Professional development in schools

Here is a post I've just written for my school, following on from an #edchatsa discussion on Monday. Comments and feedback appreciated!

Punishment vs. discipline

With all the talk about the Zuma spear, and whether the artist should be punished, I found tonight's session in the parenting course rather topical. What do you see as the difference between punishment and discipline? Is there a difference? Is punishment part of a discipline strategy? Are they two separate ideas, ideologically incompatible?

We were given an answer, which I happen to agree with, but before I give you that answer, I'd be interested in knowing how you see it. Do you discipline your children, or punish them, or both? How do you view these two concepts? How do you understand these two words?

I did it!

This is a short video I've edited from Monday, after an afternoon of Nathan playing on my laptop. Google Chrome has a nanny site called Zoodles. Once you've set up a profile, including the age, for your child, it selects appropriate games. You can veto any game it selects, but at least you know that the games your kid is playing are good ones. So, today, Nathan and I (since we were both sick at home) worked on his colour and shape recognition, as well as learning how to use the mouse on a laptop (not the easiest thing for a little one who isn't even sure whether he's right- left-handed!)

PAIN!

I'm usually so god with pain. I have a high threshold. I mean, I gave birth naturally to 3 kids (although, granted, with the second one I had morphine, but then, I think that's okay under the circumstances!). For 2 of them I had no epidurals, and I only had gas & air for the first one. I usually don't take pain killers unless the pain is REALLY bad - as in, migraine status.

But these past two days... this has been a completely different sort of pain, and to be honest, I've welcomed the drugs.

I have a cold. I know, I know - it's just a cold. However, my sinuses are so swollen (not congested, really, as I can breathe fine - it's not like flu) that my teeth ache so badly I can't eat. In fact, it's so bad that even with my mouth open, every step I take makes my teeth feel like I've just fallen 10ft and landed with a massive bump. OW!

Of course, this hasn't helped my (non-existant) diet, as I can suck chocolate and eat dunked rusks, and dip bananas in nutella or peanut butter....

But it's meant I've had to stay in bed cos otherwise I a) fall over or b) have to do this funny crab-like shuffle to keep from hurting my head and teeth.

Aaah, the "joys" of being sick.

Skies of freedom

One of the things I remember best about the UK is walking on the commons. Not because they were pretty, or anything, but because they were the only places in London where you could see the sky. The lack of open sky is one of the reasons I found London so oppressive. My spirit would long for weekends in Guildford, or anywhere out of the city, where the sky was unfettered, unimpeded. Returning to SA, one forgets all too quickly what a blessing it is to see the sky.

Just recently, in the maelstrom that has been my life, I would catch myself driving somewhere, paying no attention whatsoever to the road. Instead, my eyes would be glued to the sky. I would be drinking in the vastness of it, the colour, the wind-sweptness (is there such a word?)... eternity made visible. Somehow, blocking out everything else and just focusing on that would grant me enough peace to carry on. Similarly, when I felt I was drowning, I would find myself longing to be outside, staring up at the sky.

While browsing through my photos this afternoon, I realised how many photos I have of skies - cloudy, rainbows, sunsets, moon risings, sunrises, mountains lifted high against them, even an unintentional self-portrait of my hair against the sky.... It made me realise that there is something truly spiritual about skies. They breathe freedom into my life. (Maybe that's why prison cells have no windows with a view of the sky....)

I find it interesting therefore, that the gospels describe how Jesus left, rising into the sky. Revelation (not Revelations, people!), similarly, talks about Jesus returning from the skies. What is it about the sky that is so elemental, so fundamental, so profound? Is it merely that it is so vast? Or is there something more to it?

Beautiful on the inside

You know those moments that are just so precious, you want to stop the world and freeze-frame them? I had one of those this morning.

#1 was having a  friend for a play date today. As I was getting dressed I remembered that the play room was in a terrible state. I called her to ask her whether she had brushed her teeth, and if so, I was planning to ask her to go and tidy up. As I asked whether her teeth were brushed, she replied, "No, but I'm busy cleaning up the playroom because all the toys were spread all over and it's very messy. I'll do that as soon as I'm done."

