Karon Graham ~ Edutake

New Year Possibilities

2012-01-29T18:18:00.000-08:00

We will open the book.
Its pages are blank.
We are going to put words on them ourselves.
The book is called Opportunity
And its first chapter is New Year's Day.
(Edith Lovejoy Pierce)

There’s great significance in the dawning of the New Year because for many of us the New Year brings new and exciting possibilities. There are of course many unknowns and endless questions about the future year. Will it be better or worse than the last year? Will I finally win gold lotto or find true happiness? Swirling around in our minds are more questions than answers and many imponderables to consider about the coming year.

In the New Year we reflect upon the year that has just passed – the highs and lows, the good and bad, the exciting and the indifferent, the sad moments and moments of great happiness. For some people the New Year can’t come quickly enough and for others there were moments of great delight that we want to savour and remember. Probably, each of us will have experienced the full range of emotions at some point during the year.

As the New Year dawns, we consider the year that stretches before us – the fresh start, the opportunities that await and the dreams yet unrealised. One thing we know for sure though, is that nothing stays the same; change is inevitable. Being prepared for change and accepting change is one way we can better cope with the inevitable.

In a recent Time article (in January8 edition):” 2012 – Users’ Guide”, some interesting reflections were made:
“Last year was not a propitious one for the prediction industry. Against all expectations, dictators across the Arab world succumbed to the power of crowds. No one could have forecast the epic natural disasters in the Asia Pacific region. Few anticipated the unravelling of the euro……”

Predictions don't necessarily help us either. Rarely will an economist, fortune teller, or astrologer get it right.... the future is a tricky business to say the least. It's part of the reason that often people giving predictions are very vague and talk in generalities. Not surprisingly, they are so open to personal interpretation, that we often read into the prediction what we want to believe.

There is an element of truth to the saying:
You are what you think and believe. Attitude is everything.
Often what you think about becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Anatole France, the great French writer penned the following:
To accomplish great things
we must not only act,
but also dream;
not only plan, but also believe.

Anything is possible if we set our mind to it. Align our thinking, devote time to it, align our actions and never doubt for a moment our ability to achieve it and hold tight to our own indomitable self belief.

Karon Graham

Preparing Young People for a Rapidly Changing World

2011-11-02T21:57:00.000-07:00

Have you heard that we now have more than seven billion people living on earth? On Monday, 31 October, just before midnight in the Philippines a baby was born, Danica May Camacho, who became the official seven billionth person born.

In 2000 the population on earth was 6 billion people. How extraordinary to think that it took 123 years for the world's population to go from one billion to two billion but only 12 years to grow from six billion to seven billion? The world’s population increases exponentially every year with 2.3 billion people expected to be born in the next 40 years - around 200,000 babies born every day. The planet is expected to hit 10 billion by 2083.

While there was a cheer at the birth of seven billionth baby, there were others who pointed to the world of contradiction in which we live. A world where according to UN chief Ban Ki-moon, we need to tackle inequality on a planet where almost a billion people go hungry while others have surplus food. A world where a small minority live in the lap of luxury with a lavish lifestyle, while billions live in poverty. The gap between the rich and poor widens by an ever increasing scale, despite the commitment of world governments to reduce the gap at every international summit held by the United Nations over the last twenty years.

By 2030 India will have overtaken China as the most populous country on earth. South Asia has six of the top ten of the world’s fastest growing megacities and the other four are in Asia or in Africa. The Chinese economy has just overtaken Japan as the world’s second largest economy, measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP is a measure of total production of a country) behind the U.S. economy, which is ranked number one in the world. Some forecasters predict that China’s GDP may almost double that of the U.S. by 2030.

Demographically, the world is changing significantly. In 1950, Europe represented nearly a quarter of the world's total population. A century later it looks set to only make up five per cent. While Asia has more than half of the world's people, its share will only rise slightly from 55.6 per cent to 57.1 by 2150. The real growth, however; is in Africa, where high birth rates and falling levels of infant mortality mean that by 2150 one in four people will be African - up from less than one in 10 in 1950.

Can you imagine listening to seven billion stories? Probably not and yet the reality is that while the total number of people is growing faster than we probably like or care to think about, each person on earth is unique. Each person has his or her own story. When we consider the implications of these statistics, it brings new meaning to the concept of a ‘rapidly changing world’. Yes, there is no denying that the whole global landscape is changing - demographically, economically and environmentally.

How do we prepare young people for this tremendous growth and change in the world? Individually and as a country we can no longer hide from the rest of the world. We can no longer ignore the rapid changes that are going on around us. ‘No man is an island’, as John Donne famously penned in 1624:

“No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as a manor of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. “
(Meditation XVII)

As a school, teachers prepare our young people for an ever changing world. While knowledge is important, it is no longer the single measure of a students’ understanding of the world in which they live. Young people need a vast array of skills – such as traditional skills of reading, writing, technological literacies and numeracy – while at the same time developing deeper understanding, or wisdom, good judgement and emotional intelligences. Students need higher order thinking skills that allow them to discriminate between pieces of information, the ability to analyse, synthesise, extrapolate, interpolate and the capacity to put all of their understanding together in a way that is coherent and comprehensible to themselves and others.

As a parent you understand how important these skills, knowledge and understanding is for your son or daughter’s future. As a school we take this task very seriously and teachers are constantly working to develop these skills in all of our students.

Yes, we have differentiation within our classes. One size does not fit all – some students need extension in particular subjects or skills, other students need support and more time to develop the necessary skills. It is for this reason that the school provides a myriad of in class and out of class extension and support throughout the year:

• Gifted and talented extension through in class activities, competitions like the SEQ Water Wise project, like the Writers Competition, like the Forensic Science investigations, like the special tournaments that challenge students to think ‘outside the box’. We provide each semester the opportunity for any student from Prep to Year 12 to undertake a special project of his or her own choosing for the Excellence Forums held at the School.
• In the classroom each student is challenged beyond their ability and where additional support is needed, it is provided.
• Senior students have the opportunity to commence university study from Year 10 and 11 and other students have the option of undertaking Vocational Education, School-based Traineeships – all before they leave School.
• Opportunity for greater cultural understanding through Exchange to Canada, Scotland or Japan and the increase in international students attending CCPS better prepares young people for this demographic and cultural shift.

The main reason for sharing these options with parents, is to underline the point that in order to better prepare our young people, we have to provide them with the best possible learning opportunities – not as a ‘one off’ but each and every day throughout their entire school life.
The world of the future as Hedley Beare wrote, in 2001, is going to be very different from ours.

In his first chapter he writes of a fictional child:
“Hullo. I am Angelica. I am 5 years old. I really don’t have much of a past. In fact, I am the future…..My world is already very different from the one you have grown up in.”

It is this very unknown and uncertain future for which we prepare our young people. By 2024 our Preps will be leaving our school and embarking on further study at university or the first of many career choices. One thing parents can be confident about, is the level of care and excellence that we will provide for your son or daughter at Caloundra City Private School over the coming years.

Who knows, one of our graduates of the future may be one of the leaders to make significant change for the better in this ever growing world community, which in an almost contradictory way, despite its every increasing size, shrinks in real time of travel and transference of knowledge and goods over time from one country to another. Yes, anything is possible with the right preparation and the wherewithal to make a difference in this world.

Karon Graham
Principal

Inspiring People who Make a Difference

2011-10-19T20:39:00.000-07:00

“It is difficult to say what is impossible,
for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today
and the reality of tomorrow.”
(Robert H. Goddard, pioneering rocket scientist)

Don’t you feel inspired by people who in the midst of terrible emotional or physical pain or seemingly insurmountable obstacles or hardship, achieve positive change through their own actions? Rather than wallow in self pity, which would be perfectly understandable in the circumstances, they manage to pull themselves out of their despair and act to make changes, not only to themselves but for others around them and in some cases can effect change on a global scale. It seems as though some people have this amazing capacity to rise above it all and harness all of their energy to bring about good in the face of adversity and unbelievable sadness.

Inspirational people like internationally renowned psychiatrist, Viktor Frankl who survived years in a concentration camp during the Holocaust, wrote a book, ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’, which chronicles his experiences in Auschwitz and how different individuals coped in such traumatic circumstances. As you might imagine, some never got over the shock of the experience, others became apathetic and conditioned to the appalling conditions and the constant fear of death, others become bitter and disillusioned but there were others, only a few, who were able to rise above the depersonalisation and horror, by comforting other inmates, giving away their last piece of bread that they had to another inmate. Frankl writes that while all of our possessions can be taken from us, the last one human freedom that can’t be taken from us is our attitude to what happens to us. He famously wrote in this surprisingly uplifting book:

“When we can no longer change a situation,
we are challenged to change ourselves.”

Recently I had the opportunity to listen to an inspirational speaker, Stephen Lewis a former Canadian Leader of the Opposition, who amongst other things, became a Humanitarian Ambassador for the United Nations, and has been a very vocal advocate for the eradication of HIV Aids, which he claims could happen if more developed countries put more medicine, and more time and effort into achieving this goal. He has seen some of the most tragic consequences of civil war in Rwanda and appalling outcomes of AIDs in Africa. He is a passionate speaker who speaks of first-hand experience of the dreadful consequences of neglecting this epidemic in Africa.

As Lewis argues, the world surely has enough resources and the wherewithal to bring about positive change in the life of people in less developed countries, as this 1998 report from the United Nations on Human Development demonstrates:

“The world has more than enough resources to accelerate progress in human development for all and to eradicate the worst forms of poverty from the planet. Advancing human development is not an exorbitant undertaking. For example, it has been estimated that the total additional yearly investment required to achieve universal access to basic social services would be roughly $40 billion, 0.1% of world income, barely more than a rounding error. That covers the bill for basic education, health, nutrition, reproductive health, family planning, and safe water and sanitation for all.”
(United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report, 1998)

Lewis has been to many of the poorest countries; countries torn apart by internal strife, war and devastation. In spite of the hardships, Lewis commented upon the spirit of the people to rebuild their lives and their country. After two years study of children in conflict (in countries such as Rwanda, Uganda and Somalia), Lewis found that the one thing that children and parents wanted most of all, was school, because school would allow the children’s lives to return to some sense of normality, and the healing process, after all that the children had witnessed, would begin. As a result, Lewis has been able to lobby western governments to provide much needed educational resources after the conflict has ended. He has made a real difference to this world.

Some countries are not torn apart by warfare but rather by natural disasters. In January, 2010, the small island of Haiti was reduced to rubble by a massive 7.0 magnitude earthquake, killing over 100,000 people. Emergency housing, mainly in the form of tents, was sent to the small island. Thousands of lives were affected, and thousands of children lost not only family and homes but also lost their schools.

On hearing the plight of the children in Haiti, one young Queensland university student, Chris Eigeland, with the help of two other young people put out a request via FaceBook to garner help from businesses and young people around the world, to raise funds to supply books and stationery for the schools and children of Haiti. Incredibly, these three young people joined forces to bring the books and stationery to the children in Haiti – a massive effort requiring military precision – to supply all schools with the much needed equipment. They personally packed the boxes and delivered them to delighted children and teachers in every school location in Haiti. What a truly inspiring story of hope for the future, where young people can effect global change through social media and a simple call to action.

As a school community our own young people are developing a strong social conscience too. Over the last year, many students have approached me and taken on projects that have raised money, or specific needs that have benefited the local community and beyond – places like the Solomon Islands, East Timor, Kenya, Sudan and Nepal. I congratulate all of the students involved in these projects for what they have achieved. For example, students have given assistance to the flood victims earlier this year, CanTeen, Give Me Five for Kids, the Daniel Morcombe Foundation, 40 Hour Famine, Breast Cancer – Pink October, to name but a few.

We can be very proud of our students and recently I received an email from Greg Bradley from World Vision, Australia telling us that because of our magnificent fund raising efforts for the 40 Hour Famine this year, that Caloundra City Private School will be receiving a World Vision, Outstanding Achievement Award, which is a fitting tribute to the students and staff involved in this project.

The School is now offering a Certificate II in Volunteering which will better educate our young people about the benefits of helping others and CCPS will be one of the very first schools to offer this program. This Certificate will see our Senior students volunteering in the community and making a real difference to the wider community. Thinking of others before ourselves and giving back to people less fortunate than ourselves is one way that society can effect positive change for the better. Yes, we can all take action and do this if we set our minds and hearts to this goal.

George Bernard Shaw wrote many years ago:
“Some people see things as they are and ask why not.
Others dream things that never were and ask why not.”

Yes, we really can turn the dream of hope for the future into a reality today.

Karon Graham

Principal

Tale of Two Men - Jobs and Steinman

2011-10-12T20:50:00.000-07:00

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything ahead of us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way…..”
(Charles Dickens, “Tale of Two Cities”)

Sometimes we hear bad news and without consciously thinking about it, remember exactly what we were doing and where we were at the time we heard the news. I still remember exactly where I was as a child when JF Kennedy was assassinated, and later when Princess Diana died and the 9/11 attacks on New York brought America to its knees. For some reason these events stick in our mind for most of our lives.

Last week I was shocked when I read that Steve Jobs had died, however; I can’t say that I even heard when Dr Ralph Steineman died, let alone who he was, yet they both died within the same week. Much was written about Steve Jobs and his accomplishments and in stark contrast the cell biologist Dr Ralph Steinman may have passed away in some obscurity in the world’s collective mind, had it not been for a major announcement the following week.

Both men were brilliant and highly successful in their respective fields; very different fields – one in technology and the other in biology. Both were innovative and creative thinkers - light years ahead of their peers, but for very different reasons. Steve Jobs was responsible for revolutionising technology (and some say the 21st century) through his inventions of the most amazing devices - Apple MacBooks, iPads, and iPhones, while the other man, Dr Ralph Steinman revolutionised the field of immunology by discovering a new cell, that would change how we treat cancer and many other life threatening diseases. Both men died at the peak of their lives and within a week of one another and surprisingly, both men died of pancreatic cancer after long fought battles with the disease.

Both men took very different pathways in their lives. Steve Jobs dropped out of one of the most prestigious colleges after six months because he didn’t want his parents to use their life savings to pay for his college education when he couldn’t see the value in continuing his college course, since he wasn’t learning anything new in technology. (His parents had adopted him as a baby and promised Steve’s biological mother that they would send him to college.) Jobs continued to attend some classes that he thought were valuable though, and slept on the floor of mates’ dorm rooms to save on the cost of accommodation.

Steinman on the other hand, took the academic route, by continuing his study at McGill University and the prestigious Harvard Medical School and then onto the equally famous Rockefeller University. Steinman’s only blimp was at the tender age of seven years, when in the face of being sent to Summer Camp by his parents, a strident Steinman packed his bag and ran away from home. His short lived sojourn came to an abrupt end when the milkman spied him in town and alerted his parents of his attempted escape. Just think, if that milkman had not spotted Steinman, he may never have gone to university and discovered the dendritic cell that was to be one of the most important breakthroughs in our understanding of immunology.

Life was not always a bowl of cherries for either man. Steve Jobs, a self-made millionaire at twenty three years of age was fired from the very company he founded when he was 30 years of age and suffered great humiliation at the exit from his brainchild company. Jobs later told students of Stanford University that this was probably one of the best things that ever happened to him in his life. Why? In Jobs own words:

“The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. During the next five years, I started a company NeXT, and another company named Pixar, which went on to create the world’s first computer animated feature film. Toy Story.”

Many years later in 1997, Jobs returned to Apple and almost single-handedly turned the declining fortunes of the company around to create an astounding success story. Steve Jobs is acknowledged as one of the greatest inventors of our time, with over 4000 patents in his name at the time of his death.

Steinman, like Jobs, also suffered similar humiliation. After years of research that resulted in him identifying a new immune cell – the dendritic cell – many scientists were sceptical of his findings, simply because his experiments were so difficult to replicate. It was many years after his discovery, that improvements in technology enabled his findings to be confirmed and he was vindicated.

The immune system is very complex and many of us don’t give a second thought to how our immune system is constantly on alert, attacking bacteria, viruses and parasites, yes, even while we watch television. Different types of cells have different jobs to do in fighting foreign invaders in our bodies. The dendritic cells that Steinman discovered, devour these intruders and help activate the rest of the immune system and also filter body fluids to clear them of foreign organisms and particles. While others questioned his findings, Dr Ralph Steinman never once doubted the significance of his discovery or the implications of the dendritic cell to fight life threatening diseases such as AIDs, tuberculosis and cancer.

In a sad and ironic twist, Canadian Dr. Ralph M. Steinman was named one of three winners of the 2011 Nobel Prize for Medicine for his life work on the human immune response on the Monday, three days after he died in Manhattan at 68 years. This fact was unknown to the Nobel Prize committee when it made its announcement.

Steinman was a humble man who gave little thought or care to awards presented to him and much to the chagrin of his family, often told them well after the event. One can’t help but think though, that Steinman would have been just a little proud of winning the Nobel Prize had he lived to hear the news. It’s surely a measure of a great man that he put so little value on these acknowledgements and awards during his life, and thought only, of how he might benefit people, through his research by finding a cure or treatment to eradicate diseases such as cancer.

What lessons can we learn from these two brilliant men? For our students, the message is clear. There is no one way to find success and happiness in life. There is no easy way to achieve what we want to in this life and sometimes we have to persevere with steadfast determination in the face of opposition or even ridicule. .Most importantly for us all to contemplate, is that our time on earth is limited, so we should make the very most of every single day – never waste a day or let an opportunity pass. Life is too short.

Steve Jobs was very reflective about his life, and in his address to students at Stanford in 2005 he made this sage comment to his audience:

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward – you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.”

Put simply:
 Find your passion in life – never be complacent with your ‘lot in life’
 Follow your dreams
 Never, ever give up on them, even when experts tell you, “You’re wrong” or “It can’t be done.”
 Don’t be afraid to go out on a limb for what you believe; and
 Keep the faith, stay true to your vision.

Karon Graham

Greatest Genius of all Time

2011-10-05T22:14:00.000-07:00

“All our knowledge
has its origin
in our perceptions.”
(Leonardo da Vinci, 1452-1519)

Who was the greatest genius ever? Buzan and Keene, (1994), authors of “The Book of Genius – and how you can become one”, rated the greatest geniuses of history, by : originality, versatility, dominance in their field, universality of vision and strength and energy - an interesting array of categories to say the least. The diversity of these criteria demonstrates that genius can’t be ranked or captured by one single measure.

So who were the greatest geniuses of all time according to Buzan and Keene? Starting in ascending order at number ten was Albert Einstein, then Phidias (architect of ancient Athens), Alexander the Great, Thomas Jefferson, Sir Isaac Newton, Michelangelo, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the great Pyramid Builders, William Shakespeare and coming in at number one, as the greatest genius of all time, was Leonardo da Vinci.

Fifteenth century painter, sculptor, scientist, architect and visionary, Leonardo da Vinci was an extraordinary man by anyone’s definition. He had an intense curiosity, an insatiable inquisitiveness about all manner of things. His desire to understand how things worked led him to ask confounding questions all of his life. The width and depth of his knowledge and his life- long quest to uncover the secrets of a wide range of topics, as diverse as natural world, flight, science, weapons, art, astronomy, human anatomy and the daily experiences of the world around him, was unparalleled.

In his ground-breaking book, “Think Like Da Vinci”, author, personal and organisational development expert, Michael J. Gelb writes at length about Da Vinci’s life and his genius – his achievements in art, his inventions, his skill as a military engineer, his work as a scientist in anatomy, botany, geology, and physics. Gelb notes that two of the greatest paintings ever produced were Leonardo’s Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. He was a renowned sculptor and architect too.

Leonardo was incredibly innovative and is credited for making plans for a flying machine, helicopter, parachute and hundreds of other amazing inventions, all recorded meticulously in his journals, which totalled over 7000 pages and estimated to be closer to 14,000 pages at the time of his death. Interestingly, Leonardo wrote all of these notes backward and they were designed to be read in a mirror and much speculation continues to this day about why Leonardo did this. Don’t you think this amazing? Why is it so?

What makes Leonardo so extraordinary? According to Gelb, Leonardo’s incredible inquisitiveness led him on a life- long quest for knowledge about every conceivable concept. He questioned everything and developed a systematic and rigorous investigative approach to his study. For example, not content with drawing his anatomical dissections from one perspective, Leonardo drew them from three different perspectives. Yes it’s true to say that Leonardo was a perfectionist when it came to detail – whether it was in his study of flight of birds, or in his artistic achievements - he was rigorous in every aspect of his investigative studies and drawings.

Gelb identifies seven “Da Vincian Principles” which could easily be used and applied by every person today. The key words were originally Italian but I have loosely translated these with the meaning conveyed by the descriptions of each of Gelb’s, Seven Principles of da Vinci.

• Curiosity – an insatiable curious approach to life and an unrelenting quest for continuous learning.
• Demonstration – a commitment to test knowledge through experience, persistence, and a willingness to learn from mistakes (even da Vinci made many mistakes along the way).
• Sensation – the continual refinement of the senses, especially sight, as the means to enliven experience.
• Ambiguity – a willingness to embrace ambiguity, paradox and uncertainty.
• Artistic and scientific balance – the development of a balance between science and art, logic and imagination, or ‘whole brain’ thinking.
• Grace and poise – the cultivation of grace, ambidexterity, fitness and poise.
• Interconnectedness – the recognition of and appreciation for the interconnectedness of all things and phenomena or ‘systems’ thinking.

I list these principles of thinking because many of us who are in total awe of Leonardo’s intellect, seriously doubt that we could ever emulate his outstanding, ‘off the scale’ intellectual capacity. How could any of us mere mortals compare or aspire to be like Leonardo da Vinci? (Some of you may be even thinking at this point, “You have to be joking”.) Surprisingly though, many experts, including Leonardo, would argue that while fifty percent of our intellectual power is genetic, the other fifty percent is due to our own environmental circumstances and our willingness to expand and develop our level of thinking and our intellectual capacity.

What resonates most for me in reading Gelb’s book and Leonardo’s biography, was the rigorous questioning of even the smallest detail by Leonardo and his search for answers; his insatiable thirst for knowledge and understanding. All of us, including our inquisitive children, learn by asking questions and by exploring the possibilities of our imaginative and creative thinking.

In a time of instant information, have we somehow lost this capacity to think creatively and to think ‘outside the box’? My challenge to all teachers this term has been to “Imagine, Inspire, Innovate and Implement”. Not only do educators - and all adults for that matter - need to imagine more, inspire more, innovate more and implement more. We need to create a culture where our young people are confident to question the status quo and explore new possibilities. Surely this is the essence of education – to learn from those who have gone before us and to ‘stand on the shoulders of giants’ so that we might continue to learn and add to the knowledge and wisdom of the world in which we live.

As Gelb so eloquently notes:

“The essence of Leonardo’s legacy is the inspiration for wisdom and light to triumph over fear and darkness. In his never-ending quest for truth and beauty, art and science were married through the ministry of experience and perception.”

What finer quest can there be?

Karon Graham
Principal CCPS

Queensland Spirit

2011-09-15T23:39:00.000-07:00

Wasn’t Queenslander’s Samantha Stosur’s win in the US Tennis Open brilliant? Wasn’t she the best; cool, calm and collected while sullen Serena Williams had a meltdown midway through the game? Don’t you feel a great sense of pride to see a young less experienced but determined Australian not cave into any of the pressure of arguably one of the biggest international tournaments on the circuit? She didn’t lose her cool because of the parochial crowd from New York, nor did she cave into the intimidating Serena Williams. Sam held her ground and her nerve taking out the title in just 73 minutes. She is the first Australian woman to win a majors since Evonne Goolagong Cawley’s Wimbledon win in 1980 – an outstanding achievement!

Equally, Queenslander Sally Pearson’s world championship win in the 100 hundred metres hurdles, running 12.28 seconds was the fourth fastest time in history and the fastest time in 19 years, was sensational too. There must be something in the Queensland air, to say nothing of the spirit of Queenslanders, to see two young Queensland women perform so well on the international stage over recent months.

Don’t you find it amazing that the mood of the whole country can be affected by a win by an Australian in the international arena? Even those people who rarely watch sport or take a cursory interest at best in what happens in tennis, rugby or athletics are suddenly transfixed by a world final and are buoyed by a win. National pride collectively swells as we all clearly identify with the winner, be it a team or an individual.

In a recent article in North American Journal of Psychology, noted psychologists (End, Worthman, Foster and Vandemark) found that many sports fans, particularly those who are avid fans of a team or individual, had very positive emotions after a team’s win and not surprisingly, very negative emotions after they lose.

Interestingly, fans internalize the successes of the team in such a way that their actual self esteem is boosted as well as their mood. Psychologists also discovered that if a fan watches the team win then they predicted that the fans would personally perform at a higher level than fans who watched the team lose. Yes, there is a whole science and research around sports psychology. The psychology of fans responses to winning or losing sports teams should come as no surprise to any ardent sports fan.

Teams sports as well as individual pursuits in tennis, athletics, and swimming for example, are important for young people’s development of character, resilience, determination and cooperative efforts. The benefits of sports activities are well researched and acknowledged as being an important ‘core’ component to the growth and development of young people.

Young people need to have opportunities to think quickly and to react quickly to situations and sport provides this immediate opportunity. Young people can learn from what they do on the sporting field instantly - they know if they have made a good decision or a bad one and learn from the experience. Young people learn about leadership, teams, coaching and working with others. Parents should be there to guide and give advice but not to lecture or berate young people for how they have played or performed.

