tell the mother that the student sitting across from me was one of the most creative, imaginative students in my class; that her left of centre ideas were something to be nurtured; and that she had made so much progress over the last two terms as she began to find herself through Drama. The mother turned to her child, “See!”, she said. “Hear what she is saying? You aren’t stupid.” I began explaining the theory of multiple intelligence and how although schooling has been difficult for her over the past few years, she had just found her home in Drama. She left with a beaming smile.

Story Number 4 - I am currently interviewing past and current principals, teachers, students and parents about my school. It is the school’s 125th Anniversary and we are trying to capture a piece of this history through Verbatim Theatre. Interestingly, in the conversations I have had with past students and parents no one has spoken about the mark they received on their Year 8 History exam or Pythagoras Theorem. Not one of them have even referred to their HSC exam results. In fact, all they speak about is 
people…
their teachers…
their friends…
their students…
relationships….
moments of joy….
moments of sorrow. 

Story Number 5 - This is not a personal story. It is not even my story. It is a story from The Sydney Morning Herald - “ICSEA is a scale allowing for fair comparisons among schools with similar students. It provides an indication of the socio-educational backgrounds of students but has nothing to do with the staff, school facilities or programs at the school. ICSEA is set at an average of 1000. The lower the value, the lower the level of educational advantage of students who go to the school. The higher the value, the higher the level of educational advantage.”

Let me say that again. ICSEA provides an indication of the socio-educational backgrounds of students but has nothing to do with the staff, school facilities or programs at the school. Oh, and don’t forget the last line, The higher the value, the higher the level of educational advantage. 

I can’t begin to tell you how much this saddens me. So, instead I am going to turn the tables and evaluate the system. 

Our current educational system is using ONE form of testing to measure a student, focussing on the final product or regurgitation of knowledge rather then the personal growth or personal bests of each individual. Students, like the one in story one, feel a mark is an indication of their success. It is far from it.

Our current educational system is placing more value on funding, buildings, resources then the students that reside in these spaces. Like the principal in story two who sells their community as a collection of empty spaces, our educational system is becoming empty of heart. We have forgotten why we are here.

Our current educational system favours one mode of teaching and learning and fails to differentiate for those left of centre. This leaves students to feel disheartened, isolated, incompetent and deflated... like my student in story three.

Our current educational system fails to acknowledge the most important learning taking place each in everyday. Students and teachers learning about themselves, their relationships, connections, joy and sorrow, which are expressed through the stories they have to share (like those in story four). Our system limits learning through narrowmlndness. 

And so dear education system, (for the sake of creativity let’s call you Christopher), here is your report card:

Although Christopher is a valuable member of our community, he is performing well below average. He shows sophistication in his writing and policy making, but fails to apply the key values of education to his practical work. In fact, in this area Christopher is not reaching his full potential. This has been measured by the stories he tells and the stories he chooses to ignore. Christopher could benefit from being more empathetic, more considerate of others, more collaborative. He is encouraged to think more critically and creatively over the next Semester.

I believe dear Christopher, what we need to be doing is measuring schools by the fullness of hearts not the fullness of pockets. We need to be listening to the stories of those that reside in the community rather then wasting time gazing at navels. We need to stop measuring students by numbers and start measuring them by their joy. Then and only then will I take you seriously. 

I have been at a three day conference with a wonderful group of Drama Educators from across the globe. I am a shy person (no, not all Drama Educators are extroverted!) and this has given me the opportunity to sit quietly and observe my peers. I share this list with you today as I feel Drama Educators are often undervalued when in reality they are a unique commodity with much to offer the educational system.

1. We are incredible collaborators. This is the core of our teaching practice. We teach kids to be collaborative and in doing so deeply etch these skills into our own lives and actions. We know how to yield to the ideas of others and extend on the possibilities together. We teach this practice daily. 

2. We also know how to work independently. Many of us are the only Drama specialists in our schools meaning we often have to work on our own which leads to resourcefulness and an ability to network beyond the walls of our school.

3. We are risk takers. Yesterday we were in a workshop and we were told there was only room for some of us to participate in the practical component and the rest of had to observe the process. This process involved improvising and performing in front of your peers. It was interesting to watch the Drama Educators move straight into the space ready to take a risk, while the researchers sat as observers. And to be honest, as a shy person this is not easy for me to do (particularly in front of my peers), but I am a Drama Educator and therefore never play it safe.

