Last year I bought a keep cup! Being a coffee addict, who must have a decent coffee each day, after watching the ABC’s ‘War On Waste’ documentary, I realised there’s so many ways we can reduce our impact and ultimately save time money and energy. The first step was for me to stop using disposable cups for coffee and instead keep using the one cup each day. Plus I got the right size that maximises the coffee flavour and reduces the wasted milk, a win for good coffee all around. The places that give a 20¢ or 30¢ discount when you bring your own cup are fantastic, as that’s an even better incentive to use your own cup. From a business point of view, it’s costing around 10¢ to 20¢ per take-away cup anyway and add to this the storage space needed and cost of ordering and carrying disposables, then you’ve more than balanced out the cost on this.
However, stepping away from the business case for a moment, what impact can this have in a year. If I’m having at least one coffee a day or more likely, two, this is anywhere from 365 to 500ish cups a year that won’t go into landfill. If you then extend this over a large population, it suddenly turns into millions of cups and tons of waste that can’t be recycled. Now the ABC’s documentary covered all of this in great detail, so I won’t repeat it all here. What’s been interesting with people’s rhetoric about environmental impact is that when people say the problem is too big and we can’t do anything about it, then we must challenge this assumption because it’s a load of rubbish, quite literally. Students today are faced with cleaning up a massive dilemma that’s been caused by cheap products and the disposable nature of everything. Like many problems I’ve encountered through work over the years, they were never of my making, but I ended up being tasked with the clean up job, which is often quite unpleasant to say the least, but ultimately needed to be done by someone to ensure sustainability and growth of something over the long-term. I was recently in Kyoto and this reminded me of the fact that back in 1997, the Kyoto Protocol was signed, which set targets for lowering emissions and tackling climate change. However, twenty one years on, we’re still facing the growing impact on the waste we produce. The US and Australia have recently claimed it’s all too hard and we shouldn’t really do anything about it until somebody else does. This is a massive cop out and it’s like a situation where someone has a heart attack in a crowded place. They’re less likely to be helped by anyone, because everyone else is waiting for someone else to do something about it. However, if we’re trying to teach and show leadership in this space, then we can buck this trend and help out despite everyone else’s hesitation. Don’t get me wrong. This is not about becoming a tree hugging greeny and abandoning the modern world to go and live in a commune. If you’re thinking of doing that, well that’s nice for you, but not what I’m getting at. Instead, it’s about seeing the problem for what it is and its negative impact on the world. Most climate change ‘deniers’ are purely looking at it from what they think is an ‘industry’ point of view, which means if we do something about it, it will hurt jobs growth and our industries. Given the fact that businesses are more likely to look for opportunities to reduce waste, reduce costs and develop new ways of doing things, the political point of view is often in stark contrast with the opportunity for new ventures. It’s these new ventures which our students of today will not only want to do, but if we don’t approach the issue now, they’ll be forced to do, but at a greater cost. So how can we examine and reduce our impact over the next year? Either from a personal perspective or at school, why not create some measurable metrics that you, your family and/or the students create? Firstly, identify areas in which you create a significant amount of waste and organise it into what can be reduced, reused or recycled. Put a big visual chart on the wall where you can record what was done, used, or not used each day, or week, making sure that the time periods and what you’re recording is measurable. The coffee cup is a great place to start, as Australians are overwhelmingly addicted to their daily coffee. What about getting your newspaper online? What about annoying checkout chicks by combining fruit and veg in a single bag? What about walking instead of driving? Look at all of the daily routines and consumption and see what could be reduced? How much money could this save you in a year? When you’ve worked all of this out, why not also get a piggybank and for every time you make a saving, why not put that 5, 10, 20¢ or $1 or 2 in the piggybank and see how much you have reduced your costs by the end of the year. This is a great project to do at home with the family or at school with the students and a valuable environmental and business exercise. The reality is that we do have an impact on our environment and we also have a responsibility to look after the environment, because the more damage we do now, the greater the mess will be for the next generation to clean up. Whilst I enjoy walking away from a cleaned up mess, the time, energy and effort that goes into the clean up, it is always far greater than preventing the mess in the first place. Next year, look at what you can do to help address a global issue that affects us all. Even if your neighbours aren’t doing their bit, forget them. Show some leadership and take the responsibility into your own hands, because the difference you make, can help shape a better future for everyone.
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Ok! You’re probably back at work this week after having had six or seven weeks off over the summer break. Sadly, as with pretty much every other year, you’re most likely sitting in a school hall/auditorium being talked at by someone with ‘great’ ideas about teaching. They’re probably talking endlessly about some new crappy research or study they’ve done over the break whilst you were just lazily stretched out on the beach.
