TEACHERS MAKE A DIFFERENCE
Journal
Teacher make a difference is the topic and critical assessment journey this journal will take me on. Not only a university requirement it is a life necessity to achieve the best that I can for my students, my school and myself.
I have read Margaret Wheatley’s articles on ‘Schools as a living system’ and ‘Restoring hope to the future through critical reflection’.
http://www.margaretwheatley.com/articles/lifetoschools.htmlhttp://www.margaretwheatley.com/articles/restoringhope.htmlIn the first article I read, at least in my understanding of it, Margaret talks about the natural flow of life and how much of the western world has tried to ‘reinvent the wheel’ so to speak by trying to improve on the wisdom of nature and force an unnatural approach to life. Applied to the education of children, this has become extraordinarily abstract, leaving both teachers and students bored and frustrated with little room to move due to B.O.S. requirements. I feel lucky that I work in an environment where creative teaching is not only encouraged, it is a must, and therefore requires not only thought activated preparation but work from the feeling and will life of the teacher.
“We are surrounded by great teachers – life itself – the natural world.” - Margaret Wheatley
I believe Margaret works strongly from her feeling life and has come to understand the natural processes that are not only essential but the truth. It is fantastic to see that her work is not overlooked by tertiary institutions, but viewed as a useful and credible. In restoring hope to the future Margaret talks about her work with the idea of her group ‘From The Four Directions’. Here, they work towards helping local communities work together to create global change. This we have seen in the world already and no doubt some of that is due to her work in this direction. This is reflective of what we can do within our own community eg the school.
As teachers:
•We have the ability to adapt, change, modify, introduce and remove that which could be harmful to the student i.e. given at too early an age.
• We are able to come together and discuss relevant issues for our class/school and ourselves and improve what we can, even if the steps are small, as all steps are heading in the right direction.
•Learning is not only for the student. It is a life journey and we are travelling it together, even if we are not all at the same place at the same time. Isolating ourselves from what the world has to offer by staying with tried and tested and exhausted means of education removes our ability to reflect and think and, more often than not, we rush through each lesson-term-year trying to achieve narrow goals to please the official goals, negating our responsibility to the individuals within the classroom including ourselves. This sounds critical and maybe it is, so I will look at it again later.
“We want to create a global voice on behalf of those practices and values that nourish and sustain the human spirit and all life” – Margaret Wheatley.
If this statement were to be taken, declared dogma, I believe this too would become lifeless and the path would be worn to shreds in no time at all. Her statement in context with teaching in schools, has the potential to be life-filled and imaginative if teachers are given the opportunity to work freely, according to the needs of the children; their backgrounds, community and spiritual beliefs are all taken into account. Here the education must be suited to the needs of the particular region. Imagine how useless it is to have indigenous children, (who grow and learn in the bush with their communities in a completely different way to children who have grown in the city or residential areas), doing the national test that is offered/forced on the year 3, 5 and 7 classes in schools. I have heard from teachers of these bush schools that often it is a successful day just having the students turn up let alone forcing Mathematical and English/Linguistic skill upon them. These children obviously need to be educated in a different manner and their teachers should be allowed the freedom to approach their education accordingly – to make a difference. Who are we to judge the intelligence rating of these bush children when their way of thinking is completely different to ours? This is not a racial remark, just an observation that may need to be considered by the bureaucracy when working towards what’s best for all our children. Margaret suggests that there is no boss in a living system and that change happens from within…maybe we should be paying attention.
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Sunday September 06
Ok. I have been reading up on Blooms Taxonomy. The suggestions made by Bloom are valid and interesting, although by the age of his work and the applications it is now used for, show that it is already in use throughout many societies.
Making it a conscious thought stream seems to be the task I have before me today. The revised taxonomy is where I have found the work more interesting and viable for my class room situation although on my own personal web questing I have found it also used for tertiary education and work place training amongst other things.
Applying this to my own work will mean modifying some of my approaches and adapting the format to suit the young age group with which I work and the type of education we provide, will not only be done fairly easily but will also add to the lesson structure…the point is now to remember, understand, apply, analyse, evaluate and create with what I have read. Seems to be a tool for teachers to learn and use too!
John Hattie of the University of Auckland
has put together a study on what makes an expert teacher, pointing out that this is essential for students to learn as they are the largest variance in the children’s lives when it comes to learning. Hattie’s Pie Chart shows that after the children themselves (50%), teachers have the most influence on a child’s life (30%). Here we could then feel a little self-important, or we could look at the true major influence on a child’s life and their education and acknowledge that it is the child itself who has the greatest influence on their outcomes.
Expert or excellent teachers would then have to look at what they could do to help the child bring forth from themselves all that is possible and that could-well be everything. Each child has the potential to achieve in all aspects of their lives. Now I /we have to figure out how we can best help them to achieve this goal. Hattie acknowledges the idiot proof system we have in place to ensure that teachers teach the ‘right stuff’ with the national testing movements to maximise the narrow forms of achievements. (
http://www.acer.edu.au/workshops/documents/Teachers_Make_a_Difference_Hattie.pdf#search=%22Teachers%20make%20a%20difference%22)
He goes on to suggest that we must identify what it means to be an expert and experienced teacher and become an excellent teacher. Hattie has identified the following 5 major dimensions as critical for classification as an expert teacher although I would rather call them an excellent teacher…so I will.
