Our final week of induction has revolved around a different aspect each day that - luckily - have links intrinsically, such as effective teaching and planning, emotional intelligence, and behaviour management. These have all built upon and added to the information we learned last week and I have already spoken about some aspects in an interim post. In fact, it's crazy to think about just how much we've been through in what is effectively less than 3 weeks! I'm not inferring that we're anywhere near ready to qualify, but I think we're certainly in a much more informed and prepared position than many of our soon-to-be colleagues who are following the traditional PGCE route.
The week gave us an opportunity to experience life in different academies. As this was the week where pupils are just returning to start this years' studies, we found that the buildings - some quite traditional and some akin to a 'space age teaching realm of tomorrow' - were relatively empty for the most part. This gave us a great opportunity to feel like new students each day; to make our own first impressions and to have that slight fear of "where am I going?" or "who are all these people?" Despite the fact that the rooms in which we studied heated up quite quickly* we were able to discuss, understand and recap multiple aspects of teaching before we all got a heat-induced glazing over of the eyes, such as:
- Creating the ideal lesson plan, which not only describes what you're going to do and why, but it also self-reflects to ensure that this lesson in the greater scheme of things will give the pupils the opportunity to try out and improve upon core skills
- How IQ and EQ (emotional quotient) are inherently different yet complimentary; in other words, it's one thing to know your stuff, but it's a whole different ballgame to be able to get that stuff over to a group of people who are probably not as focussed as you'd like them to be
- Thinking carefully about differentiation and the idea of differentiated outcomes that would suit all learners in the classroom and without stifling any pupils' abilities (which inspired me to create another page on my blog of quotes and comments I find relevant to my style of teaching that can be found by clicking on this here bit of text)
Being in different academies also gave us the opportunity to speak to other members of staff and some SLEs (Specialist Leaders of Education) on both practical and theoretical knowledge. Being reminded of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and Bloom's Taxonomy, and being introduced to SOLO Taxonomy has once again increased my desire to research and read in the hopes of being able to apply these in the near future. I'm hoping this means that my transition back to Uni to start my PGCE next week will be a little easier too! However, it wasn't just the staff we got to speak to... my biggest surprises and eye openers this week came from two students and a few facts from an SLE who deals with some of the most challenging students imaginable.
We had the opportunity to ask some students what they wanted in a good teacher. At our main academy, we spoke to four Year 9 pupils who eloquently and very maturely put forward their desires. I was astounded to hear things such as "I just want to be treated like an equal" and "someone who can create justified rules in class and apply them fairly" - I wasn't sure what I was expecting them to say, but to hear such things started to flick a switch in my head...
Later in the week, we spoke to a Year 7 boy who was only halfway through his very first day in an enormous secondary academy. We asked him the same question, and after a moment of deliberation, innocently and truthfully said, "I want someone to look after me." Again, that switch was being pressed with more and more force...
And finally, today, we had an introductory session on behaviour management, from perspectives of the prevention of challenging behaviour, to 'what to do when it all goes wrong.' It's impossible to fit each class into the same mould, and the things we learned are certainly adaptable to multiple situations, but it wasn't this "how" or "what to do" that got me; it was the why. It was the 'why' that showed me that many kids nowadays are living in areas and situations that are so abhorrent that they might not wash, eat, or sleep soundly for days. It was the 'why' that made me realise why kids want to be treated like equals, and why they desire to feel safe. And it was the 'why' that flicked that switch in my head and made me remember something that an old friend of mine told me the night before I had my first interview for this position. To paraphrase:
It doesn't matter how much you specialise in your subject. It's not enough to know what you think you know. You need to have to be emotionally-aware as a teacher, and understand that you are giving hope to people through education who may not have hope at all in any other aspect of their lives.
No matter how tough it gets, I hope I'm able to remember this on my journey.
- - - - - - - - - -
My three areas to work on last week were:
- To get more involved in activities - much happier with this weeks' performance
- To maintain curricular reading - still need to work at this
- To improve methods of confidence building - again, much happier with this!
My three achievements this week have been:
- Successfully navigating to and around different academies without getting lost
- Having the individual bits of the course so far all start to fit together
- Feeling more in-touch with lunchtime conversations (unrelated to teaching, I know, but socialising in groups I find tricky to do at times, especially with the leader of the course (and I'm not overly sure why (argh, too many parentheses!)))
My goals for next week are:
- To once again maintain a level of reading commensurate with the amount of work that's about to hit me
- To get back into the swing of studying at University
- To maintain communication with the rest of the cohort during our first week at University
*Interesting digression - why do classrooms the country over never seem to have good ventilation!?
No comments:
Post a Comment