This is now 4 years old... ...how time just disappears.


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H. Hello and welcome to another post...

H. The letter H has different pronunciations depending on where you come from. In Argentina the sound of the letter H is silent. In Spanish, when people laugh using text, one types in: "Jajajajajajajajajajajajajajajaja" in English, it is: "Hahahahahahahahahahahaha" The letter "J" in 'español' has the same sound as the letter "H" sound in 'ingles'. The word "hola" is "hello" but one pronounces it "orlah" and not "Horlar".  When it comes to the indigenous language of the Indigenous Australians or the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (Aboriginals), the language has a complete "Englishnasation" applied to it (Is there such a word?). I don't believe this has been a fair process, but since the British conquered this country and took over it despite the efforts of the Aboriginals first here, imagine if the Spanish or the Portuguese had arrived here first? What a disaster that wo
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T. Teaching strategies begin with the setting of goals.

T. Teaching strategy - the setting of goals: For Module 5 - Professional Practice 102792 at WSU - instructions : Draft three clear goals.      You might like to align them with the teaching standards. Goals are about pedagogy, good teaching concepts, the understanding of theory and applying this knowledge to suit the students in your class and at school.        Goal 1 Being an effective teacher that makes a difference to the students: It is more than just presenting content.     Passing on knowledge of the content so that students remember.          Killen (2016) suggests that ‘effective teachers spend a considerable amount of time transforming raw content in forms that make it comprehensible to students” (p. 25). Australian Professional Teaching Standard 1 makes clear mention of this but needs to triangulate education to incorporate the “ability to teach” – as knowing your students and knowing how they learn is not enough. An effective teacher now needs to know how to teach and this c
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A. Annotations to becoming a reflective teacher - my A to Z of things...

A.  Teachers who on a regular basis think about why, what, and how they teach, are reflective educators (Killen, 2016). There is no better way to start my reflection than by looking at Roy Killen and his views on education. His vision from four years ago still resonates and drives me to become a better teacher.  But, let's not put all of our eggs in the same basket. There are others who have influenced my thinking about education and teaching as well. The best thing about my learning has been the discovery of teaching-ideals from Dr Roberto Parada at Western Sydney University. All of the knowledge he has passed on to preservice teachers, such as the fundamentals of pedagogy and the notion that all of what we learn at university, will only become real in the staffroom of a school and not in the classrooms with pupils. Why is this the case? Well, as Roberto tells us, all theory is good in theory, but what we learn in the classroom from the students themselves is what will shape us as
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J. Jajajajajajajajajajajajajaja is the best medicine.

J.  Sometimes, when there are three Js together, or even two Js together, I think of music. Some people see the letter J and think of Jar Jar Binks. I also think of the new-old word popping up everywhere considering the vaccinations: jab. However, when I see a single letter J, I think of laughter and how little of this medicine we have left, considering the last year we just had. If nineteen is a number you would like to forget it's important to think how a lot of the issues with a lack of laughter in our lives is dependant on attitude and people's point of view and the lack of open-mindedness or a positive frame of mind. Turns out that critical to the pandemic has been our preparedness in handling mental health and the sentiments that plague our community ahead of the dreaded Covid-19.  Will the vaccine cure the concerns created by the pandemic? Will the little "jab" finally fix mental illness that has plagued people in lockdown? This is why I feel that laughter is a
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O. Ohhhhhhhh my God.

O. Oh no. Dear blog. Please forgive me. I was supposed to populate you with words ages ago but it's only been tonight that I have found a spare moment.  Today I went with my wife, Mim, to my parent's 60th wedding anniversary celebrations at the Deckhouse in  Woolwich, near Hunter's Hill in Sydney. What a great place for such a great occasion. A milestone in anyone's eyes. 60 years is a long time to spend with someone else - that is, unless you love them, then it's perhaps never long enough. I believe that the love my parents share is what keeps them living longer and stronger as dad is now over 90 years old. When he was a young boy, so he tells me, it was common practice to have children of different ages in the same classroom. This was due to the lack of good teachers available to teach and was all too common in small country towns and remote areas. It was also common for children to leave school and go to work to help the family. In more recent times, young people
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E. is for an email I sent my lecturer at university...

