students – Xcursion

First Week Back!

David Gregory General Stuff January 22, 2017January 9, 2017back to school, be bold, bold ideas, challenges, education, educator, growth, improvement, innovation, make it happen, push boundaries, school, students, teaching 0 Comment

Teaching is hard work. Sure you get great holidays, but they’re both well-deserved and absolutely essential. Having said that, why is the first week back after a break so exhausting? If you work for a school that’s anything like the schools for which I’ve worked, most of the term you’re running at a supercharged pace. Usually this pace during term time is ok, however, for me, the start of every term is particularly taxing and I put it down to compulsory meetings about absolutely nothing.

There’s nothing more boring and draining than sitting in a pointless meeting listening to someone rubbish on about strategic plans for the department. In my experience, these have been nothing more than pointless time wasting activities in which nothing is achieved, or if something is possibly decided as perhaps a good idea, the good idea is deferred to a committee or held off until ‘later.’ Everybody at the meeting knows that ‘later’ means never! So why is this?

The failure to achieve anything at all is completely counter to what teaching is actually about. Teaching is about everyone learning new things and about getting things done. It’s about moving forward, about improving oneself and growing! So why is it so hard for this to happen within a school? As educators, we should be at the forefront of innovation and making things happen. Yet the overall culture of schools tends to be hell-bent against new ideas and innovation.

The sad fact is that the majority of the education system in Australia is still stuck in the 19th century. Principals who should have retired when Mr Squiggle was still drawing his upside down master pieces just keep hanging on to what worked ‘back in their day!’ Well their day has come and gone and now with Australia falling behind Kazakhstan’s educational standards, something has to change. But if the top down approach isn’t going to work, who’s going to change it? Well you have to! If there’s ever a time to get to and do something, it’s now! Every time you have a good idea that could improve the education of your students, then make it happen. You might get told no five times, but don’t give up.

If you really want to make something happen, then it’s up to you to find a way to do it. It’s time to be bold and push the boundaries. Too often I’ve seen teachers spoon feed kids the answers to everything just so they get results, but this shows a complete lack of innovation and is ultimately damaging to the student. Sure they might get a good result on one thing, but then they become dependent on the teacher giving them everything. The same goes the opposite way. The teachers who are prepared to spoon feed their students everything, are the same ones who put road blocks up to new ideas and innovation. You know the ones I’m talking about because someone’s name had just popped into your head.

On staff development days, they’re the ones ready to kill off all good ideas because it’s uncomfortable to them to try something new and something different. After all, they’ve just got back from the holidays so they couldn’t possibly do something new so soon. They’re great with the excuses! However, anything worth doing comes with challenges. To achieve great things, you need to be bold and it will feel uncomfortable, but it’s so worth it.

To kick off this new academic year, don’t give up on your bold ideas. Make them happen! No matter how grand the challenge might be, you can find a way! After all, it’s about developing the best educational opportunities for your students, through which you can help everyone to achieve great results.

What’s The Point Of Outdoor Education?

David Gregory General Stuff January 15, 2017January 13, 2017challenges, education, educators, emotional, experiential education, goals, growth, independent, innovative, kids, life challenges, Life goals, opportunities, outdoor education, real, reality, skills, social, spiritual, students 0 Comment

I’ve been reading a number of articles lately which have had a common theme about where education is headed. Given the number of theories on how people learn and retain information best, it always strikes me as odd when experienced educators, usually in management positions, suddenly think that more time in a classroom equates to greater results for the school.

Whilst this might work for some students, what’s the point of having a cohort of super intelligent and well educated doctors who have the bedside manner of a pathologist? Many big companies pay people like myself large amounts of money to run team building and leadership programs for their staff, because they don’t have the capacity to effectively deal with people, work as cohesive teams, adapt and problem solve! Just as an aside, if you are from a big company and you have a large amount of money to give away, I’m more than happy to run a corporate team building weekend for you!

If this is what more and more organisations are looking for, why then is it so hard for schools to see the value in what outdoor education does? I can’t for the life of me work it out! Many schools have outdoor education as a token gesture annual year level camp. More often than not, they also get someone else to run it for them. The problem with this is the fact that activities in isolation don’t add up to the long-term benefit that a well-structured outdoor ed program can deliver and it’s these long-term benefits that make all the difference to the overall educational experience.

The whole point of modern education should be to provide students with a dynamic skill set to tackle the challenges of life, not just academic, but social and emotional as well! This is where outdoor education comes in. Forget about the specific activities for a moment. Worrying about this can be a distraction from the wider picture, so instead think about what emotional and spiritual goals you want to achieve from your programs. Be specific with it too! Do you want doctors with a good bedside manner? Do you want trades people who can setup and run their own enterprises? Do you want kids to be honest, responsible and functional members of society? Or do you just want a number so the principal can feel good about themselves? Anyone can get an academic result. To be honest, it’s probably one of the easiest things in education. Yet producing independent, innovative, determined and compassionate young men and women is a far more difficult challenge for educators.

The world however, needs young men and women to be equipped with far more than a university entrance rank. By only focusing on academics, you’re actually setting kids up for failure and failure is something modern adolescents aren’t very good at handling. I’ll talk about the lack of resilience in kids today in another article, but for now I’ll stick to the point. You need to provide more than academics and a token gesture of a year level camp each year. Outdoor education needs to become an integral part of your school’s program and culture.

