• 

Good evening to anyone who is still reading my blog, the last entry explained that I still have no idea who my audience is, so today’s entry is a travelogue and a general interest account. No educational opinions, no polemics. It is just a story of my opinions and expereinces of Melbourne.

Yesterday Lizzie took me to Wellington Airport and I said goodbye to New Zealand, said goodbye to the wonderful people who looked after me during the first two weeks of my adventure, but now a new chapter begins.

This is a travellers guide to Melbourne so my first advice is skybus is great, it takes you straight to Southern Cross Station, possibly a little pricey…but hey its OK. Now the warnings….first of all don’t pay any attention to google directions if you are planning on using public transport, check with Melbourne city council itself and secondly as soon as you arrive you need to buy a Mikey card…you pay 6AUD dollars for the card but this is for the card not for travelling anywhere. However if you are going from the city centre to the suburbs you are laughing. In my case I stayed at an air Band B in East Brunswick so everything was cool, but cross town public transport is pretty rubbish.

I wont bore you with details of my accommodation except to say if you are planning to visit Melbourne you could do worse than check out “no love letters please,” A wonderful place to stay.

OK so first impressions of Australia, I had half expected Melbourne to be a small city, many people had told me Melbourne is like Wellington, so in my mind I had visions of a sprawling, arty, slightly sleepy city of low rise buildings with a ridiculously impossible airport. Wow how wrong can a man be. First difference with Wellington, it rained in Melbourne, I arrived on a very grey rainy evening and took the 96 st Kilda tram in the completely wrong direction, google directions said take the Skybus to southern cross Railway station then take the 96 tram to st Kilda beach………NO NO NO NO….it actually said take the 96 tram FROM st Kilda Beach. Believe me the trams at 5pm are mental, I have travelled the Paris Underground, the New York Subway, the London Tube but nothing prepared me for the sheer human compression that is the Melbourne tram system. I also “ghost rode ” the entire journey because I did not understand how to use the Myki card. As i said earlier, you pay 6 AUD for the card but then have to top it up, you tap on, tap off….ha I did everything wrong .

• 

My suitcase had become fat with Books, everywhere I went in New Zealand I was given a pack of books so my suitcase had put on a whopping 8 kg and now weighed 23 Kg suitcase, burdened with back pack and suitcase in this sea of humanity, feeling hungry, hot and uncomfortable, I must exactly what I am …a fat old man a long way from home. For the first time on this trip I felt like I wanted my own bed and was Nicola looking after my allotment, how I missed my home and my vegetables which would almost be ready for harvesting.

By the time I arrived at East Brunswick I was a couple of hours late and feeling grumpy, I arrived at my air BandB almost exactly the same time as my host and all the negativity was blown away immediately. My host was really intelligent, really interesting and a real pleasure to talk with and “No Love Letters Please” is probably the best air BandB I have stayed in. I would like to say we became friends, but that is not true, we each had our own separate lives and these lives did not really overlap too much. Suffice to say that all the temporary irritations of the day were dispelled.

The following day I had a morning appointment at the Victoria school of languages but that will be discussed in another entry. Instead armed with my new found confidence of using the MyKi card, my familiarity with the tram system and advice from my host, today I would head down to St Kilda Breakwater to see the penguins arrive in after a hard day at sea. To be honest i did not expect to see them but ….you know…. I had nothing else to do and I have never seen wild penguins.

A word about the birdlife here. Melbourne as I have said is a big city…think London…think New York, this is a big city, but I was completely blown away to see parrots in the trees…not just one or two parrots but loads of them, the magpies are different to our own in Europe and the cockatoos are really common too.

• 

I am digressing though, here was the chance to see Penguins, but of course I was not going to see any, but hey ho here we go, the walk down the pier was absolutely freezing, a biting wind from the Antarctic but I started to feel a little optimistic about seeing the penguins because it was like the walk from Percy street on Match day up to St James’ a stream of people (virtually all Chinese by the way….you do feel as if you are really in the Pacific here) all heading the same way all hoping to catch a glimpse of a penguin.

The end of the pier was crowded, penguin rangers with red lights keeping the curious onlookers away from these cute little bad tempered birds. But yes I saw a lot of Penguins. Unfortunately flash photography is forbidden and it was getting dark, I did not have my tripod with me so although I took a 100 or so pictures, there is only one or two of any use.

Curiosity satisfied I had seen Penguins in the wild, no kangaroos yet, no Wombats, no Koalas and no red backs, fummel webs or poisonous snakes. The sun had gone down and now it was time to get off to Uncle Joe’s wine bar to meet up with Philip Crawley for a beer or two, tomorrow I visit Victoria school of Virtual learning.

