A little bit about Andrew
I've been teaching for 26 years in various schools around NZ/Aotearoa and the UK and I found out this; that the important stuff doesn't live in bullet points or subject specific content. They might be a start or end point.. but just points.
It's about the possibilities that come from imagining, suggesting, what ifs, and finding energy from connections- the journey. Like circuits, sometimes a short circuit is required, or sometimes a full reboot. I see education as being like a metaphoric telecommunications patch bay. Patching in electrical leads that connect different people, experiences, institutions, memories, futures, dreams, imaginings; a transfer station that connects what might initially be seen as disparate entities, that actually turn out to be a new relationship, pathway, multimedia junk sculpture. 1970's music saw an explosion of experimental music by passing sounds or sin waves through synthesizies, linked through patch bays, to create new, unheard, (un)imagined sound. There is thesis, antithesis, and where we mainly live life- in the synthesis.
Education is mostly not about 'what', but 'why', 'how', 'who?'.
Quickfire
I’d rather develop: Knowledge / Dispositions
Students learn best when: They do stuff / Relationships are strong / Both - often occur simultaneously (inwardly and externally)
The best food for building a class culture is: Chocolate / Popcorn
Assessment should: Be mana enhancing / Show kids where they need to get better
The most powerful presence in the room should be: What needs to be learned / The student's dreams
Student imagination: Upends my best plans / Makes learning exciting
My #1, never-fails strategy is: Chatting with students / Smiling
The best phrase to start the school year is: I'm so pleased to see you all! / This class is about learning, not assessment
Completed thoughts
School is like a park bench, it's ... like a patch bay! Connects people and people, and people and environment. A place to begin.
When I was getting started in education, I wish ... I didn’t try and please colleagues so much and support a system of compliance.
I sleep well at night when ... there'd been fun or challenge, or worked with students to enable them to find their own voice that day.
To make learning an empowering experience, teachers should ... listen like crazy. Patch in the connections.
What sticks out for Andrew is
The subject I happen to be employed for whilst I am teaching is Economics. It’s a values based decision making subject. Last year I began using a play based approach to what we did in this subject/class. Students would sculpt and create things with blocks, plasticine etc, to respond non verbally to issues/provocations initially, coz words, phrases , writing, talking up front end often can be loaded, students try and say the ‘right’ thing. And values were at play here, not correct 'answers'.
Out of this play I would note down and observe patterns in response. I noticed that a pair of students often responded with mechanical sculptures, and this was reinforced by concurrent scientific or physics based mode they held in their dialogue or discussions, (and a love for skate boarding they held). And so when I suggested, "how about making skateboards each as a project?" they couldn’t believe it - what Economics? They continued to make, skate and investigate why it’s good for teenagers to do it , and have places in the community to thrive , that the nation and economy would benefit from a focus on people’s well-being , such as they found in their experience.
Policies could be written justifying this kind of activity /provision the government could provide/encourage. They made skateboards and investigated the behavioural-economic notions of Utility, satisfaction, wellbeing to themselves. They kept diaries recording this. And then they developed connections to art/photography/music/physics/construction/mechanics. The look on the faces told me enough of how proud they were afterwards, and the enormous sense of achievement was fully evident, and they thanked me. But the real ‘trick ‘ was not just that I linked a project to their passion, but that I had simply noticed/heard them, and allowed them to be themselves, and that that was a success.
But the most touching project for me last year was the Maori student who organised singing Waiata with her friends and recording it - through lockdown, and showed eventually through her mahi, how Aotearoa would benefit hugely economically by providing a venue and resource to enable Maori and Pacific cultures to be seen and heard and represented within the nation, and valued through that inclusion. The inclusion and strength and mana. This was a student that struggled to get results under an NCEA system and assessment focussed environment, but thrived by having agency and I guess a culturally responsive environment to learn in. But after she finished her project she thanked me not for the great results she gained, which were high in an attainment/NCEA sense, or for any personal accolades she received/gained, but for the opportunity she felt this class gave her to hold her culture aloft. Her success was not her own, but her culture's. The connections were more profound for her than her own attainment in grade terms
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