ABOUT ME - “Miss Anon”

 

1. What is your strongest area of expertise?

2. What issues would you most like to learn about? 

3. When it comes to the state of the world,

where do you feel the most urgent need for change?

Welcome to my new blog. 

Kia Ora!

Chances are you’ve landed here because, like me, you are a New Zealand teacher embarking on a Structured Literacy journey, or curious about taking your first tentative steps.

Perhaps you are a parent or a school leader and are interested in ‘walking in my shoes’ for a while, to see things from another perspective. Welcome to you, too.

First, I’ll address the photo snips above. When I started thinking about blogging, I landed on pages that wanted to show me how to monetise my writing efforts.

So to clear that up, do I have any conflicts of interest? Am I trying to sell you something? Well, no. I am already paid a regular wage as a teacher in a state school. I have no other business at present, though in the future I might become a literacy coach or a private tutor in that far-off land called ‘semi-retirement’. 

Instead, I started this blog by seeking guidance on how to be a social activist, hence the questions I asked myself above.

1. What is my area of expertise? 

• I have an intergenerational family history of special education learning differences (dyslexia, ADD, hearing loss, and vision impairment.) 

• I have 16 years of classroom teaching experience, 7 years of preschool teaching experience and 7 years of newspaper reporting. 

• My expertise here is that of an education communicator, aiming to bridge understanding about education issues between the public, parents, teachers, literacy experts, and New Zealand school administrators.

2. What issues would you most like to learn about? 

• I am on a journey learning about Structured Literacy and attempting to embed it in my teaching practice in a primary school. 

• I am advocating for inclusive education in NZ state-run schools, implementation of the Learning Support Action Plan and adopting the strategy outlined in the manifesto of Lifting Literacy Aotearoa.

3. When it comes to the state of the world, where do you feel the most urgent need for change?

 

• I want to lift the literacy achievement of ALL my learners and extend this into my wider community, beginning with the adoption of Structured Literacy practices.

• In my local community, there are background home-school issues around child poverty: poor or precarious housing, a lack of healthy food, stressful family dynamics (time-poor, inattentive, depressed, violent), low socio-economic status...This list can go on and will take years to resolve, depending on our collective will and leadership as a nation.

• BUT as an educator I can help my students learn to read and write so they can fully access the curriculum and advance their learning and future social outcomes. Step by step, beginning with explicit direct instruction in the early years, we can build a more equitable Aotearoa New Zealand.

 

A note on my anonymity

• I am blogging anonymously to protect the identity of my students and family members, who I may reference from time to time. 

• Likewise, I am protecting the reputation of my school that is only taking tentative steps on its Structured Literacy journey. This causes frustration for me, as I am further along the path. So this will be the subject of some of my posts. 

• I love my school and fellow teachers but we are at an important crossroad in NZ education. Advocating for picking up the pace of change is why I am bothering posting. 

• I am hoping other teachers in other schools may be able to pick up the ball and run faster than me, and perhaps some of the public can cheer from the sidelines, advocating for change, too. 

 

Nga Mihi,

Miss Anon

Nā to rourou, nā taku rourou, ka ora ai te iwi 
With your food basket and my food basket, 
the people will thrive.