Conference-d Out!

Wow. Awesome experiences this last week. SO lucky I was able to go to both the PPTA Maori Teacher's Conference and the NZATE English Teachers Conference - and also lucky that both were in Rotorua this year :)

Update to come...

Just writing up some thoughts for the presentation tomorrow at CLESOL.

Oh and... I won the First Time Presenter's award. Wow. So humbled and honoured.

To explain the awesomeness... here are the links for the Storify's from the conferences I attended this week past.

PPTA Maori Teachers Conference - #huarahi14
https://storify.com/ariaporo22/ppta-maori-teacher-s-conference-huarahi-maori-motu

NZATE English Teachers Conference - #NZATE #MythandMagic14
https://storify.com/ariaporo22/nzate-conference-2014-nzate

CLESOL Community Languages and English as a Second Language - TeachMeetNZ Session
https://storify.com/MsBeenz/teach-meet-nz

Update: 27th July 2014

During the holidays, I attended four conferences, presented at two.

PPTA Māori Teacher's Conference 2014

When? 6th-8th July 2014
Where? Sudima Hotel, Rotorua
Cost? Generously paid by my Region as the Establishing Teacher Representative

This was my first ever Māori teacher's conference and it was absolutely amazing. I learnt so much, met so many amazing people, was blessed by the advice and offers of guidance and mentoring by so many new friends and leaders.

The Keynote speakers were amazing:
* Dr Selwyn Katene
* Tu Toa Kura
* Mana Potential Model by Angeline Greensil?
* Te Ururoa Flavell
* Hekia Parata

Dr Selwyn Katene was easily my favourite. Not only is he related to us, but he taught us about leadership and the many rangatira we once had and how the different styles and theories of leadership truly make an impact on us as we lead ourselves, our kura and our students.

He talked about the 19th and 20th century Māori leaders and how they affected their respective areas for example:

The theories he mentioned and discussed were:

The leader I most want to aspire to be like from the theories and leaders he mentioned are:

Tu Toa kura is run by ... who has literally worked his way from a sports... to creating a school for sports down in the Manawatu area for Māori kids. He talked about having... as his mentor and of the way that ... went to schools around Romania to try and find gymnasts for his Romanian Gym club - on being escorted out by the security guards at one school - he saw two girls doing cartwheels and asked them whether they went to his testing session - and they said they didn't because they weren't allowed. He asked them if they wanted to come along to his gym and have a go at gymnastics. One of those girls was Nadia...

... mentioned this to highlight the fact that if our students aren't being given the opportunity for success, how can they possibly succeed? ..

He then talked about his journey into tennis with his whanau and the talk he had with Te Atairaangikahu about the importance of bringing tennis back to our Māori people as it used to be a prominant sport for us - even with grass courts back in the day.

He talked about his journey in creating the indoor tennis dome facility where he could train his own and the Tu Toa kids in tennis regardless of the weather. Rhe story he described of the Japanese businessmen's approval and admiration of the dome was incredibly inspiring - and of course funny at the end: ...

He also told us of the school he then created as an addition to his own house and now has become increasingly large. He discussed the statistics and results and while yes they looked good, he said that he had a conversation with one woman.. about the internal assessments which made him re-think when he found out that his kids and the others at the school were being dripfed rather than assessed properly. He was told by the lady to make sure his students are going for the external assessments and that the quality of those is more important than the internal assessments. This korero has stuck in my head for three weeks now. Important!

We were lucky enough to learn about the Mana Potential Model

Te Ururoa Flavell was hilarious. He asked us for a volunteer and we all voted and chose Johnny Waititi - there are some great pics on the Storify of him and Te Ururoa laughing and going through the skit on how parliament and the government works and how the policies are made and why it's important to be enrolled for the next election.

He said that he could have stood there talking about the Māori party but chose instead to inform us more indepth about how parliament works, how the seats are chosen and the enrolment and voting process etc.

Of course he did it in the best way possible - leaving us all in stitches of laughter and tears from crying so hard at Johnny's responses he had to say as part of the skit. Crack up!

The panels were equally amazing:
* The Rangatahi (youth) Panel
* The Experienced Teacher's Panel

The workshops I went to were great:
* Mana Potential Model
* E-Learning and Flipped Learning by
*

NZATE English Teachers Conference 2014
'Myth and Magic'

Workshop Presentation: 'The Twittersphere' or my new title 'Using Twitter as a Teacher'

When? 9th -11th July 2014
Where? John Paul College, Rotorua
Cost? Paid by my English department and school :)

CLESOL Community Languages and English as a Second Language
TeachMeetNZ Session - via Google Hangouts on 'Maori as Achievers'

When? 12th July, 11am?
Where? Victoria University, Wellington

ConnectED14