What should you do about it? Well, for starters, the school needs a director of outdoor education, one who’s experienced in developing and delivering innovative, sequential learning programs that link together and increase the challenge that the students must face as they progress through the years. Then allocate time throughout the year to challenge students in their social and emotional growth through outdoor activities. Better still, look at a longer term year 9 or 10 program. Let’s be honest, these two years could be a complete waste of time, so you may as well do something constructive with them, rather than just let them tread water until they’re a bit more mature. There’s some awesome long-stay programs being run around the world, so check them out and see how you could shape the lives of your students with something like this. If all else fails, at the very least, link every year level camp to real social and emotional outcomes so that teachers can work towards achieving them, not just ‘getting away’ for a week.

The whole point of outdoor education is to push kids outside their comfort zone and to challenge them. It’s not until we begin to feel uncomfortable about something new, that we actually start to develop and grow as individuals. It’s this emotional and social growth that becomes invaluable to the child’s overall education. The more they’re given real opportunities to deal with the reality living with others, working as a team and reflecting on their own life and actions, the more balanced an individual will be.

Forget the insane drive for academics at all cost. Whilst it produces some pretty numbers that everyone can go ‘ooooh and ahhhrr’ for about five minutes, all of this is often meaningless and easily forgotten. Whilst it helps the principal make out that they’re doing a great job, it also produces crappy soulless lawyers, crooked politicians, rubbish doctors and rude tradesmen who don’t wipe their shoes at the door.

Outdoor Ed is more important than ever to help develop real life skills for each and every student. Don’t leave leadership, team building and resilience to someone else. It’s a vital part of education for young men and women so they can lead healthy balanced and wonderful lives.

First Aid Re-Cert

David Gregory First Aid, Risk Management December 18, 2016December 19, 2016challenge, education, experience, First Aid, harm, hazards, Remote Safety Solutions, Risk Management, risks, students, training 0 Comment

Once again my three years were up. It’s almost like Logan’s Run with the light going red on my hand… Well not quite, but first aid certification in Australia only lasts three years. So last week it was back to the classroom for first aid update training!

Often the quality of basic first aid courses is pretty woeful. You sit there in front of an instructor who has the power point burning hot. He monotonously steps you through each and every pain-staking slide and reads everything to you that you could easily have read yourself. Most courses are simply the ‘compliance’ stuff you need to ‘maintain’ your qualification so you can treat a paper cut in the office or be eligible for the ‘official First Aid officer’ payment. If you can, avoid these sorts of courses at all cost, as they really teach you nothing more than CPR and how to dial 000.

Although most of the first aid you’re likely to be doing in your day to day work is going to be relatively sedate, you never know what will happen and you can get thrown in the deep end and find yourself outside your comfort zone very quickly. The reality is that most causalities don’t sit there calmly whilst you bandage their non-broken arm. If someone needs your help, there’s usually going to be pain, covered in blood, collapsed, vomiting or all of the above.

Case in point, one day I was walking along the corridor outside the classrooms. One of my colleagues yelled out to me to come and help. I stepped into the room to see one of the students collapsed, fitting on the floor, frothing at the mouth and going blue in the face. Everyone in the room had frozen and didn’t know what to do. If you’re dealing with kids in particular, the reality is that something like this is eventually going to happen. You’re better to be prepared for it and not have it happen, than not to be prepared when it does. Walking into a confronting scene and being able to react appropriately is something that only training and experience can provide. The better the training, the easier it is to get your head around what needs to happen next.

I didn’t know what to expect from this course, as every course I’ve done over years has varied dramatically. Within the first hour, we were into scenarios and this was where it got interesting. Casualties were made up with some awesome looking wounds, injuries and scenes were staged with heavy machinery, vehicles and boats. With fake blood everywhere, it was scarily realistic!

You’re thrown into each scenario with little or no information, which will be the case if you find yourself dealing with a similar situation in real life. It’s up to you to work with the resources you have to contain and respond to the situation at hand. This is generally easy when you’ve only got one casualty, but add in two or three and a bit of anger and conflict to the mix, then you have some tough situations with which to deal.

The course was amazing with some short sessions of instruction, followed by a variety of these intense, realistic scenarios. Each and every one of them got the adrenaline pumping! From someone running at you yelling for help, to approaching a scene that’s chaotic, full of noise, smoke, casualties, blood and screams, it was challenging. Even though you know it’s setup, it still has the effect of raising your heart rate and throwing you in to manage what could be a real-life situation, a workplace accident, a vehicular accident or even an accident at home.

Training in this manner is important, as it helps you to pause, check for danger and potential risks and hazards as well as assess the situation in as calm a manner as possible. Many people rush into situations, which often puts them at risk of harm as well. Making situations feel real means that your brain is being pushed to make those informed decisions before you’re confronted with the complex challenge of a real situation.

The great thing about the course was the fact that everyone was pushed. No matter how experienced we were, the scenarios pushed the limits and I certainly got a lot out of it. The remote area course was far more than just completing the 3 year compliance check. It was interesting, it was challenging, but overall it was rewarding, as I’ve come away with more confidence in how to assess complex situations that in reality might one day happen.

As a good guide for first aid training, forget Senior First Aid, seriously what’s the point? In my opinion, it’s a complete waste of time and money that won’t really do anything more than train you in the most basic of first aid theories, which doesn’t prepare you very well for the real thing. Look for something like a Remote Area or Wilderness First Aid run by a reputable provided such as Remote Safety Solutions. It’s even better if it can be tailored to your specific areas of operation. It’s well worth the time and effort to do this. You and your organisation will be far better prepared if something does happen.