I always enjoy the attempted guilt tripping by some people in schools, as it highlights how poorly they’ve thought through the whole back to school concept each year. One strange person I used to work with would regale everyone with stories of how hard he worked in the holidays. None of us ever knew on what exactly, as there was never anything that actually needed doing over this time, but all the same, apparently he’d turned up each day to do it. However, rather than force everyone to politely sit in meetings all day on the first day back, why not carry on the spirit of the holiday season and have a day out! Since sitting in a room tends to achieve nothing anyway, what have you to lose? Now what would be a far better use of time would be the welcome back staff initiatives day! Don’t tell them in advance. Surprise everyone with it. Come up with a day of challenging adventures and activities involving team building and problem solving. Start with something like a locked room scenario and then move onto a scavenger hunt style rogaine for which the clues ultimately lead to a central location where staff gather for a BBQ dinner to celebrate the start of a new year. This not only would be awesome fun, but gets teachers in the frame of mind for a year ahead in which they might face challenges they’ve never come across before. Helping staff to build practical confidence working with others and solving problems can help with all sorts of unforeseen issues that crop up every year in schools. The dinner afterwards to celebrate is always a good way to show gratitude in advance. Often we only have parties or celebrations at the end of things, but what better way to motivate and build staff morale than saying thank you ahead of time. The educational benefit for this sort of day for both staff and students is the fact that the more education needs to focus on the transference of experiences and the development of practical skills, the more teachers need to have this sort of skill set themselves. This is therefore not only a great way to start the year, but a great way to help positively develop staff in a fun and proactive way. Unfortunately, if you’re reading this on the first day back this year, you’re probably sitting in a room filled with teachers dreading the next six hours. But hey, there’s always next year! Have a wonderful year ahead! With the start of a new year, there’s always the hope and anticipation of something new and something better! People look for change and there are high hopes all around that that change will actually come.
However, we all know most people can’t keep a New Year’s resolution for more than a day or so, so let’s not even bother with that. Instead, I want to look at why teachers must be prepared to reinvent themselves over and over again. For most people this can be difficult, but for teachers even more so. In the past year, I was running a program which had many challenges arise throughout, one of which was the chef walking out, leaving us to cater for eighty people ourselves. Now I won’t go into all the details surrounding this as we don’t have that much time, but when I expected other teachers to adapt, jump in and get cooking, I got the response from many of them, ‘We’re just teachers, we can’t be expected to cook.’ Having run a number of businesses, as well as residential programs, this approach doesn’t sit well with me, as sometimes we find ourselves in situations, not of our own making, but we have to find a solution one way or another. This made me think, after I quickly worked out how to cook for eighty people with one other staff member who was prepared to give it a go. Why are so many teachers reluctant to try anything new? To me, this seems at odds with the whole concept of teaching. You really do need to be able to think on your feet and adapt to situations as they change. Although most teachers will never be in a situation where you find yourself cooking for a lot of people, you never know what you might need to do to remain relevant in today’s changing world. For me, teaching others has always been at the core of what I’ve done. Whilst I may move from business to education, to politics, to business and back to education, empowering others to develop and grow within themselves appears in every single context in which I’ve worked. However, to truly appreciate the place of education in today’s rapidly changing world, the experiences outside of education have been far more valuable than the experiences within education itself. Ultimately, I’ve found myself reinventing myself time and time again. From electrical salesman to political staffer, computer technician, teacher, barista, café owner and tech entrepreneur, each time I’ve changed what I’ve been doing, I’ve felt far more energised and motivated than before and it has all helped me be a better teacher. Fancy that! Experiential Education is the best form of education possible. However, most teachers and most people never reinvent themselves or what they do. If they start to feel stale in what they’re doing, they will often just grind it out and keep doing the same thing in the hope it will get better. The fact is that it won’t! Stale teachers, are hopeless teachers, incapable of doing anything useful, let alone teach. Now there’s not the need for anyone to reinvent themselves as many times as I have, unless you really feel like it. However, taking time out from teaching to work in another industry, or completely different role, is not only healthy, but moving forward, I believe, will be critical to the success of teachers in the modern world. If teachers are expected to teach their students how to be flexible, adaptable, dynamic, critical thinking problem solvers, then they themselves need these sorts of qualities and the only way you get these qualities is through real life experience, which often doesn’t happen inside the confines of a school. Therefore, at the tipping point of the new year, are you feeling stale? Are you feeling like you’re no longer being challenged? If so, why not take some time off and go and work in another job, something completely different. The experience and skills you will gain from this will be more empowering and worthwhile than a thousand staff ‘development’ days and when you go back to teaching, this experience away from teaching will have made you a far better teacher than before. Having gone in and out of education for years, I’ve found every time I come back, I’ve learnt something new and useful, because it’s through our experiences that we always learn the most. Why not give something new a go this next year? With so much to be gained, it’s always well worth it! This week, since it’s the new year holiday period, I thought I'd write more about adventures and well nothing about work. After a massive past month, I managed to jump on a plane and fly to Japan. I love flying and with my favourite TV show, now movie, Absolutely Fabulous on the entertainment system, the movie was just the right length to have dinner and then fall asleep. Having not stopped for weeks, it wasn't hard at all to doze off and wake when the stewards were serving breakfast!
