More Photos of Rosebank School

Our Day at Rosebank School

Today we had a fantastic visit to Rosebank School! Rosebank is a public, decile one (lowest SES) school. Heather Bell, principal of the school, warmly welcomed us to the school and introduced us to the history of her time at Rosebank and gave us a little more information about how New Zealand's Ministry of Education runs. We learned that each school has what is called a Board. This Board sounded a lot like our Local School Councils. The Board has five elected parents, one elected staff member, and the principal. There are six administrative guidelines for every Board in New Zealand. These include curriculum, self review/strategic planning, personnel, finance/property, health/safety, and compliance. The principal writes monthly reports to the Ministry of Education against these headings. New Zealand schools are self governing and run themselves according to a locally developed Charter. The Charter describes the school's plans and how they will shape new directions.

In terms of the history of the Ministry of Education, we learned that there was a shift in viewpoints that happened around 1989. Before that shift, schools in New Zealand were not self-governing. The impetus for this change was a shift in thinking that allowing schools to govern themselves would improve education. Schools in New Zealand are evaluated by an audit office called the Educational Review Office (REO). Heather Bell, principal of Rosebank, served as an inspector of schools prior to the creation of this office and then moved on to the Ministry when it was formed in 1989. This office worked to develop a methodology to review schools and Heather reported that it was an exciting time in New Zealand public education. There are no "turnaround schools" in New Zealand. When a school is struggling the Ministry of Education will work with the board and provide interventions and support. If those interventions and support are not working the board will be "sacked" and a commissioner will come in to work with the school. Heather Bell's term as principal began under the advice of one such commissioner at Rosebank School. In terms of professional development, Heather states that "we are in the business of growing - because that's what learning is all about."

While at Rosebank, we visited Maori and Samoan bilingual classrooms and observed a Reading Recovery lesson in action. Our visit was enjoyable and the students and staff were warm and welcoming. They had lots of questions about Chicago and asked us about the Chicago Bulls, Michael Jordan, and Oprah! We learned about the Six Thinking Hats strategy and saw reading aloud, guided reading, and centers. We also saw a classroom using a smart board! In the Samoan bilingual classroom, we received a traditional Samoan gift of a beaded necklace and a wooden arm band as thanks for our visit! Please enjoy the pictures of our lovely visit to this fantastic school!

A Day on Waiheke Island - Part I

Words cannot describe the beautiful day we had today on Waiheke Island. Please enjoy these pictures!

A Day on Waiheke Island - Part II

St. Joseph's School

Today we spent an amazing day at St. Joseph's school. St. Joseph's is a catholic elementary school located in South Auckland. The school has approximately 300 students, which is a medium sized school for Auckland. St. Joseph's is a decile two school. We learned from principal Liz Horgan that decile two is considered a low-income ranking and that decile rankings for school are determined based on the latest census information. This is different from Chicago Public Schools, as we determine the SES status our schools using free and reduced lunch applications. Mrs. Horgan explained to us that a long time ago the Catholic school system was integrated with the state system allowing Catholic schools to receive federal funding. The specific type of federal funding allocated for low decile schools is called Targeted Funding for Educational Achievement (TFEA). Ninety percent of the students that comprise St. Joseph's population are from the Pacific Islands and Maori and Pacific Island students are over-represented in terms of low decile status.

Now, with all the facts laid out we can go on to describe our great experience at this fantastic school! We were greeted by the school's principal and participated in a welcome meeting and once again had morning tea! This morning tea was special, as we were able to chat with teachers from the school before we were to visit their classrooms. During the classroom visits, we spent out time in year one, two, three, and four classrooms - our kindergarten, first grade, second grade, and third grade. The teaching looked familiar - center work, reading strategy instruction, small group guided reading with instructional level text, computer work, and read aloud! The students were friendly and were excited for visitors from the states. They asked us questions and were curious about life in the United States. At one point, Jennifer lost her notebook! The assistant principal was nice enough to look for her notebook and while on her brief search the students referred to Jen as "the girl with the golden hair." Very cute. Pilar spent time reading books about the ocean with a year one student while Jen read a big book with a girl from the same class.

We observed a fantastic strategy to use with bilingual students called Plus, Plus. This strategy encourages students to develop their oral language as they are prompted to elaborate on descriptive statements. We took some video of this strategy in action to share with our colleagues at Mozart School in Chicago!

The day concluded with a wrap-up meeting in the Principal's office where we debriefed on our observations. We found a lot of similarities between our instructional practices, but discussed how the climate of standardized testing has affected the stress level of teachers in the United States. New Zealand has just adopted National Standards and fear a standardized assessment is to follow. We all wondered how this would impact the calm and student-centered learning environment that has been so clearly established in New Zealand classrooms. This is a story we will be following even after we go home to Chicago.

