See Me After Class

Holding a representative position in a school is a complex task. These roles often sit uncomfortably between the adults and the students in the school, and thrust their holders into the limelight, with all the commentary and expectations that go with this. Arguably these expectations are even more challenging for the female exponents. We talk to our head girl from 2020 about her year, the kind of courage the role has demanded of her - and she shares with us the speech, and exhortation, she presented to the community and school at this year's school prize-giving. Siena also announces one of the head students for 2021, who is a voice you may have heard before in an earlier episode of this podcast.

15 November marks Courage Day in New Zealand, recognising writers who defend the right to free speech and those who suffer oppression and imprisonment because of their writing. This event is observed internationally as the Day of the Imprisoned Writer. Liz and Chris discuss this day, the author James Courage after whom it is named and the resonances for this in our community and school. As previous podcasts, such as our Korero with Taki, Hadley and Tawhiri and our recent conversation with Abhishek, indicate, the instinct to write fearlessly is alive and well in our students.

With National Courage Day almost upon us, we looked at how each of us exercise courage in our roles in the school. Kathy acknowledges that, for many parents, just showing up takes courage. She has had to advocate for her children at times and there was courage in this. Anna acted to challenge a student's inappropriate behaviour without reservation - and to important effect - and Renee spoke of a time when she had to stand up and speak out about something that she felt was wrong on a school trip. How will you be celebrating National Courage Day? Do let us know.

Our conversations about identity have evolved into a focus on courage. With New Zealand Courage day fast approaching, we're turning our attention to people in our school community who are acting with courage and integrity. Last week Abhishek applied to be our Head Student. We spoke to him about what inspired him to present such a risky speech at that moment of vulnerability, and boy did he teach us a lesson in courage and gratitude. He said no-one in the school had asked him these questions before. You will be moved.

Identity continues to be the theme - this week we dig deeper. We uncovered some rather interesting, and surprising, insights. The segue may not have been the smoothest one, but we then moved on to talk about School Prize-giving. Bear with us, we found a link!

With more interviews impending with students whose identities don’t fit the norm, and for whom life in school can be a real challenge at times, Kathy, Anna and Chris continue to explore their own identity and encounter yet more buzzwords. Intersectionality is a term that helps us to decode the complex interplay between different aspects of our identity, but in the end, how do we answer the question: “Who are we?”

Identity has become a theme for See Me After Class in recent months. As a result, and in the rare event that all four of the team found ourselves in one place, we decided to explore aspects of our own identity and how this might affect our way of relating to the world and the school. Anna's reflections on the curiosity of her children when they encounter Ollie (from Episode 51) on the way to school were fascinating, and even more than this her experiences as a migrant, relating to students who are migrants and finding commonality with them underlined the true importance of having your identity acknowledged and reflected in our school.

Our school has recently made some forays into the realm of LGBTQI+ inclusiveness. It's complex terrain, so to add to the conversation See Me After Class is interviewing some of our students who identify as LGBTQI+ to gain an insight into what life looks like from their point of view. This week Chris spoke to Ollie who identifies as Queer and is gender non-binary. It's a fascinating insight with useful material for teachers, parents and students alike.

Kathy came in on an avid conversation in Chris' class this week. Some students were discussing an incident of sexist language and attitude in a classroom, and how they'd spoken up. This podcast carries that conversation on: Kathy, Kelly (a student teacher who is currently on placement in Renee's classroom) Renee and Chris discuss what advice we would want to give these students about 'what to say next' when the usual defences are trotted out "Political correctness gone mad", or even "You're just being emotional". Emotional? Who? Me?

This week we explore the experiences of three 16 year old students who relay their experiences working to challenge prejudice in our school community. We can all learn a lot from the humility, generosity and wisdom of these young men. If you happen to teach English, it's definitely worth listening right to the very end of this one!

With a lot of change in our school, including the departure of our principal, the appointment of a Limited Statutory Manager and the on-going impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on our school lives, we've been trying to consider ways that we can contribute to the growth and development of our school as we take a good hard look at ourselves. Chris relays a staff development session he was part of which was designed to 'start the conversation' about our obligations to our students and their diverse gender identities and sexualities. Simultaneously, Renee has been working with a group of students who have been working on a way to open up a conversation about race in the school. We explain how these are being put together, and how they have been received.

Just as New Zealand schools were on the cusp of returning to normal, Renee, Anna and Kathy looked at what lockdown has meant for them.

Renee and Chris set up their classrooms online the instant New Zealand went into lockdown. We stuck exactly to the timetable we would work at school, and used online video-conferencing to re-create our classrooms. This podcast explores the experience, and was recorded around the halfway mark. Now that we're all back in school, and normal patterns have resumed, here's a record of how things were in that extraordinary interregnum.

The incidence of people, perhaps inadvertently, in breach of the 'rules' of our current national Lockdown lead to some interesting reflection on the parallels between this and the life of students in a school with its arcane and seemingly arbitrary rules. There just might be something teachers could bring to this situation in relation to our professional skill in so-called 'behaviour management'. But would these techniques work with adults?

With the New Zealand Government calling for a national lockdown, teaching and learning has gone online this week. Chris, Renee and Kathy all explore what this looks like from both ends of the cable. There have been some predictable - and some surprising - discoveries.

Continuing our mini-series on bullying, we flesh out, largely based on our own personal experience and observations, what bullying is happening out there in our school communities, and how we adults may be perceived by those who are persecuted. We recognise that the internet brings a particular new dimension to bullying, but agree that some pretty terrible persecution also happens face-to-face. We explore how we can show our sympathy, availability and possibly the most important: fallibility in front of young people. We point towards next week where we are going to share advice from counsellors and students about what you can do if you are bullied - or if you know bullying is going on.

All four of the team came together this week to start a conversation about a subject that is deeply associated with school life for so many, bullying. We're going to deal with this subject over a series of podcasts, and this week, we talk about the problem as it is. We relate some of our own experiences in younger life, and we share a story shared with us by one of our listeners of a profound experience of bullying that was sustained over some years. The over-riding conclusion in relation to this first episode is the understand that the victims of bullying experience immense isolation. They start to identify with the messages that the bullies impose upon them about themselves, and this has a powerful on their sense of self. Something that can have lifelong effects. We have attached some links to the show notes that outline some of the services available to people in New Zealand who need a helping hand. If you want to share some of your experiences with us and our audience, we are always pleased to hear from l

As a result of his being awarded a National Excellence in Teaching Award last week at the Houses of Parliament, Chris was interviewed on National Radio. Here's a copy of the interview. He was nominated anonymously for this award - thank you to the kind soul who did this!

We discovered an unexpected seam of support in our community, and not for the first time both Renee and Chris are reminded that the greatest joy we have as teachers is to engage in the not insignificant luxury of teaching our subjects in a warm, well-lit, un-interrupted classrooms. We shared a couple of highlights and some other good news too. Next week it will be all four of us, and we're going to have a go at tacking the sobering topic of bullying.

Chris and Renee made it through the parent-teacher conferences unscathed, if a little exhausted, and Kathy was able to gain almost everything she wanted from her conversations with her children's teachers. It transpired though that this hadn't always been the case - and who was the culprit? It was Chris and his tendency to interview the student to the possible exclusion of the parents.