Friday, December 2, 2011

Swearing!

I find this whole debate over swearing really interesting. It seems odd to me that swearing at a teacher carries the automatic penalty of exclusion whereas other behaviours which are potentially physically dangerous do not.

We have to ask ourselves why children swear and what it means to them. For many children this is the language of the home. They have been spoken to like this from birth and hear it everyday. Some children swear at teachers because they are in a corner, or are out of control, it may be the only place they know to go when they are frustrated or angry, others do it to provoke a reaction(and what a reaction if they get excluded).

I think we have to ask ourselves many questions about this. Does the punishment really fit the crime? Although unacceptable, is swearing really as bad as we think? Are we missing something potentially more important if we focus on swearing? Does the teacher really lose their dignity if they are sworn at, is it not the child who has lost theirs?

As a principal I do exclude if a pupil swears at a member of staff. I would add that there is a real dilemma created for me when a pupil swears at a member of staff. I am well aware that I am not necessarily resolving the issue by excluding the pupil, but, I do believe that I am taking a step towards reducing the likelihood of the swearing happening again and, importantly, making a public statement that swearing at or threatening staff is totally unacceptable and will not be tolerated. In my school, in the past three years, only two pupils have been suspended on more than one occasion for swearing at staff.I.e. repeat offending.

Pupils at my school know that swearing at a member of staff is a line they must not cross or they will be excluded. This applies to all staff, regardless of their role at the school or their position. On some occasions, because of the circumstances, I have decided not to exclude. In all such cases the reasons are made clear to both the member of staff concerned, the pupil and the family concerned.

Creating your best self!

Creating your best self as an athlete is easier than you think.

It has been great watching the staff take out their old takkies and begin to walk around the track each afternoon. I envy you and hope to join the group real soon. The idea of getting back into shape got me thinking about the creative powers of visualization, you are using your imagination to make-over yourself, literally.

With the seed of your imagination, you can transform any element of your performance - your skills, your shape, even your confidence. As the saying goes, "Little hinges swing big doors." Of course, creating your best self does not mean manufacturing something fake. By showing the world that you are working hard at your health is a positive sign to the learners at the school.

It also means finding your authentic athletic self and allowing it to be expressed. Time has taken its toll on a number of our bodies and the wear and tear is showing mostly on my face and belly. Finding your self is real important and with each passing year we need to reanalyse or health, body shape and fitness.

To start is the greatest problem and how we overcome that barrier will determine our strength of character, which we must use each day in the classroom. The learners can become your biggest competitors.

A lot of aspiring athletes think they need to trash talk and get into the heads of their competitors to win. A classic example of how you handle your biggest competitors. Rugby coaches would shout at the players how much they hate the opposition, hoping this would somehow ignite a fury of success on the field. Imagine if we used this method on our learners in the classroom.

Trash talking, talking down too or arguing with the learner rarely brings out their best self. Show them by training and taking charge of your life.

See you on the track, real soon!

Twitter you Twit!

When some people hear the word "Twitter," they automatically think of wasting time. After all, how can you have time for work when you're telling people what you had for lunch, or spreading the gossip from your 2 p.m. staff meeting? It's true that Twitter can be a distraction. But it can also be an important resource for both personal and organizational growth.

Twitter is a social networking site that allows users to connect with each other and send short messages, or "tweets," about what they're doing or thinking. Imagine that! What if the school assigned a learner to an educator or vice versa, an educator assigned to an individual or number of learners to monitor their daily activities? Your "followers" would see your tweets in a rolling feed, called a timeline, when they log into the service on their arrival at school.

Each educator could decide what they want to tweet. Tweets can be trivial - "what someone ate for breakfast" example - or they can be significant and valuable, for example, when they highlight key news, or articles from the school.

Here are some tips to help you learn the lingo of ‘tweeeting’
Hashtag - (#) can help people track different topics to find information easily. Simply put the # symbol in front of your tweet's most relevant word, or use it to "tag" a tweet under a certain category. For example, #leadership or #football.
Followers - These are your friends or connections - the people who are following your tweets. Your tweets will appear on their timelines. But please remember, all tweets are technically "public" and searchable unless you decide to make your account private. Be careful what you say.

