gail dyer

In March I was just beginning to get a roll on with writing my Blog. Then it happened we were one teacher down and a class out of control. (I could take the mickey out of myself and say “Super Principal to the rescue”) I had to go into a classroom and shock horror actually teach children. You know that thing that I used to do, for the past 15 years all I have done is tell teachers what, where, when and how they should be teaching. Now, alas, all eyes are on me. Can she really practice that which she preaches? That’s my excuse for the silence. Hours of preparation making sure content is right and structures are in place in the class to ensure the students have their best shot at becoming independent, motivated, engaged learners, using technology the lot. All cliche but really so much hard work to make it look easy as it comes to fruition. I wanted to write in our holidays but wasn’t ready the warm sunshine, the beautiful birds, the bushwalks, the clean air of the mountains not conducive to sitting with a computer on the lap, especially when the sun is so bright the screen can’t be seen. I wanted to write when I heard 3 old female teachers sitting at afternoon tea lamenting the fact that children come from primary school knowing nothing. All they seem to do there is these ridiculous activities they don’t learn anything. I felt like jumping up there and then and asking them to define learning so that I had at least an idea of what their concept of it was and why they felt kids coming to them knew nothing. I was twice as aggravated because there I was (in my holidays) sitting with a literacy teaching strategies book poring over it to ensure the activities I was planning for the children were appropriate to their needs while being engaging, motivating and to a degree (depending of level) self directed. I wanted to ask them how often they had reviewed and revisited their lessons for their classes in the past 30 years. I wanted to know if they ever engaged in meaningful conversation with their students. Had they ever asked their students to critically reflect upon their learning and the teachers teaching? What technology did they use? What activities had they co-planned with their students? Had they negotiated an assessment rubric with their students? But in the end the view and the fresh clean air calmed, the activities were planned and I thought how glad I was that I didn’t know teachers like them!! I had only been taught by some. Why is it that teachers can’t see that often they are the biggest turn off and the biggest joke to the kids because they take themselves and their subject so seriously. They love being the centre of the classroom, the fount of knowledge which (in their mind) puts them in a powerful position and because they believe this that the students are in a lesser position. No wonder kids of today are switching off in droves.