We have a lot to learn about human behaviour and sport provides an excellent vehicle to learn the basic principles of human nature. There is no victory without effort and determination. Our sporting heroes deserve our accolades; they have put in the hard yards and have committed, in many cases, a whole life in pursuit of their dreams. Yes it's wonderful to see our up and coming youngsters strive for greatness, but I also hope along the way that they learn lessons of humility and graciousness in victory as well. Both Sam Stosur and Sally Pearson have done us proud in this regard and stand as excellent role models for our younger sports men and women who are our champions in the making.

“To be what we are,
and to become what we
are capable of becoming
is the only end in life.”
(Robert Louis Stevenson)

Karon Graham

2011-09-12T19:33:00.000-07:00

Paradox of our times kjg

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Child Safety: Forewarned is Forearmed

2011-09-07T19:11:00.000-07:00

Most readers of my newsletter and blog will know that I don’t normally dwell on the darker side of life. Like many of you, I know that bad things happen but sometimes, I prefer not to know all the details and certainly don’t want to alarm people by elaborating on unpleasant and unsavoury events unnecessarily. However, this week I feel compelled to write about a difficult topic: child abduction and child safety. This is because firstly it’s Child Protection Week this week and secondly because of recent tragic events on the Sunshine Coast.

Every person in Queensland would be aware of the disappearance of Daniel Morcombe and the long painful quest to find out what happened to Daniel. It is every parent’s worst nightmare to discover that their child is missing. Sometimes, there is good news when a child is found safe and sound, but occasionally we know that parents’ worst fears are realised. Our hearts go out to the Morcombe family and most of us silently say, “There but for the grace of God go I.”

Abductions of children while not common on the Sunshine Coast are still a huge cause for concern given what we have witnessed recently. Only last week the school received reports of attempted abductions at nearby schools in Caloundra. It is essential that everybody makes child safety a priority and the helpful tips below come from a very useful website: http://www.reallifesolutions.net/family/abductions.html

Here are some of the realities of child abduction:
• The majority of children who are reported missing have run away, or there has been a misunderstanding with their parents about where they were supposed to be.
• Of the young people that are truly abducted, the majority of them are taken by a family member or an acquaintance; only 25% of children are taken by strangers.
• Almost all children kidnapped by strangers are taken by men, and about two thirds of stranger abductions involve female children.
• Most abducted children are in their teens.
• Children are rarely abducted from school grounds.

Strategies for Preventing Abductions: Parents often do not provide their children with safety information that could help prevent an abduction.

These strategies may help:
• Make sure custody documents are in order.
• Have ID-like photos taken of your children every 6 months, and keep these readily accessible.
• Keep your children's medical and dental records up to date.
• Make online safety a priority. The Internet is a great tool, but it's also a perfect place for predators to stalk children. Be aware of your children's Internet activities and chat room "friends," and remind them never to give out personal information. Avoid posting identifying information or photos of your children online.
• Set boundaries about the places your children go. Supervise them in places like shopping centres, movie theatres, parks, public toilets, and don’t let your child do fundraising door to door.
• Never leave children alone in a car or stroller, even for a minute.
• Choose caregivers - babysitters, day-care providers, and nannies carefully and check their references. If you've arranged for someone to pick up your children from school or child care, discuss the arrangements beforehand with your children and with the school, kindergarten or the early learning centre.
• Avoid dressing your children in clothing with their names on it - children tend to trust adults who know their names.

Talk to Your Child About Strangers
Talk to your children often about their safety in different places – at home, at the shops or out playing, or coming from and going to school. Give your children the basics on how to avoid and escape potentially dangerous situations.

Teach them to:
• Never accept sweets or gifts from a stranger.
• Never go anywhere with a stranger, even if it sounds like fun. Predators can lure children with questions like "Can you help me find my lost puppy?" or "Do you want to see some cute kittens in my car?" Remind your children that adults they don't know should never ask children to help or to do things for them.
• Run away and scream if someone follows them or tries to force them into a car.
• Say ‘no’ to anyone who tries to make them do something you've said is wrong or touch them in a way that makes them feel uncomfortable.
• Always tell you or another trusted adult if a stranger asks personal questions, exposes himself, or otherwise makes them feel uneasy.
• Reassure children that it's OK to tell you even if the person made them promise not to or threatened them in some way.
• Always ask permission from a parent to leave the house, yard, or play area or to go into someone's home.

Keep these other tips in mind, too:
• Make sure younger children know their names, address, phone number including area code, and who to call in case of an emergency.
• Review with your child how to use ‘triple 0’ – what to say, what information to give.
• Discuss what to do if they get lost in a public place or store - most places have emergency procedures for handling lost children. Remind your children that they should never go to the parking lot to look for you. Instruct your children to ask a cashier for help or stand near the registers or front of the building away from the doors.
• Point out the homes of friends around the neighbourhood where your children can go in case of trouble.
• Be sure your children know in whose car they may ride and in whose they may not. Teach them to move away from any car that pulls up beside them and is driven by a stranger, even if that person looks lost or confused.
• Teach your children not to ride with anyone they don't know.
• If your children are old enough to stay home alone, make sure they keep the door locked and never tell anyone who knocks or calls they are home alone.

Parents as a school we do whatever we can to ensure your son or daughter’s safety. All teachers have spoken to students about the importance of being safe and staying safe while away from their parents. We have also spoken to children about road safety too and given the recent accident and death of a cyclist not far from the school, this has brought home how important it is for young people to take good care while riding bicycles or walking to and from school.

What can you do once a precious life has been taken forever? Accidents happen in the blink of an eye. Once the damage is done, nothing can turn back the clock and make it right again. Lives are destroyed. Heartache and remorse follow and for some families the healing process takes a long time; sometimes the pain stays with them all of their lives.

Let’s do all in our power to keep our young people safe and conscious of some of the dangers in life, without overwhelming them with frightening stories. Sensible strategies are a good starting place for discussion with our sons and daughters. Remember: ‘forewarned is forearmed’.

Karon Graham
Principal

Lessons learned from the colour palette in choosing the best school.

2011-08-31T19:52:00.000-07:00

"The fact is that given the challenges we face, education doesn't need to be reformed -- it needs to be transformed. The key to this transformation is not to standardize education, but to personalize it, to build achievement on discovering the individual talents of each child, to put students in an environment where they want to learn and where they can naturally discover their true passions."
(Sir Ken Robinson, from The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything)

I was recently in an art class learning the finer art of finding the right way to mix colours for skin tones. Does it surprise you, like it did me, to discover that skin colour is a mix of colours as diverse as red, blue and yellow? Oh yes, and there is some white in the mix too, though white is not considered to be a colour. Now as someone who has often experienced a ‘Picasso or da Vinci’ moment, I have tried my hand at painting – not to any degree of success I might add and given that I did not know that white, red, yellow and blue make up skin colour, this is not surprising. I freely admit though, that art is one of my passions. I love nothing more than walking through an art gallery admiring the work of great painters and artists or trying my hand at drawing and painting when the mood strikes.

Discovering that such a small mix of colours can produce very life like skin tones was something of a revelation to me. Red, blue and yellow are of course primary colours and from these three colours, most other colours are derived. Wikipedia lists hundreds of colours by RGB, hue, saturation and value, because colour ‘naming’ is somewhat arbitrary and ambiguous to say the least. It’s estimated that there are 16 million colours that can be simulated by a 20 bit RGB computer, which bears no resemblance to the infinite numbers of colours that our eyes can recognise. Don’t you find it amazing to think that from so few primary colours, a world of colours is created?

Doug Keeley, a talented musician and one of the presenters at a recent principal’s ICP Conference I attended in Toronto, made the point that all music is derived from twelve tones, called the chromatic scale. All jazz, pop, rock, country and classical music is the outcome of variations in these twelve notes – a point that he proceeded to demonstrate by playing just a few notes from some well-known and well-loved pieces of music, within a few notes, most people in the audience recognised the music and the group playing it. This proved to be an interesting segue into the keynote presentation by internationally renowned, educationalists Michael Fullan, who is Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto and Dr Andy Hargreaves, who is the Chair of School of Education at Boston College.

Both speakers spoke at length around some of the fallacies in education. One of the key points that resonated with me, was the fallacy of prescription. Both Hargreaves and Fullan argued that the old industrial model of schools had passed its ‘used by date’ long ago and that prescriptions of what students should study was no longer relevant. Hargreaves argued that the old model doesn’t need reforming, rather it needs to be totally transformed- a sentiment shared by Sir Ken Robinson, another leading, international educational expert. As Fullan explained:

“Reform is like ripe fruit; it rarely travels well.”

Hargreaves stressed that high performing organisations are flexible, innovative, creative and fit the curriculum to the child. Parents, the reason that this resonates so strongly with me, is that at Caloundra City Private School we go to extraordinary lengths to be flexible, innovative, and creative in fitting the curriculum (the teaching and learning) to each child.

Schools may have similar ingredients – students, teachers and classrooms - but like the combination of primary colours and the combination of 12 musical notes, the outcomes for each student can be very different, and differ dramatically from one school to another. The same mix of notes can be a symphony to your ears – like Beethoven’s No. 5 - or a cacophony of noises. The same mix of colours can be a beautiful “Mona Lisa” or a child-like one dimensional stick drawing. What would you rather for your son or daughter? Of course you want what’s best for your child.

Making choices about the best school for your son or daughter's education is a tough decision at the best time, but making a decision, when economic conditions are difficult can be even more confronting for parents. As someone who has sent all three of my children to a private school, I know the sacrifices that parents have to make but can I say, in the long run, it's worth every single cent. A child's very future is dictated by his or her love of learning from a very young age. If the light goes out, it's very difficult to rekindle. The money spent on your child's education is an investment in the future and it's so important to find the very best school for your son or daughter. All schools are not the same. They may have the same few ingredients, but it's how you put these altogether that determines which school is the best for your son or daughter. I agree with Sir Ken Robinson:

"Our task is to educate our students whole being so they can face the future. We may not see the future, but they will and our job is to help them make something of it." I would add:'and succeed in that future'.

Karon Graham
Principal

Parenting Teenagers during the Tricky Times

2011-08-10T19:58:00.000-07:00

Teenagers can be tricky at the best of times and for parents it may be one of the toughest challenges of all to stay calm (and sane), through those trying days, weeks and months and even years. Now please don’t get me wrong, the teenage years can be fun too, but of all the time periods for young people, the teenage years can be the most challenging and frustrating for parents.

When it comes to sorting out teenage problems or family conflict, there are no quick fixes, nor are there one stop cure-alls, nor are there strategies or solutions that work for everyone. There is no right way or right approach that’s going to work for every person or for every situation. As one comic quipped:

“Raising teenagers is like nailing jelly to a tree.”

Yes we recognise that teenagers are growing up and need more independence, more autonomy and more privacy but this should be a measured and balanced approach. The ‘fine line’ is letting your son or daughter have more privacy, you don’t need to know everything, but by the same token you need them to understand that you want them to be safe, and because of this, there are some things that you do need to know.

Parents understand protective behaviours but adolescents don’t necessarily see the risks that parents do. Teenagers can be at risk because of someone else’s doing. Teenagers can be very manipulating when it comes to going out with their friends. Where they say they’re going and where they end up going, can be completely different. Yes you want to build trust but trust works both ways and they have to demonstrate to you that they can be trusted. It pays to contact the other parents to get details and ensure that the other parents are there or supervising your son or daughter. While this does not always pan out, there is some peace of mind in allowing your son or daughter to go to someone’s place if you have spoken to the parents beforehand.

Listen and share time with your teenager as part of your daily and weekly routine. As a busy parent, we often tell ourselves it’s the quality of the time not the quantity of time that counts most. Unfortunately all evidence is to the contrary. What’s most important, in fact, is the quantity of time we spend with our sons and daughters. Listening to your son or daughter sounds easy, most of us think that we do this really well, but often the child’s interpretation of time spent listening to them is quite the reverse. It’s hard sometimes to listen without giving advice or asking too many questions and this is an acquired skill that parents need to master. Listening in silence does not mean that you agree with your son or daughter, but it does mean you are listening. Reflective responses are helpful when listening; lecturing, giving advice (if it’s not requested), or starting with “when I was young” is not.

It’s not a perfect world, (we get that), but equally we need to understand that our teenagers are not perfect. Things will go wrong and do go wrong. Yes, there need to be consequences for inappropriate behaviour and wherever possible make the consequences relevant to the situation. Acknowledge the mistake and as a family, move forward, because constantly reminding your son or daughter of the mistake is not going to help the situation. Apologising for inappropriate behaviour is a very important step for teenagers to take, in allowing everyone to put the incident behind them and move on in life. Take heart from the philosophy that your teenager will learn from the mistakes and while it doesn’t seem like they are learning at the time, over the longer term, they do learn the lessons.

Who’s the boss in your family? According to expert, Elizabeth Harrell, teenagers need boundaries and safe, secure situations in which to grow. Parents are the provider of both, and when you act like a friend, your teen will lose security. Teens who view their parents as authority figures and providers are more likely to be close to them in adulthood. Despite what appearances might suggest, teens do not respect parents who behave like teens. Relating to your teen, based on your own experiences, can be a successful method of working through challenging situations, but at no time should you lose your parent status. (From: “11 Mistakes parents make with teen discipline”).

Setting boundaries is essential. You may feel like the enemy from time to time (and yes, occasionally your son or daughter may call you this), but more than anything, adolescents need to know what they can and can’t do. You are the parents and you determine what the rules and boundaries are in your household. Don’t succumb because of the ‘tried and tested’ (very testing), ‘Linda’s mum or Jamie’s dad lets them do this or go to this place’ - or whatever it might be that they want to do. Stay strong, like the Rock of Gibraltar – don’t let your teenager manipulate you emotionally.

Talk to the other parents of your son or daughter's friends. No-one likes to be the last parent to know about what is going on between your own son or daughter, with another teenager. Please, if you are one of the parents who knows something about another teenager’s risky behaviour, talk to one of the teen’s parents about what you have seen or heard. You may save a family from a very painful situation or a tragedy. At worse your comments may cause the other parent to become miffed, but if it was your son or daughter involved in risky behaviour, wouldn’t you want to know? Of course you would. If this all seems a little too difficult or confronting, let someone else know either in the school or a close friend of the family. Please don’t be the one to spread the gossip to other parents, this may fuel a potential situation and make it even more difficult for a family to resolve the issues with their own teenage son or daughter.

Be around and let it be known that you’re around. Teenagers are notorious for getting themselves into strife and then having a hard time getting out of a bad situation by themselves. Sometimes teenagers will go out with a group of friends and either separate from them to be with ‘someone special’ or alternatively may have an argument and walk off from his or her friends. Either way, the consequences of separating from friends to be by themselves can lead to dangerous or risky behaviour or situations. Always let your teenager know you are available to give them a lift home. You will pick him/her up at anyplace or anytime, even three o’clock in the morning. You will do so without any consequences to your teenager on the understanding that everyone makes mistakes in judgment. You simply want your son or daughter to be safe, no matter what the circumstances.

Be positive and have positive intentions and above all keep a sense of humour. I say this in hindsight as a parent who has seen three of my children grow into adults and now laugh when we talk about some of their misdemeanours during the more difficult teenage years. Can I laugh about all of the difficulties? Definitely not , but some of the ‘darkest hours’ have been defining moments in turning around one of my then teenagers from the ‘dark side’. Remaining positive and looking forward to a positive and bright future was a struggle some days but in the end, that’s what happened. Have faith and trust that the values that you share with your teenager will hold them in good stead for the future.

Sometimes we need to get professional help, because despite our best efforts, we are unable to work through the complicated issues that are causing escalated family conflict. Finding a professional ‘third party’ to mediate and arbitrate through the mine field is sometimes the only way forward.

As a school we support both students and parents through this difficult and trying time. Research shows that when the school and parents work in partnership, the resilience and protective factors of your child are enhanced. Our Life Skills Program and Outdoor Education Program, give young people effective strategies for dealing with a wide range of social and emotional issues as they grow and develop into young adults. Together we can work towards resolving many of the issues facing you as parents or your children. Yes, the teenage years are amongst the most challenging but they are also amongst the most rewarding and satisfying years of your life. Yes they really are; trust me on this point.

Karon Graham

Why are Some People so Lucky?

2011-08-02T20:52:00.000-07:00

Do you ever wonder why some people are so lucky? I recently read an article about some incredibly lucky lottery winners. Hard to believe but Texan Joan Ginther, has actually won four jackpots since 1993 for the amazing, grand total of US$20.4 million. Experts say that the odds of one person winning four lottery jackpots are unbelievably difficult - more than 200 million to 1. Joan Ginther isn’t the only one to get so lucky; Ernest Pullen won US$1 million in June of 2010 and then won another $2 million in September. Doesn’t seem fair does it?

Of course being lucky in winning money does not necessarily guarantee being lucky in anything else and I have heard of some sad tales about people winning lottery, only to have a series of misfortunes befall them or their family. Being lucky in love or lucky in your work or in sport of course is a little different from winning money on a lottery ticket or a scratchie.

I am very sure that neither Cadel Evans, winner of the Tour de France nor James Magnussen’s, amazing winner of the 100 metre freestyle FINA world championship would be thinking that their recent wins, were ‘just lucky’- far from it I suspect. There is an element of luck in small decisions at a particular point in time but on the whole, to be successful in anything, there has to be a great deal of effort, preparation, commitment and perseverance. I don’t think there was much room for error or luck in Magnussen’s 100 metre race in the incredible time of 47.63 seconds. Who has time to even think in that length of time?

As Thomas Jefferson said:

“I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.”

In his research into why some people are lucky and others unlucky, Professor Richard Wiseman has distilled his research down to four basic principles which explains how some people create their own good fortune. Professor Wiseman shares the following principles in his book, “The Luck Factor”:

Principle One: Maximise Chance Opportunities
Lucky people are skilled at creating, noticing and acting upon chance opportunities. They do this in various ways, including networking, adopting a relaxed attitude to life and by being open to new experiences.

Principle Two: Listening to Lucky Hunches
Lucky people make effective decisions by listening to their intuition and gut feelings. In addition, they take steps to actively boost their intuitive abilities by, for example, meditating and clearing their mind of other thoughts.

Principle Three: Expect Good Fortune
Lucky people are certain that the future is going to be full of good fortune. These expectations become self-fulfilling prophecies by helping lucky people persist in the face of failure, and shape their interactions with others in a positive way.

Principle Four: Turn Bad Luck to Good
Lucky people employ various psychological techniques to cope with, and often even thrive upon, the ill fortune that comes their way. For example, they spontaneously imagine how things could have been worse, do not dwell on ill fortune, and take control of the situation.

Surprisingly, it seems, luck is more about your attitude to life than it is about divine forces conspiring to bring either good or bad fortune. Yes I know this is contrary to many people’s perceptions but on the whole, it’s my belief that we make our own luck even when it seems the odds are stacked against us.

Best selling author of, “The Winner’s Bible”, Dr Kerry Spackman believes that those people with an absolute and resolute self belief, will be and usually are the people who succeed most in life. While it might be that there was a serendipitous moment where everything seemed to fall in place, it is usually the culmination of consistent and persistent effort, hard work and belief in yourself that brings ultimate success.

This is an important message for our young people, who from time to time doubt their own ability and may question why they are not doing as well as they would like to or maybe not achieving their goals. A good positive attitude and a healthy perspective about life and its shortcomings and the resilience to keep moving forward in the face of adversity or setbacks, will ultimately lead young people to a more successful future. As parents and teachers we can help this process by encouraging, inspiring and motivating our young people to always work to the best of their ability and to persevere, even if they don’t succeed at first (or second or third).

As William James, American psychologist and philosopher wrote:
“The greatest revolution of our generation
is the discovery that human beings,
by changing the inner attitudes in their minds,
can change the outer aspects of their lives.”

In essence, James is saying that we can not only change the outer aspect of our lives but we can also change our luck. Stay positive, think big and believe in yourself, no matter what - even when you don’t win the lottery – darn!

Karon Graham
Principal

Qualities of a good friend

2011-07-20T17:55:00.000-07:00

Where would we be without friends? For most people, life is made all the more bearable because of friends. Sharing time with someone is a sure fire way to build up a friendship, particularly when we are good listeners. Sharing stories, sharing little snippets of our life, revealing our ‘real’ self to another person requires a ‘leap of faith’. How will someone react when we tell them about a problem worrying us, or sharing a secret that we have kept to ourselves? Fair weather friends may dessert us in times like this, but good friends stick by us until the end. How do we know if it’s the end? If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.

Good friends don’t give advice unless we ask for it. Good friends listen more than they talk. Good friends know when to stay silent and when to speak up. Good friends don’t make value judgements about your life choices. Good friends, as someone famously said, walk in when others walk out. Elbert Hubbard, author, artist and philosopher, humourously put it this way:

“The friend is the person
Who knows all about you,
And still likes you. "

Good friends are there when we need them most; they are there on our doorstep when tragedy strikes; they stand by us through thick and thin, particularly when our world is turned upside down. The amazing thing about good friends is that they really don’t need to say or do very much at all. Just being there to listen to what has happened can be the greatest comfort of all. Famous philosopher and author, Henry David Thoreau wrote:

“The language of
Friendship is not words, but Meanings.
It is an intelligence
Above language.”

Good friends show kindness, above and beyond the call of duty and often it’s not in grand gestures but in simple acts of kindness that we appreciate the most. Helping out by making a few frozen meals when a friend has a new baby to care for or offering to pick up our friend’s children from school when they are caught late at work. Friends help smooth out the ‘bumps’ in our lives and ease our burdens and bring greater happiness because they are there for us when we need them most.

One of our parents recently had a very distressing situation, her husband was away and she was confronted by a very agitated and menacing man at her front door. It was a frightening situation and one that was so unexpected in the local area where she lives. Within days, she had received many phone calls, emails and kind words from many of the parents at CCPS. She told me later that she was quite overwhelmed by the kindness and thoughtfulness of her friends and families of CCPS. It made a huge difference to her psychologically to have that kind of support from the school community and she wants to say thank you to all of those friends.

Some friendships happen spontaneously, as if there is an instant recognition of a like mind or personality; there is a connection that transcends time and place. Hard to explain the feeling and explain why this happens but I ‘m sure there are many experts out there who swear that we connect to people because of their face shapes, or pheromones or personality type or some other chemical or physical attribute. Surprisingly, these friendships are often the most enduring.

Mark Nepo writes in “The Book of Awakening” (no this is not a book about coming out of a coma, rather it is a collection of thought provoking quotes and stories which are motivating and inspiring) about a verse written in the 700s in the Tang Dynasty in China by the great poet Li Po. In the famous poem: “Letter in Exile”, Li Po talks about his deep, lifelong friendship with So-Kin of Rakuyo and he explains that even though they have only been together a handful of times, Li Po feels his friend’s presence even from afar. He eloquently writes:

“What is the use of talking, and there is no end of talking.
There is no end of things in the heart.”

Nepo questions how it‘s possible for two friends who have spent more time apart than together can be such close friends? Yes, life is a mystery in matters of the heart. In spite of so much time apart, another person, who we rarely see, can still shape one’s entire life. We are very fortunate if we are blessed by such friends, I know my life has been all the richer because of distant friends.

There is something about travelling to a new country that awakens within us a new perspective on life; it broadens our horizons literally and metaphorically. People we meet overseas are probably no different from the people we meet in our daily lives at home but it seems to me, that when you travel with someone away from home or meet new people overseas, we tend to bond more strongly with them. In some ways I think it happens because we realise that we may never have this opportunity again. Our new found friends become all the more precious because we know that what we share in those brief moments of contact or passage of time, we may never experience again.

With such amazing adventures of new worlds, new cultures, new friends in store for our young people, it is no surprise that lives are altered forever by the experience. At a higher level I agree with Woodrow Wilson who opined:

“Friendship is the only cement that will
Ever hold the world together.”

The challenge for each of us in life is to care for and tend to our friends like we would a garden. We have to pull out the weeds, the hurtful words spoken in haste; nourish the friendship frequently with kindness and thoughtfulness. If we can do all of this, then the friendship will blossom and grow over time and with such strong roots this precious friendship will help us and sustain us, all of our lives.

“True friendship is a plant of slow growth,
And must undergo and withstand the
Shocks of adversity before it
Is entitled to the appellation.”
(George Washington)

Portrait of a Friend
(author unknown)

I can't give solutions to all of life's problems, doubts or fears.
But I can listen to you, and together we will search for answers.
I can't change your past with all its headaches and pain, nor the future with its untold stories.
But I can be there now when you need me to care.
I can't keep your feet from stumbling.
I can only offer my hand that you may grasp it and not fall.
Your joys, triumphs, successes, and happiness are not mine;
Yet I can share in your joy and laughter.
Your decisions in life are not mine to make nor to judge;
I can only support you, encourage you, and help you when you ask.
I can't prevent you from falling away from friendship or from your values.
I can only pray for you, and talk to you.
I can't give you boundaries which I have determined for you.
But I can give you the room to change, room to grow, room to be yourself.
I can't keep your heart from breaking and hurting.
But I can cry with you and help you pick up the pieces and put them back in place.
I can't tell you who you are.
I can only love you and be your friend.
I promise to try to do all of these things and be the best friend I can be for now.

