I am a teacher living in Bendigo, Australia.
I am passionate about sport, and love to do something energetic every day. Music is another passion, as I always have some playing no matter what I am doing.
My interests in teaching include technology, numeracy, phys ed and exploring ways of learning.
I approach everything in a positive manner and get frustrated with pessimists!
I love writing and reflecting back on the things that happen to me.
I was working in for a Gr 3 class earlier this year and part of the day required a maths lesson, which was fine by me as I just love teaching maths!
One boy in particular seemed to be having a very hard time trying to do his work and was very frustrated and starting to get angry.
The lesson was on subtraction, where renaming and trading was required.
As I sat with this boy and tried to see where his frustration was coming from, I asked him to show me what he had to do and to explain it as he went.
This immediately pinpointed his problem, as he said "We have to do it this way, but I just can't ever understand how to do it"
When asked if they were shown other ways, or encouraged to explore other ways, I got a very firm "NO"!
I could see that the language he was being told to use and the format was rather clunky and confusing, not just to him, but also to me, so I said "Let's try it another way".
The eyes bulged back at me, so I reassured him it would be okay.
With just a slight tweak in the language being used, and drawing a simple arrow to show what he had to do next, we did a few examples together, then I left him to try a few on his own.
After about 3 minutes I suddenly heard this excited squeal from across the room..."I get it now!!!!"
That just made my day, and reinforced a number of things.
* There is more than one way to complete maths problems
* We need to encourage children to explore multiple ways of completing tasks.
* If children are told to keep doing something in a manner that they do not understand, they
will not understand it at all.
* If children are showing that they are having difficulty, talking with them gives them the
opportunity to explain their thinking, rather than us looking only at the final product.
It was great to see the transformation with this boy during this lesson, and hopefully he will have approached the next lesson, and maths in general with a much more positive mindset.
Once again, I have neglected this Blog, BUT... there is a reason!
I have started a second blog as part of my own business that I am trying to build.
You can see it at www.maths connection.com.au
So, from now on, I'll try to put the same posts on each blog, but keep in mind that they will probably have a bit of a maths flavour to them.
So, here goes!
I have just completed a stint working in a Gr 6 class where I was taking a number of maths lessons ( as if I need encouragement to do this!!)
The lessons to me didn't seem to be all that spectacular, but I must admit I did put in a lot of preparation for them, as I do with all my lessons.
The focus was on number patterns, which I introduced by getting the children to explore and create patterns with shapes and colours first. We eventually got up to creating and solving patterns with numbers, with increasing complexity, imagination and creativity.
It was highly interactive, with lots of movement, noise, mess and collaboration.
Fast forward a few days and I was approached by a parent at a sports day that these children were participating in. This father introduced himself and said that his son was in the class I had been teaching. He said that his son was never a high achiever in maths, and tended to struggle at times, but always had a go.
His son came home from school last week to say to his parents "I just love maths now", and when quizzed, he said it was due to the lessons we had been doing.
His dad asked him what exactly I was doing that changed him so much, and his reply was "It's just the way he does it".
What that was to his son is still a bit unclear to me, but obviously, something in my approach resonated with his son.
A few days later, his mum appeared in the classroom after school to see me ("Oh my goodness, What have I done now?" I was thinking)
To my relief, she was saying the same things as her husband, and wanted to know what I was doing to change their son's perception of maths and himself as a learner in such a short time?
I couldn't say much other than explain my approach to teaching and that I always believe in the capacity of everyone to learn, and in creating hooks for learning to engage the children as much as possible.
But, above everything else, my attitude and approach comes from a great few lines from a brilliant book by Dave Burgess,
Burgess, D. (2012). Teach Like a Pirate. San Diego, CA: Dave Burgess Consulting
"Today I am thoroughly convinced that any teacher who is willing to put in the time, care and effort can transform their classroom and their life as an educator. Much of your success as an educator has to do with your attitude towards teaching and kids. The rest of your success is based on your willingness to relentlessly search for what engages students in the classroom and then having the guts to do it" (p.84)
Once again I am apologising for promising a lot and then delivering so little!!
