Questioning Education: Why?

I have been attempting to reason out the seemingly different approach to science that high school students (Years 7-10) have compared to that of their college (Years 11-12) counterparts, and have come to an unexpected realisation: college students do not question their education in the same manner as they did in their younger years.

As a science teacher I am frequently faced with the dreaded question: “Why do we have to learn this? It is completely irrelevant to my life!” and although this provides a fantastic point from which to begin the ‘science is all around you’ conversation, it leaves me feeling somewhat helpless. I feel as though I am attempting to fight against the overwhelming tide of the ‘science is boring’ mentality propagated by folklore and perpetuated by the media. As each additional breath is breathed into this position of disengagement I am forced to question the relevancy of my subject, my teaching, my opinion and that of my students, but no matter how daunting it may be, this constant questioning and re-evaluation is definitely a positive thing for my efficacy as a teacher. If I cannot justify its relevance to myself how am I ever to convince a dubious student of such? I have come to realise that you cannot win over every child in every class, and although you can continue to try you may never succeed: but the fact that these questions are being asked means that the students are readily analysing their education and attempting to form connections between the material and their lives. Concluding that material is irrelevant can only be achieved through a process of recognition, comparison, understanding and application, resulting in their questioning its purpose and importance. “The speed of sound has nothing to do with living my life, so why should I learn about its variation through different media?” The specificity of this question is, in my mind, quite sophisticated – questioning the purpose for learning is an important step in any learner’s journey. There are, of course, students who use this question as a means of avoiding ever thinking about any material in class, but they generally indicate their position through use of different statements, such as “Why do we have to do science?”, “Why do we have to learn this?”, “Science never has anything to do with my life.” or “Science is boring.”
The difference may seem trivial, but I believe that there is an important distinction between considering a specific topic to have no relevance to one’s life, as compared to dismissing a subject generally without considering why it is not important.

In facing this question I have learned that these students are, rightly, questioning the purpose of their learning; however, when undertaking prac in a college environment I was never asked this question. The students sat down, absorbed information, applied understanding and experimented with it, without once verbalising a question as to the purpose of doing so. Were they internalising this dialogue, or was it simply not occurring? I feel that planning lessons based on being able to justify the reasoning for teaching them assists the teacher in focussing on the ever-sought relevance factor, but I found myself overlooking this for a lack urgency. There are so many things to consider when planning lessons that some things can be easily lost in the hierarchy of thought processes.

College students are generally considered to be more mature and willing to learn, but this is, in many cases, not an accurate assumption; it is now a legal requirement in the ACT that teenagers attend school until the age of 17, and a large proportion of tertiary class choices are made with university pre-requisites in mind. The out-dated myth of choosing to continue with education necessarily producing ‘willing learners’ paints an inaccurate picture of the current college classroom. That is not to say, however, that there is no truth in this premise – as I encountered many willing learners in my time at a college – but it should not be relied upon as a universally informing principle.

Why then, is there a difference in the mentality of high school students versus that of college students? The age difference is minimal, and often overlaps, the subject matter is more complex but increases along a continuum of difficulty from Year 7 through to Year 12, the teachers are not trained separately, each of them undertaking secondary teacher training in some form or another…so from whence does this apparent disparity arise? My experience as both a student and a teacher in the ACT school system has led me to the belief that college students are treated more like adults than their high school counterparts, being required to take more responsibility for their conduct in the classroom and being expected to become more autonomous in their learning. They call their teachers by their first name, entering into a more respectful and professional relationship with them, and take responsibility for their own whereabouts during school time. College students are essentially afforded more of the responsibilities and privileges that an adult receives, after being told for 11 years that they cannot organise themselves well enough to be trusted with such independence. Is it this changing environment that creates a different approach to learning? Is it this assumed autonomy that engenders more acceptance on the behalf of the learner? Is it an increased level of trust that increases the assumed relevance and importance of the material? Or is it simply a statistical aberration that would not be reproduced in any other high school or college environment?

This all may seem somewhat like a frivolous and esoteric investigation, but in my mind attempting to understand the mindset of our students is an elusive and essential aspect of becoming a ‘quality teacher’. It underpins the ability to deliver an individually relevant education for each student, and presents the possibility of uncovering the difference and similarities in student motivations. As I am exposed to an increased number of school environments and approaches to teaching and learning I am sure my views on this will be informed and altered, but in the anecdotal meantime I am left wondering why increased autonomy breeds increased acceptance in education.

– For Science!

Taught or Learned?

“I taught them that two weeks ago, so they should still remember it now.”

“Well, I taught them that before the holidays, so I doubt they’ll remember much now!”

“They should know that, I already taught it to them – but it’s always in one ear and out the other!”

The teacher’s role is to teach – and teach they do! – but the meaning implicit in this action and this role is that learning will occur as a result of teaching, and that the learning will (hopefully) lead to deep understanding and critical thinking. So why are these commonly uttered phrases founded on a teacher-centric view of subject matter conveyance? Well, to be fair, people take short-cuts when speaking, and of course this plays a part in the formation of these statements, however, I believe there is something deeper in these remarks. The assumption that “I taught them” is interchangeable with “they learned” is fallacious: even when this conveyed knowledge is able to be reproduced under test conditions it does not indicate something that has been truly learned. To interact and engage with a topic is to grapple with it, and to project oneself into the world in which it exists. Where once a topic lay dormant and unknown, when it is learned it comes alive, and is seen from the individual’s perspective: the nature of the topic has not itself changed, but rather the student’s relationship to it has been altered.