Karon Graham

Principal CCPS

The Lost Art of Showing Kindness

2011-06-08T20:51:00.000-07:00

“Be kind and merciful. Let no one ever come to you without coming away better and happier.” (Mother Teresa)
We know life is not always a bed of roses and many of us get caught from time to time, by the thorny parts of life. Sometimes an angel in the guise of a friend, or loved one or even a complete stranger for that matter, comes along to rescue us or helps ease our burden by listening to our plight. It may not have been a grand gesture or a big thing that this person did or said but they helped us, when we needed it most.

How many times do we wish after a situation like this, that we had taken the time to thank that person properly for the kindness they showed us. Sometimes circumstances prevent us from showing our gratitude at the time and the opportunity of thanking them passes by and then before we know it, so much time has elapsed that the kindness has been all but forgotten and we have not made the effort to thank them. It can be tricky finding a way to thank complete strangers, but it is possible if we take the time and effort.

There is a lovely true story about Charles Plumb, who was a US Navy jet pilot in Vietnam. After 75 combat missions, his plane as destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy hands. He was captured and spent six years in a communist Vietnamese prison. He survived the ordeal and now lectures on lessons learned from that experience.
One day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table came up and said, “You’re Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!”

“How in the world did you know that?” asked Plumb.
“I packed your parachute,” the man replied. Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude. The man pumped his hand and said, “I guess it worked!”
Plumb assured him, “It sure did. If your chute hadn’t worked, I wouldn’t be here today.”

Plumb couldn’t sleep that night, thinking about that man. Plumb says, “I kept wondering what he might have looked like in a Navy uniform: a white hat, a bib in the back, and bell-bottom trousers. I wonder how many times I might have seen him and not even said ‘Good morning, how are you?’ or anything because, you see, I was a fighter pilot and he was just a sailor.”
Plumb thought of the man hours the sailor had spent on a long wooden table in the bowels of the ship, carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in his hands each time the fate of someone he didn’t know.

Now, Plumb asks his audience, “Who’s packing your parachute?” Everyone has someone who provides what they need to make it through the day. Plumb also points out that he needed many kinds of parachutes when his plane was shot down over enemy territory-he needed his physical parachute, his mental parachute, his emotional parachute, and his spiritual parachute. He called on all these supports before reaching safety.

With family and friends, it is much easier to say thank you and to show your gratitude, yet surprisingly, many people forget to do this. Sometimes in the daily challenges that life gives us, we miss what is really important. We may fail to say hello, please, or thank you, congratulate someone on something wonderful that has happened to them, give a compliment, or just do something nice for no reason.

I like to think that developing positive relationships is like a bank account. We all make deposits and withdrawals. The deposits are the things we do to help someone, like a simple gesture of cleaning the kitchen up or taking them out to dinner or lunch. Withdrawals are when we need a favour or help and the other person does this for us out of the goodness of his or her heart (or maybe a little prompting in the case of our spouse or partner). In positive relationships, it’s always best to be on the credit side – to have made more deposits than withdrawals and if this is not the case, then it is very unlikely that both people in the relationship are happy.

Showing kindness and gratitude seems to me to be a lost art, don’t you think? Reading and hearing horrible stories of the verbal or physical cruelty that humans can inflict upon one another at home, or in business, on the road and even in schools is appalling and it would be very easy to become despondent about the lost art of good manners, thoughtfulness and kindness. Whatever happened to the adage that our mothers constantly repeated to us, ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you”? Yes, what has happened to the simple act of showing kindness?

One person can make such a difference to someone else’s life and believe it or not, to thousands of other people too. Ann Herbert may be an unknown name to you, but Ann started something big by one simple action. In 1982, in a restaurant in Sausalito, California, Ann wrote the following words on a place mat, “practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty.” Sounds simple and inconsequential don’t you think? Before long, it spread to bumper stickers and for some reason the simplicity appealed to many people and the practice of random acts on kindness became a world-wide phenomenon. From this one action grew mass action. True stories and books were written about random acts of kindness which has continued unabated since that fateful day in 1982 when one person made a simple but remarkable statement.

I am in awe of the number of ordinary heroes within our midst. Yes it might seem like an oxymoron to talk about ordinary heroes because a hero after all is someone venerated for heroic acts like putting their life at risk in order to save someone else’s life or many lives. Ordinary heroes, on the other hand, are more common but in my mind, every bit as heroic in the real sense of day to day living.

She or he is the kind of person that gets on and does a job without any fuss. Often they are the first to put up their hand for a new task, nothing is too much trouble and it seems as if they infinite time to go around. Now we know of course, that they have busy lives too, but somehow these people magically make time for other people and put their own needs second. If you talk to such a person they will tell you that they get more out of life by helping someone else and showing kindness to others, than if they had just gone on with their own lives. Debi Mazar puts it this way:

“A hero is somebody who is selfless, who is generous in spirit, who just tries to give back as much as possible and help people. A hero to me is someone who saves people and who really deeply cares. “

There are so many people around us who are ordinary heroes. Let's celebrate these people by showing our appreciation for their actions and kind words. We all benefit by showing gratitude and not only do we make someone's day by this simple thing, but we feel better about ourselves too.

“Appreciation is a wonderful thing: it makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.” (Voltaire)

Karon Graham

If You're an Optimist, You're Not Alone!

2011-06-01T22:18:00.000-07:00

Don’t you love it when a plan comes together? A plan as simple as organising a day out with your family or cooking a great meal or more significantly, organising a special surprise birthday party or escaping to your favourite holiday getaway can make your day and put you on top of the world, so long as, all goes well. Why the proviso? English poet, Robert Burns once wrote:

“The best laid schemes of mice and men oft go awry…”

Yes, sometimes our best laid plans can come unstuck and in spite of our best efforts, all does not go well. Making the best of a bad situation is often all that’s left for us to do, because the situation is, what it is. I recently came across some funny statements made on actual insurance claims that give some indication of how bad a day can go in the blink of an eye (apparently). In the drivers own words:

“Coming home I drove into the wrong house and collided with a tree I don't have.”
“I had been shopping for plants all day and was on my way home. As I reached an intersection, a hedge sprang up, obscuring my vision and I did not see the other car.”
“As I approached the intersection a sign suddenly appeared in a place where no sign had ever appeared before, making me unable to avoid the accident. “
"The guy was all over the road. I had to swerve a number of times before I hit him."
"I was thrown from my car as it left the road, and was later found in a ditch by some stray cows."
And my favourite:
“In my attempt to kill a fly, I drove into a telephone pole.”

I am a self confessed optimist and always try to look on the bright side of life. I have discovered though, that I am not the only one who thinks this way. Hard to believe that in this day and age of instant bad news, 24/7 and despite the barrage of bad news, it appears that most of us believe that things will turn out okay. While the world around us might be disintegrating, our personal view of our own life is still amazingly optimistic. Rather ironic don’t you think or maybe not. Maybe we are just far more complacent about our own personal circumstances than those of people around us.

I was heartened to read in a recent article by Tali Sharot in the June 6, Time magazine, called ‘The Optimism Bias’, that most of us are optimists. It turns out that we are hardwired to be this way, because of the evolution of our brain over time. Recent research shows that we expect things to turn out better than they wind up being and we seriously underestimate the chances of bad things happening to us, while we tend to overestimate good things happening to us and our family.

The fact that we believe the future will be much better than the present is called the ‘optimism bias’ according to Sharot and transcends all races, religion, socioeconomic status and cultures. This optimism bias actually protects us and inspires us and gives us hope. This faith helps motivate us to achieve our goals. No wonder our vision of our future is rosier than the reality of the situation. Take for example our perception of our own driving ability. Did you know that 93 percent of people surveyed believed that they were in the top 50th percentile for driving ability? Perhaps not so surprising given some of the statements made on the insurance claims up above.

Scientific evidence shows that where people are more optimistic, their chances of recovery from serious illness are more positive that those people who are pessimistic. According to Sharot, a study conducted with heart-disease patients showed that optimistic patients were more likely to take vitamins, eat low-fat diets and exercise and were more likely to reduce their overall coronary risks. A study of cancer patients revealed also, that pessimistic patients were more likely to die within eight months than optimistic patients of a similar age, status and health conditions. These studies beg the question,” Can optimism change reality?” Well according to another study conducted with students, it seems we can effect change in our reality.

Cognitive neuroscientist, Sara Bengtsson found that students’ brains responded differently to the mistakes they made depending on whether they were primed with certain words. She found that when she induced certain expectations with college students by using words such as ‘smart’,’ intelligent’ and ‘clever ‘just before asking them to perform a test that these students performed better than those students who heard words like ‘stupid’, and ‘ignorant’ before their test. Not surprisingly then, students performed better after hearing an affirmative message and she found that the brain activity was greater after a word like clever was used because the student was primed to perform well. When the word stupid was used, the brain expected to do poorly and did not show signs of surprise or conflict when it made an error.

Interestingly, the research shows that optimists work longer hours and tend to earn more. What are the implications of all of this information? Well as Sharot argues, the good news is that awareness of our optimism rarely shatters the illusion. I guess we are just better prepared for any eventuality. The glass remains half full, because we still believe that we will remain healthy, yet most of us take out health insurance and while for some of us the sun is always shining, we still take an umbrella with us, just in case.

Life’s not perfect but as Nicholas Butler points out:

“Optimism is essential to achievement and it is also the foundation of courage and true progress.”

Karon Graham

What's the Most Effective Form of Feedback? What does the research say?

2011-05-26T00:03:00.000-07:00

Queenslander!
Don‘t you feel proud to be a Queenslander? After great wins by the Brisbane Lions, Queensland Reds, a fantastic State of Origin game where the Maroons continued their winning streak against the NSW Blues and the win by the Queensland Firebirds in the ANZ Netball Final Championship game after an unbeaten record of wins during the season, state pride is at an all time high. Nothing builds state pride more than winning at the games we love against our arch rivals south of the border.

Building a championship team or group – whether a sporting team, a musical band, or choir - takes time, effort, deliberate practice, perseverance, commitment and belief in yourself and your team mates. While we celebrate the great Queensland victories and marvel at their achievements, it’s worth keeping in mind that every single person started somewhere many years ago with limited skills, experience and understanding of how best to improve. To get to the top or to excel in our chosen field requires much more than talent and sometimes we can begin with no talent at all or limited talent and still succeed. How can that be, you may be thinking?

In a sporting environment or a musical group we often need a good coach or a good instructor to help us develop our skills to realise our potential. This is true in many aspects of life – consider some of the favourite reality shows – Masterchef or Biggest Loser. How do the contestants improve? They receive specific feedback on what they are doing well and not only what they are not doing well, but more importantly, what they need to do to improve on those things that they are not doing so well. It’s this constructive feedback and practice that allows contestants, sportspeople and musicians to improve far beyond what they may have been able to achieve if it were not for this constructive feedback and advice.

Why are Queensland coaches like Wayne Bennett or Mal Meninga so sought after in Rugby League ? It’s because they have a demonstrated record of success in bringing players together and training them into a championship team. It is rare for anyone to achieve to high levels without good coaching and mentoring. Whether it’s sport, music, acting, singing, career, business or even school achievement, very few excel without constructive feedback from good coaches or mentors.

In the school environment, feedback is every bit as important as application to class work and study and some researchers would argue that it’s even more important. In his groundbreaking book Visible Learning, researcher and Professor of Education at the University of Auckland, John Hattie, found that after looking at all the possible influences on achievement, it became clear to him that feedback was among the most powerful influences on student achievement.
Hattie has made some important observations about the best kind of feedback to students and some of these observations may surprise you. Hattie explains feedback in this way:

Feedback is information provided by an agent (e.g., teacher, peer, book, parent or one’s own experience) about aspects of one’s performance or understanding. For example a teacher or parent can provide corrective information, a peer can provide an alternative strategy, a book can provide information to clarify ideas, a parent can provide encouragement, and a learner can look up the answer to evaluate the correctness of a response. Feedback is a “consequence” of performance.

Hattie and his researchers found that some types of feedback are more powerful than others in raising student achievement. The most powerful forms of feedback provide cues or reinforcement to the learner in the form of video, audio or computer assisted instruction feedback or relate feedback to learning goals. The key to the success of this kind of feedback is that it is received and acted upon by students.

Despite common perceptions, the least effective forms of feedback for enhancing students’ achievement are praise, punishment and extrinsic rewards. Tangible rewards like stickers, awards and so on have little merit in providing relevant task information and have little impact on improving achievement unless they are accompanied with specific feedback. Tangible rewards actually undermine people taking responsibility for motivating or regulating themselves, according to researchers like Deci, (1999) and Ryan (1985). Hard as this might be to believe and accept, the bottom line is that extrinsic rewards can actually have a negative impact on student engagement according to all of the research conducted with thousands of students, teachers and schools.

So what is the right form of feedback to give? According to Hattie, feedback is more effective when it provides information on correct rather than incorrect responses and when it builds on changes from previous tests. The main purpose of feedback is to reduce discrepancies between current understandings and performance and a learning intention or goal. This kind of feedback can be used in a range of teaching and coaching situations.

The major feedback questions to ask, which focus students most, are:
• “Where am I going?” (learning intentions, goals, success criteria)
• “How am I going?” (self assessment and self-evaluation)
• “Where to next?” (progression and new goals)

These questions work best when both the student and teacher (or parent) seek answers to each of these questions. Closing the gap between where the student is and where they are aiming to be, leads to the power of feedback. The art of course is to give students the right form of feedback at, or just above, the level where the students is working.

There is one exception, and that’s in terms of praise, because praise is rarely directed at the three feedback questions and therefore is rarely effective in improving student performance. What is most important is to have a classroom environment that is engaging and challenging, fosters peer and self-assessment, and allows students to learn from mistakes. The fact is that students need to make mistakes to learn. As Tyron Edwards once said:

Some of the best lessons we ever learn,
We learn from our mistakes and failures.
The error of the past is the success
And wisdom of the future.

Karon Graham

What's the Secret to Success in Life?

2011-05-18T18:26:00.000-07:00

If you had a magic wand, what would you change? Now before you go thinking that this is a deep philosophical question, which it is, what would be most important to you? Would it be something about your appearance, your health, your finances, your career, or your neighbours? Would you change your game of golf or tennis, your car, or the general pace of life or something more altruistic like ‘world peace’? Or maybe you’re like me and just want ‘peace at home’. How good would that be?

How many times have you heard someone (or ourselves, for that matter) say, “If only I could do such and such a thing, or be this person, or change some other aspect of our life?” Or maybe you are one of the rare exceptions though, who is very happy with everything in your life? Okay, these people are generally monks, who live in some remote region like the Himalayan mountains. Yes surprisingly, they really are. A research study on happiness done a few years ago ranked monks, who meditated in these remote regions, amongst the happiest people on earth.

It seems that its human nature that we yearn for the best or we simply want more in life. Some people are never happy with their life or life choices. They think that if they had, for example, more money, or more friends or a bigger house or better job, that they would be happy or successful. Interestingly, however, getting more of something does not necessarily bring about happiness, nor does it bring about greater satisfaction either. As many people have found over time, happiness is an intrinsic attitude to life – we either make up our minds to be happy or not.

Some students think that if they had more intelligence or had different circumstances, that they could do better in life or in school. If someone were to say to them exactly how they can achieve more, would they want to pay the price? It’s a common misconception that some people are born smarter, or are more good looking or come from a wealthy family, and that’s why they are successful or happy. The reality is though that many great musicians, sportspeople, academics or business people are successful for very different reasons.

What do technology tycoons Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, basketball superstar, Michael Jordan, All Star Canadian Ice Hockey players have in common? Not much you might be thinking, but surprisingly they do share certain circumstances that account for their success.

In his thought provoking book “Outliers – The Story of Success”, Malcolm Gladwell argues that his research on people who have become successful, demonstrates through a series of totally unrelated people and circumstances, how successful people have become successful. Was there anything magical about how it happened? Maybe, but, by and large many of the most successful people became successful, according to Gladwell because of :

• hard work - one of the keys to success in life, he argues
• persistence - no one succeeds without this key ingredient
• 10,000 hours of deliberate practice are required to become the most successful – whether programming a computer, practising basketball, ice hockey or in science – 10,00 hours of deliberate practice makes perfect
• an element of luck or serendipity - like being in the right place at the right time - but some people seem to make their own luck don’t they?
• timing – the year or even the date born was a factor with some sporting stars who were ‘young for cut-off dates for sporting teams and had advantage of more expert coaching and team competition
• cultural and family circumstances plant the seeds of success – particularly where parents set high expectations and encourage or rehearse their children for success in all aspects of their life.

According to Gladwell (p19):

“People don’t rise from nothing. We do owe something to parentage and patronage. The people who stand before kings may look like they did it all by themselves. But in fact they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot.
It makes a difference where and when we grew up. The culture we belong to and the legacies passed down by our forebears shape the patterns of our achievement in ways we cannot begin to imagine. It’s not enough to ask what successful people are like, in other words. It is only by asking where they are ‘from’ that we can unravel the logic behind who succeeds and who doesn’t.”

Now how does this information benefit us personally or our children? In John Hattie’s groundbreaking research book Visible Learning, he synthesises over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement and found that the top contributor to student achievement gains is prior achievement. In other words, what a child brings to the classroom each year is very much related to their achievement in previous years.

According to Hattie’s findings,(and this will be no surprise to most parents and teachers), students were very knowledgeable about their chances of success and overall if students had higher expectations of success, then they were more likely to succeed than students who did not expect to succeed. Hattie also found that the home environment and parental involvement in learning, parental expectations of students and parental aspirations where the parents are actively involved in the students learning, contributed significantly to student achievement improvement over time. The secret to success is not such a big secret after all.

Commitment to succeeding it seems is as good a predictor of success as many other factors. Parents and students should take heart from these findings as they demonstrate again, that there is no secret to success. Success comes from the interplay of hard work, perspiration and persistence, commitment and family expectations and student expectations and aspirations of how successful they want to be. In conclusion I will leave you with these thoughts from famous Scottish athlete W. H. Murray:

“Until one is committed
There is hesitancy, the chance to draw back,
always ineffectiveness.
Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation)
there is one elementary truth,
the ignorance of which kills countless ideas
and splendid plans:
that the moment one definitely commits oneself,
then Providence moves too.
All sorts of things occur to help one
That would otherwise never have occurred.
A whole stream of events issues from the decision,
raising in one’s favour all manner
of unforseen incidents and meetings
and material assistance,
which no man or woman could have dreamt
would have come his or her way.”

(p.s. Did I mention the 10,000 hours of deliberate practice too?)

Karon Graham
Principal

"Where is Wisdom we have Lost in Knowledge?"

2011-05-17T20:29:00.000-07:00

“Nothing seems to be more prominent about human life than its wanting to understand all and put everything together.”
(R. Buckminster-Fuller, Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, p79)

Many years ago in 1966, American economist, Kenneth Boulding, published, what was to become his most famous essay ‘The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth’ and in 1969 Buckminster-Fuller wrote Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth. Drawing on the Apollo 8 mission, both authors were convinced that there had to be a paradigm shift in how we thought about our planet, from ‘cowboy economy’ to ‘spaceship economy’.

Essentially, both authors predicted a shift from the ‘cowboy’ economy of individualism, independence, autocracy, humanity against nature, intercultural and religious intolerance to a ‘spaceship’ culture of community, interdependency, democracy, humanity as part of nature, gender equality, and cultural and religious tolerance. It’s not that we deliberately set out to change our way of thinking, but like in many instances, our perspective on ‘life as we know it’ was transformed in the blink of an eye by one historic event.

The stark image of earth taken from space on Apollo 8 was one such turning point. Like the opening scenes of the brilliant 1968 movie by Stanley Kubrick, 2010: A Space Odyssey, we were changed forever by the images we saw; they were inspirational and transforming. I remember one of the astronauts marvelling at the view from space and making the comment that there are no borders on earth from space.

“The first day or so we all pointed to our countries. The third or fourth day we were pointing to our continents. By the fifth day, we were aware of only one Earth." --Sultan bin Salman Al-Saud and astronaut, Muhammad Ahmad Faris:
"From space I saw Earth -- indescribably beautiful and with the scars of national boundaries gone."

Over the last fifty years there has been a definite shift in the way we think about our place on earth, in particular, the shift to a global perspective, from that of a local almost introspective national perspective. The concept of a global village has become a reality as satellites, the internet, increasing fast and easy world travel and instant messaging, have ‘shrunk’ our world. The speed at which information is now transmitted is breathtaking and it has transformed the way we think about the world – our paradigm has altered forever. Our sons and daughters are growing up in this world; this is their norm.

Innovation comes about by changing the way we think about what we do, how we do it and why we do things a certain way. Peter Ellyard, author of ‘Ideas for the New Millennium’, argues that innovation requires innovative people. Innovation, he believes, will only come about if we have two key elements in play: creativity and enterprise.(p77) Equipping our children with essential skills of life-long learning; giving our young people the skills and the wherewithal to be use initiative, drive, knowledge, wisdom and hunger to create, innovate and succeed is critical for their future success and the future of our world.

Teachers and students work together to discover new ways, new thinking and new paradigms. Albert Szent-Gyorgyi put it this way:

Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.

Our students will amaze you with what they have achieved. Just a few recent examples:

• Transformed stories from Year 4 buddies and create animated digital stories
• Created their own website on environmental matters and learned the power of writing and receiving over $500 and a water tank in Years 3 and 4
• Developed virtual travel itineraries in Year 1
• Skyped a student from their Year 4 class to London to help a young boy who has left the school
• Year 9 students are creating a digital game (using KODU) for Year 2 students
• Year 10 students are creating a Vodcast to assist in subject selection for Year 11
• Created a sophisticated, professional design of an object using Inventor in Year 12 Graphics and a mobile device in Year 9 Graphics
• Year 12 ITS have just completed developing House websites using Dreamweaver

Teachers too have created some exciting ways of inspiring our students, like the now famous CCPS “Captain Energy” on YouTube, which is the brainchild of a certain Year 2 teacher.

In this world of "instant information", it's timely to remember the words of famous poet, T S Eliot:

"Where is wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”

Schools must meet the needs of the future generations leading this planet. The students need skills in problem solving, metacognition, innovative and creative thinking as well as good knowledge and depth of understanding that goes far beyond the surface. Our students need to be thinking globally, as well as acting locally. Good teachers can make the world of difference to our students achievements, and to their future aspirations for themselves and their generation - especially the teachers at Caloundra City Private School.

Karon Graham

Principal

What's the Fascination with Lists?

2011-05-04T22:24:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered why we are so fascinated by lists of things? We seem to love lists of countdowns to ‘number one’, lists of the top ten or the top one hundred. Why is it that people sit glued to the television to see the countdown to the number one song of all time, or the funniest home video? Why are we so absorbed by The Guinness Book of Records, or Time magazine’s: The World’s Top 100 Most Influential People, or the list of the most glamorous or the richest people in the world, or for that matter, the fastest lap by some celebrity on the Top Gear race track in some remote and obscure area of London?

Why do we keep lists (sometimes in our heads) of the best or favourite movies, songs, or sporting teams? Why do we care what someone else thinks about who’s the best, the fastest, the toughest, the funniest? What does it matter? Well it seems it matters to us a great deal. Lists like these appeal to our natural curiosity and our competitive nature. Maybe too, it’s the debate that goes on around who or what was the number one or who or what was left off the list that we enjoy the most? As any good family debater knows – it can often be a ‘no win’ argument. As one husband quipped to his wife, “If I agreed with you, we'd both be wrong.”

Lists, by definition, give us some sort of order in our lives – from the mundane, like our weekly grocery shopping lists, or the daily ‘to do lists’, to the sublime, like in the movie, The Bucket List, where actors Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson wrote a list of their top ten things to do before they died. As we get older or when become ill, life and how we spend our time takes on a whole new meaning. It’s as if everything comes into sharp focus and we become centred on what’s most important in our life. A bucket list can become a life transforming list.

Noted time management experts and life skills coaches, like Jack Collis and Michael Leboeuf, extol the virtues of lists and setting goals. In their best-selling book, Work Smarter, Not Harder, the authors argue that without lists, without a plan, without goals, we can often live an aimless and purposeless life. The clear message is to make every day count. Merrill Douglass put it this way:
Many people assume that they can probably find many ways to save time. This is an incorrect assumption for it is only when you focus on spending time that you begin to use your time effectively.

There are many benefits to making lists and students in particular can benefit by making lists of their own.
• Lists allow us to take sometimes complex information and simplify it. The alphabet is nothing more than a list of letters and a dictionary a list of words.
• Lists aid our memory retention and are a very useful way to recall disparate information.
• Lists help us organise our lives and keep important goals at the forefront. Doing a ‘to do’ list each day allows us to prioritise our goals – short term and long term - and keeps us focused, not just on the here and now, but also on the future.
• Lists can give us a sense of achievement as we move from one day to the next – sometimes because we wonder what if anything, we accomplished during the day.
• Lists can be powerful motivators, once we have prioritised our goals for the day, or the week or the year for that matter, we can move forward with a sense of purpose and satisfaction.