In one of my earlier blog entries I said I was worried that I had not determined my audience, was it for teachers? was it a travelogue? was it for Churchill? I have decided that my audience is all three, but for many readers, to read about Education when you want to know how to apply for a Churchill Scholarship or want a review of Bungee jumping in Auckland is turgid. So I have decided to set a BLOG OBJECTIVE for each entry, that way you wont have to sift through entries that are of no interest to you personally.

Today’s entry is about Education only.

This is my penultimate appointment in New Zealand, today I met Derek Wenmoth from Core Education. Derek Wenmouth is a serious advocate of virtual learning and is very enthusiastic about what he calls “Big Picture Education”, this approach seems very similar to what we in UK call Project Based Learning and clearly Hi Tech High has been a major influence. In theory I am a passionate advocate of PBL, but it did not really seem to work. In this section I want to write about PBL and Big Picture and try and assess why it did not work so well.

Across the world technology is creating opportunities which revolutionise the way we work, think, communicate and live. Yet the way we educate our children has not caught up with these changes.

Big Picture Education is something which as I understand it is similar to the Project Based Learning which has been tried and did not really succeed. BPE is an innovative design for learning which is being used by schools throughout Australia and New Zealand.

During my meeting at Core Education I learned that the philosophy which is at the heart of BPE has moved way from traditional face 2 face learning where everyone learns the same things, determined by a fixed timetable and located within the four walls of a school.

It’s raison d’etre is based upon a system which offers personalised, passion-based learning as the cornerstone to a modern meaningful education which prepares young people for successful futures. It focusses on nurturing creativity, curiosity and independence.

the reasons for implementing Big Picture Education are

Social:

• We live in an increasingly collaborative, team-based world and our education system needs to reflect collaboration between students

Technology:

• How many schools ban mobile phones? and with good reason, but the education system has not kept pace with the changes in technology. Recently we had visitors from Finland , Spain and Slovenia at our school to work on a project involving Virtual Reality. The project could not be done because we did not possess the hardware to run even the most rudimentary AR and VR software. Our school, like so many other schools, are teaching our children how to become teachers. The skills needed in the workplace, the interpersonal skills, the entrepreneurial skills, the creative skills are not presented in a way which has any meaning outside of the 4 walls of a traditional classroom.

Educational:

• There are a growing number of courses available online and a growing number of tools, simulations and models which can truly expand a students learning, using simulations we can recreate walks through ancient Rome, we can journey into the heart of Volcanoes or navigate into the core of a nuclear reactor, but the insistence on the “Bell” on exam results, on timetables, the use of obsolete hardware prohibits this.
• Desire for access to wider range of curriculum options. Why should a student be prevented from studying classics, Spanish, Business Studies just because the school does not have a teacher who can deliver. We live in the age of Multi Academy Trusts, for heavens sake, if we can set up a skype meeting in real time between New Zealand, Poland, Canada and Britain, where everyone sees each other and the work is visible via shared screens, we can set up a joint lesson between three schools within the same trust. We can extend the curriculum.

When we think of virtual learning, many things come to mind. Most frequently we think of online courses. But virtual learning really embraces a much broader dimension for educators than simply online learning.

A true definition of virtual learning

At its heart virtual learning is about the learning that takes place outside of the school, or bringing what is outside of the school into the school. So, we are thinking about the online environment as a way of connecting students who may be located physically in a school with their learning that is somewhere else. This is not a new programme, our Bridge project included the flipped classroom and in many respects, the Flipped classroom is just one part of the world of virtual learning.

The benefits and impact of virtual learning

There are many ways we can think about the benefits, or the impact, of virtual learning technologies and their use in schools. The first is obviously the area of online learning

A good example of this in New Zealand is the Virtual Learning Network (VLN), where teachers are already teaching students in schools which are outside of the school the teacher is physically located in. Similarly students are accessing lessons delivered by teachers who are not located in the schools that they are attending.

Virtual learning is not bound by a venue or time

Another area that virtual learning is impacting on is the connection between school and home. Historically we have talked about home-work and school-work. However using electronic means this distinction is redundant. The link between home and school becomes seamless—Whether home is the physical home that the student lives in, or outside-of-school places such as the local library, gym or anywhere that they might visit after school. The fact that they can continue with their learning in a seamless way and connect with the work that they are doing in online worlds makes the use of a virtual learning environment very high impact.

Virtual learning has greater global reach

Another factor about virtual learning is the global reach that’s now possible for students. Once they had to rely on resources from the local library. Or, from time-to-time, a visitor to the school could provide them with a feel or an insight into what it might be like in other lands or countries that they might be studying. Now, global reach means that they can reach directly into the lives of those who live in some of those countries and lands. They can talk to experts who have visited there, and are familiar with the geography, the terrain, and some of the social issues that might occur there. And they can connect with learners in those areas to collaborate on projects, to look at topics that are germane to them. So, the global reach is becoming increasingly important as students become prepared to be citizens in a much more globalised society than they have previously.

