The conference logo - seen to the right - was designed specifically for the conference by Patricia Ansell Dodds, a local indigenous artist. It shows eight groups of people (a group from each of the eight states and territories) meeting in a central place - a fitting symbol for the national conference.

Click here to open a photo gallery from the conference.

These are Notes from the Keynote Sessions that are available from the conference - click on the link to go direct to the notes for that session:

• William Spady - Learning, Leading and Living Outside the Box: Compelling Insights from Transformational Research.
• Michael Lapsley - Learnings about Leadership from My Life Experiences.
• Nancy Schupelius - NEXT ... You Already Have What You Need.
• Karen Boyes - The Many Ways The Brain Learns and Remembers.
• Karen Boyes - Creating a Culture of Mindfulness with the Habits of Mind.
• Karmi Sceney - Indigenous Education. 

Session 1 – Dr William Spady:

Click on these links to download Dr Spady's papers and notes:

• Workshop Notes (109Kb MSWord file). 
• Slides (409Kb pdf file).
• His African paper (365Kb pdf file).

• "Will share my ideas from the past decade or so with you. Plus some new work."
• It’s all about paradigms. Paradigms are the patterns / beliefs / filters that we use to view / interpret what we experience and see. These viewpoints / interpretations are our soul’s window on the world and its powerful definition of Reality … what we hold to be true, good, beautiful, and possible. Paradigm blindness strikes when we can not see or accept things that differ from this fixed reality.
• We all have our own view of reality. It becomes the definer of everything we say we value.
• Education has its own defined system and paradigm. There are some very exciting possibilities that lie beyond the self-contained paradigm that we call ‘school’.
• Refer to the paper called "Total Leaders for Africa" - available at the bottom of this page. You can replace ‘african’ with ‘aboriginal’. They have something that we have lost.
• The Untity Empowerment Trust’s Paradigm-Shifting Approach – outlined in that paper. The left side shows the model in which the critics of our systems’ approach are entrenched. On the right are the elements of the model with which we work in the Trust.
• When we throw out the phrase “We are all one” – how big is your concept of “we”? Is it limited by race or creed, or colour? We need to enlarge our definition of “we” and model it for the rest of the world. We are shapers of the future, and we need to model it for the young people.
• See-saw diagram in the keynote handout (pdf file) – there are 5 paradigms of leadership … “how we lead is how we learn is how we live”. Who we are is how we do these things.
• The diagram shows an evolutionary framework of education paradigms - from an academic standards model to a performance-based model to a life performance model to a personal empowerment model to an inner realisation model.
• Step 1 = Spady calls (academic standards) content learning one-dimensional learning – it's all about cognitive mental processing. This is one small piece of the total mosaic of what it means to be a human being. Yes, we need content, but does the content we encounter in life really get packaged in school subjects, or is the life-content get framed in a different way, not subjects.
• We have reinforced that academic standards paradigm for so long that we have convinced ourselves and the parents.
• Step 2 = If we move up one step to a performance-based model, we see that people can actually do something with the content. So we need the content, and we need the skills (verbs) to use the content. OBE is a threat to traditional education only because it adds an extra dimension – adds the dimension of doing something with the content.
• Step 3 = the life performance model = what do real people do in their lives to be successful? That can’t be found in books and can’t be measured by tests. They are role performers. It’s about what you can do with subjects and skills when you work in the real world in real jobs with real life problems and situations. In this model, we started to describe educational outcomes not in terms of content or skills, but in terms of human beings (a radical idea for many). We moved from what should they know and what skills they should have to what kind if human beings do we want to send out the door = what is our big purpose?