E. Hello Sasha Hope this finds you well and hope you are keeping safe. I wanted to let you know how much I appreciate learning things connected to this course. I have been so ignorant in this subject matter until now as I knew so very little of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and their history, culture, and problems arising from terra-nullius. I had zero knowledge of what the indigenous people of this land have gone through and what they are going through now. It is torturous reading about it, and I cannot imagine the pain they are going through now.  How can we live with racism like this? We all condemn Nazi Germany for that they did to the Jewish people - what is wrong with the Australian Government not wanting to acknowledge similar issues in this country? Coming from Argentina and knowing what our people went through with the Military Governments in the past and bringing people to account for atrocities. I cannot believe the hypocrisy that exists today here in Aust
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C. Creating progress as a reflective teacher - so on and so forth...

C.  Between yesterday and today, I have managed to finally begin my 2000 word essay on 'inclusive education' where I have been asked to investigate how I can begin to apply differentiation in my lesson plans. My task is to produce one single lesson that focuses on addressing a 'universal design for learning' environment that caters for all the learning needs of all the students in my classroom. So far, 401 words written with more to come in the next few days.  Again, as I have done many times in the past, I return to the ones I am familiar with to reinforce what I have been learning, and I immerse myself with reading and re-reading. The usual ones, the familiar ones I am comfortable diving into. I am such a creature of habit and like a baby, I run back to my comfort zone of Killen, Hattie, De Nobile and co, JJ Arnett, Brad Gobby and Rebecca Walker as well as Churchill and his many co-collaborators in his massive teaching manual simply called: Teaching - making a differe
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L. Now I am going to take you through my ideas on 'learning'...

L. What is learning and how does a teacher evaluate if a student has learnt something or not? What does a student need to do to 'prove' learning has taken place? How does a teacher measure the extent of the learning that has taken place? One of my favourite movies is 'Cast Away' with Tom Hanks. The issue that I have with this movie is that I actually get frustrated watching it as Hanks, from my perspective, is a complete dunce and basically totally inexperienced at being lost alone in a deserted island. But this is the whole point of the movie. Not that I have looked at the intentions of the storyline or the nature of the book, I am sure it is supposed to frustrate the viewer into thinking they know better and perhaps makes them think what they would do if it was them in that situation. There are so many scenes in the story where the viewer is asked to think about better ways of doing something to survive. Here is the trailer to what I am talking about: https://www.yout
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B. Becoming a reflective teacher - part B

B.  If you are reading this, you may not know that I am enrolled at two universities in order to complete my studies on time. So, I am enrolled at both Western Sydney University (WSU) and the University of New England (UNE) in Armidale, NorthEastern part of New South Wales. At UNE, I am a summer student studying EDSP500 Educating Students in Inclusive Environments. At WSU (or is it called UWS? - no one can tell me this for some weird reason) I am enrolled doing 102085 (Summer A 2021) Aboriginal and Culturally Responsive Pedagogies.  I am so very fortunate I have made the decision to attempt to accomplish my learning during summer at two very different institutions. All I can say is WOW - what a difference. Both have such different styles and the culture at each facility is so contrasting from one another.  Maybe I should repeat the WOW and say BOW WOW WOW instead. Yes: Bow Wow Wow... ...remember them? Here is a reminder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoXVYSV4Xcs Anyhow, where was I..
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V. V is for Victory... ...a need to pick my battles.

V. I have had some victories at school as a practice teacher. I have been placed at Cambridge Park High School (CPHS) near Penrith and only 23 kilometres from home. In communication with other teachers, I have been asked whether Cambridge Park is somewhere near Cambridge in the UK and if there is a connection somehow. The association is immense and it will be an important accolade to be connected to such a great location in the world of education. On their website, it says: The mission of the University of Cambridge is to contribute to society through education, learning and research at the highest international level. What an excellent example of resilience, considering it has been a place of knowledge since 1209: The University of Cambridge is a collegiate research university in Cambridge, United Kingdom. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the second-oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's fourth-oldest surviving
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