The Hippo in the room (apologies for the phonetic spelling)

Recently there have been a number of conversations that I have overheard, or taken part in, where I have stopped myself and trying to re-route my thoughts....

The best way I can explain why, and what I mean, is painting a picture of one of these conversations.

I had the privilege of sitting in a staff room somewhere in NZ at lunch time - probably the same image will pop into the minds of educators - groups of people huddled around tables, drinking tea or coffee, munching on their lunch and defragging the morning. The furniture is best described as "homely and worn in", the walls are covered in notices, posters from the education union, values, ERO reports, etc. The conversation behind me starts to gain my interest - a teacher who was bemoaning the lack of engagement of their students.

 "They just don't pay any attention when I am talking! They sit down the back of the class and play on their phones, then talk when I don't want them too. They just don't want to learn, and I have had enough! They need to be removed from my class, they are a waste of my time."

Interesting - me thinks. I wonder what they have tried to get these students more engaged....??

As I am lost in my thoughts about how I would possibly try to tackle this student in my own class the conversation moves on to the PLD session that is planned for the afternoon. The same teacher pipes up...

"Ah, I don't know why we are having this PLD session. I have no need for this rubbish. I'm just going to sit down the back and finish off my report writing...."

And it hits me.

How many times have I gotten annoyed by the behavior of other people, when I do EXACTLY that myself.  Man, I am ever a hippo-crite!!!!

https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2015/05/25/16/02/hippo-783522_1280.jpg
Under a CC0 licence https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en

This epiphany has made me reflect on my own hypocritical behaviors.  (I will admit to having a few....) And so, I have a new wero for the near future - to acknowledge my own "hippos" and prevent them from becoming out of hand - and also, when something/someone annoys me - ask first "do I do xxxxx as well? Why is this annoying me?" - just to make sure I am not being a hippo.

Do you have any hippos in your room?????

Whanau and Wero

I know we are now into March, but I have been thinking (perhaps OVER thinking) my "WORD" for the year, and in the end could not decide between two.

A lot has happened in life over this Summer - mainly personal stuff - but an awful amount of family stuff, both good and bad. Nothing brings out the best in whanau than weddings and funerals, aye?

Hence the decision to focus on WHANAU for the year. I am going to take the liberty to make my own definition of WHANAU for the purposes of my goals.  For me, WHANAU is much more than just my genetical relations (although, they certainly are front and centre around goals I am setting this year). To my mind I have many WHANAU - I have my work WHANAU, my extended WHANAU, my immediate WHANAU, my band WHANAU (who only came into my life late last year!), my Zumba Fitness WHANAU, my hoa WHANAU, and my edu WHANAU.
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Part of my goals this year is to make deliberate decisions to connect and spend quality time with all these elements of WHANAU. So far I have been successful - from playing lego with my nephews to catching up with cousins to attending #educampwelly to dancing at the first Zumba Master Class of 2017. to meeting old high school mates for breakfast.  It has felt AMAZING. Making a conscious decision to just "be" with people is fabulous. I highly recommend it.

And now that I have written this down... I better follow through!!

To my second kupu. WERO.  This year I want to challenge myself - and to be a challenger. I want to make the hard choice, not because it is hard, but because I know that I will learn more. I want to challenge others - in a respectful and non-threatening way (hopefully??) so I can learn more about other peoples points of view.

Success for this WERO? Feeling uncomfortable, asking questions and putting in the mahi. I think success here is going to be hard to quantify. Success might also look very different at the end of the year to what I think it will look like now. Is that a bad thing? I will have to do some more thinking around this!

So, my WHANAU, I am throwing down this WERO to myself. And if I fail, then I will reflect and re-evaluate. As you do.

What is your WERO for the year?