What's Different about Gen Z?

There’s something about Gen Z – the Next Net Generation. Technology is like air to them. Gen Z has grown up with computers and all forms of digital media in the same way that the Baby Boomers grew up with the television. Even the brains of Gen Z are different; their brains are wired differently from other generations.

In his book The Brain That Changes Itself, author, researcher and psychiatrist Norman Doidge, explodes the myth that the anatomy of the brain stays the same, that after childhood, the brain changed only when it began the process of decline or when the brain cells failed to develop properly, or were injured, or died, they could not be replaced. Nor according to some, could the brain ever alter its structure and find a new way to function if part of it was damaged. Doidge discovered through his research, the phenomenon of neuroplasticity, where the brain changed its very structure with each different activity it performed, perfecting its circuits so it was better suited to the task at hand. One of the scientists that Doidge worked with showed that thinking, learning and acting can turn our genes on or off, thus shaping our brain anatomy and our behaviour – this is one of the most extraordinary discoveries of our time. Children’s brains can change to a much larger degree than adult brains and according to Dr Stan Kutcher, that the ‘events of our lives get etched in the very physical structure and the activities of the brain’. Research carried out shows that current Gen Z has spent over 20,000 hours on the Internet and over 10,000 hours playing video games of some sort and this immersion, Tapscott notes, is happening at a critical time when the brain is particularly sensitive to outside influences. The studies show that brain regions associated with attention, evaluation of rewards, emotional intelligence, impulse control and goal-directed behaviour all change significantly between age 12 and 24. The neurological changes in the teenagers brains, may in part explain why many teenagers appear to be disorganised, have poor impulse control and have difficulty making long term plans.

So what changes have researchers noted about Gen Z or Generation Next who are born between 1998 and present – now up to 14 years old: • Young people who play video games, notice more; they process visual information more quickly • Those who play video games also acquire other skills of manual dexterity – particularly in eye-hand coordination • Gaming is a lesson in trial and error and young people who play these games are part of ‘accidental learning’ – adjusting to new culture rather than learning ‘about’ culture. • Net Geners don’t always start at the Beginning, they are visual experts, and multi-taskers – they leap around in search of information and their cognitive functions are parallel rather than sequential. • Gen Z are using technology in a way that will make them smarter, but think differently from previous generations. As educators we need to accommodate a very different type of learner to the way we learnt – their brains are wired differently. What’s different about Gen Z? According to Don Tapscott, author of Grown up Digital: • They want freedom in everything they do, from freedom of choice to freedom of expression – choice is like oxygen to them – proliferation of products, brands • They love to customise, personalise – website, ringtone, screen saver, news sources • They are the new scrutinizers – on line engagement will become increasingly important • They look for corporate integrity and openness when deciding what to buy and where to work. • The Net Gen wants entertainment and play in their work, education and social life. 82% of 2-17 year olds have regular access to video games.- they have been bred on interactive experiences. Baby Boomers used to ‘live to work’, while the Net Geners ‘work to live’. • They are the collaboration and relationship generation. They collaborate on FaceBook, video games, text one another constantly, twitter, share files for school or just for fun. (email is just “so yesterday”…) • The Net Gen has a need for speed in everything – video games, live chat – everything is real time. • They are innovators – innovation is now on hyper-drive – faster than most of us can keep up with, let alone comprehend. Gen Y and Gen Z have grown up with computers, the Internet,, iPods, iPads, mobile phones, GPS coordinates, swap messages and social networking, like FaceBook – they monitor every single aspect of their friends’ lives.. The implications for teaching and learning of Gen Z are quite profound. At Caloundra City Private School we recognise the differences in the way children learn and ensure that our teaching and learning program caters is quite specific ways, namely: • More focus on the student, not the teacher – student centred learning is the norm • Customised learning for individual needs – ‘one size does not fit all – one size fits one’ Individualised learning tailored for different levels of ability and interest, like in the Excellence Forums, or HeadStart at Sunshine Coast University, and students studying subject ‘off line’ and working independently. • Differentiated learning where different tasks, activities and topics covered to allow students to pursue their own areas of interest within broad themes or topics. • Students are more research savvy – they do more of the leg work – not the teacher – encouraging lifelong learning – learning is not just about the here and now, it’s also about the future. • Students become the creators – discovery learning is the norm, not the exception – website – Up the Dry Gully – created by Year 3 students for other students – which won a state award for our students. • Students become the ‘movers and shakers’ with teacher guidance – for example the initiative of the Year 4 students - water tank and Year 6 students with the Earth Hour at School. • The students are collaborators in learning and outcomes, for example the excellent digital stories of the Year 10 students who collaborated with Year 4 students to animate the stories that Year 4 students made up in class. • Deeper learning is more evident at the School and more interactive learning • Connected globally – like our live skype to students on Exchange in Canada and Scotland during our whole School Assembly.