The benefits of virtual learning for teachers

And lastly, when we are thinking about virtual learning we can’t forget about the impact on the teachers themselves—the impact that virtual learning opportunities are having for teachers in their own professional learning and development. Many schools are starting to see that engaging in virtual professional learning and development is of benefit to both the school and teacher—not only in the cost-saving from days off, teacher-release days, and travel, but also the benefit of continuity. Where the investment may have been made simply to get to a one-day course, seminar, or workshop, now, teachers can have access to their professional development over many weeks or months, for a similar size investment. What’s more, it connects them with other educators doing similar things that they are, and who are looking for ways to improve their own professional activity and professional futures in that way.

So, virtual learning has a very broad application. It’s not only about online courses, but also about the way that we extend what is happening in the premise of school—way beyond the school gates.

Problems

I said yesterday and I reiterated above that I am a passionate believer in PBL, but also I know it did not really function well when we tried to use it in a previous school I worked in. So why did it not work? will big picture crash in the same way? I recall reading something in my religion lessons at school which quoted Jesus as saying “you cant put a new wine in an old skin”, the idea being that sometimes you cannot try and add on a new idea onto an old model. I think this is the problem we had with PBL, we timetabled an hour or two of PBL within school, it was still teacher led and as a result it became just another subject within the school curriculum, arguably less clearly defined than History or Maths

• 

• 

It is getting close to the time where I have to leave New Zealand, and a couple of things have come to mind since my last entry, who am I writing for? who is my intended audience? am I writing for teachers? in which case should I should say more about the distance learning I have witnessed here in New Zealand and should I continue with my opinions about education?

On the other hand is this a travelogue? in which case I should probably write less about education and more about the wonderful things I have seen and encountered. The beautiful landscapes I have seen, the events I have attended and give tips to the future travellers about travels in Australasia.

Or is this a blog about being a Churchill Fellow in which case I should write about the fellowship and say what it is and how it benefits me as a fellow and possibly how it can benefit you, not only as a reader but also as a potential future fellow.

Today I have decided to write about being a Churchill fellow and what the fellowship is and what it has meant to me personally.

The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust runs the Churchill Fellowships, a unique programme of overseas research grants. These support Commonwealth citizens from all parts of society to travel the world in search of innovative solutions for today’s most pressing problems. 

Every year the WCMT awards 150 Fellowships. These fund people like me and you to travel for 4-8 weeks, anywhere in the world, researching a topic of our choice with global leaders in their field. On our return, we are expected to help share our global learning with professions and communities across the UK.

Now I am not a real smarty pants, I am not a professor emeritus, or a post doc researcher, I am not even a a PhD student. I pride myself on being Mr Average, but the grants are not academic research grants. They are practical inquiries into real-world issues that we experience in our lives. The grants cover eight universal themes in society: Arts and culture, Community and citizenship, Economy and enterprise, Education and skills, Environment and resources, Health and wellbeing, Governance and public provision, Science and technology.

The grants are available throughtout the commonwealth but if you are a Kiwi or an Aussie or an Indian, you apply to your own churchill fellowship. If you are British and an adult citizen can apply, regardless of qualifications, age or background. The selection criteria is not based on your past achievements, but it is based on your imagination, creativity and originality of your idea. In my case it probably also depended on enthusiasm and passion for my idea.

Much of what I have written there is culled from the official notes on the Churchill Fellows website and as with so many things, there is going to be question mark in the mind of the reader about the concurrence between the reality and the advertised statements. Well I am three weeks into my fellowship and I am going to say now, that if anything the web site understates the benefits and the sheer enjoyment I have had. If you have a definite idea, even if it is vague and a little blurred around the edges, but you have an idea of something you wish you could do better, or which you think the world would benefit from, the application form is very easy. Honestly it is less onerous and less demanding than many reports I have written for work. Probably it is as complex as a job application form. You have an interview and again, the interview was like a job interview, if you enter that room with a sincere idea and a passion for your topic, then the procedure is straight forward.

Obviously partners are not included in the grant, but in a few days time my wife is flying out to meet me in Sydney. She pays for her own flight and a hotel or air B and B costs as much for one person as it does for two, there are weekends, reflection days, maybe an hour here or there for your research while your partner has a lie in or goes sightseeing alone,

I mentioned air B and B, this section is not an advert column and I would not like that either, but I would recommend air BandB simply because I am not someone who really enjoys extended periods of being alone although I know some people do, so being able come back at night and have someone to talk to and chat with, to have the opportunity to cook your own food rather than eat out in a restaurant every night is nice.