When a teacher says something along the lines of, “They should remember it because I already taught it to them”, they are doing a number of things. Firstly, they are shifting the responsibility for learning from teacher to student, placing the onus on the student to remember this thing that has been taught. This is, of course, a necessary aspect of teaching and learning, as students must, at some stage, take account of their own learning, albeit, this generally occurs under the guidance of the teacher, and only when learning is taking place. A teacher cannot reasonably assume that their students will recall everything that they teach, but when a student truly grapples with a topic, projects themselves onto it, then I believe it remains as a withstanding part of them. This will not, and likely cannot, occur in relation to every topic being taught in every subject at school, and will be different for each individual student also, but if the teacher approaches each topic as tough it will be the pinnacle of scholastic endeavour for at least one student, then I believe that it can indeed be.
Secondly, the teacher is disregarding the possibility that their approach to the teaching of that topic was ineffective for some students. Again, students are required to shoulder some of the responsibility for voicing their concerns with teaching methods or seeking clarifications during classtime or outside of it, but the teacher must always acknowledge that perhaps they did not effectively reach every student. If a minority of students struggled with the content it is possible that it was not presented in their favoured learning style, they had not eaten breakfast, they were tired from playing sport at lunch time etc. However, if the majority of the class struggled to grapple with the content the teacher must then re-examine their approach to its teaching, being open to the possibility that their method was not appropriate for that class group.
Thirdly, the teacher is perpetuating the assumption that an interchangeable relationship exists between the terms ‘taught’ and ‘learned’. Teaching is not the same act as learning, and thus imbues different results as a consequence – but the two are indeed connected. As Friere (1993) explains, successful teaching itself requires learning on the teacher’s behalf, and successful learning is of course belied by informed teaching. “When I teach what I know, to students who supposedly do not know, I am teaching to the curiosity of the students. Their curiosity teaches me. It teaches me to re-know what I already knew.”

I think it is imperative for all teachers to remain vigilant of the implications of their words and the significance they possess for their teaching. The most-labelled of men himself effortlessly explains all of the concepts I have raised and so I shall leave you with his own remarks on the matter:

“The teacher grows by teaching the object to be grasped by the students. If the students don’t grasp the object with their bare hands, the students only memorize the description, but they don’t know the object. Knowing is not a question of memorization. It is a question of acquiring the object.. Knowing…is kind of an adventure. Knowing is a reinvention of the object being known. It is a recreation. It is a mutual process of teaching and learning. The more the teacher refuses to learn with the students, the less the teacher teaches.” (Freire 1993, as quoted in Wink, 2011, p104)

– For Science!

 

References

Wink, J. (2011). Where in the world did critical pedagogy come from? (Ch. 3). Critical pedagogy: Notes from the real world (4th ed, pp. 91-141). Upper Saddle River, USA: Pearson.

Face-to-Face Learning: Archaic or Essential?

The world is changing, and education seems to be perpetually lagging behind this reality. Computers, skype, iPads, blogs, mobile phones, digitised software, Smart Boards, podcasts, Facebook, YouTube, iPods, wikis, Twitter…the list of technologies and tools utilised in education is nebulous. The question of access to and application of these technologies is still relevant to the ongoing debate about (in)equity in education, but during this process a different trend has emerged, unannounced and possibly unanticipated: the decline in face-to-face learning. The concerns about this are being voiced predominately by those doing the educating, and has been brought to my attention specifically by my own university lecturers. My view on this matter is evidently based upon my opinion, manifest predominately from my own learning preferences, and it therefore may not be applicable to other individuals; albeit, it is an interesting state of affairs and one that I have so far observed to have a number of differing responses.

I love the conceptual possibilities of online learning: the flexibility of when, where and how one can listen to a lecture, the ability to stop, rewind and pause for clarification and convenience, the freedom to move around the house/train/bus etc. when listening, the opportunity to view supplementary material in conjunction to listening to the lecture, the gift of being able to venture outside whilst learning, and the sheer comfort afforded by the ability to do all of these things. In essence, the listener is in control of their learning, and is empowered by this convenience-based education. This is assuredly a boon to the modern student, grappling with studying in the complex, time-poor society that has been constructed around them. Access to education has changed dramatically as a result of this move to online teaching, as rural and remote students can “skype in” to lessons with their peers, and working individuals can enrol in online university classes to fit around their established schedules. However, this theoretically flexible education does not work well for me, and I imagine that there are others amongst the populace who feel similarly