A few pictures...

Take a walk on the wild side...

Hello Friends, Family, and Colleagues!

Sorry it has taken us a couple days to update our blog! We have been really busy exploring the city and rural parts of Auckland. Let's go back to Saturday! Saturday morning began bright and early in the morning and with a little bit of nerves. Jen was going to embark on driving in Auckland to get to our Rainforest Express Tour located deep in the heart of the Waitakere Ranges. There is no public transportation to this location and if you didn't already know, New Zealanders drive on the opposite side of the road in the opposite side of the car! Bravely, we walked to the Budget car rental location nearest us to pick up our beautiful, white Toyota Corolla. We had the man operating the desk at Budget look over our Google map directions and made the smart decision to rent a GPS for use during the journey. As we get into the car (already a little nervous, but putting on brave, confident faces) we set up our GPS, entered the address, and off we went! To make a long story short, we drove through three round-abouts, speed down the motorway, took a winding rural road, and drove down a long gravel driveway and successfully arrived at our destination! Phew! One driving experience down, one more to go!

The Rainforest Express Tour was awesome. The journey began at Jacobson's Depot and took us on a small train through the rainforest. Our guides, Ian and Fenton, were gracious hosts and explained to us the inner workings of Auckland's water and tunnel systems, dam, and pointed out some wetas and glowworms during our journey! We had to remember to keep all limbs in the train system and not to touch any of the plants, as some were poisonous. We also hiked up the side of a dam, took pictures of breath-taking views, and stopped for lunch in a shelter set up in the forest. What a great experience. Then, it was back in the car for our journey home! We got a little lost on our way there as the GPS kept telling us, "turn right and then turn right." This confused us and we can laugh about it now, but it was a little tense during the journey. When we finally got back to the Budget and took some celebratory pictures with the car the man at the counter asked Jen if she would drive across the street to fill the car up with petrol. She then replied, "You want me to drive across the street..." It just so happened though, that when he checked the fuel levels of the car it showed it was full, so not more driving was needed! Yay!

After a short rest at our hotel room we headed to the train for Mt. Smart Stadium and a New Zealand Warriors rugby game! The train ride was easy to navigate and reminded us of the Red Line train to Cubs/Sox parks in Chicago. Lots of Warriors fans were on the train with us who helped us locate the stadium when we exited the train. Neither of us no much about Rugby, but we learned a lot by watching and talking with our friendly seat mates. Here is what we learned: when a man is down you keep on playing, pass it under, punching is allowed only when the referee doesn't see it (our seat mates let us know that one), rugby league is different from rugby, and Melbourne Storm players (the opposing team that night) are overpaid. We had lots of fun and are excited to share this sport with our students!

On to today, which happens to be Sunday. We woke up very, very early to catch a chartered bus to the Waitomo Caves. The journey was long - it took three hours to get there. On the way to the caves, our driver, Collin, talked about the history of New Zealand and the views our of our bus window. We took lots of fantastic pictures of New Zealand's beautiful landscape! When we arrived we walked into a cave and learned about stalactites and stalagmites. We walked the cave with a large group. When we got to an open part of the cave, our guide talked about the great acoustics and asked if anyone would volunteer to sing. Jen did and sang an Italian aria in the cave! Our journey through the caves ended with a boat ride through the glowworm grotto. The glowworms were small and bright blue. We learned that they glow during the larvae stage in order to attract their food. They stay at this stage for nine months and then they turn into the pupa, where they stay for two weeks. When they emerge from the pupa they only live for 48 hours! The students will really enjoy learning about the life cycle of the glowworms and we got great pamphlets and books to help our students acquire this knowledge!

We got back on the bus back to Auckland and stopped an had a brief lunch at Little Apple Cafe. The cafe was beautiful and was surrounded by amazing scenery. We ate a great lunch and topped it off with some Hokey Pokey Ice Cream, a New Zealand favorite!

What a full, two-day adventure!

The Last Conference Day and Auckland Museum

The last day of the conference was fantastic! We both enjoyed the opening plenary speaker, Beverly Derewianka, a professor from the University of Wollongong in New South Wales, Australia. The title of her talk was, Forcing Grammar Out of the Closet. She spoke of how the new Australian National Curriculum contained a renewed focus on grammar, but grammar as how politicians and non-educators saw it. She provided us with much to think of in terms of grammar instruction and how to approach it effectively in our schools. She stated that on assessments of writing there were less grammatical errors in students' writing and more errors in terms of punctuation and spelling. She also stated that "a social dialogue in the spoken mode influences grammatical errors in students' writing." This rung true with us, as often times our students' underdeveloped English language development affects the types of grammatical errors we see in their writing. The most common grammatical errors she mentioned included subject/verb agreement, use of pronouns, and formation of past tense. Dr. Derewianka described a new approach to the instruction of grammar that included discussions with students round the audience and purpose of their writing, paired with plenty of opportunities for discourse and providing students with meta-language (language for talking about language).