• Step 4 = the personal empowerment model = empowering the learner to be who the learner is, not who the syllabus developers think they should be. People have diversity and difference, different aptitudes, etc = how do we honour who they are, and really cultivate and develop who they are?
• Step 5 = the inner realisation model = what can we do to truly tap the deep consciousness and capability in human beings, the young people in front of us? What are the ones who hate school the most telling us?
• He built a school in South Africa with Year 10+ age young people who hated school but discovered that they loved learning.
• There is a parallel set of leadership models – how you lead will determine how they learn:
• Step 1 = managerial.
  Step 2 = technical.
  Step 3 = strategic.
  Step 4 = empowering.
  Step 5 = transformational.
• Lesson 1 = leaders lead. Leaders are out front taking risks and charting new territory. They lead by example. They are decisive and they don’t ask permission to act. Their declaration of legitimacy is: “Follow me!” Most important book in the past year or two is “The One Thing You Need To Know” by Marcus Buckingham = what is the real essence of management? + what is the real essence of leadership + what do you need to do if you really want fulfillment in your life?
• Lesson 2 = leaders lead change while administrators manage the status quo. Leading productive change requires total leaders because leadership and change are inseparable. 5 critical conditions: purpose, vision, ownership, capacity, support.  Leadership is not for the timid. Not all change is created equal – differences in kinds, levels and qualities in what we call change.
• Change can be cosmetic, procedural, programmatic, technical, structural, cultural, paradigmatic, transformational. Harder as you go (along) the list. Systemic change is all of these.
• Lesson 3 = leaders are lead learners. They are serious students of their profession and the unfolding future their organisation faces. They closely study the shifts and trends that are shaping that future and anticipate changes before they happen. They educate their people to its emerging challenges, possibilities and opportunities. They must be the lead mentor and lead learner.
• Lesson 4 = leaders go where others fear to tread. They are open-system, both thinkers and actors. They see possibilities and opportunities where others experience threat. Leaders create the reality they want to experience. Others shun the unfamiliar and cling to the seeming safety of the either/or, true/false, good/bad, possible/impossible paradigm box they call ‘reality”.
• Lesson 5 = education leaders face massive institutional inertia. This inertia is an ”in the box” paradigm 12 layers deep down in the institution that we call “educentrism”. This is the closed-system perspective that has been legalized for ages.
• There are in fact 11 layers of boxes = see handout. Example: credentialing = he who controls the credentialing system controls the society. We have convinced ourselves that we can’t survive without credentials to be anybody in society. Education has become a credentialing factory, and now the politicians want to get control of that = Federal testing programs.
• The new paradigm research realities. Learners and life. See diagram A. Using the elements in the diagram, we would never build the schools we have today.
• How many intelligences are there? Howard Gardnier says 8 – but they are only those that he found in his research that are processed in a specific brain area. Spady thinks that there are 25. IQ is a very narrow subset of the 25. What we want to cultivate in young people goes way beyond the narrow curriculum view of the world.
• Natural learning occurs every day in life. It thrives when 5 conditions coalesce: learner curiosity, learner control, learning connections, learning challenge, and learning context. The 5 Cs (see handout). Fundamentals of human learning. 3 or 4 words under each C.
• It’s all about meaning. If it does not have meaning to us, it gets dismissed.
• Significant future conditions: harried individuals in an age of continuous discovery; transformational technologies; high quality and low cost, global marketplace; the adept and nimble hold sway; entrepreneurship supercedes bureaucracy; clash of cultural paradigms (around our spiritual essence); elevation of human consciousness (going on right now). (Schwan and Spady: “The Future Is Now” themes).
• We are a very boxed-in enterprise – politically, traditionally (through our own learning). Encourage you to step up, step in, as an individual and as an organisation.