For someone who had ten weeks off work, then produces only one post...well, you could accuse me of being VERY SLACK!!!
I honestly thought that I'd have so much time on my hands at the start of the year, but time literally flew through my hands.
As my wife was still working full time, I made sure I put a nice dinner on the table each night. It meant I didn't have to rush it at the end of the day, and I took time during the day to prepare it.
I also had the time, and made the most of the opportunity for quality exercise during the day rather than rushing it at the end of the day as I usually did. This meant good walks, gym work, runs and cycling. I just loved it!!
Unfortunately, an old school friend took his life in February, and at his service I caught up with a number of other school mates who I hardly see. We all live across the state, so organising catch ups is often difficult. However, today we committed to making better efforts at seeing each other, and now that I was in a position to do this I made sure I'd make the most of the opportunity.
BANG!!!
My first visit a few weeks later was down to Mornington to visit my great mate Andrew Tunks.
All was going well until I was about 40 minutes from his house on the notorious Monash Freeway in Melbourne.
It was peak hour and I was stopped in traffic in one of the middle lanes of the 4 lane freeway, when all of a sudden there was an almighty BANG and massive shunt from behind.
At first I had no idea what had happened, but then I realised someone had crashed into me.
It turns out that a truck ran into the back of a car, then shunted the car into the back of me.
Most importantly, no-one got hurt, but the car that hit me was written off. I sustained some damage that was eventually fixed, but it took the towies two hours to pull the damaged car off the back of mine.
And throughout this I had my mate ringing me wondering where the hell I was!!
The car that was pushed into me.
Two hours of pushing and pulling was needed to get this car unhooked from the back of mine.
At least I could still drive mine afterwards.
And it was all worth it in order to see my great friend, Andrew Tunks again.
A few weeks later I was off to Moama to catch up with another good friend, Dan Powell.
I'd only seen Dan once in the nearly 40 years since we were at school together, so it was just great to see him and go over old stories about our boarding school days.
There was one story he told me about when he decided to use the private showers of the Brothers who ran the school one night rather than clump through the cold to the shower block that we all used. How he didn't get caught (although he came within a whisker) still baffles me, and hearing him tell this story had me in fits of laughter!!
How good was it to see Dan Powell again, and hear one of the funniest stories I've heard about our boarding school days!!
Then a few weeks later I got up one morning, wondered what to do, so took off on my motorbike to visit another mate, Doc Wellwood, who runs a pub up in the Victorian highlands at Tolmie.
Once again, a great few hours with a longtime friend spent recalling all of the stupid, funny and dangerous things we got up to at boarding school.
We sure look different to how we looked back in 1981!!
A stop at the Rushworth Pub, where our family lived in the 70's.
The iconic Tolmie Tavern, get there if you can!!
A stop at Bonnie Doon, a very famous Australian town!
A stop at the Colbinabbin Hotel, another pub my family owned.
The amazing host at the Tolmie Tavern, Doc Wellwood!!
More Job Changes...
Well Readers, after a few weeks on leave I must have started to wonder what else I'd do this year.
Lo and behold, a maths position was advertised with the State Education Department, teaching maths to Year 10 students who were way below the national minimum standards.
I managed to get appointed to this role which I was excited about as it promised so much, and was exactly what I do best.
Unfortunately, it didn't really work out as I had to travel between three schools, sometimes all 3 in the same day to get to see my students. Due to conflicting timetables, it also meant that I was only seeing students 1-2 times a fortnight, 4 times at the most. This is clearly not enough contact time to achieve much with these students, so I regretfully resigned a few weeks ago and finished up last Friday.
But all is not bad, as I have already been appointed to teach a STEM program a few days a week at two schools that I have previously worked at, something which I am very excited about.
I'm also trying to develop my own Maths Consultancy business, which is rather challenging as it is such a competitive market with so many quality educators out there. I just need to get my name out there and hope for the best.
