Eliminate the Excuse

One of the first lessons I got in teaching was to develop strong classroom management procedures to handle the problems that I did not want to deal with. For example, passing in papers, I have my students do “School Olympics” where each class passes in papers to the back, then to the right, then into their box. I do this activity in the first week and again several more times to keep it fresh. This way, when I say pass in your papers, the kids know which way to go and where the box is to turn papers. No more questions on where papers go, no more kids, “here” instead of passing it in to the box, just a smooth simple procedure. Technology is the same way for me, I developed my resources for the sole purpose of eliminating problems in class: forgetting assignments, forgetting work, not doing work because the student needed help, forgetting books, losing a handout and much more. By adding technology resources to my classroom I am able to build stronger connections with my students while at the same time eliminating the excuse for not doing what is expected. 

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Blue Mountains and Absailing

Day 2, or day 3 if you are playing the home version, came with the leadership group Fullon out of New Zealand.

The three sisters in the Blue Mountains of Australia

We took a two hour drive up into the Blue Mountains of Australia.  Weather, perfect. Slightly cloudy, but warm, and fog in the valley’s which created some wonderful views of the mountain range and the scenery below.

We did a quick stop to see the three sisters.  The story goes that two tribes were fighting. To bring peace, the father of one tribe wanted his sons to marry the daughters of the other tribe.  This accord did not come to fruition and so the groups went to war.  To protect the daughters, a medicine man turned the daughters to stone.  Unfortunately, the medicine man was killed, and being the only one who could turn the sisters back, the sisters have remained in their current form for eternity.

At this point, I cannot say enough good things about Fullon, a highly interactive and well put together program.  We were fortunate enough to have Paul, founder of Fullon, lead our group of intrepid high school students.  We were also endowed with a couple of young leaders with a few years of experience with Fullon, Susan and Sandy, all from New Zealand.  Fullon runs programs in several countries: New Zealand, Australia, Italy, England, Scotland and many other parts of Europe.  Needless to say, if you are traveling abroad with a group, they are worth the call.