Bay News-9 September 2009.


Has realism gone too far in children’s literature?

The other day I came across a recent Guardian article raising concerns about the effect of books written for children that picture the tough realities of life. The article discusses whether or not we need to expose young children (say between 10-14 years of age) to the bleakness of reality.

The issue was raised a few weeks ago by the author Anne Fine at the Edinburgh Book Festival. Fine mused about the possible negative effects these books might have on vulnerable youngsters. Do young children need to read books about the holocaust in which the main character ends up dying in a gas chamber? Fine’s comments brought on a lot sneering comments from the literati, and unjust comparisons between the former children’s laureate and Enid Blyton. But she obviously touched on something of interest to many when she questioned whether realism “may have gone too far in children’s literature”.

Alison Waller, senior lecturer at the National Centre for Research in Children’s Literature (NCRCL) at Roehampton University, says:” As a children’s writer, Anne Fine has a strong sense of pastoral obligation to her readers. You can see that in her work. But many writers for children and young people don’t feel that. They believe they should just write what they want and leave it up to the reader to interpret.”

Patrick Ness, author of The Knife Never Letting Go, a violent, dystopian fantasy, believes that fiction should reflect reality and that “good doesn’t always triumph”. He says “when I was young, there was still a compulsion for books for the young to teach an ethical and moral lesson. The Bully always got his comeuppance…that wasn’t what happened in my school…I think that when you tell the truth about bullies getting away with it and the violence and tough realities of life, then when you tell the truth about love and optimism, they take it more seriously.”

A teacher Ann Young says that teenagers do seem to be drawn to the dark side, I think it is just part of exploring what is inside them.”

Children’s writer Bernard Beckett believes that the debate around the suitability of children’s literature is often hijacked by a “very select group of social conservatives whose morality I find abhorrent; a morality that, for instance, has persecuted homosexuals.” But he does have concerns about books that portray a depressing worldview. “More energy comes from optimism. That is a stronger energy than one that comes from saying everything is terrible and we are all going to die”.

There seems to be a fashion for dark fantasy books. Kim Reynolds from NCRCL says, “It seems to talk to the inner turmoil they (teenagers) are experiencing and in some way it corresponds to their emotional stage.” She questions the value of books that have hopeless and brutal endings, books that do not offer any hope in their endings.

Parents and teachers can no longer afford to assume that everything in the garden of young people’s literature is lovely –or that everything in the children’s department of the bookshop or library is. Like the restricted section in the Hogwath’s library, some of these books may bite.

Bay News Article-29 July 2009.


British Columbia Principals’ and Vice Principals’ Conference, University of British Columbia July 6-10.


I felt that it was a real privilege to be invited, along with five other New Zealand Principals to present two workshops at the British Columbia Principals’ and Vice Principals’ Conference in Vancouver at the start of our school holidays. A major theme of the conference was on how teachers in British Columbia could lift the achievement of their indigenous students, and our contribution was to talk about our experience with the programme “Te Kotahitanga”, introduced into our schools through the work of Professor Russell Bishop and Mere Berryman from the University of Waikato. Te Kotahitanga is a programme designed to lift the achievement of Maori students in our schools and is finding increasing support from the Ministry of Education and the Government as the initial 12 schools (of which Mount Maunganui College was one), has now been increased to 48 secondary schools throughout the North Island.

It has been interesting to compare the relative tasks ahead for the two countries, and thankfully New Zealand has considerable advantages to ensure that we are successful in raising the achievement of Maori students. While we readily admit there are huge challenges for us in New Zealand, relative to what we experienced in Canada, we can draw on our students greater knowledge of their culture, their language and iwi connections. Early programmes, initiated by Maori, such as Kohanga Reo (language immersion at pre-school level), have seen a revival of the language to a point where there is now a demand for full immersion Maori language secondary schools. In our schools there is greater recognition of Maori culture, and we use many Maori protocols and procedures in our ceremonies throughout the year. This is not to say we are ok in New Zealand, we still have a long way to go, but we are a lot further ahead in recognising the importance of language, culture and whanau in successfully educating Maori students.

In Canada, in one area there could be up to 13 or 15 different “bands” (tribes) that have to be acknowledged within a region, each with their distinctive language and customs, and 3 or 4 different “bands” within a school. Isn’t it interesting that the tribes are even referred to as “bands”, and not an equivalent word such as “iwi”? In an experiment similar to that of Australia, from the late 18th Century up until 1984, young indigenous children were taken from their homes and placed in Residential Schools where they were refused contact with their families, their culture and their language. These children stayed in these schools to be trained in trades, sewing and housekeeping tasks. The effect of this programme was to effectively wipe out their language, take away their identity and place many of them in a position of being regarded as second-rate citizens. Only now are they trying to claw back over a century of lost ground and start to rebuild the recognition and understanding of the importance of culture in educating their children.