A clip promoting my website and business.
And another showing some work being done with teachers at a conference.
So Readers,
If you do watch the clips, you might want to have a look at my website.
You'll see that there is a Blog on the website also.
Yes, I can hear you already..."You can hardly keep this one going, so how will you manage a second blog?"
Trust me, I'll keep that one going as it might need to feed me!! It is also a more 'serious' one, and there's no way the type of content I put in this blog would be acceptable for my work blog.
Go to mathsconnection.com.au
Once again, I'll try to be more consistent with this blog, but I've said that many times before. Time will tell!!
If anyone does have a look at the other site, please feel free to give me some feedback.
Well this post has been made more recently after my last post than later, that's a big change!!
I'm now into my 4th week of long service leave, and it's still not eventuating how I expected, but I'm not complaining at all.
My days are still busy and I'm always finding something to do. The best thing is that I'm really having quality exercise time, and not rushing it, and I'm getting into it each day.
If anything, I am now relaxed, which is what I definitely needed after last year. I dropped my wife off to her school this morning (Sunday!!) as she, her two Principals and two other staff are using their day off to clean the place up and sort files.
Who says teachers have it easy??
I mentioned to them that the thing I've really noticed lately is just how much time I'd spend at school after hours or on weekends, and doing work at night.
I really feel like I'm doing nothing at times as I'm not replying to the hundreds of emails a week, phone calls and teachers ringing in sick.
Don't miss it one bit!!!
But this could soon change, as I was recently interviewed for a teaching role at a number of Secondary schools here in Bendigo, catering for children in years 8-10 who are really struggling in maths.
A day later I got the call to say I had been successful, now I'm just going through the 14 day waiting period where other candidates can challenge the selection. It's a system in place with our Govt schools, something new to me but that's just the way it goes.
I'm excited about the position, as it starts just after my LSL finishes, and is something that I'm quite passionate about.
Stay tuned!!
So what else is going on?
Well, last week I got back into a hobby of mine...
Home brewing is something I've been doing for about 25 years, so this is the first batch I've made since we moved into the new house. I managed to get some barrels done while I was cooking tea, not sure if my wife was convinced that my main focus was on her dinner!!
And here they are happily bubbling away in the laundry!
And this is how I relax with a cold one after an energetic day!!
Recently a friend challenged me to tell something about my life through 7 black and white photos.
No names, no words, no people, no explanations.
So, rather than try and explain each photo, have a look yourself, and if you are a regular reader, or know me well, they'll need no explanation.
If you are new to my blog, then perhaps you might like to try and work out what makes me tick!
Well Readers,
The next few weeks will be busy as we hopefully have renovations starting on our house (just found out it needs re-stumping first...Ouch $$!!) and I'm also planning some trips to visit some friends I haven't seen in a long while.
Well I confess to being the slackest Blogger of all time!
Here I am taking a year off and thinking I'd have all this time to write, and I'm probably worse than ever at getting posts done!!
My plan was to add something every day, but that was wishful thinking for sure!!
I just can't believe how quickly my days fill up with various tasks, but it's all worth it.
So, back to what this post is meant to be about!
On our recent overseas trip we started out on the ship from Barcelona and headed to Casablanca for a day, just amazing.
The next few days were spent visiting the islands of Gran Canaria, Tenerife and Funchal off the coast of West Africa. A few days at sea here and there which was fine, as we always found something to do on board.
One of my daily rituals was to hit the gym, because the danger on board a cruise ship is that it can be seen as a floating feedlot!!! Food and drink is on tap 24/7, and believe me, people do make the most of it!!
On our first day we didn't really know what to expect, but we quickly realised that we wouldn't fit into our clothes, or the plane home if we ate like many of the other passengers.
The buffet had fantastic food, and there was never a shortage, so why on earth do people need to load up two plates to overflowing? Some of the guests were rather large, and this way of eating wasn't really going to help them much at all.