Having described air B and B it is also important to say that while I was in Wellington I stayed with family and that has been a real delight. My aunt and my cousins as well as their partners have been truly delightful people. I know my Aunt well because although she is an adopted kiwi she has returned to the UK many times over the past 50 years, but I had not spoken to my cousin for 33 years and have never met his partner…ahhh they were brilliant, just nice kind people. Similarly his sister, her husband and children are “mint”

I started this section saying today’s entry was about the Churchill fellowship but wandered into talking about the family and the air B and B not because I have wandered off the topic, but really as a hint to YOU if you choose to apply for a fellowship. I overspent on flights….Newcastle, Dubai….Bali…..Auckland….Wellington…..Melbourne….. Sydney….Perth…..Darwin……Dubai……Newcastle, but I have compensated by not staying in hotels every night and eating in restaurants every night. I have a research programme to complete and every thing I said I will do, will be done, but the fellowship does allow for relaxation, sightseeing, reflection too.

So tomorrow I will be visiting Core Education and Te Kura again then its off to Melbourne. Tomorrows entry is a school entry again.

• 

• 

The journey continues, today I met up with Lynette Brice at Open Poly, had a meeting with Derek Wenmoth at Core Education, and I honestly think my mind has been opened. I have ranted a bit about my views on education, but the more I see and the more I talk the more convinced I am that the model down here is potentially a workable template in the UK.

In a way these schools are what we in UK would class as “alternative provision,” many of the students are those who have fallen between the cracks in the mainstream system, I will need to arrange a look at a few PRUs and alternative provision in the UK, but talking to kids who are engaged in their education was a real eye opener. My write up for this project at the end will cover case studies in detail, but how about these quotes?

” when I was in normal school, the teacher spent 45 minutes in every hour sorting out the kids who did not want to learn, the remaining 15 minutes you could n’t concentrate and when you wanted help it wasnt there…even the really strict teachers who everyone behave for were no better, because by being hard you could not ask them for help, they spent more time being hard and never really listened. Here I can do more work in 20 minutes than I ever could in an hour in normal school”

” I like the flexibility of choosing when I work, somedays I just feel depressed and don’t want to work, here I work when I feel up to it, its my choice, I get through all the work because before, the lesson would end and I had to go somewhere else, where I could not be bothered to work, here there are days when I can work on maths all day, I can finish a weeks work in three hours, i put some music n and go for it”

The Virtual school encourages my independence, I have been home schooled since year 7, I never used to go to school because I was bullied, here its hard to bully anyone, you never see anyone who you don’t want to see, but virtual school has really made me independent. I dont want to work for someone, I don’t want to be told what I can wear, here I know it is my learning, I know what I want to do, I want to work in fashion, here I make my decisions, I know if I screw up, its me who screws up”

Of course the students were cherry picked, but a lot of what they said was pretty close to the bone. Does mainstream schooling really give our students ownership of what they do?

• 

After writing a slightly longer entry waiting for the plane in Wellington yesterday, this morning should be a little different. It is 07:45 and its a bright sunny morning and I am at bus stop number 1025 on Dominion Road awaiting the number 25 to take me to Queen Street and my first day of work for this Churchill Fellowship.

The bus service is great and so here I am, on the way to work, Mr Urban Commuter. I dont really know what to expect, but this is the first part of the “meat” of my research work.

A few questions are crossing my mind, I should be focussing on Te Kura, honing my questions but I dont have the discipline and random questions and musings about education are exercising my thoughts instead.

What is the point of education? Why do we educate kids? how effective is the education they receive? are we quantifying it properly? do we want to quantify it? I really don’t have explicit answers to these questions.

You are reading this, (and thank you for that by the way) so my question is; “are you a teacher?” If your answer to this is “yes,” no doubt you are familiar with the question “when will I ever need Algebra/Shakespeare/the Periodic table” or whatever else we deliver to the reluctant minds of our young charges. Normally we as teachers respond with a vague answer outlining the cruelty of the harsh world outside the classroom walls where, like a talisman against the evil eye, only an ability to apply the cosine rule to find the angle in a scalene triangle will ward off economic disaster and political oppression. If you are not a teacher, then you probably will think…”hey I have worked as a nurse for 30 years and have never ever needed an in depth understanding of the Metternich plan in the Accident and Emergency unit nor has it cropped up in my social life”.

OK we agree education is to prepare young people for adulthood, probably we agree that elements of numeracy, verbal and non verbal communication, literacy, an appreciation of other cultures a challenge to family held prejudices re gender, race, religion etc are important, but what should we teach? how should we teach it? How can we prepare people for adulthood, what are the skills and competences needed to successfully navigate adulthood. Is a competitive exam system where you are judged by how much higher your grade is compared to others is the best way to do it.

