Brian's Blog

Leadership, Collaboration, and Innovation in a Changing World - Insights from the Sydney Google Champions Symposium The multi-day Sydney Google Champions Symposium provided an immersive platform that included insightful sessions, compelling narratives, and thought-provoking discussions. Spanning various facets of education, the symposium focused on pivotal themes, notably encompassing transformative education, leadership dynamics, resilience, innovation paradigms, and ethical imperatives. These interconnected themes formed fundamental pillars crucial to modern education, collectively illuminating critical considerations and emphasising the intrinsic link between effective leadership and the creation of an educational landscape primed for adaptability, foresight, and inclusivity. Throughout the symposium, these themes came together to illustrate the expansive capacity of education beyond traditional methods. The need to transcend a focus solely on academic achievements, advocating for a...

The second day of the Google Champion Sydney Symposium was an enriching journey through diverse perspectives, strategies, and inspiring stories centred around transformative education. The sessions offered a deep dive into various facets of educational leadership, innovative practices, fostering resilience, and leveraging technology to create impactful learning environments. How Cool is Our School Tamara Templeton's presentation gave us a insightful understanding into leveraging data to gauge the sustainability of school environments and translating this information into real-world immersive experiences. She showed by utilising data analytics, schools can delve into the intricacies of their sustainability practices, allowing for a comprehensive understanding of their environmental impact, temperature hot spots, resource consumption, and overall an ecological footprint. Integrating this data into student-led projects, such as mapping exercises, empowers learners to actively engage w...

  In the field of education, as with any profession, setbacks and disappointments are inevitable and often daunting. Whether it's not securing a desired job or promotion, facing unexpected job stress, the finishing up of close allies, incivility among colleagues or experiencing a lack of recognition for your hard work or career disappointments it can be disheartening. We all know that there are going to be times where we are faced with discouragement though if we spiral and let this become disillusion we limit how we can impact the situation. I appreciate when we experience these blows, it can be easy to lose sight of our purpose and feel like we're not good enough, our self-talk will often take us down this avenue; however, it's important to remember that these challenges can also be opportunities for growth and learning. It is during these challenging times that our true character is tested.  This post aims to explore strategies that myself and others use to navigate care...

  The human brain, a fascinating and intricate organ, holds the key to our ability to learn, remember, and think critically. Composed of interconnected nerve cells and synapses, it forms a vast network where learning takes place. Each connection between nerve cells, known as synapses, strengthens the bond between them. The brain constantly evolves and forms new connections, a phenomenon called neuroplasticity. This remarkable adaptability enables us to learn and acquire new knowledge continuously. Every time we learn something new, the brain forges fresh connections between nerve cells, expanding its capacity for growth. Learning dispositions, both positive and negative, play a vital role in shaping the brain's ability to learn. Certain dispositions facilitate effective learning. Curiosity, the thirst for knowledge and understanding, propels us to explore and seek answers. Openness to new experiences broadens our horizons and allows us to embrace diverse perspectives. A willingness...

In today’s interdependent and rapidly changing world, numerous challenges threaten our ability to create sustainable and principled societies. True leadership requires a compelling vision, the ability to inspire and hold close both the moral and ethical values interwoven into our lives (Greenfield & Ribbins, 1993). Current literature (Ehrich, Harris, Klenowski, Smeed & Spina, 2015) identifies the heightened awareness of the ethical dimensions of educational leadership in a context of increasing performance driven accountability. The key challenges involve tensions between opposite value positions (Cranston, Ehrich, & Kimber, 2006) where leaders need to navigate the shades of grey, for example, common good versus individual rights; care versus rules; loyalty versus justice; and long-term versus short-term perspectives. ( Duignan, 2006).  The opposing value positions above, identify complexities leaders have when considering the perspective nuances of the situ...

I believe as a teacher and a leader, I am a moral guide (Beavis, 2014). I am a bridge connecting the values and moral students come with to their knowledge and behavour. I am committed to leading and preparing well-informed, engaged, principled citizens who are reflective in their practice who think critically about their public and private choices and decisions that are made. My belief is supported by theories related to psycho-philosophical identity that includes psychoanalytical, social cognitive and Erikson’s psychosocial development (Wright, Berns, Sigelman, Rider, De George-Walker, Kail & Cavanaugh, 2016). These theories highlight the internal complexities between personality, morality, perceived self and self-concept. Through an internalised and evolving memoir, integrating, reflecting and reconstructing the past and forming the future through the unity of purpose, investigation and personal agency can be drawn on to inform ethical decision making (McAdams & McL...