Turning the kōrero about amazing teachers
This year I have leave from my school to work in educational facilitation. Most of my mahi is part of the centrally funded PLD of the Ministry of Education model that supports teachers in their schools. As you would expect, this mahi takes me to visit some kura and I get to meet some amazing people, staff and students, doing some amazing things. Let's park that experience for a minute....
Over the last few years I have read a few articles about future-focused education. Such as...
Bolstad's 2012 article, "Supporting future-oriented learning and teaching: a New Zealand perspective" (You can access article here) and I have heard from many people at conferences and talks about the Digital Revolution where it is described as having a similar impact to our lives as the industrial revolution in mid-1800s. All of these articles and talks have similar retoric.
So let's talk about the third point "Teachers have to change; schools have been unchanged for over a century". I see many teachers, in many schools. They have changed! Not a single school I work with is as it was 5 years ago, let alone a century ago. We need to change the kōrero on this and promtote a new kaupapa in the way our teachers are viewed in society and the media has a big part ot play in this....both social and commercial media forms. Every single teacher I know wants the best for the students they have in front of them now. They go out of their way to find out about them academically and personally, so they can create learning experiences that capture all a students brings to the class with them, and what the student learns in the class. Learning is primarily social, oral first, and grounded in students interests and it develops from that strength. The student is at the heart of all they do. The emotional investment teachers make in their students cannot be underestimated and students notice it, value it, and cherish it. It is time we started sharing more of this, not leaving it up to any form of media to work out for themselves.
Researchers are another group of people who need to see a different viewpoint. They report that teachers need to change and schools need to change but researhcers fail to identify or share where change has occured already. They then make a media statement and so the cycle of "teachers are behind the times" continues and now it is being announced by a researcher so it must be true.
Someone recently said to me, "teaching is not a job or a profession, it's a lifestyle". This is definately how I feel about teaching. We are focused on how our students are going and we either believe that we don't need to be proactive in promoting all we do and how we have changed, or we don't have time to be proactive and promotional about teachers growing and changing. In light of the teacher shortages all over the country, I think our teachers must begin to promote this lifestyle as the worthy, incredibly enriching, humbling and rewarding profession it is. We need to attract more poeple to teaching, good people, who share our ideals and hopes for our rangatahi. We need our society to understand what it is we do and outwardly value it.
Learning experiences for students are unrecognisable compared to 100 year ago. Our students over the years have caused us to change because that is what they needed from their teachers. Let's shout it out!!
Over the last few years I have read a few articles about future-focused education. Such as...
Bolstad's 2012 article, "Supporting future-oriented learning and teaching: a New Zealand perspective" (You can access article here) and I have heard from many people at conferences and talks about the Digital Revolution where it is described as having a similar impact to our lives as the industrial revolution in mid-1800s. All of these articles and talks have similar retoric.
- Our future is unknown; prepare our children for this
- Many jobs now will not exist in the future
- Teachers have to change; schools have been unchanged for over a century and we have one-size-fits-all
I will quickly address the first two bullet points. The first point is "Our future is unknown". Well, this is obvious. Nothing about this statement is new. It has been this way since time was abstractly devised and before that moment, it was also not new. The second point is also not new. In my life time jobs have dissappeared. My brother was a milk boy. 6 days a week he ran around the block pushing a trolley of milk bottles delivering them to houses. Milk was always available at the supermarket, but it was still delivered. My Uncle worked with his Dad as a night soil man, visiting every house weekly to clean out the toilet, now we just flush. My Nana was a telephone operator, pulling out plugs and pushing them in to connect peoples telephone calls, now phone calls connect digitally. Prior to my life time other jobs disappeared too... the knock-up man was put out of work by alarm clocks and the gas light man was put out of work by electricity. However, the rate of change in the digital arena is changing very quickly. Quicker than other changes our societies have experienced in the past.
So let's talk about the third point "Teachers have to change; schools have been unchanged for over a century". I see many teachers, in many schools. They have changed! Not a single school I work with is as it was 5 years ago, let alone a century ago. We need to change the kōrero on this and promtote a new kaupapa in the way our teachers are viewed in society and the media has a big part ot play in this....both social and commercial media forms. Every single teacher I know wants the best for the students they have in front of them now. They go out of their way to find out about them academically and personally, so they can create learning experiences that capture all a students brings to the class with them, and what the student learns in the class. Learning is primarily social, oral first, and grounded in students interests and it develops from that strength. The student is at the heart of all they do. The emotional investment teachers make in their students cannot be underestimated and students notice it, value it, and cherish it. It is time we started sharing more of this, not leaving it up to any form of media to work out for themselves.
Researchers are another group of people who need to see a different viewpoint. They report that teachers need to change and schools need to change but researhcers fail to identify or share where change has occured already. They then make a media statement and so the cycle of "teachers are behind the times" continues and now it is being announced by a researcher so it must be true.
Someone recently said to me, "teaching is not a job or a profession, it's a lifestyle". This is definately how I feel about teaching. We are focused on how our students are going and we either believe that we don't need to be proactive in promoting all we do and how we have changed, or we don't have time to be proactive and promotional about teachers growing and changing. In light of the teacher shortages all over the country, I think our teachers must begin to promote this lifestyle as the worthy, incredibly enriching, humbling and rewarding profession it is. We need to attract more poeple to teaching, good people, who share our ideals and hopes for our rangatahi. We need our society to understand what it is we do and outwardly value it.
Teachers have changed; schools have changed.
Teacher's are adaptable, amazingly empathetic, educators.
Learning experiences for students are unrecognisable compared to 100 year ago. Our students over the years have caused us to change because that is what they needed from their teachers. Let's shout it out!!
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