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS ALERT. I wont apologise for this, as I believe political correctness tends to mean someone is asking questions which challenge perceived wisdoms or undermine the status quo by demanding respect. By having a rigid exam based hierarchical assessment system, then by definition, for every success at school, there is a failure. We have a school system that trains and nurtures kids to be failures, where the goal of a competitive exam system is to generate a situation where 50% of the population will fail. It ignores multiple intelligences it demands that only those who buy into the system can be regarded as successful, it creates docility and crushes creativity. I believe our current education system not only fails to meet the expectations of the 21st Century but by virtue of the system actually sabotages the creation of a skill set which our society needs.

Do I have answers to this? is there a better way to educate kids rather that the current system? Should schools be more an arm of social services? how do we reach out to the disaffected, What skills do we need to develop? I don’t know the answers to these, that is why I am doing this research. But I do know that in our pockets most of us carry a phone which can answer almost every question we ever need to know in our lives. If by some chance in this wide cruel hostile world outside the classroom, the need arises for me toI solve a trig question needing the cosine rule, I know I can type into google “cosine rule” “sides 5cm 10 cm 14 cm” + angle A I can get the answer…..in fact I have just tried it and came up with https://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/geometry-plane/triangle-law-of-cosines.php

Of course I don’t have an answer to this, that is why I am doing this research. We can agree that Education’s function is to prepare young people for adulthood, hopefully this will start to answer my questions…..or at least start a discussion.

Well bus is arriving, and now I am off to Vincent street fr my first meeting. Will write this up later. Wish me luck reader

• 

Well I had a fabulous time in Wellington, great seeing, Lizzie, Jack, Gina and Tim. The experience of seeing the All Blacks was really as good as I had hoped and I am genuinely happy to say that I truly like my family, it was a fabulous weekend. So here I am at gate 31 in the departure lounge awaiting my flight back to Auckland and it s Blog time again. I have been asked about Brexit more than once so here goes:

For me, being in the European Union represented something else beyond being in an economic trading block. It represented a recognition that World war 2 was over, that the Empire was over, It represented an openness toward people from all over the world, not just Europe. For me personally being in the EU was symbolic of being forward looking and optimistic. It was not about Magda from Poland or Ion from Romania coming and taking an English job, it was about Elliot from Tadcaster and Scott from Ashington being able to take up employment in Stuttgart or study in Malmo. In my mind, the English Channel was analagous to the Berlin Wall, being part of the EU was an equivalent to the wall being torn down. Also economically it was a market that allowed for strength in numbers.

I am not Anti American by a long way, so this little polemic is not about throwing stones at Uncle Sam, but any country which does dot look after its own citizens needs has a government which is not performing its basic duty. So the reality is, any deals with the Americans are deals which will be one sided in favour of the bigger party. The essence of any deal is “I give away something I don’t really care about in exchange for getting something from you that I want, as cheaply as possible” As a big voice within the EU we were in a position to influence policies and drive hard bargains with America which were truly bilateral. The UK on its own I do not believe will have the clout and the power to do so. Now of course that is where myself and the remainers differ, the leavers believe that Britain is a world superpower which freed from EU membership can strike up better deals with America and Japan than currently exist.

The leavers believe Britain will be freed from an “undemocratic dictatorship” and that leaving will herald a golden age of wealth and prosperity and freedom. I don’t want to patronise the people who voted leave by saying they are stupid or racist. There is no doubt that not everyone who voted leave is a racist, although probably every racist voted leave. We have endured a 40 year drip drip drip of anti European, xenophobic propaganda from the press, many of the stories, blatant lies.

But it is striking that the vote demographic is definitely one in which the older you are the more likely you were to vote leave, but sorry kids, the youth dont vote. So why did the elderly vote Leave?

I would argue that for most of us our childhoods up to our mid twenties are a golden period in our memories. Even if they are not really so good….we remember them as beautiful…..its when we had adventures….its when we first fell in love….first kissed a lover like a lover. The opportunities are endless….we are healthy and fit and free

So the older people remember pre EU days as being beautiful and simple….and equate the happiness of youth with being outside the EU. Also historical nationalistic pride, I am sorry to say there remains a “we won the war” attitude and our press fuelled that. Perhaps I am negative and pessimistic and Britain remains a world player who is the equal to the USA and Russia and China militarily and economically.

Then we have the complexity of society in 2016 compared to before 1973. We are not guaranteed work….we dont have a job for life. Society is not monolithic…families are not bread winning father…adoring wife and 3 children….we have complex families..we have black…white….asian neighbours. Women are no longer expected to be passive and pretty. My lover no longer has to be of the opposite sex. Life is more complicated and diverse and the changes are accelerating.

I believe for many voting leave was a yearning for an earlier simpler time.