Session 2 – Michael Lapsley:

• He started the session by appreciating the work of school leaders and their contribution to building the communities and the nation.
• He was enchanted by the conference theme of missionaries, mercenaries and misfits, and by the theme of “venture in to new territory”. Which of the 3 is he – or a bit of all 3?
• Alice Springs is a frontier town between indigenous people and those who came from other lands.
• He wanted to talk about his learnings about leadership from his life experience.
• He was born in New Zealand. His first experience of leadership was from his parents – they allowed all 7 children to be all different people. He trained as an Anglican minister and then joined the Society of the Sacred Mission. Did not meet any indigenous people when he was young. Dealing with racism was not part of his training. Went to South Africa in 1973 – at the height of the apartheid period. He stopped being a human being and became a white man – skin colour determined almost all his behaviour.
• What would you have done as a teacher or principal at that time? What would you have said when your students were beaten and shot in the school grounds.
• For every $1 spent on black children, $10 was spent on white children. There was a special education system for blacks. Neither colour was taught to think critically. History books were written especially for the country; other books were banned. Mandela said: “Most books available outside SA are banned in SA” – the government printed a new list of the banned books each week.
• History is always written from the perspective of the dominators, not the dominated. How has it been written in Australia?
• He went to Lesotho when he was expelled from South Africa - Lesotho is a tiny country entirely surrounded by South Africa. He studied at the University of Lesotho. There was one other white student – the daughter of a professor. The other students helped him to rehumanise – through the spirit of Ubuntu – you are a person through other people. In the West, we use Descartes “I think, therefore I am” = spirit of the individual. Ubuntu = generosity of the human spirit, of belonging, of community, of relationship = “I am because you are”.
•  "It is difficult today for any of us to really imagine what apartheid was like. The apartheid regime was not characterised by ubuntu, but rather was it was an option for death carried out in the name of the gospel of life.
• "Under apartheid, every black person suffered, and every white person benefited.
• "Apartheid affected every aspect of human life. Of course, like all struggles, there were some among the oppressed who were co-opted to assist in the oppression of their fellow human beings. Just as there were some white people who made common cause with oppressed black people - realising that their own freedom could not be separated from the freedom of black people.
• "I was expelled from South Africa in 1976, shortly after the Soweto uprising, the point which school children became the major victims of apartheid and also went into the forefront of the struggle for freedom. When I was expelled from South Africa, I went to live in Lesotho. Now I know you are all educators, and I am sure none of you are geographically challenged, so therefore you will know that Lesotho is a small African country completely surrounded by South Africa. I became a student at the national University of Lesotho. There was at that time one other white student, the daughter of a professor. I felt when I left South Africa that apartheid had robbed me of my humanity - it had turned me into an oppressor.
• "My fellow African students through their display of ubuntu -- began my process of rehumanisation.
• "Even during our long and bitter and costly liberation struggle, there were extraordinary examples of ubuntu. I always remember an article . . . in fact, not an article, a poem in the magazine of the military wing of the ANC, Umkhonto we Sizwe. A young black freedom fighter wrote this poem about the sadness he felt for young white conscripts dying to defend apartheid. You expect a soldier to be writing about his hatred for the enemy, not of his understanding of the enemy's common humanity and the tragedy of the loss of life.
• "In a spirit of ubuntu, the liberation movement put before the country a vision of a common society. This was encapsulated in the opening words of the Freedom Charter: "South Africa belongs to all who live in it," and in the clause - in terms of what we longed for - "There shall be Peace and Friendship." And so ubuntu was demonstrated not so much in what the freedom fighters fought against but rather in what we fought for. As Nelson Mandela asserted in his famous speech from the dock:
  • "I have fought against white domination. I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons can live together with equality. This is an ideal which I hope to live to achieve, but if necessary it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."
• "27 years later he continued:
  • "As I was saying. . ."
• "When Nelson Mandela became our first democratically elected president, he said to us all at his inauguration:
  • "Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another and suffer the indignity of being the skunk of the world."
• "When democracy finally triumphed in South Africa, we were faced with two giant questions:
  • How do we build a new society - meeting the basic needs of our people?
  • How do we deal with the past - with what we had done to one another? What would be the bridge between the old order and the new order.
• "Again we turned to the values of ubuntu. As the postlude to our interim constitution stated:
• "This constitution provides a historic bridge between the past of a deeply divided society, characterised by strife, conflict, untold suffering and injustice, and a future founded on the recognition of human rights, democracy and peaceful co-existence, the development of opportunities for all South Africans, irrespective of colour, race, class, belief or sex. The pursuit of national unity, the well-being of all South African citizens and peace, requires reconciliation between the people of South Africa and the reconstruction of society. The adoption of this constitution lays a secure foundation for the people of South Africa to transcend the divisions and strife of the past, which generated gross violations of human rights, the transgression of humanitarian principles and violent conflicts, and a legacy of hatred, fear, guilt and revenge. These can now be addressed on the basis that there is a need for understanding but not for vengeance, a need for reparation but not for retaliation, a need for ubuntu but not for victimisation."
