Category: Kids and Learning

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The Vegemite Taste Test

I was just doing a tidy-up of my hard drive and I found this video that I’d almost forgotten about, so I thought I’d put it up on YouTube so I know where to find it in future.

Back in 2006, I spent a year teaching in Oakville, Canada, as part of a teaching exchange.  I really enjoyed the whole experience, which was life-changing in many ways.  In fact, I’m back in Toronto at the moment and despite the -24 degree temperatures this really is like my second home.

When you go on a teaching exchange you act as somewhat of an ambassador for your country, taking whatever opportunities you can to share some of the culture of your own country with the locals.  So one day, I decided to let my Grade 9 BTT101 class experience the classic Australian taste of Vegemite.  Most Aussie kids grow up with Vegemite, a yeast based spread that usually goes on toast, crumpets and crackers.  Seeing the reaction of non-Aussies makes me realise that it’s somewhat of an acquired taste, but it’s savoury, salty, yeasty taste is actually quite yummy when you’re used to it.

Of course, I managed to tie it into the syllabus, teaching a lesson on computer basics and the concept of input, processing and output… I brought a toaster and a loaf of bread into class, and we dicussed how bread was the input, the toasting was the process and the toast was the output.  Input, Process, Output.

Of course, once we had made some toast we couldn’t waste it, so out came the Vegemite and the kids had a taste.  Although I love the taste of Vegemite, apparently these Canadian kids didn’t think so.  Still, although they weren’t big Vegemite fans, I was pleased that they at least tried it.

Fortunately I captured their reaction on video. 🙂

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Human Tetris

Found this rather funny video on Edublogs TV.  As a Tetris fan from way back, this just made me giggle…

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Speaking of Tetris, I take a class of kids with some pretty severe learning difficulties once a week to do some computer stuff with them.  A few weeks ago, one of the girls finished her work early and since there was only a few minutes till the bell she asked if she could play Tetris online.  A moment later when I walked by she was playing the game and she was totally awesome at it!  I mean, I was blown away at just how fast and accurate she was…  this is from a student that usually really struggles with many other intellectual tasks. Tetris, although based on a simple concept, is a game that requires a good sense of spatial awareness, timing and multitasking to play well… and this girl was playing really well!

I called her regular teacher over and pointed out how good this girl was at the game.  Her teacher had never actually played Tetris before and wasn’t quite sure how the game worked, so I asked the student to give her teacher a lesson in how to play it.  It was great to watch this student, who normally struggles so much with even relatively simple learning tasks, showing this teacher how to play the game… and being quite the master at it in the process.  The teacher was hopeless at it, the student was awesome.

I wonder what sort of places our classrooms would be, and how it would affect our students’ attitude, morale and performance, if teachers were hopeless at stuff more often while allowing their students to be more awesome at the things they are good at.  Often in schools we judge our students performance based on the things that we deem to be important to us, rather than what is important to them.  I’m not suggesting that everything should always be a game, but  I suspect we should always be actively looking for opportunities to let our kids be “smarter” than us.

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Setting The Bar High

One of the many things that continually impresses me about my current school is how consistently we try to expose our students to big thinking and authentic, real-world experience.  It shows in lots of ways, from our focus on employing teachers and support staff that are passionate and committed to being the very best in their fields, to the way we manage to set the bar of expectation as high as possible for our kids.  Many studies confirm that the best way to get kids to excel is to give them great teachers who have high standards and expectations, who know their stuff, who model expertise and passion, and who create situations for our students to shine.

This video, which I recorded on my Nokia N95, is the world premiere performance of a piece of music commissioned especially for the school and written by Australian composer Paul Jarman.  It was performed by our students and staff in the main concert hall at the Sydney Opera House. Being new to the school this year, it was my first annual Speech Day and I have to say it was a rather extraordinary experience to hear the orcehstra and choir made up of all the students in the school performing this piece for the very first time.

I imagine that this experience will not be one our students will soon forget.  I also realise only too well that not every school is in a position to commission artistic works from well known composers and then perform them in iconic buildings like the Sydney Opera House, and no doubt to many it seems somewhat elitist.  Maybe it is.  But I do know that giving kids wonderful experiences such as this, and providing them with the opportunity to shine, is very important.  Whether it’s this, or the DET’s School Spectacular, or some other opportunity, the chance for kids to meet high standards that have been set for them is an important part of getting a real education.

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