Don't F... Up Culture

http://scottberkun.com/2014/critique-dont-fuck-up-culture/

Ed Journeys Grant Lichtman

Forces of Change Michaell Fullan

8 Forces fo Change

Learning to be a New School

The report

Literature that discusses transformative change in schools typically draws on experiences of renewal and change in existing schools. This report explores the shaping of a new school with the intent, established at the very outset, of offering a curriculum for the 21st century. The report discusses four key aspects of curriculum innovation at this school, outlining the intent of each and then discussing issues and challenges encountered in bring each aspect to fruition as the school got under way.

In its third year of operation when this report was compiled, this senior high school has dared to be different, in the process riding a rollercoaster of hopes and dreams, expectations met and occasionally dashed, careful planning, ongoing troubleshooting and collaborative professional learning. Through the lens of complexity theory, the report discusses the learning and problemsolving processes the school has set in place, describing how they have acted as a key enabler of the school’s success in addressing challenges it has encountered to date.

The perspectives of all members of the school community are included in the report: senior leaders, teachers, students, parents and some members of the school’s board of trustees.

This report was funded by NZCER's Purchase Agreement with the Ministry of Education

Types of Leadership

• Autocratic or Authoritarian Style of Leadership
  
  • Under the autocratic leadership style, all decision-making powers are centralised in the leader. Leaders do not entertain any suggestions or initiatives from subordinates. This approach provides for quick decision making but is generally not successful in gaining employee engagement
• Laissez-faire or Free-rein Style of Leadership
  
  • A person may be in a leadership position without providing leadership, leaving the group to fend for itself. Subordinates are given a free hand in deciding their own policies and methods. This can sometimes be a positive leadership style if workers are responsible and self-starting and do not require a lot of supervision. 
• Participative or Democratic Style of Leadership
  
  • A participative or democratic style of leadership involves the leader sharing decision- making abilities with group members while also promoting the interests of the group members and practicing social equality. Employees will likely enjoy this style of leadership because it gives them a say in many decisions.
• Transformational Style of Leadership
• The transformational leadership style is one of the most inspiring leadership styles that enhances the motivation, morale and job performance of followers. The concept was initially introduced by James MacGregor Burns- a leadership expert and presidential biographer. According to Burns, transformational leadership can be seen when "leaders and followers make each other to advance to a higher level of morality and motivation."

Leadership styles 

Based on a three-year study of over 3,000 executives, Daniel Goleman identified six different leadership styles:

• Pace-setting
• Authoritative
• Affiliative
• Democratic
• Coaching
• coercive or commanding

Six Leadership Styles

• Pace-setting leaders expect excellence and self-direction, and can be summed up as ‘Do as I do, now’. The Pace-setter very much leads by example, but this type of leadership only works with a highly-competent and well-motivated team. It can only be sustained for a while without team members flagging. Like the Coercive leader, Pace-setters also show drive to succeed and initiative, but instead of self-control, these are coupled with conscientiousness.
• Authoritative leaders move people towards a vision, so are often described as ‘Visionary’. This style is probably best summed up as ‘Come with me’. It is the most useful style when a new vision or clear direction is needed, and is most strongly positive. Authoritative leaders are high in self-confidence and empathy, acting as a change catalyst by drawing people into the vision and engaging them with the future.
• An Affiliative leader values and creates emotional bonds and harmony, believing that ‘People come first’. Such leaders demonstrate empathy, and strong communication skills, and are very good at building relationships. This style is most useful when a team has been through a difficult experience, and needs to heal rifts, or develop motivation. It is not a very goal-oriented style, so anyone using it will need to make sure others understand that the goal is team harmony, and not specific tasks. It is probably obvious from this that it cannot be used on its own for any length of time if you need to ‘get the job done’.
• The democratic leader builds consensus through participation, constantly asking ‘What do you think?’, and showing high levels of collaboration, team leadership and strong communication skills. This style of leadership works well in developing ownership for a project, but it can make for slow progress towards goals, until a certain amount of momentum has built up. Anyone wishing to use this style will need to make sure that senior managers are signed up to the process, and understand that it may take time to develop the consensus.
• A coaching leader will develop people, allowing them to try different approaches in an open way. The phrase that sums up this style is ‘Try it’, and this leader shows high levels of empathy, self-awareness and skills in developing others. A coaching style is especially useful when an organisation values long-term staff development
• Coercive leaders demand immediate obedience. In a single phrase, this style is ‘Do what I tell you’. These leaders show initiative, self-control, and drive to succeed. There is, of course, a time and a place for such leadership: a battlefield is the classic example, but any crisis will need clear, calm, commanding leadership. This style does not, however, encourage anyone else to take the initiative, and often has a negative effect on how people feel.