I need motivation to learn: my thirst for knowledge is vast, but my thirst for the specific knowledge being presented to us in our prescribed courses does not necessarily factor in to this desire . I often find lectures on essentially any topic interesting to some extent, even if it the interest is engendered only by playing a guessing game about what on Earth is going on, but this means that the motivation that I require is not founded in an inherent disinterest in learning or subject matter. I do, however, need a motivating factor for spending time on this learning, as time is precious and I am an intrinsically disorganised individual. My far-reaching interest in learning sees me mentally conversing with myself regularly, generally along the lines of: “Yes, Anna, String Theory is fascinating, the shift of ENSO is pertinent to our upcoming weather, the financial situation in Greece is relevant to the world at large, the institutionalisation of consumerist practices is still exploiting the general populace and further entrenching the rich/poor divide, the comparison between the weather in Hobart and Darwin is an interesting contrast of latitudes…but THIS is what you need to focus on, right now!”
If I do not go through the routine of waking up, getting ready, organising my books, making my lunch, packing my bag and attending a lecture at a specific time each week I lose the definitive time-allocation for that class, and that specific learning. If I do not undergo this process I shift listening to the lecture to the basket of things to do at the ambiguous time of ‘later’, and it thus becomes ‘later learning’. This generally translates as something that will be forgotten, buried beneath the basket’s continually increasing contents. This evidently manifests from my own personal short-comings and disorganisation, but I have not been able to shift this way of operating over my four years of university study. Studying requires specific time allocation, and unless there is an established timetable to follow I do struggle with successfully achieving such.
I learn more effectively if there is a face for the voice: the detached, sometimes inaudible recording of a faraway speech gives me no indication of emotion, investment or relevance. I can’t see where they’re looking, what they’re annotating, how they’re presenting the information, what type of questions they would ask an audience if they had one, or hear the answers if they already did. I can’t see how they link their slides to their presentation, nor the look in their eyes that is often more telling than their words. I have no visual cues to draw upon or reference, and for me that spells disaster. Without presentation and interaction I lose the thread of the lecture, zoning in and out and getting distracted by webpages, conversations, the weather and my own thoughts. Having no definitive timeslot for this learning I do not have a scheduled attention span either, and although I am by no means consistently focussed in a lecture theatre, I am in the room for the purpose of listening to the lecture and thus have a higher propensity to do so. In the comfort of my own home, listening to a lecture I can barely hear, I am more inclined to sweep the kitchen, wash up the dishes, read a news article, upload photos and forget to take notes, resulting in a half-hearted attempt at listening to what I would otherwise have been invested in.
Part of my drive to attend lectures is founded in the accountability that is engendered by physical attendance. With the exception of my First Year studies the majority of my university classes have been quite small, and thus the lecturers knew me by name. I have always felt a certain obligatory responsibility to attend lectures, to confirm for the lecturer that yes, I was present and hopefully attentively learning, and yes, I cared enough about the effort they expended to be physically present. I have always felt that I will learn more, even if only subconsciously, when in the presence of an individual who is conveying the information to me, as the issue of engagement is diminished in the presence of the presenter.

Needless to say, I have been challenged to keep up with my Grad Dip classes, as the format of lectures alternates between face-to-face and online presentations. The onus that I feel to listen to the online lectures certainly wanes as my fatigue increases, but the fear of falling significantly behind in my studies works to counter this.

The way of the future is certainly of increased use and integration of technology in the processes of learning and education, but whether this eliminates face-to-face learning entirely still remains to be seen. My immediate response to such a future is one of remorse: without the ‘people’ in the ‘learning’ the environment is reduced to an unfeeling domain, breeding a culture of recitation and rote learning. This is not, however, an accurate reflection of the nature of online education, and, as with all forms of education, the focus and values depend entirely upon the coordinating individual. So is face-to-face learning an archaic or essential element of education? That, of course, depends on your point of view; I believe that there is still a place for face-to-face learning at university, and there are numerous lecturers who agree with this view.

– For Science!

Out of the Cauldron – Into the ‘Apples’!

The popular medical TV sit-com Scrubs details the trials, tribulations and joys of the learning journeys of a group of fresh-out-of-Med-School doctors, trying to cluelessly find their way in their new career. We watch their growth, both as doctors and as people, over many seasons – empathising as we watch them strike a very poor work/life balance, find that they are without money or accommodation, deal with catastrophes both at work and in their personal lives, and grapple with reconciling maintaining a ‘normal’ life whilst playing a role in determining the life and death of others each and every day. The stories are very cleverly strung together with the common thread of humour, weaving in and out of their individual and collective journeys, but the reality of life in a hospital is not overlooked, and we share in their pain of death, debilitation and failure.

In one particular episode, JD performs very well under pressure and saves the life of a patient who is ‘crashing’ – and Elliott laments that she has not had the opportunity to do the same and thus feels that she cannot call herself ‘a real doctor’. Despite all of the work that she had done, despite all of the techniques that she had perfected, despite all that she had achieved, despite the many lives that she had touched, because she had not experienced the ‘moment of truth’ that JD had, she felt as though she not a legitimate a doctor. She is blind to her achievements due to her inability to look past this one event, and thus her validity as a doctor is undermined.
I bring this to your collective attention not because I am converting my blog to a sit-com review site (ha!) but because I am constantly searching for analogies that will resonate with a wide array of people who would otherwise have a poor understanding of a concept. I feel that striking parallels can be seen between the shenanigans of learning to be a doctor and that associated with learning to be a teacher. Scrubs captures the personal struggles of a group of people entering a workforce where their every action impacts upon a person’s life, their motivations play a very large part in the decisions that they make, they are subject to immense public scrutiny, they must deal with unqualified ‘know-it-all’ individuals, and their best judgement can be called into question weeks, months and even years following an event…this sounds somewhat familiar!

I am teaching chemistry to students in Years 11 and 12. I am planning lessons, deciding which approach is the best, and attempting to gauge understanding whilst delivering the material. I am adapting my practice to suit my classes’ responses to the information, observing the group dynamics, getting to know them as people. I am coordinating practical experiments and encouraging them to think critically about their observations. I am trying to be good at what I am doing, and I have certainly made many mistakes, but I am confident that I am persevering through the challenges of floundering in an unfamiliar and unpredictable environment.

And yet I am forced to question: am I a teacher? Am I truly ‘one who teaches’? Should I dare to claim such a title without having graduated yet? Is becoming a ‘teacher’ a rite of passage that necessitates the signing of the contract, the official namebadege, the personalised posters on the classroom wall, the labelled pigeon hole, the coffee mug in the staffroom cupboard, the Bloom’s Taxonomy poster above the desk? Or is a ‘teacher’ simply one who has the courage to face the trials and tribulations of education head-on?

I do not believe the coffee mug makes the teacher, but I am unsure whether simply having the motivation to try is enough, either. Am I Elliott – blind to my successes and abilities by being fixated on whether I feel that I can call myself a teacher – or am I truly not at the stage where I should be labelled as such? I have not had that ‘defining moment’ that speaks of my true teacherhood – you know the one, portrayed in every ‘tame the challenging students’ movie ever made! – but I have observed a faint light of understanding in the eyes of my students…do such little things not count for big achievements?

