Conversations

Teaching can be a busy profession. There is always so much to do and plan. With such a crowded curriculum, it is often true that most of our teacher talk is spent trying to impart content. But we can never provide the students with all the knowledge they will ever need to navigate their world. However, we can give them the skills and confidence to chart their own course. Often this is not found in the mechanics of a lesson plan but rather is the simple words of conversation.

Recently I have had two separate conversations with parents that have made me reflect on the impact my words can have on students. One mother approached me to thank me for making her child feel valued in the classroom. Because greeting the students and welcoming them is now an integral part of my teaching practice, I had to think back on the specific event.  It was when we met the new Yr7 classes for the first time. A colleague and I greeted the waiting group, where I asked ‘Who is in Mr X class? Who is in mine?’ I then responded with ‘Excellent, my mate, Jonno (not his real name) is in mine!’ I never thought anything more about this until Jonno’s mother approached me and thanked me. That child hadn’t had the easiest start to the year while transitioning from Junior into Secondary school. Apparently, my comment had made him feel important in front of his peers. In fact, it had been the first thing that Jonno told his mother when he got in the car that afternoon. I was grateful that Jonno’s mother had taken the time to reinforce my practice as often we can only hope that we are making a difference to each student.

The second conversation that was bought to my attention was when I asked a Year 11 girl how her Netball trials had gone the previous day. She was a girl that I had coached when she was a lot younger. Her Mum explained that she was really stressed about making the team and was apparently grateful for the conversation I had with her in regard to this. Again something that was seemingly so simple, cost nothing and took little time had a significant impact on a student.

Both of these conversations are no doubt similar to hundreds or thousands of incidental dialogues teachers and students have each week and I’m certain they are conversations that happen because of the very nature of being educators. However, reflection on these conversations has most definitely made me more conscious of my words and the last couple of weeks I have made even more effort than usual to be a friendly face or ask about a student’s sport, holidays, families, pets or any other interests they may have. I have been even more mindful of the child sitting alone or the child who doesn’t look happy and I’ve made an conscious effort to strike up a conversation with them. To know that such a small gesture could make a difference to a student’s day is worth it.

Of course, there are benefits for us as teachers as well. Obviously, the recognition from parents when they relay those conversations is much appreciated, but it also helps develop relationships with the students. Understanding them in and out of school, earning their trust and respect - All these things help us to provide a meaningful learning experience for that student in the classroom. I try, each day, to be the teacher who is positive, interested and enthusiastic - taking the time to chat with my students. But more importantly, taking the time to listen.

It takes a Village.

It takes a village ……………

In my last blog I wrote about community and the wonderful opportunities we have in a co-educational PP-12 school to develop community spirit to support and nurture learning in the best possible ways for our students. This had me thinking about my support network and those who support me. At my school these support groups are known as Professional Learning Communities or Professional Learning Networks.  I'm very grateful for my learning community and wanted to share more about the benefits of these support groups.

I say this often, but I’m really lucky to work in a PP-12 school. We have a variety of teacher expertise across many disciplines and year levels. As a specialist teacher, I often get to enter many different classrooms to work alongside these teachers. Over the years, I have recognised the different strengths within teachers and these people kindly share their knowledge and experience with me. Having professional conversations often identifies similar interests, beliefs or mindsets that improve my practice. 

As much as I can, I get to know the parents. I teach 350+ students so there are always parents in that group who have unique skill sets, jobs or experiences from which I can learn. Working with parents I have been able to expand my knowledge on Design Thinking outside of the classroom, gain knowledge about electronics, business, manufacturing all of which have benefitted my teaching and ultimately my students’ learning. Through the generosity of parents, I have been provided with resources, expertise, support and encouragement - all of which is passed on to the students.

When I attend PD outside of school I make a point of talking to and listening to as many people as I can. There is always someone with whom I can connect and learn from. Last week, I spent two days at a PD specific to my subject area. I ran into quite a few people I know - past colleagues, old University friends and even past Practical Teachers - all of whom are Design Teachers like me. It was great to catch up, but what was even better was the quality of professional conversation we were able to have. It made me realise the best resource teachers have, are each other.  

I always try and stay in touch with those people I meet, either electronically or the old-fashioned way - face to face. I have been to visit them in their schools and some that have been out to visit me. We all have the same goal of empowering our students to be better learners, so why not share ideas! 

I have blogged about this before, but Twitter is an invaluable source of learning for an educator. It is a 24/7 resource of a huge variety of skills sets, expertise and educators willing to share and learn from each other. There are twitter chats, hashtags to follow, individuals to follow and this is World-wide, 24hrs a day, 7 days a week!  There are also many professional organisations which I join and follow. Often it is just a matter of signing up for the e-newsletters and having them delivered to your inbox. It doesn’t take long to sort out what is useful and what is not. When you find something good, it is delivered right to your inbox.

In the past teaching was like working in an egg carton. Each teacher had their own space and worked in isolation. Today, there are so many opportunities for us to reach out to others for support and inspiration. As well, the opportunities to provide that support and inspiration to others. When, we are feeling energised and enthused the students will benefit and their learning will take on its own momentum.

I hope that I’ve inspired you to build your own Professional Learning Network. It may take some time and require you to move outside your egg carton but if you need a hand just look me up on Twitter or send me an email. After all (to paraphrase a famous quote) - it takes a village to teach a child.

The relationship between Risk Taking and Resilience.

Does one survive without the other? Can you be a risk taker if you don’t have a certain amount of resilience? Can you be resilient, without taking a few risks along the way? As a Teacher, both are things that we aim to foster in our student’s education. However, this week I have questioned my own resilience after things didn’t pan out the way I hoped. But it had me thinking about the value of these lessons and how I should be embracing this to improve my practice for the benefit of my students.