As long as i remember, the press , have had a negative attitude…stories appear which are lies. “The EU wants ban bananas” “crazy EU demand Brits drive on the right” EU demand queen has to wear a crash helmet when riding in her carriage……these were genuine stories that appeared in the press….every day for 40 years.

Voting leave was also simple plain xenophobia….an objection to hearing people speaking Italian and not being ice cream sellers or waiters, discomfort with seeing polish or czech people, plain simple racism.

Brexit was also a vote against the government, against the wealthy, against the banks, the stock market and the elite. It wad a vote of discontent and unhappiness On a recent television report about Brexit, I heard an MP mention the people in their constituency who voted Remain and how their views had been totally ignored during the months of debate; that the closeness of the result had never been reflected in any kind of ‘reaching out’ or consensus and how the ‘will of the people’ was turned around to mean the will of the 52% who turned out to vote. If we look at the numbers we see that 46.5m people were able to vote of whom 17.4 voted Leave and 16.1m voted Remain, which left 12.9m who didn’t vote at all. Thus, the idea that the ‘majority of the British people’ supported Leave is, and has always been, wrong. The Tory Party, however, thought it best to ignore this inconvenient truth in the hope they could ride the populist wave of Leavers and become the party of the people that UKIP were threatening to become. Unluckily for them they completely misunderstood how such a compromised and close result would reflect itself in parliament. Accordingly, Theresa May’s deal or variations thereof, Boris Johnson’s threats of a no deal or any other Tory Leave strategy just don’t satisfy anyone on either side of the debate. Whether we leave with a deal or not or remain in limbo , the fact remains this has always been a Tory Brexit designed to keep the Tory Party from fragmenting. There was no grand idea about what Brexit was; no one presented a vision of what Britain could be outside of Europe. Mainly because none of this mattered in the least. Hence all the cliched talk of ‘taking our country back’, blue passports, bendy bananas, and less immigration. Not forgetting the lies about how the NHS would benefit from a Leave windfall of £350m a week. It didn’t help that parts of the Tory Party had also begun to believe that the kind of extremism as expressed by Donald Trump, among others, could be harnessed as a way of arguing against the perceived nanny-statism of the European project. Working time directives, the European Court of Human Rights, and EU Farming, Fishery and tax directives, among other things, just seemed like the sort of liberal thinking a growing number of libertarians in the Tory Party were beginning to baulk at. In the new nationalist world order, anything that smacked of liberal thinking had somehow been conflated with ‘fake news’ and was no longer to be trusted. In fact, it was to be confronted as violently as possible either online or, tragically, offline. The Tories have, sometimes unconsciously, played up to this nasty plague in the hope that right-wing populism was the edge that they needed either to get their version of Brexit through or to shore up their popularity in the polls. If the last few months have proven anything it’s that this unconscionable tactic Brexit was also a vote against the government, against the wealthy, against the banks, the stock market and the elite. It wad a vote of discontent and unhappiness

The weekend had arrived and so far I don’t seem to have been affected by any jet lag at all, I had worried about spending the first few days here in the “Land of the Long White Cloud” zombied, so I planned to have a few days doing nothing, no work schedules until next week. But really I could have started work yesterday, I do feel pretty good. So yesterday after giving Nicola a bell just to let her know I am OK, took a walk down to the beach  and spent a  couple of hours walking, I am sharing the B an B with a Chinese guy and his daughter and a young backpacker, they are nice so I don’t have these empty evenings with only myself for company.  But I would have liked to get down to work ah well that starts on Monday.

But as mentioned earlier, the weekend had arrived and I was going to head South to Wellington for the weekend to see family who live there.  The relatives I am visiting are lovely, my Mums youngest sister, her children and their partners. I am really excited about this. The last time I saw Jack he was about 4 years old, everyone said my son looked liked him but I don’t know so there is an intrigue as well.

But the other thing is, I am going to Westpak stadium to see the All Blacks play South Africa.  So that’s all for now folks a short entry today written in the lounge of Auckland airport  heading South to Wellington for a weekend with family and rugby.

• 

• 

When all the dark clouds roll away

And the sun begins to shine

I see my freedom from across the bay

And it comes right in on time

Well it shines so bright and it gives so much light

And it comes from the sky above

Makes me feel so free, makes it feel like me

And it lights my life with love.

There have been 24 hour periods of my life which I have no real urge to repeat. The severe bout of food poisoning I acquired in Visnjan springs to mind, my bodily discomfort was compounded by the chagrin verbalised by Paul Barber my room mate, who rather than show sympathy for my discomfort opted instead, to complain about the aromas and sounds emanating from me with frightening regularity.

And before leaving Newcastle, the prospect of a 28 flight filled me with an equal sense of foreboding. So with the words of Matty, my son, who cheerfully informed me that it would take one day per hour of time changes to recover from the flight. I was told that I would experience the equivalent of 5 day hangover. This prospect did not fill me with a sense of enthusiasm for the journey.

