"We need to teach using the tools our students use"
Archive for June, 2010
Thought for the day
Jun 20th
Technology won’t replace teachers, but teachers who use technology in the classroom will replace those who don’t” – Higham (2007)
PT English job going at Lossiemouth High…
Jun 18th
Closing Date 29 June.
Issue 297 on teaching vacancies page here
Health and Wellbeing Experiences and Outcomes
Jun 18th
Third Level (S1-S3 ish) Shrunk from 23 pages to 4. Laminate back to back A3 copy and voila! Much more manageable, especially for Learning Support and teachers who are not health experts or fit folk from PE dept… 
Any English teachers want to come to Moray?
Jun 10th
English Teacher full time job http://bit.ly/Q8R9W Issue 296. Closing 22 June. They hope to interview before end of term and appoint then. New school being built to open Dec 11 (at the moment…). Great ethos, well behaved kids (only a few naughty step sitters). Lovely area, great scenery, DOLPHINS! Markies and Starbucks. Good shopping, good links to air, rail and sea. DOLPHINS! KFC arrives in October! Burger King and McDonalds already here…
Disadvantage = you’d have to put up with me…! But not the..DOLPHINS!
CfE – Experiences and Outcomes on a page
Jun 9th
We get overwhelmed by the ridiculously small font and size of the E&O posters that came with ‘zer shiny green folders’. Since we’re only dealing with S1-3 (Third Level) in CfE from August I edited the Literacy E&O so they appear on one page for each area. Writing, reading and Talk/Listening. I then put Writing/Reading back to back and laminate then add a chart with the new levels to the back of the Talk/Listen one, laminate and bingo. Copies given to department and Learning Support who like them as they also make the E and Os seem more manageable.
Listening and talking E and O 3level only
Reading writing EandO 3 level only
Adapt as you wish. Prints onto A4 – colour is best
Interesting thought for a discussion
Jun 6th
Good critical thinking starter here:
“I’ve been….fascinated by the way that different people cope with ‘time’ management. The people who most intrigue me are those who spend 20 mins complaining that they never seem to have enough ‘time’ to get things done. In the meantime, there goes another 20 mins.
Toffler’s Future Shock waxed delirious about this issue decades ago. Even back then, he indicated that more needs to be accomplished every day; yet in the same amount of ‘time’. And as a result, some of us begin to feel stretched beyond our natural pace for life.
I’ve always loved the narrative about the African explorer who was beating his way through the jungle, and determined to reach a distant mountain within two days. He exhorted his native bearers to go faster and faster, offering all form of inducements to encourage them to speed up.
Yet, a day from their destination, these bearers sat down and refused to moved. No amount of beatings or promises of extra payment could induce them to move on.
And when they were asked why they refused to move, they simply replied: “Because we’re waiting for our souls to catch up.”
See at Tony Ryan’s blog here
Thought for the whiteboard….get them thinking
Jun 6th
“You can’t do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth”
Shira Tehrani
Weekly Tips that come in a non weekly fashion!
Jun 6th
China opens women-only car park with wider spaces
In what sounds like a news story straight out of the 1960s, a shopping center in China has opened a female-only car park that features wider parking spaces and is painted pink and light purple to “appeal to female tastes.” An official associated with the lady-targeted parking lot claims the design is intended to accommodate women’s “strong sense of color (sic) and different sense of distance.”
So how do I turn this into a learning experience (without being torn limb from limb by my female students?) Write the following on the whiteboard:
A woman without her man is nothing.
Wait for screams of outrage to die down and tell girls to punctuate this statement to their advantage (and also to make it more truthful…) IF they’re switched on, they’ll come up with this:
A woman; without her, man is nothing.
Results in smug females smiles, and cues screams of male outrage… Carry on with discussion about male testesterone blinding their thinking until they grow up (at around 45 years of age..) and the fact that a woman’s favourite saying is ‘Revenge is a dish best served cold’ and by golly they’ll wait for years before taking it
A tragic hero (Shakespeare for the modern age)
Jun 6th
So my S4 were given this as a starter for ten in their CEL (Critical Evaluation of Literature)
“In order for a character to be considered a tragic hero, some basic criteria need to be met. First, he must come from a noble background. This is true of Macbeth, who distinguishes himself in battle before he even makes his first appearance on stage. Macbeth’s valor causes King Duncan to exclaim of him: “O valiant cousin! Worthy gentleman!” (1.2.26).
Second, a tragic hero must suffer a tragic flaw. Macbeth’s is his ambition. This is exemplified in Act I, scene 4, when Macbeth contemplates murdering King Duncan: “Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires.”
Finally, a tragic hero must undergo a tragedy. Macbeth certainly does; he suffers the loss of his wife, his ill gotten kingdom, and his life. The totality of his downfall is clear in his last words, found in Act V, scene 8:
I will not yield,
To kiss the ground before young Malcolm’s feet,
And to be baited with the rabble’s curse.
Though Birnam Wood be come to Dunsinane,
And thou opposed, being of no woman born,
Yet I will try the last. Before my body
I throw my warlike shield! Lay on, Macduff,
And damn’d be him that first cries, “Hold, enough!”
I then told my class to find examples of tragic heroes and write an essay about them but substituting their hero/villian for MacBeth. The best essay and the one that got the KitKat?
Darth Vader from Star Wars.
Think about it, he fulfills ALL the above and more! Other suggestions included Michael Coreolone from The Godfather, various Harry Potter characters including Harry himself AND Draco Malfoy. Any more?
Avatar and Curriculum for Excellence – two strange new worlds..
Jun 6th
This term the pace of CfE has quickened and I’ve been looking at media (films, TV and news) to find ‘stuff’ that would enable me to create a wide ranging and easily differentiated resource for S1 up to S3. Having never been able to watch ‘Avatar’ in 3D I was given the DVD a few weeks ago and afterwards it started me thinking about how I could use it in many different ways. Then CfE reared its head and the thing grew and grew until I ended up with a document showing every subject and suggestions from subjects teachers as well as ideas from my S2 and S3 classes. Not only did the kids like the message of colonialism, eco warriors, being at one with nature/Gaia and the special effects but they also thought it was a good film to write imaginative responses to.
I found a wallwisher page with some great ideas added by Peter O’Brien here and then created a AVATAR CfE ideas document with the extra ideas from PTs and students.
Since then we’ve been charging around school asking people for more ideas. I’ll keep this updated. IT also produced some excellent imaginative writing from S2; they wrote about a variety of views from the bad guys to a Na’vi child seeing the destruction of Hometree to a young hunter flying his first banshee. There were some good discussions about the Amazonian rain forest and the tribes affected by illegal logging as well as research and discursive essays on the plight of the Indian tribes whose health is being affected by the activities of the British owned Vedana Mining Company. Details here about India and here for the Amazon background.
