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momentous events teaching Work Writing

Grammar rules :)

My childhood memories are few and far between. I’m not entirely sure why, just that they are. But a couple of things stand out from Primary Schooling: learning how to thread a sewing needle in Grade Four, and – even more significant – spending several weeks in Grade Five, copying down spelling rules from the board and listening intently to my teacher as she explained them, and gave us examples. I remember thinking, “This is it! The key to getting things correct from now on! This is what I need to know!” I was so pleased. I’d figured it all out – and I was only 10 years old.

Those lessons were so clear, so concise. “I before E except after C” and so on. Later, in University, when I realised I’d need to teach grammar to my high school English students, oh! How I wished I’d had similar instruction in grammar!

Well, wish no more. I’ve found it. Short, easy, and – most excellent of all – a detailed study of the parts of speech. And the best bit? It’s an online textbook which my students already have access to! So I’m kinda mandated to teach from it, so the parents get their money’s worth. Cool, huh?

So here I am, week by week, learning about classifying adjectives and participles, gerunds and articles, so I can teach them with some authority… and I’m loving it! Finally, something in the world makes sense again!

Now I know you’re all thinking: well, sure. “I comes before E except after C”, except…

… except when your foreign neighbour Keith leisurely receives eight counterfeit beige sleighs from feisty caffeinated atheist weightlifters. Weird.

… unless the efficient concierge of the priciest Ancient Glacier Hacienda serves a society of proficient scientists studying a species with insufficient consciences leading to racier piracies. Lunacies.

… unless you leisurely deceive eight feisty caffeinated foreign heirs to forfeit their heinous sovereign conceits, and (of course)

— unless you’re an eight-year-old planning a heist to seize a surveillance sleigh owned by a sheik at a reindeer farm. [@jjhartinger]

So yes, I agree: there are many exceptions to spelling rules. And little KRidwyn wasn’t to know that the dozen or so spelling rules I was taught in Grade Five weren’t the be-all and end-all to life. That disappointment came later.

So until this crushing disappointment arrived, I was happy in the knowledge that regarding the correct spelling of all words, there was boundary line there; that I knew where it was; and the learnings I’d been taught fit nicely and neatly inside that area. It was good, life was good, and the world made sense.

It was only afterwards I realised exceptions existed. “I comes before E except after C” often… but not always. There were limits to what I’d been taught. The learning was adequate, but it didn’t cover all possibilities, all potential situations. There was more learning there which I needed to know.

Aside: according to Kris Spisak:

At the moment, I’m sitting in a similar ‘sweet spot’ regarding the online grammar program I’m teaching my students. I don’t yet know its limitations; it seems comprehensive enough, and that’s just hunky-dory by me. If I don’t know it, I don’t miss it… until my horizons expand again, either willingly or unwillingly. But at the moment, I’m happy – and that’s enough for me!

Have a happy day yourself, dear Reader!

– KRidwyn

Categories
momentous events Reading teaching

New Year, new start

Welcome back, dear Reader!

Last year was a ‘photo’ post each week, which challenged me to improve my photography skills. Which worked… to some extent. In fact, I even considered challenging myself further and committing to a years’ worth of “selfie” posts (because those ones are like, a zillion times worse than actual photos. Well, for those of us who remember a time before the internet was even invented. Am I right?)

But no. Perhaps next year. But I’ll still attempt to include a photo with each post this year. Let’s see how we go with that, huh?

But today’s post is still about challenges. Specifically, the Goodreads challenge I set myself last year. 3 books per week. That’s 156 books in the year. Which seems a lot.

And I made it!!! So proud of me 🙂

Admittedly, numbers of those were the picture books which I ended up reading to my classes after being made redundant mid-year and being blessed enough to get Teacher Librarian work in July. But still 🙂

So. Goodreads challenge this year. 208 again – because I can! and it’s only 4 per week. right? – but the aim this year is to have only one picture book per month. Perhaps two. But no more than 24 of those 156 will be picture books. Because, well, why not? 🙂

How about you, dear Reader? Are you planning on reading books this year? How many? And if you’re also on Goodreads, want to connect?

Oh! And I almost forgot. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

– KRidwyn

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teaching

37/52

I realised the other week that my Library has no puzzles.

Problem now solved.

What did you think of this one I bought for my High School students? (Kindly completed here by Mr10 with my help, so I could take this photo…)

Have a puzzle-solving week yourself, dear Reader!

– KRidwyn

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More about me Random thoughts teaching Work

33/52

And… it’s Book Week! Biggest week of my work-year, now I’m Teacher Librarian and not Head of Middle School.

At my new school, the Year 12s pick the theme for themselves and the staff. This year: minions.

Staff were allocated roles from the Despicable Me movies. Together with the Head of Senior School, we could both be the evil character, Dr Nefario.

Never one to share nicely with others, and noticing a second baddie unallocated, I graciously stepped aside and let my colleague wear the white lab coat and black lab gloves, and chose slinky long gloves and black high heels for myself.

Scarlett Overkill – here I come!

Wish me luck. (We all know how weak my ankles are…!)

And have a dressed-up-week yourself, dear Reader!

– KRidwyn

Categories
Random thoughts teaching Work

13/52

Recently, my school held a fundraiser for the families who lost everything in the recent North Queensland floods. And seeing as blue and yellow are the colours of the most popular sports team of the region, the fundraiser was ‘wear blue-and-yellow’ day.

