Chickafinty ~ A Life in the Laundry

Why am I not surprised

When I returned to full time teaching in 2005, schools were abuzz with this new "wonderful" numeracy programme called "Count Me In, Too".  CMIT required specially trained staff members to implement the programme,  and a huge sum of money spent on resources like counting teddies (in three different sizes and four different colours), laminated feet, number cards, ducks, in short, just about anything you could think of.  I remember one staff member from a school I taught in, arriving in the staffroom bleary eyed having sat up past 11pm the previous evening laboriously cutting out and laminating a bucket load of resources for this amazing new programme.  As a relative outsider (I was a casual teacher at the time) it seemed a waste of time, resources and money.

When I tried to implement the programme at my new school I was foxed at every turn.  There weren't enough resources in the resource room, and as I was last in to the school I was also last into the resource room.  You can guess what was left in there.  Yeah, pretty much nothing.  I ended up wasting my own time, money and resources making these amazing new games.  CMIT was all about games.  Games and strategies that would "teach" the kids numeracy skills.  In my experience the kids were very good at playing the games, but as soon as they were presented with real maths, they baulked.  In my opinion CMIT was worse than useless, because all the numeracy time was wasted with playing these ludicrous, resource-ridden games, and none was spent actually teaching the principles of mathematics.  As with any whizz bang new programme, the bright kids picked up on the concepts in spite of the programme and the rest were left floundering.

Which brings me to the article I read on news.com.au this morning.  Apparently, kids in the upper primary years were failing in their numeracy skills...remembering of course that these are the kids raised on a steady diet of CMIT in the lower and middle primary years.  So they introduced a new programme into the schools at enormous cost to help those kids who were failing at upper primary maths (possibly because the counting teddies weren't being used any more).  This programme has turned out to also be a failure.

The programme cost each school between $42K and $52K depending on the number of teachers trained.

The maths textbook that I use with our kids is second to none on training them in maths.  It caters to the very competent, and it helps the ones who need a bit of a push.  The capable kids can work on the book without help from the teacher.  The middle group can work on it with a little help, and the teacher could focus on the strugglers without anybody losing out.  The textbook costs $15.95 and there are two per grade.

For less than $12000 the whole of Years 3-6 (assuming 3 classes of 30 student per grade) could be supplied with a decent maths textbook, no teacher training required and my money says you'd actually get kids leaving Year 6 who could do maths, not just play games with teddies.  Better still, you could get the parents to fork out for half the textbooks and the school could save another $6000.  This textbook requires only base-10 blocks, no other teaching resources are needed.  That's another saving for the school.

I wish schools would stop chasing after the newest shiny penny and get on with the business of teaching kids.

DISCLAIMER: This is not aimed at my teaching colleagues, who are merely pawns in the bureaucratic system that passes for schooling in 2012.  My collegaues work long, thankless, disheartening hours within a system that they have no power to change.  These "brilliant ideas" don't come from those working at the chalkface, they come from higher up, and my bile is raised against those higher-ups, not my professional colleagues.

Photographic Evidence

The brand new bike riders showing off their skills on the joint birthday picnic.

Fully sick and totally random

Had the most amazing experience tonight.

We booked in for the Family Astronomy Night at the local university and saw a presentation on black holes, which was mostly incomprehensible, but nonetheless interesting.  (My notes from the lecture are even more interesting as they were written in the dark with a none too sharp pencil!  We heard about "spaghettification", which has to be the second best word I have learned this week after pandiculation.

Then, then! we got to look at the night sky through two of the telescopes.  Despite a lot of pollution in the air from fires - it was smoke so presumably it came from a fire somewhere?? the view was spectacular.

ALPHA CENTAURI

We saw Alpha Centauri through the first telescope.  It was hard to stand still enough to see a constant clear image, but the double star could be seen.  It was incredible to see with such clarity what the naked eye misses.  The chappie with the telescope assured us that there were actually three stars there, but I'll have to take his word for it.

BUTTERFLY NEBULA?