I think that what I am grappling with is the convolution in the Venn diagram of my teacher and personal identities: the relevance of titles, assumptions, achievements and emotions, attempting to reconcile my tenuous sense of teacherhood with my equally tenuous sense of self. But the fact that I am struggling with these concepts surely speaks of my investment in them, and indicates the importance that I am placing on understanding what it means to be a teacher in the eyes of society, and what it feels like to be a teacher within myself.

I have been moving through my prac with excitement, anticipation, uncertainty and a little regret, but with only two weeks remaining, I am not feeling much of anything at all. I am having fun conversing with my colleagues, and the students, and trying to be an effective teacher, but I am honestly feeling less and less as the days pass. What does this mean for my developing selves and how I view my future as a teacher? The mental fog in which I  currently reside could be an artefact of not being able to process the overwhelmingly different environment which I have delved into – or it could be that my perpetual state of unknowing is seeping into every aspect of my teaching.

Prac has thus far been enjoyable, challenging, educational and trying. I feel as though I have emerged from the cauldron of university and its trappings of awakening and continual uncertainty, only to dive head-long into the equally unpredictably amazing world of the teacher. It may not always be a barrel of laughs, but the apples do not spoil for such minimal discomfort – the teacher’s apples remain stoic in the face of degradation.

– For Science!

Teaching to Change: Grad Dip to Date

I have made a lot of posts, written many words, thought many thoughts, and had many discussions in the name of ‘learning to teach’ – so what have I really learned from the Grad Dip? This, Wally Watchers, is my attempt to examine just that…here goes!

I have learned about learning as much as I have learned about teaching. There are different ways to teach, just as there are different ways to learn, and it can sometimes be difficult to relate to someone else’s method of doing so. The logical, analytical, mathematical learners can find it difficult to make sense of the musical, emotional, interpersonal learners’ viewpoint, just as the imaginative, artistic, holistic individuals cannot quite understand the organised, planned, administrative way of doing things; and yet these individuals coexist, interact, cooperate and combine to form the overall, dynamic, variable spectrum of learners that we encounter in schools, and in the world at large. These traits do not have to be contradictory, and can in fact enrich the learning experience of every other in the class. Do you remember why playing with other children at pre-school resulted in arguments about whose turn it was, or whose toy it was? The ability to share is learned, developing concurrently with one’s ability to empathise. Starting with a necessarily ego-centric view of the world, we as individuals must undergo interpersonal interactions to receive the required experiences from which empathy is born. When one is able to empathise, one is able to fathom and rationalise the existence of points of view other than our own, learning to accept that ours is certainly not the only, and not necessarily the ‘correct’, opinion. In the same way that empathy leads us to understand people and benefits our interactivity propensity, so too experiencing other forms of learning extends us as individuals. Until one is exposed to other methods of approaching, grappling with and undertaking learning, it is difficult for one to truly acknowledge its benefit. The diverse and individual nature of learning allows the teacher to draw upon each students’ strengths and challenge their weaknesses – through allowing for variation in the nature of the tasks set and encouraging interaction between students. Humans evolved to learn from their peers and fellow community members, and this is no less true today than it was thousands of years ago.
This leads to the point of dynamism in the classroom, on behalf of the teacher and the learning environment thereby engendered. It is generally true that students spend their time at home engaged in multitudinous activities simultaneously – something along the lines of skyping, texting, messaging and commenting whilst watching a YouTube video on someone’s website and reading that Wikipedia page for homework. This is not born of their “short attention span” or “lack of commitment and focus”: this is the only life they have known. Technological integration into daily activities has grown up as they have, and thus they genuinely know of no other way of living. Whether or not this is viewed as a positive or negative reality, the fact is that it is reality, and teachers must accept this as fact and capitalise on its implications. The way in which education is delivered has, in many cases, not caught up to the reality of society, which is detrimental to the teachers and the learners involved. So at home you do seven “technological things” at once, but are bored by reading a textbook and answering questions – I wonder why? The way in which knowledge is delivered in a classroom is also lagging behind this external paradigm shift, as knowledge is now viewed and utilised as a constructable ‘thing’, whereas historically it was a rigid commodity that could be accessed and understood but not altered…oh, how times have changed! The learners in the classroom are now part of this knowledge, and it is patronising to treat them in any other manner. So you are studying the formation of helium from the fusion reactions happening in the Sun and Jimmy is disinterested in this topic, despite his general enthusiasm for planetary science? Before you labelled him as a “bad” student, did you stop to consider whether perhaps Jimmy had written a Wikipedia article about that very phenomenon? Or took astronomical photos documenting something similar? Was it considered that perhaps he is somewhat of an expert in the field? Teachers need to be able to say “I don’t know” with confidence and conviction – and to realise that sometimes even they can learn from their students. Why can a student not lead a class? Why can their knowledge not be tapped into and shared? Why does their input need to be avoided? The constructable nature of knowledge and its almost universal access means that students can be genuinely confused by being placed into an unfamiliar and archaic scenario of teacher-instructor, student-listener, instead of teacher-student-contributor, and thus classroom dynamics can be thrown out of kilter. Following on from this idea, it seems illogical to keep knowledge under lock and key, out of reach of students, when it is not “time” to learn it. Following a Unit Outline literally to the letter creates an air of exclusivity about knowledge and about education, which is surely the very opposite of our inclusive goals? Why not write the learning outcomes on the white board at the start of a lesson and discuss them with the students who are to learn them? Why not play on a student/s’ interest in a particular topic – no matter the pre-determined “scheduling” of knowledge conveyance – and sieze a tangential learning/discussion opportunity? Why not give students access to all of the course material for a class, prior to its introduction in lessons? Why are these questions addressed with mentalities based on historical schedules and time-frames? Can one truly claim to “control the flow of knowledge” – or, perhaps more importantly, why should they try to? Accepting the constructable and accessible nature of knowledge in the modern world renders the attempts to exclude students from it as counter-intuitive and potentially destructive to the classroom environment – and truthfully, in my mind, wholly illogical!
However, this fabric of learning and knowledge should not overshadow the more basic requirements of students and teachers. The basic “needs” of students must be met before any tangible learning can begin. A student’s need for food and sleep will certainly be observed to go wanting at some stage, and if they remain unsatiated no learning can be hoped to be achieved. A possibly overlooked and yet terribly important role of teachers is that of welfare-provider; the student as a person must be considered, recognised and understood before the student as a learner can be engaged. Knowing one’s students underpins so much of any method of education, and is frequently described as one key to effective teaching. But if it is to be considered in realistic terms, you as teacher would not approve of your students simply viewing you as “maths teacher 3”, instead of “Mr Johnson who likes fishing, wears bow-ties and has three daughters”, and thus it is fully reasonable for them expect to be shown the same level of respect and recognition as individuals.
On the tangential cusp of recognition lies another pertinent and rather difficult issue: equity in schooling. Discrimination based on ethnicity, gender, lifestyle, socieconomic status (SES), locality, access to resources etc. can have a profound effect on a student’s schooling and education. There is quite a clear relationship between low SES and low educative ‘success’, which is evidently fundamentally unjust and inequitable. This has implications for the way in which the curriculum is interpreted and delivered, as it represents a National framework, designed to be delivered across the board, despite its audience being comprised of unique individuals. We are taught to target and adapt our practice and pedagogy to suit the needs of our students, as specificity in education yields personal and individual successes. And yet, the clay of the curriculum that we are manipulating is distributed in a “one-size-fits-all” mould – it is evident that a cookie-cutter education is not an effective one. This aspect of education, the so-called “thisness”, leads us to view it in this light – and also highlights the failure of Government to recognise the variable requirements for funding. But funding is not the only issue at hand: the appropriateness of curriculum content impacts significantly on student engagement with it. This is another situation in which the individuality of one’s students must be taken into consideration, and another chance for even the teacher to learn from their class. Perhaps the topic at hand directly impacted upon one student’s personal history? Perhaps one student hails from one of the societies to be studied? Perhaps the student’s upbringing has ingrained in them an aversion to a topic? Perhaps the student has a general interest in a topic that has resulted in an almost expert level of knowledge? All of these factors must be dually noted and factored into lesson preparation – as “most behaviour is in the teaching”. As was highlighted by a wonderfully insightful teacher, to label students as disobedient or disruptive puts the onus on the student, and the responsibility moved away from the teacher. Disengaged students, however, have reached said state due to the teaching not meeting their needs and thereby failing to engage them, and thus the responsibility lies with the teacher’s ability to re-engage them.