4. We are disobedient. Now you are probably wondering why I am listing this as one of our beautiful qualities. Andrew Upton (Artistic Director of Sydney Theatre Company) in a keynote speech yesterday stated that “Disobedience is vital to all art.” It is essential to the creative process. If we never break the rules, never step outside the margins, how can we discover new ideas, new worlds, new ways of doing things? 

5. We are open to working with others (other teachers, researchers, other fields) because we value relationship. In fact, we value relationship so much that we explicitly teach it. 

6. We are creative and critical thinkers. We imagine. We play. We explore. We question. It is at the heart of our nature. 

7. We love our students and place them at the forefront of what we do. Yes, of course other teachers do this too, but our love stems from the emotional and social connections we make with our students as they share elements of themselves and the world in which they live in our classrooms every day.

8. We are empathetic. Empathetic to those around us - students, parents, other teachers, administrators. When we play a character we embody them. We walk in their shoes. This is enlightening and liberating for both us and those we are empathising with.

9. We are passionate. Passionate about our subject. Passionate about Education. Passionate about making a difference in our classroom, our system, our world. Nothing can suppress this.

10. We are joyful. Oh boy are we joyful! We know how to dance like no-one is watching. We know how to teach through play. We know the importance of taking time out to have fun with our students. And this joy is catching. 

So please, do not underestimate us. 

Imagine if all Educators were incredible collaborators but at the same time able to work independently. 
Risk takers, rule breakers, creative and critical thinkers yet open to working with others.
Loved their students deeply, were empathetic, passionate and oh so joyful. 
Our schools would look a little different don't you think?

I am attending a conference titled ‘Game Changer’ for the next three days. 
Game changer…… Game......changer.....

This phrase ‘Game Changer’ calls the advocate, the educator, the leader, the innovator to arms. It instills fear in the complacent, the exhausted, the traditionalist, the inflexible, the resistant. 

Now let me be honest here. I want to be a Game Changer. It sounds heroic and who doesn’t want to be a hero? But, I enter with three questions - What is the game? Why does it need to be changed? And am I truly a game changer?

What is the game?
The ‘game’ we are referring to is this system we call education. 
A game has a starting point and end point. Education runs from Preschool to Post-Grad.
A game needs someone to play it. Education has administrators, teachers, parents and students.
A game has rules. Education is not short of these. Think syllabus, policy, curriculum, outcomes, assessments and marking guidelines, reports … etc.
A game has challenges that need to be overcome. Education is filled with them.
A game has an outcome that must be achieved. Education’s outcome is give students knowledge, instil in them a love of learning and bestow on them the tools to become life long learners.
A game generally has a winner and a loser. 

And here I will stop, because I believe there should not be winners and losers in education.

Education should not be a game. 
Isn’t a game. 
Should never be treated like a game. 

Why does it need to be changed? 
There are probably many reasons, but there is one that answers this question beyond all others.

There are losers. 

There are kids that don’t make it. Don’t make it through school. Don’t make it to class. Don’t make it to living out joyful lives.
There are kids that are told they are will never succeed because they don’t follow the rules.
There are kids who don’t have the skills to pass one form of testing. Are labelled stupid, yet have knowledge of the word beyond their years.
There are kids who feel so much pressure to succeed, but they crash and burn at the last hurdle because they no longer have the mental capacity to give any more of themselves.
There are the kids that are isolated for looking different, sounding different, thinking different. Kids who can barely make it out of bed in the morning let alone drag themselves to class.

And there are teachers who have lost their passion, their joy, their own personal love of learning.

Yes, there are losers….. and as long as there are losers we need change.

Am I truly a game changer?
No. Because I don’t play games. I refuse to make education a game.
In my classroom there are no losers. 
Not on my watch.
Not on my time.
Not in the microcosm in which I teach.

I am not a game changer, but I am a joy-fuled educator. An advocator. A leader. An innovator. 
And I will make change. Change the way we view education. Shift it from a game to a passion; to a joy that burns deep in the heart of administrators, teachers, parents and students. 

Let's say I want to be an 'Attitude Changer'. Are you with me?