Remembering What I Believe

Every now and again I find myself having thoughts which counter my beliefs about 21st century teaching and learning. I'll be in the car, my mind wandering into the magical realm of lesson plans, when suddenly the realisation that the activity I was daydreaming about is actually a little boring, a little pedestrian, teacher centred and very "traditional". It's at that point I walk away from the daydream and I feel suddenly alone.

For a while now, far longer than I've been blogging, I've been the one in my school/faculty trying new things, pushing the boundaries of curriculum and syllabus documents and the reality is it's often a lonely, tiring and challenging place to be in education. In the last 12 months I've been lucky enough to find my place in a wonderfully supportive and diverse Personal Learning Network full of tweets, blog posts and podcasts shared by people who are pushing the boundaries, challenging our conceptions of education and reshaping "school". My PLN is full of people I admire and aspire to be more like and through their stories and generous sharing I've come to realise that in the grand scheme of education I'm not the only one out there trying new things.

Sometimes though, my PLN isn't enough to balance out the feeling of isolation where I'm working on the ground. Especially when I'm daydreaming lesson plans and being struck with the realisation that what I was concocting was nothing like the type of lesson I encourage others to use. But, the reality is sometimes I need a wake up call, a reminder to do what it is I recommend others do.

At the 2009 Smart Classrooms Innovation Expo Gary Stager presented one of the keynotes and one of the quotes which has stayed with me and which has since taken pride of place on my office wall is:

"...less us, more them..."

And really, that's what I go back to when my idyll daydreaming of lessons is interrupted by reality. Recently, I've been thinking on this a great deal as my mind archives material from 2009 and frees up some space for thinking about 2010.

2010 promises to be an exciting and intense year (as if 2009 wasn't full on enough!). I'll be continuing in my leadership role and helping my colleagues implement a number of new projects around; curriculum compacting options for students, eportfolios for, as and of learning across the curriculum for senior students, increased collaboration between students and staff across the English faculty and digitising faculty planning, records and assessment as much as possible. And everytime I catch myself thinking what I will be doing to teach others I'm going to remind myself to think instead about how they can learn without me.

Digging Deep, Holding On and Pushing Forward

The 2009 school year is drawing to a close - and I say that with both a heavy heart and a huge sigh of relief. There is still so much to do before I can walk away satisfied that the job is done and yet each day I have found it increasingly hard to dig deep and find the focus, drive and energy needed to keep it up.

2009 has been a year of change and growth - both personally and professionally. The major catalyst for this has been taking on my first official leadership role as Head of Department for years 10-12 English, Humanities (Ancient History, Modern History, Geography, Economics) and LOTE (Japanese) programs. And what a ride that has turned out to be - with the expected (and unexpected) highs and lows, challenges and successes. I have to admit I've considered throwing in the towel a number of times, I've cried (behind closed doors), I've ranted and I've celebrated. More than anything though, I've grown - as a leader, as a teacher and as a person.

I have grown by...

Taking myself seriously.
I have never been comfortable being an official leader, I've always been a leader "behind the scenes", maybe it was a fear of being the target if things went wrong, or being considered "uppity", I'm not sure. It took me a good six months to start to really settle into my role, probably a little longer. I spent a lot of time second guessing myself, hesitating, looking to others. Eventually that lead to the inevitable confrontation with reality and through the mess I realised I had a choice, either step up and step down. I chose to step up and haven't looked back. I've slowly gained confidence and have started standing up for myself and my beliefs.

Trusting myself.
As the youngest member of the department I'll admit I've had moments when I didn't trust in what I was trying to bring to reality and I let others highjack my vision. I worried so much over the novels I'd selected for our literature studies I honestly lost sleep. I still worry too much, I still spend far too much of my time waiting for the reprimand over the smallest decisions. However, I'm learning to trust myself and my decisions.