When I listened to the story of one principal, who was proudly recounting how she has, after many years finally had a carving completed for the front of her school, the only visible sign that there are indigenous students in her school, I realised what a mammoth task they have ahead of them. There are many parallels throughout the world of what European society has done to destroy indigenous cultures and New Zealand was certainly in there with these countries, especially in the first half of the 19th Century. Luckily we were less successful than some countries and we are now seeing a very strong Maori renaissance.

Hopefully by sharing our experiences with a programme like Te Kotahitanga, we have made a very small contribution to assisting the British Columbia teachers in their efforts to lift the achievement of their indigenous students, and reaffirmed our commitment to Maori students in our schools.

Bay News 15 July 2009.

Te Kotahitanga taken to the Canadians


I write this week from the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, where I have presented two workshops, together with four other North Island principals, at the invitation of the British Columbia Principals and Vice Principals’ Association. What the six of us have in common is that our schools are involved in the Kotahitanga programme developed by Professor Russell Bishop and Mere Berryman of the University of Waikato to lift the achievement of Maori students. Earlier this year, Russell addressed the British Columbia Rural Principals’ Association about the programme, and organisers of this conference were present. They felt that this programme could contribute to lifting the achievement of the indigenous students in BC, and decided to invite a group of New Zealand principals to come over and talk to their principals about their experience.

New Zealand has been very good at exporting its educational programmes to other countries, and often these have gained greater recognition outside of our country than at home. Marie Clay developed an excellent reading programme that has assisted thousands of young American students to learn to read, yet hers was not a household name in New Zealand. Currently Professor John Hattie’s assessment programme for numeracy and literacy is receiving considerable attention in the United States.

It is pleasing that Te Kotahitanga is being recognised as having the potential to lift the performance of indigenous students in Canada, as it is proving to be very successful in the schools which have implemented it in New Zealand. Mount Maunganui College and the other schools represented in Vancouver are five of the original twelve schools involved in the programme. Last year twenty-one more schools were added to the programme, and this year the government announced that fifteen further schools are to be funded for inclusion. There is a political will to see the programme continue, and one hopes we will see a continued growth in schools being added to Te Kotahitangata, and that this will assist in finally closing the gap in achievement between Maori and Pakeha New Zealanders.

For all of the New Zealand principals attending this conference, it has been a great opportunity to spend the week with Canadian educators. The issues that we are dealing with in New Zealand have many similarities to the experiences of the Canadian schools - issues around student engagement, preparing students for an increasingly changing world, changing demographics, technology, culturally diverse communities and demands on teachers to adjust teaching strategies in order to better meet all of these diverse needs. By the end of the week we will be richer in our experiences and understanding from having had this wonderful opportunity to share thoughts, ideas, teaching practices and programmes with close on three hundred principals from a wide range of schools across the large province of British Columbia.

Dallas on Ferry to Vancouver Island
Empire Hotel-Victoria-Vancouver Island
NZ Team at the conference dinner
Bourchardt Gardens- Vancouver Island
Wione and Cheese Evening at the Alumni Club
Alumni Club - University of British Columbia- nice to have rich benefactors

16 July

Two days back at school and Vancouver is already becoming a distant memory!

The Conference (Leading for Learning Short-Course) was great. Around 250 BC Principals and Vice-Principals and Superintendents plus the Kiwi contingent of 5. The programme was very full, starting at 8.00am each day and finishing after 5.00pm.

We started the Monday with a welcome from a Muscquean woman, and our group was asked to reply to this welcome. Somehow this fell on me but the group supported me well with an impressive waiata.

On Tuesday we presented two 90 minute workshops that were very well appreciated and created a lot of discussions and conversations throughout the rest of the week.

On Friday the conference closed around 12.30pm and Elizabeth Forgie gave a very good review of the week for our team (requested by the organisers)and we rounded up with another stunning waiata -but don't you hate it when it is lead by someone in a few keys higher than is comfportable for anyone.

Dallas, Violet Pelham and I headed for Vancouver for two nights and the others headed off to the Rockies. On the Saturday Dallas and I headed for Vancouver Island for the day and visited the Bourchardt Gardens and Victoria city -very obvious English influence in the architecture, the gardens (not usually my thing) were stunning.

Sunday we had a leisurely start and spent a good part of the day at Granville Island markets before heading back to hotel and then off to the airport. Great place Vancouver - I could swap cities for a few years. But great to be home with family and the kids.

Noticed comments Maurie, Leigh and Matt:

My gondolier (gondolesse?) on the gondola was Dallas Leigh -thank you for pointing out the error of my ways.
Had to maintain standards here maurie, so we adopted the local pub on the campus. We just about went through their menu over the week and they had these great beer tasting platters, and usually forced to have a few just to check out the taste of the local ales. About to read your blog-I hope a lot of professional learning happened and you engaged in many conversations with your NZ colleagues?!!