Why Leaders Eat Last- Simon Sinek

In this in-depth talk, ethnographer and leadership expert Simon Sinek reveals the hidden dynamics that inspire leadership and trust. In biological terms, leaders get the first pick of food and other spoils, but at a cost. When danger is present, the group expects the leader to mitigate all threats even at the expense of their personal well-being. Understanding this deep-seated expectation is the key difference between someone who is just an "authority" versus a true "leader." 

3:30 Happiness breakdown (4 chemicals)
5:53 1) Endorphins
7:16 Importance of endurance
7:59 2) Dopamine
8:19 Dopamine is to make sure get stuff done
9:10 Goals must be tangible - we have to see the goal to stay focused
10:17 Dopamine is dangerous when unbalanced
15:07 Feel safe
15:40 In our organization, danger isn't a constant it is a variable
17:05 The responsibility of leadership is 2 things: 1) Determine who gets in and who doesn't 2) how big do we make the circle of safety
17:33 Great leaders extend safety to the outermost of the org
17:53 3) Serotonin - leadership chemical
19:30 Trying to enforce relationships
22:22 Value of group-living
22:28 Being alpha comes at a cost
26:01 The cost of leadership is self-interest
27:15 Makes you feel safe
27:34 4) Oxytocin
29:03 Businesses aren't rational, it's about feeling safe. "It's human -- physical touch"
29:27 "Human bonds matter"
29:29 Act of human generosity
32:19 Leaders spend time/energy not money
37:30 You have to make sure you can trust others as leaders because you won't have time to help everyone
38:47 Cortisone - the feeling of stress and anxiety
40:59 Needs to shut down during times
41:42 Cortisone inhabits oxytocin
42:18 "Our jobs are killing us.. leaders are responsible"
43:12 Leadership is a decision, a choice.

Safe and Responsible Use of Digital Technologies in Schools

MOE Report

Education is changing. Digital technologies are everywhere and they are impacting what, where, how and why students learn, and who they learn from. Many schools are using digital technologies like the internet, laptops and tablets to quickly, easily and cost- effectively connect students with the huge range of digital services and resources. However, the many benefits of learning with digital technologies are accompanied by some challenges and potential risks for students and schools. These ‘digital challenges’ are real and present a dilemma to schools seeking to use digital technology to enhance student learning.
Digital challenges can be broadly categorised as:

• Cybersafety: Involves conduct or behavioural concerns.
  Examples include cyberbullying, smear campaigns, accessing inappropriate content, creating spoof websites or sexting.
  
• Cybercrime: Involves illegal activity.
  Examples include sexual offending, accessing objectionable content or online
  fraud.
  
• Cybersecurity: Involves unauthorised access or attacks on a computer system.
  Examples include hacking into someone’s social media service account, launching a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack or loading malware onto a laptop.
  In general, preventative approaches that rely on technical or other protections simply do not work. These methods have a role but must be balanced with strategies that promote:
  

• development of skills and knowledge for safe and responsible use of digital technology
  
• opportunities for students to be involved in decisions about the management of digital technology at the school
  
• development of a pro-social culture of digital technology use, and
  
• cooperation of the whole community in preventing and responding to incidents.
  

The ultimate goal is to ensure the online safety of all students. 

Augmented Reality: An Overview and Five Directions for AR in Education

The Article

Keywords: augmented reality, AR, education, virtual reality, mixed reality

With AR tech- nologies becoming more and more integrated into individual’s non-academic lives, through mobile devices and AR real-world markup (AR RWM), making available location-specif- ic data, such as historical information, current social tweets, and real-time hazard data, the idea of ‘learning’ through an AR interface will eventually, and perhaps quickly, become some- thing that is taken completely for granted. 

20 Ways to Ue Augmented Reality

The Article

Second Life:

 Second Life proved an incredibly valuable tool for educators hoping to reach a broad audience — or offering even more ways to learn for their own bands of students.

