innovativeforu

LOVE AND OTHER FOUR LETTER WORDS

Sept. 28. 2006.



Love, now there’s a word you don’t see in the syllabus. And why not? Too revolutionary? Too seditious? Too close to the heart? May be all these and more. Hattie (2003) implies it (love) in the dedication and commitment shown by expert teachers. Wheatley (1999) really takes the ball and runs with it and opens up a whole new level of challenge for teachers to open their hearts.
The little that I know of love inspires me in my personal and professional life. I see and feel such need for an open hearted approach to learning and teaching. Students are confronted with very real and complex issues earlier in their lives than I experienced at their age and often the are grasping for the rudimentary tools with which to deal with their dilemmas. My own strategy when connecting with students is to try and imbue the encounter with authenticity and say to myself a silent “Namaste”, the Hindu greeting that says “I see the god in you”. This is easier on some days than others and with some students more than others. On a more active level I endeavour to “sow seeds.” I have a fairly gregarious and earthy personality and enjoy connecting with students in a mature, humorous and positive way. It is part of Rudolf Steiners “ Thinking, Feeling, Willing”, philosophy that sets the daily rhythm of school life and provides conscious and unconscious cues to students and staff. I find that humour mixed with compassion and wisdom speak non verbally to the human heart. This is where I try to make inroads in my connections with myself and others. I hear myself sounding like some one that’s read too much Wheatley. Not a bad thing.
I am all too aware of the pitfalls of making connections through relationship if one is not fully committed or conscious. My experiences as a Youth Worker brought home the seriousness of making mistakes and the far reaching consequences of reacting out of ignorance. Hattie (2003) hits the nail on the head when he states that the expert teacher “makes the lesson uniquely their own, by changing, combining and adding to them according to the students needs and their own goals.” And where, according to Blooms Taxonomy, deeper learning is facilitated by the teacher to enable the higher order thinking in a student that they not only Remember, Understand and Apply what is learned in the classroom but then go on to develop the skills to Analyse, Evaluate and Create from this information.


innovativeforu

Impact, Influence and Lessons

During the holidays I was at school tiding up my art room, when a new parent(this year) approached me, she said " We have not formally introduced ourselves my name is.."
I said "oh your Kate"s mum "
She nodded and then she said "Do you remember Sports Day ?"
Well in a flash I saw myself cheering, joking and giving a bit of hurry up, flashes of that day, and with great wonder of where this conversation was going I said a very long drawn out "Yes"
She said do you remember you ran with those students?
Again I flashed to the racing this new boy, I remember he was running last in an 800 metre race, I joined him at about 200 mtres out and we joked along as we came around the last turn less than a 100 to go I said " lets open this up mate and have a go?" and the boy took off and I nearly killed myself chasing him home. before I could say anything she said " It was a group of girls they all joined you in finishing the race and running home". "Your actions made me cry because I wish I'd had a teacher, that would come last with me"
To be honest my head was still recalling the race with the boy and the complement was welling up a moist tear.
What did strike me was what we do as teachers , the effects are even happening when we don't even know it. The Impact we make even when there is no calculated out come or in my case memory, I still could not recall the actual event that had such an impact on this women and her feeling for our school community.
Thats how I see my role as an assistant teacher, I am there to help all them get home, get finished, get results even if it is eight or Last.
This story truely shows how things can impact others, very differently with or without consciousness.
As I have been doing this reflective journal so often my thoughts keep coming back to the Student +Teacher + Community.
It's very much the chicken and the egg for me this equation, does the student exist first or the Idealogy and Ethics of the community. Can the student and the community exist without the teacher?
I pondered this idea, I feel one needs love, assurance, and harmony in an enviroment to function and work to ones capacity and this seem to apply to student , teacher and community.
I have truely enjoyed researching Taxonomy,Piaget, Vygotsky, Gardner, Hargreaves, Hattie, Wheatley and of course Steiner.
The understanding of how Knowledge, education, and learning can be woven and threaded into layers of understanding, deeper meaning and higher learning. Using Creativity our class rooms and school community can allow our children to dream. Dreams they can achieve with confidence, understanding and skill as responsible citizen.
Being a teacher is a gift of Honour. And a Divine Calling.
As human beings, we call the highest things we can look up to the "Divine", and we must imagine that our highest aim and calling have something to do with this Divine element
Rudolf Steiner