Actions Speak

This is Kevin. Kevin is our Groundsman. Kevin arrives at school very early each morning and works through until the afternoon. He is multi skilled. He is an artist. You can see his creativity around the school in rock sculptures, garden designs and plantings. He is a problem solver, constantly working out strategies to fix or make things for our school. He is a mathematician measuring, calculating, weighing, budgeting, working to time limits and meeting deadlines. He is a tradesman involved in plumbing, painting, building and constructing.

The school looks so good and is so well maintained because of his work and creativity. Kevin takes pride in all that he does. And it shows. Kevin is a vital member of our school community.

Our school, our students, our school community. We are all vital members of our school community. Our school exists for our students. Our teachers and SSOs do not talk about “My Class” or “My Students” but rather “Our School” and “Our Students”. We are all responsible for the success of our students and our school, and this includes “Our Parents and Caregivers”.

Like teachers and SSOs, parents and caregivers are essential members of our school community and like staff, your words, actions and behaviours model expectations to our students. When parents and caregivers solve problems calmly through dialogue and conversation with each other or with staff they show that they too follow our School Values of Good Manners and Friendliness. Conversely, if they swear at each other from their cars outside the school, it undermines our values.

When parents and caregivers allow children to learn by their mistakes and the consequences of their actions they show that they too follow our School Values of Resilience and Persistence. Conversely, if they rescue their children they undermine and stop their learning.

When parents and caregivers get their children to school on time they demonstrate that they value learning and also model organization and time management skills. What does constantly being late teach children?

Kevin works so hard to have our school look the best it can be. Hopefully we are all proud of our school. I am not proud of the litter around the yard and I always try to model picking up litter despite never dropping it. How powerful it would be for all members of our school community to pick up papers as they walk through the school? It would show their pride in our school. It would model to the students that they should keep the yard clean and show care for our school by keeping it clean. It would encourage students to do the same. It would show that we all appreciate the great work being done by Kevin and it would show that we all have pride in Our School.

Our actions speak louder than words. Kevin doesn’t talk about painting a wall. He just gets about doing it and doing it well. Thanks Kevin for being such a good role model for Our School, Our Students and Our School Community.

April 9, 2017 by bobthiele

Mum’s Project

There are not many things I remember about Primary school. It was 50 years ago, but some significant memories remain. I remember vividly my Year 5 teacher who, on day two of the year, twisted the tuft of hair near my ear until tears came to my eyes and said, “You do the right thing by me and I’ll do the right thing by you.” I came top of Year 5 that year. He ignited my passion for a love of history and planted the seed of travelling the world to see places my eyes were opened to in class.

I recall being told off for organizing a game of Red Rover involving girls and boys. Apparently, girls were not allowed to play such games. I thought that this was unfair.

One vivid memory that sticks with me was leaving a homework project to the last minute and mum jumping in to help me. I recall her using the encyclopaedia to find the information that I should have found, writing the notes out for me to copy, sketching the illustrations for me to colour and even outlining and shading some areas that I did not do well enough. My project turned out to be a masterpiece. I proudly handed it in on time to the teacher. I received a high mark.

Why do I remember this project out of all the work that I did in the seven years in Primary School? It wasn’t the high grade. It was because I still feel guilty that it was not my project at all but my mother’s. She had rescued me because I had not done the right thing, had not been responsible and had left everything to the last moment. Would I have learnt more by failing? Would I have learnt responsibility, time management, more about the topic, etc had my mother let me fail?

Any time we assist a child we need to ask the questions: “Is this helping or rescuing?” “Is the ‘help’ making the child stronger or weaker?” “What lesson will he or she learn from my help?” The grade that I received was not earned by me. Was my lesson that deceit is OK? Was it that adhering to timelines is not important?

At school, we define FAIL as First Attempts In Learning. Had I done my own work and failed, my teacher could then have worked with me on the skills I needed to develop. I would have learnt how to be better organized and how to plan my time to meet deadlines.

My dear mother thought that she was doing the best thing for me in “assisting” with my project by doing most of it for me. Hopefully, as a parent I will not do the same thing. I do not want my children feeling guilty for learning the ‘wrong’ lessons.

July 26, 2015 by bobthiele

Helping Kids to be Successful Failures

Six weeks ago our daughters competed in the Women’s State Invitational Gymnastics competition. Both had been training for 6 months, three nights per week for three hours each session. They were both desperately hoping to qualify for Australian National Level 4. At the end of 2 days of completion, we waited for the gradings to be announced. After the names of those qualifying were called to stand, both our girls were left sitting. My wife and I felt so disappointed for them both. They had each missed out by less than 2 points. They were understandably disappointed.

