Weekly reflection: Standing on the shoulders of giants

I’ve been a lazy blogger again. I didn’t even manage a weekly reflection at the end of term such was the low level of energy levels at the end of the term. Alongside organising a school disco, I also put together a school talent show for the end of term.

For all my moaning, the rewards have been fantastic. The talent show in particular was an amazing showcased some amazing kids. While sports and academics quite right get a lot of attention, the talent show made me realise how important it is for our kids to shine in other areas.

I was reminded of this again when it came to the end of term expo for our passion projects. My class gets 20% time and at the end of the term we get together to find out more about what the kids have gotten up to. The diversity of groups was fantastic but what really blew my mind was how the kids ended up writing of their own volition. Sure they might have made manga cartoons or movie scripts or a multi-touch book about engines. But they are still communicating.

It’s been another busy holiday. I was up in Auckland before heading to Hamilton to give a presentation for SocCon on Tuesday. Then to add a little bit more craziness I moved house this Thursday.

The SocCon presentation was something that had me quaking in my boots. This was my first presentation, I’m a newbie teacher and the audience was made up of mostly secondary school teachers and tertiary lecturers. What could a newbie primary teacher add to the conversation?

As I was preparing my presentation, I realised that I wasn’t really writing a presentation but the ideas of my learning network. Bits and pieces of ideas, experiences were laced in with ideas from all the hundreds of teachers across the planet that influence my learning.

Apologies for the poor quality of writing this week. I’ve been trying to write this post over the last few hours while my apartment in Wellington has been rocked by a series strong of earthquakes. It’s a bit disconcerting being up on the fifth floor but even the xfactor updates were a relief from the shaking.