And around the pool! Even though it was sunny, and around 12-18 degrees most days, people would be putting their gear on deckchairs around the pool first thing in the morning, thus 'shotgunning' them for the entire day. And even if it was cool (which it often was) that didn't matter. Off come the shirts and on go the pencil thin bathers, and it's a day laying on the deck chairs gorging on food and drink which was usually within a few metres reach.
I'm not being critical of them, they are entitled to spend their time any way they like, just as we did. It was more the way many of them acted towards others, particularly the ship crew who suffered the rudeness of many of these passengers constantly.
But all was not bad, as we made friends with a number of couples from various parts of the world, and it was always nice to sit with them at shows, run into them on shore or just at bars on board.
Our biggest thrill was in making connections with a number of the ship's crew who not only provided excellent service, were just beautiful people to start with. We learnt so much about their own lives and stories, and it was rather sad saying goodbye to them as we had discovered so much about them as people, and not as staff.
Now for the Islands...
The photos and videos will say more than my words, but in a nutshell...
Travelling into the mountains on a bus. the road was cut into a mountain, and I could touch it out my window. When we looked out the other side we could barely see any of the road, as the bus was often travelling on the edge of a steep drop to the valley below.
Going up another mountain by gondola, and the American bloke we were sharing it with wouldn't sit still, and kept moving around and making it wobble. I'm not the best with heights, but I was ready to throw him out!!
We also took a wicker basket toboggan ride in Funchal. This was on a street in the city, and basically it was a large washing basket on skids that two men pushed down the street, drifting from side to side in order to maintain a safe speed. There were other people stationed at intersections to warn us about traffic, and at one stage a truck was right behind us and overtook us. It was fantastic!!
There were two people on board the ship who wore the most outlandish clothes and bling, and their hair was something to behold. Definite head turners. Think of the movie "Coming to America" and the daughter's boyfriend who sold the hair treatment, 'Soul Glo'. We nicknamed these two 'Soul Glo' and just laughed every time we saw them.
BINGO- I've never played it before, but had a few wins, collecting more than $200 US which was then put straight off our account. Winner Winner!
Hypnosis. Yep, I did it. The hypnotist said he needed 20 people, and at the show he was struggling to get even 10 volunteers, so up I went. I am still a skeptic, because I was totally alert throughout and was just doing what he said to do. At some stages I couldn't understand his thick accent, so did nothing and sat there with my eyes shut. Occasionally I'd peek open and see what the others were doing and join in, but I could have easily just did nothing. At the end I was told that I had to scream out "I believe in fairies" when I heard a certain announcement. When the time came I was expecting the announcement, and was wondering whether I should do it or not. Another bloke had the same instruction, so when I heard him start off I just joined in and did it too. I told Jen it was all rubbish ( or words to that effect) and she was just laughing too hard to believe me!! As I said, I'm still a skeptic, maybe I wasn't totally 'under'?
Now let the pictures tell the stories...
After a hair raising bus ride up the mountain, we were treated to these amazing views.
Putting our life into the hands of the toboggan drivers in Funchal.
One member of 'Soul Glo' leaving the ship. Check out the look on the face of the American guy we met earlier on the trip!!
"Soul Glo" leaving the theatre. Can I mention how hard it was to get a subtle photo of them!!!
Cashing in at the Bingo!!
Overcoming my fear of heights at Alicante Fort.
And below are some shots from my time on stage under 'hypnosis'!!
You be the judge!!
Well Readers,
I will try to be a bit more regular ( yeah, I know, I've said that before!!).
I'm on long service leave at the moment and I thought I'd have all this time up my sleeve, but my days are just racing away, there is always something that needs to be done.
The start of this week is really busy as I have a a big job to get done early in the week that has taken quite a bit of preparation.
I'm also looking at trying to get some miles on the motorbike and catch up with some friends who I've been meaning to visit.
And just so I know they work, here's one from last year.
We had a storm at our previous home, and the drains couldn't cope with the amount of water. The overflow was spewing out through a pipe in our yard.
Something different today. I did mean to add to the blog more regularly while we were overseas, but time just got away from us each day!