@ Replies - If you want to tweet to someone else, use @ right before that person's username. For example, tweet "@mary45 I saw your tweet. Interesting!" - and mary45 will get the message in her timeline (if she follows you).

If you put the person's name at the very start of the tweet, as in the example above, only you, her, and people who follow both of you will see the Tweet in their timelines. If you put her name elsewhere in the message, everyone who follows you will see the tweet. For example, this would happen if you tweeted "Me and @mary45 are working on a new matric dance proposal."

Use a strong headline - Most followers simply scan Twitter, so your "headline" should be effective and authentic enough to capture their attention. Keep it short - Twitter allows only 140 characters, so your messages must be simple yet powerful.
Write clearly - Use the same good writing rules you would use when writing any professional document. Grammar and style - and proofreading - still matter with Twitter.

Keep it useful - If you tweet a link or share an article, make sure it's something that your followers will find useful or valuable. Get “tweeting”...

Positive Life Style

Professor Chris Barnard was asked the question; “How do you keep so positive in your stressful life”? His answer was very simple, “I walk away from negative people”!

Sometimes it is challenging when dealing with a colleague, friend, or spouse because there seems to be two people in the same body. He's a cold person one day and a warm, supportive person the next. To get respect and consistency from this person, your job is simple:

Avoid the cold person and embrace the warm person.

Let's imagine you have a colleague who tends to be moody at work. Sometimes they even affect your performance, because you take it personally and feel down when they are uncommunicative.

In this situation, most people will try hard to please their colleague when he's in a bad mood. They'll go out of their way to be friendly and nice. This is an excellent approach to try the first time he is moody. If he doesn't respond, though, you must abandon this demeanour.

I recommend you keep your contact with the cold person brief. If necessary, look at your watch and say, 'Wow, I didn't realize it was so late...must get back to that deadline.' This way, you're not creating a distraction for yourself at work. You're also not creating a reason to become angry and resentful of your colleague.

But here's the most important point:

People do not respond to negative words, but they do respond to no contact. When you accept others for who they are using these methods, you communicate self-esteem and flexibility. You're saying, 'I don't need you to be any particular way at
all.' Avoidance is not manipulation. It is acceptance.

Avoidance works because you are not doing it in an attempt to manipulate your colleague. Instead of trying to change him/her by being super-nice (or getting angry), you are merely reducing your social contact with him because it is unpleasant for you.

Using avoidance and indifference with people when they are unsupportive is a radical concept. Most of us need to be in control. If a person is not giving us
the support we want, we try to control him. We go back and forth between being angry vs. nice in an attempt to get our way. This never works, because the person
we are dealing with senses what we are doing and rebels even
more.

Confidence

Confidence is believing in your own abilities. You know you're the goods and you believe you can win or succeed. This is where I would ask the staff to look at themselves and their role in the school structures. Success is a truly wonderful feeling. But to gain more confidence, you need to understand one crucial thing and teaching is the one area which highlights the following:

Confidence is NOT a choice.

Most sport psychology books we ask the learners to read, tell you it is. They tell you that if you want confidence, all you need to do is ask yourself for it. You're supposed to repeat to yourself things like:

"I feel great today."
"I'm calm, confident, and cheerful right now."
"Elvin, go out there and be confident."
"The school is going to have a great day today!"

Sort of a 'fake 'it till you make it' approach. Rubbish ...because it doesn't work. You can't trick yourself. Let me repeat: You CANNOT trick yourself.

Here's why...

If you're not feeling confident, it means you're feeling fear, doubt, anxiety, or depression.
And when you're feeling these feelings, it doesn't work to pretend you're not. It doesn't work because 9 times out of 10, your fear is there for a reason. The learners pick up on that fear, doubt or anxiety. They feed off your emotions.

When your body is saying, "Awe! Wake up! Pay attention!” Your blood pressure is through the roof, you are short tempered, these are the signs that your confidence is low.

And when someone as important as your body is talking, the right thing to do is LISTEN.
Usually your body is making a request. Confidence is the gift that keeps on giving.

It keeps you motivated, passionate, and ready to compete.