Augmented Reality Development Lab:
Affiliated with  Google, Microsoft, and Logitech, the Augmented Reality Development Lab run by Digital Tech Frontier seeks to draw up projects that entertain as well as educate. The very core goal of the ARDL  involves creating interactive, three-dimensional objects for studying purposes.

Reliving the Revolution:
Karen Schrier harnessed GPS and Pocket PCs to bring the Battle of Lexington to her students through the Reliving the Revolution game, an AR experiment exploring some of the mysteries still shrouding the event — like who shot first! Players assume different historical roles and walk through everything on a real-life map of the Massachusetts city.

PhysicsPlayground:
One of the many, many engines behind PC games received a second life as an engaging strategy for illustrating the intricate ins and outs of physics, in a project known as PhysicsPlayground. It offers up an immersive, three-dimensional environment for experimenting, offering up a safer, more diverse space to better understand how the universe drives itself.

MITAR Games:
Developed by MIT’s Teacher Education Program and The Education Arcade, MITAR Games blend real-life locations with virtual individuals and scenarios for an educational experience that research proves entirely valid. Environmental Detectives, its first offering, sends users off on a mystery to discover the source of a devastating toxic spill.

New Horizon:
As a smartphone app, it takes advantage of built-in cameras to present animated character conversations when aligned with certain sections of pages.

Occupational Safety Scaffolding:
Professor Ron Dotson’s Construction Safety students receive a thorough education in establishing safe scaffolding space through three-dimensional demonstrations incorporating the real and the digital alike. A simple application of AR, to be certain, but one undoubtedly possessing the potential to save lives and limbs alike.

FETCH! Lunch Rush:
Education-conscious parents who want L’il Muffin and Junior to learn outside the classroom might want to consider downloading PBS Kids’ intriguing iPhone and iPod Touch app. Keep them entertained in the car or on the couch with a fun little game for ages six through eight meant to help them build basic math skills visually.

Field trips:
Augmented reality museums guide students and self-learners of all ages through interactive digital media centered around a specific theme — maybe even challenge them to play games along the way. HistoriQuest, for example, started life as the Civil War Augmented Reality Project and presented a heady blend of mystery gaming and very real stories.

School in the Park Augmented Reality Experience:
Third graders participating in the 12-year-old School in the Park program engage with AR via smartphones as they explore Balboa Park, the San Diego History Center, and the world-class San Diego Zoo. Not only do they receive exposure to numerous educational digital media resources, teachers also train them in creating their very own augmented reality experiences!

QR Code scavenger hunts:
Smartphones equipped with a QR code reader make for optimal tools when sending students on scavenger hunts across the classroom or school. The Daring Librarian, Gwyneth Anne Bronwynn, sends kids on an augmented reality, animated voyage through the library to figure out where to find everything and whom to ask for assistance.

Mentira:
Mentira takes place in Albuquerque and fuses fact and fiction, fantasy characters and real people, for the world’s first AR Spanish language learning game. It intentionally mimics the structure of a historical murder mystery novel and allows for far deeper, more effective engagement with native speakers than many classroom lessons.

Driver’s ed:
Toyota teamed up with Saatchi & Saatchi to deliver the world’s cleanest and safest test-drive via augmented reality. While the method has yet to catch on in the majority of driver’s education classes, it definitely makes for an impressive, effective alternative to keeping and maintaining a fleet of cars.

Geotagging:
Classrooms with smartphone access blend Google Earth and web albums such as Picasa or Instagram for a firsthand experience in geotagging and receiving a visual education about the world around them. More collaborative classrooms — like those hked together with Skype or another VOIP client – could use this as a way to nurture cross-cultural, geopolitical understanding.

Dow Day:
Jim Mathews’ augmented reality documentary and smartphone app brought University of Madison-Wisconsin students, faculty, staff, and visitors to the year 1967. As they traveled campus, participants’ smartphones called up actual footage of Vietnam War protests corresponding with their current locations.

SciMorph:
Using a webcam and printed target, young kids in need of some science (although, really, everyone is in need of some science) interact with the cute critter SciMorph, who teaches them about gravity, sound, and microbial structures. Each lesson involves exploring a specific zone within the game and opens users up to questions, quizzes, and talks.

Imaginary Worlds:
With PSPs in hand, Mansel Primary School students embarked on an artistic voyage, where downloaded images and QR codes merge and provide challenges to draw up personalized environments. The journey also pits them against monsters and requires a final write-up about how the immersive experience left an educational impact.