Pilar attended a session on teaching non-fiction through the arts. The presenters described how using the arts helped students understand the content found in non-fiction text. For example, writing a poem about metamorphosis or creating a dramatic play in the social studies. Presenters also mentioned that using music helps to reduce anxiety in students and increases their attentiveness. Jennifer attended a session focused on recent research on reader response. The presenters shared their research and provided opportunity for discussion among conference participants.

The World Congress closing session was led by children's author, Joy Cowley. She described how to create an effective early literacy book and how teachers might evaluate texts for their appropriateness for use with early readers. She mentioned the importance of text placement, child-friendly stories, humor, use of high frequency words, and high picture support. Her talk was funny and heart-warming, as Mrs. Cowley was an incredibly thoughtful and kind woman! We were even so lucky as to have her autograph some books for the Mozart students! What a great lady! What a great conference! We learned so much and are excited to bring that learning back to Mozart School!

Today we had adventures at the Auckland War Memorial Museum! We figured out public transportation! Although at first we really didn't know where to get off the bus for the museum, a kind New Zealander who was also going to the museum told us where to get off the bus! At the museum we saw a lot of great exhibits. We explored the Maori wing of the museum and enjoyed a Maori cultural performance. The weird and wonderful exhibit featured strange New Zealand insects. We also saw a food exhibit called Kai to Pie: Auckland on a Plate and watched a video on a New Zealand botanist that discovered a plant she called the Vegetable Sheep! We bought lots of great teaching materials from the museum, including books, a DVD, and a special wooden Maori weapon used to strike an enemy's head! When we left the museum it was really rainy and windy! Both of our umbrellas turned backwards! We safely made it back to the bus and got home with enough time to plan for tomorrow and look over our budget expenses!

Until tomorrow...

Day Two at the World Congress

Hello Family, Friends, and Colleagues!

We awoke today, bright and early to get ready for our busy day. Watching the news in New Zealand this morning, we heard a story about two police officers that were shot yesterday in Christchurch. The news anchors discussed the fact that New Zealand police officers do not carry guns, a surprise to us Chicagoans! We also learned that since 1910, only 21 police officers have died by gun fire while on duty in New Zealand. Astonished by this fact, we wondered what might happen if Chicago police officers were unarmed. There was also an interesting story in the newspaper about a woman with a condition that caused her to wake up with a different accent. The story was also on both the evening news last night and the morning news today. Very interesting...

Day two at the World Congress was brilliant! We began our day at the opening plenary session led by P. David Pearson. Dr. Pearson's plenary address was titled Reading Assessment: Still Time for Change. He discussed his "laws of assessment" and how we might use assessment to serve the different "clients of the assessment system." He also stated that we must not forget that our students are our most important client of this system. The best possible assessment tool are teachers, observing and interacting with students while they read and question real texts. He left us with a final quote - "Never send out a test to do the curriculum's job." An important reminder for classroom teachers everywhere in the time of standardized testing and accountability.

As with yesterday, we attended sessions both together and apart. Jennifer attended a symposium at which several doctoral candidates presented their research on instructional approaches that combine book reading with explicit instruction in phonics rules. Pilar attended a session on using folk tales improve the comprehension of struggling readers. Together, we both attended a session focuses on vocabulary instruction and developing our students into "word conscious" readers. We ended our day with an inspiring session by Steven Layne! His talk focused on successful strategies for building life-time readers and the presentation was energetic and full of practical ideas. Aliteral readers were discussed, as we have many students who can read, but won't or don't read. We must reach these students, as well as our strugglers.

We are really excited about the fantastic children's literature we purchased today! For each book that we purchased from the Scholastic book stand, Scholastic would donate a book to schools in Oceania. What a great way to support literacy around the world!

Tomorrow is the last full day of the conference! Until next time...

Kia Ora from Auckland!

Dear Friends, Colleagues, and Family,

We have arrived safely in Auckland, New Zealand and have been here for two days! First of all - the flight! Although long, we were able to get enough sleep on the plane to not be too sleepy on our first day here! Jet lag has not set in... so far... and we are not anticipating its arrival any time soon. We were served two meals on the plane. They were tasty and unexpected! After arriving in Auckland, we found a cab and headed to our hotel, the Sky City Hotel in downtown Auckland. We were very surprised at how cold it was! Being from Chicago, we thought we knew what cold weather was. I guess we were so used to the warm weather we had been experiencing in Chicago that our bodies didn't have time to adjust. But, we are adjusting fine as we have been here in Auckland for two days now.

