Taking stock of our lives

I was sent this reflection during the week and it struck a chord with me, I hope there is something in here for you.

Once upon a time, an ancient story tells us, the master had a visitor who came to inquire about Zen. But instead of listening, the visitor kept talking about his own concerns and giving his own thoughts. After a while, the master served tea. He poured tea into his visitor’s cup until it was full and then he kept on pouring.
 
Finally, the visitor could not bear it any longer, “Don’t you see that my cup is full?” he said. “It’s not possible to get anymore in.”
 
“Just so,” the master said, stopping at last. “And like this cup, you are filled with your own ideas. How can you expect me to give you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”
 
Lent is the process of emptying our cups. Lent is a time for trimming the soul and scraping the sludge off a life turned slipshod. Lent is about taking stock of time, even religious time. Lent is about exercising the control that enables us to say no to ourselves so that when life turns hard of its own accord, we have the spiritual stamina to say yes to its twists and turns with faith and with hope.
 
Lent is the time to make new efforts to be what we say we want to be. We applaud the concept in most things. We know, for instance, that even people who were married years ago have to keep working at the marriage consciously and intently every year thereafter, or the marriage will fail no matter how established it seems. We know that people who own businesses take inventories and evaluations every year or the business fails. We too often fail to realize, however, that people who say that they want to find God in life have to work every day to bring that Presence into focus, or the Presence will elude them no matter how present it is in theory.

from The Rule of Benedict: A Spirituality for the 21st Century (Crossroad) by Joan Chittister.

Professional Learning

At the Parent Information evening at the beginning of the term I shared the Trinity Professional Learning Plan. You may remember this diagram:

The diagram represents what we will be focusing on this year. Each week we meet to learn and implement best practice based on our Annual improvement Plan. Over the next five weeks I will take each of the areas of learning and share some understandings that will help you as parents and carers to understand why these people and why these strategies.

Firstly Rosenshine

Who is Rosenshine? Barak Rosenshine was a history teacher who gained a PHD in Education in 1963, he continued his career at Illinois University.

What was his area of interest? At the University of Illinois Rosenshine taught Educational Psychology, wrote many papers about teacher performance, direct instruction and strategies based on cognitive science.  

When did he first publish Instructional Principles? In 1982 and 1986, after reviewing previous research, Robert Stevens and Rosenshine, published their first instructional functions.

Was that the end? Rosenshine did not think his work was finished, his intention was to create a guide, knowing the research for teacher’s was excessive.

What next? In a paper published in 2010 by International Academy of Education, Rosenshine expanded on his 6 original instructional functions. These 17 principles were based on research in cognitive science, research on the classroom practices of master teachers, research on cognitive support to help students learn complex tasks.

And then? In 2012 Rosenshine simplified the list of principles from 17 to a manageable 10, which are the ten Trinity Catholic Primary School are promoting as best practise.

Begin the lesson with a review of previous learning.

Present new material in small steps.

Ask a large number of questions to all students.

Provide models and worked examples.

Practise using the new material.

Check for understanding frequently and correct errors.

Obtain a high success rate.

Provide scaffolds for difficult tasks.

Independent practice.

Monthly and weekly reviews.

Who Am I? (Just for Community Fun, open to everyone)

If you would like to join in the Who Am I? game, simply write your name on a piece of paper, record your answer to the clues below and place your piece of paper in the Who Am I? box in the Front Office.

Each week at awards our Library Minister will pull a name out of the box. If the answer on the piece of paper is correct the person will receive a small vote of congratulations.

Here is this week’s Who Am I?:

I have lived overseas

My favourite colour is blue

I love animals and own a mischievous kitten

I have a Beary good class at Trinity

Mrs Perryman’s highlights for the week

Last week’s K-2 Open House was a tremendous celebration of learning. I left the Hall feeling very proud of every little poppet. As I was basking in their glory, Grace Metcalfe from 5/6 walked over to Henry, who had just sang, danced and read at his first Open House, placed her arm around him and said “Well done Henry, you read so well”

What a beautiful community we have.

My door is always open to each of you. God bless

Caz Perryman

Acting Principal