Teaching should not be a vigilante endeavour, teaching should be a well-planned, considered, informed activity, in which passion, vigour, identity and empathy are employed. Teaching is not an “easy” route to extra holidays and short working hours – it is not “a job just for Christmas”, it is a commitment that extends far, far behind the scenes and beyond the realm of the classroom. A teacher gives a part of themselves to their job, and that takes its toll – teaching is not easy as it involves personal investment, and therefore personal pain. Dealing with people inevitably means clashes of personalities, disagreements, hopelessness, anger, frustration, purposelessness, disillusionment and exasperation will inevitably occur; but equally a teacher will experience joy, revelation, power, purpose, satisfaction and pride. The good must be taken with the bad, and always an open mind must be maintained. But who wouldn’t want the chance to fundamentally impact upon the next generation of our world? Who wouldn’t want the chance to assist in the personal growth and development of our youngest citizens? Who wouldn’t want the chance to take part in shaping our nation? Who wouldn’t want the chance to help every student to realise their potential?

Ghandi’s immortalised words, “You must be the change that you wish to see in the world” have led me to teacher education – and I have not yet once thought better of that decision. In the words of one of my lecturers, “learning needs to be active, reflective and collaborative, and teaching needs to be challenging, scaffolded and connected” – and in my mind that essentially sums up my Graduate Diploma in Education in Secondary Teaching to date.

Now it is onto the next frontier: the classroom!

– For Science (and Teaching)!

The Thinkers-and-Doers of the Science Metaphor

Upon reading one of my lecturer’s wonderfully insightful and provocative blog posts I felt the need to respond – and although the content veers tangentially away from his main purpose for writing it, the inherent element of meta-cognition has awakened some parts of my thinking that have been lying dormant, patiently waiting for a time to emerge when I was ready to deal with them. They have been tugging at the corner of my subconscious for a number of weeks, but have yet to be adequately acknowledged – until now…there is always so much contemplate!

“To learn to teach is to belong to, and draw upon, a community of thinkers-and-doers. The hyphens remind us that this is one set of people, not (as some would have it) a world divided into two groups, the thinkers and the doers. These thinkers-and-doers include our teachers, our parents, our former teachers, our fellow students and teaching colleagues, the authors of the books we read, the presenters of the courses we attend.”