A word of caution about making lists though. We can sometimes be so caught up with the day to day lists that we lose sight of the big picture in life. It’s important to keep life in perspective; it’s not the end of the world if we don’t complete all of our ‘to do’ lists and our success and happiness is not necessarily measured by how many things we have crossed off our lists. A few wise words to ponder:
Remember where you have been and know where you are going. Life is not a race, but a journey to be savoured each step of the way. (Nikita Koloff)

Students benefit by being organised and parents can help their children to become better organisers by encouraging them to make simple lists. For example, someone should have spent some time with the children listing what needs to happen before and on Mother’s Day. Why? Because mums deserve it!
• Buy present for mums – Mother’s Day Stall at School on Friday - check
• Organise breakfast in bed - check
• Talk to children about being on their best behaviour (at least until breakfast is over and presents given) - check
• Lavish love and affection on mums all day Sunday - check

See how useful lists can be? I would like to take this opportunity to wish all mothers a very Happy Mother’s Day on Sunday and hopefully the above list will materialise as if by magic on the day.

Overcoming Challenges in Life

2011-04-20T20:47:00.000-07:00

Everyday life has plenty of challenges don’t you think? Just getting a family organised and ready for school or work is challenge enough most mornings. Lost socks, school hats, bags, car keys, making lunches, early morning training or practices, can push us to the brink, even before the day truly starts. In the scheme of things though, these small challenges are just that – very small challenges – even though they can put us in a cranky mood. Keeping life in perspective is very important for our sense of well being and happiness.

Some of us of course, have far worse challenges to deal with and in many cases, the rest of the world is oblivious to what we are going through. It might be a serious health issue, a difficult relationship, a death of a loved one, financial difficulties or some other problem that is causing us to worry or be concerned. Being happy in the face of these difficulties is not easy and I don’t mean to make light of the challenges that each of us faces. Ironically though, it’s not what happens to us in life that determines our happiness, but how we react to what happens. Ultimately, it’s our attitude to what happens that makes us happy or unhappy. Abraham Lincoln once said:

Most people are about as happy as they make up their mind to be.

Every day we experience the highs and lows of life, the good news and the bad. Life can be like a roller coaster ride – thrilling, exhilarating, frightening, uplifting and depressing – so many emotions, all in the space of a short period of time. No one day is the same. Some days we run on adrenalin and others we rejoice in the contentment of life. The secret to happiness in life is to find joy, or opportunity or a silver lining, if you like, in all the situations that confront us. Granted this is easier said than done, but it'w worth the effort in the long run.

There is an old Chinese proverb that I love: Sāi Wēng Lost his Horse

Sāi Wēng, a Chinese farmer, lived on the border and he raised horses for a living. One day he lost a horse and his neighbour felt sorry for him, but Sāi Wēng, the philosophical farmer, replied to his neighbour, “Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?”

After a while the horse returned with another beautiful horse, and the neighbour congratulated him on his good luck. But Sāi Wēng thought that maybe it wasn’t necessarily a good thing to have this new horse. The farmer replied to his neighbour,” Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?”

The farmer’s son liked the new horse a lot and often took it riding. One day his son fell off the horse and broke his leg. Again his neighbour felt sorry for the farmer. But the old farmer replied, “Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?”

When the military came to collect all the young men in the village, the farmer’s son couldn’t go off to war because of his broken leg. Most of the young men in the village died in the war. Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?

Each of us has the power to change the way we think about things. We can think good thoughts or we can think bad thoughts. We can think the best or worse of a situation. It’s up to us how we react to the situation. Experts in the field of human psychology and psychiatry, like, Dr Ross Harris who wrote the best seller, The Happiness Trap, tell us that we must acknowledge the negative thoughts that go through our mind and learn to defuse them. This may take some practice, but learning how to do this can be life altering.

Another author, Joshua Marine, has this to offer:

Challenges are what make life interesting; overcoming them is what makes
life meaningful.

As Easter approaches and Anzac Day on Monday, we should pause and reflect on all of those people who have made great sacrifices for us, so that we might enjoy the life that we do. The challenges faced by those who went to war and died, and the challenges faced by those who went to war and survived are indescribably horrid. The physical injuries and the emotional scars can last a lifetime.

It’s time to take stock of the positives and list all the good things in our life and acknowledge all that we love, if for no other reason than to celebrate the very freedom that these people died to preserve. As I shared on Assembly on Tuesday:

Although the war in which you fought took place nearly a century ago, your courage, your sacrifice and your patriotism reaches through the decades and inspires us – even today.

We remember you,
We salute your courage,
We say in our hearts,
Thank God for your sacrifices.
Lest we forget.

Karon Graham

Principal CCPS

What's Different about Gen Z?

2011-03-31T17:04:00.000-07:00

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

2011-03-23T23:49:00.000-07:00

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?

2011-03-17T23:00:00.000-07:00

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

2011-03-09T21:16:00.000-08:00

"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

2011-03-02T18:42:00.000-08:00

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

What can we do in times of trouble and adversity?

2011-02-23T15:36:00.000-08:00

In troubling times and times of adversity, we sometimes lose sight of where we’re going and we can lose our sense of purpose and momentum in life. We can even doubt many things about ourselves, like our own value to others or our contribution to the greater good of society. It’s only natural to wonder why something bad has happened to us. What did we do to deserve this in our lives? Or to ponder why some people have bad luck or more tragedy in their lives than what seems fair. Malcolm Fraser once infamously said that: life wasn’t meant to be easy. This is small consolation to people trying to work through immeasurable grief or hardship but there’s an element of truth to the comment that life does not promise to be easy or fair.

Many people are shaking their heads and wondering what on earth is going on with the unprecedented natural disasters across Queensland: widespread destructive flooding, followed by a category five cyclone, and now across the Pacific Ocean, the devastating earthquake in New Zealand’s South Island. For all of us, and particularly young people, it can be very distressing to see these graphic, real-time images on television, on-line, or in newspapers and magazines. Often we’re left worrying about our own mortality.

The pain and suffering seen on television, is unbearable to watch at times, because we have a ‘mirror neuron’ which puts us there in the place of the people we are watching. It seems real and in our minds, it’s very real. We can easily imagine ourselves in that very same situation and it’s not uncommon for us to be thinking ‘what if?’, that could be me and my family.
For this reason, it’s better to limit the amount of ‘live newscasts’ on television that young people watch. If there is a natural disaster or a tragedy, remember:

• when they do watch the natural disasters unfolding, take the time to talk them through the situation – give them details but don’t overload them
• reassure your son or daughter about their own safety and well being
• explain how people are helping those affected by the disaster and that people are coming to their rescue because this may not be obvious or understood by the very young
• give them hope, don’t dwell on the sadness or inevitability of it
• use the opportunity to talk about what you and they might do in a similar situation
• talk about what you and they could do to help if possible
• always question the child’s understanding of what they have seen on television; and
• make sure your child feels safe and secure before going to sleep.

Tragedy on the scale we have witnessed in recent months, whether it affects us directly or indirectly, can bring us down and can make us feel very ‘small’ and vulnerable in the scheme of things. Some of us worry about these tragic events, even though we’re not directly affected by them and there are others, who are directly affected by the disasters and worry about how the events are going to impact on them or on the lives of loved ones. To all of the families affected by recent disasters, you are in our thoughts and prayers. We have all shared some tears and felt a little helpless at the magnitude of what has happened recently. We can make a difference to someone’s life though, so please let me know if we can help you or your family.

Our “Caloundra Reaches Out Concert’ is a deliberate way that we can all make a difference to someone else’s life by supporting the concert on Sunday, 6 March and bring along as many family and friends as possible. All money raised will go to the Premier’s Disaster Relief Fund, so please come to the concert and make a small contribution to helping someone less fortunate than you.

The very worst thing we can do, at this point in time, is to bundle up all of our problems and go into a downward emotional spiral and say it’s all too much and give up. If you don’t do anything to resolve the problems or issues, by dealing with issues one at a time, the situation or problem will get worse. Now I know it’s easier said than done, as Ashleigh Brilliant flippantly commented:
It's not easy taking my problems one at a time when they refuse to get in line.

Worry can be debilitating, because it can sometimes take us into a headspace where we become pessimistic about life in general and at worst can cause us to lose enjoyment in life itself. It helps to be philosophical about life, as Robert Brault said:

Sometimes in tragedy we find our life's purpose - the eye sheds a tear to find its focus.

In his bestselling book, How to Win Over Worry, John Haggai suggests some great strategies to overcome worry and to overcome adversity:

• rejoice in life - life is too short to spend time worrying
• take control of your actions and response to your emotions
• count your blessings – someone is always worse off than you
• become genuinely interested in other people – love your neighbour as yourself and help your neighbours, as well as complete strangers
• never expect thanks – practise random acts of kindness
• we are what we think – so think positive and expect the best possible outcome
• master self-control – don’t retaliate or react negatively to criticism
• be enthusiastic – enthusiasm creates passion, endorphins released will make you feel better and happier
• relax - relaxing can increase your effectiveness
• be active – be industrious, be useful to others, exercise too; and
• seize the day – live in the moment that is today, don’t worry about the past or the future.

Life is never easy, not necessarily fair, sometimes upsetting and hurtful and often very messy. This is no reason to think the worst though. Be positive, be optimistic, be enthusiastic and be a doer of good, I am always inspired by this prayer by St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226) and whether you’re religious or not, there is a powerful message here for all of us.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal light.

Karon Graham
Principal Caloundra City Private School

Help For Friends in Need

2011-02-16T18:33:00.000-08:00

“Oh I get by with a little help from my friends…”
Lyrics sung by arguably one of the best musical groups of all time and one of my favourite groups - The Beatles. Have you ever wondered why some groups gel together, making hit after hit, while others never make the grade or at best have a one hit wonder and then fade into oblivion? The musical genius of The Beatles grew out of the very different interests and skills that each band member brought to the group, resulting in classics like: I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends, Come Together, Help, Imagine, Can’t Buy Me Love, Yesterday and hundreds of other songs that have stood the test of time. What makes The Beatles stand out as one of the all time great musical bands? Was it the chemistry of the four beatniks? Was it their individual talent or genius for lyrics and music? Or was it something else?

Synergy is that secret ingredient that takes the ordinary to the extraordinary. It’s not just in the music world, that such creative synergy exists though. Think about the sporting world and the combinations that brought such success to the Brisbane Broncos, year after year, or the former, (it grieves me to say) winning combination of the Australian Cricket team that endured for many long years. In the business world, we find similar creative synergy that results in the kind of incredible innovation in communications – like Apple’s iPod and iPad. Teams of people worked with Steve Jobs, Apple’s co-founder and CEO, to create and produce this amazing new technology.

Steve Jobs is a creative genius but he didn’t achieve what he did alone, and let’s face it, he only achieved these remarkable things with the help of others. Synergy in essence occurs when a group of people can achieve so much more than any one individual working alone. It begs the question though: do you have to be an extraordinary person to achieve great things? One of the great authors of our time said:

I learned the most important lesson of my life: that the extraordinary is not the birthright of a chosen and privileged few, but of all people, even the humblest. That is my one certainty… (Paolo Coehlo)

Think about the efforts of ordinary people in Brisbane, in Toowoomba, and all over the state during the recent floods, as well as the devastating cyclone Yasi. Yes many an ordinary person went to extraordinary lengths to risk their own life to help save others or to help neighbours and strangers get to safety or to help clean up after the devastation had passed. These were extraordinary circumstances that ordinary people found themselves in and many thousands of ordinary people pitched in to help fellow Australians – strangers - but in a true Australian style, we considered all of these people as ‘our mates’ and thought nothing of giving our time and our money to help those affected. The sad truth is though, that many of these people still need our help, because they are still without flood insurance, still without homes restored and still struggling financially.

Whether a partnership of music or business or even education, there are certain special ingredients that contribute to the success of partnerships or a group of people. Sir Ken Robinson, author of “The Element” maintains that the critical elements of extraordinary and successful synergy – the magic that comes when people work together and achieve an extraordinary outcome that would not be possible with just one person working individually. People often derive a large sense of who they are through affiliation with a specific group and it’s likely to boost their self esteem too. Schools, too, can provide this kind of connectedness.

According to Robinson, the best and most creative teams are diverse, dynamic and distinct. The group or partnership needs different sorts of people, with different but complementary talents. Diversity of talents is important, but it’s not enough. Robinsons argues that successful groups have a distinctive personality and come together to do something specific – to get a job done.

Caloundra City Private School is organising a “Caloundra Reaches Out Concert” at the Caloundra RSL on Sunday, 6 March at 3pm to 5.00pm to raise funds for the Premier’s Appeal. The concert will be a great family event with a fabulous magician, the Tenorissimos, the Sunshine Coast Orchestra and other performers such as the singing sensation, 13 year old Straalen McCallum, who recently appeared on Channel 7’s Sunrise and was one of the youngest stars ever signed to Sony Music Australia. Tickets are priced for families: $25 Adults, $10 children and $50 for a family ticket – two adults and up to three children and will be available from the School and from the Reception Desk at the Caloundra RSL.

When there is a greater need than our own, it’s time to think about what we can do to help. This is a special way that our families and the wider community of Pelican Waters and Caloundra can help raise funds for fellow Queenslanders in need. It’s the Australian way to help our mates, and what better way to help our mates by making a contribution as a school community, to the Premier’s Disaster Appeal and enjoying a concert in the process.

The School is in a partnership with parents. The success of this partnership depends on the support and willingness of parents to commit to the common vision, shared values and sense of purpose in achieving the best that we can for the young people in our care. We can teach our young people the power of teamwork by the whole school community committing to this event. Surely each of us wants our young people to grow up with a strong sense of community and a commitment to helping others in need, it’s the very least we can do. Extraordinary things happen when ordinary people band together to make things happen. This is something we can all do; we can make a difference to so many people affected by the devastating floods and cyclone.

James Taylor once sang….
When you're down and troubled
and you need a helping hand
and nothing, whoa, nothing is going right…..

Hey now, all you've got to do is call.
Lord, I'll be there, yes I will. ……

Ain't it good to know you've got a friend.
You've got a friend.

Let’s be that friend. Let’s be that extraordinary team that comes together, with all of our will, to realise a goal of helping our fellow Queenslanders.

Karon Graham
Principal

What leadership legacy will you leave?

2011-02-07T20:59:00.000-08:00

Have you ever wondered why ancient people created, carved and built such monumental and remarkable features that have stood the test of time? These relics of the past are some of the most enduring mysteries of life on earth. Why have people since the dawn of time, left these mysterious creations?

Some are gigantic megaliths, while others are more humble and simple arrangements of rocks and stones or carvings in rock. Deep in the caves of France, Indonesia and Laura in far north Queensland are rock paintings which have survived to this day as testament of another time, another people , and another lifestyle.

Amazing icons like Stonehenge – a ring of grey rocks on the desolate Salisbury Plain in England, chiselled and placed there over 4000 years ago. It is unique in prehistoric standing stones, for the fact that, all of the rock was artificially shaped and placed in an architectural plan. Was it a religious meeting place or an elaborate way to predict eclipses of the moon and sun or simply an observatory of the universe above?

Over a thousand kilometres away in the Pacific Ocean on a remote, tiny island, stand the eerie stone giants of Easter Island. They stand like sentinels, keeping guard over the horizon.

The massive and imposing pyramids and sphinx of Egypt built over 3000 years ago, which took thousands of people and many years to construct and in the ancient city of Teotihuacan in Mexico, well before the Aztecs, was a city of wide avenues and massive pyramids built more than 1400 years ago. Although considered primitive, ancient people have shown wonderful resourcefulness to create and build these amazing monuments to honour great leaders, great civilizations and demonstrate a great understanding of the power of leaving a legacy.

Further south in the desert plains of Peru at Nazca, are incredible rock shapes which can best be seen from the air. These precision drawings, using only piles of stone and rocks are spectacularly large, with one solar line drawn over 6 kilometres long, with 18 bird shaped figures, spiders and other shapes only discerned from the air, but why ? It would be another thousand years before people could fly and see them from the air.

On the weekend, astrophysicists reported that they have discovered an ancient Aboriginal sundial , west of Melbourne, that could be more than 10,000 years old – older than the Stonehenge, older than the pyramids of Egypt. Not as grand but still impressive for its time.

In the most remote northern hemisphere in the Arctic region are found stones built in the form called inukshuk by the Inuit people. They indicate migration routes or places where food can be found and sometimes they are built to signify places of power or important spiritual places. These ancient relics were built in many different designs – some mean “you are on the right path.” And others simply mean “someone was here.”

Around the world we find these ancient remnants of past civilisations. Since time immemorial, ancient peoples have left reminders of their presence. At the most basic level, I guess all of these ancient relics – large or small - are a way of people saying “someone was here.” Don’t forget that we were here; remember us. It’s their legacy to future generations – something special happened here.

Many did not have a written form of communication, or if they did, they knew that the written form would not survive unless it was carved in stone or rock. So the only way to leave a message, and to leave a legacy was in the form of a great monument of rock or stone – something that would not perish over time.
Napoleon Bonaparte once said:
“The human race is governed by its imagination.”
We are led and governed by the endless possibilities that lie ahead, untapped, unknown until someone reveals them. It’s a basic human desire to be remembered. Each of us deep inside wants to leave a legacy of sorts. We want to know that we have made a difference in this life – to someone - to our family, to our friends and for some people the power to influence and inspire tens or hundreds, even thousands, if not millions of people.

What kind of legacy do you wish to leave? Have you given any thought to the difference that you can make to other people’s lives? You have enormous power to do something positive in your life. Leadership is not the kind of thing to be taken lightly. It requires courage, fortitude and integrity. Leadership, like rock, is hard but once understood can transform lives – including your own.

Leadership means taking on more responsibilities.
Leadership is helping others before you help yourself.

As Winston Churchill said:
“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”

Leadership is having the moral fortitude and integrity to do the right thing all the time – not just when someone is looking.

Leadership is leading people in the right direction.
Leadership is having enthusiasm, being energetic and sharing your time with others willingly. John Quincy Adams once said:

“ The influence of each human being on others, in this life, is a kind of immortality.”

It’s the kind of immortality, like the ancient peoples used – their immortality was in rock and stone, but your immortality can be in words and deeds and just as enduring. Be the sort of leader that leaves a legacy for others to follow in your footsteps, just like the Inuit people.

Be a rock. In other words, be strong for others to look up to and follow with confidence. Above all, be the kind of leader that people respect, can count on and trust.

“In matters of style, swim with the current,
In matters of principle, stand like a rock.”

Taking the Worry Out of the Return to School

2011-02-01T21:55:00.000-08:00

Returning to school for most students is a positive experience – catching up with friends, meeting new people and the excitement of new learning combines in such a way that it seems young ones are running on adrenalin for the first week or so. Like all natural ‘highs’, there comes a time where it all catches up with your son or daughter and suddenly you find that they are tired very early in the day and wanting to sleep more and lacking energy. Also starting at a new school with new teachers, new subjects and new people can set up more stresses and strains.

Older students on the other hand, begin the year with determined effort, to stay on top of their studies and homework and will often stay up very late and insist that they ‘absolutely, have to’ get something completed before they go to bed which could be as late as midnight. The end result can be that students ‘overdo it in the first few weeks’ and for some students they then ‘hit a wall’ and say that it’s all too hard and it ends in tears. This can be upsetting for parents, who want to encourage their sons and daughters to achieve and do well, but at the same time don’t want them to be so emotional, worried and upset. It’s important to get the right balance because as parents you want to encourage your son or daughter to do well but at the same time, we need to set some sensible boundaries for homework and study.

Homework for the very youngest students (Prep to Year 3) - around 15 minutes is acceptable, Years 4 -7 about 30 – 60 minutes, Years 8 – 10 about 60 to 90 minutes and Years 11 and 12, around 2 to 3 hours is the norm. Obviously homework time and study time may vary depending on the day of the week and time of the year, upcoming examinations and due dates for assignments for example, however; with these time allocations in mind, parents will have a better sense of what is fair and reasonable for your child.

Please consider some of these simple strategies to help reduce stress any upset: around school, homework and study. Developing good routines with your son or daughter is one of the most important keys to the kind of good start you want for your child.

The Night before School:

• Develop routines with your son or daughter.
• Ensure that they are prepared for the next day – everything is packed the night before ready for school, PE clothes, Library books, Permission forms signed, homework completed etc.
• Students of all ages, need to get a good night’s sleep – 8 hours for everyone and younger students will need longer. Having a routine of the same bed time for younger students helps prepare them for sleep time.
• Quiet time before bed helps relax the brain. Quiet reading time for older students and reading stories to younger students will help this process. Blaring music or television or intense impact computer games will not relax your child and it will make the process of falling asleep difficult.

Before School

• Always – no matter what the rush – ensure that everyone has a good breakfast and students have a nutritious morning tea and lunch for school. The television ad that shows the ‘fuzziness of the brain without food’ is funny, but it’s also true. Growing children do need high energy foods – and not high energy ‘sugar’ drinks.
• Remind your child to drink plenty of water. Research shows that dehydration and a lack of water, also makes it difficult for students to concentrate in class.

After School:

• Listen to what your child has to say on the way home in the car (or when they arrive home) – this is where you get the best sense of how the day has gone; remember that students will be more emotional at this time than later – keep it all in perspective. Be reflective in your listening – don’t jump in and ask too many questions. Let your child tell you in their own way and rather than ask questions that only require a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response, make statements that allow them to give a longer response.
• Let them change into casual clothes straight away
• Allow time for play or relaxation for an hour
• Have a set time for homework and make sure that they have a space to do the homework. It’s ok to do homework with you around but try to keep the noise to a minimum where possible and encourage your child to problem solve before seeking help from you. Avoid giving the answer to your child.
• Homework should not be stressful for the student or parent. If your child is having difficulty, either, write a note to the teacher or make a time to meet with the teacher to discuss the issue. The teachers at CCPS are here to help you, please talk to them sooner rather than later about any problems.
• Encourage your son or daughter to find solutions to his or her problems without your intervention. This is important to allow students to develop their own problem solving strategies. If they are having difficulty solving the problem, having a small break can help but not if the break is watching television which can become a huge time waster.
• Praise your child genuine efforts but avoid overdoing the praise. Be specific about what you are praising your child for and only give praise when it’s deserved.
• Encouragement and praise are powerful motivators for your son or daughter, use criticism sparingly and seek to find a positive way to encourage your son or daughter to work harder or to a higher level. Keep it fun and interesting!

No two people study the same way, and there is little doubt that what works for one person may not work for another. However, there are some general techniques that seem to produce good results. No one would argue that every subject that you have to take is going to be so interesting that studying it is not work but pleasure. We can only wish.

Everyone is different, and for some students, studying and being motivated to learn comes naturally. Your son or daughter’s success in school is dependent on his or her ability to study effectively and efficiently. The results of poor study skills are wasted time, frustration, and low or failing grades. All I can say, upon reflection of many years as a teacher, (and parents I know you will agree), is that time is precious and not to be squandered, no matter what your son or daughter believes right now.

Parents, my blog on 3 February, 2009 has much more detail, for older students, on how to study more effectively and includes some useful strategies for learning and studying sourced from a range of websites and books.

Effective study skills must be practised in order for you to improve. It is not enough to simply "think about" studying; you have to actually do it, and in the process use information from what you do, to get better. All that follows depends on this single concept. At school, I often talk to the students about setting a goal to improve by 10% - this is a relatively small percentage and is achievable. Over time, like compound interest the improvement in a student’s academic performance can be profound. The secret is to be persistent, to continue to practise the skills necessary to learn and over time, student achievements will improve too because:

"Practice doesn't make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect."

Author, Louise May Alcott, once wrote:

“Have regular hours for work and play;
Make each day both useful and pleasant,
And prove that you understand the worth
Of time by employing it well.

Then youth will be delightful,
Old age will bring few regrets and life
Will become a beautiful success,
In spite of poverty.”

A lovely sentiment to help keep us all grounded on life and the 'here and now'. Life is all about finding the right balance, don’t you think?

Karon Graham

What sort of effect do you have on other people?

2011-01-31T21:31:00.000-08:00

Have you ever wondered how you affect other people’s lives? You’d like to think it was a good effect, wouldn’t you? People would leave you feeling better about themselves and about you as a person. Sometimes this is true and other times, quite the reverse is the case - we leave people feeling hurt and upset – even though that may not have been our intention. We have all experienced the thought: ‘if only I could have changed what I said or did’, but many of us don’t have an opportunity to undo what has happened or take back what was said.

Some of you may have read “Five People You Meet in Heaven” by Mitch Albom, which tells the moving story of Eddie who is accidentally killed on his 83rd birthday saving a young girl from certain death. He wakes in heaven and is taken on a journey ‘back in time’ to meet five people whose lives he has affected. The strange thing about the journey is that Eddie does not always know the people and is totally oblivious to the impact he has had on someone else’s life.

Ironically, while his life has intersected with other people’s, in an almost random way, the theme that runs through the book is that nothing is random and there are no random acts in life.
Eddie reflects on his life and realises he has had a far greater impact on other people’s lives than he ever gave himself credit for while he was alive. Some people have been saved by Eddie’s actions, one has lost his life and others have been affected for the better by his deeds. Ultimately Eddie realises that in spite of his bitterness, anger and regret about his life, he has made a difference to many people’s lives and Talia the last person he meets, helps him see this in the most emotional way imaginable.

In the book: “The Butterfly Effect” by New York Times bestselling author, Andy Andrews, shares some real life stories of how one person’s actions affected not one, not five but millions of people’s lives for the better. He begins the book by recounting how in 1963, Edward Lorenz presented a hypothesis to the New York Academy of Science which stated that:
“A butterfly could flap its wings and set molecules of air in motion, which would move other molecules of air, which in turn would move even more molecules, eventually capable of starting a hurricane on the other side of the planet.”

