The Dad Regime | Internet for dads

Kids and liars

Sending communication home about a student’s behaviour is not a favourite activity of any teacher. Where I work, if you’re hearing from me about behaviour it’s usually fairly low level, classroom issues (Admin take care of the more serious incidents). And the purpose of my emails or phone calls is usually … I thought you should know. Responses to these messages generally fall into four categories: The Acknowledger: Thanks for letting us know … The Defender: Well, we’ve never

Retro Blog: Autism has a place in the classroom

This article made me angry. It asks a simple question, ‘Does autism have a place in the mainstream classroom?’ It made me angry because the answer is obvious - yes. It made me angry for paying lip service to how complicated that ‘yes’ is, and it made me angry because it glossed over the most important factor relating to the question. Through no fault of their own many Autistic children are placed into classrooms entirely incapable of meeting their needs. Through no fault of t

Retro Blog: I'm worth more than chicken nuggets

Those of you who know me personally know I’ve lost some weight over the last year. I’ve been thinking about about writing about that but, I don’t want to get ahead of myself as I still have some distance to go. Through the process, however, I have developed a new addiction: blue berry, raspberry, milk and cocoa shakes in our Nutribullet. They’re bloody awesome and I needed one today. I’ve been buying the berries at the local farmers’ market. I ran out his week and had to buy

Must be so good

Have you ever noticed that the more prestigious the school the higher the admissions scores and fees are? Pretty obvious observation, I guess. It should be hard to get into an elite school, right? If these schools are so good, they ought to be able to teach anyone, shouldn’t they? Their teachers, programs and facilities must be so good, that any student would be be able to go in and achieve success. Why then, do they need admissions tests at all? Or behaviour reports? Or NAPL

Retro Blog: I fear no carpark

I found a bunch of my old blog posts - I'm going to post some of them under the heading of Retro Blog. I wrote this item three years ago on the old Mr Wise website. Readers in our school community might find it relevant after recent events. It goes to show that this has been an issue for a long long time. Enjoy There’s a scene in the 1953 War of the Worlds movie in which a priest attempts to subdue the aliens by calmly walking toward the invading horde quoting a psalm: ‘Yea,

Genius

If you need proof there has never been a time when schools ‘got it right’, or that ‘they don’t teach basics in school anymore’ is a fiction – then you only need to find one these math problems on the social media platform of your choice and scroll through the comments. If the schooling that all these adults went through was so good, then why are there so many different answers to a question that primary school students can complete at school today? And if the answer is that t

Ability Grouping

I’ve never been a fan of ability grouping in schools. I’m always left with the feeling that we automatically limit what groups of student will learn. As if, based on where they are now, we’re going to expect one group of students to learn less than another and therefore we expect less of them. Inclusion is about opportunity, and opportunity should be based on what a student can learn, not on what they have learned. #math #teaching #learning #classroom #abilitygrouping #stream

Why can't you just be happy ...

… being better than everyone else? Picture the scene: 1992 NBA Finals - Game 6 - Chicago versus Portland Chicago leads the series 3-2. They’ve just rallied from behind to take the lead in the closing minutes. A pumped up Michael Jordan comes to the bench during the timeout* and implores his team mates to keep going - to give more - greatness is near. His coach, the legendary Phil Jackson, looks up at Jordan and says: ‘Mike, can’t you just be happy being better than everyone e

Badges, Rewards, and Barking Dogs

Badges are a new thing in education at the moment. Read about them here. They seem a harmless, if not motivational, way to assist learning in the classroom; much like old-fashioned sticker charts, smiley faces and stamps. The idea being that scouts seem to be motivated to achieve badges, gamers seek achievement badges in games, and it’s an alternative to traditional grades. Why not include these ideas in classrooms? I’ve never liked the idea of students playing the role of Pa

Never too late ...

Occasionally, I’m forced to defend my position on homework. It’s rarely to another educator these days, but the odd parent raises their concern. And I get it – these new fangled ideas about education are vastly different to the views expressed by teachers when we were at school. We worry that if our children aren’t treated as we were, then they might be negatively impacted. Those of you unsure of where you stand on the homework debate should read the following excerpt from Sc

TDR Podcast 2017 Ep5: Don't say that! Don't you ever say that!

Our very first guest!! Film maker Gabor Kukucska joins us to discuss why on Earth anyone would want to make a documentary about Chris. The crew discuss 'passion projects' in high schools. And more. Pretty Jesus returns to close the show with their track 'Time Machine'. What did we talk about this week? - Visit Gabor Kukucska's site: Inspireflix - Read more about 'Passion Projects' here. - Our sponsor: - Pretty Jesus - Time Machine: #podcast #dadregime #dadregime #school #educ

A Minecraft Classroom

We've been using Minecraft in my Year 6 classroom for a couple of week to great effect. Here I've outlined some of the main activiti

Canaries On The Spectrum

We aren't Finland

Watch the video. No homework and a 20-hour school week? Sounds awesome, sign me up. That’s right in my philosophical wheelhouse; less is more; dispense with the unnecessary. So, why do I cringe when I see these clips turn up in my social media feeds? I have the belief that as educators we tend to overvalue the effectiveness of our pedagogy to teach things that don’t matter. We adopt practices and models, we change strategies and explore taxonomies, all with the intention of i

Hey! Things change.

War historians have pointed out that for most of human existence war did not change much - not in its techniques, nor equipment. Alexander’s defeat of the Persians in 329 BC may not have looked dramatically different to the Mongol’s invasions of China 1218 CE. In fact, Napoleon’s victory of the Third Coalition in 1805 would have been on an eerily similar battlefield (fancy French uniforms aside). Armies lining up, archers or riflemen ready, cavalry charge – have at it! Not u

Do it! NO WAIT!

When a former student asked me for advice about leaving high school before she graduates and entering the workforce at the end of Year 11 my instinct was to tell her: “Do it. JUMP! Your high school education is overrated and has little bearing of on your future success. Your work ethic and your passion is what will drive you.” She had a plan, both for short term employment and future education. She has a Certificate III in Retail, thanks to her high school. She has the backin

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