• "As South Africans we will live together for ever. We needed to act in a way that would bring peace and not war to our children and grandchildren. We needed to live for understanding, not for vengeance, for ubuntu and not for victimisation.
• "One of the tools we used to deal with our past was our Truth and Reconciliation Commission headed by Archbishop Tutu. Our Truth Commission, or TRC as we called it, provided a platform for hearing stories of those who themselves or their loved ones had suffered most grievously. Indeed, more than 23,000 people came forward to tell their stories, but I want to highlight just two stories that in a particular way encapsulate ubuntu As it happens, they both involve white women.
• "One woman, Beth Savage, had suffered grievously as a result of an attack by a group from the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania. Even when she spoke to the Truth Commission she was still scarred permanently as a consequence of what she had experienced. Very extraordinarily, she said to the commission that she had gained through the experience and the journey she travelled. She said she longed to meet the person who had thrown the grenade that injured her because she said that she wanted to meet that person in the spirit of forgiveness so that she could ask him to forgive her for anything she had done in her life that led him to act the way he had.
• The other is the story of Amy Biehl, a young white American student who was killed by a crowd of very angry young black people. Her parents came to South Africa and they came to the amnesty hearing where the young men responsible for her death were seeking amnesty. They said as parents, yes of course they dearly loved their daughter who they continued to miss terribly, but they supported that these young men get amnesty. They went further. They started an organisation, The Amy Biehl Foundation, and today they employ a couple of the young men responsible for the death of their daughter.
• "But let me return briefly to my own story.
• "In April of 1990, three months after Nelson Mandela was released from prison, on the eve of our first negotiations, I received in the post two religious magazines. They were posted to my home in Zimbabwe where I was living at the time. When I opened the magazines, they exploded and so I lost both my hands an eye, my eardrums were shattered and many other injuries, and yet I felt the presence of God with me. (He also said: "I was hospitalised in Australia, but NZ paid the bill.")
• He also lost his sense of smell. A Professor of medicine told him that either it would come back or it would not – he was right.
• "I had become a focus of evil. In the response of people around the world, I received messages of prayer, love, support and encouragement from people of faith, from people of goodwill all over the world. A focus of all that is beautiful and kind and generous and compassionate in the human family. I know what ubuntu is because I received it to a greater degree than many human beings have.
• "But it was through disability that I came to understand ubuntu in a deeper way . . . as a person with major disability there are things that I cannot now do I need other people for me to be fully human, which is of cause at the heart of ubuntu.
• "A person is a person through other people."
• "I am because we are."
• "Today, I am involved in an Institute for Healing of Memories. I travel the world listening to the pain of the human family. Just as the peoples of the world walked besides me on my journey to healing and wholeness so I too try to practice ubuntu by creating safe spaces where hurting people can share what is inside them so they too can walk away from victimhood, not simply being survivors but becoming victors.
• "But what of you gathered here today. What does ubuntu mean to you?
• "I believe that one of the greatest examples of ubuntu were the largest demonstrations the world had ever seen in the run up to that horrible war in Iraq. The human family said in greater numbers than it had ever done that we can live together, war is not the way. Unfortunately, Bush, Blair and Howard took no notice.
• He now travels the world listening to the pain of the human family. He tries to practise Ubuntu by creating safe spaces where suffering people can share their pain and their stories.
• Facing History and Facing Ourselves – one of his programs for young people in South Africa – what happened in South Africa - their country - and why did it happen?
• Sees the importance of feelings in his work. Listened to people in old age tell of things that happened in their young lives – they had no “safe place” at home or at school.
• Not only need to stop the bullying, but also to understand why some people become bullies.
• Restorative processes replacing punitive processes.
• Throwing money at a problem does not always solve it. Need for sustained funding of what works. Need to listen to the depth of pain that many indigenous people feel. Need to accept the depth of the spiritual despair that many indigenous people feel, not just work on the economic base.
• You are here as leaders of schools, as “formaters” of a new generation. You need to be role models for the young people in your care, and also by putting before them role models from diverse backgrounds. They will be changed by the people they meet, so set up those meetings for them.
• Listen to the voice of the young. Value them for themselves – from all backgrounds.
• In a world where fundamentalists of all types use violence for their own purposes, hope that young people learn from and value all the different cultures / religions.
• "When you look at me, what do you see?"

