Sunday, September 28, 2008

Fun


Is fun a value or is it not.
The staff have been looking closely at the NZC. The other day we ran through a few activities that would bring discussion to values. The afternoon was meant to be nothing about consensus and more about discussion and thoughts. After each activity we wrote down a few words that best described what we were talking about. These bits of paper were collated at the end of the meeting and mumbleboy beavered away in wordle to see what sort of language came from our discussions.

If we are talking about schools should we be looking at values that are relevant to learning and growing in society. 
What is "fun" doing there.
Why is "fun" a value.
I do think it is important - but should schools have "fun" as a key value. I wasn't looking for consensus but by using wordle it is fairly obvious that "fun" was the most used word when discussions around values in the classroom were had.

I can justify "fun" as a core value but will ERO ? Oh, I don't care about them but some do...
Keen on your thoughts here .......

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Values: A person's principals or standards of behavior.
So fun's probably not a value as that states it, but it IS something that's valued.
Also something this little man values:
http://snurl.com/3zkj3 .. found by following your 'fun' hyperlink.

Does it matter if it's a value? Depends on the question being asked really.. and that DOES matter.

Results can never be clearer than the question.

So how clear was the question? Likely that some folks wrote 'fun' as something they valued, rather than a value itself. May be useful to offer up another filter session to sort them into those two categories. Or not.

As for ERO? I've personally seen one ERO visitor write a key question at the top of a chart and invite written replies, only to change the question after all the answers were given. I doubt that it was a big deal, but it was food for thought. When you're making a public judgment on a school, rigor counts.

Finding the very bottom of things can be fun, but you've got to enjoy the journey because the results can be disappointing. This is one of the reasons why most folks don't care to look that hard or that long.
Questioning the question is far more dull than the dynamic clash of interpreting values.
Sorry.
:)

Becc said...

Yep. I reckon if you unpacked FUN with the staff, there'd be a lot of other values within that. Fun is pretty damn important to me - whether it's a value or whatever, I aint turning up to school, work or anything unless I am going to enjoy it, which for me means having fun - even when things get tough.

Podgorani said...

Pedro has to kill this thread doesn't he. too deep for me, but id like to agree about enjoying the journey. do we really need an answer when finding the right question is more pertinent, true again. bugger.

yeah bex im with you on - not turning up if we cant giggle a bit, luckily I have pedro's mug to look at each day so a giggle is never far away, and his SOH is pretty damn good too.

MrWoody said...

nice one guvna - like your attitude ;-)
mrw00dy