I think this was the second thing we viewed through the larger of the two telescopes, but I'm not sure.  It could have been a butterfly I suppose, but the thing that spun me out was this: looking at the sky with the naked eye, about 15 stars/objects were visible.  Look at the same place through the telescope however and thousands of stars instantly sprang into view.  It was (literally) breathtaking.

Then, the piece de resistance, and the one thing we booked in to see:

JUPITER

Oh.  My.  Goodness.

I was expecting to see a white blob in the sky.

I saw a planet, not white but slightly beige with darker brown stripes running through it.  I saw three of the 49-odd moons, the Galilean moons to be precise.  There are four Galilean moons: Io, Europa, Ganymede and Calisto, but I don't know which three we saw tonight. 

Mind blowing, indescribable wonder is the only way I can think of to describe what we saw tonight.  it was nothing short of incredible and worth every cent of the $35 it cost for a family ticket.

I want to go back and look again.

I want to say along with the Psalmist

The heavens declare the glory of God;
   the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

 Day after day they pour forth speech; 
  night after night they display knowledge.

 There is no speech or language
   where their voice is not heard.

 Their voice goes out into all the earth,
   their words to the ends of the world.

Psalm 19:1-4

The whole earth is full of His glory indeed.

Proud Mama

We got Chickabid's NAPLAN results this week.

He got into Band 4 for Reading, Spelling and Numeracy and Band 5 for Grammar and Punctuation.

We were thrilled to bits :) :)

He scored righton the average for Reading, a bit below average for spelling, above average for Grammar/Punctuation and abover average for Numeracy.

We couldn't be happier :)

Well done, little man.

Progress report

Well.

It's the end of Semester One and the traditional reporting season has arrived.  Our homeschooling experience is 6 months old and it would seem appropriate to look back on the last six months and look at how far we've all come.

DESCHOOLING

At school, everything fits neatly into a box.  We've only got five hours of classroom time a day, so there has to be a definable purpose in everything that we do.  It has to fall under one of the key learning areas, it has to be outcomes based, it has to be assessable, preferably immediately or at least by the end of the week or the end of the unit.  Literacy takes first place and absorbs the first two hours of the day.  Maths takes up another hour and the remaining two hours are divvied up amongst the other four KLAs, or those two hours are devoted to the lastest thought bubble from the Board of Studies...the COGs unit.

Homeschooling is NOT like that.  Homeschooling is more about home than school.  It's about learning through life.  A large percentage of learning doesn't fit neatly into a box and it's really hard to quantify and record. 

The academic part of the day is relatively easy to report on.  We spend the morning doing maths, phonics, spelling, grammar, reading, copywork and writing.  We watch For the Juniors and write reports.  We draw, sing, use the computer, write narrations, cook, garden (or just dig!), and we talk.  We talk lots.  I answer questions all day long.  Easy questions like how do you draw a map of Tasmania freehand, to difficult questions like how does the space shuttle get into space...questions that stretch my (considerable) general knowledge to its fullest extent...questions that require a "I don't know.  Lets' find out!" answer.  A lot - and a mean a LOT - of learning is incidental and culmulative.  It's jolly difficult to record this kind of learning.  At school we're constrained by timetables, by delivering curricula to a large number of children with hugely differing abilities.

Where homeschooling is concerned, deschooling has been my biggest difficulty.

(more coming)

What I am learning about homeschooling

1.  It's a lot about home and somewhat less about "schooling."

2.  Hands-on learning is the best kind, pencil and paper is sometimes a poor cousin

3.  Even if the kids only complete a full three pages of maths, their spelling and their English work in a day, they've already done more than most kids would in a week.

4.  Driving along in the car is a great opportunity to talk (and teach).

5.  I LOVE being with my kids all day.  I *never, ever* thought I'd say that.

6.  Homeschooling draws the whole family closer

7.  Getting together with other homeschoolers is great and the kids are loving the activities we're involved in

8.  It is important to stop and smell the roses from time to time.

9.  A lot of time gets wasted at school.  A lot.

10.  If I thought I was juggling everything before we started homeschooling, I was kidding myself.  Homeschooling is the biggest juggling act ever, but it is also more rewarding than I could have imagined six months ago.