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VT's FREE Newsletter for Educators - Insight, Inspiration and Ideas that work!
TOXIC Workplace - What a CATASTROPHE
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Welcome
Subscriber input
Anne's email(below) and support was great to receive. It's fabulous to get feedback and to know that the newsletter is hitting the right mark.
I loved Terry's contribution on Drama. I have looked at a number of his resources and they are terrific. Send in your votes for the best 3 and I will add them to the new Drama page.
I also had an email from a young teacher who found herself in a Toxic School Workplace Environment.
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Her colleagues,were openly critical, and gave no assistence or support. The were downright rude and destructive as well as being argumentative. THIS is no place for anyone, and makes everyone miserable. Identify it and change your Toxic Workplace.
The discussions on LinkedIn are continuing, please join in - it is a great forum. Take a look and add your thoughts.
More VT Supporters come on board thanks to Jane Forrest, Anne & Peter Grigg the latest supporters, I really appreciate this, supportthe good stuff. Thanks to all the folk who have purchased Maths Hammers, I would love some feedback on this eBook.
ciao
Cathy
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The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.
Linus Pauling, chemist, peace activist, author, educator; Nobel Prize in chemistry, Nobel Peace Prize
(1901-1994)
Afferbeck Lauder - Let's Talk "Strine"
Back in the mid 1960's Professor Afferbeck Lauder wrote Let Stalk Strine (Let's Talk Australian.)
It's popularity spawned a series of books and other Strine publishings including "Nose Tone Unturned" (No stone unturned)
For those too young to remember here are some Strineisms with translations.
It's a bit of a challenge to start with, but Ear Goze:-
- Let Stalk Strine - Let's Talk Australian
- Afferbeck Lauder - Alpabetical Order
- Emma Chisit? - How Much Is It?
- Bra Sharp - Brush Up
- Egg Nishner - Air Conditioner
- Egg Nishnin - Hair Conditioning
- Yerron Yerrone - You're on your own
- Saul-Write Few - It's All Right For You
- Warm-Eye Gonadoo - What am I going to do
- Anorl Erking Sauces, Anorl Erking Smen - A Line from Humpty Dumpty
And his Famous Song
With Air Chew
With air chew, with air chew
Iker nardly liver there chew,
An I dream a badger kisser snits and die.
Phoney wicked beer loan,
Jars-chewer, nonnair roan,
An we'd dreamer batter mooner pinner sky.
With air chew, with air chew,
Hair mike-owner liver there chew,
Wile yerrony immy dream sigh maulwye scrine.
Anna strewer seffner barf
Yuma snow-eye Nietzsche laugh.
Cars with air chew immy arm sit snow you Strine.
Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of the creative effort.
Theodore Roosevelt
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Toxic School Workplace Environment
What is it?
1. Widespread ANGER, FRUSTRATION and FEAR.
2. DYSFUNCTIONAl meetings
3. Overly RESTRICTIVE systems
4. NO trust
5. Folk are motivated by POWER, envy and greed.
6. Folk are unethical petty and MEAN-SPIRITED.
7. SCAPEGOATS are found and blamed
8. CRITICISM is common but praise is absent.
9. Catastrophizing and blame are common.
Toxic workplaces are on the increase due to extra stress in the workplace.
If your workplace is like this then use this button...
1. Folk TRUST the people they work for, they are respected and treated fairly.
2. They have PRIDE in what they do
3. Folk ENJOY the people they work with.
4. They treat each other as professionals
5. They acknowledge excellence, take an interest in their collegues educational experiences and difficulties, offering support or even discussion platforms to progress ideas issues or concerns.
6. They find solutions, share and don't catastrophise.
7. Teachers mentor one another and professional growth is encouraged.
The Code of the Netizens is also at play in a Fabulous School Environment - see the end of this newsletter.
You will love this. If you ever wanted to turn kids onto Shakespeare this is it. It covers relevance and rhythm in Shakespeare. Hand on my heart. This TEDX video is a must see. Maybe the whole curriculum can be put into Hip-Hop
Today just about anyone can make just about anything. A quick run down of some fabulous website
helping bring real world problems into classrooms. Leveraging the processes used in Design thinking. Check out their other videos at:
http://www.infinitethinking.org/
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Yes Google again - But this video ia really interesting and could be shown to everyone - concise and shows the power built into this search engine now. Infomation is becoming so much more accessible, its time we decided to accept that information can be aquired by students on their own, and that our job becomes mentoring and directing - HOW MUCH MORE EXCITING IS THAT.
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Brief History of Mathematics - BBC ![]() ![]()
Professor Marcus du Sautoy argues that mathematics isthe driving force behind modern science. Ten fifteen minute podcasts that reveal the personalities behind the calculations from Newton to the present day. How do these masters of abstraction find a role in the real world? Fabulous. You will love these.
Explore the rest of the BBC site for podcasts on Drama, Science, natural History etc. They are very good.
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Project Gutenberg to the rescue
Project Gutenberg offers over 42,000 free ebooks: choose among free epub books, free kindle books, download them or read them online.All our ebooks were previously published by bona fide publishers. They are digitized and diligently proofread them with the help of thousands of volunteers.
