About Me.

I have been a teacher for about 36 years.  I have only taught in two schools!  I have spent most of the time that I have been teaching, in the school that I am at now.  I also did my complete primary schooling at this school, so I its rather special to me.   I have seen many changes over the years, to both personel and the buildings.

I enjoy the teaching of Literacy best, although as a general primary school teacher I teach all subjects. Over time I have have taught all levels in the primary school.  In New Zealand a primary school goes from 5 year olds to 13 year olds generally.  Most of my teaching has been in the Year 4 to 8 levels. I did teach New Entrants and Year 1 for a few years.  I enjoyed it, especially seeing them learn to read. Loved that. However basically it isn't my scene, I prefer older students.  New Entrant teachers have my undying admiration.

In 1993 I returned to school from a year's sabbatical to find a couple of Mac computers in my classroom. I nearly died. They were a total mystery to me.  However in the next few years I began to work with them and came to value what we were able to do with them.

Now I have a number of PC computers in my classroom and would hate to think how I would get on without them.  I envy the classrooms around the world that have 1 to 1 correspondence of computers to students.

Two years ago I started a class blog, and I have loved that addition to our classroom.  Now some of the students have blogs and most of them enjoy them and as some of them moved on they were most concerned that they might lose their blogs.  No way!  The Edublog challenges have been very influential on my class blogging.  I have loved joining with many classes around the world on the learning journey.

I originally began blogging to publish student work.  Now I love it for the connections it brings with other classrooms and the learning and professional development opportunities it gives me.  Also it brings an added dimension to the sense of community in the classroom, as we visit each others blogs and leave comments or engage in other ways. A link to my classroom blog.  Miss T's Classroom
The reason I blog here? 
I want to reflect on my learning and teaching. 
Sometimes  the mere fact that I write here leads to further thinking on my practice, and where I might next go. 
Sometimes I share some experience because I want to savour it.
I love to celebrate my new learning and latest success, or my struggle!
By also joining the teacher blogging world I am able to share my experience and enter into dialogue with teachers whom I would never have the opportunity otherwise to to interact with.

When I'm not being a teacher?
I love to read.  And with the advent of ereaders its an even greater joy! I read  for relaxation and for professional development.
I enjoy watching sport on TV.
Walking.  Listening to audio books on my ipod.
Jigsaws.
Time with friends and family. Looking at little videos of my latest grand niece on Facebook!!
Card making.  (Not that I'm that talented, but its fun.)
And I spend far too much time on the internet, I believe.  That's why I am a little resistent to Twitter, I don't want to get any worse.

This is taken in front of our school.  In the 1950's. The school frontage has changed since then. Knocked down and a new one built.  I am the eldest in my family.  The one sitting down with the plaits.  This is the first six.  Four more were to come.

Taken at St Patricks in the '70's. My class slept over night in two classrooms.  We had saveloys for breakfast!  One of my students in that class, is now a colleague on staff.  She remembers the 'camp over' with nostalgia.



 

    Teaching at St Michaels, Lower Hutt, New Zealand in the early '80's.  These years were my New Entrant years.  In one year I had over 40 students in the class. Some of them did not speak English!  I taught here for four years.



 In the early '90's I had a year at Gonzaga University, Spokane, Washington.  It was a leadership one and a sabbatical year.  It was also my first experience of living in a little snow.

In 2004, I decided to complete my B.A. degree, I had started it while at Teacher's College at Wellington College of Education.  I also used to amble over to Victoria University.  When I phoned them in 2003 I was surprised to find out they still had me on record.  So one day a week after school I travelled in to Wellington and completed the degree.  To do that was very satisfying.  My parents, sister and close friend were there to share my graduation.

In 2009 I turned 60 and my niece Sonia gave me one of her beautiful paintings to put on my sun room wall.  Sonia also went to the school I teach at.  I never taught her though.