Living Life Twice

At the conclusion of each school year, I write, urging teachers to quarantine a little time for writing over the summer holiday period. As we rapidly approach the end of the 2020 school year in Australia, my message remains unerringly simple.  If you are a teacher who writes, it is easier  to present as a writer who teaches.       A Writer's Notebook holds the potential to become a valuable teaching resource, as well as a writing tool, if we approach writing, willingly. We must be the risk takers we want our students to become. To become a teacher who writes requires  commitment and a willingness to quarantine some of your time to engage in writing. We become writers through regular practice. It doesn't happen through hopes and wishes.  If the decision is to go down  the path of maintaining your own notebook, that notebook will benefit from some early feeding and the summer presents as a potential feast… Imagine how much credibility you will attract upon

As the Australian school year draws to a close, we reach a time where attention is given to student resources and supplies for the next academic year.  So, I find myself thinking about how schools might best go about supplying students with writer’s notebooks for 2020.  Handing out a one size fits all notebook relegates this special writing tool to little more than workbook status in the eyes of young writers. If kids come to view the writer's notebook in this way, it loses integrity. It loses its individuality. It can come to viewed as a 'teacher thing.' The ownership has been eroded significantly. Such an outcome remains totally avoidable, but it does however require some pre planning on the part of those managing the acquisition of school resources.  An increasing number of schools are asking suppliers to provide a range of writer's notebook prior to the end of the school year. Student writers are then asked to peruse the selection on offer

I recall a quote in newspaper a few years back regarding the teaching of writing. Professor Peter Knapp was quoted thus; ‘Kids come out of primary school without mastering the technical aspects of writing and yet secondary schools aren't equipped to teach writing or, in many cases, prepared to teach it.’ Let's unpack that statement a little... There appears to be a persisting belief that Primary Schools are expected to teach students to read and write, and Secondary Schools can then focus on reading and writing to learn. This falsehood has persisted since my teacher training days –many decades ago! It demonstrably fails to recognize the developmental nature of learning, and it certainly shows a disregard for students as learners. We learn at different rates. We don’t all learn to tie our shoelaces on a predetermined day. Why would we assume that all learners reach the same developmental point at the conclusion of Grade 6- and why would we discontinue teaching them