Writin’ and Fightin’
We have recently completed a writing matrix that covers levels one to five of the curriculum. These matrix sheets outline what a student needs to do in order to be working at a particular level in the New Zealand Curriculum.
To design sheets that span the five curriculum levels, written so that students will understand what is being asked (we tried to avoid ‘education jargon’ where ever possible), that cover seven writing genres, and address the four deeper features of writing and three surface features of writing, whilst ensuring we are also addressing the National Standards and the Literacy Progressions and linking to classroom practice of using the Six Traits of Writing was no easy task!
However, looking at the finished products I am confident that our students will be able to use these writing matrix sheets to help progress their writing to the next step. We have just begun to produce similar sheets for reading; highlighting what reading skills a student needs in order to meet the specific curriculum levels. These should be available for our students by the beginning of term 2.
On a totally different note, you probably have seen on the tv, floating around on the internet, or heard the discussions on the radio, the case of the Australian student Casey Haynes who ‘fought back against the bully.’ It has thrust this student and the ‘bully’ into the international spotlight and has created a lot of debate about what happened on the video.
Whilst I will not comment on the rights or wrongs of what happened, what did occur to me was the total lack of values (or virtues) there appeared to be. Students deliberately seeking out to hurt another student and filming it was deplorable and, in my opinion, just about the lowest a human-being can act.
It was clear that self-respect, consideration, compassion, kindness, to name a few, were not in the bullies (I am talking to you too, person filming) vocabulary. If they were, they definitely were not in the habit of practicing them.
Each fortnight a virtue of the week is outlined at school. These virtues are taken from, what appears to be, a consensus of what makes someone of good character, regardless of religion, race or gender. The virtues are being reinforced in the class, during Cool Bananas and at school assemblies. I feel that when a student sees, hears and observes what makes someone of good character enough times they too will act in the same way. We want it to be the norm to show kindness, peacefulness, courtesy, etc at Kaimai School.
I truly believe that our children are a reflection of society. It can not be totally up to one part of society (school, home, church, sports group, etc) to reinforce good values, it can only be done through a combined effort. What is also concerning is the comments left on blog sites, Youtube, etc aimed at the perpetrator, Ritchard Gale. It shows how easily we can become the bully too. Now I am not defending his actions, but watching Campbell Live last night this boy clearly has a lot of issues he needs help with. I feel by society working together hopefully, we will never have to hear about sad stories, such as what we have witnessed this week, again.
Clustrmaps