Rest assured, I'll add some detail over the next few days. (I know I keep saying that, I'd better commit to it now!!)
Just for something totally different (and I've discovered how to get my videos inserted into my posts now!) I though I'd add a memento of our Movember effort last year.
For those who don't know, Movember is a fundraising initiative to promote Men's Health, as men are notorious for not looking after themselves, physically as well as mentally.
The 7 men at my school decided to do it again last November, and for that month the rule is not to shave off the moustache, and be sponsored for growing it.
We had great support and managed to raise just over $3 000.00 , a result that far exceeded our expectations.
We are all moustache novices, and all looked rather shabby towards the end of November, but we held fast and completed it.
Last year I decided to document my progress daily, and the video speaks for itself!!!
Well I thought I’d have plenty of time to add to the blog, but time has just slipped away at a fast pace for sure!
My last post had us in Bern, Switzerland. This city left a lasting impression on us, it was just beautiful and we’d love to go there again.
We took a train to Zurich, and once again we are blown away by the efficiency of the European train systems.
Zurich was cold, but still really nice. Once again we have just loved wandering the streets and finding things for ourselves.
We were here for New Year’s Eve, and booked a dinner at the digs we were staying at. We have been caught out in the past in Europe on New Year’s Eve, when everything was shut and we ended up having tinned fish on crackers for tea,
This dinner was way too expensive, but we bit the bullet anyway and went for it.
Imagine our surprise when the head waiter met us at the door and proceeded to take us through a tour of all the food that was on offer. It was a seafood theme, which we were excited about, ut everything he showed us was raw! Prawns, different types of fish, even all the meats. I was gagging internally,
thinking that I’d be eating raw prawns and raw fish, goodness knows what my wife was thinking.
Eventually when we sat down we got the picture. A small fondue was placed on our table for us to
cook our fish and meat, thank goodness! It turned out to be a great dinner after all...but still way too expensive!!
From Zurich we then took a flight to Barcelona. We have been here before, but we have a
Ways wanted to have a really good look at LaGrada Familia, the massive basilica that dominates the Barcelona skyline.
We booked tickets a long time ago, which was just as well because people were rocking up on the day only to be told that it was booked out two days in advance.
We got in and had a ticket to go up one of the tall spires which didn’t disappoint.
The pictures speak for themselves!!
We were quite sad to leave Barcelona as it is such a lovely place, but exciting things awaited us!!
We next headed to the port to board a ship, and for the past two days we have been travelling down the coast of Spain.
We had an overnight departure from Barcelona, and yesterday was spent at sea until we docked early this morning in...
Casablanca in Morocco!
Rest assured, neither of us has been here before, so it was pretty exciting for us. Nerve wracking too as we have been hearing that it can be unsafe here also.
We took a tour into the city with a big group and it was just fantastic. There were continual contrasts between the wealth and the poorer aspects of the city. How on earth more people don’t get killed crossing the road is a miracle!
Pedestrian crossings just mean lines on the road for traffic to ignore. People just cross the road wherever they want, even just walking through roundabouts with the traffic!
We saw some of the backstreet markets where every sort of olive can be purchased, as can every bit of fish and meat at the markets.
After seeing a butcher at work cutting up a side of beef on a crappy old table, we weren’t too sure about the health standards and practices in place!
Well Readers, I’m having trouble uploading the Casablanca photos with this device, so I’m going to exit and try another way. It just seems that adding to my blog via an iPad is a bit clunkier than doing it on a laptop, so please bear with me and the wayward presentation while I’m travelling overseas.
We have a night sailing ahead of us, and then a day at sea tomorrow which is fine. There is more food and alcohol available here than anywhere on earth I’m sure, so I’m conscious of hitting the gym and running track morning and afternoon before I potentially explode!!
So Readers, we are heading towards the Canary Islands which should be great. As I’m writing this I’m beginning to hear a bit of wind outside and the boat is beginning to sway a bit. Could be a little rough perhaps!
