Just for the record, all of what you find here, and in the other blogs in this series, is now available in fuller detail in my e-book Looking at Small Things. Go to this link to find out more about how to get the free low-resolution copy, or the cheap high-resolution version: I'm a professional writer, so I like selling books, but I'm also a professional educator, so I like sharing ideas.
There's a similar free or cheap deal on offer for my Playwiths ebook as well, and to see what else I have been doing (LOTS!), go to this link.
Announcing: some serious progress!
Links to previous parts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 and Part 6.
The drought has been due to the fact that I have been producing this guide for teachers, as a pro bono job.
I will, as indicated previously, be expanding this into a book on the arts of microscopy.
You can now see the fruits of my labours, though if you have read the previous six parts, you will have seen some of that already. Anyhow, we have released a draft document: Go Micro: Foundation to Stage 3.
This links interesting activities to the National Curriculum in Science, though there is one to the Maths curriculum as well.
I am an opinionated old secondary (and occasionally tertiary) teacher of matters biological, though when people asked me what I taught, my answer was always a bright "children!".
Over the years, I acquired a healthy distrust of theory, even as I was completing a Master's degree in Education. This work concentrated on measurement, evaluation and curriculum, and I still have a small private practice as a "fixer" of multiple-choice questions, here in NSW.
I became a bureaucrat, specialising in translating good theory into good practice, keeping the Head Office parasites away from the teachers, and that is still my position.
That is why I now, having acquired all of the papers I need to prove that I am retired, spend my time writing beautiful practical books for kids. Most of these relate to science, technology, Australia and history in various combinations.
I write for grownups as well, and I am a volunteer bush regenerator, doubling as the wrangler-of-first-resort for trapped possums, confused echidnas, snakes and redbacks. Venomous, sharp-toothed and spikeful animals are no threat to an old bureaucrat...
Clearly, my life lacks any real excitement, so I am also the 'visiting scientist' at a local primary school in a CSIRO volunteer program. My aim is to get my 500+ charges (Foundation to Year 6 in a bush setting) excited and inspired to go and look for themselves.
When an acquaintance told me about the Go Micro, I saw its possibilities right away, and started playing with the gadget, aided by two grandchildren. It worked, so I suggested using them in class to the primary teacher I work with, but a number of primary teachers advised me that they are required to link things to the National Curriculum.
For readers unfamiliar with the NC, here is a police artist's impression, prepared from the statements offered by the surviving victims.
Reminding the reader of my post-graduate qualifications in this area, the National Curriculum is, in my professional opinion, proof that a camel is a horse designed by a committee, the sort of committee that compares a camel with a horse by taking two camels and sawing the humps off one of them. (A quick nod to Lee J. Cronbach, who crafted that vision.)
The National Curriculum is a horrid, dull, uninspiring farrago that quacks when it should lead, and acts as ballast when it should be providing extra lift. No doubt it means well, but it does harm to the spirit. (I hope, dear reader. that you weren't a part of writing the NC, but I'm a risk-taker, and I warned you that I'm opinionated. And, you should be ashamed of yourself. So there!)
Many years ago, I was an observer/advisor to the NSW lower secondary science syllabus committee, and I became aware of the problem at Snake Gully Central School (not its real name, for obvious reasons). There, each year, there was one science teacher, and the idiots in Staffing sent out a new first-year-out teacher each year, to be the only science teacher in a small school, with no support, no guidance—and no hope.
In particular, the syllabus was deliberately "non-prescriptive", which meant it offered zero guidance or advice, and young teachers need just that. By mid-year, in three successive years, the new teacher had packed up and gone by the middle of the year, and the principal wrote an impassioned letter asking for a bit of common sense, which outraged the air-headed theorists.
Their theories were fine, but totally unrealistic; their doctrines were unworkable. I watched them, and went away to do what I could to get helpful ideas out there. I still care about turning theory into practice, and buried in the mess of the National Curriculum, there are some useful suggestions.
As a bureaucrat, I lurked in the interstices, and wriggled through the gaps, doing practical things among the inert and the fearful, making life easier for teachers, and so now, as Advanced Middle Age looms, I have set out, once again, to make life easier for teachers. It occurred to me that an old sweat knows the tricks of the trade, and has a duty to share those tricks before falling of the perch.
I am a private citizen, so nobody has to listen to me, and I certainly don't have to listen to the plastic trendoids who wrote the curriculum. So far, the clean draft of my guide is complete, up to Year 6, and I am now tackling Years 7 to 10.
Teachers, I believe that the format covers most of the things you need: if you have any thoughts for improvements or additions, I would welcome them. I have the time and the equipment to solve most challenges, but don't fear any copyright rubbish if you take one of my basic ideas and do something with it.
The Creative Commons copyright shown on my activities is Attribution, Non-commercial, Share Alike, but as I see it, the format is just a format, and not subject to copyright. Take the framework, and do your own thing!
Use it as you see fit, but if you see an essential aspect that needs to be added, please throw those thoughts to me, so I can do the heavy stuff.
It's time for Stone Soup, people.
Normal service will be resumed shortly.
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