Vancouver 5 July 2009

Dallas on Peak to Peak Gondolier-Whistler-Blackcomb

Whistler Mountain
Whistler

Sunday morning and after a leisurely start to the day we header for Whistler.  We were taken by a very scenic route around the bays By Dave, our Canadian driver, towards Whistler, about 2.15 hours away.  Beautiful drive around coastline that reminds me of the Marlborough Sounds and then up in to the mountains.  Whistler?  Best description I can think of is that it is a larger version of Queenstown-very beautiful, but the village is modern, well designed to meet the needs of the tourist and skiiers. 

Dallas and I took the gondolier up to the top of the Whistler mountain and then another ride across to Blackcomb Mountain-longest unsupported cable car in the world-3.4 kilometres.  Beautiful ride across the mountain valleys.  We had lunch up at the restaurant at top of Blackcomb then headed down on two ski lifts to the the bottom.  Hot, fine weather, great views across the mountains.

At the bottom we caught up with the rest of the team and headed for the Brewers nest for a few ales then headed back to Vancouver.  Said goodbye to our hosts for the last two days, Pat and David, a quick refresh and then off to the pub for dinner.

Tomorrow we start the conference and we need to get together to sort out our presentation.  So far we have  a brilliant power point put together by Tracey, my PA, who took the contributions from each of the principals and put it together.

Tomorrow starts a busy week, 8.00am to 5.00pm each day at the conference for the next five days.  I am looking forward to the opportunity of meeting with the Canadian principals.

Bears-top of Grouse Mountain
Totems-Stanley Park
              Theology College-Universty of British Columbia
Vancouver 

Dallas and I arrived in Vancouver yesterday (3 July ) around 2.30pm after a 13 hour trip from Auckland, with four other NZ principals, Allan and Elizabeth Forgie, Bruce Ritchie and Violet Pelham.  We were met at the airport by Gaila Erickson (conference organiser) and Kathy (assistant arranged to look after us).  We were taken to British Columbia University which is a lovely university situated on a peninsula of its own and surrounded by a huge forest reserve.  There are over 45,000 students at this university when school is in!  Absolutely beautiful site and great buildings.

We are staying in the Theological College, so Dallas has be banned from all swearing whist we are here.  This building is in an archiectural style of an old English Castle.  After a quick fresh up we had drinks and nibbles on the top floor of this building with wonderful views out over the harbour towards Vancouver Island.  Gaila filled us in on the weeks programme then we headed to Mahoneys, pub on the campus for dinner and a few more pints of the local ale.

4 July

Late start this morning.  We were picked up this morning by Kathy and two other Canadians, Pat (School Superintendent in the north-very rural area) and her husband David.  All of these people are extremely friendly and hospitable.  We set off for Vancouver City and Stanley Park-a huge reserve area along the coastline around the inner harbour.  After lunch there we had a short visit to Gas Town, old original part of Vancouver, and then we were taken to the top of Grouse Mountain by gondolier for an absolutely 5 star meal.  The service, food and wine was very high standard, and the view from the top of the mountain, down over Vancouver Harbour was stunning.  We walked around the top for a while after dinner looking at the brown bears (enclosed), but huge and impressive.

The drive back from Grouse Mountain took us down through Vancouver City and around the coast line back to the university, with a fantastic red sunset of the mountains.  This is one beautiful city.  

Tomorrow we are being taken to Whistler where the 2010 Winter Olympics are being held.

Shanghai-29 N0vember 2008

Colonial architecture
Old China town section of Shanghai


Telecommunication Tower-Shanghai

YC Chong
View from Hyatt Hotel

Shanghai City


This morning I met YC Chang who has a daughter at Mount Maunganui College. YC very generously offered to show me around Shanghai, and he had hired a car and driver for the day to take us around.

We went into the city and went to the top of the Hyatt Hotel, about 55 floors where we could look across at the highest building in Shanghai and to get a great panorama of the city. YC then took me down to the bund, the waterfront where we could look across at the new part of the city on the east side of the river, and tp walk alongside many of the old original colonial era buildings that were taken over by the communist government. We then went into the old China part of town,very traditional Chinese architecture, and had lunch in a restaurant there. lovely old part of town with lakes and rivers full of fish.

later I asked YC to drop me in a shopping area, with the thought of doing a bit of present buying. However, after having been hassled so often to buy watches, bags and anything else that one might want, plus many propositions from young women, I decided I had had enough of crowds and caught a taxi back to the hotel

It is difficult to even describe the shear volume of people in this city-there is around 60 million in the province, and 19 million in the city. The density of huge high rise apartments, motorways etc is mind boggeling. It is hard to imagine how so many people can live in any kind of balanced lifestyle here-it definitely fees like a place where people work to live only. It is not a place I would willingly visit-I cannot see the point of subjecting ones self to being in a place with so many people-it is interesting, but not pleasant.