Students from Pre-Prep to Year 12 are growing up in a digital world, the one that they know is very different from the one we grew up in years ago. Catering for learning of the Gen Z and Gen Y – the very young, coming through our school, is something that we do very well at Caloundra City Private School. Embracing the new technology – Toshiba Tablets, Apple MacBooks, iPads, Interactive whiteboards, and sophisticated and professional software like Adobe Premium - and using the technology it in a meaningful day to day context, means that our students have the very best of learning opportunities. They don’t leave school to learn, they gain all the life- long learning skills necessary for the future world, right here, right now.

Karon Graham

Principal

Lessons Learned from Family

What do parents really want? Many of us might immediately dream of an ideal family lifestyle and family arrangements, with perfect children who are well behaved at all times, and who are obliging and helpful. We may imagine endless time for all of those fun family outings, but in our ‘heart of hearts’ we know that the reality of family life is very different .

Family life can be very messy, sometimes confronting and most times very hectic. Many parents feel like they are the designated taxi driver, taking children, as well as our friend’s children, from one activity to another, only to get home at the end of a hard day’s work, exhausted from the mental and physical strain of it all. It’s no wonder that tensions are high in most families at dinner time and it’s not surprising that the pressure gets to us over time – particularly towards the end of the school term.

Family life is far from perfect, but is this, such a bad thing? Think about the lessons learned daily in any family. Within family life, we learn about ‘give and take’, we learn about helping other people before ourselves, we learn about failure and how to move forward, we learn about bouncing back from a setback, we learn about our place in the family pecking order, we learn how to wait our turn and to make the most of every precious minute. Let’s face it, most of life’s most important lessons are either learnt at home or at school.

Many famous people have overcome great hardship and many setbacks before achieving a successful and fulfilling life. It’s almost as if some people have achieved in spite of, or even because of adversity. In his book “Being Happy”, Andrew Matthews lists some very well known historical figures, who have achieved greatness in the face of adversity. Abraham Lincoln failed in business at 22 years of age, lost a legislative race at 23, again failed in business at 25, had his sweetheart die when he was 26, had a nervous breakdown at 27, lost congressional races aged 34, 37, and 39, lost a senatorial race aged 46, failed in his efforts to become vice president of the USA aged 47 and lost a further senatorial contest at 49. At 52 years of age; however, Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the USA and is now remembered - not for all of his failures - but for being one of the greatest leaders in world history. Another great leader, Winston Churchill was a poor student with a speech impediment. Not only did he go on to win a Nobel Prize, but he became one of the most inspiring speakers of recent times.

What do parents really want in a school? The answer will probably not surprise you, because I suspect it’s for many of the same reasons that you have chosen to send your child to this School. Research carried out by ISQ, earlier this year, asking thousands of parents what they value about independent schools, revealed the following top three priorities for parents:
• preparation for students to fulfil their potential in life
• good discipline; and
• encouragement of a responsible attitude to work.

In summary, parents want an educational environment where students have every opportunity to succeed in their future lives. Realising your own potential is one of the most powerful motivators for future success in life. It doesn’t necessarily happen easily and requires great determination on the part of each individual.