What, as parents and teachers, do we say to our children when they are challenged, struggle and fail? It is easy to wrap them in cotton wool and give them sympathy. It is easy to make excuses. It is easy to let them give up. Too many students drop out of commitments such as choir or instrumental music when the challenge gets high. The easy way is to run away from the disappointment, from the emotional pain and from the challenge.

We were able to empathise with our daughters and talked about times when we had not achieved what we set out to do. We encouraged them to keep trying.

The following stories of well known people who had failed, but kept pressing on until they became successful, are good to share with your children to help build resilience.

After being cut from his high school basketball team, he went home locked himself in his room and cried. – Michael Jordan, 6 times NBA Champion, 5 times NBA Most Valuable Player and 4 times NBA All-Star.

He wasn’t able to speak until he was almost 4 years old and his teachers said he would “never amount to much” – Albert Einstein, Theoretical Physicist and Nobel Peace Prize Winner.

Was demoted from her job as a news anchor because she… “Wasn’t fit for television.” – Oprah Winfrey, Host of a Multi-Award-Winning Talk Show and Most Influential Woman in the World.

Fired from a newspaper for “lacking imagination” and “having no original ideas” -Walt Disney, Creator of Mickey Mouse, Disneyland and Winner of 22 Academy Awards

At age 11 he was cut from his team after being diagnosed with a growth hormone deficiency… which made him smaller in stature than most kids his age. – Lionel Messi, 3 time FIFA World Player of the Year

At 30 years old he was left devastated and depressed after being unceremoniously removed from the company he started. – Steve Jobs, Co-Founder of Apple Inc and Co-Founder of Pixar Animated Studios

A High School dropout, whose personal struggles with drugs and poverty culminated in an unsuccessful suicide attempt… – Eminem, 13 time Grammy Award Winner, sold over 90 million albums worldwide.

A teacher told him he was… “Too stupid to learn anything” and that he should go into a field where he might succeed by virtue of his pleasant personality. – Thomas Edison, inventor to the light globe and over a thousand other inventions.

Rejected by Decca Recording studios, who said “we don’t like their sound”… “They have no future in show business” – The Beatles, the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed band in history.

His First Book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. Was Rejected By 27 Publishers. – Dr. Zeuss, best selling children’s author in history

His Fiancé Died, Failed In Business, Had A Nervous Breakdown And Was Defeated In 8 Elections. – Abraham Lincoln, 16^th President of the USA.

Here is the link to the Youtube clip called Famous Failures https://youtu.be/zLYECIjmnQs outlining the above stories. It finishes with the quote, “If You’ve Never Failed, You’ve Never Tried Anything New”. We want our children to try, learn how to fail well in order to build resilience to become successful.

This weekend our girls once again competed for their Level 4 Gymnastics. After 6 weeks of practicing the skills that they failed last time, both achieved their goal.

Failure builds resilience. Resilience builds success.

September 24, 2014 by bobthiele

The Learning Pit

I am a big Doctor Who fan. He is always able to solve the unsolvable by seeing the unobvious and deducing the implausible. He may need some assistance from his female companion or his sonic screw-driver but he always works out what to do to save the day. Despite having two hearts his skills are not superhuman rather those of problem solving through logic, deduction, perseverance, persistence and asking the right questions.

What do you do when you don’t know what to do? Developing the skills and strategies in dealing with the unknown and the new is something that all children will need to be successful in the future. The world that our children are growing into will be very different from our own. Change is occurring so quickly in everything. Technology is changing every aspect of work and society. Manual and skilled jobs are being replaced by robots and automation. Our children will be working in jobs that have not even been dreamt of yet. Adaptability and an open, learning mindset is key.

How do we assist children to develop these skills?

One cannot be a nimble thinker and problem solver if one is fearful of being stuck, fearful of making a mistake or fearful of the discomfort of not knowing what to do. We want children to have a go and be risk takers but we too often cotton wool them to the extent that we rob them of their opportunity to learn.

The Learning Pit is a good metaphor for talking to children about the learning process and resilience. Getting stuck is where the best learning takes place. When we are stuck we might get negative feelings like discomfort, frustration, helplessness towards our learning. We hear children say, “I won’t do it.” or “I can’t do it.” If we intervene at this stage and rescue by doing it for them they will learn that getting stuck is a bad thing, that the negative feelings are bad and they will continually shy away from a challenge. They will not develop persistence or resilience toward learning.