I was so exalted to read this description, as I feel that society creates such limiting and short-sighted constructs that the population feels obligated to fit into them. There is often no possibility of cross-category liaison or information exchange in the sense that the doers could not possibly learn anything from the thinkers, and visa versa, as they have different roles and therefore different activities to undergo. How could doing something assist in one’s thinking about it?How could thinking something assist in one’s doing it? And yet, the two are so very interconnected that I would argue it is nigh on impossible to adequately fulfil either task without referencing the other – and thus is the basis for the mentality that theory informs practice. This does not necessarily mean that theory must precede practice, but it does mean that the recipe for success involves both.

12 months ago my main teaching ambition was centred on being accepted into the 2-year program entitled “Teach For Australia“, whereupon successful completion awards the participant a Diploma in teaching and two years of on-the-job experience in a “disadvantaged” school in Australia. This seemed like the most amazing opportunity and fulfilled so many of my desired criteria – teaching qualification, practical experience, work in remote areas – that I decided that it was a non-negotiable goal. I did not look upon this as an easy objective, but I did believe that I would be ready to teach without any introductory training (oh the folly of youth!), although there is a six-week introductory training course. But times, how they change, and cutting a long, involved story short, I ended up enrolling in the Dip Ed I am currently studying. And oh, how my perspective on that program has changed! How on Earth could I have hoped to succeed in any capacity with no theory informing my practice? I may have succeeded in making a child laugh, or in making myself feel like I was achieving my goals, or in making personal revelations, or perhaps even conveying knowledge to someone, but I can, without any doubt, conclude that I would not have truly taught those students in a meaningful manner without starting from a somewhat informed viewpoint. I would have entered that classroom flying blind, with no vision and no co-pilot, and been expecting to make it through the turbulence unscathed, landing on the run-way after two years of relative smooth sailing…what was I thinking?! It is not until one begins to study teaching that one realises how little one genuinely understands it, and it is this daunting, unsettling, and most uncomfortable transition to conscious incompetence that is the point at which the real learning begins.