Session 2 – Nancy Schupelius:

• Where do our ideas come from? What are our brains doing? Where does our learning come from? This is our stock in trade. But our thinking is constrained much of the time. (Slide 1)
• We need to know how to find different ways of thinking and ways of making a difference.
• The notion of “NEXT” is a critical theme. We live by this = “do something next!” but she is more interested in a softer “next” – where does our next idea come from? We already have what we need.
• Thomas Paine quote: (Slide 10)
  • "There are two distinct classes of what are called thoughts: those that we produce in ourselves by reflection and the act of thinking and those that bolt into the mind of their own accord."
• She is interested in both his classes of thought.
• Slides 12 -14: she asks some big questions: “is it butt naked or buck naked?” could be either. Are you a chucker or a hoarder? Are you a lover or a fighter?
• Slides 15 - 17: What is the frame for thinking about the way you think and learn?
• What happens when leaders: 1 - have nothing to do? and 2 - own a sharp knife? and 3 - own a patient cat? and 4 - have a large lime? and 5 - drink too much tequila?
• See slide 20 for the answer!!
• Where do your ideas come from? (Slide 21)
• Slide 22: is your life like this? – a tangled web. Slide 23: Are you normal? Slide 24: Get the idea that little things make a difference. Get different ideas – what is really inside the sun? (Slide 25); ant and knees (different viewpoint on Silde 26); “I have to disagree” (Slide 27); and the universal remote control on Slide 28. Then look at Slide 29: "What? You too? I thought that I was the only one!" (C.SLewis)
• She then talked about Malcolm Gladwell and his book "Blink". Slide – don’t think … blink. How we think without thinking, … Trying to work things out in a rational way does not always work. Often more about what your gut reaction is. Slides 31 - 36.
• His first book was "The Tipping Point". Insights in human behaviour, neurosciences, and new thinking.
• How does this connect with leadership? And leading learning? It happens without us realising it is happening. The “Whew!” moment – it worked! (Slide 37)
• Most of the time we are working from instinct – the soft pathways work.
• If you think too hard about things, you can’t explain what it really is. Not a linear process of explaining our thinking. Once you start to try to explain these things, it either becomes obvious or wrong.
• Einstein – "Imagination is more important than knowledge." (Slide 40)
• Alice (Lewis Carroll) quote. (Slide 41) "
  • "There is no use trying," said Alice. "One can't believe impossible things." "I dare say you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
• Slide 43: How do you know when you are flying over Africa?
• Slide 44: Meg Wheatley: "Try to be more curious than certain."
• Slide 46: Think differently about solutions.
• She then did the Scrambled Sentences exercise with the audience. Make a sentence out of each line of words on Slide 50 by leaving out 1 of the words. It's about the ways people use to influence each other’s thinking. At least 1 word in each line that gives the idea of old or aging or past-their-use-by-date (does not really matter what the rest of the words are. Example of these sugegstive words: Worried, Florida, silently, old, watches, lonely, gray, forgetful, bingo, wrinkle. People come out of this exercise feeling older – can change the words them to make people more spiritual or mare angry or .... So you need to be careful about the words that you choose to use with people – e.g. in newsletter, daily notices.
• Next – you already have what you need!
• Video clip with no sound (not available here). Focus on the white team and count the number of times that the basketball gets passed back and forth. What else happened? Gorilla walked through! So what are we missing when we concentrate on something else – and does it matter? What would happen if we are distracted? Did you feel stupid if you did not see the gorilla – we are supposed to be all-seeing. Can’t focus on everything, so we have to focus selectively – on a  few selected things, often selected unconsciously.
  • "...In one study, perceivers are asked to watch a video tape of a basketball game and they are asked to count the number of times one team takes possession of the ball. During the film clip, which lasts a few minutes, a person in a gorilla suit strolls onto the center of the court, turns and faces the audience and does a little jig. The gorilla then slowly walks off the court. The remarkable fact is that perceivers (including this author) do not notice the gorilla. This is an example of what has been called inattentional blindness..."
• You can view the clip by clicking here and going to the website of the authors of the study.
• Slides 54 to 62: what is your perception of the movement in the patterns?
• Slide 66: Far Side – tree cartoon. Slide 67: Dentist cartoon.
• Fast thinking and slow learning is a popular statement nowadays (Slide 69).
• Slide 70: The magioc of the way the cell works.
• Slides 71 to 73: What is going on in our brains?
• Slide 74: Perception - Toilet roll grater.
• Slides 75 to 78: What does the brain leave out or add in?
• Slide 79: Can you see the animal?
• Slide 82: Kanter quote  from “When giants learn to dance”.
  • "A century ago an engineer's slide rule symbolized exciting opportunities for the industrial age. Now, companies need new symbols for the global information era. I nominate the kaleidoscope, symbol of ever-changing patters and endless new possibilities, powered by human imagination."
• Slide 81 and 84 - Kaleidoscope. We prefer to stay with what is familiar.
• But
  • "Kaleidoscope thinking can be encouraged:Regular visits to other parts of the organisation and exchange of ideas. Trips to new places to experience things quite different from normal practice. Discussions with critics and challengers, or just those who hold a different world view, have different beliefs, make different assumptions. Trend-tracking by asking everyone what’s new, what’s changing. Reading outside your field as well as in it.  Attending conference on subject that are new and unfamiliar."
• Reflection - John Dewey.
  • "Reflection is a meaning-making process that moves a learner from one experience into the next with deeper understanding of its relationships with and connections to other experiences and ideas. It is the thread that makes continuity of learning possible, and ensures the progress of the individual and, ultimately, society. It is a means to essentially moral ends."
• Carol Rogers wrote:
  • "Reflection is a systematic, rigorous, disciplined way of thinking, with its roots in scientific inquiry. Reflection needs to happen in community, in interaction with others. Reflection requires attitudes that value the personal and intellectual growth of oneself and of others."
• Presence: Peter Senge’s new work. “We’ve come to believe …” slides (Slide 100 on).
  • "We’ve come to believe that the core capacity needed to access the field of the future is presence. We first thought of presence as being fully conscious and aware in the present moment.
• Then we began to appreciate presence as deep listening, of being open beyond one’s preconceptions and historical ways of making sense. We came to see the importance of letting go of old identities.
• Ultimately, we came to see all these aspects of presence as leading to a state of ‘letting come’, of consciously participating in a larger field for change. When this happens, the field shifts, and the forces shaping a situation can move from re-creating the past to manifesting or realising an emerging future." Peter Senge
• Shine:
  • "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate… Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, to be gorgeous, talented, and fabulous. Actually, who are you not to be?
  • …Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that others won’t feel insecure around you. We are born to make manifest the glory of God within us. And as we let our light shine, we consciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others." Marianne Williamson.
• Next??

