Leading to Learn

Nathan Mikaere-Wallis - Notes from workshop http://www.raisingchildren.org.nz/2012/06/nathan-mikaere-wallis/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CB-A4awkRU Social interacting - brain most active, more connections to help learning Sitting & being quiet - least active, fewer connections being activated in brain, less learning Perry's Neurosequential Model (Perry, 2002): 1. Brainstem - for survival (Heart rate - fight, flight, freeze) - this area of the brain needs to be less active before the Cortex can be engaged - learning can only happen in a calm state. High brainstem activity = low cortex activity. 2. Midbrain - Coordination, movement 3. Limbic - Emotional Response 4. Cortical - activity in the cortex (Empathy, Controlling yourself, Literacy, etc) - most of the school curriculum relies on engaging this part of the brain Relationships are key to accessing the frontal cortex for learning... safe, interactive, emotional needs met = able to learn. Unsure, in fea...

Notes on professional reading According to Ford, Ford and  Randalluch (2001), much of what people know about their world comes from conversations with others, rather than from direct experience.. Three generic types of socially constructed background conversations that engender distinct types of resistant to change. The complacent background  - "We will succeed in the future, the way we have in the past". "Just leave things as they are." People continue to practice once-successful strategies. The resigned background - "This probably won't work either", "I can't make any difference". Constructed from historical failure. Normally failure is blamed on someone else. The cynical background - "Who are they kidding? There is no way this will work". "I don't know why they bother". Likely to include references to being let down by more powerful others. Important to bring these conversations into the open, rath...

Notes taken at First Time Principal's Residential, Auckland "Stop going through the process for the sake of it, and focus on the learning". - Hon. Hekia Parata "Learn stuff AND make some changes" - Dr Brian Annan - Auckland University "How are we engaging these students in the learning process?" - Karen Mose - Southern Cross Campus, Auckland "How do we do it our way?" - Dr Brian Annan - Auckland University Importance of giving exemplars of high achievement in Māori to our students, as with the role models from Te Aute College in the 1800s - rather than a deficit model. "What messages are we giving our students?" - Hana O'Regan, ChCh Polytechnic Institute of Technology

"Learn the difference between what you think you need to do and what you need to do ... and focus your energies on the later."

Leadership is like a shingle path over Aoraki Mt Cook - providing many short term struggles but AWESOME views of long term achievement.

School Marketing Mary-Angela Tombs School-wide performance is key to educational marketing. However the reputation of a school is also reliant on the conversations that take place at the local supermarket and in the school carpark. Such conversations have a huge impact on the community perception of a school and, in turn, the number of parents who choose to send their children to the school. It is up to each school to monitor the feeling within the school community, as well as the wider community that the school serves. In this way, schools can target their learning programmes to meet the needs of their community. They can also identify what makes their school unique and market the school to attract potential enrolments, based on this identification.   A smaller number of students in a school can be easier to manage and more personal than a larger number, however there are many negative impacts of roll drop such as the need for the funding that accompanies each enrolled stu...

  Building Culturally Responsive Practice In a 21 st Century School Mary-Angela Tombs Introduction A new school year is about to begin and a teacher of year three and four students at one school prepares to face her new class of students. As with previous years, the teacher notes the increasing cultural diversity of the students on her class list. In New Zealand, teachers are required to develop teaching and learning programmes that allow every child to achieve success in relation to The New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education (MOE), 2007) The challenge is: How does this twenty-first century teacher develop successful teaching and learning programmes that are culturally responsive when she operates within a Eurocentric hegemony? The challenge faced by this teacher is not dissimilar to that encountered by many primary school teachers in New Zealand.   This essay investigates how current knowledge related to cultural responsiveness can inform and im...