A teacher must be a thinker-and-doer by the very nature of their career, and I think it is worth taking stock of this at the end of a hard day. Reflecting upon this yields that successful teaching requires a level of developmental maturity to realise that there is always a meaning in an action, and a theory in a practice.

~~~**~~~

“To be in the grip of the scientific metaphor is to be made to feel uneasy about the fact that intuitively we know we learn from our colleagues and from our practice. If my student could more easily allow himself to be invaded by the ‘learning communities’ metaphor, he would know he could draw on his fellow students’ blogs if indeed they help him to understand, and to act effectively in, the complex  ‘indeterminate zones of practice’.”

I do not consider myself a scientist in the sense that resonates with society; I do not inhabit a lab coat five days per week, I do not spend my days pipetting coloured liquids into trays upon trays of sample vials, I do not make a habit of breeding albino rats for experimentation, my time is not occupied by analysing endless data files and graphs, I am not required to douse and scour my person before entering my workplace, I am not found hunched over a large and expensive piece of equipment on a daily basis. I am not a stereotypical scientist as the media portrays us – although these scientific endeavours are wholly valuable and worthwhile career pursuits – and yet, I do refer to myself as a scientist, and I see myself as one: I look for the science in the world, seeking out the amazingly embedded yet prominent scientific basis in everything in my life, and thus my outlook on life is science! – and what is more scientific than that?

I know many individuals who would argue with this definition and reasoning, and possibly rightly so; albeit, science is such a salient and integral part of my life that I feel I cannot fully encapsulate myself using any other term, and thus I continue to appropriate it for my own purposes.
This, however, raises a separate ‘kind of science’ from that referenced above, and yet they are wholly related. “To be in the grip of the scientific metaphor is to be made to feel uneasy about the fact that intuitively we know we learn from our colleagues and from our practice.” I know the truth in these words, and yet this learning, this understanding, this knowing is not undertaken in a scientifically rigorous manner – does this mean it is necessarily rendered invalid, unusable, unreliable? As a joyously self-proclaimed scientist, must I undertake ‘research’ upon which to base any so-called knowledge that I come to ‘know’? Must I reference my teaching practice, and employ only those methods proffered in ‘academic journals’? Must the anecdotal be ignored? Must we rally against the spread of a socially constructed nature of knowledge? To these ideas the reflectivist and scientist in me both say a resounding, “No!”
Humanity was founded on the activity of tribal groups who survived, subsequently sharing this knowledge of survival, reality and history between generations and amongst community members – we were born of communal functionality. Our reality may have altered significantly from that of the ancestral hominids speaking, singing, dancing, surviving and learning on the plains of Africa, but the ability and propensity to share knowledge has never been more immediate as it is today. Our community has broadened to international horizons; our survival has altered from run-survive, hunt-kill to survival in the constructs of modern civilisation (in the West/First World, at least); our history has seen advancement, tragedy, wonderment, genius, pain, suffering and above all else, humanity; and what has remained stoically unchanged throughout this time is that salient, flawed and defining construct that is our humanity. And we know this because our ancestors communicated this to us. Anecdotes, stories, embellishments, fabrications, forgotten events, contradictory accounts, language, art, discoveries, technology – inter-written into all of these abstract and tangible media is the history of the human journey…and I do not know this because it was cited by seven respected scholars – I know this because I am human and it is as much my story as it is yours.

To think about this knowledge, to understand its meaning and to enact its purpose is surely the way that our community (society) has operated from its very origin? The thinkers-and-doers of the world understand this in some capacity – be they scientists, bakers or electricians – and are therefore not limited or contained by the walls of the science metaphor.

I am a scientist, I am a teacher-in-training, and I am always learning – and that in and of itself opens so many doors to accessing knowledge, with innumerable purposes and from myriad sources, each with its own relevance or lack thereof, to be determined by the individual seeking out the knowledge. Every referenced article itself was seeded by an ‘idea’ that was generated from contemplation of current knowledge, and was constructed around this established ‘known’. Ultimately, regardless of its source, through collation of information, review of data, experimental observation, disproving and supporting theories and hypotheses, thinking about the world in a different manner, problem solving, and intellectual inquiry, all knowledge is constructed – and that means we all contribute to its existence.

– For Science!

Learning to Love Learning – CPP 2, WEEK 9

1. Read the blog posts, The walled city: Josh Part 1, Doubts and loves: Josh Part 2, Walking through the barrier: Josh Part 3
2. Think (and write) about times when you’ve felt trapped or excluded from the learning, and whether you found (or were helped to find) an escape route.
3. Think about the reading and reflecting you’ve already done in CPP 2, and what light it might throw on this issue.
4. Reflect on the implications of all of this for your teaching.

The story of Josh is a story of teachers: his journey and approach to schooling is an embodiment of his interaction with the teaching and learning taking place in his classroom. The ‘Walled City’ in which he found himself may have also been populated by other students, each of them grappling with the same issues that he was, or perhaps walled-in by their own individual barriers. But where did the teacher fit into this? Was the teacher themself barricaded off from the students, or even barridcaded in with the students? Was the teaching itself born of isolation from the world, necessarily preventing students from making connections between the subject matter and their inner and outer selves? Was the teacher aware that this was happening, allowing the construction of walled fortresses to isolate students? Was the teacher attempting to break down these barriers? Or were they oblivious to the existence of these separatory constructs? Were they consciously or unconsciously encouraging their development? Or were they knowingly or unknowingly breaking them down, one brick at a time?

As a teacher, how do you even begin to plan for such a situation arising? Are you resigned to the fate of putting your students into boxes labelled “Incapable of deep thinking” and leaving it at that? (My Assignment One was founded on this very premise of ‘boxing’ students based on assumptions, and thus I find it very interesting that it has been somewhat alluded to here..) Can you counter this affect at all?

I have felt excluded from many different things in my life, albeit, learning has never truly been one of them. I did always feel a need to see things from the ‘right’ point of view – that is, the view presented to us as correct – but also felt that I had the right to challenge this view if and when I saw the need to. I trusted my teachers to be supportive of my opinions, and equally I respected theirs; I was lucky enough to have wonderful English teachers who encouraged the development of skills and implementation of critical analysis. The times that I did feel a sense of exclusion from learning usually occurred when assigned a text that I did not connect with on any level; I can recall a few novels throughout high school that fit into this category! If the class as a whole looked upon the book unfavourably there was no such sense of exclusion, as we were all ‘on the same page’ with regards to engagement (or disengagement) with the subject. However, if the class were able to find some insightful quality in its pages that I was not privy to I would be incensed – it was just so unfair that I was being excluded from accessing the meaning in the text.
Class discussions would assist me in understanding the way in which my classmates were viewing the text, and therefore the route they travelled to reach their insight into its meaning. This would go some way in relieving the stress that accompanied the feeling of floundering in the sea of unknowingness, but would not necessarily lead me to discover for myself a meaning or purpose in the text. I did feel comfortable expressing this view, though, and can recall some of my journal entries illustrating just that: “I cannot see the point of the use of metaphor here, as it does not add to the overall meaning of the story. It seems unnecessarily ambiguous, and does not assist in conveying meaning.” (Clearly if I could not connect with a text it was not worth reading…or so I told myself to appease the sense of uneasiness that was born of frustration!) Thankfully, though, the large majority of the essays I was required to write at school were not based upon a text that I was so disengaged with, and I was thus able to formulate an adequate discussion regarding its themes, story, premises, meaning etc.

