The School Corridor Tatler

 Today was the day our education district, Metro South, launched its lunchtime talk series. We are super excited about the possibilities of this talk platform to energise our conversations in the district. The idea is to invite speakers from education, other industries and all walks of life to share their stories with us. Through the exchange of ideas, we want to share research, knowledge, advice and wisdom with real people who like us, are striving to live a purposeful life, especially in our country. A few of our colleagues relaxing just before the talk by Lorenzo Davids. Our first speaker was Lorenzo Davids, the CEO of Community Chest. Lorenzo's talk " A country imagined - challenges born of hope", oozed with authenticity. " Stories of who we are, are getting lost, " said Lorenzo. " Everybody must tell their stories so that we can build inclusive spaces.  Dialogue must lead to inclusivity. We need to build relationships, play by the ru...

I know many schools have their own Staff Appreciation Day and that's brilliant.  And, I HOPE they include all the non-educators on this day as well. There are SO many wonderful souls working at schools.  I am, of course, privileged to interact with the non-teaching staff members at schools when I visit. After having been off sick for three weeks, I am now visiting the schools again. The reception I receive at all the schools makes me feel like the prodigal son! Before I can engage the school principal, the admin staff and the ground staff also want to chat and welcome me back. They show no reserve. We get ourselves all tangled in hugs, greetings, health enquiries and well wishes until everybody is satisfied that all is well. I love the response of the school heads when these exchanges take place. They do not try to stop these conversations and often just stand in the background, enjoying and silently approving this display of mutual affection. At one school, just after ...

Test Overload Standardized tests are under the spotlight this week.  In Atlanta, USA, a widespread conspiracy to tamper with students' standardized test results has been uncovered and those teachers were sentenced to prison after a year long trial. Ten teachers, principals and education officials were convicted of racketeering charges. These teachers received at least a year jail sentence, while three education administrators were given 21- year sentences. What confounds one is that the same criminal law that is used to nail down serious organized crime like drug trafficking and money laundering has been used to prosecute these teachers.  Of course, the teachers and the education authorities have to be punished for breaking the law and acting unethically, but to charge these teachers with racketeering and then using the full might of the law to bear, is disturbing. Examining Standardised Testing An equally important concern is what drove the teachers and the edu...

Circuit Team clockwise: Juan, Kay, Helen, Colleen, Pierre, Michael, Irene, Sharon. (Elize not in picture) This year ended on a bitter-sweet note for our circuit team that has been together for five years and a bit. Four of our team members, Juan, Irene, Elize and Kay will no longer form part of our circuit team. It seems like it was just the other day that we formed our melting pot, Circuit Team One of our education district. There we were, a diverse group with fiery personalities and equally strong world views, bound by a common mandate: to provide effective support services as a multi-functional team to the 37 schools we were assigned. Our diversity - and quirkiness - could so easily have been the barrier to supporting the schools. And, bureaucratic structures can hinder team building because of its structural hierarchy. Yet, it is fair to say that our team managed to transcend these potential threats largely because of the relational, progressive leadership style of our circu...

Calling all Heads on a Saturday morning... Why would we invite our school principals to a breakfast to hand over certificates of appreciation? Why not just have those ‘forever’ meetings with a ‘draft’ agenda entitled “Affirming our Heads” as per normal and then crack your brain thinking up ways to create ambience to keep everyone awake, long enough to walk the aisle to collect the certificate? Finding creative ways to honour School Heads The start of the certificate ceremony Don’t get me wrong – there is a dire need for such meetings or occasions to engage our Heads of school and we MUST have them. Even run the risk of seeing those droopy heads and getting those stolid looks sending telepathic messages of: ‘ would an e-mail not have served the same purpose?’  However, there are those opportunities to do something differently. We can find spaces and time to show our Heads that we appreciate them and their uneviable mission. In fact, we are humbled by their oft superhuman strength of...