While this theory was dismissed and ridiculed, years later physics professors announced The Law of Sensitive Dependence Upon Initial Conditions’, which supports the notion that the first movement of any form of matter – including people - can result in very different outcomes.
Andrews gives some wonderful real life experiences of how individuals have changed the course of history and changed the world forever because of a single action or words said. Take Norman Borlaug, for example, or George Washington Carver or Henry Wallace, and I’m guessing that you don’t know who these people are, but they were scientists, Henry Wallace was a former Vice President of the USA and by their very actions, individually and collectively, were responsible for hybridized high yield, disease resistant corn and wheat for arid climates, which have in turned saved billions of people’s lives.

The message is clear. Each of us has huge potential to influence other people’s lives – either directly or indirectly. Your actions and your words can make a difference – positive or negative on one person’s life or maybe thousands of people can be affected by what you say and do.

Don’t underestimate the power of one person (yourself included) to change the world, to change the course of history, or simply to change the life of one other person for the better. Life is not as random as it seems and the people you meet and interact with may in turn be changed forever because of your words or your actions.

As Andrews says in his conclusion:
“Your life …
And what you do with it today
Matters Forever. "

Reach for the Stars

2010-11-28T18:39:00.000-08:00

How many times have you heard the expression: “It’s written in the stars?” What does this mean exactly? And by what power is fate written for each and every one of us? How can that be?

So are we all a little starry eyed when it comes to our destiny? Is it written down somewhere what we’re destined to do or to be? This timeless question has puzzled many great philosophers down through the ages and quite a few authors.

In Paulo Coelho’s, lyrical fable, The Alchemist, he tells the tale a young Andalusian shepherd boy, Santiago, who falls asleep in an abandoned, ruined church where an enormous sycamore tree grows. He tends his sheep during the day and at night he reads books. He dreams a recurring dream. He’s dreamt the same dream week after week but wakes each time, before the end of the dream. In this dream, he dreams that if he travels to the pyramids of Egypt, he will find his fortune.

So Santiago sets off on a journey to discover his personal legend.
Along the way he encounters many mysterious and magical people, surprising twists and turns, and omens and obstacles await Santiago on his quest. He meets a gypsy woman who tells him he must go forward on his journey to fulfil his destiny. He meets an old King, who tells Santiago to never stop dreaming and follow the omens and pursue his dream.

He buys a ticket to Tangier, but is robbed of all of his money when he gets there and so he must work for a Crystal Merchant who teaches the young boy about patience - following through and not giving up on his mission, his dream.
The girl of his dreams, he finds in the desert at an oasis and falls in love at first sight. He meets an Alchemist, rumoured to be 200 years old, who gives just the right amount of direction and encouragement to allow Santiago to find his Personal Legend on his own.

As he nears the end of his journey at the pyramids and digs, Santiago finds, in an ironic twist, that the treasure isn't what or where he thought it was. It was in fact back at home in the ruined church where he first began his quest. Life’s often like that, don’t you think? – you never know where you’ll find your treasure.

Have you ever dreamed of finding some long lost treasure? Yes? I did too. As a child I wanted to be an archaeologist to go exploring exotic places in the world, digging for never before seen ancient treasure – just like Indianna Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark. I’m not sure at what point I changed my mind. It may have been when my father pointed out to me that: “Archaeologists are underpaid publicity agents for deceased royalty.”

If nothing else my dad was pragmatic…. Not unlike Indianna Jones, come to think of it. Remember Indianna’s great line to his newly arrived, starry eyed archaeology students:

“Archaeology is the search for fact. Not truth. If it's truth you're interested in, Doctor Tyree's Philosophy class is right down the hall. So forget any ideas you've got about lost cities, exotic travel, and digging up the world. We do not follow maps to buried treasure, and 'X' never, ever marks the spot. Seventy percent of all archaeology is done in the library. Research and Reading.” And he’s right you know.

Treasure is not always buried. Sometimes it’s right under our noses. Don’t believe me? Imagine the surprise of an English brother and sister cleaning out their late parent’s house and happened upon a beautiful vase. Inquisitive as to its value, they took the vase to an antique auctioneer in London, only to be told that it was in fact a rare 18th century Chinese porcelain vase marked with the Imperial seal and was valued at $800,000. At the auction held last week, a fast and furious bidding war commenced and in less than 30 minutes the vase had sold to the shocked pair for $83 million!

I can see it in your eyes now – you’re thinking - If only I could have been that person…..but in a sense we are that person. We do have treasure right under our noses and sometimes we just don’t even see it. There’s a saying that ‘familiarity breeds contempt’ and I think this is true to some extent. We don’t value what treasure we have around us, and unfortunately, we find out too late, the value of something that we’ve lost or something that is gone forever.

For students, the treasure of your home and family life are things that you can take for granted. The one true thing I have learned in this life is that it can change in the blink of an eye. Treasure your parents. Respect your teachers and make the most of every opportunity to learn. Don’t leave it too late, don’t have regrets later in life that you didn’t make the most of the opportunities that you have at Caloundra City Private School.

For our graduating Year 12s, the class of 2010….
You have a wonderful new adventure ahead of you, just like Santiago. This journey may seem daunting to you now – wondering about your OP, or the university or a future career. You will have trials and tribulations along the way for sure but you only have one life. Follow your dreams to the nth degree. Don’t give up believing in yourself and what you can achieve. Dig deep when you need to and be courageous ; be bold. Reach for the stars – and as someone once quipped: if your boat doesn’t come into shore, swim out to meet it!
Seize the day. Carpe Diem.

For Parents

Continue to support your sons and daughters as they reach for the stars. We at the School will do all in our power to help these dreams come true.

For our school as a whole, we’re on a journey too. A journey to great achievements and great deeds. Thank you for your loyalty to the School. Thank you for your trust in us to help your sons and daughters grow and develop into young people of good character and it is our mission and our dream to allow every student to shine.

Paulo Coelho’s lyrical tale “The Alchemist” is a fable about following one's dreams, listening to one's heart. Coelho shows how easy it is to give up ever attaining one's dreams due to complacency - or not wanting to move out of one's comfort zone. "People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don't deserve them, or that they'll be unable to achieve them." "There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure."
Yet Santiago does want to pursue his dream of finding his treasure and yes, at times we see and feel his fear, but along his journey, he has learned to listen to his heart and to trust what his heart teaches him.

Santiago learns about love along the way and helps others to face their fears as well. Coelho states, "And that's where the power of love comes in. Because when we love, we always strive to become better than we are." Yes we do.

I would like to share this beautiful passage from Marianne Williamson’s “Return to Love”:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?.... Your playing small does not serve the world well at all.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. … It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. "

It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.
Never stop dreaming.
Reach for the stars every single day.

Karon Graham

Life is Making the Most of Every Moment - Don't Sweat the Small Stuff

2010-11-03T21:55:00.000-07:00

How many times do we lament what happens in a day - all the bad stuff - instead of focusing on the positives in our life?

Life is here to be enjoyed, not endured. We only have one chance to live the life we do, so make the most of every moment. Celebrate every new dawn, like it was your last and 'don't sweat the small stuff'.

Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.
Life is beauty, admire it.
Life is bliss, taste it.
Life is a dream, realize it.
Life is a challenge, meet it.
Life is a duty, complete it.
Life is a game, play it.
Life is a promise, fulfill it.
Life is sorrow, overcome it.
Life is a song, sing it.
Life is a struggle, accept it.
Life is a tragedy, confront it.
Life is an adventure, dare it.
Life is luck, make it.
Life is too precious, do not destroy it.
Life is life, fight for it.

(Mother Teresa)

Qualities of a Person of Good Character

2010-11-03T17:05:00.000-07:00

“She’s such a character,” I hear people say and they’re usually referring to some larger than life, over the top person with quirky fashion sense or eccentric manner. Many famous characters of this kind come to mind. Think of comedian Phyllis Diller with her wild hair and ditzy laugh, or Jennifer Saunders and her outrageous fashion sense in Absolutely Fabulous, or Barry Humphries’ alter ego Dame Edna Everage and ‘her gladdies’, or English actor Rowan Atkinson’s, Mr Bean – what can I say about Mr Bean – he defies explanation. These characters all have this amazing ability to bring together both endearing and cringe worthy qualities that usually make us laugh and see the funny side of life.

What of a person’s character though? What are the qualities that mark a person of ‘good character’? History reveals many great men and women of character – people tested by difficult and dangerous circumstances beyond their control, but triumphing over extreme adverse conditions, by their very will and determination - India’s liberator, Mahatma Gandhi, England’s ‘mother of nursing’, Florence Nightingale, America’s Afro-American Civil Rights leader, Martin Luther King, Calcutta’s carer of the children of the slum, Mother Teresa, American President Benjamin Franklin, and New Zealander and Australian restorer of sight amongst indigenous people, Fred Hollows. Were these people perfect? No they were not. Did they have good character though? Yes, they did. So how do we measure a person’s character?

The giant Californian redwoods are amongst the world’s tallest trees and while they are the world’s largest trees currently living, it may surprise many people to know that an Australian Mountain Ash (Eucalyptus regnans) was the world’s largest tree ever recorded. According to historical records, the Ferguson Tree was reported at over 154m (nearly 500 feet high). It was measured by Surveyor Ferguson in 1872 in the Watts River Catchment near Healesville, in Victoria. The point about these giant trees is that they are supported by massive root systems, which represent almost two thirds of the tree’s mass. These root systems are of course hidden underground and out of sight. A person’s character, similarly, is often hidden from the visible eye; these intangible qualities lie deep within a person’s psyche but they are there, none-the-less, like an inbuilt moral compass. On the other hand, someone’s outward personal appearance and personality, is on show and there for all to see.

What is the difference between someone’s personality and his or her character? Personality is the natural or inborn traits of a person - the outward show of who they are, which could range from: extraverted, bright and bubbly, quiet and shy, confident and commanding, caring and compassionate to introverted and studious and all variations in between. This is very different though from someone’s character. Someone can be very charming (a personality trait) but a charlatan or a cheat (a character trait).

Character, is a learned behaviour and reflects someone’s attitudes and values. In a nutshell, character is a set of behaviour traits that define what sort of person you are. Your moral or ethical qualities if you like – qualities of honesty, courage, integrity, trustworthiness, respectfulness, responsibility, caring and compassion. People judge your personal character by their perception of how you respond to challenges. Someone who perseveres in the face of adversity and works persistently to complete a task or sees something through is generally thought to be someone of good personal character. By every measure Fred Hollows was such a man. He never wavered in his mission to bring sight to thousands of people suffering from trachoma, in aboriginal communities in Australia, Nepal, Eritrea and Vietnam. He organised manufacturing labs to provide low cost lenses (about $10 each) to the people of these countries and trained many ordinary citizens on how to complete the procedure in remote, often war-torn and inhospitable parts of the world. He was a humble person but a great visionary, a ‘giant’ among men – a man of great character.

It’s not easy though to be a person of good character all the time. Even Benjamin Franklin, one of America’s greatest Presidents who identified thirteen values to live by, and wrote to his son about these virtues, (including them in his autobiography), was often unable to live by these very virtues, succumbing to gout, excessive drinking and other less virtuous behaviours. As I say, no one is perfect but, the reality is that:

“You can’t discover light by analysing the darkness.”

All of us can learn how to be a person of good character, or to be a better person. It’s something we can all strive to achieve. I will be the first to admit that it’s not always easy, particularly when you’re a young person and facing enormous peer pressure to do something that you know is not right. Part of learning how to be person of character is being able to show integrity – doing the right thing in a difficult situation under pressure. Admitting when we’re wrong, owning up when we’ve done the wrong thing and being honest about it is one of life’s toughest challenges. Hiding the facts, deceiving others to ‘protect our own skin’ is no way to develop into a person of good character. Taking the consequences and learning from our mistakes is the only way that we can move forward as a person of character.

Our aim at Caloundra City Private School is to develop good character – traits of honesty, respect, trustworthiness, integrity, responsibility, self-discipline, compassion and care - in every single student. Together, the School and parents can achieve this goal. Our students, like the great Mountain Ash and Redwoods, can one day be ‘giants’ among men and women, if only they continue to learn from their mistakes and make good choices, that ultimately develop within them, a person of integrity – a person of great character. This timeless verse from Samuel Smiles captures the essence of ‘building’ character in young people.

“Sow a thought, reap and action;
Sow an action, reap a habit;
Sow a habit, reap a character;
Sow a character, reap a destiny”

Karon Graham

Books that Matter to Me: "The Element"

2010-10-30T18:09:00.000-07:00

Sir Ken Robinson's book: "The Element" is a book about finding your passion in life.

Don't be put off by the title, that sounds more like the discovery of some mystical chemistry compound, than the lyrical series of stories it tells about people - ordinary people who discover within themselves, extraordinary talents and gifts.

Sir Ken Robinson is a life force to be reckoned with - he has all the educational credentials (been there - a Professor in England's most prestigious universities, and done that), and is an internationally recognised leader in creativity, innovation, education and human capacity. He was knighted in 2003 for his contribution to education and the arts and in 2008 received the Benjamin Franklin Medal from the Royal Society of Arts, awarded to a global 'big thinker' who has energised public discourse about human progress. One of the best short clips you are ever likely to see on creativity is on youtube, from his TED lecture on creativity: http://www.ted.com/ or just google Ken Robinson.

Back to the book though ...... Robinson tells us story after story of people, who for all intents and purposes, were a little different from their families, their peers and for want of a better term, the 'norm'. Robinson contends, that all of us have unique gifts and talents; sometimes these gifts have been stymied by 'industrialised education' - we have had the creative juices sucked dry by old fashioned methods and attitudes to education. (my words...) Sadly for us educationalists, Robinson is somewhat disparaging of what we do to children through the educative process. (I should reassure readers, that this is not the case at my school!) He points out that some of the most brilliant, creative people he knows did not do well at school and most of them did not find out, who they really were 'until they had left school and recovered from their education.' A sad indictment indeed!

He tells the story of how Gillian Lynne's mother (and successive teachers) worried that she could not sit still at school and stay focused. As a last resort, her mother took her to a psychiatrist who told her, "You know, Mrs Lynne, Gillian isn't sick. She's a dancer. Take her to a dance school." Gillian Lynne went onto dance for the Royal Ballet School in London, and became a highly successful choreographer with Andrew Lloyd Webber, including 'Cats' and 'The Phantom of the Opera'.

Robinson tells story after story of people rejected initially for the one thing that they were to become famous for in the future: Paul McCartney was rejected by the choir of Liverpool Cathedral, John Cleese went through school and university where no teacher recognised he had a sense of humour. Creativity is like intelligence, we all have it, but sometimes we doubt our own abilities to the point where we no longer see or believe in our own intelligence and creativity. As Robinson points out: "when people say they're not creative, it's often because they don't know what's involved or how creativity works in practice."

Robinson claims that you can be creative at anything - not just in the arts, design or advertising, but also in science, maths, engineering, business, athletics - just about everything. It's all about recognising the 'unique powers of imagination'.

Key messages from Robinson's book for me:

We can all be imaginative, if we step back and release our minds from the immediate here and now - we can hypothesise, speculate, suppose and conjecture. We can all do this!

We sometimes need to find 'our tribe' - people with like interests and passions - they can be collaborators or competitors. What connects a tribe is a common commitment to the thing they feel they were born to do.

Creativity is a step beyond imagination because it requires you to do something rather than lie around thinking about it.

At some point, to achieve, we need to be 'in the zone'. Doing what we love does not necessarily mean that we will be 'in the zone', sometimes we have to develop our own ritual to get the creative juices flowing and these rituals, don't always work!

You sometimes have to overcome extraordinary barriers to find your 'passion'; sometimes there are 'circles of constraint' - personal ones, social ones and cultural ones.... but don't give up on your dream! Overcoming our own demons and thinking, is the toughest battle.

The Element is about transforming your life - a roadmap if you like - encouraging stories of how other ordinary folk have changed their lives by following their passion.

Finally, it's never too late! Be inspired! Be committed! Follow through!

FOLLOW YOUR PASSION!

Maybe reading books is not your thing, but this is one book everyone should read. If you want to be inspired, with a healthy helping of humour, with strategies to meet the challenge of inertia or self doubt; if you want to find your real passion or 'your element', then this is the book for you.

Or for the 'time poor' or those of you lacking motivation, try watching the youtube clip on my blog site. It's like the 'reader's digest' version of the full story.... maybe enough to tempt you to discover your own passion, or if you have discovered your own passion, to follow that dream and do something about it!

Good Luck!

Be True to Yourself

2010-10-28T17:14:00.000-07:00

Be yourself - Truthfully

Accept yourself - Gracefully

Value yourself -Joyfully

Forgive yourself - Completely

Treat yourself - Generously

Balance yourself - Harmoniously

Bless yourself - Abundantly

Trust yourself - Confidently

Love yourself - Wholeheartedly

Empower yourself - Prayerfully

Give yourself - Enthusiastically

Express yourself - Radiantly

Above all, be gentle on yourself. No one is perfect and some days you will rather forget, but there are lots of days and lots of moments that we can rejoice in and be happy about.

Don't lose sight of the big picture in life. What's important right this minute may not be important in the long term - in a week's time or a year's time. Keep life in perspective. Enjoy life!

Be true to yourself.

The Times, They Are a Changing

2010-10-27T19:33:00.000-07:00

Nothing stays the same. Time marches on whether we like it or not. Remember the dinosaurs that dominated the earth millions of years ago? These gigantic creatures reigned supreme for millions of years – 200 million to be precise, from the Triassic period 240 million years ago until their cataclysmic demise in the late Cretaceous period, 65 million years ago. Many theories abound on the fall of the dinosaurs, but as a species they survived for so long, and yet it is a stunning reality, that within a very short period of time, they all disappeared. Why?

During a similar time period, and even older, are the ancient ancestors of the common cockroach – the Archimylacris eggintoni , which has survived and evolved over 300 million years. This insect scuttled around forest floors during the Carboniferous period 359 - 299 million years ago, which is sometimes referred to as the age of the cockroach because fossils of Archimylacris eggintoni and its relatives are amongst the most common insects from this time period. They are found all over the world.

Yes I realise that this is not everyone’s favourite topic, but it’s amazing that this pesky creature has survived for so long – many scientists would argue (and some people joke) that if there was a nuclear explosion, the cockroach would be one of the rare survivors. Why?

The history pages are full of the rise and fall of great cultures and great cities and even great countries and empires. Think about the classic rise and fall of the Roman Empire from 201BC until AD476. Ancient history is a lesson in life – never ending phases of growth, successful adaptation, cultural or anthropological peaks, population explosion, excess, decline and extinction. It begs the question:”Why?”
What we know is that nothing stays the same and those things that do stay the same, simply don’t survive. Anything that fails to adapt and change to new circumstances is doomed to oblivion. As famous politician and statesmen, Harold Wilson once said:
"He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery."

I could be facetious and say that education is one of the few industrial age survivors; some schools never seem to change – they’re like islands where the drawbridge comes down at the start of the day, students enter and the drawbridge goes down again at the end of the day and the students go home to the ‘real world’. Any semblance to preparation for the real world is purely coincidental and accidental.

Caloundra City Private School is not one of these schools. Technologically, the School has led and will continue to lead the way in educational innovation on the Sunshine Coast and in Queensland. The introduction of the Apple iPad is in keeping with the latest developments in digital evolution and points to the future direction of digital education with internet based applications on mobile devices. While the introduction of the Apple iPad coincides with the launch of the new School name, it is in itself, a trial of the new technology.

Unlike the dinosaurs that failed to adapt to the new conditions, the School is embracing the new and evolving direction in technology. The one area that has grown astronomically in recent years has been in the area of internet based applications on mobile devices. Apple leads the way in educational applications (Apps) and the introduction of iPads to Years 10, 11 and 12 as well as in the Junior School, will allow the school to more fully explore the best way forward for students and teachers. In life, it is those who change most successfully with the changing times that are the real winners. As was once said of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire :
“The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.”

The new School name has been one of evolution rather than revolution and the Board has taken into account a number of factors in deciding on the new name. Because the School’s name is already well known on the Sunshine Coast and has developed its own distinctive ‘branding’, it was obvious that this would be lost if there was a wholesale change to the name. Coupled with the fact that the real issue with the previous name was that no one was really sure about the School’s status, the Board decided that the best course of action was a simple but effective change to the name of the School by adding the word ‘private’. No one is any doubt now, that the School is an independent, private school. Yes a good outcome, because the change will not require any immediate changes to be made from a parents’ perspective and the transition to new badge and logo will be gradual, as uniform items need to be replaced.

Technology, on the other hand, leaps forward at a breakneck pace without any sight of relenting. If anything, technology seems to be growing and re-inventing itself at an exponential pace. The bottom line is that technology, like most things in life, is evolving and it is because of this rapid evolution, that Caloundra City Private School will not be relegated to the history pages, like the dinosaurs or the litany of old world schools and cultures, but will continually seek to be at the forefront of technological innovation. We are preparing our students for a world very different from ours. As Yogi Berra said: “The future ain’t what it used to be.”

iPads coming to Caloundra City Private School

2010-10-26T19:07:00.000-07:00

Press Release:

Mr Roy Henzell, Chairman of the Board of the Caloundra City School, announced today that the name of the school was to be changed to the “Caloundra City Private School”. In making this decision, the Board considered that the name change was necessary, given the amount of uncertainty in the wider community about the status of CCS, with many people not realising that CCS was a private, independent school. To avoid this confusion, the Board has decided to add the word “Private” to the school’s name. The Board felt that the new name would more properly reflect the vibrant and exciting nature of this school, located at Pelican Waters on the Sunshine Coast.

The first Year 12 students to graduate from the school this year, will graduate as students of the “Caloundra City Private School”.

“There would be minimum financial impact on existing students and parents as a result of the change of name, there being no immediate change to badges. There will be a transition period of a couple of years before any uniform changes become necessary”, Mr Henzell said.

“To celebrate the name change, the Board has also decided that in 2011, every student in Years 10, 11 and 12, will be given, free of charge, an Apple iPad, while they remain enrolled at the School. Caloundra City Private School will be the very first school in Australia and maybe the world to offer such an amazing educational experience to its Senior students.

“This will add yet another dimension to the students’ learning at School and at home. Rather than hide from new technology at CCPS, we will continue to embrace the opportunities that are afforded by new directions in technology. Even our Prep Year level will have a class set of iPads to use at School in 2011”, the School’s Principal, Mrs Karon Graham said.

“Caloundra City Private School has led and will continue to lead the way in technology on the Sunshine Coast and in Queensland. The introduction of the iPad is in keeping with the latest developments in digital evolution and points to the future direction of digital education with internet based applications on mobile devices”, said Mrs Graham.

Any parents interested in hearing more about this innovative school should contact the School’s Administration to organise a tour of the School and meeting with the Principal.

Say 'NO' to Underage Drinking!

2010-10-20T01:37:00.000-07:00

“Thank goodness my child doesn’t do drugs,” you say with a sigh of relief. It scares me to say this, but many parents believe, rather misguidedly, that if their teenage son or daughter drinks alcohol, then they are not ‘doing drugs’. Many parents don’t actually appreciate that alcohol is a drug, nor do they understand some of the very real dangers of underage drinking.

“It is a shocking and worrying statistic that one teenager between the ages of 14 and 17 dies each week as a result of alcohol abuse. Many more are hospitalised. Binge drinking can lead to violence, high risk sexual activity, depression and in some instances, brain damage and alcohol dependence” according to Dr Christine Bennett, Chief Medical Officer, MBF, Australia.

Research reveals that binge drinking has reached epidemic levels in Australia as alcohol consumption has now become the biggest single social issue for teens facing our country. Professor Margaret Hamilton from the National Drug and Alcohol Council reports that binge drinking is a term given to the dangerous practice of consuming large quantities of alcoholic beverages (more than five standard drinks) in a single session. Binge drinking is an Australian phenomenon and contrary to popular belief is a greater problem in Australia than in any other country. It’s as if Australians see this as some kind of ’rite of passage’ and accept teenage drinking as inevitable. There’s a worrying complacency in this attitude that must be addressed by all families.

Here’s some of the cold hard facts about teenagers drinking in Australia:

• By age 18, more than 70% of teenagers have had a least one drink (MBF)
• 25% of those aged 14-19years drank alcohol on a daily or weekly basis in the last 12 months (ABS: Alcohol Consumption in Australia 2004-05 Report)
• Over 80% of all the alcohol consumed by 14-17 year olds is drunk at risky/high risk levels for acute harm (National Drug Research Institute, Curtin University)
• 1 in 10 teenagers binge drink
• More teens drink alcohol than smoke or use drugs (MBF Report)
• Alcohol kills more teenagers than deaths from all illicit drugs combined
• Over 3000 Australians die each year as a result of harmful drinking (ABS)
• Over 3000 14-17 year olds were hospitalised for alcohol-attributable injury and disease 1999-00 (NDRI)
• 28.5% of high school students nationwide rode in a car driven by someone who had been drinking - one or more times in the 30 days prior to the NSDU survey
• 51% of alcohol consumed is drunk at levels that pose a risk of short-term harm (ABS)

What do we know about the development of the teenage brain?

We don’t know everything but we do know that drinking during the adolescent years interrupts brain development. (Dr Susan Tapert, University of California) and in particular:
• Alcohol is a toxin and disrupts this crucial window of development.
• Alcohol can lead to problems such as learning difficulties, cognitive deficits, memory impairment and emotional problems like depression and anxiety.
• Teenage drinking is dangerous. Alcohol inhibits teenager’s ability to think through consequences of their actions causing them to take silly risks like getting into fights, drink driving, unwanted sex and serious accidents.