No fee or registration is required. As every parent, teacher and student knows, books that are required reading are not always available, or if they are, students may misplace their copy before they finish the assignment. You can search by title and author or browse their collection of classic works, many of which are available in audio editions as well.
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Hi Cathy
I have tried to make up a collection of website links that I have used over the years. I have checked all the links and deleted some which don’t work anymore (a common problem!!)
I need to emphasise the following:
1. Not all of the suggestions are necessarily mine, but I have gathered some of them from other people over time.
2. Drama activities and games are not just for drama teachers. They can be used by any teacher in any class.
3. Drama activities most often stimulate learning.
4. Drama is mostly about life skills: self-confidence, expression and team-work (and if that’s not what life is all about, tell me what is!!!!)
Hope we get some feedback from people, Cathy. I am always looking for new fresh ideas. Look forward to your next issue.
All the best
Terry Thompson
PS
The font is called Nosifer and is avaiable as a google font or free download from Fontsquirrel - it emanates a dark stench as it drips from the page like an old Horror Movie.
This a fabulous site lots of things to explore but I particularly like this page with the animated gifs that Explain how things work. A Zipper, Valves, Calipers, a Radial Engine, what a Tesseract(4D Cube) looks like etc. Lots of interesting things on the main site as well including some amazing images
 Prison Uniforms, 2007 10x23 feet in six vertical panels
Depicts 2.3 million folded prison uniforms, equal to the number of Americans incarcerated in 2005. The U.S. has the largest prison population of any country in the world. What is great about this is that you can zoom right in an see eachindividual uniform by clicking the mouse. Take a look at the other images on this "Running the Numbers" series as well. Like the Hundred million toothpicks or "Unsinkable"
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I do answer all emails so send them along with your questions ideas and great sites.
Hi Cathy
I subscribed to your newsletter when I was a classroom teacher and found it a constant source of inspiration for my classroom work and my leading teacher work.
I was so happy to see you back with us last year!
Your newsletter has always been passed on to colleagues, with a 'what about...?' statement.
Now I'm an assistant principal, I still pass it on AND I still gain an insight into what might be.....
Your sense of humour resonates with teachers- we really enjoyed the puns in today's newsletter!! In Victoria, with EBA negotiations still going on, a good laugh has been invaluable- thank you.
My purpose in the $ is to give you a little more opportunity to work your magic.
Take care.
Anne
Wow - thank you for your words and support.
I will continue with the magic, I have found it is the best teaching tool there is.
Hope Magic, Wonder and making everyone feel great and supported.
Please continue to send in comments and ideas and thoughts.
Hi Cathy
It goes without saying that the return of your VT newsletter is so refreshing and helpful. (But, just the same, I will say it!!!)
I use a lot of drama and drama games and activities in my teaching. Wonder if you could throw out there a suggestion for anyone who wishes to share ideas of drama activities that they have used that really work. I’d be happy to share some of mine.
Terry
Hi Terry,
Thanks for saying it. I do appreciate the encouragement. Let's do a feature on the drama side next issue. Send me in your best stuff and I will run it. Drama is magic in teaching. Creativity is exactly the spark kids need.
Looking forward to receiving you ideas.
Hi Cathy,
My name is Kathleen Bednar, and I am a math tutor in the San Jose area. I hope it's okay that I'm e-mailing you like this. I just wanted to say thank you for creating your page http://www.virtualteacher.com.au/maths.html because I have been using it a lot to help provide additional resources for my students. :)
I recently noticed that one of your links is broken Adrian Bruce's Fantastic Site. While researching, I found these other resources that might be of interest to you:
I’m sure they will be of great interest to your readership since I’ve found them helpful in keeping my students engaged and interested in learning math.
If you decide to link them, let me know! Hope you find them to be useful. :)
Best wishes,
Kathleen
Hi Kathleen,
I thanks for picking up the broken link it will be fixed on the next upload.
I have added the sites to VT Maths page. They are FREE and the pdf is a good read.
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Did you love the Air Chew, or was it the FIXIT button, what about Hip Hop Shakespeare, let me know which of Terry's drama links you love.
What great things are happening in your school, send them in and I'll feature them here. If you have any great links like Terrry - please send them in and I can do a spcial feature on them.
Any upgrading links or suggestions please send them in.
Tweet or email your answers. |
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This Newsletter is not free, despite the misleading advertising above. The Fee is now due. Each week you must help one colleague on the Internet who has less knowledge than you.Help that person even if you have to visit their classroom or do a little research and get back to them. Trust me, this will help a lot of people get their computer classrooms running better. OK I'm trusting you!!!
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1. GOT SOMETHING TO SAY - Send in your Questions, Questions will be published with Answers, send in your Answers, if you have expertise to share.
2. NOMINATE A BRILLIANT SITE for review and inclusion in this newsletter.
3. NOMINATE A FANTASTIC SCHOOL WEBSITE site for review and inclusion in this newsletter.
4. MAKE CONTACT with other schools using fantastic programs.
5. WRITE and innovative article for this newsletter.
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The opinions expressed here are purely those of the editor, Cathy Brown. All other small print clauses apply. Such as: Use at your own risk. Nothing in life is guaranteed. If it doesn't work for you send an email or tweet me.
Editor: Cathy Brown cathy@virtualteacher.com.au
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