I will claim with all honesty, that contrary to my normal Olympic ability to sleep any where any time I stayed awake for the entire flight, but the very fact that that the gentleman sitting beside me turned into a woman at some point in the flight, the arrival of my in flight meal on my tray, not delivered by the hand of the cabin crew, but just appearing magically (or maybe the cabin crews were angels in an Emirates uniforms) and the fact that despite definitely listening to track six of a Van Morrison compilation album on the in flight entertainment and realising that it had gone back to an earlier track suggests either the flight was indeed a magic carpet ride….or I had fallen asleep at some point. I will leave you to judge.

Whatever the truth, it was now 4:00 AM and I had just arrived in Auckland. Now I know my feet don’t smell like roses at the best of times, but I did feel a slight sense of indignation when the border control checked my boots in case they posed a bio hazard. Luckily I can confirm they did not. Clearing customs and passport control I waltzed merrily into the arrivals hall. After checking my phone to find the details  of my air B and B, my heart sank into the depths of my potentially biologically dangerous boots. I could not check in to my lodgings until the afternoon. Arghhhh, so what to do? I suppose I could take the chance, I had the key code, I had checked how to get there, maybe I could just go early and hope no one would notice, but in my minds eye I had visions of my arrival startling a sleeping guest already ensconced snug and warm in my prospective bed, not really fancying my first day in New Zealand to be spent as a non paying guest of Auckland’s finest in a case of being mistaking for a night prowler, I went for plan B. I will go sighteeing. Leaving my suitcase in left luggage I took the bus to the town centre. Well New York may be the City that never sleeps, but Auckland is the city on mogadon, nothing open, but hey there was a ferry to Half Moon Bay.  This probably means nothing to anyone except, Half Moon Bay is a song by Mott the Hoople (not their finest I hasten to add), but as I was wearing my Mott the Hoople T shirt, why not go there? And so my first morning in New Zealand saw my watching the Sunrise over the bay, the clouds were clearing and the sun was coming up. And so it was that my introduction to this land down under, was a chilly but beautiful sunrise, the rain had cleared and despite the hour and the tiredness I felt great. (Incidentally Half Moon Bay was a disappointment).

Fast forward through the day I eventually arrived at the Air B and B in the late afternoon, I got changed and showered although not in that order, because then I would have been really wet, took a walk down to the supermarket and bought some food for the evening meal, popped up to my room to read a bit before cooking and BANG!!! Somewhere around 6pm I fell asleep waking up at 09:00 the following morning, I had slept for almost 15 hours straight. I must have woke up some time during the night because I was now in my Jim Jams and in bed, but I had absolutely no recollection of that.       

“When you Dream Alone it Remains a Dream, but When we Dream Together it Becomes Reality”

These were the words that greeted me on my arrival in New Zealand, and they are true, had it not been for the dreams of my dad visiting shipping companies in Uruguay, and of Kierna and Elaine’s eloquence at the annual British Council conference for ETwinners, this would remain a dream. I would never have known about the Churchill Fellowship, I would never have known where to begin exploring educational issues that are not normally included in the normal staff training we receive at school. For 30 years or more I have received training in how to mark a book, how to fill in a lesson plan…(usually done after the lessons and only to satisfy the personal planner inspectors), three decades of weekly training on topics that I would love to say go in one ear and out the other, but in truth they are so dull, they rarely make contact with the auditory nerve. I am passionate about learning and discovery and education and teaching. The buzz I get when some kid gets inspired is the best feeling in the world, during my first international exchange with students, I almost wept with delight when a teenager whose interests did not extend much beyond music, boys, dancing, shopping and looking cool, said “God! if I see one more renaissance painting or roman arch, I swear I will scream! but that Piero della Francesca painting is pretty good” I don’t know whether she developed a love of art or architecture, but we had tricked her into appreciating art . I could add trips to Arran where kids starting to learn about rock formations or Erasmus Field studies to Malham where giddy youngsters started to really find an interest in Glaciation or Stargazing in Croatia all of which reinforced my belief that young people are excited about learning and really like to acquire new knowledge but the daily attrition of prescribed rote learning whose only aim is to ensure our young people can regurgitate facts for an exam has the effect of strangling the natural will to learn. So whether you are a student or a teacher, the machine that is the education system in the UK feels like a strait jacket which stifles originality and thought and crushes originality. But the opportunity to engage in research which fires up imagination for the teacher and which hopefully leads to a environment which creates a one size fits one education system was too good to pass up on.

So today I find myself in Auckland airport in New Zealand awaiting a flight to Wellington.