In our hectic lives, and particularly in our family lives and school lives, we don’t always get it right. No one gets it right all of the time and I am the first to admit this. We can learn much by listening to one another. Many years ago I came across the story of: “The Carrot, the Egg and the Coffee” and thought I would share it with you.

A young woman went to her mother and told her about her life and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as one problem was solved, a new one arose.

Her mother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Soon the pots came to boil. In the first she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs, and in the last she placed ground coffee beans. She let them sit and boil, without saying a word.

In about twenty minutes she turned off the burners. She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl.
Turning to her daughter, she asked, "Tell me, what do you see?"
"Carrots, eggs, and coffee," she replied.

Her mother brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and noted that they were soft. The mother then asked the daughter to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard boiled egg. Finally, the mother asked the daughter to sip the coffee. The daughter smiled as he tasted its rich aroma.

The daughter then asked, "What does it mean, mum?"

Her mother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity.. boiling water. Each reacted differently. The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting. However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak. The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior, but after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became hardened. The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the boiling water, they had changed the water.

"Which are you?" she asked her daughter. "When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?"

Think of this: Which am I? Am I the carrot that seems strong, but with pain and adversity do I wilt and become soft and lose my strength? Am I the egg that starts with a malleable heart, but changes with the heat? Did I have a fluid spirit, but after a death, a breakup, a financial hardship or some other trial, have I become hardened and stiff? Does my shell look the same, but on the inside am I bitter and tough with a stiff spirit and hardened heart?

Or am I like the coffee bean? The bean actually changes the hot water, the very circumstance that brings the pain. When the water gets hot, it releases the fragrance and flavor. If you are like the bean, when things are at their worst, you get better and change the situation around you. When the hour is the darkest and trials are their greatest, do you elevate yourself to another level? How do you handle adversity? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?

May you have enough happiness to make you sweet, enough trials to make you strong, enough sorrow to keep you human and enough hope to make you happy. The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes along their way. The brightest future will always be based on a forgotten past; you can't go forward in life until you let go of your past failures and heartaches.

"Life asks of every individual a contribution and it is up to that individual to discover what it should be." (Viktor Frankl)

Karon Graham
Principal Caloundra City Private School

Where are you Going?

Where are you going? A simple enough question, but let’s face it, it really is a loaded question, isn’t it? Some people might reframe this question by asking whether it refers to the ‘here and now’ or a time in the future. Some people can answer this question instantly, while others struggle to answer the question with any certainty about the present, let alone some point in the distant future. While it’s true that how you answer this question depends upon the context, most of us need to stop and think about it. Many people may spend much of their life searching for direction, a focus or purpose in life, just like Alice, from the famous novel by Lewis Carroll:

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?" asked Alice.
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don’t much care where," said Alice.
"Then it doesn’t matter which way you go," said the Cat.
(Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)

Parents in particular may worry about this ‘don’t care’ attitude on the part of their teenagers, who are yet to decide what career pathway, or tertiary course or future direction that they wish to pursue. Big decisions like this take time and the earlier parents start to talk to their teenagers about possible careers, the better.

Some students often lack motivation to do well at school because they’re not sure what they want to do after school. It can be a challenging and daunting prospect for many teenagers and a frustrating time for parents to say the least. Motivating and encouraging our teenagers requires stamina, patience and perseverance but it’s definitely worth the effort. Many students simply don’t know what they want to do because they haven’t found that one spark, or that one passion, that engages and excites them enough to consider a whole lifetime pursuing it.

Sir Ken Robinson describes this passion or inspiration as “The Element”. Yes, it sounds mystical but really it’s about finding that one thing that fires your imagination, that one thing that you love to do and is something that you can excel at and earn a living from or in some cases volunteer to do. As Harvey Mackay notes:

Find something you love to do,
and you’ll never have to work a day of your life.

Everyone needs someone to talk to and it’s important that teenagers know that they are being listened to by their parents. There’s no point in having a one way conversation, where the parent is doing all of the talking and the teenager is simply listening; they will just switch off for sure. Conversations need to be two way and done in a relaxed and comfortable environment. Keep an open mind in discussing options because what was true fifteen years ago, almost certainly will not be as relevant or true today.