I work in a school that supports Design Thinking as a way of Teaching and Learning. It is something I utilise a lot as a Design Teacher and one aspect of Design Thinking is risk taking. Like any area that involves creativity, there has to be a certain amount of risk taking to arrive at credible solutions. Some of the greatest achievements of all time have been largely due to the fact that the creator was prepared to take a certain amount of risk. However, before those achievements come to fruition, there must be a certain amount of failure along the way. Why is this failure so important? Because it develops resilience.

I can’t get enough of Brene Brown at the moment and am reading, watching and listening to as much of her teachings as possible. I was listening to an audio recording where she was talking about resilience and defined it simply as your ‘bounce back’ factor. I loved that because of its simplicity. Brene is not a classroom Teacher, but this message among many others, had me thinking of how I embrace resilience AND risk taking in my classes.  

Explaining risk taking and the benefits of it are one thing, but like everything we teach we have to have different ways to approach it. I’m lucky with teaching design that it naturally embraces risk taking and there are lots of opportunities for this. I have the time in my classes and in my curriculum to not only promote but provide opportunity for this. Providing these opportunities is important so kids can experience mistakes or failing and learn not to be scared of trying something different.

I often share with my classes when individuals take risks and fail and the learning that stems from that. However, writing this blog has me wondering if discussing this ‘risk taking’ in class and the learning from it is enough. If I really want to develop this type of culture, should I be celebrating these risks more? Each week I award a Super Star of the week. Should I award a Risk Taker of the week and promote that with similar posters in my class? Likewise should I be awarding perseverance of the week or Resilience of the week?

Something I believe in greatly as a Teacher is being prepared to do the same as anything I ask of my students. I guess this is referred to as modelling my Teaching or Practicing what I preach! This week I did just that when I was asked to take a dance class. Anyone who knows me is already laughing. Those who don’t, believe me you should be. I can’t dance to save myself. However, when I had year 3 and 4 students standing in front of me I had to embrace it and if I can be honest, I had a great time! I would never have imagined that! So much so that I am in talks with the dance teacher about developing a dance group for boys.

This week, I plan on tying my ‘dance teaching’ experience into as many lessons as possible. Sharing my risk taking, what I learnt about my ability and what I learnt about my resilience. I even plan on showing my new dancing skills to encourage others to take a risk.

Resilience and risk taking. One doesn’t survive without the other! For the students we teach, it’s imperative that we develop a culture of risk taking to build resilience in them. We have to consistently model what that looks like for our students and we have to be prepared to fail, learn from it and share that with our students. We have to provide opportunity for risk taking in our classrooms and celebrate the attempts and the learning from it. In hindsight, my plans not working out last week weren’t so bad after all. In fact it has been a good learning experience for me and one that I hope will further benefit my practice and ultimately my students learning.

Community

Faith, Learning, Community -  The words of our School Crest. But what do they mean? And how, as a school, do we live them? Faith is self-explanatory and obviously represents the faith we share as an Anglican School. Learning is also quite obvious and central to our core business. However, Community is something that is accepted as a part of a school but its meaning is not always considered.  Well, community has been on my radar the last few years and I was fortunate enough to see it in action just this week. 

It was the day I had three very excited Year 1 classes visiting the Design Technology Centre to further test and expand their knowledge of materials and their properties. I was rather pleased with the planned activities - 6 different stations for kids to work through. However, just minutes before the arrival of the Year 1s, I realised that I had forgotten to organise people to man those stations. 

In a slight panic I flew into the workshop to see if there were any volunteers to help me out.  Luckily, there was a Year 12 Manufacturing class in the workshop and, after some serious pleading, four boys agreed to help. Now, these fellows are best described as diamonds in the rough and, in fact, a couple of them have pushed some boundaries over the years. But like I said, I knew them and, to be honest, I didn’t have much choice at this stage. 

Considering I had very little time to explain what I wanted the boys to do, I had to just place my trust in them to do the right thing. The next one hundred minutes was fast paced. We rotated 3 classes through 6 stations per class - laser cutting, vacuum forming, 3D printing, drilling wood, bending metal, safety inductions and after-session debriefs - rotating 5-6yr olds in and out of rooms and in and out of the building - hectic!

I was manning a station, so I didn’t get to see and hear exactly what the boys talked to the Year 1 students about. However, as one class rotated out and a new class entered, I was reassured that my faith in those Year 12 boys had been vindicated. The Year 1’s were giving the big fellas High 5s and hugs. There were lots of ‘thank yous’ and goodbyes. It was as if they had known each other their entire lives. What was even more pleasing to see was the way in which the older boys accepted these greetings and reciprocated. The following day I had a chance to drop in to some of those Year 1 classes to discuss the previous lesson. I loved that all of the sentences started with ‘Jaydan said...’ or ‘Jaydan showed us how...’  and ‘when Jaydan...’. These kids had learnt about materials and their properties but more importantly had got to be part of a school community and a vertical learning system in its truest form. 

I think back to my school days (memories are vague but still there) and I remember some of older kids and how cool I thought they were. The kids that drove to school, the kids that were captains of my house, the kids that were in the 1st sporting teams or in the top bands. I was in grade 8 looking up to year 12’s in awe! I can only imagine what Yr1’s were thinking as these big fellas guided them through a wonderful learning experience and I don’t just mean the testing of materials. Rather the experience of what it means to be part of a community. But I don’t think the Year 1s were the only ones to get that message that day. Somehow those Year 12s walked a little taller knowing that they had been a part of something very powerful.

As a PP-12 school we have a wonderful opportunity to use our ‘community’ to build ‘community spirit’. We have an opportunity to develop a shared learning culture by letting the younger students interact with those who go before them. This week I have seen the gleam of admiration in young eyes and the pride in older eyes as they learnt from each other.