As a child struggles with a problem get them to ask questions to clarify and explore the options. Answer their questions with questions rather then an answer so that they are doing the thinking and solving the problem themselves. Ask them where they might be able to find help – internet, Youtube etc and let them explore. As they begin to get themselves “unstuck”, they will gain confidence in their own abilities and develop an “I can do it!” attitude. This will benefit them throughout their lives.

Doctor Who thrives on challenge. He doesn’t give up. He isn’t rescued. He persists and succeeds.

Stuck? Great! Good learning happens when you are stuck.

May 4, 2014 by bobthiele

Persistence and Resilience

I was recently at a BBQ and tried out a friend’s new skateboard. Being an aging “kid” and keen surfer I “surfed” this skateboard around the garden with modest flair, weaving through garden furniture and verandah poles. A young boy was upset because he could not turn the skateboard that he was on. He asked me to show him how to turn. He showed me what he was doing. He was standing incorrectly with both feet together. I showed him and put him in the correct position and suggested that he practise. One try, did not work for him so he gave up immediately, sat down and cried. I tried to encourage him back but he seemed to be more intent on seeking sympathy than mastering skateboarding. His father said that he always “spits the dummy” when he cannot do something immediately.

Our school virtues include PERSISTENCE and RESILIENCE and are crucial habits for children to develop to become successful learners and successful adults. They are defined as:
• The habit of trying again and again without complaint or the need for a reward.
• The habit of accepting failure as the stepping stone to success and bouncing back.
• The habit of seeing problems and difficulties as things you can do something about to make better.

Think of anything that you have learned or mastered. Riding a bike, learning to walk, talk, write, surf, skateboard, fix a car, cook, land a BMX jump… all are learnt through having a go, making mistakes, falling over and getting back up and having another go.

Billie Jean King, a tennis legend, described every lost point as a learning opportunity rather than a loss. All successful learners bounce back and keep trying.

What can we do as parents and educators to help our children learn persistence and resilience? We can redescribe problems as challenges. Give encouragement to try again rather than offer sympathy when a child “trips up” and falls. Help them to see that we learn more from our mistakes than our successes and that failure is a stepping stone to success.

Try asking your child questions such as:

What did you do today that really challenged you?

What mistakes did you make and what did you learn from them?

What did you do that really made you work hard to achieve?

Everyone who is successful has had to practise for thousands of hours. One doesn’t practice what one has already mastered. We practice what we can’t do over and over until we can. Mastery is only achieved through taking one step at a time, picking oneself up after every fall, learning from mistakes and having another go. Developing persistence and resilience will lead to success.

Let’s get our kids back on life’s skateboard every time they fall to help them become persistent and resilient learners.

June 2, 2013 by bobthiele

Corporate Fundraising for Schools

Where do I stand on Corporate Fundraising for Schools? I am a firm believer that education, like health should be free, inclusive and universal so that all students have equal opportunity to reach their potential. As Principal of a school in a disadvantaged southern suburb of Adelaide, I can attest that this is not the case. While many schools charge parents hundreds of dollars in voluntary contributions, my school can only impose the minimum fees on parents and still many can’t pay. An extra $100 from 250 families would give the school an extra $25 000 to spend on learning programs. Our parent fund raising committee has a target of raising $6000. This would probably be less than the amount wealthier schools spend on raffle ticket books! The problem is that parents raise money in their own community. If the community is wealthy, the gains are great. A disadvantaged community has limited resources.

It is said that it takes a village to raise a child. It is imperative that education is supported by the community. The promotional schemes aimed at schools run by supermarkets at least puts money back into the school community in which the parents shop. It is a win win situation. Schools benefit from supermarket patronage. Obviously the wealthier the community, the more resources go to the school; the less to the less advantaged.

Until Gonski becomes a reality and school funding is put on a equitable, fair and just basis then any support from the community will be welcome. The gap between rich and poor never lessens though.

May 12, 2013 by bobthiele

Learning from Mistakes

I was listening to a TED Radio Hour podcast while travelling the 930km distance to my favourite place on Earth, the photo of which is the background image of this blog. The topic was about mistakes made by physicians. The mistake made by the speaker resulted in the death of a patient. We learn more from our mistakes than our successes. A physician would certainly want to learn quickly.