Remember also that there are many career and tertiary study pathways open to students these days and that Gen Y and Z - the NetGeners - are more likely to change careers between five to ten times compared to Baby Boomers. Therefore, nothing is set in concrete. Opportunity to change your mind, change your tertiary course or change your future career is ever present. All is not lost, because of a change of heart.

Getting good advice and researching the career options is probably a good starting point – attending university Open Days and Career Days, is an excellent source of up-to-date and relevant information. Doing a spell of work experience is another way that students can get a taste for a particular career and firsthand knowledge of whether this career interests them.

There’s nothing like some good positive reinforcement, because it spurs us on and motivates us to keep aspiring to higher levels of excellence and to keep working hard to achieve our goals. For teenagers particularly, affirmations are important to build their self esteem and affirmations help them recognise and understand their own strengths and talents.

At the end of it all, we want what is best for our children and we want them to enjoy a happy, successful and rewarding life. Some young people will take longer than others to reach this point and ultimately, much will depend on your son or daughter’s motivation, desire to succeed and passion for his or her chosen field of study or career. Robert Louis Stevenson sums it up best, when he said:

To be what we are,
And to become what we
are capable of becoming
is the only end in life.

For all of us, not just our children, this little verse best captures what each of us should be endeavouring to do in our day to day life - whether we're working full time, home looking after our children, studying at university or looking for a job. To become what we are capable of becoming is full of possibilities isn't it? Yes, each of us has that kind of potential. We only have one life to live, so live it to the fullest and never stop searching for your passion and your purpose in life. If you've found what you're looking for, hold onto it and never let it go.

Karon Graham
Principal

Perceptions, Reality and Misconceptions

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one,” once said Albert Einstein.
So much of life is played out in our own mind, isn’t it? We ponder - ‘if only this happened’ scenarios, or ‘what if this happens’ scenarios. Sometimes we imagine the best happening but more often than not our first thoughts go to the worst possible outcome. Maybe it’s human nature, part of our primordial instinct to imagine the worst, because after thousands of years of evolution our brains have developed highly honed instinctual survival strategies. Surprisingly, more often than not, the worst does not happen and there is a far more positive outcome than we anticipated. Sometimes, our perceptions about how life will unfold simply do not eventuate, despite all our thinking about it.

It begs the question though, ‘what is reality?’ Most of us think that, what we see and hear is reality. It seems real to us, because of our own personal experiences, or our own ‘history bag’. We tend to translate the world through our own eyes, which may or may not be real or true. There is a common expression that ‘perception is reality’ but if we all have a different take on the same incident, how can everyone’s perception be the right one or the real one? Clearly we can’t all be right. Or can we?

Many years ago, a geneticist Lionel Penrose designed a physical model of an impossible staircase. It was the first impossible object ever made and served as an inspiration for M. C. Escher's famous print that incorporates this staircase, "Ascending and Descending.". The actual model is separated at the right stair, but you can't see the split, because your visual system assumes that it is seeing this model from a non-accidental point of view; hence, it assumes that the stairs are joined. Hard to imagine but the ‘ascending and descending stairs were actually created by Lego builders and there’s a very clever Youtube clip that reveals its secret at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxDtNgW4Gy4

There are many examples of ‘impossible objects or scenes’, like René Magritte’s 1965 painting of the paradoxical Carte Blanche, which shows a lady riding an impossible horse through a forest. The image is impossible because the horse is split by trees. Logic tells us that such horses don’t exist but still the picture shows us that our mind can perceive it to be so.

According to Professor Gregory, from the psychology department of Bristol University: ‘perceptions are hypotheses, depending upon both on rules, which may conflict, and on assumptions, which may be wrong.’ This is a profound statement because it applies not only to optical illusions but also to life in general. Yes, our perceptions are based on our own assumptions, prejudices and previous experiences, which may be wrong.

