- To learn.
- To satisfy their moral purpose for being an educator.
- To maintain engagement with their work
- To improve practice.
- Improved practice improves student learning outcomes.
- To make connections with other educators
- To collaborate
In no particular order, I want to improve student learning outcomes because:
- I believe it is VITAL for today's children to be prepared for their lives in the future - I approach my work from a social justice perspective but also....
- It is my job.
- I get paid and my salary allows me to live the life that I choose.
- I gain a sense of personal and professional fulfilment from leading the learning of young people.
- I gain a sense of personal and professional satisfaction from knowing that I am doing the best job I can.
- Students and parents give instant feedback about how effective I am as an educator.
Teaching is full of people who are altruistic and say they are doing it "for the kids". I think this is curious, and that they leave out a key piece of information. Most people in teaching are in it because they gain satisfaction and fulfilment from learning and facilitating learning. The kids get something out of it because the teacher has this intrinsic motivation to build learners, not just happy kids.
The reason is this Ange: after I had been teaching for about 5 years something smacked me square in the face. Several times each week I would arrive at school at the same time as a particular woodwork teacher. I was in my mid 30s and he was only in his mid 40s. In the school car park I would say good morning and he would always answer the same way. On Tuesday he would shrug at me and say, "4 days to go!" On Thursday he would shrug say, "2 days to go!" You get the idea. He was always the same. I thought about why he was like that. Did he begin teaching like that? Did he deliberately work towards becoming like that? Closer to home, was I so much better than him that this could never happen to me?
ReplyDeleteIt hit me hard that anyone could indeed end up like him. He still had 20 years ahead of him! I determined then that I was going to work hard to ensure that I never became like that woodwork teacher. I was not better than him. I needed to identify what he had done, or not done, that resulted in the shell of a teacher that he had become. In a perverse sense, he is the best mentor I have ever had.
What I identified was that he made no effort to engage with education as a professional. He just turned up everyday and did the same thing as if he was some sort of automaton. It deeply influenced me and I have made sure that I continued to actively engaged with my profession. I started to look for PD myself and not rely on what was provided through the school for everyone. I started to tailor my PD to my interests which were grounded in what I was doing in the classroom and how students were responding, or not, to how I was teaching. Over times I started to question even what we were teaching, again focused on the value of it to children today.
Connecting with educators who pushed the edges of the profession, were not afraid try stuff out and to fail as well, who were also focused upon the kids and how they learn - all these things and more has kept my professional pulse beating strongly. I am now 20 years older than that burned out woodwork teacher was when I noticed him. I think I have the right now to say that the strategies I used to make sure I did NOT become like him have been successful.
This is why I do not consider professional learning as an optional extra nor as just another thing I have to do. Professional learning is oxygen to an educator. I think that sort of answers question two as well?
PL (quality PL...) helps me to be the best I can be. Being involved in designing and facilitating PL means I can work with inspiring communities of learners to help activate in them a passion for learning or support them in helping them to move forward in their thinking, their confidence, their knowledge and understanding.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that bothers me though is those who go on the never ending bandwagon of PL but never take the learning back and make positive change happen back in their organisation. These aren't authentic learners. I have less patience for them.
The other focus is PL and PLNs - the networks that emerge can be powerful and sustaining, inspiring and supportive.
Thanks for sharing your blog post with everyone Ange :)