Monday 16th March 2009 – I am Alive

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.”

 

Albert Einstein

 

I don’t think I actually will stop thinking now until the deadline time passes

 

The calm before the storm

 And then………Willie Stewart / Molly Rankin

Trouble with a capital T

Tuesday 24th February 2009 – Into the Lion’s Den

My meeting with Chris Gray today with regard to the CPD plan from the last assignment.

Brookfield’s Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher is once again recalled in my reflection process. Chapter 1, page fifteen, to be precise…..Deep Space Nine:The Answer Must  Be Out There Somewhere

We think that if we just look hard enough, we will find the manual, workshop theory or person that will tell us exactly what we need to do. Occasionally, this might happen. But more often than not, any ideas or suggestions we pick up will have to be sculpted to fit the local conditions in which we work

This fits with my meeting like a glove. Th meeting was productive, but I feel that I gave away too many of my ideas which would have been beneficial for me to keep up my sleeve without sharing. However, I feel that I made a good impact on my boss and that the ideas were warmly received, just how warmly..well time will tell.

I am to be put through the RSAMD Career Review Process, but technically I don’t have to do that as I work less that the required amount of hours, but I feel it would be beneficial for me to do. I will download and complete the necessary documentation before my next meeting with Chris.

Lots of funding, financial, IT, implications, etc reared there ugly head as to what is meant to be the idea of the New One Academy. I feel there is more red tape to follow this one and with Sharon’s imminent departure and interviews to be held very soon, it will be a trying time for all in the Musicworks over, a new beginning has begun in relation to the already in place newly restructured academy.

I have been engrossed in the feasibility study in relation to the Scottish music industry which I found online and the RSAMD has a huge part to play, but with the majority of its graduate students actually working in fast food outlets, not mentioning them, Chris, this does not bode well for the RSAMD.

I am also swatting up on RSAMD policies and procedures and have come to the conclusion that all good things must come to an end……..Career Review to follow

Wednesday 18th February – “Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.” Albert Einstein

Our one-to-one tutorials were cancelled last week as Andrew’s trains were not running to time owing to the snow fall. I couldn’t see the school from my window…not good. However, in reading I think I have been privy to the constellation alignment theory….

Stephen Brookfield (2006) The Skillful Teacher is having a significant impact upon me and my thinking at the moment. Another of Caroline’s light bulb moments has captivated me….

“True team teaching takes more time and energy than solo teaching because now all decisions have to be talked through with colleagues rather than remaining on ones own judgement call”

I love this, I just wish this could actually happen within the project. It is a pity that in the interests of the children, us (the tutors), parents, children and RSAMD staff do no appreciate what we have. We have the chance and the ability to educate, shape and develop young minds, but we are always confronted with angst, procedures, policies and protocols.

They are necessary for all concereneds well-being and welfare, but they are constraints, nonetheless. I have been visiting my plan for CPD in relation to the last assessment and looked forward to the tutorials with Andrew int eh near future. However, I remain unconvinced that the RSAMD embracement of technology is succinct to the actual learning environment and the needs of its students as well as those in the outreach projects.

It is with this thought that I am again reflecting on how I can improve communications between and amongst all members of the RSAMD and the Musicworks Department.

The staff Google site has been pulled by the IT department and I am increasingly worried that my development plan is going south for the winter before it has begun. A meeting looms with Chris Gray, Head of Musicworks in relation to the cpd plan. I wait with baited breath on Chris’s interactions and will hang on every word for the wrong reason I think.

I have also managed to purchase an ebook of the Paul Ramsden’s (1992) book, How to Teach in Higher Education, and it is a bit eerie as to “it gets inside our head” 

“Recall that theories of teaching are ‘relational’; they describe ways of experiencing and conceptualising the activities fo instruction, rather than the phenomena inside the teachers head” 

Saturday 7th February 2009 – The Games are afoot

The Games were afoot today in Sighthill and my ‘damsel in distress’ student was there in a better frame of mind and in good spirits with the others in her peer group. I did manage to chat to her about what happened in class and finally we / I got the answer / response that I was looking for. She was under pressure and I was the excuse….

Im fine with that, I know that I shouldn’t be, but I can understand why she felt that way. Under pressure teenagers is anguish for us as it is for them although I will try and be mindful that they are not children and are certainly not mine….

We got the trivial pursuits under way which was a relief and fun for all who attended that day. Well that was the verbal feedback anyway. They genuinely seemed to enjoy theory in a more light-hearted familial way in which we discussed the topics, improvised in the Terry Mayes concept of pass it on and then finally had a good laugh at what, how, why, when, etc they arrived at the answer.

This shall be investigated and developed further in relation to time-out aspects as our classes run back to back without breaks, well mine do every week.

However, I need to develop the Brookfield Questionnaire for children. I think the initial conept of the questions if fine, but they have to be adapted for the age group I teach (eight and upwards). I think I shall review this in the Easter Holidays as we are not far away and Sighthill is off on holiday the next weeks.

I have wedding stuff to organise and my mind is becoming pre-occupied, but I am reading Julia, I promise!!!!!

