Reflection: Why do I bother?

Yes, why do we bother? Teaching today is a formidable profession to place oneself in. Last year (2006) I had started my university studies long distance, while teaching casually, I was then offered a block of teaching for two terms. Of course I jumped at the chance to have a secure work pattern for myself and my family for a time. This was to be a real epiphany of my inadequacy and shortcomings and whether I would actually even become a teacher.

During a short stint of working at TAFE, teaching adults drawing, I had enjoyed myself thoroughly. I approached my teaching with vigor and enthusiasm, and seemed to manage the classroom behaviour well enough. I had placed my resume at various schools in the area on the off chance that I might get a day of teaching now and again, nothing happened for about six months.

The work at TAFE had run out, we were financially stressed, I didn't seem to be able to get any sort of work that I applied for, things weren't looking to good. At Mass, with the family one Sunday I just sat there and said to God " I can't do this anymore, You have to show me what you want me to do, I give up I'm in your hands, just point me in the right direction", there was a lot more I said that night as I sat in the church going through the motions of the mass that I know of by rote but don't always appreciate. Two days later a school called me to do a days casual teaching as one of its visual art teachers was sick, that was in June 2005 and I haven't really stopped teaching since then.

"Be careful what you pray for", is a well trodden phrase in today's world of euphemistic jargon ism, but when it really happens to you, you will be presented with really big challenges. I had no idea what teaching teenagers was about when I first started, I was flying by the seat of my pants, so to speak. If I had been a lot younger I might have crashed and burned long before I did. I need to give you some idea here of how I was employed, they called me in to do a days casual work that ended up lasting a term and a half, working as a casual everyday, which means every period was filled and then I would go home and construct lesson plans, classes, exams, assessment tasks and all the marking in my own time. Surprisingly although this was very exhausting and stressful, I managed to get through it all. With virtually no direction or support I've had to make my way through the jungle on my own and learn (on my own) what it is to be a teacher,(and I'm still learning and always will be) I've always liked a challenge.

In 2006 I started studying again, and working in the same high school, I was offered another block of teaching Visual Art from years 7 - 11. I said yes and within weeks regretted my decision, I was temporary part time, I was there five days a week, I was earning a quarter of the money I used to earn, and I was working even harder than I had the year before. There were a few fundamental factors here that made this job really hard for me at this point. Firstly I just did not have the experience, here I was, trying hard to put into practice what I was learning from the textbooks on how to be a teacher and it wasn't working, especially the two elective classes that I had of year9 and year11. I had quite a few students in both these classes with learning and psychological difficulties and some really lazy students who resented the fact that I made them work. I realize now, that I had no support from my colleagues, I was left to sink or swim, at the time there was just too much for me to worry about with the classes I had, than to give time to my own psychological state.

My year 7's and 8's were fine, and I had already covered this work the year before, so I was well informed of the content and outcomes required for these students as well as the programmes being in place to work from. Years 9 and 11 had no programmes written or assessment tasks or anything, I had to construct these on my own, the teachers around me were too busy to help me except in the most minimal ways e.g. pointing to draws where I might find some information that might be useful. To tell you what happened to me during those two terms would take thousands of words, there was so much that went on, suffice to say that at the end of the second term I was a complete wreck. I really could not face going back into a classroom, I did not want to become a teacher. I didn't know what I was going to do, I was burnt out, fed up and terribly defeated, I had lost every bit of confidence in myself, I was just so much of a mess.

It isn't until you fail, or maybe I should say don't succeed well at something that you start to question and learn yourself. Yes I ran away for a while, after my perceived failure, ( I'm sure not too many people saw it the same way I did) and I really had to work out what had gone wrong. There I was trying to do everything right for everyone, without realising what it was I needed to do for myself. Paramountly, to be in a safe learning environment myself, and I wasn't. To feel supported and nurtured along the way, none of these things had happened. Not only this but human contact is vital in the learning process, doing uni on line was just to wrong for me at this time. As it happened a friend mentioned Notre Dame and said to look it up, which I did, now my life and learning are back on track(yes, the roller coaster track) . This time round I know why I bother.

