Last month I returned from South Africa where I participated in the CSC Leaders program. I arrived in Johannesburg around the time former president Nelson Mandela was hospitalised. Wandering through the Apartheid museum one afternoon I was stopped by a BBC cameraman asking for my reflections on Mandela and his legacy. My comment was that … More A powerful weapon
I’d never heard of the Green Bronx Machine or Stephen Ritz before last week. A colleague who attended PBL World in Napa, California sent me the link below and told me that Stephen was simply inspirational. This is what education is all about. Jamie Oliver and Yong Zhao would be proud.
On Friday, the Age newspaper featured a story on how foreign fee paying students have become a lucrative income source for cash-strapped Victorian schools. It’s coincidental because I’ve just caught up reading the February report by the International Education Advisory Council on the challenges and opportunities of Australia’s international education sector. While the focus is predominately on expanding … More Australia – educating globally
Jal Mehta, assistant professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education wrote recently that we “have an almost endless list of things that we would like the next generation of schools to do: teach critical thinking, foster collaboration, incorporate technology, become more student-centered and engaging. The more skilled our teachers, the greater our chances of … More Teaching the educators
In March the NSW Government announced its blueprint for improving schooling. The action plan includes raising entry requirements for teaching courses at universities and ensuring the quality of initial teacher education is regularly assessed. This is a positive move. Attracting the best and the brightest is something that all education systems desire. Yet attracting is … More Schools of inquiry
There is no doubt that globalisation has created a greater demand for quality education and there are pressures to rethink the nature and rationale of our curriculum. It leads us to ask questions such as how can we continue to confine knowledge within old frameworks? What possibilities are opened up by the availability of new … More Delivery or design
As I’ve mentioned previously, our focus as a system this year is on good teaching and good teacher practice. We know what the research tells us about good teachers and student learning outcomes. This of course is based on a very important assumption – the quality of leadership. Michael Fullan calls the principal the “nerve … More Learning leaders
Here’s a question – do you believe all students can learn? If you said yes and you’re a teacher or leader, are there examples at your school of students who aren’t achieving gains in their learning? How do you reconcile the two? Here’s another question – if you were asked to list ten things that … More Know your learners
When Billy Joel wrote the lyrics to It’s a Matter of Trust, he probably wasn’t thinking about the Finnish education system. Yet the more I read the literature on high performing systems, I am convinced that trust is at the core of the cultural change needed to reshape schooling. It’s not new nor is it … More It’s a matter of trust
One of the things that I enjoy when attending conferences is meeting like-minded and passionate teachers. Last month I presented at the Re-think and Re-imagine Conference at Deakin University and ran into Thom Fraser. Thom is a Year 6 teacher at Warrnambool Primary in Victoria and has developed a literacy program called Re-phrase it. The program … More Re-phrase it
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