On our first day, we reminded ourselves that it was now Monday, July 12th and began to explore the area around our hotel, as check-in wouldn't be until 11:00 at the earliest. Auckland reminded us of the Seattle area with its hilly roads, rolling green land, and wide water front. The downtown area is pretty compact. We went to McDonald's for breakfast, or should I say brekkie, and watched Spain win the World Cup with all the other fans in the restaurant. Then, we checked out a shopping center spent some time at Borders buying bilingual Maori books and non-fiction text about New Zealand.

The New Zealand International Film Festival was going on (and is still going on). We stopped into the box office and bought a ticket for a documentary called The Rainbow Warriors of Waiheke Island. The documentary focused on a Green Peace boat called The Rainbow Warrior. It was used to stop Icelandic whalers and to transport individuals from a Pacific Island that had developed health problems due to nuclear testing. After the movie, we were introduced to two of the Green Peace workers who were on The Rainbow Warrior, along with the film maker. What a great opportunity! Next week we will be exploring Waiheke Island, so this was a great introduction!

Finally, we were able to check into our hotel and relax before the opening ceremony of the World Congress. The opening ceremony of the World Congress was an inspirational event, with speakers from the International Reading Association, the Auckland Reading Association, the New Zealand Reading Association, and a performance by Maori dancers from Rosebank School! The event closed with a reception. After watching some New Zealand television, we ended our first day anticipating what we would learn in the days that would follow!

Today, we woke up with no jet lag and were excited to attend our workshops at the World Congress. The opening general session was lead by Stuart McNaughton, a professor at the University of Auckland. His presentation, titled Cautious Optimism: Can Pressing Literacy Challenges Be Solved?, focused on the achivement gap, raising overall literacy levels, and how we might approach achieving equitable literacy levels for children from groups traditionally not served well by schools. He commented on the out of school factors (OSFs) that influence our students' literacy achievement and that we should empower ourselves to make a difference in those areas where we can and to not view OSFs as excuses for ineffective teaching. Ultimately, we must further develop our pedagogical knowledge so that we can meet the needs of our diverse students.

We continued our day attending sessions and being well-fed. We had morning tea, lunch, and afternoon tea! Sometimes we attended sessions together, and other times we split off. Jennifer's sessions focused on literacy professional development issues and the impact of Reading Recovery in New Zealand. Pilar's sessions focused on using multi-cultural trade books in math and how one school used writing and art to share their culture with a school in England. Together, we attended a fantastic workshop focused on vocabulary instruction strategies. We even wrote a fantastic infomercial for the word pseudonym and performed it for the group! Now, we are back in our room getting some rest and looking forward to a Poetry Olio that will be held tonight! Looking forward to more learning tomorrow!

We leave today!

It is the morning of our flight. Trying to fit everything we need for this trip is like playing tetris! Can't forget: boarding passes, passport, driver's license, presents for Rosebank School, camera, cell phone charger for the cell phones we won't be using, lap top, power converter/adapter... and the list goes on and on! New Zealand, here we come!

Our Journey Quickly Approaches

Our journey to Auckland is quickly approaching. Months of planning has taken place and we are looking forward to the eighteen hour plane ride departing Chicago, Illinois on July 10, 2010! We arrive on July 12th - July 11th will never have happened for us! We will start our journey with attendance at the International Reading Association's World Congress on Reading. At the World Congress, we hope to learn as much as we can from both workshop presenters and those attending the event. Teachers and researchers from around the globe will be in attendance. We are going to focus on those workshops that address instructional strategies for bilingual students, as well as struggling readers.

After the World Congress, our Auckland adventures will begin! We have planned tours of the Waitomo Caves (home to the glowworm - which really does exist), an Auckland Warriors rugby game, the Auckland War Memorial Museum, a Maori cultural performance, the Auckland Zoo, and Waiheke Island! Our most daring adventure will be the Rainforest Express Tour. We had hoped to stick with public transportation on our trip, but through several google map searches and skype calls learned that we would have to drive. Jennifer (being the one with a driver's license) will be driving on the other side of the road in the other side of the car with Pilar acting as attentive navigator! Pretty exciting and a little nerve wracking, but we can do it!

Our school visits will be one of the highlights of this trip! We are going on a group school tour with the International Reading Association, in addition to our own trip to Rosebank School in Auckland. Rosebank is a Docile 2 school with both Maori and Samoan bilingual classes. We hope to establish a sister school relationship between Rosebank and our school in Chicago!

We would love for all of our friends, family, and colleagues in Chicago to follow this blog while we are away. We have both switched our phones over to international plans for the month, but calls will still be $1.99 per minute! Even receiving text messages will cost a bundle! We'll be posting to this blog daily. Five more days until our departure...