Session 3 – Karen Boyes:

• Her website is here.
• Sometimes we need to let go of old habits – David A. Sousa – “How The Brain Learns” + “Creating An Effective Learning Environment”.
• 1. Primacy = first things. Your brain is designed to remember the very first things that happen (e.g. first time you drive a car, your first kiss). Tell them what they are going to learn. How can you keep recall at 90%? Student’s brain work totally differently from those of us adults over 25. How can we get transfer from short to long term memory? Also the first contact with your student can make a difference in the outcomes for the day. First contacts count.
• 2. Recency = last things. Anything that happens last, most recently. Much easier to remember what you did yesterday than what you did 5 weeks ago. So make the end of the day/lesson a run-down of what the students did that day. Create small gaps in the teaching/learning process that form down-time that gives the brain time to assimilate the new information/learning. (Allows your hippocampus to work in the gaps.) “Turn and discuss with your neighbour …” = gets the kinesthetic and auditory learners engaged. Dialogue helps you reach further into the brain to retrieve the needed information.
• 3. Repetition = the more the thing is repeated, the easier it is to remember – the thicker the myelination (the fatty substance that covers and protects nerves), the better chance there is of remembering. Rote learning works. Neuroplasticity = rewiring of the brain. In our day, it was reading and writing. Now, it is technology. Oldies are “digital immigrants” (we have digital as a second language = still print out an email to read it; still phone someone to tell them you have found a new website.) Kids now can multi-track.  Computer games teach kids a focus that we can never have.
• Information comes into the short term memory – stays there for 24 hours – if not processed within that time, it disappears – it is still there, but you lose access to it. So we must go over the content with our students. 1 day = 90% recall. In 3 days = 30% recall. Must then go over the information every week, month and every 6 months. So don’t teach anything important on Fridays. So the next lesson, say “what did we learn yesterday?” Good if they remember; if they are confused, the learning is lost. At any point of confusion, the brain stops.
• 4. Stands Out = make the information stand out through use of – novelty (e.g. dress-up to make a point); stories (e.g. “Chicken Soup for the Teacher’s Soul”; the stories have to have a relevant point);
• 5. Association = make the new learning relevant to their life = authentic contexts; teach for deep understanding. (Exercise = draw a circle or oval with 10 hooks on the outside; I will give you the inside word, then write down the first 10 words you associate with the word, and the word is “love”). Share with 3 others. Get a point if all 3 in the group have exactly the same word. Most groups had 0 in common. Highest was 4. Mis-association = look at the low level of congruence even with a word like “love”. Need for authentic assessment.
• 6. Chunking = cutting up the information into manageable bits. Adults = 7 bits at a time; kids = 2 or 3 at a time. The way your teachers teach right now, do your students come out with 400 bits of new information each year (200 days = 400 half days)? The way to increase learning is to slow down = cut down the coverage. (book – “In Pursuit of Slow”)
• 7. Visuals – key for students to learn. Keep the visuals for later reference. Visual and kinesthetic are the two main styles of learning in your classrooms. Teachers still use mainly auditory. “7 Habits of Highly Effective Families” – Covey.
• “The students you teach are more important than your content.” Covey said that you are not raising your children; you are raising your grand-children.
• Teaching is the only profession that allows every other profession to be possible. How exciting is it to be a leader of that profession? As Principals, your teachers deserve more of your attention than your students.