Sky Map and Star Walk:
Available on Android and iWhatever devices, these deceptively simple applications pack a megaton punch of education via an innovative augmented reality approach. Both involve pointing the gadget to the sky and seeing the names of the currently visible stars, planets, and constellations pop up, along with additional astronomical information.

Handheld Augmented Reality Project:
Harvard, MIT, and University of Wisconsin at Madison teamed up with a grant from the U.S. Department of Education and nurtured science and math skills to junior high kids using GPS navigators and Dell Axims. Moving through the school meant moving through a synched virtual environment, with each area presenting new challenges they must tackle before pressing forward.

Project Glass:
One of the most ambitious augmented reality initiatives comes straight from Google, who believes its Project Glass holds potential far beyond the classroom. Notoriously, it requires a pair of glasses versus the usual smartphones and laptops, and current experiments involve placing users in first-person extreme athletic experiences, snapping photos, and more.

Threshold Concepts Rebecca Tushingham

Threshold Concepts


‘A threshold concept can be considered as akin to a portal, opening up a new and previously inaccessible way of thinking about something. It represents a transformed way of understanding, or interpreting, or viewing something without which the learner cannot progress. As a consequence of comprehending a threshold concept there may thus be a transformed internal view of subject matter, subject landscape, or even world view. This transformation may be sudden or it may be protracted over a considerable period of time, with the transition to understanding proving troublesome. Such a transformed view or landscape may represent how people ‘think’ in a particular discipline, or how they perceive, apprehend, or experience particular phenomena within that discipline (or more generally)’
Meyer and Land, Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge: Linkages to Ways of Thinking and Practising within the Disciplines, 2005

‘Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: implications of course design and evaluation’ provided me with the detail that I need which I have slimmed down into a summary for my own learning and maybe yours:

Jewels in the curriculum

The importance of engagement

Listening for understanding

Reconstitution of self

Tolerating uncertainty

Recursiveness and excursiveness

Unintended consequences of generic ‘good pedagogy’

Good table in article for planning concepts.

Digital Technology

MOE- Digital Technologies. What the Research Tells Us.

Page of useful NZ MOE links etc and summary of ongoing work int he digital technology field.

There is, a growing body of evidence to support the view that digital technologies have the potential to improve student outcomes and to enrich, if not transform, the learning experience of children. This report makes links to research demonstrating the increasing evidence of the positive impact of digital technologies in areas such as motivation, engagement, efficacy, and interaction.
Author: Ministry of Education
Published: July 2012

Research Informed Teaching of Adults

Research Informed Teaching of Adults

This has some really good points in it- especially about the mis-match between a teachers professed philosophy and ideology and their actions in a classroom.

The Collaborative Classroom

What is the Collaborative Classroom?

Characteristics of a Collaborative Classroom

Collaborative classrooms seem to have four general characteristics. The first two capture changing relationships between teachers and students. The third characterizes teachers' new approaches to instruction. The fourth addresses the composition of a collaborative classroom.

1. Shared knowledge among teachers and students

2. Shared authority among teachers and students

3. Teachers as mediators

4. Heterogeneous groupings of students

Challenges and Conflicts

• Classroom Control 
• Preparation Time for Collaborative Learning 
• Individual Differences Among Students 
• Individual Responsibility for Learning 
• Conflict of Values 

Leading in a Complex World Chapter 1

1 LEADING THE POSSIBLE

Leadership by its very definition is about taking people and ideas to new places.

This is the rise of VUCA: volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity.

organizations are also more complex because there is much more information available and things are much more interconnected.

What we don’t notice is that because we are using the past as a kind of measure of what’s likely, we have sharply constrained the set of possibilities when we made our decisions.

Complexity is about getting our heads around what is possible (because anything could happen) rather than what is probably going to happen (which is determined from what has happened before).

this task of leading in times as complex and volatile as today is a bigger stretch for us humans than anything else we’ve ever had to do.

there is a way to grow more able to handle the complexity in the world around us: three habits of mind that stretch your thinking capacity and help you grow more “complexity of mind.

These habits of mind are deceptively simple: • Asking different questions • Taking multiple perspectives • Seeing systems

the thing leaders do is answer: they craft a vision, get others to follow them, make decisions purportedly at the drop of a hat.

Stereotypical leaders have vision, charisma, and brilliant minds. They also tend to be male and, oddly, tall.

