PRINCIPAL’S SPECIAL BULLETIN No.1 

Wednesday 15 April 2020

Welcome to the first day of Term 2 and to our new mode of teaching! We are all go today! I am looking forward with great excitement to hear the stories of these first encounters with our students via your digital classrooms. 

 Last week in our online meeting I mentioned being struck by this huge poster of Sir Edmund Hillary hanging in the arrival hall at Christchurch airport. It gave me a lot of food for thought.

There’s no question that the current context is one which throws into relief the incredible importance of our self-management skills, our ability to organise ourselves, our motivation, and our capacity to entertain the possibility of doing things differently. Many of us have been teaching for a long time. We have developed habits which are hard to shift. We have also developed approaches to our teaching, which in time, have become entrenched. I know this from first hand experience!  Some of us have allowed the wealth of professional learning related to digital pedagogy, which we have been offered as a Kootuitui school, to slide over us superficially, and have not made significant changes to our practice. Because we haven’t always been convinced of the need to change. Now of course, is the time when this is being forced upon us. Not just us, but teachers all over our country! Fortunately, we have colleagues who are hugely supportive, and whom I have sensed, will never be patronising or demeaning in their response to requests for assistance. And we are all going to require assistance in some area or other, as operating as an online school, or, in some transitional form, will require learning for all of us.

As human beings, “conquering ourselves” is enormously challenging. Sir Edmund Hillary made a profound statement here. Sometimes rousing ourselves to learn something new, or changing our practice, can be incredibly difficult. But as individuals working in an educational context, this is extraordinarily important. During our lockdown, we are also  having to face tests of character. These include coping in homes where children are becoming frustrated and bored, to supporting confused elderly and vulnerable whanau, or those like myself whose “bubble” is a solitary one. Develop our patience, tolerance and understanding of others is part and parcel of this process. For all of us, embracing change, however, is the biggest mountain we have to conquer, as we launch into our new  term. 

One lesson we have all learned, is how much we need each other. As a community of colleagues and  friends, there is much we have to offer each other from ou own experience and learning. And simply, in terms of social contact and emotional support. We have really exciting times ahead of us with new opportunities.   No reira, kia kaha, kia rangatira!