I arrived this morning to an empty school. Our students start tomorrow. Today is a professional development and preparation day.

Strenuous planning meetings at the local coffee house.

Followed by a long debates about the state of education over lunch.

A long afternoon of teacher stuff, to leave work as the sun goes down, as I will no doubt many evening s to come in the weeks ahead.

I subscribe to a blog calls 1 to 1 Schools In the next few years the school that I work at will a 1 to 1 school. That is, each student will have their own laptop. In anticipation I am soaking up as much wisdom as I can from those who are already in 1 to 1 schools.

On the 1 to 1 blog there was a link to this video in which middle school students express their opinions about education.

Many of the wishes expressed by these students I am either implementing or working on implementing in my teaching practice.

There are two over-riding concerns that govern my thinking about my teaching practice.

1. First, As much as I am able I have to provide my students with a firm foundation for senior school mathematics
   
2. Second, I have to satisfy the assessment requirements of the educational culture in which I work.

Senior school teachers will (rightfully) expect their students to arrive in their classes with a requisite skills set and an understanding of the particular concepts that underpin the work that is about to be undertaken. There is no point providing my students with a rich mathematics education if they are not ready for the particulars of senior school. It is this very issue that has undermined middle school experiments here in Western Australia in the past. These experiments have failed to prepare students for the particulars of senior school. As such they have been seen as complete failures.

Good assessments are the key to a successful curriculum. Good assessments provide everyone with the feed back required: students, teachers, parents and the various governing bodies. Good assessments are assessments that can be trusted. At his point in our history the only assessments, in school mathematics, that are trusted by all stake-holders are pen and paper assessments performed by students on their own isolated from their peers.

So, don't give up on me, kids. I am working on it. I see things that you can't see yet. It's more complicated: there's more to it that just making it fun and engaging for you.

If the changes that you are seeking are going to be sustainable into the long term, then everyone involved in your education will have to be satisfied.

.... perhaps with the introduction of 1 laptop per child in our school in the coming years, we can move a little faster towards the kind of education that you say you are looking for.

This is where I spend much of my non-teaching time.

I do get away from it to exercise and to do some of the things that normal people do.

Last week I actually spent two days away from it. (I suffered heavy withdrawal symptoms.)

Right now I am gluing myself to it to get the "paper work" sorted out for the annual tax return. It is one of my least favorite jobs. I usually put it off and off and off. Last years tax return was not done till the night before the absolute final deadline.

But this year I am determined to get it out of the way before I go back to school next week.

Its slow work. As you can see I have tweet deck open. I often also have a video running in the background. Although these are distracting, I wouldn't be able to stay at the task at all without them.

So, back to it.