Actually, reading Stephen Heppell's letter to Queensland was very pertinent to my recent experiences talking to friends whole recently moved there. It could have been to Victoria as well though.
This is a one- off opportunity now though to make the change to 21C pedagogy. We have so many young grads that are a rich resource and so many people about to retire with rich experiences to draw from. I feel privileged to actually be in the middle of this. I am one of the few who teachers who survived the Kennet years and introduction of contracts just as they were graduating and fortunately stuck it out and eventually got job security mixed in with many other employment experiences. I am one of those last mohicans that I discussed early in the course who remembers the time without all this technology but has readily made it my own. I feel powerfully equipped to lead the charge into the future.
The mention of standardized testing was timely as we have just come out the other side of NAPLAN.
As a teacher i didn't have much to do with it but saw it swirl through the school and also through my home - having both a year 7 and Year 5 child. My approach to it is "these things shall pass, just do your best, no pressure" You could say the biggest value i place on them is that they are one, somewhat unreliable assessment tool out of many. They are such a juxtaposition against the sort of teaching and learning we are learning about.
I like the mention of fact that this type of learning is not always as expensive as it has to be. We are learning this at our school- we have to be resourceful. We have already discovered the rich source of ideas and resources that Twitter and Pinterest are.
We too are starting to feel that the hardest part is over and that our efforts are being rewarded.
Great to sense your positivity here Bec! Can't wait to hear where your school goes next....
ReplyDeleteYou have pulled it all together Bec. You really live and breath that leading from the middle mentality and you are optimistic about what people have to offer. This is a real skill, it's so easy to into the deficit thinking about the people we work with.
ReplyDeleteWorking hard to squeeze the most out of what we have got is important too. WE need to value and make the most of our current situation. It's interesting observing some peoples reaction to me rolling out the technology tools across the school. The more tech I seem to put into the school the more questions I get asked like, "well when are we going to get this or that", or "I can't do this coding thing I wanted to do until you get the laptops" (there's me gong of being negative). The point is, seeing things for what they are is important. We're so so so lucky here in Australia, we have a real opportunity to make something special occur in the education world.
Had to giggle at you blog post title this week as well! :-)
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