An excellent teacher:
1. can identify essential representations of their subjects
2. can guide learning through classroom interaction
3. can monitor learning and provide feedback
4. can attend to affective influences
Can, is the critical word here. Positive reflection for the children will be their most powerful asset. If they believe they can’t, the work will be a burden to them and ‘struggling’ through school will be their strongest memory, whereas can, will carry them through not only school, but life, and we know what a journey that can be.
I guess that makes can't, a four letter word!
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Wednesday 13th September
Can’t, has been remove from my classroom. This is not to say that the children are unable to express the idea of not comprehending the work, but allows them to be more creative with their word use and more conscious of what they are saying. Their peers have rallied to the idea and are supporting each other through encouragement and humour. This has bee very effective. Those who used this word without thought have almost dropped it from their vocabulary, and are pleased to be able to pick up their teacher (me) when I let it slip. Lots of fun and constructive games in finding new expressions.
Friday 15th September
In attempting to work with Hattie’s ideas of excellent teachers, I have been analysing my teaching methods.
1. can identify essential representations of their subjects.
My interpretation of this is finding what the subject matter is in essence, and translating this for the children into something they can grasp.
Let’s look at Punctuation. Earlier this year we studied the 12 points of punctuation. I looked at each point and created a character out of it, giving it a human form and developed a story around these characters.
For example:
Capital letters were characterised by the captain of a ship. Captain Capital was a leader. He gave the orders and his crew of little letters (lower case) followed his orders. He was loud and somewhat bossy. He came with a short verse as follows: I’m Captain Capital, brave and bold I lead the way each time. Name words; or a sentence you have heard, My crew will finish the line.
Queenie Quota Lot was the quotation marks. She was a gossip columnist and wrote quotes on everything that was said. Sometimes this was not a good thing, but the children enjoyed her abilities whilst getting the essentials of her task.
Wrappa Brackets (who had dread locks and was a cool fella) helped Queenie out by explaining what she meant, when she wasn’t being clear .
These and many more filled the main lesson story, getting the point across, (pardon the pun). These characters have been helping with punctuation throughout the year. I believe that this has been essential in helping the children understand who does what and we have included them in our class play which is yet to be performed.
I guess that does get the essential representation across of the subject matter. This has been my approach throughout my teaching career and although I have not always been 100% successful, I have managed to create something for the children to learn by.
2. can guide learning through classroom interaction
It is not entirely impossible that I fell down a little in this area during the punctuation lesson. The children were organised into group work only later in the year, at a time where I felt it more appropriate for them, as they are a young class by class 3 standards.
Classroom interaction came about through discussion, small role play examples and teacher directed work. There were still a few frowns of confusion from some of the students, although they have now started to grasp the more common punctuation marks. Having said that, I believe it is quite normal in a class environment for some of the children to not to gather all the information straight away. Obviously I won’t be dropping the subject and, after the work we have done in uni and the educators we have studied, many ideas have sprung forth on different ways to approach teaching. I can say that I prefer some of teaching types and ideas more than others but all are valid and worthy of exploration.
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Monday 18th October
3. can monitor learning and provide feedback
Hmmm…I am critical of myself here. Monitoring learning can happen in so many different ways, and with the varied learning skills within my class this is probably the most difficult area for me. Participation from the children individually would be the best way for me to monitor what is happening within the class. Being a class of 32 children, it is possible that I would miss one or two without the able assistance of the people who help in the classroom. Between us we discuss individual problems and ways of working with them, what helps them the most and often I divide the class up into groups, especially for maths. This allows different levels of skills to work to their capacity.
Tuesday 19th September
4.can attend to affective influences.
Demonstrating care and commitment is as essential as any of the other four points. Not only caring about the children and their achievements but in what I can give and learn from them daily. With little care from their teacher, the children will soon be apathetic towards their learning and their confidence will never grow. Sarcasm, cynicism, and general misbehaviour will follow quickly. Each must be considered as an individual and where I have failed to notice an individuals reaction or indifference towards a subject, difficulties have arisen.
5.can influence student outcomes
Teachers should, without question, be able to influence student outcomes, otherwise why teach? Do I? I believe so.
Working with children everyday, I learn from the children themselves what helps and what hinders them. Influence can be both positive and negative and I find that idea a little frightening and challenging, which keeps me on my toes. I know I can always improve myself in all areas of teaching and influencing their outcomes. I wonder sometimes, how vast or limited is Hattie’s ideas on outcomes. Human beings are complex and require more than just outcomes in their lives. Often when I am writing this Journal I can forget my training and understanding and try only to negotiate what I think my educators want to hear. Steiner has a magnificent outlook on life and the ‘outcomes’ are a whole life experience not just whether or not a set of syllabuses have been delivered, received and absorbed. I do not find that I am in conflict when reading other educationalists points of view, rather just adding them where applicable to my classroom and lesson structure. Outcomes need to be addressed, rethought and evaluated. Sometimes the outcomes for a particular lesson may be a social issue for one or two individuals and if the whole class has been privy to the experience then that is a wonderful thing. This may not fulfil the board of studies requirement but is crucial for the growing beings I have in front of me each day.
Friday 27th September
This journal started out with a purpose. I was to prove to myself that I am doing a great job. There was to be a beginning, middle and end but I don’t think I can end this subject. It seems an eternal quest, an ongoing curve of possibilities and the end is nowhere to be found. Education is for the teacher as well as the student and whilst I am capable of learning, the education of the children in my classroom will not grow stale.
Am I doing a great job?
Hmmmm.