Session 4 - Karen Boyes - Concurrent Session:

• Did the 2 out of 3 statements right and 1 wrong test. Turned out about even across all 3 possibilities. (She told them three things about herself, two of which were wrong. They had to choose which one was wrong.)
• Habits of Mind are looking at the skills and dispositions that kids will need in the 21st century. (Art Costa gave her and 1 other person his lifetime’s work.)
• Basis for her session: What is thinking?
• Group work to define thinking. No common definition. Hers = “Thinking is when your mouth stays shut and your head keeps talking to itself.”
• How would you like your students to be as thinkers? What is it about your students that makes you think they need to learn how to think? What do you see them doing? What do you hear them saying? How are they feeling? How would you like them to be?
• Group work: Answer those questions.
• Need to ask your teachers these questions? At this time, in education, time of adding in. Need for “abandonment” (Pole?). Need to have a dialogue about what you want the students to look like when they leave your school? What does the ?? school learner look like? Need to get everyone moving towards the same goal.
• 1. Persistence = stick-it-ness – give them a basket of strategies – more than one way to solve a problem – need 3 ways for each problem. (e.g. Sir Edmund Hillary)
• 2. Managing Impulsivity = tell the kids: “In a moment, but not quite yet, …” Tells the brain to stop for a moment. It’s about wait-time. Average teacher waits only 1 second before answering it themselves or changing the question. Average should be 7 to 10 seconds.
• 3. Listening with Understanding and Empathy. Spend 55% of our time listening, but how often do we teach it? Teach them to question, clarifying questions. “The True Story of the Three Little Pigs” by A. Wolf. Don’t have to agree with the score, just understand why they got that score. (put piece of paper on forehead and then write your name and small picture of yourself – are you certain that you wrote your name around the right way? – the indecision about that is the way that dyslexic kids feel all the time – put yourself in their shoes).
• 4. Flexible thinking – part of De Bono’s work. Example; use the PMI method (Positive, Minus, Interesting) to get ideas from kids. Or De Bono’s 6 Thinking Hats – using them in sequence.
• 5. Metacognition = thinking about your thinking. What is going on inside your head? Know your knowing. Only half to 2/3 of people know what is going on inside their heads. Think-Aloud-Problem-Solving (TAPS). Asked group to answer “what is half of 2 + 2” and then asked what went on inside their heads when they heard the problem – lots of different answers. Then asked them to add 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9 – then asked them to compare strategies with their neighbours. Discussion helps to build up their basket of strategies.
• 6. Checking for Accuracy and Precision. Air Traffic Control or doctor must be 100% accurate 100% of the time. 21st century demands accuracy. So do C3B4ME – get 3 other people to sign off on the work before it is handed in. If there are still mistakes, make the checkers accountable. Give your teachers permission never to mark a book again – teachers have become the slaves of the kids in marking for accuracy – scan the page and, if there are 3 errors, write “there are 3 errors on this page” and give it back – kids are then responsible for their own accuracy.
• 7. Questioning & Problem Solving. Questions focus the brain. Find 10 things in the room that are red = then asked them to close their eyes and list the things that are green – could not do it, because the brain focuses on demand. Value the kids for the quality of questions that they ask. The quality of the questions is a sign of the quality of the teaching in the classroom.
• 8. Drawing on Past Knowledge and Applying It to New Situations. “To know and not to do is still not to know”.
• 9. Precision of Language and Thought. e.g. “Everyone has one” – everyone, everyone?? Labeling thinking skills and processes. e.g. Do they know the difference between “compare” (find all the similarities) and “contrast” (find all the differences). Let's look at these two pictures vs let’s compare these two pictures. The second uses the language of thinking. Also what do you think will happen when … vs what do you predict will happen when … .
• 10. Using All Our Senses. Must be engaging kids to use all their senses. Einstein = the best way to think was for him to walk and talk – at the same time. Also he said that “nothing happens without movement.”
• Top brain foods = blueberries, nuts, oily fish, broccoli, bananas, yoghurt, olive oil, wholegrain bread, spinach, tomatoes. Had the group touch a part of their bodies as they spoke the words aloud – worked down from the forehead to the toes.
• Schools with a strong Arts program (visual, kinesthetic, musical) will have a strong thinking program.
• 11. Creating, Innovating and Imagining. Creativity will be the difference in the 21st century. (They can make a robot to do everything except ironing.) If a detective is like chocolate, what are three characteristics of his personality? Sweet, dense, nutty, fruity, rich, melts under pressure, …
• 12. Wonderment and Awe. It is caught, not taught. Stop and see the beauty around us.
• 13. Responsible Risk Taking. Key for the future success. We expect the average in our society (only one place we don’t = our bedrooms!!). Beware the tall-poppy syndrome. If you fail, it’s OK to get up and try again. Build the right sort of environment.
• 14. Finding Humour. But there is no place in the classroom for sarcasm.
• 15. Thinking Interdependently. Individual roles but working in groups. Teamwork. Corporate world is being let down now – needs that teacher skills of getting people to work in groups. Natural leaders can not always lead well.
• 16. Remaining Open to Continuous Learning. Getting better at what you do. Read 1 personal development book per month.
• Then she came back to role models. Pick one and talk about which one you think the role model had to work on to make them the best they can be. Example: persistence.
• Why Habits of Mind? Transdisciplinary; as good for adults as they are for kids; focus on long range, enduring, essential learnings.
• Research shows that there are 4 habits of mind that are precursors to high academic success: persisting, managing impulsivity, accuracy, metacognition.
• “What you are speaks so loudly, they can’t hear what you say.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson) So modelling is most critical thing.
• “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” (Aristotle)
• "What if, in 500 years’ time, everyone in the world can follow the 16 habits of mind?" (Art De Costa)