The best advice that doctors and experts in the field of adolescent development suggest is that parents delay teenage drinking for as long as possible, at least until 18 years old. Don’t give alcohol at home to underage teenagers and don’t buy alcohol for your teenager, in some misguided hope that they won’t take drugs.

What does the research tell us?

Research shows that children are less likely to drink when parents are involved in their lives and when they and their parents report feeling close to one another. It also tells us that teens who begin drinking by age 15 are five times more likely to become dependent on alcohol than those who start at 21. The chances of becoming dependent decrease by 14% for each year the introduction of alcohol is delayed. (drinkwise.com.au)

Tips for Parents: Delay, delay, delay!

• Drink responsibly yourself and don’t glorify drinking and intoxication. Be a good role model and be consistent in your attitude and behaviour in relation to drinking alcohol. Explain the importance of ‘drinking responsibly’ to your child.

• The more you talk to your son or daughter about alcohol before they are of an age to drink alcohol, the less likely they are to drink to excess. It’s important to talk to young people about enjoying life without relying on stimulants such as alcohol – after all it’s addictive - the brain becomes accustomed to the stimulus and requires more and more to be satisfied.

• Talk to your son or daughter’s friends’ parents about drinking alcohol and get a consensus about not allowing underage drinking.

• Talk to your child about peer pressure and drinking alcohol. The more strategies young people have before the ‘peer pressure’ the more prepared they will be to handle the situation.

• Use this newsletter as an opportunity to talk to your (pre) teenage son or daughter about drinking alcohol. It's very important that families share a meal together at the dining room table each night. Don’t underestimate the power of this simple practice to reinforce good messages to your children and research shows that it also reduces the risk of young people using drugs.

Research shows that the partnership between parents and the school is one of the best protective factors for young people; working together we can help mould our young people into fine, upstanding and responsible adults. Trust me, it’s definitely worth the effort!

Prayer for Busy Times

2010-10-11T16:41:00.000-07:00

A dear friend recently sent me this prayer, which I thought I would share with all of my busy friends..... hope you enjoy it as much as I did and don't cringe too much if you see yourself in some of these situations ...... no one's perfect ! Well, then again ...... :)

Prayer for Busy Times
(and for those who are just a little too controlling...)

Lord help me to relax about insignificant details beginning tomorrow at 5:45 am
God help me to consider people’s feelings, even if most of them ARE hypersensitive.
God help me to take responsibility for my own actions, even though they’re usually NOT my fault.
God, help me to not try to RUN everything. But, if You need some help, please feel free to ASK me!
Lord, help me to be more laid back, and help me to do it EXACTLY right.
God help me to take things more seriously, especially laughter, parties, and dancing.
God give me patience, and I mean right NOW!
Lord help me not be a perfectionist. (Did I spell that correctly?)
God, help me to finish everything I sta
God, help me to keep my mind on one th — Look, a bird — ing at a time.
God help me to do only what I can, and trust you for the rest. And would you mind putting that in writing?
Lord keep me open to others’ ideas, WRONG though they may be.
Lord help me be less independent, but let me do it my way.
Lord help me follow established procedures today. On second thought, I’ll settle for a few minutes.
Lord, help me slow down andnotrushthroughwhatIdo.

Amen.

Facebook: Friend or Foe?

2010-10-06T00:40:00.000-07:00

There’s no getting around it, Facebook is here to stay. Facebook has become the greatest phenomenon of our time, following hot on the heels of the invention of the Internet and the answer to all our questions: Google. In 2004, Mark Zuckerberg and three others launched the site from Harvard University, as a way for university friends to stay in touch with one another. Since this time, Facebook has grown at such an unbelievable pace that six years later, a staggering 500 million people worldwide now have Facebook accounts. According to a recent Time Magazine article (May 31, 2010) more than one in four people who browse the Internet, have a Facebook account and return to the site frequently. Facebook dominates the social networking scene, and leaves in its wake, other social networks such as MySpace, Twitter and Linkedlin.

In the USA and Canada, over 40 percent of the population has a Facebook account and Australia is not far behind with over 30 percent of Australians with Facebook accounts. For many people, Facebook has become a ‘second home’. According to Time reporter, Dan Fletcher, Facebook users share more than 25 billion pieces of information with Facebook each month and 1 billion unique and very personal images are added each week! With over 48 billion unique images, Facebook holds the world’s largest photo collection, which is for all intents and purposes, shared with millions of others. Yes you can untag your name, if you find an unflattering image of yourself that someone else has posted on Facebook, but there’s not much more you can do to remove it.

Social networking has taken on a ‘life’ of its own. Gone are the days of face to face meetings with friends, now, it mostly happens, rather ironically in a ‘faceless to faceless’ world called Facebook. Some critics would go as far as saying that Facebook is not really a social networking site as much as it is an ‘anti-social’ network. ‘Isn’t it ironic…..don’t you think’, sings Alanis Morisette and she could very well be singing about Facebook, because it’s the one place where you can have hundreds of “friends”, who aren’t really friends at all. Now don’t get me wrong, I know that Facebook is a wonderful way to stay in touch with real friends, far-flung friends and family but equally, it poses a potpourri of potential problems.

So what are some of the problems and pitfalls that come from using Facebook and what can you do as a parent? The list is long but here are some of the major concerns and more importantly what parents can do to better educate their teenagers about Facebook. As a parent, I know there’s a natural inclination to want to ban the use of Facebook, for all of its problems and issues, but seriously it’s not the answer. Like most things in life, young people have to learn for themselves, sometimes through trial and error, with lots of guidance from caring parents, the most effective way to use this form of communication.

I would like to stress at this point, that like all forms of communication, social network sites are not dissimilar to other written forms of communication such as email, text messaging, tweets and the like, in that, there are polite and socially acceptable forms of communicating and there are rude, anti-social, disrespectful, illegal and defamatory forms of communication too. It’s important that parents discuss basic social etiquette of written communication and encourage young people to reflect beforehand rather than regret afterwards, what can’t be undone.

Teenagers can be very impulsive and write comments that can be hurtful, upsetting and in some extreme cases, bullying or defamatory. Recent tragic events of youth suicides have stemmed from postings on social network sites and the consequences of unthinking, thoughtless comments or photos or video can be devastating to individuals and their families and friends. Young people need to learn the basic skills of social responsibility and the possible consequences of irresponsible behaviour and actions.

Teenagers should take great care to not share too much personal information in their ‘public profile’. Anyone who uses Facebook is leaving a digital ‘footprint’ that can live forever on Facebook. Once something has been posted on the site, it’s out of their control and can be copied, pasted and forwarded to others. So called ‘friends’ can suddenly become their worst enemies.

Parents should set rules about what should and should not be posted on Facebook; no one wants to have something like a compromising photo or comment to come back to haunt them, months or even years later. Similarly, it would be wise to talk to your son and daughter about ‘time limits’ and insist that they keep within these set limits. Facebook can be addictive and many young people will spend in excess of four hours a day on Facebook. Do the maths; this is far too much time being spent on questionable ‘conversations’ that could be better spent in the real world on more productive activities.

Young people should be made aware that it’s not just their ‘friends’ who go onto Facebook to see what’s going on in their world. Unfortunately there have been hundreds and probably thousands of people around the world who have lost their jobs because of careless, rude, crude and derogatory comments made about co-workers, bosses and the organisation with whom they work or photos and comments which compromise the character of the employee. Employers will often search the profiles of prospective employees to establish whether they are the sort of person that they would be happy to employ. Parents would be wise to discuss this possibility with their teenager.

Your name and photo are always publicly viewable, and even though it’s possible to limit who sees all of your personal information, Facebook has a bad habit of changing its privacy settings. This means that the onus is on the Facebook users to reset their privacy settings. Parents should sit down with their teenager and go through the privacy settings on their Facebook account to ensure that the strictest privacy settings are in place. Unfortunately, even with these privacy settings, it’s possible to ‘hack into’ someone else’s Facebook account, so for this reason alone, young people should be circumspect about what they post on their site. Facebook continues to find ways to share individual person’s details with commercial third parties. It’s no accident that more and more ads appear as you use Facebook.

‘Time out’ or closing the Facebook account can be a last resort measure to better educate your son or daughter or to protect them. Blocking people, who have not done the right thing, of have shown themselves to be untrustworthy might be an effective way to minimise potential problems and avert a ‘war of words’ which seems to be part of the norm of ‘soap opera dramas’ that unfold in the world of teenage life.

Remember that young people need guidance and advice. Never assume that they can sort out all of their own problems. At CCS we take the matter of educating each child on appropriate social etiquette in the real world as well as in that other world of the social networking very seriously. Much of what happens on Facebook, happens in the privacy of your own home, but I have noticed increasingly with the use of sophisticated, web enabled mobile phones, that students are accessing Facebook at all times of the day. This is one area where the School and all families should work in concert to better educate our young people.

The fact is that people like to share, how else can you explain the phenomenal growth of Facebook? What our young people need to realise and understand though is that there’s a difference between sharing with ‘real friends and family’ and sharing personal information, photos and stories that will be used and abused by others. Always err on the side of caution and remember: everything in moderation, with a good dose of common sense, a healthy social responsibility and respect for self and others and the pitfalls and perils of Facebook may be averted or at the very least minimised.

Whether Facebook is friend or foe, largely depends on how people use Facebook. In the end, it boils down to who uses it and what the purpose of using Facebook is. Staying in touch with real friends and family members is a great use of Facebook, which can bring much joy and delight but like most of life there is a polar opposite - a dark side if you like - not just to Facebook but to all forms of communication. Used wisely, Facebook is a real friend, used unwisely, Facebook is your worst nightmare! Ultimately, you decide.

September Holiday Plans 2010

2010-09-16T22:36:00.001-07:00

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

End of term 3 assembly holiday plans2010

View more presentations from karongraham.

Eat that frog now!

2010-09-15T16:42:00.000-07:00

“Eat that frog”, brings to mind all sorts of connotations and most of them, not good for sure. Now before you go thinking I have lost the plot, I should explain exactly why you should ‘eat that frog’. According to author Brian Tracy, your frog is your biggest, most important task, the one you are most likely to procrastinate on if you don’t do something about it. ‘The frog’ part comes from Mark Twain who once quipped:

"Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day."

There are lots of reasons why we put off doing the biggest, most important task. Some of us are perfectionists and let our desire to have the task or the outcome to be so idealised and perfect that it stymies our ability to actually start the task. Some people suffer inertia because the task seems too large to deal with, while others are so lacking motivation or drive that they fail to start, or there is another group of people who mean to do the task (and know that the task has to be done), but let the myriad of little, unimportant things get in the way so that they never have time to even start, let alone complete the most important task. You’re not alone if you recognise yourself in one of these groups.

Stephen Covey has a great method of sorting the important from the unimportant tasks. He says that all tasks fall into one of four categories or quadrants. Important tasks are the activities that represent your values, mission and high priority goals and urgent tasks are activities that require immediate attention.

• Important and urgent e.g. Crisis, deadline driven projects, meetings, reports
• Important and non-urgent e.g. Preparation, planning, relationship building, prevention, values clarification and re-creation
___________________________________________________________
• Unimportant and urgent e.g. needless interruptions, unimportant meetings, email, phone calls, and dealing with other people’s minor issues
• Unimportant and non urgent e.g. ‘busy’ work, phone calls, email, excessive television, internet and relaxation

Many of us focus on the tasks below the line, that is, the unimportant ‘busy stuff’, which consumes us and occupies our minds, most of the time, most days. Covey argues that we would be more productive and have better outcomes if we focused on and live “north of the line”, that is on the important and urgent, but also the important and non urgent. If we were to spend more of our productive time on preparation, planning, and the most important tasks, then it’s more likely that we will achieve far more and be more successful in the long term.

Remember John Lennon’s line: “Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans” Well, yes, this is true to a point, but keep in mind that doing the ‘unimportant busy stuff’ can be a sheer waste of our time and energy and at the end of it all, we have not achieved or moved closer to our more important goals and achieving our most important tasks.
It’s time to reclaim back part of our life that may have gone astray and divest ourselves of the ‘busy unimportant’ parts of our life. Some ways you might do this, is to:

• Limit the amount of time spent watching television
• Limit the time spent writing and answering emails
• Limit the time spent on interruptions, phone calls and the like
• Do the most important tasks first – prioritise them
• Keep going on these tasks until they’re completed
• Allocate time to planning and preparing for the day, week and rest of the year
• Write down your top three priorities or tasks each day and work on these
• Spend time each day working on your ‘real’ priorities – number them, so that you know what’s most important to you at that point in time or in the future
• Spend quality time but more importantly, spend more time with your family
• Ask yourself, “If I could do only one thing all day long, which task would contribute the greatest value to my life, or my career or my happiness?”; that’s what you need to focus on that day, according to Brian Tracy.

It's not a perfect world and sometimes our best intentions come unstuck by the 'busyness' of life but it is within all of us to make some small changes that might yield amazing results in what we can achieve in life. It's worth the effort to make some simple changes, apply some easy strategies that can exponentially improve our productivitiy and ultimately our happiness and sense of achievement. What are you waiting for? As Brian Tracy would suggest: Eat that frog now!

How Can One Person Make a Difference?

2010-09-08T20:27:00.000-07:00

I think deep down in all of us, we want to ‘make a difference’ in this world. Some people are able to affect change on a global scale, like Bob Geldof and the Live Aid Concert which raised millions of dollars to help ease poverty and famine in Ethiopia. Geldof did not start out with a noble mission of changing the world’s attitude to famine, but appalled by images of famine in Dafur he took action. In his own words, Geldof says that momentum built faster than he could ever imagine or organise: “ hundreds of people dropped everything to do this one thing…..No one particularly stood in my way; on the contrary, doors impenetrable a week earlier swung open effortlessly.”(Geldof, Is That It?, 281)

In the book, 'Getting to Maybe: How the World is Changed', authors Westley et al, discuss at length this notion of change and the growing social conscience and the need to take action on matters that affect all of humanity and how momentum can build quickly to bring this about. Famous author and poet, Victor Hugo once said: ‘There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.’ and this has been the case, time again, in the turning points of human history. Think of the change that Gandhi brought through his ‘passive resistance’ which led to the liberation of the people of India or the changes wrought by the great humanitarian and politician, Martin Luther King to the African Americans, or Mother Teresa whose impact on the poorest of the poor in Calcutta was profound in establishing the Missionaries of Charity.

How can one person affect this kind of change in society? It bears thinking about because, so often, it is the vision or impetus of a single person that is enough to bring about not only change at the local level but significant change globally, too. Al Gore may not have been the most successful of modern day American politicians, but he certainly brought the world’s attention to the issue of climate change with his book, documentary and presentations based on “An Inconvenient Truth”. As one individual, he was the catalyst for a global shift in thinking about the impact of humans on the rate of climate change.

The concept of momentum or what psychologist, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (no - that’s not a spelling mistake) calls ‘finding flow’ is a science in itself. He describes the ability of any person to focus entirely on a project which becomes far more significant than their own well being. Translated, I guess this means ‘being in the zone’, where we are totally focused on a bigger need than our own needs. This kind of focus or flow builds momentum too. Others are drawn into the project resulting in an increased energy level by everyone, who shares the common idea and a strong common sense of purpose.

Millard Fuller makes the point that:
“For a community to be whole and healthy, it must be based on people's love and concern for each other.”
A community built on trust, love and concern for one anther and wanting the very best possible outcomes is a powerful motivator. This is surely the best way to bring about change in our society..... starting at the local level is the most effective way to start building momentum and change for the good of all.

One of my favourite poems is one written by George Bernard Shaw. I will leave you with a little quote from this poem:

“I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live.”

What better purpose can there be in life but to make a difference to someone else’s life and to make a difference in this world.

Happy Grandparents' Day

2010-09-06T20:48:00.001-07:00

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Happy Grandparents' Day

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Predicting the Future

2010-09-02T18:20:00.000-07:00

Wouldn’t you love to be able to predict the future? Wouldn’t it be good to know what’s coming next or to have a jump start on everyone else and secure a place in history like Nostradamus? Since time immemorial there have been people who have claimed to have a ‘gift’ to foresee the future. Sometimes these people have been true visionaries, like the great 15th century painter, inventor, sculptor, naturalist and scientist, Leonardo da Vinci, while others have been nothing short of charlatans, like the infamous, Rasputin.

Predicting the future can be a perilous pastime. Take for instance, the famous ‘last words’ of Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, who in 1943 said:
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
Or the quote from Bill Gates who said of the computer:
“640k ought to be enough for anybody.”

Weather prediction is one of those fundamentals, which despite the best efforts of meteorologists, satellite tracking and computer modelling, still defies accurate predictions. Many is the time that the so called experts get it wrong. I was reading a book recently which tells the story of how there was a world wide competition to see who had developed the best and most successful computer program to accurately predict the weather. They received dozens of entries in the competition, with everything from sophisticated weather pattern modelling to complicated computer software programs with thousands of lines of code which required supercomputers to run all of the calculations.

Each day, the competing models were required to make predictions as to what the weather conditions would be on the next day in thirty different cities across America. After six months, the results were tallied to see which program was the most accurate. Guess what won? It was a simple one line code that had the following words: “Tomorrow’s weather will be the same as today’s weather.”

If you think about it, weather often changes gradually and so there is a very strong possibility that the next day’s weather will be exactly the same as today’s weather. Sure it’s not sophisticated but the odds are that more often than not, the weather will be the same. Of course there are major weather events and abnormalities that are difficult to explain with such a simplistic model, but it’s not a bad method and it’s certainly a lot cheaper than satellites and computer modelling. Long range weather forecasters use the data from the weather records kept for over a hundred years to make predictions about the future weather patterns, with surprising accuracy.

Even animals have the ability to predict and know what’s coming in the natural world. Many animals have an innate sense of impending natural disasters like earthquakes, tsunamis or severe storms. Immediately before major earthquakes, animals have been observed to take on very strange behaviours (jumping vertically) and trying to escape the local region; before major storms and tsunamis, birds fly away and animals disappear to higher ground and most of us have observed how ants come indoors en masse just before severe rain depressions.

What can we conclude from all of this seemingly unrelated information about making predictions for the future? Much of what we can predict can be deduced from the status quo, or from our current observations or pattern of behaviour. What are the implications of this? For all of us, we need only look at what we do and say today to have some sense of what the future has in store for us. I know we don’t have the power to know with any certainty what other events will happen in our lives but in terms of our own destiny, ‘the writing is on the wall’.

For students it is very straightforward, if they are to succeed in their studies (or sport or music or anything for that matter) they need to commit now. The foundation for future success lies in the groundwork that you do today. The prediction of potential success may not be as much a mystery as we think. There are many people who argue that life becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you work consistently towards a goal then chances are that you will succeed in this. If you are half hearted and doubt your own ability well then chances are that you won’t be successful.

Whether it’s in a study program or application in class, the best predictor of future success is success today. Even the universities recognise this and after years of high drop out rates in first year university, they’ve found that those students who can successfully complete a unit or two of a particular university course in Year 12, are more likely to succeed in that course when they commence full time university study. At CCS we give all students in Years 11 and 12 the opportunity to commence university study or vocational education Certificates II, III, or IV.

Often the students who have the highest results at the end of Year 12 are not necessarily the most intelligent students – these students certainly have an advantage – but the students who achieve the best results are the ones who do the hard work day in day out, in class and at home. They are students who ask lots of questions of their teachers. They are the students who have a well planned and well organised study program and forward planning process in place for assignments and upcoming assessment. It takes time and commitment to succeed. As Beverly Sills, famous American operatic soprano once flippantly commented:
“There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.”

Shifting the Way You Think

2010-08-26T19:32:00.000-07:00

A shift in our thinking is not always as easy as you might imagine. Sometimes we are so entrenched and indoctrinated in the way we think and learn, that it’s difficult to change our way of thinking or perceptions. This is why listening to new ideas and opening our minds to new possibilities is so important and like Stephen Covey suggests, we need to regularly ‘sharpen the saw’. All of us from time to time, should step back from our work environment or home environment and consider other possibilities in our way of thinking. This came in a surprising way as I was returning recently from the Expanding Learning Horizons (ELH) conference in Victoria.

I was travelling on a bus to the airport and happened to be sitting next to a astrophysicist (and trainee teacher by the way) who was explaining to me that he was working on a new theory of gravity because the current way of thinking about gravity did not allow for the many anomalies that exist in space. He went into some detail about quantam mechanics and how mathematically the current theories just don’t add up. One of the areas that he believes requires a change of thinking was in relation to light. He and another professor are collaborating on a hypothesis to prove that light travels at different speeds when coming from opposite ends of the universe, because the movement is fluid and not linear.

To say that I was lacking in some scientific knowledge would be an understatement, but I found this concept quite intriguing. He explained that proving such scientific theories was an incredibly long and arduous process and as a scientist it was very difficult to get funding and research grants to investigate and prove any hypothesis. (This is a poor reflection on our current commitment to research in Australia.) Convincing the so called experts in the field of quantam mechanics was nigh on impossible and I was reminded of poor Charles Darwin and the initial ridicule he encountered with his Theory of Evolution.

It seems that it's human nature to always doubt and be suspicious of something new. Whole books have been written on human’s basic distrust of something new. Why should we change our way of thinking? Why should we change the way we do things? Isn’t it easier to stay with what we know? Well the answer is an emphatic ‘no’. Albert Einstein, one of the greatest thinkers and scientists of our time, once said that in developing his theory of relativity he use to imagine sitting on a moonbeam travelling through space. Divergent thinking is necessary, if we are to arrive at a new place, a new understanding and a new paradigm.

How do people come up with these new ideas? Observations maybe or perhaps through sheer speculation? Do people work alone or do they learn from others and build on the knowledge that already exists? Does new learning come from a quantam leap or from gradual changes in our perception? Or is collaboration the key? The wise ones amongst you will immediately surmise that new learning and new ideas come from all of these ways and there is no one method that accounts for new ideas and thinking.

Even in teaching and learning there are many new theories about how people learn. There is a growing body of research that points to the fact that learning is not passive. Gone are the days of students sitting in front of a teacher and learning simply by listening to the teacher. Collaboration among students and teachers is now seen as an important way for young people to learn, particularly when it is an active discussion in the class or even with students in other countries or experts in different parts of the country or the world. No more are we limited by the classroom. Technology at CCS allows us to bring the world into the classroom and collaboration is going to be one of the most powerful learning tools of the next generation.

In his recent authoritative book, "Grown Up Digital", Don Tapscott (2009)makes the point that the Net Generation has grown up collaborating, sharing and creating together online. Students start internalising what they've learned in class only once they start talking to each other. Tapscott goes on to say that collaborative learning to be the more effective learning to be more effective in increasing academic performance than individual or competitive learning.

Why is collaboration so important to the discovery of new understanding and new ideas? Isaac Newton hit it on the head (no pun intended) when he said:
“If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.”

Coping with Life's Struggles

2010-08-11T19:21:00.000-07:00

STRUGGLES OF LIFE

Sometimes, struggles are exactly what we need in our life.
If we were allowed to go through our life without any obstacles, it would cripple us.
We would not be as strong as we could have been.

I asked for Strength…
And I was given difficulties to make me strong.
I asked for Wisdom ….
And I was given problems to solve.
I asked for Prosperity …
And I was given a brain and brawn to work.
I asked for Courage ….
And I was given obstacles to overcome.
I asked for Love ….
And I was given troubled people to help.
I asked for Favours …..
And I was given Opportunities.
I received nothing I wanted ….
But I received EVERYTHING I needed.

Top Ten Tips to Parents of Teens

2010-08-10T00:04:00.000-07:00

As adults we look back on our teenage years with mixed emotions - some fond memories, some humour, some angst, some discomfort of what we did or said or how we dressed, (Looking at old photos that captured the latest fashion fad or hairstyle twenty years ago, can be a source of great amusement to our children.) Some of us actually only remember happy childhood memories by blotting out our more painful memories and experiences of our youth and the trials and tribulations of growing up. It’s fair to say that teenage years can be the most trying years of our lives – not just for adolescents but for parents too. One very droll person wrote:
“Adolescence is a period of rapid changes. Between the ages of 12 and 17, for example, a parent ages as much as 20 years.”

Teenage years are about hormones kicking in, growing independence and autonomy, trying on different personalities and testing boundaries to the ‘nth’ degree. Teenagers question everything – every rule at home or at school. Hard to believe that your obedient and happy child at 12 years of age turns from a compliant, caring and understanding person into something very different. So different that it can seem like you’re living with an alien from ‘Star Wars’ for a while – very tensing – no-one speaks the same language and it seems like there is a ‘battle a day’. A parent asked me recently to write a little about this stage of adolescent behaviour and what they could do as a parent.

When I googled ‘advice to parents about teenagers’ I was surprised to see over 34 million sites listed. Not all of them good sites mind you, but there was some comfort in knowing that so much information about parenting and teenagers was on line. One site that I thought might be useful to parents is: http://www.byparents-forparents.com/

Having survived the perils of parenting teenagers and having had some contact with teenagers over the last 35 years in secondary schools, I thought I would share some useful things that I’ve learned along the way.

My top ten tips are:

• Listen attentively and be reflective. Listen attentively to what your teenager has to say (even if it’s monosyllabic). Be reflective in your responses so that they understand that you’re listening – it’s often helpful to use some of the same language in your response. Avoid giving advice and immediate solutions. Lead them in a way that allows them to suggest solutions of their own.