Teaching isn't just all the theorists and how we learn, I see Vygotskys Zone Of Proximal Development being brought into play everyday I'm in the classroom "Miss, how do I do ....." I will then ask other students "if they were the teacher how would they show their classmate how to do ......" and there are always kids who will offer that guiding support and peer to peer learning. Constructivism gives us language to hang ideas on, a launching pad to operate from, with the use of the epistemology of how we learn, we then have the building blocks at our disposal. So that in turn, the individual teacher, no matter where they are teaching understands what they need to do to help students learn to form their own building blocks of knowledge for their future. When I read about Piaget and Vygotsky last year It made no sense at all I was so lost in all these theorists, now it's making sense, I can understand how they put their theories to work and how it functions in the real classroom everyday and how I use it as a building block of my teaching knowledge. I've read Gardner before and I already use his multiple intelligences in the classroom as much as I can, it made sense when I read these and to use them seemed so spontaneous and natural (teaching visual art gives me a good scope for this) The article by Costa and Kallick " Habits of Mind and Thinking" was really important to me in regard to my own ability to think and grow, and in return help my students think and grow. Margaret Wheatley's article will be an invaluable tool for me in my future classroom teaching and how I get students to interact and support each other in the process of learning.

In future assignments I will show in a more specific way how I can use theory to develop lesson plans etc, back to the point of why I bother! Just this past Friday I had a year10 Religion class for the last period of the day, it had been raining, they hadn't been allowed off the verandahs and they were just feral when they came in. I would like to say some how I won them over with engagement and lively discussion, but this wasn't the case, work was set for them and we had to do it. Yes, it can be such a battle, but in that class there were boys that I have had in other classes, and they were great, they did their work, and the others were what I expected them to be. look at the week, lots of rain, so not much burning off of testosterone playing footy or sport, look at the subject, yipee! boys love religion in year 10, not to mention having to find bible quotations and explain them.
Bringing Christ's message into this world is a formidable task (especially to yr10) but I will persist. They need the love shown to them that Christ showed to all mankind, yes I make my classes clean up their room before leaving it, as a respect for their environment, how can I know if their parents teach them this. Sometimes the role I am filling is almost parental, I never leave a class without having learnt something from my students. And as a parent I've learnt so much from my own children. Teaching is a two way street of giving, and the more you understand how to facilitate this giving, in all it's complications and convolutions, I'll refer to Costa and Kallick here, thinking flexibly, creating, innovating, imagining, gathering data through all the senses, listening and understanding with empathy, remaining open to continuous learning and a sense of humor and much more, the more you give selflessly the more you receive in personal growth.
How else will we give hope to our youth and try to arrest this breakdown of society that we are constantly being presented with, that they are constantly seeing. how do we show them that they are loved and that there is hope and not just empty materialism and vanity. I can't just walk away, even though I not a very good teacher yet I hope in time to be a better one, God didn't give me the talents that he did for selfish purposes, he wants me to grow and develop them and with this type of awareness I can help other people to see and develop their talents, and maybe go on to do wonderful things with their lives, or maybe have a better day because they had art with Miss Rooney.


http://www.teacherfiles.com/animated/animated_school.htm
Wheatley_Archive\wheatleysolvingnotattacking.html36
Costa, A and Kallick, B. (2002) Discovering and Exploring, Book1 of Habits of Mind a Developmental Series (2002)ASCD