One leadership skill that you might not even see as a leadership skill at all is the power of asking different questions, which pulls against the stereotype of leaders having all the answers.

most of us ask questions to confirm our hypotheses, not out of any deep curiosity or doubt.

In a time of complexity and uncertainty, though, this pattern is unhelpful. You don’t know which data might be more important or where the novel solution to an emerging issue might be hiding. Your old patterns constrain you, and your old questions keep you in familiar territory. It is new and different questions that open up

new and different possibilities.

figure out what you really don’t know and to ask those questions.

Trying to figure out what questions you’re asking and making an intentional shift to different questions opens up new avenues for exploration in an uncertain and volatile world.

Your mindset determines your behavior, determines what is or is not possible in a given situation, including what questions you think to ask.

Narrowing to decide is key for someone who needs to take action quickly.

It’s not very good for coming up with innovative solutions to complex problems.

Although, as leaders, we often use threats and stresses as powerful prompts to action, there is a cost in this: it is much harder to learn when you’re faced with threat.

FIGURE 1.1

shift your mindset and your mindset can shift your questions.

Leadership is about gathering people together—even people with quite different goals and understandings—and helping them build bridges that take everyone to a new place.

Understanding other people’s perspectives is a central tool in bridge building, because until you know how others see the world, you’ll have little opportunity to influence or learn from their perspective.

If you think about an issue with which you’re struggling, you can imagine for a minute the variety of people and perspectives involved.

You could probably map them together, watching for the ways the players intersect with one another, the way they hold or give away power or information, the way they seem to cluster around a variety of different primary interests.

Taking into account multiple perspectives simply involves remembering that whatever other people do, they tend to do it because they think it’s the right thing.

taking multiple perspectives also helps widen your scope to improve your problem solving.

When the way is not simple and predictable, one of the core requirements of those in power is likely to be to cede some of the control to others and let the system itself begin to come into a new pattern, guided but not controlled by those in power.

In a complex world, as we’ll explore together, it takes a collective sharing of power, creativity, and perspectives to become agile and nuanced enough to lead into the uncertain future.

As you try to ask different questions to grow your curiosity, take multiple perspectives without losing your own, and influence the system even though you’ll never be able to see the whole thing, you are always trying to keep your head above the paradoxical waters of leadership.

The main gist is that we are thinking for a new and complex time with old habits- especially leading with tendency to quick assessments and making multiple decisions. Take time to ask different kinds of questions and consider things from multiple perspectives to come up with truly innovative solutions to complex problems.

Definitely going to try to ask some different questions- especially when you get into time pressured situation you just tend to make decisions based on your experience and  this must be hampering innovative thinking at times.

21st Century Learning Design Rubrics

Microsoft Education Partners Report

Towards Reconceptualising Leadership: The Implications of the NZ Curriculum

TLRI Report

Wayne Freeth University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand with Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti University of Oulu, Finland

This case study explores the challenges for school leadership posed by the New Zealand Curriculum (NZC) (2007), and investigates some implications for practice. The study is situated within the wider Teaching and Learning Research Initiative (TLRI) project, ‘Shifting the Conceptualisation of Knowledge and Learning in the Integration of the New New Zealand Curriculum in Initial and Continuing Teacher Education’ (Andreotti, Quinlivan, & Abbiss, forthcoming) which examines shifts in educators’ understandings of knowledge and learning in the implementation of the NZC in nine settings within initial and in-service teacher education.

The theoretical framework of this project draws on the work of Gilbert (2005) with reference to the ‘knowledge society’. Gilbert challenges long-held views about education and knowledge, making a distinction between knowledge conceptualised as a noun and a verb. In her outline of the differences, knowledge conceptualised as a verb is something we do something with, rather than something we have; it is linked with performativity rather than truth, and it is more like an ‘energy’ than building blocks that can be accumulated. This has several implications for the area of leadership. Knowledge conceptualised as a noun tends to enable autocratic and bureaucratic styles of leadership, while knowledge conceptualised as a verb may enable democratic, distributed and transformational styles of leadership, which are necessary for the effective implementation of the NZC, particularly in terms of the principles of inclusion and community participation in the co-construction and the co-ownership of the curriculum. Another important aspect of the NZC that is emphasised by the conceptualisation of knowledge as a verb is the role of teachers as leaders in the construction of the curriculum and in responding to the needs of diverse students.

