Rote Learning

I'm back from the great meeting of minds. The speaker, despite making us move seats almost as soon as we were settled, was pretty good. He talked about human relations and making your work place a happier one by communicating with people as individuals and recognising them for their unique characteristics as humans rather than as the position they hold. There was a lot of friendly banter in the audience and only a couple of those silly games that are supposed to introduce his next idea. One was drawing a cat with your eyes shut. Not sure how that related to communication but it filled in five minutes. The talk, all in all, did give me a bit to think about generally and best of all I could easily control any urges I had to answer his questions or comment. It was looking good.

Lunch was fantastic and I could easily avoid temptation. Lots of fresh salad and a range of plain meat dishes and vegetarian options, (hurray no sandwiches!) and there were prawns. A very good spread indeed.

In the afternoon we split into collegiate groups; mine Maths/Science. It was one teacher's comment on getting back into the rote learning of tables to primary students that started the rant. I'm not sure how it escalated in to the ridiculousness of teaching up to the twelve times table in a society based on base ten. And then I somehow got maneuvered into my pet hate that why we as a society still use fractions and percentages to represent numbers that are just confusing to primary students and adults alike. I'd better not start, but why do we need to express... no won't go there. So I probably wasted about five minutes of the groups precious collaborating time.
To make up for my outbursts and dominating the conversation I took on a task that will take me an inordinate amount of time. Useful but more time than I really have to spare. Luckily I have my husband, also a teacher to help me out here. He needs to make up some professional development hours so.... 

Well my internal turmoil driving home was not great because I really only stood out in a crowd of ten. There is only a few more days of school before we break for Easter and then I get to exercise another of my passions; I'm off on camp as a Scout Leader.