The TED speaker believed that it was important to speak publicly about mistakes, both from personal cathartic reason like that of a confessional and also so that others can learn from their mistakes.

I thought back over my thirty plus years of teaching and the many mistakes I have made. I do wonder what impact my mistakes have made on children’s lives. Thank God there have been no fatalities but maybe that is more luck than planning.

Darren was new to my class in about 1983. He didn’t talk a lot and didn’t have many friends but he was tough and took on any physical challenge with gusto. The obstacle course I designed was certainly challenging and included climbing through the shelter shed window and traverse hand over hand across the rafter and slide down the support pole. What I overlooked was the concrete floor. Darren was swinging across until he missed a hand hold and fell 3 metres landing flat on his side. He was so badly winded that I feared he had broken ribs. Had he hit his head he could have done serious injury.

I learnt to assess risk carefully.

I planned an exchange to Kangaroo Island and sought sponsorship from local businesses. Parents gave consent for students to go to neighbouring businesses with a letter of introduction from me and a prepared speech which had been rehearsed by the children.

All students were sent out in pairs and returned during the next hour with varying degrees of success – torches, cups, even cash donations. All students, apart from two returned in the allotted time. Nearly 2 hours later, and just before I called the Principal and then the police, the two boys returned very pleased with themselves carrying boxes of bounty. They had walked to businesses well over 4 kilometres away! To say I was relieved was an understatement.

This taught me duty of care. Any of the children could have been injured, knocked down by a car or even kidnapped. It was a lesson I was lucky to learn without mishap.

Another teacher and I were rehearsing for a musical production with 90 children after school. The students were predictably excited but as the time progressed a few children’s inappropriate behaviour became so disruptive that it began to derail the rehearsal for the other 60 children present. My response was one that I will never forget. Amongst all the noise, I told David, one of the boys mucking up, to “Play along with me”, pinned him up against the wall and yelled at him to stop. There was sudden silence and the kids fell into line. It achieved its aim… but at a cost. A group of children came to me to say how inappropriate my behaviour had been. I explained to them that it was a setup and that I was not being aggressive. What I did not know was that David never understood what I had said to him and therefore was very upset with the way I had treated him.

I learnt of the importance of always modelling appropriate behaviour. Regardless of whether it was a dramatic ruse, the perception is the reality. I inadvertently modelled that threat and violence was a solution to a problem. I did not model respect. I did not model an adult in control solving problems calmly.

Looking back, I can see how these mistakes helped me learn about myself and my responsibilities as a teacher and a role model. I would rather have learnt these lessons in a way that did not potentially put children at risk.

Perhaps others can learn from my mistakes rather than having to make their own. What can I learn from others’? Nothing if we don’t share.

Only make new mistakes!

April 1, 2013 by bobthiele

Easter Eggheads

A Miracle! – Bunny lays chocolate eggs and then paints them!

It always bothers me around Easter and Christmas time how crazy our society and education system has become. As I walk around the school, my school and any government school, I see teachers and children doing activities about Easter bunnies, Easter bilbies, Easter eggs and chocolate . At Christmas time is is Santa Claus in his Coca Cola colour coded clothing, songs and stories of airborne reindeer, flying sleighs, snow in summer and corny carols. What is happening to education when there is a total lack of focus on the reason for the season?

Would Anzac Day ever be seriously taught in schools by only focusing on the Essendon v Collingwood AFL Football clash? Would Australia Day be celebrated with no mention of Australia? Would the Queens Birthday ever be celebrated with no mention of Her Majesty or Queens Birthday Honours? Yet because Easter and Christmas are religious holidays, holidays that everyone is happy to take off, educators are happy to discount the historical, religious and sociological significance and the reason that these holidays exist. This is similar to teaching Australian History with no acknowledgement of the 40 000+ years of Aboriginal History, or teaching English Literature with a total focus on comics.

I am not implying that the religious/historical/cultural events behind Easter and Christmas should be taught as fact. But surely they need to be taught. If teachers believe that these events are fantasy rather than history, why do they choose to teach the commercial fantasy of Santa and Easter Bunny over the “fantasies” that have had a major impact at shaping the past two millennia? It could be argued that these two events that most teachers shy away from or just ignore are the the most significant in shaping western history, culture, law, science and the Arts. I would be more than happy if the previous statement was debated in schools rather than children spending all their seasonal energy colouring in stencilled sheets of a cartoonlike rabbit capable of illegally breaking into everyone’s house carrying container loads of chocolate and foil wrapping.