Future Focused Learning

Future Focused Learning in Connected Communities Report

Media Reports

Time to Change the Way we Judge Schools   John Langley  February 2008

Schools get most of their money from two broad grants. The first is a base grant that supposedly covers the delivery of the curriculum, resources, professional development and school administration.
The second is a decile grant based on the socioeconomic status of the students in the school. The lower the socioeconomic status of a school the more money it gets.

There is simply no alignment between funding as an incentive and the performance of the school.

So, what do we know already? What does current research tell us? We know that what makes the difference in terms of an effective education for our children are the quality of our teachers and the environment in which they work.

let us have a sensible discussion about what any "base" grant should be in relation to what is expected to be delivered.

scrap the decile fund. Replace it with a funding system based on three criteria - maintenance, improvement and innovation.

let's pay teachers more. It might be useful to increase the salary package of teachers by 15 to 20 per cent and make the last 10 per cent of that based on the achievement of those they teach.

Those who have always succeeded continue to do so and those who are disadvantaged continue to be. It is time to stop bickering about the small ones. Our teachers and learners demand - and deserve - nothing less.


Scathing Report for Decile 10 School    March 2012

Chelsea Primary School

Decile Calculations

Education Counts

Census information is used to calculate the decile. A school provides its student addresses and these are used to determine which areas its students come from. It is not the general area around the school that is used to calculate the decile, but the specific meshblocks where students live.

The student addresses are assigned to the smallest Census areas, called meshblocks. A meshblock contains around 50 households.

The number and percentage of students from each meshblock is determined and the meshblock is examined against five socio-economic factors.

Household income - the percentage of households with equivalent income (ie adjusted for the number of adults and children in the household and the age of the children) in the lowest 20 percent nationally. Households with a member who is unemployed are usually not included in this group nor are all households supported by a benefit (since more than 20 percent of families are dependent on a benefit).

Occupation - the percentage of employed parents in occupations that are at skill levels 4 or 5 (of the 1 to 5 levels of the Australia and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations ANZSCO). These include all labourers, all machine operators and assemblers, and others who work in occupations at these lower skill levels irrespective of the sector/ type/ profession involved.

Household crowding – the percentage of households with an equivalised crowding index greater than one. This index is the proportion of household members per bedroom adjusted for the presence of children under 10 years of age, every two of whom are assigned to share a bedroom; couples, and others are each assigned their own bedroom.

Educational qualifications - the percentage of parents with no tertiary or school qualifications.

Income support - the percentage of parents who directly (ie not as a partner) received a Domestic Purposes Benefit, Unemployment Benefit or Sickness and Invalid's Benefit in the previous year. 

Social Class and Educational Achievement

Social Class and Educational Achievement: Beyond Ideology

Education's Inconvenient Truth Part 2

Educations Inconvenient Truth Part 2

My take on this article:
Schools de-emphasise the advantages of middle class zones and schools and could do a lot to help critical debate and remediation if this issue.

Teachers and principals can advantage the middle class in lots of ways in the day to day life of schools: in their use of language, in what they choose to teach about and assess, in their support for segregated and stratified school programmes, in their assumptions about student behaviours and world views, the so-called ‘hidden curriculum’ and so on.

A key issue is simply where teachers and principals choose to work and hence take their own human resources.

Teachers tend to move to higher socio-economic schools in the first few years of their teaching lives and except when they are getting close to retirement, their subsequent moves are also more likely to be to higher than lower socio-economic schools.

principals get paid more by size of school and the large schools tend to be high decile schools.

by failing to raise middle class advantage in education as an issue, politicians and policymakers help it to be hegemonic, that is to appear natural and how the world should be. 

one key strategy for school improvement and leadership is to develop contextualised frameworks that highlight the differences and inequalities between schools rather than downplay them

the government could carefully open up public debate about the social costs of such a segregated education system and also be more honest with teachers and the public about the limits of school- based interventions.

However tight funding is getting across the schools sector as a whole, it is disturbing to see principals of high decile schools complaining in the media about the unfairness of extra funding going to low socio-economic schools. This shows a complete disregard for the myriad of ways their own schools gain advantage from the nature of their intakes, 

Educations Inconvenient Truth Part 1 The Middle Class Advantage

Education's Inconvenient Truth Part 1

My take on this article:

The middle class advantage, accentuated by zoning.

The moral responsibility of us all not to disadvantage other children by advantaging our own.

..... there is at various points public, practitioner and policy denial of the problem. 

