The only constant…
10:20 pm on the 12th of January, 2008“We learn from our experience…..if we reflect upon our experience” - John Dewey.
I have never been one for doing an end of year, navel gazing post,* instead I tend to be pretty reflective all the time, but now that the new term has begun I’ve found myself thinking more about how things have changed since August. There have of course been huge changes in myself professionally, I have gained a huge amount of curricular knowledge from teaching subjects I’ve not taught before, but it’s all the other areas that have changed the most (as an aside I wonder how many teachers well out of probation ever look at their practice compared to the Standard for Full Registration…) like classroom/workshop management, managing pupil behaviour, and short/medium/long term planning.
It’s the last one I want to pick up on. Last term the only constant was change, and things are continuing to change this term. It’s no doubt the same in every school: staff come and go; people get promotions; but it feels like there has been more upheaval than is normal. We are about to start with a new timetable on Monday and I will be losing a couple of periods a week with 2 of my classes. This means I’m going to have to plan out material for those periods for the foreseeable future. This would be quite a big task normally but this time it’s made more difficult by the fact that it is classes sitting our 2 year Highers - the first time we’ve run them. It means that while we have plans for the courses both long term and short term the classes are still being ironed out as we go to an extent.
I’ll try to let you know how things go, though hopefully you’ll be able to track the progress on the RHSCDT edubuzz blog.
*In fact I always find the New Year quite a bizarre idea, an enjoyable, but bizarre nonetheless. After all it’s just a moment in time, man just happens to have picked this day as the start/end of a cycle he has noticed. Nature itself makes nothing of the date - waves continue to come crashing in, the moon does it’s own thing.
Tags: Curriculum, planning, reflection
January 26th, 2008 at 2:21 pm on the 26th of January, 2008
“We learn from our experience…..if we reflect upon our experience” - John Dewey.
I’ve seen this quote used a lot recently, it seems to be the new ELC mantra(!), and while I don’t doubt that we can learn when we reflect, what if our reflections are wrong? Do we reflect on every experience we have, I think not, and yet we can learn without conscious reflection. Look at any sporting activity, our body learns without us realising for the most part. Children learn very effectively without the necessity of conscious reflection, think of early years learning. As I say, yes, we can learn when we reflect, but it is not the be all and end all.
That said keep on erflecting, you write well!
January 30th, 2008 at 5:39 pm on the 30th of January, 2008
The quote does seem to crop up a lot doesn’t it?
If our reflections are wrong? I suppose it depends how deeply you reflect, if you look back and say “I couldn’t have done that a year ago, I wonder what made the difference?” then you may find the wrong answers but, by the act of thinking about what has changed you are more likely to come up with the right answers than if you carry on blissfully unaware.
Also, when the chance comes - and it depends on the situation how suitable this is - to reflect on things publicly then the more perspectives you get in response the better the chance that you can find out something about yourself that otherwise may have been missed, and this could be a positive or negative trait.
Thanks for the comment anon, nice of you to say I write well, it’s not something I would have said about myself, I think I write like an NQT who has no time for blogging anymore! Perhaps you could sum up the confidence to leave a hint at your identity next time? I don’t mind anonymous comments but it’s nicer to have a real name.
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