Claire Amos

Introducing PPSTACK! The last few days (and weeks) has had me reflecting on many things: what did it expose in terms of social and digital divides; what did it expose in terms of school systems and leaders and their agility and agency; what have we learned from teaching and learning over lockdown, and what do we need to change moving forward so as to harness the opportunities and how do we ensure change we introduce is effective? Time and time again I found myself wondering what our recent experiences would have been like had the government of the day taken up the recommendations of Nikki Kaye's 21st Century Learning Reference Group? This was a group I was lucky to be part of back in 2013-2014 and as a group we came up with the report Future-Focused Learning Connected Communities which recommended the following: Commit to meeting the needs of 21st century learners Achieve equitable access to digital devices for every learner Invest in people and innovation Create fu...

Next week marks my 20th anniversary as an educator. In 1998 I began my teaching career as an English and Drama teacher at Rangitoto College. Twenty years and I still freakin' love this job and really do struggle to understand why more people are fighting to join us in what I believe is one of the most rewarding, challenging and bloody entertaining jobs and careers you can have. I also promised my critical friend Steve Mouldey that I would begin blogging again. His word/theme for the year is #optimistic , I've decided my word/theme for the year is #positivity. To this end I thought I'd celebrate my 20th teaching anniversary with a blog about the twenty reasons I believe teaching and education is the best career choice ever. 1) What we do is important There is no question. Being a teaching is one of the most important roles in our community. We are not only fantastic caretakers and babysitters for much of the year, we are also trusted to provide young people with the kn...