MI After Twenty Years

MI After Twenty Years, Howard Gardner.
It was very interesting to read that when Howard Gardner called his book the Frames of Mind that he caused such a stir against the establishment that cherishes the IQ test, because to me his multiple intelligences are broder and wider and deeper than just an IQ test. I suppose also on a personal level I had an IQ test performed on me when I was quite young in primary school and they told me that I had well below the average IQ for my age. That really undermined my learning capacity for most of my life. It wasn't until I went to uni in my fourties that I started to overcome my insecurities about my learning abilities. Then very recently my son was diagnosed with learning problems and since he has been in therapy I have found out that I have some difficulties of my own. I guess if Gardners Multiple Inteligences had been used when I was in school I might have attempted a university degree a lot earlier in my life.
Now! I realize that we all have these wonderful intelligences, some are stronger than others and of course these will all develope differently depending on, Physiological factors, psychological factors and enviromental factors. This is an enlightening piece to read because we are not discussing what has already been well reasearched and documented, but what is also an ongoing development of other (as yet not completely defined) intelligences. The very fact that Howard Gardner still searchs for clearer ways to help us understand the way the mind works is an encouragment for the questions that still need to be answered.
I am glad there are people like Howard Gardner who have this much higher intelligence that mine to ask these questions and seek the answers, because people like me can then have a chance to understand our own processes of learning, and then we have the ideas of how we should help the students in our classes learn through a variety of ways. They can then present information they have learnt in a way mostsatisfyinh to themselves, or learn through variety of different styles aimed at each of the different intelligence groups.
Another important aspect of these Intelligences is that it gives educators a great basis for creating great projects for the students to get involved with at school. I see this with my own children when they have a teacher who does utilise the multiple intelligences into the structure of how the children present their research and findings, my own kids embrace the project and get excited about what they are learning and how they can show what they have learnt.

Habits of Mind and Thinking

Habits of Mind and Thinking, A. Costa and B. Kallick.
It is really nice to have things pointed out to you in such a clear way, this has helped me in ways I have never thought of before, I didn't know that Persisting was a habit of mind. Or that finding humour was, so this article made me do the whole metacognition thing. I sometimes feel that I am tripping over my shoe laces at the moment, with all this thinking about thinking, what it's working, which bits it's working and what is supposed to happen when it does all work, Oh man! what if it doesn't work the way it's supposed to.
So I will keep these 16 points as a tool for my planning of lessons. Questions that I will be able to ask myself as I plan day to day classes, am I giving depth and development to my lesson structure?. Not only will it be a tool of self analysis it will be a tool for me to develope criteria for my own personal ability to assess the students that I have to teach.
The fact that it was an Australian based trial and it had such a positive result, has given me hope that it might become a widely used approach throughout the education system, as it invests respect and responsibility back into the student.

Solving not attacking, complex problems.

Solving not attacking, Complex Problems, A five-state Approach Based on an Ancient Practice. Margret J. Wheatley and Geoff Crinean. 2004
I found this a very useful article in so many ways, with a variety of techniques that I will be able to develope into tools that I can use in many ways in the classroom. I found it interesting that we have been given an article that would function in the corporate world, as a template for teaching methods in the school enviroment. I can see its use not only in a modified way, to be used in the classroom, but it could become an underpinning strategy for dealing with other faculty members and middle managementand in an endless variety of situations.
Firstly, my understandings/ impressions of this article, were how useful it would have beeen last year when I was really struggling with a very recalcitrant group of year 11 students who didn't want me as a teacher, wouldn't do their work, wouldn't come to class, there were endless problems. I really recieved no support or back up from anyone else at the school, no programmes were written and I was really sinking. I did try my best, but nothing seemed to be working, reading this article I can see so many strategies that I could have employed to help me and help the students.
I can apply these five stages for many situations eg, when there are coflicts betwen the students themselves. Not every class starts out as a cohesive group, using the strategies presented in this article you can develope plans that will at least help you the teacher smooth the issues out and help the students to a more fullfilling educational outcome. I can see ways that these five stages can be incorporated into the way you teach the curriculm and help students not only reach the outcomes required but it helps to teach in this constructivist mode. So you are really teaching them to use their cognitive skills, you are able to put Blooms taxonomy into play and develope sound outcomes and learning for these young ones.
This is the reason I have come to this uni, I just wasn't getting the support or guidance I felt I needed to be a good teacher at the other uni that I was attending. This article is proof enough to me that I have made a good decision. I know that there are conflicts everywhere, in the classroom, student Vs student, teacher Vs student, it can happen in the staffroom, it can happen between teachers and managment. So it's eveywhere, so I am going to try and learn these of by heart and add them to my back-pack of tools for teaching.