November 2015 – Once More into the Classroom

Something to Think About

Creative Schools: The Grassroots Revolution That’s Transforming Education

By Ken Robinson, Lou Aronica

Due to the fact I am not teaching full time I have more time than I otherwise would to think about teaching. The relationship between learning and teaching as well as teacher and student is fascinating.

So my latest read, Creative Schools By Ken Robinson is right up my alley. Ken Robinson, for you who don’t know is a Professor who has been looking at this relationship on and off for 40 years. He has a PHD and has the most watched TED talk ever.

(Watch that here.) For the last eight years or so he has been talking and writing about why the current trends in education are way off the mark and not doing our children any favours. Such things as high pressure standardized testing, centralized curriculums which are narrow and restrictive. By being these things a large numbers of students are being turned off and belittled by an education system that so narrowly defines success. In this book he continues the process of explaining how he believes education can be improved and made more inclusive. One of the things that jumped out at me was the following;

The fundamental purpose of education is to help students learn.

He goes on to say

At the heart of education is the relationship between the student and the teacher, everything else depends on how productive and successful this relationship is.

He is of course right. Effective teaching or coaching is all about good relationships. Success is impossible without it. This got me to thinking about what good relationships look like and how we can effectively foster them with our students. More about this later. In the meantime I highly recommend this book whether you are a teacher or a parent.

Patience is a Virtue?

I am an impatient man. It’s only been the last couple of years that it has dawned on me to what extent I have been driven by impatience. Perhaps this wisdom is something that comes with age, one of the perks of being older, the ability to see that patience is indeed a virtue.

At the moment I am teaching, albeit subbing, and coaching swimming. It is ironic that I have chosen to return to two professions where patience is a central pillar of not only success but of understanding. There is no quick fix in the classroom, no instant way to acquire knowledge or the ability to use it. Likewise there is no easy or quick way to become a good swimmer. It takes work and time. In other words patience. Of course it takes a great deal of other things as well, but without patience both student and teacher / coach will quickly be disappointed.

In my defence and that of all impatient people everywhere, the world that we have created is at it’s very heart impatient. We want things and we want them now. Gone is any notion of delayed gratification. If we can’t have it now then we don’t want it. I exaggerate but only slightly.

Been spending time in K over the last few weeks. So much fun working with the little guys and gals.

So I am working on being patient. Patient with the fact that getting a job is harder than I hoped. Patient with my swimmers as they learn new skills and patient with myself as I continue to stumble through life. Having said that I may have stumbled onto something rather exciting which has renewed my optimism. Lots more research needs to be done… but watch this space.

It’s been a while

It’s been a while since I have been here on my blog. I have been somewhat disillusioned and dispirited with the whole process of finding a teaching job here in the Yukon. After the excitement of finishing my course at The University of Alberta and getting my teaching certification, not having a teaching position has been a great disappointment.

Some art work from a school where I was subbing. I loved this, there's so much going on in it. — Some art work from a school where I was subbing. I loved this, there’s so much going on in it.

The job interview mentioned in the last post could have gone better, obviously, as I didn’t get the job. I put it down to my first interview in education in almost twenty years and the fact that I was up against a tremendous teacher. How she hasn’t got a full time job for the year I don’t know. But that’s another story.

I’m trying to stay positive but I am worried the longer I am out of the classroom the harder it will be to get a work. There have been a few more jobs come up, but they were either spoken for before they were posted (I’m guessing here, but when you get a letter from your son’s school the day after the job posting closed, about the new teacher, I’m pretty sure that the job advertisement was a formality) or I’m not qualified for post. Another little gripe is that after looking at the job postings for coming up on a year, you can tell the positions that are being written for individuals… they are so specific that it’s laughable. I know that I am not the only one in this boat but having others in it with me, doesn’t make it any more fun. A full time teaching job seems as far away as ever right now. My father used to say in situations like this “FIDO son.” So FIDO it is and who knows perhaps a job will appear with my name written on it…

On a brighter note, I have two days teaching at Jack Hulland which is always as pleasure.