Session 5 - Karmi Sceney:

• The role of the schools is to set a foundation for the future.
• NT Data:
  • 150 government schools, 118 outside Darwin and Alice Springs.
  • They cater for 68% of the indigenous students.
  • There are 68 homeland centres.
  • 40% of NT students are indigenous; 75% of those are ESL students – home communities do not have English as home language.
  • Enrolment overall stayed the same, with growing indigenous students.
  • 78% live in remote communities.
  • Non-government sector has 16% of students.
  • Growth in urban indigenous students – most by natural means, not drift.
  • Attendance is a major issue – not high enough, and variable.
  • Retention rates have improved, but still very low numbers – low compared with non-indigenous. 
  • Numbers achieving benchmarks – improving, but still very low. (Remote = outside Darwin; Very Remote = homelands).
  • NT Certificate of Education – 75 finish out of about 1000 starting.
• Closing the Gap:
• Remote Schools Services and Policies Plan – new plan for the next few years. Should have started 20 years ago – now have to accelerate the plan and its implementation.
• See the “wheel” slide.
• The gap won’t close by itself. Principals play a vital role – look at school practices. Mostly has not been a positive experience for most indigenous students. There are pockets of excellence at a school level. Need to have an investment model for the kids, not a deficit model.
• Action areas – see the two slides.
• Local School & Community Partnership Contracts – see the slide. Has relied on individual principals with commitment doing it on their own in the past. Now being formalised so that all parties know where they stand and what their roles and responsibilities are – government provides schools and teachers; parents undertake to send their kids to school; school undertakes to provide relevant, high quality education programs.
• “Play the Game, Not the Team” (Guus Hiddink) – ensuring that education is the main game – that is the role of the schools. All the other distractors (violence, alcohol, …) are just that – a distraction. So how do you focus on the education?
• So need to:
  • Have higher expectations of indigenous students – believe and demand. Work with parents and carers so that they also have high expectations.
  • Demand high quality – teachers, programs, principals, schools, community. So that kids can reach their full potential.
  • Make it all relevant and keep it real.
  • Hold yourself, and each other, accountable. Not only at the school but also among your peers.
  • Connect your school – to business, industry, parents, health services, etc. The school is not an island. Some schools appear to be an island in a sea of chaos and dysfunction. Needs to be done, even though difficult to sustain. Also about your courage to take on this role. And compassion and conviction.