The student’s ability to connect with subject matter is pivotal to their investment in the exploration of its meaning, development, purpose and importance; if one cannot personally relate to a piece of writing, one would be generally disinclined to analyse it further. The very personal nature of interpretation renders this a very hit-and-miss type of activity: one man’s Shakespeare is another man’s Suess (NB – I am not intending to pass judgement on either of these authors, rather I am highlighting that the very varied nature of their works can be viewed by different individuals as either analogous or contrasting). Albeit, I believe the wonderfully insightful musings into Josh’s journey of discovery into the meaning in Othello highlights the need for the student to see connections between the text and their own life – and this transcends the need for individually targeted pieces of work. The development of a universal connection with a text, formed from multi-faceted analyses and viewpoints, can be encouraged by not automatically disregarding students for their ‘incorrect’ interpretation of the text.
Josh was only able to see meaning in Shakespeare’s words when the larger context was uncovered, providing a framework for his interpretation to build upon. This was achieved through class discussions, reading summarising articles on SparkNotes and watching a film adaptation of the play, all of which combined to provide a rich tapestry of perspectives and understanding. Josh’s immediate response to studying a Shakespearean play illustrated that he was convinced that there was a right and a wrong way for it to be interpreted. He enjoyed the personal nature of poetry, as each person was allowed to interpret it in their own way, drawing whatever meaning from it that they could see individually, and thus he felt constricted by the perceived requirements and boundaries associated with studying Othello. Initially seeing and feeling no real meaning in this play, Josh felt as though he had utterly ‘missed the point’, or perhaps that there was just no point to see.

So what does this mean for my teaching? Science is somewhat different from Shakespeare, in that scientific theories are to be understood in a certain manner – but this does not mean that students should not question them! As I have said numerous times previously, science is about being wrong, and thus it is imperative that people question the theories that underlie our understanding of the world. It is equally as crucial, though, that the initial premise is truly understood, as one cannot prove, disprove or argue the validity of a concept without first understanding what it means. I must convey to my students the ‘laws’ of science in such a way that they understand and are able to personally connect with them; concurrently instilling in them the importance of questioning what is accepted as a scientific fact. As Josh felt constricted by a perceived ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ view of Shakespeare, so too science students can feel stifled by the impression that scientific theories are either ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. This can be particularly pertinent in relation to experimental data, as a student at my placement school illustrated on Friday: “My dad looked at my results and said I had done it completely wrong, and that I should do it all again…I don’t really understand my data either so I think he’s right, but I don’t know what I did wrong!” I assured her that just because her data was not in-keeping with her hypothesis did not mean that she had conducted her experiment incorrectly, and that her task now was to explain the results that she had observed. I also attempted to communicate to her the variable nature of scientific investigations, and that often results will deviate from that which is ‘expected’, but it is not an artifact of being ‘incorrect’. Sometimes there are errors in an experimental method, and in that instance it is important to identify and explain the source and effect of the error on the experiment – but that is all part of science! She appeared to be slightly more confident in her work after our chat, but I was saddened by the impact that her father’s view of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ had had on her perceived success – no matter what I said his disparaging comments would be able to (unknowingly) undermine my reassurances.
There is evidently a difference between scientific rigour and being ‘right’ – and the variable nature of experiments will always turn up interesting results. As I always said during my university chemistry laboratory sessions: “If the data is right, you’ve done something wrong!”

– For Science!

Ed Foundations – WEEK 2

WEEK 2 QUESTIONS

3. How and when did you learn to read and write? What do you think is the best way to teach reading and writing? Should we focus mainly on skills, or on meanings in context, or is there another method?
4. Reflect on a recent learning experience. How did it build on what you had known or experienced beforehand? List all the knowledge, skills and experiences that contributed to your learning. Are there other links you might have made to help you learn more, or learn more effectively? 

I learned to read and write in Kindergarten, at the age of about five-six. I could write my name in preschool, at the age of four, but that was most likely due to an ability to remember that those squiggles together supposedly spelled ‘Anna’. In my mind, there is a gaping cognitive leap between the ability to reproduce squiggles and the ability to understand what each of the squiggles individually represents and thus be able to apply them in a different context.
Asking my mother whether one skill preceded the other she could not quite recall – as I am the third of four children it is understandable that there were a few other things going on that she prioritised! – but had a general idea that the two occurred concurrently. I was intrigued by this, as I am unsure whether it is common for reading to precede writing, or visa versa, or whether the logic of learning the two skills in tandem outweighs any propensity favouring the simplicity of one or the other.

In an attempt to answer this question I will draw on my recent experience of learning (in a very basic form) another language. Whilst teaching in Tanzania I was attempting to instruct very young children how to speak and write English, yet they were still learning their native tongue of Swahili and thus knew very little, if any, of our foreign language. It was imperative that I learned their language if I wanted to establish a communication channel, no matter how successful it proved to be, and thus I set about learning Swahili.
I dabbled in French in Primary School, then Japanese for one year at High School, but have never attempted to learn a second language in earnest. I know that I struggle with languages that are not phonetic, although I am quite aware that English is a largely non-sensical language and is not itself phonetic, but having grown up speaking it I evidently have overcome this challenge. Fortuitously Swahili is a wholly phonetic, rule-abiding language, which does not have a different word form to differentiate between the past, present and future tense of a word. Instead, the verb/noun is given the equivalent of a prefix that includes the pronoun and tense of the word, and thus it becomes a case of memorising only the verb/noun, as the sentence construction itself is essentially self-evident.

For example:

Pronouns: I = Ni, You = U ;
Tenses: Li = past, Na = present, Ta = future ;
Verb: Rudi = return

Nilirudi = I have returned ; Ninarudi = I am returning ; Nitarudi = I will return
Ulirudi = You have returned ; Unarudi = You are returning; Utarudi = You will return

I am sure you get the message (although these statements alone do not make proper grammatical sense, as one would more likely qualify such a statement with “I will return home/soon/later” etc). I have illustrated this point merely to show that Swahili is a relatively simple language to learn, which greatly assisted in my endeavour to learn its basics in two months. Remarkably, as it is phonetic I am also able to transcribe Swahili words with accurate spelling, even if I have never heard the words previously. This all lends itself to the more logical method of learning the spoken and written forms of Swahili concurrently.

The other factors influencing my learning of Swahili revolved mainly around my immersion in the Tanzanian culture; interacting with people in the street, at school and when relaxing meant that I was able to practise, hone and question my use of Swahili, much to the delight of the locals. It also gave me the upper-hand when bargaining prices in the street – as a Mzungu (the non-derogatory name for a white person) who could quote numbers in Swahili clearly knew which prices were too high! These dynamic and varied situations challenged my knowledge of the language and provided me with great opportunities to discover where I was lacking. My personal drive to achieve at least some grasp of the language also played a large part in my accomplishments therein, as I knew my volunteer work and travel would be greatly enriched as a result; I was a visitor to their country and as such knew that I could make much more of a difference if I did so on their terms.

But how does this link with language learning? English is obviously a whole other kettle of fish, being a mixture of many languages and abiding by the rules of none, and I have been informed a number of times that the reading and writing of English are two very, very different beasts. But in my experience, the best way to familiarise oneself with the language is to first be exposed to it and to practise it – early childhood – on a daily basis. The sentence constructions are naturally a secondary development after the basic vocabulary has been established, at which time contexts, tenses, syntax etc come into play. I find the question of whether or not to focus on ‘skills’ quite arbitrary, as surely understanding ‘meanings in context’ is also a skill? Based upon testimonies from friends learning English as a second language, the written and spoken forms of English are hard to reconcile, and thus I feel that the most difficult aspect of learning our most ecclectic of tongues is to relate the two. How one does though, I am unsure.

– For Science!