A is for Addiction!!

If I was an alcoholic, would you ask me to put liquor in my bag? Would you ask me to put it in my pocket? No, but we do this with our students and their mobile phones...




Here is a link to my slideshow that I made about this topic.

I am an adult, and I have enough life experiences and tools in my kete to ensure that I look after my emotional well being, but our students do not have that ability, yet.  After 35 years of teaching I know that at school we expect our students'  parents to have taught their children ways of coping with life, and put some safety net for their well being in place, but it does not always happen.

I have experienced myself how the length of time spend on my mobile phone is directly linked to the black dog (depression)!! I've experienced myself how it impacts on my sleep patterns and on my well being,...Now if I as an adult experience this, how much more , would a young impressionable mind of a teenager  "suffer"??I am totally addicted to my mobile phone, I took it everywhere with me, I even found myself in front of the television, and being on face book on my mobile phone at the same time. There are some useful articles on this, people experiencing the same "problem". Link


How can I sit back and feel that I've done a good job at teaching my students about algebra, statistics, geometry  AND not be concerned about the enemy in the room. I quote from an article:
"have cell phones really destroyed a generation?? we don't know...." Surely we can not answer this question when it is too late???

I can not stand by and not try to do something about this, life and it's ebb and flow have taught me, never to stand alone. In my small and humble way, I would like to find like minded teachers, and have some meaningful discussions around this topic. I started wondering how other people feel about this, because everything is "googelable", so I've discovered a few great articles and videos. Please feel free to add some more articles and videos in the comments. In my "research" I also saw that I am certainly not alone in my concerns about this problem, all state schools in Victoria will be banning all cell phones in all schools from next year. France has put a ban on them(2018) , some schools in Auckland has put a ban on them....
I quote from the NZ Herald: "

Cellphone ban helps propel low-decile Māori school to top of NCEA ranks

 link

I would love to hear your thoughts on this!!


I also made a video presentation about my slideshow. 

Thursday is PD day with Kerry!!

Today we are learning how to get our students' how to blog. This link is to "blog starters".

My idea for showing up to this "workshop" was that I would love for my new math classes, which I call the MFC group (Mathematical Financial Capability), to blog and show me some higher level thinking.

I want my year 13's , who I call my "guinea pig"-group, as this is the first class who I am teaching the MFC work to, to have a blog up every period, with a question that will give them a chance to show me some higher level thinking, in a open forum, but also in a formal way.

I love blogging myself, but as with all other good intentions, don't make time for myself to sit down and blog.  I would love to have all students in all Math classes to at least once a week , open their blogs and to reflect on the learning that happened in Math for the week, their "struggles" and how they've overcame these struggles...WOULD THAT NOT BE GREAT???

Let's put that out there for a GOAL for 2020!!

For now: I am going to start a MFC year 13 class blog, and I am taking baby steps with them.

What is MFC...the new buzz word in the mathematics faculty at BOIC

So what does MFC stand for?? It is the acronym for Mathematical Financial Capability. My intention with this is to have a back-up plan for some of our mathematics students or actually anyone else, that wants to learn about it, on line and up and ready to go for end of August 2019. Some of my students have reached a "ceiling" in their mathematical learning, some of them want to learn about something useful that they can use in life, apart from all the other wonderful topics in our mathematics syllabus. This is my effort to bring more FUN and ENJOYMENT into the class.


So what is financial capability? What does it look like in BOIC? (Here is the class link to the different levels. You need to click on the F and then open the correct year level . The first topic for all the year groups are : budget.

The whole idea with this new branch of Mathematics, is to make the learning about the MFC, as much fun as possible, and hands on, where students learn through practice. I've decided to use the programs from YOUNG ENTERPRISES . It also opens up a new "world" inside the math class, and also opens it up for those students who think they can not do math! I would like to say thank you to Young Enterprises for opening up this world to me and my students.

I started off with the year 13's, who decided that most of them had 18 credits for math, and in stead of doing an external, which they were not interested in, they want to learn about finances and have something to put in their kete by the end of the year. I started them off by talking about financial goals, then learning about SMART goals and now focusing on budgeting.




We had loads of fun, when I shared the year 11 BUDGET slide show that I made with them, because they haven't been taught the year 11 and year 12 budgeting topics. So, instead of me reading through the slideshow with them, I made them choose a number, and they then had to present this slide's info to us in class.  I chose number 1, which is the heading of the topic. Click here for the video that I made of the first slide.