This is partly because a lot of policy which advantages the educational prospects of the middle class occurs outside education, for instance in housing, and so people in the education sector tend not to look at it. Meanwhile, within education, concern about growing class inequalities comes up against competing and rather more celebratory discourses such as school improvement, educational leadership and teacher quality which also distract from the problem. 

It is much easier to talk in a disconnected way about an underclass, than to see ourselves creating the educational problems of the poor.


There are things which can be done if we can summon up the political will to do them. 

Also of interest is how the middle class ‘fails to register the social implications of its routine actions’ (Savage, 2000: 159).

In relation to Decile 8,9, 10 schools:
In part the preference for those sorts of schools reflect the ideological assumption of a relationship between high social status and quality but it also results from the importance of predominantly middle class schooling as a means of social reproduction or mobility.  

The fact that predominantly middle class schools are seen to offer positional advantage helps to explain why such schools are nearly always more popular than low socio- economic schools which have little positional value almost irrespective of what they do.


The key point to grasp is that these advantages of middle class schools are probably school-based but not school-caused, they needn’t reflect better teaching and management per se but probably stem directly from the other students in the school through peer group processes or stem from the way school policies and practices of many kinds are supported by high levels of student compliance, motivation and ‘ability’ which are in turn class-related.

Yet school zones are not what they used to be. They are now effectively drawn up by schools rather than Government and the Ministry of Education has only limited control over them. The working definition used is simply that a school has to be ‘reasonably convenient’ for its students; that is, a school that, taking into account a range of factors, a reasonable person would judge to be reasonably convenient.

it is not uncommon for being in the zone of a popular high socio-economic school to make a difference to asking price and to feature in advertising. 

while the government does provide equity funding of around $250m spread over 15 programmes and low decile schools get more of this funding than high decile schools, it is not clear that the former get nearly enough to compensate for the

poverty-related issues they face compared to the advantages brought by the student intake in high decile schools, nor their inability to raise local money 

At a personal level such middle class advantage raises an ethical challenge for all of us who are middle class parents: to recognise the line to be drawn between advantaging our own children and doing this at the expense of other people’s children (Kohn, 1998).

The Rhetoric and the Reality

NZ Schools and schooling in the 21st century

P3
"... schools must become learner centred, not timetable or teacher or class centred, but centred on each individual's learning needs, talents and aspirations for th future....shifting traditional concepts of ownership and dependency away form the system, the school and teachers to the learner."  "Our Secondary Schools Don't work anymore.

p9
The problem is that our education system was not designed for learning, nor was it designed for inclusiveness or "universal participation." It was designed for the industrial economy, the industrial age, not the information or knowledge economy. It was designed with upraises in mind that can no longer be justified.

P13
As adults we know that children in their formative years ar spontaneous learners, intensely curious abut their world and creative i they play. Such positive traits were not encouraged i the schooling system. Nor was the a place for children who mastered material at different rates or who might learn martial mor easily if it were presented i a non-linear fashion.

The 7 Most Powerful Ideas Shifts in Learning Today

http://www.teachthought.com/trends/shift-learning-the-7-most-powerful-ideas-shifts-in-learning-today/?utm_content=buffer595e7&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Democratic Education

http://www.edgazette.govt.nz/Articles/Article.aspx?ArticleId=9102&Title=Modern%20learning%20environments%20allow%20pedagogical%20shifts

Seven Habits of highly effective digital strategies

Interface Term 1 April 2015 Carolyn Stuart.

• Planning
• Implementation
• Change
• Resources
• Innovation
• Support

"The tool extends the mind- the mind extends the tool." Ken Robinson

Technology can drive change- you actually need to use a tool in order to generate new ideas about how to use it.

Vision, values and future focused expectations- the place to start.

How do we want the future state of education to look in our school? What attracts and competencies do we want to equip our students with, so they will experience future success?

Once this is identified then what principles do we have that reuse to drive investment and uptake of technology?

Seven ways to set your strategic path:
School charters- ensure broad goals align to principles underpinning digital strategy 
Annual charter- digital technology should relate to learning targets, incorporate digital technology into every target
School visit- focus on school vision and values, ask questions about principles that underpin decision making
Adults first-reply new technology to adults first
Scaffold innovation and creativity-  build a process to make it easy for teachers to innovate
Funding- only buy technology you know, and that meets your principles
Infrastructure- make sure its robust enough for your journey

Begin with the end in mind.

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