Now let me tell you, although this fellowship is about work and I fully expect to do a lot of work, the visit this weekend is purely social, it is the weekend after all, and as a life long rugby fan, I have the chance to see the All Blacks play South Africa in Wellington as well as visit relatives some of whom were infants the last time I saw them, to do a training course in New Zealand to look at strategies which challenge the bland orthodoxy was too much to pass up on.

I dont know how to really start this blog, do I describe the long flight? do I start talking about what I want to achieve? do I talk about my research aims or do I talk about my first impressions. Well I don’t know really, I don’t know how boring or original this is going to be, I dint know who will read it. But I will say that to be given the chance to join a dream and maybe make it the start of a reality is a pretty good feeling. Whatever…. I am now in New Zealand and feel so excited and fired up and want to spend the next few weeks developing my knowledge, years of dull sessions in training courses have never done this to me

Dont Waste Time Waiting for Something Special, every day we are alive is Something Special

— Sarah Gower

I am still trying to navigate this blog and only time will tell whether I can get to grips with it. and sometimes I simply feel tired and don’t write things up. But it occured to me, that I started writing on my way to Te Kura and presented some ideas and questions but never described my day or my impressions, I hope this will address some of my questions.

First of all I will reiterate what I have already said, I passionately believe in education, I feel that educating young people is the start of a fabulous journey that does not and should not finish with a GCSE or an A Level or a degree, also I am aware that for many young people the learning programme they follow is completely inappropriate to their needs and often completely ill suited to their learning styles. We have a system which shackles the learning journey to a model which is dictated by the demands for a quantifiable model which only satisfies the student who has accepted the system. But which overlooks the student for whom actually turning up to school in spite of domestic obstacles is in itself a major achievement. It does not recognise the unique characteristics of the disorganised but creative and curious child. Those students who have …lets say, ADHD for whom the classroom is a strait jacket, but who actually may excel in other “intelligences,” they may be amazingly funny and sharp witted and command the admiration of their peers, despite the inevitable conflict with a hard pressed teacher who needs to ensure the kid achieves his GCSE targets. Similarly there are individuals with a real thirst and I will reiterate that, they have a thirst and a hunger and a passion for topics not on the curriculum or not valued by the EBAC constraints. Speaking personally, I would have happily studied geography 7 days a week, regional, human, physical or whatever. I was always in awe of faraway places, how landscapes were formed excited me, I would pore over ordnance survey maps and my mind could turn these into accurate 3 dimensional images of what i saw. But for me “the broad balanced curriculum” and the narrow constraints within geography served to diminish my interest. But similarly, there are students who are uniquely talented with emotional intelligence, who can read moods like a picture book and have an ocean of compassion but every day at school serves as reinforcement of the mathematical shortcomings. Or for whom PE reminds them each day that they are the wrong body shape, dyspraxic or just not interested in kicking a ball, throwing a javelin or running a cross country mile.

So visiting Te kura I was truly excited to see a system which values all achievement and is open to awarding qualifications which reflect the student strengths. A system in which kids do not need to be in a classroom from 8:25 until 15:00, the online teaching means someone who is passionate about sport or geography or caring for the sick, can focus on these, they dont need to be in school, they can complete the theory, the NCEA level 1 (GCSE equivalent) at a time which suits them and then embark on developing their passions.

The teen mother can tailor her learning around her baby, free of stigma, free of the inevitable pain of separation and study child care. The School phobic, the pyscho socially disadvantaged, the bullied can learn at their pace. The distance learning teams can organise drop ins, tutorials in libraries, in community centres or in the sports club. It also means that the student who wants to be a plumber or a joiner can elect to study the Maths or the English relevant to his needs, no need to bother with the Stats or the Algebra, but they can actually focus on the elements which concur with their aims

Now this does not mean the system is perfect, even from a philosophical perspective, we change, we are facing goals we dont expect, I never would have thought English or essay writing was something I needed, but at some point it became relevant, and in that respect the distance learning model here is not something that is free until you are 18….it is free until you have completed your full NCEA (again GCSE to those in England). The system is not perfect, it relies on a positive contribution from students and more importantly it relies on the positive contribution from the named responsible person at home. So we all know a child raised in a dysfunctional environment suffers academically, but the responsible adult who oversees learning, could be the aunty, the rugby coach, the librarian.

The success is not measured in terms of exam results but in engagement. Now this system can’t work in the UK, it has flaws, it demands political will, it also means teachers need to move away from their traditions and sacred cows

I still don’t have answers, if anything, I have more questions now. Big Picture Education is the name of the game here and this is like PBL which I have watched fail in the uK, but why did it fail? I believed in PBL but maybe we treated it as another form of teaching, it remained confined to the classroom.

Anyway I am knackered at the moment, tomorrow I have a flight to Wellington to meet with Core Education, OPen Polytechnic and Core Education. More then