Number Agents

Right now, being an educator in Aotearoa feels like balancing on a tightrope, juggling plates, attempting to ride a unicycle—all while smiling through it and fearing that everything might come crashing down at any moment. Instead of offering a helping hand, those standing nearby just keep throwing more plates at you, raising the height of the tightrope, and increasing the distance you have to cycle. Concerns with the Focus on Decoding Amidst everything, there is one thing that has been worrying me most lately: our ardent focus on decoding over everything else. There is a celebration of the supposed positive data from the phonics check (a pattern not observed at our place) and a curriculum that expects a child at the end of their first year at school to be reading at stage 7.1 towards the end of the decodable stages. I read comment after comment on teachers' Facebook pages, asking questions about the expectation, with ongoing affirmation from those in the know, that āe, our youngest...

Firstly, let's just put it out there: childhood is not a race. It is something to be cherished, not accelerated. However, right now, it feels like we are almost being forced to run a race, a race we didn't even enter, with results of this invented race being proudly announced, even if the participants themselves have a completely different perspective. Don't get me wrong, anyone who reads this page knows I advocate for effective teaching practices, but they also know I advocate for childhood and the right of children to play and develop in their own space and time. I have been fortunate enough to spend the last ten years doing this work, having stumbled upon 'structured literacy' and guided myself through it, without the pressure of time and the 'urgency' that seems to have been created. I am also lucky enough to have learned a lot about children and the role of play, and to have been able to balance these seemingly opposite pieces of understanding into the ...

The Crisis in Our Classrooms Across our country, we face a real crisis. Teachers are overstretched and burnt out, trying to meet the needs of every child in their classroom while facing immense pressure to make changes to their own practice without the time to properly do so. Increasing Needs  Our classrooms are not what they were even ten years ago. Children entering our schools often have much higher needs than we have ever seen before. While I could list a range of reasons behind this upsurge in needs, that is not the point of this post. Rather, the point is to make it clear that classrooms, with just one teacher and 20-30 children, are quickly becoming untenable. What we would have looked at as 'average' for a new entrant now stands out. Those that are independent, able to focus for a short period of time, and able to be in a classroom and feel a sense of safety are now in the minority. I feel lucky (though it is hard work, not luck really) to be 'ready' for these c...