After a muesli and a couple of espressos, I was all ready to go. Another thing I love about travelling is the fact that one moment I can be in stinking hot weather, the next I step into winter. It's not quite like going into your cupboard and discovering Narnia, but not that far off it either! Shuffling through immigration seems to get faster and faster as they improve technology to check people through. The biggest hassle however, was trying to work out how to make all the connections to get to my destination. The Japanese I did at school hardly prepared me for any of this. It came down to a couple of options. 1. I could wait 4 hours and catch a bus directly to my hotel (boring). 2. Get a mono-rail, bullet train and bus to my destination. Far more interesting… and challenging! Whilst I already knew of these two options and had it planned out in my mind what I needed to do to make this happen, it's not until you're faced with a ticket machine that even when in English Mode doesn't make sense and no ticket sales desks in sight. I managed to fudge my way through and buy a ticket. I wasn't sure if it were the right one, but hey it kept working everytime I stuck it in a machine, so I guessed I was on the right track. (The track being a monorail, it was kind of hard not to be!) I made my way to Tokyo Central Station and from here ran around madly trying to find the next connection. It was the bullet train! I again did battle with the ticket machine that had way too many options that didn't make any sense at all. However, I finally succeeded in getting it to spit out a ticket, yet when I went to the gate, it turns out it wanted two tickets. So after the guard said something I didn't understand except for the word two, I went back and got a second ticket (which was apparently slightly different somehow). Placing both tickets in the machine at once, it worked! With a strange feeling that this ticketing process was somehow inefficient and un-Japanese, I raced up to the platform as the train was minutes from leaving. This was my first time on a bullet train and it was amazing! The sleek design, the aerodynamics, the whole train was awesome. I can't for the life of me work out why Australia hasn't built any lines for them. The smooth pace at which they accelerated and slowed mean that you were never thrown about. Although I have to admit I was slightly disappointed that leaving the station I wasn't nailed to the back of my seat by 5Gs of thrust. Now that would be cool. Seeing the sheer size and spread of Tokyo was something itself. The high-rise apartments, the industrial areas, the sprawl of the city seemed to go on forever. As the urban centre became more distant, the train sped up hitting over 280kph! The world flashed by and in the distance, I could see the snow capped Mt Fuji dominating the landscape. The train ride was around 1.5hrs and as the towns became more rural, the design of the building changed and there was some great tranquility about this transition. Reaching Nagano (venue of the 1998 Winter Olympics), the bullet train ride ended. Stepping off the headed carriage, I was snapped back into winter by the frosty chill in the air. From here, I transitioned onto a bus for the final leg of the journey. As the bus wound its way through the rural townships, light snow began to fall, getting heavier and heavier as we ascended into the mountains. After another hour and a bit on the bus, we reached the township of Hakuba, a great town now deep with snow. I explored town for a couple of hours buying and eating some random foods which looked like one thing but tasted like something else. One such food looked like a cream bun and turned out to have some sort of black bean mash within it! Ha! It's always worth trying new foods and I eventually stumbled on something I liked for lunch. Going anywhere new for the first time is always filled with uncertainty, but that's what makes it so exciting. I don't know what's going to happen next, but to an extent it doesn't matter, as enjoying the journey and everything that happens along the way is the most important thing. It's way too easy to get so wrapped up in work and ‘regular’ life that you miss out on the opportunities to travel, to explore and to experience new things. So over the Christmas break, think about somewhere new you'd like to go or something new you’d like to try. Ask yourself where your next adventure will be and go and book it in the next hour! Whatever it is, don't delay, don't defer it, make it happen and have an awesome adventure whatever it may be! |
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