Holidays - A Welcome Respite

Our classrooms and resources may look different  to the one shown here but the workload however, seems even more onerous despite class sizes having dropped.
I cannot remember my early teaching days being as frenetic in pace as now experienced by teachers.  Marking and programming was thorough but less regimented and there was more teacher autonomy and scope for creativity with fewer deadlines enabling real engagement with texts, language and heaven forbid, even grammar. The schools of today seem driven by an Assessment heavy curriculum with teaching towards exams like NAPLAN and HSC dictating things rather than teaching for learning. For all the push in this direction, it is ironic that statisticians tell us that Australia's international educational status has dropped; certainly not due to any reduction in how hard teachers are working.

Holidays allow a time to rest but also for catching up for unfinished teaching chores and preparation for a new HSC cohort and no doubt a new round of changes imposed from above to this, that and the other.New Scheme teachers seem unnecessarily overloaded with time consuming paperwork along with the eternal round of marking, programming and reworking assessment tasks. Perennial arguments regarding single or mixed sex classes, graded versus ungraded, set rather than flexible texts raise are voiced with little attention paid to the anecdotal experience or wishes of teachers themselves. Whatever form the New Curriculum actually takes, it can only be hoped that it will usher in productive change that will benefit students and teachers alike rather than the bureaucrats.

The Holidays beckon and every teacher in the state and across the country will breathe a collective sigh of thanks once that Friday night arrives.

"The best teacher is the one who suggests rather than dogmatizes, and inspires his listener with the wish to teach himself." Edward Bulwer-Lytton

'Satire' published

'Satire' is finally available on the shelves and I think that most schools will have received details in the pre-holidays mail-out from Phoenix Education. It has taken me longer than anticipated but I am really pleased with the range of classic and more contemporary texts that I have included. There were many others that I would have included but that would have taken two volumes instead of one.  Satire used to be a very popular and successful and productive unit of work in high schools in earlier years but it works well as a Preliminary AOS in preparing analytical response skills and conceptual links across varied texts. Now that it is finished I can begin working on the next project before the new HSC text list is distributed about this time next year and the preparation begins for the first new cohort beginning in Term 4, 2014.

Teachers are obviously concerned about the percentage of new and familiar texts but also the conceptual framing for each of the modules as well. It takes so long to read, research and develop resources that the lead in year is frantic, especially with so many experienced teachers reaching retirement age. When combined with speculation about the changes ushered in with the introduction of National Curriculum and what it will generate in terms of teacher workload, the next year or so will be busy. I am looking forward to the upcoming holidays and along with all teachers, the absence for a short time of bells, staff meetings, assessment tasks and marking deadlines. Perhaps teachers need a great satirist to point out the follies of political educationalists who often fail to make goals achievable or at times even appropriate. To quote Edwin Percy Whipple:

"As men neither fear nor respect what has been made contemptible, all honor to him who makes oppression laughable as well as detestable.—Armies cannot protect it then; and walls that have remained impenetrable to cannon have fallen before a roar of laughter or a hiss of contempt." 

Spring Rejuvenation

A momentary pondering of how quickly the transition occurs from winter to spring, almost as if a switch has been pulled and everything suddenly shifts pace. The video clip is a timely reminder for dealing with the frenzied pace of a term that is a particularly arduous one.Spring and the accompanying holidays it brings offers a temporary respite from marking and lesson and resource preparation. As the term draws to an end 

NSW teachers should be able to access details regarding 7-10 curriculum content  and give some thought to the degree of change it offers. Concerned by the current heavy workloads and after nearly four decades of teaching I am convinced that despite the cyclical call for change in content and methodology, the basic recipe for success in the classroom remains stable. Sound teaching strategies remain valid whatever the altered trappings that might surround them.  

The workload itself remains the biggest hurdle, enhanced by current news reports of teaching standards once again becoming a political focus on how to lift educational standards. We can only hope that sound common sense prevails and that teachers will not be expected to take up an Orwellian  Boxer, 'I will work harder' stance. Educational outcomes are governed by many things besides those areas that teachers can directly control. As a close friend advises, the trick is to somehow find balance.  

The holidays and the garden beckon.

Good luck for those teachers with HSC students.

Barbara