• Don’t lecture or yell. The best advice I can give, is to give no advice. Teenagers turn off listening very quickly, and so to go over an issue time and again, is a sure way to have your teenager ignore you. Keep it short and simple and be very clear on what you expect to happen. It’s amazing how someone else can say exactly the same thing as you the parent, but your teenager listens and seems to appreciate the other person’s point of view more than yours. (Don’t get upset about this - this too will pass in time.) Never, ever yell; there’s nowhere to go from this loss of self control and do not say anything that you might later regret. Find a quiet place for you (and your teenager, if necessary) to cool off and calm down before talking again.

• Set boundaries. Your teenager may make out that everyone else is doing something and you’re the only parent (in the class, the school or the whole world), who is not letting them go out or go to a particular social or whatever it is. Don’t be fooled by this ‘timeless ploy’ of your son or daughter. Talk to other parents. Teenagers don’t like it when parents talk to other parents to find out who’s at home or supervising the party. Ask the other parent, if it’s okay for your son or daughter to sleep over or go out with their teenager. Just because you want a positive relationship, doesn't mean your teenager is in charge. Parents, you have to take control here. Your teenager should agree to a time to be home. If they don’t arrive on time, they should be grounded or have some other consequence.

• Say ‘no’ and mean it. As one comic said: “No,” is a complete sentence. Don’t’ cave in to constant nagging or emotional blackmail. It’s tough not to give in to your child, but it’s worth it in the long run, your children will respect you. As Randy Pausch said in The Last Lecture: "Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted."

• Give your teenager responsibilities and let them take ownership. It’s important that everyone has a job to do at home and as your teenager grows older, giving them more responsibilities, like cooking the family meal, is a good way to help them become a ‘master chef’ in their own right. Praise your child – but don’t overdo it! Praise for real achievements and hard effort. Make it genuine and keep it simple.

• Teach your teenager to persevere. If things come too easily to teenagers, they don’t treat it with respect and they don’t value it. Some parents can be overprotective to the detriment of the child’s social-emotional growth. Don’t fight your teenager’s battles. Teenagers need to experience the ‘ups and downs’ of life, the setbacks and the wonderful sense of accomplishment when they succeed all by themself. Bill Gates once gave a lecture to graduating students and this memorable quote: “Life is not fair -- get used to it!”

• Reward after the good deed – not before. Make sure you are not rewarding your teenager for something you would normally expect them to do. Setting some goals and rewarding the achievement of these goals is good positive reinforcement. It’s an important lesson in life to teach your teenager to set goals and have a plan of action to achieve what they want in life. Doing without something is character building, don’t think your child is disadvantaged if they don’t have the latest gadget, mobile phone or clothing.

• Always treat your teenager with respect. If your teenager is in trouble, no matter how bad the situation, always treat them with respect. Ensure that they know that you’re upset with their behaviour and what they have done. Let them know how you feel and give them a specific example so they understand completely. Keep in mind that each of your children is very different and will react differently to you, so don’t assume that what worked with one teenager will work for another. Sorry, but it rarely happens this way.

• Demand and expect respect from your teenager. The attitude of teenagers at times can try the patience of a saint, let alone us mere mortal parents. Teenagers need to be told when they are out of line; don’t shy away from expressing your disappointment or expressing your expectations. Life in the real world is a lot tougher, if they don’t respect you, they will not respect anyone. Reinforce politeness and good manners at home, expect it always.

• No one is perfect – teach your teenager to learn from their mistakes. You may wonder if your teenager will ever ‘get it’. Some teenagers take longer than others to ‘do the right thing’. Some teenagers are a dream, but most parents experience serious emotional pain during the teenage years and doubt their own parenting skills, but in spite of this self-doubt, never give up or give in. I know this from first- hand experience. Bill Gates made this point very clear to his teenage audience:

“If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.”

If it’s any consolation parents, keep in mind Mark Twain’s famous quote:

“When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.” ~Mark Twain, "Old Times on the Mississippi" Atlantic Monthly, 1874

Success means different things to different people

2010-06-02T20:58:00.000-07:00

Success comes in many shapes and forms. What is success to one person may be less significant or unimportant to another. One thing is for sure though, position or money does not necessarily measure success. Many would agree that Mother Teresa was an outstanding humanitarian and more successful in her mission than anyone else – but she held neither position nor wealth. She stands as a beacon to our generation of what one person is capable of achieving and how we might best measure success.
Theodore Roosevelt, former President of the USA wrote:

“There are two kinds of success. One is the very rare kind that comes to the person who has the power to do what no one else has the power to do. That is genius. But the average person who wins what we call success is not a genius. She is a person who has merely the ordinary qualities that she shares with others and has developed those ordinary qualities to a higher degree.”

Young people can learn a great deal about success by applying themselves to achievable goals. Small successes can build confidence in their ability to achieve. By putting in extra effort to any task, whether in school, in sport or in a cultural program teaches young ones and older students about the concept of ‘no gain, without pain’. Success for most people is incremental…. It happens in small steps, small gains that over time realise much greater gains. It happens with dedication, committed practice and it happens because of perseverance in the face of adversity.

Noted author Dr Kerry Spackman tells the story in “The Winner’s Bible” of Loretta Harrop who like many young Australians enjoyed sport. Very early she decided that she wanted to be a professional athlete and set about training for triathlons. In order to receive funding she had to go through a process of ‘being measured’ by the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) to see if she ‘had what it took’ to be a successful triathlon athlete. When the AIS finished its testing of Loretta they returned the verdict, that not only was she not championship material, but she was ‘below average’.

Rather than taking this to heart, Loretta decided that even if the AIS didn’t think she was champion material, she believed that she would be a champion. She had incredible self confidence and self belief that she would be successful. Loretta didn’t get her funding and almost in defiance of the AIS and so called experts, she continued her punishing regime of exercise and running – even after competing and not winning any competitions, she never doubted her ability to succeed. She had plenty of reasons to give up and try something different, but she didn’t. She stuck with it and continued the rigorous and painful training day after day.

This was not the only obstacle that Loretta Harrop faced. Bike racing is a dangerous sport. To toughen up, Loretta use to train with her brother, who was a top triathlete who had great bike control. She would learn more by riding with her brother. Tragedy struck, however; only months before the World Cup, her brother was killed while out training on his bike.

Devastated, Loretta went through a total loss of confidence and for the first time in her life, feared riding her bike. In her own words though, Loretta realised that she “had to face this fear head on.” She realised that she was more afraid of having to live with this stupid fear beating her, than she was in crashing. Facing up to her fear and riding competitively again, Loretta went on to win the gold medal at the World Triathlon Championships and a silver medal at the Athens Olympics. What an outstanding feat and a lesson to us all on determination and courage?

Life is not always a bed of roses and often there are many obstacles to overcome before we experience success. Working through these difficulties is one way that we build up our resilience – our capacity to ‘bounce back after a setback’. If young people don’t learn to overcome these obstacles independently and rely instead on parent or adult intervention, they often miss developing this important life skill. This is true of both school and interpersonal relationships.

Inspirational true life stories like that of Loretta Harrop make us realise what is possible within all of us. Others may doubt our ability or skills, experts may measure our potential and make judgements or guesstimates about our future, but when it’s all said and done, if we have confidence, and unshakeable self-belief and determination to succeed, we will.

Sea of Problems or a 'Pink Bat' of Solutions

2010-06-02T20:35:00.000-07:00

Do you sometimes feel as though you’re awash in a sea of problems? They seem to be everywhere we turn and regardless of how much we try, there always seems to be a never ending supply of them. It’s interesting how most of us see only problems while some people have the great ability to look at things differently and see that what appears to be a problem isn’t or to look at something and see a solution. It’s the way we think about what we see that determines whether we see a problem or a solution, whether we see a problem or a new possibility.
John Lennon’s lyrics in “Watching the Wheels” sums this up quite nicely:
Ah, people asking questions, lost in confusion,
Well I tell them there’s no problem, only solutions.

I recently read an extraordinary book “Pink Bat: Turning Problems into Solutions” written by Michael McMillan. I don’t want to spoil your enjoyment of the book so I won’t tell you the story about the pink bat, but I do want to share with you a little of this new way of thinking about perceived problems.

McMillan tells the story about a perceived problem: The amenities were great but the elevators in a new office building were extremely slow and it became a major problem with people getting frustrated, angry and annoyed as they waited for the elevator. The building’s developer hired consultants to assess the problem and ended up with a short list of solutions which were: add a couple more banks of elevators, make the doors open and close faster, stagger business starting and ending times and have visitors come during off-hours. Everyone was so focused on the problem, no one was able to see it as a solution…. Well, almost no one.

So what was the solution to the slow elevators? Simple really: a large crowd still waits outside the elevators, but now the crowd is happy as they gaze up to look at the new video monitors that showed the latest stock market information, checking the weather and reading employee related news. The ‘pink bat’ solution was that the perceived problem became a solution. No one minds waiting for the elevators any more.

Solutions are all around us, we just have to think about things differently. Step back from the perceived problem and apply a different kind of thinking. Isaac Newton was sitting under an apple tree when the apple fell on his head. Rather than considering this a problem he saw it as a solution – the Universal Law of Gravitation. While most people would see the falling apple as a problem, Newton saw it as a solution.

As McMillan points out:
For every problem, there exists a solution… and at the very least .. an opportunity. But it takes an open mind to see it… and intelligence and imagination to create it….. You can live each day in a world filled with “problems” or rise each morning and embrace a world filled with unseen solutions… eager for you to find them. The decision is yours… both worlds exist. The one you choose is the one you will create.

Karon Graham
Principal CCS

What mothers really want....

2010-05-04T21:57:00.001-07:00

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What mothers really want....

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What Mothers Really Want

2010-05-04T20:31:00.000-07:00

My children are now grown up but I still get asked each year what I want for Mother's Day. While I pondered the many possible gifts in my mind - perfume, great book, cd and the like, I started to think about what I would really like .... and I hope all mums who read this agree with some of the sentiments found in the attached powerpoint. I created this for Caloundra City School's Mother's Day Assembly and I would like to acknowledge the beautiful photos from Anne Geddes.

The power of positive self belief

2010-03-23T23:47:00.000-07:00

Student achievement in school is as much about self belief and confidence, as it is in academic endeavour and aptitude. Whether it involves preparation for NAPLAN testing or Years 3,5,7 and 9, or Queensland Core Skills Tests for Year 12, or assessment of any kind for each of the Year Levels, students need to believe that they can achieve well and have the confidence in their own ability, that comes from setting ‘learning’ goals rather than ‘performance’ goals. Learning goals requires students to practise and focus on improving their ability rather than setting a goal of achieving an ‘A’ result.

According to Bandura (1999) and other researchers, how people behave and achieve can often be better predicted by the beliefs they hold about their capabilities, what he calls self efficacy beliefs, than by what they are actually capable of accomplishing, because these self-perceptions help determine what individuals do with the knowledge and skills they have.

Researcher and author, Frank Pajaras (2003) has found that judgments of personal efficacy affect what students do by influencing the choices they make, the effort they expend, the persistence and perseverance they exert when obstacles arise, and the thought patterns and emotional reactions they experience.

A strong sense of confidence, for example, may serve students well when writing an essay because it engenders greater interest in and attention to writing, stronger effort, and greater perseverance and resiliency in the face of adversity. Confident students are also likely to feel less apprehensive and have stronger feelings of self-worth about their writing.

Clearly both teachers and parents should pay attention to students’ perceptions, because it is the perceptions that may more accurately predict students’ motivation and future academic outcomes. Working with students to point out their successes and achievements will help boost their confidence. Yes it sounds simple, but it does require ongoing reinforcement by both teachers and parents, of actual accomplishments. ‘Over the top praise’, contrary to some people’s beliefs, does not build self confidence in the student.

Student achievement, as well as their confidence and competence, improves with practice, and also by setting some clear and concise goals as well as by timely feedback on their work. Students respond more confidently to small progressive steps towards an end goal and will achieve at a higher level with this strategy. Difficult and daunting challenges tend to discourage students, de-motivating them and causing them to lose confidence in their own ability. So it’s important to build confidence over time with small successes in order for them to achieve at a higher level.

There is an excellent article on the topic of Supporting Students’ Confidence as Learners with more detailed advice, at the following URL address:

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=gD7_VSNmu7cC&pg=PA55&lpg=PA5&dq=achievement+and+confidence+of+students&source=bl&ots=nUUtMhtxHU&sig=bjOi-4Dpe9-JhT-dWFrdtS5GIZ8&hl=en&ei=64ipS6mhIZDc7AP_qyuBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CBkQ6AEwBTgK#v=onepage&q=achievement%20and%20confidence%20of%2students&f=false

Remember:
“Our aspirations are our possibilities."
(Samuel Johnson).

There was a time.....

2010-03-18T16:28:00.000-07:00

Parenting was never meant to be easy. Effective parenting takes tons of love, understanding, patience, empathy, sympathy, care, concern and firmness. Yes, firmness. Young people need boundaries and they need parents to be specific about what they can and can’t do. As someone who has three grown adult children and with over 30 years teaching young people, I know firsthand how difficult it can be to stay firm on matters of principle, moral standards, discipline and boundaries. It’s not easy and I would be the first person to admit this!
Parents are subjected to relentless pressure to give in to their children’s demands and threats. This pressure comes not only from their own children but also from family friends, other people’s children, mass advertising on television, music video clips on Saturday morning television, movies, radio shock jocks, the internet, social networking like Facebook and msn; the list is endless. The barrage and onslaught can overwhelm even the hardiest of parents.
Don’t get me wrong, I see the positives of some of these media too, but let’s face it, somewhere over recent years, momentum has swung away from the adults and parents at home and moved more towards appealing to and satisfying the needs of youth. It’s not surprising then, that young people can have an overstated opinion of their place in the world, in the scheme of things and even in the home.
Values and standards are by no means sacrosanct, yes they do change over time, but over the last twenty years there has been a worrying trend. Some battle weary parents, or parents who don’t even try to make a stand, take the line of least resistance in dealing with issues of good behaviour, appropriate standards, and boundaries. Some parents find it difficult to simply say ‘no’ to their children – ‘anything for a quiet life’ seems to be the unwritten law of the household.
There was a time:
• When parents were in charge of what happened at home
• When denying a child some material possession or ticket to an event was seen as an opportunity to teach frugality and discrimination;
• When not having or doing what everybody else was having or doing was seen as a good thing;
• When a consequence at school was followed by a consequences at home, and the teacher was always right. (Educators tell us that it is rare when a parent thanks a school administrator for imposing discipline or punishment);
• When a child would not dare to scream and shout at a parent with impunity.
As parents at CCS, you have made a deliberate choice to send your sons and daughters here for nurturing, excellence in learning opportunities and for the values, moral and ethical standards, good manners which we believe will better prepare them for the future.
At CCS we know each child well and work with you the parents to bring about the best possible outcomes for every single student. This means that we have very fair and firm expectations for all students and we do have consequences for those students who do not meet our expectations. We need your support in ensuring that the same values and standards at our school are your expectations at home.
Please contact us if you are concerned about any pressure that your son or daughter might be expressing about ‘what everyone else is doing, and why can’t they do it too.’ We will work with all parents and support you in ensuring that your son and daughter understand fair and reasonable expectations and the right of the parent to make the decision, not the child.
I give you the commitment that we, as a school community, will work with parents to instil values of good character in your son or daughter. Yes, I agree with you, effective parenting is not easy, but I ask all parents to consider the following:
• Who makes the decisions in your household?
• Are you consistent and fair in your expectations of your son or daughter?
• Are you making decisions for the right reasons or are you being worn down by constant arguments and upsets?
• Do you discuss the reasons for your decision?
Noted psychiatrist Jung once said:
If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.
(~C.G. Jung, Integration of the Personality, 1939)

Living in Harmony: Is it the Impossible Dream?

2010-03-18T15:48:00.000-07:00

Living in harmony sounds like a wonderful concept, don’t you think? Some would say: ‘too good to be true’ while others, more optimistic, believe that ‘anything is possible’. Glendinning notes that:
If we cannot envision the world we would like to live in, we cannot work towards its creation. If we cannot place ourselves in it in our imagination, we will not believe it is possible.

Living in harmony is not a dream; rather, it is something that we can all strive to achieve. We can achieve this, not only in our own home, but at school and in the wider community too. Acting on our beliefs, in effect, becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, because deep in our subconscious we either believe that something is possible or we don’t. Every word, every action is influenced by our thinking. If we believe harmony is possible then all our communication and actions will reinforce this, and if we don’t, then it is highly unlikely that we will live harmoniously.

Breaking down prejudices, developing greater global understanding, bringing people together from different faiths, or different cultures can be a powerful way to unite people of the world but of course it doesn’t guarantee harmony. Starting in our ‘own backyard’ is perhaps the surest way to start this process of mutual understanding and empathy. What is harmony anyway, if we don’t learn to accept and value differences between people?

I once believed that I really did understand what it was like for immigrants arriving in a new country and to a new school but I was wrong. Yes, very wrong. The full appreciation of what it felt like to look and sound different hit me when I made my very first trip to China. Not only did I have people pointing at me (a combination of fair colouring and being tall), I was also at a complete loss to understand what was being said to me and couldn’t speak the language. I felt different and I was different and this was very confronting at the time and reinforced the fact that being a ‘worldly’ person and travelling the world did not mean that I felt comfortable in a different country – I felt very alien. I certainly did not feel like I was part of a global village.

The idea of a ‘global village’ is an oxymoron. An oxymoron pulls together two conflicting concepts that are at odds with one another or at the simplest level – opposites, like ‘bitter sweet’. On one hand we acknowledge that the world is shrinking. Consider the time it takes to travel from one country to another, or the nanosecond it takes for communication and images to be transmitted from one side of the globe to the other. Yet, on the other hand, there still exists an incredible diversity in culture, language and beliefs, which runs counter to the village concept which embodies like culture, like beliefs and common language. Lakhdar Brahimi makes the point:
In the globalized world that is ours, maybe we are moving towards a global village, but that global village brings in a lot of different people, a lot of different ideas, lots of different backgrounds, lots of different aspirations.

We are very fortunate to have a School which values cultural diversity and embrace the different perspectives that a multicultural community brings. Tolerance, empathy and shared understanding are the key qualities that transcend all cultural differences and leads to greater harmony amongst our students, our parents and our nation. As Robert Alan says:
Cultural differences should not separate us from each other, but rather cultural diversity brings a collective strength that can benefit all of humanity.

Who was your best teacher ever? What are the Special Qualities of Effective Teachers?

2009-07-16T20:33:00.000-07:00

Who was your favourite teacher? What made this teacher such a special person in your life?

What could be more important than to see our young people grow and develop into confident, competent, capable and knowledgeable young men and women? If we think back to our own schooling, I'm sure there are teachers who still hold a very special place in our hearts. Why do memories of these teachers stay with us during our life? Maybe because they seemed to really understand us, or relate to us. Sometimes they turned our lives around and sometimes they turned our days around because they were caring, understanding and empathetic.

One of my favourite quotes, written by a dear friend, inscribed in a book called "Hugs for Teachers" is: " A teacher affects eternity, she can never tell where her influence stops."
It's so true and sometimes I think teachers forget the powerful impact and life altering effect that they can have on the boys and girls and young women and men in their charge. It goes without saying that teacher quality matters or rather the quality of the teacher matters most!

One of the best books I've come across on teacher effectiveness is a book written by James Stronge called: Qualities of Effective Teachers (2007, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development). Stronge has also written for teachers a great practical Handbook to accompany the book.

In a nutshell when we talk about teacher effectiveness, we are talking about a teacher's capacity to improve a student's learning outcomes. At the end of the day, we are looking at ensuring students are successful after school, in work, university and further study and importantly as a citizen.

According to Stronge, the important qualities of a teacher who is effective can be distilled to the following:

An effective teacher is a person who:

Is Caring - someone who brings out the best in a boy or girl through encouragement and affirmation, listens, understands and knows each student very well.
Fair and Respectful - effective teachers establish rapport and credibility with students by emphasising: Respect, Modelling appropriate behaviours, Practising respect and fairness, someone who is consistent and shows no favouritism, no gender bias and treats students equitably.
Interacts in and beyond the classroom with students in a friendly, personal manner maintaining appropriate teacher-student structures and norms. Someone who gets involved in sporting events, concerts, cultural events, talks to students during recess and allows students to participate in decision making.
Is Enthusiastic and Motivating - the teacher's enthusiasm for teaching, learning and expertise in their subject matter is important in supporting positive relationships with students in encouraging student achievement. Research consistently demonstrates that high levels of motivation in teachers relates to high levels of achievement in students. High levels of enthusiasm is particularly important in motivating older students. (See research by Aaronson, Barrow and Sander (2007), Teachers and student Achievement in the Chicago public high schools. Journal of Labor Economics 25, No. 1)
Is Passionate about students, and teaching and learning - Students are very intuitive and pick up very quickly if a teacher is not interested in them, the subject or the school. A teacher should not hide her or his light under a bushell - let students know how passionate you are about them and your work.
Attitude is everything in teaching - effective teachers exude positive attitudes about life and teaching. They believe that extra hours spent preparing and reflecting upon teaching and learning are well worth the student outcomes. They believe that all students can learn and they can help their students learn!

When we consider that the destiny of each of our student's lives can depend on how caring we are, how helpful we can be, how enthusiastic, how fair and respectful, how encouraging we are and how expert we are in our teaching and learning, how can we be anything but the very best teachers we can be?

It doesn't matter if we have been teaching for one or twenty years, we can all improve on each of these qualities. All of us can make a difference to the young people we teach.

The principles of teaching and learning, the qualities of effective teachers, are in fact the principles by which we can all live - teacher or not - we can all affect eternity of the people we come in contact with in our day to day lives.

Mother Teresa sums up the way we can choose to live our lives:

"Be kind and merciful. Let no one ever come to you without coming away better and happier." Oh, what a better world it would be if we could live by this mantra. :)

Karon Graham
Principal
Caloundra City School

Beleaguered! Bedevilled and Betwixt!

2009-05-25T21:16:00.000-07:00

To my astonishment, the League Table of Primary Schools Report appeared in the Courier Mail on Saturday, 23 May, 2009 under the misleading heading of "Educating parents on vital results". Far from educating parents ,(now there's a hypocrisy), the production of raw data with no valuable background information to parents of the Primary School's context, was far more damaging than it was informative and by no stretch of the imagination was it 'educating parents'.

This is a classic case of reporting the statistical facts, without any meaningful analysis. I'm reminded of a quote from Aaron Levenstein, "Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive but what they conceal is vital." Parents would be very wise to consider more importantly, what the League Table of Primary results does not reveal, rather than take at face value the raw statistics presented.

What conclusions could parents draw from the published results? In all honesty, very little. Yes the statistics provided a 'snapshot of students' at one point in time, but do they tell you anything about the quality of teaching and learning at the school? I don't think so. Do the figures reveal anything about the intervention programs currently in place at the school? No they do not. Do the statistics show how much students have improved upon the previous years in literacy and numeracy? No they do not.

It is not surprising that independent schools (and some state schools for that matter) in higher socioeconomic areas did significantly better than school in lower socioeconomic areas. There are many research papers showing a close positive correlation between students results and socioeconomic background. This was not groundbreaking news to any parent or educator.

Schools have enough to contend with at the moment with a "forced testing regime" without having to deal with so called League Tables with minimal information of any value to parents. I recommend to all parents to visit the schools that they are considering for their sons and daughters and investigate for themselves the values of the School, the curriculum, the student-teacher ratios, the sports and cultural programs available. This is far more revealing and informative than so called League Tables.

Remember, 'you don't fatten a pig by simply weighing it more', nor do you improve literacy and numeracy results by testing more. The real improvement in literacy and numeracy comes from employing highly skilled teachers and intervening at an early stage of your child's development to improve or to extend his or her learning. Providing a rich and engaging curriculum that challenges and supports deep learning is a surer way to improve literacy and numeracy than simply to "teach for testing" which some of our politicians are suggesting.

Yes it's not surprising that all sectors of primary and secondary education are feeling decidedly beleaguered, bedevilled and betwixt! We are following an American 'testing regime' model and an English model, which history will reveal as flawed. In all measures of improved literacy and numeracy (International literacy, numeracy and scientific test results - PISA and TIMMS), the very countries, which we seem to be following, are amongst the mediocre, at best, in terms of improvement over the last ten years. Surely our students and educators deserve better than this?

Why are we betwixt? Well between 'forced testing" (yes, funding arrangements require agreement to the NAPLAN testing), and the push by the federal government and the media for greater so called 'transparency', (which is not achieved by the publication of poorly organised raw data), many schools are feeling that they are under increasing pressure to prepare students for tests rather than preparing our children, in a meaningful way, for their future. A future which holds all the joy of a narrative, an understanding and empathy for different cultures, a capacity to work together in a team, the skills of problem solving and the ability to think and work creatively to meet the challenges of the future.

Beware of statistics, without explanation.
Our children deserve better and our schools deserve better than this "League" mentality.

Karon Graham
Principal
Caloundra City School

Do you have instant appeal?

2009-04-25T21:20:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered why some people, some products and even some organisations are a hit and others seem to flounder in a sea of obscurity? (Think: Susan Boyle, Apple ipod, Dancing with the Stars, Microsoft, Google and you've got the picture.) Well I think I've found the perfect book to explain why universal appeal happens for some and seems to be out of reach for others.

