After a couple of days to reflect on my experience in sunny Queensland I now know that many of the things we complain about are NOT THAT BAD….. BUT….. I am ready to (hopefully) help to take Joeys into not only the future of education but the future of life. I know many don’t want to see that it is so but technology is here to stay and skills required by our students will be greatly varied from when many of us were at school. Yes, some things must still be valued, handwriting will always be essential BUT typing skills and the like will also be equally valued. Unfortunately I am not going to let go of the preverbial bone and keep screaming that WE NEED UPDATED TECHNOLOGY (especially in science). You can’t expect us to be future teachers without the means to do so. It’s a fact. Thank you again for the opportunity to see how others ‘live’, there is so much now to do and I am ready to do it 🙂

p.s I do love sport and I love that aspect of our College but I am just putting it out there that there are other equally important aspects that are behind because of sport…. science club is just one that springs to mind…. I think I am just overwelmed by the fantastic nature of education when there is more freedom of time….

I am sitting in the LEEP un-comference session and am blown away by the amount of responsibility that primary school students can be given and that they cope with and yet what do we do for them when they get to us???? Where are our leadership programs?? We are SUCH a respected school (even more than I ever thought after being here) and we should be developing leaders of the future. I KNOW sport is a huge part of Joeys but are we developing our sport at the expense of other skills?? I think the only answer is yes (at the moment).

What separates a good teacher from a great teacher? Passion, love of learning, compassion, willingness…. sounds a lot like Marcellin’s teachings in the 21st Century….

“You cannot teach another person directly you can only facilitate their learning” Do we always do this? Or do we try to stick ONLY to our programs and tick each box as we go? Our boys already know how to use so many technologies why are we not USING what they know and enjoy to help them learn? Maybe trust is an issue…. something to think about.

Morning all…. we have come to day 2 and the final day of the conference. Chris Betcher is just about to start is key note speech. It is sure to be completely different from Steven Bradbury who I found to be utterly inspiring and think that Joeys boys would really relate to. This conference has been a huge eye-opener for me and I am SO excited that I have been here to see what our colleagues around Australia are doing in their classrooms. I think Joeys (although behind now) is set to LEAP into the future of teaching. We shouldnt be scared to fail only scared of what not trying may lead to.

I completely agree with Peter…. my head is really hurting from trying to listen and take in everything that is being said. I would LOVE 5 mins to process each session but its go go go…. fantastic information but WOW the possibilities are out of this world. I wish everyone at Joeys could be here to witness some of the greatness that is out there.

Time time and more TIME. I am hearing that there is so much we COULD be doing but for the time. Anyone heard about 20% time? Look it up. Very intereting concept. Where is Joeys in all of this? I am sorry to say that ‘fairly far behind’ doesn’t cover it. We need more than words to make this happen.

About to start our first cohort session. Interesting collection of teachers and administrators but what will we learn? Will it be a case of too many chefs? I am excited to find out about little da vinci’s. There is so much potential in our students that is just waiting to be ‘discovered’. I will keep you posted….