Widening my world view.
I have been a Drama teacher,a junior Studies of Society and Environment teacher, a Modern History teacher, a junior English teacher and an English Communication teacher (at one deeply low point in my career I was even a year 8 German teacher despite never having spoken German). But I have never been a Geography teacher or a Vocational Education and Training teacher, I have never been the one getting grilled over the feedback from external reviews on our performance, I've never been comfortable analysing data, drawing conclusions and developing strategic responses. This year I've been all of these things and more. I've learnt to make decisions and stand by them, I've had to have hard conversations (and deal with the fall out) and I've started to see things from a different perspective - I talk now in terms of syllabus documents, strategic targets and goals, measurable outcomes.

There will always be resisters.
I am fairly certain that in the past I've been guilty of being a teacher "in the trenches" openly resisting the direction of my leaders, openly defying change. Trust me, I've learned this year that that looks and feels very different from the other side of the fence. At first I was frustrated and upset by it, but I'm not anymore. I've learnt to play a juggling game of applying pressure, forging ahead and backing off as necessary. Over the year we've made some pretty huge steps forward within the department, teaching teams and across the campus this way and I'm proud of that.

Despite the rollercoaster I've been on this year as I come to terms with my new(ish) role I just hit "submit" to submit my application to continue in the role for another 12 months. Maybe I'm crazy, but I think it's more to do with the fact that I want to continue to push forward. We've had some big successes this year and they're providing an exciting platform from which to launch our programs for 2010.

Our successes have included...

Increased collaboration.
English, out of all the subjects I work with, is notorious for being a very "traditional" subject in its teaching and learning approach. At the start of the year the teachers were very happy to each work in their isolated classrooms, going about their own thing. Our planning meetings buzz a little differently now - there's a growing recognition of the power of drawing on each of our individual strengths and specialities and a commitment to instigate a number of programs which will see the walls open far more often.

Digital Pedagogy for all.
Despite my first meeting of the year included a comment about how ridiculous working with wikis and blogs in English was and an open resentment to the inclusion of digital assessment tasks, that's mostly died down now. Even the most avid resister at the beginning of 2009 is increasingly accepting and open to learning new tools and supportive of digital activities in our classrooms.

It's an exciting place to be in, 2010 is promising to be an exciting year as a teacher and as a leader. I just need to dig deep and hold on for five more work days...

The part we play

Today, as I walked through the crowded foodcourt of our local shopping centre, a stunning young lady stepped out of the long line she was waiting in and greeted my husband and I by name. We glanced awkwardly at each other, each hoping the other would give the necessary clue to place who we were faced with. Embarrassingly, neither of us could save the other and the poor young girl had to confront us with, "You don't recognise me do you?" We both felt awful and personally I was desperately trying to make a connection with my memory banks - we obviously knew her..but how?

Thinking on her feet the girl saved us all any further embarrassment by pulling out her Year 8 ID card...and shocked, the penny finally dropped. This was a student we had both taught for 2-3 years at our previous school...more than that, she was in the area celebrating Schoolies and her completion of 12 years of schooling. The brief encounter drew to a close and we wandered away, stunned and shell-shocked trying to figure out who else would have graduated from that cohort this year and wondering who else we might run into (given our horrible reception to our first, we were desperate to do better the next time!)

As we finished our lunch, hubby and I planned out what chores we needed to do before heading home but before we could move far from the table we suddenly found ourselves cornered by a group of between 10-15 students from the same school and rather than the awkward Year 10 students we remembered we were faced with confident young adults, smiling and happy to see us and share with us what their futures hold (amongst the group there were aspiring teachers, fighter pilots, butchers and journalists).

The rest of the afternoon has been filled with random questions and memories as we try and place each of the "new", mature faces with the students we remember. And, as one would expect, each of these sparkes another new memory and the conversation rolls on.

What I will take from our encounter today though is a deep feeling of pride - these are students we have not had contact with for two years (since we were transferred from the school) and yet they wanted to come and at the very least say hello. That, on the back of the emotional farewelling of the students graduating from my current school this year (with the conversations of thanks, hopes and dreams) I have been reminded that as teachers we often underestimate the power of our connections with students - our influence will play in their lives far longer than we are their teacher and far longer than they are at school. We have played some small part in helping them move towards their futures, to find themselves.

We need to be aware of this part we play and we need to live up to the challenge - which leaves me faced with the question, what have I done this school year to help my students become the best they can be?