Did you know that all humans have a ‘blind spot’ in the retina where the optic nerve is found? No, not a metaphorical blind spot, but an actual blind spot. One of the most amazing natural illusions is that we don’t see black in the blind spot, our brain actually ‘fills in’ the space, using surrounding colours, patterns and other visual data. Our mind fills in ‘missing parts’ in our thinking too – our conjecturing and permutations of what might be or what is, or what we think we understand.

Stephen Covey refers to these personal perceptions as a ‘paradigm’. This paradigm that we all have is the way we see, understand, and interpret the world; it’s personal and it’s what he calls our ‘mental map’. No two people will have exactly the same paradigm or mental map, because all of us have experienced different history, conditioning, families, emotions, in fact we all have very different genetic makeup. So over time we need to check and test our perceptions to see if they are real or merely a misconception that we have made from our own observations.

This is important for adults and for students too. Perceptions about our personal ability and achievements are often contradictory. We know that all of us have a real and sometimes a metaphorical blind spot to identifying our own strengths and weaknesses. Families and schools are good for that little ‘reality check’ from time to time. Suddenly some people find, that ‘the scales fall from their eyes’ as they realise that they have made the wrong assumptions or drawn the wrong conclusions from events that they have heard about or witnessed or worried about something unnecessarily. Perception is not necessarily reality. Covey makes the point that, if you want to make small changes in your life, work on your behaviour; if you want quantum leap changes, you need to work on your paradigms.

Optical illusions are fascinating and compelling, we are drawn to the enigma of them and in a strange way we can learn a little about the way we internalise things and view the world. Yes they can be deceptive,yes the real world can be deceptive too, but more importantly they allow us to look at the world a little differently. Take, for example, this transitional optical illusion - where does the reflection change to a lady? Life's a little like that too. We need to be wary of drawing false conclusions with limited information. We should keep our mind open to the infinite possibilities of the world and just like Alice from Alice in Wonderland: imagine at least six impossible things before breakfast every day.

What is reality? Is reality an illusion, like Einstein suggested? Like the eternal questions: who created the earth or where did matter come from, there is no easy or definitive answer. All we can do is to check our own reality. Never assume that we are right and everyone else has it wrong, and above all keep an open mind, keep an imaginative mind, and believe that all things are possible. See things from different perspectives and be a good listener, it's amazing what we learn when we listen and remain inquisitive about other people's realities.

Karon Graham

Principal

Caloundra City Private School

Statistics are no Substitute for Judgment

There are some people who love numbers – they love the symmetry of them, they love the challenge of calculations, and quadratic equations thrill them for the answers they reveal. Anyone who has even a cursory understanding of science will know Einstein’s most famous and perfect equation of energy and mass in: E=mc². Those who read The Da Vinci Code will remember the heart pounding pace of Robert Langdon solving one problem after another using amongst other things, the Fibonacci sequence of numbers. Numbers in an integer sequence of: 0-1-1-2-3-5-8-13-21. (Each subsequent number is the sum of the previous two.)

Now you might be thinking that our lives are not ruled by numbers, but think again. Famous 1906, Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto created a mathematical formula to describe the unequal distribution of wealth in his country, observing that twenty percent of the people owned eighty percent of the wealth.

From this initial observation, came a world of extrapolation. The 80/20 Rule can be applied to anything: a few (20 percent) are vital and many (80 percent), are trivial. This applies to all sorts of possibilities – 20 percent of customers generate 80percent of the income, 20 percent of people cause you 80 percent of the problems. It seems true, but of course it’s not an exact science by any stretch of the imagination.

Numbers are literally a thing of beauty. Do you know why some faces are more appealing than others? According to experts there is a ‘perfect formula for the ideal face. They say the key to the ideal arrangement of female facial features is the measurements between the eyes, mouth and ears. Scientists have narrowed down to a simple mathematical ratio of 1:1.618, otherwise known as phi, or divine proportion, to set standards of beauty.

