Smile!

Hopefully your school year is flying by. That means you are having fun. If your school year seems have come to a halt, just keep smiling. Research does show us that smiling relieves stress, so you might want to try it. Just remember the old saying: "It takes more muscles to frown than to smile!" In fact it takes 41 muscles to frown and 17 to smile. Judy T., a teacher from Carol's building, uses this fact to her advantage. If Judy is having a bad day and someone tells her she is frowning, she always says, "I'm trying to use more muscles, so I can burn more calories! That way I enjoy my desert with less guilt!" She always makes us chuckle.

Teachers: “A role model is a person whose behaviour is imitated by others.”

We all hope that learners have good, strong role models who possess the kind of qualities that make our students want to be better people. While there is some variation in every teacher’s definition of what it means to be a good person, I believe the following characteristics should remain constant.
Little eyes are watching and little ears are listening. Talk about your experiences to the learners. Someday, they will be in the same predicament and think to themselves, “What did Miss or Mr X do or say when s/he was in the same situation?”
When you have a tough choice to make, allow the learners to see how you work through the problem, show which decision is best, but also how they can to come to that conclusion.
Nobody’s perfect. When you make a bad choice, let those who are watching and learning from you know that you made a mistake and how you plan to correct it. This will help them to understand that everyone makes mistakes; it’s not the end of the world; you can make it right; and you should take responsibility for it as soon as possible.
We all want children to stick with their commitments and follow through with their promises. However, as adults, we get busy, distracted, and sometimes, a bit lazy. That means be on time, finish what you started, don’t quit, keep your word and don’t back off when things get challenging.
While it may seem like a great deal of pressure to be a positive role model; nobody is expecting you to be superhuman. We certainly wouldn’t expect that behaviour from the children who are looking to us for answers and guidance—nor would we want them to expect that kind of flawless behaviour from themselves or others. You can only do your best. And, if you mess up today, you can always try again tomorrow.
Here’s to a great Weekend!

Building a school’s character

A school needs to create a character or ethos of its own in order for the learners to identify with the school. These characteristics should be positive and inclusive for growth and traditions of excellence to be established.

Lovedale (1824) in the Eastern Cape was a non-racial school which started with 11 black and 9 white children. It was a training institution where book learning and practical application (apprenticeship) went hand in hand. The first Xhosa dictionary was compiled at Lovedale.
It was also a school in which values were promoted and where women were educated as early as 1869. Music was an important part of the curriculum. Lovedale was destroyed in 1954 and is now derelict.

Healdtown (1854) was developed by Methodist Missionaries. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century it was also a centre of learning excellence. Its list of alumni is impressive and includes former president Nelson Mandela, Govan Mbeki (President Mbeki’s father) and Robert Sobukwe (the founder of the PAC). It is now derelict.

These examples show how tender the life of a school of excellence can be. The powerful people who came from these buildings went on to influence the world, who knows who we have attending classes at the Western Cape Sport School?

Think about the Western Cape Sport School, and its history, purpose and the future in relation to excellence in education. A teacher’s purpose is to manage and foster good traditions. A final question is “How do we water our seeds so that they grow into strong and powerful leaders?”

Let’s see what we as a staff can grow together.

Have More Great Ideas!

Brainstorming is a proven creativity tool. But it's easy to miss great ideas when one person dominates the session, or when people are too afraid to voice their most creative thoughts for fear of being judged. We must allow everyone to contribute.
Imagine that we've gathered our educators together for a much-needed brainstorming session, focusing on the most effective way to manage the school. Bill, the most talkative and forceful member of our staff, immediately asserts that police and parent involvement are the best platforms to use. Staff would follow on to contribute ideas that go along with Bill's. Ten minutes later, the staff would be immersed in police and parent ideas. No one else would’ve submitted any other options, once Bill had set the direction.

It's all too easy to start a brainstorming session with good intentions, but then to overlook or miss potentially great ideas, simply because one assertive person sets the tone for the entire meeting. This is why at meetings I encourage around the table discussions or round-robin. I feel this method allows staff members to generate ideas without being influenced by any one person. We can then take these ideas into the next stage of the problem-solving process.

A possible idea at our next strategic meeting would be to have the staff around a table. Each person will receive some index cards, so that they can record their ideas on individual pieces of card in silence. Once everyone has written down an idea, each person will pass their idea to the person next to them. Everyone should now be holding a new card with their neighbour’s idea written down on it. Each person will now use their neighbour’s idea as inspiration to create another idea, which they will then write on a fresh index card. And continue to hand it to their neighbour.

Advantages and Disadvantages is that our staff will use each other’s ideas to generate even more ideas, without being influenced by assertive or vocal members of the staff. Another advantage of this approach is that it also ensures that everyone in your room gets an equal chance to present their ideas including shy staff members. A disadvantage is that it won't be anonymous. When staff pass ideas around the room, they might hold back simply because they know that the person next to them will see what they have written. Another disadvantage is that each person gets inspiration for their new idea from the ideas of only one other person, rather than from the entire group. We could solve this by gathering the ideas at each stage, shuffling them, and then passing them out again; rather than having staff pass their ideas to the person next to them.

Let’s give this a go at the next strategic meeting.

Confidence! Got it?

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.

Twittering tweeter

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”...

My Athletic goal?

Every new season brings up the question: what are my athletic goals for this
year? And do I need goals anyway?

Your current desires represent the next stage in your evolution. What you want -- right now -- is moving you to the next phase in your development.

This is why winning matters. To attain your goals, you must become an athlete worthy of them.

To win, you must be a highly skilled athlete with excellent fundamentals.

You must have an intense work ethic. You must build trust and harmony with
your coaches and teammates. You need to know how to perform at your best under pressure.

Every time you fail in one of these areas, you question your abilities as a human being. You feel bitter, distrustful, and angry. Continued losing undermines your self-esteem and self-respect.

Most human misery stems from not realizing our deepest aspirations. There is much suppressed sadness in the heart over broken dreams and relationships.

There is a simple exercise that can transform your entire year in sport.

Take out a fresh piece of paper and record 10 goals for the next 12 months. Let yourself dream a little. What technical skills do you want to improve? Do you want to be a better leader or more gracious teammate? Do you want to shine in a final game or race?

Next, chose your most important goal,and place it at the top of the list. For the next year, protect this goal like you would your own child. It is a dream that matters to you,and deserves to be cherished. Take action every day towards it,
no matter how small.