Education should be about inclusivity, examining all sides of an argument, encouraging questioning and investigating fantasy and fact. We should not sacrifice our moral purpose on the alter of chocolate and tinsel (sold at a store near you!).

March 17, 2013 by bobthiele

Age Appropriate Behaviour?

We tend to judge behaviour in terms of age appropriateness. I recall my first child hitting the “terrible twos” and could not believe that my beautiful daughter had metamorphosed into a disobedient, argumentative little tantrum thrower. The Toddler Training bible, Dr Google and every other reference said that this was normal development caused by hormonal changes. When the tantrums occurred, parents were recommended to stay calm and patient, speak quietly and model to children the way that strong emotions can be dealt with. Eventually they will learn to control their feelings and modify their behaviours. The Terrible Twos pass… and then the Horrendous Threes. We are now in the Awful Eights. (Why did no-one warn us of all these?!) Each stage in the child’s life is a time of challenge and learning, for both parents and child. The child gradually learns appropriate social behaviours. I was ready for similar stages in my other two children and a little wiser in dealing with them. I still have adolescence to look forward to!

The tantrums seen in a two year old are age appropriate. The same behaviours in a five year old at school are inappropriate. Tantrums in older children are definitely inappropriate and will require intervention so that that pattern of behaviour does not become “hard wired”.

Play Is The Way has had a dramatically positive affect on our school culture which has resulted in children learning socially appropriate behaviours by reflecting on and taking responsibility for their behaviours. The Play is The Way language provides a way of opening up conversations for learning from inappropriate behaviours. At all times the adult must model calm considered “adult” behaviours. Asking questions immediately requires the child’s brain to move away from the Limbic (emotional) part of the brain to the cerebral cortex (thinking) parts. An emotional responses to an emotional outburst will trigger defensiveness and escalate the problem. The Play Is The Way language is built around 6 reflective questions:

“Is that the Right thing or wrong thing to do?”

“Are you havinga Strong moment or weak moment?”

“Are your Feelings or thinking in charge?”

“Am I trying to hurt you or help you?”

“Are you running away from the problem or dealing with it?”

“Being your own boss or asking me to be the boss?”

These questions can be modified to any opposites such as “Is that a Nice or Nasty thing to say? These questions open up a conversation between the child and the adult where the adult crafts the questions to guide the conversation for the child to do the thinking and reflecting on his or her behaviour rather than passively listening to an adult give a lecture. The latter generally makes the adult feel better but results in no learning for the child.

Community Circles are a powerful tool for children to help each other reflect on behaviour and support their colleagues in developing strategies to become more virtuous. Inappropriate behaviours are named and dealt with in a trusting and supportive manner. Children learn the language to confidently and respectfully deal with issues and seek or give advice on how to improve. It is all about learning.

We live and work in a school community. When someone does the right thing, it affects the whole community positively. When someone does the wrong thing, it has a negative effect on the community. We firmly believe in “Our School. Our Children”. Children, regardless of their age or year level can be invited into a Community Circle to be accountable to and supported by the community.

Children’s learning and wellbeing is our business. Helping children develop appropriate social skills to enable them to moderate their own behaviours has become an increasingly large part of the teacher’s role. The real challenge for a leader is how to deal with teachers who display behaviours that are socially age inappropriate. The community of teachers has as yet developed to a stage where teacher behaviour is addressed in the same way that children are being taught. We too often operate a “polite society” rather than a community of learners. When a staff member’s behaviour, attitude or speech is negative, inappropriate or contrary to our School Agreements or Values, staff will rarely speak with the person concerned. More often than not the person will be spoken about or the behaviour will be reported to leadership.

It might sound simplistic or provocative, but most of these misbehaviours are age inappropriate – a teacher refusing to speaking to colleagues for extended periods, a teacher yelling at children, continually late for duty,

late back from the staffroom after a break, etc. Behaviours that would be expected from a junior primary student but not be accepted from a primary student, let alone an adult.

The Play Is The Way questions are a perfect vehicle for addressing the above. How many staff would respond positively? Would they feel that they were being “treated like a child”? If a teacher’s behaviour was named at a “staff meeting community circle” where they were respectfully told of the impact their behaviour was having on the community and then support offered, would the teacher see this as an act of caring and a valuable learning experience or would they cry victimisation and complain to the union?

Age inappropriate behaviour requires an age appropriate response… or should that be a “behavioural age” appropriate response?

Eduthoughts

Musings of a Passionate Primary Principal

Vision and Values

Mum’s Project