Vicki Kunkel's book: Instant Appeal: The 8 Primal Factors That Create Blockbuster Success (AMACON, 2009) is an eye opener from start to finish. The first myth debunked, is the notion that we have to be perfect to have appeal. Ms Kunkel's chapter: Ducklings, Defects and Devotion: The Conspicuous Flaw Factor, blows any notion of 'picture perfect' as having instant appeal right out of the water.

The book is based on extensive research and for us 'mere mortals', it's very comforting to know that we're in with a chance of success if we can simply apply a few tried and tested strategies. I don't think Susan Boyle has read the book, because over the last two days, we have seen a new 'glamorised' Ms Boyle. If she had read the book, she may have rethought the glam makeover. Kunkel cites the #1 Universal Law, that contrary to popular belief, physical flaws create an instant appeal to others. Yes, it's true! (There's hope yet for all of us!) Believe it or not, being too perfect can be a drawback! (Phew, that's a relief!)

The book is totally absorbing and Kunkel not only explains why Agatha Christie's books are so addictive (and reality shows too), but gives some good down to earth advice on how to make simple changes to engage and increase your own personal appeal or that of your organisation. She explains how certain words trigger a strong emotional, almost primeval response in us and how we can tap into this energy. (Think: Oh yeah, don't we just love this girl?)

In each chapter, Kunkel draws on other Universal Laws that help us to better understand the human psyche. For example I found the following chapters quite reassuring:

The Reptilian Comfort Universal Law - or as Vicki calls it, the principle of least effort or the "Garfield Rule". Ok - hands up if you're guilty of this one? It seems that we're all guilty of this! (Don't worry then!) When it comes to the KISS principle, it usually works well in a marketing sense too.
The Sacred Cow Universal Law - it turns out that we prefer to stay with something that we're familiar with rather than experimenting with something new. Why? Researchers have found that we feel safer with what is known.

What's most appealing (sorry, I can't help it) about the book, is that it's easy to read ( there we have it, the 'reptilian comfort' factor), it deals with loads of examples that you're all familiar with(oops there's the 'sacred cow' factor), in an imperfect world, with imperfect people (yes, you've got the picture now, the 'conspicuous flaw factor').

A fabulous read with great insights, lots of wit and it goes without saying, lots of "Instant Appeal". Susan Boyle, if you read this blog, then go out and get the book, you will no doubt already be an "instant star" but you may want to keep your "universal appeal" going a little longer. Lessons for all of us in this book, check it out.

Inspirational - You're never too old!

2009-04-16T20:13:00.000-07:00

Have you seen Susan Boyle perform on "Britain's got talent"? If not make the time to watch this inspirational clip, which just goes to show you can never really judge people by the way they look. I was moved to tears as I watched this 47 year old woman show the world what an extraordinary talent she was. Now she's wowing the world. Just click the above title to see for yourself this amazing woman perform.

Books that Matter to Me: Good to Great

2009-03-30T00:47:00.000-07:00

One of the best books I've read on leadership and taking organisations from ordinary organisations (or at best, what could be described as 'good') to a higher level, is Jim Collins' book: "Good to Great", Harper Business, 2001.

What I love about this book is that it's based on intensive research conducted by Collins and a great team of researchers and it has lots of practical cases (albeit predominantly American examples) of companies that have risen from 'good to great' and behind every great company, guess what? Yes there's a great leader.

Each chapter has a handy summary that gives you the key points. For example:
"The good to great leaders began the transformation by first getting the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus) and then figured out where to drive it."

Rigorous decision making in people decisions:

When in doubt, don't hire - keep looking
When you know you need to make a people change, act. First, be sure you don't simply have someone in the wrong seat.
Put your best people on your biggest opportunities, not your biggest problems.
Good to great management teams consist of people who debate vigorously in search of the best answers, yet who unify behind decisions, regardless of parochial interests.
One of the best quotes in the book is in Chapter 1: Good is the enemy of great.

Other great quotes: Chapter 4: from Winston Churchill:

"There is no worse mistake in public leadership than to hold out false hopes soon to be swept away." Collins makes the point that many companies fail to face the real facts, as he says:

"There is nothing wrong with pursuing a vision for greatness. After all, the good to great companies also set out to create greatness. But, unlike the comparison companies, the good to great companies continually refine the 'path to greatness with the brutal facts of reality.'

Collins argues that good to great leaders embrace the 'facts of life' and they understand the importance of creating a climate within their organisation, where the truth is heard. He suggests that leaders begin with questions not answers. "Leading from good to great does not mean coming up with all of the answers and then motivating everyone to follow your messianic vision. It means having the humility to grasp the fact that you do not yet understand enough to have the answers and then to ask the questions that will lead to the best possible insights.

Lead with questions not answers
Engage in dialogue and debate, not coercion
Conduct autopsies, without blame
Build red flag mechanisms that turn information into information that cannot be ignored

Collins describes the good to great leaders as Level 5 Leaders, which is the top level of the hierarchy of executive capabilities. They:

display compelling modesty, are self-effacing and understated
are fanatically driven, infected with an incurable need to produce sustained results. They are resolved to do whatever it takes to make the company great, no matter how big or hard the decisions.
display a workmanlike diligence
look out the window to attribute success to factors other than themselves.

Level 5 leaders are not larger-than-life celebrity leaders who ride in from the outside - these are negatively correlated with going from good to great organisations.

Other tips:

If you have 'to do lists', do you have a "stop doing" list ?
Good to great companies think differently about technology and technological change - they become pioneers in the application of carefully selected technologies.
No matter how dramatic the end result, the good to great transformations, never happen in one fell swoop. There is no one single defining action, no grand program, no one killer innovation, no solitary lucky break and no miracle moment!

Harry Truman once said:

You can accomplish anything in life, provided that you do not mind who gets the credit.

What I love about this book is that it debunks most of the myths that we hold dear about what makes a great organisation and a great leader. Great leadership is not about the charismatic all-knowing leader, who envisions and leads a group of followers to the 'land of honey'. The reality is that great organisations and great leaders can be ordinary people with passion, vision, direction and above, all humility to ask what they don't know and to get on and do the job with the best team of people they can assemble. Anything is possible with the right people, doing the right work and heading in the right direction!

Read the book and judge for yourself the benefits of asking the right questions and getting the right people on the bus and the wrong ones off! Enjoy!

Is it Possible to Live in Harmony?

2009-03-18T22:16:00.000-07:00

World Harmony Day: 21 March, 2009

Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.

When John Lennon and Paul McCartney penned the song Let it Be in 1970, the Beatles were the top selling musical band of all time. The 1970’s was a period of much world unrest and dissatisfaction with big business and governments around the world.

Apartheid was deeply entrenched in South Africa.
The Berlin Wall divided East and West Germany.
Australia had only just introduced voting rights to indigenous aboriginal people and as the original inhabitants of Australia they were discriminated against and unjustly treated. Aboriginal children were still being taken from their families.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 states:
“All human beings are born free and equal, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.
Let’s bring harmony to our world.

Are human beings born free and equal?
In many countries, including our very own country, people are not free and not equal.

From outer space there are no borders – just continents that extend from west to east, north to south. If we were a visitor to the earth from outer space, we would have the perception that all people would be free to travel from one country to another, to work in live in the country and region of their choice.

Once upon a time this was true as humans moved in nomadic tribes to different parts of the globe. We know this is no longer the case.

Some governments make it very difficult for people from other countries to move or even visit and in some cases, make it almost impossible for their own residents to leave the country. Even in Australia, it is difficult for many people to move from certain countries to live here.

“We have seen a miracle unfold before our very eyes”, said Archbishop Desmond Tutu…. Freedom and justice must become realities for all our people and we have the privilege of helping to heal the hurts of the past.”
When Archbishop Tutu uttered these words in 1995, the South African system of apartheid was being dismantled, Nelson Mandela had been finally released from jail after 25 years of imprisonment. and he had been elected as President of South Africa in their very first multicultural election. Mandela called the new South Africa: the “Rainbow Nation.”

Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.
Let’s bring harmony to our world.

Was there bitterness and revenge in the heart of Nelson Mandela? No there was not. Mandela set about changing the hearts and minds of his people – repairing the damage and breaking down racial barriers.

Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.
Let’s bring harmony to our world.

In 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said ‘sorry’ to the stolen generation of indigenous people of Australia. Quietly but deliberately our Prime Minister moved to heal some of the hurt of our own indigenous people. Was there talk of revenge or huge compensation claims by aboriginal people?
No, there were only tears.
Tears for the past injustices.
Tears of forgiveness.
Tears of joy.

Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.
Let’s bring harmony to our world.

In a country where one in five people are born overseas, nearly 4 million people or just over 22.5 percent of our population are first generation migrants. Our country has been built by the labour, ingenuity and perspiration of peoples from countries in Europe and Asia in particular. Today in Australia, nearly half of our population 5 out of 10 people are first or second generation immigrants.

With so many people from so many different countries, is it possible to have harmony?

Harmony is only possible when we open our hearts and minds to the diversity of people that surround us and embrace the very differences that divide people. Harmony does not come naturally to us humans. It is only through deliberate effort on our part and deliberate practise that harmony comes.
Deliberate practise comes from making a choice in the way we act and what we say. There is a variation on the special prayer written by St Francis that is like a creed. If we followed this creed each and every day, then harmony would surely follow each step we make on life’s journey:

Master, make me a channel of your peace;
that where there is hatred, I may bring love;
that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness;
that where there is discord, I may bring harmony;
that where there is error, I may bring truth;
that where there is doubt, I may bring faith;
that where there is despair, I may bring hope;
that where there are shadows, I may bring light;
that where there is sadness, I may bring joy.
Master, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted;
to understand, than to be understood;
to love, than to be loved.
For it is by self-forgetting that one finds.
It is by forgiving that one is forgiven.

Whisper words of wisdom, let it Be.
Let’s bring harmony to our world.

In simple words, if we put the needs of others before our own, if we were more caring and understanding of others, then the world would be a better place. Harmony would reign.

Today, on Harmony Day, we embrace one another’s heritage.
Today, on Harmony Day, we embrace one another’s cultural differences
Today, on Harmony Day, we embrace the very diversity of all people who share our country.

Today we celebrate harmony and all that it means.
Whisper words of wisdom, and Let it be.
Let’s bring harmony to our world.

Does School Size Matter?

2009-03-11T18:07:00.000-07:00

“Why not the best schools?” Professor Brian Caldwell’s 2008 book came at a critical time in the educational debate around Australia. With falling standards in literacy, numeracy and science, Professor Caldwell and Jessica Harris researched those countries which were outperforming Australia, to discover why they had leaped ahead of Australia in international benchmarking testing.

In the 2006 PISA testing program on science, the top ten nations were: Finland, Hong Kong, China, Canada, Chinese Taipei, Japan, Estonia, New Zealand, Australia, Netherlands and Korea. Across a range of benchmarks in relation to student performance, student completion of schooling and tertiary qualifications, Finland scored at the highest level across a range of criteria and outperformed Australia in every measure. Why is this so?

There are a number of factors that contribute to Finland’s success. Now many readers at this point, may be wondering how this relates to their own schools and what we can learn from a relatively small isolated country in the northern hemisphere, like Finland.

There has been considerable debate in Australia also about the ideal school size. What size is best for getting the best educational results from students? It may surprise many parents to learn that the ideal size according to research is between 200 and 400 for a primary school and slightly higher for secondary schools. The findings since 1996, by Caldwell and others (Cotton, K, 1996, School Size, School Climate, and Student Performance. School Improvement Research Series #20) confirm that smaller schools have many benefits over larger schools. In particular, smaller schools have:

Academic achievements which are equal to or superior than most large schools
Student attitudes toward school and specific subjects are more positive in small schools
Levels of participation in extracurricular activities is much higher and more varied in smaller schools
Student attendance is better in smaller schools
Students have a greater sense of well being and belonging in smaller schools
Interpersonal relationships between administrators, staff and students are more positive
Student academic and general self concepts are higher in smaller schools
Student social behaviours – as measured by truancy, discipline problems, violence, theft, substance abuse, and gang participation – is more positive in small schools.

There are a number of attributes which researchers have identified as accounting for the superiority of small schools:

· Everyone is known - a far smaller percentage of students is overlooked or alienated
· Adults and students in the school know and care about one another to a greater degree than in larger schools
· Small schools have a greater rate of parent involvement
· Students in small schools take more of the responsibility for their own learning; their learning activities are more individualised, experiential, and relevant to the world outside of school
· Classes are smaller and scheduling is much more flexible
· Grouping and instructional strategies associated with higher student performance are more often implemented in smaller schools.

Small schools can offer so many more opportunities to students in improved learning outcomes. Importantly, it is not just in the academic area that small schools can provide superior learning environment, but in a whole range of equally significant aspects of learning. Specifically, each student benefits in a small school in the individual personal development of each child, the social, cultural, sporting achievements and involvement and as clearly evident in recent months, in school and community connectedness.

So why is it that a small country like Finland leads the world in literacy, numeracy and science learning? Firstly there’s a clue in the fact that Finland is relatively small. Secondly and most importantly, Finland ensures that all teachers employed hold a Masters Degree and it pays its teachers commensurately. Thirdly it insists that all teachers undertake regular Professional Development every week to ensure that they are abreast of the very best and latest in teaching and learning strategies.

Some educationalists argue that Finland is a homogeneous culture with only Finnish spoken. This fact, combined with the less complex nature of the written and spoken language of Finland, results in higher literacy levels in this country compared to Australia for example. This claim can not be made about all of the other countries that lead Australia in literacy and numeracy though.

Finland has a National Curriculum, which is very broad in principle and is not prescriptive of specific topics and themes. The development of work programs lies in the hands of the schools and the teachers, who are highly qualified to carry out this task. Unlike the US, which has slipped further behind on the international league tables, Finland does not have standardised testing. There is an adage:
"If you carry on doing what you've always done, you'll carry on getting what you've always got" (Jay Abraham).
In other words, more testing (and not changing anything else) does not result in a better outcome, and Finland is testament to this principle. My only hope is that Australia does not fall into the same trap that the US has with standardised testing.

In relation to Australia's more recent performance in The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), as reported by Sue Thomson, Principal Research Fellow in ACER, Australia's students are performing to an 'average standard' but our students are not performing at the very highest levels as students in Finland, Singapore or Korea.

In fact there is now evidence showing that Australian students are not as interested in Mathematics and Science as they once were, particularly in the Primary and lower Secondary Schools. This I think (and many educators would agree) is due to the poorer quality of teachers entering the profession and the lack of high quality teacher training in Primary and lower Secondary education. Finland leads the world in terms of qualifications needed to enter teaching, but ten years ago this was not the case. Australia is in a position to change the current trend, but only with heavy investment in teacher training and raising the standard of university entrance for teacher education.

Does school size matter? Yes it does and there is compelling research which clearly demonstrates that smaller schools have many benefits that larger schools can not provide. See some of this research and links to other sites at:

http://eric.uoregon.edu/publications/roundup/W98-99.html;

http://www.nwrel.org/scpd/sirs/10/c020.html

More information on Australia's performance in TIMSS 2007: Taking a closer look at mathematics and science in Australia by Sue Thomson can be found at the ACER website at: http://www.acer.edu.au/

What educators really mean when they say.......

2009-03-01T23:55:00.000-08:00

Educators have a funny way of talking sometimes .... it's like they're in a world of their own, with their own peculiar language which makes perfect sense to them, but it doesn't always make sense to people outside education.

This site is excellent for plain speak education and it's organised in a simple A to Z menu to find that perplexing language deciphered. The site is called: Lexicon of Learning, and it's a fabulously easy and simple way of cutting through the complexity of educatorspeak. I'm reminded of the oft quoted Detective Muldoon from the Naked City: "Just the facts ma'am." I have included some of the more commonly used expressions of educators from this site. Make sure you go to this site, next time one of those 'mysterious eduspeak expressions' appears in print or speech.

The site: http://www.ascd.org/Publications/Lexicon_of_Learning/B.aspx

is a plain speak explanation of what educators really mean when they say such things as:

Benchmark - (no this is not a seat with a scratch)
A standard for judging a performance. Just as a carpenter might use marks on his workbench to measure how long a part should be, teachers and students can use benchmarks to determine the quality of a student's work. Some schools develop benchmarks to tell what students should know by a particular stage of their schooling; for example, "by the end of sixth grade, students should be able to locate major cities and other geographical features on each of the continents."

Brainbased teaching - (you're thinking that all teaching has something to do with the brain but wait there's more...)
Approaches to schooling that educators believe are in accord with recent research on the brain and human learning. Advocates say the human brain is constantly searching for meaning and seeking patterns and connections. Authentic learning situations increase the brain's ability to make connections and retain new information. A relaxed, nonthreatening environment that reduces students' fear of failure is considered by some to enhance learning. Research also documents brain plasticity, which is the brain's ability to grow and adapt in response to external stimuli.

Developmental education - (how do I know if my child is ready for this?)
Curriculum and instruction that is in accord with the physical and mental development of the student. Developmentally appropriate education is especially important for young children because their physical and mental abilities change quickly and vary greatly from child to child. For example, some 4-year-old children are able to sit quietly through a group story time, while others become fidgety. This does not necessarily mean that the more active children have ADHD; their neurological functions may simply not have matured as quickly as others in their age group.

Differentiated curriculum - (this can be tricky for teachers but it's so important)
A form of instruction that seeks to "maximize each student's growth by meeting each student where she is and helping the student to progress. In practice, it involves offering several different learning experiences in response to students' varied needs. Learning activities and materials may be varied by difficulty to challenge students at different readiness levels, by topic in response to students' interests, and by students' preferred ways of learning or expressing themselves."
Source: Quote from "Lesson 1: What Is Differentiated Instruction?" in Differentiating Instruction, an ASCD PD Online course by L. Kiernan, 2000, Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Dyslexia - (just because you have trouble spelling this word does not mean you have dyslexia!)
Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that is neurological in origin. It is characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities. These difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonological component of language that is often unexpected in relation to other cognitive abilities and the provision of effective classroom instruction. Secondary consequences may include problems in reading comprehension and reduced reading experience that can impede growth of vocabulary and background knowledge.
Source: From "Frequently Asked Questions," by The International Dyslexia Association, (n.d.). Retrieved September 19, 2005, from http://www.interdys.org/servlet/compose?section_id=5&page_id=95.

Gifted and talented - (every parent's dream for their child..... and yes every child has a gift or talent in something; however,...... the experts say this about G & T......)
The National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) says "a gifted individual is someone who shows, or has the potential for showing, an exceptional level of performance in one or more areas of expression." For example, a person may be exceptionally talented as an artist, a violinist, or a physicist.
For much of the twentieth century, giftedness was usually measured by IQ tests, and people who scored in the upper two percent of the population were considered gifted. However, some authorities believe that giftedness is indicated not so much by test scores as by consistently exceptional performance. Federal legislation refers to gifted and talented children as those who show high performance capability in specific academic fields or in areas such as creativity and leadership, and who, to fully develop their capabilities, require services or activities not ordinarily provided by the school.
Source: Quote from "Who Are the Gifted?" in Parent Information [Web page], Washington, DC: National Association for Gifted Children. Retrieved February 21, 2002, from http://www.nagc.org/ParentInfo/index.html

Metacognition - (a fancy way to describe thinking about thinking.... yes, it's that easy.)
The ability to be conscious of and, to some degree, control one's own thinking. Educators have come to use the prefix "meta" to refer to the application of a process to the process itself. (For example, meta-analysis is analysis of a large number of research studies on a particular topic.) In this case, cognition is thinking, so metacognition means thinking about one's own thinking.
You are using metacognition when you can track your progress in solving a multistep problem or when you realize that you have been looking at a page in a book without following the meaning and backtrack until you find the place where your mind began to wander.
multiple intelligences - (no, this is not about people who have a personality disorder, it's really about different ways that people think.... and learn.....)
A theory of intelligence developed in the 1980s by Howard Gardner, professor of education at Harvard University. Gardner defines intelligence broadly as "the capacity to solve problems or fashion products that are valued in one or more cultural setting." He originally identified seven intelligences: linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. He later suggested the existence of several others, including naturalist, spiritual, and existential. Everyone has all the intelligences, but in different proportions.
Teachers who use a multiple-intelligences approach strive to present subject matter in ways that allow students to use several intelligences. For example, they might teach about the Civil War using songs from that period or teach the solar system by having students physically act out the rotation of planets around the sun.
Source: Quote from "Multiple Intelligences Go to School: Educational Implications of the Theory of Multiple Intelligences," by H. Gardner & T. Hatch, 1989, in Educational Researcher, 18(8), 4–9.

Scaffolding - (so you thought your teacher was doing some building on the side? No not really......)
The way a teacher provides support to make sure students succeed at complex tasks they couldn't do otherwise. Most teaching is done as the students go about the task, rather than before they start. For example, as a group of elementary students proceed to publish a student newspaper, the teacher shows them how to conduct interviews, write news stories, and prepare captions for photographs. Because the teacher supports the students to make sure they don't fail in their effort, it reminds researchers of the scaffolding that workers sometimes place around buildings. As the students become more skillful, the teacher gives them more responsibility, taking away the scaffolding when it is no longer needed. (This gradual withdrawal has been called "fading.")

School readiness - (for some families, this is the most stressful time of their children's lives - no it's not the children who are stressed, but the parents! Some tips to help you get ready.....)
The basic background and knowledge that children are usually expected to have upon entering kindergarten. Some educators believe that school readiness skills should include
Recognition of colors and basic shapes.
Gross motor coordination that enables children to catch a ball.
Fine motor coordination that enables them to hold a crayon or pencil.
The ability to sort objects (e.g., beans or coins).
Knowing their first and last names and home address.
In addition, school readiness is usually thought to include, for example, good nutrition, inoculations, and care, safety, and guidance. Some programs, including Head Start, attempt to boost the preschool development of children from low socioeconomic backgrounds.

Zero tolerance - (and you thought there could be no 'z' words - yes there is and here it is.......)
Provisions in legislation or official policies that require specified punishments for given offenses, no matter how slight the offense. Zero tolerance rules are adopted to send a message about unacceptable behavior, and adherents support them for that reason. However, school administrators who are permitted no flexibility in enforcing such rules are sometimes ridiculed in the press for their apparent poor judgment.

Great Books that Matter to Me

2009-02-21T16:51:00.000-08:00

Over the years I have read some excellent books on a range of topics - everything from leadership, the future, technology, secret of happiness, the meaning of life and so on. Some of the books I've read have been duds but every now and again you come across a real gem. Along the way I have kept a journal of the most interesting and important insights from the very best books. These books have changed the way I think, changed the way I act and changed the way I plan for the future. Maybe you will agree, maybe not. Either way let me know.

In my last post, I mentioned the amazing book by Randy Pausch, called The Last Lecture.
You can't get more real about life, when you know you're going to die in a few months! These are the gems that I gleaned from his book. These notes were made by me on 18 April, 2008 before Pausch's death. The section that I enjoyed the most was titled:
How to Live Your Life.

Dream big - let your mind soar to what might be rather than what is
Don't complain, just work harder - a real lesson here, what's the point of complaining? I was reminded of George Bernard Shaw's creed (1856 - 1950) in this section, it's a creed that I like to live by. For those of you who don't know it, here it is:

This is the true joy in life. The being used for a purpose recognised by yourself as a mighty one. The being a force of nature, instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die - for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me - it is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.

Treat the disease, not the symptom - how often do we get sidetracked by trying to sort out all of our problems, without getting to the heart of what causes these problems and doing something that matters most, where it counts.
Don't obsess over what people think - I wish generation X, Y and Z would take themselves less seriously when it comes to their appearance. Most of us get caught up in this trap in our teenage - twenty something years, but by the time we get to middle age, we realise that 'substance is more important than beauty'. In the long run, a person's character and integrity counts for much more than the perfect face or body.
Look for the best in everybody - impossible you think? Just do it!
If at first you don't succeed - so much has been written about this topic but Pausch's take on it is worth noting:

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

Remember a previous post of mine about 'deliberate practice'? No one is born with gifts that promise a successful future and life. If we practise our given talents though, over many years of deliberate practice, then everyone with this kind of commitment can succeed in life.

Whether you think you can or can't, you're right. No getting away from that old story of the 'self-fulfilling prophecy'. With belief in yourself, and dedication and commitment you can and will succeed. Trust me on this one.

Pausch quotes: Brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough. They're there to stop other people. And this classic: not all fairytales end smoothly. Isn't that the truth!

Be the first penguin - I love this line!!! Try to be the very first jumping off into unknown territory. Takes courage to be the first and to be the leader but it's worth it. I know that being at the cutting edge can sometimes feel like being at the 'bleeding edge' but it's exciting to be out there!

Pausch also shares some homespun philosophy and old world etiquette:

send handwritten thank you notes
send out thin mints (or minties or other small treats)
tell the truth
get in touch with your crayon box (all the colours of the rainbow are there for the taking)
no job is beneath you
know where you are
never give up
'you can always change your plan, but only if you have one!'
time must be explicitly managed, like money
develop a good filing system
delegate
take a time out
ask yourself: are you spending your time on the right thing?

Hope you find these insights as valuable as I did. Maybe it will prompt you to read the book or listen to his lecture. See the link on my sidebar. Enjoy!