My daughter. Clearly. She likes a neat, ordered space to work (play) in.

Then a few moments later, she appears again. "Mom, I want to put some flowers in a vase for XX. Can you help me?"

??!?!

Needless to say, I hurried to help her. We made a cute little posie of garden flowers in a small vase that is now sitting on her little tea party table.

I am so proud of her, so proud of the beautiful spirit she has, of the beautiful person she's becoming. I am so blessed to be her Mommy, and I told her as much. I know it's a small thing, but the respect, initiative and consideration for her friend that she showed this morning are actually really big things for me. They're life skills and I'm thrilled as punch that she's already showing she's learnt them (to some extent). Encore! 

Post-Apartheid demographics

I'm not a Born Free (i.e. born post 1994). I was born and raised under Apartheid. I benefitted from it to some degree, although I never voted for it. In fact, the first time I was able to vote was in the 1994 elections.

I try to treat all people equally. I try to look beyond the colour of a person's skin. In most cases, I think I'm successful. In I do notice skin colour, it's usually because something else has drawn my attention - nationality, socio-economic background, etc.

While I have an intellectual understanding of what it was like to be a non-white under Apartheid, that's all it will ever be. I frequently get frustrated that we haven't moved on from the "race thing" in SA, yet, periodically I am reminded that it's only the whites in this country that feel that way. For many blacks, coloured and Indians, the legacy of Apartheid is still very much a present reality.

Today I was reminded about this again. While having a discussion about how one should go about appointing teachers with some colleagues, I was amazed, yet again, by the passion with which various non-whites spoke regarding their disillusionment with the system - that it still fails to deliver the kind of equality it should.

I've deliberately chosen to send my daughter to a school that is majority non-white, over the closer (almost entirely) white school. I don't want my child thinking that majority white (or nearly all white) is normal. While academically it may be a better school, there's a lot more to life than academics! I want my kids to grow up with friends of colour (which has happened for my daughter). Our issue, instead of colour, is dealing with people of different faiths. (How DOES one explain to a child that while we may believe our God is the only God, her best friend believes something different, and that we need to demonstrate respect, love and tolerance towards her in that regard?) Similarly, I know that when it comes to choosing a high school for my kids, the demographics will have a big role to play in that.

I confess though that I do find this whole topic almost boring. On the one hand, I feel like telling those who bang on about how many white males or even white females (we're also not acceptable in this new country of ours) there are in positions of authority to just get over themselves. On the other, I sympathise with their plight - even nearly 2 decades is not long enough to erase the cultural brainwashing they received or to put right the educational wrongs that were perpetrated.

It feels like I'm stuck between a rock anda  hard place. I know that to put right the wrongs, to do the ethically correct thing, means that I and my children won't just be 2nd choice, or 3rd, or 4th, but completely last in job applications. The knock-on effects are huge - lower salary, poorer standard of living, fewer educational opportunitites, etc.

Of course, we have the alternative of leaving SA, but all over the world there are discussions about nationalism, and what it means to be "British", or "Australian", or "American", and immigrants and minority groups are given a raw deal. The grass isn't greener, necessarily, on the other side. It's just that today it didn't feel particularly green on this side either. I was very disheartened by the discussion I was part of - I felt like all the good we've been trying to do hasn't been seen; it's disregarded because it isn't enough.

As any good teacher will tell you, in order to know when you've reached your obejectives, you need SMART targets - specific, measureable, attainable, relevant and time sensitive. How will we know when we have reached the goal of being a fully integrated society? How will we know when we've hit the target and can do away with affirmative action (which, simplistically, is just Apartheid in reverse)?

And who will make the decision? If the youth make the decision, then their targets will be completely different to those chosen by the older generations. Who says which generation is more correct? Have we integrated if the youth no longer see the colour of each other's skins? Or will we be integrated when every institution has a demographically representative management (including those with disabilities, sexual orientations, genders, etc)?

Big questions - and not ones that will be easily answered, I guess.