Now, I’m half Malay. I don’t do ‘yellow’ because it makes me look sickly green. So I went and bought blue stuff: some elbow-length satin gloves, a sparkly masquerade-style mask, and to top it off, a blue plastic hat shaped like the top half of a dinosaur head. I was set!

Then I was asked to attend a workshop that day. Sigh.

No gloves. No sparkly masquerade mask. And no dinosaur hat for me.

Double sigh.

Oh well. At least I get to share them on here with you!

Here’s wishing you a fun-filled week yourself, dear Reader!

– KRidwyn

Categories
Random thoughts teaching

4/52

I’m so glad it’s a public holiday here in Australia today. I’ve done seven days straight of work, and another four start tomorrow, so I’m very happy indeed that today is a work-free day.

On the up-side though, the last two-and-a-bit days were spent looking at this view here:

2019 Student Leaders Retreat, preparing them for the year to come. It was a good (albeit long and exhausting!) weekend.

Here’s to a great week ahead, dear Reader!

– KRidwyn

Categories
Life Random thoughts teaching Work

Weekend-ing away

I like my bed. My bedroom, my ensuite, my kitchen, my laundry, my lounge room, my garden. I miss them when I’m away.

Having said that though, I like not having to cook, and clean. I like the time away from ‘normal’, ‘everyday’ responsibilities, and the gratitude that I feel towards my home comforts when I’ve been away for long enough.

Take these past couple of months, for instance. I spent a week in Sydney/Canberra, on camp with my Year 7 and 8 cohorts. I returned late Friday night, spent Saturday washing and packing, then left very early Sunday morning for another week away, this time with family and friends camping on Fraser Island.

This last weekend was another work-related one: Friday afternoon through to Sunday evening down in Brisbane with six Middle Schoolers who were invited to the State finals from our regional Opti-MINDS challenge. Fast forward a few weekends and I’ll be away again, with Hubby this time, down the Gold Coast.

I enjoy my time away.

But I really, really, REALLY like my own bed. I think I mentioned that?

Have a great week, dear Reader!

– KRidwyn

Categories
Life places to visit teaching Work

[This post is a cheat]

Well – kinda.

It’s still me writing, at my desk, putting words onto the little white rectangle on the computer screen in front of me.

But it’s not Monday morning, the 17th of September, 9am.

It’s last week (well, it will be last week, by the time you read this – and I know that this sentence isn’t grammatically correct from when I write this, but it’ll make sense when you read this later… I hope!) and yes, there *is* indeed a very valid reason for this cheating post, which I’ve written and scheduled ahead of time.

I’m in Canberra right now. Or Sydney. Or en route to one of those places. At this point in the planning of the event (because it hasn’t happened yet) I’m still a little fuzzy on the details.

But Hubby is at home with Miss10 and Master9 and my mum, keeping the house fire burning (although maybe not, because the weather’s starting to warm up nicely and it might be too hot by the time this post is published, to need a nightly fire) because Miss13 and I are with sixty-nine other 12- and 13-year olds, enjoying (ha! hopefully ‘surviving’, at least) a week-long camp to our nation’s capital and other ‘worthwhile to visit for educational purposes’ places.

Hence the need to post ahead of time. I have absolutely no idea where I’ll be at 9am on Monday 17th September, but I *do* know that multiple kids will be there. All with pre-teen and early-teen needs, which is to say MULTITUDES!

Sigh. I’m tired now, even just thinking about it. And I haven’t even started packing yet.

So. That’s what my week’s going to be like. How about you?

– KRidwyn

Categories
Life Random thoughts teaching

on habits…

I’ve been talking to my Middle School students quite a lot about habits recently. How often they’re unintentional, a routine formed over time, often because we ‘accidentally’ make a decision to suit us in the circumstances we find ourselves in, and then the next time that situation occurs, our mind/body combo decides ‘let’s repeat the decision, because it didn’t kill us last time!’ or something.

However, if we unintentionally form habits that we see in others and would prefer to NOT have ourselves, then we have a problem. English poet and literary critic John Dryden is said to have coined the phrase: ‘We first make our habits, then our habits make us.’

What habits am I forming at the moment? Are they intentional or unintentional? Because whatever habits I allow myself to form (couch potato in front of the TV; Hubby and my kids’ worst critic; lazy housekeeper; workaholic) that’s the person I will become.

The takeaway? Be INTENTIONAL! I once read somewhere that “the trick to life is to be awake in it” and this is so true. So often I let life pass by because I’m focusing on something, which I deem ‘more important’ at that moment in time.
It is always my decision, and mine decision alone, to deem that ‘something else’ of more importance. And that decision automatically meant that other things were, of necessity, of less importance to me during that moment, that time, that season.
And that decision then reflects my values. So my question is: are these values, ones that I truly want to be holding? And having others witness my holding?
And what exactly do I hold dear, anyway?
So it seems I’ve taken a bit of a tangent, but the thoughts are swirling around up there and this is probably as logically coherent as I’m going to get, this time of the morning.
Here’s to an ‘intentional’ day – and, indeed, week – for the both of us, dear Reader!
– KRidwyn
Categories
Life teaching Work

And… it’s all over :)

until 2020, anyway! The CCC musical, Conundrum, was an absolute blast… and now the adrenaline is wearing off, I’m realising I’m the most exhausted I’ve ever felt in my life. And my back is SORE!

But it was worth it to see the smiles on the kids faces. And I learned heaps too 🙂

And check out these beauties!!!

Very blessed.

See you next week… I’ll have managed some sleep by then!

God bless,

– KRidwyn