In The Elements, the most influential mathematics textbook ever written, Euclid of Alexandria (ca. 300 BC) defined this proportion derived from a division of a line into what he calls its ‘extreme and mean ratio’ from which ‘phi’ or ‘the divine proportion’ or the ‘golden ratio’ was derived. Who could have guessed that this innocent-looking line division would have implications for numerous natural phenomena ranging from the leaf and seed arrangements of plants to the structure of the crystals of some aluminium alloys, and from the arts to the stock market?

Until recently I had never heard of the Mehrabian Rule but to my amazement I have found an underlying formula that makes perfect sense in understanding what people are really communicating to others. Most parents, particularly parents of teenagers, will instantly appreciate the simplicity of this rule which Albert Mehrabian can apply to most conversations. Essentially it’s this: listen to my voice and look at my body language to know what I’m really trying to say to you, rather than rely on the words that are spoken. Mehrabian found that in communication:
• 7% happens in spoken words
• 38% happens through voice tone; and
• 55% happens via general body language.

His conclusions, while very generalised, basically suggest that:
• it's not just words: a lot of communication comes through non-verbal communication
• without seeing and hearing non-verbals, it is easier to misunderstand the words; and
• when we are unsure about words and when we trust the other person less, we pay more attention to the non-verbals of what we hear and see.

Yes this makes perfect sense to me. It explains why printed words in emails and text messages and on Facebook can so easily be misconstrued or misunderstood. Printed communication is becoming more common that face-to-face communication in this technologically driven world. Similarly drawing conclusions about organisations, by making statistical comparisons can be fraught with danger too.

In an educational setting, many parents are drawn to make comparisons between schools by using ACARA’s MySchool and the new version MySchool 2.0, which will be released on Friday, 4 March. While the statistical information found at MySchool on Caloundra City Private School is very favourable, particularly in the 2010 NAPLAN results, it’s important for parents to understand that there is much more to a school than the direct comparison of one school against another in a purely statistical and graphical format. Improvements in NAPLAN results over time will vary depending on each cohort of students. CCPS has, over the last two years, shown ‘higher than average’ gains by our students, thanks to the excellent teaching and learning programs of our teachers. Remember that NAPLAN results are a diagnostic tool used by teachers to improve educational outcomes, NAPLAN results were never intended to be used to make comparisons between schools.

Add to the mix the financial data that is now available to all parents on all Australian schools, there is bound to be some misperceptions and some confusion. Students in independent and state schools depend on both federal and state government grants. However, the average yearly funding per student differs significantly with the funding figure for government schools being $12,639 for each student, while in the independent sector, is $6,076 for each student – almost half that of state schools.

In addition to this, most independent schools, like CCPS, have borrowed significantly to fund capital projects in the School, with the average level of debt across the sector is around $7000 per student. As a relatively new school the level of debt for CCPS is higher than many other schools but will over time, like in all schools, fall as the school grows. The data available will also show that 52percent of income of independent schools comes from the after tax income of parents, which represents a significant investment of our parents in the education of your son or daughter.

While we have much to celebrate at Caloundra City Private School, it’s important for parents to keep the statistical information in perspective. Just like in the Mehrabian Rule, much of what really happens in a school, like the values, the quality of teaching and learning, and your son or daughter’s happiness cannot be quantified and defined by a statistical measure. Walking into a school or a classroom, talking to the teacher or seeing the quality of work that your son or daughter produces or how happy they are, is a wonderful way of seeing the real value of what we do at the School.

Yes the world is full of numbers and whether we like it or not, much in life, like in mathematics, can be quantified, complicated and simplified - often simultaneously. As Gudder once said:
"The essence of mathematics is not to make simple things complicated, but to make complicated things simple."

However, some formulae, some statistics may oversimplify education to factors that are meaningless. The real heart of the School is in the actual School – not in the statistics of the School. How do you quantify happiness, or self esteem or confidence? Surely these are every bit as important (if not more important) as the students’ achievements. Yes I love numbers too, but I love them for the way that they better inform me and help me build a strong, vibrant and engaging learning environment. Henry Clay summed it up (no pun intended) when he said:

'Statistics are no substitute for judgment. '

Karon Graham
Principal