Sunday 1st February 2009 – Afterall, tomorrow is another day

Good morning blog,

I’m actually writing this in Office 2007 which then allows me to save my entries for a later date to which I can automatically up-link my blog, but I forgot. I really must do this on a weekly basis on a Sunday evening. This is a good time, as nothing happens……..

Well that is to say nothing usually happens. Should not really be announced here, but I’m engaged to be married…..Las Vegas here I come. We agreed a two week holiday sometime in August and I can’t wait!!!

Anyway back to the study thing…..

Stephen. D. Brookfield (1995) states that

“My dismissal of what I already knew and could do was not always perceived as reassuringly self-deprecating. Sometimes it created an unnecessary anxiety in already insecure students”

I thought this was exceptional. I could relate this to how I felt at my nightmare incident with my student, I could relate to all aspects of how she may have misunderstood the way that I was feeling, let alone her, I could empathise with her workload in relation to secondary education and me with the PGCert, it was all falling into place. The mastermind re-shuffle was taking place.

However, my little plan of what this Satruday would bring was good. We would not be doing traditional theory, but we would have the laptop out, quizzes, Musical Trivial Pursuit and SWEETIES!!!!! You see she is a chocolate fiend. My purse will be lighter though……

in past weeks we had done the Terry Mayes concept of teach the person next to you a topic and pass it on…so next Saturday was about  theory trivial pursuit style, not for a wedgie, but for a Thornton’s Chocolate, nothing but the best for my students, or was this simply to ease my conscience of what my Senior Tutor had said to me……..I was angry!!! Not at her ……at me. He doesn’t get it at all …..

And once again Brookfield – “Students often find it helpful from the outset of a discussion the conversational roles they are required to play. Knowing that they have a particular task to fulfill seems to remove some of the performance anxiety created in the invisible norm”

I concur that the concept of discussion with the students is now going to be foremost in my mind and that I shall tackle issues of concern for me and them with open debate and a free floor to vent, rant and improvise. R

Reflection-in-of and for action

Monday 26th January 2009 – The Scarlet Pimpernel

On resuming teaching at Sighthill on Saturday, I found that my resilience to children was possibly at it all time lowest. I found myself querying the quote of Gavin Bolton (1979) on Towards a Theory of Drama:

“Experiencing, in itself, is of little value. It is reflection on the experience that leads to a change in understanding”

I don’t know how I managed to bookmark this site in Delicious or how I got to it in the first instance, but the fact was that I was engaged with this poignant remark / phrase. It was lyrical, poetic and it seemed as if I had been served with some poetic justice of my own.

I began to think what I could do and how I could remedy the incidnet with my student. It wasn’t an incidnet, but that’s how I felt about the whole thing.

She wasn’t there on Saturday, but I played and replayed the scenario in my head for the following week. I have a plan, a cunning one, but nonetheless, a plan………..

It was in that plan that I decided to borrow the Brookfield book Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher book that I had saw on various wbsite resources. I managed to access a quick glance at the opening paragraph…this was inspirational….”We teach to change the World”

What can I say……I felt inspired, ready to jump off the cliff, but my recollections of previous Saturday teachings made me depressed. I need to purchase that book ……

Saturday 17th January 2009

I thought that with the start of the New Year I would be able to elaborate a little more on my reading materials. However, this has not been the case.

During my teaching at Sighthill, one of my students, who shall remain nameless, for reasons unknown to me, actually left my class in tears this morning when I asked her why she had not completed her homework? I am bewildered and bemused by these actions. She is lovely girl, who, at times, is under a lot of pressure with school work, extra school curricular activities and music lessons.

She is extremely good and she attained an extremely high mark in recent theory exams which is the reason why I was complete taken aback. I have encountered in the past, many children who for whatever reason i.e. laziness, forgot to complete tasks asked of them, but X in this instance is not one of those children. She is a child of is very much advanced for her young years and she is rather ‘good’ at what she does.

In reflection, in that moment, I was angry not with her, but with me for not seeing what was in front of me. I am sure we have all felt like this, at times, and I know on this day I really did feel like running away and not coming back to teaching or the project.

However, she spoke with another tutor within the centre, which again, upset me as I the thought that I was the approachable one that could influence and calm the children when they were tired, hyper, upset, etc. I had to re-evaluate quickly as I collected my lower jaw from the floor! The other children within the class setting were just staring at me to see what my reaction was.

I was gutted, humbled, angry, frustrated, etc, but I had to carry on. What made matters worse was in the incredible manner in which the Senior Tutor responded when I asked various questions. He had said that I had upset this girl and that she spoke with the other tutor informing her that I was angry, but he never asked me why I actually was angry. He assumed that the above was the case and that I was indeed guilty of sedition of RSAMD Policy.

I know that,at times, we all break rule, but not this one….not me!!!!!! I would be physically sick and resign my post  if I thought that I had caused this much distress to a girl that would normally have had all her homework completed in a matter of seconds and that she would not even blink and eye in any other circumstance if she had not done it.

It was with the above incident in mind when I began reading papers from the Higher Education Academy. Found this great line and on reflection:

 “To influence people we have to move with them, rather than against them, therefore getting students to reflect is best done by asking them questions which they will be interested to answer from their own learning perspectives”

Perhaps, next time I will appreciate more fully, the interactions of student and teacher in the realm which is adolescence!!